Bill Kinnon on Pagan Christianity
I had lunch with Bill Kinnon yesterday. He’s an amazing guy and I feel blessed to be able to enjoy a bite on the Danforth with him. Bill has finally reviewed (sort of) Pagan Christianity, but his comments apply to much more than this book:
I’m not the most gracious person on the block. It’s not my strong suit – and perhaps I respond to the lack of graciousness in Viola’s writings because of my own failings in that area. But I strongly believe that had an irenic spirit infused PC – starting perhaps with its title – then the many important points the book makes and the questions it asks about the present shape of the church as we know it may have been more easily received.
We are at a liminal point in the life of the church. I strongly believe that profound change is taking place. There are those folk who want to hang on to the post-war CEO-driven church model, others who firmly have their feet planted in Calvin’s Geneva, others who think the only truth can be found in the magisterium and are madly swimming the Tiber and still others who want to throw it all away and return to the glorious church of the 1st Century. (Corinth? Galatia? Ephesus?)
It is a time when we need to be infused with the Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ for each other and for the broken world around us.
Len also has a good post, and a comment worth reading at Bill’s: “I think at times we make a list of the ideal presentation of ekklesial reality. If you only had these things, and not those things, WOW.. we would really see the kingdom of God take shape. But it just don’t work that way. God remains sovereign and free…”
