In your book, Love Your God With All Your Mind, you criticize contemporary Western culture for being anti-intellectual and image-dominated. This is a fairly serious charge. What do you mean by it?
In the modern world knowledge is the basis for responsible action and culture. It’s on the basis of knowledge that we give dentists, for example, the right to put their hands in our mouths but we don’t give lawyers permission to do it. So it’s on the basis of knowledge that we allow people to act in certain ways in the public arena. If there is a crisis in knowledge, there will be a crisis of responsible action within society.
We now have a situation in western culture where people universally agree that there is no knowledge outside the empirical sciences. This means that in important areas of knowledge that we call the humanities, such as religion, ethics, politics—all of the things that matter—we no longer believe that it’s possible to have true knowledge.
Can you explain how this has happened?
It’s a long and complicated story. It involves developments in philosophy, theology and science over the last two centuries. However, a major factor has been the emergence of an anti-intellectual spirit within the Christian church. This took place early in the nineteenth century when theologians began to talk about the Christian faith in terms of emotion and feeling rather than mind, thought and feeling. As soon as the Church pulled out of serious intellectual engagement with the world, a cultural vacuum opened up. And to fill that vacuum, secular thinkers baptized the empirical sciences—or the ‘hard sciences’ as some people call them—as the basis for the religion of secularism.
Of course, the reason this creates a crisis is that it leaves people vulnerable to their feelings and to the impressions created by image-makers when it comes to really important decisions. What this means is that if a President wants to get elected, he doesn’t have to convince people intellectually that his platform is superior to his rivals. He only has to create a better image and induce warm feelings towards his candidacy.
Again, when it comes to religion, people often change from one sort to another because they like the way the new one feels. So there’s a crisis of knowledge as people opt out of the intellectual realm and are led by their feelings. As a result, the non-scientific domains are now dictated largely by how people feel about things rather than whether they believe they are true.
Are you saying that in our culture the ‘make-up-man’ is more important than the speech-writer?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Today the ‘make-up-man’ plays a more important role than the speech-writer. Hollywood, rather than our intellectuals, has a greater influence on our culture.
How has this situation developed in the West when education is so freely available?
I can only speak for America because I believe that Europe is a different story. In America, at least, the universities and the schools were heavily associated with the Christian religion and world-view for the first hundred years or so after European settlement.
That’s during the Puritan period?
Yes. During the Puritan period and up until the mid-1800s. But in the mid-1800s, a series of awakenings broke out where many people were saved and became Christians. These awakenings were very emotionally-oriented. As a result, there was a definite shift in American Christianity away from a theological understanding of the faith to a personal, experiential one. This shift had already taken place in Germany and Europe, especially among German theologians like Schliermacher and others, who identified the essence of religion in feelings and effects rather than in thoughts and truth. When that happened, the Church began to emphasize the individual’s experience of Christ, which is vital, to the exclusion of thought. And, as I said before, this led to an intellectual vacuum in which colleges and universities became more and more secular and the empirical/hard sciences came to dominate the university.
You’ve said that the Church, in some sense, contributed to the rise of anti-intellectualism. Can you identify some of the ways in which this happened?
Yes. In some pockets of American Christianity, particularly amongst Baptists and Methodists, leaders tended to stress the practical application and pragmatic value of Christianity for day-to-day life. Of course, this was an important subject but they over-emphasized it. Unfortunately, this created a generation of Christians who lost touch with the history and theology of their faith. As a result, people began to interpret the Bible on the basis of the emotional impact of a text rather than grappling with the historical and grammatical meaning of it. And so in many Baptist and Methodist churches in America, there was an over-emphasis on practical application and emotion.
This trend was counter-balanced in certain parts of the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches, especially in Michigan and other areas, where theologians resisted this tendency by concentrating on the intellectual heritage of the Christian faith. This tradition is still strong today and intellectuals like Alvin Plantinga, George Mavrodes and Nicholas Wolterstorff have maintained this emphasis.
