The title of this book is alarming, certainly by design. But the subtitle is even more so. Does it mean that the whole American church (all traditions, denominations, locations) is committed to an “alternative Gospel?” Or is it that, though part of the American church upholds the true, biblical gospel, there is within that church a movement (evidently a significant movement) to the contrary?Read the rest of Frame’s review here.
We should keep in mind that such language makes the most serious indictments. To be Christless is to be doomed to Hell (John 3:36). And if someone preaches an “alternative gospel,” contrary to the gospel preached by the apostle Paul, he is to be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9). People who preach “another gospel” are not Christian friends who happen to disagree with us on this or that matter. Rather, they have betrayed Christ himself. The whole church ought to rise up against such persons and declare that they are not part of the body of Christ and that they have no part in the blessings of salvation. Indeed, if they do not repent, they have no future except eternal punishment.
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.
But Horton actually indicates to his readers that these charges are not to be taken seriously. So Horton backs away from the serious language of his title:
“Before I launch this protest, I should carefully state up front what I am not saying. First, I acknowledge that there are many churches, pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and distinguished Christian laypeople around the world, proclaiming Christ and fulfilling their vocations with integrity. (20)”
So evidently “Christless Christianity” is not the gospel of the American church. Many of its members are assuredly not Christless. Further,
“Second, I am not arguing in this book that we have arrived at Christless Christianity but that we are well on our way. (20)”
Whew! Evidently Christless Christianity is not yet the gospel of the American church, though we are on our way to adopting it.
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, says he didn’t really mean it.
Since Horton spends a great part of this book telling us that we have lost seriousness about the issues of God’s law and gospel, we should hold him also to a high standard of seriousness. To say that we are under God’s curse, and then to turn around and say, “well, not really,” is not to meet such a standard. We might conclude that Horton is not joking here about holy things, but he is “well on his way.”
Further, in the same way that the church has wrestled with its understanding of Christ and the Scripture through creeds, commentaries, systematic theologies, and the like, so also the church has developed ways to do its worship. These include structural forms, written prayers, hymns, rules for preaching, the church year, the lectionary, and numerous symbolic ceremonies. Interestingly, in the early church these resources were being developed at the same time that creedal statements were coming into being. Yet, we evangelicals who affirm the Nicene and Chalcedon creeds and boast that we remain faithful to their intent are profoundly neglectful of the liturgical forms and theological perception of worship shaped by some of the same Church Fathers. Specifically we need to recognize that those who have gone before us, those who have wrestled the meaning and interpretation of the faith in creeds and liturgy, were women and men of faith. To accept the creeds, on the one hand, and reject the liturgies by inattention that often expresses itself in disdain, on the other, is contradictory and unwise. For orthodoxy was primarily given shape in the liturgy, and the creeds were originally part of the larger liturgical witness. We recognize that the early church was unusually gifted with the spiritual leadership of Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. Yet we neglect to study the worship of the church which reflects their faithfulness to Christ and the orthodox tradition.
Robert Webber, “An Evangelical and Catholic Methodology”
Who Said This? Answer: Johnny C.
Since the blood of Christ is not corrupted by any decay but flows continually in unadulterated purity, it will suffice us to the end of the world… Christ who rose from the dead to give us life pours His own life into us. This is the continual consecration of His life that the blood of Christ is continually being shed before the face of the Father to spread over heaven and earth… Christ so rose from the dead that His death was not abolished but keeps its eternal power, as if he had said, that God raise up His Son in such a way that His blood once shed in death has power to ratify the eternal covenant after His resurrection, and brings forth its fruit as though it were always flowing.Guess Who
Yep, this is straight from the pen of one Mr. John Calvin. Quoted in: Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation by Gerrit Dawson, Chapter 6. The chapter is worth a read. I haven’t read the rest of the book.
No greater gift could God have given to men than in making His Word, by which He created all things, their Head, and joining them to Him as His members: that the Son of God might become also the Son of man, one God with the Father, one Man with men; so that when we speak to God in prayer for mercy, we do not separate the Son from Him; and when the Body of the Son prays, it separates not its Head from itself: and it is one Saviour of His body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who both prays for us, and prays in us, and is prayed to by us. He prays for us, as our Priest; He prays in us, as our Head; He is prayed to by us, as our God. Let us therefore recognize in Him our words, and His words in us.St. Augustine, Commentary on Ps. 86
Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition by Andrew Purves
Andrew Purves, Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition is a helpful volume that successfully demonstrates that across the vicissitudes of history and the developing landscape of Christian theology from the early church on there has been a consistent, if contextually varied tradition of concerns and loci in pastoral theology. What I found most helpful about the book was its practical emphasis. Purves is concerned first and foremost not with academic questions about manuscripts or the theological minutiae of historical debates, but with the broad contours of the thinking and teaching of such leading lights as Gregory of Nazianzus and Martin Bucer on the calling and vocation of the Christian minister. Further, Purves has a zeal to translate that which seems historically distant or idiosyncratic into modern categories for the sake of training better ministers to serve Christ’s Church. Continue Reading…
Two great quotes from a very helpful article
The early Eucharist was a time of rejoicing in the risen Christ, and was experienced as a communion both with Christ in the foretaste of the messianic banquet, and with one another. The celebration of the Eucharist today should express this same rejoicing. Instead, it continues to be the most private and individualistic event in the worship of many congregations of the Reformed tradition. The Eucharist should carry the praise of a celebration of resurrection glory, with the music being more closely related to wedding music than to funeral music. After all, this banquet is a foretaste of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Too often it focuses on Good Friday and is funereal. As one of our people has said, many worship leaders, even musicians, though they use the words of the new liturgies, can find ways to make the most celebrative of liturgies another “funeral for Jesus.”
