I recently read Andy Crouch's new book, Culture-Making, a winding book on culture and how Christians can be cultivators of culture.Andy's favorite letter is "C" -- and he's got more C's in this book than any book I've seen. But, he's not being cute. The C's are genuine and they make the book more useful. But I have to put my big impression of this book up front: this book has too many ideas and not enough of them settled. The best book I have read on this topic, surely for a slightly different audience, is John Stackhouse, Making the Best of It.
There are three parts to the book: culture, gospel, and calling. This
book attempts to take complex issues and simplify them for a more
general Christian audience. Hence, the absence of footnotes. My own
view here is that those who read books on culture
making can handle, and want, footnotes -- and more direct,
sustained, philosophical interaction with prominent thinkers. But Crouch's approach makes the book accessible.
The whole book is summed up in the introduction: "What is most needed in our time are Christians who are deeply serious about cultivating and creating but who wear that seriousness lightly -- who are not desperately trying to change the world but who also wake up every morning eager to create" (12).
Culture, Andy tells us well, is what we as individuals make of the world. We are called to be creative cultivators of the creation where God has put us. Part of making something of the world is interpretation, and here Andy tips his hat to the linguistic turn but this is a theme that simply isn't developed to my satisfaction. Yet, I think he sets himself up for it. Culture is more than what we make and more than the sense we make of it; culture is already part of the world that we have to make sense of. Here he is using the profound study of Berger and Luckmann, and I think this theme is done reasonably well in this book even if he could engage the entire complex of how primary and secondary socialization mix into our culture making. Anyway, he's into our making of cultural artifacts -- and he expounds his ideas by examining how omelets and highways work in our culture.
He comes up with five questions involved in our culture making:
1. What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?
2. What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world should be?
3. What does this cultural artifact make possible?
4. What does this cultural artifact make impossible or difficult?
5. What new forms of culture are created in response to this artifact?
Crouch's focus is not on worldview, but on culture and he gets local: "the culture of a particular sphere, at a particular scale, for a particular people or public (ethnicity), at a particular time" (60). This is good; postmoderns, too, embrace this idea. But this view of Crouch's means more deconstruction than he attends to. If worldview is too much about analysis -- and he has some good things to say about this -- culture making knows that "culture helps us behave ourselves into new ways of thinking" (64). And that in itself needs to be examined carefully because everything becomes local.
"The only way to change culture is to create more of it" (67) -- this is very important idea and it deals with the "othercott" approach instead of the boycott approach. Which leads him to his major C's, or our basic postures with respect to culture:
Condemning culture
Critiquing culture
Copying culture
Consuming culture
And Crouch advocates cultivating culture by co-creation. He sketches how evangelicals have interacted with culture; he brings in Francis Schaeffer, who played more of a role than many realize, but Crouch owes it to his readers to point out that Schaeffer swiped his stuff on cultural analysis from Van Til and Hans Rookmaker.
One of the highlights of this book is the section called "gospel" -- it is a sketch of the Bible through the lens of Story but his story is shaped by "culture making" as inherent to what that Story is all about. Crouch operates, as many of us today are doing, with a robust sense of gospel, that God's redemptive designs include the individual but are much, much bigger. Overall, I liked this section but for some odd reason Crouch simply doesn't bring in "Israel" as a body politic or social body or kingdom as a "society" Jesus forms or "church" as an alternative society enough to let them take on separable chapters of how culture comes into play at the level of society. Systemics, in other words. Yes, he brings up these themes often enough but he doesn't turn his lens toward analyzing them as cultural products and how systemically they impact the culture consumer and the culture maker. Or how they shape how we become culture-makers.
The book leans heavily toward individualism. This all becomes clear when Crouch speaks of Niebuhr's Christ and Culture and observes that Niebuhr did not say "Christians" and Culture. Well, yes, I suppose ... but ... but ... but... what does it mean for us to say we are the Body of Christ when it comes to Culture. He seems to favor a much more micro-level of culture making -- the individual working with a few others. Andy's sense of culture making shares too much with Thoreau for me.
One of his beefs is with the "change the world" industry, and he thinks we ought to have our goals a little lower in that changing the world is both too big and out of our control -- we can't predict what will fly and what won't. Instead, one of his major proposals is the 3:12:120 factors: create or cultivate culture in a small group of 3 and then with a slightly larger group and then within a bigger group. This is the heart of his chp called "community." I doubt this can be found in his Story of the gospel in the middle chps of this book but this section does offer (for me) a kind of ecclesiology. I wanted this point to settle down into a pervasive point of view in the entire book.
We are called to be culture makers and that includes the intersection of Christ and kingdom and Cross -- and it means lifting the lowly and lowering the exalted.
