No one wants to be called a ‘hipster’ (especially hipsters)

I was given an article a few months ago about the emergence of what has been deemed ‘hipster Christianity’. It was written by a guy named Brett McCracken, the author of a book called ‘Hipster Christianity’. I would like to get the book at some point, but the article will have to suffice for now.

The article is a brief look at what McCracken sees as an emergence of a new ‘subculture’ within American evangelical Christianity. His observances are mingled with an overriding critique of the move. His critique is multifaceted, centering around the idea that the new culture of American evangelical Christianity, which he labels ‘Hipster Christianity’, is really not all that new. In other words, what they are doing is simply a reproduction of what  the previous generations did in their attempt to be accepted by our American culture.

Christianity and cool:

McCracken sees that Christianity has been plagued by an attempt to be ‘cool’. He traces this back to the 60s, noting that it was when the hippies began to follow Jesus that things like Christian rock, youth ministries, and communes brought new fervour to American Christianity and it’s pursuit of cool. A people who grew up in a culture of revolution, came to the faith unafraid of looking at things in a new way. The ‘Charismatic movement’  also added a very emotive, personal and Spirit-filled element to what was seen to be a staid and traditional faith. These elements carried through in to other various attempts at ‘cool’, which later manifested in various expressions of ‘just how you like it’ church services. Here is McCracken:

“Evangelicalism in the ’90s had a firmly established youth culture, built on the infrastructure of a lucrative Christian retail industry and commercial subculture. Huge Christian rock festivals, Lord’s Gym T-shirts, WWJD bracelets, Left Behind, and so forth. It was big business. It was corporate. It was schlocky kitsch. And it was begging to be rebelled against”

Hipster Christianity, then, according to McCracken is the rebelling that evangelicalism has been begging for since the 90s.

“They sought a more intellectual faith, one that didn’t reject outright the culture, ideas, and art of the secular world. In typical hipster fashion, they rejected the corporate mentality of the purpose-driven megachurch and McMansion evangelicalism, and longed for a simpler, back-to-basics faith that was more about serving the poor than serving Starbucks in the church vestibule.”

In a way it’s a return back to the hippie/hipster roots of modern American Evangelicalism. But here, I think McCracken gives valuable insight, he states that what is happening now is the reverse of what happened in the 60s.

“But the Jesus People were secular “hipsters” first, then—having converted to Christianity—began to shed their hippie clothes and customs to form communities that were set apart, ultimately becoming their own subculture (e.g., Jesus People USA). Today’s Christian hipsters are doing the reverse. They seek to break out of the Christian subculture. The clothes and customs they shed are nothing less than the evangelical establishment itself, formed through decades of attempts at cool Christianity”

This is what forms the basis for McCracken’s critique then. He finds it worrying that ‘Hipster Christians’ are abandoning Evangelical subculture to find solace in a secular culture. Though this is often done with the mantra ‘the church has fallen in to the hands of modern american culture!”, what McCracken is arguing is that Hipster Christianity is mimicking the same cycle and only capitulating to a different secular culture. Thus, though they are claiming that they are moving away from church culture that is too melded with modern America, corporations, capitalism, and all the evils of Right-wing empires, they pour themselves into the mold of the new secular culture instead.

What drives the hipsters: Coolness or faithfulness?

McCracken’s description of the ‘Hipster Church’ reaches pretty wide in my opinion. (Including church’s like Mars Hill in Seattle. I don’t know what definition of ‘hipster’ most people are working with, but Mark Driscoll doesn’t quite fit into mine). Because McCracken is making the definition of ‘hipster christianity’ it is hard to say what is and what isn’t right about his description of the ‘movement’. If you don’t know what an apple is, and I tell you it’s a brown, bitter tasting, root vegetable, then you would be hard pressed to disagree with me.

What he does is identifies trends, and it is true, a lot of the trends he names, he does so accurately. Things are changing in the American evangelical church. Changes in worship, old hymns instead of CCM style music; changes in theological parlance, new creation and community/ecclesiocentric understanding of salvation instead of ‘soul-winning’ and heaven (esp. the up in the air, cloudy version); concern for creation and environment instead of apathy towards such concerns. These things are all changes that are occurring in evangelical christianity today, but to name them all ‘Hipster’ seems to reduce them to mere whims of cultural preference when in reality, these changes are all funded biblically and theologically.

For example, McCracken suggests that many of these ‘Hipster Christians’ prefer serving the poor rather than Starbucks coffee in the vestibule. They have a revived sense of justice, for both people and planet, and the end result will be positive. This concern for justice, McCracken does concede, is a positive aspect of this new shot at cool. However, the end is not always the most important concern when speaking of discipleship and ecclesiology, the means and the motive also needs to be considered. For if churches are simply becoming more concerned about justice because the culture demands it, it remains submissive to the wrong forces. What happens when this cultural fad is discontinued? Will the church then opt for Starbucks again? This is McCracken’s concern, and it’s fair.

