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

by David F. Wells

Overview

Available now for the first time in paperback, Losing Our Virtue offers a bold critique of the moral disintegration taking place in contemporary society and its reflection in today's evangelical church. Continuing the series begun with David Wells's No Place for Truth and God in the Wasteland, this acclaimed volume urges the church to regain its moral weight and become a missionary of truth once more to our relativistic postmodern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802846723
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	02/28/1999
Pages:	228
Sales rank:	885,131
Product dimensions:	6.01(w) x 9.08(h) x 0.74(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Changing Terrain
From Augustine to Postmodernity
From Virtues to Values
Our Moment

I. A Tale of Two Spiritualities

Can the Church Be Reformed?
Modern Differences
Older Similarities
Spirituality
Classical
Postmodern
Embarrassed by Modernity

II. The Playground of Desire

Rebels and Restrainers
Obeying the Unenforceable
Bowling Alone
Control

III. On Saving Ourselves

Surviving and Assembling Ourselves
Social Ghosts
Pro-choice
Empty Selves
Malls
Hard Bodies
From Character to Personality
From Nature to Self-consciousness
The New Healers

IV. The Bonfire of the Self

From Guilt to Shame
Talking about the Self
Home Alone
Come, Join the Revolution
Guilt in Remission
On Feeling Ashamed
Exposed
How Many Ways Can I Feel Ashamed?
Lost in Moral Space
Disoriented
Identity and Style
Identity and Character

V. Contradictions

From Amnesia to Memory
The Moral Sense
The Biblical Perspective
Honor and Shame
Then and Now
Faith as Subversive

VI. Faith of the Ages

Whatever Happened to Sin?
The Cultural Transformation of Sin
The Spiritual Transformation of Sin
Disaffection with Postmodernity
Whatever Happened to the Church?
The Courage to Believe

Editorial Reviews

For its sweep, content, and thorough analysis. Wells' book may be among the most important published this year.

CBA Marketplace

One of the most significant evangelical books of the year....Wells is one of those rare evangelicals who have read widely in contemporary secular scholarship and digested it for readers. His evaluations are always judicious and thought provoking.

Church Libraries

A book which pastors need to read in order to understand the cultural changes we are experiencing and understanding how we must confront a secular culture.

Preaching

Wells urges the church to return to classical spirituality and not to allow the message of that spirituality to be diminished by the cultural habits of the modern world. This argument is one that has recurred throughout history, but Wells makes it in plain language accompanied by a straightforward critique of the ways in which, he believes, secular culture's notions of virtue fall short of Christianity's.

Publishers Weekly

Noted evangelical theologian Wells (God in the Wasteland) weighs in on the perpetual problem of whether the church can retain its moral integrity and still play a vital role in today's culture. Wells argues that, in the postmodern world, the church is in danger of losing its moral character by compromising its teachings about virtue, including doctrines of sin and guilt, by making too many concessions to cultural teachings on virtue. Wells addresses his concerns by examining two kinds of spirituality that, he says, characterize the church. On the one hand, he says, classical or Reformation spirituality is the hallmark of Christianity, and he uses this spirituality to represent a general understanding of the doctrines, devotional habits and moral character of the Christian life. On the other hand, postmodern spirituality, Wells says, is forged in the interaction between biblical truth and the intuitions or instincts of the contemporary world. According to Wells, postmodern spirituality is more concerned with shame (falling short of what others expect of us) rather than sin (falling short of what God expects of us). Wells urges the church to return to classical spirituality and not to allow the message of that spirituality to be diminished by the cultural habits of the modern world. This argument is one that has recurred throughout history, but Wells makes it in plain language accompanied by a straightforward critique of the ways in which, he believes, secular culture's notions of virtue fall short of Christianity's. (April)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly