Questions of Christian Hipsterism Part I

Initially I wanted to write a blog about my reactions to the world of Christian Hipsterism. Of course, I have already gone down that bit of self-indulgence in a previous blog. While a blog is always at least a little bit self-indulgent, I’d rather spare my readers more boring stuff about me.

Instead, it would be better if I asked all of you for your thoughts on Christian Hipsterism. Part of being a Christian Hipster means that you were a “Cradle Evangelical,” which I never really was. For those of you who enjoy reading you can check out the Brett McCraken’s article at Christianity Today because it is pretty cool.

The article opens up with a fair description of what a Christian Hipster is. A Christian hipster is someone who was raised Evangelical from youth, desires to continue being a Christian, but wants to disassociate from the culture of Evangelicalism (including “Churchianity” if I may use the Internet Monk’s term). So if you were raised in this culture you are familiar with flannel graph Sunday school lessons, the obsession with left behindist end-times, republican-party Christianity, and people like Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the other crazy uncles of the Billy Graham generation. You were taught well “do not smoke drink or chew, or go with girls/guys who do.”

The Christian hipster either remembers these things as something happily outgrown or denounces them with strong anathemas. Chrisitan Hipsterism can then be defined negatively. By what it is not.

Positively defined, Christian Hipsterism is probably someone meeting at Mosiac West LA –a church I happily sojourned at for two years. A church like this embraces all the good things about the arts and entertainment. It assumes –even expects- that part of Christianity is an interest in creativity. It seeks to encourage Christians and even non Christians to deeply explore their talents and potential in music, dance, writing, visual arts and so on. This is not a crass form of evangelism. The arts are not meant to be advertisements for Jesus, but are rather a natural part of the Christian life.

Another token of Christian Hipsterism is a casual willingness to discuss the sex from the pulpit. Driscoll, (“the angry one”), delivered a podcast on the Song of Solomon. McCracken cited this sermon as token Christian hipsterism. The sermon, “the Dance of Mahanaim,” paints a picture of good sex, in which both the man and the women fulfill certain roles based on their partner’s psychological disposition and biology. I listened to this sermon myself. Even here Driscoll still had to apologize to his audience that the Bible contained sex. Nonetheless, it was an upfront discussion of a normally taboo subject.

A third pillar of Christian Hipsterism is an emphasis on concept of Social Justice. This is quite a nebulous concept, but it reflects a strong theological trend that wants to broaden the notion of the Gospel. The Gospel is not “go to heaven when you die when you accept Jesus.” The Gospel is not are mere acceptance of “salvation by grace alone.” The Gospel contains all these and so much more. The Gospel, as championed by Shane Clairborne, frees slaves, liberates the oppressed, and living a life of simplicity in face of consumerism. If the Kingdom of God is at hand, then the people of God will live according to new kind of life that resists and overturns systematic injustice in the world. Interestingly enough, this has a eschatological component, but that will be addressed another time.

There is also an interest, among the Christian hipsters, of recovering liturgy. This will also be another blog.

So, with no loss of irony, are you a Christian hipster? Are you not quite a Christian hipster? Are you to cool to be called a Christian hipster?

You might want to comment on the blog and re-post it.