The Rhythm of the World A Dangerous Playground?

Responding to David F. Wells: on the moral distinctiveness of today's church in contemporary Western society.

Lucy Cheesman B3 13th May 2003

Supervisor: Dr. Anna Robbins

O UTLINE
Introduction

Part 1: The Rhythm of the World

i) The Hum of Postmodernity
Vanishing Acts Truth
Revelation and Reason Collapse of the Metanarrative

Sin
Changing Concepts Salvation from what?

Character
The Third Domain Support Structures

ii) The Bass Line of Secular Salvation

Self Construction Personality
New Adjectives Celebrities and heroes

Consumerism
Seeking the Signified Marketing Church

Therapy
Self-Potentiality Substitute Religion
2

Part 2: A Different Beat

i) Out of Step with Holiness
The Role of the Holy God as Other
Ultimate Purity Transcendent Presence Worship Perspectives

God as Reference Point

The Place of Sin Guilt and Shame

ii) The Distorted Lyrics of Human Nature

Questions of Identity A Twilight Knowledge
Recognising what we are Remembering what we were

The Embarrassed Church

The Great Contradiction Reinterpreting Sin

Part 3: A Timeless Discord

i) Recognising the Chords of Culture
Perception and Interpretation On Being Whole
Places of Healing The Sufficiency of the Atonement The Role of the Holy Spirit

On Being Holy
The Importance of Otherness The Meaning of Holiness

ii) Stop and Rewind?

Future Vision Medium and Message
Changing Image Courageous Faith

Recovery or Discovery
Past and Present Too Harsh a Sentence?

Conclusion

Introduction
Functionally, we are not morally disengaged, adrift, and alienated; we are morally obliterated. We are, in practise, not only moral illiterati; we are morally vacant.1 This is what David F. Wells calls his beguilingly simple thesis, in his book Losing our Virtue. This essay responds primarily to this volume. However, it is third in a trilogy, preceded by No Place for Truth and God in the Wasteland. There will be references to these works, in order to grasp continuity of thought and theme. Wells writing deals primarily with the United States of America, and thus will in some ways be culture specific. Cultural differences exist within the West itself. Furthermore, his concern is the evangelical tradition. This project looks at Wells argument that the Church reflects too much of the modern (and postmodern) world, betraying its call to be in the world, but not of it. It buys into a postmodern spirituality, which lacks a moral centre, essential to the Churchs distinctiveness. His primary concern is the Church, and the business of retrieval, of preserving and reclaiming those riches of our classical spirituality that are especially in danger of being lost.2 Part One looks at cultural elements that Wells sees as creeping into the Church; Part Two deals with his call to restore the moral centre, by focussing on a Holy God. This will include any relevant critique. The main response occurs in Part Three, where we reflect on Wells thesis, and how church needs to relate, or not to relate, to culture.

1 2

Wells, Losing, 13 Wells, Losing, 7 5

Part 1: The Rhythm of the World

i) The Hum of Postmodernity
Wells contends that in attempting to communicate with culture, the Church is guilty of dalliance with the world from which it is meant to be set apart. In dancing to the beat of the modern world, the Church unwittingly propagates its ideals. He proposes that, although intending to be more effective, the Church compromises its moral distinctiveness, instead of offering an alternative rhythm. He considers some elements of spirituality as lost, whereas cultural elements creep in and compromise the Churchs integrity.

Vanishing Acts: Truth

Revelation and Reason Wells proposes that the Enlightenment enthroned reason above God, claiming that objective truth was sought naturalistically, not in revelation. In the Enlightenment, it was no longer believed that God had spoken, or that he wanted to speak, and so truth was sought out of relation to him.3 Wells doesnt chart any progression of Enlightenment thinking, or differentiate between which Enlightenment this is, whether French, English, or Scottish, which are significantly different from one another.4 Also, Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke had a strong theistic worldview. However, Locke was an empiricist, criticising those who did not subject revelation to reason.5 For Descartes, God remains the ultimate guarantor of it all, but, says Hicks, in a sense even Descartess Godwas a God established by reasonthe criterion for his nature and activity was that they should be rational.6 Wells links this subjection of revelation to reason with postmodern rejections of the metanarrative. Modernitys authority rested on stolen Christian assumptions, seen

3 4

Wells, Losing, 123. Sell, Confessing, 135. 5 Hicks, Evangelicals, 27. 6 Hicks, Evangelicals, 26. 6

as fraudulent by the latter day children in our postmodern world.7 They rejected any overarching story. Wells blames much of this on the Enlightenments individualism, in contrast with Reformation individualism. The difference, says Wells, is the form of accountability; Reformation individualism was accountable to God.8 The Enlightenment world placed humanity at the centre, and recast the whole sorry scheme of things bare-handed, as it were, leaning on our own reason and goodness.9 Gradually, he says, this certainty evaporated, as the Enlightenment promises proved to be empty.10 This statement is broad and possibly premature, as the debate continues over whether postmodernity even properly exists. The Collapse of the Metanarrative Wells considers grand Enlightenment ideas to have collapsed under scrutiny, as the humanistic became dehumanising. Modernitys bureaucratic structures remain, while original beliefs are jaded. Postmodern thinkers, he says, are the vanguard of a profound reaction to the failure of the Enlightenment project, giving expression to a deeply held suspicion that modernity is in fact the enemy of human life. 11 Due to modernitys dance with a humanistic metanarrative, the ensuing disillusion affects all metanarratives. For postmodern thinkers, objective truth has now fallen into disrepute generally. In some ways, Wells comments, this helps Christians to critique modernity, but on the other hand their virulent attack not merely on Enlightenment meaning but on all meaning has made Christian faith less plausible in the modern world.12 Universal truth claims are accused of being vehicles of oppression, due to past experience of imposing truth claims on societies. This has expanded from critiquing the hegemonic, imperial, absolutistic claims of modernity and violence done in the name of the progress, to encompass a widespread suspicion of any comprehensive metanarrative of world history that makes total claims.13 Things become community exclusive, each governed by its own epistemological and ethical framework. The postmodernist position is one of moral nonrealism: the belief that
7 8

Wells, Losing, 123. Wells, No Place, 141. 9 Wells, No Place, 57-58. 10 Wells, No Place, 63. 11 Wells, Wasteland, 47. 12 Wells, Wasteland, 47 13 Middleton and Walsh, Stranger, 71. 7

there is no moral reality to be known apart from the cultures that create them.14 Thus moral norms are so contextualised to their environment that they are non-transferable. Wells notes a reluctance to voice universal absolutes in postmodern spirituality. It takes the truth of classical spirituality as something to be assumed, but frequently leaves that truth unstated.15

