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The latest Mortification of Spin is up and running.
Back in their secret underground bunker, the spin team phone up David Wells to discuss his body of work and his huge contributions to modern Christianity. As a turncoat, a self-described "African-American," David has a unique experience and insight into American Christianity. David's voice has carried a lot of weight for much of evangelicalism, and he discusses issues related to this movement. Does evangelicalism have a center, a true coherence, anymore? Is it possible to have one again? David's Wells' input on this timely conversation is beneficial both for those who profess to be evangelical, and for those who don't.
Essential reading from David Wells:
No Place for Truth
The Courage to be Protestant
God in the Whirlwind
David Wells, author of the indispensable No Place for Truth was interviewed for the most recent edition of Tabletalk Magazine. It is worth reading.
The first question posed to Dr. Wells was, "Besides the Bible, what has been the most influential book you have read this past year?" Now, when a man like David Wells is asked that question, my ears perk up. Wells responded:
The book I would love to see become the year’s most influential is J.I. Packer and Gary Parrett’s Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way. It argues that our churches should be catechizing because this kind of teaching, especially of our young, preserves doctrine. Biblical doctrine is what makes the church the church. We are stumbling in passing on the doctrinal core of the faith, and that goes to the heart of the church’s weakness today.
I reviewed Grounded in the Gospel for the Gospel-Coalition earlier in 2010. You can read that review HERE.
Dr. Wells was also asked, "How can the church maintain an effective witness as we move into a decidedly post-Christian era in the West?" Wells answered:
We need a little perspective here. Our situation in the U.S.A., relative to Christians elsewhere, is not unusually difficult. It is true that we are now moving away from a time when Christianity has had some cultural acceptance. After all, consider how popular it has been to be “born again.” But let us remember that outside the U.S.A., there are Christians who live under tyrannies, such as from Islam, or in extreme poverty, or surrounded by horrible political corruption, or are subject to rampant crime. Our situation is really not that bad! What it requires is that we have some conviction about biblical truth, some savvy about the culture in which we are living, and the spine to preserve our identity as believers. It is a temptation to think that by being nice and accommodating we can make the Christian gospel seem like a great little addition to everyone’s life. But the gospel is not a great little addition. It is a soul-shaking, costly, demanding reality. The church cannot hide this fact! The gospel is not about self-therapy. Despite our pressured, taut, nervejangling age, the Christian message is not there just to make us feel better about ourselves or more able to cope. It is about coming before our great God and Savior, confessing our sins, entrusting ourselves to Him, and surrendering our claim upon ourselves to Him. What is most needed, and what is most lacking in the church, is a little character in differentiating its message from self-help therapies and marketing strategies. Our deficiency is not that we lack the right technique. It is that we often don’t have a real alternative. [emphasis mine]
Indeed!
“…Without this transcendent Word in its life, the church has no rudder, no compass, no provisions. Without the Word, it has no capacity to stand outside its culture, to detect and wretch itself free from the seductions of modernity. Without the Word, the church has no meaning. It may seek substitutes for meaning in committee work, relief work, and various other church activities, but such things cannot fill the role for very long. Cut off from the meaning that God has given, faith cannot offer anything more by way of light in our dark world than what is offered by philosophy, psychology, or sociology. Cut off from God’s meaning, the church is cut off from God; it loses its identity as the people of God in belief, in practice, in hope. Cut off from God’s Word, the church is on its own, left to live for itself, by itself, upon itself.”- David Wells, God in the Wasteland
Dr. David Wells was recently on the White Horse Inn discussing some of the ideas in his outstanding book The Courage to be Protestant. If you truly desire to understand how the church ought to interact with postmodern culture then read Wells not MacLaren.
You can listen to the program featuring Dr. Wells HERE.
David Wells on emergent spirituality (HERE).
9 Marks interview with David Wells (HERE).
