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Final Thoughts on Pagan Christianity
This will (probably) be my last post on Pagan Christianity, (the previous two being here and here) and I wanted to address some comments (and an email) that I have received over the past few days.
The book (Pagan Christianity) has apparently been a bit of a controversial deal on the blogosphere, it seems that every time it’s mentioned there are both proponents and opponents that are vocal about their support/dissent. Any time you have this sort of discourse then the time must be taken to understand both sides of the argument.
The common theme I am hearing is that Reimagining Church, puts in place a new construct after PC tore the old one down. I, however, have a problem with this concept from the start. Pete Rollins in a podcast with Josh Case from The Nick and Josh Podcast (now the Josh and Josh podcast, as Nick’s gallivanting the globe) discussed the idea of deconstruction ending with reconstruction, and said (paraphrased here) “Deconstruction is the lava that keeps the flow of ideas moving, we should never stop deconstructing.” I completely agree with Rollins here, and I hesitate whenever I hear the word “reconstruct.”
The reason far my tepid outlook on reconstruction is the fear that what we reconstruct will simply become another monstrosity of “orthopraxy” (I say orthopraxy in the term of right practice in regards to how we do church) that must again be torn down. When we reconstruct we make the assumption that we have found the “right” way of doing things, which seems to be an arrogant statement in light of how long we (Christians) have been chasing the idea of orthopraxy.
I’m not saying that any reconstruction is bad, in fact we will certainly reconstruct as we go, but we need to keep the urgency of deconstruction with us at all times, lest whatever practices we build, to better engage in our (post)modern culture, become standardized and passed down to later generations in which they will have little (or no) effect.
That being said, I will indeed read Reimagining Church, if for no other reason than I’ve now been told by several people that I should do so.
I have also been told that I misunderstood the intent of Viola/Barna in Pagan Christianity. From the e-mail I received:
you seemed to have missed the point. Barna and Viola are NOT arguing to go back to a biblical blueprintism. They are instead tracing where the protestant traditions came from and raising questions. Frank’s new book REIMAGINING CHURCH — the constructive follow-up to PAGAN CHRISTIANITY –deals with the very issues you address, like contextualization.
While this may be true, I still feel that I what was being laid out in PC was this ideal of “Biblical Blueprintism” (good phrase by the way), and I don’t think I’m the only one who was under that impression.
One final statement: This book, regardless of whether or not those who read it agree or disagree with it, has sparked a great deal of conversation in regards to how we “do church,” and if for nothing other than that fact the authors need to be commended.
More on Pagan Christianity
I think I need to go back and explain in (more) depth my disagreement with Viola and Barna (V/B) and some of the tone laid out in Pagan Christianity. As I said before, the tone seemed to be one of “Unless things are like they were in the Early Church, they should not be in practice today.” While in some cases, our lost “sight” of “the way things were” has indeed hurt us, so will doing things simply because they “were.”
I’m reminded of the story that Pete Rollins tells in one of his books (I think it’s Fidelity of Betrayal, but it could be How (not) to Speak of God), about the Rabbi who ties the cat to the tree because the cat screeches while the Rabbi is trying to teach. After the Rabbi dies the community continues to tie the cat to the tree, as the act has now become habit. That cat dies and the community, now having moved habit into tradition finds another cat to replace the original, and the line continues until the tying of a cat to a tree becomes orthodoxical for services. What was once done out of the expediency of the moment has become a cumbersome system complete with it’s own rituals and requirements.
In this same way, if we were to do certain things simply because they Early Church did them that way (I guess I should state I’m speaking only in regards to how we conduct our assemblies services) then we fill ourselves with cumbersome material which actually inhibits our understanding. For example, the practice of only meeting in the homes of other members is nowhere mandated by the Bible, yet it was a practice committed (According to V/B) during the Early Church years. (On a side note, I have heard it also stated that early assemblies met in catacombs and in synagogues, so I’m not sure about V/B’s historical account here). If we were to only hold our assemblies in the homes of members today, when other space is available more suiting to the needs of the community, then we encumber ourselves with needless ritual.
On the other hand, with a practice such as the Lords Supper, an embrace of Early Church forms and rituals would be most beneficial. As V/B state, the historical Lords Supper, or at least during the Early Church years, was actually a feast in which the poor and the rich would dine together in a common bond of Christ. Having forgotten that the Bible is in fact a book written for the oppressed and (**mostly) by the oppressed, the insistence that the Lords Feast be shared by all would likely do the Church a fair amount of good.
