Christov September 13th, 2007

Good guest. He did sound like he was getting a little backed-up over the call-in-guy's criticisms recital.

I agree with Barna that the visible church, the institutional church, what Justo Gonzales refers to as "what passes for the church" does not necessarily equal what scripture states is the church. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to equate the aforesaid with what Steve Brown frequently refers to as our mater the whore. Is the invisible church, that is, all who have had and will have saving contact with the Living God through Christ, a whore? Yeah, probably, and worse. And I think that's really our collective "mom."

If both concepts of church were Venn diagrammed, would there be some overlap? I think so.

I was bummed the interview was so short. When did it originally air?

C.

Christov September 13th, 2007

I've gotta quit pontificating…what I meant above about "and worse" is that a lot of us (including myself) who comprise the church have been and are worse. I'll see if I can get my wife to lock the keyboards in the trunk of her car. Chris

Zeke September 13th, 2007

Funny, I sensed he was exasperated at the time when I asked him those questions. Guess I wasn't the only one.

Mike Greiner March 7th, 2008

The problem here is that George's agenda is to deconstruct, not just chronicle what is happening. He is saying that what God is doing is pulling people out of the "institutional" church to more "structure free" or "organic" cells.

The problem he has is his antipathy for what he perceives to be the institutional church. He overlooks that many churches have the "7 passions" that he thinks make up the church in Acts.

He overlooks dealing with the difficult theological issues of the BIble setting up two distinct offices (Elders and Deacons) and that his organic churches will have to grow to a certain size to pull that off.

He overlooks that what he perceives as "finding out what God is doing and then jumping in" is a somewhat subjective measure of what we need to be doing as a church. (indeed, I don't search the earth to find out what God is doing, I search His Word).

He overlooks that the fact that the first church was very institutional –in fact, it was a mega church, complete with an evergrowing structure of organization –beginning with authorized apostles who held large meetings in the Temple (it is reported that thousands were added to their number) and small meetings in homes. This is not unlike many churches today in America.

He overlooks that the church in book of Acts was as troubled as any church today. Indeed, racism was one of it's first stated problems! (Hebrew widows shown preference over others). Furthermore, a good bit of the New Testament is written to correct the gathered church.

He overlooks the fact that word church in Greek means "assembly." Yes, Ekklesia breaks down into "called out" but it is pushing it so say that in first century koine Greek the church was the called out ones. the first century ears would have heard, "The assembled ones" or the "Assembly" (any good Greek lexicon would point this out). It would be very odd of these Jewish men to invision the kind of "organic cells" that goes around "institutional" structure and avoids large assemblies would exist.

He overlooks the fact that the appointing of Elders and choosing of Elders began in the book of Acts and is part of the authority needed in a church (he seems to confuse the word Authority with the word Accountability in the interview).

His latest book, Christian Pagan, or whatever he calls it, seems to further his goal to deconstruct, for in it he declares everything done in the church to be of pagan origin, therefore to be discarded. that his history might be suspect is not the worst part. the worst is his logic is too simple.

Steve, I love ya, man. Been listening to you for a long time. I don't think you looked deep enough into what Barna is selling these days. I'd be careful endorsing what he's pushing recently as "great book" and "great stuff." You might want to look again. This isn't the warm and fuzzy stat-master we've all come to know and love anymore.

Lastly, his answer about Pastors be good teachers but not leaders and therefore they wanted to control everthing was oversimplistic on such a level that you wonder whether this man ever really did have a sociology class in his background. it is too simplistic even to deserve and answer, for it would assume the hearer is to thick to see through that. But, for the thick: Assuming that most pastors aren't "leaders" is unfounded –especially when most the evidence goes the other way! Most people look at their pastors as influential. Please define leader. Add to that, the assumption that most pastors are trying to compensate for their poor leadership skills by being too controlling is unproven (and again, rather silly). Furthermore, such an argument against authority in the church assumes that most churches have only one pastor as their authority. Mine doesn't! Neither did my last church. I'd recommend Strauch's "Biblical Eldership" to George if he's listening. But of course he's not, becuase I'm obviously a critic. he deals with us by. . . not listening. very constructive.

Christov March 7th, 2008

I think Viola and Barna in Pagan Christianity describe the pagan etymology of the activities that, for most Christians, comprise "church." They don't appear, at least upon first reading, to advocate totally discarding those elements of pagan cultic or Greco-Roman through medieval societal/political origin. They do strongly advocate a reexamination and reevaluation of those elements, activities, offices, and functions, in order to discard those antithetical to biblical Christianity.

In my opinion, Barna's work on the project kept in check Viola's fruity tendency to overly emotionalize his religious prose. It's a better and more readable book for the collaboration than had either guy authored solo.