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57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Anger, Acceptance, Ambivalence, May 20, 2009
While reading The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah, my emotions went through three stages: anger, acceptance, and ambivalence.
First, anger: The thesis of Rah's book is that the evangelical church in America must be liberated from its "Western, white cultural captivity" and replaced by "the next evangelicalism," which is multicultural. According to Rah, Western, white culture is individualistic, consumerist, materialistic, and racist. And it pervades Anglo evangelicalism, both in America and wherever Anglo evangelical influence has spread. The Anglo evangelical church focuses on buildings, bucks, and butts in the pew rather than on the holistic, transformative power of the gospel. To be perfectly frank, as a middle-aged, American, white male, I was none too pleased to see my church, my country, and my culture run down in this way.
Then again, as a pastor, I'm used to taking vociferous criticism in stride. I always try to hear the truth behind my critics' words, not matter how much they're making me angry. And that brings me to the second stage my emotions ran through: acceptance.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't escape the conclusion that Rah--to a significant degree--is right. The American evangelical church is declining, or at least its Anglo component is. David T. Olson documents this fact in The American Church in Crisis. But as Rah points out, the non-Anglo component of the American evangelical church is thriving. This is true in my own denomination, the Assemblies of God. Our anemic growth as a denomination is largely explained by the explosive growth of the Hispanic churches within our denomination.
Not only is the Anglo evangelical church in America declining, it is guilty--in various parts and to varying degrees--of practicing an individualistic, consumerist, materialistic, and racist form of Christianity. Why do we focus on personal evangelism rather than also on social transformation? Why do we think the three B's--buildings, bucks, and butts in the pew--are indicators of a church's success, if that's even an appropriate word for a church to use? And why do we presume that non-white culture is a mission field that needs our contributions and competence, rather than the other way around?
Third, ambivalence: The Next Evangelicalism piqued my anger, at least in part, precisely because it hit so close to home. But if I could take off my middle-aged white guy hat for a moment, and remove my pastoral collar too, I'd like to put on my academic robes and point out three flaws in Rah's analysis. It is overbroad, tendentious, and inconsistent.
Overbroad: Here's a joke that makes a serious point:
An older Jewish man and a younger Chinese man are sitting in lounge chairs on the deck of their cruise ship. The Jewish man rolls up his newspaper, gets out of his chair, walks over to the Chinese man, and proceeds to repeatedly hit him over the head with the newspaper. Triumphantly he proclaims, "That's for Pearl Harbor!" The younger man angrily asks, "Why did you do that? I'm Chinese!" But the older man replies: Chinese, Japanese--they're all the same." A few minutes later, the younger man rolls up his newspaper, gets out of his chair, walks over to the older man, and proceeds to repeatedly hit him over the head with the newspaper. Triumphantly he proclaims, "That's for the Titanic!" Bewildered, the older man angrily asks, "Why did you do that? I'm Jewish." To which the younger man replies, "Iceberg, Goldberg--they're all the same."
Rah speaks of "Western, white culture" as if the various histories, cultures, and traditions of the historical epochs, people groups, and nation states within it are all the same. Is there a direct line of descent between Plato and Britney Spears, between high culture and popular culture? Are there no differences between the French, the Greek, and the English, let alone among the British, Scottish, and Irish? Is traditional Southern agrarianism the same thing as traditional Yankee industry? If I wrote a book describing, let alone critiquing, "Asian" culture with such overbroadness and lack of historical nuance, my guess is that Rah would cite me as an example of Western, white insensitivity.
But icebergs and Goldbergs are not the same.
Tendentious: Rah identifies the harmful aspects of Western, white culture with the culture itself. Are individualism, consumerism, materialism, and racism part of Western, white culture? Sure. So are socialism, volunteerism, asceticism, and egalitarianism. Why doesn't Rah mention these countervailing tendencies within Western, white culture? Why is the picture of that culture unrelievedly negative? Would Rah accept an unrelievedly negative portrayal of African culture, of Asian culture, or of First Nations culture?
Furthermore, haven't some goods arisen out of Western individualism, consumerism, and materialism? (You'll notice I leave racism off this list.) Critique individualism all you want, but if you're going to be overbroad, don't fail to mention that human rights is a Western preoccupation. Critique consumerism all you want, but if you're going to be overbroad, don't fail to mention that the number one food crisis of the American poor is obesity, not starvation. Critique materialism all you want, but if you're going to be overbroad, don't fail to mention that Western culture has elevated the living standards of the poor to historically unheard-of levels.
In my opinion, this doesn't come up in Rah's analysis. If it did, it would significantly change the picture he is drawing of Western, white culture.
Inconsistent: Rah's portrait of Western, white culture is overbroad and tendentious. It's also inconsistent.
