Culture Makers

I ran across an interesting book last week called Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch.  I am about a third of the way through the book thus far and have found it to be very interesting.  In this book, Crouch talks about our call as Christians when it comes to living in our surrounding culture.  I found the description about the book on Amazon and it sums it up very nicely.  It says:

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. 

As I was preparing for a recent Sunday school lesson, I also ran across his website which is very helpful.  The website has links to questions for group discussion, information about the book and links to other books that relate to culture making.

After reading the book by Crouch, I am reminded of the apostle Paul's statement in his letter to the Romans, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2).  I believe that the apostle Paul was addressing the difficult question of how we live within the culture that surrounds us but remain distinctly Christian in our focus.  I think that for many of us we have lost sight of what God really calls us to be and how we are called to live in this world.  Crouch's book acted as a poignant reminder for me about the one true calling and how we can really live as God's people in the world and shape the culture around us.