Book Review: Radical by David Platt, Multnomah
Press, 2010
Radical is an
outstanding book critiquing American church culture from a Biblical
perspective. Platt, a “successful” mega-church
pastor, says: “I realized I was on a collision course with an American church
culture where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets and bigger
buildings. I was now confronted with a
startling reality: Jesus actually spurned the things that my church culture
said were most important. So…I found myself asking two questions: (1) Was I going to believe Jesus? (2) Was I going to obey Jesus?” (pp.2-3) Because
Platt’s book is so well written, the purpose of this review will just be to
highlight a few of his very provocative and insightful comments.
He says: “Always Jesus presented the high cost of being his
followers – “leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger,
self-preservation for self-denunciation.
In a world that prizes promoting yourself, they were following a teacher
who told them to crucify themselves” (p.12) Because we don’t want to believe this cost,
we rationalize these passages away… “Because
in America we have a dangerous tendency to misunderstand, minimize and even
manipulate the gospel in order to accommodate our assumptions and desires,…we
desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is
American and how much is Biblical” (p.28).
“The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the
American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability. The American dream prizes what people can
accomplish when they believe in themselves and trust in themselves…but here the
gospel and the American dream are clearly and ultimately antithetical to each
other...In the gospel God confronts us with our utter inability to accomplish
anything of value apart from him”(p.46).
“Jesus commands us to go. He has created each of us to take
the gospel to the ends of the earth and I propose that anything less than
radical devotion to this purpose is unbiblical Christianity... God created
humans for two purposes: to enjoy his grace and…to extend his glory to the ends
of the earth” (pp.64-65). [Yet] we live in a church culture that has a
dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God”…The
message of Biblical Christianity is not “God loves me, period” as if we were
the object of our own faith. The message of Biblical Christianity is “God loves
me so that I might make him, his ways, his glory, his salvation and his
greatness – known among all nations” (p.69).
It’s a foundational truth: God creates, God blesses and saves each of us for a
radically global purpose but if we are not careful, we will be tempted to make
exceptions” – i.e., I am not called to foreign missions. “We have unnecessarily and unbiblically drawn
a line of distinction, assigning the obligations of Christianity to a few while
keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all” (p.73).
We need to be “not receivers but reproducers of God’s Word” (p.101).
We are by nature receivers. Even if we have a desire to learn God’s
word, we still listen (to teaching from pastors/authors etc.) from a default
self-centered mind-set that is always asking: What can I get out of this?’ But as we have seen, this is unbiblical
Christianity. What if we changed the question whenever we gather to learn God’s
word? What if we begin to think: ‘How
can I listen to His Word so that I am equipped to teach this Word to
others?” (p.103). “God’s design for taking the gospel to the
world is a slow, intentional, simple process that involves every one of his
people sacrificing every facet of their lives to multiply the life of Christ in
others” (p.104).
“In our Christian version of the American dream, our plan
ends up disinfecting Christians from the world more than discipling Christians
in the world. Disinfecting Christians
from the world involves isolating
followers of Christ in a spiritual safe deposit box called the church
building and teaching them to be good, decent church members, decent citizens
but with a deaf ear to billions who haven’t heard his name” (pp.104-105).
Discipling Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to
risk their lives for the sake of others.
Now the world is our focus” (p.105).
“Our perspective on our possessions radically changes when
we open our eyes to the needs of the world around us…Scripture clearly teaches
that God intends our plenty to supply others’ needs. It is two radically different questions to
ask: (1) ‘What can I spare?’ or ‘What will it take?’ to meet the needs of the
poor?” (pp.128-29). “There are 26 thousand
children dying daily of starvation or preventable disease. As I see their
faces, I realize I have a choice – we can stand with the starving or with the
overfed” (p.140).
“If more than a billion people today are headed to a Christ-less
eternity and have not even heard the gospel, then we don’t have time to waste
our lives on an American dream.
Approximately 1.5 billion people (in more than 500 people groups) are
unreached or unengaged (no church or organization actively working within that
people group)…We need to take the gospel to them…This is a cause worth living
for. It is a cause worth dying for. It is a cause worthy of moving urgently on”
(p.159)…Will we risk everything – our
comfort, our possessions, our safety, our security, our very lives – to make
the gospel known among the unreached peoples? Such rising up and such risk-taking
are the unavoidable, urgent results of a life that is radically abandoned to
Jesus” (p. 160).
“To everyone wanting a safe, untroubled, comfortable life
free from danger, stay away from Jesus. The danger in our lives will only
increase in proportion to the depth of our relationship with Christ. Maybe this
is why we sit back and settle for a casual relationship with Christ and routine
religion in the church” (pp. 167-168).
Platt’s last chapter is what he calls “The Radical
Experiment – One year to a life turned upside down” (p.183). “The challenge is
for one year and it involves 5 components:
1.
Pray for the entire world, praying for laborers
in the harvest (Mt. 10) and praying audaciously for God’s purpose to be
accomplished around the world” (pp.187, 190).
2.
Read through the entire Word. (If you and I are going
to penetrate our culture and the cultures of the world with the gospel, we
desperately need minds saturated with God’s Word”p.191).
3.
Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose. (‘Notice I
didn’t say merely ‘give’; I said ‘sacrifice’...Sacrifice is giving away when it
hurts to give…Sacrifice is giving beyond your ability” (pp.193, 195). “Spend your money on something that is gospel
centered,…church focused …for a tangible, specific need…to someone or something
you know you can trust” pp.194-195).
4.
Spend your time in another context around the world (at
least 2% of your time which works out to a week a year pp.201-203).
5.
Commit your life to a multiplying community” (p.185). (We need community in order to follow
Christ radically. ..We will need the church to live in radical obedience to Christ.
We will need to show one another how to give liberally, go urgently and live
dangerously. When we sacrifice our resources for the poor and then face
unexpected and unforeseen needs in our own lives, we will need brothers and
sisters to help us stand” p.206).
Platt’s dream is that such “radical obedience to Christ
becomes the new normal” (p.216). Reviewed by M.L. Codman-Wilson,
Ph.D. 5/14/12
