Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power is in print! It can be ordered in hardcover from Hearts and Minds Books or directly from the publisher, InterVarsity Press, where you can also buy a DRM-free eBook version. The Kindle edition is available now for Amazon, and the hardcover should be in stock at Amazon by the end of September.

With Playing God, Andy Crouch explores the subject of power and its subtle activity in our relationships and institutions. Giving more than a warning against abuse, Crouch turns the notion of “playing God” on its head, celebrating power as the gift by which we join in God’s creative, redeeming work in the world.

“In deft moves of integrating sound biblical theology with astute observations about culture, Andy Crouch wades into the immense topic of power—the powers, institutional power, cultural power, racial power—to offer the alternative Christian perception of power, a power that can be reshaped by the gospel about Jesus Christ, refashioned by love and reoriented by a new community called the church. In this book worldly power is deconstructed and replaced with a new kind of gospel power.”
—Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary

“It’s likely that most readers of this book will both possess more power than they realize and feel uncomfortable with the amount of it that they know they’ve got. This book holds keys to liberation. It illuminates that power is, foundationally, good. It offers 3D pictures of what power is for (flourishing) and what its right use looks like (creative image-bearing that expands our own and others’ joyful ‘meaning-making’). Crouch’s Bible-saturated teaching frees us from guilt and guides us in the active, humble and, importantly, essential calling to steward our power, thus helping us avoid the equal dangers of abusing our power and neglecting it. Playing God is a wise, deeply insightful, imaginative work; by heeding its lessons, Christians will be far more fruitful in their efforts to advance Jesus’ kingdom in our broken world.”
—Amy L. Sherman, author of Kingdom Calling

“Perhaps no question with such urgent life-and-death consequences is more poorly understood among Christians in our era than the stewardship of power; but gloriously, in Playing God, Andy Crouch provides the clarity we need in this once-in-a-generation work of sweeping theological and sociological depth. It is fresh, rigorous, profoundly helpful and a delight to read.”
—Gary A. Haugen, president & CEO, International Justice Mission

As a journalist, part of my job is to watch for change, and ask why that change is happening. There aren’t many changes more dramatic in American evangelicalism than the way its leaders have embraced the indispensable justice of immigration reform. How do you get to the point where more than 180 leaders and more than 10,000 people sign a statement of evangelical principles on immigration reform, and where 30,000 people sign up to be prayer partners in that effort?

I want to highlight three reasons for this remarkable consensus.

1) Evangelical Christians serve. They are involved in countless forms of service in cities and towns. And in those settings of service they directly experience the dignity and the needs of both documented and undocumented immigrants. And it’s both dignity and needs. This movement is not just driven by a sense of compassion for need, it is also driven by having been humbled by the dignity, commitment, and faith of immigrants.

2) Their churches and institutions have been enriched by generations of immigrants from every part of the world. A lot of pollsters like to break out the opinions of “white evangelicals.” But as you see from the group of leaders gathered here, one of the most remarkable features of evangelical Christianity in the United States is its ethnic diversity. [I venture to say that in any American city, if you look at churches founded in the last twenty years, the vast majority are evangelical or Pentecostal, and a great number are founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants.] And the more you are a leader in this movement, the more you become aware of the strength of that diversity and how much of it comes from recently arrived residents and citizens.

3) They have read, and been converted by, the Bible. They have seen how directly Scripture addresses the responsibility of nations to welcome and protect the most vulnerable: widows, orphans, and ‘strangers.’ There’s a reason the Evangelical Immigration Table could put together a 40-day prayer challenge featuring biblical readings on immigration: There are 40 days worth of material in the Bible on immigrants and immigration. A just and humane system for recognizing and welcoming immigrants is a biblical non-negotiable for any nation that wants to reflect the heart of God.

One of my other jobs is to tell stories. For three years I’ve led a project called This Is Our City, telling stories about ways that Christians are seeking the flourishing of their cities. Last year we were in Phoenix, and we produced a documentary film about Ricardo, who came to this country with his family as a young boy. He became a star football player in high school, and was offered a football scholarship to college, and it was only as he filled out the forms for that scholarship that Ricardo realized not just that he could not receive the scholarship with his current legal status, but that there was no obvious pathway to ever be recognized as an American, a citizen of the country he loves and considers his own.

Ricardo’s story is a moving story. (You can view it at bit.ly/ricardoct.) But seven years ago my predecessors at CT told another moving story about another Christian who wanted to come to America, named Maria. The context was an editorial supporting immigration reform. That was 2006. It has been seven years. The stories are just as moving, the cause is just as just—it’s time for action. And that is what we are hoping for in 2013.

