SRR 98 John Piper And The Fall of Sola Fide At The Last Judgment Part 1

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Justification by Faith Alone and the Battle Against False Teaching

The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing. It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. As opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.

Introducing the John Piper Controversy

All right, ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome you back to the podcast. This is Tim Shaughnessy and I'm here with Carlos Montijo. You are listening to Semper Reframanda Radio. All right. So, Carlos, we've got a big task ahead of us today.

Let's just go ahead and jump right into this. We are going to at least start tackling John Piper. Again, we've been talking about doing this episode for quite a while and looking at all the material. It looks like we're probably going to have to break this into at least two episodes, hopefully two.

We might have to push it to three episodes. We are going to be using your most recent article. The article is let me go ahead and pull it up right here.

It has a long name, so that you would have memorized it by now. No, it's when Protestants are on the side of Rome. John Piper, Final Salvation and the decline and fall of Sola Fide at the last day.

There you go. But I thought this article was very good. I want to commend you for your work. I know that it took almost a year to write this out. And for a lot of people, I think that this issue might feel like an old issue.

Like we've dealt with that. We're done with that. Let's move on. But we feel like there's a lot of people out there that still aren't seeing the problem. And we want to really dive into it. And so let me just go ahead and read this.

It is a fair and accurate representation of John Piper to say that he is teaching that only a faith which produces good works can justify a person. Which he says gets you into a position where God is 100 for you.

But that such faith is not enough to get you into heaven. So we are being completely fair and charitable to Piper when we ask people to explain why, according to his view, a faith which is a true and living faith that is made manifest by good works is not enough to get you into heaven.

Piper says in his famous sermon, which is still found on Desiring God's website. He says, quote, you don't get into heaven by faith alone. You get justified by faith alone. Now, does Piper think that you can be justified by a faith which produces no good works?

No, he emphatically and repeatedly denies that. So the faith which alone justifies you, in his view, is a faith which produces good works. That is the faith Piper is speaking of in the context of this quote.

And here I want to point out to all of our listeners and our critics that we're not taking them out of context. So our question is this, why isn't that faith enough to get you into heaven? Let's walk this out just a little bit more.

From Piper's position, we logically only have one of two options. The first option is that you can be justified through a faith which is a dead faith and produces no good works. Or secondly, you cannot get into heaven through a true and living faith alone, which does produce good works.

Again, we want to point out that Piper emphatically denies the first option and he emphatically affirms the second option. Now remember, we need to represent the man accurately and fairly, and his defenders need to represent us accurately and fairly too.

So we are not saying that a person can be justified by faith, which is a dead faith, and Piper is not saying that either. So his defenders need to stop citing James 2 to us and making this the argument as if we are pushing some sort of antinomian view.

Please keep in mind that logically, these are the only two conclusions from Piper's position. That we don't get into heaven by faith alone, but that we get justified by faith alone. Either the faith that he is speaking of is a faith that manifests itself in good works and is therefore a true and living faith, or it is not.

Once we recognize that Piper is speaking of a true and living faith which is made manifest by good works, because that's the only faith that justifies a person in his view, then the unavoidable conclusion becomes clear, that a true and living faith is not enough to get you into heaven.

So please tell me why the imputed righteousness of Christ through faith alone, which is a true and living faith that is made manifest by good works, is not enough to get us into heaven. What more do we need?

Should we side with the Judaizers and add circumcision? Should we side with Rome and add the sacraments and good works? Or should we side with John Piper and add fruits of faith and love and obedience and an inherent righteousness?

So that's where I want to start, and we're going to dig into your article here in just a minute, Carlos. But there's a couple of things that I want to just give our listeners for consideration. One, is Piper being clear?

We hear all the time that Piper's not being clear, that he's suddenly he's not clear. And I hope to address that in much more detail later on. But just ask yourself through the course of this, because we're going to be quoting Piper a lot, is Piper being clear?

The second thing that we are eventually going to address is, is Piper teaching the doctrine of vindication that is right in line with historic Reformed orthodoxy? We've heard that a lot, and we are going to address that.

