Why all the talk about poison? Because, thallium is much like anti-intellectualism, both are silent killers, both are highly toxic and both in there own way have changed the course of nations. Anti-intellectualism is a prevailing Bias in our culture and it is more than just stupid is as stupid does. It is a deadly poison killing the church today.
What is anti-intellectualism? Os Guinness defines anti-intellectualism as, “a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind.” [1] Anti-intellectualism helps support the bad belief that what is good are the “simple people”, the “common people”, who are supposedly more honest and “real” than so-called “ivory tower” intellectuals. The good life is in following God’s will not in some idea about the simple life of the common people, a view of such a life with romantic and nostalgic blinders. Many in Christianity hold anti-Intellectualism as some what of a virtue. If truth be told it is a vice. “Anti-intellectualism is quite simply a sin. Evangelicals must address it as such, beyond all excuses, evasions, or rationalizations of false piety.” [2]
Owen Barfield would say people given to this disposition have a “dashboard knowledge” of the faith. By this he parallels the knowledge people have about their faith to the knowledge they have about their car. All they know is what the dials on the dashboard panel tell them. People with a dashboard knowledge of the Christian faith, have only a simple and superficial understanding, even though many may think it profound and deep because they are able to know when things are not running right, and when it is time to get a tune up (repent). Biblical Knowledge is viewed by Christians as a means to “stay right with God” or “Know his love” but not as a knowledge system through which one views life and makes choices. The outcome is a church that does not value truth as much as the fleeting experiance of truth. Napoleon was reported to tell a certain story to stir his soldier’s patriotism.
Once, while visiting a province he came upon an old soldier in full uniform but with one sleeve hanging empty. He proudly wore the coveted Legion of Honor. Napoleon asked, "Where did you lose your arm?" The soldier answered, "At Austerlitz, sire." Napoleon asked, "And for that you received the Legion of Honor?" The man said, "Yes, sire. It is but a small token to pay for the decoration." Napoleon continued, "You must be the kind of man who regrets he did not lose both arms for his country." The one-armed man asked, "What then would have been my reward?" Napoleon answered, "I would have awarded you a double Legion of Honor." And with that, the proud old fighter drew his sword and immediately cut off his other arm.
What a wonderful story of patriotic duty! It was apparently effective in stirring up in Napoleon's men a desire to sacrifice for the cause of France
In Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth, Pearcey tells a story of a new convert named, Denzel. Denzel became a Christian as a young man. Driven by curiosity and the commands of his new found faith, he began to look for ways to grow in his faith. As Denzel sought to grow and understand his new found faith, He asked a lot of questions, as people do when they love the subject being discussed. Sadly, many of His questions fell on deaf ears; He was hindered by leaders who could not answer his questions. Others who saw it fruitless to help him seek out answers to questions they saw as just ‘heady’. He was told to just have faith in the plain truths of Scripture. Later, Denzel got a new job where he met those of other faiths. He was confused by the way they seemed to have answers for people's questions. Denzel felt cheated and did not understand why only the Christians choose not to defend themselves from cynics, skeptics and other faiths. Eventually, He changed jobs and found work at a Christian bookstore. There he found some books that gave him the answers he was seeking. It was a search not helped by the church but hindered. Denzel learned not only do most Christians not like to think, they don’t believe in thinking. Harry Blamires believes this drift is because the church has been infected by secular ideas. “The Christian Mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness unmatched in Christian History” [4] Denzel’s experience shows us very clearly how deep our present culture has influenced the church.
Empirical evidence of this can be drawn from the youth culture. Sociologist, Christian Smith shows how this aspect of culture is affecting teens. Many teens label themselves as believers, but a short investigation into what they believe will reveal their belief to be shallow and lacking in way of content. [5] They confess God but know little theology. Further the gospel of the modern teen is a far cry from the real gospel. They hold a legalistic gospel of a passive grandpa God. [6] The substance of theological training is vaporous at best. Such statistics are not only tragic but telling of our sinful mindlessness. Os Guinness again reminds us:
At root, evangelical anti-intellectualism is both a scandal and a sin. It is a scandal in the sense of being an offense and a stumbling block that needlessly hinders serious people from considering the Christian faith and coming to Christ. It is a sin because it is a refusal, contrary to Jesus’ two great commandments, to love the Lord our God with our minds. [7]
All these facts point to the present condition of the church as deeply anti-intellectual. It could be said that the church now has a kind of "Spiritual Anorexia." The term anorexia is of Greek origin: an (α, prefix of negation), and orexis (ορεξις, appetite), thus meaning a lack of desire to eat. Anorexia is a psychiatric illness that describes an eating disorder. Anorexics have an intense fear of becoming fat. The comparison between Anorexia and anti-intellectualism in the church is telling. Anorexia is a complex condition that involves, psychological, and sociological components just like the anti-intellectualism problem. The similarities don’t stop there; anorexia and the anorexic church both have a fear of becoming fat. The church sees the use of the intellect as the way one’s faith becomes fat and ineffective. So they fear what could happen as a result of using the intellect. It functions similarly to what William James named as the “Agnostic veto”. It is when the fear of the unknown or thought of a possible outcome can paralyze one from some action.
