Jesus
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not "perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:16-17)
Martin Buber
“In the relation to God, unconditional exclusiveness and unconditional inclusiveness are one. For those who enter into the absolute relationship, nothing particular retains any importance—neither things nor beings, neither earth nor heaven—but everything is included in the relationship. For entering into the pure relationship does not involve ignoring everything but seeing everything in the You, not renouncing the world but placing it upon its proper ground. Looking away from the world is no help toward God; staring at the world is no help either; but whoever beholds the world in him stands in his presences…” (from
I and Thou)
C.S. Lewis
“When I attempted a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends, or as the landscape loses the celestial light… For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can, no one cares. Now, a scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable Something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us, but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in the universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, the bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret.” (from
The Weight of Glory)
Terrence Malick
Badlands (1972)
Days of Heaven (1978)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
The New World (2005)
Martin Heidegger
“Truth is the truth of Being. Beauty does not occur alongside and apart from this truth. When truth sets itself into the work, it appears. Appearance—as this being of truth in the work and as work—is beauty. Thus the beautiful belongs to the advent of truth, truth’s taking of its place. It does not exist merely relative to pleasure and purely as its object.” (from “The Origin of the Work of Art.”)
Saint Paul
“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (I Corinthians 13:12)
Marshall McLuhan
“All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.” (from
The Medium is the Massage)
Sufjan Stevens
And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid
(from “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
“And as I sat there brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s long dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it, He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” (from
The Great Gatsby)
Yasujiro Ozu
Tokyo Story (1953)
George Steiner
“All representations, even the most abstract, infer a rendezvous with intelligibility or, at the least, with a strangeness attenuated, qualified by observance and willed form. Apprehension (the meeting with the other) signifies both fear and perception. The continuum between both, the modulation from one to the other, lie at the source of poetry and the arts.” (from
Real Presences)
Paul Tillich
“What is the nature of a being that is able to produce art? Man is finite. He is, as one could say, mixed of being and nonbeing. Once he was not. Now he is and some time he will not be. He is not by himself, but thrown into existence and he will be thrown out of existence and cease to be for himself. He is delivered to the flux of time which runs from the past to the future through the ever-moving point which is called the present. He is aware of the infinite. He is aware that he belongs to it. But he is also aware that he is excluded from it… Out of the anxiety, and the double awareness that we are finite and that we belong to infinity from which we are excluded, the urge arises to express the essential unity of that which we are in symbols which are religious and artistic.” (from
On Art and Architecture)
Dorothy Sayers
“Poets have, indeed, often communicated in their own mode of expression truths identical with the theologians’ truths; but just because of the difference in the modes of expression, we often fail to see the identity of the statements.” (from
The Mind of the Maker)
Over the Rhine
What a beautiful piece of heartache this has all turned out to be.
Lord knows we've learned the hard way all about healthy apathy.
And I use these words pretty loosely.
There's so much more to life than words.
(from “Latter Days”)
Soren Kierkegaard
“He will grant thee a hiding place within Him, and once hidden in Him he will hide thy sins. For He is the friend of sinners... He does not merely stand still, open His arms and say, 'Come hither'; no, he stands there and waits, as the father of the lost son waited, rather He does not stand and wait, he goes forth to seek, as the shepherd sought the lost sheep, as the woman sought the lost coin. He goes--yet no, he has gone, but infinitely farther than any shepherd or any woman, He went, in sooth, the infinitely long way from being God to becoming man, and that way He went in search of sinners.” (from
Training in Christianity)
Richard Linklater
Before Sunrise (1995)
Waking Life (2001)
Before Sunset (2004)
George MacDonald
“In what belongs to the deeper meanings of nature and her mediation between us and God, the appearances of nature are the truths of nature, far deeper than any scientific discoveries in and concerning them. The show of things is that for which God cares most, for their show is the face of far deeper things than they; we see in them, in a distant way, as in a glass darkly, the face of the unseen. It is through their show, not through their analysis, that we enter into their deepest truths. What they say to the childlike soul is the truest thing to be gathered of them.” (from
The Voice of Job)
Emily Dickinson
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted opon Earth –
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity
John Steinbeck
“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror.” (from
East of Eden)
Bob Dylan
He woke up, the room was bare
He didn't see her anywhere.
He told himself he didn't care,
pushed the window open wide,
Felt an emptiness inside
to which he just could not relate
Brought on by a simple twist of fate.