The next thing that I want our listeners to get is, is Piper essentially teaching what James chapter 2 teaches? So we're going to get into that. Another question is, is Piper's teaching right in line with lordship salvation?

That's a big one that we hear all the time. And is Piper teaching about glorification when he talks about final salvation? So we are going to get into all of this. Carlos, let me ask you. Well, first of all, let me just say thank you for writing the article.

And let me ask you, are you ready to jump into this?

Let's do it.

The Instrumental Copula and Salvation by Grace Through Faith

Okay. So part one was published on 5 -27 -2018. And we recognize that this is almost, it's now over a year since this controversy erupted. And this article was published a couple of months ago. But Carlos, how did you want to do this?

Did you want to just go through the fatal flaws? Or did you want to start by talking about the last days of evangelicalism? And talk a little bit about the instrumental copula, as you put it in your article.

Yeah, we could talk about the major points of the articles. It was actually published on May 6th. But I updated it a little bit later to refine a few statements that I made. So we can start from the beginning.

So people understand, we are taking this very seriously. We are not just arbitrarily putting out articles and not really taking the time to plow through what Piper is actually saying, what he is trying to communicate.

And like you said, it took months to write this article. If I was doing this full time, it probably wouldn't have taken me nearly that long. But having kids and a full time job and things like that, obviously it was a struggle.

And it was very difficult to finally finish the article. And I'm glad that it's finally done. So for those of you who haven't read it, I do hope that you get the chance to read it. Obviously as the controversy has ensued, there's been a polarizing of sides.

And I think it's probably accurate to say that we are on the far end of the other side of this issue in terms of how wrong we think Piper is about what he's saying. And so sort of on our side would also be R. Scott Clark, a few others as well.

The Trinity Foundation, Tim Coffman, they're more on our side. And then on the other side of the divide you have people like obviously Piper and Mark Jones who is one of, if not, Piper's biggest defender.

So when we go through the article, after dealing with the article, I do want to deal with some of what Mark Jones has written in an effort to defend Piper. So I say we just dive right in. What do you say, Tim?

Yeah, let's go ahead and do that. Let's start with, I really, really liked the way that you talked about Faith as the instrumental copula. And if you, one of the things that we've been pointing out is that Faith is not a condition that we meet, but it is the means by which we appropriate the righteousness of Christ.

And so I thought you did a really good job on the instrumental copula. I've never heard it explained like this before. It was really helpful to me to read this. So why don't you start there?

You know what? Yeah, that's a good point. And I think I'd like to give a little bit of a background as to how this all got started. Because as I've been thinking about things and developing my understanding of the issue, the way this all kind of got started was Piper in, I think, last September put out an article on his blog, Does God Really Save Us By Faith Alone?

Or something like that. And we were on the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network at the time. And so you initially published an article, right, by yourself, I think, critiquing Piper. Or I don't remember if you got Tim Kaufman to follow up with you afterwards on the first article, or you wrote another one with him.

The first article was co-authored with me and Tim, because I wanted to quote him. And so I just asked him to help write the article. And then there was a second article that was published just by him.

And then we combined the two articles and published it on the Trinity Foundation.

Right, so you responded fairly quickly to his article. And with me, I tend to get to stuff very late. It takes me much longer to get this stuff out, unfortunately. So that's why, like you said, that's why we're doing this a little bit after the fact, but it's not really over.

The controversy hasn't really been settled as far as I can tell. And Piper is still doubling down on his statement. So when we started talking about this, it created a lot of controversy. And it kind of polarized the network, the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network.

And so as we were talking about this with others in the network, we were kind of discovering things about Piper that just kind of along the way, as we were thinking about this stuff, that a lot of things came up that people hadn't really talked about.

And so I initially was just kind of sitting back, chilling in the spiritual cut, not really thinking I needed to get involved because you had already published that article with Kauffman. And Kauffman wrote an extensive article not too long after that, kind of surveying all of Piper's works going all the way back decades.

And I thought he did a pretty thorough job. I mean, the article was pretty thorough, and I thought the matter was pretty much whatever needed to be said was said. But then as we started to get more into this, and as Piper started to continue to publish articles and statements pertaining to this matter of final salvation, it really started to provoke me.

