Hipsters Love Grace 'Cause It Means They Don't Have To Work

Today's blog post is from guest blogger Josh Briggs. His blog can be found at http://brigg-a-mortis.tumblr.com/. I hope you enjoy this journey down Christian Hipster lane. He, of all people, is qualified to give this definition of what one is.

What is a hipster? It’s hard to give one solid definition. A hipster can come in various forms, but there are however a few key things that unite all hipsters. They love fair trade coffee shops (that aren’t Starbucks), irony, obscure bands/artist, books, and Grace. You might be asking “So what does all this have to do with the reformed church?” If you are a full-blown Christian Hipster or at least partly one, then you know what I’m talking about. For everyone else, keep on reading.

When I’m talking about the reformed church today, I’m talking about churches led by pastors like Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill), Matt Chandler (The Village Church), Tim Keller (Redeemer), and John Piper (Bethlehem Baptist Church). I know there are more but these are a few of my favorites and popular amongst all Christian Hipsters. The reformed church allows a Christian Hipster to partake in all the things they love.

The church usually has an awesome coffee stand serving up the finest locally brewed coffee. If your church doesn’t then it means it’s in its hipster infancy stage. Or maybe the congregation is already too hyper. Or maybe they simply don’t love you.

Hipsters love irony and there is nothing more ironic than ironic than the work of the cross! Pick up D.A. Carson’s Scandalous for a wonderful breakdown of this. He points out how the man who is mocked as king is the king, the man who is utterly powerless is powerful, the man who can’t save himself saves others, the man who cries out in despair trusts God.

Hipsters love obscure artists, bands, and books. Hipster love to talk about the newest band they are listening to and Christian Hipsters are no different. Whether it’s Mumford and Sons, the Avett Brothers, Future of Forestry, Page CXVI, The Autumn Film, Ascend the Hill, Underoath, Norma Jean, Lecrae, Trip Lee, we love talking about who we are listening to and will push it on anyone in ear shot… or blog shot.

Hipsters also love obscure pastors. Some of you knew every one of the pastors that I mentioned above and said “I can’t believe he left out __________”. Others had no idea who any of them are. I think we are days away from having a pitchfork.com type site for christians to discuss the newest “underground” sermons they’ve been listening to. “Have you listened to Driscoll’s Trial series?” Seriously, though, have you? It’s super good.

Hipsters love to read. I don’t know if it’s because of the “mainstream’s” lack of interest in reading or what, but hipsters love to read. You won’t see them with Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyers (unless they are going for serious levels of irony). You’ll see them reading the aforementioned pastors as well as Spurgeon, Owen, Augustine, and many others. The reformed church encourages reading in general and specifically reading of dead guys. Check out theresurgence.com if you don’t believe me. It kind of proves my point.

Lastly, Hipsters love the reformed church because it teaches the biblical truth that you don’t have to work for your salvation. And, we all know how much hipsters hate work. They are all about the doctrine of Grace. Most will stay in school until they are 70 to avoid getting a job. The secular hipster will say “I’m just finding myself” but the Christian Hipster will say “I’m just waiting on the Lord’s Call”. Thank God we have Grace and do not have to work for salvation! We’d all surely fail but most of us would die before we started. The doctrine of Grace is also why you won’t find many Christian Hipsters at an Armenian church.

Am I A Post-Evangelical??

It seems like everything today is post- something else. Post-modern, post-Christian, post-hardcore, post-American, and on and on. In my theological "Word of the Day" today, I came across another "post" something.

Post-Evangelical: A modern movement among Evangelicals who are dissatisfied with the current trends in Evangelicalism toward compromise in practice, thinking, and methodology. The evangelical church, according to Post-Evangelicals, has become a circus which integrates its method of “doing church” with the corporate world of business and marketing. Voices of Post-Evangelicalism call for a reform, pleading with the church to re-establish its traditions in the roots laid by two thousand years of church history, not a reinventing of church based upon current cultural trends. Post-Evangelicals are “post” because they believe the name “Evangelical” is beyond recovery.

This definition of post-evangelical may have one or two omissions based on other objections that I've heard. How about this one: "The Evangelical church is just a front for the Republican party." Or this

However, based solely on the above description, I find myself fitting into the post-evangelical category more comfortably than I would have previously thought:

• I am dissatisfied with many of the current trends in the American Evangelical church, particularly in the "dumbing down" of the gospel, doctrine and theology.
• I am not particularly stoked on the way the church often gets marketed and treated like a business
• I do deeply desire to recapture a church that has roots in history. I feel like someone who has just started learning about my family tree and I love it!

I would not adopt the term for myself, however, because of one important disagreement with the definition: I do not believe that the term "Evangelical" is beyond saving. Within the last decade there have been those who have advocated that followers of Jesus should no longer use the term "Christian" because it comes with so much baggage. I feel like that kind of defeatism doesn't really serve it's intended purpose. Call me crazy, but I'd like to part of the rebranding of my particular strain of Christian faith. I am not Catholic. I am not Orthodox. I'm not an Anglican. I am not a Mainliner. While I do value and appreciate aspects of each of those veins of the Christian faith, I am an evangelical and I'm not ashamed of it.

Maybe we need a reformation. Maybe we need a refocusing. Maybe we need a renewed appreciation for our roots as a 2,000 year old church. I'm just not personally ready to throw out the term because I believe it still serves as a good definition for those who are committed to sharing this good news (evangelion) with the world around us.