awaiting rain

Holy Mazola! Silly Things Christians Do

Perhaps you have experienced this.  You're in a church service or a prayer meeting and the time has come for the preacher or the elders to pray for the sick.  Individuals with diverse ailments will make their way to the front of the church to experience the laying on of hands, prayer, and the anointing with oil.  The person leading the prayer will retrieve from the secret, hidden shelf inside the pulpit a glass bottle of yellow oil. He'll approach the afflicted, put some oil on his finger, and make the sign of the cross on their forehead as he begins his prayer.

I began following Christ in earnest while attending a church known for their hyper-charismatic outbursts, utterances, and skillfully choreographed "falling out."  The bottle of yellow oil made it's appearance at every service as the same people with the same ailments went forward each week for the same prayers offered by the same people.  Every week they would receive the dousing of oil, dance the same little jig, fall backward in exactly the same manner (skillfully dodging the pew behind them on the way down), and eventually rise to their feet declaring their healing...until next week.

I've even been present at a couple different meetings where the oil bottle would be empty.  After a brief moment of panic (because prayer apparently won't work without the magic oil-slick) someone would say, "Run to the kitchen.  There's some cooking oil in the pantry!"

I always found this to be a strange little practice.

If you ask one of these ecclesiastical oilmen why they perform this greasy little exercise, they will undoubtedly tell you that the Bible instructs them to do so in James 5:14&15.

"Are any of you sick?  You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.  Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick and the Lord will make you well."

Is this really what that passage is instructing?  Or could James be offering instruction that is a little less magical and a little more down-to-earth and practical?  To decide, I suppose we need to have an understanding of the use of oil in Bible times.

The oil most often referenced in scripture is olive oil.  And it was used for a variety of purposes, most of them having nothing to do with anything "spiritual."  Olive oil was used in the ceremony of anointing a king.  But most often you find olive oil being used as fuel for lamps, to cook with, for cleansing and refreshing the body, and for medicinal purposes.

Let's look at a couple of other New Testament passages to better understand the common uses of oil and hopefully put the James passage into a more common-sense context.

16When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  ~Matthew 6:16-18

7"Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.  9" 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'  ~Matthew 25:7-9

45You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet.  46You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.  47“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” ~Luke 7:45-47

33But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two silver coins^[a] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'  ~Luke 10:33-35

12They went out and preached that people should repent. 13They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.  ~Mark 6:12-14

Nowhere in scripture do we find that oil is used as some magical potion to accompany and empower prayer.  But we find plenty of scriptures explaining the very practical uses of oil in every day life, including use as a cleansing, refreshing, and medicinal compound.

Remember when you were a child and you had one of those golden opportunities to stay home from school because you were too sick to get out of bed?  And do you remember how good it felt to have mom come in and rub some Vicks Vapo-Rub on your chest and throat?  Could it be that what James was suggesting in verse 14 of chapter 5 was the simple, kind, and thoughtful act of using oil to soothe, comfort, and relieve the symptoms of illness while prayers were being offered for their healing?  And if so, then could it be that we have, in our religious fervor, perverted the simplicity of prayer with silly superstition?

Anointed One or Empowered Many?

I recently had lunch with a full-time pastor for whom I have the utmost respect.  We eventually began discussing my struggle with whether or not to remain an "ordained" elder in our denomination.  That led to a deeper discussion about my struggle with the separation of clergy and laity into two distinct classes of Christians:  Those who are permitted to do ministry and those to whom the ministry is done.

We covered all the bases around the field of ministry leadership.  And finally he said something that, on face value, made sense.

"Bill, if you look at the Old Testament and the great leaders God put into place, you'll find that most of the times when things went wrong, it came out of the masses, not out of the leaders."

After lunch I found myself thinking about this throughout the afternoon.  It seemed to make sense.  God raised up Moses as the anointed One to lead the masses out of captivity.  God raised up Joshua as the anointed One to capture the Promised Land.  God raised up David as the anointed One to lead Israel as a man after God's own heart.  God raised up the prophets as anointed Ones to speak truth to the wayward masses.  On the other hand, it was the masses that caused Israel to wander in the wilderness for forty years.  It was the masses who made the gold calf.  It was the masses who decided to leave the Godless nations in place as a snare to Israel.  It was the masses who decided that Israel needed a human king like the other nations and got Saul as their king.

