David F. Wells
This highly modernized world, has produced what David Myers calls the “American Paradox.” Actually, this paradox is not uniquely American. It is found throughout the West, and increasingly it is being seen outside the West. In prosperous parts of Asia, for example, the same thing is becoming evident. And this paradox leads naturally into the predominant view of God. So, what is the paradox?
It is that we have never had so much and yet we have never had so little. Never have we had more choices, more easily accessible education, more freedoms, more affluence, more sophisticated appliances, better cars, better houses, more comfort, or better health care. This is the one side of the paradox.
The other side, though, is that by every measure, depression has never been more prevalent, anxiety higher, or confusion more widespread. We are not holding our marriages together very well, our children are more demoralized than ever, our teens are committing suicide at the highest rate ever, we are incarcerating more and more people, and cohabitation has never been more widespread. In fact, in 2012 in America, 53 percent of children were born out of wedlock. This new norm is a sure predictor of coming poverty for so many of those children.
This paradox is not entirely new. When Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman, visited America in the 1830s, he noticed that although quite a few people had become well-to-do, there was also among them a “strange melancholy.” They had attained an equality with each other at a political level. However, on the social front, almost everyone knew someone who had more than they had! Political equality did not produce equal outcomes in terms of wealth and possessions.
That, at least, is how Tocqueville explained the “melancholy” that he saw. Whether this was the real explanation is not really important. What is important is that abundance is not necessarily an unblemished, unqualified blessing. We should, of course, have known that, because that is what Jesus had said a long time ago! However, today, this cultural paradox is exceedingly aggravated, and we are in quite a different place culturally than the America that Tocqueville saw almost two centuries ago.
Many therapists are now finding that this paradox has worked itself into the lives of those who come to see them. Among those are many who are younger. They often report that though they grew up in good homes, had all they wanted, went to college, (perhaps) entered the workplace, they are nevertheless baffled by the emptiness they feel. Their self-esteem is high but their self is empty. They grew up being told they could be anything that they wanted to be, but they do not know what they want to be. They are unhappy, but there seems to be no cause for their unhappiness. They are more connected to more people through the Internet, and yet they have never felt more lonely. They want to be accepted, and they often feel alienated. Never have we had so much; never have we had so little. That is our paradox.
This two-sided experience is probably the best explanation for how so many people, teenagers and adults alike, are now thinking about God and what they want from him. On the one hand, the experience of abundance, of seemingly unlimited options, of opportunity, of ever-rising levels of affluence, almost inevitably produces an attitude of entitlement. Each successive generation, until recently, has assumed that it will do better than the previous generation. Each has started where the previous one left off. And this expectation has not been unrealistic. That is how things have worked out. It is not difficult to see how this sense of entitlement naturally carries over into our attitude toward God and his dealings with us. It is what leads us to think of him as a cheerleader who only wants our success. He is a booster, an inspiring coach, a source of endless prosperity for us. He would never interfere with us in our pursuit of the good life (by which we mean the pursuit of the good things in life). We see him as a never-ending fountain of these blessings. He is our Concierge.
Purveyors of the health-and-wealth gospel, a “gospel” that is being exported from the West to the underdeveloped parts of the world, seem quite oblivious to the fact that their take on Christian faith is rooted in this kind of experience. Had they not enjoyed Western medical expertise and Western affluence, it is rather doubtful that they would have thought that Christianity is all about being healthy and wealthy. At least, in the church’s long, winding journey through history, we have never heard anything exactly like this before. What appears to be happening is that these purveyors of this “gospel” have assumed certain goals in life—to have the desired wealth and sufficient health to enjoy it. Faith then entitles them to get these things from God. And where this kind of Christianity has been exported—for example, to many countries in Africa—this is the faith that is being advertised. This is so quite literally. When leaving the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, a few years ago, I noticed a billboard with a simple question. It asked, “Do you want to get rich?” Below that question was a telephone number. That, I was told, belonged to a health-and-wealth ministry.
In many African cities, in fact, there are “miracle centers” where the afflicted pay a price and go in to get their miracle. At least they are assured that a miracle can be had. The temple money-changers so angered Jesus that he physically tossed them out of the building, but we take their modernized progeny in the health-and-wealth movement in our stride. They just blend into our consuming societies and our expectations that God is there at our beck and call. They are simply part of the vast, sprawling evangelical empire.
While it is the case that we moderns have had this experience of plenty, it is also the case—and this is the other side of the paradox—that our experience of plenty is accompanied by the experience of emptiness and loss. We carry within us many deficits—a sense of life’s harshness, frustrations at work, bruised and broken relationships, shattered families, an inability to sustain enduring friendships, lack of a sense of belonging in this world, and a sense that it is vacant and hostile. So we look to God for some internal balm, some relief from these wounds.
We become inclined to think of God as our Therapist. It is comfort, healing, and inspiration that we want most deeply, so that is what we seek from him. That, too, is what we want most from our church experience. We want it to be comforting, uplifting, inspiring, and easy on the mind. We do not want Sunday (or, perhaps, Saturday evening) to be another workday, another burden, something that requires effort and concentration. We already have enough burdens and struggles, enough things to concentrate on, in our workweek. On the weekend, we want relief.
It is not difficult to see, then, how this two-sided experience, this paradox, has shaped our understanding of God. It leaves us with a yearning for a God who will come close, who will walk softly, who will touch gently, who will come to uplift, assure, comfort, and guide. We want our God to be accepting and nonjudgmental.
It also leaves us with the expectation that somehow this God of plenty will dispense his largesse in generous dollops to us. Maybe even through a lottery win. Perhaps we could win Powerball, or maybe some sweepstakes prize. That is the kind of God we want. This is what we expect him to be like.
Content taken from God in the Whirlwind by David Wells, ©2014. Used by permission of Crossway, www.crossway.org.
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Building on years of research, writing, and cross-cultural ministry, renowned author and theologian David Wells calls our attention to that which defines God’s greatness and gives shape to the Christian life: the holy-love of God.
In God in the Whirlwind, Wells explores the depths of the paradox that God is both holy and loving, showing how his holy-love provides the foundation for our understanding of the cross, sanctification, the nature of worship, and our life of service in the world. What’s more, a renewed vision of God’s character is the cure for evangelicalism’s shallow theology, with its weightless God and sentimental gospel.
Written by one of evangelicalism’s most insightful minds, this book will help you stand firm in your faith despite the changing winds and raging storms of the modern world.
“Rich, deep, and faithful—God in the Whirlwind invites us to come before the very heart of God. No theologian understands the modern world better than David Wells, yet not theologian uses the modern world more powerfully to wrench us back to truths that are foundational and never to be superseded by the latest anything.” –Os Guinness
“A timely and necessary antidote to the spirit of the age which is manifested in the prevailing man-centeredness of contemporary evangelicalism.” –Alistair Begg
“Part biblical theology, part systematic theology, and part cultural reconnaissance, this is a powerful work that my generation—really any generation—cannot afford to ignore. After years of pointing out the shallowness of evangelicalism, this is Well’s masterful summary of what should be our depth, our ballast, our center.” –Kevin DeYoung
David F. Wells (PhD, University of Manchester) is distinguished senior research professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. In addition to serving as academic dean of Gordon-Conwell’s Charlotte campus, Wells has also been a member of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and is involved in ministry in Africa. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including a series that was initiated by a Pew grant exploring the nature of Christian faith in the contemporary, modernized world.