Whoa whoa whoa Wilson. You sound like an Olbermann. I'm guessing you have used Lady Gaga to make theological points yourself? I'm not really sure what you were attacking McCracken for. The only real criticism I hear is that he is intuiting cultural trends about a culture. Is that uncommon in this genre? I haven't read McCracken, and he might be a first class (beep), but thanks to your editorializing, I still no nothing about McCracken. The faults you excoriate him for are small. If Wilson's primary criticism is a lack of respect for the old guard, then perhaps McCracken should be more polite. But it's hardly disrespect to ask the older generation to stop behaving like the children. What McCracken seems to be saying is he would like to learn at the feet of elders. That's not an pretension Mr. Wilson. That's wisdom.

Good on you, John Wilson.

Three-part response. On the point of "evangelical Christian leadership," Wilson rightly asks, "Who are the 'evangelical leaders' that have hatched this plan?" There is an annoying habit among Christians who speak about evangelical leaders when there are none––or few––to speak of because the old coalition of evangelicalism is in decline. James Davison Hunter says in his new book, "To Change the World," that American Christianity suffers from a "weak culture" because of (1) fragmentation, which is evident in the "disarray" of leadership within the evangelical movement, and (2) acculturation, which is evident in the "hipster Christianity" that McCracken describes. Because no one is leading the pluriform movement of evangelicalism, McCracken would do well to refrain from speaking about "evangelical leaders" in the abstract or to name names. The churches mentioned in his WSJ article do not constitute what he calls "evangelical Christian leadership."

Part Two. On the point of authenticity, I think Wilson is both unfair and mistaken to describe the younger evangelical longing ("we want real") as a "combination of pretension and naïveté." What is wrong with the desire for authentic Christianity? This is a perennial desire of Christians throughout church history. For evidence, go no further than the epistle to the Galatians, where the apostle Paul is trying to keep authentic Christianity "on message" when rival versions threaten it. McCracken hints at what he means by a "real" church in the last paragraph: it is one where Jesus Christ exposes the "utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched" world. I respect a younger evangelical voice that calls us to authentic Christianity, even if his book has already been written by other perceptive analysts: see Os Guinness, "Prophetic Untimeliness " (2003); David Wells, "The Courage to Be Protestant" (2008); and Michael Horton, "Christless Christianity" (2008).

Part Three I will register two concerns that could only be addressed by reading the book. First, I am skeptical about the pathological obsession with generational identity among Christians. Where is the wisdom of Ecclesiastes when we need it: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (1:9)? Second, I hope McCracken has not fallen prey to the acculturation he tries to resist when he distinguishes between "wannabe cool" and authentically cool. The whole notion of "cool" does not sit easily with this Kierkegaardian Christian who believes the Gospel, the Cross, and the Church ought to be a scandal. And let's face it: there should be nothing "cool" about a scandal despite the depressing examples in our society (think: the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal).

Rachel: Yes, Wilson is technically reviewing the WSJ article, which is really strange considering this publication is called Books and Culture. McCracken goes into detail in the book and names names... so why is John Wilson getting all riled up about the Cliff's Notes version?

Love the editorial! It's not out of line for Wilson to ask the author to provide a little data to back up his assertions. I could say some of the same stuff as McCracken with some anecdotes and some of my own prejudices, but nobody should listen to either of us without some research to back it up.

The "evangelical leaders" Mr. Wilson wonders about tend to be those who self-annoint themselves as much or are given that name on Fox news where they pander to non-Christian voices of the political right. As for Mr. McCracken, his search for the real in church has been the search of every believer at least since Ananias and Sapphira. It is also what each individual is called to be no matter what church he or she attends.

This discussion has been going on for at least forty years. I am in my thirties, and once upon a time was tempted to wield "Baby Boomer" as an insult, until I learned to listen. Some Boomers indeed made shallow, hipster Christianity. And some--merely one example--have slowly, painfully, worked to undo racial segregation in the church. Some have led lives of fashionable consumerism, and some have poured themselves out in every kind of global Christian sacrifice. And it's usually the quiet ones. To categorically refuse to learn from the previous generation is to to cut oneself off from the great cloud of witnesses. For the record, the word "hip" is of African provenance, and refers to vision--as in I can see farther than you. Hip has many variations, but they usually boil down to shaming others. In fact, shame and shaming are always clues to the presence of cool in a debate. p.g.

Wilson's probably just upset that McCracken, a rookie author in his 20's, already has more people reading his book than have read "Books & Culture" in the last 15 years combined.