And I got so provoked by what was going on that I kind of just got out of my spiritual slothful, chilling back position, and I really felt compelled to just kind of start dealing with the issue. So when we were discussing this with people internally within the network, it really helped to kind of draw out a lot of the issues, what the issues actually were.

And so this article is basically, by and large, that process of me kind of working this stuff out myself, interacting with others about it, and learning more and more, and getting deeper and deeper into the situation.

So the article basically starts out with establishing that this is a primary issue. This is salvation. This is talking about justification. This is talking about salvation and not confusing it with sanctification.

So it's a vital primary doctrine. And the other point was that all of the Reformers were unanimously in agreement on this point. They unanimously were one in affirming this, as you can even see it from the confessions that were developed during the time of the Reformation.

Justification was something that was solidified and unanimously affirmed and understood. And so that is the question. How do you get right with God? That is the big question. And obviously the answer is justification by faith alone.

Sola Fide. That is the material cause of the Reformation. This is what the Reformation was all about. And going through this process really helped me to understand that on a whole deeper level that before I hadn't even grasped yet.

Like you had mentioned, as I was thinking through this, I was reading a lot of quotations from other Protestant theologians and pastors from church history, such as Charles Spurgeon. And Spurgeon is a very colorful writer.

He illustrates things very clearly with concrete examples. And reading him and some of these other Reformed historic classical authors kind of got me thinking about how to properly explain the relationship between faith and justification.

And the confessions do a very good job of that already. That has already been very clearly articulated in the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms and the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic, the Dutch Reform Standards.

Those are all very clearly articulated. And so the first major section of the article is called the instrumental copula. And that was the point of describing that faith is the instrumental cause or copula of justification.

What this means is that faith, the work of faith or the act of faith itself does not contribute anything at all to our justification whatsoever. And this is an extremely vital key point to understand because there was people in the network who were saying the opposite.

They were saying that faith does contribute to your justification, that faith is somehow a work that you have to do and it contributes to your justification, which was historically the Arminian position.

That was what Arminians historically believed and that was why the Canons of Dort were published and that's partly why the Arminians were condemned. Because the Reformed position was always that faith does not contribute to your justification.

It is only the instrument or the copula, to use a logical term, by which the work of Christ is applied to you. And so what I meant by the term copula is that when you talk about logical and logic, propositional logic, you have a subject, you have a predicate, and you have the copula.

The subject is the subject, just like in English grammar. The subject is the noun that you're talking about. The predicate is whatever describes the subject. And then you have a copula, which is the verb to be, is.

And that copula contributes no content, no description, no meaning whatsoever to the subject. The only function of the copula in propositional logic is to connect the predicate to the subject. And so I give an example in the article talking about the simple proposition, God is holy.

So in that proposition, holy is the predicate, God is the subject, is connects the predicate, holy, to God. That's all it does. It adds nothing whatsoever to the subject. So in like manner, faith itself does not add anything to justification.

It is merely the bridge or the copula by which the work of Christ is applied to our behalf forensically. And so there's a really good quote by Spurgeon as well. He touches on this. He says in his book, All of Grace, he says, Remember this, or you may fall into error by fixing in your mind so much upon the faith which is the channel of salvation, as to forget the grace which is the fountain and source even of faith itself.

Faith is the work of God's grace in us. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ, but by the Holy Ghost. No man cometh unto me, saith Jesus, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. So that faith which is coming to Christ is the result of divine drawing.

Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation, and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved through faith, but salvation is by grace.

Sound forth those words as the archangels trumpet. By grace are you saved. What glad tidings for the undeserving. So Spurgeon is right in line with this historic understanding of justification by faith alone.

That is the historic Protestant understanding of justification by faith. And later on, we're going to quote some of the catechisms to show that as well. So neither faith nor works contribute to our salvation, therefore, because faith is simply the instrumental cause.

