I’ve started reading Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity.
In some ways it is an unremarkable book.
Horton lays a charge that the US church is at risk of embracing what is termed ‘Moralistic, Theistic Deism’. In this climate the invitation to come to God is based on the desire for improvement in the individual and its teaching emphasis is on personal development. While the Gospel may be affirmed on the church’s website list of beliefs or incorporated into its bylaws it is not referenced in a direct manner in teaching ministry. The Gospel is not so much denied as simply put in a secondary position.
When I say that the book is unremarkable, I mean that this argument is pretty obvious.
I’ve attended services where people have come forward or raised their hands after an invitation to hand their lives over to God or receive God’s healing. Afterward those who have responded are described as ‘salvations’.
When I mentioned the basic thesis of Horton’s book to some local ministers on Wednesday morning all of them recognised what I was talking about. (This included a Baptist, Pentecostals and Salvationist.) Unremarkable, and not in a good way. This tendency is already evident outside the US church.
What is odd is that John Frame, a reformed theologian, has written a highly critical review of Horton’s book. You could read it here if you want.
It is not so much a review, but an attempt to completely dismantle and disprove not only Horton’s central contention, but argues that the orthodoxy that Horton seeks to champion is in itself unbalanced and misdirected. He seeks to defend those that Horton criticises as being within the bounds of orthodoxy, while summarising his review with ten principles which are intended to summarise Horton’s position, while demonstrating that position is unscriptural.
It is extraordinary given that both these men are theologians from a reformed/calvinist background. This is someone he basically agrees with on substantial doctrinal formulations.
R. Scott Clark responds to Frame’s review by identifying how its content reveals a philosophy that concedes reformed distinctives in favour of broad evangelicism. A very broad evangelicalism which basically imputes all sorts of meanings on very questionable teachings in order to charitably include them. Read Clark’s piece here.
Eric Landy on the White Horse Inn blog offers another defence of Horton by responding to Frame’s summary ten principles. (White Horse Inn is an online home to Horton, so don’t be too surprised.)
So, what to make of this?
Well it takes a lot of work just to read a book. Thought you all should know that. Books of this type are a discussion, and in the age in which we live that discussion takes place very quickly (though Horton’s book was published last year) and can traverse the world.
Secondly, there is a tension in reformed theology between broad calvinism and more classical tendencies. Various luminaries will line up on one side or the other. A few others will plead for everyone to just get along. Daryl Hart offers commentary on Horton/Frame, and points out a historic problem which he believes Frame is flirting with.
Thirdly, there continues to be a movement in evangelical Christianity which is oblivious to the marginalisation of the centrality of the atoning death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ as both the only ground for the forgiveness of our sin and the enabler of our life as God’s obedient children.
Watch this space.
(I’ll review Christless Christianity in full at a later time.)
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