The first time I came across the term “culture maker” was on the cover of the September 2008 issue of Christianity Today. The cover story was titled “The New Culture Makers” followed by this description, “From inner-city little leagues to modern art initiatives, more and more Christians are making something of the world.”
Andy Crouch is a Christian writer and author of the book “Culture Making: Recovering our creative calling.” In his book Crouch encourages Christians to engage their cultural surroundings by creating cultural goods. In other words Christians are called to use their resources and creative abilities to impact our broken culture in a positive way and make a difference in the world.
Crouch’s approach to the non-Christian culture made me think about the flip side of things. What about the Christian culture? Christian culture is just as vulnerable to decay as the world’s culture. Spiritualism, ecumenism, humanism, and other cultural “isms” can do a lot to break up Bible-based Christianity. Unfortunately the decay of Christian culture goes largely undetected. Much of the reason is the readily accepted belief that all Christianity is fundamentally the same and that Biblical differences are really minor and don’t matter.
But what if they do? What if those differences end up contributing to an overall weaker and less effective form of Christianity? I believe this would grieve the very heart of Christ who laid all on the line to give us an unblemished and uncompromised picture of the nature of God and His kingdom.
I love Crouch’s approach to the non-Christian culture because it passionately embraces one of the fundamental principles of Christianity- to reach out and make a difference. Just like a culture maker is someone who makes something of the world, a CCM is someone who looks out for the world around them but most importantly the spiritual kingdom they belong to.
Andy Crouch is a Christian writer and author of the book “Culture Making: Recovering our creative calling.” In his book Crouch encourages Christians to engage their cultural surroundings by creating cultural goods. In other words Christians are called to use their resources and creative abilities to impact our broken culture in a positive way and make a difference in the world.
Crouch’s approach to the non-Christian culture made me think about the flip side of things. What about the Christian culture? Christian culture is just as vulnerable to decay as the world’s culture. Spiritualism, ecumenism, humanism, and other cultural “isms” can do a lot to break up Bible-based Christianity. Unfortunately the decay of Christian culture goes largely undetected. Much of the reason is the readily accepted belief that all Christianity is fundamentally the same and that Biblical differences are really minor and don’t matter.
But what if they do? What if those differences end up contributing to an overall weaker and less effective form of Christianity? I believe this would grieve the very heart of Christ who laid all on the line to give us an unblemished and uncompromised picture of the nature of God and His kingdom.
I love Crouch’s approach to the non-Christian culture because it passionately embraces one of the fundamental principles of Christianity- to reach out and make a difference. Just like a culture maker is someone who makes something of the world, a CCM is someone who looks out for the world around them but most importantly the spiritual kingdom they belong to.
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