Students and Faculty at 2008 Faculty Ministry Symposium

The final chapter in George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Academic Communities Christian Scholarship [Oops! - Ed.] proposes that even the most impressive work of individual Christian scholars is not enough; Christian scholarship needs “a strong institutional base.”

Scholars, like everyone else, depend on communities. If like-minded academics do not form their own sub-communities, then they will be dependent entirely on the communities that already exist. These, of course, have little place for inquiry concerning faith and learning. If such inquiry is to grow as a recognized part of contemporary academia, it must depend on institutions and networks which can sustain that enterprise. (101)

Before getting to Marsden’s ideas, let me throw out a few discussion question: Have you experienced or witnessed successful communities of Christian scholars? What have been the outcomes? On the hand, have you seen failed or stunted attempts to build communities among Christian scholars? What went wrong?

Recognizing that, for a variety of reasons, evangelical Christians have failed to create research universities that can compete with the best secular universities, and that, to put it mildly, “the obstacles are formidable” to creating such a university, Marsden suggests some other ideas for institutional support. Some of these are already established, while others are just beginning. Marsden’s ideas are after the jump.

• Christian academic associations, like the Society of Christian Philosophers, Conference on Christianity and Literature, Conference on Faith and History, and the American Scientific Affiliation, to name just a few (a longer list can be found here)
• Research institutes that “explore the relationship of faith to learning” (103)
• Stronger “Christian academic dimension” at Christian liberal arts colleges
• Faculty development programs for Christian scholars (one of my InterVarsity colleagues works in just such a program at Union University)
• Summer seminars and fellows programs such as those that have been sponsored by the Lilly Endowment and formerly by the Pew Charitable Trusts

In all these, Marsden focuses on the role of communities in supporting scholarship. He also observes that faculty communities can play an important role in helping faculty develop spiritual virtues, particularly in an academic culture that frequently runs counter to Christian virtues.

Marsden concludes with addressing the question, “Isn’t secularization inevitable?” Isn’t it simply a matter of time before Notre Dame, Calvin, and Baylor follow the same path as Harvard, Chicago, and Duke, losing all trace of Christian distinctiveness? To this, Marsden answers, “Maybe,” but our hope lies in our “postenlightenment” moment. The Enlightenment assumption that cultural progress is possible through secular rationality has been discredited, thus

…for academic communities there should no longer be the assumption that the move to embrace the more enlightened and more secular standards of the culture of the resarch university is a course to improvement. (110)

I hope that’s the case, but I’m not so sure. The collapse of the Enlightenment project is most evident in the humanities, yet that is the discipline that remains most hostile to Christian scholarship.

Because we agree Marsden’s ideas, InterVarsity offers several resources for building academic communities:

• The ESN Mentoring Program
• Our Faculty Ministry guide to building community
• Local and regional events for Christian scholars
• National events like Following Christ

I’ll close with one new question and a repeated of my questions from above.

Are there other resources that you’d recommend for Christian scholars looking for communities?

Have you experienced or witnessed successful communities of Christian scholars? What have been the outcomes? On the hand, have you seen failed or stunted attempts to build communities among Christian scholars? What went wrong?

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George Marsden responds with a hearty yes.  Why?  Because he believes (or should I say thinks, understands, or perceives):

Scholars do not operate in a vacuum, but rather within the frameworks of their communities, traditions, commitments, and beliefs.  Their scholarship, even when specialized, develops within a larger picture of reality.  So we must ask:  What is in that larger picture?  Is there a place for God?  If so does God’s presence make any difference to the rest of the picture? … (p.83).

Marsden warns the Christian scholar not “to reduce our subjects to just their theological dimensions.  (By theology here I do not mean primarily the discipline of theology, but rather any serious thought about God and God’s revelation according to a particular religious tradition)” (p.83).  According to Marsden, when Christians take “theological principles” as “just one point of reference,”

[they] can do the bulk of their academic work according to the standards and perspectives of their discipline, just as long as they are willing to keep in the mind the context of theological concerns and be open to reflecting on their implications for larger questions (p.83).

Any thoughts/reactions?

