More vain quoting of myself. First, of course, from Josh Brown's blog, where there's been some complaints about the shallowness and general lack of artistic value in modern worship.

In an institutional church, the music liturgy is controlled by clergy. It has to reach a broad audience, and in today’s church environment in specializes to appeal to certain types of preferences (much like preaching style did just 20 years ago).

But in an organic worship setting, all individuals are free to contribute, and there is no controlled liturgy (music or otherwise). So people can learn, on a personal level, how people connect with the songs that they have been drawn to (or written!). They can learn the stories behind these things, on a deep and personal level.

To put it another way, the structure is far, far more important than the style or quality of the worship music on an artistic level. You could say the same thing about preaching...

I don’t know that comparisons to OT temple worship are entirely appropriate, because the idea of worship being a highly refined art isn’t really supported by NT methodology. If our gatherings are supposed to be “every-member functioning,” as Viola would say, then the idea that church worship should necessarily reflect the best of available art doesn’t match up.

Singing is not worship, but it can be a part of worship, and it can help lead people deeper into worship. It definitely should not be as professionalized as it is now. But if we are to take the route that worship should reflect “good art” and refined tastes, it can only lead to further professionalization. And a heck of a lot of disagreement about what is good and what isn’t.

At the heart of the issue is understanding that there are many different kinds of tastes, and a taste that might be sweet to one person might be bitter to another.

Setting worship music to popular styles has always been an issue. Derided by those in the church who were quite elitist and detested the idea that worship lyrics could be sung in a common, “vulgar” style. Much like how the church detested the idea of translations into common tongues for hundreds of years. (Even if the “vulgate” was the common tongue when it was produced, and the Greek was the common tongue when it was written.)

The point isn’t to make people happy with worship music. It’s to help them connect with God in an intimate way. And you can use worship music to expand people’s tastes and lead them into deeper worship, using music they would have never normally enjoyed. (I’ve done it.) But it can’t be done in a divisive way. If I just outright discount someone’s musical tastes as awful (even if they are), I’ll have little chance of helping them to explore the beauty of my musical tastes. Our relationships in the church, regarding music, should not be approached with such an attitude. And if we truly understand that what is “good” or “bad” about art is entirely subjective, then we can approach each other with love and grace and share with each other what we love about the styles that we connect so deeply with. (from Oh Happy Day at iamjoshbrown.com)

And Dan Kimball is reviewing Pagan Christianity and interviewing Frank Viola about organic church. Good stuff, actually, but of course I had to comment. First is a quote from Dan Kimball's review (really the only negative part of it), where he shares what he sees as an issue with Frank's approach:

What I disagree with is that if we follow this, then we should be all reading Scripture only from scrolls, as the "pagan" printing press was not around at that time and the "pagan" way we bind the Bible today and put them into pages was all developed hundreds of years later. Or that we have "pagan" forms of communicating and use laptops, blogs and the internet (I am using hyperbole to make a point, but it is this type of reaction which I feel the book consists of in how it stresses many of it's practical conclusions).

And my response:

That completely and totally misses the point. And Viola specifically addresses this in the book. He only looks at pagan elements, that have been added to the church, that have diminished the functional headship of Christ in the church. That reduce the organic nature of the church. Using Powerpoint to display lyrics or scripture for a sermon isn't the issue, but having a professional worship leader and preacher define the liturgy for the entire assembly is. It is not that we can't utilize modern technologies in the church, it is that we shouldn't allow pagan/modern practices to redefine the church. (from Pagan Christianity and Frank Viola - Part 2 at dankimball.com)

Labels: church, house church, music

OK, just watch this and tell me that Obama isn't lying. Watch him stumble and try to explain his way out of this mess.



You mean you've been attending this guy's church for nearly 20 years and you had no idea this guy was so incendiary?

At least Clinton was a believable liar. Talk radio hosts (like Hannity, including on his TV show) have been covering this issue for months. Obama didn't publicly denounce this stuff until the major media outlets began covering it.

Give me a break.

The good news? Right now Zogby has McCain leading Clinton or Obama, when factoring Nader into the race. Should be a fun seven months.

Labels: politics

Now that I'm done doing a thorough review of one of Viola's books, it's time to do a more concise review of his latest book: Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices.

