simplicity | Tim Høiland

I think rather highly of the late John Stott for a number of reasons. First, there’s his longtime involvement with The Lausanne Movement, including his role as “chief architect” of the Lausanne Covenant. I think we can all still learn a great deal from his understanding of the relationship between evangelism and social action. And I’m grateful for the way he devoted so much of his life work to the church in the Global South through Langham Partnership. Then again, maybe my interest is really just a case of American Evangelical Anglophilia.

The Radical Disciple: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling (IVP) was Stott’s final book, as he said it would be, calling it a “valedictory message” to his readers. He explains the choice of words in the title by emphasizing that being a disciple of Christ has to do with being under discipline and “implies the relationship of pupil to teacher.” Disciple, then, is a stronger word than Christian. And radical, which comes from the Latin word for root, emphasizes that our commitment isn’t haphazard, flimsy, or temporary. Radical disciples are rooted ones, under the discipline of Christ. And this book challenges us on our tendency to want nothing to do with that kind of life:

Our common way of avoiding radical discipleship is to be selective: choosing those areas in which commitment suits us and staying away from those areas in which it will be costly.

While many of Stott’s readers have certainly been following Christ for decades, others — like the 18,000 or so who’ll attend Urbana 12 later this year (which always features a great selection of Stott’s work) — are much younger in their faith. One way or another, I think all of us are prone to the sort of selective discipleship Stott is concerned about.

Some — particularly older readers — may be a bit uncomfortable about the chapter on creation care as an essential aspect of discipleship, dealing with questions of population, depletion of resources, waste disposal, and climate change. Based on the biblical teaching that the earth is created by God and has been entrusted to us as its stewards, Stott urges us to avoid the twin errors of either deifying the earth or exploiting it. Rather, he says, we’re called to cooperate with God to conserve the good creation and to develop its resources for the common good.

Younger evangelicals (like myself) are probably more likely to affirm the importance of creation care, but I have a hunch that many of us haven’t really considered how creation care fits into God’s cosmic mission to redeem all things. So even those who are already inclined to “go green” could learn a lot from Stott on this. If creation care truly is part of discipleship, it can’t be reduced to a passing fad. Remember, discipleship is costly; that’s something those who have been Christians for a while know very well.

If the environmental chapter seems to border on the trendy, the other “neglected aspects of our calling,” it seems to me, are anything but popular. They are, however, all essential to biblical teaching, to Christ’s radical call to follow him:

He calls us to nonconformity under his Lordship, ruling out escapism and conformism as available options.

He calls us to Christlikeness in his incarnation, his service, his love, his endurance, and his mission.

He calls us to grow, but to be far more concerned with depth and than with impressive numbers.

He calls us to simplicity as a community and in our personal lifestyles, allowing us to better respond to the needs of the poor and giving credibility to our evangelistic witness.

He calls us to a way of life that holds in balance “our comprehensive identity” as followers of Christ: both individual discipleship and corporate fellowship, both worship and work, and both pilgrimage and citizenship.

He calls us to dependence instead of rugged individualism, recognizing that we’re intended to belong to a family and to a church, both characterized by “mutual burdensomeness.”

Finally, he calls us to a Christian understanding of death, not as something to be ignored or feared, but as the road to life — “one of the profoundest paradoxes” we’ll ever encounter.

I think it’s clear that the multifaceted calling of discipleship doesn’t come easy to any of us, just as I’m sure it didn’t come easy to John Stott. But it’s our common calling, and it’s attainable. We’re called to follow Christ, and we’re given the grace to follow. Fortunately, grace takes many shapes and sizes, and I’m convinced the help we need is often found at least partially in those around us and in those who see the world from a different vantage point.

I for one hope my generation will do better at setting an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity – beginning with myself. And I pray we’ll humbly, eagerly and intentionally seek to learn from those Christians who have been at it longer than we have — even if they drive a gas-guzzling Buick instead of a Prius.

[Photo credit: John Yates via digdeep1962.blogspot.com]

It’s odd, the books that become bestsellers. Some I have read and enjoyed. I’ve started into others that looked promising, only to discover they were about as exciting as watching slug races. Then there are the countless others I’ve altogether avoided: any involving pasty vampires; hardcovers selling for $29.95, emerging from someone’s fifteen minutes of fame, and in fact mostly written by the person whose name appears in much smaller print underneath; and generally, any with the title written in pink cursive.

But some books are surprising bestsellers for other reasons. For instance, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream by David Platt. Now, bestsellers from megachurch pastors are nothing new. But bestsellers from megachurch pastors who take issue with the whole megachurch model don’t come along every day. And it’s even more puzzling when a prominent secular Jewish columnist sings its praises.

Platt writes – uncomfortably – about being called “the youngest megachurch pastor in history” when he began at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama and then becoming increasingly uneasy upon realizing that while he was living the “American church dream,” Jesus, the man he was claiming to follow, had eschewed just about every indicator of what is currently considered a healthy, “successful” church – or faith, for that matter.

This book is a rethinking of everything while remaining in the middle of it. He’s still the pastor there, and by “American church dream” standards he’s still a success. But he’s not content with that.

I find it telling that he repeatedly highlights two particularly overwhelming statistics and argues they both reveal how the church – seduced as she has been by the American dream of wealth, security and comfort – has failed to be faithful to Christ. He cites the 4.5 billion people who are without Christ and the 26,500 children who die every day of preventable causes, none of whom can afford the American dream many of us take for granted and enjoy. It’s a wakeup call that all of us who claim the name of Christ need to take seriously. Do our lifestyles, choices, and prayer habits demonstrate genuine concern for those 4.5 billion and 26,500? Or do they demonstrate, rather, an obsession with holding onto the American dream (the fruits of which look an awful lot like what the prophet Ezekiel describes as the sin of Sodom)? These questions are particularly poignant for those of us, like me, who are part of megachurches that spend millions on buildings in the suburbs but appear bewilderingly impotent in the face of suffering (of all sorts) even in our own backyard, much less in the slums and brothels and factories and fields of our world, many of which have no Christian witness or service in their midst.

For these reasons I’m grateful for Platt and his book. I’m especially grateful that he writes from within. It’s easy to cast stones at anything big or “successful” from the outside, simply assuming the worst and being content to walk away from those “hypocrites” or “bigots” towards some undefined ideal. It’s another matter entirely to come to terms with the failings of someone dear and to lovingly, sacrificially call her and lead her to a better way.

Archives For simplicity

Radical discipleship: John Stott’s final charge

Biting the hand that continues to feed you (for love of the hand)

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