I’ve linked before to the writings of Dr. David Tizzard in the Korea Times. His insight on and knowledge of Korean culture — K-pop in particular as a focus of my interest — is thoughtful and interesting. Sure, I might be biased — most of what I’ve seen from him agrees entirely with my long-held beliefs — but I must admit, he says it so much better than I ever could.
So I recommend his latest piece about the genre. The title itself really does say a lot: “K-pop: Full of aesthetic but devoid of art.” You really must read it if you want to understand the core problems with K-pop. Some may disagree — its hard-core ideologues to be sure — but it’s all true.
Having said that, I’d like to add my own thoughts, but on a bit of a different tangent. It doesn’t take long in the piece to see what got me thinking — he does it with his first paragraph:
“With religion having largely receded from day-to-day life, particularly among the youth, a vacuum is created. Our extra-rational cravings and innate desires leave us yearning for something more than a simple physical existence. We become masterless dogs. Desperate to chase a ball but no one to throw it for us.”
I actually started writing a piece about this a while ago, after seeing another article about how the K-pop group BTS changed a woman’s life. You don’t have to look too hard to find the same story in countless places, all filled with the same religious imagery. “BTS saved me.” “BTS transformed me.” “BTS taught me to love myself.” It’s all so familiar to the religious, and it seems exactly the kind of thing one would expect from a generation who has lost its connection with a God who creates, loves, transforms, and sustains. They don’t find him in their lives; they don’t see him in the people and society around them; so they look elsewhere to give their lives meaning.
And when BTS grows old and goes the way of every other person on the planet, what do they have left? They, too, are old — too old to join a new “army.” They could very well have come to the conclusion long before that fawning to the point of obsession over a group of (even now, at the peak of their youth, aging) young men may not have been the best way to go (I’m sure most people who’ve reached a certain age can look back now with a twinge of embarrassment on their earlier infatuations). But here they are — aimless and in their thirties…or forties…or however long it takes for them to come out of their teenage dream-states.
But what does anyone else — Christians in particular — have to offer them? The same old, stale Christianese? More empty promises? Or worse — more disillusionment and abuses? “Followers” of God have certainly left behind their shares of broken people.
Still — and this may be a belief that’s eschewed by the current culture — there is such a thing as “reality.” That really, at the heart of it all, there is no person or group of persons on this earth in whom we can place a faith that really matters. A faith that actually keeps us.
James says something in the Bible that most everyone eventually realizes: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” What purpose can one have over the short span that is one’s life? There’s a certain reckoning to which we all must come…if we live long enough and gain enough wisdom to realize it, that is. We seldom give it much thought in our youthful days, but we won’t last forever. Perhaps, then, we become too obsessed with what we leave behind. But this is foolish. What will we ever care once we’re gone. Go ahead — make the world a better place. But understand your purpose too — that if you leave the world a better place for the next generation, and yet do it devoid of anything that can give them hope beyond this life, what good is your work in the end? We should seek first what gives that hope, and then let all goodness in our works flow from that.
If we are all simply meaningless bags of meat with no purpose, then we may as well spend our lives fawning over the likes of BTS. As Paul says when describing the meaninglessness of a life without a hope in Christ’s resurrection, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” But if there’s something more — if Christ did, indeed, rise from the dead — then it would be that which is best to know and pursue with our lives. We need to step away from the temporal to assuage our emotions, and get to the reality of the permanent…that which is forever…the eternity that has been placed in our hearts.