(from “Simple Twist of Fate”)
Walker Percy
“What is the malaise? You ask. The malaise is the pain of loss. The world is lost to you, the world and the people in it, and there remains only you and the world and you no more able to be in the world than Banquo’s ghost.” (from
The Moviegoer)
Sofia Coppola
Virgin Suicides (2000)
Lost in Translation (2003)
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Kathleen Norris
“Church is to be participated in and not consumed. The point is not what one gets out of it, but the worship of God; the service takes place both because of and despite the needs, strengths, and frailties of the people present. How else could it be?” (from
Dakota)
Marilynne Robinson
“Whenever I think of Edward, I think of playing catch in a hot street and that wonderful weariness of the arms. I think of leaping after a high throw and that wonderful collaboration of the whole body with itself and that wonderful certainty and amazement when you know the glove is just where it should be. Oh, I will miss the world!” (from
Gilead)
N.T. Wright
“Preaching the gospel means announcing Jesus as Lord of the world; and, unless we are prepared to contradict ourselves with every breath we take, we cannot make that announcement without seeking to bring that lordship to bear over every aspect of the world.” (from
What Saint Paul Really Said).
David Bazan
It's weird to think of all the things
That have not been keeping up with the times
It's ten o' clock the sun is down
Just begun to set the western hills on fire
I hear that you don't change
How do you expect to keep up with the trends
You won't survive the information age
Unless you plan to change the truth to accommodate the brilliance of man
The brilliance of man
(from “Letter From a Concerned Follower”)
G.K. Chesterton
“Gazing at some detail like a bird or a cloud, we can all ignore its awful blue background; we can neglect the sky; and precisely because it bears down upon us with an annihilating force it is felt as nothing. A thing of this kind can only be an impression and a rather subtle impression; but to me it is a very strong impression made by pagan literature and religion. I repeat that in our special sacramental sense there is, of course, the absence of the presence of God. But there is in a very real sense the presence of the absence of God. We feel it in the unfathomable sadness of pagan poetry; for I doubt if there was ever in all the marvelous manhood of antiquity a man who was happy as St. Francis was happy.” (from
The Everlasting Man)
Gus Van Sant
Elephant (2003)
Paranoid Park (2008)
Solomon
"I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor--it is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by." (Ecclesiastes 3:10-15).
Jack Kerouac
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?—it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” (from
On the Road)
St. Augustine
"Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee..."
Martin Luther
“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen."
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
The Son (2002)
The Child (2005)
Which is why I’m looking forward to reading it.
I think with our generation, it all comes from a search for an authentic faith. We grew up during the age of the Religious Right and televangelism, so many of us are looking towards the early church to see how they did religion. Plus, you know how we love to Christianize pop-culture phenomenon. Personally, I think the whole “hipster” scene in Christianity will eventually fade out, but the search for authentic faith will always be.
And I love the header picture. “Neon Bible” was an awesome record!
What made many cringe so much about the last post on your book is that you spoke of people like Hauerwas, Wallis, Merton, Yoder, etc… as earmarks that signal a person as a “hipster,” which in every other context is actually a marketing distinction. I can imagine Hauerwas exclaiming that you are patronizing your audience in every OED sense of the term, and that the alternative society of the Church exists specifically to counteract the kind of commercial identity formation that happens through the use and propogation of such terms as “hipster.” Many of the people in that book list have written for years against this kind of self-identification divorced from the New Testament’s plea that we emplot ourselves within the apocalyptic narrative of the Christ-event as members of the local church.
Hipsterism is a parody of all the privatizing and commercially stratifying excesses of modernism. It embraces this play with abandon. This is why so much of hipsterdom is involved with the recycling of pop cultures of the last few generations. It recognizes that the epistemological journey of modernism has come full circle, and all we have left is costumes. In Stephen Long’s analogy, hipsterism is the record of modernism skipping over and over again at its last track. It undoes the avant-garde. The impulse of Christianity involves a different kind of enculturation. The resurrection contradicts all irony, and divests sophistry and snark of its power. The gospel reveals the very use of terms like “hipster” as seductive tautologies.
To be fair, I am only responding to what you have posted so far on your blog, but I am a bit confused by it nonetheless.
I find all of your hipster thoughts to be funny, but this post excited me about your book even more. It sounds like a very important book, one that I can’t wait to read.
The Christian hipster post hit close to home (while I laughed), but I don’t try to be “cool.” I don’t think Christianity should try to be “cool.” I like how you put it – “I want to see her thrive, expand, and be all that she can be for the world. I want to see the cause of Christ advanced and not muddled up.”
I commented on the hipster post before I read this. Interesting and compelling post! It’ll be interesting to see how Christianity in America (like so many things) tries to be cool and how that affects the religion.
Good luck–I look forward to reading it!
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How are you going to delineate between yourself and hipsters?
And if your talking love for the church a lot of those names of authors in your other post should be key characters in making your case. But then you would need to read Hauerwas and Yoder to know that…
Thanks for the clarification. I’m looking forward to reading the book.
I’ve found myself on both extremes, first completely immersing myself in the “uncool” Christian subculture, then frantically trying to become “hip.” Now, I feel I’m growing to a healthier place as I am beginning to question my own motives for what I do and letting God reshape my attitude.
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If you think Christians who have learned to see (and endure) suffering as redemptive participation in the passion of Jesus Christ by way of tutelage that comes from reading Hauerwas, O’Connor, et al., and even more, that such positioning is “cool,” then you need to leave Los Angeles and go back to the midwest.
