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In every major discussion within the university—from curriculum to career plans and from programming to politics—the academy demands one thing from us across the board: intellectual toughness. Granted, no two fields, and often no two people, define this toughness quite the same way, no matter what the GRE claims. Your average mechanical engineering prof probably will get a tad concerned if your grant proposal is in rhymed couplets, and your average English prof may break out in hives if your paper mentions, well, just about any math at all. But even beyond our individual academic skills and our various professional standards, by and large academia insists that a given idea’s philosophical underpinnings—its worldview—matters as much as its actual content. During one recent class meeting, a professor of mine complained loudly about an assigned book’s conservative viewpoint, and told us flat-out that after we were done reading as much of the book as we could stomach, we should burn it.
Whether inside the classroom or around the grad student lounge, this same impulse for interrogation targets our own beliefs, most vehemently those beliefs that assert Christ’s lordship in our lives. According to one recent survey, 53% of university professors distrust evangelical Christians—not because of inconvenient politics, but because we, as a group, don’t always play by the academy’s rules. As Christian scholars, we may experience pressure from both the church and the academy to think differently, or at least to keep quiet about what we are thinking. Mark Noll captures this exasperating balance well:
Those of us who call ourselves “evangelical scholars” are accustomed to suspicion from the church and incredulity from the academy. Modern scholarship, many in the churches believe, has proven itself implacably hostile to faith. Evangelical Christianity, many in the academy believe, holds to propositions that have no legitimate place in learned discourse. Perhaps more commonly, we evangelical scholars find ourselves in the even more depressing situation where no one pays us any notice at all. (1)
Here we encounter one of those wonderful paradoxes that animate so much of our beloved ivory tower. Though most will grudgingly allow religion a supporting role in academic identity, evangelical Christianity is viewed not as a starting point for or even complement to intellectual inquiry, but rather an excuse to avoid it. Christianity, some claim, gives its adherents carte blanche to contradict proven scientific facts, demand a theocratic education system at all levels, and flatly refuse to apply reason to “matters of faith.” What’s more, the critics argue, the very idea of an unassailable authority, be it Scripture, church tradition, or simply God, stifles any worthwhile intellectual activity. For instance, in a 2000 article called “The Opening of the Evangelical Mind ,” Alan Wolfe insists that though faculty at some Christian colleges (i.e. Calvin, Wheaton, and Baylor) have produced quality scholarship, the schools’ various statements of faith—which faculty must sign—nefariously morph the academy from a marketplace of idea to a deadened echo chamber (2). Closer to home, one of my colleagues in English rejected a student project that argued for a husband’s authority based on Biblical models because, in her words, “God doesn’t belong in papers.” Christianity, Nietzsche and his comrades-in-arms have argued for decades, deadens the mind in the name of a delusion.
Unfortunately, such critics make a valid point: to use Mark Noll’s phrase, “the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there isn’t much of an evangelical mind.” Though historically Christian faith has been the impetus behind many far-reaching and astounding feats of intellect—as Charles Zaffini reminded us last quarter—at times we as Christians have needlessly limited our worship and discipleship of the mind. An IVCF article, for instance, notes that Billy Sunday once boasted, “I don't know any more about theology than a jack-rabbit knows about ping pong.” He also said that “when the word of God says one thing and scholarship another, scholarship can go to hell.” Many of us could probably offer further anecdotal evidence of this tendency: the superficial college Bible studies, the feel-good sermons, and perhaps a well-meaning elder or two who honestly can’t understand why you want to go back to school instead of getting “a real job.” But we can also understand this movement towards anti-intellectualism as a historical process. Here, for instance, is Richard Hofstadtler’s now classic account of the relationship between evangelicalism and anti-intellectualism, from his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life:
One begins with the hardly contestable proposition that religious faith is not, in the main, propagated by logic or learning. One moves on from this to the idea that it is best propagated (in the judgment of Christ and on historical evidence) by men who have been unlearned and ignorant. It seems to follow from this that the kind of wisdom and truth possessed by such men is superior to what learned and cultivated minds have. In fact, learning and cultivation appear to be handicaps in the propagation of faith. And since the propagation of faith is the most important task before man, those who are as “ignorant as babes” have, in the most fundamental virtue, greater strength than those men who have addicted themselves to logic and learning. Accordingly, though one shrinks from a bald statement of the conclusion, humble ignorance is far better as a human quality than a cultivated mind. At bottom, this proposition, despite all the difficulties that attend it, has been eminently congenial both to American evangelicalism and to American democracy(qtd. in Noll 11). (3)
Over the next several weeks, many of our discussions here at CGSA will focus on this issue, roughly organized according to James Emory White’s book A Mind for God. Since we will have ample opportunity in future sessions to tackle specific aspects of the issue, tonight I want to focus on what seems to me the big question about Christian intellectualism: since our salvation comes from the Lord, and not from what or how well we think, why bother with the life of the mind at all? Not all of us are called to traditional “intellectual” vocations, and I’ll be the first to admit that most treatments of the issue draw primarily (if not exclusively) on the humanities, especially history, philosophy, and literature. I want to suggest two reasons why this study, which I consider a spiritual discipline, is important.
First and foremost, we ought to value the life of the mind because that life reflects, however imperfectly, God’s perfect and perfectly true mind. White puts it this way:
Deep within the worldview of the biblical authors and equally within the minds of the earliest church fathers was the understanding that to be fully human is to think. To this day we call ourselves a race of Homo sapiens, which means “thinking beings.” This is not simply a scientific classification; it is a spiritual one. We were made in God’s image, and one of the most precious and noble dynamics within that image is the ability to think. It is simply one of the most sacred reflections of the divine image we were created in (15).