At the end of the book, Rah implores White, western evangelicals to listen to African American, Native American, and immigrant Christians. I think this is both reasonable and right. They are brothers and sisters in Christ, and they are increasingly the face of evangelical Christianity in America. We have much to learn from them about holistic ministry and the inequities of the American experience. They also can teach us about how to practice church as a community, not just as a gathering of individuals on Sunday morning.
So, on the one hand, I again agree with Rah. But on the other hand, why is the portrait of Western, white culture unrelievedly negative while the portrait of these other cultures is unrelentingly positive? Perhaps it is because Anglo evangelicalism is the dominant partner in the American evangelical enterprise, and as the dominant partner, needs the greatest correction. But correction does not mean the total negation of the one culture nor the total affirmation of the others. It requires a balancing off of weaknesses and strengths.
Speaking of imbalance, I haven't been balanced in my criticism of Rah, have I? I dedicated a far greater proportion of this review to critique rather than concurrence. So, for the record, I do concur with Soong-Chan Rah. American evangelicalism is changing. And that can be a good thing, if we experience liberation from cultural captivity and walk freely in the paths of Jesus--humbly, openly, and together.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stirring, Thoughtful, and Challenging , April 9, 2009
This is my first-ever amazon book review, not from the lack of books I'd recommend, but from what I see as a perspective-altering book. Rah's analysis is thoughtful, Scriptural, and data-filled, which at the very least should prompt discussion about the core issue raised in the book - the changing face of Christianity in America and abroad.
Expect to be surprised, provoked, and challenged after reading it, both practically and theologically.
As one who has attended an evangelical seminary and pastored in an urban church in nyc, Rah put into words many of the "hunches" I've noticed about the rise of a new evangelicalism. He went deeper than I could have imagined, though, and gave a remarkable effort for us to be aware of what God is doing in our midst that may seem unrecognizable.
I hope this book is read by all to gain a new perspective and wrestle with all the implications together.
I especially appreciate how Rah pieces together western cultural attributes in the first part of the book and how they relate to what's been promoted as normative theology and practice.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A non-serious treatment of a serious subject., September 30, 2009
At the risk of sounding overly harsh, I feel compelled to counterbalance the glowing recommendations this book has received from Philip Jenkins and Scot McKnight (whom I admire) and many others, including the thoughtful and concerned readers who posted positive reviews on Amazon.
Rah's contention is that the western Church needs to be rescued from its "white cultural captivity" in three key areas: individualism, materialism and racism. This is a serious and important topic.
For the record, I am a white evangelical Protestant (formerly Roman Catholic) with mostly conservative views on political and social issues. But I try very hard to listen respectfully to believers whose theological and political leanings differ from mine. It is my present opinion that the modern evangelical emphasis on having "a personal relationship with Jesus," when combined with American individualism and our consumer-oriented culture, has produced a hyper-individualized religion that bears little resemblance to the gospel of the kingdom as proclaimed by Jesus and the apostles. I've grown weary of hearing Christianity denounced as the religion of "rich white men." (Recently I witnessed an intelligent university student claim with a straight face that the Bible was written by rich white men.) I believe that the gospel of Christ is the one true antidote to hostility and divisions. Thus it pains me that American churches have been utterly ineffective at knocking down barriers of race, ethnicity and social class, and the current divisions in the body of Christ along racial, denominational and political lines are sinful and scandalous. In short, before picking up this book I already agreed with the author's premise that, as Christianity continues its global shift to the south and east, evangelical Christians in America need some deep spiritual awakening and cultural-value realignment. I was a low-hanging fruit ready to be picked.
This book provides anecdotal and empirical evidence that Christianity in America is alive and well but its ethnic face is changing. The decline of older white congregations is offset by growth among culturally diverse urban ethnic churches filled with immigrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Yet this trend is still unseen by many white Christians. No corresponding shifts have been seen in the ethnic composition of faculty at seminaries or among titles and authors at major Christian publishing houses. The growth models popularized by American megachurches and, more recently, the emergent-church movements are predominantly white phenomena, while activities of ethnic congregations are rarely discussed. Everyone presumes that the next generation of Christian leaders will be hip, postmodern white guys with goatees doing church in awesomely creative and cool ways. But in terms of raw numbers, the engine of American church growth lies within the immigrant communities. All of these points are valid, well taken and useful. The author has close ties to immigrant churches and the Christian academe, and he speaks on these matters with credibility and authority.
