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2010 Golden Canon Leadership Book Award winner!
The future is now. Philip Jenkins has chronicled how the next Christendom has shifted away from the Western church toward the global South and East. Likewise, changing demographics mean that North American society will accelerate its diversity in terms of race, ethnicity and culture. But evangelicalism has long been held captive by its predominantly white cultural identity and history.
In this book professor and pastor Soong-Chan Rah calls the North American church to escape its captivity to Western cultural trappings and to embrace a new evangelicalism that is diverse and multiethnic. Rah brings keen analysis to the limitations of American Christianity and shows how captivity to Western individualism and materialism has played itself out in megachurches and emergent churches alike. Many white churches are in crisis and ill-equipped to minister to new cultural realities, but immigrant, ethnic and multiethnic churches are succeeding and flourishing.
This prophetic report casts a vision for a dynamic evangelicalism that fully embodies the cultural realities of the twenty-first century. Spiritual renewal is happening within the North American church, from corners and margins not always noticed by those in the center. Come, discover the vitality of the next evangelicalism.
- Sales Rank: #317200 in eBooks
- Published on: 2009-09-20
- Released on: 2009-09-20
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"Soong-Chan Rah doesn't just write about the changing face of evangelicalism; he is leading it. As a church planter, pastor, professor and scholar Rah is actively creating a path forward for Christians who have been caught in the traps of individualism, consumerism and racism. With real-world experience and depth of wisdom he paints a picture of church done differently and points to models, leaders and communities that are already blazing this trail. For anyone who wants to understand the future of the church in this new century, The Next Evangelicalism is a must-read." (Jim Wallis, president, Sojourners, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Great Awakening )
"Soong-Chan Rah's The Next Evangelicalism is a book of amazing grace. It shows the American church how desperately blinded we are by Western colonization and white privilege. But more significantly, it helps us see God's liberation from this captivity, and how he's using churches of the marginalized to set us free." (Russell Jeung, associate professor of Asian American studies, San Francisco State University, and author of Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches )
"In this manifesto for change, Soong-Chan Rah calls for the church to break free from limiting and exclusive paradigms and fully embrace the dramatic cultural diversity that is rapidly defining the twenty-first century in the United States. His powerfully persuasive pen engages and challenges the reader in ways that radically transform how church life is to be understood, shaped and lived. Everyone who cares about the Christian church in the United States needs to read The Next Evangelicalism. This book ignites hope for reconciliation in the world through the church." (Curtiss Paul DeYoung, professor of reconciliation studies, Bethel University )
"The Next Evangelicalism reminds me of July 4: there's plenty to celebrate and there are fireworks going off in all directions! But I kept asking myself: What will this next evangelicalism celebration do to us? Will we stay the same or will we follow the leading of God's Spirit into the next era of evangelicalism, one that will surely be unlike what we have now? Sit down, open this book, and get ready to duck!" (Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies, North Park University, blogger, JesusCreed, author, The Blue Parakeet )
"Behold, a prophet walks among us. With personal narrative, pastoral experience and excellent research, Soong-Chan Rah exegetes the present and calls the church to be released from its white, Western cultural captivity. After demonstrating how indeed the church is stuck, Rah draws from the experiences of African American, Native American, immigrant and second-generation churches to free the church so that it can become the multicultural and holistic community that God has called it to be. The Next Evangelicalism is biblical prophecy at its best, summoning God's people to reconciliation, justice and faithfulness. As such, it is guaranteed at once to disturb, challenge, encourage and inspire." (F. Albert Tizon, assistant professor of holistic ministry and director of Word & Deed Network, Palmer Theological Seminary )
"Soong-Chan Rah has a strong and prophetic message for the entire church regarding the changing face of Christianity in the United States and throughout the world. If we are going to be faithful to God's vision of extending his love to the entire planet, it will take leaders from every ethnic group fully empowered to lead. In The Next Evangelicalism Soong-Chan provides us with important insights to help us see this diverse kingdom vision become a reality." (Noel Castellanos, CEO, Christian Community Development Association )
"Writing with uncanny nerve and refreshing candor, Rah 'captured' me from his first paragraph. As a fellow liminal Asian American evangelical pastor and leader, I too have been beckoned to join elite circles of white, wonderful Christians, only to wonder if they really valued my unique point of view or merely my appearance. Rather than just describing the problem, Rah offers a biblically infused, socioculturally informed take on the future of evangelicalism that deserves to be taken seriously by us all." (Ken Fong, senior pastor, Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles )
"In this important book Soong-Chan Rah provides a compelling case that the dominant forms of North American Christianity have become enslaved by the patterns and assumptions of Western culture to the detriment of the gospel. Rah seeks to liberate the church from this cultural captivity by inviting readers to learn from the wisdom of communities that have generally been marginalized by the traditional church. The future of Christian witness in North America depends on listening to these voices and learning the lessons they have to teach." (John R. Franke, Clemens Professor of Missional Theology, Biblical Seminary )
