Back in 1995, Mark Noll released a book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. The opening line was, "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." Mind you, Noll was not anti-Evangelical; he was concerned that his own "clan" was being ... stupid. There is no doubt that conservative Christianity suffers from an anti-intellectual bias. It's ironic, too, because 1) the world says "Faith and reason are in opposition" and we have to fight that nonsensical notion and 2) the Bible is full of commands to use our minds -- commands ignored by anti-intellectual Christians. So, too many of us have allowed the world -- the anti-God forces -- to define faith for us. In the words of the Great Theologian, Archie Bunker, "Faith is something you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe." And apparently we just won't think that through.
Having bought that false dichotomy of faith versus reason while recognizing the lies of scientific anti-God pursuits from the 19th century on, we've opted to be skeptical of any reasoning and scholarly pursuits. So we've moved on. Faith is better than reason. Feeling is better than thinking. If you want to truly understand what God is saying, you need to "be led by the Spirit" by which we mean "Just don't think about it." Genuine theology, genuine doctrine, even genuine worship are all obtained by a moving of the soul and not some reading of an old book or rational analysis or something.
To be fair, it's not just Christians. Psychology Today argued that "anti-intellectualism is a very deep problem in America." Reading and critical thinking skills are on the decline. Common sense isn't common. We've decided that truth is relative and feelings determine what is or is not true and any disagreement on that is hate. So anti-intellectualism in the church is, in some sense, merely an extension of the anti-intellectualism we see in our modern world. The message is, "Just don't think about it." The Bible disagrees.
Think About It
It should come as no surprise, but the Bible is full of "think" commands. It does come as a surprise because, in our anti-intellectual path most of us have given up examining deeply God's Word. So while we might know the command, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom 12:2), we don't really take it seriously because that sounds a lot like thinking. We know that we are commanded, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matt 22:37), but we don't put much effort into it. Scripture is crystal clear. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them" (Rom 1:18-19) The fundamental human sin problem is suppression of truth, specifically about God. And the basic judgment about us is "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer 17:9). So we have a thinking problem and we don't want to think about it.
Let me make this clear. There is no contradiction between faith and reason. It is unreasonable (see what I did there?) to suggest that the Bible commands both faith and thinking which are mutually exclusive. "But if we're deceived and out of whack in our thinking, how can we do it?" Reasonable question. Paul told Timothy, "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything" (2 Tim 2:7) Do you see that? Both/and. "Think." Think about what? What Paul said. Paul wrote Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). So do it. But note that the fruitfulness of doing it is supplied by the Lord.
In the end, it turns out that 1) we are commanded to think and 2) thinking is commended (e.g., Matt 16:2-4). Who are we to presume that God is wrong in this? Is faith the opponent of reason? No! Faith sustains us through faulty reasoning, but faith means "to be convinced by the evidence" and that includes reason. So when God says, "Come now, let us reason together" (Isa 1:18), perhaps we ought to obey. To think or not to think; that is the question. The obedient believer will embrace loving God with all his mind and reason is no longer the enemy.
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