Justin Taylor's Blog, page 168

5 Theses on Anti-Intellectualism

1. Anti-Intellectualism is less about aptitude than  attitude.

“Anti-intellectualism is a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind.”

—Os Guinness

2. Anti-Intellectualism is a problem in the Western world.

“We live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization.”

—R. C. Sproul

“. . . Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people in the Western world.”

—Neil Postman

3. Anti-Intellectualism is a problem within evangelicalism.

“I must be frank with you: the greatest danger confronting American evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism. The mind in its greatest and deepest reaches is not cared for enough.”

—Charles Malik

“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”

—Mark Noll

“. . . the Christian Mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness unmatched in Christian History.”

—Harry Blamires

“The contemporary Christian mind is starved, and as a result we have small, impoverished souls.”

—J. P. Moreland

“Our churches are filled with Christians who are idling in intellectual neutral. As Christians, their minds are going to waste. One result of this is an immature, superficial faith. People who simply ride the roller coaster of emotional experience are cheating themselves out of a deeper and richer Christian faith by neglecting the intellectual side of that faith.”

—William Lane Craig

4. Anti-Intellectualism is not virtuous.

“God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers.”

—C. S. Lewis

“Intellectual slothfulness is but a quack remedy for unbelief. . . .”

—J. Gresham Machen

“At root, evangelical anti-intellectualism is both a scandal and a sin. It is a scandal in the sense of being an offense and a stumbling block that needlessly hinders serious people from considering the Christian faith and coming to Christ. It is a sin because it is a refusal, contrary to Jesus’ two great commandments, to love the Lord our God with our minds. Anti-intellectualism is quite simply a sin. Evangelicals must address it as such, beyond all excuses, evasions, or rationalizations of false piety.”

—Os Guinness

5. Anti-Intellectualism should be resisted with Godward passion and intellectual consecration to the Lord.

“We must have passion—indeed hearts on fire for the things of God. But that passion must resist with intensity the anti-intellectual spirit of the world.”

—R. C. Sproul

“The Christian religion flourishes not in the darkness but in the light. . . .  [T]he true remedy [of unbelief] is consecration of intellectual power to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

—J. Gresham Machen

“What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassioned debate. So as Christians we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity. . . . What more pressing duty than for those who have received the mighty experience of regeneration, who, therefore, do not, like the world, neglect that whole series of vitally relevant facts which is embraced in Christian experience — what more pressing duty than for these men to make themselves masters of the thought of the world in order to make it an instrument of truth instead of error?”

—J. Gresham Machen

Some books to consider reading:

J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul
John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God
James W. Sire, Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling
Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind
Gene Edward Veith Jr., Loving God with All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in the Postmodern World
John Stott, Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life
Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think?

Great Outreach Tool: ESV Bibles with SpreadTruth’s “The Story”

If you are looking for a good outreach Bible for Easter (or any time of year), The Story ESV Bible (paperback) would be a great choice. Crossway and SpreadTruth Ministries partnered together.

If you order 5 or more copies from SpreadTruth, you can get them for $5 each. Amazon has individual copies for $6.18.

Contributors include David Platt, Darrin Patrick, Russell Moore, Burk Parsons, Danny Akin, Joe Thorn, Jared Wilson, and a number of others. (See the complete list here.)

All 66 books of the Bible contain a short introduction that combines evangelism and biblical theology by showing how each book fits into the Big Story and its major themes (Creation, Fall, Rescue, and Restoration). See a Genesis Preview.

There is also a 12-page, full-color insert containing “The Story” overview (see the video below for how they communicate these wonderful truths).

So again, it’s a great tool for evangelism and outreach for reaching people with the gospel through the Word.

Schaeffer on the Christian Life: Countercultural Spirituality

The Theologians on the Christian Life series, which I co-edit with Stephen Nichols, is well under way.

Fred Zaspel’s Warfield on the Christian Life: Living in Light of the Gospel was the first to appear last year; Fred Sanders’s Wesley on the Christian Life: The Heart Renewed in Love will be out in August 2013.

