The Next Evangelicalism

Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity

By: Soong-Chan Rah

Narrated by: Soong-Chan Rah

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.

©2009 Soong-Chan Rah (P)2022 eChristian

I Listened, I rejected, I tried more, but stopped

I started listening based on the title and subtitle. It got into white captivity of the church and lack of minority speakers in pastoral conferences. I almost stopped, but the author also spoke of the growth of the minority church. But I thought, let me continue on, maybe there will be more causal explanations for the growth of the minority church. After it got into the problems of individualism with Americans versus a collective systemic view of sin with Americans, I had to stop.

It's not that I necessarily reject everything the author is stating, especially in the example experiences provided, but I reject the cause and attributions of the problems and the lack so far of solutions. When the author spoke of the pastor that gave an impassioned sermon, but then concluded with voting Republican, that is not a problem with white people or republicans or individualism. That is a heart issue with who is in charge, God, and who is the answer to the problems of this earth, Jesus. When the author spoke of the person asking a pastor about how to approach the personal sin of individuals who were clearly making racist statements and that pastor dismissed the individual concern for the wider corporate sin that allows impoverished neighborhoods leading to segregation and neighborhoods, the author agrees with the pastor about the failure to address the corporate sin. But I look at that person asking the question, and he was left with nothing. No solution, nothing actionable that can be done at that corporate level.

The author continues to attribute and state positions about a race to which he is not a member. The author could probably even make some valid points about the American culture, for which he IS a member, without imposing guilt on the readership. That's why I picked up the book in the first place; it was intended to be about western culture, which I think the author forgets has huge minority populations in Europe. I am especially confused by the insistence of collective guilt when the author describes the severe negative impact of the guilt that was imposed on him by his absent father. He was only able to step out of the self-imposed guilt when he was able to recognize that God wasn't keeping score of his failures. He doesn't seem to see the parallels of personal salvation being a method for changing a society.