Sin
Changing Concepts Wells sees the concept of sin as disappearing in postmodern spirituality. Losing the understanding of ourselves as moral, he says, means losing the ability to understand our sinfulness. God disappears as transcendent reference point; standards by which sin is measured are lost. Sin becomes mere dysfunctionality. Preachers dilute the message of the gospel. In not understanding sin, we are reduced to using the vocabulary of evil, because otherwise we are left entirely speechless before lifes brutalities and atrocities.16 Evil is something offensive to us, whereas sin is offensive to God. Self-centredness in society means that we measure morality by our own standards. Salvation is sought from within. Therefore the self becomes the only reality that remains standing.17 Wells considers this self-absorption as the essence of sin, at its heart containing pride, which has an all-consuming fascination with the self, with its senses, its prestige, its demands.18 Wells highlights modern ideas of low self-esteem, suggesting an opposite problem pride blinds us to our sin. Carson notes that the selfism that is characteristic of Western culture dominates more than a little of the churchs life and thought and values and priorities as well.
19

Loving oneself is not the gospels message. Berkouwer sees Jesus commandment to love your neighbour as yourself as taking note of the natural preoccupation of man with himself, using it to illustrate how much a man, in his new commandment, must

14 15

Groothuis, Decay, 193 Wells, Losing, 44. 16 Wells, Losing, 182. 17 Wells, Losing, 184. 18 Wells, Losing, 188. 19 Carson, Gagging, 469. 8

be geared toward and bound up with his neighbour.20 For Wells, this natural selforientation means that we refuse to bear the pain of moral recrimination, or accept the reproach that such self-scrutiny may entail.21 Wells sees classical spirituality as centred around truth, but postmodern spirituality as based on the search for power, be it in dramatic charismatic encounter, or in therapeutic methods of handling our situations.22 We seek power for ourselves, and this, says Wells, is the essence of pride, what C.S. Lewis calls the great sin, which is the completely anti-God state of mind.23 Salvation - from what? Understanding sin means that we recognise the need to be saved, for if there really is no danger from which deliverance needs to be sought, then there really is no necessity for anyone to take the Gospel seriously and believe it.24 Salvation language loses power. Grace is misunderstood. If we dont see ourselves as sinners, we dont see the need for atonement. For if a human is basically good with intellectual and moral capabilities essentially intact, then any problems to his or her standing before God will be relatively minor.25 Also, says Erickson, sin closely relates to our understanding of the nature of God, of humanity, and our approaches to ministry and society.26 If the concept of sin slides out of spirituality, then it impacts wider theological understanding.

Character
The third domain Wells charts a third domain between freedom and law, once inhabited by affirmation of truth and cultivation of character.27 He claims this space has been evacuated. God has not only been placed at the periphery of the public sphere, as religion is privatised, but also in our private universe, as in that which is public, there is no centre.28 The place is missing where law and restraint are self imposed.29 Self-obsession and
20 21

Berkouwer, Sin, 251. Wells, Losing, 186. 22 Wells, Losing, 43. 23 Lewis, Mere, 100. 24 Wells, Losing, 180-181. 25 Erickson, Theology, 581. 26 Erickson, Theology, 581. 27 Wells, Losing, 63. 28 Wells, Losing, 60. 29 Wells, Losing, 63. 9

autonomous ideas result in the search for self-gratification, responsible only for individual happiness. Concepts of character as wholesome and good, something to be formed, have been replaced by desire for self-fulfilment. Hauerwas notes in his earlier works that our character is not a shadow of some deeper but more hidden real self; it is the form of our agency acquired through our own beliefs and actions. 30 This process of formation by what we believe and do seems quite alien when the true self is seen as discovered, not made. The modern mindset sees humanity as essentially good. This Pelagianism results in the idea of goodness as discovered inside us. Sense of the cultivation of character or self-control, and quests for goodness outside us are lost. Support Structures The vacuum of this middle territory becomes a conflict zone. Social constraint (chiefly, law) battles it out with self-expression. Law must now do what church, family, character, belief, and even cultural expectations once did by way of instructing and restraining human nature.31 Individualistic society provides few external restrictions. Without these outside elements to act as mentors, or points of referral, we are abandoned, with boundaries in continual flux. It is a contest in which the self stands in one corner, glowering across the ring, and society stands in the other corner, looking no less determined.32 Expressive individualism drives us demanding freedom from any external expectations, as opposed to a sense of personal responsibility. We seek to please ourselves, not others, to do what feels good, not what we know to be right.
It is not character that defines the way that expressive individualism functions today, but emancipation from values, from community, and from the past in order to be oneself, to seek ones own gain.33

For individuals in todays church this aggravates moral dilemmas, as support structures are dysfunctional. Right and wrong become harder to discern where boundaries are less easily fixed. Social systems that once functioned as restrainers are
30 31

Hauerwas, Character, 21. Wells, Losing, 64. 32 Wells, Losing, 64-65. 33 Wells, Losing, 67. 10

no longer central in our lives. Self-control is a lonely task, and hardly a virtue where self-gratification is considered a right. Bryan Wilson notes that it is no longer a matter of wishing not to be controlled by external agents. Now, we are in a time when a permissive society tells us that even self-control is bad; that there is something worse than misbehaviour, namely, that individuals should be thwarted in doing what they want.34 This attitude of self-seeking, claims Wells, is evident in postmodern spirituality, which focuses on self-expression and individual fulfilment.

34

Wilson, Transformations, 19. 11

ii) The Bass Line of Secular Salvation

Wells proposes that the focus on self leads to a secularised salvation, where cures to our ills lie essentially within ourselves, and in what we can purchase. New ways of defining ourselves arise.

Self Construction: Personality

New Adjectives Wells comments on the shift from character to personality. Personality is based more on self-expression than self-control, more on image than virtue. The terminology is different. Character is good or bad, while personality is attractive, forceful or magnetic, now attention has shifted from the moral virtues, which need to be cultivated, to the image, which needs to be fashioned.35 Ideas of self become based more on appearances and impressions. These impressions are not primarily character judgements instead they are assessments of likability. The paradox is in wanting to be yourself, but also seeking others favour (however superficial). Wells asks, how do we fly in the face of conformity by becoming different, while conforming enough to be liked?36 The vision that sprung from personality was one of unlimited selfexpression, self-gratification, and self-fulfilment.37 Guinness also notes the new quest for designer personality:
The emphasis is now on surface, not depth; on possibilities, not qualities; on glamour, not convictions; on what can be altered endlessly, not achieved for good; and on what can be bought and worn, not gained by education and formation.38

Celebrities and heroes Wells highlights this in discussing celebrities and heroes. Individuals were once perceived heroic because of character. Now the cult of the celebrity supersedes the admiration of heroes. Theirs is a glamorous, more easily granted (if not as enduring) fame. Reasons for celebrity status are usually to do with successful image, rather than
35 36