This is actually a revision of Pagan Christianity, which was first released by Viola several years ago, and has apparently been out of print. With this revision, he's partnered with George Barna. I've not read the original version of Pagan Christianity, but I've heard that this revision is much better on several levels.

While Rethinking the Wineskin actually focuses on church practices and principles described in the New Testament, Pagan Christianity focuses much more on the church practices (and their underlying principles) that have been added to the church since the New Testament era. It is really an impressive history book, detailing how certain practices were first introduced in the church. But it is also a criticism, for the practices Viola mentions have had detrimental effects on the functioning of the church:

• Church buildings: this idea is simply not found in Scripture, and Viola explains how the church building as a sacred space was connected to the use of relics (usually bones of dead saints) to create sacred, holy spaces as the only "appropriate" place to worship. Early Christianity intentionally stayed away from the "holy space" concept prevalent in every other religion. The financial overhead of a building is only one of the problems it creates. (As opposed the house.)


• Order of worship: the order of worship has remained essentially unchanged for hundreds of years. The problem with a set, unalterable liturgy (whether spoken or set to song) is that it prevents the practical functioning of the body of Christ within church gatherings. Not only is it not found in scripture, it is directly at odds with descriptions found in scripture of early church gatherings as well as inconsistent with the theology of the body of Christ.


• Sermon: like the order of worship, the sermon takes control away from the body and places it in the hands of the individual. But sermons also were borrowed directly from pagan philosophy styles of the Greek sophists (the inventors of rhetoric) who were more interested in oratorical skill than in any kind of accuracy. The idea of a "trained speaker," turned into "religious specialist" was taken from this tradition. This does not call teaching or preaching into question, but it certainly calls into question the regularly styled oratory and professional approach to preaching. Preaching as found in the New Testament was sporadic, spontaneous, dealt with an immediate situation, and lacked rhetorical structure. It also usually took on some form of dialogue rather than simply being an oratory.


• Pastor: The pastor is at the heart of preventing the body of Christ from functioning in the way demanded by New Testament theology. Pastoring is a spiritual gift, but the idea of the modern "pastor" is completely unbiblical. Its introduction to the church first began with Ignatius, who believed that "a bishop stood in the place of God while the presbyters, or elders, stood in the place of the twelve apostles." Eventually these ideas morphed into the priest system. But it was always about separating God from man, establishing man-made structures and hierarchies to take the place of the organic leadership that Christ worked through in the early church.


• Sunday morning dress: "Dressing up for church" is a more recent issue, brought on about 150 years ago with the introduction of a middle class who could afford some nice clothes, and wanted to identify themselves with their more wealthy neighbors. But the idea of special clergy robes was integrated from the Roman court systems, and over time became yet another symbol of the separation of the clergy from the laity.


• Music ministers: the choir was borrowed from Roman imperial procedures for processional music, eventually leading to a specialization of singing by the choir alone. Similar to how preaching was viewed as requiring training in the methods and practices of oratory and was reserved for only professionals, the singing was reserved for the trained, professional members of the choir, creating a spirit of spectatorship that survives to this day.


• Tithing and salaries: the modern idea of a tithe has no basis in the New Testament, which calls believers to give according to their ability, and to give as they feel led to give, out of joy. The modern idea of the tithe exists as a result of the combination of the church with secular authority, which used the "tithe" as a way to forcibly fund church operations. Viola explains how tithing in the Old Testament was designed to help the poor, but in the modern understanding of a tithe, the church expects even the poor to give 10%, and makes them feel guilty if they are unable to do so. The tithe becomes a cop-out for those with a lot of money (because they can easily give the "required" 10% and ease their conscience), while becoming a burden of guilt on the poor. All to fund further religious specialization of the clergy, separating these same poor people from God and preventing the full functioning o the body of Christ.


• Baptism and communion: Baptism became a part of a larger religious ritual rather than the simple practical expression of faith as described in the New Testament. Many began to view the act of baptism as providing the forgiveness of sins - Constantine himself waited until his deathbed to be baptized for this reason. Communion in the New Testament was a full meal, with remembrance, celebration, and discipleship, as a center of the gathering community. It later became infused with ritualistic undertones, taking on elements of pagan mysticism to eventually become the Eucharist in the Catholic mass. The reformation changed the theology behind communion but it did little to change the practice itself, which still commonly has heavy ritualistic undertones.


