All that to say… I can imagine that Frank found it easy to take a sharper edge, even if he didn’t necessarily intend to. I can’t say for sure if this is the case, we’ll have to pay attention to his interviews and his public speaking engagements to get a fuller picture. However, I’d be inclined to give someone the benefit of a doubt after completing my own book.

But what are wounding blows to some are prophetic critiques to others. I think it would be disingenuous for me to pretend to be reading through your lens, from a progressive Catholic or Pagan perspective. I can’t help but read it from where I’m coming from–a house-churcher for ten years, who has read far, far more hostile tracts and invectives against more institutionalized forms of Christianity. I am quite positive that Frank wasn’t primarily or even peripherally thinking of satisfied ‘high church’ liturgical folks or neopagans whilst penning “Pagan” in either draft; he is engaging in a conversation that is, for better or worse, narrower than that–he is addressing evangelicals and fundamentalists and Pentecostal/charismatics and some of the ‘lower-church’ emerging crowd. I don’t know if he could change his book to be all things to all people.

This is one of the main reasons I didn’t respond to your critique in the same breath as the others, who fit in the categories above. You are a category-breaker in this regard, which is a good thing. I have very little to say to your review, except this–I can respect where you’re coming from a ton more than others who are ecclesiologically closer to my camp. You have every reason to reject the author’s premise, whereas ostensibly ’sola Scripture’ or “we do church as is grounded in the Bible” folks do not. You, brother Carl, are consistent!

But I think you know that like you I personally hope for a middle ground between decentralized church and one rooted in historic expressions of liturgy. And I think I said, in this very review, that I would have personally toned things rather differently were I the author of “Pagan,” for a host of stylistic and even spiritual reasons. I’m as conciliatory and soft-spoken in my general polemical approach as a flower child decked out in a moon beam and a grass skirt, but in my reading I enjoy fiery authors as well as careful ones.

Mike, you say “All the same, as I re-read the new Pagan, I don’t read ‘caustic’ in most cases–I read ‘humor.’” I just don’t see it. I think because Frank’s your friend, you probably are not really dialed in to how hurtful his tone really could be. Forgive me for what is basically a “me too” post, but I have to join in with what many of the folks commenting here have already said: while I actually agree with a fair amount of what Pagan Christianity says, I think its tone is actually quite destructive. I’m looking forward to Reimagining Church and hope that it will help me to develop a more favorable view of Frank and his ministry. As the Quakers say, “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

And finally, changing the subject a bit: Mike, your YWAM analogy strikes me as directly relevant to the conversation about the Community of Jesus that is occurring elsewhere on your blog.

Viola and Barna have written this book that we might discard all models and forms to return to Christ. There is too much talk going on about the church from well-intentioned believers. Christ should be our one and only pursuit. Out of Christ comes the church!

When the book is read with this in mind… the reader will have an edge on understanding what the authors are seeking to accomplish with PC. Throw out the trash and let the Lord speak to your heart whatever he will. Seek Christ… not the church.

Peace.
David D. Flowers

I have to say that I did find PC a little too fundamentalist for my liking. I’m about to post a review of it on my blog and one of the things I’ll be noting is that Frank could do with repeating his rejection of “Biblical blueprintism” more often and more explicitly.

Coming out of the North American HC movement, I’m not sure that Frank’s humour helps him, because it too easily confirms people’s fears of dogmatic and rigid ecclesiastical primitivism. I think it would have been more helpful if the book had made more of the anabaptist values and post-Christendom context - giving it a more theological and missional feel, instead of a purely restitutionist one.

And I say all of that as a fan of the book!

I had the pleasure of talking with Frank on the phone a few days ago and you are right about him. I think he is a genuine man with a heart for Jesus.

I have read your post again, and appreciate the balance you are trying to strike in this process.