What effect have higher critical studies and Darwinism had on the demise of the intellect in the Church?
Higher Criticism and Darwinism have both had a significant impact on the loss of a Christian mind. Around the mid-1800s, when the Church was moving towards an emotional approach to religion and away from a more balanced view that included thoughts and feelings, scholars in European universities began a massive assault on Christianity. This assault took the form not only of questioning the verbal inspiration and authority of the Bible, especially the authorship of the five books of Moses and Isaiah, but it also focused on whether the Gospels really provided a reliable historical picture of Jesus. This critical assault began in Germany around the 1770s. However, by the 1800s, German theologians had established a trend in which it became popular to deconstruct the Gospels by trying to remove elements within them that they believed were myth and legend. This usually meant getting rid of all the miracles. It probably took about half a century for that to hit America. So in the late 1800s the higher critical movement arrived in force in the United States. And this happened at precisely the time when the American Church was least able to handle it because it was losing its concern about scholarship.
Then there was the influence of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin’s ideas were a direct challenge to a Christian view of origins, sin and historical development. So late in the 1800s we have a confluence of three major trends that were to have a huge impact on American Christianity. First, we have an anti-intellectual emotionalism emerging in the churches. Second, critical scholars began an assault on the Christian faith using ideas that had become popular during the Enlightenment. And finally, Darwin’s theories on evolution suggested that the Christian faith was at odds with empirical science. This was a dangerous mix because it suggested that Christianity wasn’t rationally defensible.
Sadly, the Church was not only unprepared for this assault, but it didn’t really care. After all, if you think that religion is primarily about piety and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, why spend a lot of energy battling the world in the realm of ideas? Now, I’m not saying that Christianity is simply a matter of the intellect; it’s not. It involves the emotions as well. But an anti-intellectual faith is a dangerous thing and can lead to catastrophic results. Let me say again: it’s a both-and issue.
So you’re saying that the Church retreated into a cave of intellectual disengagement?
Absolutely. The Church retreated into a cave and lost the intellectual war and all of its schools. The schools that had been established by Christian denominations turned liberal. So by 1930, the vast majority of mainline denominational colleges were beginning to give up the uniqueness of Christianity.
What’s been the impact of anti-intellectualism on the Church?
The main impact is that the Church has lost its courage in evangelism as well as its moral authority. Courage is a very important quality if you are going to evangelize during times of persecution and speak out on contentious moral issues. As the apostle Peter reminds us in his first letter, we mustn’t be afraid in times of persecution. Instead, we must be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in us (1 Pet 3:15). One of the ways you overcome cowardice is to have a good reason for what you believe. Then you don’t have to feel insecure and defensive. However, if you adopt an anti-intellectual approach, you’ll soon begin to lose your confidence in addressing the issues that are pressed upon you. You will also lose your moral authority to speak out because you can no longer engage the issues intelligently. When this happens on a wide front, the Church begins to develop a ‘ghetto’ mentality where it’s primarily concerned to establish little beach-heads of people who are protected from the influence of the world rather than a ‘battlefield’ mentality of launching out and seizing enemy territory. Then the Church speaks only to itself and has nothing to say to the culture.
The dominance of the secular view of life has profoundly altered our thinking. What impact has it had on our view of knowledge, religion and the ideal of a good life?
The dominance of the secular, scientific view of life has meant that people have come to believe that scientific knowledge is the only true kind of knowledge and that the physical universe is all that there is. This has meant that it becomes impossible to speak about religious and ethical ‘knowledge’. Instead, religious and ethical views are nothing more than personal opinions. They don’t qualify as ‘hard’ knowledge. As a result, in discussing religious and moral questions, tolerance becomes the supreme modern virtue. Of course, tolerance means that no-one’s right or wrong and everybody’s opinion is equal. This means that you are intolerant if you say that other people’s views about morality and God are wrong. So, one of the main implications of secularism has been the muting of an absolutist voice in morality and an exclusivist one in religion. In secular culture people regard you as bigoted if you have the temerity to say, ‘I think this religion is true’, or ‘I believe this moral option is correct.’ Obviously, this has had a devastating spiritual impact on our society by creating a worldview of ethical relativism and religious pluralism.
