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The Native Tourist
reformed/biblical observations on Christianity and culture

Tuesday, September 02, 2008
More on Culture Making
the book by Andy Crouch.

Review by Gideon Strauss in Books & Culture

A thorough and fairly critical review by John Seel

Seel's lambasts Crouch for his failure to emphasize the role of institutions in culture-making. Instead, following the approach I largely espouse, he focuses on how individuals can and should get culturally involved. I think that this small-scale, local approach at the present cultural circumstances, makes the most sense.

I suspect that the way one views culture has a lot to do with the macro vs micro approach. If you see culture in terms paintings, novels, poems and ravioli, the micro/local approach makes sense - it doesn't take much to get started in making faithful Christian culture on this scale. But if you see culture in terms of movies and ipods, individuals - even rich individuals - can't cut it. These kinds of cultural artifacts need institutions to make them.

Of course this is not an eithor/or situation but a both/and. Though in the near term the local option seems to be the smarter play.