Wells, Losing, 97. Wells, Losing, 103. 37 Wells, Losing, 99. 38 Guinness, Time, 47. 12

admirable qualities, as they embody nothing and are typically known only for being known. Fame, in our world of images and manipulation, can be manufactured with little or no accomplishment behind it.39 Actual accomplishments and skills need not relate to morality. People may say its all about the music, that lifestyle is unimportant. (Interestingly, acting itself is being something we are not, and songs dont necessarily represent the true lifestyle of the writer.) Celebrities wanting to be emulated have very different primary qualities to that of the hero. The reason for their following is image-based. Manufacturing replaces cultivation; identity becomes commodity. Does the church unwittingly buy into an image-based ethic, with its own celebrities? Gibbs and Coffey identify the modern evangelical superstar, placed on a precarious pedestal of fickle popularity which undermines authentic spirituality by emphasizing publicity hype and image at the expense of substance.40 They suggest that spiritual superficiality of leadership means spiritually shallow churches.41 To take a wider view, if celebrities carry the adjectives of personality, not character, then do attempts to change church image mean that church, too, is emptied of character? Do image based churches attract more followers, and are these followers are true disciples, in the line of denying self? Image sells. Wells sees the Church as trying to sell itself to a consumer society.

Consumerism
Seeking the Signified The postmodern person, says Wells, is a consumer.42 We search to fill our emptiness. Goodliff sees shopping as expressing a deeper malaise, needing the regular fix of a shopping spree to ward off the sense of meaninglessness of existence and to keep the inner demons of boredom or depression at bay.43 Additionally, we seek to purchase new definitions of ourselves. We consume what we think might help. It is, as Baudrillard states, not merely that we purchase the product, but chase after what it signifies. Ultimately, this is what they always said money couldnt buy. Happiness, written in letters of fire behind the least little advert for bathsalts or the Canary

39 40

Wells, Losing, 100. Gibbs & Coffey, Next, 121. 41 Gibbs & Coffey, Next, 123. 42 Wells, Wasteland, 218. 43 Goodliff, Care, 54. 13

Islands, is the absolute reference of the consumer society: it is the strict equivalent of salvation.44 Advertisements offer secular salvation by suggesting products can improve life. They associate products with some personal status or achievement, offering them as a means to fill the emptiness of the modern self.45 Advertising functions on a farreaching platform. For, as Baudrillard comments, when it speaks of a particular object and brand it potentially glorifies all of themin targeting each consumer, it is targeting them all, thus simulating a consumer totality.46 Offering self-gratification, it creates desire for it, telling us what we want, with the imperative of need. Possessions start defining us. The consumption framework dictates our mentality; everything can be bought and sold. Shopping malls replace cathedrals, with their unique blend of high commercialism and undaunted fantasy.47 Marketing Church Culture influences identity. We can become so used to our consumer culture that it seems natural and right, and allow it to reshape all aspects of our lives.48 Wells argues that the consumer mentality infects the Church. Congregations become consumers customers shopping around to find a satisfactory church. The focus is on meeting personal needs. Groothuis sees this as symptomatic of postmodernism: Those holding a postmodernist view of truth may appear very spiritual, and to go along with Christian belief to a point, just so long as religion meets their felt needs.49 These felt needs Wells suggests, are what the Church today is trying to meet in order to survive. However, if everything is based on individuals needs, then there is a serious danger that the message itself will become distorted and edited down in the interest of relevance and immediacy.50 Wells cites the research of Donald E. Miller, using features of what Miller calls new paradigm churches, to illustrate what he calls postmodern spirituality. He quotes Miller as saying that these churches do a better job of responding to their
44 45

Baudrillard, Consumer, 48. Wells, Losing, 112. 46 Baudrillard, Consumer, 125. 47 Wells, Losing, 88. 48 Bartholomew, Christ, 9. 49 Groothuis, Decay, 275. 50 Gibbs and Coffey, Next, 50. 14

clientele.51 This idea of clientele shows an approach based on individual needs, not requirements of faith. However, Miller also says that more importantly these churches successfully mediate the sacred, bringing God to people and conveying the self-transcending and life-changing core of all true religion.52 Nevertheless, Wells claims that these efforts focus on pleasing people, not God, resulting in a gospel seen as glossy and saleable. If Wells is correct, this implies salvation itself is for sale, placing it in the consumers court, rather than within doctrines of God and of sin. It becomes a buy-able factor, rather than a gift, especially if salvation is equated primarily with happiness and self-fulfilment, rather than rescue. In his vision of Liquid Church, Pete Ward claims that church needs to embrace the sensibilities of consumption.53 He considers the tendency of shopping to be less about need than desire. 'To shop is to seek for something beyond ourselves. To reduce this to materialism is to miss the point, or more importantly it is to miss an opportunity.'54 He sees an opportunity, where meeting needs is replaced by stimulating desire for God. He considers that it is possible to offer choice without being dictated to be customer demand, and envisions a church network of goods and services. Unfortunately, it is hard not to think of materialism when considering this issue. Consumerism is a loaded term. If we take the desire for something more as a factor in shaping the church, then a new terminology is needed. Participating in consumerism, for those such as Wells, will automatically mean that the gospel is something to be bought and sold, thus belittling its function and reality as saving grace. Faith becomes merely another product. By using the same tactics as the secular society, in order to sell what it offers, church can endanger its distinctiveness. Ward gives a new sheen to consumerism, but it is difficult to remove negative connotations from the word.

51 52

Wells, Losing, 31. Miller, Reinventing, 3. 53 Ward, Liquid, 72. 54 Ward, Liquid, 59. 15

Therapy
Self-Potentiality Psychotherapy is popularised in our culture, especially in America. Patients become clients, doctors their counsellors.55 It has expanded beyond the sphere of science and medicine. Hurding describes Freuds theories and practises as the tree of psychoanalysis, from which other offshoots sprouted.56 These focused on more than just external behaviour. Freuds theories related to the inner life of a person, asking what was going on below the surface.57 However, Freuds concepts of negative human instincts have been succeeded by the alternative notion of inner self as positive. Ideas of self-potential are illustrated by approaches such as that of Carl Rogers, who saw human nature as essentially good, in the sense of being constructive and trustworthy.58 He placed much emphasis on self-expression and experience. Wells sees this liberationist psychology as placing redemption in ones self, with the result that both meaning and values become relative to each self.59 Wells identifies this as the dominant therapeutic emphasis today. Popular culture sees self as having the potential to heal itself. The therapeutic, says MacIntyre, has been given application far beyond the sphere of psychological medicine in which it obviously has its legitimate place.60 It is, says Wells, a secular spirituality, which has been cut loose from its superintendence by the experts.61 To become a psychological man, says Philip Rieff, is to become kinder to the whole self, the private parts as wells as the public, the formerly inferior as well as the formally superior.62 We have become psychologically kind to ourselves, believing in self-goodness and the right to self-express, seeking inside ourselves the cures for our ills. Wells sees this introspection as typically Western, saying it is a remarkable thought that buried within are the balms for our wounds and moral failures.63 He agrees with Christopher Lasch in saying that we have become narcissistic in our
55 56

