I started reading a book today that is already beginning to open my eyes to the programmed mediocrity of Christian minds and lack of intellectual challenge in the church today.
That's a bold statement, I know. But before you raise up arms against me, hear me out. What are the evangelists tackling most today? Is it not our hearts? Our fears of the eternal ramifications of our beliefs? Our desire to be fought for, our desire to be loved unconditionally, our desire to be saved? Or is it an appeal to our logical minds?
I had mentioned the absence (or near discouragement) of intellectual conversation and teaching for women in our church briefly before Beauty Full (an event on modesty for the women of STATUS) on Saturday. And I'd be lying if I said that it was hardly a surprise when I got blank stares and chirping crickets in response.
After reading only 20 pages into J.P. Moreland's Love Your God With All Your Mind, I'm realizing it's not just a problem facing women in the Christian church [in America]. It's something that dates back into the 1800s in this country, to the Second Great Awakening, the Revivals of Charles Finney, and The Layman's Prayer Revival. Suddenly Christians were winning the hearts of converts and leaving their minds behind.
Much good came from these movements. But their overall effect was to overemphasize immediate personal conversion to Christ instead of a studied period of reflection and conviction; emotional, simple, popular preaching instead of intellectually careful and doctrinally precise sermons; and personal feelings and relationship to Christ instead of a deep grasp of the nature of Christian teachings and ideas.
Personal feelings, relationship to Christ, emotional preaching, and personal conversion are all very good things; please don't take the call for intellectual life as a simultaneous call for emotional death. However, simply relying on our emotions to carry us in our faith without the solid foundation of a mind for Christ is setting us up for a life of spiritual atrophy.
My God, how many times have I heard someone say that they "won a convert" in their evangelism efforts but they have no idea what happened to that person after they prayed The Prayer? Even more common than that is the person who shows up every Sunday but has no idea how to defend their faith and is plagued with doubt because of it.
When did the apologetic teachings get excluded from discipleship teachings and Sunday sermons?
I'm not sure what the point of this blog is other than to note my commitment to being a student of the Lord in the truest sense of the word. I am constantly arming myself with the Word and poring over the words of great Christian thinkers like J.P. Moreland and C.S. Lewis, seeking truth and new perspectives to solidify and expand my mind for Christ.
As much as I want to have the heart of Christ in everything that I do, I must also have the mind of Christ. His wisdom and teaching needs to be behind every problem I tackle at work, every time I study, every time I engage in conversation with both Christian and non-Christian peers. In order for me to be fully present, I must allow Him to be fully present in me in everything that I do. There is no separation of church and mind.