John Frame faced a choice. He could have reviewed Mike Horton’s book, Christless Christianity, or he could have abstained. He could have critiqued Horton’s indictment of Joel Osteen. He also could have offered his own critique of Osteen. Even if he disagreed vigorously with Horton, he could have let it go out of a sense of living with the eccentricities of a former colleague and a minister in a church with whom his own communion is in fellowship.
But Frame decided to write a lengthy review in which Horton’s assessment comes off as more theologically flawed than those whom Horton critiques.
On the one hand, according to Frame, Horton is wrong about contemporary evangelicalism:
Speaking, perhaps presumptuously, for “the American church,†let me attempt a reply. For what it is worth, my own perception of American evangelicalism is very different from Horton’s. My observation is anecdotal (just like his, in the final analysis), but based on around 55 years of adult observation in many different kinds of churches including the much maligned mega-churches. In most every evangelical church I have visited or heard about, the “focus†is on God in Christ. There has been something of a shift over the years in what Horton would call a “subjective†direction. But that is best described not as unfaithfulness, but as a shift toward more application of Scripture to people’s external situations and inner life. There is a greater interest in sanctification (not just justification), on Christianity as a world view, on believers’ obligations to one another, on love within the body of Christ, and in the implications of Scripture for social justice.
I don’t see this as wrong, or unbiblical. Indeed, I think this general trend is an improvement over the state of affairs fifty years ago. Scripture is certainly concerned about these matters, and we ought to teach and learn what it has to say.
(By the way, Frame thinks that Horton shares this outlook primarily with secular critics of American religion. But Frame does not acknowledge that conservative Protestants like David Wells and Carl Trueman, or moderate to liberal Protestants such as Douglas Webster, William Willimon, and Stanley Hauerwas agree with Horton more than Frame.)
On the other hand, Frame thinks that the basis for Horton’s critique is theologically defective:
Horton’s alarmism is persuasive to many people, and I have been moved to try to show them their persuasion is premature. The problem is that the yardstick Horton uses to measure the American church’s allegiance to Christ is not an accurate yardstick. Or, to drop the metaphor, Horton measures the American church with a defective theology.
He comes on to the reader as a generic Protestant Christian with a passion for the historic doctrines of the atonement and of justification by faith alone. He writes engagingly. Naturally, then, other Protestants tend to resonate to his arguments. But Horton is not just a generic Protestant or even a generic Reformed theologian. He holds certain positions that are not warranted by the Reformed Confessions and which in my mind are not even Scriptural.
Frame is fully within his duties as a theology professor to review critically the book of another theologian, even one who apparently shares his theological tradition. But he is on shaky ground when he has faulted folks like Horton at other times for being Machen’s Warrior Children, that is, for needlessly criticizing those within the Reformed household. According to Frame:
The Machen movement was born in the controversy over liberal theology. I have no doubt that Machen and his colleagues were right to reject this theology and to fight it. But it is arguable that once the Machenites found themselves in a “true Presbyterian church†they were unable to moderate their martial impulses. Being in a church without liberals to fight, they turned on one another.
For some reason, John Frame thinks he is not a pugilist even after writing reviews like his of Horton (not to mention that the Warrior Children piece contained several punches, some below the belt). If he had a better understanding of “the Machen movement, Frame might realize that every controversy has more than two sides. In the 1920s, the alternatives were not simply conservatives like Machen or liberals like Harry Emerson Fosdick. In between were evangelicals like Charles Erdman who needed to decide whether to agree with conservatives and oppose liberals, or find a way to avoid controversy and work for the unity of the church, even to the point of keeping people who were not Calvinistic in the fold. Erdman never thought that his case for unity was controversial or contested. He thought Machen was extreme and temperamentally defective, and Erdman, an acknowledged evangelical, threw Machen under the bus. In so doing, Erdman made room in the Presbyterian Church for Machen’s enemies.
Blame it on the tri-perspectivalism, but Frame does not see that his notion of evangelical unity does not make room for Horton or other confessional Protestants who critique born-again Protestantism. Does Frame mean to embrace Osteen more than Horton? He may not. But if he doesn’t, why not write his own review of Osteen, instead of waiting to rip Horton’s critique?
John Frame is in denial about being a warrior. But at least he is correct about his family ties to Machen.
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Your thinking to hard. Think AG.
You’re not exercising all your gray matter. Consdier all those Central American Roman Catholics turning Pentecostal.
