Creating Culture

"Like our first parents, we are to be creators and cultivators. Or to put it more poetically, we are artists and gardeners. The postures of the artist and the gardener have a lot in common. Both begin with contemplation, paying close attention to what is already there."

I pulled this quote from a terrific article in Christianity Today by Andy Crouch: Creating Culture: Our best response to the world is to make something

You may remember that back on August 7 I posted an entry about Andy's new book. This article gives you a glimpse into his thinking. It feels long to read online, so I recommend printing it. I read it in the magazine's print version, which somehow felt more manageable. But it's worth savoring.

Hot off the Press

If you’re like me, you already own more books than you can possibly read before A.D. 2020. Still, sometimes you find a new one that calls you to move some stuff to the long-term reading list because it demands attention now.

And it looks like we’ll need to make room on the nightstand for Andy Crouch’s work, Culture Making.

In it he “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.”

Here are some swanky endorsements from people I respect:

Lauren F. Winner, assistant professor of Christian spirituality, Duke Divinity School, and author of Girl Meets God

"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."

Phyllis Tickle, compiler of The Divine Hours and former religion editor, Publishers Weekly

"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."

David Neff, editor-in-chief and vice president, Christianity Today Media Group

"In Culture Making, Andy Crouch has given us a vision for creativity that is not reserved for the practitioners of high art, but that reveals the dignity of the most ordinary sorts of cultural creation. It is a transformative vision that inspires to action and--in the face of the almost inevitable failures--perseverance. In the end, cultural creativity is not a gift we own, exercise and grow anxious over, but one that we receive and nurture--and through which we come to know grace."

Crouch (M.Div., Boston University School of Theology) is editorial director of the Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today International. He served as executive producer for the documentary films “Where Faith and Culture Meet” and “Round Trip.” He also sits on the editorial board for Books & Culture (to which I subscribe) and has been a columnist for Christianity Today (also on my subscription list). For ten years he served as a campus minister with InterVarsity at Harvard. He’s also a classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz and gospel.

Check it out.

Why do things happen?

On Sunday, I was struggling with the age-old question of "Why?" Why do things happen? I'm a logical person and process things based on what I can know. I become afraid of the things I don't or can't know. I avoid them and only play the games where I know the rules.

The process of merging my logic with faith has been an exercise in accepting that there are things I cannot know. There are many, many things that I will never have the answers to. It reminds me that I am the child and not the Adult. It reminds me that I am the created and not the Creator.

Sunday my logic and faith collided with such force my why question went to a dark place. What if there is no reason why? What if the bad things that happen mean nothing? In a moment of deep darkness, you lose your grip on everything – even hope and purpose.

Much later I recalled a podcast I listened to this year of Rob Bell's Easter sermon. I encourage you to listen to the whole thing (select number 9, March 23, “Boasting Will Abound”, 49:10 minutes), but if you want to get to the why part of it all, skip forward to about minute 34:40. In it he uses a monologue from the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age where Sir Walter Raleigh is describing to Queen Elizabeth what it's like to sail a vast, unpredictable ocean looking for a land that you've only been told exists. And then Bell says,

Resurrection is the belief that no matter how bad it gets, no matter how dark it is, no matter how long it's been since you haven't seen anything on the horizon, resurrection is the belief that at some point you will see land. You will see land. Others will see land. All of creation will see land. Resurrection is belief that God hasn't given up on this world despite all evidence to the contrary. This world is loved. This world has been rescued and this world will not be abandoned.

You have not been abandoned.
I have not been abandoned.
And, one day, it will all come beautifully into view for everyone.

Men and Women as Co-Creators

My friends Sue, Kelley, and Henry have recently coauthored a new book that tackles an important subject. It's called Mixed Ministry: Working as Brothers and Sisters in an Oversexed Society. The title says it all. Whether co-writing or partnering to find creative solutions to social problems or running a drama ministry, women and men in Christ's Body need to think of and treat each other as siblings.

You can read an excerpt (pdf) by going here:

Mixed Ministry: Working as Brothers and Sisters in an Oversexed Society

The "Vampire Lady": Art Leads to Faith

Last year I discovered Dante's genius for the first time. So today, I give you some of my favorites:

Foolish is he who hopes our intellect can reach the end of that unending road only one Sustance in three Persons follows.
Purgatorio iii 34-36

He who best discerns the worth of time is most distressed whenever time is lost.
Purgatorio iii 777-78

His choice phrases:

celestial justice
sturdy intellects
filthy effigy of fraud
colored with shame

His gift for humor:

"Perhaps you did not think I was a logician."

And finally, his words that give us new insight into old stories:

"Haste denies all acts their dignity."

In these six words I see a prodigal father running to spend his dignity to buy his child a few more seconds in his arms.