You know you’re about to read a controversial book when the publishers (Tyndale) decide to put a disclaimer—”Publisher’s Preface”—about the content of the book at the very beginning (even before the table of contents)… and this book certainly didn’t disappoint in the realm of “controversial” (or in the realm of the ridiculous). Before reading this book I isolated myself from all of the reviews out there wanting to approach it from an unbiased position and evaluate it completely for myself… although I knew it was taking some heat, I didn’t realize the wide spectrum from which the heat was coming.
The very first thing that I did was look through the table of contents to get a feel for where this book was heading, and immediately I gathered exactly where the authors (Frank Viola—a heavy proponent of the house church—& George Barna—a highly regarded church statistician) where coming from. The 3 largest chapters (by far) dealt with the church building, the order of worship and the pastor (a ratio of 2 pages to 1 in regards to every other chapter). I then read their introduction and braced myself for an exercise of silly logic and ridiculous research—and that’s exactly what I found.
If you want to know the crux of this book (the thesis if you will) here it is: Everything that we do in the church today is directly linked to paganism. Meaning, that there is nothing we do that is truly sacred—unless of course your church meets in a house… then you’re exempt from this. Viola and Barna do nothing in this book but propagate a horrible history of the church that is founded upon poor research and terrible logic. If you have read this book, I would love to hear your perspective on their research and logic.
I can’t even count how many times I rolled my eyes at their nonsense, or grunted in disgust.
This was a horrible book, not because of their conclusions, but because of the cavalier arrogance and insinuation that anything outside of the realm of the house church is unbiblical and pagan in nature because it all evolved after the 3rd century. Viola and Barna give no regard to cultural sensitivity, cultural awareness, or cultural influence into the promotion of the gospel and by doing so expect that each and every church be a “New Testament Church” functioning the exact same way as a first century Jewish Christian would… sorry, but I don’t think that translates very well to our culture.
Another interesting note is in their analysis and conclusion, everything that came alive in the church after the first century is regarded as having a pagan influence and therefore unbiblical—buildings, pastors (whom they say have no scriptural support), sermons, order of worship, etc, etc, etc. However, in a strange twist of logic, they base all of these conclusions on the New Testament (NT) which wasn’t canonized until 393 at the Synod of Hippo. So, does this mean that the NT is also of pagan influence? According to their logic it would seem this is the proper conclusion. These are the blanket statements that Viola and Barna make in their book—yet when fleshed out they fall short.
This book was nothing more than Viola’s poor attempt to promote house churches as the only biblical form of church and used by Barna to offer a solution to the problems raised in his book Revolution. It was a very poor attempt and a shameful ploy on both of their parts. I was very disappointed.
If you want more commentary on this book check out Bob Hyatt’s conclusions (there are several links in this one post to a few of his reflections) or Christianity Today’s review at Out of Ur and the discussion there within.
Related posts:
- house church.
- Visioneering (a review)
- Faith of My Fathers (a review)
- choke: a review
- breaking the missional code (a review)
I can’t see how you read the same book I did. More balanced reviews can be read at http://www.paganchristianity.org that site also has the authors answering questions from critics. I recommend that people read this book themselves instead of believing a negative review or two. It’s really great.
Tommy G.
Thanks for the link Tommy, but you never really interacted with the review… you simply tossed my opinion aside as worthless.
I’d love to hear about the book that you read and how it differed.
P.S. the link also backed up a point I made in the review that this book was simply a proposed solution by Barna to the issues raised in Revolution… The site calls the book: “The sequel to Barna’s bestselling Revolution.”
thanks for the review. the swipe at the authors for using a fourth century canon to support their reductionistic ecclesiology was quite funny.
although i was a part of a home church for almost four years and benefited greatly from the experience, i’ve always refused to support the proposition that house church is the way to do church. that form of ecclesiological reductionism is indeed silly and i’m glad that you’ve identified it as such.
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptPagan Christianity? Frank Viola & George Barna Religion | Christian Church | History269 pages You know you’re about to read a controversial book when the publishers (Tyndale) decide to put a disclaimer—”Publisher’s Preface”—about … [...]
i’m glad you found the humor in that gentry!
i am still at a loss for why there is such a vast chasm of disagreement between the house church folk and the “traditional” church fold… why is it that we can’t seem to bridge that gap and appreciate one another, learn from one another and strive together to build the kingdom instead of tearing down the institutions a part at the seams with ridiculous argumentation.