Wells, Losing, 111. Hurding, Roots, 55. 57 Hurding, Roots, 58. 58 Hurding, Roots, 129-30. 59 Wells, Losing, 28. 60 MacIntyre, After, 30. 61 Wells, Losing, 111. 62 Rieff, Feeling, 5. 16

personality, with an exaggerated sense of importance, and that our culture itself now echoes the narcissist personality hollow without a core.64 Substitute Religion The spawning of societys obsession with the self and psychotherapy invades the public conscious with the idea that a therapy exists for everything. Wells sees it as resembling a substitute religion, although Lasch suggests that it constitutes an antireligion, chiefly due to societys unfuturistic outlook, concerned only with immediate needs.
Love as self-sacrifice or self-abasement, meaning as submission to a higher loyalty - these sublimations strike the therapeutic sensibility as intolerably oppressive, offensive to common sense and injurious to personal health and well-being.65

However, we can argue that this harmonises with self-enthronement. The self is the higher loyalty to which all else must submit. This supports Wells argument; the self is seen as the place of healing, worship, and authority. Where we used to approach God for healing, we now go to personal therapies and techniques. We read self-help literature, which assumes that healing is possible because the self carries within it the means of its own healinga secularised form of salvation.66 We could call it, perhaps, the modern equivalent of wisdom literature, but there is no fear of the LORD here. It is reverence of a Holy God that Wells calls us to regain, and intrinsic to an alternative rhythm to that of the world.

63 64

Wells, Losing, 122. Wells, Losing, 108. 65 Lasch, Narcissism, 13. 66 Wells, Losing, 111. 17

Part 2: A Different Beat

i) Out of Step with Holiness
Classical spirituality, Wells suggests, had the moral centre that postmodern spirituality lacks. It focuses on God as transcendent Other, both in majesty and purity. Most important is the role which the Holy has, which gives weight and shape to the understanding of God.67 If the Church is not informed by moral centredness, based on the otherness of God, it cannot distinguish itself adequately from culture, or recognise cultural elements within itself.

The Role of the Holy God as Other

Ultimate Purity God as transcendent ruling authority is not just a matter of objective truth. Wells stresses the importance of Gods nature. God is holy ultimate in purity, set apart from us. Wells accuses postmodern spirituality of over-emphasising experience of an immanent God of love. We have turned to a God we can use rather than to a God we must obey; we have turned to a God who will fill our needs rather than to a God before whom we must surrender our rights to ourselves.68 We lose the recognition of God as wholly Other, and the recognition of ourselves as created, but fallen beings. In response, this often results from good intentions, seeking to communicate God in a culture very different from biblical times. However, in these attempts, we can overaccommodate, trying to fit God into cultural attitudes and ideals. The aspects we have explored in Part One not only impact our view of ourselves, but our view of God.
All too often our pictures of God get caught up with what is current, the now, the up-to-date. We feel we have to find the right image for God. So we try and make God fit the surrounding culture in some way or other. Not to do so would make us

67 68

Wells, Losing, 35. Wells, Wasteland, 114. 18

irrelevant. And in a culture where image is all-important this is too high a price to pay.69

Even if unconsciously, the line between God and self can become so blurred that he is no longer functionally distinctive. He becomes too familiar, too close to be set-apart, too much like us to be holy. Ironically, God is holy because God is not like anything else.70 By overstating, or misunderstanding, his immanence, we lose the sense that God is over and above everything. Transcendent Presence Wells contends that postmodern spirituality has made Gods love pre-eminent. By removing Gods holiness from his transcendence, ideas of his relatedness grew, and immanence loomed large.71 Erickson describes God's immanence and transcendence as 'nearness and distance' ways that God relates to creation.72 Wells dislikes this description, because 'if God's holiness is distant that is to say, not a present reality the church loses its moral life'.73 Gods holiness is intrinsic to the moral vision Wells seeks for the church. He doesnt advocate a remote God. The philosophers radically transcendent God, and pantheism and panentheisms radically immanent God, are both removed from the living God of biblical-prophetic tradition.74 If ideas of holiness as separation are pushed too far, we are left with holiness as some sort of ethereal and disembodied existence, in isolation from potential contaminants.75 This kind of semantic baggage creates problems when discussing holiness. Unless holiness is understood as a dynamic part of the Gods nature, rather than a less than theology of what God is not, it retains a certain negativity which feels more heavy than awesome.

69 70

McFarlane, Holy Spirit, 15. McFarlane, Holy Spirit, 19. 71 Wells, Losing, 51. 72 Erickson, Christian Theology, 327ff. 73 Wells, Wasteland, 92n. 74 Bloesch, Almighty, 262. 75 Riddell, Threshold, 75. 19

Worship Perspectives Wells notes the mystical nature of postmodern spirituality, containing ideas of direct, personal access to God, mystery over rationality, and understandings of grace as a power that brings psychological wholeness.76 He sees worship in this spirituality as individualised and experiential, illustrating the emphasis on love. This replaced old emphases on consecration and commitment in classic hymns, with the thought of loving God, and occasionally of being in love with God.77 The trouble with the debate over Gods holiness and love is that Gods holiness can be seen as sparring with his love, as if they were competing elements. This illustrates a confusion of Gods holy love with sentimentality. We use the language of romance, not reverence. Webber makes this point, saying that worship can be reduced to warm fuzzies, and God is no longer the God of judgement, whose holiness inspires fear and awe, but just our buddy, our pal, our friendIt panders to me-ism Gods chief value is in making me feel good.78 This links to Wells contention of grace as power bringing psychological wholeness so too is Gods love seen sentimentally, or even selfishly, as something to be demanded, not to be grateful for. However, worship songs reflect certain phases in church life. Recently Vineyard UK released an album called Holy, containing lyrics focussed on Gods holiness and transcendence as well as immanence.
Awesome God, Holy God, I worship you in wonder, Awesome God, Holy God, as you draw near, Im humbled By your majesty79

However, many Vineyard songs convey a deep intimacy. This sometimes risks loss of reverence, especially when the language used is more applicable to a human lover than a transcendent God. Intimacy that degenerates into over-familiarity regarding God and the nature of his love, is both presumptuous and embarrassing to those who see God from a transcendental perspective.80 The nature of divine love is misrepresented as casual sentimentality. It is shallow thinking to imagine the love of
76 77

Wells, Losing, 46. Wells, Losing, 45. 78 Webber, Ancient-Future, 124. 79 Beeching, Awesome. 80 Gibbs & Coffey, Next, 155. 20

