Eddy has created an online book club of sorts to discuss Andy Crouch’s new work, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. I first encountered Crouch’s writing when he wrote for and edited the excellent, but now defunct magazine re:genereation Quarterly. The jacket of Culture Making’s states, “It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture, copy culture or consume culture. The only way to change culture is to create culture.” This post will discuss the book’s introduction and first chapter.

Introduction:
Crouch says that Christians and their relation to culture have been in the stages of childhood or youth. Childhood’s essence is innocence and youth’s essence is awareness. He calls us to become adults with regard to culture and the essence of adulthood is responsibility. The Church has gone from innocence of culture to awareness of it and we seem to enjoy that place where we can critique and engage. But Crouch believes we need to be at the task of making culture.

Many criticized H. Richard Neibuhr’s seminal work, Christ and Culture for not offering a definition of culture, and Crouch tries to avoid that mistake. He says, “We talk about culture as if it were primarily a set of ideas when it is primarily a set of tangible goods.” (10) He also discloses his influences, namely the Dutch Reformed theologian turned statesman Abraham Kuyper who called people to cultural responsibility. I have Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism somewhere, but I haven’t read it yet.

For Crouch, culture needs to be created in the power of God. “Culture is not finally about us, but about God.” (13)

Chapter 1: The Horizons of the Possible
In this chapter, Crouch tries to further define culture. I get the following definitions from him:

1. As stated in the introduction, culture “is primarily a set of tangible goods” and it is always plural (i.e., we should speak of “cultures”). (10)


2. “Culture is what we make of the world.” (23)


3. Culture is part of the world that humans must make sense of. (25) That is to say, each generation born into the world inherits a world already full of culture and those cultures are givens, as much as nature is a given.


4. Therefore, culture is cumulative—culture continues to build on itself. (26)


5. Culture defines horizons of possibility and impossibility for people. (29)

Creating culture is part of what makes us humans, or part of what it means to be in the image of God, who is “a source of limitless, extraordinary creativity.” (21) Nearly everything we do as humans is an act of creating culture, from developing language, to creating systems of travel, to cooking omelets (one of Crouch’s favorite images, and foods, I imagine). But it is not enough to create, we must also cultivate. Our first task as humanity, according to Genesis, was to be gardeners. If we are bearers of God’s image, that means we will be creators and rulers. (22)

Crouch offers five questions to help understand “how a particular artifact fits into its broader cultural story.” (29-30)

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 at least very difficult)?


5. What new forms of culture are created in response to this artifact?

My Response:
Crouch’s strong writing strikes me most immediately. He writes clearly and has some wonderful prose. Early in the first chapter, he shows that humans have always been at the business of creating culture, of trying to make sense of the world around them and one of the most primary ways we have done this is through stories and myths. Crouch writes:

Like astronomers who can peer into the history of the universe with powerful telescopes, when we listen to the ancient myths we are encountering human consciousness just beginning to awaken, and as it awakens it asks: Why are we here? Where did this world come from? Who or what is responsible for the bison so carefully and loving portrayed on the cave wall? (19)

A quick gander at the notes and index shows that Crouch is well-versed in the debates regarding Christians and culture. I hope that while he aligns himself with Kuyper that he does not make the same dismissive stance that others have made against those who view Church as “counter societies” or “counter cultures.” They are often portrayed as separatists who only protest, when they themselves argue that they are embodying, they are creating, a different reality and by standing against the dominant culture, they invite others to join them.

The Neo-Calvinist influence of Kuyper is already felt since Crouch roots our creativity in the original Creation. I have no qualms with him turning to Creation to discover this aspect of human identity. I wonder how other aspects of theology and the Christian story play into Crouch’s understanding of creating culture. What does the cross, the Resurrection, the Exodus, and the Exile say about how we should create culture? How does the new creation (2 Cor 5.17) inform Crouch’s understanding of our nature?

I greatly appreciate the call to cultural responsibility. Becoming cultural critics is an important step, but Crouch is right that we need to embrace our nature to be creators and cultivators. Learning to discuss and dissect novels is important for our society, but we also need brave souls who will go out and write new novels, allowing these creations to be discussed and dissected by others. I would love to engage in a project where, in groups, we use Crouch’s five questions to diagnose different cultural artifacts. Perhaps this could be a segment of my arts blog, though like Crouch, I don’t want to limit the definition of culture to merely the arts.

Crouch’s definition(s) of culture is rather all-encompassing. It helps defend his idea that we cannot exist without culture and therefore cannot escape it. Still, it feels at times so large a definition that culture itself becomes unwieldy. I’m still trying to figure out my position on his definition.