More reading
On this page you’ll find the full bibliography for Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, plus other books relating to Christian faith and cultural creativity. The books I especially recommend are in the “must reading” section below.
My airline never fails to say, as we taxi off the runway at our destination, “We know you have a choice when you fly.” Well, you have a choice when you buy books, and I’d like to put in a plug for Hearts & Minds Books, a family-owned business in central Pennsylvania. Ordering from Hearts & Minds is a bit less streamlined than the e-commerce wizardry of Amazon, but your book almost always arrives just as quickly, hand-packed, and (if you choose) with a simple receipt, trusting that you’ll pay upon delivery. Best of all, Byron and Beth Borger, the proprietors of Hearts & Minds, are exceptionally thoughtful Christians who have been advocating for cultural creativity for decades. Their knowledge of books and ideas is unparalleled. They won’t just sell you a book, they will introduce you to a world—and their recommendations are likely to be a lot more trustworthy than Amazon’s will ever be.
As if the inherent excellence of their service weren’t enough, Hearts & Minds will give all Culture Making readers 20% off any book listed below. Just request the Culture Making discount on the order form.
To be sure, Amazon’s e-commerce wizardry makes the following list much easier to maintain, so the links below do go to Amazon (and provide a bit of support to culture-making.com). But I urge you to take the extra time to click on the Hearts & Minds logo and order there (for which I receive nothing at all except the joy of supporting a great small business). You’ll get to know actual people who love Christ and are cultivating and creating something very worthwhile.
— Andy
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Must Reading
Stewart Brand (Penguin, 1994)A delightful study of cultural change, adaptation, and stability.
Ronald J. Heifetz (Belknap, 1994)One of the best books in a crowded field, and the source of much of my thinking on power reflected in chapter 14 of Culture Making.
Dorothy L. Sayers (Harper & Row, 1941)A supremely important book on creativity in the image of the Trinity.
N. T. Wright (Fortress, 2003)Volume three of Christian Origins and the Question of God. It is unwise to skip the first two volumes, but if you can only read one, this is the one to read.
Rodney Stark (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997)A fascinating by-the-numbers study of the growth of early Christianity—and its effects on the culture of the Roman Empire.
Robert Farrar Capon (Doubleday, 1969)Quite simply an extraordinary work of cookbook theology—and the inspiration for the cultural analysis of omelets.
Albert Borgmann (University of Chicago Press, 1984)I cannot overstate my intellectual debt to Borgmann and his work, and this volume, though dense, is the best introduction.
Richard J. Mouw (Eerdmans, 2002)A short and sweet reading of Isaiah 60 and the cultural vision of the Bible.
Andy Crouch, executive producer (Zondervan/The Christian Vision Project, 2006)Not a book, strictly speaking, but six provocative sessions on Christians creating a “counterculture for the common good” in very different cultural contexts. A great way to introduce your group to the responsibility—and the possibility—of local culture-making.
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Bibliography
Kenneth A. Myers (Crossway, 1989)One of the best contemporary books on popular culture.
Paul Johnson (HarperCollins, 2003)
David Brooks (Simon & Schuster, 2000)A fine specimen of “comic sociology,” which also pays homage to the Gryphon Café.
John C. Bogle (Irwin, 1994)Fifteen years later, there may be more up-to-date books on investing, but this book has been conclusively vindicated in its basic argument that you cannot beat the market.
N. T. Wright (InterVarsity Press, 1999)A marvelous short introduction to Wright’s penetrating thought on biblical and contemporary themes.
Richard J. Foster (HarperOne, 1989)
H. Richard Niebuhr (HarperSanFrancisco, 1951)The lectures that made “transforming culture” the watchword of mainline Christianity, and eventually evangelicalism as well.
Stewart Brand (Basic Books, 2000)Fascinating reflections on the time scales of cultural change.
Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat (InterVarsity Press, 2004)While they may somewhat overplay how large the Roman Empire looms in Paul’s thought, this is a provocative reading of the cultural import of Christian faith in the midst of the world’s powers.
Albert M. Wolters (Eerdmans, 2005 [1985])An especially helpful and influential study of our cultural calling.
Dick Staub (Jossey-Bass, 2007)Focuses on popular culture in particular and calls us to be “aliens, ambassadors, and artists” within it.
T. M. Moore (Brazos, 2007)Takes a historical approach, highlighting the exemplary figures of Augustine, the early Celtic Christians, John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper and Czeslaw Milosz.
D. Michael Lindsay (Oxford University Press, 2007)No one has documented the rise of evangelicals to cultural power more thoroughly and insightfully than Lindsay.
Kelly Monroe Kullberg, ed. (InterVarsity Press, 2007)
Kelly Monroe Kullberg (InterVarsity Press, 2006)
Gregory A. Boyd (InterVarsity Press, 1997)Offers a less sunny reading than the one found in Culture Making of Genesis 1 and the theme of divine conflict with the causes of chaos.
Robert C. Neville (University of Chicago Press, 1968)Defends the idea that there is an ex nihilo quality to human creativity.
Gary Haugen (InterVarsity Press, 1999)The first of several books that have documented the extraordinary story of International Justice Mission.