"Powerful, prophetic words. Rah's message about cultural captivity is one we need to hear and to share with others." (John Perkins, author, Let Justice Roll Down, founder, Christian Community Development Association )
"A confrontational and provocative book in the best biblical sense! Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic text is a must-read! Given the cultural captivity and decline of the Western ('white') church, and the reality of nonwhite global Christianity, this important book provides us both a serious biblical, theological, and sociocultural analysis and critique of the white church, while giving us a positive vision and models of the ever increasing nonwhite and ethnic church in America that we'd do well to emulate." (Rev. Eldin Villafañe, professor of Christian social ethics, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and author of Beyond Cheap Grace: A Call to Radical Discipleship, Incarnation, and Justice )
"Equal parts pastor, teacher and activist, Soong-Chan Rah sounds a loving but prophetic call for reform and reconciliation. His passion should not be misconstrued as condemnation. Rather, this book is about family business. May the evangelical community listen and grow." (Edward Gilbreath, editor of UrbanFaith.com and author of Reconciliation Blues )
"Soong-Chan Rah explores the impact of ethnic and geographic shifts on the present and future state of evangelicalism. He gives us fair warning that parts of his heartfelt book are 'intended to provoke,' and they will. But that doesn't stop his book from being timely, thoughtful and very rewarding." (Philip Jenkins, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities, Pennsylvania State University, and author of The Next Christendom )
"One of the most important changes now going on in American--and indeed world--religion is the profound transformation of evangelicalism, a movement which encompasses hundreds of millions of people. This book is the best and most balanced treatment of the subject now available. It is well researched, clearly written and comprehensive." (Harvey Cox, Hollis Professor of Divinity, Harvard University, and author of When Jesus Came to Harvard )
"It's already shifted! America will soon be a minority-majority. Already some cities are. Who will lead the way into the future? You may be surprised to know there is a rising group of third-culture, liminal citizens forging paths of influence in every sector of society. Soong-Chan Rah in his book The Next Evangelicalism powerfully provokes us to take a hard look at our sins against the immigrants and this rising tide of the next generation of Christ-followers representing many tribes and nations." (Dave Gibbons, lead pastor of NEWSONG and author of The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church )
Review
"In this manifesto for change, Soong-Chan Rah calls for the church to break free from limiting and exclusive paradigms and fully embrace the dramatic cultural diversity that is rapidly defining the twenty-first century in the United States. His powerfully persuasive pen engages and challenges the reader in ways that radically transform how church life is to be understood, shaped and lived. Everyone who cares about the Christian church in the United States needs to read The Next Evangelicalism. This book ignites hope for reconciliation in the world through the church."
Review
"The Next Evangelicalism reminds me of July 4: there's plenty to celebrate and there are fireworks going off in all directions! But I kept asking myself: What will this next evangelicalism celebration do to us? Will we stay the same or will we follow the leading of God's Spirit into the next era of evangelicalism, one that will surely be unlike what we have now? Sit down, open this book, and get ready to duck!"
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172 of 183 people found the following review helpful.
Anger, Acceptance, Ambivalence
By George P. Wood
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.
127 of 140 people found the following review helpful.
A non-serious treatment of a serious subject.
By J. L. Schafer
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 about the church's philosophy of providing ongoing spiritual services to its members rather than discipling and training them to help them to grow on their own.
Some of the least illuminating parts of this book are the sections on racism. The state of race relations in this country is a raw open wound, but Rah's analysis contains no healing balm. In today's climate, discussions of race require sensitivity and empathy. This topic tends to divide people into two camps. One sees racism woven throughout the fabric of society and laments that the majority white culture is simply blind to it. The other camp cites legal protection and affirmative-action policies enacted over four decades as evidence that, for the most part, America has gotten over its racism. Rah belongs to the former and believes that many white Christians belong to the latter. A tactful author would approach the other camp an emissary, speaking to them in terms that they could understand. But Rah remains firmly seated in his own camp, writing on his own terms in his own language.
To his credit, he makes a good case that race is a dubious construct, an invention of Western social history used to justify oppression and slavery. There is only one race, the human race, and this point many white evangelicals would agree. But problems arise when he takes various race-related issues and lumps them together as racism when it seems more accurate and helpful to apply different terms. Certain doctrines of race and racial superiority are peculiar to the West, but xenophobia, ethnocentrism and discrimination are found throughout the world in every period of history. Rah points out the insensitive and condescending attitudes of some white Christians toward their non-white neighbors borne of ignorance. A vivid example of this is the vacation Bible school material full of offensive Asian caricatures (pp. 64-65). In this instance, I suspect that the parties involved would maintain that they meant no harm by it, and they are not racist because they uphold no racist ideology and, in fact, this material represents an appreciation rather than a mocking of Asian culture. To move forward in situations like these, one could grant that insensitive portrayals of nonwhite people and doctrines of white supremacy are offenses of a different magnitude and a different nature; uniting them under the title of racism muddies the waters and is more likely to alienate the offenders than to win them over.
