Great Post on Nominal Christianity

Over on Triablogue there was posted this excellent article on the spiritual depth (or lack thereof) of many professors in our churches.  It is well worth the short time it takes to read it.

The Christian Mind: Sapientia and Scientia

In 1994 the evangelical historian Mark Noll published The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.[1] The book is not much more than a sustained lambast against two conservative subtraditions, Young Earth Creationism and Dispensational Premillennialism. Howbeit, Noll rightly laments “the generations-long failure of the evangelical community to nurture the life of the mind.”[2] In fact, he admonishes his peers because, “fidelity to Jesus Christ demands from evangelicals a more responsible intellectual existence than we have practiced throughout much of our history.”[3] This is because “the gospel properly belongs to the whole person”[4]

 

A. The Need for Wisdom and Knowledge

 

Noll’s prime example of a Christian intellect is the great American philosopher-theologian Jonathan Edwards. For Edwards, he writes, “True knowledge was rather ‘the consistency and agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.’”[5] One is reminded of Edwards’ words in his great sermon entitled “Christian Knowledge,” where he states that,

 

The faculty of reason and understanding was given for our actual understanding and knowledge. If a man have no actual knowledge, the faculty or capacity of knowledge is of no use to him. And if he have actual knowledge, yet if he be destitute of the knowledge of those things which are the last end of his being, and for the sake of the knowledge of which he had more understanding given him than the beasts; then still his faculty of reason is in vain; he might as well have been a beast as a man. But divine subjects are the things, to know which we had the faculty of reason given us.[6] (Last italics mine).

This is crucial to recognize. Man is not put on earth to “do that which is right in his own eyes”; he is to think God’s thoughts after Him; to gather up, as it were, the wonders of creation in his mind and to reflect upon them, finally returning ever new praises back to the One who placed them there. Like D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once reminded his hearers,

 

Do let us, therefore, examine ourselves very seriously about these things. It is very wonderful and enjoyable to have fellowship of kindred minds. What is more enjoyable than this? But it can lead to nothing – nothing at all – if we are not ever mindful of the fact that it is merely the means provided by God to bring us to a knowledge of Himself.[7]

 

How different is this to the way the world looks at human knowledge. For example, Jungian psychology has made the mind the servant of Self. Its preoccupation with self-actualization, self-enhancement and psychological wholeness has affected the thinking even of many who have been given “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).[8]

The Christian Mind and its Ramifications

The New Testament is clear about the fact that believers are to adopt a “renewed mind” (Rom. 12:2), that they “walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened…” (Eph. 4:17b-18a), but rather, that they are to “be renewed in the spirit of their mind” (Eph. 4:23), having “learned Christ” (Eph. 4:20b). Christians are to live by “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

Now, if this is such a clear teaching in the Bible, how come many Christian pastors, authors, and educators teach as if ‘the Christian mind’ is something that can only be used when one is thinking about “spiritual things”? It’s as if they believe that “the mind of Christ” which Paul speaks about at the end of the second chapter of First Corinthians, only functions well in that small subdivision of our lives we call the religious or spiritual life. What is the problem here?

Christian Dating: Yes or No?

I suppose every Pastor would say that the issue of dating is one of the most important for him to have a clear stance on. A number of practical, not to say emotive issues are involved. In this short paper I would like to give what I believe is the biblical perspective. Others might well disagree with me, but I firmly believe that the following view is both God-honoring and “ in-line” with the life of faith to which all Christians, of whatever age, are called (2 Cor. 5:7).