READING REPORT:

David Platt's Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream

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RADICAL: TAKING BACK YOUR FAITH FROM THE AMERICAN DREAM

Introduction

A pastor of the Church at Brook Hills, David Platt's widely read book Radical examines the way American Christianity has manipulated the gospel to fit the prevailing culture and challenges the readers to rediscover the path. He provides the readers with the way Jesus and his followers lived and compares it with the realities of the Church thereby, highlighting the discrepancy that exists between them. This book is reviewed in this report with the review comprising of separate sections each for summary of chapters of the book, a critique, personal application and will conclude with a brief summary of the paper and some suggestions for further study.

Summary

The book's content is structured in nine chapters with the first three chapters concentrating on the attitude pervasive in the American Christian culture which he shows with examples, to be largely self-centered and self reliant. This he contrasts with the Christ-centered and self-denying way of life required to be led according to the gospels. In the first chapter, the focus is on radical abandonment. In this chapter he talks about how Jesus spend most of his time with only 12 men while today there are bigger crowds, bigger buildings (p. 2). He further asserts that following Jesus meant abandoning all other things which include the material possessions as well as our closest relationships and comforts. He states that it might be difficult to follow Jesus but not doing so has its own cost which means that if Christians do not help the poor with the money and possessions they have, it results in poverty, starvation and suffering of other people around the world. He cites examples of wealthy church members who sold their homes to help the poor and concludes by asking people to commit to believe and obey Jesus (p. 20).

The next chapter then analyses the understanding of the Gospel, God and who we are. He explains how much humans are unable to save themselves (p. 32) and argues that just acceptance of Jesus is not sufficient for the believer but He is the total need of the believer (p. 37). Chapter 3 then focuses on the power of God and contrasts it with the 'American Dream' where human power and abilities are considered to be the greatest asset and based on this belief, the success that people achieve is attributed to the strengths and abilities that an individual possesses which ultimately leads to his/her own glory and not that of God's. The author further asks believers to imagine doing things that only God can do so that they will realize the power of God and keep their dependence on God and on prayer (p. 60).

Chapter 4 and 5 are a description of God's purposes for His people and highlight how these purposes are supposed to be achieved. Platt makes the readers understand that restricting oneself to the notion that ...