David Wells
Dr. David Wells is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He also serves as Special Assistant to the President for Institutional Planning. He is an ordained Congregational minister.
He was born in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and studied at the University of Cape Town. In 1960 he achieved professional qualifications in architecture and subsequently practiced in England. It was while at the University of Cape Town that Dr. Wells came to faith and sensed God's call to Christian ministry. In 1960, he earned the Bachelor of Divinity degree from London University, England, in 1967, a Master of Theology in church history from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, and in 1969, the Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology from the University of Manchester in England. He was appointed a research fellow at Yale Divinity School from 1973 to 1974.
Dr. Wells has authored or edited sixteen books. He is the author of: Revolution in Rome (1972), The Search for Salvation (1978), The Prophetic Theology of George Tyrrell (1981), The Person of Christ: A Biblical and Historical Analysis of the Incarnation (1984), No Place for Truth, or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology (1993), God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (1994), Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision (1998). He edited Toward a Theology of the Future (1971), The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Who They Are, Where They Are Changing (1975), Christian Faith and Practice in the Modern World (1988), The Gospel in the Modern World (1991). Dr. Wells was general editor and part author of Eerdmans Handbook to Christianity in America (1993), Reformed Theology in America: A History of its Modern Development (1995), God the Evangelist: How the Holy Spirit Brings Men and Women to Faith (1987), and Turning to God: Biblical Conversion in the Modern World (1989). Numerous dictionary articles, essays, and book reviews have issued from his pen as well.
Dr. Wells began teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1969, advancing to full professor and appointed chair of the department of church history. In 1977, he was named to the chair of the division of systematic theology. He joined the faculty at Gordon-Conwell in 1979. Dr. Wells was elected to the American Theological Society in 1985. He served as a member of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and on its theology working group. For many years he has worked to provide theological education and basic preaching tools for Third-World pastors. In 1985, he was also appointed a Distinguished Lecturer for the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity in London, England. From 1989 to 1991 he was the recipient of a major grant for Senior Scholars from the Pew Charitable Trusts. He served as the Academic Dean of Gordon-Conwell's Charlotte, North Carolina campus from 1998-2000. Dr. Wells and his wife, Jane, live on Whipple Road in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.