Pagan Christianity: Frank Viola Responds to Critics

Thanks for the link, Steve.

I’m glad they edited the book from the advance copy I have. The final version says, “We are also making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to function as it does.” I like that better than their original statement that it has no right to exist.

Hope that this book generates lots of discussion.

I’ve been hosting a discussion on the topics raised in the book at my blog. There have been good discussions so far. Today we’re talking about the role of the pastor.

I believe the value of the book is in bringing the issues to the table, not necessarily in providing answers.

This book is set to arrive at my doorstep any moment now. It’s good to see others speaking of it.

Darryl I totally agree with you on this. The earlier version definitely an overstatement that merits being dropped from the book. Even this is a tough one to swallow.

I’ve not read the book, though I’ve read La Grou and Dash’s reviews.

My impression is that the book is yet another in the long list of attempts to critique contemporary Christianity through the “objective” lens of the “pure” early church. Aside from the tendency to re-read early Christianity as validating our own subjective (and often subconscious) assumptions, any basic reading of the NT letters shows that the early church was a mess. From the reviews I don’t see evidence that the authors wrestle with this issue, which to me seems like a considerable problem with their overall approach.

I’ll also add that in my opinion an endorsement by Barna (“objective” statistician that he is) is about as credible as an endorsement by Chuck Norris.

I haven’t read the book, but I hear that Frank Viola eats human babies. I think I saw that in a review somewhere.

Nicholas, if you’ve read the book perhaps you wouldn’t mind sharing examples of where my critique is off base. Then maybe I’ll have a reason to read the book myself.

I added my comment as I didn’t see anyone challenging the authors overall approach in the reviews I read.

Based on my understanding of Pagan Christianity’s method, most of the arguments in the text will not be of interest to me.

Scott, I am being snarky, though I do find it ‘wierd’ that in a ‘conversation’ that is attacked by so many critics who haven’t read ‘Emergent Literature’ for themselves, that there is a group of emergent bloggers who are writing criticisms of something they haven’t read. It just seems odd to me. I liked the good old days, maybe I am too old fashioned. Or maybe I am just too big of a skeptic to believe anything I haven’t experienced.

At any rate, I don’t think that the thesis of this book is that Frank thinks we should go back to the NT way of life. I think the question is, after looking at how some things have developed in the church, Are current church practices bringing us closer to g-d’s beautiful dream of a community or further away. I think there are cases in both directions for lots of the churches current practices. I would also point you to our interview to hear with Frank if you aren’t keen on the reading aspect. [thenickandjoshpodcast.com]

Hi Steve. Thanks for the link.

There’s another book that helps balance Pagan Christianity – it’s called House Church and Mission.

Where PC takes broad liberty in characterizing the 1c church, HC&M takes a more conservative view, with the bottom line being ‘we simply don’t know a whole lot of detail about the earliest church.’

That said, I find few who disagree that religious institutionalization has, for nearly two millennia, hindered faith communities from understanding (and experiencing) the horizontal, lay-led, participatory, all-body ministry that was intentionally (not accidentally) created by the man we follow.

Does anyone find it a little humorous that Viola’s criticism of the modern church is that its ecclesiology and liturgy is too pagan when he made his living as a public school teacher (public schooling is modeled after greco-roman, “pagan” educational models) teaching philosophy (pagan roots) and psychology (pagan roots) and then, in his spare time, wrote a book and then sold it for 15 bucks a copy (like a pagan orators charging for a speech)?

I don’t know what you folks call it but back home we used to call things like this “hypocrisy.”

Jerry, “Pagan Christianity?” does not argue that an event or practice is wrong just because it’s pagan in origin. Frank has also answered questions about the differences between secular institutions and the church at www.ptmin.org/answers.htm

Frank Viola has captured many truths about the biblical church but when it comes to the role of the elder he throws the baby out with the bathwater. He is correct to want to jettison religion. The religion that calls itself “Christian” (both catholic and protestant) is not the true church. The rightly divided word gives wonderful direction for the true church. The true church does not have a denominational name: It is the body of Christ. No middle men, no popes, no go betweens, just the one and only Jesus the anointed one as the head. Members of the true church have Christ in them (Col 1:27) and have an unbreakable relationship with God through Christ.