I'm going to talk about works a little bit later. This is exactly what Ephesians 2 .8 -9 says. Ephesians 2 .8 -9 is very clear. It says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. That's inescapably clear. So there's obviously a difference of opinion as to what that and it refers to in verse 9. So there's differences of opinion, but I quoted Calvin and another commentator, his name is Harold Hohner, showing that that and it refers to the entire preceding section that the Apostle Paul was elaborating.

So it doesn't just refer to faith as some say, it refers to all three concepts of grace, saved, and faith. In other words, it refers to the entire concept of salvation by grace through faith. And Calvin himself concurred with this understanding.

He says, Paul's doctrine is overthrown unless the whole praise is rendered to God alone and to his mercy. And here we must advert to a very common error in the interpretation of this passage. Many persons restrict the word gift to faith alone, but Paul is only repeating, in other words, the former sentiment.

His meaning is not that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given to us by God, or that we obtain it by the gift of God. So salvation, in other words, is entirely by God's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone based on the ultimate authority of Scripture alone.

And this is exactly what the Reformation was about. It was about justification and the authority underlying the claim to how we are right with God, which was the Scriptures alone. And so this is extremely important because a lot of people will try to use the argument that Piper is talking about salvation in a broader, more general sense.

But we have to be very careful with that because the Bible does use the term saved, salvation, to refer to justification. So we have to keep that in mind. And so, go ahead, Tim.

Yeah, no, obviously this is going to be a lot of you unpacking the content of your article. So I don't want to take away from that. I do remember, I think Pastor Hines touched on some of the points that you touched on, and so I'd refer people back to his messages about this, that salvation and justification.

When Paul talks about justification, he's talking about salvation. I thought that was really, really helpful when he pointed that out. And I do remember that there was a lot of confusion just about what faith is.

And a lot of people thought that faith was a condition that we have to meet. And that's not a proper view of faith. Faith is not something that you have to meet. It's not a condition. And essentially, this is what Piper actually says about faith.

And so a lot of the stuff that you're talking about, I mean, already, I hope that if people are familiar with what Piper says, I hope that people are already seeing that Piper blatantly contradicts this stuff.

But let's press on. I want to get to the next section. Or did you have anything more that you wanted to add about the instrumental copula section?

Yeah, so before the end of the section, I talk a little bit about sanctification. And so this is a really important distinction that we have to keep in mind. Because good works contribute nothing to our salvation.

They are a result of our sanctification. That is why the Bible says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.

That's Philippians 2. 2 .12 -13. In other words, what this means is that Christians are primarily sanctified by God's word, not by our own works. Which is exactly what Jesus himself said. Sanctify them by your truth.

Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. That's John 7 .17 -19. So good works are the fruit, not the cause of sanctification.

We do have to make another distinction though. Because God does use certain works, such as the spiritual disciplines. Or another common term for it is the means of grace. Such as prayer, Bible reading and study, corporate fellowship and biblical preaching.

As secondary means of sanctification. And 1 Timothy 4 .7 reflects this because it says to exercise yourself unto or toward godliness. So there is a sense in which our works contribute to our sanctification.

But it doesn't contribute directly. It only contributes in a secondary or indirect manner. Because they are means by which we receive the word. And we've talked about this a little bit before already.

And so there's a really good quote by Luther that touches on this point. He says, Which do not make a man good but are done by a man who has been made good by his faith in the truth of God. So that's a quote from Luther in his work on the Babylonian captivity of the church.

So this is right in line with Reformation teaching. With the common Reformation understanding of these passages. And we're going to see how a lot of these key biblical passages that are bookend doctrines.

Are going to get distorted by people like Piper and those who defend him. And this is what's really important to keep in mind. Because a lot of those passages are a key component to how all of this ties into this controversy.

The Decline of Evangelicalism and Ecumenical Compromise

So now the next section deals with, it's called The Last Days of Evangelicalism. And this is where I kind of give a little bit of a state of affairs. Dealing with this issue of ecumenicism in the Protestant arena.

And it's a shame because the term Protestant, the term Evangelical has completely lost its meaning today. It used to mean, the term Evangelical used to mean to somebody who held to the material and formal principles of the Reformation.

