Filed under: books, Christendom, culture, dissertation, emerging church, missiology, Seattle, theology
Last week I got a chance to sit down with a book that’s been getting a bit of buzz in the circles I run in. It’s called The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church From Western Cultural Captivity, by Soong-Chan Rah. I believe it’s a very important book, and one that I hope will find its way onto many seminary course readings lists – and not just in specialty classes like “Multi-cultural Worship.” Rah has some good words to share, but they will be put to best use in a broad marketplace.
The book is an uncomfortable read, especially for a white midle class USAmerican dude. I have attempted to sensitize myself and the people I have influence with to issues of race, power, and control, but I know I’ve fallen well short of ideal. There’s still a lot more to be done in my own heart, as well as in the church at large.
I strongly recommend this book. The way it approaches the issues of racism in the church in USAmerica are helpful and prophetic. The chapter on race is a good primer, and the chapter on how the emerging church is perpetuating most of evangelicalisms same old problems is a stinging rebuke to a bunch of people who have been a bit smug about having rescued the Western church from all of its ills.
With that said, I do have a few points of critique. First, I’m not sure the book delivers on the title – I get that Rah is riffing on Philip Jenkins’ genius work in The Next Christendom, but unlike Jenkins, Rah doesn’t spend his primary content on describing the new form that’s coming to replace the old. I got a very helpful picture of yet another broken aspect of the previous, broken evangelicalism, but less of a vision of what the new way forward looks like. There are some good examples, including one here in Seattle that I can personally vouch for, but I wanted more.
Second, I don’t know how excited I can really get about the dawning of a new “ism.” Frankly, I’m not looking for the next evangelicalism – which may have more to do with my continuing flashbacks from the last one, but another ism sounds like another opportunitiy to institutionalize forms of thought that might work right now, but will be rendered obsolete by future generations.
Third, and I admit that this is entirely selfish, but this book came out about 9 months too late. As I was writing and editing my doctoral dissertation, I knew full well that the day would come that I had just put my biggest, hardest writing project to bed, and I’d wake up one morning to find a new book/article that would have taken my work to the next level and made it really shine. This is that book. No hard feelings, though, Dr. Rah. I’ll get over it. I’ll take the opportunity to borrow your ideas the next time around. Congratulations, though – this is a reall solid piece of work, and one that I hope will be influential in the near future.
3 Comments so far
Leave a comment
SpiritFarmer 
I have that book sitting on my desk ready to read next. I’m looking forward to it even more now that I’ve read your thoughts!
Praying for you Steve…
Comment by David Phillips June 9, 2009 @ 3:02 amYou miss the best part of the story, to mentioned the generous soul whom gave you the book for your enlightenment.
But that is ok, that generous fantastic soul would rather go anonymous.
Comment by eliacin June 11, 2009 @ 2:09 pmI think the next “ism” referred to is on its way to becoming reality as different ethnic forms take center stage; it’s the acknowledgment that there are various expressions of evangelical faith coming from varied ethnic backgrounds in America
Comment by wayne park June 14, 2009 @ 11:27 pm