ShelfLife

“An impatient generation looking for instant solutions and quick answers will be a generation of shallow slogans.” (p. 110)

Pick up any popular magazine these days and I assure you, you will see titles beginning with “5 Easy Steps to . . . “ and “3 Ways to Improve Your . . . “  There is always someone out there offering the “1-2-3’s” to weight loss, the “quick and easy” steps to spiritual maturity or the “a-b-c’s” to whatever else you are in pursuit of.  We want an answer to our question, and we want it yesterday!  Consequently, advertisers are happy to oblige and thousands of magazines fly off of the newsstands every day.

Sadly, the same way of thinking holds true when it comes to the spiritual life.  On numerous occasions, I have heard people ask great questions but fail to pursue an answer due to nothing else but intellectual laziness.  Instead, they buy into what Moreland refers to as “shallow slogans.”  (You have heard them.  Think, “Let go, and let God.”)

Tragically, churches today are filled fill preachers who are unwilling to address the difficult issues of the day in favor of what will “sell” with their people.  Messages are shortened, over simplified, and put to rhyme if necessary so as to not overwhelm anyone.

But, what happens when difficult decisions need to be made regarding health care, education, economics or bio-ethics?  Or, what happens in a time of crisis and the common questions about God are asked?  What “sells” on the average Sunday morning falls short, and the Christian church loses its voice.

Just recently, I spoke on the doctrine of the Trinity.  In preparing for my message, I came across a quote by Gwen Shamblin, author and founder of the Weigh Down Diet, that stopped me in my tracks.  It read:

“As a ministry, we believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  However, the Bible does not use the word ‘trinity’ and our feeling is that the word ‘trinity’ implies equality in leadership, or shared Lordship . . . People don’t care about this [topic].  They don’t care about the Trinity.  This is going to pass.  What the women want is weight loss.  They care about their bodies being a temple and their lives turned over to the Lord.  That’s what my ministry is about.”

Among the many things she wrongly asserts, her argument speaks directly to my point.  Many people believe that if the topic at hand is not relevant to their current situation or helpful in creating a “better you”, then it is not worth the effort.  In this case, even a foundational truth such as the Trinity is seen as irrelevant to the “more important” topic of weight loss.

Incidentally, why does the doctrine of the Trinity matter?  Because it is essential to our understanding of who God is.  Because it affects our understanding of what it means to know God.  Because it informs our understanding of community, marriage and much more . . .

I am challenged once again by this book to love the Lord my God with all of my mind by rejecting shallow slogans and evaluating the logic behind the arguments made like Ms. Shamblin’s.  As Moreland argues, to do this takes work.  It will take a change in my lifestyle.

One change I will be make will be to identify the important informal fallacies he lists at the end of chapter 5 and that I hear in my everyday life:

1. Appeal to pity

2. Appeal to the people

3. Ad homenem argument

4. Genetic fallacy

5. Straw man

6. Red herring

7. Begging the question

The examples he gives for each one of these is terrific.  I have heard all of them many times.  Now, however, I can better categorize the flaw in their logic.

What change in your lifestyle do you want to make?

~Blake Holmes

I was discussing this book with a group of friends a few weeks ago and one guy (we’ll call him David) made the statement (and I’m paraphrasing), “I’m just trying to figure out what the mind is.”  Like many of David’s comments, he’ll be smiling and laughing while he makes the statements, but that doesn’t mean he is not serious.  In fact, come to find out, David had been thinking about his “what is mind” comment so much, that he decided to name his Fantasy Football team What is Mind.

Hearing his statement was once again a reminder to me how often I use certain words, without really thinking about their definition.  The mind is one example of that for me.  I simply assumed it was my brain’s ability to store information, recall information and think/reason.  I had never contemplated the various states and faculties of the soul nor how the mind functioned within these states and faculties.  Reading Moreland’s explanation of the states and faculties of the soul made sense to me, but I wonder where did his information come from?  He did not appear to be using the Bible, so  I assume that this may be a common philosophical explanation for the contents of the soul, however, I have done very little personal study of philosophy, and therefore I’m not sure if my assumptions are correct or not.  If anyone can shed some light on the origin of his explanation of the soul (specifically the states and faculties), I would be grateful.

Since David’s comment was fresh in my “mind,” reading chapter three was especially relevant and I appreciated how Moreland built his case for the centrality of the mind in the role of transformation.  My suspicion is that the contents of pages 73-82 are the ultimate points he was trying to communicate and that his discussion of the states and faculties of the soul was a necessary path to arrive at these points.

