LIBERTY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

GOD IN THE WASTELAND--A CRITIQUE

A PAPER

SUBMITTED TO DR. CHRISTOPHER MOODY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CLASS

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY I

THEO 525

BY

RYAN S. RODEHORST

LAKEWOOD, WA
 AUGUST 12, 2009TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………1

II. BRIEF SUMMARY…………………………………………………...……………………….1

III. CRITICAL INTERACTION WITH THE AUTHOR’S WORK……………………………...3

V. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………….10

BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................11

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 INTRODUCTION

David F. Wells, Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological

Seminary, is the author of God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading

Dreams. The author's scholarly interests in church and culture are at the heart of this book, which

is a continuation of his previous work, No Place for Truth; or, Whatever Happened to

Evangelical Theology? In that book, Wells explained some of the cultural factors that have

diminished the place and importance of theology in the church. In this book, he ventures to set

forth the first step that needs to be taken to reverse this situation.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Wells begins by describing a revolution that has utterly changed our world. While the forces

of modernization have brought radical changes in our external world with capitalism, technology,

urbanization, and telecommunications, modernity has transformed our inner worlds, upending

traditional values, expectations, and meanings. According to Wells this revolution is in the

profoundest sense spiritual,1 a "secular transfiguration"2 from "a world in which God and his

truth were accorded a central and often public place to one in which they have neither."3

Unfortunately, Wells argues, the Christian faith has not been immune to the changes wrought by

this revolution.

1
David F. Wells, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1994), 6.
2
Ibid., 7.
3
Ibid., 14.
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After quickly tracing the history of 20th century American Protestantism and the shift

from liberalism to evangelicalism, Wells argues that evangelicalism gained its cultural clout by

compromising its theological center to cultural concerns.4 The devastating consequence of these

compromises has been to render God inconsequential, weightless.5 This culture with which the

Christian faith must now contend is modernity--it is the worldliness of which the Bible speaks

for Our Time.6 And this issue--the relationship between Christ and culture--is the issue for

Christian faith today.7 For, Wells explains, "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."8

The reason we modern Christians are losing our souls is because we have lost God. It is

not that we have lost our belief in God, it is simply that he is no longer of consequence to our

belief. In fact, Wells maintains, "The traditional doctrine of God remains entirely intact while its

saliency vanishes."9 He has become immaterial or, as Wells styles it, weightless. While the

specific reasons for this loss of significance are many and complex, in general it can be seen as

coming at the hands of modernity at large, which has rearranged the categories of God's

transcendence and immanence.10 Belief in the objective reality of a transcendent God has

dissipated, while a preoccupation with subjective religious experience has developed.11

Wells advises that to recover the truth about God, the Church must move away from the

anthropology and theology of modernity. What must be regained is an understanding of men as

fundamentally moral creatures, not psychological constructions, meant to act on moral principle,

4
Ibid., 26.
5
Ibid., 30.
6
Ibid., 29.
7
Ibid., 28.
8
Ibid., 30.
9
Ibid., 89.
10
Ibid., 90.
11
Ibid., 91.

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not in an effort to satiate our appetites, in the former; 112 and an understanding of God as

transcendent in his moral purity and self-sufficiency and as objective in his relation and

revelation to men in the latter.12 An understanding of God's otherness is essential. "His

transcendent holiness and knowledge enable us to stand outside the charms of modernity in order

to act morally within it."13

CRITICAL INTERACTION WITH AUTHOR’S WORK

Theological/Biblical Perspective

First and foremost, then, God in the Wasteland is a book on theology. While the larger

subject is still the relation of Christ to culture, the discussion centers around the doctrine of God's

transcendence and immanence. Numerous other related doctrines and issues are examined in the

course of this discussion, including the nature of Scripture and revelation, the divine attributes of

holiness and love, divine providence, the atonement, humanity, the Church, and the trinity. Wells

approach to these subjects is as fully Biblical as can be expected. And this is only natural: the

basic purpose of his book is the recovery of a Biblical perspective unsullied by the worldliness

that is modernity.

In this regard Wells succeeds in substantiating his position that modernity is the

worldliness of Our Time. As he examines the "world" and its correlation with modernity, Wells

explains that "worldliness" is "the way in which our collective life in society (and the culture that

goes with it) is organized around the self in substitution for God."14 In other words, worldliness is

a way of living and viewing life that is anthropocentric instead of theocentric.15 It is the "secular

transfiguration" of which he spoke earlier and by which Our Time has lost its center. 16 Both
12
Ibid., 116.
13
Ibid., 151.
14
Ibid., 40.
15
Ibid., 44.
16
Ibid., 14.

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modernity and post-modernity are "worldly" in that they have sought to replace this center with

the self, offering the church "an alternative wisdom" and "a counterfeit reality" to the

transcendent truth of God.

