(This was a book critique I wrote for my Systematic Theology class at LBTS. Got a 98 on it. Needless to say, I’m happy about it.)
Introduction
In God In The Wasteland, David F. Wells argues that we have transitioned “from a world in which God and his truth were accorded a central and often public place to one in which they have neither.â€[1] He puts forth the idea that as society has progressed from a community-oriented, close knit culture to a more separated, technological culture that we have lost our grasp on truth. While the church has tried to change to be less offensive and more relevant to the culture, we have lost our way, wandering the wasteland searching for meaning and truth.
Wells has done a great deal of work in the area of Christ and culture, having published several books with similar themes. He is a Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
Summary
Wells begins his book with an analysis of the “world†and how modernity has changed the way that faith is viewed. He makes the point that worldliness is not simply a matter of breaking rules established by the church, but an actual religious matter. The love of the world offers an alternative to the love of God, a different allegiance than what we are called to as Christians.
He follows this discussion with a look at the application of various world-oriented ideas and strategies that have been used in the church that appear to be successful on the surface, but have undermined the spiritual core of the church. Wells touches on the idea that we can market the church, the products, and the services offered by the church, but we cannot market Christ.
He devotes a chapter to a concept he calls the weightlessness of God, which means that the things of God are taken too lightly, to make them almost unimportant. This concept applies not only to the world in general, but also to the church in particular.
Wells covers a brief theology of God, pointing to the importance that we don’t lose the central tenets of the doctrine of God to the ideas that dominate modernity. He mentions that “despite all of the abundance into which evangelicalism has dipped, and despite a proliferation of ministries to suit every need…there is a hollowness within it all, an emptiness.â€[2] The focus is the shifted to the doctrines of providence and the cross, to see if these doctrines have been lost in today’s evangelical culture.
The book moves to a brief look at the next generation of leaders in evangelicalism and how those leaders believe. He ends this section with three positive findings about the future leaders. First, that they take Scripture seriously; second, that they affirm theology should be central to the life of the church; and thirdly, they are dissatisfied with the state of the church, wanting more than what they are currently receiving.[3]
Wells ends the book with a chapter that lays out his solutions for the issues discussed throughout the book. He believes that two major projects need to be accomplished in the church. We must first learn to “detect worldliness and make a clear decision to be weaned from it.â€[4] This is followed by the need for the church to become more serious about itself, expressing a countercultural spirituality.[5]
Critical Interaction
David Wells describes this book as the second half of a picture started in another of his books, No Place for Truth; or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?[6] Wells has done a great deal of research and has written several publications centered on this topic.[7] It is obviously an area where he holds great interest and concern over. Because of Wells’ book No Place for Truth, a movement was started which declared that various things were wrong with the modern church and that only be returning God to the center of the church life would these things be repaired. [8]
The writer’s goal in this work is to return Evangelicalism to its historical context, to remove some of the changes brought about by the modern and post-modern movements. Wells does make a very convincing argument for this. When Christ is removed as the central figure in Christianity, what is left but a movement of people trying to do good things? When the theology and doctrine that has been established through the years is thrown aside in favor of more pragmatic methodologies, the church has ceased to share the Gospel and is merely serving the felt needs of a population.
Possibly one of the most damning points that Wells makes in this book is that churches have succumbed to modern and post-modern thought, but don’t even know it. Many Christians, including Christian leaders, are so entrenched in the culture that they are not aware of the effects that it might be having on them and their view of God. Wells states that there are two traits most evident to baby boomers, but this could apply to anyone born after that period as well. He says, “First, there is a hunger for religious experience…but a disenchantment with dogma or doctrine. Their characteristic abandonment of boundaries…typically results in a smorgasbord of spirituality for which the only accepted criterion of truth is the pragmatic one of what seems to work personally.â€[9] The second trait is that these people are “inveterate shoppers…who have learned the needed skills of commerce – principal among which is an ability to identify the products that will satisfy their inner needs.â€[10] With the current generation of Christian leaders raised in this same culture, is it any wonder that problems have arisen.
When searching for other reviews of this book, I found that the vast majority of them were positive. In fact, searching several different sites yielded almost no negative reviews. However, the positive reviews did state that some material covered in this volume was also covered in other books written by Wells, which made it a bit redundant for those who have read more than one of his books.
This book is easier to read than some other books pertaining to Christ and culture. For instance, the seminal book by H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, is a very difficult read because of the scholarly language used. Lay leaders, amateur theologians, and even some pastors would have a difficult time working through Niebuhr’s book. However, God in the Wasteland is not written that way. While some scholarly language is used, overall it is a very easily understandable book.
One of the weaknesses of the book is probably the timing of when it was written and released. Though 1994 doesn’t seem that long ago, the resultant 15 years have seen a dramatic shift in the culture through the common use of computers and of the booming growth of the Internet. The last two or three years have seen the rise of social media, further changing the landscape of how people can be reached. This book would be well served to be updated with material that more directly reflects the changes that have happened since the original release. It is possible that this material is covered in other books written by Wells though.
While reading this, I sometimes felt that the author was falling into “good old days syndromeâ€, where just because things had changed, they were bad, and that it was better in previous times. However, after reading the rest of the book I feel that his perspective is classical, but measured. He has solid, Biblical reasons for the points that he makes.
Conclusion
David Wells has written a well-crafted book that takes on many of the practices of the modern church and inspires one to really understand why they do what they do. As a worship leader, it has given me the desire to research and discover more about what true worship is and how to bring that to a congregation. If something is being done wrong, God is not glorified. This book really challenges those who read it to examine themselves and their practices and see if it lines up with the Bible.
[1] David F. Wells, God in the Wasteland (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994), 14
[2] Ibid. 152-153
[3] Ibid. 212-213
[4] Ibid. 215
[5] Ibid. 215
[6] Ibid. ix
[7] Wikipedia, David F. Wells, 7 August 2009, available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_F._Wells; Internet, accessed 3 October 2009
[8] Wikipedia, The Cambridge Declaration, 24 July 2009, available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambridge_Declaration; Internet, accessed 3 October 2009
[9] Wells, 99-100
[10] Ibid. 100
Add me to your reader!