Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Politics and Religion
Traditionalism as Transgression

Traditionalism as Transgression

Last updated on: July 22, 2019 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

0 Comments

Traditionalism as Transgression 2019-07-21T21:15:59-04:00 Gene Veith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Many young adults, artists, and intellectuals feel a need to rebel against the dominant society. This manifests itself in “transgressive” styles–attempts to defy, shock, and outrage the conventional culture. This impulse has given us the “bohemian” lifestyle of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll” youth culture of the 1960s, the blasphemous art of the late 20th century, and the whole array of punk, goth, queer, and hipster sub-cultures today.

But how are those transgressive anymore? What was scandalous in the 19th century–divorce, pornography, homosexuality–has become commonplace in today’s bourgeois culture. The majority of Americans today see nothing wrong with premarital sex or gay marriage. Marijuana has been legalized, whether for recreation or medicine, in 33 states. Sado-masochism has become a staple of mass marketed romance novels. Once-taboo language has become socially acceptable. Repudiating religion has become a national pastime.

So if you are going to rebel against the dominant society, you’ll need to go in another direction. What is “transgressive” today would be holding to traditional morality and embracing traditional religion. That would be truly counter-cultural.

These thoughts were inspired by an article by Tara Isabella Burton, a Goth-inclined Millennial Anglo-Catholic, who advocates what she calls “Tradpunk” Christianity.

It seems there are online communities that call themselves “Weird Catholics” and “Weird Anglo-Catholics.” Burton tells about going to a party with some of these folks held in a New York cemetery. From Tara Isabella Burton, In Brooklyn, ‘tradpunk’ Christianity meets millennial counterculture, Religious News Service:

But, standing in Green-Wood Cemetery with my friends — vintage, goth, and Weird Catholic Twitter denizens alike — I was struck by the degree to which for me, as for many religious people I know, faith has become not merely a matter of personal metaphysic but a countercultural rejection of elements of a dominant (secular) culture. It’s traditionalism as transgression. You might even call it tradpunk.

To be a Christian, especially an Anglo-Catholic, in a largely secular city is, for me and for so many of my millennial cohort, an act of cultural resistance. We live in a consumerist American culture that, more often than not, tells us that the world is fundamentally meaningless — or, little better, endowed only with the meaning we in our intuitive wisdom choose to imbue it with. Moral values are relative. Truths are no less fixed. . . .

Christianity — particularly traditionalist forms of Christianity like my own Anglo-Catholicism — can often feel like a dynamic rejection of that worldview. At its best, Christianity demands hard moral truths, demands action, demands a faith that is not subjective or intuitional but at times radically at odds with the ethos of “self-actualization.”. . .

But, for me at least, the possibility Christianity offers — from the days of the Roman Empire onward — to creatively critique dominant cultures is a feature, not a bug.

At its core, Christianity is a faith of resistance, of questioning dormant assumptions, of breaking apart easy cycles of power and consumption. It’s been a faith of strangeness: and of strangers in a strange land. For me, at least, the addition of incense, or the old Rite 1 Liturgy, helps to highlight that strangeness. Keeping theology Weird is key to keeping it alive.

This is, perhaps, something one can build on. The modern poet and Christian convert W. H. Auden said of Kierkegaard that the Danish Lutheran existentialist “has the talent, invaluable in a preacher to the Greeks, of making Christianity sound bohemian.” Auden, as an intellectual and a poet and a gay man, was such a “Greek,” and he needed to disassociate Christianity from bourgeois respectability in order to take it seriously, and Kierkegaard helped with that.

Those ministering to teenagers, college students, and millennials would do well to remember this. I think too of Michael Frost’s book Keep Christianity Weird: Embracing the Discipline of Being Different. Also Southern Baptist Russell Moore’s podcast, Why Christians Must Keep Christianity Strange.

As I have said, to reach people today, we mustn’t tone down Christianity to make it seem normal to the contemporary secular mind. Rather, we must emphasize the radical things we believe–what is “weird” or “strange,” if you will–things like God becoming a man, Jesus bearing the evils of the world, the Atonement, the Sacraments–in order to first blow the minds of our secularist friends in the course of evangelizing them.

And yet, thanks to my study of the doctrine of vocation and my move to a small rural community, I’m appreciating more and more the value of the “ordinary.” There are people who care nothing for making fashion statements. They have no interest at all in being cool. They certainly do not hold to the dominant American bourgeois bohemianism, which tends to look down their noses at them, but they are too pre-occupied with their family, their jobs, and their various communities to make an effort to be weird. Their stance may be the most transgressive of them all.

Illustration: Praygothpray by Darrell A. via Flickr, Public Domain

Christianity and culture

counter-culture

Tradpunk Christianity

transgressive

Previous Post

July 19, 2019

Ancient Letter Shows the Life of a Christian Family in 230 A.D.

Next Post

July 23, 2019 A New Bible Translation (by Lutherans)

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"I know wired earbuds are making a comeback (I never stopped using them as I ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

"VCRs, tape decks, and cassette players are all having a revival among a segment of ..."

Tom Hering

Luther on Tools

"As a (retired) lawyer I see potential liability from sharing things like power or sharp ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

"I am not sure the items you mentioned, though disused, discontinued, discarded, could be considered ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category America Apologetics Art baseball Bible Blog Christ Church crime Culture Economics Education Ethics Family Food Football Government History Holidays Holy Week Humor International Islam Language Law Life Issues Literature Media Medicine Movies Music Nature News Personal Philosophy Politics psychology Reformation Religions Sacraments Science sex Social Science Sports technology television terrorism Theology Uncategorized Vocation war

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was king when Daniel was thrown into the lions' den?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Belshazzar Cyrus Nebuchadnezzar Darius

Books by This Author Books by Gene Veith

See All Titles »