The other effect of secularism is that it has altered people’s understanding of the good life. In the ancient world, particularly in Greek and Hebrew culture and up to the time of the Reformation, the good life, the happy life, was a life of virtue and character. So the happy person was the person who knew how to live life well, whose habits were filled with wisdom, mercy, courage and justice. Now if we’re going to describe the good life in terms of a set of moral virtues that we ought to imitate, we have to assume there is moral knowledge. Otherwise, how can we agree on what are the right virtues? Obviously, if we’re going to develop these virtues we’d better know which are the right ones. So, the old view of the good life assumed that there was an ethical knowledge that set out the true set of virtues. Traditionally, these virtues have been idealized in the life of Jesus and other great figures in the history of the Church. But once that tradition is seen only as a personal preference, there is no content that can be given to the good life. And so what has happened is that the good life has come to be redefined as a life of pleasure relative to what any one individual defines it to be. So, the basic ethic today is: do whatever satisfies you, as long as you don’t harm someone else. This is hardly a robust view of the good life.
Why is the mind the critical faculty in our personal identity?
Because the mind is the faculty that places us in contact with reality. The mind conforms itself to its objects. It you want to conform your mind to the mathematical realm, then you have to learn numbers. If you want your mind to conform itself to biology, you have to know biology. When your mind studies the truth in any area of life, you subordinate yourself to reality. That’s what truth does. And it’s the mind that contemplates and evaluates truth claims. So a person who’s got a carefully formed mind is a person who leads his life by seeking truth and trying to live in subordination to truth. So that’s why the mind is our critical faculty.
Could you explain the connection between the mind and the body. We may agree in our mind that something’s right, but how do we change our habits? What place does the mind have in controlling the body?
The mind is an immaterial substance; it’s not physical. I like to say that the mind is what contains our consciousness and makes the body living. So the body is physical; the mind is immaterial. The mind also includes the faculty of will or choice. Now a rational person who is leading a good life controls his body by his values and thoughts; he dictates his behaviour on the basis of what his mind tells him to choose. That’s why Paul says: “ Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12:1). So a life well-lived is a life that is led by the mind’s understanding of truth that then gets transposed into behaviour through the body.
The other way is to allow yourself to be lead by your desires, which is to lead a life from the bottom up. In this case, you become increasingly enslaved to your appetites and lose your freedom. The more you indulge them, the less you’re able to lead a life that’s truly free.
Does the Bible speak in specific terms about this mind-body connection?
Well, the Bible makes it clear that the mind or soul is not the same thing as the body. Paul says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So the body and the mind are obviously different.
Further, the Bible does talk about the importance of knowledge or teaching for leading the Christian life. Interestingly, in other religions such as Buddhism, the role of teaching is pretty minimal. Indeed, in some strains of Buddhism you’re taught to contemplate contradictory tasks, such as the sound of one hand clapping, precisely to overcome your mind.
But the Christian religion places an absolute premium on the teaching of knowledge. We lead the Christian life through instruction in the truth. On many occasions Jesus refused to do miracles because He was more concerned to perform what He saw as a greater task, namely, teaching (Mark 1:38). Since teaching was so critical for Jesus, this surely indicates the importance of the mind.
Why are our beliefs such an important part of our lives? And are they more significant than feelings?
I want to make it clear that feelings are important. The Bible leaves us in no doubt about that (Matt 22:37). But people actually behave according to what they really believe. They don’t behave according to what they say they believe all the time, but they do behave according to what they really believe. If you change a person’s real beliefs, you will change their behaviour. For example, if you teach a primitive tribe with poor sanitary practices about how germs are spread so as to change their beliefs, they will change their sanitary practices. So, you have this amazing phenomenon that people actually change how they behave according to the way their beliefs change.
