David F. WellsCritiques

4.5 stars.... great insight, explained clearly. helpful to understand what's beneath the surface of today's facade of "New Christian" culture.... and very reassuring to hold fast to Sound theology from God's Word

This is a very unsettling book. Like Mark Noll's "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" Wells, a Professor at Gordon=Conwell Seminary, documents the decline in importance of sound theology. This book came out almost 20 years ago. If anything the problem has gotten worse. Men and women ignoring sound doctrine and in some cases, the Gospels. Look at the Tea Party, the GOP and current thinking about you-name-it.

Good paragraph i read this morning:

It would be quite mistaken, then, for us to think of the Bible as being simply a manual, or a set of instructions, or a textbook. It is so much more than this. It is the way in which God makes himself personally present to us. Undoubtedly, there are moments when God’s presence seems more real to us than at others, and there are times when we may, even though reading his Word, feel deserted. Job knew something of this loneliness, and so did the psalmists. However, we should be in no doubt that we are always engaging with, and being engaged by, God—engaging with his goodness, faithfulness, righteousness, holiness, love, and grace—when we are engaged with what he has said in his Word.

p. 213

God in the Whirlwind by David Wells is an explanation of God's holy love, how God is so different, even opposite, from how our society has imagined Him to be. "However it happened, the external God has now disappeared and has been replaced by the internal God. Transcendence has been swallowed up by immanence. God is to be found only within the self. And once that happened, the boundary between right and wrong - at least as we had thought about these things - went down like a row of falling skittles. Evil and redemption came to be seen as the two sides of the same coin, not the two alternatives in life." Or as he also put it, "We want God's love without his holiness..." Wells addresses this erroneous viewpoint by explaining who God really is, and what His love is really like. I really liked his critique of our culture, how it has a 'therapeutic vision'. As Wells indicates, sadly, the 'church' has been going this way as well, following the spirit of the age they adapt the gospel to be about the fulfillment of our needs, our self-promotion and about our happiness now. The church needs to actually live like a community of 'aliens' and 'strangers' not assimilating the cultures of this world but living as citizens of Heaven, proclaiming God's Word accurately. We are to live as sanctified people, not worldly ones, as Wells puts it, we are to "work out what God, in his grace, has worked in" us, living as citizens of Heaven.

I'm sorry to say that there are several things in the books that prevent me from giving this book a higher rating. First, the author's view of Israel and covenant theology, or reformed theology bothered me too much, . I have read books before where I have disagreed with the author's 'Reformed' eschatology and yet have still liked the book, but that was not the case with this one. Here are a couple of instances, first, his statement that"...Paul argued that being a 'Jew' was no longer a matter of ethnicity....'is one inwardly...(Romans 2:29)' The logic here is inescapable. Those who have been justified on the basis of Christ's work, be they Jew or Gentile, constitute the one 'Israel of God'(Gal. 6:16)" Yes, being a Jew was not JUST a matter of ethnicity but it includes ethnicity, the true remnant of Israel is the elect descendants of Israel, the Israel of God. But Israel never becomes Jews and Gentiles. The Bible does not teach this. Jews and Gentiles do not cease to become ethnically Jews and Gentiles before God and on this earth just because they are united in salvation. Just as men and women do not cease to be men and women before God and on this earth because they are united in salvation. God saves Jews, Gentiles, men and women indiscriminately, He has not chosen to save only one people group, like the Jews, or one sex, or only people who are not slaves, He saves all kinds of people Galatians 3:28.

Another instance is the author's view of types....for example, he thinks that the Exodus of Israel from Egypt is a type of Christ and his work. I just don't see that connection made in the Bible, rather if there is any pictorial connection, I see the event mentioned in support of the view that God will one day bring all of the physical descendants of Israel back to their land(Jeremiah 16:14-15) and that they will be able to stay there because, unlike the first exodus of Israel and the Mosaic covenant God made with them, God will make their hearts new, will make the new covenant with them(Jer. 31:31-35,Ezek. 36:22-38). So when this mass exodus(initiated by God) from the countries where they have been scattered happens, they will return to their land for good(Amos 9: 14-15)because they will then be righteous, which was the requirement for their staying in the land.(Ezek. 36:22-38).

