The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity - Book Review

Author: Soong-Chan Rah

Paperback: 229 pages

Publisher: IVP Books (2009)

Language: English

ISBN: 9780830833603

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About the author:

Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is the Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Seminary in Chicago, IL. Rah also serves on the board of Sojourners and formerly taught at Gordon-Conwell's Center for Urban Ministerial Education in Roxbury, MA. Before moving to Chicago, Rah pastored Cambridge Christian Fellowship Church in the Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge, MA for over a decade.

Although Rah is frequently a speaker at national conferences, has been published in several journals and magazines, and even contributed to Growing Healthy Asian American Churches (IVP, 2005), the book being reviewed here, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (hereafter "TNE"), is his first major, solo published work. Rah brings to TNE his experience as a life-long evangelical, an urban church-planter, pastor, seminary student, and seminary professor. Rah also draws on his experience living and serving in Boston, his academic and ministry mentoring relationships with such notable scholars and ministers as Rev. Dr. Eldin Villafañe and EGC founders Doug and Judy Hall.

Another stream of experience that greatly influences Rah is his involvement with the Evangelical Covenant Church. With a Swedish heritage, the ECC has become one of the most welcoming and affirming fellowships for young, nonwhite, urban ministers. Both authors of The Hip Hop Church (IVP, 2006), Efrem Smith and Phil Jackson are ECC ministers along with pastor Dave Gibbons of California's Newsong church. The ECC has shown Rah that unity among American evangelicals of diverse ethnic and ministry backgrounds is more than just possible but an increasingly frequent reality.

About the book:

Rah's reason for writing TNE

Soong-Chan Rah loves God's church passionately and writes this book to lift the veil exposing what prevents many from seeing what the church is called to be. Rah writes TNE because he has grown up in American evangelicalism and has experienced significant pain resulting from the church's failure to be what God intends it to be. He writes, "...as immersed as I am in evangelicalism, I am oftentimes still seen as an outsider." (p.16) Through research and experience, Rah has identified not only several root causes for the American church's missional drift, but also several strategic action steps needful for recapturing the essence of God's world-wide redemptive mission. Rah also writes TNE as a witness of what he sees God doing amidst the overlooked and undervalued congregations that are transforming communities in every corner of this nation. As the result of these factors, TNE is not primarily a foretelling of American evangelicalism's natural progress or inevitable evolution. Rather it is more accurately a forth-telling of what the American church must do to violently take hold of the Kingdom Scripture reveals is God's dream for it.

TNE's structure

The introduction of the book perfectly lays the ground work for what will follow. By citing not only the remarkable demographic trajectory this nation will travel in the coming years, but also current statistics that are all-to-often overlooked, Rah demonstrates that the future of evangelicalism is now. It gave me great joy to see used in support of Rah's thesis the research of the Emmanuel Gospel Center (EGC), a ministry I have been privileged to serve with several times and by which I have been strongly influenced. It is EGC that has charted Boston's "Quiet Revival" that exposes the general disregard even Christians show ethnic minority and immigrant churches when considering the vitality of American evangelicalism. While the mainstream media and even Christian groups mourn the decline of church-attendance and the closing of thousands of churches, EGC has been studying and proclaiming the explosion of life that is now present in myriad nonwhite, Boston churches.

The excellent introduction of this book is complemented by it's well-proportioned overall structure. The book is divided into three sections of near-equal length. The three sections are: (1) The Western, White Cultural Captivity of the Church; (2) The Pervasiveness of the Western, White Captivity of the Church; and (3) Freedom from the Western, White Captivity of the Church.

In the first section, Rah clarifies the problem he will address by identifying three of the most destructive aspects of Western, white culture: Individualism, Consumerism/Materialism, and Racism. By giving each it's own chapter, Rah is able to present arguments and examples of how these three aspects of Western, white culture are poisoning American evangelicalism and distorting the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the second section, Rah zooms in on three examples of Western, white culture's pervasiveness by discussing: (1) The Church Growth Movement and Megachurches; (2) The Emerging Church; and (3) Cultural Imperialism. In particular, I was most impressed by Rah's engagement of the emerging church. While many evangelicals see this movement in America as the future, Rah shows that the emerging church is just as captive to the destructive aspects of Western, white culture as the form of evangelicalism from Modernity against which they are reacting. Rah writes, "...nonwhite Christians are not perceived as significant contributors to the evangelical postmodern dialogue." (p.118) Rah also writes, "...the emerging church has shut out nonwhite voices in their ability to engage on the issue of race." (p.119) But the quote that best encapsulates Rah's courageous and frank admonition of the emerging church has to be,