I see clearly that this principle of the anointed One leading the needy masses is present in the Old Testament.  But...

Enter Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I see a fundamental change in the order of things with the coming of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit.  As soon as Jesus came on the scene and began his ministry, he began to overturn the old order and put a new order in place.  Jesus certainly was the anointed One to atone for humanity.  But he seemed to be saying with his life and teaching that the focus will move away from the anointed-One mentality toward the empowered many.

He immediately began raising up twelve men to do what he did and promised that they would even do more than he did.  Those empowered twelve became an empowered 120 on Pentecost.  On the same day the empowered 120 became the empowered 3,120.  Shortly thereafter, the empowered 3,120 had grown to the empowered 5,000. 

The church grew exponentially with thousands and thousands of believers being filled with the Holy Spirit.  But it wasn't long before they began trying to reverse the order that Jesus had inaugurated.  The Corinthians began to shift the focus away from the empowered many back to the anointed One.  They began exalting certain people with certain gifts, and they began dividing and grouping themselves around the "celebrity" ministers.  Paul finally had to write a letter to instruct them to knock it off, function as a body, and recognize only Christ himself as the head of the church.

Fast-forward to the fourth century.  By the end of the century you find a complete shift away from the empowered many to the anointed One in the form of Popes, bishops, and priests.  And throughout the church age, nearly every heretical movement or act of treachery (crusades, inquisitions, indulgences) came not out of the masses but out of the elite community of the anointed Ones.

Isn't it time that we returned to the revelation that Christ alone is the head of the church, and the church is a body of many parts - a temple of living stones - with every member being empowered by the Holy Spirit to live lives of holiness as participants in the redemptive mission of God to a wayward humanity?   

Books and Bandwagons

A "bandwagon" is a wagon that carries a band in a parade, circus, or other entertainment.  The phrase 'jump on the bandwagon' was first used in American politics in 1848 as a result of Dan Rice, President Lincoln's court jester. Campaigning for Zachary Taylor, Dan Rice, a professional circus clown, used his bandwagon for Taylor's appearances, gaining attention by way of the music. As Taylor's campaign became more successful, more politicians strove for a seat on the bandwagon, hoping to be associated with the success. Later, during the time of William Jennings Bryan's 1900 presidential campaign, bandwagons had become a standard fixture of campaigns,and 'jump on the bandwagon' was used as a derogatory term, implying that people were associating themselves with the success without considering what they associated themselves with.  (wikipedia)

I've shared with you, in several posts, excerpts from, thoughts about, and reactions to the book, Pagan Christianity, by George Barna and Frank Viola.  The danger that lies in books of the confrontational and provocational genre is that there are those who will simply "jump on the bandwagon" without thinking critically about that which is written.  These are books that tug at the emotions.  They tap into an existing, latent conviction.  They dig deeply into an already festering wound.

I'll say right here that after reading the book and reflecting back on my previous studies of church history and experience as a pastor, I find very little in this book with which to disagree.  These gentlemen have done their homework.  And they have presented their findings (findings that shake the ecclesiastical world to its foundations) with boldness, humility and grace.

When you reach the end of the book, and find yourself agreeing with what you've read, the natural response is to ask, "Now what?  Where do I go from here?"  Here is where the "bandwagon effect" finds its potential as a negative and harmful response.  There are some who will finish reading this book and immediately go on the offensive against the church.  They'll immediately pull themselves and their families out of church.  They'll begin a propaganda campaign against churches, denominations, pastors, and anyone else who chooses to continue going to a Sunday morning service.  And rather than recapturing the spirit, essence, and power of the early church, they will become just as toxic as the institutional issues they now crusade against.

I'll admit that I have to carefully guard against the "bandwagon effect."  I am most stirred to action by talk of "revolutions" and "movements."  Confrontation and provocation comes easily to me.  I know that there are times when confrontation and provocation are necessary.  But I also know that confrontation and provocation in the spiritual sense should, if it is of God, reflect His holy nature and point hearts and minds toward His Kingdom and not away.

