From ‘The Attributes of God’ by A.W. Pink

From my reading “The Attributes of God” by the eminently quote-worthy A. W. Pink :

Before all else “In the beginning God” (Gen 1:1). There was a time, if “time” it could be called, when God, in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three divine persons), dwelt all alone. “In the beginning God.” There was no heaven, where His glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angels to hymn His praises; no universe to be upheld by the word of His power. There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but “from everlasting.” During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also had been called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Mal 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished.

Pink, Arthur W. (2010-04-05). The Attributes of God (Kindle Locations 67-76). Unknown. Kindle Edition.

The Shack: Part Three…or…the treacly trinity

There is so much to say, so much heartbreaking error in this book, I hardly know where to start. Here we find (and I have managed to arrive at Chapter 8), having dismissed early on, it seems, the authoritative nature of the Biblical texts, Young creating his own uniquely user-friendly trinitarian god.

In that eponymous shack, we find a clumsy Jesus, and the treacly trinity giggly like school girls over the spilled sauce, who we must now ponder His ability to hold one’s soul securely in His hands if He cannot hold a bowl without dropping it.

We find, too, Young’s god perpetrating crass racial stereotypes. He seems to portray Father God, his Papa, as, at least in this therapeutic incarnation, a cross between Aunt Jemima and the Oracle, the black woman who baked cookies in The Matrix. Mack later comments on Jesus’ unassuming appearance, and specifically on His big Jewish nose, the product, Jesus says, of the men on His mothers side of the family. Isaiah 52 and 53, this is not.

As I think about the god of The Shack and how this god interacts therapeutically with Mack, I think of a clichéd, puerile, and idealistic depiction of a group therapy session. There is lots of talk about love,  but there is an absolutely and stunning lack of gravitas in Young’s God. His is not so much a God to be worshiped in awe, but more so a depiction of how we think our better angels would look writ large.

Referring back to Young’s choice and reason for his god’s gender, I do agree that we should not anthropomorphically over-simplify our thoughts of God, and I think that this is a valid point that Young attempts to make from time to time in The Shack. I agree, too, and in my gift for recognizing things blazingly obvious, that the Father, being spirit, is not gendered in the same way as are the gendered creatures of His creation, but it is significant the Godhead refers to Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus instructs us to pray, “Our Father, Who Art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name…..” Father God has ontological reasons for us to refer to Himself as Father, and those reasons, I think, transcend any post-modern objections to the patriarchal social constructions of antiquity. It is with great arrogance and presumption that we assume to refer to the Creator in ways other than how He refers to Himself and how He instructs us to refer to Him.

As a literary aside, I do not think Young, thus far, does a convincing job of  communicating the visceral darkness of The Big Sadness. Young portrays Mack more as petulant than broken. For this, too, Young should be ashamed.

Perhaps in the next installment, Part 4, I will pontificate on Young’s treatment of trinitarian hierarchy, or lack thereof, in The Shack.

As for me, the hour is late, and I now prepare to journey to the land of Nod. 3AM, my time to awake to prepare for work, is not so far away.

The Shack: Part 2

In part one of my review of The Shack, I ended the post with a quote from the book that, if truly taken to heart by the Christian, would tend to undermine the foundation of the faith, the authoritative nature of the Biblical texts, and would do so with such a breezy dismissal that it takes one’s breath away.

The fact that large swaths of the evangelical church could entertain this book after  reading no further than the aforementioned quote, and more, endorse it, is a subject of great concern for me. Before elaborating further, I must admit that, beyond the unbiblical casualness exhibited by all parties at Mack’s encounter with Young’s version of a triune god in that shack,  I understand deeply the yearning for an authentic experience with God. I understand the burning desire, even if theologically errant, to have hard things explained and to be given a coherent reason for suffering. However, like Job, we will ultimately find that we must sometimes be content with the fact that God is God and owes us, the limited and created things, no explanation. For fallen people, that is a hard thing to swallow.

