What is at the core of the temptation to practice a Christless Christianity?
When the emphasis becomes human-centered rather than God-centered. In more conservative contexts, you hear it as exhortation: “These are God’s commandments. The culture is slipping away from us. We have to recover it, and you play a role. Is your life matching up to what God calls us to?” Of course there is a place for that, but it seems to be the dominant emphasis.
Then there is the therapeutic approach: “You can be happier if you follow God’s principles.” All of this is said with a smile, but it’s still imperative. It’s still about techniques and principles for you to follow in order to have your best life now.
In both cases, it’s law rather than gospel. I don’t even know when I walk into a church that says it’s Bible-believing that I’m actually going to hear an exposition of Scripture with Christ at the center, or whether I’m going to hear about how I should “dare to be a Daniel.” The question is not whether we have imperatives in Scripture. The question is whether the imperatives are all we are getting, because people assume we already know the gospel””and we don’t.
Listening to the White Horse Inn for the past few years has opened my eyes to the rarity of the Gospel being preached in any category of Church; conservative or liberal. The idea of human freedom is so ingrained into our identities as Americans that anyone who suggests that we are not free to follow God’s commandments is immediately called a Calvinist. I wonder if the reason that God is allowing TEC to be taken over by people who are openly heretical is that the “Preaching of Christ and Him Crucified throughout all of the scriptures†( a recurring White Horse Inn theme) is so rare among the conservative part of the Church. The White Horst Inn radio series is easily available on CD or Podcast . The format is a discussion among 4 men; two reformed, one Baptist reformed, and one Lutheran. They have been doing this for almost 20 years and it is entertaining and informative. Our own Bishop Fitzsimons Allison has been on the show.
See the posting and comment # 2 immediately above. This is the flip-side of the same problem. Although they seem entirely different, these two attitudes are mirror-images of each other. Either way, you get to function as your own god, and Jesus becomes superfluous. Really. This is a heresy every bit as deadly as the post-Christian stuff. No exaggeration.
The Baptist church I have been attending since I left the Diocese of MD, preaches this ALL the time. Do this, this and this, and . . . I quit listening! I am SO tired of it. It almost makes me want to sneak into a local Episcopal church just long enough to hear the readings. I miss hearing the WORD of God. Don’t want to sit around and wait to see how the rector twists it, but I miss the Gospel.
Interesting point about “people assume that we already know the Gospel” as if knowing the Gospel were merely retaining a bit of information. Of course, “knowing” in biblical terms connotes intimacy and like love it must be constantly attended to if it is to be made real. The sacraments are like a great date.
Dear Crabby in MD — may I humbly suggest that you do something to find a better church? Your discontent is very well founded: you do indeed need the Word of God and not the preaching of what really is an equally egregious heresy. There has to be some genuinely Christian church somewhere in your neighborhood — at least I certainly hope so!
I hope Phil (#4) won’t take it as piling on, but let me add to #5’s response, that although the faith in the gospel is certainly more than assenting to certain propositions, it is also no less. That is, faith in the sense of active trust in God through Christ can’t be separated from “the faith,” the true, biblical gospel. Maybe Phil didn’t mean to downplay that essential content to the gospel, but at least his comment could be read that way.
Thanks, Kendall, for posting this marvelous interview. I think Michael Horton is spot on, hit the bullseye. I confess that I just LOVE the title of his book “[b]The Gospel-Driven Life[/b],” which obviously plays off Rick Warren’s bestseller (which I also like, I hasten to add). As far as I’m concerned, the very essence of being an “evangelical,” in the true and best sense, is to be a gospel-based, evangel-centered, gospel-driven Christian. Anything and everything in the Church must be subordinated to the criterion of the Gospel and the advancing of the cause of the Gospel.
David Handy+
P.S., it’s worth noting that the interviewer, Mark Galli, senior managing editor at CT, is an orthodox Anglican and attends large, flourishing Church of the Resurrection (AMiA) in Wheaton, IL (where my children both attend as well). His simple, but pointed questions drew out Michael Horton nicely. Not to mention the fact that Galli should presumably be credited with coming up with the great idea of interviewing Horton in the first place and thus giving him wider exposure through CT.
