I am a little nervous writing a review of this book. On one hand there is a lot I like about Soong-Chan Rah’s The Next Evangelicalism, but the book also raised some serious questions for me. But I’m white, and this is a book about identifying and moving beyond the white Western captivity of the church. Plus in the Introduction, the author dismisses any disagreement by saying his words flow simply from a love for Jesus and a desire to see the church healed. So I have a sad feeling that I could get into a lot of trouble if I speak my mind about this book. But I want to anyway – because even though there are aspects of the book that I have serious issues with, I think its overall message is absolutely necessary for the church to hear. I think some of those issues might get in the way of that message being heard by a wider audience, so I think they need to be addressed upfront and dealt with – even if I take some heat for doing so.
The basic premise of the book is that the future of the church is in its global non-white manifestations, but that the church is currently being held back by its captivity to white Western systems of thought. While some are lamenting the decline of Christianity in America, they fail to realize that it is only in white America that it is in decline. Minority populations are on the rise. By 2050 it is predicted that the majority of U.S. residents will be non-white, and most of them are Christians with strong churches and faith traditions. If the church is to survive, those who hold power must recognize and give up the ways white Western culture has influenced the church and instead look to other cultural expressions of faith for leadership, church structure, and healing for the church.
I found the first part of the book to be a fair exploration of how white Western culture has co-opted Christianity and the harm that it has caused. It is true that the church often reflects more of Western individualism than the values of community found in scripture. The author blames this lack of focus on community for the church’s failure to respond to social problems, and the overemphasis on personal sin and guilt for the lack of corporate shame for similarly sinful actions. This focus on individual sin is what has allowed corporate sins like racism to go unchecked in the church for so long – there is no communal structure for dealing with communal sin. Similarly the author writes on how the American dream has become confused with biblical standards. This has led to consumer churches and materialism as a measure of success in the church. The church growth movement and megachurches are given as the prime example of how far churches have sold themselves out to this white Western worldview.
The author argues that having the church held captive to this worldview not only hurts the church by promoting non-biblical values, but it promotes a cultural imperialism masquerading as biblical theology. When Western forms of the faith are presented as the only valid form of faith, then the gospel fails to be contextualized into ways other cultures can truly understand it. They are forced instead to adopt white Western culture in order to be Christian. People also fail to realize the diversity of the church – focus on the decline of white Christianity while ignoring the growth of Christianity worldwide. We miss out on the multitude of expressions of church and theology that have much to offer and teach all people of faith. The author says that we cannot truly learn from those just like us.
To break this captivity and heal the church from the harm caused by Western dominance the author insists that people must submit to learning from those different than them. For too long white people have had the “privilege” to ignore the others, and to have our theology and experience lifted up as primary. This privilege must be confronted and whites lay down all of our power for the status quo to ever change. If we do not give up that power and learn from other cultures then we are not missionaries for Christ, but simply cultural colonialists. To that end the author provides example of the ways ethnic churches function as ideals to emulate. He stresses living in community – giving aid to each other, celebrating with each other, and sharing true sorrows together. He also suggests that second-generation English-speaking immigrants like himself are the best choice to led the church of tomorrow. People like him straddle two worlds and have had the liminal journeying experience that can help transition the church away from its captivity to a more holistic perspective. The book concludes with the three-fold action plan of the church needing to confess its sin of white Western captivity and imperialism, submit itself to the spiritual authority of non-whites, and then finally live into the diverse community the Bible speaks of.
So for the most part I agree with the author. The church has been held captive and has caused serious harm because of that. All Christians should recognize that and those who have propagated and benefited from it repent. The diversity of the church should be recognized and white people should make the effort to learn from and to submit to people of other races. The racism in the church cannot be healed unless power is truly shared and whites stop trying to “reach-out” or “serve” the Other, but instead submit to the Other. I agree with all that and think that message is why this book is important for all Christians to read.