Michael Eugene Wittmer (Zondervan, 2004)An excellent, accessible introduction to the present and future value of human vocations.
Shane Hipps (Youth Specialties, 2006)A terrific reflection on the implications of communication technologies for the church.
Terry Eagleton (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000)
Neal Stephenson (Avon, 1999)A provocative meditation on technology, and theme parks.
Craig S. Keener (InterVarsity Press, 1994)This commentary, and Keener’s work in general, is especially strong on the cultural background of the Bible.
N. T. Wright (Fortress, 1997)Volume two of Christian Origins and the Question of God.
Abraham Kuyper (Eerdmans, 1943)The famous summary of the cultural vision of the Dutch theologian and statesman.
J. Richard Middleton (Brazos, 2005)A helpful summary of current scholarship on the first chapter of Genesis.
N. T. Wright (Fortress, 1992)Volume one of Wright’s indispensable series Christian Origins and the Question of God.
Deborah B. Haarsma and Loren D. Haarsma (Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2007)A judicious treatment of the complex questions of reconciling Genesis with the evidence from cosmology and evolutionary biology.
Paul D. Hanson (Harper & Row, 1986)Helpfully explores the role of exile in the formation of the communal identity of Israel.
Albert Borgmann (Brazos, 2003)A valuable work by the philosopher of technology that makes explicit contact with Christian concerns.
Norman R. Petersen (Fortress, 1985)Although it wears a certain amount of postmodern skepticism on its sleeve, this book is an impressive and provocative exploration of the many ways that Paul intervenes to “change the world” that both master and slave, as well as the whole Christian community, inhabit.
Jeremy S. Begbie (Baker Academic, 2007)One of the best entries in Baker’s generally excellent “engaging culture” series.
J. Mark Bertrand (Crossway, 2007)A recent book that pays close attention to living out, rather than merely cogitating upon, a Christian worldview.
Mark Joseph (Broadman & Holman, 1999)One of the first books to give voice to many artists’ disillusionment with Contemporary Christian Music’s parallel artistic universe.
Peter L. Berger (Anchor, 1967)“Every human society is an enterprise of world-building.” Berger’s book provides much of the theoretical background for the opening chapters of Culture Making.
Ronald J. Sider (Baker, 2005)Sider has been critiqued for conflating nominal evangelicals with those who are deeply involved in church communities. Still, his summary of Christian cultural accommodation is alarming.
Christian Smith, ed. (University of California Press, 2003)A penetrating study of the ways that the secularization of once distinctively Christian institutions was accelerated by financial incentives and changing alignments of power.
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (Doubleday, 1966)Further background on the influential theoretical work of Peter Berger.
Randall Collins (Harvard University Press, 2000)A monumental and cross-cultural study of cultural change which suggested many of the underlying themes of chapter fifteen of Culture Making, though I am not as sure as some that Collins’s conclusions apply to arenas of culture far from the rarefied climate of scholastic philosophy.
Dallas Willard (Harper & Row, 1988)Perhaps the most enlightening of the many excellent resources available on spiritual disciplines.
Robert McKee (ReganBooks, 1997)Love him, hate him, or make fun of him, you can’t do screenwriting (or, in the age of visualcy, any kind of popular writing) without him.
Jeremy S. Begbie (Cambridge University Press, 2000)A marvelous work of theology and musicology.
Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown & Co., 2000)Mavens and connectors and salespersons, oh my!
Nancy Pearcey (Crossway, 2005)A definitive book by one of the leading proponents of worldview thinking, with an all too brief section titled “Living It Out” at the very end.
Alan Wolfe (Free Press, 2003)Wolfe has an axe to grind, and his conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt—but they are sobering nonetheless.
Brian J. Walsh and J. Richard Middleton (InterVarsity Press, 1984)
J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh (InterVarsity Press, 1995)
Marva J. Dawn (Westminster John Knox, 2003)Marva Dawn is an important theological interpreter of Albert Borgmann, especially in this book.
David K. Naugle (Eerdmans, 2002)A valuable and thorough history of the term.
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Other Writing by Andy Crouch
Philip Zaleski, ed. (Houghton Mifflin, 2005)Includes my essay “The Emergent Mystique.”
John Wilson, ed. (Jossey-Bass, 2003)Includes my essay “We’re Rich.”
John Wilson, ed. (Jossey-Bass, 2005)Includes my essay “Omit Unnecessary Words.”
Leonard I. Sweet, et al. (Youth Specialties, 2003)Five very different takes on emerging culture and postmodernity, interwoven with comments and responses, from some of my favorite writers and pastors in American Christianity. Michael Horton, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Brian McLaren, Erwin McManus, and me, with a special Leonard Sweet bonus track.
Tim A. Dearborn and Scott Coil, eds. (Baker, 2004)Includes my column “Amplified Versions” and one of my favorite pieces from the 1990s, “A Humbling Experience: Contemporary Worship’s Simple Aesthetic.”
Alison Siewert, Andy Crouch, Matt Frazier, Sundee Frazier, and others (InterVarsity Press, 1998)