Pass The Mic: Andy Crouch
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Jemar and Tyler are joined by Andy Crouch. See below for some of Andy’s highlights and quotes from this interview.
–At 48 yrs old, I still feel like I’m finding new depth and beauty and coherence and truthfulness in the gospel. I’m not getting bored — at all.
-Power, in both in its intended goodness & its real world corruption, is about the image of God, or the failure to bear the image of God.
-Genuine cultural diversity was always intended by God from day 1…or day 6. Human beings were always meant to spread out.
-The languages are created at the point to enforce the diversity that would have resulted if we just have been obedient in the first place.
-The thing about cultural distinctiveness is it confers genuine creative power.
-Culture is all these things that give us a place to be ourselves in all of our fullness.
-I am concerned when one part of the body says to the other, “I have no need of you”, especially those with power or privilege who say to those who have less of those things: we don’t need any connection, or feel what they feel, or know what they know or learn what they’ve learned about the reality of God.
-Injustice is a social system where some people have authority without vulnerability at the expense of others having vulnerability without authority.
-Every community feels vulnerable, even the very very powerful.
-We’ll never be ready for the hardest thing that’s going to happen in our life in leadership, but we can be prepared. And the way to be prepared is to die daily in our own life of prayer, in our deepest, most lasting relationships, to just constantly be dying to self.
-The call of Christians is to be so deeply prayerful, that we respond with creativity, rather than just reaction. I think all the arts, literature, and poetry are really important. One of the most powerful witnesses when we can make is to do something beautiful and excellent.
This is why rap and spoken word poetry are so important to the thriving of urban and minority communities, because they are a rescuing of language and an elevation of language to extraordinary levels of creativity.
-We should be asking what type of businesses we should start. We need every ounce of creativity on the planet to figure out how to employ men in ways that are dignifying to men.
-I’ve gotten pushback from Christians because I’ve said I’m not proud to be an American. When are Christians allowed to describe themselves as proud? I’m amazed that people find that controversial or unsettling.
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Andy is executive editor of Christianity Today. He serves on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. His work and writing have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing. In his 2016 book Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing, Andy Crouch continues the compelling exploration of faith and culture found in his previous books Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power and Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.
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Art Denney
I’ve listened with great interest to this podcast. In fact, I’ve listened to it five times, and will listen to it many more times. Mr. Crouch spent about 10 minutes masterfully detailing the events leading up to the Evangelicals without Color (EwC) aligning themselves with the Republican Party, and the unintended results.
Then, Mr. Crouch, in an effort to “balance things out,” spent a whole minute sharing the following about Hillary Clinton, “Her whole political career has been about minimalizing vulnerability – maximizing her authority.” He did present the unintended consequences of the illegal server in Hillary’s basement. I’m guessing Mr. Crouch realized that time was extremely limited, which would eliminate his ability to expound how Hillary is unfit for the office.
Mr. Crouch stated, “We didn’t have a choice between an idolatrous candidate or a non-idolatrous candidate. We just had two very different temperamental versions of authority without vulnerability. And those were our major party options for 2016.”
To paraphrase Mr. Crouch’s position, the ExCs have bowed down to the Golden Elephant in an effort to maintain power and to obtain the passage of moral laws. The end-result is the ExCs have lost power, and did not obtain the passage of moral laws as they had hoped.
To follow this Mr. Crouch’s position to its logical conclusion, Evangelicals of Color (EoCs) have bowed to the Golden Donkey in order to obtain equality. Sadly, the EoCs did not obtain equality with the dominate culture, but they did obtain equality amongst themselves. Based on the statistics in “Divided by Faith,” EoCs continue to share equally in poverty, sub-standard, government controlled housing, and failing government schools.
It seems to me that the other political parties are not much better than the elephants or the donkeys. We could worship the Libertarians’ Golden Dove of World Liberty, or we could worship the Golden Solar Panel of the Green Party. Both parties express distain for coercion, yet they ignore the fact that because man is not basically good, coercion (i.e. laws designed to control anti-social behavior) is mandatory. And both parties are more than willing to exert coercion to get their way.
While the elephants and the donkeys expect their followers to worship the party and the party representative; the doves expect their followers to worship man; and the solar panels expect their followers to worship the earth.
So, what options do Evangelicals (using the Biblical definition as one who proclaims the Good News), regardless of color, have?