We must also affirm that the Biblical texts are a sufficient revelation of God’s nature, of redemptive history, of His self-revelation that we need not look to subjective experience or extra-biblical revelation to define the nature of God or what He desires to communicate with mankind, without regard to where we reside on the scale of modernity.

Young also does his readers a great disservice, he lies, when he infers that the God of the Hebrews was in constant individual communication with His children of antiquity, that modernity and the church militant limits itself when it limits itself to the Bible. At no point in Biblical redemptive history do we find God gushing over all ‘His kids’ with personal messages and revelation.

If I had a dime for every time someone has said something ridiculous under the auspices of divine revelation, that ‘God told me this’ thing, or the “God revealed to me that’  thing, I would be a less financially limited man.The Apostle Paul would be jealous of God’s informality with  today’s Christian.

More to follow…..

Also, to those who do not wish to navigate my bloggeria so much, here is the quote from The Shack to which I refer:

…the thought of God passing notes did not fit well with his theological training. In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners’ access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges?

A book review, part 1: A bit behind the curve on this one..

Recently a friend from work lent me her copy of the Shack. I have read the reviews, am aware of the controversial nature of the book, and know that my perceptions of this read are going to be colored by the aforementioned. Even so,  and even if the wave of controversy surrounding The Shack has long since crested, I will now put down other titles I am reading, focus on The Shack, and render my thoughts on the book as I read my way through it.

First, I know that The Shack was, and is,  dearly loved by many. It’s lengthy stay on the New York Times best-seller list attests to that fact. I think it brought a sense of solace to many and made God seem warmly imminent, perhaps for the first time in their lives. I think many people have their own “Shack” somewhere in their history, and I know I do. We all, to some degree, struggle with the very real and very theological problem of persistent evil in the world, and The Shack is one such story of struggle, perhaps a theodicy of sorts.

Next, as mentioned earlier, I am aware of the theological controversy surrounding this book. The reformed tribe, among others, found egregious error, even heresy, in much the theological assertions in The Shack. Others pontificated that this is not a theological textbook, but a mere novel. “Lighten up, man!’  However, I say any theological talk, be it in a novel or a systematic theology, especially when it is warmly received my much of the American evangelical community, is worthy of critique, and what follows is mine.

The First Five Chapters:

From the first page, I find Young’s writing, quite honestly, a bit cloying, as if written by an earnest fourteen year old school-girl with but a modest amount of talent with the written word. Second, I hate overt emotional manipulation. Before going further, let me state that I am a bit of a romantic, at times. At the end of the movie, The Gladiator, my eyes were a bit moist. I found the framing device of Saving Private Ryan a bit sentimental, but, again, my eyes were moist when Tom Hank’s character dies at the end of the film. I have to admit, too, that as a father, Young’s writing made me feel Mack’s pain. I did get a bit misty.

However, is it possible to construct a more cynically and emotionally manipulative framing device than the one presented by The Shack?

First, we find Mack and Missy having just had a discourse on the nature of grace and sacrifice in Mack’s recounting of the story of the Multnomah princess, supposedly an analog of the Gospel, though I think a profoundly weak one. In that story, the princess voluntarily sacrifices her life by jumping off a cliff to her death, something apparently required by an Indian prophesy to save the men of the tribe who were all dying from some illness.  As an omen, perhaps, young Missy later asks Mack if God would ever ask her to jump of a cliff? Mack, his heart wrenched by Missy’s question, says no.

Soon after, we find Josh and Kate, two of Mack’s five children, involved in a canoeing mishap wherein Mack, his instincts as a life-guard in his younger days rising up at this moment of crisis, dives into the water and saves his son Josh from drowning. Upon returning to shore, crisis over – at least that one -  everyone safe and sound, Mack finds his youngest daughter, ten years old, if memory serves, ominously missing. The stage for The Great Sadness is set.

As the story unfolds, Missy’s body is never found, but the dress, now blood-stained, worn when she was abducted by her killer is located. It is found in a shack in the woods.