Which was justification by faith alone and sola scriptura. That the Bible is the final rule of faith in life and doctrine. So this is something that is completely distorted in modern Evangelicalism. By several prominent Protestants and theologians such as, you have Bill Bright.

He's the guy from Campus Crusade. Pat Robertson, Richard Moe, J .I. Packer, Chuck Colson. All of these men signed Evangelicals and Catholics together. And this is the joint statement that affirms that Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ.

Which is plainly and patently false. The Roman Catholic Church does not hold to a biblical gospel. They deny the gospel because they believe that justification, that our works contribute to our justification.

And these men have, these are Protestants, these are well-known Protestant Evangelicals that have signed this statement. And another similar issue tied to this is, you know, leading Evangelicals like Albert Moeller.

Who is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. You have Brian Chappell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary. You even have Ligon Duncan, who is a Presbyterian minister and president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

And once again, Chuck Colson. And in both instances, Chuck Colson was a contributor to the statement. So, the second statement deals with the Manhattan Declaration. And all of the men that I listed, starting with Al Moeller, signed the Manhattan Declaration.

So, but what does this statement say? I mean, it can't be that controversial, right? I mean, if all of these men who are well-known Protestants, influential leaders, like how bad could it be, right?

Well, it can't be worse than the most recent document about race. What was that one called?

The statement on social justice?

Yeah, because Al Moeller didn't sign that one.

Yeah.

He did sign this other one. So, it can't be worse than this one, right?

Oh, right. I mean, that's a sad trajectory.

Trigger warning for you, because we still got to talk about the critical race stuff.

Yeah, don't get me started on that yet.

I'm just saying, like, it's surprising that Al Moeller signed it.

Unfortunately, it's a trajectory. And it's a trajectory among men like these, these intellectuals, these people who are in academia, to really compromise heavily with Rome. And the Manhattan Declaration is extremely ecumenical.

And I'll quote it word for word. So, it says, We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered to make the following declaration. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives, and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear His image.

So, it's saying, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Evangelicals are one in obedience to the one true God, when Catholics and Orthodox Christians do not hold to the same understanding of God that Evangelicals are supposed to hold to.

So, it's a flat compromise, it's a flat-out compromise, ecumenical wash-over of just how divergent those other false churches are. It's a complete denial of that.

Right. You just affirmed an entire system of belief that is completely anti-Christ and preaches a false and damnable gospel.

Sadly. You know, do you think Luther would ever sign this? Calvin?

Heck no.

Do you think any of these reformers would ever be caught dead, caught dead putting their name on something as utterly compromising as this? I mean, it's just astounding that these men call themselves Protestants and Evangelicals.

It's just astounding to me.

I think Luther would have railed against these men for their compromise, and he would have railed against Piper. And unfortunately, I think today we live in a society that's so civil that people get offended and get hurt when you say that you disagree about something so serious as this.

Yep.

And, I mean, a lot of people treat church as if it's a business, and we're trying to build partnerships. And some of those bridges, you just need to burn them. You just need to burn that bridge and warn people away from them.

And unfortunately, I think it's a product of the society that we live in today.

Sadly, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just insane. And it gets worse. It actually gets much worse.

You're like that infomercial, but wait, there's more.

Yeah, there's more. There's always more. And I dedicate some space to talking about Michael Horton because Michael Horton is an interesting case in this.

Michael Horton, Scott Hahn, and Protestant Compromise

You know, and I was going to ask you, I wanted you to talk about Michael Horton because I really wish that Michael Horton would actually come out and say something about it.

Yeah.

I wonder if Michael Horton agrees with Mark Jones because Mark Jones has actually quoted Michael Horton in his defense for Piper.

Yeah.

And, I mean, if he doesn't agree with Mark Jones, he should come out and say it. But I don't know. Maybe he does agree with him. I don't know. And I was actually going to send this article to Michael Horton, but you criticized him.

So then I was like, he's probably not going to want to read it.

You could send him part two, but it would be a little disingenuous.

Yeah, but hold on because at the beginning of part two, it says it has a link to part one. So I don't think that would work. But talk a little bit about the issue that you have with Michael Horton. Now, I know that a lot of people like Michael Horton.

