New Pagan Christianity interview

Frank Viola posted a link on his Myspace page to a new radio interview that he had with George Barna, discussing the book Pagan Christianity on a radio program called Today's Life Today. A while back I posted the link to their first interview and here is a link to their second one, in case anyone is interested. The first one is just over an hour long. The new one was an hour-long interview, but they cut out the breaks so it's about 35 mins.

Some quotes from this interview:

"Man, we have been given so much freedom in Christ and we've in many ways chosen to put ourselves back in chains. And we've got to get free from that."

"And this is one of the reasons why there are so many Christians - I'd say a mass exodus - who are leaving the institutional church in pursuit of something that is more authentic. I like what Reggie McNeal said... A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They're not leaving because they have lost their faith. They're leaving their church to preserve their faith. I think that is arresting and true."
(From me... I can most certainly relate to those words).

Host: "Well, see, I've been involved in several churches that I've been kicked out of because I went and looked at the scriptures."

Pagan Christianity

Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (Revised and Expanded) is a book co-authored by Frank Viola and George Barna that has recently been released. This book looks interesting. I'm thinking of ordering it. Has anyone read it? Any thoughts on it if you have read it?

There is a very interesting interview with the authors here. There are a lot of great quotes in the interview, and this is one reason I think the book ought to be a good read. I have heard of both authors, but I don't know much about either one of them. Barna is perhaps the most well-known of the two, due to all the church stats he collects via The Barna Group.

Some quotes from the interview:
Bill (the interviewer): In the chapter on church buildings, Martin Luther is cited as an example of a Reformer who taught "that the church was not a building or an institution. Yet it would have been impossible for him to overturn more than a millennium of confusion on the subject." What makes you think we're in a better position today, five hundred years later, to take on such an institutional mindset?

George: The fundamental question is not whether we’re in a “better position today” to address this matter, but whether it is still a matter that needs to be addressed. Obviously, it is!

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Frank: Our book doesn't offer solutions nor does it give any specific prescriptions. Other upcoming books will do that. We want people to first absorb the startling message of Pagan Christianity, which is quite simple: That which we've believed to be Biblical for so long is in fact unbiblical.

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George: There are many house church or simple church groups that are very much spirit-led, loving communities of faith – and which will always remain below the radar of the media because they are not institutional or market-driven.

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George: I am also impressed by some of the intentional communities I have encountered in recent years, in which people have abandoned their comfortable suburban lifestyle to move to areas, in the company of other like-minded believers, to be the Church in a location lacking the physical presence of Christ. The biggest challenge, of course, is to resist the temptation to become a new institution, but rather to remain structurally simple and sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.