I am at the point now where Mack has received an invitation, via a message in his mailbox, from a character called  Papa to visit him at the shack, a proposal of which Mack is understandably quite dubious, though intrigued.

Again, is it possible for a Young to construct a more emotionally manipulative framing device, the abduction and murder of his ten year old daughter by a serial killer who preys on young girls for a narrative than the one he constructed in The Shack? He has built a literary device of great manipulative and visceral power seeming designed so as to emotionally deconstruct any critical thought.

I will end this initial installment with a quote, found below, starting at the end of page 65 of the soft-cover edition. My next post, when time allows and sooner rather than later I hope, will be to deconstruct this wretched, sophomoric, post-modern intellectual detritus that passes for profundity and then perhaps examine the next few chapters….if I can muster up the where-with-all to stay the course…

…the thought of God passing notes did not fit well with his theological training. In seminary he had been taught that God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted, of course. God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects. It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners’ access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia. Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book. Especially an expensive one bound in leather with gilt edges, or was that guilt edges?

Chapter Four….being completely honest with myself…

What follows may be considered to be the long-threatened sequel to An Ecclesiastical Journey

I think it may be the curse of the spiritually malcontent and damaged to feel, at times, abandoned by God. Such is the stuff of classical myths and disaffected youth. I have my own narrative about such things.

I was raised in a searingly, achingly, persistently dysfunctional environment beset, surrounded by mental illness, apathy, weakness, and tangible evil in those that should have nurtured me. I do not want to go into deep details for various reasons, nor do I want to come across as much of a whiner seeking the role of the victim, but the hard truth is that one would be hard pressed to erect a more effective framework within which to emotionally and psychologically and permanently cripple a bright, introspective, and creative child. Moved from town to town seventeen times by the time I was eighteen often under great duress and instability, I knew neither mentor, protector, or friend. My refuge was books and music. The most difficult aspect of growing up in such circumstances for me was the sense that, though I often cried out, often tearfully, to God for help, stability, for rescue, He never seemed to provide the help or shelter I craved.

Therein one finds those divine abandonment issues. I was, however, fairly relentless in seeking concourse with God albeit with some frustration. I grew up feeding myself spiritually the best I could without much benefit from the church, and along the way picked up some erroneous doctrine. The few times in my youth that I bumped into the church, I usually ended up in the presence of aberrational and strange charismatic mania  that did me no good.

Years flow by, the past is buried and compressed, and after marriage and fatherhood, the journey towards God becomes more focused. As I moved from a liberal church to a seeker-sensitive church, and then, to a more Christ-centered reformed theology, I came to a more profound understanding of the sovereignty and grace of God and my own sinfulness. Such a deeper understanding of God’s sovereignty, at first, gave me great solace in knowing that God not only was aware of my struggles with my dysfunctional past, with my sin, with my weakness, but He was in control of such and would use them to grow me into Christ-likeness and for His glory. All good and fine….but….not so long ago a perfect multi-front storm of stressors arose, and along with my years of struggling with depression and anxiety, I found myself unable to cope with circumstances. My brain’s serotonin level had became woefully deficient to the point I could not think, could not perform at work, could not interact with others. I crashed so hard and damaged everything that was of value to me. Too, and quite importantly, the church I was involved in, and really no fault of their own, was one of the major factors of my slow-motion, substained crash.

Eventually, I ended up taking a week or so off from work, sought professional help (which, over time, wasn’t very helpful, quite honestly), and began taking an SSRI in the form of an antidepressant called Paxhil. I also found I suffered, as per professional diagnosis, from social anxiety disorder (though I suspected Aspergers Syndrome – but you cannot always trust online mental health diagnostics), post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and clinical depression, all of which I had often self-medicated with (mostly) modest amounts of alcohol. After the passage of some time and as my serotonin levels normalized, I was able to function once again, but damage had been done both at work and home and church. Embarrassment and shame were, and remain, my constant shadows. Eventually, I weened myself off Paxhil, experiencing disturbing lucid dreams and nightmares at night and dizziness during the day in the process, all the while trying to be a good father, husband and employee.

