A Compassionate Call to Counter Culture in a World of Poverty, Same-Sex Marriage, Racism, Sex Slavery, Immigration, Persecution, Abortion, Orphans, Pornography
About a decade ago, I read David Platt’s instant classic, Radical (2008) in conjunction with Francis Chan’s Crazy Love (2008). Both of these books had a heavy impact in my early years overseas, and I still refer to them often in my thinking: What if I seriously acted on Jesus words as commands instead of merely as good advice?
Then several years ago, I read Platt’s later book, Something Needs to Change (2019). I really appreciated his insights into many of the same topics he discusses in Counter Culture, only he was then writing as a traveler in a third-word country, not as an American pastoring at home. This shift has been good for me, since I’ve been stateside these four years and have witnessed firsthand the (continued) moral deterioration of our country. Like, is it just me, or does it seem like social media, COVID, and the two most recent Presidential administrations have amplified our sin-sickness to levels we’ve never seen before?
Issues of Social Justice
Platt covers a lot of ground in this book—all issues of social justice, but not in the “woke” sense of the word. In fact, the term “social justice” has been around for decades, but it’s taken on a much heavier-handed punch since 2020—lockdowns, “insurrection,” riots, Antifa, BLM, CRT, DEI, the issues at the border, transgender sports and the inability to define “woman” (at least until women got their genders back, when Roe v. Wade was overturned), etc. We’re a total mess! Those kids who missed graduation because of COVID in 2020 are graduation this season—but they missed so much more than “a normal graduation.” They’ve missed a normal America, and the “new normal” is terrifying.
In his introduction (again, written 5 years before the craziness of 2020+), author David Platt suggests that many younger Evangelicals are happy to show zeal for social justice in some issues, yet their imbalance detracts from their perceived fervor. They’re willing, for example, to stand up against whatever issues the current culture voices against the loudest, whatever issues might help them get cheered on by the majority—race, gender equality, etc. Yet these same people remain seated and silent on all the other issues of true social justice that continue to dehumanize our populations—poverty, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, etc. (xiii).
True social Justice is not about vilifying an entire skin tone or affirming someone’s gender delusions caused by their own mental illness to the exclusion of everyone else’s comfort and safety. True social justice is about giving voice to the voiceless (i.e. in abortion, sex slavery, poverty) and showing liberating Christian love and the Gospel to the broken (i.e. immigrants, orphans, LGBTQ+ people). That’s the whole point of this book, as Platt writes:
The goal of this book is not information about the gospel and social issues; it is application of the gospel to social issues. (20)
Platt covers nine huge issues in this ten-chapter book, so of course he can only scratch the surface. He does however offer at the end of each chapter a study guide that helps readers act on what they’ve read through Prayer, Participation, and Proclamation. He also shares a link to the book’s website for further discussion, though now it’s forwarded to his general book-and-ministry site. Of these nine major topics, I want to just emphasize the three which I highlighted the most: Poverty, Sex Slavery, and Ethnicity
The Gospel and Poverty
Homelessness has become a major issue in the U.S., no matter where you live. It’s no longer just a big-city or West Coast thing. Goodness, even here in the bitter Midwest, we’ve got tent cities popping up—-which inevitably brings with it a rise in crime and drug use. I’m a metal detectorist, and I’ve found used needles in the parks where my kids play—needles our own city provided for free to our homeless addicts as a way to prevent disease! Sometimes I feel like I’m living in Bizarro world, not the Wisconsin I knew growing up.
Platt challenges me in this chapter to see these folks not as societal dangers but as people in need of a Savior. He also encourages me to look at my own finances in a new light, because there are changes that I can make, not to change poverty in America but to affect the lives of the souls around me. He writes:
What matters most is not how much you earn, but what you do with what you earn. (37, see 1 Tim 6:17-19)
He offer fives steps (not how-tos) that can help me better affect those around me who are suffering poverty: work diligently, live simply, give sacrificially, help constructively, and help eternally. He makes the following points:
God has not given us excess money to indulge in earthly pleasures that will fade away; he has given us money to invest in eternal treasure that will last forever… God is our greatest treasure, and our lives will count on earth only when we invest them in his kingdom for eternity. (41)
The worst thing we can do for the needy is neglect them. The second worst thing we can do is subsidize them… Scripture does not call us to rescue lazy people from poverty. Instead, scripture calls us to serve and supplement the responsible. (47)
[About Mark 10:21] Jesus is not calling this man away from treasure; he’s calling him to treasure. When we understand the passage. In this way, we begin to realize that materialism is not just sinful; it’s stupid. (53)
He also includes this fantastic quote from C.S.Lewis that’s worth noting:
I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I’m afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. They’re ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them. (46-47)
Sex Slavery
A moment of spiritual growth for me came while overseas when I read about a team of people caught kidnapping a child from our island to be sold into sex slavery. They had drugged the child and, when caught in a traffic jam and approached by police officers checking on people’s health, had said the child was merely suffering from a fever. The police realized what was going on and promptly arrested the fake parents and driver. My son was that child’s age at the time, and I quite suddenly had a flash of such hatred (hopefully righteous) that for days, it’s all I could talk about—and I wanted the death penalty for the monsters that would rip a child from her parents’ arms and sell her into sexual slavery for life! It was pure vitriol, and even now, the thought fires me up. This was a growing moment for me spiritually, because I think I’d never before hated sin so much, and not because it affected me personally, but because it could have affected my children and is affecting millions of real people today.
