Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

Platt opens his chapter with an anecdote about a Sudanese acquaintance, Bullen, who surprised Platt by vowing to make an impact for God’s kingdom by making disciples of all nations—this despite Bullen’s lack of any worldly resources. Platt commends Bullen’s example, holding it up as the correct view of obedience to Jesus’s model of ministry. Rather than seeking the most efficient means of reaching vast multitudes through large budgets and expansive ministry programs, Jesus simply committed to living with a small group of followers and teaching them his ways—i.e., making them his disciples. Jesus made an astonishing gamble with the progress of his gospel, entrusting it into the hands of ordinary people, who are called to go out and multiply themselves by training other people how to be Jesus’s disciples too.

In his final instructions to his followers, Jesus told them to go to all nations and make disciples, baptizing people and teaching them his commands. These three commands of Christ for how to make disciples—go, baptize, and teach—are constitutive of the whole ministry method of the New Testament. Platt uses anecdotes from his time in New Orleans to illustrate each point, beginning with the way that he went into the streets of the inner city to follow Jesus’s command to “go,” despite the challenges there. He notes that the command to baptize implies a connection with a wider group of Christians, as baptism is a rite of entering into the fellowship of other disciples in the church. Finally, Christians are also called to teach—not to be mere receivers of biblical instruction, as Platt says so many American Christians see themselves, but to be reproducers by passing on that instruction to others. This view presents Christian life and holiness not as “disinfecting”—that is, not simply avoiding sin—but of discipling, actively going out into the world and passing along the message of the gospel to others, obeying the commands of Christ.

Having established the global scope of Christian concern, Platt moves to one of the main practical counsels in Radical: considering how to live a life of radical generosity. True Christian discipleship not only cares about sharing the gospel with others, but also about relieving the suffering of impoverished people. Giving generously is not what saves a person from  sin—only Christ can do that—but it provides necessary evidence of one’s salvation and transformation to align with his priorities. As Platt argues: “If there is no sign of caring for the poor in our lives, then there is reason to at least question whether Christ is in our hearts” (110). This, Platt contends, is one of the current blind spots in American Christianity, where biblical values have largely been forgotten and no longer appear as part of the ordinary Christian’s sensibilities. But the teaching of Scripture and the contrast between American resources and global impoverishment are both too clear to ignore.

Platt draws on two biblical stories to make his point: the parable of Lazarus and the rich man from Luke 16, and Jesus’s interaction with the rich young man in Mark 10. In the first instance, the parable tells the story of a rich man who never cared for a suffering beggar at his gates, and in the afterlife, the rich man was in torment while the beggar received the consolations of eternal rest. In the second instance, Jesus tells a rich man that if the man truly wants to follow Jesus, he should sell all his possessions and give the money away. While Platt does not over-extend these stories to apply to all Christians in every condition of life, he does point out the stories’ emphasis that riches, far from being always a blessing, can be a dangerous obstacle to one’s spiritual growth.

Platt advises his readers to commit to a fiscal discipline modeled by the 18th-century evangelist John Wesley. Early in his career, he decided he only needed a certain income upon which to live, and that he would donate all the surplus above that amount to charity. He kept this discipline even when his income eventually rose multiple times beyond his set level. American Christians, too, would do well to consider what they need in order to meet their financial obligations and provide for their families, and to consider the remainder not as a fund for buying luxuries, but as a surplus entrusted to them for the relief of the impoverished. “You and I both have a choice,” Platt writes. “[…] We can embrace Jesus while we give away our wealth, or we can walk away from Jesus while we hoard our wealth. Only time will tell what you and I choose to do with this blind spot of American Christianity in our day” (140).