Evangelicalism's Blast from the Past
By Trevin Wax on Feb 12, 2008 in Uncategorized | 
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Christianity Today’s February 2008 cover story “The Future Lies in the Past” charts the increasing evangelical adoption of ancient Christian traditions and rituals in forming current spirituality. Chris Armstrong describes evangelicalism’s surge into the past, from “ancient-future” leader Bob Webber’s acclamation of the Great Tradition to the identity crisis of younger evangelicals today.
It’s true that this “blast from the past” is taking place in evangelical life, perhaps in more ways than Webber would have anticipated. Armstrong’s article points out the return to liturgy and tradition, but he leaves out the variety of ways that evangelicals are connecting with the past. The Ancient-Future side might actually be one of the less-influential corners of a movement spreading throughout evangelicalism from all directions.
1. Reformed Resurgence
Take the Reformed resurgence among young adults. In my own denomination, young Baptists are intrigued by the Calvinist roots of our Southern Baptist Convention. Some of the youngest Baptist leaders can quote from the earliest Southern Baptists better than their fathers and pastors. The desire for rootedness, for deep connection with the past has led many to the Puritans, whose books continue to be printed by Banner of Truth and Crossway.
2. Emerging Church
The Emerging Church disparages the rootlessness of contemporary evangelicalism and the pragmatism of the Seeker movement. The Emerging Church merges ancient rituals with current expression, and this strange marriage takes place in a variety of ways. Some Emerging churches have rediscovered prayer rooms, incense, candles, icons, and labyrinths.
3. Spiritual Disciplines Movement
Richard Foster’s influential books on spiritual disciplines deserve a place in the Ancient-Future spectrum. Foster has long advocated a deeper embrace of the devotional heritage of the past, even if the classics take us back before the Reformation. Those who have followed Foster’s lead have taken up ancient Christian disciplines – fasting, contemplative prayer, etc.
4. The Organic/House Church Movement
Though I have argued that the most recent expression of this movement (Barna and Viola’s Pagan Christianity?) actually hates church history, I do see a common impulse between this group and the Ancient-Future movement. Both movements are about looking back in order to look forward. Of course, Barna desires a return to the pristine quality of the earliest church, which I believe never existed. But the desire for rootedness is present here in this odd house-church manifestation as well.
5. The New Monastics
Some might equate this movement with the Emerging Church, but it has its own distinct features. The Emerging Church is about contextualization, while the New Monastics tend to focus on the building of faith-communities and opportunities for spiritual retreat and reflection. Monastic prayer, fasting, giving to the poor, etc. are making a comeback among young evangelicals.
6. People Like Me
I can’t be pigeon-holed into any one of the above categories.
While I have a deep appreciation for Robert Webber, the worship of the church where I serve could hardly be considered “Ancient-Future.”
Theologically, I lean Reformed and I love Church History but I am not a five-point Calvinist and sometimes tire of the seemingly endless introspection of the Puritans.
I am not part of the Emerging Church, though I believe the movement has raised some good questions that we as evangelicals need to do business with.
I regularly practice certain spiritual disciplines and have no qualms about following the Church Calendar, observing Lent, and praying ancient prayers by candlelight.
I am not a Monastic, although a good spiritual retreat is a balm to my soul.
I love high-church liturgy, although I rarely get to experience it.
I hunger for more frequent observance of the Lord’s Supper.
I yearn to find roots in the Church, roots beyond contemporary evangelicalism.
I suspect that there are many people like me, whose mouths water when hearing about liturgy, tradition, stability, and ancient rituals, but who often feel deprived of such aspects of Christianity due to the current trajectory of evangelical churches.
I am glad to see the evangelical movement looking backwards for a change. It is deeply humbling to see the vastness of the Christian tradition and our speckled and shining history and then to discover we are part of something bigger than ourselves – bigger than our denominational distinctives, bigger than our petty problems, bigger than our foolish fightings. We belong to the Church that for two thousand years has witnessed to the world that Jesus is Lord.
written by Trevin Wax. copyright © 2008 Kingdom People Blog.
Related Articles:
Book Review: Ancient-Future Faith
My Interview with Robert Webber
Baptists and the Lord’s Supper
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Great Post!
N. Mitchell | Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Trevin — Your statement that the book Pagan Christianity “actually hates church history” seems very prejudicial and way out of line. If the book hated church history, as you aver, why would the authors bother to document a number of things that actually occurred in church history? The book is based on a serious examination of church history. PC is taking church history seriously and letting the facts speak.
