The biggest stumbling block to the gospel is not a tie, a piano, and hymnbook.

Cheap shots.

The Skinny Jeans Only crowd.

How is this a “cheap shot?” And at whom is he shooting?

I feel that people are interacting in code.

“The problem cannot be solved by drinking more beer, watching more R-rated movies, spending hours before perverse television programs, opening our collars, untucking our shirts, piercing our ears, getting “ink”, playing electric guitars, and beating drums. The obstacles cannot be overcome by turning the worship of God into a night club and using dirty language to tell Bible stories.”

This is a “kitchen sink” indictment of what is probably a non-existent position, throwing together a bunch of hot button contemporary vs. traditional issues without regard for whether any real person actually holds this combination of views and without regard for whether the various listed issues are of comparable importance. It’s lazy and unhelpful.

Which is a shame, because the article has a good point to make. It’s true that “the problem is far worse than post-modernism. The problem is not with my neighbor’s liberal education or entertainment. The problem is with his soul.” It’s true that there are significant obstacles to the gospel in every culture, not just ours. But cheap shots like the above are unnecessary and counter-productive.

Previous portions of the thread decoded now, perhaps?

“The problem cannot be solved by drinking more beer, watching more R-rated movies, spending hours before perverse television programs, opening our collars, untucking our shirts, piercing our ears, getting “ink”, playing electric guitars, and beating drums. The obstacles cannot be overcome by turning the worship of God into a night club and using dirty language to tell Bible stories.”

I’m guessing that the author has Mark Driscoll in mind. However, from what I’m seeing now, there are less and less young evangelicals (at least in my community) that want to imitate Driscoll as compared to 4 years ago. With books like Hipster Christianity that offer similar (but in some cases, different) critiques, there seems to be more awareness that imitation of the hipster for the sake of outreach lacks authenticity……..