‘Christless Christianity’

In this month’s edition of Modern Reformation, Michael Horton provides an excellent assessment of the Emerging Church, a movement he equates with ‘Christless Christianity.’ Brian McClaren, in effort to curb the problem of the lack of discipleship within the faith, has suggested that the church has erred in its interpretation of the New Testament, namely the Gospels, failing to see the centrality of the moral aspect of the message of the kingdom. He argues that the church has erred by reading the Sermon on the Mount through Paul, rather than Paul through the Sermon on the Mount. McClaren, together with other Emerging leaders, provides a potentially dangerous brand of Christianity that is not overtly obvious, as their language is wrapped in orthodox overtone, yet manipulated significantly with subtle nuance. Here, Horton has spoken with clarity through appeal to the centrality of Christ’s atoning work on behalf of sinners, over and against any movement that seeks to usurp this work by shifting the question of ‘What did Jesus do?’ to ‘What would Jesus do?’ Horton is refreshingly unapologetic in his assertion for a Christ-exalting, justification-centered Christianity:

The problem, of course, is that we have an outside God and an outside redemption. Everything inside of us is the problem. The good news, however, is that the God who is completely other than we are became one of us, yet without succumbing to our selfish pride. He fulfilled the law, bore its judgment, and rose again as our solution to the curse of sin, death, and condemnation. Furthermore, he sent his Spirit to indwell us, making us new from the inside out, until one day our very bodies are raised. In one sense, of course, the Enlightenment was right: the law is in us by nature, since we are created in God’s image. The gospel is surprising, good news that has to come to us from the outside. Everyone knows that we should treat others the way we would like to be treated ourselves: the Golden Rule does not by itself provoke martyrdom. It does not need witnesses and heralds. In fact, it did not require the incarnation, much less the atonement and resurrection.

There is hardly any ‘wiggle room’ when the Gospel is viewed in this light. Either man is rotten to the core and an enemy of God, helplessly in need of an ‘outside work’ for his redemption, or he is McClaren’s striver. If Christ is not a substitutionary sacrifice, then he is merely ‘a standard,’ no different than the laws and demands heralded by the Pharisees. Lack of discipleship is not due to a failure to look more inward toward an empty well of effort, but a failure to look more outward toward the unceasing fount of Christ’s resurrection and righteousness. Obedience is not “mustered up” from within, but created from without.

Horton continues, keeping the atoning work of Christ as central, in stark contrast to any attempt to dissolve him as a mere moral example:

The gospel for sinners is Christ’s death and resurrection; the gospel for disciples, however, is, “Get busy!” But this assumes that disciples are not sinners, too. There is not a single biblical verse that calls us to “live the gospel.” By definition, the gospel is not something that we can live. It is only something that we can hear and receive. It is good news, not good advice. The good news is that, “But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the Law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe,” since sinners “are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, received through faith” (Rom. 3:21-25).

It is precisely our inability to measure up to Christ’s command that necessitates our yielding to his provision, a point made all the more clear in contrast to the word’s of McClaren in A Generous Orthodoxy. Horton narrates,

In fact, McLaren writes, “I must add, though, that I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.” “I don’t hope all Jews or Hindus will become members of the Christian religion. But I do hope all who feel so called will become Jewish or Hindu followers of Jesus.” It is no wonder, then, that McLaren can say concerning liberal Protestants, “I applaud their desire to live out the meaning of the miracle stores even when they don’t believe the stories really happened as written.” After all, it’s deeds, not creeds that matter. McLaren seems to suggest that following Jesus (pure religion) can exist with or without explicit faith in Christ (ecclesiastical faith).

I do not know what McLaren meant by these words. I would like to think he is saying something other than what he has clearly written. However, regardless as to whether or not he is merely seeking to be provocative (an argument I have heard made on his behalf), such statements are overtly dangerous and grossly misleading. McLaren’s words, together with some other publications by the Emerging Church, are strikingly similar to the thread of liberal theology that has run throughout the course of Christianity. I believe, Horton rightly appeals to Niebuhr’s now timeless description of the liberal theology of his day as a proper summation of some of the growing trends in the liberal strand of the present age:

“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.”

The preaching of the Gospel that transforms the sinner from the outside through the life, death and resurrection of Christ alone is the proper response here. No doubt, the call of discipleship demands a whole obedience; however, not as old creatures adorning themselves in their best, but rather, new creatures presenting treasures not their own.

tdg