Can Church Be Hip? Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

Your hip Christian posts are great. I consider myself to be one! (gay, progressive, evangelical) Sounds like a contradiction of terms, but it’s the reality I deal with. Musically, I love the work of Derek Webb. A former member of folky-pop Christian mainstay Caedmon’s Call, his solo work is awesome and quite progressively pointed. Here is a video of a single from his latest work. He drops the S-bomb and talks about the systemic mistreatment of gays. It’s good stuff.

Webb talked about his faith with Beliefnet in 2009:

My first question: in addition to the cursing, why pick the topic of homosexuality, one of the major sins in American Christianity, to write a song about? It's such a hot topic.

I guess it is. Maybe it should be, considering that according to the Barna Group over 90% of non Christians in our American culture hear the word Christian and think "gay hater". So maybe it's not a big enough topic, if you're asking me.

Or maybe the discussions we're having about it are not nuanced enough. When I think about that statistic, it does make me want to curse a little bit. I'll be honest with you. And it should make any follower of Jesus really concerned with the things that he prioritized in his life on earth maybe want to curse as well.

The reason that I brought it up is because it's really personally important to me. My best friend is homosexual. That issue, in fact, probably for the last almost 10 years, has been a major issue for me that I have been concerned with, and I have been concerned with the way the church deals with it and I've been concerned as I watch the church fumble a little bit in dealing with it.

And I have always felt as though there would be a moment when I would need to speak about it. And I would need to basically say what I can say without alienating myself too much from the people who I hope are listening to me.