truth to Tell

When, in an earlier post, I indicated that I was going to offer a review of Pagan Christianity (better late than never), I wrote that it would be “a review of Frank Viola and George Barna’s book, Pagan Christianity that compares aspects of their thinking to protestant liberalism a-la Adolf von Harnack’s book, What is Christianity.”

After some serious consideration, I realized that such a review would be not only silly but also disingenuous and uncharitable of me. It’s silly because both Barna and Viola take the church and the Scriptures much more seriously than I believe Harnack did. It’s disingenuous and uncharitable because I would be writing such a review mostly to get attention and cause a stir rather than to provoke open and faithful conversation regarding the books contents - and that’s just not what I’m here to do. I do not believe that such a connection between Harnack, Viola and Barna can be seriously made and honestly, the indicated post would never have worked - not even as a bad joke. At any rate, I still want to offer my impression of Pagan Christianity now that I’ve finally finished reading it. So here goes nothing.

I first encountered the writings of Frank Viola over a year ago when I read his book, Rethinking the Wineskin. This initial encounter forced me to rethink my idea of what church should look like and to broaden my conceptions of what “counts” as church. Prior to that initial engagement, my idea of church was what one might call fairly traditional. What changed for me, primarily, was that I no longer took the separation between clergy and laity to be as rigid as many might prefer and I became more open to the idea that a church can be church even if it does not have a pastor, “normal” leadership structures, or even look the way I think a church should look. Where I think I might differ with Viola is that I don’t believe that the pastorless church is the only way that church should be done (but, then again, he is often quite charitable to those in “traditional” churches).

In his most recent venture, Pagan Christianity - a revised edition of an older volume that enlists the aid of Christian statistician and pollster, George Barna - Viola argues that many (if not most) of the practices and understandings of Church which we currently hold have their roots in paganism or what the authors call “human tradition.” I think the basis of entirety of their argument can be found in the following statement: “We believe the Bible, not human tradition, is the divine guide for Christian faith and practice - including church practice (Pagan Christianity, 262).” My review won’t rehearse what other reviewers have said. Rather, I want simply to comment on the above quote which, I believe, forms the central presupposition for just about every argument they make in this book.

As a Christian raised and nurtured in the Baptist/Free Church tradition, I wholeheartedly agree that the Bible ought occupy a central place as a guide for Christian living and doctrine. However, I also believe that - without “human tradition” - the Bible as we know it would not exist. It was “human tradition” that decided how the canon was to be fixed (although I am aware that there are various iterations of that canon in protestantism, catholicism and orthodox Christianity); it was “human tradition” that preserved the writings of the Apostles and other New Testament texts… In other words, one of the few foundations to which I still hold is that it is utterly impossible to separate the Bible from Church tradition in any substantive way. Another issue with such an assertion is the fact that not all Christians recognize the same books of the bible to be authoritative and not all Christians have the same conceptions of authority. In fact, the Catholic tradition - without which we would not have the Scriptures in the first place - places Scripture and Tradition on equal footing. Such an understanding would likely be dismissed by Barna and Viola as “unbiblical.” I can’t say that I’ve read all of the reviews of Pagan Christianity and I can’t say that I really care to so I may be saying what’s already been said. I’m glad that this book has been written and I certainly support the work that Frank is doing. My only complaint is that I had hoped to see the writers display a more nuanced understanding of the role that human church tradition played in the formation and preservation of the biblical canon. The Bible was not written in a vacuum, the canon of scriptures which Viola (and I) consider to be so authoritative is in many ways a derivative of human tradition. I’m fairly sure that both Viola and Barna are aware of this but it would have been helpful from my perspective to see a more substantive acknowledgment thereof, although this may be a difference in perspective regarding the biblical authority or even readings of history.

I’ve read Frank’s other books and we’ve had a couple of e-mail conversations (however brief they may be) and I’m not here to blast him as a heretic or even decry the dangers of this book - I’m not that sort of blogger and I really think this book is helpful. Frank’s earlier works have been quite effective in shaking my foundations and allowing me to read the Scriptures in a different way. But I have to be honest in my review of Pagan Christianity and my honest perspective is that Frank and I will simply have to agree to disagree. I don’t think that “human tradition” and Scripture can (or should) be separated and that such a separation sets up a false dichotomy that is (in my humble opinion) historically and theologically difficult to defend. I love Frank for the work he does and for the writings that opened me up to the many, many possibilities of what “church” can mean but this is one step I cannot take.