Radical – what is the cost?

For full disclosure I must tell you that I haven’t read David Platt’s book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.  I’ve read a review, and I listened to Rev Platt’s introduction of his book on youtube.  But I haven’t read it.  I am sure he is well-meaning, but he has taken only one view of Jesus. As a woman who believes that Jesus was the very essence of women’s equality, I find it hard to believe that being Radical in today’s world doesn’t address women’s equality in our churches.

Platt has made a study of the Gospels, and wants us to be like Jesus in our concerns for the hungry and the poor.  He said we are too comfortable and we have made Jesus into a middle-class American to fit into our culture.

On his youtube introduction he makes a fervent case for being Radical with your religion.  He says that we have become man-centered  instead of being God-centered.  He says that God is a global God and we have to feed those who are hungry and starving, and get the gospel to them. 

Mostly Platt is speaking about the poor and hungry.  He made the point that every day 26,000 chidren die due to hunger. According to Kevin DeYoung in his review of Radical that I mentioned in a previous post, he says it is impossible to do what David Platt suggests.  He says that you can’t just pour money into these countries hoping that it take care of all their problems.  Kevin DeYoung * says that what David Platt is suggesting will cause burn-out, and people will become disillusioned when they see that it doesn’t work. 

Platt goes on to say that there are 4,500,000,000 people in the world who are not Christians.  Platt says that we have to take up the cross, and in doing so, we have to be willing to risk it all.  He says the cost is great, and he asks “What does it cost to follow Him?”

I think this young pastor did not look at the complete Jesus as the Gospels portray. The complete Jesus was not only concerned with the hungry and the poor, he was concerned with women.  Jesus showed this by treating them as equals to the men, by directly giving them the gospel (the woman at the well, the gentile woman and Mary at the tomb). How can you elevate man over women when you seek to be Radical like Jesus?

“What does it cost to follow Him?”  It can cost you your big SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) church. If you get out of favor and don’t follow the SBC line which clearly says that women are to be submissive to their husbands, and that the husband has leadership over the wife and family, you have a price to pay.  We know David Platt believes in second-class spiritual citizenship because he says that women cannot teach men – using 1 Timothy 2.  He says emphatically that women cannot teach men as the elders do.  Clearly elders are to be men and women cannot be elders.  He also says that older women can teach younger women, but they cannot teach a man.

Four and one-half billion people who need the gospel and he says that only men can give them that gospel. If David Platt really wants to be Radical, I suggest that he allow women to take their place alongside men and preach the gospel, and not limit old women to teaching young women in church.

What does it cost to follow HIM?  It costs surrendering your belief that men are superior to women, and listening to the Jesus we love, and allowing all his children to preach and teach His gospel.

Will you be Radical and speak out for women.  Four and a half billion people in the world needing Jesus and we have tied one hand behind our back when we do not allow women to go and tell.

*I worry that radical and crazy Christianity cannot be sustained. If the message of Jesus translates into “Give more away” or “Sacrifice for the gospel” or “Get more radical” we will end up with burned out evangelicals.