The Work of David F. Wells: An Appreciative Reflection
As people who talk a lot about God, it’s important that our words as Christians actually correspond to reality. While all of our language is analogical and therefore limited, it would be a fatal error to speak about God in ways that misrepresent His glorious character. Indeed, we should often ask, “What kind of vision of God am I projecting to the world when I speak about Him or act in His name?”
One of the challenges with speaking of God faithfully is that our words are filtered through a set of cultural and social pre-understandings. There is no pure, “trans-cultural” vacuum inside which theological matters can be discussed. Thus, the theological commitments and language we possess are always being shaped by the world around us.
Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to discern what is actually happening in this world. The complexities of contemporary life are such that one can be a competent historian or a skilled journalist and still be insufficient to explain our present circumstances. This leaves believers with a profound challenge: to read Scripture faithfully, allowing it to transform our lives; and to see all of human life through the lens it provides.
We all benefit from those who have taken this approach in their life and scholarship, and I believe David F. Wells would be counted in that number. Wells is presently Distinguished Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Though positioned in the academy, Wells has spent the last 25 years attempting to answer an important question that pertains to theology and ministry: “Why has the theological character of the evangelical church disappeared?”
In many ways, Wells’ latest book God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-love of God Reorients Our World (Crossway, 2014) serves as an appropriate capstone to his theological labors [1]. However, before considering this recent work, a brief summary of his theological quintet that preceded it is in order.
The Wells Quintet
Since 1994, Wells has published five books that have all arisen in response to the aforementioned question. This project originated with a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to research this complex subject. The product of that research took the form of No Place for Truth: Or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? In this substantial work, Wells wedded sustained, historical-social analysis with theological engagement in order to show how truth, revelation, and faith have fared in late modernity (spoiler alert: not so well!). Wells would note in later interviews that he came to see that the underlying questions he was attempting to answer required more attention.
This first book was then followed by God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (1995). Here Wells’ built upon his prior book’s argument, showing how the idea of God in the postmodern context has become “weightless” in favor of alternatives more plausible to the secular mind.
Several years passed before a third volume appeared—Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover its Moral Vision (1999). We should note that his work follows a familiar, modern sequence for systematic theology to some degree: prolegomena/truth/revelation, the doctrine of God, and then anthropology. Losing Our Virtue focused on how historic moral categories and concepts such as guilt, virtue, and character have been redefined and what a faithful theological response to such redefinitions may look like.
In 2005, what might be called Wells’ “Christology and culture” volume was published: Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World. In this book Wells gave extensive attention to understanding postmodernity and its consequences for Christian convictions. He argues that an orthodox Christology is the answer that will help re-center contemporary experience, and by extension, the church’s ministry in an age of fragmentation, despair, and false spiritualities.
Finally, Wells was convinced to add a fifth volume in 2008. In response to complaints that some of his prior works weren’t sufficiently practical, The Courage to be Protestant sought to summarize the prior books, and then identify and critique some notable streams of Christian faith in contemporary evangelicalism. Hence, the subtitle: “Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World.” This book differs from the prior four in many ways—including being more concise and user-friendly [2].
God in the Whirlwind, the book of our present consideration, is an extension of these previous publications in some respects as it presupposes their analysis and critique. Additionally, Wells’ acknowledges that his answers to the church’s current dilemmas were not always as explicit as they should have been [3]. This book, then, is an attempt to wed biblical theology and cultural analysis to more specific, constructive answers.
God in the Whirlwind is, however, its own book in two notable ways: First, it doesn’t require one to have read the earlier books to appreciate what he provides here. Second, his principal thesis focuses on helping Christians see how “the holy-love of God reorients our world.”
Basic Argument
There really are two kinds of theologians. There are those who attempt to offer overarching schemas, frameworks, or paradigms for explaining thorny theological subjects. Then there are those who make a career out of criticizing the first group for their misguided efforts. Wells belongs to the first class in the very best sense. He contends that the entire aim of life is to be God-centered and God-fearing [4]. But this pursuit involves a journey into the character of God, which can be summed up as “holy-love.” It is this unique term that is at the heart of Wells’ reading of Scripture.
