Review of Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Christian Practices

Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Christian Practices, Revised and Updated Edition, Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 2008 (first edition 2002) $17.99, ISBN 141431485X.

This book, while a bit dated, has come out with a reprint in 2012 and as such, it is not inappropriate for review and reflection. It is a popular book directed to those in Christian communities. Their aims are to educate Christians on the basis of Christian practice revealing that many elements of the modern church are not Biblical, but were instead borrowed from the culture in the first several centuries of Christianity (which the authors call “pagan”).[1] The book, being put out by the Barna group and written by Frank Viola and George Barna has a devotional agenda that encourages the house church model of ministry in contrast to the traditional church in America and Europe. This book review will give a brief overview of the contents of the book, then discuss its merits, followed by criticism of the book with a brief conclusion.

Brief Overview

This book is set to trace the non-Christian origins of much of church praxis. The book is deliberately not discussing the development doctrine and the interaction with non-Christian culture. This gives the authors freedom to discuss the external elements of the Christian social world without needing to worry about the challenging theology (which in itself did borrow from non-Christian sources in many places). It is likely that the authors avoided doing this because they want a practical guide for Christians. Christians are likely not as offended with a discussion of church buildings as they would be of the hypostatic nature of the Son to the Father. Viola and Barna want their readers to amend their practices but not necessarily their core faith principles.

The topics in the book cover the development of the ideas of church buildings, order of worship, sermons, pastors, clothes worn by clergy and laity, music (particularly choirs), tithing, sacraments (baptism and the lord’s supper), and Christian education. They do not discuss elements of the different customs and rituals that are distinctly Christian and are found in the New Testament  (after all, the goal of the book is to address those that are not found there). As a whole, they do a fair job of the development of these practices over time (even if they do vastly overemphasize Constantine’s influence on the church as a whole).

The final two chapters are not about the development of doctrine as much as an apology for the goal of the book. The book argues that the first century house-church method with a community of believers with no clergy/laity distinction and no building or “set” format needs to be the model for the current church. The authors have as the goal of the book is stated in these last chapters:

We believe this is God’s vision for the every church. In fact, we have written this book for one reason: to make room for the absolute centrality, supremacy, and headship of Christ in His church. Fortunately, more and more Revolutionaries today are catching that vision. They recognize that what is needed is a revolution within the Christian faith – a complete upheaval of those Christian practices that are contrary to biblical principle. We must begin all over again, on the right foundation. Anything else will be defective.

And so our hope as you finish this book is threefold. First, we hope that you will begin asking questions about church as you presently know it. How much of it is truly biblical? How much of it expresses the absolute headship of Jesus Christ? How much of it allows the members of His body the freedom to function? Second, we hope you will share this book with every Christian you know so that they too can be challenged by its message. And third, we hope you will pray seriously about what your response should be to that message.[2]

To accomplish this goal of transformation, they first have a chapter on biblical prooftexting as they anticipate objections that modern church practice does have a biblical precedent. They seem to think that the addition of chapters and verses has allowed for prooftexting and they trace the development of that idea.[3]

The final chapter then is an outright apology for the housechurch methodology as the redemption of Christianity. They cite some Barna studies showing dissatisfaction with the modern church and feel this is the solution (it should be noted, however, that they have no sociological data that shows Christians would find this method less objectionable). Rather than sociological support, they have ideological support. They argue that since this is the model in the Bible, it is far superior to any other viewpoint as it is inspired by God rather than contrived by a culture that had nothing to do with God.[4]

Merits of the Book

The book does have some very good data presented in it for an audience who would find it relevant and who would otherwise probably not learn about the topic. One of the goals of my own work is to bring the fascinating history of Christianity to life in a modern context so that the lessons of history can be used for modern decisions. Viola and Barna have attempted this same idea – they bring up topics from ancient history in a way that is directly related to the modern world. I end up disagreeing with some of their conclusions, but I find this goal admirable.

 Another point at which they and I agree is that the modern church laity (and probably clergy as well) fails to understand many of the rituals that they practice frequently and thereby challenge the value of those same rituals. As a case in point, few people know the origins and meaning behind the “exchange of peace” in the worship service. The exchange of peace is the modern reworking of the sacred kiss (which expressed peace) in the ancient world. The goal of the practice was used to present true forgiveness to everyone else in the community so that before communion was served, it was clear that there were not internal conflicts between Christians in the community.[5] However, most modern Christians do not understand this concept and use the time spent for that as a brief fellowship moment and ask each other how their weekend was spent. Indeed some churches have even embraced this lack of knowledge and changed the ritual from the “exchange of peace” to a “greeting of friendship.” While this new idea might have some value, it is hardly the value that was originally placed upon the ritual and it does not seem to have been deliberately set aside, instead, ignorance seems to have caused it to transform.