Where this all has led me is to a post-Paxhil, post-church place where I feel as if I have been rebooted, as it were. Much of the mental malware that has belabored me for a lifetime seems to be gone and I feel more whole and assured  and fearless than I ever have in my life, but what seems to have been lost is an innocent, childlike faith in God I experienced for a short few years not too long ago. I do not believe I can lean on the Creator completely anymore. I intellectually acknowledge that He is trustworthy, but that perhaps I am, in His good sovereignty, more a vessel molded for dishonor rather than honor. Perhaps I never really believed like I thought I did. I affirm that He works out all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, but now and in light of His seeming absence through much of the course of my 50+ years, I question my love for Him and I question that I am called according to His purpose. Inversely, I question that He has for me anything other than common grace. Quite honestly, I know I do not deserve even that.

In an earlier post, I cryptically alluded to the fact that I may change the direction of this blog due to certain issues, and all the aforementioned is why. Perhaps I will occasionally blog on theological things while I remain in this state of flux, but I may, for a while, let the blog drift into other directions and interests.

I must affirm that I have no significant intellectual issues with orthodox Christianity. I cannot walk away from the real and historical nature of the resurrection of the Christ. I cannot walk away from the natural revelation of the Creator. I would be intellectually dishonest to wed myself to evolutionary thought. If I could honestly do so, quite frankly, my internal tensions would not be so intense. It would be  relatively easy for me to be agnostic at this point and stage. However, things are too complex to take that easy route.

Quite honestly, if anyone wants to correct my thinking, call me out on anything that I have written here, slap me around a bit to knock some sense into me, please go ahead. I did not get to this point overnight. I have been drifting in this direction for quite a while, in all truthfulness,  and I would love to be in another place, as it were. All that being said, my one real theological hope is this: even though I do not like where my head is at spiritually right now, I cannot walk away from the fact that God is sovereign. If he so pleases, He will bring me to a place of trust, and it will be through His effort, not mine, and I will be the wiser for it. If He does not please to do so, I will enjoy His common grace knowing that He is Creator, not me, and in my falleness, I deserve no better than what I get. I believe – I think, help me in my unbelief. What will chapter five bring? I hope a renewed faith.

Dr. R.C. Sproul on abortion

HT:The Poached Egg

Christmas Tensions

Quite honestly, and not claiming any unique depth of thought or insight because I honestly have none, the trinitarian nature of God does not cause me any real difficulty.  It does not present me with any cognitive dissonance, with heavy tensions, with any real struggles of understanding.  Without a trinitarian understanding of God, the Gospel simply falls apart.  I accept it because it is true, because it is a doctrine clearly taught in Scripture.

The number of errors, heresies, and  misunderstandings in trinitarian theology are, I think, relatively few, though I assert such with qualification in regards to Christology.  Essentially, you haven on one hand the heresy of modalism wherein God reveals Himself in three modes, appearing at times as the Father, as the Son, or as the Holy Spirit.  The other error is that of tri-theism, that God exists as three separate personalities, as three separate gods.  Too, one finds the purely unitarian theology of, well, the Unitarian-Universalists, a theology far outside of Christian orthodoxy though it did find its birth in the church.

Most attempts  to describe the trinitarian nature of God, unwittingly I think, lead to error when examined.  Using the egg, with the yoke, the white, and the shell, as an aid in understanding the Trinity fails.  Worse is using the forms of water – steam, ice, and liquid -  as illustration of the trinity in that it is purely modalistic error.

The following graphic perhaps is the best illustration of the nature of the Triune God.

I do not think it can be improved upon.

Not to minimize the mystery of the Trinity, I quite honestly ponder the incarnation of Christ.  I try to wrap my mind, with no little difficulty, around the wonder of the Triune Godhead, in the Person of Christ, taking on flesh to become our Perfect Sacrifice.

The potential for error and heresy in understanding the nature of the God-Man Christ may easily be fallen into and is also related to one’s understanding of Trinitarian theology.

