Thinking Christian

Third on my list of recommended resources for thinking Christianly is “Your church and/or a local network of like-minded people.” As I wrote at the start of this series,

Like all discipleship, this is not meant to be a solo undertaking. In some communities you may need to take leadership in this arena.

Discipleship In Community
Following Christ is a community matter. Learning to love God with all our minds is no different than learning to love him in any other way: we weren’t meant to go it alone. The famous passage on renewing of our minds, Romans 12:1-2, is followed immediately by extended teaching on life in Christian community. If I may be permitted to skip one verse for a moment, Romans 12:4-5 reads,

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

And that introduces five chapters’ worth of instruction on life in the body. The verse I skipped there might be of special interest, actually, to Christians who tend to be more interested in the life of the mind:

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Intellectual interests too often are paired with a sense of intellectual superiority. Of course we are all different and have different gifts, but this is according to God’s grace, and it means all believers are gifted by God, though not all in the same way (Romans 12:6-8):

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Paul goes on to mark the real point (Romans 12:9-11):

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

In terms of our relationship with the community of believers, all discipleship has one purpose: serving in love.

Building Up One Another
We grow in community by building one another up: encouraging, exhorting, teaching one another in love. An unexercised mind will grow flabby. We need to test and challenge each other with the genuine difficulties of the Bible and culture.

Now, I wish I had some really excellent examples from local churches to tell you about. I have heard of them: a church in Winchester, Virginia, and another one in McLean where mind-discipleship is taken seriously. I know they exist; but I have not had much direct experience with such churches. There are several in my current church with a zeal for this, but finding opportunities for real fellowship on this level has not always been easy. The typical adult Protestant Sunday School is misnamed, in my view: if it were really school, there would be more obvious interest in expanding members’ horizons of knowledge. Quizzes, anyone? But no.

Taking Leadership
This is why I have suggested you may have to take leadership. My wife and I have led one Truth Project group and are in the middle of a second one. The fellowship there is outstanding. If you have opportunity to join a group or to be trained in leading it, don’t miss it! You could also start a study group or a (real) Sunday School class on some more challenging material, like anything from C.S. Lewis, Keller’s The Reason for God, Grudem’s Systematic Theology, or any of Strobel’s books on apologetics. I’ve heard excellent things about Reasonable Faith chapters, too, though I have not seen any first-hand.

The Broader Community
Fellowship may be broader than one’s own church. You might try going to an apologetics conference, like the one coming up in just a few days in Chesapeake, Virginia. Finally, there is the online community: not the real thing, but a proxy version of it, and a place to connect with people with special interests in particular topics.

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Rebecca Bynum has some marvelous insights on scientism’s impulse to abolish humanity from among humanity:

One might recall the great glee with which Jane Goodall’s discovery of the tool-making and using of chimpanzees was greeted (wild chimps were observed stripping the leaves from twigs in order to use them to fish for termites). This was due not to the fact that it raised chimpanzees in our estimation, but rather because it lowered man. Louis Leakey exclaimed, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.” One more supposedly unique human attribute was knocked off the list, and we could no longer claim to be the only tool making and using animal.

[From The Progressive Diminishment of Man - New English Review]

Also,

It may be argued that what man believes himself to be determines not only his conduct, but the substance of what he feels is possible, thus determining the scope of art and culture. The ostensible purpose of science is to serve man through the ever-expanding knowledge of facts, and yet as science has ascended, many scientists have mounted a purposeful attack on the ancient concept of man in order to diminish him in his own estimation. The feeling among scientists seems to be that man does not deserve a privileged place in the universe.

As good as her analysis is, though, it sounds eerily familiar.

HT: Bradford

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Number two on my list of recommended resources for Christian thinking is the Bible. In another time this might not have required much emphasis: of course the Bible is central to Christian thinking! But in age when many consider the Bible to be antithetical to good thinking, and when even many Christians take a thoughtless approach toward Scripture, we need to spend some time on this.

God’s Remarkable Word
The Bible is truly remarkable. It is the most accessible yet inexhaustible of the great texts of history. The youngest and simplest can understand its main message, and Jesus himself taught with stories that anyone with “ears to hear” could catch. But no scholar has ever plumbed its depths. Even the Apostle Paul, who wrote one-third of the New Testament, exclaimed, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33-36).

