Doctrine, Evangelicalism, Theology, Culture 

"(this now classic book) ... is based on a belief that a healthy Christianity needs to be a theologically sound and intellectually credible Christianity and that significant segments of the contemporary church lack these features. ... The state of many congregations today, where style triumphs over substance, where baptized therapy takes the place of the Gospel of true repentance and faith, where banality in music and lyrics the norm, where the rich tapestry of two millennia of worship and symbol is all but ignored, and where many if not most of the congregants are theologically ignorant and indifferent, bears out not just the accuracy but the prescience of Wells' analysis."

"I have watched with growing disbelief as the evangelical Church has cheerfully plunged into astounding theological illiteracy. Many taking the plunge seem to imagine that they are simply following a path to success, but the effects of this great change in the evangelical soul are evident... (seminary training) increasingly is about inculcating a kind of public demeanor and etiquette... to lay paths to successful careers for students. Seminary students are not blind to the fact that the big churches and the big salaries often go to those who are un-theological or even anti-theological."

"(Wells) … observes that in the 1970s, many seminaries were hard-pressed financially, and the D.Min. degree was a 'lucrative new product to sell.' At the same time, many ministers were hard-pressed psychologically as they sensed the decline of their profession, their growing marginalization in society, and the corresponding loss of power and influence that that entailed. 'And so the shotgun marriage was consummated. The direction that this degree has taken since its inception has not been very reassuring.'"

“Has something indeed happened to evangelical theology and to evangelical churches? According to David Wells, the evidence indicates that evangelical pastors have abandoned their traditional role as ministers of the Word to become therapists and 'managers of the small enterprises we call churches.' Along with their parishioners, they have abandoned genuine Christianity and biblical truth in favor of the sort of inner-directed experiential religion that now pervades Western society.

Specifically, Wells explores the wholesale disappearance of theology in the church, the academy, and modern culture. Western culture as a whole, argues Wells, has been transformed by modernity, and the church has simply gone with the flow. The new environment in which we live, with its huge cities, triumphant capitalism, invasive technology, and pervasive amusements, has vanquished and homogenized the entire world.

While the modern world has produced astonishing abundance, it has also taken a toll on the human spirit, emptying it of enduring meaning and morality. Seeking respite from the acids of modernity, people today have increasingly turned to religions and therapies centered on the self. And, whether consciously or not, evangelicals have taken the same path, refashioning their faith into a religion of the self. They have been co-opted by modernity, have sold their soul for a mess of pottage.

According to Wells, they have lost the truth that God stands outside all human experience, that he still summons sinners to repentance and belief regardless of their self-image, and that he calls his church to stand fast in his truth against the blandishments of a godless world. The first of three volumes meant to encourage renewal in evangelical theology (the other two to be written by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and Mark Noll), 'No Place for Truth' is a contemporary jeremiad, a clarion call to all evangelicals to note well what a pass they have come to in capitulating to modernity, what a risk they are running by abandoning historic orthodoxy. It is provocative reading for scholars, ministers, seminary students, and all theologically concerned individuals."