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Losing our Virtue - why the church must recover its moral vision

LOSING OUR VIRTUE: why the church must recover its moral vision
By David F. Wells
IVP. 228 pages. £9.99
ISBN 0 85111 577 2

This is the third book in a significant series by David Wells, the first two being No place for Truth and God in the Wasteland. Whereas those books dealt with matters of truth and God in the context of modernity, this new work deals similarly with the doctrine of man.
The underlying theme is that the image of God in us has an indelibly moral component which the 20th century has done its utmost to suppress as it pursues pleasure in the playground of desire. However, this component is finally impossible to eradicate. In the words of M. Scott Peck, we have become 'people of the lie'.
Wells sees the church reacting in two ways. Some have accommodated themselves to secular notions of the self, trading the good news for good feelings. Others are fighting hard to maintain the biblical emphasis on sin as offensive to the Holy God and the gospel of forgiveness and renewal.
The book launches into a perceptive and fluent analysis of why it is that for modernity all reality is contracted to the self. It touches on an army of issues including the growth of law and litigation as the moral consensus collapses and the failure of our psychological healers to bring a happier world. The failure lies in the fact that human beings no longer know who they are because human identity cannot be divorced from objective matters of virtue and morality - but in a godless society, these are categories which have been deemed obsolete. Hence many find themselves driven to interminable sessions of therapy which eventually lead nowhere.
For me, the book took off in the middle, as Professor Wells opened a chapter focusing on the inner contradictions which modernity's worldview forces into people's lives. This is where the book becomes very practical, exposing a legion of solid evangelistic avenues into the heart of our lost generation. It is here too that the book strikes a very optimistic note. Only the biblical gospel can address people as they really are and we need to have the flair to make the most of the opportunity this point in history is giving us.
The book is written very definitely for America. It can be quite difficult to follow the argument at times. But on reflection, I think that one reason for this is that Wells produces such a glittering array of evidence and suggestive quotations from sociologists, historians and theologians, that it is enormously tempting for a butterfly mind to go off on a tangent. This is another major work from Professor Wells which deserves a definite place in the holiday suitcase.

Losing our Virtue - why the church must recover its moral vision

JEB

Dr John Benton

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