Christless Christianity

The nonfiction title I'm reading right now is by one of my favorite (I know--I say that every time) theologians, Dr. Michael Horton. In Christless Christianity, Horton writes about his concern that the church today (Horton leaves no one out in his concern) has pushed aside Christ and a Christ-centered gospel, and as a result the church in America is headed toward a "Christless Christianity."

I've only finished one chapter so far, but nearly every paragraph is filled with thought-provoking ideas. This comes from chapter 1:

"Like the liberals of yesteryear, a growing number of evangelical leaders are fond of setting Jesus's teaching on the kingdom--especially the Sermon on the Mount--over against the more doctrinal emphasis found especially in Paul's epistles. Many celebrate this emphasis on Christ-as-example rather than Christ-as-Redeemer as the harbinger of a new kind of Christian, but is it really an old kind of moralist? Regardless of whether Christ's death is regarded as a vicarious sacrifice, discipleship--our cross-bearing--becomes the more interesting topic. Never mind the disciples are people who learn something before they set out to make a splash by their zealous activity . . . When the focus becomes 'What would Jesus do?' instead of 'What has Jesus done?' the labels no longer matter. Conservatives have been just as prone to focus on the former rather than the latter in recent decades" (pp. 25-26).

And the following is just a news item: you can read my first-ever published article at the Web site of Reformed Fellowship. It's actually a longer version of the book review I posted here last year on The Shack, a subject that I'm actually pretty tired of talking about. Nonetheless, it's nice to have a published article in the March issue of The Outlook.