If you happen to disagree with their take on aspects of church history, that would not appear to be grounds to assert that they “hate” church history.
It would seem to me that the real issue is, Have they handled the areas of church history covered in PC evenhandedly? I think they have.
Jon
Jon Zens | Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Jon,
When I say that the authors of Pagan Christianity hate church history, I am not speaking of them hating the subject. What they condemn is virtually every aspect of church history that has made its way into the worship of the church. I put them in this “Blast from the Past” list because I believe they are, with good intentions, seeking to find roots in the ancient church.
The problem with Viola/Barna’s proposal is that it presupposes that the Church has been way off course since the very beginning, with virtually nothing valuable to find within the two millennia of our history. That’s what I mean when I say they hate church history… they disdain the historical developments within the Christian Church in our two-thousand year history.
trevinwax | Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Trevin,
Foster popularized the disciplines but the groundwork was laid by Dallas Willard. I was reading and reflecting on “The Spirit of the Disciplines” long before I discovered Foster. If you’ve not read, i would highly recommend it. For that matter I would recommend ANYthing Willard wrote. If he published his grocery list, I would probably see if I could finagle a copy to review for our web site.
rick
http://www.ill-legalism.com
http://www.gamalielsdesk.blogspot.com
Rick Presley | Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Trevin — The way you respond is filled with biased language.
You say, “They condemn virtually every aspect of church history that has made its way into the worship of the church.” The way I would say it is, “They compare the simplicity of the NT with the human traditions that took root in post-apostolic history and discover that these customs are rooted in paganism, not the NT narrative, and thus act to hinder the fullness of Christ in his church.”
For example, borrowed from the Greek culture came the focus on one person’s homily behind a pulpit. No such practice is to be found in the NT. Such a sermon-emphasis snuffed out the kind of gatherings described in the NT where each person could make edifying contributions. In our practice, then, we have exalted that for which there is no NT precedent, and missed the blessing of doing that which the evidence points to.
You say, “[they assume] that the Church has been way off course since the very beginning, with virtually nothing valuable to find within two millennia of our history.” I would say, “They examine church history and discover that church traditions (imported from the surrounding culture)crowded out the simplicity of Christ early on.”
To me, it seems like a no-brainer to observe that the church went way off course from the very beginning. From the 4th century to the 19th century, church and state were joined together at the hip, and the Roman Catholic Church became a labyrinth of ecclesiastical ritual and superstition.
You say, “they disdain the historical developments” during 2000 years of church history. I would say, “They document from church history that key ecclesiastical customs were at odds with the simplicity of Christ.”
The basic points in PC are validated by numerous historians and scholars. For example, are not the basic points that the church went astray immediately and moved away from the simplicity of the early church reflected in James D.G. Dunn’s words?
“Increasing institutionalism is the clearest mark of early Catholicism – when church becomes increasingly identified with institution, when authority becomes increasingly coterminous with office, when a basic distinction between clergy and laity becomes increasingly self-evident, when grace becomes increasingly narrowed to well-defined ritual acts. We saw above that such features were absent from first generation Christianity, though in the second generation the picture was beginning to change.” (Unity & Diversity in the NT, Westminster Press, 1977, p.351)
It is simply unfair for you to say that the authors “hate” church history. Perhaps you are unwilling to face what they bring to light from the annals of church history.
Jon
Jon Zens | Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Rick, thanks for the tip on Willard.
Jon, my initial thoughts on PC are in my book review published on this site (a quick search will lead you to it). I do not wish to turn the discussion of the comment thread on this post to Barna’s book.
I make no qualms about speaking with “biased” language regarding the Viola/Barna book. I do not, however, believe that Viola and Barna are somehow “unbiased” in their book. They have used certain historical connections to buttress their own already-preexistent view of what the church should be.
trevinwax | Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
Trevin,
As per your comment (#6), I ask your patience because I think Jon’s accusation against you calls for a strong(er) response. Feel free to move/delete this comment as you wish… it’s your blog, after all! I’m just sick of him repeating the same things all over the ‘net without anyone calling him out on the details of the situation.