The largest issue we’re presented with is a cultural chage from the first several centuries AD (or CE if you’d prefer) to the current age. While practices committed in the Early Church indeed made sense for them, in many cases blindly clinging to such practices today would be detrimental to the health of the Church. The key is not in simply doing things the way the Early Church did them, but instead understanding why the Early Church did them in such ways.
This same understanding should in turn be applied to each incarnation of the church throughout the centuries. A fundamentalist would do well in understanding why (s)he does things the way (s)he does, instead of simply doing them because that is how they have been done. In that same way, those who would state that we must do things the way the Early Church did them should take a look at the whys, lest they practice a form of fundamentalism themselves. A decent heaping of deconstruction would do us all a fair load of good when it comes to the way we do things, as well as a cultural understanding of how things need to be tweaked in order to better affect the world in which we find ourselves.
The understanding of cultural shifts, and the need to adjust in order to best work (both) within (and without) those shifts is imperative to the effectiveness of the Church. It is this same thought process in which Emergent (and to a larger extent the emerging church) must operate. So, again, I am lead to disagree with the underlying statement in Pagan Christianity which would lead us to this quasi-fundamentalism.
Pagan Christianity(?)… my thoughts
Pagan Christianity By Frank Viola and George Barna
I finished Pagan Christianity shortly before leaving for my family vacation last week, I had time to post something beforehand, but I’m lazy, so here it is… only a week and a half late.
I found that I actually enjoyed Pagan Christianity more than I thought I would originally. I think there is a largely mixed bag of reviews out there about the book, so I was rather hesitant before actually purchasing it (the poor selection of books at the store I was in helped out a bit). A little backstory on the authors, if you didn’t know, Frank Viola is a big house church proponent and loosely affiliated with the Emerging movement, and George Barna is and evangelical and the creator of the Barna Group, which has put out some pretty controversial poll findings.
Sabbath Week
I have all next week off (finally using my vacation time, I’m surprised I lasted this long). I’ve decided I’m going to read as much as I can (maybe throw in some video game time too), but I don’t really have anything to read past the book I’m in right now (The Fidelity of Betrayal). Thus I turn it over to you guys, throw out a few suggestions for me, and I’ll pick them up sometime this week.
Oh, and (this is important) Tuesday is the Big 2 year anniversary (coincidentally apple is coming out with a notebook update that day- so I’ll be heading over there to switch out Becky’s new macbook).
Renewal
If you’re like me your a prophet with a belly full of fire who can’t be stoped by anything.
Except time.
I have a tendancy to run hot and cold, normally my hots run quite hots whereas my colds are actually lukewarms, but the point stands that I tend to live a life in which I get passionate about something and lose that passion somewhere down the road. Over the (brief) course of my life I’ve probably run the cycle of passion and calm dozens of times over dozens of topics, never quite learning from my previous cycles. It’s really the story of our lives often times, I guess most people play it out over longer periods than I do, but still this cycle seems to repeat itself in most of the lives I see.
Sometimes, we just need a little renewal, a second wind, all this time I never found a way to grab that second wind (let alone the needed third wind to make a passion into a lifestyle) and instead found myself moving on to the next passion. All these years, I never really thought about going back to the source that started the passion.
Maybe you’re in the same spot as I am. Maybe passion’s run out for you, maybe the belly full of fire that you once had is cooling down, you see it, you don’t like it, but complacency feels so good to us. The status qou that we held before we began is so much easier to keep up than the activity that passion requires. Sometimes you see how high the wall that your passion wants you to tear up really is. You realize how difficult it will be to take down that wall is. You see how much you will have to sacrifice if that passion is to be sustained.
I started my slide toward complacency in earnest just a few week ago. No longer were books being devoured, no longer were thoughts churning in my mind, no longer was imagination flowing freely, its a sad time in life when that happens, but then I was jarred out of it when I caught a glimpse of how high and powerful one of the walls I want(ed) to take down is, and how deeply rooted the wall is in my life.
We (being Becky and I) talk(ed) all the time of non-violence, of the imaginative third way, we debated others about it, and we’ve taken the so called high ground on the subject of violence in our lives. Now, for two people who claim such ideals, my actions Saturday night certainly show how far I have to go.
To make a long story short, we were victims of some drunken road rage Saturday night after leaving my parents dinner. The driver of the vehicle got out of his car and threatened to rip up my ass and such, to which I would have hoped an imaginative third way would have came in (third way being not violent nor passive), maybe several months ago I would have reacted in such a way to diffuse the situation in such a way that was on par with my ideals. My response however was to give the guy the finger and stare straight ahead.