Say what you will about the pseudo-Christian movies and documentaries that are enjoying an upswing in recent years, but one film that had a powerfully emotional effect on me was The Sound of Freedom, and for the very reasons I just wrote. Sex slavery is real. It starts with young girls, but it most certainly doesn’t end there. And it’s also not only in the seedy back alleys of Thailand or the private islands of millionaires. It’s all across the web in pornographic sites; it’s a part of the plight of immigrants; it’s within “normal” relationships in your own town, for crying out loud! It’s pervasive and it’s sick, and only the Gospel has the power to solve it.
In this context, Platt writes this super-powerful line that I had to share with my Friends as a call not just for missions but for every Christian to step up to the plate:
[People caught in sexual slavery] don’t need a Savior that’s waiting for them to come to Him but a Savior that’s going to them. (126)
How does Jesus Christ, the Savior of humanity, go to those stuck in sin and slavery? Yes, “through the Holy Spirit,” yet when we say this, we get so spiritual that we forget the practical side of things. The Holy Spirit doesn’t simply heart-tug the enslaved, and suddenly everything becomes clear for them. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the Church, and He sent the Church to the world. Think of that! If that’s not a call to action, I don’t know what is. I wrote this to my Friends:
I wonder, “How does Jesus do that?” Sure, spiritually speaking, His Spirit draws the lost; but practically speaking, He’s got a whole other blueprint for world evangelization. When Jesus left this Earth, He sent His Spirit to the church, and He sent the church to the world. The Savior that’s willing to go to the slaves, the pimps, the addicts, the jerks, and “the nicest pagan ever” does so through us, the church that He’s commissioned.
I need to stop hoping that the lost people I know will somehow find their way to church, or that they’ll somehow text me a deeply spiritual question that will open the door to a Gospel conversation. I need to stop waiting for them to run to Jesus and start taking Jesus to them instead.
Ethnicity
As noted above, the issues of racism and immigration remain two of the hottest topics of political conversation today. I’ve written a fair amount elsewhere about the topic of hospitality which fits well within these issues, and I believe it’s one of the major antidotes to bigotry. When we break down the perceived barriers that separate us and get to know people of different cultures and ethnicities, then racism ceases to be the divisively political issue that it is, but instead becomes an issue of the past—at least for us personally. Platt fills this chapter with important notes, and here I’ll just share a few.
Majority oppression of migrant people is certainly no better than white segregation of black people. (189)
The Hebrew word for “sojourner” [in Deuteronomy 10:18, Ezekiel 22:29; Jeremiah 7:6; Zechariah 7:10]… can be translated basically and understood practically as “immigrant.” Such foreigners who had been separated from their families and land found themselves in precarious positions, in need of help from the people among whom they lived. As a result, God views them with particular compassion, and the Bible often groups the sojourner, or immigrant, alongside the orphan and the widow. (198)
Amid necessary political discussions and inevitable personal disagreements, first and foremost, the gospel reminds us that when we are talking about immigrants (legal or illegal), we are talking about men and women mating god’s image and pursued by his grace. Consequently, followers of Christ must see immigrants not as problems to be solved but as people to be loved. (205)
In the end, we are all immigrants ourselves…. The Bible calls believers in Christ “sojourners and exiles” who “desire better country” and “are seeking a homeland,” a “city that is to come” (1Peter 2:11; Hebrews 11:13-14, 16; 13:14). In other words, Christians are migrants on this earth, and the more we get involved in the lies of immigrants, the better we will understand the gospel. (209)
Conclusion
I’ve written and quoted enough! Clearly, I found this to be a thought-provoking book, though I don’t think it should be read in a vacuum. It demands discussion—after all, you might not agree with everything Platt says or the political stances of people in your own church or Bible study. Yet when we can discuss these issues in the context of the Gospel, the Word of God, and the purpose of the Spirit-filled church, I think we’ll find that we agree on a whole lot more than we think.
©2024 E.T.
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