Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God by David Platt is a much better book than his first book Radical.  You can catch my opinion of Radical Here.  Dr. Platt has matured as a writer.  He presents a much more solid case in this book for calling churches to reform and addresses questions that the first book raised.

Overall, I’m a huge fan of the book, but more importantly the message that He is proclaiming to the American Church.  I really appreciate his sincerity and honesty in addressing pastors and lay leaders in this book.  My initial concerns withe the first book have been set at ease though not tempered completely.

I still need to see a clearer line of reasoning behind his correlation between poverty in India and comfortableness of  churches (14-15).  He either needs to point out that radical poverty exists in these places because Christians have been actively exploiting the poor. Like when the purchase of sugar supported slavery because the sugar was purchased from plantations run on slave labor.  Or he needs to make a case for how social justice is connected to the gospel.  To do neither makes the comparison an unfair accusation.  Either the church causes the exploitation of these people, or it is God’s clear call for the church to relieve suffering. It would have been worth another chapter to see him make this clear.  Timothy Keller does an excellent job of making the second point in his book, Generous Justice.

I highly recommend Radical Together to anyone interested in examining the pieces of the gospel that Westerners tend to ignore.  I think you will find the book highly motivating and challenging.he retail price of Radical Together is $14.99 (Paperback), and is available around the web in places like Amazon.com for $9.09. I gave it four stars.

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