Beyond Culture Wars

Rating:
Summary: convicting, balanced, insightful
Review: Although I read 50-100 books a year, this is one of the strongest books I've read in recent years. Rather than trying to "prove" the case, I want to list some information about the book, then some quotes from it, and let you decide for yourself. I do think, however, that it is a balanced book. It doesn't say "don't get involved in 'worldly' disputes," but "don't lose the church's focus from Christ to politics or other secondary issues."

Thesis: Modern Christendom's fascination with politics (public morality), pop-psychology, and marketing-secular methods-comes at the expense of orthodoxy, spirituality, and our witness. The church needs to return to the Gospel and doctrine, to deal with our own sins first, to look at the church before we condemn the culture.

According to Horton, the book was written because: "The church is no longer pursuing its authentic mission, generally speaking, and ministers are supposed to ring the bell when that happens."

Politically, we have become "one more minority group demanding its rights." Spiritually, "we have made it clear that we do not stand in the tradition founded by our Lord, the 'friend of sinners.' " Culturally, our hostile rhetoric has brought us to the point that "our involvement is purely negative."

Horton identifies as his thesis: "Theology, not morality, is the first business on the church's agenda of reform, and the church, not society, is the first target of divine criticism."

Quotes:
--Have we made a compelling case? Are the pagans even aware of what they are rejecting? What separates evangelicals from the world today very often is not doctrine . . . but style, extrabiblical codes of behavior, lingo, and in-house spirituality.

--If "Judeo-Christian" means not handing out condoms, it is reduced to the trivial and, ironically, anything meaningful it may have to say about condom distribution is disregarded because it is not taken seriously. Christianity is a religion, a theological confession first and a moral system only secondarily.

--It is time for judgment to begin in God's house and God's invitation to peace and forgiveness to be extended to the world. As it is, the order is reversed. . . . We must put our own houses in order, so that the offense is in the message and not in the messengers.

--We ought not to be surprised that everything is being questioned in the realm of morality, since there is no longer any theological infrastructure undergirding it. Liberals attacked orthodox theology, while conservatives largely ignored it, so what more could we expect? This generation is simply riding on fumes. We cannot expect people to accept Christian morality if they are not at least intellectually persuaded by Christian truth.

--Those who do not know what it is that shapes the worldview of their time and place will not be able to resist its lies.

--We are offensive for all the wrong reasons while we remove the offense of the cross. Those who are committed to immoral lifestyles will not give us a hearing for the Gospel-not because of the Gospel itself, but because we have made it clear that we do not stand in the tradition founded by our Lord, the "friend of sinners."

--The glory has left the church because the Gospel has left the church-or has been dismissed. It is not because God has been "ejected" from the public schools, but because His name, His kingdom, His power, and His glory have been replaced with our own agendas, priorities, goals, and self-glorifying interests in the church.

--We cannot preach that Americans are basically good people who need a moral environment, that self-esteem and self-fulfillment are legitimate Christian obsessions, and a host of other modern heresies and then condemn "secularism."

--We must recover the art of persuasion. The reason that America is so secularized today is not because of public policy, but because of public belief. We must win arguments, not just cases. We must be willing and ready to give an answer as never before, and this means we will have to become better listeners-humbler and more (dare I use this much-abused term?) tolerant of other people's points of view. We do not have to agree, but we do have to understand; otherwise, there can be no persuasion.

--Ironically, we rail against religious pluralism while we push for prayer in the schools, no matter the religion or object of faith . . . evangelical Christianity has just become one more voting bloc asserting its political rights, along with other special interest groups. Unlike the early Christians, who grounded their mission in specific truth claims, we argue for dominance on the basis of (a) seniority (i.e., the precedent of the founding fathers) and (b) pragmatism (i.e., the moral and civic usefulness of Christian morality). . . . We should follow the example of those first Christians by arguing our case, not as a program of moral improvement or national salvation, but as the truth about God and humanity.

Rating:
Summary: Some good points, but a flawed presupposition
Review: Horton has gained a well-earned reputation as a Christian critic of modern evangelicalism. There is much in the modern milieu that needs correction, and Horton and his Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals have thankfully taken evangelicalism back out to the wood-house many times. However, in this book Horton embraces a very Lutheran cultural view, classified in the preface as Niebuhr's "Christ and Culture in Paradox" view. He relegates cultural activity to the realm of natural law, and limits special revelation (Scripture) to "spiritual" matters. For a better look at this issue, see Kuyper's "Lectures on Calvinism" or Hegeman's "Plowing in Hope."

Rating:
Summary: Rx: Aristotle
Review: I picked this book out of my father's library while visiting my mother last week and was surprised to find myself so interested, not just in what my father was reading in the last years of his life, but in the content of the book itself. The author, Michael S. Horton, heads an organization called CURE -- Christians United for Reformation.
This book is not about homosexuality, per se, but hardly any popular work of Christian thought these days can avoid a gratuitous judgment, and Michael S. Horton contributes a declaration that homosexuality is "abominable." I have no trouble at all with Michael S. Horton, or anyone else so inclined, declaring that homosexuality is abominable. But I am unhappy with Horton advocating that homosexuals be punished with four years at hard labor, as seen fit by the Revised Statutes of the people of Louisiana. On the other hand, I do find raisin and carrot salad abominable and think there ought to be a way of putting all those orange-lipped people at the Picadilly Cafeterias in a prison farm for four years. Yuk! But what really renews my sense of amazement is Horton's reminder that God Himself finds homosexuality to be abominable. Now, think about that a minute. How would God know? I mean, He's never supposed to have had sex. You can say He knows everything, but this kind of knowledge would be a bit voyeuristic, wouldn't it? Sort of the nasty God revealed by William Blake. (Yes, wags, I love carrot sticks!) To be fair, Michael S. Horton no doubt has an air-tight rejoinder to such a leaky mind as mine, but if so, he should have addressed homosexuality in a more substantive way, since he brought the subject up.
This leads me to the key weakness of the book. Michael S. Horton is guilty of the amateurism he himself criticizes. He follows John Calvin in declaring that one of the things that's so wrong with the world is that people stick their noses into places where they have no business. He emphasizes this. Michael S. Horton is supposed to be writing about Reformed theology. Bravo. He then comes out of left field with a declaration about the adverse consequences of the US national debt on the next generation, who will be burdened with a great liability. Here comes a doctor of absolute truth, medling in politics, a dimension of life that perpetually can be stated otherwise. Why not say that the next generation will get the great liability as well as the great ASSET of the national debt, the chief effect of which is to limit government, rebate some cash to those who pay most of the taxes, and help the rich get richer? It would take a while to explain what I mean about the national debt. My point is that Horton wallows in debatable subjects beyond his presumed expertise while scolding those who do likewise.
Nevertheless, I give this book a positive rating because it chides the Christian Right. The book does so on terms within it's own perspective, of course (i.e. the American God of the public square is a false "unknown god" of civic religion, not the true God of the Reformed theological faith.) ...