Monday, December 27, 2010

Book Review: Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt

What if American Christians had a paradigm shift?  What if, instead of organizing our lives around the fundamentals of the American dream, we began to rearrange our lives according to the principles the Bible lays out?  What if an emphasis on sacrificial giving replaced our cultural emphasis on financial security?  What would the world think?  Would Christ’s love be more evident?  In Radical, David Platt raises these questions and more, and he invites American Christians to examine the ways in which we have allowed the American dream to revise the call Christ has placed on our lives.

I found this book to be challenging and thought provoking.  In what ways am I bringing the Gospel to the nations?  How am I sacrificing for the poor?  Am I actively engaging in redemptive community?  In the busyness of life, we too often can become complacent in our faith.  This book asks us to take a hard look at how we are “ to work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling”  (Phil. 2:12), instead of taking it for granted on a daily basis. At the end of the book,  Platt even includes a specific plan for recalibrating the direction of our lives. Especially as the new year approaches, this book has been a helpful tool, causing me to consider which characteristics I want to define my life in 2011. I definitely recommend this book.  

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.