Pathetic.
Anyways, this night kind of jarred me into looking at how poor my response was, and how far away I am from where I want to be. I realized that for me to waste all I have learned and strived for over the past year would be pathetic. I realized it was time for renewal, time to return to square one and relook at the things that first brought me to my passions.
I realize how close this is to sounding like an old school revival service, where the travelling pastor encourages the flock on the last night to resubmit their lives to Jesus, and every impulse I have urges me away from the route, so I leave it at that. It’s time to return to the source.
Book Share: “Rescuing the Bible from Frundamentalism
I had to take a break from all of my reading do focus on school, but some events over the past week have taken that pressure off of me (I may delve into those at a later date, but not now) and I’m again able to spend my free time reading for pleasure.
This new found free time ended up in a trip to Borders where I got a few books for the next few weeks. The first one I am diving into is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" by John Shelby Spong. While I thought that "Misquoting Jesus" would be the most challenging book I ever read in regards to the way I look at the Bible, this book takes it several steps farther. I’m talking a complete smack in the face on how I think about things.
If you enjoyed “Misquoting Jesus” then I’ll say you certainly need to read through “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism,” and even if you don’t agree with all of it (I certainly don’t even a hundred pages into the book) it’s a needed read.
For now here are a few of my favorite quotes thus far.
"Those whose religious security is rooted in the literal Bible do not want that security distrubed. They are not happy when facts challenge their biblical understanding or when nuances in the text are introduced or when they are forced to deal with either contradictions or changing insights. The bible, as they understand it, shares in the permanence and certainty of God, convinces them that they are right, and justifies the enormous fear and even negativity that lie so close ot the surface in fundamentalistic religion. For biblical literalists, there is always an enemy to be defeated in mortal combat."
"There is always a danger in believing that you and your people are somehow God’s specially chosen. The obvious corollary is that your enemies are God’s specifically “unchosen,” and very soon they are thought of as God’s rejected…. Every nation, including the United States, when it operates under a theory of divine election or manifest destiny, can be especially distorted.”
"Unless theological truth can be separated from pre-scientific understandings and rethought in ways consistent with our understanding of reality, the Christian faith with be reduced to one more ancient mythology that will take its place alongside the religions of Mount Olympus. Those who insist on biblical literalism thus become accomplices in bringing about the death of the Christianity they so deeply love. Ironic though it may seem, the success of fundamentalism in many ways guarantees the death of the very things these Christian folk affirm.”
Indian Taxi Fund (update)
So to make another push for the Indian Taxi Fund, Josh came up with an idea to sell books for $25. He’s got a few posted on his site if you aren’t a fan of anything you see over here, I’m offering basically the entirety of my bookshelf from the past six months. If you’re interested in anything shoot me an email and I’ll tell you the paypal details. I’ll pay for shipping, by the way, so it’s straight up $25 going entirely (ok, well minus paypal’s lame fees edit: I found out Josh is going to cover those out of pocket) to Amit.
Thanks in advance.
Oh… and, on top of free shipping, if your local (enough), I’ll run ‘em out to you and buy you a cup of coffee or a brew. (yeah, I just one upped you, Josh Brown)
Divine Conspiracy- Dallas Willard
Adventures in Missing the Point- Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo
The Origin of Satan- Elaine Pagels
The Voice Revealed- Chris Seay
The Voice of Luke- Brian McLaren (Two Copies)
The Dust Off Their Feet- Chris Seay and friends
Starving Jesus- Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon
Signs of Emergence (Kester Brewin)
Jesus without religion- Rick James
The Myth of a Christian Nation- Greg Boyd
The end of religion- Bruxy Cavey
This Beautiful Mess- Rick McKinely
The Secret Message of Jesus- Brian McLaren
Everything Must Change- Brian McLaren
Irresistible Revolution- Shane Claiborne
From Jihad to Jesus- Jerry Rassamni
Blue Like Jazz- Donald Miller
The New Christians- Tony Jones
Misquoting Truth- Timothy Paul Jones
random stuff 4-24
I think I’m going to start a semi-frequent section called “Random stuff,” for usage when I have things I want to talk about, but don’t quite have time or enough information to fully flesh out those thoughts into at least decent posts, as well as interesting things going on with my life. So, without further introduction.
A couple friends and I have begun to lay out the groundwork for an at least week long trip on the Appalachian trail. For those not familiar, it’s a 2500 mile hiking trail that hits seven states from Georgia to Maine. We’ll be hitting up about 80 miles of trail in North Carolina sometime in late July. We’re skipping our home state of Georgia because the heat is suppose to be oppressive in the Georgia parts of the trail during July and August.
