Reactions

Well, first it was Christianity Today with their blistering review of Barna's "Revolution". Now in the January edition of Charisma magazine, the editor, J. Lee Grady, seems to be responding to the book just as Barna anticipated some people would. Here are some samples from the article:

The well-known Christian researcher has gone too far this time: He's advocating the demise of the local church...

The tempered sociologist has now become something of a mad scientist. By cooking the numbers, reinterpreting the data and injecting his own biases into this odd experiment, he has created a Frankenstein that is now on the loose.

We should all be concerned about this monster.

Barna's theory is that large numbers of American Christians are disillusioned with the church and have quit the Sunday morning routine. He applauds this trend, and has labeled these church dropouts "revolutionaries"” who, —in his opinion, —have more spiritual creativity and passion than stick-in-the-mud traditionalists.

He also believes that those who have left the mainstream church scene will overhaul modern Christianity, describing their mission as "“a daring redefinition of the church as we know it."

The message of Revolution is not for Christians in the Third World, and it is not for us. With all respect to Barna, who has helped us in the past with his facts and observations, this flawed proposal needs to be recalled before it causes some serious damage.

You can read the entire article and comments here.

Samples of some of the comments to the article:

The conservative denominationally-oriented pubs like Christianity Today have sided with the charismatic, non-denominationally-oriented pub Charisma in calling this man's views dangerous. I don't get it. The church he describes sounds eerily like the first century church, you recall those folks, right?

I have to disagree with Lee Grady's article. I think the biggest threat to Christianity right now is the threat that many of the kingdoms that have been built within the kingdom is at risk of falling.

J Lee, Much love an appreciation for your writtings. Sorry, but you have sure missed on this one.

I didn't read all the comments but on the first page, the only one that agreed with the writer was a Pastor Jim Lewis who says, in part:

One day, under the guidance of G-d the Holy Spirit those who follow Barna's prescription will learn the meaning of pastor-teacher, evangelist, and other doctrinal authority placed in the body of Christ which we call the church.

Oh boy.

I think J. Lee Grady has gone over the edge. He writes with such alarm that we have to wonder why? Does he really think that Barna's book threatens the institutional church? Barna is just reporting on what he is seeing happening.

What I see here is a clear division between those institutional church leaders and those Christians they are supposed to shepherd. Isn't this a clear example of the Barna update for January 9 which I commented on January 10. I really think there is a huge gap between the perception of the institutional leaders and those in their congregations.

What is creating this gap? Do they just refuse to see what is happening around them? Are they blinded by the culture of the "professional clergy"? I think there is a real fear that in the future, the megachurches of today may become nothing but expensive, hard to sell, real estate. And along with that, the denominational hierarchies will lose their influence.

A good question is, when (not if) the denominations lose their influence, will that be a good thing?