If a person has some money to invest and they realize that some investments make more sense than other investments, they will change their behaviour in investing. The same is true ethically, and the same is true religiously. If people actually believe promiscuity is a source of a more happy, fulfilling life, then they will act promiscuously.
Can you explain why Christians ought to concerned about the beliefs and the assumptions of the culture in which they live?
There are two reasons why Christians should be concerned about the beliefs and assumptions of their culture. The first one is to make sure that those beliefs and assumptions don’t impact adversely upon them. It’s very easy to develop an Americanized or an Australian version of Christianity that isn’t biblical. Instead, it’s a counterfeit Christianity that’s been distorted through the assumptions and beliefs of secular culture. So we have to be careful that we know what those beliefs and assumptions are so that we can identify them and make sure that we’re not being affected by them.
Second, we are trying to reach these people. And we have to understand how they think and why they think that way. If we do this, then we will be able to build bridges to them. For example, many movies have themes in them that are true, even biblical. Of course, the producer probably doesn’t realize that. When we analyze their assumptions we can say to people: “I think this film is on to something here but let me give you the full picture”. When you consider that lots of people form their view of reality from the movies, you can see how this type of approach has the potential to introduce a Christian world-view to others. It also gives us the opportunity to critique the popular assumptions and beliefs of our secular age. So it’s important to understand the beliefs of our culture. If we don’t, we will remain marginalized as Christians and probably become infected with the spirit of the age.
You have said that Christians need to train their minds? Why do we need to do that?
Well, let me give you an illustration. I know nothing about spices and cooking. My wife tells me that there are at least 15 or 20 different kinds of spices that she is able to use. If I were to cook, I’d probably put any kind of spice in the pot. They’re all the same to me. However, I think you’d agree that I’d make a lousy pot of soup. On the other hand, my wife has trained her mind to know that there are 20 kinds of spices and one works for one sort of food while others go better with other types. So she’s able to make distinctions and to function better than I can because her mind is better trained in this area.
Now, the same thing is true in life. If you’re watching television or reading a book and your mind is trained, you see more things than if your mind isn’t trained. How do you train a mind? You exercise it. How do you exercise it? You expose it to ideas that are slightly over your reach. That means that you try to listen to speakers, sermons, and read books. The idea is to read books or listen to tapes that are a little bit beyond you. That means that you have to step up a little bit to get a hold of it. It shouldn’t be too far over your head, but you need to expose yourself to rigorous teachers and thinkers. Now the more you expose yourself to what they say, the more you exercise your mind and develop your own ability to think.
Should Christians be trying to develop their critical faculties and understand the processes of logic?
Yes. I think it’s important that Christians get a handle on some very basic logical principles. Some of these are found in any logic text—they used to be part of old theology books, actually. But, yes, if a person in college could take a simple course in logic, or if an adult Sunday School class could take perhaps four Sundays and deal with some simple problems of logic, they would find it very helpful. And these can be found in basic logic texts; you don’t have to get too heavy with it.
Every Christian would find it useful to get acquainted with the basic principles of logic such as the law of non-contradiction. It is also useful to learn about invalid types of argument such as the Ad hominem fallacy. This is where, instead of attacking the person’s argument, you attack them. So you say: “Being a Republican can’t be true because look at what a creep you are.” Well, that doesn’t mean that Republicanism is false. So that’s a fallacy of thinking; it’s good for people to spot those kinds of mistakes in logic.
How important is it for Christians to study philosophy?
For 2,000 years philosophy has been the single most important hand-maid to theology of any discipline. Shortly after the death of the apostles and for probably the next thousand years the Church took over the discipline of philosophy. Indeed, in the first four centuries all serious philosophy was done by Christians; there was hardly any secular philosophy. So the Church nurtured philosophy.
