Students and friends,
Often in our classrooms we recommend book-lists which will enable you
to grow on your own, apart from us as professors. This time we would like to
take a moment and recommend a “NOT-list.” The first book we will bring to you
is the newly released, Revolution, by
the skilled-pollster (and amateur theologian) George Barna. Overall, this book
is a critique (make that a full-body slam) of the church’s inability to impact
the American culture in a positive (i.e., redemptive) manner. Thus, in this
book he notes that due to the church’s lack of being an impact player, God must
be calling His people outside of the church to utilize their gifts and serve
the Lord. Barna now calls these Christians who no
longer center their lives around Church
“Revolutionaries” and believes they (his count of 20 million of them and
growing) are the real future of the manifested body of Christ on earth. Barna
also joyously admits that he is now one of them as well.
First, from a
biblical standpoint, this
text would fail any and all of our exegesis classes. He claims to have studied
the scriptures on the subject but there is a glaring lack of any serious
reference to what the biblical pattern for the church really involves. It is a
wholly invalid process to critique what the church is NOT until he establishes a biblical baseline for what the church IS!
This effort, to be of value, must begin with a clear and precise
ecclesiology; stating what the Church is, not what Mr. Barna wants it to
accomplish.
His practice is to silence the opinions of others with
out-of-context proof-texts. Barna (mis)uses God’s Words to Peter, “Do not call
something unclean if God has made it clean.” This reference specifically calls
Peter to welcome Gentiles into the Church. In no way does it justify one to jettison
the church in a wholesale manner or even to re-invent “Church” according to a
new paradigm. Moreover, Barna simplifies (trivializes?) the church to be a
series of quotes from the Book of Acts. Interestingly, Barna describes his
understanding of the church from passages in Acts 2, 4, and 5. But it is worth
noting that at that point the Gospel has not even been proclaimed to the
Samaritans, God-fearers, or the gentiles. The true nature of servant-hood,
forgiveness, and grace has yet to be encountered. Finally, loosely based upon
these scriptures, Barna describes the attributes he finds in the early church
(what he calls “seven core passions”, pp. 22-25). These are so resoundingly
modern in their orientation that they would be unrecognizable to the apostles.
Further, Barna writes, “This mission demands single-minded commitment and a
disregard for the criticisms of those who lack the same dedication to the cause
of Christ. [Can you hear the spiritual arrogance?] You answer to only one
Commander-in-Chief, and only you will give an explanation for your choices.”
(p. 27). Friends, there is no place in scripture which permits a Christian to
function as a lone-ranger apart from the Body. We are called into fellowship
not out of it. As I see it, Revolution
is essentially autobiographical, not biblical. Barna’s approach is purely
phenomenological; the fact that something is happening becomes its own
validation. My suggestion to Mr. Barna; this book should have been co-written
with a team of scholars who would join together with to utilize Barna’s
sociological strength of reporting trends of culture and opinions of society;
not interpreting scriptures and evaluating the church’s ability to meet his
self-selected criterion for success. But that is the nature of what Barna is
calling the future church to look like, not a unified Body but individuals
working disconnected from one another and from the “head.”
Second, from a theological
perspective, the ecclesiology
espoused by Barna is plagued with problems. While Barna declares himself a
“revolutionary,” espousing an innovative way of discipleship beyond the local
church, he deludes himself. His ecclesiology, with a myopic preoccupation upon
individual discipleship and a personal relationship with Christ, simply follows
to its logical conclusion a shallow Americanized model of the Church, dominant
in contemporary evangelicalism. Ironically, Barna’s stated doctrine of the
Church is a product of the evangelical churches he critiques, both of which
misunderstand the fundamental nature of the Church, distort the doctrine of
grace and the means of grace, and ultimately succumb to Pelegian
pragmaticism. As such, his book not only
exposes his own inadequate ecclesiology, but highlights the deficiencies of
many contemporary evangelical models of the Church.
Fundamentally, Barna sees the Church, the Body of Christ, exclusively as a
mystical, spiritual community of “revolutionaries” without any direct
relationship to the local church. The Church is a community that Christians spiritually
join when they decide to follow Jesus, rather than one into which they are
incorporated concretely through baptism and local church discipline. However,
membership in the Church, the Body of Christ, is problematic without
relationship to the local church. Why? Because as the Reformed, Lutheran, and
Wesleyan forms of Protestantism have consistently recognized, along with the
Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, the Church is the primary means
of God’s saving grace and the Church is expressed concretely in local churches.
Local churches are the means by which God’s saving grace in Christ Jesus given
to the Church is made available to humanity. Through the preaching of the Word,
the due administration of the sacraments, and the community rightly ordered
(the marks of the Church), saving, confirming and sanctifying grace is
communicated to people. For people to isolate themselves from hearing the
scriptures read and the Word of God proclaimed in community, from participation
in the sacraments of the Church, and from submitting themselves to the
discipline, order and life of the local church is to cut themselves off from
the primary means of God’s grace. As such, while a generation of
“revolutionaries” may be able to sustain themselves for a period of time, grace
capable of sustaining and nourishing Barna’s “revolutionaries” for the long
haul, much less succeeding generations, will prove difficult, if not
impossible.
In the end, Barna surrenders
the biblically and theologically prudent understanding of the Church for an
expedient model that ultimately cannot birth, nourish and sustain believers.
Dangerously, Barna’s ecclesiology has more in common with the Donatist movement
in the third century and Pelegianism in the fifth century than it does in
orthodox Christian theology. While these movements flourished in the moment,
having great spiritual zeal and fervor, they could not be sustained, and their
followers in subsequent generations were left without access to the means of
God’s saving and sustaining grace found in the Church.
Finally, from a practical
effect (especially among younger people) is to encourage them
to drop out of church attendance and practice a do-it-yourself religion.
Among ministerial students it encourages them to seek other more exciting
venues for their ministry instead of the old fashioned local church. To
the laity it legitimizes dropping out of church and going golfing—just so long
as they go on a mission’s trip with a Para church organization occasionally and
have a neighbor Bible study with a few friends on Tuesday evenings so they can
skip church and go golfing on Sunday mornings. The practical effect
of the book is to elevate lone ranger religion to which the local church (and
obviously districts and denominations) are totally irrelevant.
In pondering this book, it seems to only have come from the
pen (laptop?) of a frustrated “boomer.” Moreover, his focus is so modern,
western, and individualistic in orientation that it has lost all connections
with the biblical times or text. Moreover, it s not global in
focus, making it an American Christianity issue, not Kingdom. This is a
call to selfish, self-centered Christians who want what they want, want it now,
and are not willing to submit to one another. It’s a call to men
(predominantly, Eldredge “Wild at Heart” types) who need adventure
and an instant-spiritual-gratification spirituality. Faith, forgiveness,
perseverance, and body-submission are no where to be seen. Life is measured by
pure performance rather than biblical faithfulness.
This is a dangerous book
scripturally, theologically and practically—which is why it may be a popular
book. Encouraging our people to buy it would be like promoting a book
that celebrated pre-marital sex and extra-marital affairs as the wave of the
future. People do not need encouragement toward such behaviors. What this
book promotes if far more serious than pre-marital or extra-marital sex: it is
a dangerous book.
Jointly composed and
sincerely Church-men,
Chris Bounds
Keith Drury
David Smith
Indiana Wesleyan University