I seem to be out of step with some early reviews of this book; perhaps I'm wrong.
The whole book is summed up in the introduction: "What is most needed in our time are Christians who are deeply serious about cultivating and creating but who wear that seriousness lightly -- who are not desperately trying to change the world but who also wake up every morning eager to create" (12).
Culture, Andy tells us well, is what we as individuals make of the world. We are called to be creative cultivators of the creation where God has put us. Part of making something of the world is interpretation, and here Andy tips his hat to the linguistic turn but this is a theme that simply isn't developed to my satisfaction. Yet, I think he sets himself up for it. Culture is more than what we make and more than the sense we make of it; culture is already part of the world that we have to make sense of. Here he is using the profound study of Berger and Luckmann, and I think this theme is done reasonably well in this book even if he could engage the entire complex of how primary and secondary socialization mix into our culture making. Anyway, he's into our making of cultural artifacts -- and he expounds his ideas by examining how omelets and highways work in our culture.
He comes up with five questions involved in our culture making:
1. What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world is?
2. What does this cultural artifact assume about the way the world should be?
3. What does this cultural artifact make possible?
4. What does this cultural artifact make impossible or difficult?
5. What new forms of culture are created in response to this artifact?
Crouch's focus is not on worldview, but on culture and he gets local: "the culture of a particular sphere, at a particular scale, for a particular people or public (ethnicity), at a particular time" (60). This is good; postmoderns, too, embrace this idea. But this view of Crouch's means more deconstruction than he attends to. If worldview is too much about analysis -- and he has some good things to say about this -- culture making knows that "culture helps us behave ourselves into new ways of thinking" (64). And that in itself needs to be examined carefully because everything becomes local.
"The only way to change culture is to create more of it" (67) -- this is very important idea and it deals with the "othercott" approach instead of the boycott approach. Which leads him to his major C's, or our basic postures with respect to culture:
Condemning culture
Critiquing culture
Copying culture
Consuming culture
And Crouch advocates cultivating culture by co-creation. He sketches how evangelicals have interacted with culture; he brings in Francis Schaeffer, who played more of a role than many realize, but Crouch owes it to his readers to point out that Schaeffer swiped his stuff on cultural analysis from Van Til and Hans Rookmaker.
One of the highlights of this book is the section called "gospel" -- it is a sketch of the Bible through the lens of Story but his story is shaped by "culture making" as inherent to what that Story is all about. Crouch operates, as many of us today are doing, with a robust sense of gospel, that God's redemptive designs include the individual but are much, much bigger. Overall, I liked this section but for some odd reason Crouch simply doesn't bring in "Israel" as a body politic or social body or kingdom as a "society" Jesus forms or "church" as an alternative society enough to let them take on separable chapters of how culture comes into play at the level of society. Systemics, in other words. Yes, he brings up these themes often enough but he doesn't turn his lens toward analyzing them as cultural products and how systemically they impact the culture consumer and the culture maker. Or how they shape how we become culture-makers.
The book leans heavily toward individualism. This all becomes clear when Crouch speaks of Niebuhr's Christ and Culture and observes that Niebuhr did not say "Christians" and Culture. Well, yes, I suppose ... but ... but ... but... what does it mean for us to say we are the Body of Christ when it comes to Culture. He seems to favor a much more micro-level of culture making -- the individual working with a few others. Andy's sense of culture making shares too much with Thoreau for me.
One of his beefs is with the "change the world" industry, and he thinks we ought to have our goals a little lower in that changing the world is both too big and out of our control -- we can't predict what will fly and what won't. Instead, one of his major proposals is the 3:12:120 factors: create or cultivate culture in a small group of 3 and then with a slightly larger group and then within a bigger group. This is the heart of his chp called "community." I doubt this can be found in his Story of the gospel in the middle chps of this book but this section does offer (for me) a kind of ecclesiology. I wanted this point to settle down into a pervasive point of view in the entire book.
We are called to be culture makers and that includes the intersection of Christ and kingdom and Cross -- and it means lifting the lowly and lowering the exalted.
I seem to be out of step with some early reviews of this book; perhaps I'm wrong.
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A discussion of church - as a bottom-up and/or top-down institution - would be interesting. I wonder what some of the pastors and others who read and comment here would say.
Scot (& RJS),
I see in 1 Cor 12-14 both the intent of a bottom up kind of communal life, but also a church dynamic that is simply not experienced by most in the West, chiefly because we prioritize a larger (top-down) gathering that simply makes the kind of mutual participation described there very difficult or impossible. Most must be spectators, perennially. I don't think most church-goers experience church as bottom up, precisely because we are trying to do community building and culture making while keeping 'the 120' as our priority and focus of our energies.