Marsden devotes the rest of the chapter to developing how “some of the most common Christian points of doctrine” speak into the assumptions and conclusions of academic disciplines:

1. Creation
2. The Incarnation
3. The Holy Spirit and the Spiritual Dimensions of Reality
4. The Human Condition

Any thoughts on how these doctrines speak into the academic world?  Any other Christian doctrines which you would desire to highlight?

Stay tuned for more on how Marsden fleshes out the application of these doctrines. …

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Quick question: Has your scholarly agenda been shaped by your faith in Christ? Have you been drawn to particular areas of research because of your Christian commitment?

Marsden’s concrete example of the difference made by perspective is a good one, I think. He describes the way that scholarly views of the Battle of Little Big Horn have changed over time.

As long as most Americans looked at the relationships of whites to Indians only through the lens of nationalism, scholars seldom saw the Indian wars from Native American perspectives. Once moral sensitivities to the oppression of minorities became widespread, a new generation of scholars saw the same information through a new set of glasses. The evidence had not changed, but now the advance of the white settlements of America was more often understood as an “invasion.” (62-63)

As far as scholarly agendas go, Marsden cites Robert Wuthnow, who writes about “living the question”:

I have borrowed the much-used phrase “living the question” because it seems to me that Christianity does not so much supply the learned person with answers as it does raise questions. It has been said of Marxists that even apostates spend their lives struggling with the questions Marx addressed. The same can probably be said of Christianity. It leaves people with a set of questions they cannot escape, especially when these questions face them from their earliest years. (65)

Marsden spends a bit more time interacting with Wuthnow’s ideas about Christian scholarship, and grants Wuthnow’s point that “good Christian scholarship may be virtually indistinguishable from scholarship done by anyone else.” Marsden corrects an idea that “distinctively” Christian scholarship means scholarship that is “uniquely” Christian, and that there exists the Christian perspective on any academic discipline. Nonetheless, Marsden notes, it’s difficult to review the titles of Wuthnow’s books and avoid the conclusion that his Christian faith has indeed shaped his scholarship in distinctive ways.

The rest of the chapter is devoted to four specific ways in which a Christian foundation can make a clear difference in scholarship.

1. Challenging what is taken for granted: here, he provides the example of Harry Stout’s American Puritan studies, which takes the Great Awakening seriously as a “spiritual phenomenon that could not be wholly reduced to naturalistic categories,” which had become the standard academic perspective on the Puritans.

2. Challenging naturalistic reductionism: Marsden contrasts Carl Sagan’s reductionistic dictum, “The [physical] Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be” with John Henry Newman’s “Christian idea of the university,” which sees academic disciplines as parts of the same interconnected truth. J. Joseph Porter has a post today at the fish tank about this very idea of Christians challenging “secular reductionism.”

3. Challenging the transcendent self: Christian scholars, with our foundation in the view that “the heart of human sinfulness is the illusion that we can be our own gods,” are distinctively able to critique academia’s celebration of the human self as an absolute good.

4. Moral judgments: “Moral judgments are not the whole of Christian influence on scholarship,” Marsden writes, but Christians have a foundation on which to base moral judgments, even if that base is often ambiguous, contradicts the judgment of fellow Christians, or seems hypocritical.

Yet all these ambiguities do not add up to an argument that Christian commitments either do not or should not make a difference in the moral agendas that so shape our scholarship. What the ambiguities suggest is that Christian commitments frequently do not make the difference that they can and should. Often part of the problem is the very kind of thing that we have been talking about, that Christians have often been too slow to challenge the conventional wisdom of their age. (81, emphasis added)

My questions for discussion (feel free to ignore them and add your own):

Do you agree with Marsden that Christian scholarship can make a difference in these four areas? Have you seen examples, in addition to Marsden’s, of Christian scholars working in these areas?

What about Robert Wuthnow’s conviction that “good Christian scholarship may be virtually indistinguishable from scholarship done by anyone else”? If this is the case, can Christians make their Christian commitment explicit without corrupting their scholarship? Should they even try?

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Can followers of Christ play by the rules of the academic game and still follow Christ faithfully?