Well done, Mark! Keep up the good work.
David Handy+
Lumen: Thank you for your concern. I have to admit it wasn’t until I read this article in CT that I was able to put a finger on what was making me “crabbier” than usual. But this is VERY prevalent. To the above commenters, this is not what is preached in the liberal main-line denominations, this is what the “evangelicals” are preaching. It’s ALL over the place. It’s not the prosperity gospel, but it’s not Jesus’ Gospel either. I know you have heard preachers that back up their sermon points with a verse or two, then on to the next point, a verse or two, and so on. It’s just where this kind of preaching leads to. Even whole episodes from the Bible get “nutshelled”, I call it. Boiled down into a few practical points. It becomes a theology that is about 1 inch deep and wide. It makes great converts, but not very good disciples.
Boy, have I gotten myself all worked up. My moniker is in full fury! Pray that I get off my soapbox! Lumen, this IS a genuinely Christian church. And, you are right, I need to find someplace else. May I prayerfully ask the Father for direction, and with His leading, find my family a new church home. My husband and I have travelled far in the past to hear His Word, and thought we had found a church where we could also be part of a family AND hear it. Maybe we misheard, or maybe we weren’t listening very well! But our God is the God of many chances!
#8 Rather a random thought I admit, but I wondered if it was in fact you who had something to offer them? I certainly pray God leads you to where you are meant to be.
David+, I certainly agree with your #6 comments. Love without cognitive content is less than human. I was just, inartfully, trying to pick-up on the question of why a “Christless Christianity”. Horton points out the problem that people assume they “know the Gospel” as if the Gospel were an object of information. What I think Horton is getting at is the temptation to make an object out of God. By doing so, we can still be in control. However, when we realize that the Gospel is the person of Jesus Christ(cognitive content and all) then we know that adoration, wonder, obedience and love is our response.
The great desperate question in all of Christianity right now is the problem of locating what is necessary for “genuine Christianity.” The 39 Articles? The [i]Institutes of Religion[/i]? The New Catechism?
I am pretty happy with the Creeds and Councils and the consistent witness of Tradition to Holy Scripture. But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.
I have known independent churches in the South where people have said the sinner’s prayer and really do love Jesus, but when you scratch the surface, they do not actually understand the God/human-in-one-Person Jesus of the truly orthodox faith.
And dear Crabby, I understand just what you mean about the very shallow isogesis of so many sermons in so many churches.
I will certainly pray for guidance and discernment for you and your family.
Hey. Can you find 8 or 10 like minded folks interested in starting an Anglican church? The ACNA is committed to planting churches, and that’s how you begin. Check out the website and see if maybe God leads you to contact the planting leaders. Just a thought.
Most Episcopal churches where I come from were started by dedicated lay people. To have a “real” church you need a community of real believers. Get a priest onboard, and there is no telling where you can go.
Many blessings.
Phil Swain (#10),
Thanks for the clarification. I’m not surprised. I didn’t think you meant to deny that there is an essential core content to the gospel. But you’re right, accepting the gospel is more about coming to trust in the person of Jesus Christ and his saving work on our behalf than it is about assenting to propositions about that.
But I understood Michael Horton’s point a little differently. I took him to be noting that it’s all too often assumed that everyone in an evangelical church already knows and believes the gospel, when that isn’t necessarily so at all. And if that’s the case (what he really meant), I think Horton is absolutely right. And that’s a HUGE problem.
David Handy+
Pageantmaster: That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me! Thank you. And Lumen: The start of an Anglican church here in MD is ALWAYS in my prayers. That is definitely something to look into, and see when God’s timing for that is. (Bad grammar, this AM!) Thank you all for your prayers!
# 13 Years ago I knew a priest who always ended prayers of petition with: “Lord, give us the Grace to be your instruments in bringing the answers to these prayers into being.”
Amen.