I did a bit of digging following my
previous post concerning Christians criticizing the Church. What I uncovered in my interweb archaeology was a site called
Hipster Christianity. Thanks, Max, for telling me to check out the site.
Now this site was created by the fellow Robert McCracken who is the author of the one of the opinion pieces I talked about in that previous post. As it turns out, McCracken is an author of a new book called (you guessed it) "Hipster Christianity." You can read the first chapter for free through a link on his site.
After taking a look at this site, I have sort of reached a point in which I throw up my hands and say "what next?"
There's a ton I could say is response to the material found on this site, but I'll just say a few things and then find something else to talk about.
The first thing I will say is that I see in McCracken a sincere desire to help the Church become what it is called to be.
The second thing I will say is that sincere desires do not always result in the most promising of actions. Case in point: there is a
quiz on the site that you can take. It will tell you whether or not you are a Christian hipster.
If you want to go even further, you can look at the
"anatomy of a hipster" and be presented with a picture of such a "hip" person and ironic little descriptions of what they all consume and why.
Now I just have to say that these site features are reductive, borderline offensive, and degrading.
I guess it doesn't seem out of line when somebody makes fun of a "hipster" because it happens a lot these days. But just because something has become permissive in our society does not necessarily mean that it is right. There's lots of places we can go these days to hear about how jaded "hipsters" are, and then we laugh and feel better about ourselves.
You know, people might also chuckle a bit in Italy if there was a site called "europeangypsy.com" and you could go on said site and view the anatomy of a "gypsy" and take a quiz that told you whether or not you fell into that classification. Why? Because in many parts of the world - especially in Europe where "gypsies" are abundant and in tension with the government and larger society - it's become okay to criticize and poke fun at gypsies and all the "crazy and weird things they do."
Likewise, we look at the hipster and laugh because in North America, it's become okay - in fact encouraged - to poke fun at "hipsters" and all the "crazy and weird things they do."
But just because that happens, doesn't make it right.
Imagine a site called "orthodoxjew.com"... with all the same features of McCracken's site. What would your response be to such a site? "No" you'd say, "that's going too far." And I would agree with you.
Do you see what I'm getting at here?
The minute we allow a particular group of people to be singled out in a culture and begin to blame them for the problems occurring within a certain institution - much like McCracken has pinpointed "hipsters" and "hipster pastors" as a reason for the Church not being what it should be - we are risking entering into a territory in which bigotry and prejudice become unavoidable results of what began as "satire" and a "genuine desire to provide critical opinion."
Some might say that I'm too paranoid here, but I need to respond with the following: even if criticism of "hipsters" doesn't move past the point it is at today, is the way in which many of us our treating and talking about them reflecting the love of Christ?
Is this what Jesus called us to be? People who point and laugh at other people who are lost in the sea of confusion brought on by this fallen and broken world? Cannot McCracken - and people like him - see that "hipsters" are a direct result this messed up world we all live in? Because they are - they do what they do and say what they say as a reaction to the world around them. Whether what results in that reaction is right or wrong, this does not make them any less of a person, or any less Christian, than say, a fundamentalist Christian, a practicing Catholic, or anyone else who adopts a certain way of doing and saying things as a response to the overwhelming weight of this world we live in.
Wouldn't we get further in this world together by loving instead of laughing (at)?
That to say, I'm not arguing that McCracken's book shouldn't deal with the issue of "hipster Christians." Instead, I am arguing that wholly focusing on
that one group and ironically/degradingly representing them on his website does nothing but alienate people from Jesus; I'm saying that finger pointing is wrong. Even though - like Bob Dylan says - "I only have so many fingers" to point with, I am no longer going to be a person who looks at everyone else and says "this is why Church isn't what it should be." Instead, I'm going to wake up every day and pray that God will lead me into an awareness of what I can do to make His Church beautiful.
Because if we take what McCracken is doing, and produce a formula, we end up with this: Christian "hipsters" are a problem. Churches trying to be"hip" is a problem. Therefore, take the "hip" and "hipsters" out of the Church and there won't be a problem.
And that's a scary friggin' formula if you ask me.
I thought that Church was meant to be a place where all people - Gentile or Jew, sinner or saved - are welcomed with open and loving arms. To me, there's not a lot of love and acceptance to be found on hipsterchristianity.com
Instead, there's a whole heap of irony, sarcasm, and features that are reductive.
When did Jesus ever approach someone in the Gospels and say "oh man, I have you so pegged. You are a tax collector, you steal money from your own people. You're greedy, you hoard your wealth, and have only the nicest things."
He didn't. Instead, He asked if He could spend time with them
to get to know who they really are. He knew that the way they looked, acted, and what they consumed was only the tip of the iceberg; He dived deep beneath the surface and found a whole lot more.
Even if I believe McCracken when he writes in his book that he loves all Christians ("hipsters" or not) in the chapter he provides on his site, I am also going to outright question the fact that his actions at times are telling us otherwise. Because we can say we love someone, but we can also act like we don't love them at all.
And I just
have to quote this excerpt from his book. Talking about how Church was transformed in the 90s, McCracken writes:
"And in church itself, services were becoming completely different from the hymn-via-organ styles I grew up with. We started having guitars, drums, wireless mics, and bongos, and people began to dress like they were at a pool party. Church became entertaining, and people I once thought to be the world’s worst sinners were increasingly welcomed with open arms. This was both a good and bad thing. People coming to church out of their own free will? Always a good thing. But what was it about church that was suddenly so appealing? This was what troubled me." (11)
I have to draw one sentence out of this quote in case you missed it: "
Church became entertaining, and people I once thought to be the world's worst sinners were increasingly welcomed with open arms. This was both a good and bad thing."
Sinner's being welcomed into Churches with open arms is never a bad thing, always a good thing. End of story. Disagree? Look at the Gospels, look at Jesus, and you can't argue anything different.
For those who might see this as a piece focused only on McCracken, I will say this: I am not focused on him, so much as I am on
people like him - and there are lots - who call themselves evangelical Christians and are so quick to criticize others and their way of doing things. In this particular context, it is "hipsters" who are getting criticized and it is people like McCracken who are doing the criticizing. I used to be part of this critical group, but now have to check out and seek a different way to contribute to the Body of Christ.
And my conclusion out of all of this is that we need to be very careful. Right now, we are at a point in which people aren't getting too ferocious and divided about this topic. But what happens if we allow the lampooning of one specific "type" of Christian to continue without any sort of discussion around why it is happening, and should it be happening in the way that it is? Right now, sites and books like this might ruffle a few "hipster" feathers. With time, those feathers might take flight, though, and those "hipsters" - who were, just like you and I, created in God's own image and likeness - might simply say "I'm done" and walk away from the Church.
This is not something I want to happen.
Author's note: the reason why I keep putting the word "hipster" and its variations in quotations is because I feel to write it without quotations is to contribute to the ongoing transformation of a word in our society that for now, has reached the status of "mysterious outcast, deplorable existentialist youth." If we keep using this word without quotations, however, who knows what it will mean in a year or two and what that meaning will implicate...
