Michael S. Horton

All About Heresy

Witch trials in Salem. The Council of Toulouse in the 13th century, employing men whose sole purpose was to hunt out human kindling for the flames of the Inquisition. These are images evoked by that word, 'heresy.' A nasty word, it suggests more about the accuser, who is considered intolerant,…

Charles Finney vs. the Westminster Confession

The most famous evangelist of the nineteenth century declared that The Westminster Divines had created 'a paper pope' and had 'elevated their confession and catechism to the Papal throne and into the place of the Holy Ghost.' 'It is better,' he declared, 'to have a living than a dead Pope,'…

Are We Justified By Faith Alone? - What Still Divides Us: A Protestant & Roman Catholic Debate

Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, one scholar observes, 'For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one…

Heaven Came Down: The Mission of Christ

'Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.' Many of us recall singing that line from the hymn by the same title. But what do we mean by that? Do we mean that we experienced God directly, by the descent of Heaven itself into our heart? Do we really mean that glory filled our soul? The only way this…

The Legacy of Charles Finney

Jerry Falwell calls him 'one of my heroes and a hero to many evangelicals, including Billy Graham.' I recall wandering through the Billy Graham Center some years ago, observing the place of honor given to Finney in the evangelical tradition, reinforced by the first class in theology I had at a…

What Are We Looking For In The Bible?

We must not tell chiefly of people, of their faith as an attracting example and of their sins as a repelling example, but we must tell of the revelation of the grace of God in Christ.1' Author of the remarkably useful four-volume set, Promise and Deliverance (Paidea Press), S. G. De Graaf in the…

Who Saves Whom?

'God casts His vote; Satan casts his, but you must cast the deciding ballot'? The touchstone question in the running debate between Jesus and the Pharisees, Paul and the Judaizers, Augustine and Pelagius, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Reformers and the medieval Roman Catholic church, and…