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Thursday, February 11, 2016

Evangelism Needs to Become More Intellectual


There exists a fairly popular instruction for pastors that when they prepare their sermons, they should strive to "put the cookies on the lower shelf." In other words, the sermon needs to be simple with points easy to grasp by all.

I agree that it is important to communicate clearly. Part of that is to help parishioners by approaching take complex ideas and breaking them up in such a way that they can be apprehended by most of the congregation. However, I fear that the drive to "put the cookies on the lower shelf" has been over emphasized. I've seen many Bible teachers who are afraid of being "too intellectual" or presenting difficult concepts because their congregants may not "get it." As a result, much of the preaching on Sunday mornings have been dumbed-down from what the average church goer would have experienced a century or two ago.

Of course, not all ideas given in the Scriptures are able to be easily digested. God's orchestration of the conquest of Canaan is one example. The role that women play in New Testament churches is another. Concepts such as believers being predestined yet having the freedom to choose to follow Jesus is a third. All of these are directly taken from the scriptures and if one is to take in the whole counsel of God, these ideas must be addressed.

The Intellectual Needs Jesus

My concern is not simply liturgical; it is also evangelical. There is real danger in not demonstrating an intellectually robust faith for the intellectuals who are influential in shaping the ideas of a culture. James Davison Hunter makes a salient point:
Imagine, in this regard, a genuine "third great awakening" occurring in America, where half of the population is converted to a deep Christian faith. Unless this awakening extended to envelop the cultural gatekeepers, it would have little effect on the character of the symbols that are produced and prevail in public and private culture. And, without a fundamental restructuring of the institutions of culture formation and transmission in our society-the market, government-sponsored cultural institutions, education at all levels, advertising, entertainment, publishing, and the news media, not to mention church-revival would have a negligible long-term effect on the reconstitution of the culture. Imagine further several social reform movements surrounding, say, educational reform and family policy, becoming very well organized and funded, and on top of this, serious Christians being voted into every major office and appointed to a majority of judgeships. Legislation may be passed and judicial rulings may be properly handed down, but legal and political victories will be short-lived or pyrrhic without the broad-based legitimacy that makes the alternatives seem unthinkable.1
To support his claim, Hunter points to one of the biggest victories of Evangelicals in the last century – the temperance movement. Christians had both political representation and a significant portion of the voting public behind them to pass a constitutional amendment. However, it proved a miserable failure.

The church must reach out to the intellectual in the academy as well as the builder on the job site. Both need saving. But if we only present Christianity in the most basic idioms, what will be their assumption about the faith? Instead of seeing the robust, historic Christian tradition that birthed the writings of the likes of Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Pascal, and many others, they see a feeble and childish view of the world.

I don't believe every sermon must feel like a college lecture. But offering one sermon a month that stretches the congregation and tackles some of the more complex ideas within Christendom wouldn't be a bad idea.

In the book of Hebrews, the church is rebuked by the writer for not being able to handle more difficult matters of theology. "For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. (Heb. 5:13-14). Paul also rebukes the Corinthian church similarly: "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh" ( Cor. 3:1-3).

How are we reaching the intellectual with the Gospel? How are we growing our church members into mature believers who can digest solid food? Keeping the cookies on the lower shelf may be fun for the congregation, but it might simply mean we're short-changing their intellectual nutrition.

References

1. Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.46.
Image courtesy Jelllserrine - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30609111

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for this, Lenny. I think the church needs to hear this. It would also be thrilling to see the church get behind those pursuing scholarly degrees (not just pastorate types of degrees) and really support them in their endeavors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. J.P. Moreland has a book focused on this very topic called, "Love God With All Your Mind."

    Homosexual marriage as a constitutional right, businesses having to give tacit support of same or be put out of business, Christians who are unimpacted by decades of Evangelical church attendance in their own personal life choices and most alarmingly, "Cats and dogs living together," form a Gordian knot.

    Hundreds of question to be asked and prayers offered for understanding. One thing that seems clear to me is that childish Christians will not be able to untie the Gordian knot mentioned above.

    My advice (which I grant you may not be seen as worth much) is hike up your big-boy pants and wade into to the research. Engage individuals who differ with questions that are loving and honestly meant to gain understanding. Jesus healed people and cast out demons but he also told them to stop sinning. He engaged the intellectual leaders of his day because he had prepared by studying the issues (and he was the greatest intellectual of his day). Do we really want to misrepresent him by not preparing, or letting our pastor do our thinking for us, or the media, or comedians and actors?

    Perhaps our churches, like our culture at large, has done a poor job of developing individuals that can think through these issues. They have relied on paternalism (pedagogy) rather than facilitation (andragogy). Why not ask the congregation to take a month in their home groups or small cell groups to dissect a certain issue and come back with the things they learned? A pastor could give talks about the various aspects listed above to give deeper context. I can already here some 20-year baby Christians saying, "Stop making me feed myself, just give me my baby bottle filled with milk!"


    Christians and non-Christians alike commenting on the Blogesphere put up poor defenses for their respective claims. Genetic fallacies, sweeping generalizations, mass appeals, and strawman fallacies, all liter these discussions.

    Reasonable Faith has a great deal of material for all levels of intellectual maturity by William Lane Craig.

    Thx for this post.

    ReplyDelete

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