David F. Wells Quote
There come those times in a nation’s life, Os Guinness has written, when its people rise up against the founding principles of their own nation. This is one of those times in America. It is far more dangerous than any terrorist attack. It is, in fact, a free people’s suicide, as he puts it in the title of his book. Why? Because what holds the republic together has never been simply the Constitution and our laws. The law is an exceedingly blunt instrument when it comes to controlling human behavior. There are many things that are unethical that are not illegal. Most lying, for example, is not illegal but it is always unethical. Our criminal and civil laws can control only so much of our behavior. It is virtue that does the rest. And that is precisely what is being eroded in this self-oriented, self-consumed culture.
There come those times in a nation’s life, Os Guinness has written, when its people rise up against the founding principles of their own nation. This is one of those times in America. It is far more dangerous than any terrorist attack. It is, in fact, a free people’s suicide, as he puts it in the title of his book. Why? Because what holds the republic together has never been simply the Constitution and our laws. The law is an exceedingly blunt instrument when it comes to controlling human behavior. There are many things that are unethical that are not illegal. Most lying, for example, is not illegal but it is always unethical. Our criminal and civil laws can control only so much of our behavior. It is virtue that does the rest. And that is precisely what is being eroded in this self-oriented, self-consumed culture.
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About David F. Wells
Wells completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, before going on to study divinity at the University of London, graduating with a Bachelor of Divinity in 1966. He completed advanced graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School graduating with a Master of Theology, summa cum laude in 1967. While at Trinity, he completed a thesis titled "Decretum Dei Speciale: An Examination of the Content and Significance of Calvin's Doctrine of Soteriological Predestination". He completed his Ph.D. from Manchester University (England) under the direction of Hubert Cunliffe-Jones and afterwards was appointed as a post-doctoral Research Fellow at Yale Divinity School. Wells is a Council member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He also serves on the board of the Rafiki Foundation and as a member for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. The Cambridge Declaration came about in 1996 as a result of his book No Place for Truth, or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?