6 False Premises in the Book, "Pagan Christianity"

Frank Viola best describes Pagan Christianity? (George Bama, co-author) in his preface: "This is not a work for scholars." I agreed, so somewhere in chapter six, I set the book down. I may not be a scholar, but I am not interested in reading unscholarly work. Here's the point of their book according to Viola:

...if the church is following the life of God who indwells it, it will never produce those [Catholic] non-scriptural practices this book addresses. Such practices are foreign elements that God’s people picked up from their pagan neighbors as far back as the fourth century.

The authors give us page after page of misapplication of facts about how, when and from where Catholicism gets its doctrines and traditions. To the authors' credit, they did some extensive research, but their interpretation of facts is not well-informed. The authors simply do not grasp the pre-Reformation worldview of Christendom and that is vital when attempting to discern history. For it really does matter if one reports that the sign of the cross comes from paganism rather than from the letter "tau" Jews made on their forehead to symbolize the Torah. One is a breaking of the commandment not to bear false witness against thy neighbor.

[Note: The irony for the Protestant authors is that they assert Christianity should rid itself of Catholic man-make traditions that cannot be proven in scripture just to write an entire book based upon Protestant man-made traditions which cannot be proven in scripture!]

To be brief, I have chosen six false premises that underpin Christian Paganism's assertions: 

False Premise #1: The Church Abandoned God, Therefore, She is the False Church 

When Martin Luther couldn't immediately and decisively persuade the Church, that his interpretation of scripture was correct and the Church's interpretation of scripture had been incorrect for 1500 years, he ordered a revolt. He went from an understandable concern about indulgence abuses to storming out of the Church calling her the "whore of Babylon." This is why a reformation from within turned into a protest from without. He convinced a lot of people that you can't reform or reconcile with the Devil's agent--the whore of Babylon. This is Luther's tradition.

But, you might ask, "Didn't the Reformers call the Church the false church and the Whore of Babylon because she rejected God by infusing the gospel with pagan rituals, sacraments and hierarchies?" The authors attempt to prove this by tying most past and current church traditions to pagan roots and warn that we must seriously consider extracting these foreign element from Christianity. (I didn't read a direct statement that the Catholic Church is the false church but it is implied on every page.)

This premise could be argued on two levels: 
a) that the rituals are, in fact, pagan and 
b) that if they were pagan, it would automatically mean the Church had deserted God. 

Look at the people of God in the Old Testament. God sent numerous prophets to Israel to warn them against their wicked, pagan ways, but He never took away their position as the people of God. There is a difference between being an imperfect, even corrupted church and a false, pagan one.

There is no New Testament prophet who warns that the New Covenant Church at any point in history will become pagan or "false." (Christ threatens to remove one of the seven lamp stands and spew the church at Laodicea out of His mouth, but these are individual churches, not the whole of the Body.) 

If something so momentous as God's Bride going rogue was going to happen, don't you think God would have warned us through scripture? 

There is no Biblical evidence that the Catholic Church is a false church nor the whore of Babylon. That is a man-made tradition and interpretation. 


False Premise #2: The Church Abandoned God, Therefore, God Abandoned the Church 

Even if the Church had discarded their covenant with God, it doesn't follow that Christ would disown His Church. He is faithful even when we are not! He didn't forsake Israel when she was practicing idolatry (at least not forever), He punished Israel. Punishment is God's way of dealing with His children, not abandonment. In fact, Jesus promised His Church that He would be with her forever. 

So they are no longer two, but one flesh (man/wife and Christ/Church). What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Matt. 19: 6

I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever. John 14: 16.

Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. Matt. 28: 20.

False Premise #3: The Church Abandon God, So We Should Abandon the Church. 

There is no precedent nor prophecy anywhere in scripture that encourages a sheep to leave the fold. 

No Hebrew was told to start a New Israel. The Bible never predicts that Christ's Church, His Body, His Bride would become so corrupted that He would desire Christians to start a new Church. 

St. John's first letter warns that some of those who leave the church are antichrists. 

[Y]ou have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come...They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us. I John 2: 18-19

Jesus said to cut off the part of the Body that is causing it to sin. He didn't say throw the entire body out, nor separate from the body or start a new body.

False Premise #4: The Early Church's Doctrines Were Based in the Bible 

Viola writes: 

The normative practices of the first-century church were the natural and spontaneous expression of the divine life that indwelt the early Christians. And those practices were solidly grounded in timeless principles and teachings of the New Testament. 

The early church did not have the Bible. The scriptures, known as the Bible, were not compiled until the fourth century. At best they may have had a copy of of an Apostle's letter or the four gospels, but what Christ taught was transmitted orally--through preaching. We could easily reverse this statement to get to the truth: The Bible is based on the doctrines of the early church.

False Premise #5: We Must Return To the Early Pristine Church

 Viola states in his preface: 

I beleive the first-century church was the church in its purest form, before it was tainted or corrupted.”

He's wrong on two levels. Jesus tells us the opposite when He speaks to the seven churches in Revelation. Paul describes many problems in his letters to the churches. The early church was split into many heretical factions. 