Besides the eschatology/Reformed typological view that kept clouding things, it was also mentioned three times that Abraham stumbled over the promises of God. This view is blatantly contradicted by Romans 4:20-21, speaking of Abraham, "yet, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform." Even in the event with Hagar, God's word does not say that that was a wavering of belief on Abraham's part. Of course, he was mistaken in how God would give him an heir, but it does not seem as though he struggled with unbelief of the promise.

To sum this up, these things, especially the typological views, just bothered me too much and were too distracting so I can only give this book three stars.

I'll end with one of the quotes/points that I Iiked, here he is critiquing recent and modern society, "When God was displaced from the center of life, revelation was replaced by natural reason, salvation by psychology and eschatology by social progress. However, even as this worldview was becoming dominant, it also began to disintegrate......What has lingered on is the substitution of psychology for salvation, and therefore the main thread of continuity across these decades, the thread that links the older modernist culture and our current postmodern culture, is the autonomous self. This is the self, the person in his or her inner being who is unrestrained by the past, by any authority, or social convention, or community, or any truth as something other than his or her own private opinion. They are not restrained by any God external to themselves. This is what our culture is validating all the time.

Many thanks to Crossway for sending me a free review ebook(My review did not have to be favorable).

Excellent book on Christian conversion - a changed life. Analysis of "inside" and "outside" conversions.

The amazingly balanced, wixe, biblical, and global ministry of a local pastor, John Stott. Every authentic ministry begins . . . with the conviction that we have been called to handle God's Word as its guardians and heralds. Our task is to keep it, study it, expound it, apply it, and obey it.

A plea for change in seminary training.

This third book in Wells' series of six books on postmodernism (see also No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Above All Earthly Powers, The Courage to be Protestant, and God in the Whirlwind) focuses on the erosion of ethics within contemporary culture. This book is, in many ways, a series of contrasts between what was and what now is.

Classical spirituality, which Wells' defines by its doctrinal basis, its devotional habits, its moral character, and its responsibilities in Church and Society" [33] is the backdrop against which the a-theological spirituality of postmodernism is viewed. Wells demonstrates that talk about virtues has given way to clarification of values, that emphasis on character has shifted to a focus on personality, that theology has been displaced by psychology, and that feelings of guilt, which are God-centered in their moral orientation, have degenerated into the emotions of man-centered shame.

Wells gets at his diagnosis of the moral state of the Church and culture in several ways. In chapter one, "A Tale of Two Spiritualities," Wells contrasts the hymnody of the historic Church with the contemporary praise and worship songs of today. The results of his research are somewhat alarming, whatever one's taste in music happens to be. Another chapter, "The Playground of Desire," draws more from a study of sociology, zooming especially on what Wells calls "the competition between law and freedom," the relevance of which to the political realm he unfolds with penetrating insight. In yet another place, Wells examines the ideology of Robert Schuller, Senior Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. Schuller's view of sin "is really nothing more than poor self-image, and salvation is its reversal," says Wells [200]. But, "where sin has lost its moral weight, the Cross will lose its centrality, Christ will lose his uniqueness, and his Father will no longer be the God of the Bible" [200].

One of Wells most astute observations is that "much of the Church today, especially that part of it which is evangelical, is in captivity to [the] idolatry of the self. This is a form of corruption far more profound than the lists of infractions that typically pop into our minds when we hear the word sin. We are trying to hold at bay the gnats of small sins while swallowing the camel of self" [203-204]. As can be seen, Wells operates with a sharp surgical scalpel. But let no one think that he is a knife-happy physician, for he not only diagnoses the disease and cuts away the cancer, he also prescribes the medicine that will heal the Church. That cure is nothing less than a recovery of the Gospel, with its high view of God's transcendent holiness.

This is a must read for Christians who are serious about engaging the culture on a philosophical or theological level. And those who are not interested in such an engagement may need this book most of all.

