Natural Vs. Supernatural Religion

Natural Vs. Supernatural Religion - David Wells

The following are excerpts from The Courage to be Protestant by David Wells. Pg. 188, 190, 196. This is an important, hard-hitting, must-read book which has profound and far reaching implications for the church. Wells, in a contemporary context, focuses on the mother of all controversies: the natural vs. supernatural understanding of the work of God (Pelagianism Vs. Augustinianism). He lays out a profound case that is well thought through and it helps us understand the roots and differences of the Seeker-sensitive, the Emergent and the Reformed branches of "evangelicalism" ... and then points to the biblical Christ and His grace as the only road to recovery of the gospel.

Well's really draws some lines in the sand here and explains why emergent and seeker sensitive churches are religion from below (man reaching up to God) whereas the gospel is a religion from above - God coming to man. He persuasively shows the pagan roots of the religion from "below" and the great thing about his distinctive "from above"/"from below" concept is it's practicality, that is, only a religion that counts on God to reach down and save actually does. As a result of being awakened by the content of this book, I wonder whether the church will stand up and say, the religion from "below" is simply not Christian. There may be Christians in these churches, maybe many Christians but what is being taught in them is not Christian. Make sure you get this into the hands of your pastor and elders.

Excerpts here