Ratings1
Average rating2.5
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. - Publisher.
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Short review: This is a great book. If you work in a creative field or in a church job or many other social service areas you should read this book. The first section is mostly social science discussion of culture (not a boring one). But there is a lot about what culture really is, why we as a church should be involved. What it really means to impact culture. And there is a good bit of discussion about the limits of breaking out of our culture and the limits of how much impact we really can have over our culture. I have reach the classic H Richard Niebuhr “Christ and Culture” and many others like them. This is the best of the whole genre. I will read it again soon.
Full review on my blog at http://www.mrshields.com/culture-making-recovering-our-creative-calling-by-andy-crouch/