Good start | The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity

Difficult, Rewarding, Prophetic | The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity | Soong-Chan Rah

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	• The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity Soong-Chan Rah Intervarsity Press, 2009 - 228 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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A must read for those in ministry or have a heart for the Kingdom

Rah's "The Next Evangelicalism" is truthful, thought-provoking and timely. Everyone in ministry, church leadership, mission, etc needs to read this book. Even better, discuss it with someone or a group of people. Let's challenge the Church to think beyond Western, white cultural captivity! A must read!

Good start

The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity
The author of The Next Evangelicalism, Soong-Chan Rah, has garnished a reputation as being a bit of a firebrand. He has become known for publicly criticizing the racial insensitivity of Christian organizations on several occasions. But, let's admit it, while they make us uncomfortable, we need firebrands now and then. Some would call them prophets.

Rah is more than a rabble rouser though. He's a professor at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, has pastored urban, multi-ethnic congregations and is a respected associate of several social justice-oriented evangelical organizations, networks and publications.

Rah's thesis in The Next Evangelicalism is that the future of American evangelicalism rests upon reconciliation and renewal through confronting of its past and present "white cultural captivity." He places the data from Philip Jenkin's The Next Christendom and Davild T. Olson's The American Church in Crisis beside each other (both worth reading). Rah's conclusion is the only American church in crisis is that which is bound by "white cultural captivity." The church immigrating from the Southern hemisphere is thriving. Not only in the south but in America. Rah asserts that by confessing and letting go of the captivity mentioned above American evangelicalism as a whole will flourish.

I resonate with his thesis but I confess that I was dissapointed. With his title being a nod to Jenkin's The Next Christendom I assumed that the book would contain significant data. Yet while willing to provoke the reader, I felt that Rah did not explain terms or defend conclusions as well as I thought a scholar would. I assume that he was aware that much of what he wrote would be received as accusation by many of those within "white cultural captivity." Because of that I had hoped he would diffuse emotions with logic, confound his detractors with solid data. Instead, he teeters somewhere between anecdotal and academic throughout the book.

I probably wouldn't be so critical if it were not for the fact that I think Rah's argument needs to be heard. I don't want him to be written off. But Rah is probably much smarter than I. He's likely aware that data or emotions isolated will not heal the rift in the American church. We've got to talk. And by unapologetically taking on a wide spectrum of theological, cultural and ecclesiastical issues, while exposing racism and cultural dominance there he has certainly started a conversation. So, I say read the book. It may trouble you. If it does, know it was probably meant to.

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Difficult, Rewarding, Prophetic

There were times in reading this book when I felt frustrated and angry, as the white evangelical culture I know and represent was utterly trashed. But so be it. Rah's critique is well-founded, right-on and painfully true once you can get over any defensiveness it initially invokes. His voice is prophetic and harsh, though clearly informed by a deep love for the church. The conversation he starts in this book is merely an opening statement in what seems destined to be a major discussion for evangelicals in coming years. Anyone willing to be challenged and provoked will find much of value in this book, which isn't perfect but is most definitely important. I highly recommend it, especially for white evangelicals and church leaders.

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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.

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