Attacked from every angle for centuries, the Bible endures. I was reminded just how long it has endured yesterday, when our Sunday School class looked at the life of Moses. His encounter with God at the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-4:16) was the longest recorded dialogue between God and any human. It is also the only time anyone directly asked God for his name (Exodus 3:13-14):

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” [1] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

This took place around 1450-1500 BC, in a world of thousands of “gods” but with no systematized theology or philosophy. Did the biblical writer (Moses) know the questions that would someday be asked about God’s nature? Did he know that some day scholars would speak of God’s aseity, his attribute of being self-existent, underived? Did he recognize 3500 years ago that God could be identified only in reference to himself? In a world where every other god was an idol, tied to wood or stone, sun or moon, could anything have been so profoundly unexpected as “I AM WHO I AM?” At first glance it seems a non-answer. Only upon much reflection has it become clear it was the only fitting answer.

That’s just one example of myriads, chosen just because it came to my attention so recently. Even where the Bible has been most seriously challenged—the hard questions of history and of doctrine, the difficulties of example and practice—it continues to hold up to the test. Not that everyone would agree with what I have just said (the challenges keep on coming), but where there are questions, there are good answers.

The Reality Anchor
Thinking must be anchored in knowledge, and knowledge must be anchored in what is real. There was a time when I would have said that God’s word was essential to keep thinking on track with what is true. But it’s more basic even than that. The modern world has suffered a long crisis of epistemology (theory and study of knowledge) beginning at least as far back as Descartes and Hume. College sophomores try to impress one another with deep philosophical musings like, “how can you be certain the desk you’re writing on is really there?” That question has a pedigree, and for all its surface sophistry, from human resources alone it has proved devilishly difficult to answer. Modernism failed to make knowledge certain; postmodernism has given up on it altogether. One message of postmodernism is that knowledge is unsure, if it exists at all; and to study postmodernism for any length of time is to begin to wonder what — if anything — is really real.

This deep uneasiness with knowledge is a recent development in history, but its roots were always there. The foolish man was trying to build his house on the sand, and though it took until the 20th century, the rains have come and knocked it down (Matthew 7:24-27).

God’s word, on the other hand, provides grounds for confidence in what we know, in that he has created us in his image as knowing agents. Based on that confidence, we can at least get started in our quest for knowledge. The Bible cautions us at the same time to be careful, for we are flawed: we do not know all that we think we know. Some things are clear, though. The desk is there. God exists, and has made himself manifest in Jesus Christ. And so on. God’s word is the rock of reality, the reference point for truth and solidity in knowledge.

The Guide to Truth
Thus we can reject postmodern skepticism. We can get started on a quest for real truth. In fact, though others often scoff at it this way, we can get started on a quest for capital-T Truth; for we believe Truth exists, and that not all of it is out of our reach. Some of it we gain through observation and experience (science is observation and experience writ very large). Some of it God has given us directly through his word, which is not only the starting point for our thinking journey, it is also our guide along the way.

The Remarkable, True Guide to Reality
It is deep enough to challenge the most serious thinker. It solves for us the question, “can we know anything at all?” And it guides us all along the way as we pursue knowledge and truth (Truth). The Bible is absolutely essential for Christian thinking.

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Coming to Chesapeake, VA, on March 13!
The Answers 2010 Regional Apologetics Conference

With a lineup including several nationally-known speakers, a debate, and two sessions that I’ll be leading.

From the conference website:

The Answers -
Questions come at us from every angle: our friends, our relatives, even ourselves. These questions ask, “Does God Really Exist?”, “Is the Bible trustworthy?”, “Why does God allow so much suffering?” The questions are difficult, and they’re important. Now, it’s time to get The ANSWERS.

This conference is designed to help Christians answer these questions and more. Parents, teens, college students, home-schoolers, new believers, and pastors: EVERYONE can come here to get The ANSWERS. Experts from all over the country are gathering here to answer questions related to: atheism, Islam, Creation vs. Evolution, the Bible, the Resurrection, Pop-Culture phenomena like the Da Vinci Code, and more. Some of the speakers include best-selling author Mark Mittelberg, nationally renowned scholars Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. Craig Hazen, and former-Muslim Christian evangelist Dr. Nabeel Qureshi. The evening will conclude with a live debate between international debater David Wood and atheist author John Loftus on the topic “Does God Exist?” Seating is very limited, so sign up early to make sure you are here to get the ANSWERS!

