Brett McCracken has authored two interesting books. In 2010 he released,Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide and just recently Grey Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty.

Your first book Hipster Christianity took issue with the evangelical church’s obsession with being relevant. It’s interesting that Millennials seem to hold two things in tension: they don’t like being marketed to, yet they don’t like the stuffiness of the evangelical church. How do you reconcile those two ideas?

I think the thing Millennials dislike most is inauthenticity. I don’t know if it’s marketing in itself that they dislike as much as marketing that is condescending, annoyingly obtrusive, or just plain lame. Likewise, I don’t know that the church’s “stuffiness” is as big of an issue for them as when a church inauthentically tries to be something it’s not. I suspect that some Millennials would prefer a sincere, old-school, pews-and-hymnbooks church over a church that is actively (but awkwardly and inauthentically) trying to be “relevant.” This is where the annoyance of marketing and the annoyance of “wannabe cool” churches meet: both are condescending to the youth. They think they have figured out what young people want—a futile, “chasing after the wind” endeavor.

Pastors and church leaders wrestle with this question all the time—making decisions on worship styles, programming, and their own personal choices. What advice would you give to church leaders as they seek to navigate the tensions?

I would say that all of those decisions are worth talking about—just not too much. And certainly not at the expense of focusing on what really matters: being a gospel-centered community of worship and discipleship where people feel welcomed and Christ is glorified. I think that pastors and church leaders often assume that people want church to be more than it is. But mostly people just want a church to be a church; to embrace its tradition, the richness of doctrine, sacraments, and life together as a community of Christ-followers. Flashy graphics, smoke machines, high-tech videos, and hip worship leaders may get people in the door, but they are not the things people will stay for. And they are certainly not the things that are going to be transforming peoples’ lives in the long term.

You got a bit of pushback on Hipster Christianity from all over the evangelical spectrum. Do you think you tipped a few sacred cows?

At its heart, Hipster Christianity is a bit of a self-critique about the way evangelicals (myself included) have in recent years offered too-simple answers to the question of cultural engagement. The book addresses the pendulum swing of younger evangelicals away from the “culture is evil!” separatist approaches of prior generations, which was in some ways a healthy correction that went too far.

Hipster Christianity touched a nerve because I was willing to step out as a culturally literate young evangelical and question whether we had actually adopted a mode of cultural engagement that was as simplistic as its predecessor, just in the opposite direction. Perhaps we embraced culture too much and for the wrong reasons.

Some critics of the book put words in my mouth and tried to suggest that I intended to disparage any theology of culture or the entire project of cultural engagement. This was and is not my aim; I was simply suggesting that a proper approach to culture must go deeper than the “Christianity can be cool! We love culture!” veneers of so many contemporary evangelicals desperately seeking to repair Christianity’s PR problem in the larger culture.

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