There is a book making the rounds of evangelical blogs called Pagan Christianity? Written by Frank Viola and George Barna (a religious pollster) it’s a critique of western church tradition.
Darryl Dash links up to a few blogger reviews.
My personal favorite is Brent Hanson’s I Can’t Believe This Book is Getting Published (by a big-time publisher)
The book that interests me is Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back by Frank Schaeffer. This is also a critique, but it is written as a narrative, a biography, a journey.
Jeff Sharlet reviewed it for The New Statesman, and got blasted by people who did their pilgrimage to L’Abri and hold their own memories. Os Guinness:
I lived with Francis and Edith Schaeffer in their home for five years, and with Frank too for much of that time. What you have written is a tissue of falseness, distortion, and unchecked allegations — in short of shoddy journalism. Write if you want a more accurate account.
And…
On reflection, I should have made clear that my outrage and profound disappointment are at Frank Schaeffer’s treatment of his parents, not with Jeff Sharlet’s review of Frank’s book. As we all do, Francis Schaeffer had his flaws, and he certainly had his enemies. But no one has done more damage to Schaeffer’s reputation, and to the things for which he stood and fought, than his own son whom he adored. The reasons for that Edmund Gosse-type “Father and Son” tragedy are the real story here.
Sharlet interviewed Frank Schaeffer btw. You can find it over at The Revealer.
John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute also talked to Frank Schaeffer about Crazy for God and shares how he was drawn into the religion business. He owns his own memories of his time with the Schaeffers and the political movement that grew from Schaeffer’s work.
I’ve always found it interesting that while Protestants don’t have saints, many get very angry when they read or their idols, mentors and spiritual leaders have clay feet.
Published 10 months, 1 week ago
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Bene,
I’ve got Frank’s book sitting beside my bed - Frank Shaeffer that is.
I think Darryl’s and Brant’s reviews of Viola are the best - even if they come to different conclusions.
Bill, from your look at Pagan Christianity:
“I didn’t respond to Frank’s (Viola) writing the same way as Lloyd. Some of it may have been that at that time, I was flirting with the US megachurch world as a communications consultant. And I was being courted to join the staff of a particular megachurch (which I never joined). But my reaction was also a response to Frank’s writing style. He writes as a “true believer.”
The house church movement is the “right way” to do church and everything else is the wrong way. Let me be blunt. I find the writing style grating and arrogant. And even after losing my affection for the megachurch world a number of years ago, I still found Frank’s style off-putting. That style is alive and well in PC.”
I checked out Brent’s review, and have to say that the the criticisms he notes in Pagan Christianity sound a lot like what Quakers have been saying for 350 years or so. We’re not as polemical about what Fox and the rest of the Valiant Sixty called “primitive Christianity” as they were, but most of what he reports is in line with Quaker attitudes about the church and how it should function.
We abolished the laity right at the beginning, and our liberal and conservative branches still don’t have clergy, we don’t consecrate our buildings, “pulpits, altars, clergy vestments…, nuns, stages, sermons, performance-oriented worship, “sacred relics”, buildings named after saints” are unknown among us… the list could be considerably extended.
That said, I very much doubt the authors are basing their arguments on the same foundation as the Society of Friends. And certainly, few if any Quakers would insist that everyone else has it wrong–it’s just not the way we relate to God.
I’ll have to get a copy and check it out.
Oops. Forgot to close the italics on the book name. Sorry!
Thanks for the link, Bene. In Guiness’ defense, he was cordial in a private email correspondence following that first comment. I thought it ironic, tho, that a man with a new book titled “On Civility” would blast me so carelessly. Oh, well. Saints will bring that out in the best of us.