This month sees the release of William Edgar’s Schaeffer on the Christian Life: Countercultural Spirituality.

A friend mentioned to me once that we hear a lot about Schaeffer’s apologetics and cultural engagement and some of his biography—but it’s hard to understand what it was like to actually know the man and his teachings on the Christian life, especially with respect to the life-changing experience of being at L’Abri, the communal study center in Switzerland.

Edgar’s book, in my opinion, is now the best entry point I know for remedying this. I strongly encourage you to read the first chapter here, where Edgar explains how the Lord converted him within 24 hours of meeting Schaeffer at L’Abri.

Here is some feedback about the book:

“Friendly, passionate, intellectual, and constantly engaged with people as well as ideas and contemporary affairs, Francis Schaeffer comes alive in Edgar’s objective but affectionate portrait. Rescued from the distortions of both lionisers and demonizers, here is ‘FAS’ as so many of us knew him in the great years of L’Abri—and with so much to contribute to our world today.”

—Os Guinness, cofounder, The Trinity Forum; author, The Dust of Death and The Last Christian on Earth

“An engaging, fascinating account, seasoned with unusual insight into one of the truly original apologists of our time.”

—David F. Wells, Distinguished Senior Research Professor, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

“For many years I hoped that I could spend some time at L’Abri, but that was not God’s plan for me. Instead, God enabled me to become friends with many L’Abri alumni, of whom Bill Edgar was one. I have been impressed with the intellectual caliber of those men and women, but even more with their godly character. L’Abri evidently had a way of leading people from intellectual atheism, to conversion, to spiritual maturity. Bill’s book focuses, more than other L’Abri books, on theis process of what we now call spiritual formation. The whole church can learn much from it. I commend this excellent book to all hwo seek to draw nearer to God.”

—John M. Frame, J. D. Trimble Chair of Systematic Theology and Philosophy, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida

“Francis Schaeffer was small of stature but a giant in his tenacious concern for truth, for God, for people, and for reality. He became convinced that Christian faith was the radical path for our own day, the realistic answer to the hard questions of a modern, troubled world. William Edgar’s compulsively readable study of Francis Schaeffer’s thought is set in the context of his rough-edged life and his brilliantly-inspired work in the L’Abri community he established with his remarkable wife, Edith. L’Abri, perched high on the slopes of a remote alpine valley, drew a motley procession of mainly young travellers from the ends of the earth. Schaeffer’s own, sometimes anguished, quest to communicate the ancient biblical text in a century of unprecedented historical changes attracted and opened doors for a generation of Christians. It also convinced many outside the faith with honest questions (like Bill Edgar himself) to follow the way of Christ. This engaging book captures the fire of Francis Schaeffer’s thought and concerns, and revisits and reinvigorates the still urgent challenge he presented to the church in the modern world.”

—Colin Duriez, author, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life

And here is the table of contents:

1 A Personal Introduction to Francis Schaeffer

Part 1: The Man and His Times

2 The Journey to L’Abri

3 L’Abri and Beyond

Part 2: True Spirituality

4 Fundamentals

5 Freedom in the Christian Life

6 Applications

Part 3: Trusting God for All of Life

7 Prayer and Guidance

8 Affliction

9 Life in the Church

10 Engaging the World

Afterword Concluding Reflections on Francis Schaeffer

Appendix: Titles in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer

Jesus Calling and the Quest for Something More

Michael Horton has a very perceptive review of Sarah Young’s bestseller, Jesus Calling. Here are the closing paragraphs:

Compared with the Psalms, for example, Jesus Calling is remarkably shallow. I do not say that with a snarky tone, but with all seriousness. The Psalms first place before us the mighty acts of God and then call us to respond in confession, trust, and thankfulness. But in Jesus Calling I’m repeatedly exhorted to look to Christ, rest in Christ, trust in Christ, to be thankful and long for a deeper sense of his presence, with little that might provoke any of this. Which means that I’m directed not actually to Christ but to my own inner struggle to be more trustful, restful, and thankful.

