Thinking Christianity, For the Rest of Us: Overviews and Helps

About 18 years ago, at a course of communications I was taking, J. P. Moreland gave a talk in which he encouraged us all to be more serious and intentional about developing in our thinking. I asked him a question then that I'm trying now to answer myself, with the benefit of some years of experience in between: other than going back to grad school, how can we do this? His answer was both sensible and surprising: Cliff's Notes.

Well, that was only part of his answer. The main thing he had to say was this: you can learn, if you're motivated. The resources are there. But where should one begin? Moreland emphasized the importance of philosophy. Again--where to begin?

It seems to me the place to start is with a broad overview, a survey of the field. This applies to more than philosophy, but to thinking in general. There's a reason our teachers wanted us to take all those history classes in school. We need to understand where things fit. You can study Christian doctrine from a 20th/21st century perspective, but without a broad historical perspective many of your views will be distorted. The many denominational differences in Protestantism (and between the three larger groupings of Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodoxy) will seem random and meaningless--which they are not. You will have difficulty untangling doctrinal controversies between historic Christianity and cults like Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. You are a sitting duck for the deadly mistake of thinking that our age is better and wiser in every way than the ones that have come before it.

I've benefited greatly from a few basic historical overviews. Assuming you studied world history in school, I would recommend supplementing it with:

• A good history of Christianity. I wish Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity was still in print--it's a nice, handy-sized introduction. Or you could go whole-hog and read Latourette's 2-volume history. I'm behind the times, though, and I don't have a recommendation for a shorter introduction that's currently in print.

• A history of Christian thinking. Louis Berkhof's is a classic. I'm about halfway through Jonathan Hill's The History of Christian Thought just now, and I'm gaining a lot from it.

• A general history of Western thought. Will Durant's Story of Philosophy is the one I keep on my bookshelf.

That will give you an overview of good (and bad) thought, sliced in the historical direction. Another way to slice it is by topic area, for example:

• For Christian doctrine, a systematic theology like Wayne Grudem's is helpful.

• For philosophy, Moreland and his colleague William Lane Craig have written the excellent Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. It's lengthy, but you can quite profitably take it a chapter or a section at a time.

That will get you well down the path; it will put thought into context. This is a lot of reading, I know, but it's incredibly valuable. Everything else you read after it will make more sense--or you'll be better able to see where it really doesn't make sense--if you have this kind of general background, along with the Biblical beginning I wrote of in earlier posts. This is not a project for just a month or two, it's setting a foundation for a lifetime of discipleship of your mind. Set your pace accordingly, and enjoy your learning experience.

Now, what about those Cliff's Notes? They're for context too. At some point, after your overview reading or even in the midst of it, you're going to want to read some of the original writers. You'll want to read Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Calvin, and other greats. They're fascinating, and the things they have written about remain remarkably current, but you'll find yourself wondering just how it all fits together. That's where a study guide can substitute for a professor, for those who can't go back to school to study. Cliff's Notes (and other similar guides) are perfectly legitimate if you're not using them to fake for a test in school. Of course I don't mean just Cliff's; there are other guides you can consult, such as Adler's Aristotle for Everybody.

If you read this way, you won't much need to look for advice on where to turn next. But in my next post on this topic I'l give you some anyway!

Third in a series on Thinking Christianity, For the Rest Of Us

• Foundation

• Purpose

• Overviews and Helps

• Worldview Sources

Posted: Mon - October 8, 2007 at 03:52 PM |

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Thinking Christianity, For the Rest of Us: Overviews and Helps

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson