So call me a pagan...

I'm trying to think about how best to blog on Viola and Barna's new book "Pagan Christianity."
I say that because I had a feeling this book would "disturb" me, and so far, it has accomplished exactly that.

And what really gets me is that is exactly the author's (at least, Viola's) intention. That's what I take from the following breathless prose: "We now invite you to walk with us on an untrodden path. It is  a terrifying journey where you will be forced to ask questionsthat probably have never entered your conscious thoughts. Tough questions. Nagging questions. Even frightening questions. And you will be faced squarely with disturbing answers. Yet those answers will lead you face-to-face with some of the richest truths a Christian can discover...
However, if you choose to "take the red pill" and be shown "how deep the rabbit hole goes"... if you want to learn the true story of where your Christian practices come from... if you are willing to have the curtain pulled back on teh contemporary church and its traditional presuppositions fiercely challenged... then you will find this work to be disturbing, enlightening and possibly life changing."

In the words of Neo...

Whoa.

Of course, I don't think I'm disturbed like Frank wanted me disturbed, but we'll talk more about that later. 

Let's rewind.

 .

We're in the middle of a good number of pendulum swings here in the West as regards Church. In the last decade we've seen a good amount of dissatisfaction with the large, production-oriented, program-driven megachurch. Some (including me) have wanted to deconstruct that model a bit, while retaining the heart of what makes Church the Body of Christ- the Gospel, worship, the Word, the sacraments (uh, "ordinances" for you Baptist readers) and church discipline (it's a separate discussion as to why that's on the list, but I'll just say here that the Reformers believed that church discipline was one of the necessary components of true church, and I think biblically, they were right).

But as the pendulum has swung away from that big church as best church idea towards more organic less programmatic models (yeah!) the danger, as always, is that we'll take it too far.

Enter Mssrs. Viola and Barna and their new (old- it's a reworking of a work Viola published in 2002) book.

Here's the gist- everything (okay- not everything... just most things) you do for church are wrong, unbiblical and drawn more from pagan custom than from the New Testamnt.

You know- things like the sermon. Or paying a pastor.

Wrong?  They deny they say that because something is pagan in nature it is therefore necessarily wrong. But, to tell you the truth, they kind of speak out of both sides of their mouth on this one (more on that later, too).

Viola is currently answering objections to his book here. It's there you can see him writing off one objection to the book as "job-security for modern clergy that's built on fear and helplessness."

Erg. That's it exactly. I hope that when you all read my thoughts on this in the coming days, you disregard whatever biblical objections I raise and remember that I'm just a fear-mongerer who wants to protect my fat-ass Pastoral Paycheck :)

So- let me just state what I'm FOR, right at the outset of this little exercise.

I'm for Church. That is, the Body of Christ, in all its forms. Big, small, micro. Whatever. I feel like the small model has distinct advantages over the big and the micro, but still- they are all legitimate. Size is indeterminate. The presence of Jesus in a community is not.

I think the more organic forms are better, but again, that's my opinion. I'm for every member of the body knowing and using their gifts to the glory of God, the benefit of others and the fulfillment of what God has called them to do both inside and outside the church.  This includes pastors, by the way. :)

I, like the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 9), am all for paying those members of the body who desire to devote significant, often full-time hours to the  Church.  I generally think of these folks as elders,  but I think a case can be made for paying some deacons and others. I don't think the larger staffs of mega churches are WRONG, but I do think there are better models that make better use of the church's resources and the gifts of the body.

I'm for a plurality of leadership.  When we had only about 30 "members" of Evergreen, we still had five elders, three of whom were filling "pastoral" roles. Now, were working through the elder process with #7.
Bob's word is not final in our elder meetings. I may be "lead" pastor, but that's more a function that helps define accountability with other paid staff, not an assumption that my opinion prevails in every discussion.

I do think the whole building thing has gotten out of hand in the church. When churches (like Joel Osteen's) are spending upwards of $100 million dollars on a facility, something is out of whack. I  pastor a church that meets in a pub. Lord willing, we'll expand to a second pub this year. And maybe a third shortly after that. And maybe, someday... we'll rent or be given some 24-7 space. But the idea that moving from meeting exclusively in pubs to a mixture of pubs and possibly even (gasp) a donated "church" building is somehow "pagan" (apparently, church buildings are pagan. Who'da thunk it?) just makes me chuckle.

Okay, okay...  I know I'm sounding (and feeling) particularly snarky. I've just got to tell you, there's something so ... arrogant-sounding in the way this book is written. Statement after statement with very little room for opposing views.

