One thing I want to do on this site is promote the sites of other bloggers I know and read, and websites and resources I have found which might be helpful. I have several friends who blog, and one who has just started blogging. In the next few weeks and months I'll be promoting their blogs and some other sites I've found helpful, they should all appear in the links on one of my sites - all of them will be at 'evolving church'.
Today I want to just briefly mention a topic I'm going to write about in more depth soon but which God's really been challenging me about, a new book and website which will really speak to many of us.
The book is called 'Hipster Christianity: Where church and cool collide' by Brett McCracken and the website is at http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/index.php.
The essential premise is one of examining how essentially in trying to become relevant and 'hip' the church may have lost some of the truth of its message, creating a generation of Christians who are all cool and hip, but don't have as much substance to their faith. He lists some common traits amongst these people, Apparently some traits of Hipster Christians are liking anything Apple, reading the likes of Rob Bell, Don Miller and Brian McClaren, really into creativity, passionate about social justice and like quoting or reading Bonhoeffer. Obviously there's no blanket 'one-size fits all' definition, some may not like Apple but be crazy about social justice, some may read one author but not the other - there are actually four types of Hipster Christian he describes - all of which are scarily accurate. I actually laughed out loud at how much I saw myself and many friends in some of these stereotypes. Scary...
The scary thing is though that some of these things sound uncomfortably familiar.
Honestly, does any of that sound familiar to you? Check out the four types on the website, trust me its scary how accurate they are.
On the website there is a link to a few articles McCracken has written on the subject, but far more uncomfortable is the quiz http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/quiz.php where you answer 30 questions (doesn't take long actually) and it tells you how much of a Hipster Christian you are in terms of a percentage.
I leave you to check out the website, do the quiz and have a little reflection on this. I will be back with my thoughts on the subject in due course (that is, once I've dumped all my Apple hardware, bought some different books and become a Christian fundamentalist)...