According to Stanley Fish (Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami, and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago) the answer is “No.”  Marsden summarizes Why We Can’t All Just Get Along (Stanley Fish, First Things, February 1996):

“Though secular himself, Fish cites the authority of John Milton to argue that true faith in God changes everything else.  Reason, says, Milton, following Augustine, is subject to prior faith.  That world will look very different to those who start with faith in God in contrast to faith in self or in material contingency.  It follows, Fish argues, that Christians, if they are serious about their faith, should not compromise with liberalism, which is built on antithetical principles:”

‘To put the matter baldly, a person of religious conviction should not want to enter the marketplace of ideas, but to shut it down, at least insofar as it presumes to determine matters that he believes have been determined by God and faith.  The religious person should not seek an accommodation with liberalism; he should seek to rout it from the field, to extirpate it, root and branch.’ — George Marsden.  The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1997. p.44.  [Update 10/22/2009, 12:40 pm:  The second paragraph is a quote which Marsden excerpts from Stanley Fish's Why We Can't All Just Get Along (First Things, February 1996)].

How would you respond? 

Marsden writes:

While it is certainly true that some religious believers wish to destroy the pluralistic academy, there are many other religious viewpoints, including some theologically conservative ones, which harbor no such desire.  It is perfectly possible, for instance to hold, as I do, to an Augustinian view that faith in God, rather than faith in self or material contingency, should shape one’s essential vision of reality and yet to support the rules of liberal society as a God-given means for accomplishing some limited but immediately valuable goals. … the problem as I see it is how to balance the advocacy implicit in all scholarship with academic standards that are scientific or “reasonable” in the sense of being accessible to people from many different ideological campus.  … religious perspectives ought to be recognized as legitimate in the mainstream academy as long as their proponents are willing to support the rules necessary for constructive exchange of ideas in a pluralistic setting (45).

Marsden interacts with the rules of the game by

1. contrasting the pragmatic education approaches of William James and John Dewey.
2. exploring why there is no reason to expect a vast difference in basic standards of evidence and argument between Christians and non-Christians.
3. pointing out control beliefs as being present in all members of the academy.
4. highlighting the concern which arises when personal beliefs become explicit in the academic setting.
5. agreeing with Fish that better communication and more dialogue don’t solve all the problems of pluralism because it’s through such a process that we get to know what one-another really believes.
6. leaving one with the question of why “so few scholars in mainstream academic settings work to relate their deeply held religious commitments to their intellectual lives? (58).

Have you experienced self-censorship or observed the imparting of the habit/attitude of self-censorship among Emerging Scholars as described by Marsden?

It is worth repeating that what we are talking about is largely a matter of self-censorship.  Younger scholars who are Christian quickly learn that influential professors hold negative attitudes toward open religious expression and that to be accept they should keep quiet about their faith.  So rather than attempting to reflect on the relationship between religious faith and their own beliefs, they learn to hide their religious beliefs in professional settings.  Such self-censorship by its very nature proceeds quietly, but the attitudes it fosters are pervasive (52).

To wrap up, do we find Marsden’s nuances taming The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship or providing a work space for followers of Christ in higher education, one which may have already gained significant ground since the publication of the book?

It is essential to reiterate that the alternative being proposed is that there be room for explicit Christian points of view (just as there are explicit Marxist or feminist views) for those who will play by the other rules proper to the diverse academy (p.52).

My ideal for Christian scholarship is one that not only looks for the bearing of one’s Christian convictions on one’s academic thought, but also reflects some Christian attitudes that shape the tone of one’s scholarship (54).

We should think of ourselves as “resident aliens,” as some of my friends say, but as resident aliens we should  obey the laws of the land of our sojourn to the extend that they do not conflict with our higher allegiance (55).

Some of the rules for getting along equitably in a pluralistic academic situation are different from the rules within the Christian church, but not contradictory to them.  So what may be appropriate to a church gathering may not be appropriate to an academic gathering [e.g., preaching sermons and/or public prayer when lecturing at a state university or academic meeting] (56).