The authors also are wrong assuming that doctrines should not develop over time and that somehow the early church was pure, complete and uncorrupted is nowhere in scripture. Nothing in scripture tells us that things are to remain primitive. The early church was the seed that was to develop into a large tree. The history of God's people starts in a garden (Eden) and ends in a city (New Jerusalem). The early church did not have a definition of the Trinity or the full Divinity of Christ. The mysteries of salvation were slowly revealed and deepened in understanding through Biblical history. This idea that we should return to the first century to find the fullness of truth is not a Biblical idea. 

False Premise #6: Church Traditions Should Come From Bible

Again, we must emphasis that the very reverse of this is true.

Scripture came from Church Tradition. 

Another mistake the authors make, as well as many Protestants, is to believe that all Jesus said was written down. It wasn't. 

I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. John 16:12 

But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 21: 25

I will give directions concerning the other matters when I come. I Cor. 11: 34

The first chapter of Acts reports that Jesus taught the disciples for forty days after His resurrection. This vital message is not in scripture. We cannot presume that the oral teaching of Christ the forty days following the Resurrection should be discarded as unimportant because they weren't written down.

The premise that the oral words of God cannot be trusted but the written words of God are the final authority for the Christian is a Protestant tradition. That claim is not found within scripture itself. In fact, the Bible points to the Body of Christ, the Church, as the final authority on doctrines.

If your brother sins...go and tell him his fault...But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you...If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Matthew 18: 15-17

 We are of God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. I John 4: 6

The authors trust only scripture and refuse to go outside of it for church practices, saying about certain traditions:

Such practices are foreign elements that God’s people picked up from their pagan neighbors as far back as the fourth century.

If the fourth-century church was already corrupted so badly with paganism that we cannot trust her to correctly pass down the oral teachings of Christ, then we can’t trust the Bible because at that time the canon of scripture was decided upon by Catholics councils. The fourth-century Catholic Church decided which books would be in the Bible!)

I think this is worth repeating because it is such a widespread Protestant premise that the Bible is the Church's final authority. This is a Protestant tradition and has no scriptural evidence. Actually:

The Bible is the greatest evidence the Church has that God gave the Church His authority.


Conclusion:
Viola and Barna are noticing the same thing the Luther and Zwingli and Wesley brothers did. And frankly, all of us realize, that Christianity is filled with corrupt people and doesn't seem to be "working." The church is in need of reformation and renewal. (And this isn't some shocking news to the Catholic Church. She has always taught that each generation must be reforming the church.) 

Where the authors go wrong is that they blame the corruption in the church on extra-biblical traditions. But as we have seen, each new reformer or group of reformers begins with the idea of starting over and wiping away all traditions. Yet they inevitably end up creating a new set of traditions that divide the body of Christ. 

Christ never said to tear down and start His church over, He said to repent, renew and refresh. This isn’t an institutional problem we can blame on rituals and rites. This is a heart problem, a sin

problem, that has to be dealt with on an individual basis. The rituals are there to facillitate individual regeneration and renewal. Don’t blame the rituals if the people in the church are dead (or sleeping). Blame the people.

Catholics and the Dance of Salvation

Preface

There is so much distrust between Catholics and Protestants, that in order to understand each other, we have to find neutral territory--a territory of neutral language using mutually understood spiritual terms where meanings are clear. As G. K. Chesterton pointed out, a four-foot window and a four-foot elephant can create a “foot”confusion and though we may all think it silly to think a window has four feet like an elephant has four feet it is not so funny when it comes to terms like eucharist and purgatory.

In order to love each other as Christ commanded, a step in faith must be taken towards each other realizing that though we may never agree with each other’s interpretation of scripture, at least we will honestly understand the points on which we disagree instead of all this confusing spiritual propaganda that keeps flying between us--creating an impassible irritation of spiritual pride.

I know what many of you are thinking...

This has nothing to do with misunderstanding, but everything to do with the doctrines of demons and Catholics who are trying to make evil good. And everyone I speak to “knows a guy” who was Catholic who had all kinds of stories about wicked Catholic priests or a Catholic who was wounded by Catholic works-righteousness dogmas. 

As a convert, I am trying to figure this out. The Catholicism I was drawn to... the Catholicism that I have studied shows the opposite of what those people tell me. The Catechism, Catholic’s official documents, the Bible and Christian church history all back up the Catholicism that I was taught--a faith salvation not of works but of grace. I am working on finding and expressing an answer about American Catholics who were brought up being taught you have to earn you way to heaven. Seems to me it is a catastrophic failure of teaching Catholic truths.

I realize that this is what Adventists say to ex-SDAs. They claim that we just didn’t fully understand Adventist doctrine. So I want to run from that excuse. But if it is true, then it is true whether or not Adventists use the excuse. However, poor catechesis is not a fully satisfactory answer to me. How can so many Catholics believe in works-righteousness when it is not their doctrine? I just don’t know.... I am working on that one....

However, the Catholics I do know... the Catholics that go regularly to mass and who live the faith, have no misunderstanding and cry out in frustration when they are accused of working their way to heaven.

