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Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical
Official Blog of Author & Speaker Frank Viola. Digging below the surface and moving beyond the shallows in today's Christianity.
Dialogue with a Liberated, Free-Thinking, Postmodern Christian
He Takes Away to Establish
so question it. im still reading…
See I thought you going to go for how we just swapped one list of things we don’t do with another.
– Peace
’tis called satire … let’s challenge everything under the sun except for the sacred cow and pink elephant that’s standing in the room … even though it doesn’t have a shred of biblical support or a fig leaf to cover it đ
This is an amazing point and sadly very very true. Another thing that rides right on the coattails of this is the fact that so many feel “called” to be pastors. I wonder if they would feel so “called” if they really knew the NT model for pastor.
Someone just wrote me on Facebook and thought that I was the one being interviewed here.
I’m not sure how he came to that conclusion, but for the record, the above is a piece of irony. I certainly wasn’t being interviewed. The point of it is quite simple: Some believers will question and challenge everything under the Christian sun except for the one sacred cow that few will dare touch … the modern pastor system.
For details unfolding the significance of that statement, see “Pagan Christianity” Chapter 5.
To David,
I did go to your blogs, but couldn’t leave a response without joining MySpace, so will just say briefly here that, according to David Barton (“Original Intent”) the constitution writers did actually intend for the United States to be a Christian Nation, founded upon Christian principles and empowered by a living faith in the Lord God. There were those among them who did not completely agree, but were willing to go along with this thinking because they appreciated Christianity and its moral code.
Today there are still remnants of this original intent, but shredding fast.
In Jesus’ day Roman citizens had a foretaste of the privileges and responsibilities American citizens today have, in the context of democratic government. Ethnic Jews, including the Lord Jesus Christ, did not have these.
Much has been given modern day believers, and therefore, much will be expected.
I was pulled into the conversation as all the others and splendidly surprised at the outcome. Very funny. But above that, I was in awe of the word picture painted by Lynne. The idea of the pastor being more like the sheepdog than the shepherd, amazing oration of thoughts I’ve had for years but could never fully describe. Thank you to you both.
Questioning everything except the proverbial elephant in the middle of the church.
fascinating post, frank. it reveals how full of crap we can be in our ideals.
Frank –
THAT was priceless. I’ve HAD that conversation – you hit the ball out of the park on this one đ
That is hilarious, Frank!
Ahh, adventures in missing the point (with plenty of adventure to go around). Touché, Frank!
awesome … absolutely awesome …
Ha! Great stuff Frank. I was wondering where that was going. đ
Joanne,
Hey check out a few of my posts on faith and politics. I challenge the idea from entirely different standpoint than most. If you are interested… check out “Jesus: Change We Have a Hard Time Believing In” and “When Kingdoms Collide” at my blog.
Harold,
I say “religion” is of man completely and should be scrapped for nothing more than simple community with Christ at the center. He will give us a new language to speak of the things of the Kingdom.
Ha! That’s a good one!
Thankfully I can check off the last one, too. Although my one girlfriend keeps asking me to go back and you know, I miss everyone, but I can’t put those chains back on.
And it’s not something I’m proud of, but something I’m profoundly grateful for. He can lift the scales form my eyes. Now if he can manage that feat with my 18 YO i’ll be a happy camper. đ
To Harold, amen brother.
Dear Joanne,
A whole heartedly support your sadness. ‘Free’ thinking is only free within a certain set of parameters, those parameters are outlined in the Bible. Free does therefore not mean throw all to the wind and allow evertything.
I thank God that man’s free thinking and independance does not exclude us from HIS story.
God bless
BTW ‘The Shack’ has quadrupled my love and respect for the Bible.
Frank,
This is a daily topic of conversation between me and one of my close brothers: the good ol’ preacher/pastor figure and his place in the church.
Now you’ve have to tell me that this wasn’t an actual dialogue, but something put together by you. If not I will mourn with the distance Christians have taken themselves from the NT Church.
With so many Christians abandoning man-made traditions and regulations in the church today it frustrates me how many are blind to the fact that the preacher/pastor has no Biblical authority to take the position he takes in the America church today.
Another thing that bugs me is the position in which we have put our elders. Aren’t they supposed to be the spiritual leaders? Well, I won’t even go there this time.