[From The Answers 2010]

Not mentioned in that front-page promotion from the conference website: several breakout session speakers, including myself. I’ll be speaking on Postmodernism and “Does Faith Make Sense In an Age of Science.”

There’s still room for you! If you’re anywhere within range, don’t miss this great event.

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Stanley Fish wrote a profound piece for the NY Times’ Opinionator Blog last Monday, “Are There Secular Reasons?” He’s addressing the Classic Liberal doctrine that public policy should always be decided on the basis of secular reasons, not religious ones; and in the end, he doubts there are any actually secular reasons. I read his article a couple days ago with the sort of disappointment only a blogger could know: he had said it so well, I couldn’t think of anything to add.

In terms of cultural proportionality, Fish’s piece is considerably more important than what I’m writing here. (Use your time wisely: read his article first.) He is speaking of a widespread social phenomenon; my topic relates to a small but terribly vocal minority.

One member of that minority is Jerry Coyne. Coyne is a professor of biology at the University of Chicago who has complained loudly about Francis Collins being selected as the head of the National Institutes of Health. Why the complaint? It’s not because Collins lacks scientific credentials; first a physician, later he was head of the Human Genome Project. No, it’s because Collins believes in Jesus Christ, Never mind his having headed up one of the most complex and significant scientific projects of the past two decades—Craig Venter notwithstanding—if he’s a Christian, he must be a blithering idiot.

It was David Heddle who reminded me of Coyne this week by drawing attention to his further complaints. Coyne said this week that Collins’s Christianity disqualifies him:

Collins gets away with this kind of stuff only because, in America, Christianity is a socially sanctioned superstition. He’s the chief government scientist, but he won’t stop conflating science and faith. He had his chance, and he blew it. He should step down.

David dealt with Coyne nicely enough; I don’t need to add to his piece, either.

Recall now that Fish was talking about whether religion ought to be allowed into public discourse. He cites two forms the objection against it takes:

A somewhat less stringent version of the argument permits religious reasons to be voiced in contexts of public decision-making so long as they have a secular counterpart: thus, citing the prohibition against stealing in the Ten Commandments is all right because there is a secular version of the prohibition rooted in the law of property rights rather than in a biblical command. In a more severe version of the argument, on the other hand, you are not supposed even to have religious thoughts when reflecting on the wisdom or folly of a piece of policy. Not only should you act secularly when you enter the public sphere; you should also think secularly.

Whether the argument appears in its softer or harder versions, behind it is a form of intellectual/political apartheid known as the private/public distinction: matters that pertain to the spirit and to salvation are the province of religion and are to be settled by religious reasons; matters that pertain to the good order and prosperity of civil society are the province of democratically elected representatives and are to be settled by secular reasons.

This “intellectual/political apartheid,” this “private/public distinction” is a real phenomenon. Francis Schaeffer was the first I know of to write on it; more recently there has been Nancy Pearcey. I don’t disagree with it. But it is no longer true, as it once may have been, that it is the one factor behind attempts to eject religion from the public square. The New Atheist line (and there are other examples) says those who believe in religion have committed intellectual suicide. Only secular rationalists are smart enough to lead.

The public/private distinction is powerful in our culture. It’s the way Western religion-deniers try to push faith underground. It’s not the only force in the debate any more, though. There’s a new prejudice out there gaining voice along with it: religious people are doofuses and on that basis alone, they shouldn’t be allowed to lead.

Coyne doesn’t propose a religious litmus test for public office. He knows that would be unconstitutional. Well, good for him. All he’s saying is that religious people, just because they are believers in God, are therefore too stupid to hold certain offices. That’s not as bad, is it?

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A popular hymn in the church where I grew up began, “I was sinking deep in sin.” I think another song could be written, “I was shrinking deep in sin.” For it seems to me that one effect of sin is to make us smaller.

God created us to live large. Genesis 1:28, the first commandment of them all, is simply huge:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Jesus stated his purpose in John 10:10,

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

This is what we were meant for. It is about living life to the full, experiencing the best and the most that life has to offer.

Temptation lies to us and says sin has more to offer. My own experience tells me otherwise. Sin narrows my experience, rather than broadening it. If it is sexual temptation, it constricts my view of the woman. The 1970s feminists were on the right track when they objected to being regarded as sex objects. The woman is a whole person, but a purely sexual view regards her in only one limited dimension. It does not make her less of a whole person; it does not shrink her. It shrinks instead the man who falsely sees her as so much less than a whole person. Sexual relations within a faithful, loving marriage are not that way, for the relationship itself is much larger than that, involving a day-long, life-long covenant between two whole people; and marital relationships (unlike most illicit ones, where this is strictly guarded against) have the potential of enlarging into an entire new life in the family.

