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Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision

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David Wells' "Losing Our Virtue" is a stinging assault on the idolatrous nature of postmodern man. Chock full of astute observations about the utter lack of morality within American popular culture and the creeping destruction of Christianity caused by compromises with that culture, this book is a clarion call to intelligent people who understand that only through the death of self and utter submission to the God of the Christian Bible can the we hold out hope for the future.

Prophetic in its intensity (though similar arguments were voiced by Francis Schaeffer long before Wells), "Losing Our Virtue" discusses how the combination of deconstructionist theology and psychology at the nascence of the 20th century brought us to the point that we call black white and white black. He outlines the rise of self at the expense of traditional Christian views of God, sin, and the cross of Christ, showing how modern culture now exists in a moral vacuum that has in its brazenness supposedly killed God and therefore any guilt that may arise from acknowledging that He transcends us. With self now ensconced as the moral center, absolute truth and morality are jettisoned in favor of each person being his own moral center. That this can only breed relativism and the eventual destruction of all things moral, is a point well covered in the book.

In some ways, perhaps too well covered. The first few chapters and the last chapter are brilliant. At the cost of a star, though, the middle sags as Wells builds his arguments. The problem lies in beating the points along his path to his conclusion to death. This book probably could have been cut down to 120 pages and would have made its point more efficiently. Metaphorically, you can kill the vampire with an effective stake through the heart. You don't have to then stuff it with garlic, douse it in "holy water", and bury it in a silver coffin lined with crucifixes under a running stream.

The section on the differences between "Guilt" and "Shame" was also confusing since Wells mixed conflicting viewpoints and counterpoints together, making it hard to tell exactly what his point was until the very end of the section. Again, a bit better editing would have made the book a smoother read.

This is an intellectually challenging book that demands close attention. And despite the author's attempt to end on a more upbeat note, it is hard to close this book and think any other outcome than the utter corruption of the entire world and most of Christendom is a foregone conclusion. Hopefully, readers will come away with a burning desire to make a difference rather than conceding that all is lost.

In his final volume of the three, Wells moves from diagnosis to prescription for healing. Here he admonishes the church to recover.

Sum his advice up by this quotation: "Does the Church have the courage to become relevant by becoming biblical?"

Great read; thorough and provoking.

Wells is right on with his analysis and diagnostics. While the postmodern, contemporary church will not particularly like his suggestion for change, certainly it has God's mark of approval. Wells sums it up on page 207: "The Church's problem today is simply that it does not believe that, without tinkering, the Gospel will be all that interesting to modern people." Let modern people do whatever, I'm with Wells and the Gospel.

This was my first exposure to David Wells, and I'm extremely impressed. His analysis of the cultural situation of our time is extremely perceptive, and his description of the consumer-driven church is very good - slices and dices. He certainly covers his bases in terms of research. This book could rightly be called a Jeremiad for our time, and I highly recommend it.

This book is a great place to start looking at the issues raised today by post-modernism. An eye-opening read!

Try as we may as humans made in the image of God, we cannot run away from the fact that we are moral creatures living in a world of moral dimensions. We may want to think all truth and values are relative, but we still sense some things are right and some are wrong. Although much of what Wells shares is "bad news" for modern man who looks to advertising and therapy for fulfillment, there is hope for the church if it can find the courage to speak about sin (not just about "inappropriate choices" and not having enough self-esteem) and about it having to do with our relationship with God. But if we tailor the Gospel to "fit" with the concerns of modern culture, we'll have nothing of valute to say to the world.

This third book in Wells' series of five books on postmodernism focuses on the erosion of ethics within contemorary culture. This book is, in many ways, a series of contrasts between what was and what now is.

