Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 4

Spirituality Column #196
August 10, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 4
By Bob Walters
Last in a series

Author Mark Noll graciously replied to an email I sent after I finished reading his “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.”

I wondered, now 16 years after Christianity Today named “Scandal” its 1994 Book of the Year, if he thought Evangelicals were gaining ground intellectually. I asked if there was a follow-up book in the works.

He responded that as it happens, he has just recently finished a manuscript that Eerdman’s in Grand Rapids will publish next year, titled “Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind.” Noll said that the book “tried to make a positive statement concerning how traditional Christian belief can support strong intellectual life.”

He also referred to a postscript he wrote for the new book that is a revision and expansion of an article he wrote for First Things journal, Oct. 2004, “The Evangelical Mind Today.” He lists 10 areas where positive impact is being made. I’m looking forward to the release of the book.

Noll points to a couple of glaring intellectual weaknesses in modern evangelicalism. One is the nearly total absence of serious consideration for tradition and the 1800 years of Christian thought that preceded the great evangelical revivals.

Missing from evangelicalism are the likes of Augustine, Aquinas, Galileo, Luther, and Calvin. Similarly Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, even Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, are immense Christian intellects given less stature in the evangelical community than a Sunday preacher.

Sorry … not to harangue any specific preacher, but to put a point on it – deep feelings do not equate to deep theology, or bedrock, true, biblical understanding.

We cannot study great music without studying great musicians. How could we possibly study great theology without studying great theologians?

Quoting Galileo, “It is most pious to say and most prudent to take for granted that the Holy Scripture can never lie, as long as its true meaning has been grasped.”

A second glaring weakness is evangelical separatism, a resistance to engaging the Christian mind and energy in the whole spectrum of modern learning, from political science to economics to linguistics, history, science and literary criticism.

Says Noll, “Personal faith in Christ is a necessary condition for Christian intellectual life, for only a living thing can develop.” Evangelicals definitely have the heart, soul and strength of personal faith … Noll insists we plug in our minds.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) figures this is a good stepping off point as school begins. Take Christ along, in your heart and mind.

Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 3

Spirituality Column #195
August 3, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 3
By Bob Walters

American Christian historian Mark Noll wrote about the limitations of Evangelical intellectual development in "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind."

But I hope no one thinks he’s saying Christians, or Evangelicals, are stupid.

He’s saying that since God created everything and gave us freedom, every Christian ought to have the courage to study everything.

Right on. Noll’s thoughts are critical to reclaiming intellectual life for Christ.

Noll writes from the refreshing, academic viewpoint of the reality of God. The absence of that reality is one of the most distressing omissions from modern education at every level. Schools – except for religious ones - are not only afraid to admit God exists, they are afraid to mention His name. Satan must love that.

Noll, if I’m reading him right, is calling it a “Scandal” that believers too often and for too long have retreated from the big, messy, public, social, scientific square of academic knowledge and cultural opinion that conflicts with biblical comfort zones.

We Bible Christians are likely to say: "Here’s the Bible, I believe it, end of discussion." Well, it’s not the end of the discussion. Consider Galileo, who suggested that the earth revolved around the sun. He was a heretic! No, wait, he was right.

The only unchanging truth is Jesus Christ. As for physical science, our global knowledge of that changes all the time.

I think it’s a mistake to limit one’s understanding of Jesus Christ to one’s understanding of the Bible. Start with the Bible, sure. Read it. Study it. Know it. Repeat.

But don’t worship it. Worship Christ.

Believe the Bible, of course. But it’s more important to believe Christ.

Think through and with the Bible, but develop a mind for Christ.

The Apostolic Christians who actually knew Jesus, then those who came after the Apostles, then those who formed early doctrine and battled early heresies, didn’t have a Bible to study. But they knew and worshipped Christ.

If our heart, soul and strength are in our faith in God, we still come up short if we don’t accept the importance of the full engagement of our mind. God loved the world and made the world. We better be enthusiastic about studying the world.

Scripture encourages us to “have the mind of a child” (Matthew 11:25, 18:3).

Right. I think that means, “Be curious and grow.” That’s what freedom is for.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) contacted Noll for an update on what the Evangelical mind looks like in 2010. That’s next week.

Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 2

Spirituality Column #194
July 27, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 2
By Bob Walters

We’re talking about Mark Noll’s 1994 book “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,” and his very learned observations regarding the state of Evangelical intellect.

In this four-part series I want to talk a bit more about the book this week, comment in part 3 why I think this topic is critical, and will finish up with some information from Noll regarding his new book on Christian intellectual life, “Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind,” that is due out in a few months.

Some weeks ago in this column I recounted how my Wednesday night Bible study had recently wandered into a minefield of conflicting theological perceptions regarding whether Adam and Eve would have been immortal had they not sinned.

After the column I received reader comments of both agreement and dissent at the suggestion. Class discussion had been lively, to say the least, and what calmed the storm in the class was the assertion that before jumping combatively to opinion-based conclusions, it’s important to broaden what we really know about theology.
Noll’s book was suggested.

Noll tracks Christian intellectual life of the Great Awakening (Jonathan Edwards, et al, 1740ish), the formation of the United States (1750-1790), the Second Great Awakening (roughly 1790-1840), and then discusses the enormous education and cultural changes from after the Civil War through the 20th century.

At the nation’s founding, the freedom of the political system, the urgency of new thinking in the society and the insistence on results in the economy supercharged a religious system – Evangelicalism – that was all about freedom and urgency and results. This was the explosion of Christian Spiritual Revival, camp meetings, and salvation right now. Amen!

Ivory tower philosophy, monastic theology, and careful denominational construct …who had time? When the Holy Spirit moves … get saved, and get on with it! That was the glorious firestorm of Evangelicalism.

“Evangelicalism,” Noll notes, has never been a tightly defined “ism,” or formal church. It’s a belief in the truth of the Gospel centered on conversion (to Christ), the Bible (God’s Word), sharing faith (evangelizing) and Christ’s redeeming work on the Cross. Denominational organization isn’t a central aim; having a heart for Christ is.

One can argue whether Christian intellectualism is important – I would argue that it is critical – but it’s hard to find fault with Noll’s insistence on the importance of the mind in understanding God’s purposes.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) hopes we never confuse theology, the study, with Jesus Christ, the truth.

Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 1

Spirituality Column #193
July 20, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Storming the Intellectual Ramparts, Part 1
By Bob Walters

Some weeks back I mentioned Mark Noll’s classic book “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,” promising to read it and get back to you.

OK … I have, and here we go.

Written in 1994, “Scandal” surveys Christian Evangelical intellectual development over the past few hundred years and the news, to say the least, is not great.

The dominant points I got from the thoroughly researched and citation-laden book are that 1. Jesus Christ plainly tells us in the Gospels to “Love the Lord your God” with all our heart, soul, strength and mind (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27), and 2. (… ouch …) Evangelicalism so far has largely failed at the “mind” part.

Shocking as that may seem, Noll is in a position to make such an observation.

A prolific and noted author, Noll taught for 27 years at robustly biblical Wheaton College outside Chicago as Professor of Christian Thought. He was a Wheaton undergrad, has a Masters in Theology from Trinity Evangelical Seminary, and a PhD in Church History from Vanderbilt.

Noll received a National Humanities Medal in 2004 from President George W. Bush, and in 2005 was listed among Time Magazine’s 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. In 2006 Noll was named Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic School.

Note the diversity of plaudits and affiliations; he’s respected in many camps.

Noll is renowned especially for his scholarship in the Christian religious history of the United States, and has written extensively addressing the complexity of the question of whether America is a Christian nation. Look him up if you want to know more.

"Scandal” is a worthy read in order to understand how Evangelical Christianity developed at first toward, and then away from, intellectual pursuits. One of my favorite statistics in the book is that in 1839, 51 of America’s 54 college presidents were clergymen, and mostly evangelicals. By the late 1800s, college attendance had exploded and college academics became focused on technology and science.

Theology, once the crown of the Academy (the educational establishment), by the 1900s steadily retreated from the main stage of America’s collegiate administrations and course offerings, becoming the purview mainly of Bible colleges and seminaries.

American scholarship took a track toward the materialistic, and the Bible became Evangelicalism’s intellectual ramparts.

There’s no better book on the planet than the Bible but, Noll asserts, Evangelical thought narrowed.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) knows some of this is painful, but believes Noll speaks an important truth. More next week.