Radical vs. Ordinary

Radical vs. Ordinary

A Baptist pastor went on a mission trip about fifteen years ago to Africa. What he experienced there led him to the conclusion that American Christianity as represented in his own church had drifted toward self-service and self-satisfaction. It led him to write the best-selling book, “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.” It is a Biblical book, emphasizing such things as “take up your cross and follow me,” and the themes of service and sacrifice.

Four years later, a seminary professor, Presbyterian read this book and noticed the “radical” stream of preaching and writing, and wrote his own book, called “Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World.” His emphasis is also Biblical, looking more at the disciplines of the Christian life that build faithfulness and endurance.

These two men are not enemies. I don’t know if they are friends, but they have certainly met and heard one another preach. This is not a “winner” and “loser” game. This is two servants of Christ seeking to serve the Body of Christ with truths that compete, though not contradictory.

Baptists may, in fact, be more geared to the “radical” approach with an emphasis on repentance and conversion and revival. These are all Biblical ideas. Presbyterians may find themselves more in sync with a view of the long term. Covenant theologians have typically focused more on building institutions, while Baptists and their dispensationalism think more of the impending coming of Christ and the end of the present world order. Again, both are found in Scripture.

The Baptist pastor preached and wrote to a congregation that he feared was falling asleep under the spell of a prosperous comfort-culture. The Presbyterian professor was writing out of concern for a generation of Christians whose fever pitch for doing radical and unusual things would likely lead to burnout and eventual drifting away from the faith. Both concerns are legitimate.

Certainly God calls individuals to particular callings. Joseph in Genesis lived a radical life, not at his own choosing, so that he might save his family, the fledgling people of God. Moses’ life in Exodus was disrupted radically from the beginning and continued until he died at one hundred twenty. David lived a radical life in the Old Testament, and Paul and all the apostles in the New.

And yet, Paul, writing to the churches that he planted stretching from Asia Minor to the Greek peninsula and on to Italy, all at tremendous danger to himself - he did not write to these new believers to live “radical” lives in the sense of going to far off places and doing dangerous things. He did not tell them to give up their jobs and move away from their neighbors. He told them to live ordinary Christian lives in the midst of those neighbors. Yes, there would be a change in their lives, what with the worship of the one true God instead of a panoply of false gods, and the fellowship of the believers who were committed to purity and piety. They would suffer for those differences, but they were to serve in the midst of it, resisting the pull of the worldly culture by personal devotion and living according to the teaching that they received.

Today also, some are called to more unusual callings which could be regarded as radical, but many and most are called to live as Christians, as those who have been captivated by Christ, and still living in the same family relationships, the same neighborhood, working at the same job, and answering the question, “How is it that your life has changed?”