Culture is what human beings make of the world, and the only way to change culture is to create new culture, according to Andy Crouch in his book Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. The title makes the subject matter seem fairly dull and academic, and the author does not disappoint. Nonetheless the average rating given on Amazon.com has five stars, suggesting that only the academically gifted manage to read enough of the book to post a review.
In order to make culture, Crouch says, it is necessary for people to share goods; a single person cannot make culture in isolation. Culture is something which is continually changing. We can choose to condemn culture, but our condemnation will have little effect unless we offer an alternative. We can choose to critique culture, but that in itself does not create change. We can choose to copy culture, but that results in no positive change. We can choose to consume culture selectively and strategically, but that has only a minor effect. The only way to effect major change is to create culture.
In the 20th Century, the American elites quickly embraced secularising European culture, and the mainline Christian denominations accommodated the Christian faith to the prevailing cultural trends, but when the cultural trends moved on, those denominations began to crumble. Fundamentalists withdrew to a position of condemning culture; other Christian movements took to critiquing culture, copying culture or consuming culture. However it is only by creating new culture that Christians can hope to gain significant influence.