“In my view, many Christians (especially those in the conservative Reformed tradition that Horton and I both inhabit) use this sort of language far too loosely, even flippantly. It is time we learned that when we criticize someone for preaching “another gospel†we are doing nothing less than cursing him, damning him to Hell.â€
“Notice how far we have come. From “Christless Christianity†and “alternative gospel,†to “well on our way,†we are now exploring “subtle distortions and not-so-subtle distractions,†even “good things†that detract from Christ.â€
“As we have seen, this talk of “focus†or “emphasis†is very vague, so these kinds of charges are very difficult to prove. And given the radical nature of Horton’s charges (or at least his language) we ought to demand a rigorous case.â€
“If there are any actual statistics in this book, I must have missed them.â€
“But he never presents their raw data or presents a critical analysis of the arguments from which these people reached their conclusions.â€
“In the absence of serious argument, I default to my habitual skepticism toward critiques of evangelicalism by non-evangelicals.â€
“For what it is worth, my own perception of American evangelicalism is very different from Horton’s. My observation is anecdotal (just like his, in the final analysis), but based on around 55 years of adult observation in many different kinds of churches including the much maligned mega-churches.†<>
It would seem the Mr. Frame unwaveringly demands proof. In response, I would submit excerpts (sections 3 & 4) from the Second Church Study along with Recommendations for Action sent to Timothy.
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power…
(You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted)… evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived….Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.â€
(It is rather a shame that Timothy’s response to Apostolic Church Consultants has been lost. One can imagine his skepticism towards a study than doesn’t even quote primary sources or statistics. Surely, Timothy must have thought Paul to be an alarmist.)
Despite Paul’s lack of empirical evidence, I’m sure Mr. Frame doesn’t doubt the validity and weight of Paul’s warnings. Perhaps he has merely become distracted from them.
For forty-plus years I attended self-described conservative, Bible-believing, Evangelical churches (six different states) none (to my memory) of which ever seriously considered personally the warnings and instructions given by Paul to Timothy; they saw these warnings as largely against liberal mainline denominations. While the churches considered these warnings well-heeded, they (1) failed to preach the Gospel as clearly presented in Scripture; (2) did not properly administer baptism and the Lord’s Supper; (3) lacked all manner of church discipline; (4) perceived the Gospel to be for unbelievers only; (5) regularly, officially, and ignorantly engaged in various forms and degrees of legalism and self-righteousness; and, (not exhaustively) (6) arrogantly and condescendingly viewed themselves as better than the world because of their personal piety including their “decision to accept Jesusâ€. In these churches, the Gospel, as they perceived it, was included only as an appendage to the “service†after preaching “try harder†law; now (in most) even that deformed appendage has been removed and the law has become friendlier and therapeutic.
A lengthy study in Romans that for the first time properly revealed to me both Law and Gospel brought a Neo-like change in my perception of reality; the churches that I thought had been properly “observing all things†commanded had in fact been operating with their own “playbook†all along.
Yes, I know that my report is anecdotal, too. But my point is that my perception of my observations (now filtered through eyeglasses of sound teaching), in no way changed the reality within the churches I attended; it only made me aware of the true reality. The existence of what Paul was warning against was always there. But without sound teaching, my observations merely returned illusions of goodness. I didn’t need empirical studies; I needed sound teaching with illumination.
While there is no denying an appropriate time for studies (and anecdotal sources), do we really presume that they are needed to verify what we (should) know in Scripture to be true? Does Mr. Frame (or anyone else) presume that the *starting* point for arriving at truth in this matter is sources and studies which he personally might find convincing? Or did Dr. Horton simply provide observable occurrences (some anecdotal and some not) of what the Scriptures told us would be so common in the last days? We shouldn’t need the equivalent of a double-blind study to verify what God has already said to be true. If we don’t see the pandemic (see Calvin’s take on 2 Tim 3-4) that Paul warned us about, (especially when it’s pointed out in light of Scripture) shouldn’t we be asking ourselves “whyâ€? Armed with sound teaching, are we not to constantly examine teachers and their teachings to “see if these things are soâ€; not as a mob of self-righteous witch-hunters, but as dutiful heralds and guardians of the Gospel of Truth, defending and preserving its purity in a spirit of love and thanksgiving. The latter is what I see in Dr. Horton.)
I submit that Mr. Frame is simply barking up the wrong tree (Mike Horton). He might be better served to take up this issue with the CEO of Apostolic Church Consultants and its Founder.
John Frame’s negative review of Michael Horton’s book, Christless Christianity has engendered vehement discussions in evangelical circles. I just got around to reading the book this month (2-2010). Frame states, “This is something of a ‘bait and switch.’ Horton scares us to death with his brash title, telling us that we are headed for Hell. But then he backtracks. He says there is really no movement today that could be called ‘Christless Christianity.’ But there are some things going on that could lead the church that way.†Actually, I thought Horton was premature in claiming the church as a body had not arrived at a Christless Christianity considering the various examples he provided.
A major challenge is to place Horton’s warnings in the correct context.
