About Me
- Joe Garrison
- Fishers, IN, United States
Director of Contemporary Worship and Assistant Director of Student Ministries at Castleton United Methodist Church in Indianapols, IN. Husband,Guitarist,and Drummer
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Saturday, February 5, 2011
Why do Christians Insist on Using the Word "Radical"?
9:05 AM | Posted by
Joe Garrison |
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For a while now I have had an aversion to the word "radical" when used about the Christian faith. Yet, it seems to be the 'buzz word' for Christians these days when we talk about living out a faith that resembles Jesus and the Apostles.
A couple days ago a friend gave me a copy of the book "Radical" by David Platt. With having Friday off work and the next Ice Age obviously approaching outside, I went ahead and started reading the book. I'm currently a little over half way through it. I like it. Platt has a lot of good thoughts on what it means to honestly live out the faith that Christ calls us to live. The problem with this book is that he uses the word "radical" about a bazillion times.
I often sit and wonder what a non-Christian in our world thinks when they hear the words "Radical Christianity". If we turn on the news and listen for a while we hear the word radical used quite a bit...NEVER in a good way.
- Radical Left
- Radical Right
- Radical Islam (aka terrorists)
Each time "radical" is used to describe a group of people it's used to show how crazy these people are compared to the rest of the world. The radical left are often associated with communists, the radical right are often racist gun toting lunatics, and radical Islam is used to talk about terrorists that flew planes into American buildings killing thousands of innocent people.
So why is it that Christians feel so cool when we use the word "radical" to describe Christianity? Beats me!
Really all we are talking about is Biblical Christianity. A faith that lines up with what Jesus taught and the Scriptures teach us. Like I said, I like this book. I just wish Christians would quit trying to live "radical" Christianity and just try and live out a Biblical Christianity.
What do you think? Am I off base for thinking that this word is over used and/or poorly used?
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3 comments:
The use of the word radical by Christians hearkens back to a time before its current over-use in media. Long ago, in the ancient 1980's, there was a group of people for whom "radical" was a good phrase, meant to convey awe, but could also describe differentness, otherness. Young Christians eventually glommed onto the skaters' terminology to describe themselves, and these same young Christians are the ones writing books now. Welcome to the radical new theological world! It's totally tubular! To the max.
What I'm getting from the book is that sadly the Christian life, how the Bible calls us to live is so radically different than what the norm in our society and culture is today. I'm not so caught up on what it means to be radical or how that word should play out in my life--just what it means to be faithful in my relationship with Jesus as I strive to not just read His word but live it.
David, thanks for taking the time to read and comment. That's funny, I didn't connect it with mid 80's skater lingo.
Steph, I agree. I'm getting a lot out of the book for sure. This has been a topic among some of my Taylor boys for a while. His message is good. I just always wonder how people outside the Christian world perceive us. I find it kind of odd that most of us would call someone a radical muslim and mean it in a bad way and turn around and call ourselves radical Christians and expect people to know the difference.
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