God as something weak, soft and indulgent. Absolute love implies absolute purity and absolute holiness: an intense burning light.81

God as Reference Point

The Place of Sin Sin seems an unpleasant, accusing word in todays society. Wells thinks the Church needs to recover an understanding of sin. The problems of sin-recovery seem to be the relocation, or disappearance, of the reference point. Sins only reference point is the Holy God. In our failures, we are not able to penetrate the real character of sin, because we cannot take its measure, see its nature, in relation to God.82 It is God who defines sin. Berkouwer also emphasises this, for to understand sins essence we cannot ignore this relation of sin and God and regard our sin as mere phenomenon in human living.83 Biblically, sin is defined in reference to God, who is holy and perfect. In this sense sin is relational, and also works out relationally. In its primary and most fundamental sense, Ramm states, sin violates the perfection of God, and that perfection is the basis for human beings to relate to each other.84 Making understanding of sin purely anthropological means having only one half of a two-sided relationship. Without God, sin and guilt become confusing terms, as standards to measure them by are lost. Guilt and Shame In divorcing guilt from shame, and emptying shame of moral tones, we live, says Wells, with guilt in remission.85 When guilt (over violating a moral norm) is divorced from shame (over disappointment with what we are not), then the former is inevitably transformed into the latter. Guilt disappears and all that remains is shame.86 Failing to obtain the correct image, before others and ourselves, causes embarrassment and shame. Shame can be false or real. Because we are basing our feelings on the judgements of others, not God, we have no means to measure it.

81 82

Watson, Real, 39. Wells, Losing, 181. 83 Berkouwer, Sin, 242. 84 Ramm, Offense, 94. 85 Wells, Losing, 129. 86 Wells, Losing, 130. 21

Guilt is the compass point that lines up our actions with the moral world in which we live. Whether people know it or not, this world is a part of that moral reality whose apex is the holiness of God and which is given verbal expression in the moral codes of Scripture. Shame has to do with our location in our social world.87

Wells suggests that shame relates to the horizontal plane of psychological understanding rather than against the vertical realm of theological knowledge; thus the cure is within that plane.88 However, here Wells seems himself to divorce the two realms. He divides them too sharply. It is also misses the connection between right relationship with God and others. In the command to love God and neighbour, 'human relations are not compartmentalized or set off to a certain area of their own. They dont have their own relative norms and criteria. Rather we are always concerned with the One who is God in and over all things.'89 Wells shows how our moral understanding is warped, while feelings about ourselves are confused, based on popular opinion (particularly in false guilt and shame). However, the relation and meanings of guilt and shame are complex. Some consider that objective guilt is emphasised, without enough reference to shame within our relationship with God. We [have] emphasised guilt and justification at the expense of shame and adoption.90 Reintegrating guilt and shame lessens the danger of neglecting one or the other. Disagreement over the terms shows the issue as not easily defined. Confusion over the nature of guilt and shame, and the relationship of sin to humanity, relate to our self-perception. Additionally, Wells notes that what we think of the self and what we think about God are closely related.91 The place of holiness in Gods transcendence is lost; so too is the moral understanding of the self. Wells contends that in moving away from the language of human nature and towards selfconsciousness, we lose the universality of human createdness, and human fallenness.

87 88

Wells, Losing, 131. Wells, Losing, 140. 89 Berkouwer, Sin, 244. 90 Long, Generating, 103. 91 Wells, Losing, 51. 22

ii) The Distorted Lyrics of Human Nature Questions of Identity A Twilight Knowledge
Remembering what we were Wells sees our present reality as contradictory, due to the memory of what we were created to be. He interacts with Brunner, believing the imago dei was not totally obliterated in the Fall. In us lies a moral understanding in conflict with societys narcissism, and the strains of moral experience that continue to be heard in our fallen world are constant reminders of who we once were.92 We still ask big questions; we still experience remorse. As Brunner asks, What is the origin of this sense of disharmony which becomes most acute when I refuse to do what the law within me commands?93 The conflict exists, says Wells, between what we are and what we once were.
From the creation, we have a twilight knowledge of the kind of God before whom we are standing, and we have some sense of how we should comport ourselves in life, but from within ourselves we find only the urge to disregard what we know and to dismiss what we should do.94

Any goodness we possess is the goodness of our createdness, which needs to be affirmed. This is God-constructed, not self-constructed. Rogers view on human nature conflicts with the biblical picture. Behind these Rogerian concepts is the baleful idea of autonomy, that men and women can be, and should be, completely self-governing with respect to their destiny.95 However, as we have seen, Wells wishes to restore God as our ultimate reference point, away from the world of the internal and psychological.96 Even if ideas of moral absolutes are dismissed, we possess an internal moral sense, and the more morally threadbare life becomes, the more our nature cries out against us.97 Wells sees this moral sense as reminiscent of the image of God within us. He
92 93

Wells, Losing, 148. Brunner, Divine, 28. 94 Wells, Losing, 161. 95 Hurding, Roots, 120. 96 Wells, Losing, 124. 97 Wells, Losing, 163. 23

talks chiefly about this 'memory' of what we were, which is a slightly awkward term. A memory is not an actuality; it suggests something no longer exists. The actuality of our createdness needs to be affirmed. It is not just an inkling in the mind, but part of human identity. This relates to our future hope, in understanding recreation and restoration from our fallenness. It is also universal. Wells sees the language of selfconsciousness as taking away this sense of a common nature. Recognising what we are Modern society tends to protest human innocence. The Bible states that none are innocent. Indeed, the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth (Genesis 8:21). The idea that the source of goodness lies within, where answers to life can be discovered, conflicts with the attitude of Christ. Only romantic fictionalizing can interpret the Jesus of the New Testament as one who believed in the goodness of men, and sought by trusting it to bring out what was good in them.98 Wells considers moral living based on confidence in the selfs own goodness, with self-referential standards, as suffused with sin.99 Wells contends that recognising our fallenness makes sense of the desire for selfsatisfaction. We are able to identify the contradictions we experience, confessing something has gone wrong. We are not who we were created to be. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22). Against Gods standards, we fall short. Our true nature, says Wells, is seen in relation to God. God defines us. If sin is inherent and none of us righteous, we continually need God, as we cannot rely on ourselves. It entails gratitude rather than demand.