I was also disappointed by Rah's confounding of slavery as America's original sin with the obligation of white Christians to repent of corporate racism. Although these issues are related, they are not identical. No serious person today would argue that slavery was not abhorrent, and thousands of white Americans paid for abolition at the ultimate price of their own blood. But who bears the collective guilt of today's economic disparities is another question. It deserves a serious treatment, but Rah's analysis lacks balance or nuance. The extent to which heterogeneous population of America today is responsible for acts committed in the past is simply not as obvious as Rah would like it to be. In speaking to Asian-American students at an Ivy League institution (p. 70), he repeats the oft-heard claim that they are beneficiaries of racism because the land on which they were standing was stolen from Native Americans, and the economy in which they thrive was built on the backs of African slaves. He is making a comparison between present reality and an imaginary alternative history in which Native Americans were allowed to keep their land (Which land, specifically? How much of it? Was it always their land, or did they take it from someone else? Should it belong to them and their descendents forever because they came first?) and in which slaves were never brought here from Africa (presumably because there would have been no white settlers here to enslave them). He contends that present-day American Christians would be worse off and would enjoy fewer opportunities had those sinful acts never happened. But the counterfactual history imagined by Rah would have produced a radically different world in which many people here today would not exist, so the imputation of past societal guilt to present-day individuals is problematic. Rah believes that sins of the past have led to many benefits and blessings that we now enjoy. But wouldn't a past devoid of racism have produced a better world than the present one - better not only for groups that are presently disadvantaged but for everyone? In general, I think the sins of fathers lead to suffering and curse for their children, not privilege and blessing. Noticeably absent from Rah's analysis is any mention of the sovereignty of God who, despite the utter sinfulness of all mankind, continues to shape events and mold history according to his wisdom and divine purpose.
Personally, I believe that corporate sin is real and that American Christians (all of us) bear collective responsibility for the economic and social health of the entire community. But the imputation of guilt for certain past sins upon certain groups of present-day individuals based on skin color rather than other criteria (sex, ethnicity, income, education, denomination, place of residence, etc.) has always struck me as odd. I continue to remain open to the idea of structural racism. For a long time I have been waiting for a thoughtful Christian to explain it to me in clear language (no jargon, please) with objective evidence, compelling examples and acknowledgment that this is a painful and difficult subject for everyone. But here Rah doesn't really try. He simply throws out terms like structural racism and then moves on.
A low point comes when Rah recounts his participation in a panel discussion on postmodernity (p. 124). When the topic of globalization came up, the other three panelists (all white) enjoyed a lively exchange, but Rah remained silent. When the moderator noticed this and asked him to comment, he replied, "White people talking to other white people about a problem white people created in the first place - why would I care about that conversation?" To me, this conjured up mental images of some hip instructor at a college campus trying to startle young kids who are unaware of their whiteness. Moments like these may have been poignant and consciousness-raising during the 1970's. But the image of a seminary professor trying this in 2009 has no shock value whatsoever and merely strikes me as sad. Is condescension any less condescending when it comes from the mouth of one who isn't white? A great teachable moment was wasted. As I went through this book, that same thought came to me again and again: another teachable moment wasted.
I was also irked by Rah's jabs at some of the sacred-cow political issues of conservative white Christians. Not because these issues don't merit discussion, but because in most cases I found his analysis to be amateurish. His consistently negative (and, many would say, unfair) characterizations of the conservatives' motives betrays a lack of understanding or empathy which makes his arguments fall flat. For example, he chides those who oppose immigration reform (p. 75), and suggests that this stance is rooted in a racist desire to keep America white. Although this may be true in a few cases, many (including myself, and I am not really an opponent of immigration reform) would find the general assertion to be utterly distasteful. He also states that if conservative Christians really cared about stopping abortion, then they ought to embrace immigration reform, because granting citizenship to twelve million illegal immigrants would turn the tide of the abortion debate (p. 75). This assertion is either disingenuous or naive. Political battles always play out within the two-party system. Are most of these new citizens going to vote Republican? Not likely. Are they going to identify themselves as Democrat and then proceed to change the pro-abortion stance of the Democrat party? Again, not likely. Given that abortion policy is largely shaped by the courts, would a shift in public opinion by a few percentage points in one direction or another really lead to dramatic change? This claim just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Occasionally I find a book that strikes me as prophetic. The marks of prophetic writing are, first, conviction and clarity regarding the present sinfulness of the culture and, second, a dramatic vision of the glory of God and a Spirit-inspired strategy on how to move forward. This book contains a bit of the former but not much of the latter. Three chapters at the end are devoted to things that white evangelical Christians should learn from ethnic and immigrant churches. Learning from other parts of the body of Christ is never a bad idea, and the specifics mentioned in these chapters seem helpful. But this advice is doled out in a piecemeal fashion with no grand vision that I could discern. In Chapter 8, we are urged us to consider "holistic evangelism" as practiced in Korean immigrant churches. There is much to admire within Korean immigrant churches, including their prayer and fervor, deep sense of community and generosity toward their members. But to uphold these congregations as exemplary in a book about cultural captivity strikes me as ironic. These churches are not multiethnic and are unlikely to become so. A balanced and fair analysis should also mention some of their peculiar issues and problems that stem from Korean cultural values, including suspicion toward outsiders, pressure toward conformity, age-based hierarchy, infighting and divisions, and so on.
