If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, bk, 4, ch. 2
What is truth? What is knowledge? Do our minds project
reality onto the world as it is individually perceived and molded? Or
are minds
receptors of ideas and perceptions from the external world, which are
then
interpreted according to how God designed us to interpret them?
Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. 1 Timothy 3:14-15 NIV
1. The emergence of anti-intellectualism.
a. “Ignorance is the mother not of devotion but of heresy.”[1]
b. “anti-intellectualism was a feature of American revivalism”[2]
c. Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists.
1.
Joseph
Fielding Smith explained that "a similar privilege is given to any
member
of the Church who seeks knowledge in the spirit of prayer and faith.
The Lord
will cause the feeling of security and truth to take hold of the
individual and
burn within the bosom, and there will be an overwhelming feeling that
the thing
is right. Doctrine and Covenants Student
Manual. Commentary on D&C 9:8-9
2.
I
know that after
I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the
flock. Even
from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to
draw away
disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three
years I
never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. Acts
2.
The retreat of the evangelicals
a. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
b. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
c. Higher Criticism
The Impact on the Church…
1.
A misunderstanding of faith’s
relationship
to reason.
1. Blind act of will?
2.
Power or skill to act in accordance with
the nature of
the
1. Religion is a private matter of the heart.
2. Everyday public life and vocation is a matter of the head.
3.
Christian young are unprepared to face
atheistic
teachers who have an ax to grind.
1. We share the gospel as a means of addressing felt needs.
2. Was this how Paul evangelized? (Acts 17 for example.)
a. Christians primarily share the gospel as a means of addressing felt needs.
b.
As
a result, Christianity is viewed by many as an emotional crutch for its
believers.
c.
“That’s
fine for you, but not for me.”
4.
Loss of boldness in confronting
idea
structures with effective Christian witness.
a. When we are bold, anti-intellectualism has created a context in which we Christians come off as shallow, defensive, and reactionary, instead of thoughtful, confident and articulate.
b.
'You
are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can
it be
made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be
thrown out and
trampled by men' Matthew
The
church is safe from vicious persecution at the hands of the secularist,
as
educated people have finished with stake-burning circuses and torture
racks. No
martyr's blood is shed in the secular west. So long as the church knows
her
place and remains quietly at peace on her modern reservation. Let the
babes
pray and sing and read their Bibles, continuing steadfastly in their
intellectual retardation; the church's extinction will not come by
sword or
pillory, but by the quiet death of irrelevance. But let the church step
off the
reservation, let her penetrate once more the culture of the day and the
...
face of secularism will change from a benign smile to a savage snarl." R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley,
Classical Apologetics (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1984), p.4.
Our Culture is Secular…
1.
For the secularist, knowledge
is solely
obtained by means of the senses and science.
2.
“If your religious beliefs work
for you,
that’s great, but don’t impose them on others.”
a. Is a scientist imposing anything on anyone when he claims that water is H2O or that 2+2=4?
There is no reason why we have to
retreat from secularists…
1.
Scientism, is not even a claim
of science,
but rather a philosophical view about science.
2.
The Bible states that we can
demolish all arguments and make them obedient to Christ. [3]
The
spiritually mature person is a wise person. And a
wise person has the savvy and skill necessary to lead an exemplary
life and to
address the issues of the day in a responsible, attractive way that
brings
honor to God. As we will see throughout this book, wisdom is the fruit
of a
life of study and a developed mind. Wisdom is the application of
knowledge
gained from studying both God's written Word and His revealed truth in
creation. If we are
going to be
wise, spiritual people prepared to meet the crises of our age, we must
be a
studying, learning community that values the life of the mind. The
rest of this book develops the case for why this is so. J.P.
Moreland, Love Your God
with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul.
(Navpress:
Colorado, 1997), p. 39