A Thinking Reed

Young, hip and Christian

Written by

Lee M.

in

Via Thunderstruck, an article about hip young Christians:

They pile onto couches in a Longview living room to watch a DVD about sex, bearing the signs of hip young adulthood — flip flops, muscle Ts, alt-country cowboy hats, tattoos, piercings, moussed ‘dos.Leafing through their Bibles, they listen to a DVD-recorded pastor discuss the Song of Solomon’s lessons on sex, love and marriage.These young Christians say you shouldn’t judge them by their looks.

To today’s generation, stereotypes about earnest tucked-in Christians simply don’t apply. You don’t have to give up rocking, surfing and styling to worship God.

“The younger generation sees that it’s OK to be young and crazy and be cool at church,” said Longview’s Nick Boaglio, 27, who has scripture inked into his left arm.

In other words, Christians can be insufferable hipsters too! (Okay, cheap shot)

The next paragraph is (unintentionally, I assume) hilarious:

Though the federal government does not track religious data, there are some indications that young, hip Christians’ numbers are multiplying.

You mean the feds don’t track the number of latte-drinking, emo-listening, kitschy t-shirt wearing twenty- and thirty-somethings who’ve accepted Jesus as their personal savior? Someone get the census bureau on the case!

Some of that growth may be due to a nationwide effort by churches to keep young people engaged, said Rev. Mark Schmutz, 43, of Northlake Baptist Church in Longview. When Schmutz was in his 20s, he said, his deep love of the local church seemed anything but cool to his peers.

“I was one of those ‘weird’ church members,” Schmutz said with a laugh.

“A lot of young people would wander from the church,” he said. “But things are changing, there is now a place for people in their 20s.”

Churches make room with “come as you are” dress codes that leave behind the formality many older churchgoers remember from their youth. Some also add 21st Century music, doing away completely with traditional hymns that the pop star generation may not connect with.

At Evangel Christian Fellowship in Longview, thumping base and jangling electric guitars pump rock music into a cafe-style front room before Sunday services begin. Twenty-somethings and 30-somethings line up to buy espresso. Many men are in baseball caps, many women wear this summer’s trendy skirts, and at least a third of the congregation are in blue jeans.

There’s no need for Sunday best here.

“If you wear a hat in church, does that mean you’re not saved?” laughs Nick Boaglio’s wife, Jill, who remembers a ban on hats at her childhood church.

Now that’s just stupid. A grown man wearing a baseball cap in church needs slapped. And that line about “If you wear a hat in church, does that mean you’re not saved?” How about “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful”? It’s one thing to recognize that tastes in fashion or music change; it’s quite another to banish reverence from church altogether.

When I read these kinds of stories it only makes me think that I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near such a place when I was 20 years old. Once I finally got around to reacquainting myself with Christianity after a long period of indifference mixed with hostility, I think I wanted to find something that didn’t just replicate or mimic the surrounding culture. If hanging out at church is no different from hanging out at Starbucks, what’s the point? The coffee and music at Starbucks are probably better.

Also, one wonders where all the older folks are at these rock ‘n’ roll churches. Or is the church going to start promoting the generational segregation that’s taken over the rest of our society?

Maybe this is just sour grapes because I was never one of the cool kids…

Comments

4 responses to “Young, hip and Christian”

  1. Joshie

    I think its more indicative of the clueless patronizing efforts of babyboomer pastors who realize they’re no longer hip trying to seem cutting edge. Kinda like Bill Clinton (or Cornell West for that matter [ooooo slam!!!]) releasing a rap album.

    The assumption for the past 30 years is that todays youth are turned off by church that actually seems like church and that “the young people of today” hate old hymns, ties, God, etc, and that the way to bring them back is to rid church of all those things.

    The truth is babyboomers hate all those things and its a reflection of their own “hang-ups” not necessarily any in post-boomer generations. Could it be that the reason “the young people” leave churches after youth group is because they see thru this BS? I think you can guess what I think.

