earthsedge

…but on the downside I’m apparently not very original.

I’m thinking about resurrecting “linking the week,” but until then here’s an article on “Christian Hipsters.”

I was surprised to discover that about 75% of what he describes could have been written about me. I am definitely wary of both TBN and evangelicals who get involved in politics. I despise CCM, and I’m not a big fan of mega churches. And the term “soul winning” does makes me cringe, as do sock puppets. I could more or less drop the last  paragraph. But it was the authors he mentioned that really surprised me; with a few exceptions, they’re some of my favorites (e.g. I just finished a book by Marilyn Robinson, and I’m currently reading one by N.T. Wright. This is one of my favorite poems, by Wendell Berry.)

I like what one of the comments said, tongue in cheek: “Should I seek help?”

The funny thing about emerging “cool” demographics is that as soon as you have described them, they lose their appeal. No doubt that in this case that will happen before too long. But until that happens, I would be more likely to embrace being 75% cool if it came with a better name. “Hipster?” That word will forever have a totally different meaning to me. I was trying to pin down some vague memory of this word, and then suddenly it hit me:

There is this cheap textile shop in the Netherlands (I think “Zeemans” but I could be misremembering), and for a few weeks they had this massive ad campaign for these black, lacy panties. At nearly every bus stop in Amsterdam there was a sign with a scantily clad booty and the giant words “THE HIPSTER-NOW ONLY 1.99″ (I may have the price wrong-but you get the picture).

“Christian Hipster”-my mind just doesn’t know what to do with that.