The Embarrassed Church

The Great Contradiction The frustration we feel in the conflict between the moral sense and our fallenness Wells considers as giving Christian faith its best access to a postmodern culture that has given up on serious thought, rational argument, and historical defenses.100 He considers the new spiritual hunger in the postmodern world as reacting against a

98 99

H.R. Niebuhr, Culture, 25. Wells, Losing, 195. 100 Wells, Losing, 192. 24

life stripped down by the rhythm of modernity.101 Wells objects to any reverberations of stripping down within the Church itself. The nature of the Church is itself a great contradiction, the place of Gods revelation, yet still a community characterised by human frailty. In the Church is Christs grace but also pride in its many forms. Here, in an even more intense form, are the contradictions of the postmodern world.102 Brunner notes the non-existence of a purely divine or purely spiritual Church. It belongs to the essence of the Church that it is at once divine and human, sacred and secular.103 Church always interacts with current cultural elements. It is meant to place our moral sense and opposing fallenness into the right perspective. However, Wells sees the church as embarrassed about professing its faith, particularly regarding sin, and thus the atonement as salvation from sins consequences. This is not only due to the pressure people feel to be civil in this secularized society, but also due to the Churchs moral fabric [having] been worn bare and its sin in failing to grasp what sin is all about, which is apparently lost on it.104 Reinterpreting Sin Wells illustrates this urge to make sin more acceptable by using the example of Donald Capps. Capps says that the woman who anoints Jesus feet is commended for her self-trust, and that the time has come for us to recognise that taking care of ourselves this once-in-a-lifetime gift is emphatically not a self-indulgence, but a moral imperative.105 This is irreconcilable with the gospel emphasis in denying self for the sake of Jesus. Wells is justified in criticising Capps, who has substituted the psychological self for the moral self, the dynamics of shame for the workings of sin, therapy for the Gospel, and psychological wholeness for biblical justification.106 Wells also cites the example of Robert Schuller, who reinterprets sin as poor selfimage and salvation as its reversal.107 These examples, Wells claims, show that sin has lost its moral weight in the Church itself, which should be where sin comes to

101 102

Wells, Losing, 193. Wells, Losing, 197. 103 Brunner, Divine, 527. 104 Wells, Losing, 197. 105 Capps, Depleted, 168. 106 Wells, Losing, 199. 107 Wells, Losing, 200. 25

light. Soon, says Wells, guilt becomes bad and pride becomes good.108 Since Wells identifies sin most fully with pride we can see the irony in this reversal. The problem with these examples is that they are fairly extreme. Wells uses them to portray general trends, but they are very specific cases, and cant be used as portraying the state of Christian spirituality in general. Using Millers research to illustrate postmodern spirituality, Wells criticises this spirituality for its (however unwitting) lack of moral centredness. Conversely, Miller notes that these churches consider human selfishness or to use the old-fashioned term, sin as the core cause of all social problems. Mere increase of social programs wont do, for people need to shift from serving self to serving God, and hence be born again.109 Hence Miller observes that these churches do have a sense of sin. In describing their worship styles, which Wells criticises for absence of lyrical content, Miller discovers that during worship people in Vineyard churches often experience a real conviction of individual sin. Nearly as often as people experience joy in worship, they spoke of brokenness, pain, sorrow, repentance, and memories of wrongs they had committed without retribution.110 Saying that these forms of Christian spirituality have re-translated sin entirely seems without warrant. Wells criticises the Church for displacing God from the throne room, and instead enthroning the self. Kenneth Leech observes that much contemporary spirituality within the Church itself is highly individualistic and directed more at self-cultivation than communion with God.111 Preoccupation with the self seems to be a modern hazard. Wells calls the Church to resist this tendency. The bottom line is the relation of church to culture.

108 109

Wells, Losing, 200. Miller, Reinventing, 109 110 Miller, Reinventing, 89. 111 Leech, Sky, 128. 26

Part 3: A Timeless Discord

i) Recognising the Chords of Culture
Debates surrounding Christian living in the world arent new; the problem has been an enduring one through all the Christian centuries.112 The Church community continually faces crises of discernment. 'There is always a tension, sometimes creative, sometimes destructive, between our Christian faith and the values of contemporary culture.'113 Miller describes new paradigm Christians as not easily fitting into traditional categories; they could be described as fundamentalists, but are seeking cultural relevance, instead of being culture-denying reactionaries.114 Wells sees this as mimicking modern cultures moves.115

Perception and Interpretation On Being Whole

Places of Healing Wells notes, from Miller, that postmodern spirituality emphasises the therapeutic. However, Miller himself highlights the new paradigm churches he investigates as hostile to the narcissism they see in contemporary values, despite their openness and tolerance.116 For new paradigm Christians worship of self is replaced with worship of Godpersonal meaning is achieved in living rightly ordered relationships as revealed in scripture; therein lies freedom, not in self-driven pursuits of individual happiness.117 He perceives a therapeutic form outside the framework of narcissism, unlike Wells. It relates to self-expression and healing, not sought from within, but from God. In this light, the therapeutic is not entirely negative. If, as Wells suggests, the self has been emptied out, logically it needs re-filling. This is revealed in the desire behind consumerism and the need to reconstruct ourselves. The issue is the source for reconstructing our self-understanding. Moral dilemmas start when we approach self, not God. In his dismissal of the therapeutic, Wells doesnt engage with Christian counsellors who have a distinctive commitment to the truths of living

112 113

H.R. Niebuhr, Culture, 3. Greene, 'The Spirit of the Age', 22. 114 Miller, Reinventing, 121. 115 Wells, Losing, 32. 116 Miller, Reinventing, 21. 117 Miller, Reinventing, 151. 27

Christian faith, while still seeking to broaden their understanding of people through psychotherapy theories.118 For example, Larry Crabb, in his approach to biblical counselling, strongly emphasises the fallen self-centredness of human nature and asserts that anything that counterfeits life and thus encourages people to press on without turning to God is dangerously wrong. The core of all helping effort must be Christ.119 The Sufficiency of the Atonement Most seriously, Wells accuses the therapeutic of undermining belief in the sufficiency of the atonement. If these elements are add-ons for spiritual wholeness, it implies Christs work is incomplete. Medieval piety reached for moral attainment to complete the work of Christ. We reach for psychological technique and knowledge to do the same thing.120 If technique becomes more important, or more necessary than fundamental aspects of Christian faith, then the Churchs distinctiveness is endangered. Nevertheless, churches that Wells sees as manifesting postmodern spirituality do focus on God, albeit in a way more experiential than cerebral. This doesnt mean that the atonement is seen as insufficient. Understandings of it may be wider than simply objective justification, or penal substitution, which for many American Christiansinterprets the significance of Jesus death fully, completely, without remainder.121 New emphases, such as shame and adoption, need not replace older interpretations, but build on them. However, the centrality of the cross is central, and seen as integral to evangelical faith. Any other theme as the focus of theology would be taking a step away from Evangelicalism.122 If people understand themselves as saved by psychotherapy, not Christ, then this is a real problem. However, using therapeutic technique does not necessarily imply that salvation is being sought elsewhere. Scripture does not grapple with issues of living in the modern world; it simply does not address many issues people face today. This takes place in a society where ethical dilemmas are expanding and developing in
118 119