• Christian education: After the institutionalization of Christianity, Christian education always followed the prevailing education methods of the day. With a focus on knowledge, Christian education has little in common with the methods Christ employed in discipleship. Christian education is at the heart of the "specialization" of Christian ministry to the select few, being a basis upon which a person is "called" to professional ministry. This concept has nothing in common with New Testament Christianity and is based completely in secular systems of training and credentials.

The reality is that all of these elements were absent from the early church. All of them were borrowed and adopted from pagan and religious systems. Few people will disagree with that. What people will disagree with is whether or not they hinder the proper functioning of the body of Christ.

Wineskin talked a lot about these issues as well, but didn't go into nearly the same level of detail about them. Likewise, Pagan Christianity deals somewhat with the New Testament church practices and principles, but doesn't go into nearly the same detail as Wineskin. But I think to truly understand how these issues hinder the proper functioning of the body of Christ, you have to look very closely at how God instructs the Church to be. And since today's institutional church doesn't take scripture very seriously in this regard, of course they will disagree with Viola's style, tone, and conclusions.

Even still, those who agree with Viola are sometimes at a loss to put it all together. Viola also puts a lot of plugs in for a book coming out this summer, called Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity (to be released in August 2008). I'm pretty sure that this book will actually be a combination of a couple of Viola's previous books, including Wineskin. I know that a lot of people had wished that Pagan Chrstianity had contained more practical descriptions of how to implement organic church principles - Viola has been pushing this upcoming book as the "response" to Pagan Christianity.

But I'm not sure that we should get too caught up looking for "practical" tips to implementing an organic church. Part of the point in things being organic is that they don't look exactly the same everywhere. But every practical thing we try to do should be examined against the principles of the church, as described in the New Testament, and those following the path of organic church welcome others who can help guide them along the way.

I also don't think it's wrong to adopt styles and practices from surrounding culture, as long as they don't redefine what it means to be the church, and as long as we don't form some kind of new tradition around them. For instance, I don't think there's anything wrong with hosting a concert-style worship event or a seminar-style teaching series, but I don't think that these should become the defining characteristics of our church gatherings -- which are more appropriately modeled after the relational form of discipleship that Christ employed. Keeping things organic helps to ensure that my "great idea" doesn't obstruct how the church is supposed to function, and also helps to ensure that my idea doesn't outlive its usefulness.

I think that the story of the church over the past 1700 years, most of all, has been one of religious leaders redefining church to be less and less organic and more and more institutional. We are beginning to see a paradigm shift back to an organic view of church. It started decades ago and is still growing. It might not really explode for decades more, but those of us whom God has called out of the institutional church to follow His call to a return to organic communities are glad to see authors like Viola and Barna put a voice to what God has been laying on our hearts. Some in the institutional church will respond as God puts in on their hearts as well, and others will lash out because it is too much of a challenge to their institutional worldview. If they had the power to silence it, many of them would try. This has always been the case when God speaks through His prophets, and we should expect no different today.

If you've not read this book, and issues of this nature are at all an interest to you, I highly recommend reading it. It will give you a very different perspective on the Sunday morning experience, and at a minimum, will help you to understand the perspective of your "organic church" contemporaries.

Labels: books, church, house church, open formats, reviews

Boortz and Linder recently came out with another FairTax book, called FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics.

It's been billed as their effort to "answer the outspoken and misinformed critics" of the FairTax. The main disappointment I have with the book is that it really only does that for about two chapters.

The book is still good, though, including more history about how the FairTax developed. The book does a good job of dealing with criticisms, even if it's a little short on explanations here and there. It does not assume that you've read their first FairTax book, nor does it assume you're familiar with all of the aspects of the FairTax. Between giving some history on the FairTax, and explaining most of its basic concepts, it's not until about halfway through the book before they really take on the critics.

Perhaps the best stuff in the book is towards the end, though. There's a great section where they describe what it would be like to have lived under the FairTax all of your life - receiving your entire paycheck. No payroll taxes. Knowing exactly what government is costing. Not having to base business or investment decisions on their tax consequences. And then they describe a politician trying to come and sell the current system as an improvement. Taxing your income. Taxing business profits, so there's a hidden tax cost in everything you buy. Taxing investments. Even taxing death.

