The German atheistic philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the center of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.”[1] That is to say, so much of the history of ideas is a pendulum swinging back and forth, where one movement seeks to counter a previous movement, and sometimes the new movement itself overcorrects and needs countering by yet another movement. But according to Schopenhauer, these movements and counter-movements can eventually find “rest”—that is, a moderate, balanced, middle-ground proposal.
1. Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 1, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life,” No. 70 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), 78.
David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (2010) is one such counter-reaction in the history of ideas. Impacting a generation of young people throughout the 2010s, Radical vigorously counters the comfortable, consumer-driven Christianity of many American churches with a vision of Christian discipleship that entails a total abandonment to Jesus Christ modeled after Luke 9:57–62. As can be seen from Radical’s sensational rise to the New York Times Bestsellers list and million-plus copies sold, Platt counters the problem of comfortable, cultural Christianity in a provocative way that captured the attention of a generation of American Christians.
However, for as helpful a correction as Radical is to a real problem in American Christianity, Platt nevertheless overcorrects and creates an unhealthy and unwarranted expectation. Radical leaves the impression that in order for one’s life to count, one needs to give away most of your income/wealth, be completely devoted to international missions, and have experienced extraordinary things on short term trips abroad or on periodic excursions to your city’s worst neighborhoods.
To re-center this overcorrection, Michael Horton’s Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World (2014) attempts to bring the pendulum closer to Schopenhauer’s place of “rest.” He sketches a middle way between complacency and frenetic restlessness, arguing that the quest for ever-higher peaks of spiritual experience inevitably results in burnout, selfish ambition, and an insatiable craving for novelty.
In this article, I’m going to focus on three areas where I think Horton offers a helpful counter-correction to Platt. For each area, I will explain what negative aspects of Christian culture Platt seems to be rightly reacting against, provide an example of how Platt effectively counters it, demonstrate that aspects of his response are an overreaction, and then show how Horton helpfully re-centers Platt. After doing this for each area, I’ll offer one concluding reflection.
Three Pendulums Swinging
1. The American Dream
If you combine a biblical understanding of vocation, a strong work ethic, and providentially given opportunities in a (free) market compatible with Christian principles, prosperity normally follows. That is how God designed his world to work, and it is still how the world generally operates after the Fall. However, the apostle Paul says that such prosperous people often encounter significant spiritual dangers too: “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (1 Tim. 6:9).
Tragically, most of American culture has given itself over to the desire to be rich and has incorporated this desire into our social imaginary. We call it the American Dream. In its most pervasive forms, the American Dream sees comfort, wealth, and ease as the highest good of existence. We are here to “promote our brand,” “climb the corporate ladder,” be “the millionaire next door,” and most importantly, to be happy—always happy. It is a dream that assumes bigger is always better, ignores the spiritual dangers of the desire for wealth, prioritizes immediate gratification, and is out of touch with how selfish it actually is in practice.
Enter Platt. Writing on the heels of the Great Recession (2007–2009), Platt’s Radical fights this type of selfish, self-centered, “build bigger barns” mentality that has no regard for global human suffering or the cause of Christ among the nations while being obsessed with personal safety and creature comforts. Platt forcefully contends that American Christians have by-and-large been more in step with the materialism of the American Dream than with the values of the kingdom of Christ. He says,
So, what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring [both] the Bible and caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.[2]
2. David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2010), 111.
Platt calls the American church to “wake up” from the daze of sports and consumerism and personal advancement and 401(k) obsession to the real spiritual warfare that is ongoing around the world.[3] Corporately, Platt says that our multi-million-dollar church buildings, expensive production-level services, and paltry amounts of money being given to the materially poor are examples of how the American Dream has infected the priorities of the church. To help make Platt’s vision of discipleship concrete, he repeatedly highlights examples of believers who sold all their possessions to give to the poor and/or have moved to the poorest places in the world to minister to the least materially advantaged people.
3. Platt, Radical, 15.
While Radical is a genuinely helpful wake-up call (as most counter pendulum swings are), it is nevertheless an overcorrection. I could not personally find a sentence where Platt has a positive word to say about wealth apart from its potential use for funding global missions. It is as though texts such as 1 Timothy 6:17, where Paul explicitly says that they rich have what they do, in part, for their enjoyment, are not considered. This is not to mention the rather positive view that the Old Testament has towards having ones needs met (e.g. Lev. 26:3–5; Num. 13:27; Psalm 37:25; Proverbs 6:6–11; 10:3–4, 22; 28:20; 30:8). Further, providing for one’s family—which requires a certainly amount of wealth being allocated exclusively for them—is explicitly commanded by Paul in 1 Timothy 5:8. If a believer does not do so, he is worse than a nonbeliever!
