Observations on Mike Horton’s Determination to Surrender Christianity — Part I

In a recent presentation on our favorite Christian heretic site that screams everyone else is a heretic, The Gospel Coalition, gives us an interview that includes the precious insights from a little-known “theologian” named Mike Horton.

I take some time here exposing Horton’s lack and my own frustration with Horton’s lack. Keep in mind that Horton is training young men for the Gospel ministry and that what he says here is going to in turn be said in pulpits all across America.

“Islam is not an external threat in the United State to Christianity but Christian Nationalism is a Christian heresy. It is, therefore, an internal threat both to the message and the witness of the Church.”

Mike Horton

1.) I dare Mike to come to Dearborn or Hamtramck Michigan and say that first part about Islam not being an external threat to the US.

2.) Are we to wait till Islam becomes an external threat to the US before we understand that as Americans and Christians Muslims are other than us and so should be restricted from coming here?

3.) Certainly, some forms of Christian Nationalism could well be a threat to the message and witness of the Church of Jesus Christ but to say in a blanket fashion that Christian Nationalism is by definition a threat to the Church is just bull fecal matter coming out of the mouth of a Christian heterdox.
4.) We should expect someone who touts the heresy of R2K to accuse orthodoxy (and Christian Nationalism practiced in a Biblical fashion is God’s model for social orders) of being heretical.

Horton also, in the “Christian Nationalism” podcast denounces the Crusaders for splitting the skulls of infidel while confessing “Christ is Lord,” saying that in that context the statement “Christ is Lord” is not faithful.

Horton thus shows, once again, that he is an idiot and knows nothing about History. The Crusades were a defensive war against a centuries-long unanswered Muslim offensive that had, by the power of the Scimitar, conquered and vanquished the Christian message, faith, and civilizations across the formerly Christian N. African Littoral, into Christian Europe, and across the formerly  Christian Middle-East. For Horton to suggest that it was wrong for the Crusaders to defend Christianity, the Gospel, and Christendom by splitting the skull of the infidel while chanting “Iesus Christus Dominus Est” demonstrates that Horton’s Christianity is a suicide pact. Maybe Horton would have preferred the Crusaders to chant “We love you and God loves you also.”

Horton here also violates the 5th commandment (as well as the 9th commandment) by running down his fathers in the Faith — the Crusaders.

As we move on in this interview we find this gem of an exchange;

Moderator: Let me ask a clarifying question, Mike. Would you say that Nationalism itself is a threat to the Gospel or only Christian Nationalism?
Horton: “If Nationalism is the idea that we have to be Americans more than anything else then yes it is a threat to Christianity. We are Christians more than anything else which means we are united not only here but with our brothers and sisters around the world and that is our first family.

BLMc responds,

1.) Clearly, Biblical Nationalism would never prioritize one’s home over one’s faith if that was the ultimate choice. To prioritize our homeland when in error over Christ would be idolatry. No Christian who advocates for Biblical Nationalism would ever place Christ over family and home when family and home are against Christ.

2.) I would say our first family is our blood family who is united with us in Christ. Horton posits a dichotomy between nation and faith that at times might exist but certainly isn’t necessarily the norm. St. Paul in Romans 9:3 gives us an example of what I am talking about.

“For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race…”

Here Paul says of his blood kin what he says nowhere else about other Christians who are not his blood kin. Obviously, there is a kind of Nationalism we see here coming from St. Paul — a Nationalism that Mike desires to summarily dismiss as being heresy.

3.) Horton keeps decrying Nationalism but allow us to ask what other social-order form does Mik recommend? Internationalism? Marx would be happy. Empire? Empires don’t have that great of a Historical track record — especially if you belong to a people on the bottom of the Empire. The social order Mike wants because of his R2K theology is some form of pluralism or multiculturalism. Horton’s R2K forces him to denounce nationalism because R2K presupposes a social order common realm where peoples from all different faiths and origins are cheek by jowl.

4.) Fortunately, Biblical Nationalism doesn’t mean being an American before being a Christian. Biblical Nationalism, contra Mike, doesn’t mean “My country right or wrong but still my country.” That is more “Murica Bear-ism and not Biblical Nationalism.

Elsewhere Horton suggests that Christian Nationalism by necessity inverts the Old Testament by viewing Israel as presaging America as opposed to pointing to Christ. While certainly, that might be true of some versions of non-Biblical Christian Nationalism it is by no means true of all  Christian Nationalism that is Biblical.

Horton is already showing a habit of taking Christian Nationalism in its worst expression and making that the norm so that all Christian Nationalists are, in Horton’s book, “Murican Bears.”

Horton in this interview talks about how heresy is parasitical upon the Christian faith. He says heresy twists the Christian faith. Of course, he is correct but I find myself listening with jaw agape wondering if this man understands nothing of irony. Horton and his whole R2K school of “thought” is a parasite upon the Christian faith and here his Horton talking about heresy as parasitical on the Christian faith.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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