David Riley does a book review: 01
If a case were drawn up against American Christianity and her churches, what would be the verdict? Would it be: innocent of all wrongdoing? Or could it be: guilty as charged? And charged for what, and on what grounds?
Michael Horton is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California and author of Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church, which lays out a case that the American church can justifiably be referred as upholding “Christless Christianity.” By offering careful analysis of contemporary voices in evangelicalism, and upon providing precise historical evidence of the theological drift, Horton is able to expose the spiritual poverty of the American church. But in making such an exposition, there is a remedy to restoring a Christ-centered focus.
One of the arguments made in Christless Christianity is that the contemporary church is theologically vacuous: “Far from engendering a smug complacency, core evangelical convictions—centering on “Christ and him crucified”—drove three centuries of evangelical missions.” But distracted by pulls from theological liberalism, American individualism, consumerism, and the desire to be culturally relevant, the evangelical church has been carried off course. Horton describes, “Americans have always been can-do people. Pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, we assume that we are good people who could do better if we just had the right methods and instructions. Add to this the triumph of the therapeutic in popular culture and we end up with … Moralistic, Therapeutic Deism.”
Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism is a fitting term for the heresy that is holding the American church captive, and it is expressed by evangelical leaders across the spectrum. Joel Osteen is one of the most dominant voices in the evangelical faith today, and he has reached millions all over the world through books, television interviews, and his encouraging messaging.
But Horton summarizes the totality of Osteen in a few simple phrases, “Grab all the glory now. No cross, no wrath, no judgment. Just be all you can be.” It is glory story, and he goes on to lament the message, “As heretical as it sounds today, it is probably worth telling Americans that you don’t need Jesus to have better families, finances, health, or even morality.” Coming to the cross of Christ means repentance. It does not mean “Adding Jesus as a supporting character for an otherwise decent script but throwing away the script in order to be written into God’s drama. It is death and resurrection, not coaching and makeovers.” We are not just alright people who need a little push by Jesus and Spirit empowerment to become the best version of ourselves. We are vile and condemned sinners always in need of God’s grace through faith in Christ.
In a chapter entitled, “Your Own Personal Jesus,” Horton describes the historical development of our particular kind of American religion as expressed in theology and practice of the Protestant church. It is a version of Christianity that has put individuality and inner-experience at the center. In line with romantic and transcendental writers and poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walter Whitman, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, “No longer constrained by creeds and confessions, sermons and catechism, baptism and Eucharist in the covenant assembly, the romantic self aspires to a unique and spontaneous experience.” The church as the body of Christ tasked with administering the means of grace recedes.
Looking at the present realities of worship and practice in American churches, Horton sees the historical roots to these trends. There is an emphasis on inner experience over external word. The practice of singing in a worship service has often been used as a way to express inner experience, piety, and zeal. And the church is primarily viewed as a fellowship of believers, a place where “We share our journey (our ‘testimony’) of personal transformation.”
Rather than just make observations and criticize the American church, Michael Horton offers a vision of the church where the Word of God has priority and where Christ is the center: “In preaching, we are addressed—we are not in charge but are seated to be judged and justified. In baptism, too, we are passive receivers—we do not baptize ourselves but are baptized.” He continues, “In the Lord’s Supper, Christ gives himself to us as our food and drink for eternal life; it is a banquet set for us—the meal has already been prepared, and Christ even serves it to us through his ministers. We are fed; our filthy rags removed, we are bathed and clothed with Christ and fed for our pilgrimage to the City of God.”
After laying out the case for a Christless Christianity in the American church, Horton turns to Revelation 3 and the message delivered by the risen Lord to the church in Leodicea. They are a church described as “lukewarm,” because they have left their “firstlove,” which is Christ. “Because thou sayest, ‘I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;’ and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I cousel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.”
Of the church of Leodicea and the church in America, Michael Horton offers a remedy of listening to the voice of God in Scripture and clinging to Christ, “A church that is deeply aware of its misery and nakedness before a holy God will cling tenaciously to an all-sufficient Savior, while one that is self-confident and relatively unaware of its inherent sinfulness will reach for religion and morality whenever it seems convenient.” It is by hearing the voice of God, who is creating an assembly for himself, by his Spirit, and through his Son that is the only path to renwal.