Theologian Benjamin Breckinrigde Warfield (1851-1921) addressed the idea of
Christless Christianity in the early 1900s; see The Harvard Theological Review, v. pp. 423-473; also, The Works of Benjamin Brenkinrigde Warfield 10 vols., BakerBooks, 1932; in vol. III, Christology and Criticism, Warfield’s article “Christless Christianityâ€. Warfield was responding to an attempt to make Christ some vague person, which people could never really know the truth about because of what was termed as the unreliability of “truths of history.†Warfield explained that what was at stake was the very nature of Christianity or the essence of Christianity (p. 349). “The Christ Myth†by Professor Arthur Drews was published in the early 1900s and used as anti-Christian propaganda. Warfield tells us, “There is asserted here something more than that religion is independent of Jesus. That was being vigorously asserted by the adherents of the Monistenbund; and as for Drews, his ‘Christ Myth’—like the ‘Christianity of the New Testament’ of his master, von Hartmann, before it—was written, he tells us, precisely in the interests of religion, and seeks to sweep Jesus out of the way that men may be truly religious†(p. 316) (The Works of Benjamin Brenkinrigde Warfield 10 vols., 1932; in vol. III, Christology and Criticism, article “Christless Christianityâ€).
.
Warfield quotes German philosopher, Rudolf Eucken, comments about Christ, “’We can honor him…as a leader, a hero, a martyr; but we cannot directly bind ourselves to him, or root ourselves in him: we cannot unconditionally submit to him…’ Eucken thus quite purely carries on the tradition of a non-historical, which is, of course, also in the nature of the case a Christless Christianity†(p. 323).
“The question†says Warfield, “thus concerns not Christianity in its historical sense, but ‘our religion,’ ‘of to-day’; and it might perhaps be better phrased, not, Is Christ essential to the Christian faith? but, Is the so-called Christianity of today to which Christ is not essential still Christian?†(pp. 349-350, My Emphasis). This is Horton’s point!
In his book, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church, Michael Horton argues that the American church is on its way to a Christless Christianity by presenting a message which “moralize, minimize, and trivialize Christ in different ways†but does not raise to the point of heresy, says Horton (p. 24 Grand Rapids, BakerBooks 2009). However, whether one reads Warfield’s description of Christless Christianity (pp. 313-367) or Horton’s description of Christless Christianity (pp. 1-270), both are appropriate polemics against a flawed view of Christianity. Horton says “…many Christian Leaders are converting sin—a condition from which we cannot liberate ourselves—into dysfunction and salvation into recovery.†For example, Horton notes that Reformed preacher, Robert Schuller encourages people not to use terms like sin and justification but “shame and [low] self-esteem†become the fundamental issues in life that need to be addressed. He says evangelical leader, Rick Warren informed a national TV audience that Jesus came into the world to give us a “’do-over,’†like in golf. “I realize†says Horton, “that a lot of people who might gravitate toward a more therapeutic approach to life, including their faith, would nevertheless balk at the accusation of works-righteousness. 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….One may feel guilty, but no one actually is guilty before God.†Horton then rightly explains, “’How can I, a sinner, be right before a holy God?’†is simply off the radar in a therapeutic mind-set. Once the self is enthroned as the source, judge, and goal of all of life, the gospel need not be denied because it’s beside the point. But people need to see—for their own good—that self-realization, self-fulfillment, and self-help are all contemporary twists on an old heresy, which Paul indentified as works-righteousness†(pp.38-40).
Warfield appropriately ends his article on Christless Christianity with this quote, “’Christ is Christianity itself…without His name, person and work, there is no Christianity left. In a word, Christ does not point out the way to salvation; He is the Way itself’†(p. 367). “[T]here are people†says Lloyd-Jones, “that talk about Christianity without Christ…There is no Christianity without ‘the blood of Christ’….His atoning substitutionary sacrifice†(D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones God’s Ultimate Purpose, pp.17-18, 1978).
I know what you’re talking about. I’m dealing with the same thing currently… Thanks for sharing!
I’m a couple of years late on this, but the door was still open so I thought I’d leave a note, even though it looks like I missed the party.
From an outsider’s point of view, I didn’t think the review was as bad as all that — it seemed like an “inside job” in the good sense of the term. My take (perhaps naive) was that Horton was under some encouragement from his publisher to write another book. He picked a rather easy topic that could be tacked together quickly from his WHI material. He took potshots at some extremely easy targets (like Osteen), lining up with 60 Minutes and Good Morning America and every other big player in media. He gave the book a jazzy title, warranted or not. And then he shipped it off to the publisher.
Frame wanted to communicate that this was actually a serious topic being treated in a non-serious way, so he pulled out the stops and, it seemed to me, sought to “school” Horton but calling him to task: if Horton wants to address a serious topic from his privileged position with a big name, an audience, a ready publisher, and influence, he should take that endowment seriously rather than exploiting it a bit. Frame says as much in one of his interviews. “Come on, Mike,” he says, pick on someone your own size. Horton has many advantages — education, insights, resources, followers — and he used them a bit by turning out a quick book rather than a scholarly one.
I don’t know that that is wrong, but I thought Frame did. Maybe there is more history between the two than I know, but I thought Frame was making two points: one by the content of his review but another by the length and detail of the review.
CB, whenever Frame writes about Horton, it’s bad.
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