Now, why did the Church fathers take over the discipline of philosophy?
Because they saw that the teachings of philosophy were tremendously useful in developing a Christian world-view. They also saw that philosophy was very useful in developing the doctrine of the Trinity, in clarifying how Christ could be God and man at the same time, and in understanding the process of salvation. So, the discipline of philosophy has been important to the development of theology and it’s still important today because it deals with the most important questions that people continue to ask. So philosophy and theology can have a happy marriage if they work together.
By the way, people today have largely ignored philosophy and instead have allowed science to be the hand-maid of theology. Many Christians now think that science dictates to theology what theology can and can’t say. So we have to go to the scientist and say, “Would you tell us what we’re permitted to say in theology, we don’t want to go against you? If you tell us that evolution’s true, that’s fine, we’ll revise our views of Genesis accordingly”. And I think people go to the wrong discipline. I think philosophy is the discipline that should help theology, not science.
But isn’t the New Testament rather wary of philosophy?
Yes, it is. In fact, Paul warns us in Colossians to avoid vain and empty philosophy. And the Greek construction in that text is specific. The syntax makes it clear that what Paul is warning against is not philosophy itself but a certain kind of philosophy; namely, the vain and empty sort.
What type of philosophy would that be today?
Well, a vain and empty philosophy today would be a philosophy that advocates views contrary to the Christian Gospel and the world-view of the Bible. So, for example, postmodernism would be a vain and empty philosophy because it teaches that there is no such thing as truth. Likewise, naturalism is a vain philosophy because it says that there’s no such thing as the soul, no life after death, and that only the physical world is real.
By the way, one of the best ways to avoid vain philosophy is to know good philosophy. So, Paul’s warning about bad philosophy makes good philosophy even more important. But you do have to be careful with philosophy; there’s no question about that.
So where should Christians begin if they want to start thinking in a philosophical sense?
I think that they should begin in two places. First, by getting some good theology books and becoming clear on Christian doctrine. And, second, they should get a good introductory textbook on philosophy—hopefully one written by a Christian—to introduce them to the field. An excellent one that comes to mind is called Questions That Matter by Ed Miller. It’s a secular textbook for use in universities. Interestingly, Ed Miller is a Christian philosopher who teaches at the University of Colorado. And, while the book is not written to promote Christianity, it’s very consistent with the Christian faith. In fact, it’s got Christian ideas smuggled into it. So I think that would be a really good place to start.
You’ve said that the present spate of anti-intellectualism in the West has lead to the phenomenon of the empty soul. What do you mean by this?
The empty soul, or as it’s sometimes called the ‘empty self’, is a person who is overwhelmingly self-centred and narcissistic. Psychologists have now identified this as a problem of epidemic proportions. We see it increasingly in America amongst teenagers and young adults. It manifests itself as a childish, infantile approach to life that is extremely self-absorbed and individualistic. We are now finding that people are taking to their late 30s before they become adults. Americans are continuing to engage in teenage attitudes and behaviors up to this age, which is evidence of the empty self.
Empty selves are largely absorbed with body image. They are preoccupied with physical attractiveness and live for food, sex and exercise. As far as they are concerned, the universe revolves around them. Everything else, including people, exist as a means to satisfying their own needs. According to them, even Jesus Christ and God exist to satisfy a person’s needs. So when the empty self comes to Church, religion becomes just another form a therapy. God is just another tool in the bag of tricks that helps them to be a success in their secular life.
If we think that we have some of the characteristics of the empty soul, is it possible to do something about it?
There are two things to do. First, read the book of Ecclesiastes, especially the first two chapters. They deal with whether there can be purpose in life if there is no God. If there is no God and there is no ultimate cause for life, then what we are doing to satisfy ourselves is futile and totally meaningless. And that should shock us into the realisation that this approach to life is ultimately destined to failure. My only hope for significance is to find it in a personal relationship with Christ and in service for Him.
