Anti-intellectualism in the Church

I want to share two text from the book I was reading "Smart Faith: Loving Your God with All Your Mind"
. After the text there is something else I want to share.

We now live in a Christian culture so deeply committed to a nonintellectual way of understanding Christian faith that this perspective is now imbedded within us at a subconscious level. You didn't misread. Our underlying ideas about Christianity affect how we think church should be, what a good sermon is, what is worth giving our money to, how we should raise our families, where we go to college, what we should study, and a host of other topics in our lives. But if our faith is central to how we live and what we believe is flawed, then how we live out our Christianity will be filled with flaws as well. Our modern understanding of Christianity in this area is inconsistent with the Bible and with most of Christian history.

for those who lack courage, anti-intellectualism has created a context in which we often come off as shallow, defensive, and reactionary instead of thoughtful, confident, and articulate. At school, at work, and sometimes at home, even identifying yourself as a Christian is often considered the same as wearing a sign that says, "Village Idiot."The way intellectuals in our country react to our claims of faith is enough to send us running for cover in shame. But if we develop our minds, we'll find ourselves boldly and intelligently taking on the challenge.

We've been talking a lot on our blog (in Portuguese) about the anti-intellectualism in the church. The church that gave birth to so many great theologians, philosophers, scientists, artists, writers and many others watch passively the decline and ridicule of its members on the public arena.

And the world sees it. Faith today is equal to irrationality and even worst, many inside our faith agrees with this. Many of us actually foster it. They don't want to think about their faith. They don't want to search because they are afraid they might give up their faith. But if we have a faith that cannot be carefully investigated, what we have is not a biblical faith, but just a wishful thinking. Faith has a evidential foundation.

The opposite of faith is disbelief. The opposite of rational is irrational.

A few days ago we were watching a cartoon show that showed Christians in a very pejorative way. Christians were throwing on the fire books that could represent some sort of danger to the faith. Among those books were Charles Darwin's “Origin of the Species”, Stephen Hawking's “A Brief History of Time” and also a book tittled “Logic for first graders”. Despite the obvious exaggeration in the show, in a sense this is how the world sees us. The intellectuals are the atheists, to whom the poor Christian is deadly scared. Instead of been seen on the same path of great Christian thinkers of the past, we're seen as little naive lambs of mega preachers, mega temple builders, mega money collectors.

This situation is not good at all. But there is a light at the end. And little by little this light is reaching (timidly, I should say) the church. In the last 30 years a great wave of Christian philosophers has been getting to the academics and are generating a vigorous body of literature very useful for the Christian faith. Among those we can list J. P. Moreland, Alvin Platinga, Gary Habermas and lately William Lane Craig. Norman Geisler, Greg Koukl and others are leading a movement for a rational defense of our faith and are forcing many atheists to retreat from some of their arguments. It'll take a while for this movement to grow bigger, specially here in Brazil. But we're working for it, because every Christian should “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” 1 Peter 3:15. In other words, apologetics is for every Christian. Everyone.

William Lane Craig once invited the famous atheist Richard Dawkins for a debate, since Dr. Craig would be in Europe. That happened a couple of years ago. Dawkins' answer was very informative. He said he was not interested in debating someone who was not famous or was not a least a bishop (or equivalent) in any other religion. Dawkins said he didn't know who William Lane Craig was and that, while this debate would do great for Dr. Craig resume, I would do nothing for his own.

In face of this, two option arise: if Dawkins really didn't know how Dr. Craig was, nothing of Dawkins sayings about the existence of God could be taken seriously, since it proofs he didn't make his homework on the subject. He didn't research the subject properly. If he did, he would have reached Dr. Craig's works on the existence of God.

But if he knows who Dr. Craig is, he made a maneuver to avoid a confrontation with Dr. Craig, since he knows he would be beaten like a child just like Christopher Hitchens was beaten in a debate (Does God Exist?) at Biola University in 2009.

Christianity is a path of faith. But also a intellectual path. And the Christian that is not exercising his intellect, that is not exercising his God given brain is living in a sort of sub-Christianity, failing to fulfill what the Scriptures tell us:

“And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength... ”. 

Marc 12:28-30