I recently read Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices by Frank Viola and George Barna. In case you haven’t heard anything about the book, Pagan Christianity? looks at many of the most taken for granted church practices in protestantism and argues that they come not from Scripture or the teachings of Jesus, but from pagan practices that were co-opted by Christians.
I found the book to be interesting, thought-provoking, and challenging. But I often got pretty frustrated with the basic premise that was, to me, applied too broadly and without nuance. To over simplify my understanding of the premise of the book: Anything that has become part of the practice of the church that did not come directly from Jesus and the New Testament is bad. (Like I said, I may be overstating it or oversimplifying the argument, but that is the best I can do in a nut shell.) Nevertheless, the authors make some excellent points about how much of what we do today in the church encourages a view of active clergy and passive laity. This is a huge problem!
In any case, I was intending to write a review of it in a week or two, in part in order to create the space to wrestle with some of the thoughts I had about the book as I read it. However, yesterday I read Dan Kimball’s review of Pagan Christianity, and it says what I would have tried to say much better than I would have said it. Kimball promises a second installment where he will post Viola’s response to the questions that Kimball raises at the end of the post. Kimball also references several other reviews in his post. If you have heard about Pagan Christianity? and you are interested in reading a review that is sympathetic yet critical, I would highly recommend this review.
For those of you who may have read this book, what are your thoughts about Pagan Christianity?
Kevin M. Watson 
Wow. I can’t believe you read the book and came out with this — “Anything that has become part of the practice of the church that did not come directly from Jesus and the New Testament is bad.”
That’s not the argument of the book and the authors say so in the beginning and end. Have you read the Q A page yet? I highly recommend it. http://www.ptmin.org/answers.htm
Tom –
Thanks for stopping by!
Maybe I should have just avoided trying to sum up their argument in my own words. My summary may have been an overstatement.
On the other hand, I am not convinced that my statement is so off base that it is accurate to say that it is not the argument of the book. In the Preface Viola says:
“God has not been silent when it comes to the principles that govern the practices of His church. Let me explain by posing a question: Where do we find our practices for the Christian life? Where is our model for understanding what a Christian is in the first place? Is it not found in the life of Jesus Christ as portrayed in the New Testament? Or do we borrow it from somewhere else? Perhaps a pagan philospher?” (xviii).
“Consequently, in the New Testament we have the genesis of the church. I believe the first-century church was the church in its purest form, before it was tainted or corrupted” (xviii).
“So we would argue that on theological grounds, historical gounds, and pragmatic grounds, the first-century church best represents the dream of God” (xix).
“We are also making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor historical right to function as it does” (xx).
It does seem to me that generally speaking the argument of the book is that the church building, the order of worship, the sermon, the pastor, sunday morning costumes, ministers of music, tithing and clergy salaries, christian education, the way we do baptism and the lord’s supper, etc. are wrong because they are not based in the example of Jesus and the New Testament.
I have a lot of sympathy with the arguments of the book. My post was trying to point to Dan Kimball’s review as giving voice to some of the concerns or critiques I had in mind while reading the book. Kimball seems to me to be arguing that there are many, many things that we do that do not go back to the NT or Jesus’ explicit teaching. Therefore, something is not necessarily bad just because it does not derive directly from the NT or Jesus. (Again, let me stress that I do agree with many of the points that are made in Pagan Christianity?, but I also agree with Kimball that their arguments do not necessarily mean that the only way to be faithful is to go back to the organic/house church model.)
I hope that clarifies my intent with my original post. Thanks for the reminder to be intentional with the words that I use. And thanks again for stopping by.
This is a quote from their answers page.
Pagan
We are using this word to indicate those practices and principles that are not Christian or biblical in origin. In some cases, we use it to refer to those ancients who followed the gods of the Roman Empire. We are not using the word as a synonym for bad, evil, sinful, or wrong. A “pagan practice or mind-set” refers to a practice or mode of thinking that has been adopted from the church’s surrounding culture. We believe that some pagan practices are neutral and can be redeemed for God’s glory. We feel that others stand in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus and the apostles and thus cannot be redeemed.
Organic Church
The term organic church does not refer to a particular model of church. (We believe that no perfect model exists.) Instead, we believe that the New Testament vision of church is organic. An organic church is a living, breathing, dynamic, mutually participatory, every-member functioning, Christ-centered, communal expression of the body of Christ. Note that our goal in this book is not to develop a full description of the organic church but only to touch on it when necessary.
Institutional Church
This terms refers to a religious system (not a particular group of people). An institutional church is one that operates primarily as an organization that exists above, beyond, and independent of the members who populate it. It is constructed more on programs and rituals than on relationships. It is led by set-apart professionals (“ministers” or “clergy”) who are aided by volunteers (“laity”). We also use the terms contemporary church, traditional church, present-day church, and modern church to refer to the institutional church of our day.
Tom – Thank you for the clarification. From the definition of Pagan, I can see why you would object to my use of the word “bad” in my original post.
I think a more fair way to summarize it would be that the specific issues that they discuss in the book as pagan practices that are not authentic to Jesus and the New Testament are unhelpful to the mission and purpose of the church. Or maybe better, again going back to Viola’s own words:
“We are also making an outrageous proposal: that the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor historical right to function as it does” (xx).
Would you object to this revised characterization?
Thanks for helping me to think more carefully about what the book is and is not arguing for.
What’s up fellas? I haven’t read all the way through it but I am a good chunk of the way done, and I have had some questions about it too. I simply thought it could have been written better to start off with, but that aside…I don’t think Viola and Barna are suggesting that everything in the church is bad if it’s not in the New Testament, but on the flip side, if you look at some of the practices that are in the church and what purpose they really serve, then they might be on to something.
I don’t know that I want to go into specifics, but I think that they were on to something, I just don’t think they said it as well as they could have. That’s my half-baked review but maybe if we’re still talking about it later on, then I will write more afterward.
You might enjoy a series that I am doing about this here:
http://kburchard.wordpress.com/
This was the subject of my degree thesis project. Some of my research is the foundation for the series on church structure, leadership, organic vs. organization, etc. I’d love your feedback. There are 4 posts on this thread right now. The most recent is a bit provocative.
You will probably be GREATLY challenged regarding the “Pagan Christianity” book’s conclusions by reading a critique of it by another HOUSE CHURCH GURU, Zane Anderson. Here’s his critique:
http://www.housechurch.org/blog/2008/02/18/pagan-christianity-real-hope-or-shrill-hype/
Zane is a House Church Movement leader, but he is incredibly articulate in his ability to punch holes in the prejudices that exist AGAINST organized churches in the house church ideology.
God bless you on your jorney friend,
Kenny / Hanford CA