So how should we respond upon reading the final page of Pagan Christianity?  Prayer.  Dialog.   Prayer.  Parallel  action.

We should immediately enter into a season of prayer in which we ask the Spirit of God to lead us into all truth.  We have to talk through our convictions, even if it appears that those with whom we are talking aren't getting it.  Out of this I believe God will lead us into parallel action.  What I mean here is that we should be open to God using us to create a preferred church future without attacking and tearing down the current system. 

I'm thinking about the parable of the wheat and the tares.  There's no doubt that the enemy has sown tares among the ecclesiastical wheat over two-thousand years of history.  We must speak out loud and clear against clear heresy.  But I think there are also times when we should focus on nurturing the wheat rather than ripping up the tares.  The issues raised in this book are examples of this.  God is present and working in the conventional church.  The church I am presently a part of is an example of this.  Instead of attacking the conventional, we should spend our time tilling soil, planting seed, watering, and nurturing that which is unconventional yet wholly Biblical.  I once shared with a friend whom I though was doing more harm than good in his crusade that we don't have to tear something down to prove ourselves right.  Instead we should simply create what is right and let our fruitfulness speak for us.

I am about to launch a new writing project called Church Detox.  Your first response may be to think that I'll use this project to convince people to detox themselves from the church.  You would be mistaken.  My goal with this project is to recognize that the "church" is the people of God, to identify toxins within us that diminish our Christ-likeness and fruitfulness, and to think forward about how to till the soil, plant the seed, and nurture the growth of a new way of life as the Priesthood of Believers, light of the world, salt of the earth, and participants in God's redemptive mission to humanity.

Americans Spurn Church

Richard Luscombe, writing in Scotsman.com, declares that "the land of Evangelicals" is losing it's Christian faith as Americans spurn "church" in an alarming exodus from mainstream denominations.  In his February 26th article he states,

"Americans are turning away from the Church at a rate never seen before, according to the surprising results of a major study of the country's religious landscape. And many of those who remain are switching between faiths as freely as flicking television channels."

I have mixed reactions to this article, primarily because it hints at something very real that is occuring on the religious landscape of America, but is poorly written by someone who seems to be gazing in from across the sea and interpreting the events through a misunderstanding of what the "church" is.

On the one hand, he is reporting on something very real.  There is a massive exodus underway as people are leaving the institutional church in droves.  Here Luscombe quotes Roger Finke, a sociology professor at Penn State:

"Right now there's a dropping confidence in organised religion, especially in the traditional religious forms."

I agree with his statement as the evidence for what he is saying is indisputable.  The cracks in the foundation of the institutional church are finally giving way and the structure is collapsing under its own weight of faulty architecture and poor workmanship.  In the words of Thom Rainer, people are leaving the institution not because they are losing their faith, but to save their faith.

And this is where my difficulty with Luscombe's article arises.  He seems to be using the words "denomination" and "faith" interchangeably.  To read his article, without thinking deeply, would give the impression that the exodus from institutional church is evidence of an exodus from the belief in and worship of Jesus Christ.  This simply isn't the case.  The exodus is not comprised of people leaving institutional church to follow Islam or Bhuddism, or any of the other religions.  Though there are, undoubtedly, some who are, the overwhelming majority of those in the exodus are people who are believers in and followers of Christ, but are simply trading the institution for a more organic way of Christian faith.  Consider this portion of his article, referring to the results of the recent Pew study:

"Although the Pew Forum found that more that 78 per cent of Americans describe themselves as having some kind of Christian affiliation, the rate of those with no ties to any church or faith [here he means denomination] was rising quickly, and older churchgoers are dying off far faster than new converts can be recruited."

Throughout his entire article I see so clearly the toxic misunderstanding that the "church" is the institution or organization and to separate yourself from the institution is to separate yourself from the "church."  How can we make this clear?  The "church" is not a particular organization.  The "church" is the global, collective body of people who worship and follow Christ.  To leave a particular institutional framework is not to leave the "church."

The institutional church is crumbling.  I believe it is God Himself who is doing the shaking.  And as the pillars, steeples, belltowers, and clergy elite fall away, the Way of Jesus Christ is being reborn as the unstoppable movement He promised it would be.

