Pagan Christianity

[HSmomto4]

Has anyone heard of this book? I heard about it and wanted to hear some reviews from people I closer trusted before I got it to read. Any reviews are welcomed.

http://www.amazon.com/Pagan-Christianity-Origins-Modern-Practices/dp/0966665732

[Krayola]

Pagan Christianity was written by Frank Viola. I really don't know enough about him or the book to form an opinion. Before you spend money on his book, you may want to check out some sources online where you can find some of his writings for free (I've seen them) and that may give you an idea of whether or not you want to buy his book.

[Sing4Him]

Frank Viola is "a high school Psychology and Philosophy teacher," who in "his spare time...plants house churches, speaks at church-life conferences, and authors books on Christ and His church." On one of the opening pages he says that he "left the religious system." One of his arguments against preaching is "it suffocates mutual ministry." And as he debates the case against church buildings, he implies the friendlier, warmer atmosphere of a house (the sofa over the pew). So the agenda emerges. He is a destroyer of one system in the interests of promoting another. This phenomenon (the house church movement) is built on certain common premises: (1) smaller is better, (2) informality {though defined by the leaders} is preferable over order, (3) spontaneous/conversational teaching is superior to a prepared orderly presentation, (4) diversity is celebrated, (5) breaking from "tradition," and (6) opposition to pulpits, buildings and treasuries. All of these items (like a systematic theology) show up in some form in Viola's book, urged upon the reader as a warmer, more spiritual atmosphere and derived from the New Testament (not as a "manual," but more like a love-letter hermeneutic).


More to read here :
http://www.bible.ca/ef/topical-pagan-christianity-reviewed.htm


Looks like Emergent junk to me!


In his firestorm against preachers and preaching he is particularly contentious against the public sermon. Ignoring the extensive direct evidence of the role of preaching (Acts, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus), he utters his prejudice against public preaching. He says: "Ironically, 'the Book' knows nothing of a sermon." He lays the blame on pagans and puritans (in that order). To make clear his resistance he says again: "...that the sermon does not have a shred of Biblical merit to support its existence..."

[HSmomto4]

More to read here :
http://www.bible.ca/ef/topical-pagan-christianity-reviewed.htm


Looks like Emergent junk to me!

Maybe, but the group of people I heard about it from are FAR from emergant type people. I'm pretty good about picking up on emergant type people and while I get he doesn't like "churches" I don't think he is in with the emergant church people. I would even put him at the other end of being to strict. I'm still searching...

[HSmomto4]

Pagan Christianity was written by Frank Viola. I really don't know enough about him or the book to form an opinion. Before you spend money on his book, you may want to check out some sources online where you can find some of his writings for free (I've seen them) and that may give you an idea of whether or not you want to buy his book.

That's a good idea! I also have had some PM saying they had the book (all people who belong to home churches) and they would let me know more about the book when they finished it. Thanks!

[Byrd]

No Biblical evidence for the public preaching of the Word? How about Peter on the day of Pentecost? He cam out of the upper room, and started preaching! Five thousand people were saved! Kind of large for a house church. The first mega-church, startes by preaching the Word. That wasn't even a seeker-friendly sermon...

[Lexie]

Frank Viola is part of Emerging Church :ohno, Brian Mclaren, is mentioned on his site, and he is appearing at an Ooze :ohno sponsored event, with the Emergent false teacher Richard Rohr. I am including a link, from a Catholic site, who recorded an event Richard Rohr spoke at, I do not endorse any of the teachings, found on the sites linked below.


http://www.theooze.com/store/details.cfm?item=10006



Soularize 2007 includes online collaborative learning groups developed around seven transformational metaphors for the Church. With online workshops, social networking, interactive message boards, and webcasting this unique learning experience will culminate with a three-day learning party in Nassau, Bahamas - October 25-27, 2007 - where you will hear from and interact with N. T. Wright, Brennan Manning, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Fr. Richard Rohr on the future of the Church. Just added to the party - Frank Viola, Becky Garrison, Karen Ward, Gareth Higgins, Ron Martoia, Jim Palmer, Barry Taylor, Mark Scandrette, Will Samson, Dwight Friesen, Jordon Cooper, and Ian Mobsby.

Richard Rohr Jesus and Buddha paths to awakening
http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/conferences/JB/


Richard Rohr calls god a she/he on his 1 min recording on Contemplative Prayer .
http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=AC-T-04&Category_Code=AT&Product_Count=3

Richcard Rohr
"He Was Paying No Debt" And so our discussion of the body brings us to Rohr's thinking on the Redemption that Christ brought about in His body. In the first chapter of Adam's Return, Rohr makes this very puzzling assertion regarding the Incarnation: "‘Incarnation is already redemption,' and you do not need any blood sacrifice to display God's commitment to humanity. Once God says yes to flesh, then flesh is no longer bad but the very ‘hiding and revealing' place of God." Rohr is saying that the crucifixion of our Lord was not necessary for redemption; that the Incarnation already brought about redemption. This is made more evident in this passage from his critique of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, supposedly taking the teaching of John Duns Scotus as his justification: "As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of the Franciscan understanding of the redemption, based on the teaching of Blessed John Duns Scotus in the 13th century. He did not believe in any ‘substitutionary atonement theory' of the cross: Jesus did not have to die to make God love us, he was paying no debt, He was changing no Divine mind. Jesus was only given to change our mind about the nature of God! (Imagine what we are saying about the Father, if he needed blood from his son to decide to love us! It is an incoherent world with no organic union between Creator and creature. No wonder so few Christians have gone on the mystical path of love, since God is basically untrustworthy and more than a little dangerous.) For Duns Scotus, Jesus was the ‘image of the invisible God' who revealed to us a God's eternal suffering love for humanity, in an iconic form that we could not forget. He was not ‘necessary,' but a pure gift. The suffering was simply to open our hearts, not to open God's -- which was always open."