So, if what Moreland is saying is true – if the mind is the central player in the transformation of the person, then I believe the contents of pages 73-82 warrant a majority of our attention.  Therefore, here are some questions:

• If beliefs truly are the rails upon which our lives run, then what core beliefs in your own life have changed over the years (I’m assuming that all of us at one time or another have experienced a core belief change)?
• What do you believe is more difficult, identifying the core belief, or changing the core belief?
• How have you been able to identify certain core beliefs?
• In the context of calling people to become students of Jesus, Dallas Willard states in The Divine Conspiracy, “A major part of this important work is coming to understand what the people we are dealing with really do believe, and not pretending…that they believe what they don’t believe at all” (pg 308).  How well do you study what others really believe and how do you go about performing that study?
• What do you believe is the most effective way to help someone change a core belief?
• Moreland made the statement on page 77, “In summary, the plausibility, content, strength, and centrality of our beliefs play a key role in determining our character and behavior.”  Do you believe changing behavior is motivation enough to embark upon the process of trying to change our core beliefs?
• On page 79 Moreland made the statement, “In fact, the more you know about extrabiblical matters, the more you will see in the Bible.”  What extrabiblical matters have been most helpful to you in your study of Scripture?
• What have been some helpful ways for you to get out of certain “mind ruts” as described on pages 79-80?

I look forward to continuing this conversation via the comments.

Scattershooting while spending a September Sunday afternoon thinking about the role of mind in developing a biblical worldview instead of about football or golf . . .

1. Who is J. Gresham Machen? How many of us flew by the quotation that introduces Chapter 3? If I had not known the name, I might have. Machen lived from 1881 to 1937, taught at Princeton Seminary, led a conservative revolt against the influx of liberalism into Princeton, and later founded Westminster Theological Seminary as a conservative alternative. You can read some basic facts about Machen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Gresham_Machen. He was the author of at least three fascinating books: Christianity and Liberalism, The Origin of Paul’s Religion, and The Virgin Birth of Christ. Check them out and you will find that the author valued engagement in the battle of worldviews and ideas as a highly worthwhile pursuit for people committed to biblical Christianity.

2. The Thesis of Chapter 3 (p. 67)

• “The mind is the soul’s primary vehicle for making contact with God, and it plays a fundamental role in the process of human maturation and change, including spiritual transformation.”
• “[S]ince truth dwells in the mind, truth itself is powerful and rationality is valuable as a means of obtaining truth and avoiding error. Therefore, God desires a life of intellectual growth and study for His children.”

Why is this so? If you think about it, the mind is the central player in the drama we call growing up. We cannot either will or emote ourselves to maturity. The mind must comprehend and translate information into knowledge and understanding that can be acted upon by the will and emotions. Obtaining truth and acting in conformity with it characterizes the maturation process.

3. Is Redeemed Man Dichotomous or Trichotomous and does it matter? Moreland views man as being made up of body and soul and views the spirit as a faculty within the soul. Others view redeemed man as trichotomous; that is, being made up of body, soul, and spirit (see, e.g., Romans 8:16, Ephesians 4:23, 1 Thessalonians 5:23). Not sure that it matters for our purposes, but if you are interested in digging further into this question, you can start at http://www.gotquestions.org/body-soul-spirit.html. We will leave for another day a discussion of how our view of the nature of man impacts our theology, but as the gotquestions.org article concludes, it is impossible to be dogmatic about whichever of these views we adopt.

4. Why This Book Matters–Part A? If you remember nothing else from this chapter, remember and meditate on the Machen quote on p. 76 and on this sentence: “Our modern post-Christian society is perilously close to regarding Christian claims as mere figments in the minds of the faithful.” (p. 76) This is why this book matters and why we cannot cede the public discourse on the culture wars to the secularists and humanists. If Christianity no longer can be entertained seriously within the plausibility structures of the minds of nonbelievers, then our evangelistic efforts will be relegated to the category of “harmless delusion” or fig newtons in the minds of the faithful.