I really wanted to give this an honest shake (still going to try), but the VERY FIRST LINE of the intro already set me off. Here it is (this is Viola writing):

"Not long after I left the institutional church to begin gathering with Christians in the New Testament fashion..."

Go ahead and read that again. I'll wait.

Okay. Deep breath. I need to remember that  I'm not the target here. This book critiques church buildings and pews,  dressing up for church and  professionally driven  programmatic ministry- all of which our church community has walked away from. But still...

But my main concern is the whole baby with the bathwater thing. While I think top-heavy leadership structures in churches are unhealthy, I always laugh when people suggest a "leaderless" Christianity. Not only is it unbiblical, it's impossible. (Old saying: Ask a group of people why they have no leader. Whoever answers? There's your leader.)

I'm going to do my best to give the book a fair shake. No doubt they raise some good points and objections to modern church practice- I have a feeling I'm going to be fuming at a number of things, though.

Things like:

• "If the church is following the life of God who indwells it, it will never produce those nonscriptural practices this book addresses."
• "Almost everything that is done in our contemporary churches has no basis in the Bible."
• "The stunning reality is that today's sermon has no root in Scripture. Rather, it was borrowed from pagan culture, nursed and adopted into the Christian faith."
• "There is not a single verse in the entire New Testament that supports the existence of the modern-day pastor!"
• "Nothing so hinders the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose as does the present-day pastoral role."
• "Therefore, to our minds, these passages show that every Christian has the right to participate in 'leading worship' under Christ's headship."
• "Giving a salary to pastors elevates them above the rest of God's people. It creates a clerical caste that turns the living body of Christ into a business."
• "The one who plants a first-century-styled church leaves that church without a pastor, elders, a music leader, a Bible facilitator, or a Bible teacher... They will bring their own songs, they will write their own songs, they will minister out of what Christ has shown them--with no human leader present!"

Yeah. Good times, good times.

Until later, check out iMonk's take on the whole thing

Comments

[josh]

thanks for the insights bob. that's sort of the general feel that i'm getting from everybody. that he sort of goes all out and makes a lot of sweeping statements. we're actually doing a podcast with him this week (http://www.iamjoshbrown.com/blog/2008/01/07/frank-viola-pagan-christianity-podcast/).

i'm fishing for questions since i haven't had the change to read it yet. do you care if i rip off of some the stuff you brought up?

[josh]

oops. i meant to go back and edit the html. sorry.

[Scott]

I guess he feels okay about the "Christian" consulting and publishing industries though.

[Bill Kinnon]

Bob,
I've started my review of the book about ten times. My attempted post this morning was titled, Really, I Do Believe in the Church. I read the book on the 26th in one sitting. (After you get by the footnotes, it's not a particular long book.) I left it feeling, "yah, I agree with a lot of that" but then...

I began to wonder where the Holy Spirit had been in the last two thousand years. How ineffectual was this God who could not get his true message through to his beloved?

And, since I don't believe that the One who flung the stars into space is particularly ineffectual at all, I began to question my agreement with the book. How much of it was based on my own being "pissed with the church"? How much of my own baggage was being read into the affirmation?

Do I think the overall state of the church in the West is poor? Yes. Do I think that the consumer church is a perverse representation of what we are called to be? Yes. Do I think that the "New Testament" churches that we read about in Paul's letters (of correction) and Luke-Acts are the templates for the way church must be done today? No. I do think they are great examples of humans interacting with each other - with all the brokenness, strife and chaos that comes in those interactions.

I think Dave Fitch's The Great Giveaway (as shown in your sidebar) may be a much better book for folk who are grappling with church frustration to read.

[Rich Kirkpatrick]

The fundamental thought I think I get from your review is that if people come up with ways to do church, that there is little liberty in that process. I mean, come on! If a church hires a guy to run a homeless "program" because it gets to big for the pastor to run it, so be it. God put HUMANS as leaders of the Church , just as Jesus was a HUMAN embodiment of God and our example. The Church is people, and there is a lot of liberty in how this can be expressed as far as I am concerned. The New Testament church people had problems, too. It took persecution to and visions to get them to reach out to non-Jews. Racist? They were people then just like we are.

I applaud the publisher, though (please feel my sarcasm). Of course many books will sell and a buzz will build as it is already.

[grace]

Bob,
I understand that you don't like how this is being said, but in many ways the emerging conversation is saying the same thing - what practices and traditions are fundamental to church and which do we have the liberty to deconstruct or adapt?