My difficulties with this book begin when Rah starts his cultural critique of the white American church with respect to individualism (Chapter 1). I concur with his observation that the gospel preached in America - with its emphasis on personal salvation, personal goal fulfillment and therapeutic problem-solving - distorts the message of the New Testament, promotes narcissism and devalues community. Readers with no previous exposure to these points might find them eye-opening and refreshing. But many authors have been making similar arguments in more careful and measured ways. For example, the recent book Uncompromised Faith by S. Michael Craven (2009, NavPress) (which I highly recommend), and the missional church writers from Newbigin onward have been saying these things for years. In comparison, Rah's analysis strikes me as simplistic and one-sided. He names the problem but fails to name the solution. The antithesis of individualism is collectivism. Individualists believe that a group exists for the benefit of the people within it, whereas collectivists believe that individuals exist for the benefit of the group. Individualism and collectivism are not inherently good or bad, and both are found in the teachings of Christ. A faith that upholds the dignity and worth of the individual is perhaps the best gifts that western Christianity has given to the world. Perhaps what Rah denounces as individualism might better be described as selfishness. But because his discussion lacks nuance, the reader is left wondering if he advocates a shift away from self-centeredness toward some kind of group identification. The Christian cure for selfishness is God-centeredness, but this point is never really made.
Another weakness in Rah's analysis comes in his discussion of personal versus corporate sin. He correctly notes that many evangelicals define sin in purely private terms, and notions of collective guilt are often lost on them. In his examples of corporate sin (p. 41), he cite three issues that left-leaning Christians feel passionately about -- torturing political prisoners, structural poverty and racism - but discussion of the first two is absent. Readers on the liberal side may nod in agreement, but there he is preaching to the choir. Those who lean more to the right - including many of those white Christians he is supposedly trying to reach - would generally agree that torture is immoral but probably disagree over the extent and severity with which it is practiced by agents of the United States. Ditto for structural poverty, a concept which is well known to progressives but difficult to fathom by many who believe that America is, in contrast to much of the rest of the world, a land of great freedom and opportunity. My point here is not to argue for the correctness of those who lean to the right or to the left. My point is that when Rah suggests that a wide swath of American Christians are blind to the reality of corporate sin but makes little effort to illuminate them, readers who do not already agree with Rah will remain profoundly unconvinced.
[On a related note, an outstanding description of structural poverty caused by human sinfulness appears in the recent book Truth and Transformation by Vishal Mangalwadi (2009). As an intellectual Christian from India, he looks at Western culture from the outside and concludes that it was our Christian values -- notably, trust -- that created a climate where business and community could flourish. This book contains a rousing call to transform society by building a church that demonstrates the core values of the gospel. In addition, Mangalwadi's indictment of cultures that do not uphold the dignity of individual human life and oppress women and children is a useful counterbalance to Rah's overbroad denunciations of individualism.]
When Rah tackles western materialism (Chapter 2), I again found myself sympathetic in general but disagreeing with him on many specifics. The degree to which American Christians participate in the never-ending pursuit of belongings, achievement, success, security, and pleasure, is indeed a huge problem for the church. But Rah is too quick to equate consumerism/materialism with the economic system of free enterprise. He indicts the administration of a conservative Christian university for firing a faculty member who deviated from the school's stated commitment to capitalism (p. 50). He then goes on to state:
"The Western, white captivity of the church means that capitalism can be revered as the system closest to God and the consequent rampant materialism and consumerism of the capitalist system become acceptable vices."
I'm sure there are a few conservative Christians (I have not personally met them) who revere capitalism as "the system closest to God." But many more take a pragmatic approach and support a free economy because they believe that history has shown the alternatives to be worse. Although many have argued that capitalism and greed are inseparable, others would say that the root problem is idolatry, which exists in every culture and economic system. Rah does not raise such arguments; he simply moves on.
When discussing the value systems of American congregations, Rah says, "I could not think of a single reason why a waterfall and a rock garden were more beneficial for a church than using these funds to serve the poor in the community" (p. 51). In some respects, I am inclined to agree. But the same criticism could be leveled at any attempt to beautify any house of worship, and such attempts are hardly peculiar to modern western culture. Is a rock garden or waterfall any more extravagant than mosaic, mural, stained glass or spire? As further evidence of western Christian materialism, Rah cites the resemblance between large megachurch buildings and American shopping malls. Although the imagery is striking (and I am no great fan of megachurches), one could also point out that many evangelical congregations are housed in inexpensive nondescript buildings resembling warehouses that are functional but devoid of artistic merit. By historical standards, the overall trend in American church construction may actually be toward greater frugality, not extravagance. The chapter concludes with the recent admission by leaders of Willow Creek Community Church that their approach to ministry over the last three decades has failed to produce Christians who are spiritually mature. Rah presents this as evidence that western affluenza and the market-driven megachurch model of growth has failed. I found this example odd because, as far as I know, the main issues raised by Willow Creek's admission were not about numbers or resources but...
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