Classical spirituality, which Wells' defines by its doctrinal basis, its devotional habits, its moral character, and its responsibilities in Church and Society" [33] is the backdrop against which the a-theological spirituality of postmodernism is viewed. Wells demonstrates that talk about virtues has given way to clarification of values, that emphasis on character has shifted to a focus on personality, that theology has been displaced by psychology, and that feelings of guilt, which are God-centered in their moral orientation, have degenerated into the emotions of man-centered shame.

Wells gets at his diagnosis of the moral state of the Church and culture in several ways. In chapter one, "A Tale of Two Spiritualities," Wells contrasts the hymnody of the historic Church with the contemporary praise and worship songs of today. The results of his research are somewhat alarming, whatever one's taste in music happens to be. Another chapter, "The Playground of Desire," draws more from a study of sociology, zooming especially on what Wells calls "the competition between law and freedom," the relevance of which to the political realm he unfolds with penetrating insight. In yet another place, Wells examines the ideology of Robert Schuller, Senior Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. Schuller's view of sin "is really nothing more than poor self-image, and salvation is its reversal," says Wells [200]. But, "where sin has lost its moral weight, the Cross will lose its centrality, Christ will lose his uniqueness, and his Father will no longer be the God of the Bible" [200].

One of Wells most astute observations is that "much of the Church today, especially that part of it which is evangelical, is in captivity to [the] idolatry of the self. This is a form of corruption far more profound than the lists of infractions that typically pop into our minds when we hear the word sin. We are trying to hold at bay the gnats of small sins while swallowing the camel of self" [203-204]. As can be seen, Wells operates with a sharp surgical scalpel. But let no one think that he is a knife-happy physician, for he not only diagnoses the disease and cuts away the cancer, he also prescribes the medicine that will heal the Church. That cure is nothing less than a recovery of the Gospel, with its high view of God's transcendent holiness.

This is a must read for Christians who are serious about engaging the culture on a philosophical or theological level. And those who are not interested in such an engagement may need this book most of all.

David Wells is my current favorite b/c he confronts with kind, intelligent, insightful, and helpful language the problems facing the church today. In this volume he discusses how we have gone from the language of virtue (i,e, courage, perseverance, integrity, etc.) to values (fun, amazing, exciting, etc.) in the course of a century. This loss of a moral center has cost not only our culture but the church as we move away from a biblical way of seeing and interacting with our world. The church has become worldly and ineffective. How did we get to this place? How do we get out of it? How do we remain faithful to God and communicate to a world that has does not understand the vocabulary of redemption? Read this most helpful book to help you answer these and other questions raised by the loss of virtue?

I read this book for my Theological Ethics class. David Wells' approach to understanding our postmodern culture in light of the church is unique and thought-provoking. Rather integrate his critique with Biblical doctrine, he gives over 180 pages of contemporary critique of culture from the perspective of psychology, technology, consumerism, politics, and notions of guilt, and shame. Only in his introduction and concluding chapter does he address our cultural ideas with the Biblical norm. Its a laborious way to approach the topic but bears his intended fruit. His opinion of the move from community to self may be simplistic but accurate. This text is useful for anyone considering ethical decision-making in our postmodern society.

Wells provides a lengthy treatment of post-modernity and an evangelical response to it, but in the end falls somewhat short. First, he distinguishes between two "kinds" of evangelicalism. "Classic" evangelicalism, which Wells explains is God centered, truth centered and morally focused. "Postmodern" evangelicalism is essentially centered in the self, and theraputically focused. The only problem with these two definitions is that in the real world many traditionalized "classic" churches fit Wells "postmodern" definition, and visaversa. At the end Wells promised to provide an apologetic "fitted to the circumstances of the postmodern world." In reality the apologetic was basically just stuck in the institutionalized Christendom paradigm. The apologetic makes sense to the traditionalized church, but would not be convincing to a postmodern "pre-Christian seeker." And this is the whole point of the church to help people say "yes" to God and develop them into fully devoted followers of Jesus. If "our" apologetics are unintelligable to postmoderns how does that help them to meet and get to know Christ?