Email exchange on Michael Horton

From: W
Subject: Michael Horton

There is something I find offensive about this post by Michael Horton. He has a very narrow view of the topic and arrogantly/subtly suggests others are idiots if they believe otherwise. I'm not saying he is wrong about some of the way God speaks to us but it's what he infers by what he leaves out that shows his arrogance.

W.

http://www.challies.com/sponsored/does-god-talk-to-us-a-post-by-michael-horton

* * * * * * *
Response from Me:

Horton's style is to present cartoonish strawman examples and then slay them. It wouldn't have been beyond him in this post to have started it this way: "Some Christians think if they hang a crystal from their neck that it can become God and audibly talk to them."

Another major aspect of his approach is to make his own preferences the definition of orthodox. He's a buttoned down academic first, a Christian who believes in the supernatural second. He's more concerned with how his fellow academics see him than how true believing Christians see him. He fears the world more than he fears God, is another way of saying that.

He also has pioneered the, what I call, "It's not about you!" approach to the faith. To him the Christian faith is 100% objective, having nothing to do with us. God does everything. He carries this so far, and is so insistent with it, that it has become a real school of theology, or new approach; so even though he's otherwise Reformed and orthodox in a basic way he's also 'off' in this 'you do nothing, it's not about you' approach.

This all makes him very big on ritual and clerics as being the only true experience of the faith. "Lay" people are to sit in the pew and be passive. In this theology sheep don't become lions. - C.

A short remark from nothing me:

If Horton read this post he'd say, "Sheep becoming lions? Theology of glory!! You become a lion by being MORE of a sheep, if at all!! It's not about you!! You don't do anything!! Eat a cracker!! Drink some grape juice!! Listen to an ordained pastor read the Bible to you!! Who do you think you are?!? You are nothing!! It's not about you!!"

Who engages in wachfulness? Who loves his enemies? Who fights the world, the flesh, and the Devil? Who actively gets parts-in-relation-to-the-whole understanding of the Bible and biblical doctrine? I guess the pastor does all this for the sheep. Hence the pastor is God on earth. Hence we're into Romanism. Hence Horton's willingness to endorse books by Popes, but not books by non-Reformed Protestants. It all comes together.