Second, meditate on Matthew 16:24-27 about the path to fullness of life which Jesus says comes through self-denial. So true fullness of life comes from serving others for Christ’s sake, rather than having them exist to serve me.
Doesn’t that sound like a contradiction?
I know it does. But CS Lewis once pointed out that the idea of giving yourself away to get yourself actually makes a lot of sense. He said, consider friendship. If you want friends, you shouldn’t go around trying to convince everybody how cool you are. You will only turn everybody off. If you want friends, concentrate on being a friend through serving others. And guess what? You’ll end up with more friends than you could imagine. And the same thing is true in life generally. If you spend your life as an empty self, you’ll be lonely, isolated and depressed. However, if you give yourself to Christ and serve others, then you will experience more satisfaction than if you try to get happiness on your own selfish terms.
Are there other habits we need to develop to overcome the empty self?
Yes, there are. People need to get together in twos and threes at Church and start reading books and discussing them. Try to find others who are interested in reading a book that deals with some issue or idea. Be accountable to one another and read the books together. I think churches need to do a better job of having classes where people actually need to exert themselves intellectually.
For instance, pick on an issue like abortion and find four or five other people in the church who would like to learn about it too. Make a commitment to read a chapter every week or two and come prepared with something you’ve written on that chapter to discuss together. Then, at the end of the time, ask everyone to write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper on the subject. Actually do something about it. That’s a suggestion.
Here’s the important thing … although you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink. So what do you do? Feed it salt! It may be hard to get many people in the church to try this approach, but don’t worry. Just find a small handful of people who are ready for this because most churches have some people who are dissatisfied with anti-intellectualism …
Move with the movers?
Yes, and let them get a victory under their belts so they start learning something about a subject in-depth. Before too long, they’ll have read two or three books together and think, “Hey! I’ve really learned something”. Let them carry the disease to other people. So, even if you start small, don’t constantly cry over how few people are doing it. Rather, rejoice over the small number that are and let them spread it.
How important is apologetics for the task of evangelism?
I think apologetics is very important. We need to learn how to defend the faith and answer people’s objections and questions. It’s an essential ministry. It’s not about winning arguments. You do argue but you don’t do it in an argumentative spirit. But I think it’s very important because apologetics can help create a plausibility for the Gospel which enables people to consider it. Many times people aren’t even willing to listen because they have a misunderstanding. For instance, they think the Bible was written hundreds of years after the events it records or they believe it’s all legend. Whatever the problem, it creates a major obstacle to them. However, I’ve found in hundreds of evangelistic meetings that I’ve done—and I’ve done hundreds of them—that apologetics causes an audience of non-Christians to wake up and listen for the first time. Once they are presented with some good reasons for belief, they develop a whole new slant on the Christian faith and decide to look into it even more.
What place should apologetics have in the discipling of our children?
William Wilberforce, who was the great abolitionist of slavery, wrote a book on discipleship called Real Christianity. At the beginning of the book he said that one of the first things that we have to do to produce disciples is to teach apologetics to our children. Why? Because, he said, if we don’t teach our children why we’re telling them what we do, when they get older they could fall victim to ideas that may undermine their Christian beliefs.
Personally, I believe that when we teach apologetics to our children, we give them the message that we take our religion seriously. I had an eighth grade boy call me a couple of years ago and tell me that he had gone to his mother, who is a Christian, and asked her a number of apologetic questions for which she had no answer. He said to her: “Mum, whenever you take something seriously you always look into it and you know about it. You did that when you were looking into our health insurance. You studied it and got a good health policy. But when you don’t have answers to my questions, it tells me you don’t really take Christianity seriously. If you did, you’d look into it like you do everything else.” So I think it tells our children that we care enough about our faith that we’ve researched it. After all, if we think it’s smart to research stocks before we buy them on the stockmarket, shouldn’t we research the Christian faith before we make an ultimate commitment to Jesus Christ?
