Christless Christianity by Michael Horton

We just finished going through this book in our men's morning study and it is the subject of a lengthy critical review by Dr. John Frame (RTS-Orlando). This will not only review the most of the book and my thoughts on it, but also give some of my view of Dr. Frame's critique of it (found online at Dr. Frame's website and in his book "Escondido Theology").

 Chapter 1 (Christless Christianity): This chapter essentially describes what Horton means by the term "Christless Christianity." Horton writes, "Let me be a little more precise about what I am assuming to be the regular diet in many churches across America today: 'do more, try harder;" (p.17). Conservatives take this mantra as fundamentalistic legalism, while liberals take this mantra into their view of "social justice." Another set take this into the realm of self-help. "In this version, God isn't upset if you fail to pull it off. The stakes aren't as high: success or failure in this life, not heaven or hell. No longer commands, the content of these sermons, songs, and best-selling books are helpful suggestions" (p.17). Horton contends that the American church has not reached this point yet, but is well on her way. He paints in broad brush strokes and generalizations, while recognizing that this is not true of every single church in America. At the heart of it all is this, "The focus still seems to be on us and our activity rather than on God and his work in Jesus Christ. In all of these approaches, there is the tendency to make God a supporting character in our own life movie rather than to be rewritten as new characters in God's drama of redemption" (p.18). Christless Christianity is self-help wrapped up with "relevant" Scriptural support and wrapped in Christianized lingo, but it is no different than secular self-help you would get from Oprah, Dr. Phil, or other new age gurus. Horton sets out that this is a matter of emphasis. Is Christianity primarily about God first and us secondarily, or is it vice versa? Horton contends that Christless Christianity is the latter--Christianity is about us primarily and God secondarily. Jesus has become "corporate CEO, life coach, culture-warrior, political revolutionary, philosopher, copilot...in fulfilling our personal and social dreams" (p.25).

Chapter 2 (Naming Our Captivity): In this chapter, Horton first lays out some sociological and psychological studies done by secular scientists who study the evangelical movement. These secularists have concluded that the notion of "sin" is absent within evangelicalism. Also absent is any notion of being able to give the content of one's faith, even among those for whom it is very important. In other words, many evangelicals have a nebulous, undefined faith without any real Bible content. They don't know it and they can't talk about it beyond the label of "faith." Horton writes, "The key to my criticism, however, is that once you make your peace of mind rather than peace with God the main problem to be solved, the whole gospel becomes radically redefined" (p.39). In other words, much "preaching" in the American church today is nothing more than "moralistic, therapeutic deism." Here is how that phrase is defined by the one who coined it: 1.) God created the world; 2.) God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions; 3.) The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself; 4.) God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when needed to resolve a problem; 5.) Good people go to heaven when they die (p.41).  It is moralistic in that it is up to us to try harder to be good. We have to overcome our problems. It is therapeutic in that it is all about helping us to feel better about ourselves. It is deistic in that God is not needed except in emergency situations. Otherwise, He can just be absent. Horton labels this as the ancient heresy of Pelagianism (denying original sin, sin is just a choice we make with free will, therefore it is within our own power apart from God's help to not sin). Horton then shows the huge influence this had in Charles Finney's work in the 2nd Great Awakening which has had a huge impact upon the evangelical church as the product of the 2nd Great Awakening. Horton calls Pelagianism our "natural theology." We all tend to gravitate toward Pelagianism. It doesn't involve justification, grace, God's wrath, etc. It is all about us and how we feel and the power that is within us. We don't need the good news, we just need good advice. This transcends liberal and conservative, mainline and evangelical. They may define personal happiness and justice differently, but it is still moralistic, therapeutic deism focused on the self, personal experience, and trying harder to be a better, more stable and successful person.

Chapter 3 (Smooth Talking and Christless Christianity): In this chapter, Dr. Horton takes Joel Osteen (and by extension any prosperity gospel propounder) to task. Horton writes, "To the extent that it reflects any theology at all, his message represents a convergence of Pelagian self-help and Gnostic self-deification (68). Basically, God is there for you and your happiness (68)."Osteen can best be summed up as "do your best." God has given you everything you need to be happy, achieve success, and be a better you. Osteen's steps for this are: 1.) Keep pressing forward; 2.) Be positive toward yourself; 3.) Develop better relationships; 4.) Form better habits; 5.) Embrace the place where you are; 6.) Develop your inner life; 7.) Stay passionate about life.   Noticeably absent from Osteen's "preaching," books, and interviews are sin, God's justice and holiness, Christ's atoning work on the cross, etc. Any mention of sin loosens it from its Biblical moorings and sets it adrift in the sea of "magic." Sin is just a bad DNA you inherited and you have the power to overcome it by speaking blessings into your life. Horton (describing Osteen) writes, "Sin is not a condition of inherent corruption and guilt...rather, it is diseases and destructive patterns of behavior passed down through one's bloodline 'until somebody rises up and puts a stop to it.' Obviously, that somebody is you, not Christ (86)." Osteen's message is one of works-righteousness.

