Uncle Ben's Book Blog: Michael Horton, Christless Christianity

This book provoked a horrendously long and embarrassingly silly response from John Frame (read at http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2009Horton.htm). One does not need to agree with all of Horton's views in order to agree with his thesis that American evangelicalism is in dire straits. Though he begins by dealing with such people as Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer, they are only the starting point for Horton's jeremiad. In Horton's view, and I agree, much of American evangelicalism is thinly veiled "feel good" works righteousness posing as the gospel.

I recommend the book, not so much for its critique of the state of our churches, but for its critique of the state of our own hearts. One did not need to agree with all of Luther's The Babylonian Captivity of the Church to see that one's own heart was often captive to Babylon. Likewise, you don't need to agree with all of Horton in order for his work to ask probing questions of your own heart, and set you to asking yourself how much the American "feel-good gospel" has tainted your own faith.