I had two good reasons to get to sleep early last night — I’ve been suffering through a cold, and I had to come in to work an hour early this morning. But I could not put down what I think is easily the best book I’ve read in quite some time, “Culture Makng: Recovering Our Creative Calling,” by Andy Crouch. I had to stay up and finish it.
The book is so ambitious and far-ranging that a paragraph or two of summary won’t do it justice. But I’m a blogger, and thus accustomed to over-simplistic blithering. So I will try to summarize a few of the important themes that I took away from the book:
The author must first explain what culture is, and notes that cultural artifacts can range from an omelet to a opera, from computers to the interstate system. He shows the way in which God gives humankind the foundations of culture and a mandate to create and to cultivate. He shows how, throughout the Biblical narrative, God interacts with history and culture to fulfill divine purposes.
He explains the difference between “gestures” and “postures” as they relate to our Christian response to the cultural artifacts around us. Something that may be useful as a gesture in responding to one particular cultural artifact may be completely inappropriate as a full-time posture. Some branches of the church have turned negative gestures into a negative posture and are known more for what they oppose than for what they propose. Others have turned gestures of imitation or cooperation into a full-time posture of cultural accomodation which renders their faith impotent.
He shows that deliberate attempts to force cultural change are fraught with problems. Even major movie studios, with all their testing and marketing, can’t guarantee whether the movie they just spent millions making will be a blockbuster or a flop. Christians who believe that a gimmicky approach will produce instant cultural transformation are fooling themselves.
Even when a culture shift is achieved, its long-term impact is hard to predict; the inventors of the television, or the interstate system, could scarcely have imagined some of the consequences of those artifacts, positive or negative.
Nevertheless, it’s the responsibility of Christians to express their creativity and their compassion, to become both creators and cultivators, and to trust in God to use their simple efforts in unexpected ways.
There’s also an answer to the question I don’t recall anyone asking: Will there be Mini Coopers in our eternal home?
Please don’t let my rambling and incomplete synopsis keep you from reading this book. I highly, highly recommend it.
