The author is defining "Christian hipster" from an Evangelical point of view. Which is fine, but as a non-Evangelical Christian who somewhat fits this mold, it's hard for me to see what's "hip" about it. I suppose it makes sense if you contrast it with normative American middle-class Evangelicalism...
I think I know what the poster means by "Christian hipster" in one sense, though. I keep running into youngish Christians who go to churches with names that don't sound like churches, but rather experiences (e.g., "The Journey"). They tend to have good haircuts glistening with "product," but not to tuck their shirts in on Sunday morning (as opposed to the people with bad hair who don't tuck their shirts in on Sunday morning, also known as slobs).
What, though, would a Catholic hipster look like? Stuff that makes the Evangelical "hipster" list doesn't really work in a Catholic context. And what would an Orthodox hipster look like? [Editors note: How about a Lutheran hipster?]
Rather than the superficial term "hipster," the more meaningful term for Christians of any tradition is "radical." A hipster is just playing at being radical. Dorothy Day wasn't a hipster. Neither was Soren Kierkegaard. Then again, a "Christian hipster" is an identifiable type: a Christian, usually under 40, who's kind of arty and who stands at ironic distance from the main body of his contemporary tradition. It's a definite sensibility, and I guess I dabble in it without really meaning to. I'd rather be a Christian radical than a Christian hipster, though.
and Stuff Christians like.
2 comments:
this is my favorite comment from the original post:
how did you manage to parlay writing clueless music reviews for the wheaton college record into an equally clueless yet exponentially more pretentious blog?
I didn't catch that. Brilliant.
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