Two things pop to mind.
First, in Matthew 22:37 when asked
about the greatest commandments, Jesus is recorded as saying, ‘Love the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ It
seems that we delight in the first two but tend to gloss over the third. When
the students were sharing in chapel today, I couldn’t help but think of this
scripture and how it appears to be a requirement rather than a suggestion. I
may be out of line but I rather suspect that He takes no delight in
intellectual laziness. Having said that, I cannot lay the blame solely at the
feet of today’s young (and older) generation. Sadly, since the mid-19th century
when Christendom had no immediate response for the new scientific thinking of
the day (Darwinism et al), we put our emphasis in faith based on personal
experience rather than sound doctrine and intellectual rigour. So we have come
about our ignorance of reasons for faith quite honestly. By the way, please
understand that I am not opposed to experience and relationship (indeed it is
at the top of my list of desires for myself and my students) but without an
intelligent, thoughtful, serious challenge to the prevailing secularisms of the
day, we have no right to the marketplace of ideas. These are our leaders of the
future. What shall we do BUT equip them as best we can?
Second, Steven C. Meyer has said,
“The heart cannot exult in what the mind rejects.” Personally, I know this to
be true, once being a self-proclaimed atheist and hater of every mindless
Christian. (In my late teens I was convinced of Darwinism and fully believed
that to be a Christian one had to commit intellectual seppuku. Okay, so I know
better now.) However, I believe that at some point every student, every
Christian with a shred of intellectual integrity will be forced to come to
grips with the tough questions leveled against Biblical teaching. And as time
goes by, we should expect our detractors to become more vociferous in their
complaints. Do I have enough understanding to be able to satisfy those issue in
my own mind let alone answer?
Interview with Steven C. Meyer: