Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling [Hardcover]

Andy Crouch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2008

It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture or to copy culture. Most of the time, we just consume culture. But the only way to change culture is to create culture.

Andy Crouch unleashes a stirring manifesto calling Christians to be culture makers. For too long, Christians have had an insufficient view of culture and have waged misguided "culture wars." But we must reclaim the cultural mandate to be the creative cultivators that God designed us to be. Culture is what we make of the world, both in creating cultural artifacts as well as in making sense of the world around us. By making chairs and omelets, languages and laws, we participate in the good work of culture making.

Crouch unpacks the complexities of how culture works and gives us tools for cultivating and creating culture. He navigates the dynamics of cultural change and probes the role and efficacy of our various cultural gestures and postures. Keen biblical exposition demonstrates that creating culture is central to the whole scriptural narrative, the ministry of Jesus and the call to the church. He guards against naive assumptions about "changing the world," but points us to hopeful examples from church history and contemporary society of how culture is made and shaped. Ultimately, our culture making is done in partnership with God's own making and transforming of culture.

A model of his premise, this landmark book is sure to be a rallying cry for a new generation of culturally creative Christians. Discover your calling and join the culture makers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this graceful, articulate volume Crouch challenges Christian common wisdom about creation and challenges as well our traditional understandings about the Revelation to John and how it articulates with the rest of Holy Writ. As refreshing as it is smart, Culture Making is a significant addition to contemporary Christian thought." --Phyllis Tickle, compiler of The Divine Hours and former religion editor, Publishers Weekly

"Are Christians to be countercultural? Or protect ourselves from 'the culture'? Or be 'in' culture but not 'of' it? In this bracing, super-smart book, Andy Crouch changes the terms of the conversation, calling Christians to make culture. I am hard-pressed to think of something that twenty-first-century American Christians need to read more." --Lauren F. Winner, assistant professor of Christian spirituality, Duke Divinity School, and author of Girl Meets God

"Culture Making is a book that's been needed for decades, but it arrives at just the right moment. People of faith--now poised to use their influence--have much to contribute to the common good as creators and advocates, not just as critics and judges. But that requires careful thought and clear insight, both of which are abundantly found in this profound and practical book. Andy Crouch has long had a knack for observing the culture around us and then showing us how we can make it better. With Culture Making, Crouch offers all that and more. Anyone who cares for the renewal of our culture must read this book!" --D. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power and assistant professor of sociology, Rice University

From the Author

Find out more at the Culture Making website. And join the Culture Making group on Facebook.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 284 pages
• Publisher: Intervarsity Press (August 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830833943
• ISBN-13: 978-0830833948
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andy is the author of Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, winner of Christianity Today's 2009 Book Award for Christianity and Culture and named one of the best books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly, Relevant, Outreach and Leadership. In 2011 he became special assistant to the president at Christianity Today, where he is also executive producer of This Is Our City, a multi-year project featuring documentary video, reporting, and essays about Christians seeking the flourishing of their cities.

Andy serves on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and Equitas Group, a philanthropic organization focused on ending child exploitation in Haiti and Southeast Asia. He is also a member of the editorial board of Books & Culture, a senior fellow of the International Justice Mission's IJM Institute, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the John Templeton Foundation. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and in several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing. He lives with his family in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief of re:generation quarterly, a magazine for an emerging generation of culturally creative Christians. For ten years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University. He studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology. A classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz, and gospel, he has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to 20,000.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A clear voice on vocation August 31, 2008

By Jen in Madison

Format:Hardcover

Someone once told me that our twenties are about figuring out who we are, and our thirties are about figuring out what we should be doing with our lives. I'd say that's about right, in my own limited experience. A mid-career switch from a steady and well-paid job I was good at to a couple of iterations of a new vocation I'm not sure I'm good enough at--this has been the story of my life in my thirties, and I've sometimes gotten pretty lost in all of it. The Church's varied, and usually unsolicited, opinions on these matters often don't help at all.

"Culture Making" offers sharp insight into the issue of vocation, delivered methodically, yet beguilingly, via elegant and sometimes beautiful prose. Andy Crouch sets the scene and tells the story of culture, then rapidly sweeps the reader into this story, finishing with a heart-stopping, imagination-grabbing, challenge to go and make something of the world.

After defining the terms--culture is what we make of the world, creating new culture is the only way to change culture (although gestures of condemnation, critique, copying and consumption may certainly have validity)--Crouch filters the biblical story from Genesis to Revelation through the lens of culture, then addresses our role as co-creators and cultivators with God in this world and the next (it's filled with co-created cultural goods that pass what I call the `new Jerusalem test', and the idea takes my breath away). While all three sections of the book are tightly integrated, it is this third section, entitled "Calling", that really sings.

Crouch's broad definition of culture making--the introduction of any cultural good--is also liberating for those of us with a narrow view of vocation. Essentially--we can, and must, be creative in every area of our life, because we bear the image of our creator. This is must-read stuff, and not just for artists (although I think artists will really sink their teeth into this one). It's food for thought for any Christian wishing to make a meaningful contribution to their world. It certainly has contributed deeply to my own thinking about vocation.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart, Challenging, and Humane! July 21, 2008

By Tara Edelschick

Format:Hardcover

In a political, religious, and journalistic climate focused on culture "wars" and "clashes," I was leery of what another Christian book on culture might have to say. I was delighted to see the issue framed entirely outside the scope of those debates. Instead, this book was about creating culture.

It was smart, challenging, and most of all very humane. I couldn't stop thinking about it and talking about it long after I finished reading. For Christians who see their role as cultural critics, Andy's book provides a new framework for understanding our role as culture makers. For non-Christians, the book provides a fresh perspective on the grace that sustains and transforms our desires to build, create, and restore. Can't recommend it enough.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book that Will Create Culture of Its Own November 19, 2008

By Trevin Wax

Format:Hardcover

Let's reclaim the culture for Christ!
We need to transform the culture!
Let's redeem the culture!
We should resist the culture!

What do these phrases really mean?
What do we mean by "culture" when we talk about transforming it?
Is it our Christian calling to redeem "culture?"

Andy Crouch's new book Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (IVP, 2008) is a landmark work that will create a new culture of its own within evangelicalism. Crouch points out the areas where evangelical thinking about culture-making has been counterproductive, and he charts a new path - one that would have evangelicals understand culture in more tangible ways.

Crouch points out the fallacious ways in which we conceive of "culture." Christians too often think simplistically about "culture" - as if it were some nebulous, overarching thought system in our world. Crouch believes we are wrong to talk of "culture" in this way. Instead, we must start thinking of culture as specific cultural goods (29).

Culture is what human beings make of the world. And these things we make eventually affect the world we live in. We cannot withdraw or escape culture because it is what we were made to do (36).

Analyzing culture does not substitute for the creation of real cultural goods (64). "The only way to change culture is to create more of it," Crouch says (67).

Crouch sees much of evangelicalism's desire to "engage the culture" as well-intentioned but often misguided. We tend to take certain, appropriate gestures toward cultural artifacts and make them postures - our position towards all cultural artifacts. Crouch points out several ways that Christians relate to "culture:" (78-98)

Condemning
Critiquing
Copying
Consuming.

Each of these may be appropriate positions to take toward certain cultural items. After all, there is nothing we can do with pornography except condemn it. There is also a place for strong critique of culture. Likewise, there are times when copying culture is appropriate. And of course, we can consume culture without any guilt at all when such action is glorifying to God.

But Crouch warns us against making these appropriate gestures into postures. When we turn gestures into postures, we assume a certain outlook regarding all culture. Crouch sets forth a different model. Instead of reacting to culture as it is, Christians should concentrate on creating and cultivating culture as we want it to be. We are to be artists and gardeners - creators and cultivators of cultural goods.

Crouch describes concrete ways that we can be creators of culture. He shows us how cultural artifacts change the culture. (There is a fascinating section on the difference between the river and the highway.)

Readers will discover that an emphasis on humility pervades the book. Crouch warns against thinking that we can change the world.

"Changing the world sounds grand, until you consider how poorly we do even at changing our own little lives... Indeed, I sometimes wonder if breathless rhetoric about changing the world is actually about changing the subject - from our own fitfully suppressed awareness that we did not ask to be brought into this world, have only vaguely succeeded at figuring it out, and will end our days in radical dependence on something or someone other than ourselves. Beware of world changers, they have not yet learned the true meaning of sin (200)."

Crouch bases his thoughts on culture-making within the creation narrative and the gospel story of redemption. He dodges the question of historicity of the creation accounts (120) by talking about the importance of the story, not just the historical details. (I find this evasion most peculiar, because he treats the biblical text as fully accurate throughout his book.)

Crouch is right to show that heaven too will have a culture. "Culture is the furniture of heaven. (170)" This leads us to the thought-provoking question about our cultural artifacts: Can we imagine this making it into the new Jerusalem?

Crouch critiques the emphasis that "worldview thinking" places upon analysis and thought. He believes we need less critics of cultural goods and more creators of cultural goods. But considering the fact that a great number of Christians simply consume culture without critically thinking about the messages of these goods convey, I believe we could use more creators and critics of cultural goods. It is true that too much analysis can keep us from purely "enjoying" art, but I'm not convinced that enjoyment and thinking critically are necessarily opposed to one another. I'm also concerned that some evangelicals might take these words from Culture Making as a free pass to watch or listen to whatever they want and to dismiss the idea of worldview-critique.

What I love most about Culture Making is the theme of hope. Crouch believes we can start creating culture in small spheres (our family, for example). He points out the importance of small groups (three, twelve, 120). Culture is not always made by the large crowd. We can all get busy fulfilling the creation mandate to create and cultivate.

Culture Making is filled with grace. We recognize that our ability to create or cultivate culture is rooted in God's grace. "Where are we called to create culture? At the intersection of grace and cross." (262)

Crouch's conclusion?

"So do you want to make culture? Find a community, a small group who can lovingly fuel your dreams and puncture your illusions. Find friends and form a family who are willing to see grace at work in one another's lives, who can discern together which gifts and which crosses each has been called to bear. Find people who have a holy respect for power and a holy willingness to spend their power alongside the powerless. Find some partners in the wild and wonderful world beyond church doors. And then, together, make something of the world." (263)

Amen. Now, let's get busy!