Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life - Softcover

Fujimura, Makoto

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0830845038 ISBN 13: 9780830845033

Publisher: IVP, 2017

Synopsis

• 15th Annual Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year - Culture

• Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year Award of Merit - Culture and the Arts

"Culture is not a territory to be won or lost but a resource we are called to steward with care. Culture is a garden to be cultivated." Many bemoan the decay of culture. But we all have a responsibility to care for culture, to nurture it in ways that help people thrive. In Culture Care artist Makoto Fujimura issues a call to cultural stewardship, in which we become generative and feed our culture's soul with beauty, creativity, and generosity. We serve others as cultural custodians of the future. This is a book for artists, but artists come in many forms. Anyone with a calling to create―from visual artists, musicians, writers, and actors to entrepreneurs, pastors, and business professionals―will resonate with its message. This book is for anyone with a desire or an artistic gift to reach across boundaries with understanding, reconciliation, and healing. It is a book for anyone with a passion for the arts, for supporters of the arts, and for "creative catalysts" who understand how much the culture we all share affects human thriving today and shapes the generations to come. Culture Care includes a study guide for individual reflection or group discussion.

About this title

About the Author:

Makoto Fujimura is an internationally renowned artist, writer, and speaker who serves as the director of Fuller Theological Seminary's Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts. His books include Refractions and the award-winning Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering.

Review:

"For Makoto Fujimura, caring deeply for souls is a way of life. Through his magnificent paintings, profound essays, and wider leadership with organizations like the National Council on the Arts and the Brehm Center at Fuller Seminary, Fujimura quietly and consistently nurtures artists and the people who love them, both inside and outside the church. In this life-giving book, he cultivates practices that help us honor God by caring for the soul of our culture." (Philip Ryken, president, Wheaton College)

"In his generous and inspiring work Culture Care, artist Mako Fujimura suggests that our common culture is not a territory to be captured, but a garden to be cultivated, needing the nourishment of creativity, community, connection, and the generation of beauty. It is a grace-filled call to beat swords into plowshares and take up the work of tilling our common garden." (Cherie Harder, president, The Trinity Forum)

"What kind of culture do we wish to live within, and how do we get there from here? This is the core question addressed in Culture Care, a book suffused with kindness and generosity. It is a book that goes beyond imagination to generation. It suggests and exemplifies ways of being that can help to create well-being. What is the opposite of a vicious cycle―a cycle benevolent, humane, and self-potentiating? We need a term. We need it to name the effect that this wise book can have if we read it, share it, live it." (Robert Schultz, writer, artist, John P. Fishwick Professor of English, Roanoke College)

"With much compassion and courage, Makoto compels us to take our calling seriously to care for and cultivate the cultural soil in which we reside. He encourages us to view culture care as a biblical alternative against the prevalent culture of anxiety and scarcity. This is a posture every follower of Jesus should nurture to embody the gospel." (Mark Raja, designer, cofounder of Integrated Arts Movement, Bangalore)

"Culture Care is a beautiful and powerful work of art, and it is about much more than culture, art, beauty, and aesthetics; it is about nothing less than what it means to be human. We all have a spirit that is thirsty for culture, as do societies at large. This book serves up a powerful warning about what happens when that thirst is not quenched; given the state of the world today, I can only hope that everyone in a leadership position reads, rereads, and ponders what he or she can do to care about culture, and actively so." (John C. Bravman, president, Bucknell University)

"While serving with Mako Fujimura on the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, I often experienced his soft-spoken words. When Mako spoke, I wanted to listen because his words brought insight and meaning. The same is true of this book. As I read Mako's words, I listen, allowing them to leave imprints of wisdom on my heart." (Adair Margo, Tom Lea Institute, El Paso, Texas)

"My friend Mako Fujimura is one of the most thoughtful, sensitive, and eloquent artists of this generation." (Eric Metaxas, New York Times bestselling author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)

"Mako offers helpful insights not only for artists, but for all partners in culture care. His acknowledgment of the importance of addressing brokenness, creating safe spaces for sharing journeys, and truth telling reflects an appreciation of the relational and transformational power of engaging in culture care. While the reader could be overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of the challenges, Mako inspires us toward meaningful action. A wonderful contribution!" (Alexis Abernethy, professor of psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary)

"When I first opened up Culture Care one night in Taipei and began reading, I knew that it was an important and essential work for today's artists. As I read, the book kept opening up like a flower of revelation. It helped define for me what I have been doing for a long time: culture care. I never had a word for it before. It has also helped me see myself differently as an artist. Culture Care gives the artist dignity and purpose, something that the church and society never gave me. The church never acknowledged art as a worthy vocation with a godly purpose, and society never fully recognized me either. So that's where I've always lived and worked―on the outside. But we are not alone and we are right where we belong!" (James Elaine, artist and curator)

"The valuable lessons and insights in Culture Care are essential to reformation, renewal, hope, and subsequently the restoration of our culture and communities to wholeness. Mako captures what really matters in life: glorifying God in all aspects of our lives and our communities." (Mike Brenan, state president, BBT, trustee, The Trinity Forum)

About this edition

• Publisher: IVP
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0830845038
• ISBN 13: 9780830845033
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160