Chapter 4 (How We Turn Good News into Good Advice): In this chapter, Horton's main contention is that by distorting the Law-Gospel distinction, we change the story of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone into a story about us and our good deeds. The fire-and-brimstone legalism of the 1800s and 1900s has been replaced with an "easy listening legalsim." The seriousness of God's law has been lessened. Here, Horton takes on Brian McLaren and other emergent/emerging leaders. Horton writes, "Radically different from the narcissism and individualism of Joel Osteen's prosperity gospel, McLaren's message nevertheless shares important similarities. It translates sin and judgment into actions and attitudes that we can overcome with the right agenda in order to transform ourselves and the world" (p.114).

Chapter 5 (Your Own Personal Jesus): The basic point of this chapter is to demonstrate that American Religion/Spirituality is basically Gnostic at its core. American spirituality seeks inner knowledge and is totally focused on the subjective and internal with no recourse to anything that is objective and external. The American Church is not immune to this as it has been affected by this American spirit so that much of what one gets in the American Church can be called "Gnostic Lite." The American Christian is the one who is "God, the Bible, and Me."

My Thoughts
Chapter 1: One of Dr. Frame's critiques of Horton's book is that Horton is not precise in his terminology. In fact, Dr. Horton does not define his terms at all. Thus when Dr. Frame reads this statement written by Horton, "I think the church in America today is so obsessed with being practical, relevant, helpful, successful, and perhaps even well-liked that it nearly mirrors the world itself (p.16)," Dr Frame takes that to mean that Dr. Horton claims God's Word should not be preached as relevant or practical to people. While I agree with Dr. Frame that Dr. Horton is not precise in defining his terminology, I believe Dr. Frame fails to understand this and other statements in light of the context of the chapter. I certainly try to make my sermons practical and relevant to the people in the pews, but it must flow from the text and it must uphold the supremacy and greatness of Christ. God's Word is extremely practical and relevant for us today, but only because our King Jesus is alive and currently reigning and God's Spirit is currently active in the world. In 6000 years of human history, sin has not changed and salvation has not changed. The warnings, commands, promises, and encouragements of Scripture apply to us today (maybe with a little work in contextualizing) as they did to people 2000 and 4000 years ago. I certainly do not want to preach a sermon that does not help the people in the spiritual walk with Christ. However, I do not believe Dr. Horton's chapter lends to a downplaying of this type of relevancy. Dr. Horton is writing about those who place us as primary and Christ as secondary. In other words, when Dr. Horton says "relevant" or "practical," he means that to be, I believe from reading the context, those who define those terms according to culture in order to meet people's felt needs using Christ only as a way to "legitimize" their self-help speech, or perhaps Christ is not even mentioned. In that type of sermon, all it is is self-help for felt needs. There is no mention of sin, God's wrath, Christ's work on the Cross, forgiveness, etc. That type of relevancy in preaching is certainly wrong.

Chapter 2:  I find it hard to disagree with anything Horton says in this book. These studies are certainly dead on and I have found it to be much the same in my own experience of growing up in various churches of various denominations.

Chapter 3: Horton takes Osteen head on and shows how Osteen's message and the Bible's message are at odds with one another. I have a feeling that this part of Horton's book is preaching to the crowd. While it is good to point out all of the ways that Osteen ignores or reinterprets the Bible and fundamental Christian doctrine, I have a hard time seeing this chapter convincing somebody (if they would even pick up a book like this) who follows Osteen and believes in the prosperity Gospel.

Chapter 4: It was refreshing to see Horton take on somebody other than just Joel Osteen. I appreciated his showing of how McLaren and the "liberal" side of "evangelicalism" is fundamentally no different than modern liberalism as espoused by German critics in the 1800 and 1900s. Thus far Horton has been driving home the need for the Gospel, of justification by faith and Christ's imputed righteousness. It seems to me that he might be overemphasizing justification because much of modern Christianity focuses on sanctification (via our deeds and words). But is the corrective to overemphasizing a tension, to overemphasize the opposite end of the tension? We must hold justification and sanctification together in balance. Our sermons cannot be justification by faith all the time, or we would never live out the faith. We would end up with what James calls a "dead faith" (James 2:17). Just as Horton critiques the modern legalism as going too far to try to correct the older, harder, legalism, I believe Horton overemphasizes justification, while only paying lip service to sanctification.

Chapter 5: This chapter made me appreciate the church as an institution with creeds and sacraments.  The church is an institution created by God and the Body which Jesus loves and died for. I wonder if a recovery of teaching and preaching on the great doctrine of the church (ecclesiology) would help people no longer disparage the church.

At the end of the day, I think Dr. Frame has read Dr. Horton is the worst possible light (which is ironic since Dr. Frame accuses Dr. Horton of the same thing). What Horton perceives and critiques as "using God as a means to personal ends," Frame perceives as "applying God's word to everyday life." (cf Escondido Theology, pp.30-31).  Of course they are going to disagree if what they perceive they describe in two antithetical manners. In addition, I believe Dr. Frame and Dr. Horton are using different definitions for "personal happiness." While I still have a lot of respect for and enjoy reading much of what Dr. Frame has written, I have to disagree with him in this critique of Dr. Horton's book and would highly recommend "Christless Christianity."