Hipsters

There was a recent article in Christianity Today that has the office (especially the 2100 studio peeps) all in a tizzy about "hipster faith" and what that's all about. At first, I was content just to be really amused at all the old people trying to understand hipsters. There's a list of authors, directors, and music that hipsters supposedly like at the bottom of the article in the actual magazine, and it got passed around so everyone in 2100 could put their own symbol next to the ones they liked. We need to ferret out the hipster christians among us, apparently (yes, I am one, according to my office mates and this article. heck, I'm wearing a superfluous scarf right now!). So I finally actually read the article, and it made me laugh and also made me a little angry. At first, it sounded to me like someone at NPR reporting on my generation as a whole, and of course I didn't like that! What kind of "millennial" would I be if I did? But it turns out that the same guy wrote an article for Relevant magazine that sort of made me like both articles. See if you agree.

But the thing is, neither article is really written to the people it's written about, who I think are the college or post-college aged christians who are filling the churches he's referring to. They're in Christian magazines, which I'm pretty sure were among the first Christian-y things to be thrown out by the new "hipster christian" generation, as defined by Mr. McCracken. This alone is what amused me when I first heard about (and appropriately didn't bother reading) the article.

Maybe Relevant might have a larger readership. I know I wouldn't have been caught dead with a copy when I was in HS, but I saw the demographic who might when I was at"LiFest," the huge christian music concert/conference thing they have in Wisconsin. (us interns got free tickets! I saw Newsboys and Skillet! yeah.....) Basically, lots of high schoolers in skinny jeans, plaid, and tats.

Yeah, so a friend in the office (a fellow hipster, you might say) and I have been talking about this at length. I'm not sure why "hipsterism" is such a big deal to folks right about now, other than the older generation might not understand it, but the articles made me look at how and why I do what I do when it comes to the church and my own faith. For me, I take it kind of as a warning not to take myself too seriously, not to cling to my "cool" factor, and not to outright reject things like contact evangelism and praying for random people on the bus. I really don't care if I'm a hipster or not, but I do have a tendency to let my personal image or what people might think of me get in the way of obedience to God.

Interesting stuff.