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Cover of "The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship"

In chapter 2 of The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, George Marsden examines three “arguments for silence” common in the university for why Christians should keep their faith out of their academic work:

• The argument of “science vs. religion”
• The argument of multiculturalism and diversity
• The separation of church and state

In case, Marsden summarizes the basic argument, then provides counter-arguments in favor of Christian scholars being open about their faith.

I’ll summarize chapter 2 below, but here are a few questions.

Are there other “arguments for silence” that Marsden overlooks?

Do you find Marsden’s counter-arguments convincing? How might one counter his counter-arguments?

More practically, do Marsden’s counter-arguments “work”? Have you seen Christian scholars win over opponents and open doors for the presentation of Christian scholarship?

Leave your thoughts about these questions – or about anything else related to this chapter – in the comments. My chapter 2 summary is after the jump.

Science vs. religion: Marsden cites an argument that religious belief is inherently “out of bounds” in the academy, because the work of the university is evidence-based, and (in the words of an Ohio State philosophy professor) “faith is, by definition, a belief in that for which there is no proof” (25)

Marsden observing that this is an Enlightenment-era perspective that carries virtually no weight anywhere else in the academy, including within science itself. The “science vs. religion” has a number of weaknesses, but perhaps the most notable is the absence for any intellectual foundation for the argument.

Some of the leading figures in American philosophy have addressed these very issues…Today many philosophers consider such preemptory dismissals of religious claims indefensible” (31)

The most arguments against Christianity along these lines seem to be stuck in 1927. Among the “New Atheists” who are currently the highest profile proponents of this “science vs. religion” argument, only one, Daniel Dennett, is a philosopher, and the others, so far as I can tell, do not even attempt to engage the academic philosophical literature. Dawkins has even said that he intentionally ignores the work of theologians and philosophers who believe in God, because he thinks they are irrational and therefore their work is meaningless. Try that at your dissertation defense when someone asks about a source that contradicts your conclusions! At least one atheist blogger has noted with frustration that the debate opponents of Christian philosopher William Lane Craig don’t even bother to prepare rebuttals for Craig’s standard arguments. (I can’t find the reference, but I’ve read a quote from Craig himself expressing frustration with the same problem.)

Multiculturalism and diversity: Here, the essence of the argument is that Christianity has been an oppressive force in history, that the university has labored for decades to escape its oppression, and that Christianity ought not be allowed a venue to renew its oppression.

Marsden says that proponents of this argument might have a point:

At least we can understand the fears of gays, lesbians, radical feminists, Jews, ex-fundamentalists, secularists, Marxists, and others who oppose any recovery of power for traditional Christianity. We should take these concerns seriously. (32)

Marsden goes on to note that there are core differences in belief between Christians and these groups. However, replacing one “imperialistic” worldview with another isn’t an acceptable option. Personally, I’ve been pleased to see Christian scholars forming friendships with members of these groups and sharing the love of Christ with them through personal relationships.

Further, Marsden argues, while some conservative Christians call for a return of Christianity’s complete dominance in culture, most Christians do not desire this, and conservative Christianity is so divided within itself that there is no agreement about what a new Christian dominance would even look like. This argument, Marsden contends, falls apart because a) it is hardly conceivable that conservative Christians could silence all other voices in the academy, even if they wanted to, and b) the argument for diversity, in reality, silences minority religious and ethnic voices by forcing them to conform to the academic mainstream. He gives as an example African American scholars, who are expected to conform to white culture of the university.

Church and state: Lastly, Marsden addresses the idea that religious voices must be silent in the university because of the “separate of church and state.” As many others have noted, this misconstrues the First Amendment as excluding religious from the “public square.” Moreover, the First Amendments’ establishment clause was written to prevent the institutional church from wielding too much power in government. Marsden points out that, except for a few local regions in the US, there is no single “institutional church” that could conceivably exert political control, much less control over the university.

