They make me hurt when I read them
A long IM chat with Jeff Bennett this morning got me musing about church issues, and so at lunchtime I went back to some familiar websites for fresh perspective.
I’ve just visited the Present Testimony Ministry web site and enrolled in their Mailing List. PTMin is run by Frank Viola, author of some very provocative books: Who is your Covering and Rethinking the Wineskin. My dear friend Julie Ruf recommended these books to me six years ago, and they have ever since given voice to my now twelve years’ long disquiet with the Institutional Church.
While visiting there, I noticed that Frank Viola has two new books: From Nazareth to Patmos and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church. Each tells the story of the New Testament church in a chronological way. Frank Viola is very exacting in his research, and so I expect that the books will be radical as a result. I ordered them both right away. While I wait I will re-read Pagan Christianity, his previously newest book in which he dissects many traditions we accept and reveals them as rooted in pagan ritual.
Frank Viola’s books make me hurt when I read them. I’m usually in a funk for a day afterwards. His questions of church tradition and the true purpose of the Church are so clear and probing, and they echo what has been in my heart for some time. I read them, though, because I yearn for what he says he has (authentic community with Jesus and other believers) without the obvious flaws in how he says he gets it: an exclusive apostolic franchise, given only in person and not spontaneously. The irony of this is so profound. After I re-read Pagan Christianity I’ll take the time to explain more completely.