Dr Michael Horton Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry.

This is Mike Abendroth. Yes, Dr. Michael Horton? Yes. Great. This is Mike Abendroth with No Compromise Radio.

I'm glad we got a hold of you. Welcome. Thank you, Mike. Glad to be with you. Well, for our listening audience today, we are talking to Dr.

Michael Horton, and he's written two books even in the last year, Christless Christianity and The Gospel -Driven

Life, both on Baker Books. And Dr. Horton, would you give us an overview why you wanted to write these books and why the church at large needed to listen to these books?

Well, my purpose in writing Christless Christianity was to analyze what

I was experiencing in my own anecdotal observations and conversations with many pastors across various denominational lines.

Why is it that our people seem so unhealthy and spiritually weak in their diet?

And they themselves say that they don't really know what they believe and why they believe it, and yet they're regularly involved in Christian activities and ministries and church life.

And so I wrote Christless Christianity as really the conclusion after this study, drawing on people like Christian Smith, the

Notre Dame sociologist, who after five years of study concluded that the dominant assumption in contemporary

American religion is what he called moralistic, therapeutic deism, and that even evangelical

Christians, he says, don't really get exposed regularly to a diet of traditional

Christian teaching. And so I wrote that book as an attempt to explore some of the reasons why we seem to have an anemic form of Christianity in America today, then the follow -up to that,

The Gospel -Driven Life, is a more positive, constructive, where -do -we -go -from -here kind of book.

And Dr. Horton, did you write The Gospel -Driven Life in response to critique saying that you were too negative in your diagnosis, or did you have these twin books, as it were, planned from the get -go?

They were planned from the get -go. I didn't want to just leave people at the critique.

You know, it's important that we understand where we are, but it's also important to show people hope, and say, look, this is not an inevitable fate, this is something that we have to correct.

We need a new Reformation. Absolutely. Well, online today we have Dr. Michael Horton from the White Horse Inn and from Westminster Seminary.

Dr. Horton, I used to listen to you when I lived in Los Angeles on KKLA in the early 90s.

Oh, yeah. And I was very happy that in the middle of Dr. Stoop, Minereth Meyer, John Jolliffe, that we had somebody actually teaching the

Bible on a Christian radio station. Imagine that. Yeah, that was our flagship station.

We went on KKLA first. Well, that is excellent. I think you've got something against life coaches, Dr. Horton.

Tell us a little bit about that. Oh, it's only in America.

Yeah, I think that, you know, for whatever reasons, I think a lot of it is just sort of a lot of people who have grown up without parents, or at least without extended family nearby, and they're raising children, and they're going through crises, and people are looking for anyone who is sort of an expert.

You know, we rely on experts for everything. And of course, there are important reasons to rely on experts for your physical health.

There are important reasons to rely on experts for your spiritual health. Why pastors are trained to exposit the

Scriptures clearly week after week. But there's an assumption here that, you know,

I don't want to really get into the doctrine. I don't really want to get into accountability to a church and to pastors and elders.

I really would like to just have some help and advice with my daily living.

And a lot of pastors have taken on that role. They've said, okay, that's what I'll be. I'll be your life coach.

I'll be the one who sort of gives you helpful hints from the Bible each week. I'll help you raise positive kids in a negative world.

I'll help you have your best life now. And basically, that means that they are going to turn the

Bible, which is principally the good news of what God has done in Christ, into a helpful collection of quotations that they can use for what is essentially their own philosophy of life.

People don't come to church or shouldn't come to church to hear my helpful hints on how to balance their checkbook.

I don't even keep the checkbook in our family. It would be a tragedy for our household finances if I were in charge of the checkbook.

Why do we think that pastors are suddenly experts on all of these practical matters that maybe

Dr. Laura could help us with, that maybe issues maybe that Dr.

Phil has a lot of good stuff to talk about. Does the

Bible really center on Jesus Christ, this unfolding story from Genesis to Revelation of God's saving purposes in Christ, or is it primarily a resource that I can use?

Is God primarily a resource I can use in order to get the job done that I want done today?

Well, you bring up such a great point, and in your first book you talked about—not your first book that you wrote, but in these twin books,

Christless Christianity—you talk about how people will preach, Jesus overcame his setbacks, and so can we.

And everything is just dumbed down to this moralistic, legalistic, as Rick Warren would say, you know,

Jesus had a do -over kind of thing, or came to give us a do -over. I think we want in our natural self, in our sinful self, we want moralism, don't we?

But we know there has to be an external good news. Tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. It is our natural setting, and we have to understand this about ourselves, even as Christians.

It is still our natural setting to fall back on trusting in ourselves, thinking that we are not dead and trespassed in sin, thinking that we are not—our wills are not bound naturally to sin, and thinking that we can really pull this off.

If you just give us the right technique, the right principles for living, the right program, and the right coaches, we can pull this off.

That is natural to us. That is not just American. That is the way we are wired, because God created us in the beginning for law, for love.

You know, the law is the summary of what it really means to love God and our neighbor. We weren't created sinful.

We weren't created in need for grace, and mercy, and forgiveness. We were created in righteousness and holiness.

But when we forget that the fall happened, and that we weren't just thrown off track a little bit, but that we became enemies of God, estranged from Him, and hostile in our minds and will and affections to Him and His purposes for our lives, then we really are in no position to understand why we need a

Redeemer. And so that's my great concern today.

It's very simple. My great concern today is that we recover an emphasis on who

God is. He's not our sugar daddy in the sky. He's not our grand therapist.

He's not—He's not there to make us happy and healthy and wealthy, although, of course, we do depend in body and soul on His goodness through His day.

God is there primarily to judge us and to justify us in His Son.