David Wells provides a penetrating critique of the demise of evangelical theology over the past several decades. His book should be an alarm to evangelicals to wake them up to truth and discover how modernity has subtly eroded truth from its midst. He wrote the book in response to a student’s casual comment about the benefit or lack thereof on spending money to take a theology course that appeared to be irrelevant in enabling one to minister to people. The student’s comment is a current reality in the way many people view theology even ministers. Wells identifies the central purpose of his book is “to explore why it is that theology is disappearing.”

CHAPTER 1: A DELICIOUS PARADISE LOST

The book begins with a step back in history as Wells gives one a picture of life a small New England town over a century ago. This was a predominantly puritan community where the church was the center of spiritual and social life in the town. Everything within the community seemed to revolve around the church. The pastor and the church were responsible for educating the children in the community. The church was Calvinistic in its beliefs. During that time universities in the U.S. existed primarily for the education of ministers. Things did not change much in this town and everyone had a role to fulfill. Times changed and American society moved from a more rural community with people migrating to urban areas. The inventions of the telegraph, phone, and television improved communication. The inventions of the train, streetcars, and the automobile allowed people to become more mobile. The outside world with all its inventions intruded into this small community and subtly changed it over time.

CHAPTER 2: WORLD CLICHÉ CULTURE

An overview is given of how things have changed from the enlightenment to modernity. Rapid change, urbanization, capitalism, and technology have all influenced modernity. The democratization of society and the growth of the sciences exerted their influence on society. Society slowly became more pluralistic and even in the church, experience was trumpeted over truth. The modernization of society has been driven by capitalism and commerce, which has transformed the landscape into an urbanized America. The urbanization of society has brought individuals from different religious and cultural backgrounds and has in turn slowly caused the pluralism one sees today.

The external secularization, “process of accepting and perpetuating values,” and the internal secularism, “values of the modern age,” have arisen as people no longer take values from the church but determine their values in themselves. Pluralism is seen as one of the greatest threats to the Christian faith. This process of modernization has occurred slowly and its influence is being felt within the evangelical community. The basis of absolute truth has disappeared

CHAPTER 3: THINGS FALL APART

Wells argues for the point that theology should be the same whether in the academy or in the church. Doing theology according to Wells involves a “confessional element, a reflection upon the confession, and a cultivation of virtues that are grounded in the first two elements.” The New Testament church from the beginning has emphasized the passing on of true doctrine but it is quite evident in the past several decades how a belief in truth has eroded.

Evangelical Christians do not think and reflect much about God today but rather they desire what is pragmatic in meeting their needs. The urbanization of society has meant that generally more educated and professional people are involved in church and tend to have theological views that are more liberal than ones living in rural areas. Christian ministry has become a profession instead of a calling. The Doctor of Ministry degree has been an attempt to make ministers appear more professional. Leadership Journal emphasizes the pragmatic side of ministry with little emphasis on theology. Universities have slowly replaced theology departments with religious studies. The emphasis on the sciences pushed religion departments to emphasize the psychology and sociology of religion to sustain their place in the university. A large percentage of Americans even today call themselves evangelicals but the perceived beliefs are not grounded in confessional values.

CHAPTER 4: SELF-PIETY

The progression of modernism has led to an overwhelming emphasis upon the self. Wells draws the conclusion that one of the results of the Reformation was “that the individual has access to ultimate without the interposition of any intermediaries.” Although the reformers and puritans had a solid basis in truth that helped in the denial of self that can no longer be said of people today. Wells emphasizes the affect that television has had on modernizing our culture.

Culture as defined by Wells “is the outward discipline in which inherited meanings and morality, beliefs and ways of behaving are preserved.” The modernization of America has removed morality out of the schools and also has moved the value system from the church to the psychologist. The new church is about experience and what is in it for the individual. Truth is out and pragmatism and feeling is in. Wells says that the “psychologizing of life cuts the nerve of evangelical identity because the common assumption beneath the self movement is the perfectibility of human nature and this is anathema to the Christian gospel.” He also goes on to state that this psychologizing “undermines the desire and capacity to think, without which theology is obviously dead.”