On top of the aforementioned errors in understanding the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead,  some of the potential pitfalls in understanding the being of Christ are as follows:

• Denials of Christ’s Divinity –  Ebonism, Arianism (today’s Jehovah’s Witness) , Nestorianism, Socinianism, Liberalism, Humanism, Unitarianism.
• Denials of Christ’s humanity –  Docetism, Marcionism, Gnosticism, Apollinarianism, Monarchianism, Patripassianism, Sabellianism, Adoptionism, Dynamic Monarchianism.
• Denials and confusions of Christ’s two natures – Monophysitism, Eutychianism, Monothelitism.

In contrast to the above, the Biblical, historical, and correct Christology is  Chalcedonian.

Delving in to Christology may appear to some dry, cold doctrine…a useless intellectual exercise in theology that adds little to one’s worship experience.  In today’s mostly anti-theological ecclesiastical climate that is often more  experience driven than doctrinally driven, in a milieu where church attenders are more likely fed a low calorie, pragmatic diet of life-coaching and moralism rather than a theologically rich meal of expository preaching, the danger the American church straying into error and heresy is perhaps waxing higher than anytime in her history.  When Joel Osteen, mostly Christless and a bit gnostic in his Christianity,  leads the largest congregation in America and other megachurch leaders look to him as a model of success, woe is us.  When influential  church leaders look to modalist T.D. Jakes as a role model and call those who exhibit discernment idiots, woe is us.

Christmas is upon us.  The incarnation of Christ is the heart of the matter.  Forget the legalistic, fictional Santa Clause.  He brings no good news of redemption to anyone. Forget the frenzied, mindless materialism of the season. Forget the silly culture war skirmishes over greetings and creches.  God has forever more taken on flesh, humbling Himself and reaching down to His rebellious creation and has redeemed His children, taking our sin as His own and clothing us in His righteousness as we repent and believe, those abilities themselves a gift from the Giver of all good gifts.

As an addendum and speaking of Joel Osteen, here is his seasons greetings for us:

HT: Wartburg Watch

There is reason for concern over the church.

One more addendum….

Here is an interesting quiz to determine if you are a heretic….I am Chalcedonian!

Just finished reading…

…Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God by Keith A. Mathison. On Tuesday evenings, a group of men from a church I have been attending gather to read various books on things of faith and discuss them in light of Scripture. We began reading through the book last Tuesday though my copy did not arrive till the following Saturday. I finished it on Monday.

Before I continue with my thoughts on this book, let me give you a bit of my back-story. I never spent very much time in church growing up, but I did manage to pick up a bit of the ‘culture’ through reading popular books on eschatology (Late, Great Planet Earth, etc), by occasionally listening to teachers/preachers on the radio and television, and by engaging conversations over the years on some of the the issues addressed in Mathison’s book. I came away from these influences with a bit of confusion over eschatology, with an ill-defined understanding that God had a different agenda for the church and the people of Israel (and with a strong leaning towards Christian Zionism), and a with tendency to interpret certain Biblical texts in light of current events rather than by the intent those passages had for the original audience.

I am under the impression that there has been a consensus in the American church, almost monolithic I think, of dispensationalism, a term I really could not clearly define for myself until recently. Also, I affirm that there are many, many godly men and women who affirm this theological grid, so any engagement of dialog must be entered into with grace, humility, and respect. What is in question here is not the character of the adherents of dispensationalism, but the correctness, the Biblical truth of the claims of this theological framework. Also, I affirm that what one thinks about dispensational theology should not be a litmus test for fellowship, for overarching orthodoxy. It is, I think, a subject that one can be in error over, but still affirm the core doctrines of Christianity. However and with that being said, the subject is not without import because to varying degree, I think all major doctrines are interrelated. Perhaps how one thinks about ecclesiology can effect how one thinks about eschatology; perhaps how one thinks about eschatology can effect how one thinks about soteriology. Doctrine matters, especially in a season where so many adhere to a ephemeral, insubstantial ‘deeds, not creeds’ mentality. I hope that in the final analysis we all  measure our thoughts on things doctrinal  by Scripture as the final authority.

