Friday, March 14, 2008
Being Smart
Chuck Colson staffer blog, The Point links to a Townhall local radio host blog on "Why Aren't Christians Smarter?"
We need to start with a fact, it is a hard one to utter, and it is almost never spoken, but that does not change it. Demographically, there are a limited number of smart people in the world. Not everyone is smart. Not everyone can be smart. Sorry, smart is a bell curve.
Worse, as the store of human knowledge is growing exponentially those that are smart are increasingly limited in the area(s) in which they are smart. The visions of the "Renaissance Man" is pretty much dead, there is just too much to know to truly fill that kind of role.
So having laid all that out there are a couple of important deeper questions that flow from the question "Why aren't Christians smarter?" The first is if it is sinful to not be smart, does that therefore exclude people that are incapable of being smart from the gospel? Secondly, if one uses ones intellectual capability in some effort other than to be smart about Christianity, is one therefore automatically scandalous?
Well, let me suggest this to you. Niche marketing, like what is really going on in the underlying post here, may be part of the problem. In an effort to build audience and/or congregation we tend to make sweeping statements like "Not thinking is a sin," and we carve the world up into battling bits of faith.
Said the Apostle Paul:
Maybe if we quit making such sweeping statement and started being a bit more gracious, this whole gospel thing would really change the world.
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Have you ever wondered why Christians aren’t smarter? I mean, we have the only true religion, we have a Book which is responsible for all of Western Civilization, and we serve a God who can safely call Himself the supreme champion at every trivia contest.So why aren’t we smarter?His contentions:
Not thinking well is a sin.First of all, the post is clearly a plug for his radio program and he is clearly reaching for a specific niche audience. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I do think it lends some insight into the real problem here, but the question is a quite valid one.
God commands us very simply: Love Him with all our heart, and with all our soul,and with all our mind. Catch that last part … with all our mind. This means thinking is not optional for the Christian. Thinking, and thinking well, is a form of worship of God which is nothing short of obedience to His primary command. Hence, if we do not“use the brain God gave you,” (my mom’s favorite rhetorical chastisement), we are sinning.
Not thinking well is a scandal.
The most pervasive myth about Christianity is that it is incompatible with intelligence
We need to start with a fact, it is a hard one to utter, and it is almost never spoken, but that does not change it. Demographically, there are a limited number of smart people in the world. Not everyone is smart. Not everyone can be smart. Sorry, smart is a bell curve.
Worse, as the store of human knowledge is growing exponentially those that are smart are increasingly limited in the area(s) in which they are smart. The visions of the "Renaissance Man" is pretty much dead, there is just too much to know to truly fill that kind of role.
So having laid all that out there are a couple of important deeper questions that flow from the question "Why aren't Christians smarter?" The first is if it is sinful to not be smart, does that therefore exclude people that are incapable of being smart from the gospel? Secondly, if one uses ones intellectual capability in some effort other than to be smart about Christianity, is one therefore automatically scandalous?
Well, let me suggest this to you. Niche marketing, like what is really going on in the underlying post here, may be part of the problem. In an effort to build audience and/or congregation we tend to make sweeping statements like "Not thinking is a sin," and we carve the world up into battling bits of faith.
Said the Apostle Paul:
1 Cor 12:11-27 - But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. For even as the body is one and {yet} has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.It is no more a sin not to be smart than it is a sin not to speak in tongues. It is good to think and it is good to speak in tongues, but it is not good for everybody.
For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I am not {a part} of the body," it is not for this reason any the less {a part} of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I am not {a part} of the body," it is not for this reason any the less {a part} of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?
But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; or again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those {members} of the body, which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our unseemly {members come to} have more abundant seemliness, hereas our seemly {members} have no need {of it.} But God has {so} composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that {member} which lacked, that there should be no division in the body, but {that} the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if {one} member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.
Maybe if we quit making such sweeping statement and started being a bit more gracious, this whole gospel thing would really change the world.
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