It's a very interesting way to look at it, and it really helps to make it clear how much simpler the FairTax is, and how it removes government from more day-to-day business and personal decisions.

If you've been suspicious of the FairTax, I highly encourage you to pick this book up. It's less technical than the first one, in some ways, and more visionary in tone. And many of your questions and concerns about the FairTax are probably dealt with in this book.

One criticism I felt like they should have dealt with better is the progressive nature of the FairTax. They explain the prebate well, and how that prevents anyone from paying taxes on the basic necessities of life (defined by the poverty level), and they explained how this makes the FairTax progressive. They also talked a good bit about net effective tax rates under the current tax system. But I think they could have talked more about net effective tax rates under the FairTax. I've left comments about this over at FairTaxBlog.Com, and I'll probably work on a post about this particular issue in the future. It's really important to consider net effective rates when people initially react to the idea of a 23% inclusive consumption tax.

(Actually, if you have serious questions or concerns about the FairTax, check out FairTaxBlog.Com. There are a lot of supporters and critics that can support their points very well there.)

I think this quote does a good job of describing the overall goals of tax reform, and what the FairTax will enable.

Under the FairTax Vision for Tomorrow, every time an American buys a loaf of bread or a new car, he'll know, to the penny, how much of that money is going to the federal government.

Our vision for tomorrow sees a government that's a partner with the business community and the people, not an adversary; a government with a tax system that encourages economic development and the creation of the new business, rather than a government and a tax system that chases valued businesses to foreign shores.

Our vision for tomorrow is one where governance returns to the local level; were communities are allowed to make the important decisions regarding their government and their schools. No longer will politicians be able to hide regulations and programs that control every aspect of our lives in 9 million words of confusing and draconian codes and regulation. The FairTax will demand political honesty...

Our vision for tomorrow sees an America where jobs are insourced, not outsourced... sees America becoming the safest and most secure tax haven for trillions of dollars currently languishing offshore... sees an America that will enjoy a virtual $400-billion-per-year tax cut... an exporting powerhouse, selling goods and services into a global economy unburdened by the 22 percent tax component now burdening our price system...

People see all of this and say, "how can a different tax system do that?" One point that I haven't seen made clearly enough, is that the FairTax wouldn't be responsible for any of this. The truth is that these "benefits" would not be due to enacting the FairTax, they would be due to completely getting rid of all of the oppression of the current tax structure on our economic decisions, while still funding our government. It is not the FairTax that would produce such wonderful results - it would be the American people, unencumbered by an oppressive tax system. How can you disagree with that?

Labels: books, politics, reviews

This is the conclusion to the series reviewing Rethinking The Wineskin by Frank Viola. See my introduction to the series, if you haven't already, for the background discussion about the book.

By the way: I know that Amazon lists a really high price for this book. It's actually kind of hard to get, but ChristianBook.Com (where I bought it from) still lists Rethinking the Wineskin for only $11.99. It currently shows it shipping in a couple of weeks.

It's taken me some time to wrap this series up. I don't usually go into as much detail with a "review." But this book has really pushed me, as well as really voicing a lot of the things God has been pushing me (as well as my siblings) towards. This kind of detailed review is as much for me as it is for anyone who reads my blog. When something this important comes along, it helps me a lot to be able to capture a lot of quotes and my thoughts about them.

But I hope this has been challenging for you as well. And if you're intrigued by my summaries, I highly recommend trying to pick up a copy. Viola is actually in the process of repackaging several of his books, and I suspect that this one will end up being repackaged as well. Hopefully even better.

There are so many things that we've touched on while examining what the "new wineskin" really is:

• Gatherings
  
• Common Meal
  
• The House
  
• Family/Community
  
• Leadership - Oversight
  
• Leadership - Visionary
  
• Purpose
  
• Membership
  
• Boundary
  
• Tradition

Viola finishes up the book dealing with a couple of topics, including looking at what other reform movements have done in the past couple of decades. Viola spends some time in the final chapter analyzing the shortcomings of several modern church movements, including the megachurch, the third wave and restoration movements, and cell churches, and has some things to say about how they really haven't reformed very much. Viola is also highly critical of "house churches" that haven't really adopted organic principles and practices.

