Customer Reviews

We Believe: Recovering the Essentials of the Apostles' Creed

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This is an excellent book from the ever thought-provoking Michael Horton. He takes the reader through each section of the Apostles' Creed, expounding on the doctrinal significance of each, relating each one to its implications for life and thought. He defends traditional teaching at every point against modern reinterpretations, contemporary philosophies and objections.

Horton is incredibly readable, offering excellent illustrations and drawing on sources from every tradition of philosophy and religion. His apologetic remarks are generally succinct and compelling. The chapter entitled, 'What if God became a man?' gives a grand overview of the whole history of God's redemption, from Genesis to Revelation, which will have every gospel believer on the edge of their seat.

One of his strongest points (and this is a feature of all his books) is his zeal for the outworking of the Christian faith in the world. He does not reduce Christianity to something wholly belonging to the 'sacred' sphere, but applies gospel truth to secular life. His concern is to see gospel doctrine impact believers here and now.

It will not take someone of the ilk of Sherlock Holmes to detect a Reformed bias. I have strong affinities with the Reformed stream of evangelicalism, though my theology would probably be better described as Arminian. However, Horton's own perspective was not enough to put me off. There is enough of the gospel in there, brilliantly expounded, to be of benefit to any truly evangelical reader.

I have to admit that I kind of like the writing style of Michael Horton. Partly it's that we're both presuppositionlists, and both seek to reform American Christianity. More important, Horton is something unusual in popular Christian writing. He believes in the centrality of the person and work of Christ as he expounds the significance of doctrine. And in "We Believe" he delivers a necessary and dynamic work on the Apostle's Creed.

Horton instructs the reader that:
- One can know God through Jesus Christ
- The Resurrection of Christ is a fact and essential to Christianity
- The exclusive claims of Jesus are true and necessary
- Believers need the church.

The author demonstrates that the Apostle's Creed has deep value and lasting application.

Chapters include:
- Only one way
- Back to the future
- Behold the lamb
- The Dove's descent
- The incarnation
and further exposition of the universal and important ancient creed.

The writing is simple and accessible for the new Christian, yet stimulating for the mature believer or minister.

DR. HORTON TRULY SHOWS THE DANGERS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. THE CHURCH IS SUBTLY MOVING AWAY FROM IT'S ROOTS AND HE SHOWS THAT IF THE CHURCH DOESN'T WAKE UP IT IS GOING TO FIND ITSELF DEEPER IN APOSTASY. WE DON'T NEED NEW FORMATS IN THE CHURCH. THE OLD WAYS SUCH AS THE APOSTLE'S CREED DEFINE OUR ROOTS AND NEED TO BE BROUGHT BACK.

I would suggest anyone interested in this book reads the first 15 pages to see if it is for you. I begin thinking that the poetry and the erudite sound of the text held promise, but it was quickly obvious that there was a lot of smoke and mirrors here. Sometimes, poor scholarship slides in as an aside, for example what Horton claims to be the meaning of the names Abram/ Abraham. A quick fact check would show this to be incorrect. Likewise, mushy thinking on heresies and when they began - and unclear reasoning on the nature of the early church and its struggles to enunciate a theology - mean that the history he presents changes at different pints in order to better suit what he is saying. Some of the prose style I found to be just revolting: a description of Jesus, "forsaken by His father" on p.101 is just disgusting.

The almost total lack of footnotes would tend to indicate a text full of personal belief and supposition and that is what this is. the author has a number of issues he wants to talk about: his dislike of "liberal Christians", his dislike of anti-intellectualism are two of them, but even where I tend to agree with him, his argument is such that I want to change my mind just to disagree: this is poorly reasoned stuff indeed! And there is a lot of nothing much being said at great length.

if you are a solid Calvinist and if you like the style of the first 15 pages and if you can deal with the less than tight historical information as illustrated in that first part, it may be for you. I read it through - not impressed.

DR. HORTON TRULY SHOWS THE DANGERS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. THE CHURCH IS SUBTLY MOVING AWAY FROM IT'S ROOTS AND HE SHOWS THAT IF THE CHURCH DOESN'T WAKE UP IT IS GOING TO FIND ITSELF DEEPER IN APOSTASY. WE DON'T NEED NEW FORMATS IN THE CHURCH. THE OLD WAYS SUCH AS THE APOSTLE'S CREED DEFINE OUR ROOTS AND NEED TO BE BROUGHT BACK.