That is but one example. I could also mention the temptation to anger and impatience at a slow driver blocking the road ahead. What does that anger do but narrow our focus to the bumper in front of us? Nothing exists for us in the whole glorious world but the back end of some annoying car. The sin of impatient anger hides from us that there is a real human in that car. It obscures our view of the rest of the world around us.

it is the same with all sin. Gluttony reduces our world to that of food. Greed reduces our view to what we wish we had. Sloth reduces our world to what we can see and do from our couch. Pride limits our perspective to our own selves.

Sin, which tries to tell us it will enlarge experience, instead makes small our experience of the world. It lies. Above all it shuts out our view of the greatest, largest reality of all, God himself. To seek God and his way is to experience the fullest and best that life has to offer.

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Last week I included the Holy Spirit on a list of resources for thinking Christianly, with this qualification:  

God is certainly not a “resource” in the same sense as the rest of this list, yet the list would be incomplete without him. We can’t progress in any form of discipleship apart from the Holy Spirit’s work.

You’ll notice I am using “discipleship of the mind” and “thinking Christianly” almost interchangeably here. They’re not really the same, though. One of them—discipleship—is prerequisite for the other. Discipleship is following and learning from Jesus Christ. Growing in our ability to think Christianly is one fruit of that learning.

Our dependence on the Holy Spirit cannot be overemphasized (distorted, yes; overemphasized, no). When I was a very young Christian, a friend shared with me how to be filled with the Spirit. He used a booklet at the time; you can read the same life-changing material online. I strongly recommend it to you as a preface to what I say here. It has made all the difference for me!

If there is a locus classicus for Christian thinking, it must be 1 Corinthians 2:6-16:

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
  nor the heart of man imagined,
  what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

I will only try to highlight the most relevant nuggets for our topic here. Paul speaks of a wisdom not of this age, decreed before the ages, which will not pass away. He calls it a “secret and hidden wisdom,” but it is not so in a gnostic sense (available only to the initiated few). When Paul writes of secrets and mysteries in his letters, almost always he is referring to something formerly hidden, now being made known. Thus he could say that he imparts this wisdom: it is something that can be passed along. And thus he can also say “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.”

Through the Spirit. The Spirit of God is he who guides Christ’s followers into all truth (John 14: 25, John 16:13). He “searches everything, even the depths of God,” which only God himself can plumb. To know God fully is God’s prerogative alone. Yet by his grace he has granted Christians the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. One of the Spirit’s purposes is to give us understanding. Paul even goes so far as to say “we have the mind of Christ”!

This contrasts with the experience of “the natural person,” the one without the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, the one (as it says shortly after in 1 Corinthians 3:3) who is “walking like mere men” (NASB translation). Christians, we do not need to live like mere humans! God lives within us, to guide us, teach us, empower us.

That is not to say that the Spirit pours knowledge into our brains unmediated. He can do that and does sometimes (rarely, in my experience), but normally, like everything else in the Christian life, there are disciplines associated with growth. In the case of Christian thinking, those disciplines include things like the list I posted last week. The Holy Spirit is not God’s shortcut to growth; he is our guide and helper along the path to growth.

(Some misunderstand 1 John 1:27 to mean we have literally no need of teaching, but that would be an odd stance for John to take in a letter that was clearly intended to teach. He was instead warning against certain claims of false teachers claiming to bring some proto-gnostic knowledge.)

So what does this mean in practical experience? (I refer you again to the message on how to be filled with the Spirit.) There must be a true desire in us to be filled by God and to follow where he leads. We must recognize our dependence on God, and confess our need for him, especially in light of our sin. Along with that we can gladly acknowledge that God is there for us: he loves us and is pleased to fulfill his promise to fill us with his Spirit. It’s a matter of knowing that it is his will (Ephesians 5:18) and that he will always answer when we pray according to his will (1 John 5:14-15).

From there it’s a matter of walking, not like mere humans, but still walking, a step at a time. As we study, God will reveal himself to us. Those of us who are walking that path know the truth of Jesus’ words (John 17:3) in his prayer to the Father: “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

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