Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power

The executive editor of the magazine Christianity Today follows his groundbreaking book, Culture Making, with a study on the idea of power and how it drives our relationships and lives. If our understanding of the term “power” is shaped by the world’s definition, which often carries a negative connotation, we will fail to recognize that it was intended to be a gift from God to help us make something of the world. Broken into four parts focusing on biblical stories about the creation of power and where it will lead, the book also offers personal experiences and examples from modern culture to show that power, as we think of it today, isn’t how it originally was intended by its divine designer. How are power and idolatry related? What can we learn from powerful people in our business culture like Steve Jobs? How can a Christian in power be a good steward and use it to help solve injustice in the world? These are just a few of the questions that readers will ponder from Crouch’s deeply layered study. The wide-ranging allusions and references from the Cornell and BU grad who served as a campus minister at Harvard might lose readers who are less well-read. Agent: Kathryn Helmers, Creative Trust. (Nov.)