Reading this book was a wake up call for me. While somewhat purist in his pursuit of New Testament Christianity (I feel for the guy, me being a Restorationist and all), its an absolute gem. Piece by piece, Frank Viola uncovers the pagan roots to traditional Christianity - and asks his readers and the Church for an explanation. From choirs, to pulpits to Easter itself - Viola helps uncover the competing religious impulses that pushed the ancient (or not so ancient) church to adopt foreign tenets and practices.

But here’s a worthy question: is Christianity, if it changes gradually, or even fundamentally in content, structure and style over the course of 2,000 years, still to be considered “Christianity”? Is the Christian faith allowed pagan influence? Thoughts?

Bonus: read a sample chapter here.

Double Bonus: Read a continuation of this progressive book review here: Should we Have a Pagan Christianity?

God continues to confound the wise and stupefy our best guesses. It is clear to me that God is actively pursuing people right around this world, and in many places (more than we will ever know) he is under the radar, supplying nutrients to grassroots, underground movements of God’s People. Joel News once again discovers yet another story to give Father praise for!

The ‘grassroots’ house church movement in Bangladesh is beating its ten thousands, reports German missions strategist Wolfgang Simson. “In 1996 I was in Bangladesh, the third-largest Muslim country in the world, with only 600,000 known and organized Christians then. Only a few Muslims were coming to Christ, and found it extremely difficult to be integrated into the traditional churches. I spoke to the majority of Christian leaders connected to the Evangelical Alliance there about the need to start underground networks of house churches, allowing whole Muslim families to be discipled and multiplied. Many leaders shook their heads: ‘Impossible; unheard of; unpractical; difficult; deadly; ridiculous, maybe in China or India, but not here’ were some of the responses I got. Crammed into my airplane seat back home I felt like such a looser. Was it worthwhile to speak about these things at all? Should we not leave everyone just alone and do their thing?”

“A few days ago in Zürich a few of us met with a man we call Brother Abdul from Bangladesh. He told us a story that made me cry - and maybe you, too. That very year I was in his land, he, as a 19 year old teenager then, started to do the very thing I was preaching. But he did not hear it from me, but from God. He started a movement to disciple Muslims through underground house churches we call ‘jamaats’, and it has now, in 2007, after only a few years, become the largest single movement bringing Muslims to Jesus in the world! Again and again people checked and rechecked the statistics; it is for fact that more than 500,000 Muslims have become disciples of Jesus through this house church movement, nearly overtaking the number of all other organized Christians in Bangladesh together.”

Source: Wolfgang Simson

Could this kind of “great awakening” have happened if traditional churches had simply figured out the right evangelistic strategy? Would there even be enough seats in the pews of the church buildings in Bangladesh to accomodate for such an amazing influx of church-goers? Thank God that his work is not confined to a church building’s retail space or conversion strategy.

Interesting insights from the Status of Global Mission 2007 Report found here. (Research is done by David Barrett and Todd Johnson, world leaders in world missions research and this yearly report is probably the most comprehensive report we have on the Great Commission.)

An excerpt from Joel News on the 2007 report:

- The world’s religions are in the midst of a seismic shift.

- Islam and Hinduism are both slowing down considerably. And many more are “soft-Islam/Hindu” meaning they are only religious by default, not because they are active in their faith. India in particular is quickly becoming the world’s largest Christian democracy.

- More Muslims are converting to Christianity in our time than any other time in history.

- Downer: Ecclesial crime is on the rise - 24 billion US Dollars were embezzled last year, which is more than the worldwide church spends on global mission.

Thoughts?

It started out as just another gathering. The little family of faith that Katrina and I meet with had plans to meet at our new apartment to share what Jesus had been up to in our lives. Little did we know that he would wait until we had all gathered to show us!

A few weeks earlier we had all prayed about becoming less of a “church” (regular worship time, devotional/Bible study, closing prayer, etc) and more of Christ’s body (eyes open to the needs of the world, sharing abundant life, etc). This meant big changes in how we operated, and even how we identified our “congregation” (I don’t think we’ve used the word “church” since). We began plotting and prayerfully planning how we might be Jesus by caring about what he cared about. It only took one or two weeks for our first assignment to fall into our laps!

Our friend Mary came to us last night with something weighing on her heart. Earlier that day she had met three travelers whose radiator had busted and were now broken down in the Wal-Mart parking lot. We prayed about it and several of us decided to head out to do what we could to help them.

At first I was a little nervous; one guy was really big and wore a dirty hooded sweatshirt, and had two dogs (one was a pit bull!). But as I began hearing their story, the walls began to come down. These people were kind, thoughtful and just as interested in us as they were in getting their car running again. They said they were driving to New Mexico to scout out the next gathering for a group that call themselves the “Rainbow Family of the Traveling Light” (take a look at their Glossary, which I found to be quite amusing and informative).