Saying that the roots of church practices and traditions were formed from cultural influences in earlier years is not the same as saying they are wrong or evil. I see the benefit of revealing the historical roots of certain practices and allowing churches the opportunity to determine if those practices are useful for their community and worship.

I've not finished the book yet, but I hope that the end result is that the church, by knowing its history, is given permission to continue reforming. Saying the church has been in a process of reform which will continue is not the same as saying everything from the last 2,000 years has been wrong.

[Bob Hyatt]

Josh- yes!

Grace- Sure- we're doing plenty of deconstructing of our own. But what I've been, am and will argue for is a middle road that gets away from the unnecessary but doesn't lose the biblical. Frankly, at this point I think that though they explicitly deny they are saying that things like having paid staff are WRONG, they turn around and say things like: "We have stated a historical case that most of what we do in our modern churches do not come from Jesus, the apostles, or the NT. Rather, it is derived from pagan culture dating mostly back to the third through fourth centuries. And the question we are asking readers is this: "Are these practices a departure or a development from what God had in mind for His church originally?"

Is it possible that much of what we are doing today for church does not reflect the will of God? Is that possible?"

I think if you scratch Viola a bit, you'll uncover someone who believes his way of doing church is the RIGHT way. He won't go as far as to say that others have it wrong, but I think the VERY FIRST SENTENCE he writes in the book demonstrates that's what he believes.

I'm with Joe Thorn on this one: "I do not want to dismiss the authors’ concerns, but it’s hard for me to take them seriously when they so grossly overstate things.Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy provocative books. I want others to challenge me and force me to re-think my practices and beliefs. The problem for me is that the book reads more like an ecclesiological version of the Loose Change conspiracy theories concerning the 9/11 attack. A lot of information is collected, assumptions are made, and in the end the final interpretation of history is simply wrong. Not only does their attempt to uncover the truth fail, but more importantly I fear their legit concerns will be ignored by many while others will read the book as gospel because it presents itself as unquestionable history with Barna’s research seal of approval."

Again- I haven't read the whole book. I will. I'll try to point out where I agree. But I'm not going to shy away from calling BS either... And just because I do so doesn't mean I'm probably not closer to these guys than I am to, say, the WillowBack model on some things :)

[grace]

Bob,
I understand what you're saying. To be honest, I wish they had done a deeper edit because I think that some of the more extreme statements are likely more reflective of where Frank was in 2002 than perhaps now. I don't actually know that to be true, but I guess I would like to believe that he has probably evolved and grown over the years just like most of us do.

Last night when I was reading the intro material, I went through with a pink highlighter and marked the statements that could have been less presumptuous, and most of them are the same ones you quoted in your post. So yeah, I know what you are saying.

Maybe I am reading with rose-colored glasses, but I have that luxury, since I don't have a fat-ass Pastoral Paycheck to protect. ;)

[Alan Knox]

Bob,

I don't know if I have commented before, but I am a regular reader. I have not read the new edition of Pagan Christianity, but I read the original edition a couple of years ago. At that time I thought the rhetoric was over the top. I was hoping that Viola and Barna would tone down the rhetoric in the new edition. Apparently, that did not happen.

That being said, I hope you will try to read past the rhetoric as grace is suggesting. Viola presents very good, historical information to demonstrate that many practices were added to the church through contact with various cultures, not as a result of apostolic tradition or Scripture. If this is true, then these practices are not necessary for the church to be the church. As I understand it, this is what Viola and Barna are trying to communicate. I'm afraid the message often gets lost in the rhetoric.

I am attempting to approach the question from a different direction. Instead of asking "what is not necessary?" (a la Viola and Barna), I'm trying to examine Scripture to determine "what is necessary for the church to be the church?" Thus, I'm trying to take a more positive approach. However, I still think their approach is valid and important.

I understand that the modern and the postmodern church are intimately attached to many of the practices discussed in Pagan Christianities. However, I also think it is beneficial to think carefully about these practices, why they were added, and to ask if we may be missing something by including them today.

-Alan

[Lance Cummins]

# "There is not a single verse in the entire New Testament that supports the existence of the modern-day pastor!"
# "Nothing so hinders the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose as does the present-day pastoral role."
# "Therefore, to our minds, these passages show that every Christian has the right to participate in 'leading worship' under Christ's headship."
# "Giving a salary to pastors elevates them above the rest of God's people. It creates a clerical caste that turns the living body of Christ into a business."