Jones & Butman, Psychotherapies, 21. Crabb, Understanding, 211. 120 Wells, Losing, 30. 121 Green & Baker, Scandal, 13. 122 Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 15. 28

unprecedented areas. Christians generally are in a great deal of moral confusion.123 Due to the experiential nature of postmodern spirituality, it can be harder to navigate through moral waters. It is not unfaithful to search out how to reasonably expand our understanding beyond what God chose to reveal in the Bible.124 Wisdom is needed to discern those situations where self becomes the source of reliance, not God. The Role of the Holy Spirit Wells seems to discount most experience as selling out to narcissistic society. Where the experiential is over-emphasised, objective elements are endangered. However, not all experience is emptied of moral centre. Wells claims little about the Holy Spirit. He states that moral redirection is through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit and that more confidence is needed in the Spirits power, as well as in the atoning work of Christ.125 This is barely mentioned elsewhere, and given little significance in his thesis. This seems odd, considering Wells appeal for having more confidence in the power of God. Wells refers to the Holy Spirit being asserted, especially in Charismatic/Pentecostal circles, as responsible for changes that are actually the products of modernised culture, and that here the art of discrimination is also unceremoniously surrendered.126 He cautions against saying that self-indulgent experience is the Spirits doing. However, he doesnt address real experience of the Holy Spirit as a balance to this argument. Neither does he discuss the Spirits role in helping people to grow in holiness.

On Being Holy
The Importance of Otherness Wells sees God as holy, set apart, and transcendent, claiming that postmodern spirituality makes God too immanent. An older reaction is seen in Barths strong emphasis on God as Other, contrasting with Schleiermachers God-consciousness. In Barths theology, God is God, not man writ large; and he cannot simply be spoken of

123 124

Riddell, Threshold, 7. Jones & Butman, Psychotherapies, 21. 125 Wells, Losing, 207,208. 126 Wells, No Place, 182. 29

by speaking of ourselves in a loud voice.127 Schleiermachers attempt to contextualise faith was a reaction to rationalistic thinking, offering religious language a new foundation and point of reference, one with inbuilt defences against the attacks of the Enlightenment.128 Wells contends that postmodernism reacts to emphasis on reason. Wells admits to sounding rather like Barth, but says that in a world full of Liberals, sounding a little like Barth has become both a necessity and a virtue.129 He sees the need for re-establishing Gods holy otherness in postmodern spirituality. Conversely, in the case of Vineyard (one of Millers new paradigm churches), Martyn Percy sees this spirituality as portraying God as Other, by focusing very much on holiness and purity, as part of its Charismatic revivalist element. Seeking holiness is seen as preparation for revival, and Percy sees this as implying that God is distant, unable to move closer to the community of faith until it has repented, and purged and cleansed itself of sin and unbelief.130 We must therefore take into consideration alternative viewpoints, especially when they state the situation in opposite terms to Wells. The Meaning of Holiness The need for moral distinctiveness relates to the command to be holy. Talking morality without talking holiness can sound like judgementalism. Sanctity, or holiness, is more central to the New Testament than morality. Christians are called not to be moral but to be saintsThe whole idea of morality apart from sanctification is unknown to classical Christianity.131 Holiness can take an ethereal quality of simply being sinlessness. However, as Bloesch states, holiness excludes not only immorality but mediocrity. It involves no only obedience to the law but also zeal for the faith.132 It is not a limp factor, but dynamic. Interpretations of holiness as set apart inform our understanding of how we are to be holy. We have seen how Wells dislikes associations with distance. Riddell takes this further, taking Jesus example, who was holy, yet associated with sinners. Riddell claims that Old Testament understandings of holiness as set apart are reinterpreted in
127 128

Heron, Century, 76. Heron, Century, 27. 129 Wells, No Place, 288. 130 Percy, Words, 124. 131 Leech, Sky, 141. 30

the light of Jesus, as the emphasis shifts from separation to involvement.133 Jesus holiness, he suggests, was an inner reality that did not require separatism, existing in culture without fearing contamination. Holiness is separation to, rather than separation fromIt need not fear contamination because it proceeds outward from the heart.134 Focussing on the dangers of compromise may result in withdrawing from culture entirely, thus purged from its influence. As Greene warns, the more church perceives its fundamental relationship with contemporary culture in terms of antagonistic or subversive opposition, the more it tends to withdraw into its own cultural ghetto.'135 Riddell relates this to mission, for true holiness wont keep us from the world, but drive us into it in faith.'136 The Churchs presence in the world is Christs presence in the world. Christian holiness stems from union with Christ, not from virtue or behaviour. The true source of holiness needs to be recognised when calling for moral reform in the Church. The Gospel the Church supposedly preaches is one of liberation and freedom, not a moral crusade. In turn, Riddells view needs to be tempered by the recognition that we are not yet perfect. We cannot do away with wisdom in areas of weakness. It is still helpful to have a sense of not belonging to the world (John 15:19, 17:14). The Church can take seriously the call to holy living while still being aware of its dependence on Gods purpose and grace.

132 133

Bloesch, Almighty, 159. Riddell, Threshold, 73. 134 Riddell, Threshold, 81. 135 Greene, 'Spirit of the Age', 22. 136 Riddell, Threshold, 87. 31

ii) Stop and Rewind?

Future Vision Medium and Message
Miller identifies a second reformation, challenging not doctrine but the medium through which the message of Christianity is articulated.137 Wells is concerned that in heavily concentrating on medium, the original message is lost. Miller observes sociological aspects (from a liberal viewpoint); Wells calls for reformation, not of medium but of faith and truth (from an evangelical viewpoint). Wells believes the evangelical church cannot afford to buy into modernitys structure and style. Changing Image Brian McLaren, who advocates totally revamping church style, confesses that when we change the medium, the message that's received is changed, however subtly, as well. We might as well get beyond our navet or denial about this.'138 However, he considers it worth the risk. He calls for new ways of doing theology, a space for confessing inadequacies and uncertainties, being involved in an exciting journey of discovery, waking up slumbering Christians and perhaps attracting the outsider as well.139 Approaches like these have merit and sound good, but can be dangerous, especially if taken out of context (loyalty to the Word of God). However, being so paranoid about the Churchs future that the only way is backwards is also dangerous. Miller notes that new paradigm Christians are responding to the pessimism of postmodern culture by transforming it rather than simply rejecting it in the hope of recovering a simpler, less corrupt bygone age.140 Wells considers attempts at changing church image as weakening biblical identity. He comments that in attempting to sell Church, it is supposed that what has distinguished the Church in its appearance and functions should be abandoned.141 It is difficult to see exactly what Wells criticises here, as he uses examples of casual dress, the removal of pews and the changing of robes, and cites all contemporary

