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Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices | 
| Authors: Frank Viola, George Barna
Publisher: BarnaBooks
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  146 reviews
Sales Rank: 528
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 141431485X
Dewey Decimal Number: 262.0017
EAN: 9781414314853
ASIN: 141431485X
Publication Date: January 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Have you ever wondered why we Christians do what we do for church every Sunday morning? Why do we "dress up" for church? Why does the pastor preach a sermon each week? Why do we have pews, steeples, choirs, and seminaries? This volume reveals the startling truth: most of what Christians do in present-day churches is not rooted in the New Testament, but in pagan culture and rituals developed long after the death of the apostles. Coauthors Frank Viola and George Barna support their thesis with compelling historical evidence in the first-ever book to document the full story of modern Christian church practices.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 141 more reviews...
An interesting read. July 7, 2008
To some extent, I wasn't sure what I would be letting myself in for when I opened this book. I had read some negative reviews on it before buying it, which prompted me to want to read it for myself and form my own opinion.
Viola and Barna take us on an interesting and often embarrassing journey through the history of the institutional church, and do a good job of explaining how we ended up where we are and why we do the things we do in the modern "church". They also do a decent job of explaining why a lot of what we do is not biblical, and why that has a tendency to be harmful to body life and spiritual growth.
Ironically, our pastor has been preaching for years on how we have allowed the world to infiltrate the church, all the while continuing to practice many of the things (including the specific forms of preaching) the authors point out as unbiblical. I wonder if he truly realizes the extent of the truth he has spoken...
How you receive the message of this book is going to depend a lot on who you are and how willing you are to change your perceptions and preconceived notions of what church is vs. what it should be.
Some have criticized this book as a commercial for house churches, but that wasn't the impression I got at all.
No matter what you end up doing with the information in this book, I think it's worth knowing where our church systems and practices come from, and why they aren't biblical.
 Finally, some truth on the subject July 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I suspect that most Christians realized long ago that something was wrong with "church". Too much dogma, politics, in-fighting and power moves, we attend organizations that have very little in common with the picture of the church in Acts. But until Frank and George provided the history, most of us never knew why we were so disappointed. Now we have some solid ground for rebuilding the assembly of believers according to God's plan. Thank you.
As a biblical scholar (PhD Oxford University), I always appreciate carefully researched work. I spent as much time in the footnotes as in the text. What emerged is not as shocking as it is humiliating. We lost contact with God's direction when theology moved away from its Hebraic roots. It's time to get back to the original. This book certainly helps.
I AM A WITNESS AND STAND IN AGREEMENT. July 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Pagan Christianity is one of the many unveiling catalysts that I believe the Lord is using to uncover and expose the "Where, Why and How?" the subtle yeast of the Pharisee's has been weaved into the foundation of what so many confidently refer to as CHURCH. Viola and Barna lay out a carefully and prayerfully prepared witness against the teachings of those that put their faith in the temples built by the hands of men and break down the origins of the practices that have been implemented by man-made motives. Most importantly they ask the question to the reader. "If the house was not built by God to begin with, should it be reformed?
WE ARE THE CHURCH, living epistles that worship neither on the mountain nor in Jerusalem but rather in the Spirit and TRUTH. (John 4:21) Jesus himself was explaining to the woman at the well, that a day was coming that the true worshippers of the Father would not rely on a place of worship (i.e.: the mountain, or Jerusalem) but those that were the true worshippers would worship in Spirit and TRUTH. Trade in your traditions for TRUTH. This book will help you on your journey for TRUTH and will help you begin the process of removing the grave clothes of the doctrines of men that cover our eyes and bind us to the laws of sin and death. God bless and enjoy finding out just how far this rabbit hole goes!
Deanna Rodriguez~ [...]
[...]
 Shoddy scholarship June 29, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Wish I could say I liked this book better. But the scholarship is shoddy at best. In chapter after chapter there are glaring errors.
Take the claim "the mystique associated with the Eucharist was due to the influence of the pagan mystery religions" (p 194). This is false. Paul said those who ate and drank the Eucharist unworthily earned damnation (1 Cor).
By 110 AD Ignatius of Antioch wrote that heretics "abstain from the Eucharist...because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our savior" (letter to the Smyrnaeans 6.2).
By 150 AD Justin Martyr said, "not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but...as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished is both the flesh and blood of the incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66.20).
In fact, there is lots of historical evidence proving that the early Christians believed the Eucharist was Jesus.
The claim that early Christianity borrowed from the pagan religion was very popular...about 1920. The theory was called the "History of Religions" theory. Thousands and thousands of scholars wrote and investigated and thousands and thousands of books were published on the subject.
The theory is now considered utterly refuted. To read about this try "The Jesus Legend" or "The Gospel and the Greeks". Not a single scholar in the world holds such beliefs todays and it is very strange such claims in a book like this.
Tradition is not truth - Truth is Truth! June 26, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
One of the only books I have read cover-to-cover since leaving the College (where I read several every week in order to re-write curriculum and teach classes) is
"Pagan Christianity" by Viola & Barna.
Wow! Much of what which has troubled me about many of the religious traditions of churches is documented and challenged in this book!
I do not agree with everything nor am I comfortable with all that is called the "organic church" alternative, but there is a great deal worthy of contemplation.
They have a follow-up book planned, sign up for their E-mail list. I also plan to order and read Viola's book "The Untold Story of the New Testament Church"
as it purportedly describes the proper chronological order of the Letters of the Apostle Paul and fills in some of the "other half" of the conversation.
Here is their home page, it is worth the visit. [...]
I have E-mailed them with some questions! I am especially interested in their methodology for small groups using the "organic church" model - mostly how they go about training a small community to self-sustain, especially given the highly mobile nature of most congregants = high participant turnover.
This is definitely worth reading and contemplating as those of us who try to be intentionally-Biblical Christians reassess our obedience to God both in community and in worship.
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