How Desperate and/or Pretentious Is Christianity Getting?

[RandomGuyOnCouch]

Welcome to the world of hipster Christianity. It's a world where things like the Left Behind book and film series, Jesus fish bumper stickers, and door-to-door evangelism are relevant only as a source of irony or nostalgia. It's a world where Braveheart youth-pastor analogies are anathema, where everyone agrees that they wish Pat Robertson "weren't one of us" and shares a collective distaste for the art of Thomas Kinkade.

The latest incarnation of a decades-long collision of "cool" and "Christianity," hipster Christianity is in large part a rebellion against the very subculture that birthed it. It's a rebellion against old-school evangelicalism and its fuddy-duddy legalism, apathy about the arts, and pitiful lack of concern for social justice. It's also a rebellion against George W. Bush—style Christianity: American flags in churches, the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, and evangelical leaders who get too involved in conservative politics, such as James Dobson and Jerry Falwell.

Topic.

[Tero]

Yawn. We had a thread on uses of Christians. Sort of like cats, but you don't get as attached.

[Trolldor]

When has it not been desperate.

[RandomGuyOnCouch]

When has it not been desperate.

When it was killing it's own practitioners off.

[Tero]

Random, this does not tell me much, tell us about yourself and these Xtians.

[Tero]

They looked up to young Christian authors and pastors like Shane Claiborne, Rob Bell, and Donald Miller, read Relevant magazine, adored indie-folk musician Sufjan Stevens, and were fascinated by ancient church liturgies and prayers. They began to dress and act like secular hipsters: drinking beer, getting tattoos, riding fixed-gear bikes, and eating raw and organic foods. They took interest in a broader range of issues (the environment, HIV/AIDS, globalization) than their parents' generation, and voted for Barack Obama.

OK, I get it, new age Christians. How boring.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/201 ... ml?start=3

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Welcome to the world of hipster Christianity. It's a world where things like the Left Behind book and film series, Jesus fish bumper stickers, and door-to-door evangelism are relevant only as a source of irony or nostalgia. It's a world where Braveheart youth-pastor analogies are anathema, where everyone agrees that they wish Pat Robertson "weren't one of us" and shares a collective distaste for the art of Thomas Kinkade.

The latest incarnation of a decades-long collision of "cool" and "Christianity," hipster Christianity is in large part a rebellion against the very subculture that birthed it. It's a rebellion against old-school evangelicalism and its fuddy-duddy legalism, apathy about the arts, and pitiful lack of concern for social justice. It's also a rebellion against George W. Bush—style Christianity: American flags in churches, the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, and evangelical leaders who get too involved in conservative politics, such as James Dobson and Jerry Falwell.

Topic.

Topic of cancer - as in, "May they all get it and just fuck off."

[charlou]

Of course the christianity meme is evolving as the humanism of those who practice it evolves. I'm glad they're leaving behind the uglier aspects of religious practice, but their faith basis in thinking is still a concern ... and it's still dogmatic and manipulative, albeit using a more carrot, rather than stick approach ... and still very exploitable.

[RandomGuyOnCouch]

Random, this does not tell me much, tell us about yourself and these Xtians.

Eh? Someone sent me a link earlier. I thought the idea of a hipster version of Christianity quite amusing.

[rachelbean]

It's not really a hipster version of Christianity, it's just normal people (or uh...hipsters as they are calling them) trying to reconcile their rational lives with the faith they are clinging to. They have been exposed to the world enough and are intelligent enough to understand how much of it is bullshit but are clinging to the parts they think are valuable and focus on love and redemption. I know because I was one of em and so were lots of people I know. Really, these are not the people you need to be worrying about

[Tero]

Random, this does not tell me much, tell us about yourself and these Xtians.

Eh? Someone sent me a link earlier. I thought the idea of a hipster version of Christianity quite amusing.

OK, I thought maybe it was a sibling of yours that turned to hipster woo.

[Twoflower]

Random, this does not tell me much, tell us about yourself and these Xtians.

Eh? Someone sent me a link earlier. I thought the idea of a hipster version of Christianity quite amusing.

OK, I thought maybe it was a sibling of yours that turned to hipster woo.

My ex was a hipster. He was a bad person.

[Pappa]

My ex was a hipster. He was a bad person.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_%2 ... l_analysis

Christian Lorentzen of Time Out New York claims that metrosexuality is the hipster appropriation of gay culture, as a trait carried over from their "Emo" phase. He writes that "these aesthetics are assimilated—cannibalized—into a repertoire of meaninglessness, from which the hipster can construct an identity in the manner of a collage, or a shuffled playlist on an iPod."[3] He argues that "hipsterism fetishizes the authentic" elements of all of the "fringe movements of the postwar era—Beat, hippie, punk, even grunge," and draws on the "cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity" and "gay style," and then "regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity" and a sense of irony. He claims that this group of "18-to-34-year-olds," who are mostly white, "have defanged, skinned and consumed" all of these influences.[3] Lorentzen says hipsters, "in their present undead incarnation," are "essentially people who think of themselves as being cooler than America," also referring to them as "the assassins of cool." He also criticizes how the subculture's original menace has long been abandoned and has been replaced with "the form of not-quite-passive aggression called snark."[

[Hermit]

When has it not been desperate.

When it had its own armies and reliable allies with which it killed any opposition. A pope who could make an emperor kneel outside the city gates of Canossa for three days before lifting the papal ban he imposed on him just had no need to be desperate. It was a time when christianity was the institution that was the acknowledged Arbiter Of And Authority On Everything.

Nowadays social/political developments and science have to a very large extent undermined that presumption of authority, so there's not much left to do except to backpedal and to squeal like a stuck pig.

[Joe Bloe]

Preachers with tattoos, preachers with bovver boots, preachers on Harleys, preachers who cuss...Preachers trying to be cool hipsters have always been with us

Back in the 1950's an American preacher translated the bible into hep talk. How cool was that? I can't remember, but I bet he called god the Big Daddy (and Jesus was probably Daddio).