Consequently, trust becomes a work. Nothing depends on us, but everything depends on us. Strive to stop striving. Then, “Save your best striving for seeking my face” (71). “Thankfulness opens the door to My Presence . . . I have empowered you to open or close that door” (215). You can achieve the victorious life through living in deep dependence on Me” (6). “Every time you affirm your trust in me, you put a coin into my treasury. Thus you build up equity in preparation for days of trouble. I keep safely in My heart all trust invested in Me, with interest compounded continuously. The more you trust Me, the more I empower you to do so . . . Store up for yourself treasure in heaven, through placing your trust in Me. This practice will keep you in My Peace.”

The first mention of Christ even dying for our sins appears on February 28 (page 61). The next reference (to wearing Christ’s robe) is August 9 (p. 232). Even the December readings focus on a general presence of Jesus in our hearts and daily lives, without anchoring it in Jesus’s person and work in history.

As in Keswick spirituality more generally, trust becomes an inner virtue that grows by its exercise. “The more you choose to trust Me, the easier it becomes,” Jesus allegedly says. “Thought patterns of trust become etched into your brain.” This has more in common with Aristotle than with the Apostles. The latter taught that faith comes—and is strengthened—by hearing God’s Word proclaimed.

Reading Jesus Calling, I was reminded of the confusing message of my Christian youth. Longing for “something more,” I pored over my mother’s bookshelf: Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, D. L. Moody, Bill Bright, and Andrew Murray. Only with the discovery of the Reformers and various Puritan writers was I offered a liberating alternative that drew me out of myself to cling to Christ. While looking to this Reformation stream for a cluster of doctrines, many in the history of pietism have looked for “something more” elsewhere. Luther and Calvin may be great guides on understanding salvation, but we find our spirituality in medieval and modern alternatives. Yet Reformation piety directs us to the Word, always to the Word, where Christ speaks to us every time it is preached and his sacraments are administered in his name. When we come to this Word, in public and in private, we never need something more.

You can read the whole thing here.

Iain Murray’s New, Condensed, Reworked One-Volume Biography of Lloyd-Jones

32 years ago today D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones—perhaps the greatest preacher of the 20th century—was laid to rest.

It’s a fitting occasion to mention he arrival of The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones—1899-1981, a new and revised one-volume edition of Iain Murray’s classic two-volume biography.

The publisher’s description explains:

This book is a re-cast, condensed and, in parts, re-written version of the author’s two volumes D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years (1982) and The Fight of Faith (1990). Since those dates, the life of Dr Lloyd-Jones has been the subject of comment and assessment in many publications and these have been taken into account. The main purpose of this further biography, however, is to put Dr Lloyd-Jones’ life before another generation in more accessible form.

The big story is all here. When Lloyd-Jones left medicine, he intended only to be an evangelist in a mission hall in South Wales. No one was more surprised than he in being called to a ministry which would eventually affect churches across the world. How this happened is here explained, but the theme is the person described by F. F. Bruce: “a thoroughly humble man. He was a man of prayer, a powerful evangelist, an expository preacher of rare quality, in the fullest sense a servant of the Word of God.”

Behind that theme a greater one emerges. In ML- J’s own words: “My whole life experiences are proof of the sovereignty of God and his direct interference in the lives of men. I cannot help believing what I believe. I would be a madman to believe anything else—the guiding hand of God! It is an astonishment to me. “

The Chronology of Augustine’s Confessions

For those who reading Augustine’s Confessions (and if you haven’t—well, tolle lege!), below is a chart I reconstructed from a helpful chronological mapping of the book (i.e., the first 9 chapters, or “books”) produced by Stanford’s Thomas Sheehan. The subjects are from Garry Will’s translation. I also put together a simple Google Map marking some of the key locations

