Radical is a term as unfashionable today as it was trendy in the 1960s, but its etymology (for the Latin radix, "root") is the best reason not to concede it to nostalgia. As Gore Vidal said in 1992, "If you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has been totally demonized by our masters, and no one in politics dares even to use the word favorably, much less track any problem to its root." I am concerned both with exposing the roots of our socio-political and historical pathologies in the First World and recovering the roots of our discipleship tradition...