David Brooks’s column in today’s NY Times is all about David Platt’s book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream. Brooks tries to set Platt’s book in the context of nation’s sluggish economy and of citizens who are seeking to find “noneconomic ways to find meaning.” He concludes:
“Platt’s arguments are old, but they emerge at a postexcess moment, when attitudes toward material life are up for grabs. His book has struck a chord. His renunciation tome is selling like hotcakes. Reviews are warm. Leaders at places like the Southern Baptist Convention are calling on citizens to surrender the American dream.
“I doubt that we’re about to see a surge of iPod shakers. Americans will not renounce the moral materialism at the core of their national identity. But the country is clearly redefining what sort of lifestyle is socially and morally acceptable and what is not. People like Platt are central to that process.”
Brooks doesn’t have much to say about the gospel underlying Platt’s work, but this is nevertheless an important review. People across the nation will be picking up Radical as a result of this column, and that is a good thing. Read it here.
4 Comments
Steve Furse
I don’t know David Platt or his book. But what I know of David Brooks is not good. Years ago I became fed up with blanket denunciations of America. If this is another, I am not interested.
jason
Steve,
Platt is the pastor of Brook Hills in Birmingham. It’s a great book. I consider him the “top dog” to come out of NOBTS in decades. Completely gospel-saturated book. No denunciations of America – just a picture of what following Christ should really look like. 9 Marks recommends it – which influences my reading. Don’t know if you care what Mark Dever thinks, though.
john
This is NOT a blanket denunciation of America. It is a denunciation of the anti-Christ gospel of wealth which is consuming the suburban church.
MRS
Criticism is Brooks is unwarranted – he’s a more liberal conservative, but he’s a conservative nontheless, and he has lots of good things to say.