Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

Radical puts forth a message that is sadly absent in many churches today. If it was taught from our pulpits, many parishioners would hastily locate the nearest exit to begin their search for a more “comfortable” church.

At the time David Platt wrote this book, he was lead pastor of a megachurch in Birmingham, Alabama. He understands the culture of the American church: More people, bigger budgets, and grander buildings spell success. Yet, Jesus lived a simple life and spent the majority of his ministry teaching only twelve men. There was a definite disconnect between the two methods of spreading the gospel.

The author invites us on a journey that he himself is on. He admits that his questions outnumber his answers, but his goal is to “embrace Jesus for who he really is, not for who we have created him to be.”

In Radical, Platt compares the American dream with the teachings of Jesus. The dream is not all bad. Hard work, high goals, and freedom to pursue those goals are good things. But he points out two problems with it.

One problem is that we unknowingly accept the assumption that “our greatest asset is our own ability.” We celebrate what we can accomplish when we trust in ourselves. But Jesus says that without him we aren’t able to accomplish anything of value. “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

The other problem is the fatal goal we reach when we follow the American dream. When our own skills and ingenuity produce our accomplishments, we receive the glory. The goal of the American dream is to make much of us. However, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.

Platt says today’s American church has embraced the American dream mentality of self-sufficiency. We draw people in and keep them coming by building expensive facilities, assembling charismatic speakers and talented worship teams, and developing a plethora of programs. We do all this by our combined ideas and hard work, not realizing that our “success” is missing the Holy Spirit. By contrast, the church should be saying, “Yes, we work, we plan, we organize, and we create, but we do it all while we fast, while we pray, and while we constantly confess our need for the provision of God. Instead of dependence on ourselves, we express radical desperation for the power of his Spirit.”

We need God’s power for what we are here to accomplish, which is much greater than our own purposes. We weren’t created for a self-centered Christianity that ends with “God loves me.” Rather, “God loves me so I can make Him known among all nations.” (Matthew 28:19). Then Christianity centers around God.

Platt explores a couple of things that keep the American church from fulfilling its mission of spreading the gospel. One is the huge blind spot of materialism, which God began uncovering in his own life. He delves into the story of the rich young man in Mark 10. When Jesus told him to sell all he had and give the money to the poor, he wasn’t saying that wealth is inherently evil, but that it can be a barrier to seeing our need for God. Platt says, “Jesus was communicating to this man that there was nothing he could do to enter the kingdom of God apart from total trust in God.”

Nowhere in the New Testament are we promised material wealth for obeying God. Nor are we commanded to build huge places of worship like the temple Solomon built for God in the Old Testament. Rather, we are to be the temple, the place where God dwells, and take the gospel to the world.

Platt thinks another thing that keeps us from fulfilling our mission is that we each lean toward universalism in some way. Either we embrace it intellectually, believing that all religions are the same and we don’t need Christ to know God, or we believe Christ is necessary for salvation but we live our Christian lives silently while “4.5 billion people in the world today are without Christ.”

He takes the reader briefly through the book of Romans to see that all people are guilty before God (Romans 3:10-12), Christ is the only way to know God (Romans 3:21-22; 5:1; 10:9-10), and God has chosen to use his church to carry the gospel to people who have never heard of Jesus (Romans 10:13-15).

Though we find many contradictions between the American dream and the gospel, they have one idea in common. Franklin Roosevelt said if Americans believed their future would be better than the past, they would be willing to make hard sacrifices and postpone gratification. That sounds similar to something Jesus said: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). The author then asks the question, “Do we believe the reward found in Jesus is worth the risk of following him?”

The risk is indeed great. Jesus sent his disciples out to sick and despised people and into dangerous situations “like sheep among wolves” (Matthew 10:16). Paul said we were not only given the gift of believing in Christ, “but also to suffer for him” (Philippians 1:29). Platt says if you want “a safe, untroubled, comfortable life free from danger, stay away from Jesus. The danger in our lives will always increase in proportion to the depth of our relationship with Christ.”

However, our reward is “an eternal safety, security, and satisfaction that far outweigh everything this world has to offer us.” Our reward is God himself.

Throughout the book, Platt gives numerous examples of people from his church family who, following the leading of God, downsized their homes, sold their luxuries, or cut down their budgets to live leaner lives. They used the resulting extra money on mission trips and caring for the less fortunate. Lives were changed—those of others and their own. He also relates stories, many personal, of how God has worked in and through the lives of ordinary people who decided to take the words of Jesus seriously to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Platt doesn’t leave his readers wondering where to go from here. He presents us with a one-year challenge to test the claims in Radical and make them a reality in our lives. The challenge consists of five parts:

1. Pray for the entire world. – Pray that God will “send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:38).  (A useful tool is Operation World, a free online resource that provides detailed information on every nation and a prayer guide to help you pray for every nation in a year.)
2. Read through the entire Word. – We need our minds to be saturated with God’s Word so we can penetrate the cultures of the world with the gospel. (There are many Bible reading plans available on the Internet.)
3. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose. – Minimize luxuries for one year.
4. Spend your time in another context. – The author suggests dedicating at least 2% of your time (one week) to go outside of your home and city, either domestically or internationally.
5. Commit your life to a multiplying community. – If the lifestyles of the people in our church community are characterized by luxury, it is easy to accept that as the way we are supposed to live. Instead, we need the support and encouragement of like-minded people “to live out [our] intention to be radically abandoned to Jesus.”

Early in the book, David Platt wrote that when he realized Jesus rejected the things the American church considers important, he knew he was on a collision course with the church culture. He was faced with two questions: Was I going to believe Jesus? and, the more challenging one, Was I going to obey Jesus? Then he said something that continues to reverberate within me. “My biggest fear . . . is that I will hear Jesus’ words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to him.”

I confess that I am much too content in my little bubble, but I don’t want to walk away from Jesus’ words. I’m going to give this radical one-year challenge a try.

More resources to further the study of Radical, including books, podcasts, sermons, and links to other websites, are available at radical.net.

Feature photo by Denis Ngai from Pexels