I don’t know what is constructive in your approach here. If it is just a critical analysis, then throw it in the trash. If the gospel is in it, then I hope you get it published. But from what I can tell, despite your remarks that your book is not overly ironic, is smacks of it to me, and even worse, seems like something the Didache would call “trading on Christ.”
Brent: I love what you’re about with the Christian hipster thing. Regarding:
“It has been very cool in recent years for Christians to bash on other Christians, to criticize the church and basically engage in a sort of “the church is totally f****d up and we know it” self-flagellation. ” I wrote about this today (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/marchweb-only/109-41.0.html), but it’s not the first time I’ve done so. As a 40-year veteran of the church, you don’t have to tell me the church if f***d up, but that is precisely the reason we’re called to be in it, because we’re also f***d up. That’s for coming at this in a fresh way.
Uh, that should be “_thanks_ for coming at this in a fresh way.” How I ever got to be a managing editor, I’ll never know….
I’ve tried to stay away from this for as long as possible, but this week, my room mates got me sucked in this week by serving as “hipster” models in a shoot related to this…
Here’s my prediction :
The book will not be purchased by the very people it is about.
The book will be purchased by people who have been making feeble attempts for the last ten years at being “relevant.”
Those who purchase the book will do so in an attempt to figure out how they can be cool.
More thoughts here : http://www.colenesmith.com/?p=533
bring it on, brett. i look forward to reading this coming book as well.
Just found your blog, Brett, and decided that anyone who bases their title on Walker Percy’s Moviegoer can’t be half bad. I’ll have to dig for your content on Relevant and CT.
Self-flagellation of the church or no, I appreciate your take. I have to wonder if, in ten years, the parachurch organizations “hipsters” love so much will become the new church, as time transfers leadership from one generation to another. Good luck in this particular search — may there be hope at the end.
Really appreciate this blog post (as one new to your blog as of ten minutes ago). Blessings to you as you continue to think, research and write. I look forward to the final product and whatever role I can play in promoting it at Christianity.com!
Mike Pohlman
Editor, Christianity.com
Brett, I read a brief comment about your book somewhere (Poynter Online? CJR?), and by your definition, I am a total hipster. I also happen to be 58. Too many people see this disenchantment with the Christian subculture as a generational thing, but it isn’t. It’s a psychographical thing. And I think the audience for the book will be wider than some have predicted. In addition to your target reader, I have no doubt that professionals in the Christian publishing and music industries will latch on to this book to try and figure out why some of their products are no longer selling. And I do think the people the book is about will buy it, for the same reason many people bought one of my books, “Memoir of a Misfit.” Even in this social-networking era, people still feel alone and disconnected, and start asking themselves, “Am I the only one who feels this way?” Your book will help alienated Christians tremendously.
Someone forwarded me a link to your blogpost about “hipster Christianity” because she thought it described me well! She was right and I’m really looking forward to your book now.
looking forward to reading your book Brett. the comments above are indicative that you’ve hit a sensitive nerve in the zeitgeist.
You have gotten me excited about your book. I think the church needs to understand counter-cultural issues as it moves forward. While mainstream denominations are on the decline, something different is replacing them. Close attention needs to be payed to the “something different”.
I enjoy your writing and blog quite a bit. I am a Christian hipster (according to your deft list of traits.) I trust your book will be a “fair, thoughtful, thorough treatment.”
I do worry that it will be a bit too much like the blog-to-book work of Christian Lander.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/
His work is also ” humorous at times and occasionally ironic, it is by no means an exercise in sarcasm.”
I believe his work is not trying to be sarcastic, although it often gets interpreted as so. Rather, he is simply penetratingly descriptive, and therefore often uncomfortably fun and/or hard to read. The truth often repels and attracts does it not?
I hope your book is not the vein of his work. But alas he has sold many books and the blog-to-book thing is pretty hip right now. For white people of course.
People have their comments, confessions, and opinions..all I have to say is..Amen, and it’s about time. Thanks for the wisdom, can’t wait.
You’re way off bro. You may be hurting the church by publishing this crap.
I know the kind of people you refer to by “hipster”. I attended a church full of these sorts of people, if you can even box a group in like this. My experience in this church was like no other. These “hipsters” were more loving and compassionate than any other christians I had met. The manifestation of Jesus’ love in there lives was screaming out to all who were around them.
It seemed these “hipsters” were different than most christians in American churches. There identity was in Christ. Not there business, not their family, not their Corvette, not there doctorate, there identity was in Christ. They were vulnerable and could care less about books like yours. They had nothing to prove. Jesus proved everything for them on the cross and He was their backbone.
Brett, please stop wasting your life and trying to mock a people who can’t be put into a box. Please stop being mad at the world because there are people in it who actually dress/talk/act like who they are in their heart. They are not “hipsters”. They are your brothers in Christ.