A Place in Pop Culture

Because the texts of the Bible are ancient, Christians take it upon themselves to read meaning into them that is relevant to today’s cultural context. Revolve does just that, providing extra-biblical content that provides clear “biblical” answers to modern day issues relevant to a teenager’s life. These advice columns and quizzes are side by side with biblical texts, giving them a strange feeling of legitimacy. Revolve begins by defining itself:"This Bible is about radical devotion and revolutionary people … (it's about) rising to the challenge of faith in the extreme." This simplified summary of what the Bible is allows for a reader to see themselves within the story of the Bible. From this a reader can interpret that they themselves need to have extreme faith and radical devotion. In “Christian Teens and Biblezines”, Hillary Kaell puts forth the idea that the Biblezine Revolve is a socialization tool used to provide evangelical teens with guidelines for how to reconcile scripture and pop culture. Some of these guidelines are explicitly stated, while others, like the statement regarding what the Bible is “about”, are less direct. Instead of teaching girls how to interpret scripture for themselves, Revolve teaches girls how to interpret pop culture based on evangelical theology.  

Revolve reinvents the Bible as a book with answers and advice for how to live a Christian lifestyle as a teen girl. Kaell sees Revolve as“...part of the way that world-affirming evangelicals carve a space for themselves in the midst of American culture.” The evangelical theology in Revolve teaches girls what the Bible “says” about contemporary problems, and gives girls the tools to filter pop culture through the evangelical lens of Revolve. Similar to how evangelicals teach young girls to value purity and traditional gender roles through the appeal of princesses (Enticed by Eden, ch. 1), Revolve takes something that is secularly popular and forms it as a mode for promoting evangelical values. Overall, Revolve readers are taught less about the Bible, and more about how to live a modern life based on “biblical” values.