What are the main philosophical objections that Christian apologists have to deal with today?
There are various ones. I think one of the main objections has to do with whether we can actually have knowledge of things that go beyond the five senses and the hard sciences. That’s a big one. Another one is whether there is anything called immaterial reality. Or is reality just physical?
The third one has to do with ethical claims: are there really moral absolutes and how can we know? And then, finally, there’s still the issue of miracles. Is it reasonable to believe in them? Those are a handful of areas, I think, that are important.
Are there clear answers to these particular questions?
Not only are there clear answers, but they have been very carefully thought out in a reasonable way. The problem is not that there aren’t clear answers; the problem is that very few people know what they are because they’ve not looked into it. So these answers have a public-relations problem. It’s hard to get the message out that there are excellent answers for these questions.
Some Christians believe that apologetics is a waste of time. “No one is ever argued into the kingdom of God”, they say. What’s you response?
Most of the people who raise these objections don’t do apologetics. People who say it doesn’t work have never done it. They’ve maybe tried it with a neighbour once or twice, got into an argument about an issue and didn’t know what to say. They did the best they could but went away feeling like it was a failure. But people who regularly engage in this kind of thing find that it is very effective. That’s my own personal experience.
I’ve had a number of people who have either come to Christ as a result of apologetics or, who have said that it was instrumental in getting to a point where they were willing to hear the Gospel from someone else. I’ve had letters from people who said they heard me give an apologetic defense of something ten years ago and it wasn’t until five years later they heard the Gospel and accepted it. But it was an obstacle that was removed in that lecture that even got them to where they were willing to listen five years later. So the apologetics took five years to bear fruit. I didn’t see it bear fruit, but thankfully they wrote me to tell me that it did. I think it’s important to remind ourselves that the inner testimony of the Spirit is not an alternative to evidence for the Christian faith; evidence is a means that the Spirit can use.
Does the idea of fellowship in the New Testament imply an active use of the mind? The way it’s used in Christian circles today almost suggests it’s a pooling of feelings.
Yes. The key to the New Testament concept of fellowship actually comes from Aristotle’s notion of friendship. Aristotle said that true friendship is not simply meeting to enjoy one another; it takes place when people band together to encourage one another to make progress in a life of virtue and wisdom—the good life. So, according to Aristotle, friendship involves facilitating one another’s growth as mature, virtuous people. Now, Aristotle didn’t know where that should take place and he had an inadequate conception of it.
In the New Testament, Aristotle’s form of friendship finds its most mature definition in the New Testament term koinonia. This fellowship is a joint participation in the Gospel cause. And the Gospel cause is not just evangelizing, but it’s learning to submit to what Jesus taught about becoming a mature Christian. So fellowship involves coming together to encourage one another to make progress in our maturation and to become more effective as ambassadors for Christ. Now both of those involve learning how to think more effectively as Christian disciples. It certainly involves apologetics and learning how to proclaim our message in more powerful ways to non-Christians.
If a church wants to recover its intellectual life, have you got any suggestions about how to realize the goal?
It has to start with the pastoral staff. They have got to create more time for themselves to engage in reading and reflection. This means that they need to delegate more administrative duties to deacons and deaconesses who can do the nuts and bolts of ministry. They should confine their energies to teaching, shepherding and praying … So if they’re studying, and having more time, that will overflow to the congregation.
The second thing is that the pastoral staff needs to see its ministry as raising up leaders for the church. That, at some point, is going to involve equipping leaders to do the work of ministry themselves. And that means they’ve got to understand how to think as Christians. These are just a couple of suggestions.
Dr JP Moreland is Professor of Philosophy at Talbot Theological Seminary in Los Angeles, USA. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Southern California. He is the author of a number of books including Scaling The Secular City and Love Your God With All Your Mind.
Rev Peter Hastie is the Minister of Ashfield Presbyterian Church and the Issues Editor of Australian Presbyterian, the national magazine of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.
