Three Ways Christians Must Change – Dr J.P. Moreland
1. Christians need to start using cognitive language and not just faith language.
Christians need to use terms relating to knowledge, evidence, reason, learning and thought, in addition to language about a tender heart and about faith. The Bible uses the word “knowledge” more than it does the word “faith”. Christians must become comfortable with the idea of ourselves as a community of thoughtful and learned people. A Christian can be learned without being snooty or arrogant.
If knowledge “puffs up”, the solution is not IGNORANCE. The solution is HUMILITY.
2. Christians must be taught how to argue for their faith and defend their faith. Christians need to be taught why they believe what they believe.
3. Christians need to restore a view of Jesus Christ as an intellectual; as an intelligent and thoughtful person with a knowledge of reality – in addition to being holy. Christians must restore the value of the life of the mind in the Christian community.
The division within contemporary society is fundamentally a clash of world views – between those who believe in a transcendent God and those who believe science is the only clue to reality and the physical world is all there is.
In that context, Christians cannot afford to propagate our religion on the basis of the claim that it works, that it will address your heart, and that you’ve got to believe it with an act of blind faith. Christians must restore our message as one that is based on knowledge of reality. People can know that God exists – they don’t just have to believe that He exists.
Adapted from a talk entitled Love Your God with All Your Mind.
The spiritually mature Christian is a wise person. And a wise person 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 honour to God. 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. Clearly, to become spiritually formed in Christ – a person of wisdom – requires that we follow Christ’s teaching in this critical area – and it was He who taught us to love the Lord our God with all our minds.
(Dr J.P. Moreland, Love Your God With All Your Mind, 1997, p. 39)
Dr Moreland’s website here.
Lisa Guinther
on January 9th, 2011
Sounds like you are enjoying the book…I thought you would!
J.P. has an amazing gift of clearly outlining the weaknesses within the Evangelical world and the areas we need to build up. We, as Christians again should be out-thinking the world for Christ.
It was wonderful to be able to thank him in person for his writings.
Another great book is “The God Question” which also addresses questions people have with Christianity in general.
Thanks for your post Roger!
smijer
on January 11th, 2011
I think this more succinctly than most anything I’ve ever read explains why I cannot adopt religious belief. The reason for belief should always precede the adoption of belief. For me, a belief doesn’t have value unless it proceeds directly from the the reasons to believe. If they are to be supplied after the fact, then the belief is, to me, worthless.
A very good quote from Eliezar Yudkowsky on humility:
rogermorris
on January 11th, 2011
Hi smijer, great to hear from you again. Hope you are well.
I don’t think it is so much the Christians don’t have good reasons for belief, nor that they don’t know why they believe. I think that the problem is that they often don’t know how to effectively and cogently communicate their reasons for belief to others. Moreland discusses the reasons for this in his book of the same name and points the finger squarely at people like Charles Finney and revivalism that tended to over-emphasize experiential and emotional elements of the faith at the expense of reason and intellectual engagement. Both elements are required in harmony and balance for mature Christian discipleship.
The Christian community needs to heed the Apostle Peter more:
“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)
smijer
on January 11th, 2011
Ok… that’s a little different than the phrasing I quoted above. I do still think that the original phrasing captures the sense of what is often done when faith is rationalized.
As to Finney. I think that the emotional experiences that he and others like him emphasize can for many people serve as the primary reason for faith. Not so much on the Southern Baptist side of my family, where the reasons seem too byzantine to have any hope of unraveling, but on the other, Pentecostal side, I see the emotion play out, and members will tell me directly that it is this experience that they perceive as the direct touch of the HS which makes them believe without a capacity for doubt.
My home bookshelves are lined with Finney, Spurgeon, and their modern counterparts. Not my purchases, though.
Mark SV
on January 12th, 2011
Although I grew up in a Christian home (parents very dedicated to the Lord Jesus) and was given much bible exposition, I did not really take much to heart until my head got involved. Exposure to apologetics in my early 20s set the stage for me to emotionally embrace what my mind became convinced was the truth. There were many times I would have been willing to chuck the faith so that I could live a hedonistic life but, being fully persuaded that God existed and I would have to give an account, I was kept back. Now, thankfully, many years later, the enjoyment of truth in a wide array of hues is a daily feast.
Moreland’s book “Scaling the Secular City” was a formative contribution those many years ago.