Relatedly, Scot, you mentioned that you see groups of 3 as the fellowship part of church (only). That surprises me. I don't think it's fair to those of a Wesleyan mindset (or history) to say that fellowship is the only church function that can or is intended to happen in these groups. I have personally experienced (as many have) the equipping of the saints, training for service, practice in giving and receiving of the kinds of service mentioned in I Cor 12-14 and elsewhere, confession, healing, mutual prayer, evangelism, shared adoration for God, correction, prophetic gifts, and on and on in groups of just 2 or three ***and within the context of committed and deepening relationships***. Even the OT wisdom literature testifies of the difference b/n an individual effort and two or three together.
I guess, to answer your questions in #37, community-forming and culture making happens simultaneously along the 3:12:120 pattern (at least that's what we're currently pursuing at our church plant by prioritizing micro-groups with plans for progress as our chief communal practice). Personally, I've found much more individualism in the larger groups, by necessity and opportunity. Emphasizing small groups of 2 or 3 is the opposite of promoting individualism, it's a plan of confronting and overcoming it, and I've yet to see a better one. I'm curious for your feedback; I may have not seen the sweetspot of your concerns, and I agree that these are important issues.
Your Name ("T"),
Good come back because, apart from Andy's book, I see why you take it this way. The "3" can clearly be a small group, a teaching group, a discipleship group, ... etc..., but I'm using it as the smallest group of culture-making as Andy does.
Indeed, too, good point about individualism in large groups -- like a megachurch. How true.
What a conversation!
How do the gathered people of God in a particular community go about culture-making not only by commissioning/sending forth their members as a leavening influence (each and every member, not just their missionaries), but also as a worshiping community which is used by God as salt and light in the neighborhood? Three stories to share:
1. "How often has your pastor come to visit you in the workplace?" -- one of the questions asked by Michael Lindsay, sociologist at Rice University, to the 360 Evangelical leaders whom he interviewed for the research which became "Faith in the Halls of Power." What's your guess?
Only 1. And this businessman could remember what he was wearing, what his pastor was wearing, their conversion, their factory tour, to whom he introduced his pastor. Why? The affirming nature of the visit had such a significant influence on his life.
Michael challenged his pastor friends to take time to visit their members in their workplace environment. By-the-way, I have a older pastor friend who (along with his associate) largely work out of a small town diner mixing it up with employees, community members, those with whom he has appointments day after day. He has members who work at and eat at the diner. What a blessing he has been to community!
Note: Lindsay's illustration from “Powerful Faith,” InterVarsity’s Following Christ 2008, http://www.intervarsity.org/audio/
2. This fall a fellowship group in our local congregation began sponsoring "Take your fellowship group to work days." (Note: Fellowship groups are aged based with about 15-20 members. They meet for 20 minutes of prayer, news, and sharing each Sunday. Their time is in addition to Sunday School and morning worship. They also sponsor social events and provide a good context for developing close, interpersonal relationships which include providing meals, childcare, home maintenance, moving assistance, etc for those in need. Although providing some deaconal/pastoral care, this structure has not replace deacons, pastoral care, or small groups).
The workplace visit begins with a meal and then dives into Lancaster County, PA ... a pregnancy check on a draft horse mare, driving in a caravan of Cub Cadet and Kubota utility vehicles, traversing an underground tunnel network, viewing Lancaster City atop a Medical facility, and walking through a dairy operation.
One member commented, "In addition to expanding our knowledge base (we always have lots of questions), we gain an appreciation for the skills each member brings to his or her chosen occupation." I would add that such visits provide opportunities to provide support in the workplace, make connections, be a witness, and prayerwalk through a workplace. As the workplace visits have now caught onto our fellowship group, I'm hoping to have a shared meal with the Christian Medical Society at Hershey Medical Center -- a fellowship with which I've been connecting. It's comprised of nursing students, graduate students, medical students, faculty, physicians, spouses/kids. ...
3. A local congregation, of which I was a member while I lived in Pittsburgh, by not moving out of the city and being committed to serving the community has spun out quite a number of cultural structures including: a cafe, a coffee shop, a medical center, a car repair/donation ministry for those with limited financial means, counseling, financial counseling, a Christmas Store with reduced price inventory for those with limited financial means in an urban area, an urban youth ministry. ... not to mention the relationships in the North Side of Pittsburgh and renewal caused by renting/renovating property for additional children's ministry space. Note: the pastors live in the neighborhood, but members lived both in the city and in the larger suburban area. For more visit http://www.acac.net
Note: the local congregation in referred to in the second illustration in #50 is Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ, http://www.etownbic.org
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