For its cover story last month, Christianity Today published an article on contemporary Radicalism. The article struck me as controversial and provocative because it held out criticism of controversial and provocative people: David Platt, Francis Chan, and Shane Claiborne among others. The overall tone is quite critical of the icons and the culture of emerging Christian radicalism:
These teachers want us to see that following Christ genuinely, truly, really, radically, sacrificially, inconveniently, and uncomfortably will cost us…
The reliance on intensifiers demonstrates the emptiness of American Christianity’s language. Previous generations were content singing “trust and obey, for there’s no other way.” Today we have to really trust and truly obey. The inflated rhetoric is a sign of how divorced our churches’ vocabulary is from the simple language of Scripture.
And the intensifiers don’t solve the problem. Replacing belief with commitment still places the burden of our formation on the sheer force of our will. As much as some of these radical pastors would say otherwise, their rhetoric still relies on listeners “making a decision.” There is almost no explicit consideration of how beliefs actually take root, or whether that process is as conscious as we presume.
Or as dramatic. The heroes of the radical movement are martyrs and missionaries whose stories truly inspire, along with families who make sacrifices to adopt children. Yet the radicals’ repeated portrait of faith underemphasizes the less spectacular, frequently boring, and overwhelmingly anonymous elements that make up much of the Christian life.
I felt angry when reading it the first few times, mainly because it struck me as unfair. Unfair for levying a harsh criticism on people who both called for and demonstrated significant sacrifice. Â Unfair because it seemed like a defense of the status quo. Unfair because it did not offer anything in the author’s life as a vicarious and effusive counterpoint to the radical examples offered. Unfair because it did not celebrate the successful transformation and gospel-centered changes taking place in people’s lives. Unfair because I had chosen to live what many would call a “radical life” and felt similarly stereotyped and criticized.
However, in a more careful analysis, I see some points that are valid and some that need clarification. The best way to tease out these conflicting emotions and points are to lay them out this way: [Read more…] about On Christian Radicalism