The Importance of Christian Knowledge
"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it." -1 Peter 3:15
According to Charles Malik says we as Christians face two tasks in our evangelism, and that is, "saving the soul and saving the mind." In other words converting people not only spiritually but intellectually. The church is lagging dangerously behind in the part of being intellectual. In 1980 Mr. Malik rose to the podium to deliver the inaugural address at the dedication of the new Billy Graham Center on the campus of Wheaton College. In his speech he stated the following:
Our churches are unfortunately overly populated with people whose minds, as Christians, are going to waste. As Malik observed, they may be spiritually regenerate, but their minds have not been converted; they still think like nonbelievers. What will be the theological understanding, the evangelistic courage, the cultural penetration of such a church? What is being read by Christians? Self-help books filled with slogans, simplistic moralizing, lots of stories and pictures, and inadequate diagnoses of the problems facing the reader. What is NOT being read are books that equip people to develop a well-reasoned, theological understanding of the Christian faith and to assume their role in the broader work of the Kingdom of God. Among these books include the Bible. 74% of American Adults claim to be Christians, however only 14% read the Bible.
Theology is the very core of what is means to be Christians who are committed to joining the mission of God. Exploring our beliefs and how we form them isn't just important for a personal relationship with God but also for the way we explain God to others. Theology is the literally the study of God, and it is worth of study and careful reflection. All theology serves the mission of God. It is the reason why we do theology. So what is it going to take to become a generation who is not illiterate especially in Christianity? It affects the mission of the church, because the mission of the church is to spread the gospel, but is the gospel simply a message about how to get to Heaven? Or does it also hold a message for the here and now that radically changes how we should live? We can't live an authentic Christian life without the knowledge of theology, or knowledge of the Bible. We have no excuse for being illiterate, look at where we live! America! Even though our economy sucks, and we have disgraced God in every way, shape, and form, we have access to a whole Bible, we have internet, we have books of all kinds, we have prominent schools, we have churches on every corner. So what's the problem?
According to Charles Malik says we as Christians face two tasks in our evangelism, and that is, "saving the soul and saving the mind." In other words converting people not only spiritually but intellectually. The church is lagging dangerously behind in the part of being intellectual. In 1980 Mr. Malik rose to the podium to deliver the inaugural address at the dedication of the new Billy Graham Center on the campus of Wheaton College. In his speech he stated the following:
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. But intellectual nurture cannot take place apart from profound immersion for a period of years in the history of thought and the spirit. People who are in a hurry to get out of the university and start earning money or serving the church or preaching the gospel have not idea of the infinite value of spending years of leisure conversing with the greatest minds and souls of the past, ripening and sharpening and enlarging their powers of thinking. The result is that the arena of creative thinking is vacated and abdicated to the enemy. Who among evangelicals can stand up to the great secular scholars on their own terms of scholarship? Who among evangelical scholars is quoted as a normative source by the greatest secular authorities on history of philosophy or psychology or sociology or politics? Does the evangelical mode of thinking have the slightest chance of becoming the dominate mode in the great universities of Europe and America that stamp our entire civilization with their spirit and ideas? For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus Christ, as well as for their own sakes, evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence.
Our churches are unfortunately overly populated with people whose minds, as Christians, are going to waste. As Malik observed, they may be spiritually regenerate, but their minds have not been converted; they still think like nonbelievers. What will be the theological understanding, the evangelistic courage, the cultural penetration of such a church? What is being read by Christians? Self-help books filled with slogans, simplistic moralizing, lots of stories and pictures, and inadequate diagnoses of the problems facing the reader. What is NOT being read are books that equip people to develop a well-reasoned, theological understanding of the Christian faith and to assume their role in the broader work of the Kingdom of God. Among these books include the Bible. 74% of American Adults claim to be Christians, however only 14% read the Bible.
Theology is the very core of what is means to be Christians who are committed to joining the mission of God. Exploring our beliefs and how we form them isn't just important for a personal relationship with God but also for the way we explain God to others. Theology is the literally the study of God, and it is worth of study and careful reflection. All theology serves the mission of God. It is the reason why we do theology. So what is it going to take to become a generation who is not illiterate especially in Christianity? It affects the mission of the church, because the mission of the church is to spread the gospel, but is the gospel simply a message about how to get to Heaven? Or does it also hold a message for the here and now that radically changes how we should live? We can't live an authentic Christian life without the knowledge of theology, or knowledge of the Bible. We have no excuse for being illiterate, look at where we live! America! Even though our economy sucks, and we have disgraced God in every way, shape, and form, we have access to a whole Bible, we have internet, we have books of all kinds, we have prominent schools, we have churches on every corner. So what's the problem?
Comments
Post a Comment