I will be serialising this rather lengthy article. Here is Part 1 of this series.

There is an issue which has always bothered since I embraced the Doctrines of Grace almost two years ago (August 18 to be exact). Occasionally I have touched on it but it always felt as a theoretical problem, rather than a real one, so I bit my tongue on it, with the exception of the article I wrote for my buddy S.O. entitled Don’t Waste Your Brain: Cultivating a Robust Theology for Christian Living. But apart from that article and a few posts here and there, I’ve not written much on it.

However, of late, it would seem that God, in His providence, has been putting this issue right up in my face all over the blogosphere. From C. Michael Patton of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries down to my good friend Nathan W. Bingham down at Cal.vini.st, the spectre of Christian anti-intellectualism has been bothering me. The last straw was a blog post I was interacting with, down at Parchment and Pen, the official blog of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries. A commenter made the following foolish assertion which caused me to realise just how pervasive this is. Brace yourself:

Assent to morality is not driven by the intellect but the conscience. “Thou shalt not kill” shouldn’t take any intellectual work on your part to assent to. If it does, you fail the test. But “such and such historical event took place” has nothing to do with the conscience but only with either the credulity or the intellect, depending on how believable it is or is not.

Ladies and gentlemen, grasp what this commenter named R.J (to protect their anonymity) is saying – “If you use your brain to assent to the idea that you shouldn’t kill, you’ve “failed” the test. O…K…you rock on with that. The same commenter made this comment regarding the reliability of the NT:

He didn’t equip that brain with a time-machine so we could verify dubious historical claims like that the New Testament we have now is what the apostles wrote and the Catholics didn’t add any books or interpolate them away from the original message. How do we know that Marcion’s version of Paul’s letters weren’t the original version. There’s enough evidence on both sides to make it totally doubtful, a 50/50 toss up between two competing claims. In as much as salvation depends on the IQ, salvation must only rest on only logical and not historical propositions, because we have no capacity to solve these historical inquiries with any real accuracy. Otherwise, it is nothing but a game in which we all lose in the end.

I am no theologue or exceptional mind…but if you say that we can’t trust the NT, doesn’t that make Christianity a lie? I responded to him with this:

It worries that you are so smugly content to believe what you concede to possibly be a lie – bear in mind, by your reasoning, Christ may well have never died or been buried or worse still, never resurrected and the Apostles, untrained fishermen with the exception of Paul, were the greatest bunch of hucksters to walk the face of creation.

How can you defend a faith you think is all possible smoke and mirrors? What really stands between you and the Buddhist? From what I read, nothing – you’re just some moralist who uses the name of Jesus. Big deal. Yawn. Whatever.

But like I said, this has been creeping up on me all over the place – even on the same blog.

Now understand, I love the ministry of Reclaiming the Mind. I think C. Michael Patton is a name to remember – he’ll be around for a good long time to come. I love The Theology Program, which they put out – in fact, I have the whole course on my iPod – and left to me, I’d run it all over London in a heartbeat. I especially love Parchment and Pen, where Dr. Patton, and his guest bloggers, discuss issues of theology, practical Christianity and all things RMM.

A few weeks ago, I got into another discussion with a commenter on Parchment and Pen, by the name of K.K. where this comment came up:

Should we no longer be seeking revelations or deep meanings just on the basis of us not living in the right century or being in the original location? The Bible itself says there are mysteries of God. It does seem to me your position is one of “it’s impossible for there to be secret meanings because the authors do not imply so”. If that be the case, why did Belshazzar have Daniel translate the handwriting on the wall? That was a secret meaning even though there were Hebrew speakers among his own council. But the words were supernatural, by a supernatural author, with a supernatural meaning…all leading to a natural consequence.

Reading that comment caused me to contemplate pulling my hair out. Secret meanings? Deep meanings? You don’t even care for the one you have and you’re looking for more? The pot phoned the kettle to affirm its blackness…

It is this attitude, ranging from “Facts are irrelevant – morality is what counts” (RJ’s position) to “The subjective is what really counts” (KK’s position) that grinds my gears.

Of late, I have become fond of the saying, “God gave you a brain – glorify your Maker and use it for Him.” I don’t understand why we have adopted a Gnostic approach to the faith, where the brain is bad, but the spirit is sound. I thought when God saved a man, he saved Him intact – brain, reason, logical ability, the whole nine yards.

I will be frank – I think this attitude, in any form, is asinine, foreign to the NT and in fact is dangerous to the Christian faith and to the Christian life of those who hold to it. Why? Let’s get into it…

continued Monday…

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