My (partial) review of "Pagan Christianity"

Pagan Christianity 

Authors: Frank Viola and George Barna

I read this book because a couple of my friends had read it and I wanted to know what it was that they were discussing.

My review: Eye-opening, frustrating and influential. 

Okay, so I am a critical reader.  If someone has the audacity to put their thoughts down in print, then they are opening their thoughts to my prying mind, and I don't read books quietly.  And I hope for nothing less when I write something...the thing I dread is the silent nod of disinterest, which happens all too often.

• There are two primary things that are going on in this book, from my perspective.  Viola and Barna are #1: diagnosing, and they are also #2: prescribing a solution.
• First, to the diagnosis: The historicity of the derivation of church practices is verifiable.  If something happened in a particular way, then, well...that is how it happened.  Can't get away from the facts, once they are established.  So there is an assessing of the facts in this books: Things like 
• Where did the "Church" building come from?
• Where did the order of worship come from?
• Why is there a sermon every Sunday?
• Why do we have professional clergy leading the church?
• Why do we dress a certain way when we "go to church" and why do the clergy dress as they do?
• Why do we tithe, and why do the clergy have salaries?
• Why do we view baptism and the Lord's Supper like we do?
• Where did the idea of Christian Education come from?
• The question that the authors are asking is: Are these practices derived from an understanding of the bible, or do they come from outside influences?  That is a question of diagnosing.  Their assessment from looking at the history of these practices are that they primarily derive from Constantine's imperial and pagan/cultural influence on the church, the influence of the reformers and the influence of the revivalists.  
• So, essentially it appears that their assessment is that each of the practices listed above derive from sources outside of the New Testament, and they do make a fairly strong case for that view.
• An additional, and very important thought, is that they are also proposing that if any practices do come from outside the New Testament it is therefore not appropriate.  So I would take issue here on their uniformity of thought: their book was mass printed in codex form using means and practices that were unavailable to the early church, and was distributed using (for me) amazon.com's hyper-advanced distribution system.  Well, you might reply...that has nothing to do with "church practices".  Okay, I'll grant that point provisionally. At the end of the book, they offer resources to those interested in pursuing their prescribed solution...a way to get involved in the "organic church", and that solution is to get on one or more of a few offered websites in order to get connected and engage in conversation...well, okay.  So that is how the church is supposed to form? By website marketing?  I do not find that in the NT.  You might still say...well: that is still not talking about church life.  I might like to argue over that point some more, but I will grant that as well, for now, and move on to another concern: On one of the websites, they offer a link to connect with itinerant church planters and encouragers...press this link, and Ta-da, by the magic of modern high-speed communication, you can hook up with a church planter.  I would propose that you don't find that mode of communication with the apostles of other church minister in the NT, and here we come to my point.  I grant that using e-mail, or online database messaging is fine, because I think God can work through that just fine, though I think we also need to be cognizant of the inherant alterations that this means of communication make to our interactions.  And Viola and Barna also think it is just fine.  And that begins to pick at the end of the thread, which, once pulled, starts the unraveling of their argument, which is: any mode of fulfilling the life of the church that is not found in the New Testament is at least suspect if not downright disqualified.  So I would propose, from that perspective, that our means of communicating with each other would also have to be held to the same standard, and I say this because the authors don't only lean on the weight of direct commands about church life from Christ and the Apostles, they also lean on the narrative about the church as normative to all subsequent church life...so therefore that would cut out any forms that are extra-biblical.  And no apostle was ever summoned to meet with a church using internet database messaging...we would have to limit ourselves to: verbal messages, hand-written, hand-delivered letters or direct visions from God.  But we don't have to do that, I don't believe, and obviously the authors don't believe that either.
• If that is true, then some of the reasoning behind dismissing sermons, a man leading a meeting within the church, or even a having a certain way of dressing, or a Sunday School, or some liturgical forms suddenly become permissible again.
• Okay, so I have plenty of other "issues" with the book, for example: some of their conclusions don't necessarily follow their premises, and that is very frustrating to me.  Gracie would laugh when she would hear me reading in my office, and I would exclaim in disgust over some faulty reasoning from my perspective...and this happened pretty often.
• That being said, I think that the information in the book is something that I am going to have to wrestle over.  Knowing where some of the customs in the church derive from is sobering, and demands much thought.  I don't start my thinking by saying, "If there is any other source for a custom than that it actually happened in the NT, then I am going to reject it."  I don't think like that.  I start more from the perspective of freedom in Christ tempered by love of others and love of God.  All things are permissible, but not all things are productive...so there is plenty of room for all kinds of customs in order to actualize the commands and narratives found in the NT.  
• Okay, so I did have some problems with diagnosis, but the big problem came in their prescription for a solution to the problem that they perceive.  I will say first that I think a lot of what is written in the book ought to be thought deeply about, and discussed at length in the Body of Christ.  But I have one pretty big caution that I carried all through the book with me.  The authors rejected the influences of the Constantinian culture, the culture of the reformation era, and the culture of the revivalists...but they do not reject strongly enough what appears to me to be a strong Enlightenment and Romantic influence in their thinking.  What they suggest as an alternative to "the institutional church" with all its poorly informed structures and forms strikes me as a 1960's marajuana smoking session, where everyone is sitting around with a guitar or a poem or some free verse, but instead of the marajuana being the influential component, the Holy Spirit is leading.  I was first a little alarmed by their use of Enlightenment thinkers as footnote sources for their thinking on some issues.  In fact, I stopped reading the book for quite a while because I was so put out by this.  Now, the whole marajuana imagery is inflamatory, and I know that, so let me back down from that a little bit...but not much.  I have never been to one of these "organic church" meetings, so I am only going on their own description of the events.  I am not saying they are bad or un-useable by the Spirit.  I think they sound pretty good, actually, and certainly are an attempt at making the Body more biblically-based, which is pretty wonderful, but I believe that their  over-the-top anti-institututionalism is being back-read into the New Testament, and the conclusions are not always accurate, from my perspective. I, of course, have lots and LOTS of other thoughts, but I will cut this post short here.

Final analysis: I wish everyone would read this book, and then get into a hearty, long-term conversation about it.  I told my wife that this book is probably going to be pretty influential on my thinking....but I am not yet sure exactly how.

NOTE: If you Google "Review Pagan Christianity" you can step into a larger discussion about the topics than my narrow view.

Now I get to pick another book to read...always an exciting time...