On the Road to Nowhere

David Wells is right, in his newest book Above All Earthly Pow'rs, when he writes:

"There is a long trail of contextualized theologies, written over the last half century, in which the external dimension virtually replaces the internal, cultural interests eclipse biblical norms, and the result has been the kind of compromise, trendiness, and manipulation which ends up promoting worldly agendas, be they political, social, ideological, or personal, in place of biblical truth" (7).

In order to look relevant and compassionate, the Western church has allowed a myriad of theories, ologies, osophies to flood its banks and wash away biblical teaching on just about every subject.

The quest for something new when consuming has crept into theological education so that the new insight, the new revelation, the new book, the new idea, the new understanding, the new doctrine is now better than then old.

Sadly, we've forgotten that our job is not innovation; it is proclamation.

"And somewhere in the making of each of its [theologies] the fatal step was taken to allow the culture to say what God's story should sound like rather than insisting that theology is not theology if it is not listening to God telling his own story in his own way. ... Theology stands or falls with the Word of God, for the Word precedes all theological words by creating, arousing, and challenging them." He goes on to say, "if theology wants to be something other than a response to the [biblical] Word...it will rapidly become empty, futile, and without meaning" (7).

This is the destination--empty, futile, without meaning--of the path that the Western church is currently traveling down. And the same can be said of any life, any ministry, any church, any university that walks the same path, regardless of the worldly measures of success we may look to to tell us we're OK.