Brett McCracken says that one way you can tell is by perusing the following reading list (HT: Lee). "If you’ve read more than 20 of them, there is a good chance that you are a Christian with artistic or intellectual tendencies. If you’ve read more than 30 of them, you are most likely a Christian hipster."
So I'm posting his list with the books I've read in bold. I'm generous with the verb "read." If I've read part of the book I've highlighted it. If haven't read any of the book, but it's on my shelf, I've highlighted it. Lastly, I've highlighted two books I haven't read and probably never will read, one for each pair of skinny jeans in my closet. Can you guess which two?
Augustine – Confessions
C.S. Lewis – Till We Have Faces
Walker Percy – The Moviegoer
Dorothy Sayers – The Mind of the Maker
G.K. Chesterton – Orthodoxy
George MacDonald – Phantastes
Evelyn Underhill – Mysticism
Terry Eagleton – After Theory
Jean-Paul Sarte – Being and Nothingness
Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings
Annie Dillard – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Donald Miller – Blue Like Jazz
Kathleen Norris – Acedia & Me
Marilynne Robinson – Gilead
Shushako Endo- Silence
George Steiner – Real Presences
William Shakespeare- King Lear
Anne Lamott – Traveling Mercies
Plato – The Republic
Jacques Ellul – The Technological Society
Flannery O’Connor – Wise Blood
Chuck Klosterman – Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs
Dave Eggers – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Martin Buber – I and Thou
Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death
Lauren Winner – Real Sex
Douglas Coupland – Life After God
Tim Keller – The Reason For God
N.T. Wright – Surprised by Hope
Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment
A.W. Tozer – The Knowledge of the Holy
Henri Nouwen – The Return of the Prodigal Son
Dietrich Bonhoeffer – The Cost of Discipleship
Jack Kerouac – On the Road
John Steinbeck – East of Eden
Jean Baudrillard – Simulacra and Simulation
Rob Bell – Velvet Elvis
William P. Young – The Shack
Shane Claiborne – The Irresistible Revolution
Thomas a Kempis – The Imitation of Christ
Dallas Willard – The Divine Conspiracy
Eugene Peterson – The Message
Paul Tillich – The Courage To Be
Francis Collins – The Language of God
J.I. Packer – Knowing God
Andy Crouch – Culture Making
Madeline L’Engle – Walking on Water
Mark Noll – The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
Jim Wallis – God’s Politics
William Faulkner – As I Lay Dying
What's awesome is that, according to this list, even though I'm a PhD student, I have no intellectual tendencies because I didn't break 20. And maybe I don't. I mean, really; I'm 40 years old; why haven't I read The Republic yet? BECAUSE PLATO WAS A PAGAN, THAT'S WHY! "What do Athens and Jerusalem have to do with each other?" OK, Mr. Hipster Christian, can you identify who coined that slogan before you drain the last drop of your PBR? Dat's what I thought!
McCracken writes, "One of the best ways to learn about the type of person someone is is by looking at the books that populate their bookshelves. Books, I’ve found, play a large role in shaping how any of us understand and inhabit our worlds–so naturally they are a good place to go when seeking to understand a subculture."
Looking at my shelf right now, I see a book about the Scottsboro boys and a Marx-Engels reader. What this shelf says is that these people belong to the subculture of those who didn't sell back their books at the end of the semester, and who, being liberal arts majors, haven't had money to buy books since they were in college. Is there a term for my subculture? How about "Lower middle class?"
So, is Hipster Christianity the dead-end of Emergent Christianity? Or is it its own thing?
You know, I'm old enough to remember the days when people debated the merits of praise bands in worship. Now it's apparently about the necessity of IKEA light fixtures and corrugated steel coffee bars. Yet the number of people who self-identify as Christian continues to shrink. Are we whittling away the dead un-cool wood? Or is Christianity's problem not one of style but of substance?
Recent Comments