Frank Viola, New Christian Course

Frank Viola

Frank Viola is a principal blogger/speaker/leader/author in the house church and simple church movements. He has used the term “Organic Church” to explain and distinguish those who hold to his own unique views within the house church movement. He is most well-known for co-authoring a book with George Barna called Pagan Christianity. And also for a book he co-authored with Leonard Sweet entitled Jesus Manifesto.

Viola stumbled into doing church in an “organic” way by being dissatisfied with his many and varied church experiences:

“I spent thirteen years in the institutional church, traversing many different denominations. I think I counted 13 different brands of church, from CMA, Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Episcopalian, Mennonite, AOG, COG, to virtually every stripe and flavor of charismatic Christianity. Add to that 5 parachurch organizations and dozens of church-sponsored Bible studies. I was intensely involved in many of the above. And as I say in the book, I owe my salvation and my baptism to the institutional church. God has used it in my life as He has in the lives of countless others. But in 1988, I dropped out. I gave it up for Lent. The reasons are complex. But in short, I was hungry for Jesus Christ, I was bored with church services, and I had grown weary of much of what I had seen in the churches I was a part of. I also had trouble connecting much of what went on to what I read about in the New Testament, particularly the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. To my mind, there was a disconnect between them and my church experiences. That said, myself and a few others who also left the organized church began meeting around Jesus Christ in a simple way. At the time, we had no idea what we were doing, and we had no idea that others had forged similar paths before us. Looking back, I believe we were following our spiritual instincts. We Christians have a spiritual instinct to fellowship around Jesus Christ in a simple, relational way. As time went on, we discovered a church-life experience that I never knew existed. I call it “the organic expression of the church” … In short, that experience wrecked me. I found Jesus Christ in depths that I never knew existed, and I found the experience of His Body in ways I never imagined.”

(Interview with Frank Viola by Brother Maynard, http://frankviola.org/subversiveinfluence.pdf)

Viola became an understudy to Gene Edwards, who was a significant figure in the American house church movement. And clearly, Viola’s views on church life expounded in Pagan Christianity – particularly his antagonism towards the ‘institutional’ church – were inspired by Edwards.

In Pagan Christianity, Viola recounts church history and gives his particular spin on it. He says some things that were true and some things that were new. The things that were true, however, weren’t new, and the things that were new weren’t true.

But it is his claim of meeting Jesus Christ “in depths that I never knew existed” that is more pertinent to examine in light of the New Spirituality that Viola subsequently embraced.

In his April 2006 newsletter, Viola shares a conversation he had with Frank Valdez in 1995, (of whom Viola describes as “…the wisest Christian I’ve ever met. He is also the most knowledgeable and spiritually insightful.”) which led him into the contemplative prayer practices of the Catholic mystics:

“ (this) invaluable discussion [with Valdez]… marked a turning point in my life. Frank said to me, “There is a Christian tradition that practices a form of prayer that employs no words…”

Frank began to share with me about the contemplative prayer tradition. He spoke about centering prayer, lectio divina, and other ancient spiritual practices that were unfamiliar to me at the time. He also used a word that I wasn’t too keen on. I’ve since learned that this word has been historically used to honor people . . . and with equal rigor, it has been used to damn them. Frank introduced me to the Christian “mystics.”

Paranthetically, to offer some overly-simplistic definitions, contemplative prayer is a prayer of interior silence that is beyond words.

Centering prayer is a silent gazing upon the Lord that employs the use of a “sacred word” like “Lord” or “Jesus” to center one’s attention upon Him when the mind begins to wander.

Lectio Divina is a form of spiritual communion where the Scriptures are turned into prayer.

None of these practices are new to the Christian faith. They are all quite ancient. Only very recently have they been getting air-play in evangelical circles.

Back to the story. As we sat at lunch, Frank gave me a brief history of the Christian “mystics,” as they came to be known. These were Christians who sought experiential union with their God. They had a fervent love for the Lord that had landed them into hot water. That love caused them to think and experiment “outside the box” of traditional religion. In their desperation to know the Lord intimately, some of them discovered ways of communing with God that went beyond petition-prayer, Bible-reading, and speaking in tongues.

In short, I was intrigued by what Frank shared with me that day. I then launched into a quest to read the writings that were part of this tradition. More importantly, I began to implement some of their discoveries into my own devotional life. As the years passed, I met others who were on this same journey. They too had gleaned from the same writings that had helped me so much.

I later discovered that there were some in this same tradition who are my contemporaries. Most of them, however, are outside the evangelical tradition. Rather, they are part of high church denominations like Catholic, Episcopal, and Anglican. Their writings have uncovered practical forms of spiritual communion that I’ve found to be of great profit personally.”

(Newsletter available here: https://procinwarn.com/frank-viola-newsletter-2006-contemplative/)

In the same newsletter, Viola recounts that Valdez had “introduced him to three people” – all false teachers – and writes favourably of them: Meister Eckhart, Thomas Merton and Karl Barth. (Eckhart was a 13^th century Catholic mystic; Thomas Merton was the Catholic priest most responsible for bringing Eastern Mysticism into the church; and Karl Barth was a Calvinist theologian who rejected the historical accuracy of the Bible, denying that it was the truth but rather contained truth and therefore it was open to subjective interpretation.)

In 2011 Viola offered, what he considered to be, lists of ‘100 Best Christian Books Ever Written’ and ‘The Best 100 Academic Christian Books’. These lists include books by Madam Guyon (a Catholic Mystic), Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren, Brennan Manning (a Franciscan priest/author and promoter of contemplative prayer), Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (famous Nazi dissenter and theologian who adopted Karl Barth’s error) and Pope Benedict XVI.

Viola is a false teacher mixing the holy with the profane. He is leading those who listen to him into accepting mysticism, liberalism and ecumenism; and away from Biblical truth.

And an expose on Frank Viola by Keith Malcomson here https://keithmalcomson.weebly.com/uploads/7/0/2/9/7029144/rethinking_frank_viola.pdf