Bibliographical Entry
Reid, Alvin L. The Radically Unchurched. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2002.
Author Information
Alvin L. Reid is currently the Professor of Evangelism and Student Ministry and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He received his M.Div and Ph.D from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, majoring in evangelism. Reid is a prolific author, listing 11 published books and numerous e-books. The majority of his writings concern evangelism, missional Christianity, spiritual awakening, and student ministry. A sought after speaker, Reid has spoken at over 2000 events all over the United States and the world.[1]
Content Summary
In the book The Radically Unchurched, Alvin Reid writes about two different sides of the same topic, those he calls “radically unchurched”. His definition of this group of people is “those who have no clear personal understanding of the message of the gospel, and who have had little or no contact with a Bible-teaching, Christ-honoring church”.[2] First, Reid presents a profile of these people, and then follows that with a plan of how the Church can reach out to them.
The first section of the book, the profile of the “radically unchurched”, Reid lays out several different statistics and models in order to show how the church is not engaging with the current culture. He cites a statistic that in 1952, only 6 percent of adults had received no religious training during childhood, a figure which grows to 35 percent by 1995.[3] This combined with research that shows that membership in Protestant churches fell by 9.5 percent while the population of the United States grew by 11 percent over the decade previous to this book being published.[4]
Reid states that the church today has three choices when it comes to dealing with the culture. The church can choose to evade culture, avoiding the world at all costs. It can choose to pervade culture, overpowering the world using political means. Finally, the church can invade the culture, choosing to penetrate it with the gospel. He advocates that the church invade the culture, being a good citizen inside it, living among the unchurched people.[5]
A great deal of the rest of the first section of the book is spent dealing with the topics of modern and post-modern thought. Reid points out that he believes that while it will be difficult to reach the postmodern culture, he sees it as “less an obstacle and more an opportunity for Christianity”.[6] He takes postmodernism to task for its relativism and lack of absolute truth and details some ideas of how to reach postmodern people.[7]
The final section of the first half of the book contains a description of the various generations which are currently in the church. Reid talks at length about the coming generation of youth and how they can be mobilized to reach the unchurched.[8] He also gives advice on how to lay a foundation for an effective youth ministry.[9]
In the second half of The Radically Unchurched , Reid details a plan of how to reach those who are not in the church today. He unfolds five elements that he feels are “critical to penetrating the world of the unchurched”.[10] Those five elements are: a clear message; testimonies and narratives; worship; employing creativity; and intentionally planting churches.[11] Within each of these principles, he explains how they fit into a plan to reach the unchurched.
Evaluation
Radically Unchurched really seems to be two short books with a similar topic combined into a single volume. The material is well presented and put together in an easy to read format which makes the book accessible to nearly all lay people who have an interest in learning more about evangelism in their culture. Reid does a very good job of making statistics and what can be quite lofty ideas clear to those who don’t necessarily speak the language of theology.
This doesn’t mean that he takes theology lightly though. He compels Christians to be knowledgeable in basic areas of Christianity, in the areas of theology, soteriology, Christology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, hamartiology, anthropology, and eschatology. While it is unlikely that many lay people will have much depth in each subject, Reid says that “becoming an effective witness includes learning the doctrines of the faith”.[12]
The approach that Reid takes in this book is one that seems to skim the surface of many issues without taking on any of them in depth. This is not meant to be a criticism of the book however, as he points out many other books which can provide more information about the subjects that he covers in the text. This book is a good overview of many of the topics which a Christian might come up against when witnessing to not just unbelievers, but those who have little to no knowledge of the church itself.
Reid’s take on how the church interacts with culture seems to be a bit simplistic, though it fits with the rest of his book. H. Richard Niebuhr treats this topic much more in depth in his classic Christ and Culture, taking the three positions that Reid uses, but adding on two more. Niebuhr talks about a synthetic view of culture which brings the outside culture into the church.[13] This is something that I would have liked to have seen Reid cover, as this seems to be happening more in the modern church than those who evade the culture. Those who seek to be relevant to the culture above being faithful to the Word can cause more damage to the witness of Christianity than those who prefer the monastic route of evasion.
An interesting comment that Reid makes is that “all churches are ‘culturally relevant’; some are simply relevant to another culture”.[14] This comment appears to be double-edged, taking aim at both the tradition bound older culture of the modern church, and at those who attempt to use Western culture to influence other cultures, where relevance becomes lost in translation. He speaks to this somewhat earlier in the book, quoting Jonathan Edwards as saying “when God has begun any great work for the revival of his church; he has taken the young people and has cast off the old and stiff-necked generation”.[15] Reid seems to sometimes be more critical of the older church members than he really needs to be.
One thing that it appeared was missing greatly from this book was any kind of examination of the emergent church. This movement attempts to do many of the things which Reid talks about, and for a time it appeared to be a major movement of the Millennial generation. The use of creativity in worship that he talks about and some of the methods are things that the emergent church has been using for a few years. It is possible that the large scale growth of the emergent church happened after the publication of this book as well.
A topic which Reid does a great job of covering is that of church planting. He explains some of the reasons why traditional churches aren’t reaching the unchurched and then gives reasons why churches need to be planted in the large cities of the United States. This is crucial for people to understand in this time, as many will not be reached through the traditional means.
One final criticism should be pointed out, and again this may simply be because of the date which the book was published. Reid makes the statement that “the Internet has opened a new avenue of communication through e-mail and chat rooms, yet the anonymity of the medium hinders true intimacy”.[16] While this was definitely true in 2002, the rise of social media has begun to answer that problem. People who use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or any of the myriad social networking sites are not anonymous anymore. People are living their lives through this new outlet, using it to schedule events, sharing photos and information, even offering condolences when someone experiences a death close to them. Online friendships will never replace the intimacy which can be had through face-to-face conversations, but social media is beginning to bridge that gap.
Overall, the book was well written and would be a great resource for anyone who wishes to learn more about evangelism in a postmodern world. Even though it is dated in some aspects (which can be said for many books that speak about culture) it holds great information and provides additional resources where a reader can find more in depth information on a particular topic. This book would be perfect for the student minister reaching out to youth of today, perfect for the senior pastor who wants ideas on how to reach the community around him, and perfect for the lay person who simply wants to know how to better engage the culture. The Extreme Unchurched is a an excellent text for spiritual growth in the area of evangelism.
[1] AlvinReid.com. “My Bio”. http://alvinreid.com/contact-2/my-bio. (Accessed August 18, 2010).
[2] Alvin L. Reid. The Radically Unchurched. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2002). 21.
[3] Ibid., 23-24.
[4] Ibid., 24.
[5] Ibid., 39-40.
[6] Ibid., 85.
[7] Ibid., 85-86.
[8] Ibid., 98.
[9] Ibid., 103-104.
[10] Ibid., 107.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid., 115.
[13] H. Richard Niebuhr. Christ and Culture. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), Chapter 3 – The Christ of Culture.
[14] Reid, 120.
[15] Ibid., 96.
[16] Ibid., 130.
Add me to your reader!