The fear of becoming religious intellectuals leads them to not seek spiritual food and they spiritually starve. Moreland puts it this way, “The contemporary Christian mind is starved, and as a result we have small, impoverished souls.” [8] Overtime the anorexics become weak and develop brittle and thin skinned, irregular heartbeats, and shortness of breath. Just like the complications to anti-intellectualism are weak Christians that can be easy offended, confused in their passions, and often shallow to the ways of the Spirit (breath). And just like anorexia all the complications lead to inhibiting the normal growth process.
What the church has sadly forgotten is that it is the mind that has the more direct affect on the spiritual life. [9] If we wish to regain a healthy vision of God we must first take some baby steps towards clearing our thinking up. The first step to be undertaken is repentance for the sin of anti-intellectualism. Then we begin the long prayerful journey of regaining a hunger for the deep riches of theology and faith. The writer of Hebrews was familiar with this impoverished disposition of the soul. He describes the condition of the Hebrew Christians:
You are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:11-14)
The anti-intellectual disposition was among the Hebrews Christians. So what does the writer of Hebrews suggest? He thinks they should dig deep into the things of God and not just swim in the shallow side of the faith.
Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so. (Hebrews 6:1-3)
Second, we need to value of knowledge for its own sake. One day, while home for the weekend from collage I thought I would mow the lawn for my dad. So, I brought the mower out of our shed and attempted to try to start it. I tried at least 12 times. I saw dad go into his shop and I called out to him. "Hey, what Do you know about lawn mowers?" In classic jerry style he clamed "I know more than you less than Jesus!" Wishing I kept my mouth shut he walked over looked that the spark plug and then pressed a small red button to prime the mower. The mower started right away! A little embarrassed, I was so simple. I didn't even know to prime the machine. Sometimes prayer is not enough, sometimes we need to come to knowledge and utilize the knowledge with His wisdom. Yet if we lack knowledge, we will be caught in our foolishness. Just as the prophet states, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). But this need not happen, if we value knowledge, value learning, we can avoid the fate handed the recipients of Hosea denouement.
Without Knowledge your faith would be about as useful as signing to the blind. Consider this, if being a person that loves others as virtuous then without understanding that comes from good thinking such love has no direction, no moral imagination, even no wisdom. Thus such a weightless person can be easily manipulated by others. Over time the result is a religion of sentimentality. Or consider this, if a religious ritual or sacrament is a symbolic action pointing to a divine truth then when one’s action is done from an empty head the ritual is meaningless. The meaningful symbol in the action is lost in the lack of refection. Over time the result is only ritualism.
Third, we need to begin to individually cultivate a Christian view of the world. Christianity is the true frame from which all our truths flow. Dorothy Sayers aims at this loss when she wrote “We have rather lost sight of the idea that Christianity is supposed to be an interpretation of the universe.” [10]
Os Guinness in his work, ‘Fit Bodies, Fat Minds’ gives us the antidote to this Evangelical anti-intellectualism. He calls his readers, “thinking christianly.” He defines this way of thinking as “thinking by Christians about anything and everything in a consistently Christian way – in a manner that is shaped, directed and restrained by the truth of God’s Word and God’s Spirit.”
Guinness offers further guidelines[11] for Christians engaging their minds:
1. Count the cost – that is, be willing to endure ridicule, slander and abuse – for some academics for example, the cost of speaking against the “prevailing wisdom” may be damaging to one’s career.
2. Commit to “thinking christianly” as an act of obedience, requiring concentrated, long-term effort.
3. Avoid certain pitfalls on the journey:
a. It’s not a “head trip”, we are not promoting a new “intellectualism” – rather, it involves the whole self, mind, body and spirit
b. It’s not a solitary trip – rather it requires the correction of other Christians
c. It’s not a purely human activity – rather it is based on the ‘fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom’
d. It’s not about uniformity - rather it reflects the diverse cultural backgrounds, personalities, and perspectives that we bring to the task
4. Acknowledge that Christian knowing brings with it the responsibility for acting on that knowledge
Endnotes
[1] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), p. 9.
[2] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), pp. 18-19.
[3] Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 3. Here Noll’s investigates the modern intellectual lives of evangelicals and its origins.
[4] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton , Ill.
[5] Jamie Dean, “Classroom Christianity,” World Magazine, January 27, 2008, http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12617 (accessed March 24, 2008).
[6] Smith clams Teen’s hold five beliefs. One, God created and watches over human life. Second, God wants people to be nice and fair. Third, life’s ultimate goal is for each person to be happy and to feel good about yourself. Fourth, God does not need to be intimately involved in anyone’s life—He is just there for emergencies. Fifth, good people go to heaven. Christian Smith, “Is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism the New Religion of American Youth? Implications for the Challenge of Religious Socialization and Reproduction,” in Passing on the Faith: Transforming Traditions for the Next Generation of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, ed. James L. Heft (New York : Fordham University
[7] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), pp. 10-11.
[8] J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1997), p. 80.
[9] J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1997), p. 80.
[10] Dorothy L. Sayers, 1937-1944: From Novelist to Playwright, vol. 2 of The Letters of Dorothy Sayers, ed. Barbara Reynolds, preface P. D. James (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998),158.
[11] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do about It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), whole last chapter
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