5. Why This Book Matters–Part B? Moreland posits that “the mind stands out for special emphasis because it is so neglected today by many Christians. The contemporary Christian mind is starved, and as a result we have small impoverished souls.” (p. 80) He adds:

[T]he power of the spiritual life is real but unavailable to us if we don’t understand the true nature of prayer, fasting, and so forth. This is why truth is so powerful. It allows us to cooperate with reality , whether spiritual or physical, and tap into its power. As we learn to think correctly about God, specific scriptural teachings, the soul, or other important aspects of a Christian worldview, we are placed in touch with God and those realities. And we thereby gain access to the power available to us to live in the kingdom of God. (pp. 81-82)

I desire access to that power. Do you? What are you willing to do to gain access to that power?

6. Diet and Exercise for the Mind. Just as our physical bodies are reflective of what we eat and how we exercise, so our minds reflect what we feed them and how we exercise them. It is a fact morphing into cliche to say that the church today has lost its distinctiveness from the surrounding society. Whether the comparison is divorce or intellectual vigor, the church looks like the rest of society. Herbert Schlossberg’s warning against the “intellectual flabbiness of the larger society” (p. 85) gives context to Moreland’s statement that “[m]any people today, including many Christians, simply do not read or think deeply at all.” (p. 87) Blame schools, TV, emails, or whatever, but we tend to avoid things that make us work hard or think deeply. A life of spiritual virtue requires hard work, self-discipline, sacrifice, and perseverance. I often hear people wistfully declare how they would love to know the Bible as well as Todd Wagner does. My reply is that when they have spent 25 years studying and memorizing Scripture, they will have a great start in having Scripture inform their daily thinking. To develop a mind that can compete in the arena of ideas, Moreland explains that believers must alter their reading habits and indeed their “entire approach to the life of the mind as part of Christian discipleship.” (p. 87)

7. Scriptural Antidotes to the Empty Self. I have listed below some verses that provide scriptural antidotes to the traits of the Empty Self described in chapter 4. What other verses can you cite to combat the Empty Self? List them in a comment and commit them to memory!

• Individualistic–Hebrews 10:24-25, Acts 2:42-47.
• Infantile–1 Corinthians 13:11; Hebrews 5:11-14.
• Narcisstic–Philippians 2:3-8; Philippians 3:7-9; Romans 12:3.
• Passive–1 Corinthians 16:13-14.
• Sensate–2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
• Definition by external factors–Philippians 3:3-9.
• Hurried and busy–Matthew 11:28-30.

Hope you are enjoying this book as much as I am and that it will both encourage and inform your development of a mind prepared to do battle for a biblically Christian worldview in the marketplace of ideas. BC

Bobby Crotty
bcrotty@watermark.org
214.361.2275

My review of the first two chapters of  “Love Your God with all your Mind” is as follows:

1. Who is the enemy?  J.P. Moreland asserts a current crisis in the church of anti-intellectualism but does not define who is specifically guilty of anti-intellectualism.  Is it every local church, the universal church, the modern conservative Christian Church, Pentecostals, charismatics, Church of Christ, Lutherans, Methodists, Catholics, who? We do not know who the enemy is that is promoting this current crisis of “devaluing reason and intellectual development for individual discipleship” who needs to become “a studying learning community that values the life of the mind”?
2. What Crisis? J.P. Moreland asserts a current crisis of anti-intellectualism in the church but does not quantify the scope of the crisis.   How broad is this problem among Christians? His argument that such a crisis is widespread among Christians is not convincing or supported by facts. His use of exaggeration to prove his point does not work.
3. Compelling Argument.  J.P. Moreland makes a compelling argument that in order to love God with all your heart soul and mind, you cannot neglect the soulful development of a Christian mind so that we can properly understand passages of the Bible, answer questions to assure doctrine, and better defend the faith.  This should be a call to arms for every Christian to make him or herself approved unto God by knowing him through his Word, prayer, teaching, instruction, and worship.   This is true whether or not an actual crisis exists in some or many local churches of  body of Christ.
4. “Mind” Must be Balanced with “Heart” and “Soul”.   J.P. Moreland admitted that loving God with your mind only is not acceptable but must be balanced with loving God with your heart and soul as well.  “God is worthy of being loved with every facet of human personality, not simply with one or two aspects of our nature”.   It appears J.P. Moreland is warning Christians against knowing God only through his emotions or heart to the neglect of knowing God through the mind as well.  It can be equally detrimental to the spiritual maturity of a Christian if he knows God only through the mind to the neglect of knowing God through his heart and soul. 
5. Is J.P. Moreland a “Christian Intellectual” Elitist?  J.P. Moreland makes statements later in his book that would raise the thought that he is promoting “Christian intellectuals” as a separate class or category of Christians.  These statements sound prideful, arrogant and elitist in which knowledge itself is worshipped as an idol.  He is probably very humble and did not intend this impression to be given.  I am sure he has a deep love for the Lord and only wants the best for God’s people – that they would grow in love and admonition of the Lord and wanted to present a dramatic crisis that warrants action of some kind.  I think he overstated his case in certain spots.  Statements later in the book that I refer to: [underlines added] “if the local church is to overcome its anti-intellectualism, it must find ways to raise conscious awareness of the value of the intellectual life among its members.  How many of us know our Christian intellectuals, celebrate their accomplishments on our behalf, pray regularly for the intellectual war they wage and hold them forth as heroes and vocational role models among teenagers?  If we do this for missionaries, why don’t we do it for Christian intellectuals?  The local church needs to be more intentional about fostering the intellectual life and mobilizing a new generation of Christian intellectuals.”  Some of his suggestions: 1.  “We should regularly incorporate vocational or apologetic testimonies and book reports on timely tropics in our services” 2. “We ought to identify intellectual leaders who are associated with the evangelical community or historic Christianity more broadly conceived and find ways to hold forth their lifework  3.  “ We need to prepare teenagers for the intellectual world they will face in college”   4.  “we should be more proactive in supporting and enfolding members of the body who go to graduate school” 5. “we need to increase our individual and congregational giving to support Christian scholarship”
6. My Charge to You. Do not mindlessly accept through “emotion” what I am serving up to you.  Read the first 2 chapters of the book using your Christian mind and reason and express your opinion as to what you think J. P. Moreland is saying.

