The Weightlessness of God

One of my most favorite authors is David Wells, professor of Systematic Theology at Gordon-Conwell Seminary. His books have greatly enhanced my ability to understand the underlying currents of our culture; which have assisted me in formulating and developing ways in which to make the gospel relevant. In his book, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams, he writes a chapter entitled, "The Weightlessness of God." He begins the chapter by stating, "It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God's existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers' sweet fog of flattery and lies. That is weightlessness. It is a condition we have assigned him after having nudged him out to the periphery of our secularized life. His truth is no longer welcome in our public discourse. The engine of modernity rumbles on, and he is but a speck in its path." Of course, we would almost all certainly agree that this be the picture of our fast paced modern world. But Wells continues, "it is less clear to many that it may also be the case, albeit in less blatantly and obvious ways, in the church."
I concur with Wells. Therefore, the challenge is not only to manifest God to a culture who has clearly moved him out of bounds but to reinvigorate the people in our churches to make him an active participant in their lives.