CHAPTER 5: THE RISE OF EVERYPERSON

The culture has changed considerably due to the rise of “everyperson,” defined by Wells as, “the person who is the product of the American experience of democracy, the person for whom democracy is not simply a political system but an entire worldview and for whom, therefore, culture and truth belong to the people.” The democratization of America has led to “making up one’s mind” and “taking one’s destiny in one’s own hands.” It has also has led to the “importance of the public in which one’s views find their validation.” This has translated into the church in that “the audience is sovereign: and “ideas find legitimacy and value only within the marketplace.” This can be seen in the theological emphasis in such magazines as Christianity Today. Perhaps one of the most challenging sections of the book for ministers is found on pages 214-217 where he observes that ministers have abdicated the role as leaders with vision and have become managers of public opinion with a spiritual twist.

CHAPTER 6: THE NEW DISABLERS

The direction of professionalization in the culture and the decline of theological education led to changes in perception of a pastor and his role. The pastor changed from a “broker of truth” to a manager of people. When one moves away from the truth as found in the Word of God as the center and focus for all that one does then one allows other influences to determine function. Character, exposition of the Bible, and theology were replaced by interpersonal skills and administrative abilities. Pastors have followed careers instead of callings. Sermons became more centered on people and less centered on God. Not only have people in the pew become pragmatic but also people behind the pulpit. Theology is a rare commodity but the newest method is the new rave consumed. The view of a good church is one that is producing and growing not necessarily one that believes the truth.

CHAPTER 7: THE HABITS OF GOD

One of the key aspects of the Christian faith is that the Bible is the written history of God at work through his people in history. The truth contained is objective and historically verifiable. The prophets and apostles believed these truths and lived and preached like they believed these truths. An argument regularly surfaced is that the present is so distant from biblical times that it is impossible to have a biblical worldview. Wells identifies the assumptions underlying this belief as the rejection of old values and belief in future progress, an inability to adopt older worldviews, and a present pluralism that does not allow for a simplistic biblical worldview. Wells counters that humanity has not progressed much, that we have a choice in worldviews, and that the pluralism we now experience actually brings us closer to a biblical worldview.

In order to help one understand the perspectives above Wells identifies the beliefs of the pagan mind that may help one better understand the modern mind. Nature was the focus of their gods and their experiences connected them with the supernatural. The supernatural world was unpredictable and their religion was typically sexual. They made decisions based upon experience and focussed on the future.

Wells identifies three key historical events in the Bible, the call of Abraham, the Exodus, and the establishment of the Davidic Kingdom, which helped to shape the identity of the Israelites. In the New Testament “the incarnation, death, resurrection, and return of Christ bring each of these events to final fruition.” One of the key statements Wells presents about the biblical mind is that “God’s truth was transmitted through events external to the individual meant that it was objective, and the fact that it was objective meant, further, that his truth was public.”

Wells sums up the view of the modern mind that “reality is so privatize and relativized that truth is often understood only in terms of what it means to each person. A pragmatic culture will see truth as whatever works for any given person. Such a culture will interpret the statement that Christianity is true to mean simply that Christianity is one way of life that has worked for someone, but that would not be to say that any other way of life might not work just as well for someone else.” The process of recovering a biblical mind in the midst of such a culture is the biblical teaching of truth.

CHAPTER 8: THE REFORM OF EVANGELICALISM

Wells spends a tremendous amount of space in this book documenting “the evangelical bias toward modernity” but only provides some glimpses of solutions. He proposes a second book to offer some more helpful solutions. The challenge for evangelicals is to re-learn how to dissent instead of capitulating to modernity. The church must be the key place for theology to flourish. If the church is to regain her theological moorings and reject belief in modernity, then she must discover that “the holiness of God is the very cornerstone of the Christian faith, for it is the foundation of reality. Sin is defiance of God’s holiness, the Cross is the outworking and victory of God’s holiness, and faith is the recognition of God’s holiness. Knowing that God is holy is therefore the key to knowing life as it truly is, knowing Christ as he truly is, knowing why he came, and knowing how life will end."

