41 pages • 1-hour read
Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Someone Worth Losing Everything For”
Platt begins his opening chapter with a reflection on his ascent to prominence in pastoral ministry, billed as “the youngest megachurch pastor in history” (1). He felt uncomfortable, though, recognizing that while he seemed to be living the American Dream, finding success and speaking to crowds of thousands, Jesus had devoted himself to training just 12 men while turning away thousands more. Platt challenged himself to believe and obey the teachings of Jesus, even those that tended to drive crowds away from him. He states it as a straightforward, dichotomous decision: “You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us. Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible […]” (3).
Platt recounts several anecdotes from his trips to visit marginalized and persecuted Christian communities around the world, noting their all-out commitment to the faith. The teachings of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke match this sensibility, in which Jesus challenges prospective followers with the necessity of becoming homeless or leaving one’s obligations behind in pursuit of God’s mission. This concept strikes a very different chord than the normal American presentation of the gospel message, which presents coming to faith in Jesus as an easy and accessible thing. American Christians, he believes, have become too at ease with the idea of a comfortable faith. He gives the example of a church spending 23 million dollars on a cushy new facility while patting themselves on the back for donating 5000 dollars—a drop in the bucket compared to what they had spent on themselves—to aid the needy in war-torn Sudan. He believes that true Christian discipleship, by contrast, sees the need for radical self-renunciation, following the model that Jesus taught.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Too Hungry for Words”
This chapter begins with a return to one of the underground house-church scenes described in Chapter 1. The Christians there, though they are meeting in the sparsest conditions, want nothing more than to spend hours upon hours studying the Bible together and receiving teaching on the Word of God. This experience led Platt to create a special service at his megachurch, called “Secret Church,” which sought to replicate the conditions of underground churches in places of persecution, marked by long, quiet gatherings of reading Scripture together. This meditative practice, they found, was what they longed for—not the comforts of soft seats or the production values of worship bands. Their “Secret Church” services would often stretch well after midnight.
Platt sees this sense of hunger for the gospel as characteristic of authentic Christian discipleship, and a remedy for the prevailing confusion between American cultural values and biblical values. Diving deep into biblical teaching will help one understand the gospel’s message about who God is, who they are, and their sense of values will emerge from that picture: “This is the gospel. The just and loving Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent his Son, God in the flesh […] so that all who trust in him will be reconciled to God forever” (36). Platt challenges the customary evangelical language of “accepting” Christ as one’s Savior, contending that, on the contrary, the Bible presents humanity’s great hope in terms of God accepting them, not the other way around. God has reached out to them with radical acceptance, and so their proper response is to hunger and yearn for his presence even more deeply.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Beginning at the End of Ourselves”
One of the aspects of the American Dream that makes it problematic for Christian spirituality is its emphasis on self-reliance. “The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the American Dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability” (46). Platt points out that while cultivating one’s talents and abilities is important, the Bible calls Christians to put their trust in God’s power, not in their own. Apart from God, nothing that a Christian accomplishes will truly matter in life. Platt recounts an anecdote from a trip to Indonesia in which a ministry student saw a miraculous display of God’s power while in a disbelieving village, and, taking the opportunity, the student shared the gospel. The point was not the student’s abilities or power, but God’s, and it was on the basis of God’s work that the gospel presentation found success.
Platt also draws from the biblical account of Joshua and the battle of Jericho, in which victory would come not from the strength of Joshua’s army or military tactics, but by following God’s plan of marching around the city with trumpets. As absurd as the latter option seemed, it secured the victory for Joshua, because it showed reckless trust in God’s power: “This is how God works. He puts his people in positions where they are desperate for his power, and then he shows his provision in ways that display his greatness” (48). A similar picture emerges from the accounts in the biblical book of Acts, where the disciples find power to proclaim the gospel not from their own confidence or communication skills, but from the evident power of God working in their midst. Platt contrasts this with the modus operandi of many American megachurches, in which the presumption is that it requires many millions of dollars in facilities, programs, and staff to find success in ministry. He encourages his readers to look to other models beyond American church culture for inspiration, like George Muller, the 19th-century orphanage director in England who famously relied on God’s provision every step of the way. Since Christians have the promise of the Holy Spirit and the power of prayer available to them, they need nothing else and should commit themselves to trusting in God.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first three chapters of Radical set the stage for the development of Platt’s main theological points in the following section. In these opening chapters, he is primarily concerned with showing his readers an alternative vision of Christian discipleship, one that resonates with the teaching of Jesus in the Bible but that stands in sharp contrast to the assumed manner of Christian life in America. Christian discipleship is marked by an all-out commitment to Jesus which overrides all costs or consequences, by a hunger for God’s teaching in the Bible, and by complete reliance and trust on God’s power and provision. This foundational view of Christian discipleship will then be applied to the theological and practical points on which later chapters focus, to see how a biblically-oriented Christian life would take part in God’s missional plan for the world and God’s care for the impoverished.
The opening chapters also establish Platt’s literary style. Since he is a preacher by trade, his prose tends to bear the marks of a rhetor. These include variable sentence lengths, with short, punchier sentences to highlight the importance of a given point and longer, multi-clause sentences to demonstrate the depth and richness of the point. Platt also frequently uses stories and anecdotes as memorable examples of the points he is making, drawing both from his own experiences and from leading characters in Christian history.
These chapters also offer the initial expression of Radical’s main themes. Platt’s Critique of the American Dream features prominently from the very beginning, with the first page of the book relating Platt’s reflection on attaining, at a young professional age, the “American church dream” (1). He then quickly contrasts this with the condition and attitude of Christians in other countries, whose lives are marked by an all-out obedience to Jesus even in the face of great suffering. By pointing the finger at himself in the first instance, Platt positions himself as equally implicated in his critique of the American Dream alongside other American Christians, attempting to project a sense of solidarity rather than pedantry or paternalism. He continues elaborating on the theme through the following chapters, and in Chapter 3, he offers one of the book’s most in-depth examinations of the ideology behind the American Dream, from its initial articulation in the 1930s to the way it colors the perceptions of American Christians in the 21st century.
Platt uses the first chapter of Radical to establish his understanding of Discipleship as Costly Obedience, underscoring the necessity of following the example and teachings of Jesus even if it requires great personal sacrifice. Platt establishes this theme by drawing on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 20th-century German theologian and a martyr under the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer’s classic book, The Cost of Discipleship, reflects on the disjunction between the costly grace of Jesus presented by the New Testament and the “cheap grace” which Bonhoeffer saw many contemporary churches offering. By rooting his theme in a well-known and widely respected classic exposition of the nature of Christian discipleship, Platt can present it with an added level of credence in the eyes of his audience.
Platt’s third theme, that of The Global and Missional Context of Christian Faith, finds its initial expression in these opening chapters, but the book’s full articulation of this theme will not come until the next section. In the first three chapters, this theme is most noticeable in Platt’s choice of anecdotes. In each chapter, Platt grounds his argument in his own experiences of observing the life and practice of majority-world Christians. This pattern is especially noticeable in Chapter 2, where Platt takes the example of persecuted Christians in other countries as the model for what American Christians’ practices of Bible study should look like, even going so far as to establish a series of “Secret Church” services back in his megachurch in Alabama. While Platt has not yet made the full case for considering the global context of the Christian faith, it is already implicit in the way he presents his examples and anecdotes in these opening chapters.
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