It is interesting to me to note that those quotes all sound like Mormonism to me.

[Rose]

Bob,
I am buried in reading for school so won't be able to read this for a while. What kind of practices do the authors suggest are pagan or come from pagan roots? I am all for reforming, deconstruction and reconstruction to be faithful to our time and context, I am growing weary of the "this is the right way" authors...really, I might not agree with much that goes on in the Western, specifically American church but...but if it's true every 500 years culture and the church reforms and we are in the midst of radical , tectonic shifts in culture and the church then we are in the midst of transition - it might be another 100 years for whatever is taking shape to really be clear. In the meantime, can't we try to honor many expressions (not evil) of the local church? Phyliss Tickle in her talk "the Rose" (National Youth Workers Conference is the most recent recording I think) nails this...l

[Jon Bartlett]

Bob,

It occurs to me that Hirsch's 'Forgotten Ways' offer a more nuanced view of this whole issue. It allows the dominance of the pastor-teacher, within a more Christian culture, to have developed because of the culture around, and perhaps even led by the Spirit. Where Hirsch is strong is in his view that a different, more Viola-like structure is needed in today's, post Christian world.

I just wish that Viola could have written a book that was less confrontational and highligher the real issues that do exist. But I do agree with one of Lance's 4 quotes:

"There is not a single verse in the entire New Testament that supports the existence of the modern-day pastor!" - Correct, it's elders all the way. Using the word 'pastor' is unfortunate as it elevates a ministry into a job, and goes a long way to creating the clerical caste quoted later.

Cheers

Jon

[Bob Hyatt]

I think like most of what I'm reading from Viola, that's a gross overstatement.

See, I love Frost and Hirsch (even though Frost occasionally "disturbs" me too- but in a much more stretching and positive way). Hirsch's emphasis on recovering a balance in leadership (between shepherd/pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets and apostles) is wonderful.
I may have the "title" of pastor, but that's constantly reinforced by two things- with our people, we say (often) that Jesus is the real Pastor of the church (thank you Mr. Driscoll, for the constant reminders!). The rest of us serve as under-shepherds.
And among the elders, even though I'm one of two folks with the title "pastor" right now, they all know that it's their job to pastor the people as well- our elders aren't the "we decide all the stuff" kind who don't get their hands dirty actually taking care of people. It's a pre-requisite. AND we view our jobs as helping the people to pastor each other as well- to be coaching and moving them along (you know- spurring them on towards love and good deeds, bearing each others burdens, etc).
But also, we all know who's what among those identified as elders. I may have the title of pastor, but on Sundays, I'm careful to introduce myself as "one of the elders"... right now, I'm the one who happens to do the main bulk of teaching, but that may not always be so. Of the five gifts, on our elder team, I'm the "A"- the apostle. We also have two "P"s (prophetic- and these are my assessments- I think I'm right, but, I wouldn't die for these), two "S"s (shepherds), a "T" (teacher) and were in the process with someone I think will help to really balance and round us out- an "E"- evangelist.
That's the Eph. 4 classifications- Hirsch calls it APEST...

Look- I know where Viola is coming from- he's trying to take down the pastor-as-CEO model. I just think he's sloppy and overreaching and doesn't realize there are a lot of us "pastors" out here who don't see ourselves as the end-all-be all of leadership in our communities and have to just laugh at someone who comes along making ridiculous statements like "Nothing so hinders the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose as does the present-day pastoral role."

Really?

Nothing?

NOTHING?

ME?

I'm doing more to hinder God's purpose in the world than sin, than Satan, than brokenness and selfishness and all the other crap out there.

Little old me?

Whoa.

[Bob Hyatt]

Rose- I'll just answer your question with a vintage quote: "Almost everything that is done in our contemporary churches has no basis in the Bible."

Now- in other places they are careful to say "we don't necessarily think that's wrong!"

Really?

So why say something like this: "...the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to exist."

Sheesh.

Okay, everybody... shut 'em down!

Seriously- party's over. We're done here.

Please do as Frank has done and leave "the institutional church to begin gathering with Christians in the New Testament fashion..."

Can someone call Rick and Bill and let them know?

[AJ]

Thanks for the thoughts, Bob. I'm working my way through the book as well, and agree with you about the paranoid tone. I see some of the historical exegesis as helpful, but the over-the-top style makes the book all about deconstruction with not much help in moving forward.

