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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.

-[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”@ahc” suffix=””]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.[/inlinetweet]
-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.

-[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”@ahc” suffix=””]The many splendorness of God could never be adequately refracted into one gender or one cultural tradition. I actually need people from other cultures to help me grasp how incredibly various, and yet utterly one God is.[/inlinetweet]

-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.

-[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”@ahc” suffix=””]When you have power combined with fear, you exclude and you limit your encounter with others. That is the history of white Christianity in the United States.[/inlinetweet]

-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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