"I don't feel close to God anymore," read a handwritten sign held by a confessor whose face was hidden. This scene flashed before me as I was watching an MTV music video for "Dirty Little Secret" by All American Rejects. The video depicted young people, with covered faces, exposing their dark and untold secrets with crudely drawn signs. I sat and watched the truth boil to the surface, from "Every time I eat, I feel like a failure" to "I had gay sex at church camp."

I stared wide-eyed at the scene, imagining what kind of response those confessions would evoke if they were aired in a Christian church congregation, and I realized that MTV is often quicker to tell and accept the truth, including spiritual truths, than the average Christian. To me, this was yet another proof that God is alive and well in pop culture.

It's true; the evidence abounds. From "Jesus is My Homeboy" T-shirts to The Passion of The Christ to Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" to The Da Vinci Code, Jesus and God are hot topics in American culture. With NBC soon debuting its new midseason show Book of Daniel, about an Episcopalian priest who is literally visited by Jesus during tough times, an end to the so-called God fad is nowhere in sight.

Even cultural figures who don't follow any particular religious path find themselves, before the eyes of America and the world, asking questions about mortality and eternity. The band System of a Down seems to do just that in its song "Question!" The song's music video depicts a woman dying horribly, with blood running from her mouth -- the kind of image that shocks you into the realization that trite and dismissive answers about eternal life just don't cut it.

But who is this pop-culture God? What Christ, if any, does contemporary Americana proclaim? Perhaps this God does not strictly conform to traditional religious norms, whatever that means, but maybe it's more close to the truth than we expect. Isn't faith more organic than organizational? Perhaps God, who is truth, is nearer to the honesty portrayed by All American Rejects than to the trumped-up religiosity of churches and cathedrals and synagogues and mosques where people hide the truth about their lives because of shame and fear.

And why shouldn't God dwell within contemporary popular culture? Christianity, at least, is not supposed to be a culture in itself, even though some Christians have tried to make it so. Here I'd like to make an aside: I'm a little bothered by the fact that Christians can go to a Christian school, work at a Christian business, shop at Christian stores and never make meaningful contact with a non-Christian. We have our own books, music, magazines, clothing, television shows and even our own Christian movies (which, by the way, are almost always terribly lame, in case you've never seen one).

Early Christianity was not that way. For example, the Apostle John had no problem borrowing a popular Greek idea like logos to explain what Jesus is like. But how many pastors and priests would feel just as comfortable comparing Jesus to Neo in The Matrix, despite clear messianic metaphors? And then there was Paul. Paul was so culturally literate he could honestly say of himself that among Jews he could become like a Jew and among Gentiles he could become like a Gentile -- not to be fit in or be a poser, because his identity never changed. He simply realized that culture is language, the lingo of the people, the avenue by which God's message could be most clearly shared and recognized.

To get a better look into what I'm saying, just think about how many Christians probably have stood outside System of a Down concerts, waving signs about damnation and shouting through a bullhorn, all the while blaring worship music through a boom box. Many Christians don't realize how annoying this is. How do you think they would like it if pagans gathered at their churches before Sunday service, stood up on boxes and started yelling at Christians to come to Zeus? I promise you, it wouldn't go over well.

What I find most ironic about this sort of fist-pounding over rock bands and other pop-culture elements is that this is undeniably not what Jesus would do. Christians stand outside the world's concerts and parties, wagging their fingers, demanding that the heathens inside come out to them, but Christ represents the polar-opposite approach. He comes down from his pedestal, assuming the fullness of humanity, and brings sacredness to the inside, into the midst of the sinner's revelry and the world's culture, making connections and forming relationships with those who need his message. And, to the chagrin of the religiously pious who envision him as a cosmic suffering sissy, the drinks are on him. Literally.

Christ is still putting Himself in the middle of the culture -- not to erase it or rewrite it, but to sanctify it. Because God -- the real God -- shows up right there in the midst of it all, even in unexpected places.

This is cache, read story here