Book review: David F. Wells, God In The Whirlwind: How The Holy Love Of God Reorients Our World. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013.)

David F. Wells is the well-known author of acclaimed books like God in the Wasteland and No Place For Truth. In his latest work, God In The Whirlwind, Wells couples erudition, wisdom, and spiritual insight with a clear writing style that is a pleasure to read. He attacks the modern notion of God existing for the satisfaction of our needs and the bolstering of human self-esteem. One sample of his writing sets the tone:

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.[1]

While I do not share all of his Reformed convictions – most notably his Covenant Theology perspective when dealing with Adam in the garden – I applaud his zeal for the holiness and love of God. He rightly diagnoses and deplores the modern man-centered culture that infects evangelical thinking at certain points and evidences itself in the Church’s worship (especially its music) and preaching (or lack thereof.) He spends a significant portion of the book defining “holy-love” and shows why this understanding of God’s nature is vital for Christian belief and practice. God commands full attention and is worthy of all of our affection and obedience. Wells rightly shows the scriptural emphasis on God’s supremacy and beauty. He inverts the skewed modern idea of human-centeredness, in favor of focusing on the triune God.

[1] David F. Wells. God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-love of God Reorients Our World (Kindle Locations 446-455). Crossway. Note: I received a review copy from Crossway.