We were having some issues with the “comments” feature. These issues should now be resolved.

When I read Moreland’s take on the loss of the Christian mind in American Christianity, I felt very typical.  I find it humbling when I realize that the first 10 plus years of my walk with Christ were more a product of American church history rather than the Book of Acts.  As Moreland states on page 23, the result of the Second Great Awakening was an emphasis on “…personal conversion to Christ instead of a studied period of reflection and conviction; emotional, simple, popular preaching instead of intellectually careful and doctrinally precise sermons; and personal feelings and relationship to Christ instead of a deep grasp of the nature of Christian teaching and ideas.”

I don’t blame all of this on the churches I have been a part of since I became a believer.  I have come across many people over the years who have sought to develop their minds in the ways Moreland discusses in this book.  If I’m honest with myself, I was just scared and intimidated and chose not to engage with those folks.  The first time I heard two believers debate free will, I was both thoroughly freaked out and also got the biggest case of tired-head ever.

Whenever I engaged in a discussion about faith with someone who had very good, thoughtful questions that I did not know how to answer, it would throw my personal faith into a tailspin for days and would cause me to do what Moreland argues the church did in the early 19^th century: withdrawal.  Over the years, I developed a fear of tough questions.  What if there are not good answers?  What if there really are some “loop holes” in the basic Christian message of redemption?  What if the Church has fallen victim to “group pride” and we’ve fooled ourselves into believing the Bible is true? Where dinosaurs on the stinkin’ Ark or not?!?

I couldn’t agree more with Moreland’s five characteristics of anti-intellectualism’s impact on the church (see pages 25-32) and I agree that there is an immense need for the church to raise the value of intellectualism.  I don’t believe the goal will be to settle all arguments once and for all or to prove we are right and others are wrong.  I believe that if we can simply help re-attach the word “reason” with the word “faith”, that will be a huge step in the right direction.  In our culture now, “faith” is often seen as blind, uninformed, and primarily pragmatic (i.e. if it works to make your life better – then it doesn’t matter whether or not it is true).  Showing ourselves to be “thinkers” can help re-define the word “faith” to a searching world and show that genuine faith is far from unreasonable.

I’m thankful for friends in my life who have encouraged me to explore the intellectual aspect of the spiritual life.  Asking questions and thinking have deepened my faith more than I ever imagined.

I’m interested to hear some of your stories:

• Would you say you are (or have been) typical (i.e. anti-intellectual)?
• Who have been some of the biggest influences in helping you to explore this aspect of the spiritual life?
• What are some of the benefits you’ve experienced personally from “asking and thinking”?
• Do you believe “asking and thinking” pose any threats to the church?

~Adam Tarnow