And once we understand who God is, we begin to realize that we're sinners. We're measured by God, not by our neighbor, but by God.

We're hopeless. There's nothing that we can do. Well, then we don't—I know

I'm interrupting you, Dr. Horton, but then we aren't really those beautiful people that Dr. Schuller would talk about now, are we? Yeah, exactly.

I mean, you know, we may be beautiful people to each other, sometimes at least.

Dr. Horton, I loved it when you used the Monty Python Holy Grail illustration in your newer book, page 118.

Tell us—you know, when I read your book, Putting Amazing Back into Grace, I know you've supped some from popular culture, and I like that because I do the same.

But do you remember the quote you used about the black death and they're being carried away to the morgue and some protest?

It's that scene where they're carrying away the dead, and there's someone who says,

I'm not dead yet. Really, I'm getting better. And that's how we are.

You know, that little Adam in us keeps thinking that he's going to be able to improve if he just has the right medicine.

Tell us, Dr. Horton, about that splendor of the Olympics Opening Ceremony illustration you used in your newer book, because I think that gives a good picture of what happens when we have

Adam as our federal representative and how he leads creation in a detour, as you would say.

Well, you know that great scene that we have every four years when there is the procession of the nations in the

Olympics, and behind each flag are the players representing each nation, and Adam was the flag -bearer for the whole human race.

So, he was the one created by God to represent all of us.

He was our representative head, and just as God created the world and then entered into his

Sabbath and Throne Month, God created Adam as his viceroy to imitate that procession, to follow him through six days, if you will, of labor and trial, successfully passing the test and winning the right, not only for himself but his posterity, to eat of the

Tree of Life. And unfortunately, Adam, instead of passing by the review and tipping his hat to the great king in the stands who created him and entering faithfully into his

Sabbath rest, Adam decided to take a detour and lead his own parade, and have his own

Olympics, and run his own race. And that's what we've been doing ever since. Dr.

Horton, as I was listening to you, I thought I was listening to The White Horse Inn for a moment, and I was just sitting back and enjoying that, and I forgot

I have to ask you another question. Let me ask you a few questions about things outside of the two books here.

For those of you just tuning in, my name is Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. We have a special guest today,

Dr. Michael Horton, who is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary.

Dr. Horton, tell me a little bit about—well, by the way, I have only two iPod downloads, and those are for The White Horse Inn and Sinclair Ferguson AM -PM

Preaching. Let me throw out some names for a speed round, if you will, and you give me just a quick update on what comes to your mind when

I say these names. Let's start with Sinclair Ferguson, Dr. Horton. Well, it couldn't be in better company than to be in his.

Sinclair Ferguson is just a wonderful gentleman and scholar and pastor, a gentle soul who really, for me, has been a model not only of sound teaching, but of the effect of sound teaching in forming the character and passion and concern of life.

He really is a remarkable example, I think, to Christians of the difference that truth makes in a person's life.

Absolutely. I think it would be better instead of me doing a speed round. Who do you have on your podcast, Dr. Horton? You know what?

This is going to—I do not actually own an iPod.

I'm one of those people who sort of lived in the dark ages when it comes to technology.

I'm still learning how to plug in my computer, so, you know, everyone in my life has an iPod.

I'm the only one who doesn't. Well, if it helps, you don't have to plug in iPods into the sockets. They just go into the computer.

How do you pick your guests for The White Horse Inn? Cain Rosenthal, our producer, is the genius behind the whole program.

He really—he and I talk about programs that we want to do. We talk about the theme that we want to have for the year and guests that we want to have on.

So he suggests some of the guests, I suggest others, and sometimes the other guys throw in suggestions as well, and then he tracks them down.

Good. Now, speaking of other guys, why does Rod like to say the word Schleiermacher so much?

Doesn't everybody? It's like sacerdotalism. It just rolls off the tongue.

It's just one of those beautiful words. You have to look it up, but yeah.

The more you learn about Schleiermacher, the less you'll want to refer to him. But the name itself is—it rolls off the tongue, as you say.

Dr. Horton, I was reading in your book when you talked about it's one thing to remove the pulpit. It's one thing to remove the

Lord's Supper table, but if you move the flag, you're in big trouble. Tell me about that. We've got about two minutes to go.

Yeah, boy. There are a lot of churches where it's sort of the American civil religion.

You don't necessarily have—if you say, for example, Ascension Day is next

Thursday, people will say, what? What are you talking about? That's an important day in the church's calendar, the day every week we remember, but especially we recall the

Ascension of our Lord. But boy, you know, the 4th of July and Memorial Day, those are celebrated in churches with great fanfare and pageantry, and along with the flag up front.

You know, you can move the pulpit off of the platform. You can move the baptismal font out of the way.

You can move the Lord's table out of the way and put up your praise band or your projector or whatever you want to do.

But boy, if you tell people, I'd like to take the American flag out of here because it doesn't belong up front, this is the place where God assembles his people from every tribe, kindred, tongue, people, and nation and makes them a priesthood, a kingdom of for himself.

That is very difficult to do because I really do think part of the problem for us today is that we're more

American than we are Christian. That's true. On our show today we've had Dr. Michael Horton, written two books in the last year,

Christless Christianity and The Gospel -Driven Life. I've read both of those very quickly because I just basically gobbled them up, excellent writing style, excellent truths.

I remember Wesley used to say to his people, you need to read four hours a day or get out of the ministry. I would have to say you need to read these two books today or you, if you're in ministry, should get out of the ministry.

Dr. Horton, thank you so much for being our guest today. I really appreciate it. Well, it was a delight to be with you, Mike. Take care.

God bless. Well, No Compromise Radio Ministry, this show will be up on podcast soon, nocompromiseradio .com.

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