 

Red Pill Chronicles - The Sermon

Did you know that, though the "sermon" is the bedrock of the Protestant liturgy, it actually detracts from the very purpose for which God designed the church gathering?

So central is the sermon that it is the very reason many Christians go to church.  In fact, the entire service is often judged by the quality of the sermon.  Remove the sermon and you have eliminated the most important source of spiritual nourishment for countless numbers of believers (so it is thought).  Yet the stunning reality is that today's sermon has no root in Scripture.  Rather, it was borrowed from pagan culture, nursed and adopted into the Christian faith.

The present-day Christian sermon has the following features:

• It is a regular occurrence.
• It is delivered by the same person every week.
• It is delivered to a passive audience.
• It is a cultivated form of speech - possessing a specific structure with an introduction, three to five points, and a conclusion.

Contrast this with the apostolic preaching recored in Acts which possessed the following features:

• It was sporadic.
• It was delivered on special occasions in order to deal with specific problems.
• It was extemporaneous and without rhetorical structure.
• It was most often dialogical (including feedback and interruptions from the listeners).

The New Testament letters show that the ministry of God's Word came from the entire church in their regular gathering.

The earliest recorded Christian source for regular sermonizing is found during the late second century.  Though Clement of Alexandria lamented the fact that sermons did so little to change Christians, it became a standard practice among believers by the fourth century.  The Christian sermon was borrowed from the pagan pool of Greek culture.

The sophists were expert debaters.  They were masters at using emotional appeals, physical appearance, and clever language to "sell" their arguments.  In time, the style, form, and oratorical skill of the sophists became more prized than their accuracy.  This spawned a class of men who became masters of fine phrases, cultivating style for style's sake.  The truths they preached were abstract rather than truths that were practiced in their own lives.  They were experts at imitating form rather than substance.

So how did the Greek sermon find its way into the Christian church?  Around the third century a vacuum was created when the mutual ministry faded from the body of Christ.  To fill this void, the clergy began to emerge.  Many pagan orators and philosophers were becoming Christians.  They are known to us now as the "church fathers," and some of their writings are still with us.  Thus the pagan notion of a trained professional speaker who delivers orations for a fee moved straight into the Christian bloodstream.  Contrast this with the custom of Jewish rabbis who took up a trade so as to not charge a fee for their teaching.

So, this new style of communication was being birthed in the Christian church - a style that emphasized polished rhetoric, sophisticated grammar, flowery eloquence, and monologue designed to entertain and show off the speaker's oratorical skills.  Only those who were trained in it were allowed to address the church body.  The sermon became the elitist privilege of church officials, particularly the bishops.  Such people had to be educated in the schools of rhetoric to learn how to speak.  Without this education, a Christian was not permitted to address God's people.

And then the reformation...

Luther viewed the church as the gathering of those who listen to the Word of God being spoken to them.  For this reason he once called the church building a Mundhaus (mouth-house or speech-house).

John Calvin argued that the preacher is the "mouth of God."  (Ironically, both men vehemently railed against the idea that the pope was the vicar of Christ.)  Calvin was a master at this form.  Before his conversion, he employed this style while writing a commentary on a work by the pagan author Seneca.  When he was converted and turned to sermonizing, he applied the same analytical style to the Bible.

The present-day sermon harms the church in the following five ways:

1.  The sermon makes the preacher the virtuoso performer of the regular church gathering.  The sermon turns the church into a preaching station and the congregation degenerates into a group of muted spectators who watch a performance.  The sermon freezes and imprisons the functioning of the body of Christ turning them into a docile priesthood.

2.  The sermon often stalemates spiritual growth.  Because it is a one-way affair it encourages passivity and suffocates mutual ministry and open participation.  We do not grow by passive listening week after week.

3.  The sermon preserves the unbiblical clergy mentality which creates an excessive and pathological dependence on the clergy.  The sermon is one of the biggest roadblocks to a functioning priesthood.

4. Rather than equipping the saints, the sermon de-skills them.  Unfortunately many of God's people are just as addicted to hearing sermons as many preachers are addicted to preaching them.

