Okay, my friend Kate posted this on facebook and it kinda scared me because there are many things that I agree with...

Here are a few keys to being a Christian hipster, according to http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/are-you-a-christian-hipster:

- Christian hipsters don't like megachurches, altar calls, and door-to-door evangelism
- They don't really like John Eldredge's Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart
- They don't like evangelical leaders who get too involved in politics, such as James Dobson or Jerry Falwell
- They don't like TBN, PAX or Joel Osteen
- Christian hipsters tend not to like contemporary Christian music, or Christian films (except ironically), or any non-book item sold at Family Christian Stores
- They hate churches with American flags on stage
- They prefer "Christ follower" to "Christian"
- 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
- 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.
- They love the Pope, liturgy, incense, lectio divina, Lent, and timeless phrases like “Thanks be to God” or “Peace of Christ be with you.”
- Christian hipsters love breaking the taboos that used to be taboo for Christians. They love piercings, dressing a little goth, getting lots of tattoos, 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

Here is what Kate thought about it...

I saw this on a post from a great blog that Ryan shared: http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/03/04/christian-hipster-a-new-category-of-belief-between-believer-and-skeptic. We found out about the blog when Eric, a self-proclaimed skeptic, came to talk at our church (http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/11/10/atheists-and-believers-can-get-along-here%e2%80%99s-exhibit-a).

I think the article is hilarious and pretty much spot-on about a large group of Christians, of which I'd call myself a member. But my worry is encapsulated in Eric's last paragraph: "Sounds like a modest step in the right direction. Sounds a lot like what Christians used to be before the political right wing (religious and political) redefined 'Christians' as self-righteous people who refuse to consider compelling real-life evidence."

I'm grateful that Eric is not judging all Christians by the few who make the most noise. However, the "Christian hipster" mentality seems just as much FOR the culture as right-wingers are AGAINST the culture. Neither is the right response. I wrote some notes from a class I took this winter (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=44098172879) about this.

Unfortunately, the "Christian hipster mentality," if that's all one is, is just another cultural shift of the church, this time toward white, upper-middle-class and well-educated Christians who think talking about philosophy, being "accessible" and not causing waves is the crux of Christianity. I'm pretty sure Jesus might smoke a clove or two if he came back today -- but he'd also still be challenging those who are living in sin, challenging the religious legalists, performing miracles and dying for us. And if we forget that, preferring hip Christianity to Biblical Christianity, we're just another side of the right-wing coin.


I completely agree with Kate.

Here is what also came to my mind...

I don't want to be a Christian hipster. I want to be a biblical Christian, not a cultural Christian, religious right Christian and Lord knows I don't want to be a southern Bible belt Christian. What does a Biblical Christian look like? I think that means aligning your life as close to the word of God as much as possible, not what people think or speak about the word of God, but what you read directly from scriptures.

What do you guys think?