MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Are You A Christian Hipster?

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Mon, October 05, 2009
Viewed 141
(20) comments so far

Are you a 'Christian Hipster'? Do you consider yourself a 'cool' Christian? See if you qualify...

Do you like?

Christian hipsters like music, movies, and books that are well-respected by their respective artistic communities—Christian or not.
They love books like Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider, God’s Politics by Jim Wallis, and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis.
They tend to be fans of any number of the following authors: Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton, John Howard Yoder, Walter Brueggemann, N.T. Wright, Brennan Manning, Eugene Peterson, Anne Lamott, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Henri Nouwen, Soren Kierkegaard, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Annie Dillard, Marilynne Robison, Chuck Klosterman, David Sedaris, or anything ancient and/or philosophically important.
Christian hipsters love thinking and acting Catholic, even if they are thoroughly Protestant. They love the Pope, liturgy, incense, lectio divina, Lent, and timeless phrases like “Thanks be to God” or “Peace of Christ be with you.”
They enjoy Eastern Orthodox churches and mysterious iconography, and they love the elaborate cathedrals of Europe (even if they are too museum-like for hipster tastes).
Christian hipsters also love taking communion with real Port, and they don’t mind common cups.
They love poetry readings, worshipping with candles, and smoking pipes while talking about God. Some of them like smoking a lot of different things.
Christian hipsters love breaking the taboos that used to be taboo for Christians. They love piercings, dressing a little goth, getting lots of tattoos (the Christian Tattoo Association now lists more than 100 member shops), carrying flasks and smoking cloves.
A lot of them love skateboarding and surfing, and many of them play in bands.
They tend to get jobs working for churches, parachurch organizations, non-profits, or the government.
They are, on the whole, a little more sincere and idealistic than their secular hipster counterparts.

Do you dislike?

megachurches
altar calls
door-to-door evangelism.
They don’t really like John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart.
In general, they tend not to like Mel Gibson and have come to really dislike The Passion for being overly bloody and maybe a little sadistic.
They don’t like people like Pat Robertson, who on The 700 Club famously said that America should “take Hugo Chavez out”; and they don’t particularly like The 700 Club either, except to make fun of it.
They don’t like evangelical leaders who get too involved in politics, such as James Dobson or Jerry Falwell, who once said of terrorists that America should “blow them all away in the name of the Lord.”
They don’t like TBN, PAX, or Joel Osteen. They do have a wry fondness for Benny Hinn, however.
Christian hipsters tend not to like contemporary Christian music (CCM), or Christian films (except ironically), or any non-book item sold at Family Christian Stores.
They hate warehouse churches or churches with American flags on stage, or churches with any flag on stage, really.
They prefer “Christ follower” to “Christian” and can’t stand the phrases “soul winning” or “non-denominational,” and they could do without weird and awkward evangelistic methods including (but not limited to): sock puppets, ventriloquism, mimes, sign language, “beach evangelism,” and modern dance.
Surprisingly, they don’t really have that big of a problem with old school evangelists like Billy Graham and Billy Sunday and kind of love the really wild ones like Aimee Semple McPherson.

This is all from Brett McCracken, who's writing a book on what he calls the "Christian Hipster".

How'd you rate? Would you consider yourself an 'hipster'?

I'd love to hear your comments.

Comments

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CS on Mon, October 05, 2009

With many of these categories, I can’t help but wonder if we’re seeing two separate, distinct faiths emerge (no pun intended), much like how Catholicism and Christianity are different. I ponder if we’ll see Christians and, “Christ-Followers,” as two different categories on surveys and such in the near future. Time will show…

—
CS
Peter Hamm on Mon, October 05, 2009

Wow, I might be like… I dunno 60 or 70% hipster.

Don’t worry, CS, it’s not the heretical 60 or 70%..

Peter
CS on Mon, October 05, 2009

Peter:

I don’t know about that. You may have heretical pants and not even know it. =)

—
CS
Oliver on Mon, October 05, 2009

i think i am part of a generation that has seen the hypocrasy of older christians, i am sick of all the right wing republican garbage that has been associated with christianity. how can we say we follow christ and drop bombs on our enemies? how we can we destroy the earth God made? how we can be so harsh against immigrants when the bible is clear about how to treat the aliens in the land? I grew up listening to these self-righteous pastors criticizing ‘faggots’ while showing nothing of the love of christ. i think a new generation like me is just sick of all the hypocracy we just want to live out what real christianity is suppose to be, not the fake stuff of our parents
Ollie on Mon, October 05, 2009

So you mean you’d rather kill babies than whales, raise taxes on the 80% that work so that 20% will never have too, and reinterpret the historical definition of marriage that has transcended every race, religion and continent since recored time, and then say that Jesus would do the same thing because He’s ‘nice’ ? Really?
rbud on Mon, October 05, 2009

