Disclaimer: For the second installment of “Deck” we initially contacted Will Braun of Geez Magazine–the young guy we referenced in the post script to “Capes and Jeans”. But he wasn’t able to speak with us. We did contact his business partner Aiden Enns though. Enjoy.
At first glance, Aiden Enns does not seem like a disciple of cool. 44, bald, and sporting a gray goatee–according to a 2006 profile on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website, (he’s 48 now) he seems every bit as un-with it as possible.
“I feel like I should be more of an authority, on who’s hip, what’s hip and why,” Enns said in a self-effacing email interview.
But what he is an expert in is religion, or more accurately, progressive spirituality- stuff like Taoism, paganism, progressive Christianity- spiritual paths that appeal to the young and the hip. An Anabaptist and former managing editor of Adbusters magazine, Enns even co-founded a rag of his own alongside writer Will Braun, called cheekily enough, Geez magazine (one letter writer was quick to point out to Enns the sacrilegious origins of the word), that explores the interactions of faith and public life.
The magazine is one of the most popular in the counter-culture movement, appealing to what Geez refers to in its mission statement as the “over-churched, out-churched, and maybe even the un-churchable.” Everyone from the off-the-grid hippie to the Montreal hipster is familiar with it, even if they aren’t religious themselves, and many aren’t.
So when he found out about the Christian hipster movement, he was not exactly surprised.
“A main quest for counter-cultural trendsetters, as I see it, is to be ‘real’,” he said. “The best religious traditions cut through the crap and help us simplify our priorities: Love God, and love thy neighbor as thyself. When this subordinates work, fame, status or other traditional Western capitalist values, it is perceived as cool.”
But who are the Christian hipsters, and how did they come to their faith? According to Brett McCracken of stillsearching.wordpress.com, the majority of them are grad students or ex-grad students who were hipsters prior to converting to Christianity. Most of them embrace a progressive Christianity along the lines of poverty activist- and Christian- Shane Claiborne, as well as U2 front man Bono, who is known for being outspoken about his faith on many of the group’s albums.
Yet the interest doesn’t extend to just progressive, liberal churches like Canada’s United Church of Christ. According to Whistlehum.com, many hipsters are also dabbling in ancient Christian religions, such as Greek and Eastern Orthodox sects.
With its emphasis on vested bishops, concern for chastity and veneration of the saints, the Eastern Orthodox church is the last sect that stereotypically hedonistic hipsters would turn to. Yet with 300 million adherents and counting, the second largest Christian denomination in the world is growing ever faster- and while hipsters aren’t known for wearing their religion or lack thereof on their sleeve, that number may well include many of them in their ranks.
According to Mark Oppenheimer, a professor of religious studies and director of the Yale Journalism Initiative at Yale University, it all boils down to one simple thing- aesthetics.
“Ritual is very, very important for people,” he said in a phone interview. “A lot of the things that attract people to religion is not the theology of the religion, but the aesthetic qualities of the religion- the artistic, the visual, the musical qualities of the religion.”
Oppenheimer should know. During his tenure at the home of the Bulldogs, he has written several books on the subject, most notably Knocking on Heaven’s Door, a chronicle of the religious movements of the 1960s and 70s. He has studied everything from the Jesus movement of the ‘60s to the emerging interest in New Age religions in the 1970s.
For Oppenheimer, it helps if the potential convert has at least some working knowledge of the religion they are entering into.
“It certainly is easier to practice something you already know about then start from scratch,” he said. “When you have a steep learning curve, it’s intimidating. You’ll find that the majority of people who are quite religious have some religious training in their childhood. The people who come to it on their own are a minority.”
According to Oppenheimer, the feeling of being left out is also an important factor.
“For a lot of people- a lot of people turn to religion out of a sense of dislocation,” he said. “Not everyone, by all means. But sometimes, when young people move to a new urban setting where they don’t know everyone, it’s very easy to connect through a place of worship, so they’ll often decide to check out a religious organization they weren’t interested in during college.”
And there are many people who are feeling left out these days. According to a recent study released by the Pew Forum USA, over 44 percent of adults do not belong to the faith of their childhood, compared to 56 percent who have remained in the faith of their fathers and mothers. That’s 90 million people who no longer go to the church they were reared in, or are not religious at all, and that includes several 18s-to 24s, the age cohort of many hipsters.
That explains the explosion of readers flocking to Geez, and the flock of eyeballs over to McCracken’s blog- and soon-to-be book. It also explains the success of the Mars Hill church, and the interest in Jay Bakker’s One Punk Under God mini-series. Yet as Enns points out, the media has as much to do with the interest in progressive Christianity as those who are looking for a fresh face for their faith.
“The media will hype up a hip religious trend, like maybe the Jonas Brothers recent fame and get people talking,” he said.
Speculation about promise rings aside, that doesn’t mean there isn’t genuine interest out there for religions that aren’t willing to sacrifice fun, as Enns would say.
Whether the interest in the veneration of saints or the divine liturgy is purely aesthetic or merely a manifestation of an as yet unmet need, the bottom line for hipsters, and young people in general remains the same. Youths are hungry for change- and that includes the pulpit as well.
“Young people are looking for a new script,” Enns said. “In the face of eco-devastation, global hoarding of wealth and drastic differences in access to resources, young people need a religion that offers both hope and a connection to these very real concerns.”
Everyone can say amen to that.
–John Winn
Next Issue: We delve into a world that many people know about, but very few actually see up close–the siren of sex and flesh that is…hipster porn. We promise it’ll be tasteful. Really.