Synopses & Reviews
"I think Dick Staub is right: the Christian community in the United States is at a crossroads. If we don't heed the voices of 'culturally savvy' and reflective leaders like Dick, our children and grandchildren will inherit forms of religion that are unworthy of their loyalty and commitment. But if we take these voices seriously, we could be on the verge of a new era of Christian faith, life, and missiongood for our churches, our children, and our world."Brian McLaren, author and activist (brainmclaren.net)
Our frenzied and fickle worship of vapid celebrities; ostentatious displays of wealth; and fake, plastic perceptions of human beauty speak volumes about the soulless nature of our contemporary culture. How can Christians buck the trend to both experience and create a rich, satisfying spiritual and cultural life in a spiritually, intellectually, and creatively impoverished age?
In his incisive critique of contemporary culture and religion, Dick Staub concludes that though it is influential, American popular culture is generally superficial (diversionary, mindless, and celebritydriven) spiritually delusional (moralistic, therapeutic, and deistic) and soulless (sustained not by art, craft, and ideas, but by the mad pursuit of profit propped up by marketing and technology). Similarly American Christianity has devolved into its own mindless, diversionary, and celebrity-driven superficiality.
Because humans are created in God's image with spiritual, intellectual, creative, moral, and relational capacities, we long for more, yet the true seeker faces the lose-lose alternatives of a soul-numbing culture and a vacuous Christianity-lite. The renaissance we need in both faith and culture will originate in a deep spiritual renewal that restores God's image in us and creates a new breed of culturally savvy, thoughtful creatives who rekindle the spiritual, intellectual, and creative legacy of Christians as enrichers of culture.
Review
"Dick Staub has written an engaging and provocative book needed in our times…His insightful critique of popular Christianity and his numerous quotes make it a good source for sermon material or a book discussion group. He provides us with ‘slow food’ for thought."
– The Rev. Canon Jonathon Jensen, The Living Church magazine (May 2009)
Review
"Dick Staub has watched from a unique vantage point as our culture—not least our Christian culture—has been sliding into more and more of a muddle and a mess. Now he offers a sharp, many-sided analysis of where we’ve allowed ourselves to get to—and a bracing, fresh prescription for how Christians can and should be leading the way through and out into a wiser, richer mode of being human. This is an urgent book for our times—and for our health."
—N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, England
"The most inspiring aspect of Dick Staub's book The Culturally Savvy Christian is his adamant belief that people of faith can rise from the grave of cultural obscurity to artistically and intellectually enrich our woefully superficial culture. It is a persuasive and hugely encouraging manifesto."
—David McFadzean, Hollywood writer and producer and co-creator of the television show Home Improvement
"Those of us who are not 'up close' to most of popular culture need and welcome guides through the mazes it represents. Through the years I have found Dick Staub to be an imaginative and reliable guide. He has a rather worked-out world view, which helps him make judgments, but listens patiently to other voices. Then he interprets, especially in ways that help young people—a generation often overlooked by leaders in communities of faith—to find meaning, direction, and vocation."
—Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago
"I've learned as much about what I call 'worldly Christianity' from Dick Staub as almost anyone on the planet—he's the apostle of earthy engagement, the high priest of Christian cultural criticism, the gracious guru of a spirituality that demands your hands be dirty and your knees be skinned before you're let in the door. Star Wars, The Matrix, The Simpsons, tomorrow’s paper—Staub finds grace in every image, turn, page, and notion."
—Dwight Ozard, (deceased) writer, pundit, speaker, and consultant to nonprofit ministries and NGOs around the world
Synopsis
People on spiritual journeys both in and out of the church have lost the memory of an authentic Christianity that understands and contributes to culture without being consumed by it. Award-winning broadcaster Dick Staub explains that for today’s Christian, the path to spiritual life and cultural influence lies in rediscovering Jesus and his call into the world. Jesus was a loving, transforming presence who called his disciples to follow him in a rigorous life that fully engaged mind, body, heart, and soul. The task of today’s Christians is to become people of deep faith while simultaneously going deeper in culture, engaging with mind, body, heart, and soul.
Staub forges a path for readers to find nourishment from a deeper well, and be serious about faith, yet savvy about their roles as creators of, counters to, and communicators in culture. While such followers of Jesus are committed to creating and enjoying culture, they play the role of “resident aliens,” very much a part of the world, but strangers and outsiders at the same time. They seek to imitate the Apostle Paul whose knowledge of popular pagan poetry allowed him to converse with biblically illiterate people, becoming an ambassador to the Greeks at Mars Hill. The Culturally Savvy Christianhelps readers develop a vibrant spiritual wholeness through thoughtful and critical engagement with the culture around them.
Synopsis
Praise for The Culturally Savory Christian"A provocative indictment of and suggestions for revitalizing both popular culture and the fallow state of Christianity in this country . . . "
—Kirkus Reviews
"Some Christians bemoan culture's vulgarities and believe that deepening ?faith requires us to withdraw into cocoons of Christian isolation and churn out happy-feely Christian art, but Staub warns us that this is not the way of Christ. Instead, he explains that like C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Dostoevsky, 'Christian artists are not bound to create religious art, but they understand that their exploration of everyday human occurrences is guided by their walk in faith.' The Culturally Savvy Christian encourages us to peer through the pop culture fog, dismiss the fluff, and reach for the life-changing, the thoughtful, and the meaningful."
—Image, A Journal of the Arts and Religion
"Dick Staub has watched from a unique vantage point as our culture—not least our Christian culture—has been sliding into more and more of a muddle and a mess. Now he offers a sharp, many-sided analysis of where we've allowed ourselves to get to—and a bracing, fresh prescription for how Christians can and should be leading the way through and out into a wiser, richer mode of being human. This is an urgent book for our times—and for our health."
—N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, author of Surprised by Hope
Synopsis
In The Culturally Savvy Christian--his incisive critique of contemporary culture and religion--Dick Staub concludes that though it is influential, American popular culture is generally superficial (diversionary, mindless, and celebrity-driven) spiritually delusional (moralistic, therapeutic, and deistic) and soulless (sustained not by art, craft, and ideas, but by the mad pursuit of profit--propped up by marketing and technology). Similarly American Christianity has devolved into its own mindless, diversionary, and celebrity-driven superficiality.
Because humans are created in God's image with spiritual, intellectual, creative, moral, and relational capacities, we long for more, yet the true seeker faces the lose-lose alternatives of a soul-numbing culture and a vacuous Christianity-lite. The renaissance we need in both faith and culture will originate in a deep spiritual renewal that restores God's image in us and creates a new breed of culturally savvy, thoughtful creatives who rekindle the spiritual, intellectual, and creative legacy of Christians as enrichers of culture.
About the Author
Dick Staub is an award-winning broadcaster, writer, and speaker, whose work focuses on understanding faith and culture and interpreting each to the other. He is the radio personality behind The Dick Staub Show, a nationally syndicated daily broadcast he hosted for fifteen years, and The Kindlings Muse podcast at www.thekindlings.com. His commentaries can be read regularly at www.dickstaub.com.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments.
Introduction.
Savvy.
1 The Popular Culture We Are In.
2 The Christianity We Are In.
3 The Story We Are In.
Serious.
4 God's Deep Presence.
5 God's Transforming Presence.
6 God's Loving Presence.
Skilled.
7 Countering Culture like Aliens.
8 Communicating in Culture like Ambassadors.
9 Creating Culture like Artists.
Epilogue.
Notes.
The Author.
Index.