 Further to the previous point, the goal of the book for people to inquire as to the origin of their rituals is admirable. This book confronts the reader with shocking statements about some of the elements in Christian practice. While the statements are sometimes hyperbolized (see below under critiques), the effect is good – people are encouraged to ask why they certain functions are performed and a positive understanding could be the goal (either being informed by this book or other study). I am not necessarily sold on the value of simply abandoning the practices, but it very much one of my goals that practices be understood.

This book also shows Christians that many of the rituals that they find dear are not in fact included in the New Testament (or at the manner in which they are done today is not described in the New Testament). Many practices can only be traced to later generations which needs to be known. I am not as critical of later tradition as Viola and Barna are, but I do think people need to know that these practices are not necessarily “biblical.” Further, the scriptural support for these practices are often seen as “prooftexting” and this needs to be revealed. I am not convinced that all justifications for all of these rituals are “prooftexting” in its true sense, however, it is accurate that the Bible is used thematically (i.e. if the New Testament has a theme x, then it is logical to apply that same theme to today’s situation in an updated manner).

Many of the developments of thought about particular practices are described generally well by the book. While they tend to hyperbolize some of the points for dramatic effect, the “bare bones” data they present is accurate. For instance, they present the development of the church building and they do a good job discussing the buildings we currently know existed and when this practice became popular.[6] However, they go too far when they claim that there were no Christian buildings built before Constantine. While it is technically true, there were many houses (such as the one at Dura-Europos that the authors do discuss) that were transformed and were no longer residences. They see some type of distinction between a place built for one use and a remodeling project now tooling to be a Christian gathering place rather than building something anew.[7] This distinction seems to me to be rather technical and it is hard to imagine that they are not trying to push the data to support their own point. This example shows the value and challenge of their presentation.

Finally, this book is refreshing in that it is a ministry book that does not depend upon vague, uncited, assertions that cannot be discussed. This book does do a good job of presenting evidence in good Chicago style formatting of their assertions. There is some critique of the evidence they used (see below), but the fact that they took the time to do it makes a review like this constructive rather than destructive. It is possible for a reader to analyze their evidence so that the value and challenge of it can be explored. This is something that is more and more rare among ministry related books and this book sets itself off as distinct in that setting.

Critiques of the Book

The book has many challenges on historiographic and ideological grounds, simple mistakes, updated scholarship, and the hyperbolic nature of the presentation.

  

The first major challenge to the study is the supersessionist ideology which the book depends upon in order to make its case. The book admits that many of the practices of the modern church were found in ancient Israelite religion and later Judaism. However, the author relies upon the book of Hebrews by arguing that these practices are all obsolete and as such, should be avoided at every turn. While Hebrews does present a type of theology of replacement, most of that theology is restricted to the temple sacrificial system. While this system is attacked as a forerunner to the celebration of the Eucharist in the manner it is done, most of the critique is not about sacrifices, rather it is about the existence of a priest. If one reads Hebrews carefully, there is not necessarily any challenge to the nature of the priesthood. While it is true that the priestly function of offering sacrifice would no longer be necessary, there seems to be a lack of understanding that priests had far more functions than just this one aspect. Further, the role of the synagogue (which of course had almost no relationship with the temple sacrificial system) is not considered as separate and is therefore equally replaced.[8] This aggressive supersessionism makes one wonder why the book did not equally argue for removing the Hebrew Bible from the canon.

 The second major ideological challenge to the book is the relationship of Christ and Culture.[9] This text seems to argue for an aggressive separation known only to a very small portion of Christian history. This book has as an assumption that any borrowing from the culture around oneself is in and of itself wrong. For instance, the chapter on the sermon shows that the style of the sermon was based upon Greek oratory (with its three part literary structure). It is further pointed out that many of the early Christian leadership were trained in secular schools to learn rhetoric.[10] However, it is unclear why using a literary form that makes sense to a culture is wrong. The same logic could be addressed to the very book itself. It is written in English in an opinion book format to a culture that uses those mediums to present ideas – is that an inappropriate format to discuss religion because it was “borrowed from the culture around us?” This type of absolute separation from any type of secular influence is extremely rare in the history of Christianity. Indeed, the monastic movements in the fourth to seventh centuries would not stand up to this measure.

The response to the previous challenge made by the authors would certainly be that my presentation is not fair as there is a model provided in the New Testament; however, the New Testament itself would not stand up to the scrutiny of being free from “pagan” influences. For instance, the chapter on the sermon challenges the idea of using flowery imagery in the Greek literary style.[11] However, it does not mention that the book of Acts does this same thing. The sermon of Stephen, for instance, in Acts 7 is very much in the style of a Greek oration (and also, by the way, is opposed to supersessionist rhetoric). Further, Paul’s letters are in the literary style of ancient letters and 1 Corinthians has even been shown to be in the Greek oratorical style of deliberative rhetoric which was used politically to gain unity in a group.[12] Therefore, serious question can be asked as to how opposed the New Testament is from using “pagan” practices to present Christian messages (it should be noted that nowhere in this book do Viola and Barna claim that messages portrayed in church are not Christian).