Will there soon be yet another new denomination based on Violaism? It like the rest of the modern ”emerging church” has a strong emphasis on social gathering with all who come welcome to spew their weird religious doctrines while the bible is avoided? We need the rightly divided word of God now more than ever. In 1 Peter 5:1-3 elders are exhorted to “feed the flock of God.” There is only one source of food for the flock of God: The Word of God. See chapter 4 Partnership One With Another: Neil Tolman 1993 at: http://www.neilshouse.com/POA4.html#4 neilrn@maine.rr.com

I just heard this interview by George Barna and Frank Viola, I thought it was great. http://www.ptmin.org/barna_viola2.mp3

The sequel to “Pagan Christianity?” is out now. It’s called “Reimagining Church”. It picks up where “Pagan Christianity” left off and continues the conversation. (“Pagan Christianity” was never meant to be a stand alone book; it’s part one of the conversation.) “Reimagining Church” is endorsed by Leonard Sweet, Shane Claiborne, Alan Hirsch, and many others. You can read a sample chapter at http://www.ReimaginingChurch.org. It’s also available on Amazon.com. Frank is also blogging now at http://frankviola.wordpress.com/

Thanks, Jill! I posted about “Reimagining Church” here:
http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/frank-violas-reimagining-church

I am currently reading the book and though I agree with some aspects of it I think that there are a few anomalies and I too have a problem with its purist tone. While the author makes several relevant points re Pastoral dominance, congregational passivity, erroneous teaching on tithing and the Greeco/Roman influences on traditional Church worship among others, there are several areas where to my mind he falls down (too numerous to mention in this forum). The author does not do a good job of describing what the church really is. His impression of church (even while he cries down the institutional church) seems to suggest that church is somewhat limited and held captive by the tone and structure of its Sunday gathering. He is still limiting his discussion to organisational church. What churches do on Sunday is merely but one expression of the Church and has nothing to do with the true organism of the church, the body of believers, who on the basis of an INDIVIDUAL experience with Christ, become a part of this organic body. I think Viola misses the point by thinking that the organic church is merely a way of “doing church” that is “non-institutional” etc. The Church in its organic expression to my mind, crosses time lines, ethnicities, races, nationalities, and denominations. This is the Church of which Jesus spoke when He said that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. If this Church was truly held captive by the Church’s institutionalism over the centuries, then the gates of hell would have prevailed and we wouldn’t be having this conversation; the Church would have died. Viola’s tone also seems to imply that God’s hands has been virtually tied because churches which exist today may not be exact replicas of the New Testament paradigm of church. We are actually still the New Testament church which will continue to evolve till Jesus returns; this is one of the vagaries of being human and living in a fallen world among fallen, imperfect people and systems. If the New Testament church was all that Frank suggests it was cracked up to be, there would have been no need to write epistles. Paul in fact wrote epistles/letters because he was attempting to deal with the many challenges and imperfections which the church faced then; just like today. And by the way I am a part of an informal, simple gathering (similar to House church)but am a bit disappointed that the book is coming across as a case for the existence of house churches; nothing wrong with House churches but because I start my home business in my basement does not mean that it has to remain there to preserve the spirit or ethos of my values as a businessman. We must be careful not to adopt an attitude of following practices as a rigid “letter of the law” as opposed to understanding the principle/spirit of the thing. The global church today is much larger than what would have existed in the NT so chances are that we will evolve different modes of functioning. It seems trite to be suggesting that because there are no worship leaders/worship teams in the NT that it is therefore un-biblical to have them now. There were also no new testaments to read in the NT church; yet we read them now. A good book to stimulate discussion but academically flawed in its failure to understand the role of history in shaping and emerging God’s eternal plan. Remember “Jesus Christ Lamb of God slain before the foundations of the world”? God is always several steps ahead of us flawed human beings, even when we do have a knowledge of and experience with Him. Be assured this conversation will continue.

this book confirmed my most darkest of fears in regards to my church life. i didnt think id ever read a book that confirmed in my mind what was wrong with the picture. I enjoyed seeing the tearing down of tradition and thus setting the stage to the construction of truth that we find in Reimagining Church.

I’ve passed the book on to a couple of men in our discipleship class..while none of us disagree with it’s historical account, the fact is in most small to medium size churches especially.. it’s going to ‘hit’ people the same way as finding out the people who raised you all these years(and perhaps admirably) aren’t really your real parents!!..Shocking to say the least. But then that all goes back to the pointing out that in most churches down through time, we’ve ‘baptised and sanctified’ some things that are based solely on tradition,preference,family etc.and not biblical anything! A book that needs to be read and prayerfully considered for sure. We truly and prayerfully believe that many of the problems and decline in churches today are addressed in this book. Will churches and church leaders take some instruction and hints from the book is another matter.