However, there are two challenges that hinder our pursuit of knowing God. The first is how our culture hinders us from knowing God as He has revealed Himself. The second, an extension of the first, is “distraction.” Wells explains this as the “extraordinary bombardment on our mind that goes on every day from a thousand different sources that leaves us distracted, with our minds going simultaneously in different directions” [5].
If we think carefully on this second challenge, we realize that Wells is onto something quite profound, though subtle. If daily devotional practices such as Bible reading and prayer are hindered by the onslaught of emails, texts, tweets, and errands, then how much more challenging will knowing God be across the larger fabric of our lives? Wells argues that the alternative to distraction is the “self-discipline of focus” [6]. Furthermore, “If our strongest motive, our deepest desire, is to know God, it will generate the discipline that we need to pursue this, because we will want to know God more than anything else” [7].
Overview
In chapters two and three, Wells surveys the biblical storyline, explaining the relationship between “God-centeredness” and “Christ-centeredness.” This is shown especially in how Abraham and the old covenant relates to Christ and the new. Wells’ Reformed persuasions certainly reflect in how atonement, justification, and regeneration provide the framework for how the Old Testament storyline paves the way for Christ.
Chapters four and five serve as the heart of the book as they explain God’s love and holiness. Rather than seeing them as two independent attributes, Wells explains the reason for his unique hyphenation:
There are two reasons for this hyphenation [holy-love]. First and most obviously, it is that alongside the declaration that “God is love” we need to set the parallel and accompanying truth of his holiness. “God is light” (1 John 1:5) and he is “a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). He is love, light, and fire simultaneously. He is the source of all that is utterly good, and such is his holy nature that he will, in judgment, consume all that has reared itself against him and against that is good. He both judges and is loving simultaneously. Second, the hyphen between these two sides of God’s character is our reminder to ourselves that actually there is only one character in God…He is simultaneously loving and holy in such a way that we never encounter his love without his holiness or his holiness without his love. Indeed, his love is an expression of his holiness, and we never know his love except in the context of what is eternally right [8].
This quotation serves as the theological basis upon which the rest of Wells’ exposition and application rest. He proceeds to parse out this doctrine of God as it is unfolded in different portions of Scripture and relates to other biblical doctrines (ch. 6), including obedience (ch. 7), worship (ch. 8), and service (ch. 9). Indeed, these final chapters provide the kind of “practical application” that many previously unsatisfied readers will likely appreciate.
Who Should Read This Book?
Wells’ theological-cultural quintet is still, in my estimation, the best introduction to understanding late modernity from a decidedly Protestant, theological perspective [9]. That said, this latest book may be the most useful place for thoughtful pastors and Christians alike who (1) value insight into our cultural moment in the West; and (2) want a faithful theologian to help them read the Scriptural storyline with more clarity. On this latter point, I know I was especially benefited, and fully expect that others Forum readers will be also.
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[1] David F. Wells, God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-love of God Reorients Our World. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014. 272 pp. $20.01 (hardcover). It is worth noting that Wells has authored or contributed to other books, many of which are fine works. However, for the purposes of this essay, I have confined my review and reflections to his last six books, which collectively assume a common set of concerns.
[2] Unfortunately, I suspect its usefulness will be outlived much more quickly than the others.
[3] Wells, 13
[4] Ibid., 16.
[5] Ibid., 17.
[6] Ibid., 37.
[7] Ibid., 37-38.
[8] Ibid., 85-86.
[9] Of course, like any other significant series of books, readers will have their disagreements. Yet I frankly cannot think of a better place to begin studying this subject if one wants a theological perspective that also engages history and social theory. To hear more of Wells’ thoughts on this recent book, one can view an interview with him by clicking here.
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