For today's entry in the Friday Five interview series, we catch up with Andy Crouch.
Andy Crouch is the executive editor of Christianity Today, where he was the executive producer of This Is Our City. His most recent book Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power is available now.
Today we chat with Andy about being timely and timeless, power, and trustees.
You recently finished the This Is Our City series with Christianity Today, highlighting restorative work spearheaded by Christians in urban areas. Were you satisfied with the impact of this series?
This Is Our City has been one of the highlights of the last few years for me, most of all because of the people we got to meet from all walks of life who are seeking the flourishing of their cities. It was an amazing tour of the Body of Christ at its best, in all its diversity, and we came away with a great set of stories that we plan to keep sharing.
I suspect the greatest impact, honestly, was on our team and CT itself. We met with almost 2,000 leaders face to face over the course of the project—far more than we had expected at the beginning. We were blown away, actually, by people's eagerness to meet with us, and to meet one another. There is amazing institutional and entrepreneurial energy in the local church committed to particular places.
Very few of the folks we met with are "national" leaders or figures, the kind you hear about on blogs or social media. I suspect that it's almost impossible to have a national platform and real local influence at the same time.
But what we tried to do in this project was amplify what is happening in particular places, and to set a new standard for what it means to be the church in a city—to be people who are committed to the common good, in the public domains of business, government, education, health care, and so on. And now we have hundreds of stories about what that looks like in every kind of city across North America. I'm thrilled that we got to do it.
CT recently underwent a significant redesign online and in print. What was the motivation behind this effort?
The essential motivation was to say to people who aren't yet our customers that something exciting is happening at CT. There were some big changes at CT last year. Terumi Echols became publisher, we promoted Katelyn Beaty to managing editor, and Mark Galli and I moved into new roles of editorial leadership. Ultimately magazines (like everything else worthwhile) are really about people. But the first impression people get of our work and who we are comes from design, so it was important that the design look as fresh as the team behind it.
Our design director, Gary, and I were committed to a pretty big shift in CT's look. We asked our outside firm, Metaleap, to give us something that was in no way trendy or faddish but was excellent and current. And we love the result. As a type lover—if I can get geeky for a second—I'm delighted that our two principal typefaces (Periódico and Calibre) were both designed in the last ten years, yet they both have a classical depth and balance that makes them timeless at the same time. That's a great picture of what any serious magazine ought to be: timely and timeless.
The question any print magazine has to answer these days is, why would anyone pay for this when there is so much information available for free? I think the only worthwhile answer is to create something sufficiently beautiful and useful that it is truly valuable, and thus valued. I think this design has that quality. We'll see whether our potential customers agree!
Your latest book, Playing God ventures into what you might call the "third rail" of evangelicalism, the idea of power. It seems we are afraid of power—is that due to so many examples of corruption and tyranny?
Evangelicalism inherits the legacy of dissenting churches that were disenfranchised (by choice or by others' force) from their culture and the more established churches, and folks who found themselves in a minority position. It's also a movement that has always leaned towards individualism and away from institutionalism, for better and for worse. So it's not surprising that power is a topic that has seemed distant or downright dangerous for many evangelical Christians. Power is what Rome or the Church of England had in the 18th century, or the mainline Protestants had in the twentieth century, or "the culture" has today—not something "we" have.
But I've discovered that almost no one really thinks they have power. Everyone can quickly come up with a list of people who are more powerful than they are. And this can become an excuse for not being accountable for the power we do have. I think it's time for us to be more honest in owning the fact that we have power.
It's easier to do that when you come to believe, as I argue in the book, that power is not the same thing as violence and domination. Power is meant for flourishing, and especially the flourishing of the vulnerable—and in fact, the vulnerable do not flourish unless others exercise power. This is true for every single one of us, by the way, not just the poor—because all of us were babies. Every human being has been and will be vulnerable; and every human being, created in the image of God, has power that can be used for the flourishing of others. With that perspective, it's not something to be afraid of, but something to be accountable for.
This is a particularly difficult issue for church leaders to deal with. Seems we lean more, today, toward flat models of leadership, toward the casual identification with the common man. Are we missing something?
I have no problem with flat organizations—they can work to empower a much wider range of people than hierarchical, bureaucratic ones. But I am not so sure "casual" is something we should aspire to if we are serious about flourishing. Flourishing requires intentionality, and "casual" implies not trying hard—or trying hard to look like you're not trying hard.
I'm pretty struck by the fact that the most influential new Christian nonprofit of our time is International Justice Mission (IJM), founded 15 years ago. IJM's dress code is not casual, and it's not "business casual"—it's downright formal, like an old-school law firm or the White House. Everyone wears suits to the office, every day. And yet when you go to IJM's Global Prayer Gathering, where a couple thousand people gather to spend a whole weekend praying for their work around the world, you are surrounded by college students and emerging adults who are incredibly eager to be part of IJM's work. The idea that people are looking for laid-back, casual environments, per se, seems to me quite dubious. I think people are looking for integrity and seriousness about the kingdom of God. Something worth dressing up for, you might even say.
So while I don't think I'm a very hierarchical sort of leader, I have no reluctance in admitting that I am a leader in particular contexts. And what comes with that is accountability. What matters about my leadership is whether people are flourishing because of my leadership. It's easier to address that question when neither I nor the folks I lead are somehow trying to pretend that I don't have power.
If you could offer one piece of advice to an emerging pastor or church leader about the use and abuse of their power, what would you say?
I would say, you need trustees in your life—people you can trust to hold you accountable to your power. Those cannot just be people who are dependent on you in some way—you need people who are not beholden to you and who are willing to speak truth to you.
This may sound like a crazy parallel to draw, but at the turning point of his earthly ministry, Jesus left the crowds and most of the disciples, taking only Peter, James, and John, and went up on a mountain—and there he met with Moses and Elijah. Luke tells us they spoke of "his departure which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31). The Transfiguration is the moment when Jesus sets his face for Jerusalem, for the greatest sacrifice and suffering of his life, the greatest use and risk of his power. And he doesn't go into it alone. He is surrounded by a community—both his forebears and his own closest followers, though of course the latter group don't really get what's happening—who equip him for the perilous journey he's about to undertake.
On the one hand, none of us are going to undertake a mission like Jesus', the immortal embracing mortality, the Messiah losing everything at the hands of Rome, and so on. But on the other hand, if you are a Christian leader you are an alter Christus, one who names the name of Jesus and calls people to take up their cross and follow him. To do that with integrity you will need friends in high places, if I can say that without being flippant—people who will strengthen you for the ministry you are called to, and equally importantly discern when Satan (as Jesus calls Peter just hours after the Transfiguration in Mark's account) is trying to distract you from your calling and the suffering that comes with it.
Daniel Darling is vice-president of communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Activist Faith.
