Pagan Christianity

Well I am on the 3rd chapter of this book. It's about the sermon, formation of it, and a few great orators. I've been reading this book for about a month now and it has been a very slow read.

I do not have the book in front of me right now, so I will not be able to put a few quotes that I thought were good. There are really interesting history bites in this book, such as pews. When they were first invented they were sold to families. Each family would sit and decorate their bench. No one else was allowed to sit there. It became almost a competition to see who could decorate their bench as the best with pillows, curtains, and such. It became a source that caused fighting between the church members. So finally they quite selling the pews and decorating and just had benches. I think that it is pretty funny that still today people have "their" pew or section, or side of the church that they always sit on and you better not sit in "their" seat. I guess that traditon has not completely died out.

Also Sunday night church. I have been in churches that have Sunday night church, churches that do not have it, or churches that just meet once a month on Sunday nights. I must tell you am a fan of either not having it at all or just meeting once a month. Viola and Barna point out that Sunday night meetings were first started by John Wesley, who lived in the 1800s, I think. When I read this I laughed and said "so it's your fault, thanks, John". Haha! (i don't mean any disrepect to Mr. Wesley.)

There are more history bites like these, such as how the steeple was invented, why churches have graveyards - this is really interesting, the architecture of the building, and even the definition of the word "church".

So far what I have gathered from the book so far is that our church is so completely rooted in tradition that sometimes we cannot tell the difference between following Christ and his commands or following tradition that someone began or took from someone else practices.

I hope to finish the book by March - so I have a lot of reading to do. Let me know if you have thoughts.