In certain intellectual circles, it is fashionable to denounce all things Western and to romanticize peoples and cultures that are non-Western. Adjectives such as white, middle-class, suburban, and American are now seen as pejorative. Activists' chants of "Hey-hey, ho-ho, western culture's gotta go" have inflamed passions and stifled intelligent and thoughtful discussion. Anyone who wishes to be heard above the background noise of the present culture wars needs an extra helping of balance, fairness, generosity and tact. Because this book is lacking in those areas, I do not think it will convince those who are not already convinced. I am truly surprised by those who have described this book as eye-opening, a paradigm shifter or a game-changer. The author writes as an outsider, never for a moment letting us forget that he remains outside of the American evangelical mainstream. But if his assertion is true, then those notions of mainstream are already obsolete, and non-majority is the new majority. If Rah were to act and write as an insider, showing empathy and identification with the multifaceted and diverse evangelical community to which he does belong, he could reach a wider audience and his voice would become stronger.
21 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Groundbreaking only in its simplicity
By R. Dailey
This book was prominently featured in the marketing materials of a suburban Chicago "pan-Asian multi-cultural" evangelical church. I wasn't sure what "pan-Asian multi-cultural" evangelicalism was, so I decided to check out the book. I was interested in learning more about the guy who is apparently at the center of this nascent movement (whose foothold, ironically, is in the posh northern 'burbs of Chicago).
In general, I cannot quibble with the main points of the book. No objective observer can deny that, broadly speaking, American evangelicalism is too individualistic, too materialistic, and too culturally homogeneous. But is this really a novel criticism? Roman Catholics have been offering the identical criticism for more than two centuries. In fact, Rah's criticism merely echoes the warnings proffered by Old Side Presbyterians, who, in the 1740s, questioned the merits of the revivalist (i.e., evangelical) impulse of the times. So, Rah's observations, while reasonably correct, are nothing new.
The apparent novelty of Rah's thesis is the notion that this is all the fault of white people. Yet Rah doesn't seem to be able to provide much support for this thesis. Certainly, most serious Roman Catholics would share in Rah's criticisms of "white" evangelicalism. In fact, Roman Catholics faced decades of persecution in this country due to their dissent from WASP culture. But, according to Rah's apparent thesis, even they must implicitly share the blame for the shallow narcissism of American evangelicalism. And what about Dutch Calvinists, German Lutherans, Scots-Irish Covenanters, and Swiss Mennonites, who have all generally absented themselves from American evangelicalism? Apparently, they too share blame. Unsurprisingly, Rah offers little to support his apparent thesis, aside from relying on broad generalities that rarely define the features of any specific socio-cultural group. (After all, does any family have 2.4 kids?) In short, the "white" thesis just can't sustain itself.
I have no affinity for American revivalistic Christianity, or for the crass populism and anti-intellectualism that accompany it. To a degree, I applaud the work of those who seek to counteract this trend, although reversing 260 years of history isn't easy. That being said, Rah's book offers little to counter the vulgarizing effects of "white" evangelicalism. In fact, Rah's thesis is no less populist and anti-intellectual than those whom he criticizes. Any form of populism tends to minimize the contributions of minority groups. It depicts minorities in a single dimension, and strips them of much of the humanity with which God has endowed them. This has been true whether the victims are African slaves, Polish laborers, or Korean merchants. But Rah is guilty of the same sin, as he callously attributes such evils to so-called "white" Christians.
I fear that evangelicals too often live in a parallel universe (i.e., the evangelical subculture), where they give too little credence to voices that arise from outside of their echo chamber. Rah would probably join me in this criticism, at least insofar as it pertains to "white" evangelicalism. Sadly, his book proves that the same pernicious features are equally true of "pan-Asian multi-cultural" evangelicalism. Which leaves me wondering... Does Rah really want to change American evangelicalism? Or does he just want to change it enough so that he can be counted among the cool kids?
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