Resources for Wisely Engaging Culture
2008 October 30
The issue of how to engage the fuzzy issues of culture came up last night in our Partners Class. How should Xns respond to the so-called ethical “gray areas”? In order of most to least accessible, here are a few resources to help you cultivate cultural discernment:
Articles
- Start using this cultural continuum.
- v.Culture by yours truly.
Journals/Magazines
- First Things
- Gospel & Culture Project
- Check out Ransom Ministries and their thoughtful magazine Critique which is free by request/donation.
- The Other Journal
Accessible Books
- All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes (Ken Myers) – don’t let the lame title fool you. Myers is the producer of Mars Hill Audio, an audio journal that robustly addresses matters of faith and culture. This book provides a concise biblical theology of culture, followed by a medium is the message approach to cultural engagement.
- The Culturally Savvy Christian: A Manifesto for Deepening Faith and Enriching Popular Culture in an Age of Christianity-Lite by Dick Staub
- Culture Makers (Andy Crouch) – excellent stuff. Main thesis is that we need to focus less on transforming culture and more on making good, true, and beautiful culture.
Academic Books
- Everyday Theology. The first chapter is worth the book. See short review here.
- Read Niebuhr’s classic Christ and Culture.
- I am slow to recommend D.A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited. It is unnecessarily dense and confusing in places, but his thesis is excellent–how should biblical theology help us rethink Niebuhr’s categories? See my blog reviews of the book here.
- Translating the Message by Lamin Sanneh.
- Trilogy by David Wells
So was Crouch’s book pretty good? I heard a podcast interview with him, and it caught my interest.
I haven’t read all of it, but so far I like his emphasis. Christians should create culture, not transform it. Contrary to the emphases of Crouch and Carson, I still think redemptive, transformative approaches to culture are positive and to be encouraged.
Some of Crouch’s exegesis is lacking, but his cultural insight is great.
Do you know of any links to quality reviews of Crouch’s ‘Culture Makers’? I live in South Africa and so it’ll be a while until I can get my hands on a copy of the real thing.
Sure. Here is a critical review. Also check out the forthcoming review in Critique: http://www.notesfromtoadhall.com/
I’d recommend the David F. Wells corpus: No Place For Truth; God in the Wasteland; Losing Our Virtue; Above All Earthly Pow’rs; The Courage to Be Protestant.
Those certainly are great, but less about how to engage culture and more an engagement, wouldn’t you say? Does Wells lay out his cultural hermeneutic in any of those? I can’t remember.
Yea, I agree. But they are helpful by example. He does give a nice biblical account of “world” in No Place For Truth.
thanks. I’ll look at that again.
correction: the discussion on world is in God in the Wasteland, p 37.