Apparently, Rainbow Family is a diverse group that meets regularly out in the woods to pray for peace (in whatever religious angle they happen to hold, or not hold) and to welcome others “home” who have left their jobs, cars, and civilization behind (”Babylon” as they call it). I had always heard about “hippies” (I’m not sure they would claim the term), but until last night I had never actually met any…so I was very curious.
Secretly, I have always been fascinated with their lifestyle, and their ability to rely on the earth and each other for all that they need. Their focus was on peace and healing from destructive forces. They took a huge group down to New Orleans to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, they continually feed the poor and homeless, even as they are homeless themselves, and make sure no one is left without.
After strumming together on their mandolins (I need to pull mine out again SOON!), we went for coffee. For being so resistant against “mainline lifestyles”, they seemed pretty comfortable in a yuppie coffee shop. I asked them pretty frank questions, and assured them that I meant no offense. We talked about their past, their families, and why they would choose such a radical lifestyle. It was so strange because it all sounded so much like the words of Jesus critiquing the kingdoms of earth and the Prince of the Air.

They asked what I wanted to do with my life, and I told them that I wanted to share the lifestyle of Christ - one that was radically prophetic against the prevailing cultures of comfort and injustice that they found so oppressive. I told them that it might mean living simply, in a home that didn’t hurt the earth, and in a job that didn’t hurt my family. It might mean helping someone out of addiction, or rescuing someone from abuse. They Good News was a lifestyle to be lived, not a track to be passed out.
I told them that Jesus Christ had been castrated and domesticated to fit our lifestyles, rather than the other way around. They seemed pretty pumped up about that, and they realized in our conversation that in many ways they followed Jesus already. I told them that the Kingdom of God was closer than they thought. The whole dialog was pretty surreal, but I give thanks to Father for speaking through me.

If Christians want to learn a thing or two from others, its not going to be from the business world (as so many best-selling church growth books would have you believe) - it might just come from a wooded lot in New Mexico. Here’s a few things I learned from my new hippie friend:

When asked about staying motivated to practice my mandolin, he responded: “If it doesn’t sound good the first time you play it, don’t play it again. And, if you don’t catch yourself smiling every now and again as you play, you’re probably doing something wrong. In fact, that goes for life too.”

“Humans have three lower functions and three higher functions. The three lower functions are to eat, sleep and poop. Anyone can do these. The three higher functions are listening, learning and creating. You MUST be able to share and work with others peacefully to get to the higher functions.”

“Our culture doesn’t love because we don’t trust each other.  That’s why its so hard to find help when we’re stranded on the highway.  Whatever happened to hospitality that Christians showed thousands of years ago?  I guess we can all blame Hitcher for our problems…”

I pray fervently for more opportunities to BE CHRIST together as a spiritual community; nothing nourishes me more - no worship song, no sermon topic, nothing.  This for me is the Good News, that the Kingdom of God came near last night, and we’ll never be the same.

I had another one of those pump-you-up kind of conversations just a few days ago. You know the kind that you have in the midst of a “none of this is going right” kind of situation?

Chris and I have been worshipping together as part of a church for most of the semester now. It’s been difficult to get to know Chris, because we both live such frenetic lifestyles, and are invested deeply as students. He and I have had several chances over these past few months however to sit down and discuss our lives and what it means to be a vibrant family of Jesus.

Our little faith family of about 10 has been meeting now for just about one full year. In that year we have gone from just me, my wife, and one of my closest friends, to a broader and much more diverse family. Among us as we worshipped have been students, adults, little kids, the poor, the rich, the lost, the saved, alcoholics, foreigners…the mix has been great and we have loved it. And we have hated it. It is the business of seeing community as the real people you’re living with, rather than the ideal world we all tend to live in.

Bonhoffer’s great quote, “He who loves community, destroys community” could not have been made more real than in my own heart this year. I wanted so badly for our church to move beyond the superficiality that we as Americans all struggle with. Many of us wanted this, but Fear and Anxiety kept us from digging deeper.

So as Chris and I sat in his truck, discussing where our little family in Christ will go as we move into the New Year, it hit us. “It all comes down to opening our eyes.” Unless we have open eyes, we’ll never be able to see the hurt inside our brother or sister and name that for what it is. Unless we look with eyes wide open, there’s no way we can think about church outside the box of what we’ve grown up knowing. Unless our hearts truly desire the change from community-as-program to community-as-life-in-Christ, we will continually neglect and ultimately destroy each other.

Jesus seemed to be okay with people not getting it – though he didn’t let them get away with it! He was constantly drawing people out of their own selfish circles and into a world where they could learn to love others more deeply. A world where God was the center, and everything else flowed from that.

Lord, I want to see. I want to see you at the center. I want to see you at the center of our simple, little church.

No one can make someone desire something they don’t internally desire. (Believe me, Trina just doesn’t seem to get as excited about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as I do, no matter how much I try to convince her how cool they are!) For those who are ready to commit to being a family together, I am ready to go deeper. For those not interested, I bless them and send them. Not everyone has what it takes to face the brutal world of life together.

This means some big things for my life. It means a major reorienting of my lifestyle. I had planned on another very full semester this spring. It may be that I could learn more outside the classroom from my brothers and sisters. I had planned on continuing on in this life of isolation without much getting in my way; looks like that’s going the way of the dodo bird. I had thought I would get to Chicago before discovering community…maybe I’m supposed to find it right here in the desert of West Texas.

I love community – but I love my church family more.