2010 will mark several significant milestones in the globalization of Christianity. It is the hundredth anniversary of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, in many ways the high-water mark of Euro-American Protestant missions. It is also the year that the Lausanne Movement, whose initial congress in 1974 solidified the worldwide evangelical movement, holds its third Congress, this time in Cape Town, South Africa.

Lausanne’s Cape Town 2010 Congress will be dramatically different from either Edinburgh 1910 or Lausanne 1974. At Edinburgh there were no representatives at all of non-Western Christianity (Catholics and Eastern Orthodox churches were not present). Lausanne 1974 had an influential representation from what was then called the “Third World,” but they were decidedly in the minority. In Cape Town in 2010, the majority of the 4,500 delegates will be from the “majority world.” And the majority of those delegates will be paying their own way rather than relying on Western financial support. It’s a remarkable moment and worth celebrating.

Only a few hundred US citizens will be able to attend Cape Town 2010. For the rest of us, the Lausanne Movement is convening twelve conversations in twelve cities about major issues facing the global church. It’s an in-person version of the Global Conversation series I helped to launch at Christianity Today. I had the privilege of joining the conversation in Chicago in March, and on Wednesday 16 June I’ll be on the panel for the Orlando conversation. I’m not worthy to untie the sandals of my fellow panelists, who range from Catalyst director Brad Lomenick to Jesse Miranda from the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

You’ll have to be in Orlando to join that conversation, but tomorrow night (Thursday 10 June) the Global Conversation arrives at Saddleback Church in southern California, and it will be webcast live at 7 p.m. PDT. You can watch it here.

— Andy Crouch

We had a fabulous conversation about fiction, story, what helps artists create (hint: too much money is actually a bad idea), and how Christians can create excellent art of all kinds. Fortunately the conference call, sponsored by Wedgwood Circle, was recorded. If you care about art, writing, and faith, it’s absolutely worth an hour of your time. You can listen here (free registration is required). Enjoy. (I’m sure of one thing: by the end, you will want to read Carey’s new book when it comes out in July.)

—Andy

Nathan has since established his own production company, Fourth Line Films, which not only has continued to collaborate with Christianity Today and me on projects like Round Trip and The Global Conversation, but also created a documentary short on local food for HDNet and produced a fun short film on hog wrestling in uttermost Wisconsin—which you can view in all its glory below. Suffice to say his interests are impressively varied, just like this site!

In 2010 Nathan and I are exploring new ways to create media and experiences that build on Culture Making and my new work on creative power. We’ll be posting some short videos this spring from recent speaking engagements, and Nathan will join Nate, Christy, and me in spotting and sharing cultural creativity worth celebrating. Welcome, Nathan!

—Andy Crouch

Putting out an audio edition of a book like Culture Making is a real economic risk, so if you, like me, are happy to see the book available in this form, I encourage you to support christianaudio with a purchase of a copy (or two—pass one along to your favorite commuter, jogger, or [always in need of sermon inspiration] pastor).

Also, I’m very pleased that the Jesuit publishing house Sal Terrae has released the Spanish translation, Crear cultura: Recupar nuestra vocación creativa. Espero que este libro será útil para muchos en el mundo de habla español.

— Andy Crouch

Christy will be joining Nate and me for the next month—longer if we can persuade her to stay around—contributing her keen eye for cultural developments near and far, such as her first post, based on her personal experience with the Uyghur people of western China. As this picture of Christy dancing at a Uyghur wedding shows, her horizons of possibility are wide. Welcome, Christy!

—Andy Crouch

Also, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or (heaven forfend) tweet yourself, watch my Twitter updates later this week for some ways you may be able to participate in helping us explore the potential of social media to completely disrupt and undermine—er, I mean, um, create new participatory forms of engagement with—contemporary preaching.

—Andy Crouch

Another great interview was also posted this week by Graham Scharf, the co-founder of the innovative and helpful parenting site Tumblon. I’ve been pleased and surprised at how many people have picked up on the themes of family and parenting in Culture Making, and Graham had some great questions to take those ideas further. If you are a fan of Culture Making who is also a parent of young children, you will love and learn from Tumblon.

Finally, a cultural question to ponder: As good as some of my radio interviews have been, why is it that the very best ones have been podcasts—with a fraction of the listening audience?

Culture is changed when we create more culture. And for two and a half years, I’ve been working with some amazing friends and colleagues to change culture in a crucial area: the way the North American church does short-term mission trips overseas. The result is our brand new DVD Round Trip, a documentary film-based curriculum for short-term mission teams.