http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfmid=6819&repos=1&subrepos=&searchid=68702

Richard Rohr initiation ceremonies
Nakedness In The Male Psyche Fr. Rohr's retreats often contain an element of nudity. "The nakedness thing, I must comment on, is really uncanny to me. I could give a whole talk just on that. I never encourage nakedness, as such, but it always happens. I will normally have on the fourth day of a five-day retreat, a day where I send them out into the canyons or into the desert alone. I've prepared them for that day. A lot of men, and women too. I'm sure have never spent a day alone, in solitude. And then that night we come back and process: What happened in the canyons alone? "Well, there's always one who in that processing will raise his hand and, sort of with embarrassment, admit that when he got out there he took off all his clothes. And then there's chuckles all around the room — I can just predict it, it happens every time — there's chuckles all over the room. 'Oh! I did, too!' I did, too!' I did, too!' There's something about nakedness in the male psyche — and now I've studied initiation rites — it's universal. The boy always gets naked, as you see in the sweat lodges, too. "And I think it's this desire to get rid of all this persona. All this stuff you have to live up to — you pay a big price for being a patriarch. And feminism has sometimes not been sympathetic enough with that. You pay a big price for having roles and titles and importance and power and significance and the male is just finding every way he can to take it off, to take it off. They always tell me they had to do it and it's amazing how often some wonderful things happen in this sitting there in the sunlight naked — exposed, as it were." At times, nudity at the retreats is communal. ' 'We often have camp-fires, and I know some of you have been at these where it happens, so you know what I'm talking about. Always, always, there's some guys — I mean, is it in their hard wiring? — they'll strip and have to leap over that fire, burning their balls. . . .1 don't know what it is. They're the 'real' men, who can leap over the fire, naked."' According to Fr. Rohr, this nudity occurs spontaneously. "This is not part of my agenda that they're supposed to . . . it's just that we have a fire, and then predictably men start doing the same old damn things, all again and again and again. There's this deep desire to get naked, to somehow, even risk nakedness in front of one another. To expose the self. That's really pretty archetypal. It shouldn't really surprise us at all, should it? I mean, that's really what all lovemaking is, of course — could you love me when you see me in my nakedness? Could I still be beautiful, could I still be attractive to you in my nakedness? Can you see it all and still be desirous of me?" Fr. Rohr understands that many of the retreat activities may appear peculiar to an outside observer. "Certainly the outsider — and this happened one time — would think it's a homoerotic or homosexual group, and it's just not really the character of the group, as such, in a formal or holistic way." One of the rituals done at some of Fr. Rohr's retreats is a healing ritual. "I give [the men] a talk on the body and I tell them to go alone and do a compassionate meditation on their body from head to foot. I give them all a foot and a half of red tape and wherever their body is holding a memory, a shame, a fear, a guilt, an anger — whatever — to wrap a little piece of that on their body. And then they come back and they sit in a big circle and I always say they look like a field of wounded soldiers. They're always very quiet when they come back. You can feel, like a self-massage almost. The pain came out when they touched each of those spots, I guess. "And then beginning with the elders I lead them through an extended meditation. . . . I invite them to lie down in what is, for the male, the most vulnerable position — on his back. Then the other men surround them and cradle their bodies and especially touch and lay hands on and pray over those places where the man holds wounds...." Given the high percentage of homosexuals at his retreats, it is conceivable that a good number of the participants' "wounds" are of a sexual nature. The listener is intrigued to consider the ramifications of this ritual. "[It] sounds like a rather simple, innocuous ritual — well, it blows them out of the water. It usually goes on the whole night. They don't want to stop. The man becomes their father that they never had; their father that they could never touch; their grandfather who died when they were a boy; their brother that they wanted to be friends with. "Then when the older men are doing it to the younger men, it all, of course, reverses. But the tears just astound me. This readiness to cry and the readiness and the tears seem not be evoked by my words but by the touch itself, by the laying on of hands, by the communion, the connection that seems to happen there. And again, without any unnecessary encouragement from me, many of the men will invariably take off their shirts to expose the red tape, maybe on their chests." :doh:doh:doh

http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfmid=649&repos=1&subrepos=&searchid=68702

[Krayola]

This is from his site, it is Emerging church, Brian Mclaren is mentioned too.


http://www.theooze.com/store/details.cfm?item=10006


I believe the above post has an error, unless I am misunderstanding what Lexie was trying to say. The above URL is for The Ooze, which is not his site. You can find Mr. Viola's personal site at http://www.ptmin.org
I am not saying I agree or disagree with Viola's teachings, just wanted to let anyone who is researching this know that The Ooze website is not his site as the above quote seems to indicate.

[Lexie]

I believe the above post has an error, unless I am misunderstanding what Lexie was trying to say. The above URL is for The Ooze, which is not his site. You can find Mr. Viola's personal site at http://www.ptmin.org

I am not saying I agree or disagree with Viola's teachings, just wanted to let anyone who is researching this know that The Ooze website is not his site as the above quote seems to indicate.

Krayola,

Thank you for adding the link, it's not working, I got the Ooze, from his itinerary.

http://www.ptmin.org/itinerary.htm

[Sing4Him]

He's speaking here..

SOULARIZE EMERGING CHURCH CONFERENCE
Nassau, Bahamas: October 25-27. Click here to register.

NOT GOOD AT ALL.. (sorry...:pout)