Book review: Pagan Christianity

[Guest]

I just edited some stuff out of my last post. Now I have a couple questions for Danny, or anyone really.

Does Pagan Christianity say anything about the Essenes? Or do any of you know much about them? I'm not trying to go off-topic but the early church, especially the Jewish church in Jerusalem, was "patterned" after the Essenes: New Testament parallels are unmistakable (as seen in the writings of Josephus, e.g.). I have all kinds of articles/links to document this.

If Viola and Barna don't comment on Essenes, I suppose I'd be off-topic to post about them here.

[Guest]

I don't recall any specific mention of the Essenes in Pagan Christianity.

I'm somewhat familiar with who they were, though it's been a while since I studied them in any detail.

[Guest]

FYI, I just saw an announcement that Frank Viola will be releasing a sequel to Pagan Christianity entitled Reimagining Church.

According to the announcement: "It will answer the following questions: "Pagan Christianity" deconstructed many modern church practices, but what should stand in its place?" "What does an organic church look like, and how does it function today in the 21st century?" "What is the biblical basis for such a church?" "What about contexualization?" "What is the relationship between the Trinity and the church?" "How do we determine what was prescriptive vs. descriptive in the New Testament church?" and many more. "Pagan Christianity" started a controversial conversation; "Reimagining Church" will help continue it. The book releases this Summer."

[Guest]

I just read the introductions and this is my brief reaction...

I like the bold stance of both writers. I don't like to read stuff by people who don't feel passionately about what they are writing. That being said, I question one of the major premises behind the book. Both authors paint a picture that multitudes are leaving the institutional church for a purer form of Christianity AND that this is a great step of faith. First, I doubt millions are leaving for THAT reason. Second, I am not convinced leaving is as great a step of faith as staying and being a change agent. I think both authors are guilty of some overstatement in their introductions. That being said, I'm very interested in finishing the book and have, so far, found it stimulating to the mind.

[Guest]

In an earlier post Rick said:

I've posted that Paul and/or the Christians in Ephesus rented a philosopher's hall for two years. Chapter One of Gehring's book documents how Christians renovated the [larger] homes of more well-to-do believers and built or rented "meeting halls" before the first church buildings were built (after Constantine).

There would seem to be strong evidence the Corinthians met in a place other than a home. In Acts 18 we read:

Acts 18:8-11 (New King James Version)

8. Then Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized.
9. Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; 10. for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.” 11. And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

It is difficult to believe that in the eighteen months of his ministry Paul made no more converts than could fill a large home. It might be argued that there were many house churches, but in 1 Corinthians Paul wrote:

1 Corinthians 14:23 (New King James Version)

23. Therefore if the whole church comes together in one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind?


Paul anticipated that all the Corinthian Christians would meet in one place at least some of the time, and that, in a place where unbelievers might drop in. This would seem to indicate much more than a house church gathering.

[Guest]

Hi Homer,

The the link below wrote that about 150-200 Christians were in the Corinthian church when Paul wrote to them. Also, I think I read or heard N.T. Wright say that the Roman church had about 300 people when Paul wrote Romans. (I'm not sure how they came up with these numbers).

Here's a compilation of material (click around, you'll see floor plans, pictures, etc.):
Corinthian House Church Communities

From the PBS "From Jesus to Christ" link:
"The First Christians"
Paul's Congregations
Often portrayed as appealing only to lower classes, Paul's Christian communities actually attracted people who were 'upwardly mobile.'

Wayne A. Meeks:
Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies Yale University

PAUL'S COMMUNITIES; NOT JUST PROLETARIAT

Who were the people [in Paul's communities]? Who responded to [him]?

The traditional view of the composition of the early Christian communities -- and the ones we know anything about are the Pauline communities -- is that are from the proletariat. Early Marxist interpreters of Christianity make a great todo with this. It's a movement of the proletariat....

But if you actually look at the Book of Acts, and you look at Paul, and you begin to collect the people who are named, or identified in some way, here you have Erastus, the City Treasurer of Corinth; you have Gaius of Corinth, whose home is big enough to let him be not only Paul's host but the host to all of the Churches of Corinth, all of the little household communities can meet in his house at one time. You have Stephanos and his household who have been host to the community. You have Lydia, in Philippi, who is the seller of purple goods, a luxury fabric. You have Prisca and Aquila, and we wonder why the woman is usually mentioned before her husband. She must be a woman of some consequence, who runs a tent making establishment, accordingly to the Book of Acts, in which Paul joins, as a fellow artisan.

So you begin to get the impression that you have quite a variety of different social levels represented in these early Christian communities. Not people at the absolutely top level; you have, with the exception possibly of Erastus, no one from the aristocratic orders - no one who would be a member of the city council. You have no agricultural slaves, are at the bottom of the hierarchy. But, in the rest of the social pyramid, everything in between, you seem to have representatives in these early Christian groups. The people who are named, whom we can identify, have the further characteristic that they seem to cross various boundaries, they're betwixt and between. In some ways, they are marked by high social status. Take Paul, himself. He clearly uses Greek very fluently. He clearly has rhetorical skills, though probably not of the sort that one would have learned at the university. He knows some of the things that are being discussed in the philosophical schools. On the other hand, he's a hand-worker, a tent maker, which is at the other end of the scale, and this is characteristic of most of those people that we know of, as leaders, who are named in the group. So, we begin to get a picture of upwardly mobile people, to use a modern anachronistic way of describing them.

