My opinion of Brett McCracken’s Hipster Christianity is no secret, but I must say his Christianity Today cover story is more suited to the limited task he set out to accomplish: to provide a surface overview of the “Christian hipster.” One needs only the length of a magazine feature to tell the Christian hipster trend story, and McCracken’s CT piece does it just fine. Christian hipsters add up to a bunch of evangelical twenty-somethings reacting to the last couple of decades in evangelical history. On the surface, that’s it. As I argued in my review, one would have expected a book on the subject to place this in a larger historical and political context, and explain the even deeper shifts afoot in some corners of this demographic. But you just want an overview of where these people go to church, what they believe and how they act—and a dash of requisite worry about them being too wordly—then the CT essay is all you need.
Now that Lost is over, there are still many questions: was the island drawing Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Sun and Locke in, or was it all just coincidence? What will become of the island now? What’s up with the polar bear? Is there anything duct tape can’t fix? What will I do on Tuesday nights?
If you were expecting answers about science and the supernatural or free-will and pre-determinism in last night’s finale, you were probably disappointed. Jack volunteered to carry on Jacob’s role, but then tells Hurley he was only supposed to have that job for a little while. In the alternate Los Angeles reality, the passengers of Oceanic flight #815 keep crossing one another’s paths unexpectedly, however it’s not until Desmond gets a flash of “not Penny’s boat” written on Charlie’s hand that he begins devising an elaborate plan to help the survivors find one another. Chance or fate—it’s still a coin toss.
Or so says this guy.
For those that don’t know, Professor Bruce Waltke, a lion of conservative evangelical scholarship, recently gave some comments for a brief video for the BioLogos Forum. BioLogos is the brain child of Francis Collins, the geneticist, current head of the National Institute of Health, and committed Christian. The Forum is a collective of like-minded scientists and Christians who believe that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and God created the world by the process of evolution. (For more on this view, see Brad Kramer’s Patrol essay on the subject.) For those that struggle with this topic, BioLogos’ “The Questions” section offers very helpful articles on most every possible question you can think of concerning this discussion and gives thoughtful perspectives on it all.
Long story short (the best summary of all this can be found here), Waltke made some comments in line with this idea and the Christian blogosphere erupted with the ignorant, the passionate, and (only rarely) the thoughtful responders to this. Within a three week span, Waltke had made these comments, they were posted online, they were taken off-line, they were clarified by Waltke, he resigned his position at Reformed Theological Seminary, and was hired at Know Theological Seminary. In short, this man’s life, career, reputation, and family were completely exposed, turned upside down, and severely damaged because he said he didn’t think Adam had to be a historical figure for the Bible to still be true and authoritative.
And Rick Phillips, of Reformation21, appears to love this.
A week has passed since Jennifer Knapp came out. I’ve been following the story obsessively. As a teenager who was only allowed to listen to Christian music, I recognized that Jennifer Knapp’s honest style was unusual in the Christian community. She was my favorite artist back in high school, and I still enjoy her music now that my musical tastes have expanded.
To come out to Christianity Today is not only honest, but incredibly brave. While her Facebook fan page has been flooded with messages of support – “You’re an inspiration to me, both as a Christian and as a member of the GLBT community” – many others have failed to recognize the sensitivities surrounding Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer identity and the complex viewpoints within the Christian community.
Christianity Today posted a follow-up article last Friday highlighting reactions from Christian thinkers and bloggers about Jennifer Knapp’s coming out. Everyone who is quoted comes from the perspective that being gay is anti-Christian. They call on her to repent from her sin, but what is actually being asked of Jennifer Knapp and other GLBTQ Christians is to either deny their sexual orientation (often by becoming celibate) or to deny their faith.
More and more gay Christians find they cannot deny their faith nor their sexual identity.
Is the political evangelical a mythical creature? It’s become a truism and a source of angst that non-Christians see the evangelical church as too political. But Mark Chaves points to a survey that says white mainline Protestants, black Protestants and Roman Catholic are overall more politically active than white evangelicals.
Odd, given the image. Andrew Sullivan weighs in, quoting Joe Carter, who says “the typical reaction at the grassroots level to almost every political initiative in the ‘religious right’ is “lot’s of talk; little to no action.”
Let’s aside the eternally tedious “young evangelical” and look at the old evangelical. It’s true. When I really think about it, not a lot of the white conservative evangelicals I know are all that politically involved. They vote Republican, of course. They get CitizenLink emails but don’t call the Congressmen like it tells them to. I don’t know anyone who went and rallied against health care. They sympathize with Tea Partiers but have never rallied there, either. They’re pro-life, but that basically means voting Republican.
However, when I look at my own parents and their friends, the nature of their political involvement has changed.
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