By Andrew Spencer, TGC.
Review: ‘Magician and Mechanic’ by Michael Horton.
A seasoned pastor once told me, “Satan recycles.” In context, he was saying that the same heresies and philosophical errors tend to resurface throughout history. It’s similar to what C. S. Lewis meant at the end of The Silver Chair when the Narnians were celebrating the rescue of Prince Rilian and the downfall of the Green Witch: “Those Northern Witches always mean the same thing, but in every age they have a different plan for getting it.” There’s nothing new under the sun (Eccl. 1:9).
In Magician and Mechanic: The Roots of “Spiritual but Not Religious” from the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution, Michael Horton shows that the surge in people identifying as “Spiritual but Not Religious” (SBNR) has deep roots in Western culture. In the first volume in the Divine Self series, Shaman and Sage, Horton—professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California—traces SBNR back to at least the Axial Age (c. 600 BC). This second volume continues that chronological journey into more familiar territory for many readers.
Horton’s retelling of Western intellectual history undermines common assumptions about the origins of modernity. Many of modernity’s problems—which often get blamed on Protestantism—were issues the Reformation was already trying to address. The best solution to the errors of any age is often to look deeper at the ancient Christian gospel, rather than trying to find truth from new perspectives.
Defusing the Disenchantment Thesis
For many critics of Protestantism—whether they’re pagan, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox—the disenchantment thesis, popularized by sociologist Max Weber, offers convincing evidence that the Reformation was a mistake.
The basic argument is that Western culture became individualistic and antisupernatural because Luther and the other reformers who followed him accelerated an inward psychological turn along with an emphasis on the transcendence of God rather than divine immanence in the material world. Secularism, environmental abuse, a sense of meaninglessness in life, the prosperity-gospel movement, and expressive individualism each has its roots in Luther’s emphasis on justification by faith alone. About the only modern problem I haven’t seen the Protestant Reformation blamed for is tooth decay.