    Reply
  2. Lee

    Yeah – one thing the church can never do successfully is “out-cool” the surrounding culture. It always ends up looking like a second-rate knockoff. And the youngsters see through stuff like that in an instant.

    Reply
  3. Kyle P.

    Lee, your argument seems like another variation on the traditionalist “our churches should look and feel like they always did back when I was growing up, etc.” position. While a tenable position, especially when one sees the excesses of 20-something (or older) pastors going out of their way to be uber-cool, I wonder if your reaction against these “hipsters” is also excessive. The assumption seems to be that “youth culture” is *exclusively* an identity that has been sold to them (and not something which may be to some extent also internal to their own subjective identities) and which can be whitewashed just as easily, and this just seems way too simplistic. It doesn’t seem too long a leap from criticizing youth for worshipping in their way to criticizing, say, the natives of Papua New Guinea for using their own cultural forms to worship instead of singing Billy-Sunday-revival-era hymns in 1950’s-era American church architecture (as a side note, the concept of “reverent,” which you see missing in these “hip” churches, is highly culture-dependent in its manifestation; might it be possible that their conception of “reverent” simply doesn’t address hat-wearing, yet still be highly reverent relative to their own cultural standards? I have never regularly worn a hat, but I always thought the supposed rules of hat-wearing were quite arbitrary and unnecessary, which basically means they derived from a culture of which I was not completely a part and didn’t feel the need to participate in, just like I have never worn bell-bottoms either). Is there any way to allow all church members to participate their own culture authentically in an ecclesiastical setting without giving in to the excesses of “hipster-ism” or traditionalism? Or must the traditionalists largely win out and only throw a few “contemporary” bones to the younger generations (I don’t know if you intended it, but this “solution” to the problem was the rhetorical effect of your post)?

    P.S. I’m writing as a 26-year-old who is decidedly not cool and who rather prefers (good, i.e., not the Billy-Sunday-revival type) hymns to be sung early and often at church, but as a student of cultural history (i.e., grad student in English), I also want to be sensitive to the vast varieties of meanings of cultural forms.

    Reply
  4. Lee

    Kyle, thanks for a thoughtful reply to a less than completely thoughtful post.

    First off, it’s true that there is not universal validity per se to any particular cultural forms as the “correct” ones for Christian worship. Though, naturally, I would want to say that there are certain elements that are universally normative (prayers & hymns of praise and thanksgiving, confession, reading/hearing of the Word, prayers of petition, eucharist, etc.). What is “traditional” today seemed damnably newfangled at one time, so I am not opposed to change and experimentation.

    However, I would question whether “youth culture” has a status analogous to that of natives of Papua New Guinea for a couple of different reasons. First, what passes for youth culture is, as everyone admits, largely driven by the marketplace and its identity markers are all too often forms of consumption. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that in its place, but should the church be driven by the same kind of consumer-oriented market ethos?

    Secondly, the idea of a distinct youth culture only reinforces the age segregation that is already too prevalent in our society. I don’t think it’s a good sign that so many churches have essentially capitulated to the idea of different services for various “market niches” – one for “traditionalists,” a youth service with a coffee bar, a contemporary service for families with young children, etc. etc. How can we say we are one body under these circumstances?

    Finally, a note on “reverence” – it’s no doubt true as you say that reverence is to some degree a cultural construct and that what is a sign of reverence for some people may not be for others. What I really objected to in the comment about hat wearing in the story I linked to was the petty legalistic attitude that says “Just because I wear a hat does that mean I’m not saved?” Of course not! But then again there’s nothing you can do to merit salvation. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other good reasons for taking your hat off in church. How about because there are little old ladies in the pews who think a young man ought to remove his hat in church? Might that not be a sufficient reason, so as not to cause my “weak” brother or sister to be scandalized?

    My worry is that churches have become so “seeker-sensitive” that they essentially demand nothing of people except that they might have some “experience” that is “meaningful.” Again with the consumerist ethos – the customer is always right.

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