The problem of worldliness is thus one of misplaced belief, "of insufficient belief in the

Transcendent and a surfeit of belief in the modern world."17 Modernity encourages idolatry by

"offering some substitute for God to serve some uniquely divine function."18 Indeed, even those

features of modernity that are generally viewed as benign (or at least ignored because their

value-neutral nature is assumed), such as capitalism, may degenerate into worldliness if the

values and methods it presumes are embraced over, or without regard to, God's truth.

As an example of how this very thing is occurring within evangelicalism, Wells describes

the church's capitulation to the consumer mentality, a significant consequence of which has been

that "church growth has increasingly been reduced to a matter of knowing how to market the

church."19 Severed from God this non-Biblical, anthropocentric perspective has disastrous

implications: sin becomes mere disease and efficient control an end in itself.20 Furthermore,

technique takes priority over theology,21 felt needs supplant true needs,22 and the consumer

wrests sovereignty from Christ.23 In effect, the church becomes worldly, trading eternal truth for

temporal success.

Because insufficient belief in the Transcendent so easily leads to this sort of worldliness,

one of Wells's most important discussion concerns the subject of God's transcendent knowledge

and holiness. He maintains that holiness is what fundamentally defines the character of God and

17
Ibid., 55.
18
Ibid., 52.
19
Ibid., 72.
20
Ibid., 61.
21
Ibid., 71.
22
Ibid., 74.
23
Ibid., 76.

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that love is an expression of it.24 This is in opposition to the Christians of modernity who "seem

to think that God is fundamentally if not exclusively love--and hence that talk of divine holiness

is distracting or intrusive."25 In fact, divine holiness is essential to a proper valuation of God's

love. "Without this holiness of God, sin has no meaning and grace has no point, for it is God's

holiness that gives to the one its definition and to the other its greatness."26

Also implied by Wells is the importance of divine holiness to a proper valuation of our

need of God's grace. "The Gospel of Our Time frequently is unthinking, and superficial,

frequently is believed and preached without urgency, and the reason is that it has yet to dawn on

many in the church that God in his holiness is deeply and irrevocably set in opposition to the

world because of sin."27 For when his holiness is devalued or denied, his grace is no longer seen

as necessary. Sin is not taken seriously and Christ's work on the cross is misunderstood.

Meanwhile, a day of reckoning draws near.

Yet the doctrine of God's transcendence encompasses and affects even more than this. His

holiness is what distinguishes him as God, it is what necessitates our worship of him, it is what

gives him supreme authority. And "Until we acknowledge God's holiness, we will not be able to

deny the authority of modernity."28 In other words, until we acknowledge God as an objective

reality "higher" than ourselves, the self will continue to occupy the position of authority it has

misappropriated under modernity. And until we acknowledge God's transcendent knowledge, his

objective self-disclosure as revealed in Scripture, we will not be renewed from the modern

mind's "refusal to allow external reality to impose constraints on the knower."29 Until we

acknowledge both God's transcendent holiness and knowledge, we will continue to conform to

24
Ibid., 136.
25
Ibid., 135.
26
Ibid., 144.
27
Ibid., 137.
28
Ibid., 145.
29
Ibid., 111.

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the pattern of the modern world. "His transcendent holiness and knowledge enable us to stand

outside the charms of modernity in order to act morally within it."30

Finally, it is important to observe the interrelation of the doctrines and issues discussed

by Wells. Certainly this suggests the complexity of the subject. The line between correct and

incorrect understanding is fine, and crossing this line in one doctrine can send a theology

careening down a slippery slope. For instance, in providing boundaries for a correct doctrine of

God's transcendence, Wells addresses the issue of the relation between the Father and Son, and

their identification with holiness and love.31 The many doctrines this one boundary is supported

by is tremendous: the trinity, the divine attributes of holiness and love, and the issues of

transcendence and immanence. An overemphasis one way or the other creates wide gaps in

theology, as evidenced by the diversity of historical developments in this area.32

As often is the case, where it seems an opposition or paradox exists (e.g., between

holiness and love, Father and Son) the correct yet counter intuitive understanding is one of

intersection or even unity. Indeed, even in transcendence there is an element of immanence:

"Though they [God's holiness and his knowledge] are both aspects of his transcendence, they

must not be construed as belonging to what is remote or distant in God but must rather be

understood as part of the means why which he confronts sinners directly and inescapably from

without."33 The tendency to understand in either-or categories can confuse the situation. We see

so many things as being at opposite poles, when in fact the two poles intersect to form a cross.