I've honestly never read anything by Michael Horton. And I know that he's part of the White Horse Inn. I think he is. But you have taken issue with him. So I wanted you to explain that, talk a little bit about that.

Because it seems like he's a guy that would be on our side because a lot of people that have actually supported us really like Michael Horton.

Right.

So the people that are supporting us with this Piper issue, they like Michael Horton. Mark Jones is quoting Michael Horton favorably for his position. I don't think Michael Horton has come out and said anything publicly about this.

Maybe he will. But in light of the fact that it seems like both sides are kind of trying to bring him over. So it was almost like we want him on our side, but then you kind of just like put a slam on him.

So go ahead and talk about that.

Yeah. And frankly, I don't really care what side he falls on. Pastor Hines, he did mention in his podcast that he spoke to Horton. He corresponded with him and Horton said that he doesn't appreciate the way that people are misrepresenting him on this issue.

So this is really interesting because both sides are claiming him to some extent. And I criticize him heavily in the first part, but I actually quote him in agreement in the second part. And so he has articulated some things very well.

Other things haven't been maybe as clear. And he has, like you said, as far as I know, he has not come out and made a public statement about this issue. But anyway, the issue that I took with him pertains specifically to an endorsement that he made of Scott Hahn's book.

And this is just astounding to me because you have Michael Horton, a very well-respected, very well-respected Protestant, influential Protestant, written several books. And the state of affairs that we live in is so that this is becoming so commonplace now that it's astounding.

It's just people have seriously, this is a symptom of a much bigger problem of how badly we've forgotten our Reformation heritage and roots. And so you have influential Protestants like Michael Horton praising the work of, quote, important theologians like Pope Benedict XVI and Scott Hahn.

Scott Hahn, by the way, is a former Presbyterian who apostatized to Rome. And this is the endorsement that he said about Hahn, Hahn's book about the Pope of all people. It says, I quote Hahn, I mean, I'm sorry, I quote Horton.

In this remarkable book, which is called Covenant and Communion, the Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, Scott Hahn has drawn out the central themes of Benedict's teaching in a highly readable summary that includes not only the Pope's published works, but also his less accessible homilies and addresses.

This is an eminently useful guide for introducing the thought of an important theologian of our time. So you have to ask yourself the question, you know, why would somebody like Horton, who, by the way, is a United Reformed minister, a J .G. Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, California.

This is the supposed bastion of Reformed Orthodoxy, right? The OPC's bastion of Reformation theology. Horton has a ministry called the White Horse Inn for a modern Reformation, which was inspired supposedly by the historical inn where Protestants gathered for frequent and regular open discussions on key issues of Protestant theology and quote became the kindling fire for the larger English Reformation as a whole.

Why would somebody like Horton laud and celebrate the work of a Pope and Roman Catholic apologist? This is something we really have to ask ourselves, like why on earth would he do that?

Well, okay, so let me play a little bit of devil's advocate here. Was he really celebrating it?

Let's break this down a little bit. He wrote an article about this endorsement because he got criticism for it. So I have a footnote tied to this explaining what happened. So Horton says this, he said, and by the way, other Protestant scholars endorsed the book, the same book by Scott Hahn.

So this is just commonplace. But evidently what happened is that Logos Bible Software wanted to capitalize on Horton's endorsement by removing his supposed disagreement from the original, the full endorsement, which actually reads like this.

This is Horton's full endorsement. He says, even when one disagrees with some of his conclusions, Benedict's insights as well as his engagement with critical scholarship offer a wealth of reflection. In this remarkable book, Hahn has drawn out the central themes of Benedict's teaching in a highly readable summary, an eminently useful guide for introducing the thought of an important theologian of our time.

That was an article on his website, thewhitehorsein .org, called Horton on Hahn. Even his supposed disagreement, he says, the book offers a wealth of reflection. So this kind of vague nonsense is clearly a washed over ecumenical stamp of approval on a person who was a former Presbyterian minister that apostatized to Rome and the book is celebrating the Pope's theology.