Are You A Christian Hipster?
FROM TROYHAMBY.COM
I got this from mondaymorninginsight.com. I think I scored about a 70% that I am a Christian hipster.
Are you a ‘Christian Hipster’? Do you consider yourself a ‘cool’ Christian? See if you qualify…
Do you like?
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.
Christian hipsters love thinking and acting Catholic, even if they are thoroughly Protestant. They love the Pope, liturgy, incense, lectio divina, Lent, and timeless phrases like “Thanks be to God” or “Peace of Christ be with you.”
They enjoy Eastern Orthodox churches and mysterious iconography, and they love the elaborate cathedrals of Europe (even if they are too museum-like for hipster tastes).
Christian hipsters also love taking communion with real Port, and they don’t mind common cups.
They love poetry readings, worshipping with candles, and smoking pipes while talking about God. Some of them like smoking a lot of different things.
Christian hipsters love breaking the taboos that used to be taboo for Christians. They love piercings, dressing a little goth, getting lots of tattoos (the Christian Tattoo Association now lists more than 100 member shops), 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.
Do you dislike?
megachurches
altar calls
door-to-door evangelism.
They don’t really like John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart or youth pastors who talk too much about Braveheart.
In general, they tend not to like Mel Gibson and have come to really dislike The Passion for being overly bloody and maybe a little sadistic.
They don’t like people like Pat Robertson, who on The 700 Club famously said that America should “take Hugo Chavez out”; and they don’t particularly like The 700 Club either, except to make fun of it.
They don’t like evangelical leaders who get too involved in politics, such as James Dobson or Jerry Falwell, who once said of terrorists that America should “blow them all away in the name of the Lord.”
They don’t like TBN, PAX, or Joel Osteen. They do have a wry fondness for Benny Hinn, however.
Christian hipsters tend not to like contemporary Christian music (CCM), or Christian films (except ironically), or any non-book item sold at Family Christian Stores.
They hate warehouse churches or churches with American flags on stage, or churches with any flag on stage, really.
They prefer “Christ follower” to “Christian” and can’t stand the phrases “soul winning” or “non-denominational,” and they could do without weird and awkward evangelistic methods including (but not limited to): sock puppets, ventriloquism, mimes, sign language, “beach evangelism,” and modern dance.
Surprisingly, 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.
