Reimagining Church by Frank Viola

Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity, Frank Viola. Colorado Springs: Cook, David C., 2012. e-book, 251 pps.

     Frank Viola is a well-known name among those within the house church movement [H.C.M.]. In the preface of Reimagining Church, he says that he left the institutional church [I.C.] in 1988. He refers to:
          "...the tyranny of the status quo...[and] oppressive 
           leadership structures...so that Jesus Christ can be made                  central and supreme in His church again." (p. 9)

     Reimagining Church is composed of two parts, fifteen chapters, an appendix, an extensive bibliography, notes, and a bio. At the end of each chapter under the heading of "Questions That Must Be Faced" are several questions which the reader may choose to answer. The problem with the questions is that the answers seem to me to be self-evident. In other words, the reader is led to accept the premise of the chapter just read or asked to share on experiences which back-up the suppositions of the chapter. Leading phrases such as "Do we really have a spiritual and biblical...?" and "Does it bother you that...?" and "Are we not obligated by Scripture to...?" are hardly examples of open-ended questions. I found the questions to be annoying.

     Viola readily admits that there are problems within home churches. He states that the early Christians also had problems within their home churches. He says all of the home churches in one community were known by the name of the town. He offers countless bible verses and Greek words to back up his theorems.

     I have not read Viola's other books which may include more history behind the home church movement. Criticisms of the H.C.M. on the Internet link it or parts of it to the Third Wave, Toronto Airport Revival, dominionism, and the gospel of accommodation.

sapphoq reviews says: One of the criticisms frequently found on the web is the idea that some percentage of folks in the H.C.M. are somehow antagonistic or against discipline and correction because the roles of pastors, elders, and deacons are changed or rotating or absent. In the preface, Frank Viola references:

          "...the tyranny of the status quo...[and] oppressive 
           leadership structures...so that Jesus Christ can be made                  central and supreme in His church again." (p. 9)

     Yes I know I quoted the same passage early on in my review but it did stand out to me.

     As an atheist with a pagan "soul," I have not attended any H.C.M. nor am I likely to. At first Reimagining Church was attractive to me precisely because of the claim of doing church in the manner of the early christians. Then my rational thinking kicked in.

     I have had the misfortune of stumbling upon several "pagan circles" which purported not to have any set "leader." They were appealing to the public precisely because they accommodated anyone's beliefs-- no matter how whacked out those beliefs might be. You believe that you channel aliens? No problem. Want to show up drunk and then puke on the carpet in the middle of the place? Hey, welcome. And the utmost "pagan sin" of mixing gods and goddesses from a variety of pantheons along with the same silly chant "Come to us. Come to us. Come to us." was mind-numbing but soothing in its rhythms. 

     It's nice (I guess) that Frank Viola offers seminars and instruction to folks who want to do the home church/organic christianity thing. He claims that people are not ready or don't know how to make the idea work if they are not trained. I wasn't impressed.

     The thing is that in any group, natural leaders will emerge when leaders [or pastors etc.] are not appointed. I found the idea that there are no authorities in the H.C.M. to be unbelievable. While there is certainly evidence that cults or cult-like or controlling situations can evolve out of I.C.s, I maintain that the personal mysticism that H.C.M.s foster [even if "based" upon the New Testament, or justified by verses cherry-picked from the N.T.] is fertile ground for a gospel of accommodation and worse. The movement is perhaps too much in its infancy to tell what will come of it in the long-term. Yet to me, the indicators are there. Isolated bodies of people, particularly those who are perceived of as Other, tend to actions which can be detrimental to the whole of society. Here I am thinking of various christian sects involved with communal living. There is a certain risk involved with being pioneers. Frank Viola claims that heresies are quickly routed out of home churches. I am not quite certain that it is that easy. Feelings are not facts. Relying on feelings alone-- even claims of "feeling" the movement of the Holy Spirit-- is dangerous. Anyone who claims special knowledge is suspect to my way of thinking. And this is true of folks in home church movements as well as "New Age" white lighters. [I am not a fan of the New Agers but that is subject for another blog post some other time perhaps].

     Isolated reports that Starhawk [a witch who founded Reclaiming] is involved with one such home church group which has become ecumenical ought to be disturbing to any christian. In an "institutional" church, there is usually a check and balance system in place. Excesses are [usually] avoided. Pastors and others who stray off the christian path can be counseled on their error and brought back into the fold. The Bakkers and Jimmy Swaggert come to my brain here along with Ted Haggert. [Ted Haggert now subscribes to the third wave].

     I ended up not liking Reimagining Church. Although the writing was competent, I cannot recommend this book. Those who are curious about the H.C.M. who can get through the quotes of rather [I found to be] stuffy theologian-types may enjoy this book. I didn't, for reasons that had very little to do with my atheism. Not really recommended.

Snow in August by Pete Hamill

Snow in August, Pete Hamill. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1997 and 1999. e-book, 294 pps.

     Michael Devlin is an eleven year old boy who lives in Brooklyn with his mum. His da died in the war. He is being raised Roman Catholic. He is crazy about baseball and comic books. He has an active imagination which serves him well. The novel opens around Christmas time in 1946.

     Michael has a chance encounter during a blizzard with a rabbi on his way to church to serve as an altar boy. This encounter changes his life.

     There are swears in this book, a few f-bombs. Stuff that kids might say to each other. And some violence. Crooked cops. These things shape Michael.

     There is blatant racism directed at a Jewish shopkeeper in the neighborhood and at Jackie Robinson-- the first black man to play in the major leagues.

     There is magic in the book also. Michael learns Yiddish and the rabbi learns English. They become friends, bonded by heartbreak and situations out of their control.

