The February 2009 issue of
Christianity Today features an article by Mike Barrett entitled, "Searching for Radical Faith." In it, Barrett talks about traveling around the world to find radical Christians. He expected to find them among tattooed snowboarders for Christ, in-your-face protesters, or polarizing public figures.
Instead, he found that true radicals looks downright ordinary, and certainly do not try to draw attention to themselves. He found quiet nuns, homeschooling moms, church planters, anti-abortion activists, and lifelong missionaries, toiling in obscurity in cultures hostile to the gospel, but in desperate need of it.
"I had been tricked into thinking that radicals were somehow flashy, famous, and dangerous," he writes, "But they're not. They're just not.
True radicals, he says, are "quietly praying and fasting for the sick in their church. They're taking in foster children. They're taking seriously Christ's words, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me.'
"The problem is that Jesus' call isn't just for a few heroes. We prefer the 'radical' that rides a motorcycle, writes edgy books, does podcasts, speaks at conferences (for top fees), and never really sacrifices much at all. But we're swallowing a placebo, a sugar pill that claims to make life more interesting.
"
Radical, in its origins, really means to
be rooted. The idea behind the word is to be so groundd, so deeply rooted in a lifestyle direction, that one stands against the social and cultural currents that tear others away from the same path....Today, anyone who adheres to the person and teachings of Christ in the midst of runaway humanism and hedonism is, by definition, a radical."
It turns out that I can be -- I should be -- a radical right here in in Durham, North Carolina.
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