Jon,
You accuse Trevin of using “biased language.” That’s rich, considering that this conversation is about Pagan Christianity. I have seen and read your defenses of PC elsewhere, and at this point I need to ask whether you really believe the things you are writing or if you have been hired by Viola or Barna to provide a semi-official public response any time someone questions the validity of their assertions. I apologize for the tone of the previous sentence, but I’m really, genuinely curious…
Here’s my problem with PC (and, yes, I’ve read it). Viola and Barna are essentially engaging in an argument from silence; ironically, it is a silence which they labor to create. Next, they inject into that vacuum their own peculiar notions of what a creative reconstruction of N.T. worship might look like. Finally, they poison the well for traditional Christian worship practices through biased–at times outrageous–language. The game is played like this:
Step 1: Start by dismissing the earliest extra-biblical evidence re: the nature of Christian worship. Complete, outright dismissal. Tell us that it is all “tainted,” “corrupted,” or “institutionalized” (boo! hiss!). That isn’t “biased” language, though. Never, ever, make a case for why we should discount it as positive evidence in the first place.
Step 2: Next, embrace full-on Marcionite views re: the relationship (or lack thereof) between the O.T. and the N.T. State boldly that the Cross “destroys” any connection between Old and New Covenant worship. The worship that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob gave directly to his people in the O.T.? Oh, nevermind that. God was just going through his “pagan” phase!
He’s not down with sacrifice, temples, ritual or any of that O.T. hooey anymore. Support this incredible shift in perspective with nary a scrap of argument. Just assert it.
Step 3: Since they implicitly deny the existence of any “pure” early witness to Christian worship outside of the N.T. (Clement, Ignatius and Didache are already way off base, supposedly–although they never explicitly make a case for this giant leap in their argument), they are free to creatively mould the paltry N.T. references to fit their preconceived house-churchly notions of wie es eigentlich war. Someone please inform them that the N.T. isn’t a liturgical how-to manual. Nor was it ever intended to be one. Seriously.
Step 4: They take up their creative reconstruction based upon their pre-conceived ideas (plus a few Scriptural passages) and tout it as the model for going forward. Chase this with the not-so-subtle calling into question of anything and everything in traditional ecclesiastical culture by means of guilt-by-association. Lectors? Pagan. Choirs? Pagan. Sermons? Pagan. Incense? Pagan. Pulpits? Pagan. Priests? Pagan. Then disingenuously add, “Oh, we aren’t saying we should drop them or that they’re necessarily bad…” at least once per chapter. Then shout “But they are ‘pagan’, you know” from the rooftops. Just like the latin letters and arabic numerals on the pages of their book. Or the very idea of a book divided into chapters.
I have yet to see someone call them on the fact that their reimagining doesn’t in the least resemble the scholarly consensus (even though they pretend like it does). Just because someone includes 1,500 footnotes citing shoddy secondary sources–many, if not most, outdated–and backs it up with a bit of out-of-context Paul Bradshaw doesn’t mean they are anywhere close to reporting what the mainstream view of the matter is in the academy. Trying to foist the results of this ignorant polemic on an innocent public and asking them to swallow it whole takes serious guts.
Jon, if you want the gory details as to why I really do think that Viola and Barna “hate” church history, I’ll gladly have a correspondence with you regarding chapter seven of the book (Ministers of Music). Have they, or you, ever heard of the fields of historical musicology or liturgiology? On the evidence of that chapter, I seriously doubt it.
Keep up the good work, Trevin.
NotSleeping | Feb 12, 2008 | Reply
NotSleeping — No, I haven’t been hired by FV/GB to respond to critics of PC. They couldn’t afford me!
I’ve been studying and writing about church life for some time. I read a pre-pub copy of PC from Tyndale, and I endorsed the book. With few exceptions, the criticisms of PC have been emotional reactions, surface comments, and jibes at strawpeople, and I felt that responses were in order in light of the convictions I’ve come to.
PC was designed to foster conversation, not to squash it. The responses evoked by this kind of book reveal some widely-varying hermeneutical approaches to the descriptions and prescriptions found in the NT. To me, one question keeps coming up as I listen to the discussion — Why have we exalted practices for which there is no evidence in the NT, and in the process passed by those practices for which there is some kind of evidence?
Again, with few exceptions, the specific historical argumentation in PC is being glossed over, or superficially dismissed.
Jon
Jon Zens | Feb 14, 2008 | Reply
The sequel to “Pagan Christianity?” is out now. It’s called “Reimagining Church”. It picks up where “Pagan Christianity” left off and continues the conversation. (“Pagan Christianity” was never meant to be a stand alone book; it’s part one of the conversation.) “Reimagining Church” is endorsed by Leonard Sweet, Shane Claiborne, Alan Hirsch, and many others. You can read a sample chapter at http://www.ReimaginingChurch.org. It’s also available on Amazon.com. Frank is also blogging now at http://frankviola.wordpress.com/
Jill | Aug 1, 2008 | Reply