On this topic Horton helpfully re-centers us. He acknowledges the tension, “If you’re wondering whether your life counts if it consists of so many ordinary things every day, you are in good company.” [4] Yet, he understands that like Paul, we must learn how to abound (Phil. 1:21) and he brings us a more balanced view of the relationship between labor and wealth. He says,
4. Michael Horton, Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 140.
We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We don’t expect it to fall from heaven. Rather we know that God will give it to us through farmers and bakers and warehouse employees and truck drivers and shop clerks, and so on. Once we recover a greater sense of God’s ordinary vocation as the sight of his faithfulness, we will begin to appreciate our own calling to love and serve others in his name in everyday ways that make a real difference in people’s lives.[5]
5. Horton, Ordinary, 142.
We depend upon God for his provision through our labor and the labor of others. And Horton helps us see that the underlying dynamic of the heart is contentment in what God has provided. This is a vision of vocation and an understanding of how wealth normally accrues through long-term faithfulness that helps reframe our perspective on our work. For the Christian, it is no longer the corporate ladder-climbing of the American Dream. It is actually a means of provision for ourselves and others and a central place where God acts for our and other’s good. While Platt only combats the materialistic excesses of the American Dream by exhorting Christians to give away their wealth, Horton both provides a larger vision of God’s purpose for the wealth one keeps and also pastors us regarding the heart issue of contentment. On this point Horton brings the pendulum closer to center.
2. Local vs Global Mindset
There is a tension between Platt’s Radical and Horton’s Ordinary regarding the kind of mindset that a believer should primarily have: a locally focused mindset or a globally focused mindset. If I may generalize, Radical has a global emphasis, and Ordinary has a local emphasis. Certainly, both mindsets are validated by Scripture. Genesis 1 shows us that Christians do not worship a regional, tribal deity. Rather, we worship the Maker of heaven and earth. So too, Christians are not just concerned that God is honored in one locale or among one people but among all peoples and throughout the whole earth (Matt. 28:19–20). Christians, in other words are a globally minded people. At the same time, we are finite creatures who can only really concentrate on what is right before us. Further, both Testaments gives examples of believers focusing on the flourishing of the particular locale that they find themselves in. One example in the Old Testament would be in Jeremiah 29:7 when the exiles are told to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.” Further, in the New Testament, Paul commands believers in 1 Timothy 2:1–4 to pray for “all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life.” In both these texts, Christians are given a precedent for a local-mindedness.
As a counter swing to the self-centeredness of the American Dream, Platt strongly emphasizes the duty for Christians to be globally minded. He says, “The purpose of our lives transcends the country and culture in which we live.”[6] Platt pushes back against the idea that being involved in God’s global purposes is only for the few who (usually) self-select themselves as missionaries.
6. Platt, Radical, 183.
However, Radical’s counter swing pushes the pendulum too far from the center place of rest in at these two ways. First, Platt fails to recognize that local work in ordinary life has value in and of itself. It is not merely to prepare us to go or to calibrate our hearts to be concerned for the “other” or for “another context.” Platt is slightly left of center when he says, “God has designed a radically global purpose for your life”[7] and “God has given us gifts, skills, and passions that he desires to use a unique ways around the world.”[8] Yes, every Christian ought be involved in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18–20, but is every Christian going to be radically used around the world? Is the stay-at-home mom who financially supports missionaries missing out because her parenting responsibilities keep her from volunteering in Ugandan orphanages? Horton, by showing how normal routines of obedience within ones own context are themselves acts of worship with their own end of glorifying God, is a helpfully clear counter swing towards center. He says, “Taking a summer to build wells in Africa is, for some, a genuine calling. But so is fixing the neighbor’s plumbing, feeding one’s family, and sharing in the burdens and joys of a local church.”[9] This is where Horton’s Ordinary is a much more grounded. While he too acknowledges the formative benefits of short-term mission trips, Horton views God’s calling for each of us as that which is right before us, not far away in another country.
7. Platt, Radical, 83.
8. Platt, Radical, 202.
9. Horton, Ordinary, 19.
Second, one really cannot escape the prioritizing local needs. Sure, one can temporarily visit somewhere for a few weeks, but the return to “real life” is inevitable and certain. The local needs requiring steady faithfulness which marked one’s life before the trip likely remain exactly the same upon one’s return. Further, even if one moved forever to another place, the only thing that has changed for that person is that their locale is different! The fact that they should be giving the overwhelming majority of their time and attention to the needs immediately in front of them, beginning with their family, has not changed. While this is certainly not an either-or decision and while Platt is right to exhort Christians in American to pray and give money for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world, it is Horton’s local-prioritizing focus that brings the pendulum closer to its center.
