Andy Crouch's Culture Making was eagerly anticipated in some of my circles, and now that I'm maybe a quarter of the way through, I can see why. I can't give you an overarching analysis just yet, but so far, Crouch is looking at now only the ever-popular (at least around A&F) topic of Christians and culture, but also at how — in general — the world "culture" is wildly misused. (He quotes a study that shows "culture" the second most complex word in the English language, after "nature.") Even with as much cultural study as I've done, the book is really eye-opening, well-written and convicting.

Anyone else read this?

I read the first 5 chapters online, and it's enough to pique my interest, for sure. He seems to be doing an admirable job contextualizing different approaches to culture. I appreciate that he brings Neibuhr back to the table--Neibuhr's not perfect but provides a good balancing force against all the C.S. Lewis influence that seems to be so pervasive these days.

My big question is going to be whether he seriously engages the insights of the Frankfurt School, or whether he has a serious response to the questions about discipleship raised by Michael Budde in The Magic Kingdom of God. In other words, I don't think you can talk about cultural production outside of the context of the various economic models from which they emerge.

This is a big problem. You can talk about culture making until you are blue in the face, but once you actually try to establish an arts program in your church, studio co-op, or local gallery space, an entirely new set of theoretical and practical issue emerges. These have yet to be really addressed by anyone.

So I dig Crouch's book, there are good turns-of-phrase and editorial all throughout, but it is preaching to the choir at this point. Crouch is worth reading even when covering familiar ground, yet most people that read it will (or should) already be on the same page if they have kept up with Christianity and culture over the last decade. What really needs to be written is a "okay so... what now" book. How do we actually do culture making at local and national levels? What sort of financial models will guarantee that the process of Christian culture-making embodies the gospel it is attempting to explore? There are a lot of different models of support for artists out there. Which ones are flawed, and which ones have potential for application in Christian contexts? How are we supposed to think about gallery space, studio space, theater space, and even cinema space? Are local churches supposed to be involved with the support of fine arts in their area? If so, what establishes the borders of this support? Culture making is formed by the practical means that makes it possible, so what does this look like in the church?

There are answers to these questions. I have been involved in two different church and local projects in which these had to be grappled with and were answered with varying degrees of success. But someone needs to write that book.

I don't want to come across as harsh on Andy's book, by a wide margin it is one of the best ones on the subject since Wolterstorff's.

Yes, Crouch's book isn't answering the 'what now?' question, but it's at least setting up people to answer that better than anything else I've read. Which is a good thing.

It is, but we are at a saturation point with this literature. There isn't too much that can be said beyond Crouch's book that wouldn't simply be reframing the issues he addresses in different terms. If I were to have to pick a book and say this is the state of the art, lets move the discussion on, I would be happy to have one of this caliber. I could easily see using this even in a home group setting.

Agreed. (And I think Crouch does too, running with the youth ministry analogy he uses in the prologue of Culture Making.) Someone needs to move to the next step and write something about it.