What I appreciated about this book is it’s clarity.  It cuts to the chase in  it’s defining and characterization of dispensationalism;  it is primarily the dividing of the people of God into two groups: Israel and the church.  The church is considered a parenthesis, a mystery, a sideline in the Triune God’s plan of redemption.  Further, this theology is relatively new, less than two hundred years old.  One questions how this grid went without notice by 1800 years of church history.  Though dispensationalists define themselves by and strive to adhere to a literal hermeneutic, they are not, in the final analysis, able to be completely consistent in such when interpreting prophetic passages.

Take my meanderings for what they are worth, but my growing understanding of dispensationalism leads me to believe that it interjects discontinuities  in the redemptive narrative  that unfolds in the Bible.  It may, though unintentionally,  present God as One who reacts, rather than One Who is absolutely sovereign.  Also, and though not directly addressed in the book, I see dispensational thought as introducing two of some things where there only need be one.  There are, within the dispensational framework,  two (or more accurately, 1.5) returns of Christ, two peoples of God, two fulfillments of much of prophecy, two resurrections, two judgments, and sometimes in hyper-dispensationalism as represented by teachers such as John Hagee , two redemptive paths to God, one for the Jews and one for the gentiles.  Though growing increasingly contra-dispensational, I was impressed with the irenic tone of the book.  The book is also very clear in presenting the doctrines of grace.  All that being said, I will continue to be edified by men like John MacAuthur and Charles Swindoll, both dispensationist. I could ramble on for hours on my thoughts on this book, and perhaps I will do a part two of this review at some point in the future.

Also, this is a rather quickly composed post, so please forgive any errors in grammer, etc.

What I am reading while waiting for Finally Alive…

…by John Piper to arrive at my doorstep in 3 to 21 days. Hope its closer to 3 than 21. Started reading Portraits of Christ in Genesis by Dr. DeHann, hidden away and unread in my modest library, a few days ago, a title written circa 1965 if memory serves. Don’t know much about this guy, but so far, the book is quite engaging and, not surprisingly as per the title, Christ-centric. His exegesis on Adam’s partaking of the forbidden fruit as an act of sacrificial love towards now fallen Eve, an act portrayed as an archetype, a protevangelium, of Christ’s redemptive love for His bride, His church, is an ‘interesting’ and honestly quite lovely take on the third chapter of Genesis. To tightly encapsulate, Dehann sees that Eve, after being deceived by the snake and partaking of the forbidden fruit, is now lost, under the sentence of death while Adam, at the time, is still a son of God (Luke 3:38) Adam, in his profound love for her, sees that Eve’s only hope is to “lower himself to her level, assume her guilt, become partaker of her sin and condemnation, and then, the separation between them being removed, he could become the father of her seed.” Later, he states that Adam, while not being deceived (1TIm. 2:14), “stooped to her level in order to save her by becoming the only one who could bring forth the seed of the woman – the Redeemer” As interesting as this interpretation of Adams act of rebellion as the federal representative of mankind towards God may be, does your eyebrow raise a bit at this unpacking of Genesis 3? Need to think about this a bit more…I’ve never seen the text as an allegory of Christ’s sacrificial love for His bride before. Not saying it’s correct or in error, just something new to me… and I am curious to know what others think of this view of Adam’s rebellion, if they have heard this interpretation of the text. I would really like to hear some comments on this.

Addendum on 6:28:09 – further elaboration: I have been thinking a little bit about this post.  I am compelled to say that the more I think about the author’s obliquely positive take on Adam’s disobedience, the more troubled I am by it.  In retrospect, perhaps any glossing over the impact of the Fall and Adam’s role in it, no matter how well intentioned, may, I think, tend to diminish or dilute one’s understanding of the impact of the atoning work of Christ, of the cross.  Haven’t had a chance to read much further in the book, but other that this aforementioned concern (and I honestly do not question his orthodoxy – even if an old-school dispensationalist -, it has been a very good read.