137 138

Miller, Reinventing, 11. McLaren, Other Side, 68. 139 McLaren, Other Side, 69. 140 Miller, Reinventing, 122. 141 Wells, Losing, 201. 32

hymns as empty of theological substance.142 With the exception of hymnal content (although even this reflects cultural emphases), his examples are very appearancedriven and seem rather irrelevant to morality. Ironically, here he seems to defend culture, as all styles and forms are in some sense cultural. Courageous Faith Wells claims the Church lacks the courage to believe Gods power to save, and that todays churchly trendiness is really yesterdays unbelief.143 The style doesnt need to be changed, for the message is powerful enough on its own. Attempts to help God along dilute the message, showing disbelief in the Gospels power. Certainly, disillusionment undermines confidence, but Wells doesnt seem to acknowledge that it is for the love of God that some people (particularly church leaders) try and amend style. Wells doesnt encourage or affirm such motives. Conversely, his argument could also work the other way round; God is not limited by changing styles. Style always fluctuates, and always relates to culture. Courageous faith will not always be static, and will be eager to present the Gospel in various communication forms, remaining faithful to the message. Wells negative criticism of attempts to access postmodern generations can lead to a Church paralysed by selfcondemnation as well as one moved by genuine repentance. He appears to allow little room for grace.

Recovery or Discovery
Past and Present Wells focuses on recovering what has been lost in spirituality. In his passion for reclaiming the moral centre, he seems to advocate returning to Reformation spirituality, existing before the bankruptcy of the Enlightenment experiment144. However, history cant be reversed; every era is culture bound. Different questions are asked in different times. We cant continue giving the same rehearsed answers to changing sets of questions; otherwise we are irresponsible stewards of the message. Historically, theologians have continually worked through deep questions of faith,

142 143

Wells, Losing, 201. Wells, Losing, 108. 144 Wells, Losing, 145. 33

addressing specific concerns, often to combat current heresies. We cannot reverse the emergence of the therapeutic, or the rise of consumerism. Perhaps the Church has had a time of rediscovering Gods active presence (immanence) among his people. In turn, the need arises to rediscover his holy transcendence as if climbing a spiral staircase, each redressing the balance of the generation before. Ultimately a balance is needed; otherwise we get trapped in a reactive spiral, taking energy away from the Churchs mission. As with Gods love and holiness, they need not be seen as competing elements. For example, Gibbs and Coffey say that new-paradigm churches are recapturing a sense of the transcendence of God encountered through his immanence.145 To discount false, self-oriented experience should not discount true experience of God. Wells doesnt offer much practical, specific guidance towards change. Any study of a specific subject encounters this danger, but Wells doesnt seem to progress from his statement in No Place for Truth, merely reiterating and embellishing his arguments in the following volumes. Churches can easily become disillusioned with criticism that offers no sense of progression. Losing Our Virtue, with its predecessors in the trilogy, takes a largely condemnatory stance without really giving any practical sense of forward motion. Too Harsh a Sentence?
The children who have grown up or are growing up in the postmodern world bear its mark. They are cut loose from everything, hollowed out, eclectic, patched together from scraps of personality picked up here and there, leery of commitments, empty of all passions except that of sex, devoid of the capacity for commitment, fixated on image rather than substance, operating on the seductive elixir of unrestricted personal preference, and informed only by personal intuition.146

This is a bleak evaluation, and a gross generalisation. It takes the idea of postmodernity and applies it right across the board, without appreciating the nuances involved. We have seen how Wells can be selective in his examples, whereas other
145 146

Gibbs & Coffey, Next, 141. Wells, Wasteland, 222. 34

researchers (Miller, Percy), have shown different perspectives. Caution needs to be exercised in discussing moral distinctiveness of the evangelical church as a whole, as a spectrum exists within evangelicalism. The mistake Wells most consistently makes is (justly) criticising elements within popular Christianity, but then (unjustly) applying them right across the board. He makes broad statements without adequate clarification, not really allowing for exceptions. Attempts made by those such as Riddell, McLaren and Ward show an attempt to meet people where they are without compromising the integrity of the gospel. Despite differences of opinion on various approaches, we can value the motivation behind such methods. However, it must be said that all of these examples, together with others such as John Drane, seem to favour more expressive forms of spirituality. In this we can warn that they too risk generalisation, by preferring one approach, and overestimating the spread of postmodern influence. People groups vary; generations and basic personalities differ. Wells adopts an antagonistic stance throughout his writing, which carries readers along in the rhetoric, but leaves them a little stumped at the end about possible action. The changes Wells calls for are of such magnitude that individual persons and churches feel quite dwarfed by what they face. It would be helpful to have a little more pastoral recognition of the moral struggles faced in the environment about which Wells is so concerned. Wells engages in little dialogue with other thinkers who see things differently, except the more extreme examples (Capps, Schuller), and doesnt consider the full spectrum of Millers research. In his sketch of popular culture, Wells indicates the problems, but his approach in condemning the state of the Church can seem to lack compassion.

35

Conclusion
The modern world is so painful, so costly, so brutal to life that mimicking its rhythms, rather than providing an alternative to them, will soon be seen to be the hollow charade, the empty mirage, that it is. The happy campers in modernitys playground are blithely unaware that this is a dangerous neighbourhood.147

Wells sees mimicking the rhythm of the world as a risky enterprise. He calls for cultural engagement, discerning the wolf of secular salvation dressed in religious clothing. Secular salvation draws its power from the self. Life becomes image-based, compensating for emptiness of character. In consumerism we seek new ways of selfconstruction. Finally, we seek the source of our strength within, taking the therapeutic emphasis to its extreme, believing we can heal ourselves. Wells sees this as resulting from relocating the Holy God from transcendent point of reference, to the place of customer satisfaction. Over-emphasising his immanence and love, blurring them with self, means that we lose reverence and awe, and finally confidence in our God. As the Self nudges God from the throne, we lose the understanding of ourselves as created, moral beings. We merely wish to satisfy the self. This, says Wells, is a quintessential part of our fallenness. Understanding our fallenness makes sense of this desire for self-satisfaction. Wells exposes subtle reinterpretations of cultural elements within evangelical Christianity. The Church needs to be bold in speaking its message, not tempted to exchange language of sin and forgiveness for need and fulfilment. However, there are times when the Church can learn from culture, and work within it. Although Wells makes valid criticisms, they do not apply in all cases. Antagonistic approaches are unhelpful where encouragement is needed. Different views must be considered carefully in and drawn on where appropriate. Practical suggestions need to be made as to how to avoid compromise. Advocating return to the past is not feasible. Positives can be taken from both past and present, correcting each other in seeking future moral vision. There needs to be a balance
147

Wells, Losing, 52. 36

between Gods immanence and transcendence, between his holiness and love, which arent competing elements, but complementary. Finally, what is needed is the wisdom to discern where Self has replaced God, seeking true perspective on ourselves, in order to be a distinctive community that testifies to the power of God alone. 9,992 words

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