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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good in parts, funny in others, muddled in the rest, August 24, 2010
This review is from: Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide (Paperback)
I bought Hipster Christianity after reading Brett McCracken's Wall Street Journal article "The Perils of 'Wannabe Cool' Christianity." That article was quick and incisive, and put into words a lot of things I've been feeling about modern Christianity. The article sparked debate among my friends, some of whom appreciated the article as much as I did and others of whom started throwing around words like "fundamentalist." I wanted more of McCracken's perspective. Now that I've read McCracken's book, I have mixed feelings about it. His WSJ piece, on a second reading, remains a beautifully concise indictment of the Christian hipster subculture, but the book is a much more muddled affair. The book begins with a "history of hip" that purports to trace the ancestry of today's hipsters. I wasn't convinced by McCracken's summary of that ancestry; it was very, very short and jumped between seemingly unrelated "cool" movements. I have to guess the research involved was scattershot. The following chapter on the history of cool since the 1960s is much better, but still not comprehensive. In what is perhaps the book's most entertaining chapter, McCracken sketches the most common kinds of hipster. McCracken then examines the birth of "Christian cool" among the "Jesus People" of the late 60s and early 70s as well as the modern heirs of their culture. The second section of the book examines Christian hipsterdom in the present, including summaries of McCracken's visits to numerous hipster churches in both the United States and Great Britain. He also examines the "emerging church," which he describes as a movement already falling by the wayside, and the "missional" movement which is supplanting it. The final section examines "Problems and Solutions" with hipsterdom in general and Christian hipsters specifically. To put it charitably, Hipster Christianity sends mixed signals. I think part of the problem is McCracken's extremely loose definition of "hipster." In the chapter on hipster types, he includes yuppies--to me the antithesis of the self-consciously arty hipster types--but otherwise he falls back on the idea of hipster that leaps most immediately to my mind: guys wearing horn-rimmed glasses, ironic t-shirts, and skinny jeans; girls with nose-studs and half-mast eyelids, who snigger at everything but never laugh. At other times McCracken seems to include as hipsters anyone who belongs to any variety of subculture, or anyone regarded as any kind of "cool." He even uses it interchangeably with "hippie" several times. The result is a vacillating definition, sometimes too broad and sometimes too narrow. It was confusing. McCracken also seems to have a deep ambivalence toward hipsterdom. I understood his message readily enough, but failed to grasp what he was trying to tell me about hipsters. At times he seems to be laughing at them, at other times extolling their manifold virtues, and near the end he seems to issue a blanket condemnation of them as shallow and showy. He claims that hipsters "hate megachurches" but then spends a chapter describing "successfully hip" churches with huge sanctuaries, multiple campuses, and online congregations. He claims that hipsters love traditional religious paraphernalia like candles and incense but also argues they have no respect for the past or tradition. He then describes "Wannabe Hip" churches that don't seem to differ at all from the churches he lovingly described previously--he even takes examples of "wannabes" from the same churches. At times the book seems to be a lengthy "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Despite all that, I liked Hipster Christianity. Some sections are very entertaining and informative, and the book also did much to humanize to me a subculture for whom I have little or no patience. And McCracken is striving to express some good ideas with this book: Christianity is about changed lives, not imitations of non-Christian lifestyles; Christianity is internal, not external; Christianity is about a Church, not individual cool; and Christianity is about God, not ourselves. These are good ideas, and McCracken argues powerfully for them. But what they have to do with Christian hipsters specifically rather than all Christians I still don't know. Recommended, but read McCracken's WSJ article as a guide.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Vacillating, uneven book -- in a bad way, December 16, 2010
This review is from: Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide (Paperback)
In "Hipster Christianity," Brett McCracken takes up an entire book to think out loud. For a fascinating topic, he's constructed a wildly vacillating narrative in which he alternately defends so-called Christian Hipsters, questions their spiritual credentials, criticizes modern churches, praises modern churches, condemns hipsters and even questions himself. Needless to say, not exactly an authoritative approach. The result of his uneven narrative is a book that seems to blatantly ignore major forces affecting Christianity in the world today. If you knew nothing about these forces but read this book, you'd come away thinking hipsters were about to take over the church. The reality, of course, is that hipsters are a minor -- perhaps even infinitisimal -- force in Christianity. Whether or not you agree with them, people like James Dobson, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen and Franklin Graham have an immeasurably greater impact on Christianity than the sum total of all Christian hipsters today. The rising influence of prosperity Gospel preachers, too, undercuts the entire premise of "Hipster Christianity." But the book largely ignores these forces. Thus, it lacks basic context. In addition, the author seems to allow his own (acknowledged) hipster biases to disproportionately inform his writing. That is, for example, he invariably emphasizes obscure Christian hipster music artists as examples of how hipsters' influence on the religion is burgeoning. In reality, though, hipster musicians like Sufjan Stevens -- whom McCracken clearly adores -- have little impact on the Christian music industry, not to mention the religion itself. Put it this way: The influence of worship music created by Chris Tomlin -- a single artist, mind you -- on the Christian church surely outweighs the sum total effect of the entire hipster movement on Christian music. In the end, McCracken surprises the reader by reaching a conclusion that most will probably agree with: that Christians must embrace the basic principles of Christianity, because living an authentic Christian life is cooler than embracing the hipster world. Good for him. But many conservative readers will be borderline offended by McCracken's basic acceptance of the constantly evolving principles that define moral ambiguity. His permissive stance toward alcohol, partying, profanity and other threats to Christianity will not sit well with his more conservative readers. Nonetheless, there's certainly something to be gained from McCracken's book. It's important to understand the mindset of Christian hipsters. The fallacy in the book, however, is that McCracken fails to properly emphasize the real driving force among young Christians today: a desire for something authentic.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent primer on Cool Christianity, July 21, 2010
This review is from: Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide (Paperback)
Brian McCracken presents a well researched and introspective look at Hipster Christianity, where cool and the Church intersect within our culture. McCracken begins with a detailed history of hip, and conveys to the reader how the secular concept of cool has become a facet of contemporary Christianity in some Christian circles. While the author cannot stay completely away from caricatures, he does the best he can to present the reader with a variety of examples of how cool and Christianity collde to form distintictive subcultures within the American church, all leading up to the big question: are these subcultures of cool good for the Church? McCracken answers the question with a plea for the authentic and the real to become the focus of the Church, and that Christians begin to make their own worship and culture instead of trying to mimmick it.
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