I have read the book. I have to admit, I had a hard time accepting some of what was stated. But I had to go back and ask WHY I had a hard time accepting certain accusations. Was it truly because Viola and Barna are off their rocker? Or, could it be that they are right – and I don’t like hearing – and FACING the reality – that what I have FOLLOWED for so long (the CHURCH way of following Jesus) might be tainted?
That is a difficult question to ask but one worth pondering.
as for interacting with your review,
you say their thesis is “Everything that we do in the church today is directly linked to paganism. Meaning, that there is nothing we do that is truly sacred—unless of course your church meets in a house… then you’re exempt from this.”
the book doesn’t say any of that. I read it twice and it never says that everything today’s church does is pagan. it doesn’t say that everything that’s pagan is wrong. the book also criticises house churches instead of what you suggest. so your review is misleading. here’s the direct link for the discussion page. http://www.ptmin.org/answers.htm
a lot of this stuff is talked about by the authors there. anyone who hasn’t read the book can read it for themselves. the reviews on that page describe the book that I read. so check ‘em out. also i noticed you only posted two reviews at the bottom which were negative too. so it really seems like you have an agenda rather than giving the book an accurate fair analysis. the reviews on the answer page give a very different perspective than yours.
quotes from Pagain Christianity?:
» “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.”
These are just a few of the quotes smattered throughout the book that supports my thesis. Although they may never come out and directly quote this thesis statement, it is widely inferred.
Oh, and if these quotes aren’t enough the authors go so far as to offer a 3-step process for leaving your current church at the end of the book. (my inference is they are offering you hope out of your pagan church experience.)
tommy, my agenda is to provide my opinion on the book that i read… just like i’ve done with dozens of others in the past. the reason for offering up the links that i offered was because i haven’t found any positive reviews of this book out there. that’s why i appreciated your link… i was looking through blogs, not looking back to the authors.
i find it odd that the authors had to put up a site to defend their work… from my perspective, that means they didn’t do a very good job of writing the book and explaining their positions well enough to be understood.
Dan,
I agree that we have to ask the question of ‘why’… but even after doing so while reading the book, and after pondering it afterwards i was still unable to accept their conclusions. In part because of their tone, but also because of the hard and fast immovable historical line they took to make their point. This resulted in a completely impossible book to swallow whole… although there were some good points (i.e. the headship of Christ in the church—although it wasn’t stressed enough, and almost seemed to be a secondary issue for them at points in time.)
I still wish that there wasn’t the chasm between the “traditional” church and the house church movement and instead we worked and moved towards a shared appreciation of each other.
I really don’t see how those quotes support your thesis. You said the book says that “everything” we do for church today is wrong except for home churches. I didn’t read that anywhere. the book addresses some of the main traditions and shows they’re not biblical. I can’t find any holes in their arguments. it’s pretty well documented, and I loved reading the history in the footnotes. I just went to the site again and it’s a question answer site. I see it as a good reflection of their work because they are willing to answer questions head on, not hide in the sand and disappear when people have questions. I wish more authors would be open like that. you didn’t find any positive reviews? I read a bunch of them. here’s one place where some of then have been collected in one place. http://www.paganchristianity.org/reviews.htm
Monts,
I haven’t read it and don’t plan to do so. I haven’t read a single blogger I trust who liked it. Check out the links at my blog (here’s the tiny url): http://tinyurl.com/3ch75r
that’s fine tommy that you don’t agree… that was never my goal. i’m also glad to see you understand hyperbole. (please note the sarcasm of that last statement… at least hyperbole isn’t pagan… or wait, is it? but Jesus used it right? )
thanks for the links adam… i like the in-depth detail that they go into.
Until their “house churches” consist of no electricity, no running water, no chairs, contain slaves and patrons and Jews, are smaller than 1000 square foot, speak in Greek or Aramaic or some other first century dialect, until they figure out how to meet in a synagogue, the temple courts, the lecture hall of Tyrannus, and the shores of a river outside of Philippi simultaneously, until they figure out how to listen to the apostles’ teaching without apparently the use of a preacher/teacher or worship with songs and hymns without apparently any order to the service or evangelize the nations without apparently any organization or infrastructure, until they are able to do all of that I will remain a skeptic as to whether they have fully recapture pre-pagan first century Christianity.
[...] jumped into this book on the heels of reading Pagan Christianity? and experienced some striking overlap between the two in thought and in practice, however there [...]
[...] pagan christianity? the farce. 10.Jun.08 | book reviews, ecclesiology, emergent, emerging church | Uh oh… looks like a big hole has just been shot in the “facts” (a.k.a. “well-researched scholarship”) presented by Barna and Viola in their book Pagan Christianity?. [...]