I get a sense that MacArthur largely won that debate. The only quibbling I regularly hear these days is the occasional question among Reformed folks of whether or not MacArthur went a tad too far and ended up with a sort of works righteousness, as Horton contended. But they're nowhere close to arguing Hodges' side.
Definitely. The "Free Grace" (or Dallas teaching, as J.M. Boice called it) brethren have had to largely resort to self-publishing via outlets like Xulon Press of late. But part of that may be due to Moody Press not putting out much new material at all in recent years, perhaps coupled with the fact that the men who are writing now are largely unknown outside of their own circles, unlike Ryrie and Walvoord and even Lightner 20-30 years ago. The Dallas teaching (it's not what's taught there now, I'm given to understand) was an amalgam of Reformed and Keswick teaching, with maybe some Wesleyanism thrown in for good measure. This is pointed out in B.B. Warfield's classic critical review of Lewis Sperry Chafer's
He That Is Spiritual, a book that is still in print almost 100 years later and which is probably the definitive book that sets forth the "Carnal Christian" view.
It also should be noted that Ryrie and Hodges did not have the same views. MacArthur points this out in
Faith Works (aka
The Gospel According to the Apostles) which was the follow-up to
The Gospel According to Jesus. Ryrie DID say that the believer will and must produce fruit, but that it may only be visible to God. However he did hold to the two-stage model i.e. the Carnal Christian. His book
Balancing the Christian Life emphasized that and was apparently motivated MacArthur as well as Boice to issue polemics against it. Hodges on the other hand asserted that mere belief in the facts about Christ was enough and that no fruit whatsoever was needed. Sadly, near the end of his life he went further and taught that all one needed to understand was something like "Jesus Saves" and that one didn't even have to understand anything about the cross, etc. This led to a formal separation in the Free Grace camp a few years ago, with those who are basically in the Ryrie camp referring to Hodge's teaching as the "Crossless Gospel."
I haven't read Horton's book. It's out of print but I think it's easily obtainable in the Amazon marketplace and similar outlets. But I think one thing that was the impetus behind it was the fact that MacArthur arguably did not clearly articulate justification by faith alone (JBFA) in the first edition (1988) of
The Gospel According to Jesus. The late Dr. S. Lewis Johnson (who wasn't a "free grace" man in the Chaferian sense) pointed this out as well. Due to input from Dr. Horton and others, the book was revised in 1994 to include a chapter on justification as well as to perhaps clear up some other ambiguities. But unfortunately ca. 2003
Hard to Believe was published, and in one place in particular (If I recall correctly it was Chapter 6) it seemed to contradict JBFA. The MacArthur people blamed it on an editor employed by the publisher and noted that Phil Johnson, who usually edits those kinds of books, didn't edit that one. But to my knowledge it wasn't revised and the original edition is still in print.
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I also have seen a lot of damage done by MacArthur in the actual Fundamentalist and quasi-Fundamentalist crowd he runs in. Many MacArthur-influenced preachers made it a personal mission to undermine the assurance of every person in the room. MacArthur also makes statements to the effect that if you "got saved" when you were 12, but then your life was a mess for a while and now you want to turn your life around, you probably didn't really get saved when you were 12. Well, ok, maybe, but MacArthur gives the impression that he can pretty much tell, based on scant evidence, who is really saved. He even gives list of signs that people are deceived.
Are you sure that you have men in mind that have been under MacArthur's tutelage i.e. at either Grace Church or The Master's Seminary? While there are certainly differences between him and some of the others, MacArthur mainly runs in the T4G and Ligonier crowd today. Prior to getting involved with the Ligonier conferences I don't think he traveled much at all and mainly focused on his local church.
While he's an evangelical separatist in basically the Lloyd-Jones mold (which many American evangelicals see as "fundy" because he dares to criticize the likes of Billy Graham) MacArthur disavowed separatist fundamentalism 40 years ago. Do you think you may have revivalistic fundamentalist preachers who use the altar call and various manipulative techniques instead? If I'm not mistaken, that's the background you came out of. While I'm sure some in the MacArthur camp may arguably go overboard in the fruit inspection dept. (I don't know of any personally) I think it would be more likely in those legalistic IFB circles, some of which would consider MacArthur to be a "New Evangelical" to be separated from. In my experience that's (along with some Southern Baptists and similar types) primarily who badgers people in the way that you're indicating.
Do you have a message or citation handy for your assertion that MacArthur "
thinks that if he just preached the gospel exactly right, there would be no false conversions?" I think that's a caricature of his teaching.
Nevertheless, I'm sure his emphasis on Lordship Salvation was taken to extremes by those of a more legalistic mindset. As noted, even his own books at times are not always that clear on justification by faith alone, even though he does clearly affirm the doctrine elsewhere.
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I read all of the books that were mentioned so long ago. LOL. This is a 20 year old discussion. I have forgotten so much in 20 years. Back then I thought Horton was the most correct of the four. I also worked at a Christian bookstore back then. I remember Zondervan making displays that pitted the two books together as a proposal. My store was a CBA store and we refused to do it because we thought Hodge and Ryrie were just too antinomian. The weird thing about what I remember is that Ryrie was using some obscure work of Calvin's Institutes and he was butchering Calvin out of context. That is what I remember. LOL. You can sure forget a lot in 20 years.
Phil Johnson posted about this a year or two ago. Zondervan was the publisher of both MacArthur's and Hodge's books. (Prior to that Moody had been MacArthur's main publisher but If I recall correctly they balked at publishing that broadside against Ryrie's teaching, who was one of their main authors at the time, including the Ryrie Study Bible.) Phil said they called Zondervan to complain about that display when they found out about it. He said the rep told him something like "You'll like it fine when the royalty checks start rolling in." That episode is why Zondervan didn't get the follow-up. I don't think they were the publisher for any further MacArthur books besides
Charismatic Chaos.