Many of you are likely familiar with the “top 40,” so to speak, of Scripture verses concerning intellectual activity: “Come now, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18), much of Proverbs, Paul’s writings in I Corinthians 1 about wisdom and foolishness, Christ’s instruction to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,” and so on down through the concordance. But rather than just relying on proof-texts, I’d like us to consider Scripture from another angle: that of intellectual example. When Paul tells us to be “transformed by the renewing of [our] mind[s]” (Romans 12:2), he both makes a doctrinal point and demonstrates a spiritual discipline. Paul is perhaps an extreme example of intellectual engagement in Scripture, since we are told he is already highly educated at the time of his conversion, but he is by far not the only example. Consider Josiah, for instance, one of the few faithful kings of Judah. We read in 2 Kings 22 that the spiritual renewal Josiah directed was prompted by his rediscovery of the Law—in short, by a Bible study. And it’s no coincidence that the first step in this renewal was to share that study with others:
“The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the LORD -to follow the LORD and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book” (I Kings 23:3).
Secondly, intellectual sharpness is crucial to our interactions with the world: Christians both stand to gain the most from it, and are in danger of losing the most without it. As I remarked earlier, those battle-hardened academics with whom we as grad students most often interact place a rather high premium on intellectual integrity. A whole gaggle of isms may descend on the same Dickens novel, battering it almost beyond recognition, but each will demand of it—and often, of the institutions represented in it—a reasonable and more or less consistent philosophy. The same standards apply to Christianity, even if we rarely crack a Bible in the classroom: Bertrand Russell’s argument that “religion has [nothing] to do with argumentation. They [Christians] accept religion on emotional grounds” (4) still animates much discussion (or more accurately, Christian-bashing) today. By retreating from conscious and concerted intellectual exercise, as many Christians have done in the name of “practical theology,” we may lose these vital debates—whether our opponents are secularists or terrorist apologists—before they start. In a world ostensibly driven by rationalism and proof, ignoring reason is the fastest way to make ourselves irrelevant. Listen to the words of Rick Nañez, an Assemblies of God missionary:
Anti-intellectualism keeps us from affecting our institutions and their various departments with solid Christian thinking. It hinders our ability to think in terms of worldview, that is, to understand the hundreds of otherwise fragmented areas of life in a coherent way. If we are suspicious of the intellect, we are hamstrung when it comes to providing well-thought-out answers to difficult questions from critics and skeptics. Anti-intellectualism can also lead to dangerous forms of mysticism and a type of superstitious faith. (5)
But we need not and should not think of intellectualism only as a cordial to stave off cultural irrelevance, for I am convinced that the life of the mind offers tangible benefits to the believer as well. Again, quoting White:
It is a moment of both peril and promise; the peril is that when the public square is uniquely open to spirituality and hungry for visionary ideas, the mind of the Christian is often found empty, passive, and more reflective of the world at hand than the world to come. But the promise is that Christians can stride forward and engage the world at the point of its great need (11-12).
Some of the specific methods for taking hold of this promise will be the subject of future sessions this summer. But on the most basic level, training ourselves to think better means not only that we gain a greater understanding of the world around us—its physical workings; its ideas; and the wacky, fallen people that populate it—but also of theology and ultimately of God. Like nothing else, Christianity offers us a backdrop against which we can organize and understand our little corners of the academic world—but only if we are willing to put the work into understanding it. Some good resources already exist to help us along the way: recommended book lists, groups like the Emerging Scholars Network and the Dead Theologians Society, and of course staff workers with many years’ experience in training grad students how to think Christianly. I don’t pretend it’s an easy process, or one that we can pursue without running smack into our own fallen and thus limited minds, but it may well be the single most rewarding discipline a Christian graduate student—and indeed, any Christian thinker—can undertake.
There’s an old joke about a man who, coming upon a tombstone, noticed the following epitaph: “Here lies a Christian intellectual.” Reflecting for a moment, he then muttered to himself: “Folks must be awfully poor around here, having to bury two people in one grave.” The challenge before us is to prove that man wrong, and to unite the two categories for all to see. Let me finish with a quote from Alec Hill, CEO of Intervarsity:
I sincerely believe that Jesus was the greatest thinker who ever lived. As such, we are to prize the mind, not shrivel into a false piety and, as a result, suffer from fear and insecurity. Rather than embracing an ethos of withdrawal and defeatism, we are to grapple honestly and openly with difficult issues. To do otherwise would be to dishonor the name we bear. Our calling is to bring every inch of creation—including the mind—to the feet of Jesus. Let us do so with resolve and humility.(6)
Amen. Thanks for your attention.
Notes
1. Noll, Mark. “Minding the Evangelical Mind.” First Things 109 (2001): 14–17. Available online at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2121.
2. Wolfe, Alan. “The Opening of the Evangelical Mind,” Atlantic Monthly 286.4 (October 2000): 55-76.
3. Quoted in Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).
4. Russell, Bertrand. “Why I Am Not a Christian.” 1927. http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html.
5. Originally from an interview in Christianity Today (http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2006/marchweb-only/113-42.0.html). Quoted in: Rau, Andy. “Anti-intellectualism: a problem for the church?” Weblog post. ThinkChristian. http://www.thinkchristian.net/?p=674.
6. Hill, Alec. “Our Core Commitments: Discipling Your Mind.” http://www.intervarsity.org/slj/article/2439.