3. The Shape of an Ordinary Christian Life
Platt’s Radical and Horton’s Ordinary have different visions of how growth occurs in the Christian life. Platt’s is more focused on growing by encounters with extraordinary people or situations outside of your normal life. Horton argues that we meet transforming grace within the ordinary rhythms of life.
Platt rightly contends that we have a problem of non-discipleship in the American Church. To combat the problem of stagnant discipleship in American churches, Platt provides the remedy of what he calls “radical abandonment to Jesus Christ,” based on the example of Luke 9:57–62. In keeping with this, Platt exhorts Christians throughout the book to find new contexts to have extraordinary experiences of helping the lost and materially disadvantaged.
Yet, here too the pendulum has overswung. While in some places Platt acknowledges that disciple-making “clearly begins at home” and that our communities are the “primary”[10] places this will play out for most people, he nevertheless chalks his book full of anecdotes of people really being transformed by overseas experiences and cross-culture encounters.[11] Speaking of the value of intentionally putting yourself in another context, he says, “Here’s where your heart is going to be touched, possibly in a way it never has before. . . . You need to do this in the coming year to fully enter into the agenda God has for your life.”[12]
10. Platt, Radical, 198.
11. See the representative examples Platt, Radical, of Daniel on page 79; Bullen on pages 85–87; Jim, Cathy, Robert, and Holly on pages 91–92; the wealthy member of his church on page 123; and the members of his church in Africa on 162–3.
12. Platt, Radical, 196–7, emphasis mine.
To help swing us back closer to center-rest, Horton contends that the Christian life is inescapably ordinary, and that God uses the slow, regular means of grace to sanctify his people. The Gospel frees us from the relentless pursuit of the “Next Big Thing.” According to Horton, in a restless and frenetic culture that is always pursuing “Next Big Thing,” Christians need a return to the ordinary means of grace and an awareness of what God has put right in front of them to do (Eph. 2:10). Indeed, the Next Big Thing, whether it be a travel experience or a job or a relationship, will never transform us like a regular diet of Sunday gatherings, participation in a local church community who loves the Word and seeks to do spiritual good to one another, and having to die to self in service of others in the daily grind of life. Horton rightly contends that it is here—in the everydayness of home life, marriage, and neighborly relationships—that we die to self most and serve our closest neighbors. A thousand centimeters is longer than a foot, and a thousand experiences of long obedience has more staying power than a once-a-year hilltop experience. Horton says,
I am convinced that we have drifted from the true focus of God’s activity in this world. It is not to be found in the extraordinary, but in the ordinary, the everyday. The problem is not that we are too active, but that we are recklessly so frenetic.[13]
13. Horton, Ordinary, 18.
The rush of felt spiritual progress that we received at the peak of extraordinary spiritual experience so often quickly fades and does not endure, dissipating as quickly as it had rushed upon you. Before you know it, the grind of life has shifted your attention away from pursuing a “radically global purpose for your life”[14] to the excel formula you need to fix at your job, the child whose behaviors make every dinner a challenge, the widowed older neighbor who needs her lawn mowed, or the high school boys’ Sunday School lesson that you need to prepare. Horton argues that we can still meet God in the normal activities of life and the normal services of the local church. It is actually here—not on the mountain peaks of experience—where God challenges and changes us most.
14. Platt, Radical, 83.
Conclusion
Whatever your initial emotional reaction to Radical, the guilt of not living up to its vision of “what it means to be radically abandoned to Christ”[15] may be what haunts most readers now even many years after its initial publication in 2010. This nascent, low-grade guilt results from the fact that while Platt addresses real problems related to wealth and lifestyles within the American church, he overcorrects with a vision of discipleship that is unsustainable for the average person and which minimizes the fact that God normatively uses very ordinary means to grow his people into maturity. By contrast, Horton provides a more helpful, full-orbed vision of Christian discipleship that both deals with the heart-level sins tempting Christians in American culture (avarice, ambition, self-centeredness, hero-complex) and also champions a big vision of how ordinary life is shot through with God’s glory. Ordinary brings us one swing closer, in the words of Arthur Schopenhauer above, to the “true point at which [our opinion] can remain at rest.”
