Click here for a detailed biography of David Wells.
I recently found a few paragraphs from David Wells’ book God In The Wasteland quite challenging. If interested, you may find this in his second chapter “An Accident in Faith”. The argument, which flows from his first book No Place For Truth, demands our attention. If we fail to heed Well’s empirical evidence and chilling warning we will slowly digress from the path of truth ultimately leading to our demise.
“It is one of the remarkable features of contemporary church life that so many are attempting to heal the church by tinkering with its structures, its services, its public face. This is clear evidence that modernity has successfully palmed off one of its great deceits on us, that the church’s health lies in its flow charts, its convenience, and its offferings rather than in its inner life, its spiritual authenticity, the toughness of its moral intentions, its understanding of what it means to have God’s Word in this world. Those who do not see this are out of touch with the deep realities of life, mistaking changes on the surface for changes in the deep waters that flow beneath. An inspired group of marketers might find a way of reviving a flagging business by modifying its image and offerings, but the matters of the heart, the matters of God, are not susceptible to such cosmetic alteration. The world’s business and God’s business are two different things.
The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to stanch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.”
Wells begins this book with an examination of the world because, “the New Testament is clear that love of God and love of the world are in competition with each other, and we have to understand this competition in order to pinpoint how our love for God has dimmed as our love for the world has grown.”
Wells’ believes his fifth chapter is the heart of the book, “The Weightlessness of God“. He adds, “God is believed but he is not of much consequence to those who believe…I have attempted to understand how modernity rearranges the reality of God such that he comes to rest inconsequentially upon the church.”
Well’s concludes his chapter “An Accident in Faith” with…
“We need to take a closer look, for example, at the ways in which modernity has infused into the church an anthropology that is at odds with biblical faith and that is intent on rewriting that faith in its own image. And we need to outline the specific steps that will have to be taken to reverse the evangelical church’s unhappy entanglements with culture, to recover authentic Christian practice, and to resurrect bold Christian witness.”
If you are like me, you will probably need to read his thoughts several times. After pondering, try to analyze your own life and discover if modernity has infiltrated your theology and philosophy. If so, perhaps share an example in the comment section how modernity / culture / secularization has impacted your personal life and decisions. If you can’t locate its impact on your life I challenge you to read Allen Bloom’s The Closing Of The American Mind that will demonstrate what modernity has done to all of us.
j.pattisall
Wells, David God In The Wasteland. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
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