Pagan Christianity?
Publishing is a curious business. Frank Viola has written a book entitled Pagan Christianity in which he contends that many of the common practices of the modern church have their origins more in Paganism than in early Christianity. This is not the curious part; many people from Mormonism to Muslimism have made similar claims. Even the fact that Viola backs up his assertions with at least some degree of historical research is not the irony that is in the fire in this case.
What is curious about the whole matter is that Viola originally wrote his book in 2003. Yet the vitriol from the blogsphere did not occur until recently; that is, until the book was updated and republished in January of 2008. Make no mistake about it; the response is surprisingly emotional and negative. The review most cited is the one by Trevin Wax at Kingdom People; however, the most sarcastically negative response has to be from Michael Spencer at internetmonk. Perhaps, being more liturgical, this book stepped on some of Michael’s favorite toes.
Not that Viola (or his co-author, George Barna) is adverse to aiming well-placed stomps at exposed digits. As Wax noted, he pretty much “vehemently opposes everything about the institutional Church.” Perhaps “vehemently oppose” is a strong phrase, but certainly they critique most of the common practices of today’s churches. Included in Viola’s analysis are Order of Worship (liturgy); the Sermon, the Church Building; the Pastor, Sunday Morning Costumes, Ministers of Music, Tithes and Clergy Salaries, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; and Christian Education (Sunday School). Some of these practices are fairly recent (such as praise music bands) and others are more ancient in origin (like some facets of liturgy). Yet per Viola, almost all of these items are Pagan in origin. For the most part, Constantine gets his almost mandatory blame for keeping Christians—and according to Robin Lane Fox, Christianity—alive beyond the third century, yet “corrupting the church” in the process. Overall, this is pretty standard stuff. What is perhaps unique is that Viola and Barna wish to retain their Evangelical credentials while making these claims.
It is certainly true we as American Protestants read many of our Sunday practices—if we question them at all—back into the New Testament rather than the other way around. So in this situation, Pagan Christianity at least does us the service of questioning those practices in a new light. The problem is that Viola and Barna have their own interpretive grid. Being proponents of the House Church movement, they see the ideal church structure in terms of small, “organic,” non-hierarchical, home centered, entities. They then read this more “democratic” conceptualization back into the Scriptures and evaluate the modern church against it.
For example, while most of the early church met in homes, the use of larger structures for church purposes was not unknown. Paul used the lecture hall (or school) of Tyrannus for two years while he was in Ephesus (Acts 19:9). This structure may have been used in addition to homes (Acts 20:20), but it was used. Therefore, there is nothing in principle with meeting outside of homes if space or other considerations require it. The danger is that in meeting in a building only used for this purpose, as the book so notes, people begin to identify the building as the church rather than the church being what they are and what they do.
While on the subject of lecture halls, Viola argues in his book that the sermon at it currently stands is unbiblical. Instead, the first century church practiced a pattern of dialog in which instead of a single speaker, everyone contributed. “Each has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation” (1 Cor. 14:26). Though there probably was a lot more give and take between the teacher and his students (or “preacher and parishioner” to use modern terminology), it was not the hierarchy-free environment that Viola implies. After all, there still were teachers and there were still students. By definition a teacher has some measure authority over the students. Even Wayne Meeks, who would largely sympathize with Viola regarding the interactive nature of the early Christian meetings, notes that gift of teaching given to the body as a whole does not exclude that gift from being exercised by specific individuals:
“Instruction” and “admonition” in Col. 3:16 are functions of the whole congregation—by means of their singing or chanting. Elsewhere, too, the letters appeal to the addressees to “admonish” or “exhort” one another (as in 1 Thess. 4:18, 5:11-14; 1 Cor 14:31; Rom. 15:14). That does not mean that these functions were not led by individuals or performed by individuals on behalf of the congregation. “Each one” could offer “a psalm, a teaching,” and so on. Instruction, exhortation, and consolation were especially to be expected from prophets (1 Cor. 14:3, 19), but admonition is also a function of the local leaders who “labor” and “protect/preside” (1 Thess. 5:12). These are individual charismata (1 Cor. 12:8-10, 12:28-30; Rom. 12:8), but given to the “one body”; so Paul wants them understood, and so his disciples who wrote Colossians and Ephesians construed them. (The First Urban Christians, emphasis added)
Frankly, I am not as threatened (if that is the word) by such exercises. In this era when our very Protestant theology is being re-evaluated by such groups as the New Perspective on Paul, the Hebrew Roots theologians, and the Context Group Scholars, maybe it is time our very church practices received the same treatment. In short, I see nothing wrong with Viola and Barna at least making us review just how Biblical or even historical are many of the ways we meet together on Sundays. Though I may disagree with their conclusions in some instances, I certainly cannot argue against them asking the questions.
Where I wish Viola would have done more was in terms of his definition of the goal of the church. The church is not about “getting people saved” in some individualistic fashion. Instead, Viola rightly contends the purpose of the church is much more communal. It is the “mutual edification and every-member functioning to corporately manifest Jesus Christ before principalities and powers.”
That sentence alone was worth the price of admission.
Hi, an excellent alternative to Viola’s book is “The Ancient Church As Family” by Dr. Joe Hellerman. His work is well researched and addresses many of the “pagan” influences on our faith. Dr. Hellerman’s contribution is a blend of good history AND respectful discourse.
—Joe Miller