But I have my issues as well. The most basic being that I disagree with the author’s assumption that all cultures deserve respect and a voice – expect white Western culture. He spends a long time discussing why white Western culture is bad, but gives very little reason why other cultures should be accepted excepting the fact that they are not white or Western. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he doesn’t think that white Western culture is the only culture that has let cultural setting influence its worldview and interpretation of the bible. But at times I wasn’t so sure since white Western culture was always presented as captive and evil, and all other cultures as free and good. I think this book is going to be ignored or condemned simply for that assumption of the author’s. No matter how evil or misguided a culture has been, to write them off as utterly unworthy of respect (when they are your target audience) is not going to do much for advancing your cause. I understand the need to be harsh and to make readers uncomfortable, but to dismiss an entire race isn’t fair.
Similarly I really wish more time had been given to exploring the positive ways other cultures contribute to Christian identity. The main example that he gave, that of a Korean immigrant church, did little to capture my imagination as a reader. I am sold on his idea that we need multiethnic churches and that we need to learn from all voices. But then his example was of a single-language, single-culture church that separates itself from the outside world to keep its cultural identity strong. The community he describes in that church is wonderful – but I’ve seen the same thing in emerging or even rural Southern (generally racist) churches. If the church he was describing was all white and existed to keep that identity strong he would have (rightly) labeled it racist and imperialist. And while I understand the need for minority voices to preserve identity amidst a majority culture, his example didn’t persuade me of his message. At the end of the day I wanted a little more than “because they are not white” as reason why listening to and learning from ethnic Christian voices is a good thing. Like I said, I agree with the author’s conclusions, but he might face trouble with other readers with such weak examples.
Then there was my issue with his take on the emerging church. It was really bad timing that I read this book during my EVDC09 trip where I got to witness the diversity and community of the emerging church. While the author generally was kind and thoughtful in his critique of the white Western church, when it came to his take on emerging Christianity, his tone changed dramatically. He became angry and accusatory, calling our very existence offensive. He claimed our use of the term “emerging’ is offensive since ethnic churches are the only ones truly emerging these days. He was appalled by the number of emerging books published since there are by far more Korean churches out there than emerging churches and there are far fewer books on Korean Christianity. He was offended that a book he contributed to wasn’t featured on the Emergent Village website. And after stating over and over again that the failing of the Western church is its individuality, he criticizes the emerging church because it is communal and local which leads to all its members looking alike. He claims that all of us disgruntled evangelicals when we left our churches should not have continued the white Western captivity of the church by starting the emerging church, but should simply have joined ethnic churches instead. That statement really bothered me because it turned his argument into less of a call for diversity and embracing many voices, and more of a hatred of all things white. I am just as uncomfortable in the captive church world he describes as he is, but he can’t get past the color of my skin to allow that my disagreements with churches and my affinity to the emerging church might be about ideology more than race. But what really disturbed me was the author’s use of a blog post a friend of mine wrote from which he concludes that leaders in the emerging church don’t care enough to discuss racial issues. If he had bothered to get the full story behind that post and explore the context it was written in and responded to, he would have perhaps not so erroneously misrepresented the emerging church. But he didn’t bother to do that research and now has made very false claims about me and my friends (not by name, but I recall the post in question very well). Perhaps the angry anti-emerging undertone to the book is based on the “outsider” feeling I wrote about recently. Perhaps those of us emerging insiders aren’t doing all that we can to give up power and learn from others. But we are trying, and in truth agree with much of what is in this book. I just wish the author wasn’t so eager to condemn us (his potential supporters and allies) and write us off simply because some of us are white.
Okay so this turned out to be an insanely long review. At least from that, you can probably tell that this book is engaging and contains a lot to chew on. Even with my issues with it, I highly recommend others read it. It deals with issues that the church has to address. It is harsh and it is uncomfortable (sometimes extremely and needlessly so in my opinion), but that discomfort can lead to change. The church needs change – it must change if it truly wants to represent the Kingdom. The Next Evangelicalism is a good wake-up call for how we need change. I just hope that the message can be heard within this sometimes angry and extreme vessel.
So 
