In our final of three interviews focused on the Christian’s response to social justice, our attention turns to one of my favorite interview subjects - Andy Crouch. Andy is the author of the fantastic new book, Culture Making - a much needed treatise for the intersection of faith and culture. He’s also director of the Christian Vision Project for Christianity Today.

I’ve interviewed Andy twice now and each time is drinking from a mental fire hydrant and you come away refreshed and challenged by what Crouch comes up with. This time was no different than the first as he discusses the warnings for those of us charting toward the waters of social justice.

Matt: What’s the balance for counter-cultural movements with their work toward social justice and the mainstreaming of those movements?

Andy Crouch: I think we have to recognize that the mainstreaming of alternative movements is a continual process in American culture since the 1960s. It’s been happening for a long time, so it’s not that new. It’s just the latest version of it now, where something that begins as even very consciously outside the mainstream is adopted for commercial purposes.

I think it’s really double-edged sword. Here’s the positive thing about it: to the extent that social movements that become part of a profitable enterprise, they are much more scalable than they are when they’re not-for-profit. Because a not-for-profit is always have to replenish its resources, whereas a profitable enterprise has found a way to provide something that’s of sufficient value for people that it can actually grow from the generation of excess income. In a way, I celebrate the fact. When anything becomes mainstream enough that people can make money doing it [Laughs]…

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In our continuing interview series concerning issues of social justice and the Christian response, we give the microphone to International Justice Mission and specifically Bethany Houang, Director of the IJM Institute. IJM is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. And Bethany joined the organization in 2004 after graduating from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Bethany recently was kind enough to take some time out for me to ask her much of the same I asked Brian McLaren in last week’s interview. My goal was to gain a better understanding of what God is doing in the world and how we should or shouldn’t be a part of it.

Matt: What do you think of the new wave of social justice, carbon footprint, etc?

Bethany: The thing that’s really important to us is that there is this new movement, particularly in the way of people becoming more passionate about justice issues. To us, that’s been fantastic. It’s something that hasn’t been on the radar as nearly as strongly as past decades, particularly in a Christian culture. To see that on the radar is extremely important. But the reason we think it’s important is that even though it feels like it’s something to us now, something novel, it’s always been eternal to the heart of God. So it’s amazing to see that things are beginning to happen. So even if it’s new to us, there are people who have been suffering in the dark places in our world for a long time, for generations, and they are ready to be free from their suffering. The body of Christ around the world has exactly what we need to tend to their sufferings and to free them. So it’s a very good thing for us to become newly acquainted with God’s passion for justice.

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