Okay. It blew me away only in one sense. After spending an entire evening with the book I just kept picturing Senator Joseph McCarthy in that old b/w broadcast. The army’s attorney general finally says, “Have you no decency? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” J. Welch, 1954.

To the point. I found the book wreckless and irresponsible. Viola adds footnotes to appear scholarly. Not so much, Frank.

Loved the review Michael. I especially enjoyed the Quaker reference.

I may well have nodded my head three or four times. Overall, I felt as though I was watching my new car get scrubbed with a wire brush. My car was dirty, but what the …

What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, the song leader has a hymn, and the Pastor a word of instruction, or a revelation, If any of you really believe in a tongue and has the guts to try it out, then make sure the Pastor has the interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church.

If anyone needs to interpret what it was the pastor really said, then let his wife stand up and give the interpretation.

If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. (Oh don’t we all wish)

The pastor should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the hearer should write it down – so that everyone may be instructed, encouraged and talk about it in the restaurant after the meeting.

The spirits of the laity are subject to the control of the clergy.

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, only the Pastor and the worship leader is allowed to speak. And the worship leader can only say what has been pre-edited so that it looks like we are all in this together.

Thank you.

I guess I should read “Pagan Christianity” before I take sides, but the pretty informed guess I can make as to its contents, and your terrific post here have overwhelmed my attempts to be objective. Three cheers for the institutional church. Thanks.

I lost count long ago of the number of times I heard: “It’s time we dumped all the mess that has accumulated in the church over the centuries — the dead tradition and stuffy hierarchy — and get back to being what the church should be.” The nineteenth century revivalists said it. Along with the nineteenth century fundamentalists. And the twentieth century pentecostals. And the neo-evangelicals. And the Jesus children. And the seventies charismatics. And the eighties church-growth seeker sensitives. My little campus Bible study group said the same thing in my college days so many years ago. And now, the emerging/ent churches are saying it too. Thank goodness they came along just in time to save us all.

I know the church has problems. But sometimes I think its number one problem is all its members who know what the church’s number one problem is. Of course, if I were to believe that, I would be contradicting myself, but I still think there’s some truth in there.

Thanks again for a great post.

I just picked up a copy of Pagan Christianity (from the library because I am a poor and cautious man). I have only gotten through the first 50 pages or so, but the tickle of warning in the back of my brain was brought to the fore with your post.

Maybe you saved me the time I would have spent reading the rest. But probably not. I am a literary masochist at heart.

I did find one quote that was worth the time spent so far. It was something to the effect that the mission of the church was to “mutually encourage one another to build a community that displays Christ to the powers and principalities of the world.” I thought that was as good a one sentence summary as a person could find.

I work at a 2000 year old institution supported by the New Testament and hijacked by institutions with millions of dollars who have “helped tens of thousands of students”.

I am 53 years old, and have never worked in ‘youth ministry’, but have often poked fun at it for many years. My bad, I guess; should have just prayed for you guys!

Sunday school was the two-century-old idea of newspaperman Robert Raikes, who sought to teach reading and writing to London’s street waifs who were forced to work in the factories all week and didn’t have opportunity for school on any other day.

So what does the man-made ‘church’ up and do with the thing? Why turn it into TWICE the zoological specimen…taking in all ages, and divvying them up by gender, age group, etc…Sunday school!

But try to reason with today’s institutional Christian about this silliness — this palpable, actual lunacy dressed up as serious Church business! — and you will get nothing but a snide remark. For preaching the gospel once delivered unto the saints, the ‘mere Christian’ is now dismissed with, “Oh we have flaws, flaws, flaws and more flaws! We are a grand mess! No such thing as a perfect church, you know!!? But that mess will not be solved by adopting the Campbell-Stone restoration movement of the 1830s, the Quaker movement of the colonial era or any version of “New testament Christianity” redone by emergers or anyone else.”

Brother, please. For God’s sake, then; if you’re just 51 and set in stone, SAY so. I was once a captive of the Vatican, and they at least have the chutzpah to say “this is how we’ve always done it, and we have no intention of changing. Get lost, goofball.”

Have chutzpah, my dear monk!

Just kidding; I don’t know anything about this “emerging” stuff, but institutions are human nature on collective parade. They are thus incapable of reform, in se.

Individuals are not. No matter *what* you’ve been doing since you were 18, bro.

Peace.

Of course, the same goes for math, science, and English lit.