The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World |...

The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World | David F. Wells | A profound work

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	The Courage to Be Protestant: Truth-lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World David F. Wells Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008 - 253 pages average customer review:based on 23 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Awesome book!

This is an excellent analysis of the culture (and the various churched in it). I highly recommend it!

A profound work

An excellent critique of the seeker-friendly and emergent church, who shows our only hope in this postmodern age is a return to the historic Protestant gospel. Wells is a deep thinker who requires effort to understand, but his insights are quite profound.

Deep, Penetrating Analysis, But Not Flawless

This volume is a thought-out critique of trends in modern evangelicalism -- trends away from the Biblical faith originally associated with the word "Protestant."
In some ways, this book would be a draw to those already "in the choir." My suspicion is that not many seeker-sensitives or emergents are going to peruse this volume. But it can (and hopefully will) cause those on the fence (or who are dissatisfied with the shallow results of the above movements) to ponder and reassess.
On the positive side, Wells calls Christian leaders back to prioritizing the Scriptures above human wisdom or pop culture. Rather than give mere lip service to belief in Scriptures, Wells calls us to study it deeply, not just use it. He calls us to actually obey it as God's game plan, not use it as a jumping board for self-help sermons. Pastors are encouraged to actually teach the Bible (an idea that has sadly become a radical one).

This work is so rich in meaning, I underlined sentence after sentence. Wells has a way of expressing distinctions and clarifying issues with amazingly, pithy summaries or contrasts. Here are a few:

"George Barna was one the primary architects of this new approach to 'doing' church...It has fallen to him to be the most important chronicler of his own failure."

"Those who attend churches are now like any other customers you might meet in the mall. Displease them in any way, and they will take their business elsewhere."

"Furthermore, what is to be gained if we are so intent in reaching out to the unchurched that we then unchurch the reached?"

"A line connects Marshall and Wright to Bell and McLaren. It is that the authority of God functions separately from the written Scriptures."

"It is important to remember that culture does not give the church its agenda. All it gives the church is its context...The principle here is sola scriptura, not sola cultura."

"God cannot modify His demands because he cannot modify his character."

Contrasting Mega-church pastors to the more traditional view, he writes: "The personality of many of these [mega-church] pastors show them to be loners...How very different this is from the older model, in which the pastor was not so much a performer as a shepherd who knew the flock and whose relations with the people in the church were the very means of fulfilling the pastoral calling."

He advocates a return to the pastor who sought to be a scholar and a shepherd.

"But what always happens in every form of spirituality from below is that the seeker ends up controlling what is sought."

"Churches that want to influence their culture are so often tempted to think that to be effective they must hide their otherworldliness and become slickly this-worldly...Churches that do influence the culture -- here is the paradox -- distance themselves from it in their internal life. They do not offer what can already be had on secular terms in the culture."

On the negative side, Wells offers few real solution or a paradigm for an effective (yet truly Biblical) church in our day. He tells us what we must not forsake (or need to return to), such as Sola Scriptura, the practice of the "sacraments" (I prefer "ordinances"), and church discipline. Church needs to be a place for LEARNING the Bible and doctrine, and doing so deeply. Christians need to value character, not material wealth. Wells encourages us to hold the line (or embrace) these priorities, but offers little beyond that. Yet, it seems, many churches that just "hold the line" are declining and aging. It is one thing to not fuss over the "bigger is better" idea, another to see good churches shut their doors.

In my opinion, we can learn from these shallow but popular movements -- as the Sovereign Grace folks or John Piper or songwriters Townsend and Getty have-- and still unapologetically stand for the Word and its teachings (and obedience to the same, with all its implications). We should not assume that they do NOTHING right, or that all their innovations lead to the shallow results that we associate with those movements. Sure, there's a lot of bath water, but there might be a baby, too.

Also, these trends came from somewhere. There must have been at least one (and perhaps several) generations of evangelical believers that at one time merely went along with the traditional approach (out of routine and lip-service, perhaps). Otherwise, these more shallow, Scripturally impoverished approaches would not have surfaced.

Wells, at heart, seems the traditionalist, not just a Biblicist. Truly Biblical Christianity is not just about preservation, but also a constant and aggressive realignment with the Scriptures. We can never recreate the past, which, I think, is Wells' dream. Still, to his credit, he does not claim to offer a comprehensive plan, just a partial one. And he is pretty much right on target.

Also Wells teaches at a school that has exemplified the very mistakes evangelicalism has made. Founded on the "new" evangelical principle of entering into "dialogue" with liberal, unbelieving church leaders, that "new evangelical" movement also allowed lost people (albeit intellectual ones) to set the agenda! Whether catering to lost professionals (as seeker sensitive churches often do) or lost intellectuals (as new evangelicals do), compromising the Word to gain an audience is always bad news. God's Word needs to set the agenda.

I highly recommend this book! Get it and pass it around!

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Do you dare read this book?

In what has become David Wells' familiar and forthright style "The Courage to be Protestant" tackles head on major problems confronting Protestant churches in our post-modern world. His focus is on the evangelical church in particular. If you have read his previous books critiquing the modern church and where it is going, you will discover in this volume a powerful continuation. The evangelical church in North America is undergoing massive change and you discover from Wells that most of it is not for the better. He goes to the place of questioning whether the term "evangelical" is still a uesable term today. Wells is thorough, well documented and rooted in a historic evangelical perspective. If you think the church is doing just fine, you need to read this book. If you wonder what is happening to the church today, you need to read this book. If you are concerned for the future of the church, you need to read this book. If you need to, borrow the money from a friend to buy this book. I would say it's one of the most important books you need to read this year if you are an evangelical.

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A much-need critique of how Christianity is "done" now

In the modern church world, our worship and our daily lives are so far from what they were intended to be by Jesus Christ and His Spirit-inspired apostles! This book brings us back and opens our eyes to what is wrong with churches and our own thinking. It's a blessing.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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