BOOK REVIEW: David Platt’s "Radical Together"

Last updated on: April 12, 2012 at 2:55 pm by Carl Gregg

BOOK REVIEW: David Platt’s "Radical Together" 2012-04-12T14:55:49-04:00 Carl Gregg

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

(David Platt, Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God, 2011, 165 pages.)

I have previously reviewed Platt’s earlier book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. That review is available on my blog, and to avoid repetition, some caveats made there about the differences between Platt’s more conservative theological orientation and my own more progressive stance are presumed for this review.

Platt structures his latest book around six convictions. The first is “The Tyranny of the Good: One of the Worst Enemies of Christians Can Be Good Things in the Church.” I couldn’t agree more with this premise. First, there is an important distinction to be made between “church building” (strengthening the institution of the central building where the church meets) and “kingdom building” (building the Beloved Community through acts of mercy like feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned). Platt puts particular emphasis on the need for long-term “disciple-making,” not just conversion of new Christians (8). I would also add, regarding the “tyranny of the good,” that I have learned from Ignatian Spirituality that a critical skill for Christian maturity is discerning between the “good” (those tasks that need to be done, but that are not necessarily tasks to which God is calling or equipping me or my group to do) and the “better/best” (those tasks that God is particular calling and equipping me or my group to do). Spending your time doing “good” things that you aren’t called to do can keep you from getting to the “better part” and can, indeed, be a devastating “Tyranny of the Good.”

Platt’s second conviction is “The Gospel Misunderstood: The Gospel that Saves Us from Work Saves Us to Work.” Here I’m reminded of the distinction of “freedom from” and “freedom for.” We are freed from work’s righteousness, but we are also freed to choose to incarnate God’s work of love. Otherwise, we slip into what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.”

Conviction three is that, “God Is Saying Something: The Word Does The Work.” At this point, Platt risks falling into bibliolatry, “idolatry of the Bible.” At the most extreme, bibliolatry is confusing the Bible for God and basically making the Bible a god. At a lesser extreme, bibliolatry is making the Bible something it isn’t. We need to be clear that the Hebrew Scriptures represent some of best written theological reflections of the people Israel, and that the Christian Scriptures represent some of the best written theological reflections of the early church. But there are also some distressingly low points and unhealthy theological reflections scattered throughout the Bible — such as the parts that encourage violence, disparage women, or justify practices like slavery. All these theological reflections that were eventually incorporated into the book we call the Bible were written and edited over many centuries, in many different places, and for many different reasons.

We should also be clear about our “canon within the canon” — that is, the places in scripture that we highlight and use the interpret other passages in scripture, and conversely the passages that we deprecate or ignore. For Platt, his “canon within the canon” are passages like “Romans 3, John 3, Philippians 1-2, and 1 John…” (45). Curiously, none of what Platt lists as “foundational texts” come from the Gospels! In other words, he seems often to read the Gospels through Paul and the other epistles. In contrast, I seek to read all of scripture through the lens of what Jesus called the two “Greatest Commandments” (to “love God” and to “love neighbor”) as a touchstone of scriptural interpretation.

Conviction four is “The Genius of the Wrong: Building the Right Church Depends on Using All the Wrong People.” Here I’m reminded of the old adage that God “equips the called, but doesn’t call the equipped.” Thus, Jesus didn’t call his first followers from the learned and powerful, but from the poor and marginalized. That’s good news for all of us imperfect people in the church and outside the church.

Conviction five is “Our Unmistakable Task: We Are Living — and Longing — for the End of the World.” At this point, Platt and I strongly diverge. I am much more in line with New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan’s position that the end of the world is not coming “soon, violently, and literally. The Second Coming of Christ is what will happen when we Christians finally accept that the First Coming was the Only Coming and start to cooperate with its divine presence.” Crossan calls this distinction the difference between “apocalyptic eschatology” (the end of the world is coming) and “collaborative eschatology” (God is always calls with us to partner with God to repair the world). We are the ones we (and God) have been waiting for.

Finally, Platt writes of “The God Who Exalts God: We Are Selfless Followers of a Self-centered God.” For a second time, I found myself scrawling an emphatic “NO!” in the margins of the book. This view seems to me to be precisely wrong. We humans may be narcissistic, but, as we grow spiritually, we are called to become as self-giving as God — a process the Eastern Orthodox call theosis or divinization. God is not self-centered, nor is God a giant projection of our narcissism in the sky — paging Dr. Freud and Dr. Feuerbach!

To close with an example of an alternative perspective, I look to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, one of the most brilliant, gifted, and thoughtful theologians of our time. He writes:

Grace, for the Christian believer, is a transformation that depends in large part on knowing yourself to be seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted. The whole story of creation, incarnation, and our incorporation into the fellowship of Christ’s body tell us that God desires us, as if we were God, as if we were that unconditional response to God’s giving that God’s self makes in the life of the Trinity. We are created so that we may be caught up in this; so that we may grow into the wholehearted love of God by learning that God loves us as God loves God. The life of the Christian community has as its rationale – if not invariably its practical reality — the task of teaching us this: so ordering our relations that human beings may see themselves as desired, as occasion as of joy.

(Rowan Williams, The Body’s Grace: The 10th Michael Harding Memorial Address*, now reprinted in Charles Hefling, ed., Our Selves, Our Souls and Bodies (Boston: Cowley Press, 1996), 56-68; here, 59. Quoted in Cunningham, 299. This address is available online at* http://www.igreens.org.uk/bodys_grace.htm.)

This review is part of the Patheos Book Club. Visit the website for more reviews, discussions, interviews, and excerpts.

Book Reviews

Previous Post

August 16, 2011

REVIEW: "The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom"

Next Post

August 17, 2011 There Was No Historical Adam and Eve

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Anti-Racism Archaeology Atheism Baptism Best of the Year List Book Reviews Buddhism Catholicism Christian Education Church and State Church Planting Climate Change Conscientious Objection to War Creation Spirituality Death Penalty Didache Disability Rights Discernment Easter Ecology Emergent Church Movement Empire-Critical Ethics Evolution Feminist Theology Film Reviews Gandhi Gospel of Mark Gun Control Hinduism Immigration Reform Interfaith Islam JFK Judaism Jungian Spirituality Lectionary Commentary Lent Letters to the Editor LGBT Marriage MLK Multiculturalism Mysticism Nonviolent Activism Occupy Paganism (Earth-centered Religions) Parables Paul Pluralism Politics Process Theology Quantum Physics Requiescat In Pace Seminary and Divinity School Sermon Series Retrospective Sermons Spiritual Direction Spiritual Practices Stewardship (Fundraising) The Book of J The Wheel of the Year (Paganism) Theoblogger Challenge Triathlon Uncategorized Unitarian Universalism Worship Resources Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2026 May 2026 March 2026 November 2025 October 2025 August 2025 February 2025 December 2024 October 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 August 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 August 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 August 2009 July 2009 May 2009

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was a standard day's wage in Biblical times?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Shekel Denarius Talent Mina