It was the 1990s. The Catholic twenty-somethings like me who gathered around their TVs every Thursday night to watch Friends were too young to have ever heard of the Legion of Decency, which operated back when a Catholic organization could make or break a Hollywood movie. We wanted something entertaining, a story and characters we could enjoy and engage with, that had some (maybe distant) relevance to our lives. We found it in the story of the six young people gathered at the Center Perk Cafe. Our Evangelical brethren had something to compete. Catholicism had (and has) nowhere near their celebrity culture or the genius of Evangelical marketing. Nothing in American Catholic publishing can match the trends that sweep the Evangelical world. Older readers will remember the huge-sellers, like the Left Behind series in the 90s, The Prayer of Jabez in 2000, and The Purpose Driven Life a year later. And there were a lot more no one remembers now — except the publishers and writers who grew rich on the sales. Back then, dating and marriage was a hot subject in Christian publishing. One reason, of course, was the vision of sexual relations shows that Friends preached. Christians felt pulled between their faith and their culture. Again, Evangelicals had the really successful creations. Joshua Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye was a mega-seller. (The author's since recanted it and many of its readers came to reject it.) Catholics had Dawn Eden's The Thrill of the Chaste and Jason Evert's Chastity Project, but nothing remotely comparable in sales or influence. The Bruderhof publisher Plough heavily marketed Johann Christoph Arnold’s A Plea for Purity. Mother Teresa wrote the foreword and the backcover included endorsements from Catholic stars like Cardinal O'Connor, Benedict Groeschel, Peter Kreeft, Richard Rohr, and Richard John Neuhaus. Does anyone even remember this book? I bought it when I was 26. I never read it.
6:17 PM
EWTN vs 'Friends', or, the Holy Spirit Subverts the Culture
Peter Wolfgang

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