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

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Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999 - 242 pàgines
In Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision, theologian David Wells argues that the Church is in danger of losing its moral authority to speak to a culture whose moral fabric is torn. Although much of the Church has enjoyed success and growth over the past years, Wells laments a "hollowing out of evangelical conviction, a loss of the biblical word in its authoritative function, and an erosion of character to the point that today, no discernible ethical differences are evident in behavior when those claiming to have been reborn and secularists are compared." The assurance of the Good News of the gospel has been traded for mere good feelings, truth has given way to perception, and morality has slid into personal preference. Losing Our Virtue is about the disintegrating moral culture that is contemporary society and what this disturbing loss means for the church. Wells covers the following in this bold critique: how the theologically emptied spirituality of the church is causing it to lose its moral bearings; an exploration of the wider dynamic at work in contemporary society between license and law; an exposition of the secular notion of salvation as heralded by our most trusted gurus -- advertisers and psychotherapists; a discussion of the contemporary view of the self; how guilt and sin have been replaced by empty psychological shame; an examination of the contradiction between the way we view ourselves in the midst of our own culture and the biblical view of persons as created, moral beings. Can the church still speak effectively to a culture that has become morally unraveled? Wells believes it can. In fact, says Wells, no time in this century has been more opportune for the Christian faith -- if the church can muster the courage to regain its moral weight and become a missionary of truth once more to a foundering world. - Publisher.
 

Continguts

1ntroduction
1
Changing Terrain
2
From Augustine to Postmodernity
4
From Virtues to Values
13
Our Moment
19
A Tale of Two Spiritualities
21
Modern Differences
23
Older Similarities
27
The Bonfire of the Self
117
From Guilt to Shame
120
Home Alone
123
Come Join the Revolution
125
Guilt in Remission
129
On Feeling Ashamed
133
How Many Ways Can I Feel Ashamed?
136
Lost in Moral Space
140

Spirituality
30
Classical
33
Postmodern
41
Embarrassed by Modernity
46
The Playground of Desire
53
Obeying the Unenforceable
62
Bowling Alone
65
Control
75
On Saving Ourselves
81
Social Ghosts
83
Prochoice
86
Empty Selves
87
Malls
88
Hard Bodies
90
From Character to Personality
96
From Nature to Selfconsciousness
104
The New Healers
110
Identity and Style
141
Identity and Character
144
Contradictions
147
The Moral Sense
151
The Biblical Perspective
158
Honor and Shame
164
Faith as Subversive
168
Faith of the Ages
179
Whatever Happened to Sin?
180
The Cultural Transformation of Sin
181
The Spiritual Transformation of Sin
183
Disaffection with Postmodernity
191
Whatever Happened to the Church?
196
The Courage to Believe
205
Bibliography
211
Index
223
Copyright

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