Seems that the paranoid perspective prevails when faith is fragile. That's when the extreme view of the world prevails... be it Christian or Muslim or....

The perspective of this view that Pop Culture doesn't like Christianity and Stewart picks on Evangelicals is born of paranoia - he picks on everybody pretty equally.... he has a senior "black" commentator, he constantly picks on his own Jewish-ness. Pop culture picks on many many things.

When those who are paranoid see signs that someone may pose questions about their views, ALL they see is a world that is out to get them. Perhaps that's part of the reason it's hard to engage more and younger people. Rigid thinking and rigid views make for a narrow universe. It also fertilizes the types of contradictions bemoaned by this article...... We saw plenty of this type of rigid contradiction manifested in the Catholic church and sex abuse. Paranoia leads to denial...

However, it is this sort of paranoia that leads the christian subculture to exist in its current state in the first place. I've heard dozens of youth pastors talk on and on about how the Bible speaks to every conceivable human experience, which one would think would provide ample opportunity for artists/musicians/writers/pran­k 3:16ers to explore really complex questions and issues. But, be it some council of elders counting Jesus references per minute or just crass marketing, the 'christian subculture' almost always ignores or even shuns those who ask tougher questions.

It has gotten to the point that there is a subculture within the subculture that exists to ask these questions, to try and reconcile 'faith' and the existence of the larger culture in general. There are still a lot of one-note, baby-food theology based ideas being explored in this sub-subculture but there are also some really interesting artists and thinkers who are actually bridging between the 'christian culture' and the 'secular' one in a way that, Amy Grant, Yakov Smirnov, and P.O.D. aside, hasn't really happened before.