Case 2 shelf 2

LT God in the Wasteland, the reality of truth in a world of fading dreams, David F. Wells, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, Grand Rapids, MIC, 1994, 4/10/17

Read book jacket. This is one evangelical’s (we are evangelicals) diagnosis and prescription for what ails the Christian community. But what saith the LORD?! (Eisegesis or exegesis?) Romans 12:1-2 (based on 1-12), I John 2:15-17; any other writing apostles besides Paul and John? I Peter 2:9-12 (also 1:13-16); James 4:4; who does that leave? Jude! (the vestibule to the rapture!)—Jude 3!

Theme: evangelicalism has been corrupted by the world; Christendom is (and many professing Christians have become) part of the world (modernity, p. 29) 56, 115, 223
Purpose: to offer antidote to problem identified in previous work (No Place for Truth, 1989)
Type: a critique of contemporary evangelicalism
Value: 1-
Age: college
Interest: 1-
Objectionable: 19-RCC, 25-seeing problem as largely getting away from agreement on sola Scriptura and sola gratia (modernity’s emphasis on personal autonomy seems to be his overall point), 205, 215, 226-stand alone
Synopsis/Noteworthy: see below; DW waves in antidote throughout book (pg, 41); self becomes God (100, 110-111, 112, 136); awareness of God’s holiness is a crucial part of the solution (138-145)

God in the Wasteland—The Reality of Truth in [a transcendent God delivers from] a World of Fading Dreams [a world without Christ, trying to live without God (“Life isn’t supposed to work without God,” “worldliness”]

(I don’t think that his chapter titles summarize content clearly, so I have attempted to do that as follows.)

PROLOGUE
Chapter 1 AN ACCIDENT IN HISTORY—there has been a confluence of four forces in contemporary culture which have shaped our culture: capitalism, technology, urbanization, and telecommunications
Chapter 2 AN ACCIDENT OF FAITH—tracing modernity’s (worldliness’s) conforming the church to itself

STRANGERS AND ALIENS
Chapter 3 THE ALTERNATIVE TO GOD—the world is (p. 54)
Chapter 4 CLERICS ANONYMOUS—pastors (the church) are not here to meet felt needs (i.e., gratify the flesh) but to preach Christ, the living truth, who will truly, deeply, eternally satisfy
Chapter 5 THE WEIGHTLESSNESS OF GOD—the replacement of God with self; tracing this historical/philosophical devolution
Chapter 6 THE OUTSIDE GOD—the transcendence of God which needs to be recovered
Chapter 7 GOD ON THE INSIDE—God is personally involved in creation, history, and in our personal lives
Chapter 8 THE COMING GENERATION—what can be expected of the upcoming Christian leaders based on what they profess and then how they apply it
Chapter 9 SPEAKING WITH A DIFFERENT VOICE—break with world entanglements of preponderance of contemporary evangelicalism, experience revival of the Spirit, operate with a Christina worldview, and restore more intense community with God’s people (226)

Evangelicals are worldlings and need to repent and turn to the holy, objective (externally existent) God known only through Spirit-inspired, Spirit-enlightened Word. 57, 68, 113, 223 (this is my interpretation of his wording 215, 223).

kids: 14, 18-20, 29, 37/39, 40/118-vocation, 44, 55-discernment, 56, 107-postmodern lit, 136, 196
Ethan: 31, 56, 61, 67, 81, 115, 134-disinclination, 203-leadership,224, 212-culture, 217-parenting
Cyndi 115
Alan 112, 193
Board 77ff, 91
Mark Minnick 7/7/02 “philosophy,” where is exposition, even scripture references? 1993? NAE address
K: 24-27, 41-44, 59, 82, 83, 91, 97-dread, 103-self/know God, 113, 115-torment, 116/123-5-transcendence, 127-129-anfechung, 136-love holiness, 169-providence, 170-evil, 172-173-future/ends. 182-185-what God is doing, 190-traditions, 216-post-modern person, 219-consumption, 223-joining crowd illu, 153/183-cross, 158-magazines, 203-consensus

2
CBC x-read, 11-obituaries, 14 (2)-meaning, 15-homeless, 24-NAE, 27-29-blend, 55-wisdom, 57-58-herd, 59-church, 61/85 pragmatism, 76/82-83-preaching, 78-size, 80-self help, 91/114-God, 118-119/151-escaping worldliness, 146-failure to teach, 193-intuition, 193-194 civility, 215-solution, 223-conclusion

