Pagan Christianity Part One

The book Pagan Christianity is a well written volume co-authored by Frank Viola and George Barna.  It weighs in at a healthy 291 pages including the Bibliography.  The sub-title reads “Exploring The Roots Of Our Church Practices” which should make the ears of even the nominal Christian perk up!  As you open up the nice red covered black hardback you find the following dedication,

” To our forgotten brothers and sister throughout the ages who courageously stepped outside the safe bounds of institutional Christianity at the risk of life and limb.  You faithfully carried the torch, endured persecution, forfeited reputation, lost family, suffered torture, and spilled your blood to preserve the primitive testimony that Jesus Christ is Head of His church.  And that every believer is a priest…a minister… and a functioning member of God’s house.  This book is dedicated to you.”

It is hard to stare past such a grabbing dedication as you think about the works of Wycliffe, Luther, and the countless Anabaptist and other Christians that did indeed not only suffer persecution but gave their lives for truth.  Yet somehow I wonder if the fallacy of equivocation is being committed by the writers when they contrast institutional Christianity ( what I imagine as Roman Catholic ) to that of the Christian Church as we know it today.  At any rate the dedication is enough to prompt you to continue reading.  And who could disagree with the fact that EVERY Christian is a ‘priest’ a ‘minister’ and functions in God’s house?

Whats more grabbing is in the preface written by Frank Viola the following assertion,

“The normative practices of the first-century church were the natural and spontaneous expression of the divine life that indwelt the early Christians.  And those practices were solidly grounded in the timeless principles and teachings of the New Testament.  By contrast, a great number of the practices in many contemporary churches are in conflict with those biblical principles and teachings.  When we dig deeper, we are compelled to ask: Where did the practices of the contemporary church come from?  The answer is disturbing: Most of them were borrowed from pagan culture.  Such a statement short-circuits the minds of many Christians when they hear it.  But it is unmovable, historical fact as this book will demonstrate.”

Whats important to note is that Frank claims the 1st century church practices were natural and spontaneous.  These two descriptive words are full of possible meanings that Frank has in mind.  And as we shall see Frank and George will spell this out for us as to what ‘natural’ and ‘spontaneous’ means in this book.  We must allow them to define these terms as we dig further.

Next, Frank asserts that many practices in the contemporary church are in conflict with Biblical principles and teachings which Frank says should cause us to ask, Where did the practices of the contemporary church come from?  This is a very good question for Christians to ask.  It is healthy to ask why.  Yet Frank goes on to answer the question by saying,

“Most of them were borrowed from pagan culture.”

You may notice, like I did, that ‘most’ is quite a big word when used in this context.  So Frank does a good job in that he gets us to thinking about specifics right away.  Again, we must allow Frank and George to identify and define those specific practices as we journey through this book.

Finally, Frank assures us that the evidence is historical ‘fact’.  So we should expect to find from this point on, unambiguous evidence that supports their assertions.  At the end of Franks preface he directs us to the current happening of,

“those who have left the fold of institutional Christianity to become part of an organic church have a historical right to exist– since history demonstrates that many practices of the institutional church are not rooted in Scripture.”

So if you are like me you notice that Frank inculcates to us opposing systems.  One being the ‘institutional Church or Christianity’ while the other, more favorable version is the ‘organic Church’.  In part two we will examine Frank and George’s definitions of terms which are a key to understanding the rest of the book and then we will explore Chapter one entitled “Have We Really Been Doing It By The Book?”

Book Reviews

Okay, I’ve promised many of you some entries of my review of Viola’s book ‘Pagan Christianity’.  It turns out that I’ve been very busy juggling several books lately and so I’m late on any postings pertaining to Viola’s work.  Please be patient though because I do have about three chapters ready to post.  I’m also trying to be very fair seeing that I’m very sympathetic to the subject at hand.  Keeping that in mind you may recall that I did initially blast my concerns upfront but not because I plan on being close minded in my review and you’ll be surprised with just how much I do agree in principle with the book.  So with that being said, all of you that are awaiting a review, just check back frequently.

 

Reader Beware! Pagan Christianity

I have had Frank Viola and George Barna’s book “Pagan Christianity” on my shelf for a few months now.  I was asked by a friend to do a thorough book review and post my findings when done.  Well, when I first received the book I scanned through it and realized that there were some fundamental problems with it but now that I’m working my way through this book I realize that this work has some very dangerous views.  First let me state that many people realize that there are fundamental problems with the church in the west as we know it.  A few of those problems are the “Clergy system” which replace the Catholic pope over the ‘church’ with a pope called the pastor in every local congregation.  This leadership model is NOT Biblical instead the New Testament’s model for leadership is that of a plural Elder system with the men selected from the local assembly.  Next the idea of a tithing law is foreign in the pages of the New Testament.  New Testament giving is from a ‘willing heart’ and never should the law of Moses be indicted for New Testament believers as the source of motivation for obeying scripture.  Next the current idea of the ‘house of God’ as the place where Christians are to meet God is also foreign to the New Testament.  Instead we find out that Christians are the ‘houses of God’!  We do not go to Church we are the Church.  Finally the Church in the west has limited mens involvement with God limiting it to a one day a week Christianity with the Lords day Sabbath teachings that are also foreign to the pages of the New Testament.  These are just a few of the problems with the N.T. model not being obeyed by the Church in the west.  So when we come to “Pagan Christianity” we expect to find helpful pleas dealing with obeying the N.T. better yet within the pages of this book another monster is unleashed.

The book is divided into 12 chapters with the first one entitled, “Have we really been doing it by the book?” which I found to be a good starting point.  Yet when we come to chapter 11 entitled ” Reapproaching the N. T. ” we find out that basically the New Testament can’t fully be understood because of various ‘false dilemma’s that the book raises.  So we find Pagan Christianity self-refuting in that we should go by the book yet we can’t know the book!  Not only is God’s word undermined by false dilemma’s conjured up by the authors but the history of the “sermon” and the role of leadership is also called into question in chapter 4!  We end up with some sort of Ne0-Quaker model to follow and an attack on the Lords appointing of; Apostles, teachers, preachers, prophets and evangelist found in the N. T.

In conclusion I was excited at first to see someone take the effort and confront some of the problems with the unfinished “cleaning of the house” that the Protestant reformation started yet has failed to complete.  Yet I find this book steers us into the other side of the ditch by presenting a low view of scripture by mis-representing who it was written to in the first place. ( it was written to you )  And it attacks God’s design for His church in that he appoints and equips His saints for the ‘working of ministry’ by its impetus to re-define scripture and do away with regular sermons to His people.  So keep in mind that this book is sort of like a romance novel in that it makes you disgruntled with your current spouse, the local church, and tells you that you’re not really experiencing God the way you should until you mimic Frank and George’s recommendations for the true believer.  I hope in the next few weeks to offer you a chapter by chapter review and give an in-depth refutation to Pagan Christianity’s mis-representations as to what the real problems are.