"I believe the real emerging church is the church in Africa, Asia and Latin America that continues to grow by leaps and bounds. I believe the real emerging church is the hip-hop church, the English-speaking Latino congregation, the second-generation Asian American church, the Haitian immigrant church, the Spanish-speaking store-front church and so forth. For a small group of white Americans to usurp the term 'emerging' reflects a significant arrogance." (p.124)

In the third and final section, using another three chapters, Rah confronts the issue of American Christianity's cultural captivity with four powerful lessons from four cultural communities: (1) Suffering and Celebration: Learning from the African American and Native American Communities; (2) Holistic Evangelism: Learning from the Immigrant Church; and (3) A Multicultural Worldview: Learning from the Second Generation.

In each of these three book sections, Rah keeps in clear perspective his experience of the evangelical church in America, his calling as an urban, multiethnic church-planter, and an evangelical theology that recaptures the biblical emphasis on social and racial justice.

TNE's thesis

If the American, evangelical church hopes to realize a shalom peace reflective of that which is spoke of in Micah 4, or if it hopes to become the multi-cultural, throne room worshipping assembly depicted in Revelation 21, it must break free of Western, white cultural captivity and embrace a vision of the Kingdom that celebrates and learns from every nation, tribe, and tongue as equally beautiful expressions of Christ's body.

This reviewer's impressions and recommendation:

When I first read the subtitle of this book, I immediately recalled a lecture Rah delivered in a course I took as his student. It was more simply called "The Western, White Captivity of the Church." Specifically I remembered that he mentioned his reluctance to include "white" in the title of the lecture, but he included it nevertheless. Therefore, the conspicuous absence of the word "white" from this book's subtitle stuck out to me right away. I can only conclude that Rah's publisher advised him against it. I was relieved, however, to see that he did not allow the word to be removed from the chapter titles in the first section of the book nor did he refrain from using the full phrase throughout the work. Rah's insistence on including "white" in the chapter titles is a microcosm of the pull-no-punches overall thrust of this book. In TNE, Rah speaks truth to power unrepentantly. It is my prayer that more authors with Rah's level of insight, from research and experience, will follow in his footsteps and produce more challenging works of this caliber.

Rah's discussion of mobility resonated particularly strongly with me due to my experience of living in New Orleans. Mobility was a major, differentiating factor between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' in that city. Even though every resident I knew was keenly aware of how devastating the 'Big One' would be to the city, being below sea level and shaped like a punch bowl, very few (if any) of our neighbors, in the community were we lived and served, had the financial means nor the out-of-state support network needed to take the 3 to 5-day, impromptu vacation a city-wide, mandatory evacuation requires. Only the upper-middle to upper class of New Orleans were ever truly prepared to leave any and every time the city was warned of an imminent, potentially-disastrous storm. In the case of New Orleans and hurricane Katrina, the power and privilege of mobility proved to be the difference between safety and peril for tens of thousands.

Perhaps it is merely coincidental, but so many of the streams from which Rah draws to fill this exciting work with experiential credence and field-tested wisdom coincide with sources to which I also look. With Rah, I share the experience of being a newcomer to New England from a Christian tradition that feared Boston as a spiritual wasteland. In particular, Rah and I both have experience with the Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge where I also attend an evangelical congregation. In fact, Larry Kim, Rah's successor as pastor of CCFC, continues to be a mentor and friend from whom I have learned a great deal. With Rah, I share a common source of inspiration from the research and ministry of the Emmanuel Gospel Center. And with Rah, I too have witnessed first-hand the incredible ministry New Life Covenant Church is doing in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. I visited pastor Choco de Jesus' ministry over 5 years ago and was powerfully impacted by the transformation that community has underwent as a result of one church's commitment and faithful Kingdom witness. With so many common links it may come as no surprise that I felt a personal connection to TNE as I read it.

This reviewer highly recommends TNE. In this reviewer's opinion, TNE should be required reading in evangelical Bible colleges and seminaries where Rah's thesis is the subject matter for an on-going dialog wherein nonwhite voices are given a platform and priority. Like his mentor Eldin Villafañe's The Liberating Spirit, it is clear that TNE will come to be recognized as a seminal work in the field of Christian social ethics. TNE is a challenging, prophetic call to action the American, evangelical church must heed if it ever hopes to resemble the portraits of the Kingdom Scripture paints. White readers in particular are called to a radical divestment of power. For far too long white evangelicals have guarded the status quo as their inheritance. Rah exhorts all evangelicals to celebrate the manifold expression of God's grace in the beauty of diverse cultural and ethnic communities.