They'd Advertise--You Know!

A Pact

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman -
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root -
Let there be commerce between us.

Ezra Pound



Through the usual channels in which I find interesting things, I came across a blog post from one Brett McCracken entitled: "Are You a Christian Hipster?", a cleverly written piece describing and defining the parameters of just who fits into the category of Christian Hipster.

Here is the prognosis:

Things they don’t like:
Christian hipsters don’t like megachurches, altar calls, and 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.

Things they 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."

I am uncomfortable with such a biting analysis, because a great many of my interests, hobbies, and authors are considered to be things Christian Hipsters like. I don't want to be labeled. Or, I don't want the real me, the me that feels like my pursuits and interests matter to be labeled. But why?

Possible reasons:
1. The "likes" have not been fashioned, attached to my clothing, or put into my iPod for style points, but instead are the sincere results of my desire for there to be "commerce" between Christianity and myself. I think many of those now labeled Christian Hipsters are attempting the noble art of recovering Christianity from the "Pig-headed" version of Christianity best exemplified in the "Things they don't like" category. Whether the experiences of our youth have so stalwartly affixed Christianity to our identity, or whether we are convicted by its story, or whether we are just trying to give the religion a fair shake, we do so with convictions and reasons, having very little to do with the apparent coolness of our texts. Does anybody really read Annie Dillard because she is cool? (Although, judging from the picture I can see why, apart from her excellent talent, why she was published so early in her life.)


I realize I might have hit a snag with reason #1 in that I'm assuming that a label functions as an attempt to explain like interests common among a subset of the population as a product of popularity or group think. I don't think that this is usually the case, but I do think that the post tries to establish the connection.

2. Although the post is clever, it strikes me as engaging in the same type of commentary as shows like South Park. No matter how striking, apt, or well done a piece of social commentary is, if it is not in someway productive or redemptive, I have no use for it. Commentary is easy, theology is hard.

[288]
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--Too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise--you know!

How dreary--to be--Somebody!
How public--like a Frog--
To tell one's name--the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!

-- Emily Dickinson

3. In identifying with what Brett considers a Christian Hipster to be, I realize I have allowed the description of the group to apply too directly to myself. Hawthorne, in "The Blithedale Romance" has a nice short applicable quote:

"It is not, I apprehend, a healthy kind of mental occupation, to devote ourselves too exclusively to the study of individual men and women...if we take the the freedom to put a friend under our microscope, we thereby insulate him from many of his true relations, magnify his peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts, and, of course patch him very clumsily together again. What wonder, then, should we be frightened by the aspect of a monster, which after all--though we can point to every feature of his deformity in the real personage--may be said to have been created mainly by ourselves!" (69).

There is a sense in which our identities can only be pegged when we are not insulated from our "true relations". We are social creatures. Our religion, race, and style cannot properly define who we are. We are known through our environment of friends and relationships. And while many of the things listed in the post correlate with my identity, they do not describe me. Labels tend to efface the social and relational aspects of identity. The Dickinson poem points to this idea. Although both parties in the poem claim nobody status, we can interpret their claim as a preservation tool from commodification. The admiring Bog will brand you. But what can a Bog know about the livelong June? The answer is that it can't know anything about the livelong June. But it will advertise nonetheless. It will break down the beauty until only a frog remains.

That's why I'm uncomfortable with the Christian Hipster label. I don't know where all of the American Lit came from, I suppose I'll have to proudly wear my P.O.E.M. shirt to bed (Professional Organization of English Majors). I guess I can live with that label.