One thing on tent-makers.
Tent-making was big business in N.T. times. They made not only regular tents which were used for traveling caravans (huge tents), but what we would call "awnings" like some people have over their patios. Many, if not most, homes had these "awnings" someplace around their homes. The Coliseum had a gigantic "tent" covering over a larger portion of it. Tent-making; a very lucrative business of the time.

Anyway, this site has a lot of information. Some of the homes were really big, larger than some churches of today.

To get around the site, click on the "map" at the top: Conflict and Community in the Corinthian Church, (is a book edited by J. Shannon Clarkson).

[Guest]

Hey Danny,

"How do we determine what was prescriptive vs. descriptive in the New Testament church?"

This may go into the primitive Jewish Jerusalem church's "communal life" (practice and lifestyle)?

I believe many early Christians were former Essenes and there may have been more of them than Pharisees (going by Josephus). As you know, in Acts, they sold all their possessions and joined the community; the same thing happened in Essene communities. That is, of the "monastic" type of celibate communities, of whom Josephus says there were 4,000 men (not counting nuns and the marrying Essenes who had kids and "lived in every city" in Judea).

Josephus said there were 6,000 Pharisees in total. Given the above is why I think there may have been more Essenes who, btw, called themselves "the poor [ones]", in Aramaic, the ebionim. Read in Acts and Paul's letters about how the churches gave to "the poor in Jerusalem."

Also, many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are now thought to have come from various places in the Levant, being authored in Jerusalem or elsewhere: (Not all of them were written at Qumran as had been thought before). Qumran is now seen as the "headquarters" of the Essene movement; as where [all of] these books were deposited (hidden); probably right about when the Temple was destroyed. Stuff to think about.

[Guest]

I am half-way through the book and I am loving it! Thank you so much for the recommendation.

[Guest]

I'll continue my review of the Viola/Barna book "Pagan Christianity" with a discussion of chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 1 is really an introduction to the book. Viola continues his overstatements by declaring that 'almost everything that is done in our contemporary churches has no basis in the Bible.' A major disagreement I seem to have with Viola is that he seems to equate the EXTRA-Biblical category with the UN-Biblical category. I also found it humorous that in a book complaining of pagan influence over the church, Viola begins by raving about the 'Socratic Method.' I like the Socratic method too, but then again, I'm not the one saying the church shouldn't have ANY influence from the world.

Chapter 1: The Church Building
In general, I agree with Viola's theology in this section. We don't GO to church, we ARE the church. I agree that too many churches spend too much time and money on buildings. I appreciated his account of the history of how congregations went from homes to holy cathedrals. But this is where Viola's EXTRA-Biblical ='s UN-Biblical equation gets goofy. He argues without an argument that the early Christians consciously decided not to build buildings and says that even though they did renovate homes into larger rooms used for services, "remodeled houses... cannot rightfully be called church buildings." Haha! Why not?

He makes a lot of statements that just leave me scratching my head. For instance, "The Christian building demonstrates that the church, whether she wanted it or not, had entered into a close alliance with pagan culture." What does he mean by alliance? Obviously he intends it negatively, but how is deciding to build a building a show of alliance with evil? Another example would be, "The message of the steeple is one that contradicts the message of the New Testament." Hmm. Well that sort of depends on what symbolism you're reading into the steeple. Viola was comparing it to Babel. I don't think of a steeple in that way at all. My point is that even if the original motivation for something was wrong, I am not bound by the author's intent.

But I agreed with a lot of what he said too. I'd prefer less distinction b/w the clergy and laity too. I'd rather teach right in front of people than behind a big pulpit. I wish churches were less 'performance' oriented. I agree that too many Christians don't understand that we (not the church building) replace the Old Testament temple.

[Guest]

I was excited to get this book, and felt a warm tingle of electricity as I began to read it. I was immediately impressed with the many footnotes - showing me the authors had done their homework. Some of the opening thoughts resonated well with me, and I had a feeling I would be in for a treat.

But the tingle of electricity lasted about as long as a set of cheap batteries on Christmas morning. As Matt pointed out, the authors certainly are passionate about what they believe in. But they paint with a very broad brush their very dull colors. Which is too bad because they have a lot of great things to say, but they distance me from it by the way they say it.

For example, in describing the design of the modern-day church, they write: The lighting is indirect and subdued. The ceilings are high. The colors are earthy and rich. Sound travels in a specific way. All things work together to give us a sense of awe and wonder ... (pg. 39)

This is meant as a negative. But why is it a negative? What is necessarily wrong with feeling a sense of awe and wonder? If my heart is right before God, is it fake to feel those things when I come in the presence of other Christians in a building?

They also write: "Watch a choir don their robes before church service. They smile, laugh, and even joke. But once the service starts, they become different people. You will not often catch them smiling or laughing." (pg. 40)

Really? I'm sure that in some churches this is the case, but not all. I have visited many churches where the choir does not become stone-faced during the service. Why broad-brush it this way?

One more example: ... the church building is far less warm, personal, and friendly than someone's home - the organic meeting place of the early Christians.

Now, I certainly agree that a church can be less friendly than someone's home - but is that always the case? Has anyone ever been in a believer's home that didn't feel warm and personal? Although not clearly stated, the authors seem to imply that first century home-churches were warm, personal and friendly. How do they know this to be true? Why do they broad brush the idea? Is it because they have a point to make that is better served by making the contrasting idea extreme?

It's broad-brushing like this that starts to leave a sour taste in my mouth. As Matt wrote, the authors continue in their "overstatements" in a way that is not necessary.

I'm still working my way through the book. I believe it makes many challenges, and all in all I'm glad to be reading it. I just feel that the writers have surrendered some of their intellectual integrity by building upon some broad statements that aren't always necessarily true to make another point.

peace,

dane