This is some great writing and challenging thinking about being “hip”

We must resist the Powers (of consumerism, globalism, fashion, etc) even as we recognize this as a time to move towards a more faithful embodiment of the Gospel in our 21st century imperial context.

The Commodification of Counter Culture

One of the challenges in doing this is the way in which we so easily don the appearance of being counter cultural without embracing a fundamental change in our patterns of life and the way in which we engage the existing patterns of domination.

Counter cultures are not a threat to empire because the global consumer capitalist system commodifies everything. Music and language and style and anti-consumer rants can all be commodified. Practices, however, are harder to commodify. So, if you want to have a faithful witness in the midst of empire, you need to embody an alternative.

WOW, this post is embarrassing, as a matter of fact, since I can see so much of what I habitually do and read and talk about. Another snippet:

the level to which people at the political and economic center are employing radical sensibilities for the furthering of empire are at an all-time high.

The Style of Subversion Part 2: Resisting Pseudo Alterity : Jesus Manifesto

I have heard of SO many church youth groups that are reading Shane Claiborne,  and yet the church of which they are participants is so much NOT like Shane.  I have thought about why this is so when I see how popular he suddenly is,  and yet we don’t have thousands of “The Simple Way”s popping up everywhere. This article talks about that  (not Shane’s popularity so much,  but it does mention him and his popularity happening within the larger “scene” without really “turning it upside down”