{"id":1439,"date":"2010-10-05T10:10:13","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T17:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2010-10-05T10:10:13","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T17:10:13","slug":"jamie-smith-on-hipster-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2010\/10\/05\/jamie-smith-on-hipster-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Smith on Hipster Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jamie Smith offers a blistering review<\/a> of Brett McCracken’s book Hipster Christianity.\u00a0 I can’t comment on McCracken’s book directly because I haven’t read it.\u00a0 However, I’ve had some experience of the tension Smith describes between what he calls “educated” evangelicals and those of us of a certain age who have gotten comfortable with our middle-class lifestyles.\u00a0 Here’s how Smith puts it:<\/p>\n

To be blunt (because I\u2019m not sure how else to put this), the Christian bohemians I\u2019m describing are educated<\/em> evangelicals. So when McCracken lists (not so tongue in cheek) \u201cten signs that a Christian college senior has officially become a Democrat\u201d (159), I\u2019m sorry but the list just looks like characteristics of an educated, thoughtful Christian (and believe me, I\u2019m no Democrat). Or when McCracken, in a remarkably cynical flourish in the vein of \u201cStuff White People Like,\u201d catalogs the authors that Christian hipsters like (Stanley Hauerwas, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Flannery O\u2019Connor, Walker Percy, Wendell Berry, N. T. Wright, G. K. Chesterton, and others; 97), he does so as if people could only \u201clike\u201d such authors because it\u2019s \u201ccool\u201d to do so. But perhaps they\u2019re just good<\/em>. McCracken seems unable to really accept what Paste<\/em> magazine editor Josh Jackson emphasizes: \u201cIt\u2019s not about what\u2019s cool. It\u2019s about what good\u201d (92). And if that\u2019s true, then it should be no surprise that Christian colleges and universities are shapers of Christian hipster culture: if McCracken is lamenting the fact that Christian colleges are producing alumni that are smart and discerning with good taste and deep passions about justice, then we\u2019re happy to live with his ire. The fact that young evangelicals, when immersed in a thoughtful liberal arts education, turn out to value what really matters and look critically on the way of life that has been extolled to them in both mass media and mass Christian media\u2014well, we\u2019ll wear that as a badge of honor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like all the authors Jamie mentions (or at least most of them) — and he’s right, they are good!\u00a0 But, I occupy a strange place in this milieu — a middle-aged guy who intellectually leans towards the “Christian Bohemian” perspective, with a comfortable job in the legal profession and a house in the suburbs .\u00a0 I suspect that not a few Christian Bohemians would consider me a sell-out or a fraud, just as this guy McCracken apparently thinks I’m trying too hard to be cool.<\/p>\n

To be sure, my choice to leave a big law firm partnership and become a law professor<\/em> was sort-of bohemian in my context.\u00a0 It took me thirteen years of sometimes excruciatingly hard work mixed with mind-numbing tedium, fabulous bend-over-and-take-it indignities and shameless butt-kissing to make partner — not to mention that I was very good at what I did.\u00a0 I could be making a lot more money<\/em> at this point in my life — a really, really<\/em> lot more money, not to mention having a league of minions to help me get stuff done.\u00a0 Instead, I left it all to pursue a tenure-track teaching job — not any easy pursuit! — to have more time for my family and my church, to make a difference in the lives of students, to contribute intellectually, and so on, as well as for my own sanity.<\/p>\n

Let’s be honest, though — teaching law in New Jersey isn’t like teaching poor people in Uganda a basic trade.\u00a0 This job will never buy me a yacht (or even a decent fishing boat!), but we have a very nice roof over our heads, plenty of food on the table, two big TVs, and (I’m honestly ashamed to admit) an SUV.<\/p>\n

So, Mr. McCracken, I’m not going to read your book, but I’m going out on a limb to say I’d certainly agree with Jamie if I did read it.\u00a0 And Jamie — yes, but remember that there are lots of us ordinary moms and dads out there who are just trying to make a living without giving up life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jamie Smith offers a blistering review of Brett McCracken’s book Hipster Christianity.\u00a0 I can’t comment on McCracken’s book directly because I haven’t read it.\u00a0 However, I’ve had some experience of the tension Smith describes between what he calls “educated” evangelicals and those of us of a certain age who have gotten comfortable with our middle-class […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-nd","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}