Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream is a 2010 book by the American megachurch pastor David Platt. Radical critiques the cultural values behind the “American Dream”—seeking success in financial and social advancement—and instead directs readers toward a biblical vision of the Christian life, centered on sacrificial generosity and service. Platt developed the content in Radical into a parachurch organization (also called Radical), which seeks to equip the American Christian church to be active in making disciples of Jesus all around the world. 

This study guide references the original 2010 version of Radical, published by Multnomah Books.

Summary

Radical takes readers through a comprehensive case, arguing that values associated with the American Dream are drawn from modern, secular culture, not from the Christian Bible. Platt insists that if one is to live a well-ordered and obedient life as a Christian, one must conform to the shape of biblical values instead of allowing contemporary society to dictate one’s values. The American Dream, he contends, is inherently self-centered, focused on how to gain comforts, luxuries, material possessions, and higher social status. By contrast, Platt believes, the life of a faithful follower of Jesus should be God-centered and other-centered: giving generously, even sacrificially, and seeking to serve the global purposes of God even if it comes at great personal cost.

Platt includes anecdotes and illustrations from his many international trips in each of the book’s chapters. Many of these stories come from places where Christians are living in impoverished conditions or are persecuted by state officials. Platt also includes stories about famous Christian figures of the past—evangelists, missionaries, and ministry leaders—who exemplified a radical trust in God’s provision, even in the face of great danger and hardship. By contrasting the practices of historical Christians and Christians around the world with those of modern American Christians, Platt aims to shed light on the ways he believes American Christianity has gone awry.

The first third of the book, Chapters 1-3, introduces the broad contours of Platt’s argument that the Christian life should look radical and counter-cultural. Chapter 1 begins by reminding readers of the biblical call to costly discipleship (the practice of following Jesus). In the Gospels—the first four books of the Christian New Testament—the choice to follow Jesus is framed as a dangerous, difficult, and costly endeavor. The New Testament presents Jesus as someone for whose sake it is worth losing everything else. Chapter 2 exhorts readers to be attentive to the words of Scripture. American Christians, Platt says, should be just as hungry for the teaching of the Bible as Christians in other countries, who hike for miles and sit for hours on end just to hear the Word of God. To conform one’s life to biblical values, he believes, one must first know the Bible and integrate its teachings deeply into one’s life. Chapter 3 both challenges and encourages Christians to consider the way that American culture tempts them to rely on their own strength rather than God’s. Platt challenges this ideal of self-reliance, asserting that the biblical picture of the Christian life requires believers to lean upon God’s strength rather than their own power. To those who might feel like the call to costly discipleship is beyond them, Platt encourages them with a reminder that God’s power is available to them, working in and through them whenever they are engaged in God’s purposes for the world.

The middle third of the book, Chapters 4-6, advances Platt’s argument by highlighting the main areas in which American Christians can reorient their perspectives around biblical values: global engagement, missional involvement, and care for the suffering and impoverished. Chapter 4 traces out the biblical theme of God’s heart for the nations, showing how even the earliest narratives in the Bible depict God creating humanity with the intention that they fill the earth, bearing the image of God (humanity itself) to the farthest reaches of the globe. This theme is repeated throughout the Bible, and Platt contends that if one is to live an obedient Christian life, valuing what God values, then one must necessarily be concerned with the spread of the gospel to all nations. Chapter 5 follows on this argument, pointing out that Jesus specifically commissioned his followers to be actively engaged in this work of global mission. Christians must be a missional people, seeking to make God’s gospel and God’s glory known throughout the earth. Chapter 6 focuses on the need to care for the poor and the disadvantaged—another essential part of God’s purpose emphasized in the Bible that Platt thinks is too often forgotten in American Christianity. Here Platt directly challenges the materialism he sees as inherent in the American Dream, contending that the wealth in American Christians’ hands would be much better served by alleviating the suffering of those in need than by buying bigger properties and indulging in personal luxuries.

The final third of the book, Chapters 7-9, brings Platt’s argument to its conclusion with a rousing call for action. Rather than suggesting his readers merely consider the disconnect between biblical values and the American Dream, Platt actively challenges them to pursue a road of radical personal transformation. Chapter 7 underscores the importance of responding to this call, since God’s plan for the world will only be fulfilled as Christians become willing to play the part laid out for them. Chapter 8 offers an inspirational challenge, drawing on historical examples of famous Christian missionaries who answered the call of God even at great personal risk. Finally, Chapter 9 offers a practical plan to which readers can commit: following Platt’s “Radical Experiment,” and spending a full year in pursuit of specific practices which will align their values to biblical ideals and engage them in self-sacrificial acts of discipleship. Platt presents Radical not just as an ethical broadside or a convicting work of pastoral theology, but as a practical framework for transforming readers’ lives into a model of Christian discipleship patterned on the radical methods of Jesus himself.