Most often what we are talking about is individual scholars who wish to relate their religious beliefs to their scholarship. Their beliefs will likely be shaped by church or other religious communities, but they do not typically represent the “church” in any legal sense. The religiously shaped scholarship of these individuals is better viewed as an expression of their own constitutionally guaranteed rights as citizens to free speech and to the free exercise of religion. (41)

In this section, I was impressed with Marsden’s critique of the attempts of creation science proponents’ legislative activities. Briefly, Marsden’s argument is that:

• The Christian doctrine of “creation is broader than any single scientific theory about the origin of life or the universe.
• Creation science laws are based on a false dichotomy that there are only two options: atheistic evolution or young earth creationism.
• There is no good reason to privilege one religious viewpoint about creation in law, while ignoring the views of other Christians or other religions.

To repeat my questions from above:

Are there other “arguments for silence” that Marsden overlooks?

Do you find Marsden’s counter-arguments convincing? How might one counter his counter-arguments?

More practically, do Marsden’s counter-arguments “work”? Have you seen Christian scholars win over opponents and open doors for the presentation of Christian scholarship?

Leave your thoughts about these questions – or about anything else related to this chapter – in the comments.

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The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, by George Marsden

In June, we hosted our first ESN Book Club, an experiment in online book discussion and community based around John Stott’s classic, Your Mind Matters. In October, we’re going to host our 2nd ESN Book Club, this time discussing another classic, George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.

In 1996, George Marsden published The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief, which traces the history of American universities from their origins as explicitly Christian institutions to their current secular condition. Marsden ended Soul with a brief “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” to put forth his concern that universities had “overcorrected” in their path toward secularism, and that religious perspectives ought to be given a greater place in the university culture. This postscript generated enough critics, questions, and conversations that Marsden felt the need to write an entire (though short) book about “the outrageous idea of Christian scholarship.” In less than 140 pages, Marsden defends the place of Christian scholarship in the secular academy and proposes a way forward for communities of Christian academics. As you might imagine, The Outrageous Idea is one of the foundational texts for the Emerging Scholars Network.

We’ll be starting to read the book together in October. I hope that you’ll join us. The book is available from Amazon in both new and used condition, and you can also find used copies on AbeBooks.com. The first 17 pages are available for your preview at Google Books. It’s likely that a Christian faculty member or InterVarsity staff on your campus has a copy, too, that they might let you borrow. And, if you’d like to host a face-to-face book club coinciding with our online discussion, a discussion guide for the book can be downloaded from the main ESN website.

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Your Mind Matters

John Stott wraps up Your Mind Matters with “Acting on Our Knowledge.”  He begins by pointing out that we avoid the swing from anti-intellectualism to hyper-intellectualism, by remembering “just one thing:  God never intends knowledge to be an end in itself but always to be means to some other end.”

As a corollary to the mind and biblical knowledge being essential to the six spheres of Christian living, see Your Mind Matters 3: The Mind in Christian Life, Stott highlights the truth that:

“the acquisition of biblical knowledge must lead into these things [i.e., the six spheres] and enrich our experience of them.  Knowledge carries with it the solemn responsibility to act on the knowledge we have, to translate our knowledge into appropriate behavior.”

As a result, we find knowledge leading to worship, faith, holiness, and love.

Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service.  If we do not use the mind which God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality and cut ourselves off from many of the riches of God’s grace.  … What we need is not less knowledge but more knowledge, so long as we act upon it. …

How have you found knowledge leading to worship, faith, holiness, and/or love?  Do you have particular illustrations in your own life and/or those of other followers of Christ (present or past) to share with the ESN community?

To inspire you, below’s a quote from A Priest Serving in Nature’s Temple: Robert Boyle’s Career Blended Faith, Doubt, and the Use of Science to Heal Disease and Fight Atheism.

Robert Boyle (1627-91)

As he [Robert Boyle, 1627-91] stated in A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things, he desired “that my Reader should not barely observe the Wisdom of God, but be in some measure Affectively Convinc’d of it.” There was no better way, in Boyle’s opinion, to “give us so great a wonder and veneration for it,” than “by Knowing and Considering the Admirable Contrivance of the Particular Productions of that Immense Wisdom,” by which he mainly meant the exquisitely fashioned parts of animals both great and small. Thereby, Boyle believed, “Men may be brought, upon the same account, both to acknowledge God, to admire Him, and to thank Him.” A pious and humble man, Boyle always sought to cultivate the same attitude in others. — Ted Davis Christian History 21(4) (November 2002): 28-31.

