"[O]ne of the top evangelical scholars in the world," Dr. Ben Witherington III (photo left modified from BW3's site), weighed in on Pagan Christianity? here:PAGAN CHRISTIANTY: by George Barna and Frank Viola.
Here's a taste of BW3's perspective on some of the problems with PC?:
[T]here are no such thing as ‘institutional churches’. Churches have institutions of various sorts, they aren’t institutions. Furthermore, the Bible is full of traditions and many of those developed after NT times are perfectly Biblical. It’s not really possible to draw a line in the sand between ‘Biblical principles’ and traditions. The question is which traditions comport with Biblical tradition and which do not. And there is a further problem. It is ever so dangerous to take what was normal in early Christianity as a practice, and conclude that therefore it must be normative. It may have been normal in the NT era for non-theological reasons, for example for practical reasons. (paragraph 7, original emphasis)Read what follows on his blog, if you haven't already. Pay special attention to his description of holy or unholy spaces (paragraph 37f). Who do you agree with on this issue, BW3 or the authors of PC?? Take part in the poll at the top of the main page; it closes October 31, 2008 at 11 PM EST.
5 comments:
Another scholar, Jon Zens, has responded to Witherington's critique of "Pagan Christianity". You can read it at
http://www.paganchristianity.org/zensresponds1.htm. Also, Frank Viola's debate with BW3 can be found at
http://www.ptmin.org/FV_BW.pdf
Thanks Jillie, I will check these out. Have you considered my invitation to share your experiences here at churchwithoutchurch?
"And this brings me to another of their claims— that there is no evidence of church buildings before A.D. 190 when they are mentioned by Clement of Alexandria. Wrong and wrong. Here again archaeology helps. If one goes to Capernaum one can see, through the glass floor of the modern church there, the ‘house of Peter’, which was expanded into a Christian meeting place. It was no longer just a home, it was enhanced so it could be a better place of worship—house becomes church building, so to speak. How do we know this? Because of the Christian graffiti in the walls left by Christians, some of which goes back at least to the early second century, and probably back to sometime after 70 A.D. when both Jews and Christians relocated, and one of the places they went was Capernaum."
He's equivocating on "church building" here. I actually know some people who expanded or added a room in their house, anticipating hosting weeking church meetings (small groups, I believe). Does that make their house a "church building"? Hardly!
Hey Dale, I agree. Probably, enhancing worship or making it a better "place of worship" was not the primary reason for expanding the room or house in either case: the one you mention and the one you quote from BW3. I think that BW3 may be aiming at something like this: Expanding rooms in a house was the beginning of a long and natural progression of finding and then building special places set apart for worship, which I have read arguments for in other books. I need to find my notes from the few I've read so I can cite them here sometime. However, was worship their (first church Christians') main reason for gathering? Should worship be our main reason for gathering today?
Gotta say though having one house that had been expanded which may or may not have been the house of Peter is a long bow to draw in establishing the incremental expansion of places set aside for worship.
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