Reading through Soong-Chan Rah's "The Next Evangelicalism" , it paints a hope for a future of Evangelicalism that is not what it once was and still is.  Rah is hoping that Evangelicalism can free itself from 'Western Cultural Captivity' that continues much of the same and does not adequately address a diverse future. 

Here is a sketch of what Rah is asserting we need a movement away from:

1. Individualism - "The individualistic philosophy that has shaped Western society, and consequently shaped the American church, reduces Christian faith to a personal, private and individual faith."   (30)  We have built churches, services and programs to make individuals happy.  Rah points out that the strength of western individualism is the powerful idea that God's love and grace is to be received by the individual and it can also lead to a kind of 'growing up' as the individual develops.  However, hyper-individualism treats our faith life like a narcissist.  It's all about us and how we feel, we lose the contextual reality that most of the New Testament was written to communities, not individuals. 
2. Consumerism -"American Christianity has acquiesced to the materialistic values of American society and is no longer distinguishable in its values and norms from the excessive materialism of American society."  (51)  Rah points to the kinds of spaces that the American church can often be found in, movie theaters and malls.  Both examples of consumer spaces to engage and entertain the senses, not fundamentally about discipleship or communal identity.  They are spaces where individuals are in the same space together and at the same time, but not interacting within community.  What it takes to attract a church attender (consumer entertainment/marketing) is the very thing it will require to keep them because there is always another church to shop at for its goods and services.  "North American Christianity has difficulty understanding and living out the gospel because the church has become all too captive to a consumerist mindset that focuses attention on meeting needs, on personal growth, and on personal choice."  (62)
3. Racisim -Rah makes a profound statement that race is actually a "product of Western social history".  (67)  That ethnic identity is not historically nor biblically seen as common skin color, but rather of shared culture, story and territorial decent.  He traces the distinction of race via skin color as a means of whites desire to have power over and enslave blacks.  Ethnicity and culture is important, but the category of race based on skin color is a systemic evil meant to perpetuate dehumanization.  The future of America and Evangelicalism is not a white one, it is racially and culturally diverse.  Rah suggests that great healing can be done with a kind of public confession of sin in the area of white racism in order to properly and healthily move towards a diverse future where all voices can be heard and submitted to at the table.  To this sentiment I quite agree.

What has defined Evangelicalism that won't be a part of the future?

1. Church growth theory and Mega church - this is largely individualistic, mechanistic and consumer driven.  The focus on bigger, better, richer are not the healthy values of church in every context. 
2. The Emergent Church - it's largely white, suburban and intellectual.  "If the experience of the middle-class, white Christian becomes the experience by which other experiences are measured or becomes the experience that is placed front and center of the movement, then wwe have once again capitulated to the white captivity of the American church."  (115)  What's emerging is still largely white in the Emergent conversation.  The emerging church where Christianity is growing reported by Rah is in Africa, Asia and Latin America and not the middle-class suburbs of America.
3. Cultural Imperialism - globalization is really Americanization, one more powerful culture imposing its culture on less powerful ones.  This exportation has created the 'norm' to be what is done in America, replacing indigenous ideas and traditions.  Rah implores the reader to see each culture as created in the image of God and be allowed to express itself at the table.

The West has a theology and a worldview of abundance.  God is to be celebrated for the work that is done, it is a theoogy of the Resurrection.  The emerging theology of migrant groupings of people is one of scarcity, where dependence upon God for sustenance is the daily reality.  This is a theology of the Cross.  (153) 

So how does this transition happen?  How do we move away from the captivity of the western church and to a more diverse and free Evangelicalism?  Rah suggests:  "In order to break that captivity, there needs to be an intentional relinquishing of power and privelege."  (161)   This is where I didn't find his thesis as helpful.  I can't think of a single instance in history where this was done successfully.  Rather, when a tradition/power/movement runs it course and no longer is relevant or can give life, it dies.  It can be a natural and progressive death, or it can be a painful and lamenting death.  I agree completely with Rah's assertions about the future and so I would say let the present paradigms of Evangelical and western power die their death and be ready to lead in a new future. 

Systems this large with this many embedded norms are not going to be given over in an instance. At some point there will be a 'tipping point' moment that will topple the cards and in my opinion, that tipping point will be economic.  The western consumer lifestyle entitlements are on their way to dieing a painful death.  There are no financial margins for the correction that is yet coming globally.  The consumer Christianity we are accustomed to will not be sustainable.  Buildings will be foreclosed on, ministerial vocation may not always be an option, the sub-culture industry of Christendom will dry up and it will challenge American Chrisitan identity.  Couple this with the increase of exponential religious pluralism where to be American is not synonmous with being Christian and its a recipe for lament.  Will we lament that God has abandoned us?  Or could we then turn to the Latin American/African/Asian church for leadershp in the new way?  They are people who have learned how to be Christian amongst pluralism, they know what it means to be without, they know how to worship with a theology of suffering.  The next Evangelicalism will be needed, will we listen or will we grieve our losses? 

I'm here to listen to leaders like Rah.  I'm male, white, middle-class, educated and suburban.  I believe in community, I believe in a diverse future and I believe the answers to American Evangelicalism are mostly outside our borders and in history.  We need to look away and in our past for a way forward.