Most people who read this site are hipsters, I know that word is an ugly, hateful one, but why don’t you just reclaim it and laugh about it to show how over it you are, like black guys did with the n-word? Just go with it, who cares what people call you?

Anyhoo, if you’re interested, someone wrote a book about Christian hipsters that came out this month, I can’t imagine how he stretched it out beyond “some guys who like records, graphic design and bikes, also like Jesus”, but nevertheless it exists.

The site for the book has a sort of Christian hipster social stereotypes section, which features an ageless manchild with an Amish beard who plays both the 35 year old ‘moneyed yuppie’ as well as the 23 year old ‘frugal collegian’. The whole thing kind of errs on the side of ‘how to market church to people who don’t like church 101’ and it seems pretty trite to assume that young people will buy into anything if it looks cool. Plus, it’s ultimately a pointless exercise because there’s no such thing as God.

But there is something kind of adorable about earnest young men and women who live their lives by ancient rules handed down from before we had a little thing called science. There are a few of Christian hipsters kicking around London who mix with the rest of us and they’re wasting their youth worrying if things that are perfectly legal for most of us are gonna get them sent to a place of eternal pain and suffering because it angers the great head in the sky. They’re usually really nice guys who are into shit and keep their Jesus stuff on the down low, but they’re still God’s bitches.

However, I’d much rather spend time with those thoughtful, conscientious guys than the hyperactive dorks who draw upside crosses on the walls of bar toilets and wear Slayer patches like they weren’t into backpack rap or haircut hardcore four years ago. That shit’s worse because it’s so transparently faddish and obvious, and it’s gotten so, so old recently.

While the hipster metalheads are playing at pretending to be into dark forces and acting like drunk jocks, the Christian hipsters are at least tormented by their beliefs being at odds with their lifestyle. Inner turmoil tends to lead to good humour and an empathy for others, being a drunk partyboy in a leather jacket who hasn’t read a book since school tends to lead to being a vapid dick.

Instead of writing embarrassing things in caps lock on Facebook about how people who aren’t true metal are fags (you’re 25 and you work in fashion, it’s excruciating to see you make a fool of yourself like that) the Christian hipsters just go read the bible in their room and hate themselves for doing MDMA and looking at girls’ butts. Neither option really sounds ideal, but one has a basis (however misguided) in something that stretches beyond posturing.

God seems like a pretty basic answer to the questions of the universe - like it was humanity’s first guess before we did our research -  but the guys spending their free time on eBay looking for Carpathian Forest shirts with swearwords on them to impress girls are just as bad as the dummies who read a magic book and hope they’re going to be reunited with granny in heaven if they don’t do it with any girls at all.