I’m incredibly proud of this project. I don’t think anyone has done this before: document not just an North American team going to Kenya, but a Kenyan short-term team coming to America. We got some of the best thinkers and teachers on the planet to give us deep insights into the best way to build lasting partnerships in short trips: Lisa Espineli Chinn, Tim Dearborn, David Livermore, Oscar Muriu, and Ruth Padilla DeBorst. We worked with two churches, Mavuno Downtown in Narobi and Chapel Hill Bible Church in North Carolina, who have learned deep lessons about partnership in mission, not least because of the leadership of a UNC professor named Jim Thomas who has founded an innovative nonprofit called Africa Rising.

Behind the scenes, I got to work again with Nate Clarke of Fourth Line Films and director of photography Jeffrey Pohorski (who both worked with me on Where Faith and Culture Meet), plus an amazing crew including a great Kenyan cameraman we met named Ken Oloo. And the soundtrack was produced by one of my musical heroes, Charlie Peacock. The Leadership Media Group at Christianity Today International created outstanding leaders’ and participants’ guides for short-term teams to use in the months before, and after, their trip.

If your Christian community is seeking to build deeper international partnerships, if you want short-term trips to be more than just “Christian tourism,” if you are curious about the promise and peril of the short-term trips that millions of Americans take each year—check out Round Trip, and spread the word!

—Andy Crouch

Culture Making was also second on Leadership’s “Golden Canon” for 2008 for “The Leader’s Outer World” (“a wise and bold call to fully live out our creational mandate”) and one of Relevant’s ten best books of 2008 (“a thoughtful, extremely helpful reality-check”). Earlier Publisher’s Weekly named it one of the best religion books of 2008.

Wow. Thanks to all the editors, judges, and most importantly readers who have given Culture Making such an enthusiastic welcome. May it inspire many more cultural goods, including even better books!

Culture Making is an exceptional book. It is a manifesto of sorts, challenging Christians to live differently in the 21st century than we have in the 20th. It is a clarion call to stop whining, to stop uncritically imitating and consuming, and above all to stop pretending that we are not part of the problems we perceive in “the Culture.” What would it take, he asks, for Christians to be known primarily as creators—“people who dare to think and do something that has never been thought or done before, something that makes the world more welcoming and thrilling and beautiful?” Great question! My hope and prayer is that this book might accomplish for a generation of young Christians what Walsh and Middleton’s Transforming Vision accomplished a quarter of a century ago—inspiring and motivating them to lead more faithful and culturally meaningful lives.

But even more unique and therefore valuable is today’s review of Culture Making by Guinness in Comment magazine from Cardus, who is (to judge by the accompanying photographs) a black Labrador of uncommon intelligence.

For all his enthusiasm, though, Guinness does make the strong case that the book falls short in one crucial respect:

Food is not just an adequate analogy for culture making; in fact, food is the highest form of culture making. If I were to ask you how you contributed to making culture, what response could possibly make me happier than if you said, “I prepare food”?

Fair enough. Many thanks to Karl and to Guinness (and whoever among his human pets helped to transcribe his review). Keep cultivating and creating!

Though aren’t there still two months left? Well, in any case, it’s a great honor.

Monday, 20 October—7:00 p.m.
Azusa Pacific University’s Homecoming 2008
Los Angeles Pacific Banquet Room
A talk about the essential ingredients of cultural creativity. For more information contact the office of Andrea McAleenan, +1 626 815-5327.

Tuesday, 21 October—6:30 p.m.
InterVarsity San Diego Division
UCSD Institute for the Americas
Part of IVCF’s “Everyday World Changers” event—an informative and inspiring evening about the role campus ministries play in cultural renewal. RSVP required online.

Wednesday, 22 October—7:30 p.m.
Pacific Crossroads Church Office
10351 Santa Monica Blvd. in Westwood
Dessert, fun, and conversation about “Christianity, Culture, and the Current Credit Crisis” with friends including Merrill Lynch’s Mary King. RSVP by email to Mary.

It’s an interesting notion. I started cataloguing the big creative projects I’ve worked on in my own life, and such as they are (I’ve not yet dreamed up a Google or something similar), they really do follow that pattern of 3:12:120.

Every one of us has a three in our lives. Look around you. They’re there.

Find them. And create something. Something small. Something huge. Something good.

Put it out there.

Make culture, rather than simply complaining or consuming it.

Become the poet who changes the world.