andy crouch & dave blanchard

Our guests are Andy Crouch, Praxis Partner for Theology & Culture, and Dave Blanchard, Praxis CEO & Co-Founder.

Praxis Partners Andy Crouch and Dave Blanchard discuss opportunities for redemptive action in the midst of our society's emergence from the "winter" of the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of a starkly K-shaped recovery.

In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, Andy and Dave proposed that we would likely face a "blizzard" of weeks to a few months, a "winter" of perhaps 12-18 months, and a "little ice age" of ripple effects in our economic and cultural lives that would last for years. 

Now, just over a year later, they discuss Andy's latest article from the Praxis Journal, “After the K-Shaped Recovery,” which was also a keynote talk at the 2021 Praxis Redemptive Imagination Summit on May 17, 2021. 

In this episode, Andy and Dave discuss the trajectory of the K-shaped recovery from the pandemic, in which parts of our economies and societies have boomed (generally speaking, those with the resources to absorb the blows of the blizzard, and the freedom to live and create value through digital work)—while other parts have suffered (smaller enterprises, those with fewer resources, and people whose work necessarily involves physical presence). What is the hidden toll on those on the "upper half" of the K, and what are some redemptive responses to this trajectory? More important, what opportunities do Christian builders have to heal and repair some of the fallout for those in the "lower half" of the K?

Andy and Dave also discuss bandwidth—literal and metaphorical—as a way of understanding how to rebuild trust and creativity with one another; the longstanding K-shaped patterns that seem to be features (not bugs) of many of our institutions; the loss of forgiveness as a cultural value, as well as our society's desperate need for more of it; and an invitation to embody the biblical call to Jubilee.