I do, however, want to know your thoughts on the other extreme. People that leave traditional church and begin house churches completely denying any type of leadership. I’ve been seeing it more often then I would like to and I have visited gatherings in which this is true. It doesn’t seem right to me. What I see in the NT is that there is spiritual leadership in the Church that helps the church grow. Spiritually mature men, appointed with the sole purpose of truly helping the congregation grow spiritually. But I have been seeing a sad extreme, where Churches have abandoned any type of spiritual leadership. What is your stance on NT leadership in the Church?
Thank you for your work. Keep writing, keep helping the church, love often.
Blessings,
Daniel Coutinho
Daniel, it’s an educational piece using irony. There’s only one point to be made in it and it comes at the very end. I answer your question in great depth, giving my views on leadership, in my book “Reimagining Church.”
Religion should be about buidling relationships, by changing nouns into verbs, not by attemtpting to reach certain goals or expectations.
It is about experiencing and sharing with the true and living GOD, getting to know His Ultimate Passion.
The act of defiing goals to achieve inhibits the oppurtunty of responding to ever changing present and lends itself towards controling the future.
Just finished reading ‘The Shack” and combined with Frank’s ‘Ultimate Passion’ and numerous other free thinking Revolutionaries expression’s and I must say I am exciited for living NOW, for man is starting to learn the REAL LIVING GOD – and it is going to rock this world and the church as we know it.
God Bless my fellow Church!
Actually, I’m pretty heavy hearted about the Christian conversations I’ve had recently. It seems Christians are now offended to hear the name of Jesus (the Lord Jesus Christ!!) invoked in a public setting — particularly Tuesday’s inauguration. There seems to be a strange transmogrifcation of the concept in “separation of church and state” (which is a made-up phrase that in no way represents the constitution’s intent). Now, even Christians seem to think this means that God must be removed from government, rather than the constitution writers’ original intent that government would not be allowed to remove God from the public sphere.
Included with this strange thinking is a “new” way of viewing homosexuality and what we today refer to as abortion.
It seems that thousands of years ago God weighed in on both of these subjects in Leviticus 18. Now we , who for so long considered ourselves the blessed Christian nation, will get to play the part of the Canaanites. I wonder who the Israelites will be, in this modern passion play?
I agree with you. Free thinking has got it exactly wrong. This sort of “free” thinking is enslaved to sin and self, clinging to the one man-made structure of religion as a sort of totem to rightness.
Frank, I so got the humor in this, but I guess not everyone did. They need to BBQ their sacred cows…they taste good!!! LOL
Brilliant. You got me. Hook, line and sinker…
Ah, the irony of the emerging church. I was that guy.
Lynneâs Journal, Oct, 2001(Feeling sheepish)
October is âPastor Worshipâ month. I call it this because I was listening to our Christian radio station and they make such a big to-do about it every year. They encourage us to shower homage, praise and even extra gifts on our âshepherdsâ through out this month in appreciation for all they do. The term âshepherdâ has become popular with pastors these days. Good grief, weâve raised certain gifts to professional or a higher status! As we struggle with our self-importance, we seem to be able to find the right scriptures to justify this. Each of us has gifts to offer the Body and Paul made an issue of reminding us that each is equally important. (1Cor:22-26) We donât devote a month to appreciate those with gifts of hospitality, for instance. I havenât heard of âApostle- of- the- monthâ yet. (Oh my, I donât even want to entertain the implications of that!) YâShua said that we should not Lord over each other. Thatâs exactly what happens when we exalt one gift over another. We are re-born to serve (Matt20:26, 27) God and each other and really, there is no greater (or lower) position.
I heard a sermon on the radio a few years ago from a pastor who seemed to be identifying with âhis flockâ. He said that heâd been shepherding so long that he even smells like the sheep. I thought about that a long time.
If those who call themselves pastors today donât want to be identified with the sheep, perhaps the sheepdogs would be a better comparison. They run around the flock, barking, trying to keep us all in line and headed in the same direction and gathering up the stragglers. (I suppose that they also smell like the sheep)
YâShua tells us that He is the Good Shepherd. When we read scriptures like: Ezek34:23; 37:24 it is clear that He is the only shepherd.
Ps 23(amplified) says, âThe Lord is my Shepherd (to feed, guide and shield me) I shall not lack.â Iâm pretty content being sheep. I know I need His staff and rod to guide and protect. I like to graze close to my Shepherd so when He speaks, I hear clearly and when He moves, I can follow closely.