On the whole, I will avoid picking apart particular issues that Barna and Viola discuss, but one that permeates throughout the entire book is that of hierarchy and clergy. The authors have as their goal a unity of believers with no distinction between those who are laity and those who are clergy (and certainly no type of hierarchy). The authors argue that this was a later development that is not found in the New Testament. In some senses, there are portions of the New Testament where this is almost true. However, on the whole it is not. Here are a few examples where the concept of a pastoral office is anticipated in the New Testament. Paul, our first written Jesus movement source still in existence, sees himself as the spiritual father of both Onesimus and Philemon because he converted them.[13] While this is hardly a formal pastoral office, it does not particular strike the reader as a community of absolute equals (after all, the surviving letters of Paul are him telling his congregations what to do). Further, there does not seem to be a discussion of the Gospel of Luke-Book of Acts, which clearly has a group of apostles and then the rest of the congregation. There is even good reason to think that there was yet another division – those who were “attending” but had not fully joined the movement and held everything communally (essentially what Ananias and Saphira were before attempting to join the group).[14] This shows not only a concept that might anticipate modern clergy, but even distinctions among the laity as well. Finally, this book does not look carefully at the Pastoral Epistles (particularly 1 Timothy) that has as its goal a unification of the community through formal offices. While some might not like this particular aspect of I Timothy, it is awfully difficult to read it without recognizing it is there.

 In addition to these previous challenges, the most striking problem with this text is the double standard presented of worshipping “in the style of the New Testament” while making textual study of the New Testament itself a major component of worship. By definition, the writers of the New Testament have no book to study. If Viola and Barna truly want to argue for worshiping in the style of the New Testament, then the fundamental component of exegesis of the New Testament would logically have to be abandoned for exegesis of the Hebrew Bible only. This of course is slightly ridiculous and would never be supported by the authors. However, it reveals a double standard that is a major ideological challenge which is not directly addressed.

The final main critique (getting beyond some of the mere mistakes made) is the sources that the authors use. Earlier, I lauded the authors for citing sources carefully. However, the problem is which sources they chose to use. In many ways this book was a veritable “who’s who” of outdated scholarship. When doing a statistical analysis of the frequency of outdated scholarship cited, the numbers are staggering. Philip Schaff whose main work was published in the 1860s was cited 23 times. Edwin Hatch (1895) was cited 27 times. Will Durant (1950) was cited 37 times. H. Richard Niebuhr and Daniel D. Williams’ The Ministry in Historical Perspective (1956) was cited 29 times. John F. White (1964) was cited an amazing 83 times. Rupert Davies (1968) was cited 19 times. Josef Jungman (1959) was cited 18 times. Frank Senn (1983) was cited 42 times. Graydon Snyder (1985) was cited 19 times. The only books which were up to date (given the first printing was 2002) which were cited more than ten times were Everett Ferguson The Early Christians Speak (1990) which was cited 18 times and David Norrington To Preach or Not to Preach? The Church’s Urgent Question (1996) was cited 30 times. While it is not necessarily bad to have older scholarship, when the weight of the citations of work that is at least 30 years old far outweighs the current work question needs to be asked. It unclear why the authors have acted in this manner but their doing so seriously calls into question the credibility of many of their claims. It is likely that they avoid more modern discussion because modern scholarship has questioned whether there was a single New Testament Christianity. In fact, there were many types in the early going and the authors are trying to argue now for a single type of Christian practice while at the same time trying to argue that it is the style fashioned by the New Testament.

Conclusion

While there are many challenges to this book (and some might argue that some of my scholarly analysis of this text is a little unfair for the book’s purpose), it has some very good points. The challenge with this book, as with so many ministry books, is that there is very good information in the text which everyone would benefit from reading. However, the overriding agenda of the book is far more questionable and those who do not already agree with Viola and Barna on this home church model of Christianity are prone to simply dismiss the entire text. By getting the work half right, the authors are in danger of losing their whole audience.  

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[1] I will avoid using the judgmental term “pagan” not only because it has all kinds of implications, but also because the category is not very helpful. By definition it is anything that is not Christian or Jewish – as such, it is too unwieldy to produce helpful conversation. 

[2] Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 250.

[3] Ibid., 221-241.

[4] Ibid., 243-259.

[5] For an excellent study of this ritual, see Michael Philip Penn, Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

[6] Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 9-46.

[7] Ibid., 15.

[8] To show how the synagogue is not considered relevant, on the chapter on the sermon it mentions that synagogue worship did meet regularly, but does not mention that it was from the synagogue’s exposition of a biblical text that the early Christian sermon was based. See Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 87 footnote 5.

[9] To use the phrase from H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic work.

[10] Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 89-94.

[11] Ibid., 92.

[12] See Margaret Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of I Corinthians (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992).

[13] Phlm., 10, 19.

[14] Brian Capper, “Interpretation of Acts 5.4” JSNT 19 (1983) 117-131.