Let me preface this review with a few quotes from the authors of Pagan Christianity?, Frank Viola and George Barna.
On page xxix, Barna’s introduction states that, “We cannot avoid bringing our culture to the church with us; it is a part of our very being. But in the light of tradition we need to sort out those cultural influences that contribute to the integrity of Christian worship from those that detract from it.”
Later, Viola writes, “The fact is that we do many things in our culture that have pagan roots… our accepted calendar. The days of our week and the months of our year are named after pagan gods.” He then argues that a certain practice is wrong, not because of its pagan roots, but because “it does not lead to the spiritual growth God intended.” (75)
Well, I guess that that is what is at issue. While the authors of this interesting volume want to argue against many (many!) “institutional church” practices based (at first glance) on the fact that they have “pagan” origin, when we get down to it, their book argues something else: stifled growth in the body, suppressed freedom and passivity are the main issue; origins are secondary. They themselves have said above that cultural influences (including pagan ones) are acceptable, as long as they don’t stifle the growth of the believing community.
I couldn’t agree more!
What I will share in future posts is my enthusiastic agreement – and strong disagreement – with many of the conclusions that they draw from this confused thesis (Is the problem pagan origins or stifled growth? Their minds were not demonstrably made up at the date of publication).
Next up: The (pagan) Church Building…