And, all the Reformed denominations have either already moved to, or are considering moving to, the communing of all baptized persons, even the youngest of children, “right upon their baptism,” as stated in the Hussite church of the fifteenth century (see endnote 3), thus returning to the early church pattern, a pattern never dropped by the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Recapturing the Liturgical Essence of the Reformed Tradition
How I wish that last quote were true in the conservative branches.
Christians in late antiquity lived in a cultural universe richly populated with invisible realities–a world in which symbol and ritual were not the counterfeit of reality but rather the privileged means to access reality. It is often stated that this worldview rested upon a Platonic theory of knowledge and being. This is true, but it is also somewhat like saying that contemporary individuals are Freudians when they employ concepts like “superego” or “unconscious motivation.” Such an attitude toward the world is not so much orthodox Freudianism as part of the cultural air one breathes.
John F. Baldovin, “The Empire Baptized” in The Oxford History of Christian Worship, pg 90
James Jordan, in his Primeval Saints: Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis
This five-fold rhythm characterizes all work, God’s and ours. To make a meal I must take hold of the ingredients (both collecting them physically and naming them and their relationship to one another via the recipe), restructure them according to the recipe (whether chopping, basting, boiling, etc.), then I will distribute the food (either I will keep my food for myself or give it away to someone else, or even perhaps sell it as a way of exchanging my work for someone else’s), then either I myself or the person to whom I give the food will evaluate it at first bite (perhaps announcing their judgment of it, whether good or bad, or perhaps not announcing it), and then I/we will enjoy it by consuming the whole portion.
Economics, then is the “distribution” part of this equation: I choose to trade some of my work for the work of others (currency being the symbol that signifies work done and entitles me to then go out and select what type of work I would like to benefit from in return for my own—e.g., I get my paycheck in exchange for my work, then I go to the grocer’s and buy vegetables and beef, deciding that this portion of my work will be traded for the work of the vegetable farmer who planted, cultivated, and picked the vegetables and for the work of the farmer and butcher who raised, slaughtered, and butchered the cow).
“It may seem, on the face of it, that little is lost and much is gained if the embarrassing truth about hell is allowed to suffer from a little benign neglect in the church…What is not always understood, however, is that whatever appeal this kind of polite and civil Christianity may have, it is an appeal that is passing and empty. A God who is without wrath is a God whose Christ has no cross, and if he has no cross, it can only be because we are thought to have no need of his cross…[I]n the end what remains is a faith remade in the likeness of fallen human life, which, in consequence, has lost truth and reality. Not only so, but it will also have lost its hope entirely. For Christian hope rests upon the fact not that evil can be ignored, or that it will simply fade away, but that it has been judged at the cross. There is a day coming, therefore, when truth is going to be put forever upon the throne and error forever on the scaffold.”
David Wells, Foreward to Hell on Trial by Robert Peterson. Emphasis added.
In my meditation on the loss of my daughter I referred to her death as “senseless.” It occurred to me at the time that while no one would likely say anything given the personal nature of what I was writing about, many reformed Christians might take issue with such a statement, thinking that it somehow impinged on the view that God is sovereign. I disagree. There are things in this world that are senseless. That is not to say meaningless (in the ultimate sense), for surely the death of my daughter has profound meaning, but it is nevertheless senseless.
The reason I believe this is the case is because my daughter’s death was evil. In fact death itself is evil. God uses death; it is the curse on mankind for sin and indeed at times it is meted out as judgment. Nevertheless, death, particularly the death of persons (who are made in the image of God) is evil. This is a profound mystery. Somehow God allows death, and even ordains the deaths of His saints while at the same time hating death and vowing to destroy it.
But to return to the point, death, as a manifestation of evil is senseless. My dictionary defines senseless as a) “without discernible meaning or purpose” and b) “lacking common sense; wildly foolish.” Both of these apply in a limited sense to the death of my daughter. There is no discernible purpose for her death. It does little good to point out that God has a reason. I’m sure He does but it is one of the secret things that belong to Him. I am a man and I am called to think as a man. That means that I am not expected to sit back and coolly reflect on my daughter’s death as an event that has a purpose (though indiscernible to me). Rather, I am to experience it in all the fullness of what it means to be human. Jesus did not reflectively quip from the cross, “Father, I know that all things have a purpose in your sovereign plan.” He screamed, “Father, Why have you forsaken me?”