Note:  For more visit the Robert Boyle Project and read Davis’ longer article Robert Boyle’s Religious Life, Attitudes, and Vocation Science & Christian Belief 19.2 (2007): 117-38.  If you’re interested in my notes from Davis’ 6/29/2009 lecture on Robert Boyle’s Religious Life, Attitudes, and Vocation, drop me an email.

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• Christian worship
• Christian faith
• Christian holiness
• Christian guidance
• Christian evangelism
• Christian ministry

We could discuss all of these if we had time, but two items on this list which particularly struck me were holiness and guidance.

I, for one, don’t usually associate my mind with personal holiness (perhaps that’s a problem with my mind!) but Stott emphasizes that, without right thinking, holiness is impossible. After all, we have to know what it means to be holy, by studying God’s word. But:

It is not enough to know what we should be, however. We must go further and set our mind upon it. The battle is nearly always won in the mind. It is by the renewal of our mind that our character and behavior become transformed. So Scripture calls us again and again to mental discipline in this respect. “Whatever is true,” it says, “whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

The second area that struck me as surprising was Christian guidance. Stott criticizes Christians who claim to know God’s specific will for their lives through a direct communication from God or an unusual interpretation of a passage of Scripture. Stott notes that, while this may happen occasionally, “this is not God’s usual way.”

Instead, citing Psalm 32:8-9 (“Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding…”), Stott argues that God instructs us, then trusts us to make our own decisions.

…although God promises to guide us, we must not expect him to do so in the way in which we guide horses and mules. He will not use a bit and bridle with us. For we are not horses or mules; we are human beings.

God has instructed, but has also given us intelligence and will to make our own decisions. To tell you the truth, this passage greatly relieved me – while I pray for important decisions, prayer is only one part of my process, and I’ve often wondered if I lean too much on my own understanding. I’m sure that it’s possible to do so and thus ignore God as a result, but Stott reminds me that God made me with a mind so that I could make these decisions.

For discussion

How else do Christians neglect our minds in our practices of holiness, guidance, or other areas on Stott’s list?

Do any of the aspects in Stott’s list strike you as unexpected?

How else do you see the use of our minds as vital to Christian living?

In contrast, do you see aspects of Christian living where use of the mind is overemphasized?

What about the minds of other Christians? Stott doesn’t write much (in this book) about the role of community or the church. How can other people’s minds help us in Christian living?

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Your Mind Matters

In the section entitled thinking God’s thoughts, John Stott argues Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:18-21

refer to God’s self-revelation through the created order.  Although it is a proclamation without speech, a voice without words, yet as a result of it all men to some degree “know God.”  This assumed ability of man to read what God has written in the universe is extremely important.  All scientific research depends upon it, upon a correspondence between the character of what is being investigated and the mind of the investigator.  This correspondence is rationality. Man is able to comprehend the processes of nature.  They are not mysterious.  They are logically explicable in terms of cause and effect.  Christians believe that this common rationality between man’s mind and observable phenomena is due to the Creator who has expressed his mind in both.  As a result, in the astronomer Kepler’s famous words, men can “think God’s thoughts after him.” — Your Mind Matters, p.28

Do you agree?  Can human beings think God’s thoughts after him? Is this the basis of science and possibly even the use of the mind in general?  Is that how you approach decision making, research, teaching, and writing?

Let’s begin chatting. … In a few days I’ll throw out a couple more questions from the Chapter 2.

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Your Mind Matters

This week starts our first ESN Book Club. Over the next four weeks, Tom and I will be leading our discussion of John Stott’s classic, Your Mind Matters. If you don’t have a copy of the book, our introduction to the ESN Book Club includes several options where you can buy it. This week, we’ll be discussing the Mark Noll’s foreword and chapter one, “Mindless Christianity,” which are available as free PDF downloads from InterVarsity Press.

Here’s how this will work: Tom and I will alternate with a post about the book each Tuesday (Thursday and Friday will be other topics as usual). The key is that we want to discuss the book, not simply review it, so we’ll highlight key passages and raise questions about the chapter, with your thoughts eagerly desired. I’m the first to admit that it won’t be as fun as a face-to-face book club, but if you want to take your laptop to your local coffee shop and sit in a comfy chair while commenting, that might help recreate the effect.

