Acts 29, Driscoll and New Faces on the Same Old Faith

I was interviewed recently by Barry Thompson, a writer for an alt-weekly in Boston called Dig. He was doing a sort of investigative profile on these churches in the Boston area that are very independent and “hipster” in feel (beer and coffee, pop culture references galore, current music, dressed down, groovy beards), but are actually connected to the Acts 29 Network, which helped fund the startup of, among many others, Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Seems I was the progressive foil for the piece, taking the 5,000-foot view on what these churches are really about, once you get past the initial veneer. Here’s a bit from the article:

“There’s a lot of stigma connected to the archetypal Christian–the 700 Club, the Southern Baptist Convention, all that kind of stuff,” says Portland, Oregon-based blogger Christian Piatt. The author ofBanned Questions About the Bible and other books on progressive Christianity, Piatt explains why the informal allure can be effective in a place like Boston, where it’s even less cool to be a Christian than it is to vote Republican. According to a recent survey by the American Bible Society, the Hub is one of the most godless cities in America. Behind Las Vegas! Still, if the growth of cool kid congregations is an indication, an increasing number of local Christians are finding the lord.

“All that institutional framework and resources and money and political influence [are] very valuable,” Piatt says. “Younger people today are increasingly institutionally suspicious. To actually connect with people face-to-face on the street, it helps them to create some kind of distance from that identity.”

He also ends with one of my quotes, which kinda helps explain why I’km always on the verge of some self-destructive professional bubble. Ah, good times!

Read the full article HERE.