Preface x Finally, I wish to express my appreciation for those who are still serious readers in America. Without them, I and many others would be silenced. The time and attention they give to their reading flies in the face of the habits that modernity inculcates so insidiously. And so, I wish to salute their stubborn resistance to modernity! Against all the odds, may their number increase, and may the church, in consequence, once again become a place where life is given its most serious and searching analysis.
11 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, most obituaries made some mention of the character of the deceased; by the end of the century this was rarely the case. By contrast, a person’s occupation was seldom an important detail in obituaries at the beginning of nineteenth century, but by 1990 it had become the key means by which a person was identified. This substitution of function for character is consistent both with the rise of anonymity in our large, complex, and specialized world and with a new sense that it is inappropriate to define a person on the basis of character in a public context that offers no consensus concerning (and, if it comes to that, is not much interested in) what constitutes good character. [What is important (as I approach 65th milestone)?! Walking with God, pointing others to Christ, being faithful to God, friends, responsibilities, callings-vocations, family, being thankful and content, serving God in and through my local church]
14 [We have lost purpose to live.] Meanwhile, we also pay the price of destroying all interest in the Transcendent, the sole source of genuine meaning in life.
14 We have become T. S. Eliot’s ‘‘hollow men,’’ without weight, for whom appearance and image must suffice. Image and appearance assume the functions that character and morality once had. It is now considered better to look good than to be good. The facade is more important than the substance — and, that being the case, the substance has largely disappeared.
15 [True homelessness is not having a spiritual home.] “We have become spiritual vagrants in the modern wasteland, wanderers with no home to return to.”
15 No, our faith must go with us as we walk the labyrinthine [irregular and twisting] paths of modern life. It must go with us as we traverse the world each night with the help of television cameras that linger tearless over the worn and spent bodies of the starving of Africa... [Here is his solution.]
24 [NAE has fallen into the same problem as the liberal denominations of the first half of the 20th century—corruption by the world.] The 1960’s, then, represent the end of the liberal era, although liberal ideas still have their advocates in the churches today and especially in academia. But while this decade pulled the covers off the emptiness of the liberal Protestant establishment, it ironically seems to have propelled evangelicalism into the same religious void. Before the 1960’s, evangelicalism was a cultural outsider; after, it rapidly became a part of the inside…
27-29 [The problem of blending in with the world continues.] …evangelicalism has brought cultural acceptability by emptying itself of serious thought, serious theology, serious worship, and serious practice in the larger culture. And most evangelicals appear completely oblivious to this sellout or at
least unconvinced that the deal was a bad one. (new paragraph) Modernity has been hard at work reducing evangelical faith to something that is largely private and internal. … Many evangelicals quietly assume, perhaps even without much thought, that it would be uncouth and uncivil to push this private dimension too noticeably or noisily on others into the public square.
55 [Wisdom is needed!] Now there is nothing wrong with entrepreneurship or organizational wizardry or public relations or television images and glossy magazines per se.
57-58 [The desire to be liked by and to be like others is extremely powerful in today’s world.] This combination of a desire to be like admired people and a discomfort in being unlike them goes a long way toward explaining how it is that the church has found it so hard to recognize worldliness and even harder to dislodge it. Indeed, without a powerful theological vision as its antithesis [focal point], these cultural currents are impossible to resist. 3
59 [What is the role of the church in all this?] It is especially important for the church, in its own cultural location, to be able to discern generically [in a way that relates to a class or group of similar things; not specifically] how sin is made to look normal and normative and how righteousness is made to look strange [who is normal?!]. If it is unable to make this discernment, it will cloud the difference between sin and righteousness, its message will become confused and distorted, its practice will be compromised, and the honor of God will be besmirched. [The scriptural way for this to happen is for the spiritually mature of the congregation (while listening to the younger people), submitting to each other, to draw lines for that particular people in that particular time and place, distinguishing weightier matters, and not giving burdens too grievous to be borne (I Tim. 3:1-15, especially vs. 4-7, 15; Eph. 5:21; I Pet. 5:5; Mt. 23:4,23).]
61/85 [We have a problem with pragmatism.] 61 Malls are monuments to consumption—but so are mega-churches. Both places celebrate the coupling of the appetites of consumption with religion. 85 As moderns we are now disposed to believe that the audience is always sovereign and that ideas are valid only to the extent that they prove their usefulness in the marketplace. . . The American disposition to think that ideas have no intrinsic value was formalized into pragmatism. The infiltration of capitalism and pragmatism into evangelicalism during this period has produced a form of Christian faith that has so adapted to its context as to be uniquely American and increasingly modern in its psychology and appetites.
76/82-83 [Pray for better and stronger preaching!] 76 Simply put, the church is in the business of truth, not profit. Its message—the message of God’s Word—enters the innermost place in a person’s life, the place of secrets and anguish, of hope and despair, of guilt and forgiveness, and it demands to be heard and obeyed in a way that not even the most brazen and unprincipled advertisers would think of emulating. Businesses offer goods and services to make life easier or more pleasant; the Bible points the way to Life itself, and the way will not always be easy or pleasant. At most, businesses are accountable only to stockholders and a variety of regulators; the church is accountable to God.
