Matthew Arnold, who was a great English poet in his day, said that culture is that which makes life worth living. And it is what justifies other people in other generations in saying, when they contemplate the remains and the influence of an extinct civilisation that it was worthwhile for that civilisation to have existed. However, [ CITATION For03 l 2057 ] seems to disagree with this view by asserting that it is a one-sided definition that tends to view high class culture as the true definition of culture. In trying to come up with a more inclusive definition, he saw it as simply the network of practices, artifacts, institutions, customs, and values of a society.That according to him is a definition that includes all the three forms of culture which include high, folk and popular. High culture musically speaking may include an opera, folk culture would have a bluegrass tune while pop culture may feature music by Madonna. Folk culture depends upon oral, face-to-face communication (family traditions, ethnic customs, regional practices), while high culture inclines toward sophisticated written [removed]gourmet cookbooks, musical scores, novels). Popular culture relies on and is spread by the mass media (television, movies, radio, mass publications,and now, cyber communication).Thus, popular culture earns its name (“popular”) by having a larger audience than the other two, in part because of its link with the mass media. Therefore, pop culture cannot and should not be ignored because it is always around us. To ignore popular culture is to allow it to act upon us blindly. To reflect upon it critically allows us to make choices.Examining pop culture and art helps us learn about ourselves because we realise that we are also influenced by the same cultural presence. [CITATION Jac92 l 2057 ]Provides a very helpful analogy of a “house of popular culture,” with a basement and two floors. The basement of the house represents the underlying mindset of a culture. Inclusive of this are bedrock beliefs and values that are relatively stable, significant, and long-standing, expressing cultural convictions, certainties, and assumptions. The authors also note that there are other beliefs and values in the basement that are not so stable, ones that might be “more transitory, shallow, and faddish.”They still reflect underlying beliefs and values, but these more transientvalues may change significantly in a generation, a decade, or even a year. An examplemight be the exaltation of thinness as today’s ideal body type. This cycle seems to be a never ending one. Right here in Kenya, not long ago, having a stout body meant that you were doing well financially and that life was going well for you. Today, a lot has changed in that area. As much as medical practitioners have advised people to trim down their bodies for health reasons, it seems to be just a part of the reason why many people are losing weight. If it was all about health, then shortcuts would not suffice. From the look of things, people do not want to exercise or diet yet they want to be lean. They therefore go for pills and body patches that promise weight loss. While the extra pounds may melt away, the body is still not yet healthy. However, for many, it really does not matter as long as the loss makes you look and feel great. Before, it was the ladies who had the most pressure but it seems to have been mounted on men as well. Being overweight is not being looked at from a health point of view alone but more so from an image one. Has the trend affected Christians as well? It has affected them as much as everyone else. Today, we live by the motto “image is everything”. The belief has further been compounded by our digital movements into Facebook and Twitter which have a lot of photo sharing. Who does not want to share with the world how great they look? That seems to be the question that many people are asking. Losing weight is a good thing but it should not be used to consolidate our identity because we are not our own. The bible says that we are beautifully and wonderfully made, that is what we need to consider once again. The effect will be that we will not try to lose weight for better looks but for the right reason which is to lead a healthy lifestyle. In fact, some media preachers have had to hire image consultants not because they really want to do so. The idea for them is to gain more mass appeal because that is what pop culture has come to. They feel that people will recognize them more from their made up appearance. On the first floor in the [ CITATION Jac92 l 2057 ] analogy, are artefacts of popular culture, which include both objects and people. Popular objectsare what they call “icons,” and popular peopleare what they call “heroes,” or sometimescelebrities. Both icons and heroes are widely accepted or approved of by the masses and thus are visible expressions of the values and beliefs that lie below in thebasement.Icons, popul