Church is the last place pop culture looks for spirituality.

The church may have one foundation, but the next row of bricks is an increasingly loose collection of unmortared institutional bricks. Still, those bricks provide a home for many. For the pop-culture world, however, it is z a house of horrors. Pop culture views the church as a behemoth--a monster. It is deemed authoritarian, antiquated and avaricious. In pop culture, the church is anathema to individualism (the religion of pop culture), which is represented, of course, by sex.

   I think there is a union
   between the flesh and the spirit
   It's sex and the church
   Sex and the church.

   --David Bowie

Think of them as twins--or as symbiotic partners--because they certainly are in the movies. If the movie (from the past two decades, certainly) is in a religious setting, you know it will be about sex. Priest (1994): the story of a gay priest. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988): as Jesus is hanging on the cross, he thinks about the life he could have had if he weren't the Christ, including getting married and having kids (which, unlike his own birth, would have involved the act of procreation, with Mary Magdalene no less). The Magdalene Sisters (2002): to quote a website: "an unflinching and compelling emotional drama, charting several years in the young lives of four 'fallen women' who were rejected by their families and abandoned to the mercy of the Catholic Church in 1960's Ireland." Footloose (1984): a pious community, led by a pious minister, has banned all dancing. To quote a website: "Kevin Bacon seduces the minister's daughter and brings fun and dancing to the angry God-man's repressed town" (This is hardly an exhaustive list: see also Paul Simon's song Duncan, Dusty Springfield's song Son of a Preacher Man and John Irving's book A Prayer for Owen Meany.)

This relationship isn't simply a metaphorical convenience. The church was constantly in the headlines last year and almost all the instances had to do with sex: Texas sodomy laws, gay marriages, gay priests and pedophiliac priests. The Anglican Church is split over the issue of gay priests. The Roman Catholics are defensive about their scandals. Sex and the church are connected, but the relationship is not a healthy one.

   "I read this in the paper this morning:
   'New York City has a priest
   shortage.' So you see, there is some
   good news in the world."

   --David Letterman

It seems odd, in a world where Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Joe Millionaire and Temptation Island are prime-time television shows, that there might be an institution still struggling with its understanding of sex. Public schools teach there is no difference between straight and gay. Popular education and sensibility toward sexuality has moved well past that of the church.

   Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate
   organic foods.

   He believed in love and peace and
   never wore no shoes.

   Long hair, beard and sandals and
   a funky bunch of friends.

   Reckon they'd just nail him up if he
   come down again.

   --Kris Kristofferson

Pop culture--as much a behemoth as the church--keenly separates faith from institution. There is a God and there is a Christ but they aren't necessarily related to an institution. Christ does not have a bride; he's a single guy doing his Father's work. The church, then, is empty according to popular culture. Kristofferson nails the central message of pop culture: have faith in Christ, but not in the church. The latter is everything the former was not.

Joan of Arcadia is a new television series in which God appears frequently to a teenage girl. The girl's family, though comfortable, is an emotional mess. At one point, Joan tells God her father is "a little angry at the church." To which God replies, "It's not about being religious--it's about fulfilling your destiny." There's the ultimate pop-cultural God talking and, in doing so, reflecting the true nature of pop-Christianity. In another episode of the series, Joan's mother confronts a priest outside a mall. The priest is collecting funds for a charity and is unable to answer or calm any of the mother's concerns. But, then, why would he? He's merely an employee of the church. God doesn't appear to him. It's a subtle denunciation of the church, but it is added to the myriad others. The church is merely the repository of religiosity which, according to the gospel of the pop culture, is no place for spirituality.

Now that I think on it, Christ had a similar take on the religious institutions of his day.

Andrew Faiz is a journalist, producer, filmmaker and a keen critic of popular culture. He is also an elder at Gateway Community Church in Toronto, You can contact Andrew at [e-mail].