An update on one of the items from my last post: I stated that I was having trouble with the fact I was getting money from the church for playing with one of their bands on Sunday mornings. Well one of my buddies who works for the department that pays me told me a couple days ago that they couldn’t afford to pay me. Problem solved. 
I’m reading through “The Powers that Be” by Walter Wink right now, 87 pages in and I have 9 pages marked with brilliant quotes, which I will likely share at some point in time. If you haven’t read through the book, I’m gonna recommend doing so before you pick up anything else. Really, it’s been that powerful thus far.
I had one more thing I wanted to talk about it, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I’m actually going to have to spend some time on this, but as a small teaser… it’s affiliated with Focus on the Family and it doesn’t like me err…. postmodernists. mmm…. goodness.
books, beer, and wings
It seems like my wife and I have the most interesting conversations at Taco Mac. For those of you not familiar with the chain it’s a bar with a restaurant attached, with a selection of hundreds of beers, and pretty good wings. But it seems that when we sit down the theology light switch gets flipped and that’s all we really discuss the entire time.
We don’t normally argue or disagree during these conversations, but we tend to build upon each others thoughts, it’s pretty fun. Now, in the case of Saturday we did have one argument going on, in which I was completely, to say it politely, pwned.
We were discussing our reading habits, Becky, an English major, reads through fiction all the time (she’s on a Flannery O’Connor kick if you’re interested), and I spend all of my time reading non-fictions, mostly emergenty stuff. So we we’re discussing who’s form of reading presented a purer form of information and theology.
I could not, for the life of me, see how information could be garnered from a fictional book the way it is from a non-fiction. And the argument continued on for some time that way, she insisting that fiction does indeed provide a purer source of information, because you are not told what to think, you are given various perspectives and gain insight based on those. I didn’t agree with her because most of the books I read don’t tell you what to think, they just give you information on various topics and let you build your own conclusions around them.
But then it happened, in one statement my whole argument was nullified.
My viewpoint on the Bible is such that I don’t feel like it should read like a non-fiction, I feel like it’s the story of a relationship, not basic instructions before… eh you get the point.
So Becky came out with: “For someone who thinks that we can gain insight from understanding the relationship portrayed in the Bible, you sure do loathe to let that happen elsewhere.”
Game, set, match.
Thoughts? Opinions?
misquoting jesus
**edit** So I completely misspelled misquoting. Wow… that’s just sad, and it took me two days to catch it!
So I finished the book today, it took me three and a half hours at the coffee house to knock out the last half of it (reading intermixed with eavesdropping on other conversations as well as occasionally looking something up online). Anyways, here’s my thoughts.
The book was great, well setup, accessible, and of course very thought provoking. I said thought provoking, which is not necessarily disturbing.
You see, while I have always recited the manta “Inerrant work of God,” I’ve questioned the idea of a perfect error free book. I guess the first contradiction I knew about is the one that made me begin to think about it, How did Judas die? (Hanging or throwing himself off a cliff?) Of course the first time I heard the question, the response was “The rope broke causing him to fall and have his guts gush out.”
Never quite did it for me.
Then of course there was the “apologetics” lesson provided to the college group at my church. That really didn’t solve it either, in fact it made me do a bit more research and question the whole thing even more. (I think it was intended to answer the question for us, and ensure that we wouldn’t have to go through the process of thinking through things on our own.)
Anyways, back onto Ehrman’s book. It’s chock full of information about various reasons the text was changed, various locations where the text was changed, and various ways in which scholars try to ascertain what the original text looks like.
While the information presented could be overwhelming, I’m honestly just not feeling it.
I believe we do have an adequate enough text with which we can understand enough about God and Jesus and essentially the faith. The place where Misquoting Jesus does throw some issues for me is in supplementary issues, like what I should use to teach off of and what I should study off of.
The most interesting part of the book was towards the end, where Ehrman discusses various reasons why scholars are believed to have changed the text due to other forms of Christianity springing up. The changes represented here would, to me, be the most likely to alter many beliefs we hold today.
Forgive me for it must seem like I’m glossing over the book, but I don’t want to get into too much detail because I think that the book should be read by everyone. If you’ve read it and want to talk about it I’m up for it, iChat me, or email me.
And as previously stated, I bought Timothy Paul Jones’ work “Misquoting Truth” today, and I’m looking to start reading it tonight or tomorrow, depending on the distraction level this evening. I’ll post my thoughts on it when I’m done.
As always, let’s hear your questions and thoughts.