Christ of Culture

Den som tycker att Richard Niebuhrs klassiska försök att kategorisera kristendomens relation till den omgivande kulturen är bristfälligt, bör inte missa denna lysande (amerikanska) typologi över den kristna hipstern.

Om "The Frugal Collegians":
"With one foot in their old Baptist youth group and the other on the unsteady terrain of viewing missions through the lens of post-colonialism, these kids are horizon-broadened, foundation-shaken and mind-blown on a daily basis, as they encounter such things as genocide, non-western plumbing, or Camus for the first time in their lives."

Om "The Bookish Intellectual":
"... impressively well-read (or at least impressively well aware of all the right books), this is the type of hipster who thrives anytime serious thought is given to just about anything. Is there a theology of corned beef and cabbage? Probably not, but the idea excites the Bookish Intellectual."

Om "The Monied Yuppies":
"More than likely they’ve thrown a Mad Men 60s-themed party or been involved in a discussion group for a book by Donald Miller, G.K. Chesterton or N.T. Wright."

Missa inte heller att peka på de olika föremålen på bilderna på orginalsidan.

Via @ladderinho och Mattias Thurfjell

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James K.A Smith berör på sätt och vis samma tema i sin TOJ-recension av James Davison Hunters To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World:

"As a populist movement, and (rightly) allergic to elitism, evangelicalism has either eschewed cultural production altogether or has instead engaged in merely subcultural production—generating the mimicking kitsch that fills Christian “gift” stores across the country. Such subcultural production (that is, the production of an evangelical subculture) actually betrays that “large swaths [of evangelicalism] have been captured by the spirit of the age”. No matter how many Jesus action figures or Hipster Study Bibles™ we might sell, the battle’s already been lost as soon as such phenomena exist. All we’ve done is carve out a new market sector that extends dominant cultural forces. This is a long way from “changing the world,” despite our rhetoric to the contrary. The world has changed us."