     Nothing stays the same. Michael is changed by friendship and magic. He is transformed much as a fictional golem is transformed from mud into something profound and alive..

sapphoq reviews says: Pete Hamill invokes the feel of Brooklyn from the first words of this novel until the last. I was transported to a different time. Snow in August is most excellent and I highly recommend it.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire by Rowland Rowling

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire, Rowland Rowling. ?self-published?: Philtre Libre or Abe Lincoln Vampire Productions, 2010 and 2012. e-book, 171 pps.

This particular book reads like a very stuffy and boring history book. The premise that Abe Lincoln was a blood-sucker could have led to much creativity. Instead, not.

The only part that I appreciated was that the blood of Mexicans was spicier than the blood of other peoples.

sapphoq reviews says: This might be a book to give to a teen as a sneaky way to get him or her to read some history-- providing that the teen understands that we have no historical evidence that Lincoln liked to drink blood or was capable of ripping the necks off of people who displeased him. 

A sharp disappointment. Not recommended. Even history buffs will fail to "appreciate" this rendering of Lincoln. 

Crazy by Roberta Carly Redford

Crazy: My Seven Years at Bruno Bettelheim's Orthogenic School, Roberta Carly Redford. [self-published], Lulu.com, 2011. e-book, 287 pps.


     Bruno Bettelheim [there is some disagreement over whether or not he was actually qualified as any sort of doctor] was a name I'd heard of many years ago. I remember slogging my way through a book written by him called "Love is Not Enough" about the residential facility that he founded and ran for some years in Chicago. He was reputedly an expert on autistic kids when folks still believed that "refrigerator moms"-- cold and frigid women incapable of giving off human warmth or maternal affection-- were responsible for the incubation of autism in their offspring.

     From Crazy, I learned that-- after his suicide and subsequent un-silencing of the voices of past child and teen residents of O.S. [Orthogenic School]-- his version of "love"certainly wasn't enough. O.S. kids were beaten by Bruno Bettelheim [and by some staffers] allegedly for their own good. They were also subject to unwanted touching and random crazy outbursts by the man who appeared to be a giant teddy bear to those of us who were [forced to be, in my case] readers of his books.

     In at least one other review, the author Roberta Carly Redford was described as being so angry that her anger detracted from her message. It is unfortunate that this current society appears to expect that survivors will be grateful and good. I don't hold her anger against her. The anger is a necessary part of healing.

     Roberta Carly Redford was dumped at O.S. by her adoptive parents. She used the phrase "identified problem" in Crazy. That is a phrase which I understand. One person in the family is forced into the role of the "identified problem" and thus any sort of mental hell treatment or therapy is directed at that one person as being the one person who is the primary cause of familial dysfunction, or who is so different that he or she does not fit into their "normal, average, good" family and thus ought to be shipped off to be fixed or changed. No return until the crazy behavior is mitigated.

     Fortunately, Bruno Bettelheim did not use psychiatric drugs on his charges. [Perhaps the writing of scripts would have been problematic, I do not know]. Psych drugs are no picnic and back in the days when Bettelheim was alive, they had an even wider range of wicked side effects.

sapphoq reviews says: Roberta Carly Redford has written a powerful memoir of her seven years at O.S. These seven years are years that she cannot get back. After her time at the place, she required therapy to help her through her original issues plus those that she acquired while under Bettelheim's "therapeutic milieu" *cough, cough*. I believe her. I wish her the very best. Highly recommended.

Gone to the Crazies by Alison Weaver

Gone to the Crazies: A Memoir, Alison Weaver. New York: HarperCollins e-books, 2007, 2008.  241 pps.


     Alison Weaver is an only child. She came from an affluent family that lived in Manhattan and also spent time at their second home in Connecticut. She went to an expensive private school.

     Things changed and the Weavers arranged to have their daughter escorted to Cascade School in Whitmore, California.

     Weaver has mixed emotions about that time in her life. Cascade School [now closed] was founded by a former "counselor" of Cedu in Florida. Once Cedu became official, Mel Wasserman had to dump some of the original staffers. They went out into the world, spreading the philosophy and methods employed at Cedu. Some of the methods were borrowed directly from Synanon-- a cultish long-term residential drug "treatment" program. The rest of the methods appear to have been cobbled together from sources which included primal scream therapy. The result at Cascade School was rather bad education but substantial group "therapy" conducted by people who were not qualified to do so.

     Cascade used the vocabulary that Cedu facilities used [http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php/CEDU_lingo] along with nine special forums called "profeets" [shades of K. Gibran, EST, The Forum, and Life Spring] which the kids were required to attend and participate in before "graduation." In other "rap" or group sessions, the kids were required to scream, yell, and cry on demand.

     Although the Cedu facilities officially went bankrupt in 2004 or 2005, indications are that a few of them may be back in operation and are being watched by folks who monitor troubled teen torture industries and cult-like programs.

     Alison Weaver had some hard times after getting out of Cascade School. She did not join any twelve step program but reports that she no longer takes street drugs and that having a singular glass of wine is no cause for her to panic these days.

sapphoq reviews says: Alison Weaver's memoir was an easy and engrossing read. I found her recollection of her feelings as a child and pre-teen to be entirely believable. [Some reviewers found them to be canned]. Although towards the end of the book, the author reveals Cascade School's connection with Cedu it was apparent that she did not know the history behind the crap she endured at the time that she was going through it. I'm glad that she got out alive. Although she is not fond of the internet survivor boards, Alison Weaver has managed to survive and even thrive in spite of her experiences at Cascade School. Recommended as a cautionary tale to parents who are considering "educational consultant services" for their "troubled teen." Old hippies and those who are involved with protesting against such institutional abuse may also like this one.

p.s. I too believe that Alison's word should have been power.