As an aside, a friend of mine asked me what I thought of The Shack. She had just finished reading the book and quite enjoyed it. Never read it, but have read reviews of the book written by people whose judgment I trust. I did not go into any great detail about my reservations about The Shack (not the time and place…busy day at work), but I did later print out for her Tim Challies excellent review of the book. Let me tell you, Christian bookstores can be a potential minefield for the unwary.

In light of the previous assertion, I have really grown to appreciate Westminster and Monergism bookstores.

Finished with Christless Christianity

Almost immediately after writing it, I am struck by the irony of the title of this post.  Usually, I compose the content of a post, then come up with a supposedly catchy, provocative title

Today, I started with the title. The initial purpose of the title of this post was to declare that I have finished reading Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church by Michael Horton thereby setting the stage for the content of the post, my thoughts on said book.  The secondary purpose, though at first unintended, informs that I have seen, experienced much of what Horton describes.

I ran through this book rather quickly and will probably read it again sooner rather than later.  From this first quick read, here are a few things I take away: Horton diagnoses certain  ills that infect the body of the American church, and two main themes seem to dominate. First, there is a strong element of Pelagianism that permeates much of the church.  Secondly, there is a strain of Gnosticism that parallels the Pelagianism.  This Pelagianism often takes on the form of a ‘legalism lite’ while the Gnosticism arrives in the form of the subtle primacy of subjective religious, emotional,self-focused experience over the objective authority of Scripture.   His diagnosis is not unique to either of the broad, polar extremes of ecclesiology, the liberal and conservative branches; there is an overarching  human-centricity that permeates both.  He also points out the ironic commonality of the ‘deeds, not creeds’ mindset that has been so firmly ensconced in liberal Christianity and now boldly infects much of the church growth movement as well as the neo-liberal Emergents. Before continuing, Horton does not argue that the church, as a whole, has necessarily arrived at a Christless Christianity, but that signs are evident that the church is well on its way to that state.  He argues that what is being engaged is not so much heresy, but more silliness, lightness, and self-focus.  Almost gone are the days where the flock comes to church to be ministered to and taught, fed,  truths of Scripture and have the sacraments administered.  Some pastors no longer see their role as being one who feeds the flock and regularly administers the sacraments, but rather view church as the place where they cast vision and give marching orders to the flock.  These marching orders can range from calls to engage those Joel Osteenesque steps to having a better life now to an exhortation to the flock to get out there and ‘be the Gospel’ without ever really and carefully explaining what the Gospel is, the proclamation of Good News given and offered to us more than something we ‘do’ or ‘are’.  Think again on that ‘deeds, not creeds’ mentality previously mentioned.

Horton, with much clarity, traces the pragmatic methods of Charles Finney, quite frankly Pelagian in his theology, to the formulas used by contemporary church growth experts today.  The fallout from this pragmaticism is often an unintended devaluing of the supremacy of Christ in both corporate worship and evangelism.  Rather, church is to be an entertaining event to draw crowds wherein the Gospel (hopefully)  may be found on a table filled with personal anecdotes and calls to moralism by self-effort without a clear expounding of the absolutely astounding nature of grace through faith found in Christ, God incarnate, in light of our sin nature, our total depravity. We end up, sadly, with a de-clawed  Gospel,  that  ‘therapeutic, moralistic deism’ mentioned in a quote in the book.  Even more sad, so many are content with just that.  What is often engaged in that often  ill-defined call to a personal relationship with Jesus, is a narcissism, a salvation solely focused on self rather than one lived out in covenant community.  I have been guilty…

All in all, a sobering read, clear and concise. Another good book in the same vein is The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World by David Wells. Next on the list to read, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology, also by Horton.

Hey! It dawns on me…this is my first book review ever.  It dawns on me, too, how hard it is to be objective when you are close to the subject matter of the book being reviewed.