Further, to take up the second definition, “lacking common sense; wildly foolish,” I find that this fits as well. What is more foolish than evil. If we balk at this perhaps it betrays a tacit belief that God is the author of evil, or at least some evil (like natural catastrophes or the death of infants, that are clearly not the fault of a particular person or persons) inasmuch as we view calling these things foolish as an implicit criticism of God. But God agrees that death is wildly foolish. It is the foolish evil that results from foolishness and one day God will expose it for the foolishness that it is when he destroys it along with pain and suffering and wickedness. Further, the death of a newborn saint surely lacks common sense. Common sense, which is part of the image of God–our common ability to judge what is fitting and appropriate in any given situation–tells us that babies are not supposed to die in their mothers’ arms. Common sense tells us that we are meant for life and fellowship and relationship with God. This is why it is the fool who says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’
So this is why the death of my daughter and so many tragedies like it are senseless. First, because we are humans and we are called to assess things from a human standpoint (using the wisdom and insight God has provided in His word to be sure), and from a human standpoint there is no discernible purpose or reason that I watched my daughter die. And second, because it was a result of the foolishness of evil that turns all things on their heads and rejects what is sensible favoring senseless opposition to God and all that is good. Were it not for evil and its intrusion into God’s good creation, my daughter would be with me right now and we would be in the presence of God himself.
Finally, I found some help in thinking through this in Chris Wright’s recent book “The God I Don’t Understand“ which I think is worth quoting at length:
Evil Makes “No Sense”
It is a fundamental human drive to understand things. The creation narrative shows that we have been put into our created environment to master and subdue it, which implies gaining understanding of it. To be human is to be charged with ruling creation, and that demands ever-growing breadth and depth of understanding the created reality that surrounds us. The simple picture in Genesis 2 of the primal human naming of the rest of the animals is an indication of this exercise of rational recognition and classification. Our rationality is in itself a dimension of being made in the image of God. We were created to think! We just have to investigate, understand explain; it is a quintessentially human trait that manifests itself from our earliest months of life.
So then to understand things means to integrate them into their proper place in the universe, to provide a justified, legitimate, and truthful place within creation for everthing we encounter. We instinctively seek to establish order, to make sense, to find reasons and purposes, to validate things and thus explain them. As human beings made in God’s image for this very purpose, we have an innate drive, an insatiable desire, and an almost infinite ability to organize and order the world in the process of understanding it.
Thus, true to form, when we encounter this phenomenon of evil, we struggle to apply to it all the rational skill– philosophical, practical, and problem-solving–that we so profusely and successfully deploy on everything else. We are driven to try to understand and explain evil. But it doesn’t work. Why not?
God with his infinite perspective, and for reasons known only to himself, knows that we finite human beings cannot, indeed must not, “make sense” of evil. For the final truth is that evil does not make sense. “Sense” is part of our rationality that in itself is part of God’s good creation and God’s image in us. So evil can have no sense, since sense itself is a good thing.
Evil has no proper place within creation. It has no validity, no truth, no integrity. It does not intrinsically belong to the creation as God originally made it nor will it belong to creation as God will ultimately redeem it. It cannot and must not be integrated into the universe as a rational, legitimated, justified part of reality. Evil is not there to be understood, but to be resisted and ultimately expelled. Evil was and remains an intruder, an alien presence that has made itself almost (but not finally) inextricably “at home.” Evil is beyond our understanding because it is not part of the ultimate reality that God in his perfect wisdom and utter truthfulness intends us to understand. So God has withheld its secrets from his own revelation and our research.
Personally, I have come to accept this as a providentially good thing. Indeed, as I have wrestled with this thought about evil, it brings a certain degree of relief. And I think it carries the implication that whenever we are confronted with something utterly and dreadfully evil, appallingly wicked, or just plain tragic, we should resist the temptation that is wrapped up in the cry, “Where’s the sense in that?” It’s not that we getno answer. We get silence. And that silence is the answer to our question. There is no sense. And that is a good thing too.
Can I understand that ?
No.
Do I want to understand that?
Probably not, if God has decided it is better that I don’t.
So I am willing to live with the understanding that the God I don’t understand has chosen not to explain the origin of evil, but rather wants to concentrate my attention on what he has done to defeat and destroy it.
Now this may seem a lame response to evil. Are we merely to gag our desperate questions, accept that it’s a mystery, and shut up? Surely we do far more than that? Yes indeed.
We grieve.
We weep.
We lament.
We protest.
We scream in pain and anger.
We cry out, “How long must this kind of thing go on?”
And that brings us to our second major biblical response. For when we do such things, the Bible says to us, “That’s OK. Go right ahead. And here are some words that you may like to use when you feel that way.” But for that, we must turn to our next chapter.