I feel like Peter. I’m surprised that I identify with many of the hipster preferences. Those of us who grew up in the age of flower power may find more to appreciate than some others. Perhaps hipster is the new designation for hippy.
Oliver on Mon, October 05, 2009

in response to Ollie, no, I wouldn’t rather kill babies than whales, but I would rather preserve whales as part of God’s creation, I pretty sure the book of Genesis says somewhere that all God made was good, Adam wasn’t commanded to destroy the garden. But that response is exactly the kind of stuff I am talking about. Why is it one or the other? We can’t pick and choose what parts of the bible we like and what parts fit within our capitalistic america. It doesn’t work that way. we like to cherry pick the bible to suit our political ideas. Jesus wasn’t a republican! I can gaurantee you that. We have a social obligation to the poor, like it or not. I think its less about being hipster and more about being real christians, not the fake republican kind that know nothing of christ.
rbud on Tue, October 06, 2009

Be careful where you go with the “all God’s creation” was good idea. Apparently not. Even the Bible refers to some living things as pestilences.
jimmy on Tue, October 06, 2009

Yeah, I scored pretty high. Except for the whole Benny Hinn thing.
Oliver on Tue, October 06, 2009

I didn’t say everything was good, God did. Again, the issue isn’t pestilence, Whales aren’t pestilence. The point is that some christians cherry pick a certain political position (left or right), I think its done mostly on the right, and associate being a republic as being a christian. I think if you look back at that list what you find are christians who are tired of the silliness of what the past generation of christians have stood for, because it had little to do with christianity in the first place.
Ollie on Tue, October 06, 2009

I didn’t know that the first century church was into open immigration, and BTW, I’m probably younger than most of you, so don’t assume I’m old just because I don’t tow the emerging party line. I find it interesting that some how Jesus is being recast as a ‘social architect’ I don’t think he was into ‘fair trade figs’. And of course He wasn’t a republican. He was much more conservative than that, He was an Orthodox Jew, who understood the purpose for creation, and the Law.
Ollie Jr. on Tue, October 06, 2009

In response to Olliver, there is nothing telling you that you can’t redistribute your own income, so if that is where you are being led then follow. I take issue with people tell me what I have to or should do as a follower of Christ. When Jesus tells us to take care of our neighbor he does not want it to be accomplished through a corrupt political system reaching into our wallets, he wants us to do it out of love not legislation. If I go my whole life and don’t give to the poor or take care of others then I am the one who misses out on the blessing not anyone else. Side note Christian Conservatives are the most generous financially than any other group surveyed.
P.S. Whales can be problems for some fishing cultures, getting caught in nets, eating all the fish they caught and so on.
Oliver on Tue, October 06, 2009

hmmm…so many errors, hard to know where to start, first have we forgotten all of the OT legislation that required Israel to care for the poor as a matter of social policy? Perhaps we can just take scissors that those part of the bible that doesn’t fit our political views. Second, Jesus wasn’t a conservative jew…I mean good grief, Pick up a book of history for crying out loud and educate yourself. The Pharisees were the conservative, the Sadduccess the liberal branch, the zealots were the right wing wackos like rush only violent. Jesus didn’t fit any of those categories he got all sides mad because he said, if you don’t give to the poor, not “you will miss out on a blessing” but rather Jesus said, you would be cast into hell. Or are we re-writing the bible now too? Lastly, on the whales, natural selection, disease, and hunting by native people kept the harmony of nature, the europeans almost fished the whales into extinction. I am not against fishing of whales, I am against the capitalist machine and way of thinking that exploits nature to the point of extinction.
sdt on Wed, October 07, 2009

Oliver,
You bring up some interesting points. Yet you seem to be lashing out against republicans. Please show some examples from the other side too. I think people would then listen to your arguments more.
Ollie on Wed, October 07, 2009

Oliver,

I need to move on to something more productive like flossing my dog’s teeth, so this will be my last post. With that being said, I’ll leave you with this thought. You’re viewing the time of Jesus thru the lenses of our current American political system. Jesus was a conservative Jew, the Gospels clearly refer to Him as a Rabbi, which was not just a affectionate term given to Him by His followers. He taught in the Temple, He was given the Isaiah scroll to preach from, by the priests in the the Temple. He certainly had harsh words for some in the party of Pharisees, but that was not due to their ‘political affiliation’ . Don’t miss the fact that Jesus chose 1 member of the Zealots to be one of his Disciples (Simon the Zealot, or Simon the Lessor) and possibly 2 (Nathanael or Bartholomew) and one publican (Matthew). There are also three who may have been part of the Pharisees, Peter, James and John (it is assumed that Zebedee was at least affiliated with that group).

As far as not giving to the poor being a damnable sin. I’d love to see a reference on that one. Be careful when you suggest people ‘educate themselves’ I suggest you spend some time understanding what was actually going on during the second Temple period, you may be surprised what you find. Blessings.