When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied, “Love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Jesus made it clear that we are to love God with our intellect. The apostle Paul made it clear in Romans 2 that spiritual transformation occurs by a renewing of our minds.

According to J.P. Moreland, both the Scriptures and church history make it clear that something has gone terribly wrong with our modern understanding of the value of reason and intellectual development, both for individual discipleship and for the life of the church. There is precious little emphasis on developing the mind in western Christianity. Our churches are filled with Christians whose minds are going to waste. As individuals, this is costing us a deeper and richer Christian faith; it has also contributed to the subsequent marginalization of the church. Moreland maintains there are a number of consequences, including a weakening of world missions, the emergence of an irrelevant gospel, and the decline of the Christian voice in our culture. If we cannot articulate the reasons for our faith, then why should anyone want to join us in our irrelevance? Yet we live in a post-modern world when our ability to articulate the Christian worldview is more critical than ever.

Author J. P. Moreland is convinced that the anti-intellectualism that is so prevalent in our Western culture has infected the church as well. Because our lives are not transformed by our emotions, he encourages evangelicals to develop Christ-like minds. He identifies the main problems that contribute to the problem and proposes some possible solutions. We need more rigorous discipline to be thinking Christians who live in a manner consistent with Christ’s command to “Love the Lord your God with all your mind.” We must be a studying, learning community that values the life of the mind and uses that intellect to further God’s kingdom through evangelism, apologetics, worship and vocation. The result will be a deeper, richer Christian faith.

The book is divided into four parts. Part one describes how we lost the Christian Mind and constructs a compelling case for why we must recover it, concentrating on the mind’s role in spiritual transformation. Moreland addresses specific hindrances to building and utilizing a Christian mind and suggests several habits for overcoming these obstacles. In part two he instructs us on how to develop a mature Christian Mind. Part three describes what a mature Christian mind looks like. The fourth and final part of the book proposes several solutions for recapturing the intellectual life of the church. He also provides the reader with two extensive appendices.

Love Your God with all Your Mind presents an incisive assessment of one of the western, evangelical church’s biggest problems: anti-intellectualism mixed with fideism. J.P. Moreland’s book diagnoses the problem and offers sound, sagacious, biblical suggestions for effecting change in this area. It is an outstanding and thought-provoking book that should probably be read by all evangelical Christians. At a minimum, it should be read by all evangelical pastors, teachers, and elders. Some might complain that Moreland places some unrealistic expectations upon churches. However it is essential that churches and pastors take the lead in solving this problem, since the very people who most need to read this book are least likely to do so. It is high time we address the intellectual stagnation and theological complacency that is rampant in our churches.