Nathan E. Lewis

I have been teaching a workshop at RYM camp, helping teens listen to popular music, analyzing the worldviews of the songwriters. Overwhelmingly, the alternative rock and folk music of the past decade has presented humanity as vile and broken. The biblical doctrine of the total depravity of humanity has little to no correction to the views presented in the music of Limp Bizkit, Stain’d, Cake, Brett Dennen, Steven Sufjan, and U2. The humanism of the modern era is dead.
The Christian/biblical view of humanity is founded on two pillars: 1) God made man, male and female in his own image; 2) Humanity fell into sin and death and is irreparable apart from divine and gracious work. Any Christian seeking to present the gospel to the prevailing worldviews of our present culture must emphasize that humanity is made in God’s image.
I asked the students to shout out the names of the most vile people. Quite a few names were shouted including Marilyn Manson. I asked the campers to raise their hands if they believed that Marilyn Manson was made in God’s image.
Suprisingly, a third of the students did not raise their hands! I told them that Marilyn Manson was indeed made in God’s image. No matter how he seeks to mar and destroy the image of God in him, Marily Manson is made in the image of God. Marilyn Manson is a failure unable to remove from himself the very image of God. In no way do I condone Marilyn Manson and I purposely chose not to include his music in my media engagement workshop. The campers offered his name and I went with it. Had they offered Donald Trump or some corrupt politician I would have taken the same direction of reasoning.