Cradle Catholics, or those who have never been Protestant, have a huge difficulty in explaining their faith to Protestants because the way in which Catholics and Protestants understand salvation is different. It is not just a matter of works righteousness. This is a matter of basic world views and when and where and how we receive God and are born-again.

Since I find spiritual wording to be an enormous barrier, I will attempt to use words in a way that truly communicates our Catholic faith in Protestant language. It might very well confuse Catholics if they read it... but since I have been on both sides, I think I can link together both world views. Hopefully....

Salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven

Catholics believe they, along with the Orthodox who both began with Jesus, are the Kingdom of God (Kingdom of Heaven) as Christ laid out in Matthew’s gospel chapter thirteen. Every time Christ says “the kingdom” Catholics see this as pointing to a real, visible church that Christ started. The attributes of this kingdom--filled with wheats and tares and different edible and inedible fish and seeds that dry up and die--is the kingdom, even in its earthly imperfection. This kingdom, Jesus tells us, doesn’t start out perfect but becomes perfect in order to be received by Christ at His literal Second Coming.  

[And Catholics teach this perfection is not all done while on earth, that those sins we are addicted to now are overcome in purgatory. And all sin is overcome by God’s grace; we do not earn heaven. More on that later.]

Catholics see the book of Revelation as the prophetic story of Christ’s Body in His Church. Revelation is the story of the Catholic Church.  I know many Christians see this as arrogant... “The Catholic Church the Church? Humph! Hardly!”  And I don’t blame them, it does sound very arrogant when there are around 20,000 different denominations today and all claim to be part of the church. I am not saying you have to agree, but just for a moment try and understand a Catholic worldview.

There was only one church for a thousand years. Then the Orthodox and Catholics broke from one another, but it stayed the east and western churches for another five hundred years with no real break-off churches that survived. So for 15 centuries the west had only one universal church. It had only one Bible. It had only one mind with one understanding of the gospel. Not to say the understanding of truths didn’t grow deeper, and some things were debated, but little changed in the area of basic doctrines. 

But this Catholic Church Kingdom of Heaven didn’t simply begin at Christ. The Church is the Kingdom that goes back all the way to God’s promise to David.

The Promised Everlasting Kingdom

II Sam. 7: 12-17 records God’s promise to King David:

I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever .   (see also 1 Chr. 22:10; 28:7, Dan. 2:44; 7:18)

Jesus came and fulfilled the Davidic Kingdom on earth. He brought the Eternal Kingdom, a real, true kingdom with leaders and structure and teachings and writings. An organized church--with Apostles to lead it. This kingdom is His Body, this kingdom is His Bride. The beginning of an everlasting kingdom that started with Christ’s arms stretching out wide upon the Cross and embracing the whole world. Salvation for everyone had come. It is here and now--not in the future. All those who wish salvation must only come and accept the free gift of His Kingdom.

Jesus set up a system of teachings (doctrines) that we call the gospel and His Church was to take this very good news to the whole world, not just a hit and run gospel but setting up a church wherever His disciples went. They didn’t just leave a book and then tell the new converts that they were on their own--look to a book as your authority. No, a church was established, leadership was appointed. And these new satellite communities  joined with all the others to grow in grace, to serve God and others and to live the gospel that others may join the church also. The little growing communities were not left alone to thrive independently. 

They were joined together in unity of the Spirit, in unity of scripture and doctrine and evangelists often came and brought them news from other communities. The were bound together in heart and mind and they suffered for each other, sacrificed for each other and were in unity of baptism.

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4: 4-6

 From the very second Christ established his church to this very day, he promised that he would protect it and to this very second now in time, His promise still remains. He vowed to His Bride as He was ascending into heaven that He would be with her to the end of the age. He didn’t promise to protect a spiritual philosophy or theology, or the Bible or the even the gospel, though He surely did that. But what He actually said was that He would protect His Bride, His Church, His Kingdom. 

She is the pillar and foundation of truth and by protecting Her, He in turn protected scripture and truth. (I Tim. 3:15) This protection would be guaranteed by the Holy Spirit given to her as a counselor, comforter and guide, so that the very gates of hell could not prevail against her. She has sheep with true shepherds, a sheepfold and a gate. Jesus is her shepherd, Jesus is her gate and He is with her, the church. And each individual Christian would receive the Holy Spirit through her. So that all would be one in Christ.

But what about Catholic corruption? Didn’t God abandon His church when she started corrupting the gospel?

Yes, God’s church makes mistakes. Yet, God protects His church even when she makes mistakes. 

Thanks for staying with me this far, because if you are like me when I was a Protestant, I would be yelling at the computer by now and would probably close this blog down and in agitation pray for my poor, deceived Catholic writer who could write such heresy.

But, this is what Catholic believe and have always believed. And agree or disagree you must understand this in order to understand their view on Salvation.

Catholics believe that to enter the Kingdom of God, this literal church... a real church, we enter through a real way. It is not an mental or emotional experience that places you in an invisible, spiritual church. We physically enter into salvation through Baptism.