pilgrim people

The good Doctor RSC responds on the Heidelblog.

John Frame, the J.D. Trimble Chair of Systematic Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary and a former professor at Westminster Seminary California, has recently published a rather scathing review of his succesor Dr. Michael Horton's Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church. You can read it here in full length. In short, Frame says that, while he agrees with the book "about many things" and commends Horton for his "passion for the purity of the church and for the gospel," he must render a negative verdict upon it due to Horton's "defective theology" with which he measures the state of the American church. According to Frame, the state of American Christianity is not as bad as Horton makes it out to be. Moreover, Horton is not a good representative of Protestant or Reformed theology since his perspective is "narrow, factional, and sectarian" (no, I'm not making this stuff up).

White Horse Media has offered a response, which you can read here.

In Chapter 2 of The Gospel-Driven Life, Horton describes the problem to which the gospel is the solution, namely, sin. Titling the chapter, “The Real Crisis,” he explains that the crisis of our sin is far more disastrous than anything reported on CNN. The health care crisis, crisis in the Middle East, financial and educational crises, natural disasters – all of those things are terrible. Yet, none of them compare to the crisis of being under the wrath of a holy God who justly demands from his creatures a righteousness as good as his own.

The crisis of sin is so great that it “could be solved by nothing less than God’s becoming flesh, fulfilling the law and bearing the sentence for its violations in our place, which is the focus of all of Scripture. We may have problems in our marriage, child rearing, stress at work, low self-esteem, and worries about our health or the financial market. However, the ultimate crisis  facing us is summarized in Romans 1:18: ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.’” (39) We need to see this big picture, both in law, revealing the greatness of our sin, and in gospel, which tells us the good news that solves the problem. Only then do we get our living straight.

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Pilgrim People's recommended book for the month of October is Mike Horton's latest release on Baker, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World. I admit that, at first, I wasn’t all that interested in reading it (shhh, don’t tell him I said that). When I obtained my copy, I scanned the table of contents and thought, “Well, I know what he’s going to say in each of these chapters.” I mean, it isn’t as if Horton’s material is new to me. I have read every book (and I’m pretty sure every magazine and journal article) he has ever published. I have read his entire dissertation on Thomas Goodwin. I have probably heard every episode of the White Horse Inn since about ‘97 or ‘98. I studied under him at WSC from 2000-04. And I have the rare privilege of interacting with him on an almost weekly basis as a fellow minister and friend at Christ URC. So, one might cut me some slack for assuming that I already know where he is going in each of his chapters of Gospel-Driven and being tempted to leave it on the shelf and move on to other reading.

Well, now that I am about halfway through it, I realize that I was only partially correct in my assumption. Yes, Horton pretty much goes where I figured he would go in each of his chapters. He builds a case for the Gospel being the source for our sanctification, the fuel for driving the Christian life, and the wind in the sails that moves the boat across the water.

Now, if you have read/listened to Horton for any amount of time but you haven’t yet read Gospel-Driven, then I know what you may be thinking, because it is probably the same thing I was thinking when I received my copy: “What? A whole book on Horton’s analogy of the Gospel acting like wind in the sails of the Christian? I already know that, love that, and seek to live by that. What else is there to read?”

Think again.

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Here and here. Definitely worth reading.