The church in the United States has willingly gone into captivity. The captors are not from a specific nation, but is rather the American culture and ideals. The church's captors are consumerism, pragmatism, self-sufficiency, individualism, positive thinking, personal prosperity, and nationalism. These are all antithetical to the gospel and yet the church too often has made these part and parcel in her midst.
The church is on her way to a Christless Christianity. The church speaks the name of Christ and yet is too often not Christ centered and negligent of the gospel. Michael Horton writes that the church's message and demonstration of “faith” is “trivial, sentimental, affirming, and irrelevant.” The church is embracing an alternative gospel, proclaiming a message of moralism, personal comfort, self help, self-improvement, and individualistic religion. Such a message and faith minimizes God and seeks to make Him meet our own self ends.
Adapted from the cover of “Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel” by Michael Horton
