It's been about 30 years since I ran into the debate, raging then, raging still, about whether young christians embracing the forms produced by pop and underground cultures that were generally fundamentally opposed to the basics of christian belief provided a:

1. expedited and easier way for non-christians to get familar with christianity and christians

2. expedited and easier way for christians to be led astray on a slippery slope straight into the pop culture or subcultures

3. a way to adapt the good things from these forms for the service and entertainment of christians

4. a bizarre disaster in which nothing particularly good or effective for any purpose was created by misguided youths

I don't think the argument has been solved. The motivations behind taking the different positions are numerous and often well tangled. Further, the 'christian community' is much less monolithic than any commentator seems to see. Even the roman catholics, perhaps the best unified group per capita, are extremely diverse. Only the smallest denominations (and there are 9000+ denominations in the US alone) can be in any sense uniform, and these rarely are in part because the entire group comes and goes with the generational changes.

There are lots of ways that one group of evangelicals can be laughing at the foibles of another - or even at their own, realizing better than the comedian how there are tensions and issues within the way they live their own lives - and still not have it pose a threat to their foundational beliefs. If some author believes that Stewart and Colbert laughing about fundamentalists causes evangelical viewers to rethink their positions, they are grossly overconfident in the power of those very funny men.

BenK,

Excellently put. You put it much more succinctly than I did in anther post. I agree 100%.

I agree 100%. I am a Christian and find both Stewart and Colbert hilarious. I don't feel like they have ever made fun of me or my beliefs, because I question the same things they do.