Christless Christianity...Book Review

I just finished reading a great book to start off 2009 with and thought I would share some thoughts here. It is no small thing to take upon oneself the name Christian. This name was embraced by the earliest believers. The term nicely encapsulated what they sought to do, namely, to imitate their Lord and Savior. Sadly, in the centuries since then, the word has become far too ambiguous and now refers to any number of faiths that, in one way or another, honor or respect Christ or that have some historical connection to his teachings. In Christless Christianity Michael Horton argues that such denial of Christ could be taking place right here at home. More and more evangelical churches, he says, are now essentially Christless. “Aside from the packaging, there is nothing that cannot be found in most churches today that could not be satisfied by any number of secular programs and self-help groups.”

This is not to say that American evangelicalism has already reached a point of no turning back or that every church has rejected Christ. Horton states, “I am not arguing in this book that we have arrived at Christless Christianity, but that we are well on our way. … My concern is that we are getting dangerously close to the place in everyday American church life where the Bible is mined for ‘relevant’ quotes but is largely irrelevant on its own terms; God is used as a personal resource rather than known, worshiped and trusted; Jesus Christ is a coach with a good game plan for our victory rather than a Savior who has already achieved it for us; salvation is more a matter of having our best life now than being saved from God’s judgment by God himself; and the Holy Spirit is an electrical outlet we can plug into for the power we need to be all that we can be.” What a statement. How many sermons have we heard where scripture is just flung here and there as quotes to back up the topic at hand. How many times have we heard those alter calls to just "try Jesus" and see if our lives get better.Jesus has become a supplement instead of an instrument to the church. As the church has focused on “deeds, not creeds” she has become increasingly irrelevant and unfaithful. Church has become another way for Americans to live out their American dream.

Says Horton, “My argument in this book is not that evangelicalism is becoming theologically liberal but that it is becoming theologically vacuous. … We come to church, it seems, less to be transformed by the Good News than to celebrate our own transformation and to receive fresh marching orders for transforming ourselves and our world. … Just as you don’t really need Jesus Christ in order to have T-shirts and coffee mugs, it is unclear to me why he is necessary for most of the things I hear a lot of pastors and Christians talking about in church these days.” Oh how true this is. So much of what goes for as preaching today is nothing short of self help and motivational speak. Most pastor's don't bother expositing the Word of God, much to the demise and weakening of the flock. They offer this kind of working theology: God created the world; God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions; The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself; God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when needed to resolve a problem; Good people go to heaven when they die. Stop to consider much of the teaching you might find on your television on a Sunday morning and you’ll see how apt a description this is. This is straight from the pulpits of Joel Olsteen and other smooth talking preachers. Horton continues to say “When looking for ultimate answers, we turn within ourselves, trusting our own experience rather than looking outside ourselves to God’s external Word.” This is where the Osteen’s of the world are so skilled as they simply reflect and direct human wisdom back at humans all the while pretending as if they gathered this wisdom from the Word of God. He shows that such preachers, while appearing to perhaps teach a kind of freedom from the law, actually do the opposite, burdening people with a new kind of legalism. “One could easily come away from this type of message concluding that we are not saved by Christ’s objective work for us but by our personal relationship with Jesus through a series of works that we perform to secure his favor and blessing. We find ourselves so many times saying what would Jesus do instead of talking about what has Jesus done.

“A genuinely evangelical church," Horton says, "will be an evangelistic church: a place where the gospel is delivered through Word and sacrament and a people who witness to it in the world.” He's calling for the church to stop from trying to fix all of the world’s ills and to simply return to the basics. “The church as people—scattered as salt and light through the week—has many different callings, but the church as place (gathered publicly by God’s summons each Lord’s Day) has one calling: to deliver (and receive) Christ through preaching and sacrament.” Of course Christians, the church as people, should pursue justice and peace, but this ought to be done through common grace institutions along side non-Christians rather than through the church as a place. The church needs to get its own house in order.

A most powerful saying is that if Satan were to take over a town, that town's bars would all close, all the pornography would shut down, crime would be non-existant and everyone would be walking around with nice and neat smiles on their faces attending churches every week where CHRIST IS NOT PREACHED! Nothing would probably satisfy him more.

Finally, one of my favorite quotes and themes in this book is “It is not heresy as much as silliness that is killing us softly.” This is where the book may be most useful for the conservative Christians who are the audience most likely to read it. All of us can fall into silliness without tossing aside the gospel. Some of the programs I've seen at churches can testify to this. We can hold fast to Christian theology, even while allowing silliness to pervade the very fabric of our church. A once-serious institution can become overrun by programs and purposes that slowly erode the gravity and simplicity of the church’s unique calling. This book is a call for the church to return to its biblical foundations and to remain true to those convictions. It was a blessing to read for the start of the year and I highly recommend.