82 We all have needs. Some people live with an aching sense of emptiness, a sense that things have gone awry; some are crushed by a burden of guilt, by pain that won’t go away; some live in dread of what the future may hold; some long for friendship, a sense of belonging. There are needs like these in every pew in every church. But God does not want us to interpret the meaning of these needs ourselves because, being sinners, we resist seeing such needs in terms of our broken and violated relationship with him. Christ’s gospel calls sinners to surrender their self-centeredness, to stop granting sovereignty to their own needs and recognize his claim of sovereignty over their lives. This is the reversal, the transposition of loyalties that is entailed in all genuine Christian believing. Barna’s program inverts this basic truth; it is the antithesis of the biblical affirmation that the church will grow only through greater fidelity to the radical commands of the gospel—commands that God himself
authorized to challenge all of our natural expectations. In order to market the church, Barna must obscure its essential reality. It has to be marketed as an organization rather than an organism, as a place to meet people rather than as the place where one meets God on terms that he establishes, as a commodity for consumption rather than an authority calling for penitence and surrender.
83 It is true, as Richard Rorty asserts, that pragmatism is “a vague, ambiguous, and overworked word,” but in essence it constitutes a “principled aversion” to formulating general principles. James contrasted pragmatism with what he called “rationalism,” a term that he idiosyncratically used to connote devotion to a body of timeless, unchanging principles.
78 [How does average church size compare today with earlier years?] A century ago, in 1890, for example, the average Protestant church had only 91.5 members, not all of whom would have been in attendance on any given Sunday; a century before that, in 1776, the average Methodist congregation had 75.7 members. It seems to be the case that our churches today are about the same size as they have always been, on average, and the supposition that we are now experiencing drastic shrinkage needs to be clearly justified before it can be allowed to become the premise for new and radical strategies. 4
80 [Here is a problem within at least some evangelical churches—self-help.] An important part of the recovery process, regardless of the addiction from which recovery is being sought, is to lay claim to one’s own power.
91/114 [How significant is God?] 91 The pollsters are not asking whether this or that religion is true; they are not asking how people understand the nature and character of God; they are simply trying to find out how people feel about religion, what internal value it has for them. What they have found is that there is a sizable yearning for things religious in the American psyche. My comments on the weightlessness of God, on the other hand, focus on his objective significance—a matter of truth rather than psychology.
114 We have turned to a God that we can use rather than to a God we must obey; we have turned to a God who will fulfill our needs rather than to a God before whom we must surrender our rights to ourselves. What has been lost in all of this, of course, is God’s angularity, the sharp edges that truth so often has and that He has preeminently.
118-119/151 [Can the church escape worldliness?] 118 Our thirst for the blessings of the modern world is not easily slaked. Can the church survive the modern world and worldliness that it brings? 119 The power and seductiveness of modernity do not impede God one bit in actualizing his truth in the church, introducing his character into the lives of ordinary men and women, realizing his saving purposes in the world, and exercising providential control over its direction and outcomes. 151 His transcendent holiness and knowledge enable us to stand outside the charms of modernity in order to act morally within it. Only those who are counter-cultural by way of being other-worldly have what modern culture most needs to hear—a Word from God that can cut through the deceits of modernity to reach the hearts that lie within.
146 [We must not fail to teach and train our children.] Our families and our schools have become so enamored of the ostensible virtues of pluralism (or intimidated by the prospect of failing to be value-neutral) that they no longer even make a token effort to give the next generation moral instruction. [Consider the currently-proposed “Benedict Solution.”]
153 [The cross resolves all.] …the doctrine of the cross…asserts that God has secured through the crucifixion of His Son a resolution of what has disordered the world and robbed it of its meaning.
193 [Consider inerrancy.] Those who were most inclined toward the inerrancy position were in the Baptist tradition; those least likely to endorse it were in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition (see Table 10), though the differences between the groups were not great.
193-194 [Beware pietistic intuition.] 193 ...leaning on intuition in making life’s decisions have become
routine and acceptable for many. 194 There is evidence that the streams of pietism and of charismatic experience now pervasive in the evangelical world have brought into it the broader cultural self-orientation in a variety of ways.
215 [Can this slide be reversed?] I believe it can, but not until these leaders have successfully accomplished two major projects. First, the church is going to have to learn how to detect worldliness and make a clear decision to be weaned from it. Around us today there looms a post-modern world that is bringing about many ominous breaks from our cultural past. Second, the church is going to have to get much more serious about itself, cease trying to be a supermarket serving the needs of religious consumers, and become instead a force of counter-cultural spirituality that draws from the interconnected lives of its members and is expressed through their love, service, worship, understanding, and proclamation.