God is both holy and loving, transcendent and immanent, and no where is this more evident than

in Christ on the cross. "Although God's ordering of life is as extensive as life itself, it does have a

center. The center is Christ."34

30
Ibid., 151.
31
Ibid., 126.
32
Ibid., 125.
33
Ibid., 133.
34
Ibid., 173.

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Recovering a divinely ordered life is in many ways what Wells's book is all about. The

problem as he sees it is that modernity has "diminished the place and importance of theology in

the church"35 with the effect that "God rests too inconsequentially upon the church." 36 Therefore

his ultimate goal is to return God and his Word to the center of the Christian life. With this book,

however, his goal with this book is more modest: "My work here amounts to far less that a

complete answer [...] It is only a first step, and a very modest one, in which I have sought to

develop in part the perspective within which we now need to think about the reconstitution of

evangelical faith."37 Thus, Wells's goal is his theological and biblical perspective. His goal is to

regain a Biblical perspective of God and man, and an understanding that gives each its proper

weight. In short, it is toward a perspective centered around God rather than the self--a theocentric

perspective that begins and ends with God.

In this sense, Wells can only offer an analysis of the problem and the perspective from

which the church can begin to think about its solution. No matter how thorough his analysis, no

matter how Biblical his theology, no matter how correct his solution, Wells realizes that

"restoring weight to God is going to involve much more than simply getting some doctrine

straight."38 This is by no means because his analysis or arguments are defective; it is simply the

nature of the problem. That's because the problem is fundamentally one of the human heart.

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. But this is what makes the reform of the church so profoundly
difficult. Church facilities, landscaping, programs, and liturgies can all be
changed---changed overnight and changed over and over again. The human heart
cannot be so easily changed.39

35
Ibid., ix.
36
Ibid., 30.
37
Ibid., 31.
38
Ibid., 115.
39
Ibid., 225.

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The remedy will "entail a complete reconstruction of the modern self-absorbed pastiche

personality. The cost of accomplishing this may well be deep, sustained repentance."40 Of course

Wells cannot change the human heart, nor can he repent for anyone but himself. Both God's

working within the heart and personal repentance will be needed before the individual Christian

believer and the corporate church can extricate themselves from the entanglements of the world.

But this limitation does not invalidate the book's usefulness, for it provides the

perspective from which the problem can be seen. Wells reveals the ways in which the church has

become entangled in the world, subsuming the values and meanings of modernity in place of

those of the Bible. And no reform or repentance can occur until the individual believer and the

church recognize that their complicity with modernity has become worldliness if not full-fledged

idolatry.

Reviews

Several reviews of the book have been written. The reviewers are generally positive, though

a few do raise objections. One reviewer describes Wells's argument for the countercultural

church as "strong, if inadequately nuanced."41 The reviewer feels that Wells treatment is too

simple, his answers too definite. "Is it ipso facto wrong to seek a blend of the biblical and the

cultural?" the reviewer asks. "Wells's answer in this book is clear. Scripture's answer, I fear, is

more nuanced."42 But from my reading of the text, this criticism appears unwarranted. In fact,

Wells makes several comments that suggest otherwise. He says, for instance, that "to participate

in the productive enterprise of capitalism is not worldly per se"43 and that the ways of the Amish

are not what he has in mind.44

40
Ibid., 115.
41
Robert K. Johnston, "God In the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth In a World of Fading Dreams," Journal of
the American Academy of Religion 63 no 4 (Winter 1995): 874.
42
Ibid., 875.
43
Wells, God in the Wasteland, 50.
44
Ibid., 15.

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In another review, repetition is identified as a major flaw. "More than two-thirds of the

books is cultural analysis akin to its predecessor,"45 even though its express purpose is to build on

the analysis already completed. And, the reviewer correctly observes, "At times, repetition and

overlap overwhelm and even discourage the reader."46 Formal deficiencies in Wells's presentation

are perceptible. Its organization, including the repetition and overlap already mentioned, make

his argument difficult to follow. Furthermore, he seems to choose headings and categories more

because they are clever than clear. Add to this an inconsistent use of terminology--at one place he

may speak of the "outside God," in anotehr his "transcendence", and in yet another his

"otherness," all of which are meant to refer to the same thing--and the line of thought becomes

less distinct.

CONCLUSION

Despite these criticisms, David F. Wells has arguably provided the best first step toward

reversing the inroads of modernity into evangelicalism. At the very least, he has identified where

the church must begin--with God. When the church finds itself in a culture that is predominantly

secular and increasingly centered around the self, it must work continuously to keep God at its

center. Certainly Wells cannot be far wrong then in prescribing a renewed appreciation for God's

holiness and the authority of his Word. Only by deriving our values and meaning from the

transcendent can we hope to prevail over the bondage of worldliness. Only when we renew our

minds under the bright light of God's glory can we begin to not conform ourselves to the pattern

of the world.

45
John Bolt, "God In the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth In a World of Fading Dreams," Theology Today 52 no
4 (January 1996): 544.
46
Ibid.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bolt, John. "God In the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth In a World of Fading Dreams."
Theology Today 52 no 4 (January 1996): 872-875.

Johnston, Robert K. "God In the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth In a World of Fading Dreams."
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63 no 4 (Winter 1995): 540-546.

Wells, David F. God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams, Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.

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