Hipper Pastor

Excerpt from Time Magazine The Hipper-Than-Thou Pastor by David Van Biema

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Bell, 37, is guilty of none of the negatives. He is largely apolitical, thinks that only those with gay friends are positioned to judge homosexuality--and he tinkers marvelously. At 28, he founded a megachurch that threw out the conventional sermon-and-worship service and instantly drew thousands of attendees. He has sold hundreds of thousands of books with titles like Velvet Elvis and Sex God that find the sacred in the profane. And he has created a form of video message he calls Nooma (phonetic Greek for spirit or breath) that may make him to YouTube what Graham was to the arena. "He could be one of the most important 21st century Christian leaders," says Bible professor and evangelical blogger Ben Witherington. He and several other thinkers feel that in a "post-Christian America," whose basic assumptions are increasingly secular, the faith needs someone who can defend its tenets in the argot of the day. Bell does this effortlessly. The question now is whether he can sell his approach to the rest of Evangelicalism or whether, as Christianity Today editor Andy Crouch puts it, he will "remain more of a singular rock star in the church world."

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