[BTW, if you are hosting a physical ESN book discussion, let us know and we'll be happy to spread the word.]

After the jump: Mark Noll’s Foreword and John Stott’s chapter on “mindless Christianity.”

Mark Noll’s Foreword

Mark Noll contributes a new foreword to this edition of Your Mind Matters. YMM was originally published in 1972, based on a lecture given by John Stott at an Inter-Varsity conference in the UK. Noll writes:

In the early twenty-first century, this biblically based message is every bit as relevant as it was a generation ago. If anything, the pressures against using the mind carefully, honestly and faithfully as an essential aspect of the Christian’s calling are stronger now than ever before. Most Christian communities, even those that once prided themselves on separation from the world, now participate eagerly in different forms of popular culture. The gains in that move have been to end the artificial segregation of the sacred from the secular and to give Christian values a chance at baptizing television, radio, cinema, contemporary music, the Internet and the iPod. The danger has been capitulation to the sentimentalism, the raw emotionalism, the reliance on cliché and the impatience with sustained reasoning that prevails so powerfully in the world of pop. (8-9, emphasis added)

Noll goes on to note that political partisanship among American Christians further erodes the life of the mind: “Among the first casualties in such political excess is careful use of the mind.”

Chapter 1: Mindless Christianity

Stott begins with an analysis of mindlessness among Christians, which he partly identifies as a culture-wide trend:

The spirit of anti-intellectualism is prevalent today. The modern world breed pragmatists, whose first question is not “Is it true?” but “Does it work?” Young people tend to be activists, dedicated supporters of a cause, through without always inquiring too closely either whether their cause is a good end to pursue or whether their action is the best means by which to pursue it. (14, emphasis added)

More specifically, Stott identifies three groups that express anti-intellectualism within Christianity (the terms are Stott’s):

1. “Catholic Christians [who] have nearly always placed a strong emphasis on ritual and its proper performance” (15). Stott comments that the danger is not ritual itself, but ritualism, which becomes “a meaningless substitute for intelligent worship.”
2. “Radical Christians,” who focus on “social and political action” without concern for doctrine.
3. “Pentecostal Christians, many of whom make experience the major criterion of truth.” Stott quotes an unnamed Pentecostal leader as having said “what matters in the end is ‘not doctrine but experience.’”

Remembering that this book was written over 35 years ago, I’d nuance these categories slightly:

1. Many Christians other than Catholics have become so concerned with doing things “in the right way” that they reduce worship to mere ritualism (even among Christian traditions that explicitly reject “ritual”).
2. With regard to “social and political action,” Stott seems mainly to have left-leaning movements in mind, but I would point back to Noll’s comment about political partisanship that has grown among Christians on both the left and the right.
3. Since 1972, Pentecostalism has been enormously influential within evangelical Christianity. So much so that many churches which hardly think of themselves as “Pentecostal” (indeed, may even preach against the movement) have largely adopted a Pentecostal or Pentecostal-lite style of worship and assumptions about spiritual experience.

I expected Stott to speak of these groups as causes of anti-intellectualism, but (no surprise here) he took a different tack:

These three emphases–of many Catholics on ritual, radicals on social action and Pentecostals on experience–are all to some extent symptoms of the same malady of anti-intellectualism. They are escape routes by which to avoid our God-given responsibility to use our mind Christianly. (17, emphasis added)

So, some questions for discussion, but feel free to contribute your own:

Do you agree with Noll’s assessment of current Christian anti-intellectualism? Do you feel like the intellectual climate for Christians is getting worse or getting better?

What do you think of Stott’s three groups of Christians? Are there trends or habits among Christians that you think could be added? Do you agree that these are “symptoms” (as opposed to causes) of anti-intellectualism? Do you agree with my comments on Stott’s categories?

From my perspective, there seems to have been an increased interest in apologetics among Christians over the last 10 years. Is this a counter-example to Noll’s and Stott’s arguments?

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