5
223-226 He offers an eight-part conclusion solution!
1. “[The church must begin] to form itself, by His grace and truth, into an outcropping [a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth] of counter-cultural spirituality.” “[The church] must give up what the post-modern world holds most dear: it must give up the freedom to do anything it happens to desire” (repentance):
a. self-cultivation for self-surrender
b. entertainment for worship
c. intuition for truth
d. slick marketing for authentic witness
e. success for faithfulness
f. power for humility
2. “[The church must] reform their inner lives to embody a fitting counter-cultural spirituality centered in” (faith):
a. a serious, worshipful recognition of the presence of God
b. an obedient submission to His word [catechisms]
c. a compassionate outworking of His grace in loving service of the stricken of this world
3. The church must confront. “The church has adopted a sort of cocktail party atmosphere, serving up pleasantries and trying to avoid unpleasantness.”
4. The church must deepen, and get beyond living for entertainment. “Real reform will have to look beneath the surface to see the poverty of spirit in the evangelical world, its lack of seriousness, its tendency to engage in superficial rather than penetrating analyses, its childish inability to withstand the diversions of flash, fun, and glamour.” “It is God that the church needs most—God in His grace and truth, God in His awesome and holy presence, not a folder full of hot ideas for reviving the church’s flagging programs.”
5. “Evangelicals should be hungering for a genuine revival of the church…”
6. “God’s word [must be] heard afresh.”
7. “The individual [must be] embodied in a structure that gives corporate expression to private spirituality, in which the lone thread is woven into a fabric.” “Unless the dissident can return to a center and receive a fresh confirmation of his or her biblical worldview, a fresh understanding of the world and human life, fresh nourishment in believing, and a renewed connectedness with the people of God, failure is as predictable as the rising of the sun.
8. The church must ask much of its people. “Those who ask little find that the little they ask is resented or resisted; those who ask much find that they are given much and strengthened by the giving.”

What are fundamentalists needs?! Resurrection power!
1. “Oh for a closer walk with God!” Intensifying love affair with Christ! Memorizing Scripture!
2. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness—prayer!
3. Not being so cliquish!
4. Not being so enamored with this world’s amusements and food (yet enjoy)!
5. Being Spirit-filled, more consciously grace-dependent!
6. Reaching the lost!!

History

Three Casset Album

See also at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/6x35wm

See also at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/6x35wm

See also at Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/6x35wm