[len]

bob, one of the implications of the book really is that "everyone out there is wrong and only the New Testament church guys have figured it out." ie. it feels very gnostic. And the outcome will be more fragmentation. Not good. Personally, I think you and Darryl Dash should get together and pen the review and response for Next Wave next month. (Which, when it hits 110 pages will be picked up and published by Emergent YS as "Why I love Pagan Christianity" and your life will become unmanagable as you hit the speaking trail...)

[len]

btw, I agree that I would much rather promote The Great Giveaway (Fitch) and The Forgotten Ways (Hirsch) than this one. I have always struggled to get beyond the polemical tone in Franks work. Its good to hear that he is perhaps moving beyond that tone, but I fear the reaction this book will engender will only polarize and the sense of "the embattled prophet" is likely to increase.

[Bob Hyatt]

"Its good to hear that he is perhaps moving beyond that tone"

I'd say this book shows something a bit different :)

But yeah- the Great Giveaway and Forgotten Ways. Totally!

[Steve]

Great review and comments. I have the 2002 version of the book so don't know how much the current version has been edited.

While Viola makes a lot of good points, he lost me from the start with the Neo illustration. I'm not sure if it is in the same form in the latest edition but I was troubled by the implication that anyone who sets aside Viola's book is taking the "blue pill" and believing whatever he wants to believe. (p. 28, and footnote 8 in 2002 edition.)

[Ron Park]

While I applaud Viola and Barna for exposing some of the unbiblical junk that has evolved into a vast herd of sacred cows over the course of Christian history, the book does seem to be a bit wholesale in its denounciation of institutional church - kind of like religious carpet bombing. But as an uncommonly open-minded Christian living in the bright, southern buckle of the Bible Belt - where pastors and preachers walk about on angel feathers, crossing denominational boundaries can cost you your immortal soul, and questioning God's officially endorsed way of doing things is certain to earn the left foot of fellowship - the sound of falling bombs brings me more hope than fear.

[notsleeping]

Bob,

Let me start by saying that I agree entirely with your qualms about this book.

No one has said it yet, so I'll go ahead and say it (I'm 200 pages into the book): "Pagan Christianity" is so full of bad historical analysis, half-baked assertions, and false assumptions that no one working on the history of Christian worship in academia could begin to take Viola/Barna seriously. Really. I know that wasn't the intended audience, but popular works for general consumption should be even *more* scrupulous in making sure falsehoods are not spread. Alas, this book fails miserably.

The book is so over-the-top with hasty generalizations, misunderstandings, convenient ignoring of conflicting evidence, and a lack of grappling with the major primary sources of the first two-hundred years of our faith (outside of the New Testament, of course--someone forgot to tell the authors that the N.T. isn't a liturgical how-to manual!), that it is landing with a big thud in my mind. Set it up on the corner shelf with the other nut-jobbers; I want my money back.

I hope people don't accept the authors' accounts of how "unbiblical junk" came to be part of the historic Christian tradition without engaging them critically and checking up on Viola's supposed research. They are wrong on so much that it is painful for someone who has studied the early development of the liturgy to even wade through it. I would love to read Paul Bradshaw's take on Viola/Barna's arguments, since they seem so fond of one of his books... or Geoffrey Wainright's, or Thomas Oden's, or Timothy George's.

I also have noticed an (unintentional) strand of anti-semitism throughout the text, in that the authors consistently ignore/reject any Jewish influence on Christian worship. Or, if they grudgingly acknowledged any potential consistency from Temple to Church, they simply state that Jesus "destroyed" the system of the "benighted" Jews (their adjective), so we need to throw that item overboard. Evidently that thing about *fulfilling* the Law didn't register. Maybe Jesus was kidding.

My summary of the book: clearly far outside the mainstream of historic Christianity; gnostic in its rejection of matter/Incarnational principles; Marcionite in its cavalier dismissal of the Old Testament's relevance to the Church (Isn't one of God's attributes immutability? Didn't He directly prescribe how he was to be worshipped in the O.T.? Or was God just going through a "pagan" phase?!); both pragmatic and juvenile in its appeals to "boredom" and "mustiness"; and finally, it fails to (1) recognize its own indebtedness to the tradition(s) it tries to knife, or (2) provide an alternative that could serve as a means of safeguarding the continued teaching, learning and living of *orthodox* Christian doctrine and dogma. It's a recipe for church drop-outs and roll-your-own heresies within the ranks.

But above all, to this Gen-Xer it sounds like the tired old voice of the flower children sticking it to The Man one more time. Hippie anti-institutionalism still in the full flush of adolescence. There's nothing new here to see...