But I don’t think that the desire for justice and righteousness can simply be said the be a PR move for the church. The theological and biblical weight is too evident for such suggestions. The Scriptures make it clear that the church is to love justice because her God loves justice. If it happens to be an attractive aspect of our faith in this present culture, then it’s a good side effect, but not the main driver of the shift. This shift is good because it a change guided by scripture, tradition and the Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, McCracken’s tone presents most of the changes negatively, as if ‘Hipsters Christians’ are unable to have deeper motives for their passions and interests than the desire to be accepted by the cool kids. They are only singing old songs because its cool, not because they have determined through theological thought and the guiding of the Holy Spirit that the older songbooks connect their local community with the greater history of what God has been doing since the beginning of time. His description, therefore, mostly comes across as an abrasive dismissal of the changes that are occurring rather than a respectable discussion of their validity.

A more sustainable challenge:

That said, one thing he points to did present a challenge that I think is sustainable. This came when he was describing how ‘Hipsters’ are quick to appreciate the smaller and simpler things in life. Admiring the goodness of creation and the creativity and craftiness of human vocation. He says this, and does seem to admire it, and then offers this challenge:

“On the other hand, some wonder if hipster Christianity goes too far in embracing worldly things—especially when those things arguably become stumbling blocks or idols in the Christian life. Some suspect that its rebellious embrace of formerly taboo behaviors actually might do more long-term harm than good.”

He goes on to describe that part of the rebellion of the ‘Hipster’ movement is to indulge in practices that were, in conservative evangelicalism, largely forbidden. McCracken again:

“If hipsters cannot completely overthrow the structures that bind them, they can at least destabilize them by engaging in hedonistic behavior: smoking, drinking, cursing, sexual experimentation, and so on. It’s about freedom, partying, and transgression—not in the Jersey Shore, frat-party sense (unless ironically), but in the “bourbon cask ales taste good and I don’t care if I get drunk” sense. Hipsters ridicule bourgeois concerns such as “cigarettes cause cancer” and “drinking should be done in moderation,” opting instead to recklessly embrace such vices with “why not?” abandon. If you aren’t willing to engage in at least some of this “subversive hedonism,” you will have a hard time maintaining any hipster credibility.”

The reason that I found this so cutting is that I have basically found myself thinking these thoughts many times. Especially the one about cask ale… And I think he is right here. I will admit that I have too often forgone the ‘rules’ of Christian living and embraced these ‘hedonistic’ subversive and destabilizing practices (though I wouldn’t quite name them as such). That said however, it is hard to argue that this would be that much of a ‘moral’ decline from the state that the American evangelical church is in today. Divorce and pornography come to mind most readily. But let’s not point fingers, at the end of the day the matter is a misunderstanding of what it means to follow Jesus. For it means neither the rule creating, legalistic evangelicalism of the past, nor, the ‘why not?’ abandon of today that gives structure to the practices of discipleship.

In reading a book by NT Wright (who, ironically, is one of the author’s McCracken associates with ‘Hipsters’) he shows how neither the morality which upholds rules with strict order, or the morality which advocates for each person to follow his or her heart in matters of right and wrong, can be adapted in the church. Instead, the church needs to learn how to foster the building of character. Which is the development of a particular second-nature, which shapes people and gives them the skills necessary to navigate secular culture while displaying Christ faithfully. This does challenge the ‘Hipster’ Christian today, to understand and realise that it is not about doing whatever feels right, or whatever is cool, or tasty, but it is about acting in accordance with the character which the Holy Spirit is developing in the body of Christ. A character that takes work and practice, that is affected by practices, and habits, and that acts as a rudder in our pursuit of the King of Kings. McCracken’s concerns for the ‘worldliness’ of the Christian hipsters should be heeded but what is needed is not a return to legalistic formalised rule keeping. Rather his concern should produce the inculcation of character formation as a fundamental aspect of discipleship and worship.

Final Word:

I found the article by McCracken to be very insightful, though in places, I felt that his descriptions carried an implicit negativity that is unwarranted. The changes he notes, are for the most part, changes that I would say can be founded biblically and theologically. Though there probably are instances where the changes are more driven by the quest for cool than the desire for faithful Christian living, to write off all of the changes as flighty cultural fads is off-base. His warning about the ‘worldliness’ of the movement should be heeded, though his alternatives need to be explored. The recovery of notions of character and virtue seem to be appropriate ways forward for this discussion. Many of the changes McCracken points to are changes that needed to happen in the church, and that they are changes which, when driven by motives of faithfulness to the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, will be changes for the good of the church and thus, for the good of the world.

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