Dig in Deep

Now that I’m done doing a thorough review of one of Viola’s books, it’s time to do a more concise review of his latest book: Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices.

This is actually a revision of Pagan Christianity, which was first released by Viola several years ago, and has apparently been out of print. With this revision, he’s partnered with George Barna. I’ve not read the original version of Pagan Christianity, but I’ve heard that this revision is much better on several levels.

While Rethinking the Wineskin actually focuses on church practices and principles described in the New Testament, Pagan Christianity focuses much more on the church practices (and their underlying principles) that have been added to the church since the New Testament era. It is really an impressive history book, detailing how certain practices were first introduced in the church. But it is also a criticism, for the practices Viola mentions have had detrimental effects on the functioning of the church:

• Church buildings: this idea is simply not found in Scripture, and Viola explains how the church building as a sacred space was connected to the use of relics (usually bones of dead saints) to create sacred, holy spaces as the only “appropriate” place to worship. Early Christianity intentionally stayed away from the “holy space” concept prevalent in every other religion. The financial overhead of a building is only one of the problems it creates. (As opposed the house.)
• Order of worship: the order of worship has remained essentially unchanged for hundreds of years. The problem with a set, unalterable liturgy (whether spoken or set to song) is that it prevents the practical functioning of the body of Christ within church gatherings. Not only is it not found in scripture, it is directly at odds with descriptions found in scripture of early church gatherings as well as inconsistent with the theology of the body of Christ.
• Sermon: like the order of worship, the sermon takes control away from the body and places it in the hands of the individual. But sermons also were borrowed directly from pagan philosophy styles of the Greek sophists (the inventors of rhetoric) who were more interested in oratorical skill than in any kind of accuracy. The idea of a “trained speaker,” turned into “religious specialist” was taken from this tradition. This does not call teaching or preaching into question, but it certainly calls into question the regularly styled oratory and professional approach to preaching. Preaching as found in the New Testament was sporadic, spontaneous, dealt with an immediate situation, and lacked rhetorical structure. It also usually took on some form of dialogue rather than simply being an oratory.
• Pastor: The pastor is at the heart of preventing the body of Christ from functioning in the way demanded by New Testament theology. Pastoring is a spiritual gift, but the idea of the modern “pastor” is completely unbiblical. Its introduction to the church first began with Ignatius, who believed that “a bishop stood in the place of God while the presbyters, or elders, stood in the place of the twelve apostles.” Eventually these ideas morphed into the priest system. But it was always about separating God from man, establishing man-made structures and hierarchies to take the place of the organic leadership that Christ worked through in the early church.
• Sunday morning dress: “Dressing up for church” is a more recent issue, brought on about 150 years ago with the introduction of a middle class who could afford some nice clothes, and wanted to identify themselves with their more wealthy neighbors. But the idea of special clergy robes was integrated from the Roman court systems, and over time became yet another symbol of the separation of the clergy from the laity.
• Music ministers: the choir was borrowed from Roman imperial procedures for processional music, eventually leading to a specialization of singing by the choir alone. Similar to how preaching was viewed as requiring training in the methods and practices of oratory and was reserved for only professionals, the singing was reserved for the trained, professional members of the choir, creating a spirit of spectatorship that survives to this day.
• Tithing and salaries: the modern idea of a tithe has no basis in the New Testament, which calls believers to give according to their ability, and to give as they feel led to give, out of joy. The modern idea of the tithe exists as a result of the combination of the church with secular authority, which used the “tithe” as a way to forcibly fund church operations. Viola explains how tithing in the Old Testament was designed to help the poor, but in the modern understanding of a tithe, the church expects even the poor to give 10%, and makes them feel guilty if they are unable to do so. The tithe becomes a cop-out for those with a lot of money (because they can easily give the “required” 10% and ease their conscience), while becoming a burden of guilt on the poor. All to fund further religious specialization of the clergy, separating these same poor people from God and preventing the full functioning o the body of Christ.
• Baptism and communion: Baptism became a part of a larger religious ritual rather than the simple practical expression of faith as described in the New Testament. Many began to view the act of baptism as providing the forgiveness of sins – Constantine himself waited until his deathbed to be baptized for this reason. Communion in the New Testament was a full meal, with remembrance, celebration, and discipleship, as a center of the gathering community. It later became infused with ritualistic undertones, taking on elements of pagan mysticism to eventually become the Eucharist in the Catholic mass. The reformation changed the theology behind communion but it did little to change the practice itself, which still commonly has heavy ritualistic undertones.
• Christian education: After the institutionalization of Christianity, Christian education always followed the prevailing education methods of the day. With a focus on knowledge, Christian education has little in common with the methods Christ employed in discipleship. Christian education is at the heart of the “specialization” of Christian ministry to the select few, being a basis upon which a person is “called” to professional ministry. This concept has nothing in common with New Testament Christianity and is based completely in secular systems of training and credentials.

The reality is that all of these elements were absent from the early church. All of them were borrowed and adopted from pagan and religious systems. Few people will disagree with that. What people will disagree with is whether or not they hinder the proper functioning of the body of Christ.

Wineskin talked a lot about these issues as well, but didn’t go into nearly the same level of detail about them. Likewise, Pagan Christianity deals somewhat with the New Testament church practices and principles, but doesn’t go into nearly the same detail as Wineskin. But I think to truly understand how these issues hinder the proper functioning of the body of Christ, you have to look very closely at how God instructs the Church to be. And since today’s institutional church doesn’t take scripture very seriously in this regard, of course they will disagree with Viola’s style, tone, and conclusions.

Even still, those who agree with Viola are sometimes at a loss to put it all together. Viola also puts a lot of plugs in for a book coming out this summer, called Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity (to be released in August 2008). I’m pretty sure that this book will actually be a combination of a couple of Viola’s previous books, including Wineskin. I know that a lot of people had wished that Pagan Chrstianity had contained more practical descriptions of how to implement organic church principles – Viola has been pushing this upcoming book as the “response” to Pagan Christianity.

But I’m not sure that we should get too caught up looking for “practical” tips to implementing an organic church. Part of the point in things being organic is that they don’t look exactly the same everywhere. But every practical thing we try to do should be examined against the principles of the church, as described in the New Testament, and those following the path of organic church welcome others who can help guide them along the way.

I also don’t think it’s wrong to adopt styles and practices from surrounding culture, as long as they don’t redefine what it means to be the church, and as long as we don’t form some kind of new tradition around them. For instance, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hosting a concert-style worship event or a seminar-style teaching series, but I don’t think that these should become the defining characteristics of our church gatherings — which are more appropriately modeled after the relational form of discipleship that Christ employed. Keeping things organic helps to ensure that my “great idea” doesn’t obstruct how the church is supposed to function, and also helps to ensure that my idea doesn’t outlive its usefulness.

I think that the story of the church over the past 1700 years, most of all, has been one of religious leaders redefining church to be less and less organic and more and more institutional. We are beginning to see a paradigm shift back to an organic view of church. It started decades ago and is still growing. It might not really explode for decades more, but those of us whom God has called out of the institutional church to follow His call to a return to organic communities are glad to see authors like Viola and Barna put a voice to what God has been laying on our hearts. Some in the institutional church will respond as God puts in on their hearts as well, and others will lash out because it is too much of a challenge to their institutional worldview. If they had the power to silence it, many of them would try. This has always been the case when God speaks through His prophets, and we should expect no different today.

If you’ve not read this book, and issues of this nature are at all an interest to you, I highly recommend reading it. It will give you a very different perspective on the Sunday morning experience, and at a minimum, will help you to understand the perspective of your “organic church” contemporaries.