GroshLink

What did you think about as you ate breakfast?  Theresa and I discussed Knitting as a cultural artifact. Why? 

With Andy Crouch's visit to Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ less than three months away (Sunday, April 19), Theresa and I have been regularly discussing material from Culture-Making. We've particularly appreciated Andy's Five Questions as a starting point for conversation regarding what it means for followers of Christ as individuals and a community to connect with the current form(s) of culture (Note: Andy defines culture as what we make of the world) and respond by creating and cultivating culture which reproduces the likeness of Jesus. How? By firmly embedding our way of life as the Body of Christ in the Biblical story and articulating this message with clarity in an age of pluralism/multiple cultures.

If you have thoughts to add to the conversation on Knitting as a cultural artifact, post some here and on Andy's page.  Also, if you're interested in discussing Andy's book on Culture-Making, drop me an email and stay tuned.  For those that would like to get a jump start, I have a ESN blog post on Culture-Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.

Culture is what we make of the world -- we start not with a blank slate but with all the richly enculturated world that previous generations have handed to us.  So when I go to the kitchen to make dinner or when a screenwriter sits down to write a script, the first requirement of us is that we be sufficiently acquainted with our cultural world.  To cook well I need to be familiar with the proper use of knives, the qualities of spices, the properties of stainless steel and cast iron pots.  I need to understand the culinary tradition I am joining -- am I making Italian or Chinese or Mexican food? --  Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Downers Grove, IL:  InterVarsity Press, 2007, p.73).