Book
Subject
Duration
Time
Age
Locale


1
Childhood
15 years
354-369
0-15
Thagaste, Madaura


2
Sin
1 year
370
15/16
Thagaste


3
Manichaeism
3 years
371-374
16-20
Carthage


4
Friends
6 years
375-381
20-27
Thagaste, Carthage


5
Materialism
2 years
382-384
27-30
Carthage, Rome, Milan


6
Milan
2 years
385-386
30-32
Milan


7
Neoplatonism
2 months
June-July 386
31
Milan


8
Vocation
1 month
August 386
31
Milan


9
Baptism
1 year
August 386- Summer 387
31-32
Cassiciacum, Milan, Rome, Africa

Calvin on Two Kinds of Popularity and Accommodation

In September of 1541 John Calvin had to write a hard letter to a friend and fellow minister, William Farel. It was in response to the way in which Farel had handled a situation of pastoral discipline. Calvin, who had struggled himself with hot-headedness in his younger years, was seeking to help Farel remain uncompromising in his message but wiser in how he approached thing. He wrote:

When you have Satan to combat, and you fight under Christ’s banner he who puts on your armour and draws you into the battle will give you the victory. But . . .  a good cause also requires a good instrument. . . .

We only earnestly desire that insofar as your duty permits you will accommodate yourself more to the people.

There are, as you know, two kinds of popularity:

the one, when we seek favour from motives of ambition and the desire of pleasing;

the other, when, by fairness and moderation, we gain their esteem so as to make them teachable by us.

You must forgive us if we deal rather freely with you. . . . You are aware how much we love and revere you. . . . We desire that in those remarkable endowments which the Lord has conferred upon you, no spot or blemish may be found for the malevolent to find fault with, or even to carp at.

Tim Keller picks up on this distinction and explains the two very different motivations that can exist for adapting and accommodating a message to the sensibilities of a particular people:

The first motive is ‘”ambition”—we do it for our sake, for our own glory and approval. The other reason we may accommodate people is for their sake, so that we can gradually win their trust until they become open to the truth they need so much.

The first motive will so control us that we will never offend people. The second motive will help us choose our battles and not offend people unnecessarily.

Keller goes on to contrast Calvin’s perspective with some of what we see today:

The Farels of the world cannot see any such distinction—they believe any effort to be judicious and prudent is a cowardly “sell-out.” But Calvin wisely recognized that his friend’s constant, intemperate denunciations often stemmed not from a selfless courage, but rather from the opposite—pride. . . .

There’s a reason for gaining people’s esteem that is not vain-glorious, and, at the same time, there’s a motivation for boldly speaking the truth that is vain-glorious.

May God give us wisdom to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” because Christ sends us out “as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matt. 10:16).

Calvin on Two Kinds of Popularity

In September of 1541 John Calvin had to write a hard letter to a friend and fellow minister, William Farel. It was in response to the way in which Farel had handled a situation of pastoral discipline. Calvin, who had struggled himself with hot-headedness in his younger years, was seeking to help Farel remain uncompromising in his message but wiser in how he approached thing. He wrote:

When you have Satan to combat, and you fight under Christ’s banner he who puts on your armour and draws you into the battle will give you the victory. But . . .  a good cause also requires a good instrument. . . .

We only earnestly desire that insofar as your duty permits you will accommodate yourself more to the people.

There are, as you know, two kinds of popularity:

the one, when we seek favour from motives of ambition and the desire of pleasing;

the other, when, by fairness and moderation, we gain their esteem so as to make them teachable by us.

You must forgive us if we deal rather freely with you. . . . You are aware how much we love and revere you. . . . We desire that in those remarkable endowments which the Lord has conferred upon you, no spot or blemish may be found for the malevolent to find fault with, or even to carp at.

Tim Keller picks up on this distinction and explains the two very different motivations that can exist for adapting and accommodating a message to the sensibilities of a particular people:

The first motive is ‘”ambition”—we do it for our sake, for our own glory and approval. The other reason we may accommodate people is for their sake, so that we can gradually win their trust until they become open to the truth they need so much.

The first motive will so control us that we will never offend people. The second motive will help us choose our battles and not offend people unnecessarily.