5.  Today's sermon is often impractical.  The sermon fails to put the hearers into a direct, practical experience of what has been preached.  It mirrors its true father - Greco-Roman rhetoric, designed to entertain and display genius rather than instruct or develop talents in others.  In the end, it actually intensifies the impoverishment of the church.

The church family needs a restoration of the first-century practice of mutual exhortation and mutual ministry.  For the New Testament hinges spiritual transformation upon these two thing.  We move far outside of biblical bounds when we allow teaching to take the form of a conventional sermon and relegate it to a class of professional orators.

Excerpts from Pagan Christianity by George Barna and Frank Viola

Lullaby For A Petrified Sacred Society

Shut up the windows
Lock all the doors
Make sure nobody gets in
Learn to protect what is rightfully yours
Or someone will take it my friend

We'll all sleep well tonight
With no worry about tomorrow
Everything's all right
Safe in our panic room

We're building a wall
Higher and higher
Come join the gospel crusade
Don't you know God loves
Good little helpers
Can't wait to show Him what we've made

There are Doctors and Lawyers
And Presidents here
We've all become best of friends
Finally people are lending an ear and
Truth has become relevant

Our prophets are nicer
And kinder and sweeter
We've partnered in their great reward
They bless us with peace
In exchange for a token
What more could we ever ask for?

by Jason Upton

Are You a Part of the Problem?

I Wonder if it's Time

One of the oft-used buzzwords of the current presidential campaign is "change."  It seems everyone in the country who is concerned about the economy, national security, the war, and the present state of the political world is calling for fundamental change in the way our country lives and is led.

I think the word "change" also resonates with many of us across the country who desire to be fully-devoted followers of Christ, a Biblically-functioning body, and the "light of the world" that he promised we would be.  I've been astonished (though not entirely surprised) by the major churches in our city (Columbus, GA) that are undergoing a slow-motion implosion.  In the year that we've been back in this area we've seen three of the largest, most popular churches in our city end up in the newspaper because of scandal or upheaval.  Today Cascade Hills Baptist Church, which is the largest church in the city, appeared on the front page of the Ledger-Enquirer for the second time in a few months.   The first story, late last year, centered around the church acquiring the assistance of a judge in an attempt to force Yahoo to release the identities of church members who had sent e-mails in which they expressed disagreement with the change in leadership structure. That change essentially silenced the congregation and made a few men (who are some of the wealthiest in Columbus) the final, absolute arbiters of all church matters.

In all three of the major church upheavals (not to mention several less publicized ones) the issues have all stemmed out of the "business" or "leadership authority" of the church.  As I've read the comments made by Columbus citizens on the Ledger-Enquirer website in response to today's story, I can't help but wonder if the time is drawing near for a fundamental change in the way the church of Jesus Christ lives, leads, and loves.  My curiosity is further stirred by more national issues regarding the church, like the congressional investigations into the financial dealings of mega-churches, the public failing of prominent "Christian leaders," and the dramatic exodus of people from the established church all across the country.

I wonder if the time is drawing near for a new (yet ancient) way of life for the people who belong to Christ and exist as "The Church."

I wonder if it's time to return to the notion that all Christians are priests in the "priesthood of believers" with each of us being active participants in "the church."

I wonder if it's time to return to the notion that apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are called to a life of serving the body and equipping THEM to minister to one another and the world instead of the current system in which apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers do ministry TO the body for a fee (often one that exceeds the average income of most families).

I wonder if it's time to return to the notion that the building, campus, and assets are not "the church," the people are the church, and the church can be the church (probably even more faithfully) without buildings, campuses, and assets.

I wonder if it's time to return to the notion that Christians give their "tithes" and offerings so that the poor, widows, and orphans will be cared for and the Gospel will be carried into unreached cultures.

I wonder if it's time to return to the notion that church gatherings should center around life together as followers of Christ on mission to the world, instead of expensive one-hour performances observed by an audience, recorded, and packaged to sell for a profit.

Could the time be drawing near here in Columbus and across the world for an outright revolution in which the false church system crumbles and the true followers of Christ emerge to rebuild The Church as she was meant to be with Christ as the head and every believer a life-giving priest who illuminates the world with the light, love, and kindness of God?

I'm ready.

Red Pill Chronicles - The Constantine Effect

Did you know...

That when Christianity was born, it was the only religion on the planet that had no sacred objects, no sacred persons, and no sacred spaces?  The Christian faith was born in homes, out in courtyards, and along roadsides.

When Constantine became emperor of the entire Roman Empire in 324 he began ordering the construction of church buildings.  He did so to promote the popularity and acceptance of Christianity, thinking that if the Christians had their own sacred buildings - as did the Jews and the pagans - their faith would be regarded as legitimate.  He named his church buildings after the saints - just as the pagans named their temples after gods.

The church edifices built under Constantine were patterned after the model of the basilica.  They were wonderful for seating passive and docile crowds to watch a performance.  Christian basilicas possessed an elevated platform where the clergy ministered.  The platform was usually elevated by several steps.  There was also a rail or screen that separated the clergy from the laity.  In the center of the building was the altar whereupon the Eucharist was offered.  No one but the clergy, who were regarded as "holy men," were allowed to receive the Eucharist within the altar rails.

In front of the altar stood "the bishop's chair" (cathedra - meaning "throne") surrounded by two rows of chairs reserved for the elders.  The sermon was preached from the bishop's chair with power and authority resting in the chair.  Interestingly, most present-day church buildings have special chairs for the pastor and his staff situated on the platform behind the pulpit (with which the reformers replaced the altar table).

The result of this was that there was a loss of intimacy and open participation.  The professional clergy performed the acts of worship while the laity looked on as spectators.  The church building demonstrates that the church, whether she wanted it or not, had entered into a close alliance with pagan culture.  Church buildings took the place of temples; church endowments replaced temple lands and funds.  Under Constantine, tax exempt status was granted for all church property.

Even after he became emperor, Constantine allowed the old pagan institutions to remain as they were.  Following his conversion to Christianity, Constantine never did abandon sun worship.  In AD 321, Constantine decreed that Sunday would be a day of rest - a legal holiday.  It appears that Constantine's intention in doing this was to honor the god Mithras, the Unconquered Sun.

Almost to his dying day, Constantine still functioned as the high priest of paganism.  In fact, he retained the title Pontifex Maximus, which means chief of the pagan priests!  In the fifteenth century, this same title became the honorific title for the Roman Catholic pope.

(Excerpts from Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola & George Barna)

Red Pill Chronicles

Well, it came yesterday.  The doorbell rang, the dog went crazy, I retrieved the Amazon box from the sidewalk, and I immediately began reading Pagan Christianity by George Barna and Frank Viola.  At around 10:30 last night Lynn asked, "Are you going to read that whole book before you go to sleep?"  I was making rapid progress and found it difficult to put down.

My first inclination was to do a chapter-by-chapter review of the book.  But after spending some time orbiting in the blogosphere I find that there are multitudes of well-written reviews being compiled.  I see no need for another.  However I do feel a need to share with you bullet points of what I'm reading.  Therefore, I will be writing a series of posts called, "Red Pill Chronicles."  Each post will come from portions of the book I've underlined while reading and will be a brief "Did you know" statement.  I'll likely make several of these per week until I finish reading the book.

I'll begin the series with this piece of information:

Did you know...

Ancient Judaism was centered on three elements: the Temple, the priesthood, and the sacrifice.  When Jesus came, He ended all three, fulfilling them in Himself.  In Greco-Roman paganism, these three elements were also present: Pagans had their temples, their priests, and their sacrifices.  It was only the Christians of the first three centuries who had done away with all of these elements.

When Roman Catholicism evolved in the fourth to the sixth centuries, it absorbed many of the religious practices of both paganism and Judaism.  It set up a professional priesthood.  It erected sacred buildings.  And it turned the Lord's Supper into a mysterious sacrifice.  Added to these things were the pagan uses of incense and vestal (sacred) virgins.  The Protestants dropped the sacrificial use of the Lord's Supper, the burning of incense, and the vestal virgins.  But they retained the priestly caste (clergy) as well as the sacred building.