Rebels With a Cross
By JOHN LELAND
Excerpts from the New York Times article
“Rebellion,” he said late last month, “is the truest expression of the fully committed believer in Jesus.”
Anyone looking for the spirit of American counterculture — as a romance, identity or marketing principle — need look no further than the nearest evangelical bookstore, youth ministry or clothing line. A decade and a half after Nirvana’s success exposed the strength of secular alt-culture tribes, their evangelical counterparts are having their own coming out in rebel gestures that sometimes recall the early church, sometimes … well, early Nirvana.
If this rebellion is not exactly the sexy shrug of Marlon Brando in “The Wild One” or of Kurt Cobain in “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the come-on is very much the same. “It’s the nonconformist’s view of Christianity,” Mr. Norman said. For a demographic that is used to being marketed to as rebels, he added, the new rebellion “is really a new installment of the original rebellion.” He continued: “It’s hearkening back to a raw faith not encumbered by the American dream, enslavement to a career or having to have two kids and a two-car garage. It gets to what’s worth living for.”
“We found most teenagers are not rebellious when it comes to religion,” Dr. Smith said. “So the rebellion is quite superficial. It may resonate with teenagers in some way, but I don’t think it’s tapping into some deep cultural rebellion at all. A lot of it is marketing. Maybe it does grab some people’s attention, but it’s more product design than deep cultural resonance.”
As compelling as the images of rebellion are, they do not in themselves constitute a fully sustaining faith, said Donald Miller, 34, the author of Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, a best seller among young Christians.
“It’s a cart-before-the-horse thing,” said Mr. Miller, who frequently speaks to Christian youth groups and works with campus ministries. “If you’re a Christian, you need to obey God. And if you obey God, you’re going to be seen as a rebel, both within American church culture and popular culture. But that’s not the point. The point is to obey God.”
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