Keller goes on to contrast Calvin’s perspective with some of what we see today:

The Farels of the world cannot see any such distinction—they believe any effort to be judicious and prudent is a cowardly “sell-out.” But Calvin wisely recognized that his friend’s constant, intemperate denunciations often stemmed not from a selfless courage, but rather from the opposite—pride. . . .

There’s a reason for gaining people’s esteem that is not vain-glorious, and, at the same time, there’s a motivation for boldly speaking the truth that is vain-glorious.

May God give us wisdom to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” because Christ sends us out “as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matt. 10:16).

C. S. Lewis on the Psychology of a Scathing Book Review

From the concluding chapter to C. S. Lewis’s Studies in Words (2d ed, Cambridge University Press, 1990):

Adverse criticism, far from being the easiest, is one of the hardest things in the world to do well. . . .

Reviews filled with venom have often been condemned socially for their bad manners, or ethically for their spite. I am not prepared to defend them from either charge; but I prefer to stress their inutility. . . . Automatically, without thinking about it one’s mind discounts everything [the venomous critic] says, as it does when we are listening to a drunk or delirious man. The critic rivets our attention on himself. When we get to the end we find that the critic has told us everything about himself and nothing about the book. Thus in criticism, as in vocabulary, hatred over-reaches itself. Willingness to wound, too intense and naked, becomes impotent to do the desired mischief.

Of course, if we are to be critics, we must condemn as well as praise; we must sometimes condemn totally and severely. But we must obviously be very careful. . . . I think we must get it firmly fixed in our minds that the very occasions on which we should most like to write a slashing review are precisely those on which we had much better hold our tongues. The very desire is a danger signal. . . . The strength of our dislike is itself a probable symptom that all is not well within; that some raw place in our psychology has been touched, or else that some personal or partisan motive is secretly at work. . . . If we do speak, we shall almost certainly make fools of ourselves. Continence in this matter is no doubt painful. But, after all, you can always write your slashing review now and drop it into the wastepaper basket a day or so later. A few re-readings in cold blood will often make this quite easy.

5 Suggestions for Handling Apparent Gospel Discrepancies in Preaching

D. A. Carson, writing on “Preaching the Gospels” in the new book Preaching the New Testament, ed. Ian Paul and David Wenham (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), p. 26, gives some guidance for what to do when preaching on “material that apparently clashes with what is found in other Gospels”:

First, read widely enough in the commentaries that you do not automatically gravitate to the first ‘solution’ you stumble across. Complex issues almost always admit several ways of approaching the problem.

Secondly, be prepared to offer a solution in terms of probabilities: for example, ‘Of the various solutions that have been put forward, perhaps the most credible is . . .’ – or something of that order. In other words, many problems in Gospel harmonization are not so much incapable of resolution, as prohibitive of reasonable certainty. It is not that there are no answers, but that there are too many possible answers and too little information to warrant a strong voice on any of them.

Thirdly, do not use up much sermon time dealing with such issues. You may have to do enough work on the problem that you are reasonably clear in your mind as to which solution is most plausible (or least implausible!), but that does not mean you necessarily have to drop all your information and reasoning into the minds of the members of the congregation. Most such questions are the sorts of things you can address adequately in thirty seconds. That you have done so will alert the handful of people in the congregation who are aware of the problem that you have done your homework, and if any of them are troubled (e.g. undergraduate students in biblical studies), they will then feel free to approach you afterward for further information and bibliography.

Fourthly, it is almost always wise in such discussions to avoid expressions that sound vaguely superior or self-promoting: for example, ‘Although most scholars think such-and-such, I have come to the conclusion that this-and-that.’

Fifthly, the only occasions when at least a little more time in the sermon should be devoted to one of these perceived problems occur when (1) the way you address the problem has a direct bearing on the theological message you find in the passage, or (2) the manner in which you handle the text, complete with both knowledge and humility, becomes important as a way of modelling what it means to bow before Scripture with godly integrity.

The best book I know of on the subject of gospel harmonization is now Vern Poythress’s Inerrancy and the Gospels: A God-Centered Approach to the Challenges of Harmonization (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), recently reviewed here by Craig Blomberg.