{"id":756,"date":"2011-07-20T16:38:54","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T16:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/takeandread\/?p=756"},"modified":"2011-07-20T16:38:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T16:38:54","slug":"radical-together-challenging-words-for-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/takeandread\/2011\/07\/radical-together-challenging-words-for-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Radical Together: Challenging Words for the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

[Editor\u2019s Note: <\/em>This post is part of a conversation on the new book, <\/em>Radical Together, by David Platt. \u00a0Visit the <\/em>Radical Together Book Club at Patheos here<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Serious pursuants of God or spirituality in any form must never forget that we live in what may be the most spiritually dangerous culture in history. The potent brew mix includes materialism, an addiction to convenience and comfort, emotions and feeling driving us through life instead of real thinking, virulent narcissism and a dumbing down of the entire culture as expressed through the shallow preoccupation with celebrity culture, cheap fame and overexposure through electronic media in all forms. We become consumers of books, CD\u2019s, videos, downloads. All these \u201clife-changing\u201d things\u00a0 end up being just another media unit sold, another chip. Homogenized to a puree in the whirl of frantic schedules and poured up inside the mile high walls of the American navel, they all taste the same and we\u2019re too busy groping for the mouse to click up the next online seminar to notice.<\/p>\n

David Platt, in Radical Together<\/a><\/em>, writes more than a sequel to his best selling book Radical<\/em>. He writes as a pastor in the trenches of a rather large church in a very churchy subculture. He didn\u2019t start this church, as many innovative leaders do, but led it through some hard changes. He speaks with genuine humility and strikes one as somebody we would enjoy eating hummus with. But he reaches out from every page to poke me on the sternum \u2013 and I didn\u2019t like that. My self-centeredness got power sanded at every turn and the grinder had six different grades of grit.<\/p>\n

First, every church tradition, habit, favorite program and pet project must be \u201cput on the table\u201d to see if all the things we like about church really might be blocking what God really wants to do. And Platt doesn\u2019t delegate this to a study group. He suggests that God Himself waits to tell us.<\/p>\n

David Platt goes on to say that we have misunderstood the Gospel. Understand that he speaks largely within the evangelical camp. Selling this to evangelicals is like telling Dairy Queen that they don\u2019t understand ice cream. He presses the case that this thing called salvation does not give us license to put in once a week appearances in a pew for forty or fifty years then go to heaven where we eat fried chicken forever with Vestal Goodman with nobody clogging their arteries. Neither does it provide the club we bash our own heads in with because, no matter how hard we work or how much we do, we aren\u2019t doing enough for God.<\/p>\n

Platt next uncorks a nasty secret; that is, people who say they believe the Bible don\u2019t always really believe it. I just bought Bibles for high school graduation gifts. Both were bound in gorgeous leather with names beautifully engraved. They should be plastered with large red hazardous material stickers. The sheer power of Scripture to engage, transform and bring us to awe has eroded among us. We \u201cpunch it up\u201d to make it relevant, dull its edges by contemporary interpretations appropriate for our time, bend and twist a.k.a. Circus Soleil to make Scripture fit our beliefs, politics, etc. And we strike subliminal nonverbal contracts agreeing not to make each other feel guilty for doing these things. His telling of Secret Church nights at his place will either evoke something deep inside or make you close the book.
\n
\nNext, he challenges who should be doing ministry, the grunt work in souls. The American model puts a kink in Jesus\u2019 parable of the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:30-37) Churches hire seminary or college trained Samaritans (pastors and\/or staff) to monitor ditch activity in case we fall in or want to know about someone else who did. Our busy schedules never get derailed and we give the appearance of Christian caring. Platt grieves over how we have deceived and cheated ourselves of joy, purpose and all those things that the faith promises but somehow eludes us. Jesus\u2019 hand picked choices to change the world sit inside our own shirt collars.<\/p>\n

Christianity has counter cultural woven into its genes; it expresses through culture but stands against everything dead within it. That\u2019s what makes it alluring to outsiders. That\u2019s what gives it force to change and shape history. That\u2019s what produces enemies and crucifixions. What we call the Christian faith has been so marinated and soaked in the greasy shallowness of the world around us that we look like them. We\u2019ve lost the joy and our proper beliefs transform no one and nothing. A friend in Belfast, Northern Ireland, commented that church and political leaders can make all the pronouncements and sign all the agreements they want. But arms still get broken in the middle of the night. Evil and hate will not be legislated from the human heart or appeased with weak naive religious clich\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

I began to follow Jesus Christ during the Jesus Movement in the sixties and seventies. I learned faith without buildings or bulletins. I grew good roots and drew good fire in the belly lasting to this day. As the belly is bigger, I assume the fire is too. I\u2019ve driven getaway cars for 450 lb. \u201cmooners\u201d and looked into the eyes of people who, failing in past hanging attempts, asked me, \u201cDoes God understand why I can\u2019t wear anything tight around my neck?\u201d I never though of myself as being \u201cradical\u201d. \u201cOut-of-the-box\u201d or \u201ccounter cultural\u201d simply describes healthy vibrant Christianity wherever it\u2019s found. It only seems radical when we\u2019ve cooled off and bent our knees to the wrong gods. And we\u2019re not gracious or happy when this is exposed.<\/p>\n

I must warn you about the discussion questions. In most books, these are lame throw-ins. As we encounter the stories in here (and there are lots of them) and then work through these things in a group, we will be forced to be more deeply honest and vulnerable about our spiritual lives than maybe we\u2019ve ever been. Or we will have to lie to others and to ourselves. Nobody who goes cover to cover with \u201cRadical Together\u201d will forget what it tastes like. Will it be a sweetness we embraced at whatever cost or bitterness suppressed but still dry on the palate?<\/p>\n

David Swartz pastors Bethel Baptist Church in Roseville, Michigan. He thinks that jazz is sacred music, that books are better company than most people, and that university towns rock.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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