That's not to say that Viola feels that institutional churches can't be used by God.

It is a fact that God has used and is using the institutional church. Because of His mercy, the Lord will work through any structure as long as He can find hearts that are truly open to Him.

But Viola is clear that the institutions themselves are more of a hindrance than people realize.

He spends most of his last chapter on what to do next. His assumption is that many people who read this book, currently in the institutional church, will wonder where to go from here and how to implement the principles he's laid out in their current church.

Some have championed the idea of renewing the institutional church from the inside out. But those who have sought to revamp the established church have met serious resistance and frustration.

I've read similar quotes from other authors. I would say that most people who have gone down this path have entertained similar ideas, and I've personally put a lot of thought into what an existing institutional church could do to move toward the original wineskin described in the New Testament. As I've told some friends of mine who are pastors, I've love to see someone really try it. But I've become more and more skeptical about the possibilities. The most likely thing that would happen to an existing church, given that kind of pressure, is that it would be torn apart. You'll never get dozens, hundreds, and especially thousands of people to have that kind of paradigm shift together. The early Christians did not "reform" Judaism by improving the institutional system, but instead created a completely new, organic church that defied all logic of worldly leadership and religion. We are faced with a similar task today in trying to rediscover the new wineskin.

It is the clergy/sectarian system that inhibits the rediscovery of face-to-face community, supplants the functional Headship of Christ, and stifles the full ministry of every believer. Consequently, all attempts at renewal will be short-sighted until the clergy structure and denominational system are dismantled in a local fellowship...

In sum, the modern church will never be renewed until it recognizes that the framework with which it operates is inadequate and self-defeating. Despite the good intentions of the persons that populate it, the interior design of the institutional church sets us up for defeat.

True renewal, therefore, must be radical. That means it must go to the root! Recovering the Lord's testimony necessitates that we forsake our ecclesiastical patches and band-aids!

Again, this comes down to a paradigm shift. Those can happen radically within a generation, but it is usually a new generation that embraces such a shift. I believe this is one of the reasons why the average age of clergy is climbing rapidly. As described in Barna's Revolution, this paradigm shift is beginning.

But people who have not made this shift cannot understand why those of us who have are so restless.

Those who have not had a paradigm shift regarding the church will either ignore or oppose those churches that have.

In the eyes of those who see the world through institutional glasses, unless a church meets in the "right" place (a building), has the "proper" leadership (an ordained pastor or priest), and bears the "correct" name (one that indicates a "covering"), it is not an authentic church! Instead, it is dubbed with innovative terms like "para-church."

For those who have not yet grown weary of running on the program-driven treadmill of institutional "churchianity," that which is abnormal is considered normal. And that which is normal is regarded as abnormal. This is the unhappy result of not basing our faith and practice upon Scripture.

Viola quotes Jon Zens to further emphasize how we have twisted scripture to support the existing institutional system:

It seems to me that we have made normative that for which there is no Scriptural warrant (emphasis on one man's ministry), and we have omitted that for which there is ample Scriptural support (emphasis on one another).

On a final note, look again at Christ's parable of the wineskins:

No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth over a hole in an old coat. Otherwise, the patch will shrink and pull away -- the new patch will pull away from the old coat. Then the hole will be worse. Also, no one ever pours new wine into old leather bags. Otherwise, the new wine will break the bags, and the wine will be ruined along with the bags. But new wine should be put into new leather bags.(Mark 2:21-22, NCV)

The context of this statement is clearly comparing Christ's ministry with the traditional Jewish system. He's saying something very clear here - don't mix what I'm doing with something that is not compatible! He's still telling us that today. Christ modeled for His followers, on a daily basis, what it meant to follow Him, and what it meant to be the church. What it looked like to be the new wineskin. But we keep trying to put the new wine (Christ) into an old wineskin (religious institutions). God is challenging us to rediscover the wineskin Christ began, with the joy, peace, and fullness that comes along with it. May we be faithful to the task he left us:

Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20, The Message)

May we be always reminded what the context of Christ's command really is. They didn't view this command as some kind of directive to do something completely different from the kind of leadership Christ modeled for them. They viewed this as a command to continue on in the practices and principles that Christ trained them in.

Labels: books, church, house church, reviews