with to you antique roche is used to
asking some probing questions as the
senior editor of Christianity Today an
award-winning magazine founded by billy
graham he's covered the church from just
about every angle today he's moderating
discussions at the eight-letter
conference held by the Epiphany a
network it's a wake-up call of sorts for
the North American church Wendy speakers
say is complacent and confused is an
appeal to seal but what is the source of
this confusion some might say it's a
product of our culture one in which
anything goes but crouch says the church
needs to get back to culture to truly
find its way in this world why write a
book on culture I had the feeling that
we needed a new way of thinking about
culture in the north american search
because you don't have to pay very close
attention to realize that the
relationship between Christians and our
culture has gotten quite dysfunctional I
think I think often it's assumed that we
are just critics of our culture often
much of what you hear in the church
about culture is very negative and I
wanted to give us a different vocabulary
for looking at what were called to do
ask questions in the midst of culture
right but it seems that we don't really
understand culture it's such a broad
terms of can you try and define culture
for us
culture is horrifyingly large concept
some people say it's a second most
complicated word in the English language
after nature and so you know often we
use it to mean something we often use it
just a mean high culture so you know the
opera or the fine arts but culture is
not just the thing that cultured people
do
what I my favorite definition for
culture is what people make of the world
what we make of the world depends a lot
on what we believe but what if our
greater culture is one of unbelief
that's the situation in which the Church
finds itself today according to crouch
but not necessarily bad news we have
lost cultural power over a number of
generations and we're still frustrated
that we no longer have the kind of
authority and culture that we once had I
think we have to recognize many times in
history Christians have been a cultural
minority and yet it's often been at
those times that they've been the most
culturally created and have been the
greatest blessing to their cultures and
certainly the early Christians were a
tiny minority and yet were able to be
very culturally transformative in the
Roman Empire this loss has led some to
feel alienated it's led some to withdraw
and others to engage but Crouch says
neither is the best approach will that
idea of engaging culture Christians have
been really preoccupied with how do we
engage our culture how to be culturally
relevant you think that's a futile thing
to be searching for I do think engaging
falls a little short of what were called
to do I prefer to other words
cultivating culture and creating culture
so to start with creating we are made in
the image of a created God and to me
engaging culture often stops with just
sort of paying attention but we're
actually made to contribute not just to
pay attention to culture or to analyze
culture or even just to try to be
relevant to sort of keep up but we're
actually made to advance the human
project of making something of God's
world with such as a matter of imitating
being cultural like I'm putting a
Christian tag on it exactly and that's a
very easy thing to do you know you can
take a popular advertising
and just tweak a few words and make it
about Jesus you know and that's there's
just not that much
image of God in that he says humans not
only bare God's image but his creativity
to that's why he says the church needs
to reconnect with its words I'm curious
in your book you were saying that the
gospel message is itself a cultural
message website how does that work
you know I think we often think that
culture is one thing over here and and
then christianne in the Gospels this
other thing but in fact the gospel is
essentially the good news that God has
not given up on the world they got
hasn't abandoned the world to the
effects of the fall and when God begins
his intervention to redeem the world
what does he do he creates a nation the
nation called Israel he takes this one
family the family of Abraham in a
particular time in a particular place
and says I'm going to make really a
cultural tradition out of you so that
when God decides that he is not going to
abandon humanity to our own independence
from him but it's going to come back
into the human story he begins by
forming a whole nation and then that
that story culminates eventually in
Jesus who who lives in the midst of
culture and for thirty years Jesus does
nothing except what every good he
provided which is absorbed Jewish
culture absorb that story and then
fulfill that story in his own life and
changed culture and in doing so he
unleashes the greatest cultural
transformation of history
Jesus is a great place to start when
looking at how to make culture but how
does that look today Jesus do not just
deliver a message from a heavenly blimp
you know or even a heavenly broadcast
but he lived in the midst of a
particular place in time and I think
Christians are called to do that as well
at the same time Jesus did not just live
according to the horizons of the place
in time where he lived he introduced
radically new ways of relating to women
of relating to the sick
relating to those who are possessed by
demons new teachings new forms of
teaching like the parable can you give a
modern-day example of maybe how that
looks
there are two things happening right now
at a remarkably unremarkable extensive
way that are great pictures of this one
is an organization called International
Justice Mission which is a Christian
human rights organization that is not
just a group of Christian saying oh we
care about human rights to kind of a me
too and imitated kind of organization
but is actually pioneered ways to help
the rule of law work for the poor in
countries around the world and is now
influencing the way that other human
rights organizations to do their work
the other example very different is the
movie studio Pixar the most commercially
successful movie studio of our time
which is not a Christian organization
but has several senior executives and
directors who are deeply committed
followers of Christ and when you look at
the movies that Pixar makes they're not
Christian movies they're not explicitly
at all about proclaiming the gospel but
there are about offering a way to
imagine what it is to be human being
that resonates with the gospel the
reality is most of us are not going to
make films or be famous so where do we
start there are things that you can do
that people who operate at these very
high lead levels of culture cannot do so
we we need to sort of rid ourselves of
the idea that only a few people create
culture we all are creating something
and cultivating something and I think we
need to look right around us and asked
what places got put man who is a given
me as friends and partners and what
could we created our neighbors would say
wow that that brings Sholom brings peace
flourishing into our neighborhood and
this touches on the very public nature
of culture it's always shared and and
one of the mistakes we can make is is to
think that all of our cultural
creativity should happen within the
church and sort of for the sake of the
church and I would never want discourage
anyone from
being creative and church and and and
doing things and culturally excellent
ways in church but if all of our energy
goes to activities within the walls of
the church the reality is most of our
neighbors will never encounter if what
we create isn't just for our cells or
people with the same background and
believes how do we know the date the
other creations out there said the idea
of a culture war we're competing beliefs
go up against each other has tainted the
redemptive role of culture we can't
ignore the areas where we have to take a
stand
we need to balance that by taking a
stand on some things where we have
something in common with our neighbors
and we can say well I may not agree with
you about this but we should read about
this let's say in the United States
education is just something we ought to
audio to agree we can do better and so
an organization like Teach for America
which is recruiting young people to
teach him and some of the hardest
schools has a disproportionate number of
Christians there are more Christians
volunteering for Teach for America than
from any other group that's a tremendous
witness in the midst of cultural
conflict to say we care about a lot of
the same things that are neighbors care
about this idea of transforming culture
but not imposing changes on culture
often the culture wars are driven by the
desire to control culture and we never
will and we didn't even really control
it and we didn't do that good a job of
controlling when when we had control but
culture is too big to be controlled so
rather than seeking to control culture
or you've been seeking to transform
culture I kind of see that as God's job
description God is committed to human
cultures because he's committed to his
his creatures but our job is simply to
ask where God's put me right now with
the people I've been given what could I
do that will reflect God's creative
intent here and God is at work in our
culture whether we notice it or not
according to crouch get up off
which brings us back to that wake up
call if we just see ourselves as
consumers consumers are responsible for
culture thing they're responsible for
its figure out what they liked and
buying out and and critics are not
responsible either if all I do is just
complain I'm not taking responsibility
but what if I asked ok not everything is
as I wish it were as a follower of
Christ but what am I responsible to
cultivating create here then I think I'm
being not just responsible but but
faithful to God who's put me in this
time and at this place for a reason
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