The Evangelical Mind Today
By Mark Noll
Ten years after the
publication of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, I remain largely
unrepentant about the book’s historical arguments, its assessment of
evangelical strengths and weaknesses, and its indictment of evangelical
intellectual efforts, though I have changed my mind on a few matters. Some
readers have rightly pointed out that what I described as a singularly
evangelical problem is certainly related to the general intellectual
difficulties of an advertisement-driven, image-preoccupied,
television-saturated, frenetically hustling consumer society, and that the
reason evangelicals suffer from intellectual weakness is that American culture
as a whole suffers from intellectual weakness. Another helpful criticism is
that the book lumps together fundamentalists, Pentecostals, and holiness
advocates as culprits in the stagnation of evangelical thinking and that it
ignores certain mitigating circumstances and worthy exceptions that one could
cite from each of these sub-traditions.
Yet on the whole, The
Scandal of the Evangelical Mind still seems to me correct in its
descriptions and evaluations. What is true throughout the Christian world is
true for American Christians: we who are in pietistic, generically evangelical,
Baptist, fundamentalist, Restorationist, holiness, "Bible church,"
megachurch, or Pentecostal traditions face special difficulties when putting
the mind to use. Taken together, American evangelicals display many virtues and
do many things well, but built-in barriers to careful and constructive thinking
remain substantial.
These barriers
include an immediatism that insists on action, decision, and even perfection right
now, a populism that confuses winning supporters with mastering actually
existing situations, an anti-traditionalism that privileges one’s own current
judgments on biblical, theological, and ethical issues (however hastily formed)
over insight from the past (however hard won and carefully stated), and a
nearly gnostic dualism that rushes to spiritualize all manner of bodily,
terrestrial, physical, and material realities (despite the origin and
providential maintenance of these realities in God). In addition, we
evangelicals as a rule still prefer to put our money into programs offering immediate
results, whether evangelistic or humanitarian, instead of into institutions
promoting intellectual development over the long term.
These evangelical
habits continue to hamper evangelical thinking. We remain inordinately
susceptible to enervating apocalyptic speculation, and we produce and consume
oceans of bathetic End Times literature while sponsoring only a trickle of
serious geopolitical analysis. We are consistently drawn to so-called
"American Christianities"—occasionally of the left, more often of the
right—that subordinate principled reasoning rooted in the gospel to
partisanship in which opponents are demonized and deficiencies in our friends
are excused. (Defense of the right to life remains the shining exception to
that generalization about politics.) Capitulation to disembodied ideals of
spirituality incapacitates our struggling band of novelists and poets. And far
too many of us still make the intellectually suicidal mistake of thinking that
promoting "creation science" is the best way to resist naturalistic
philosophies of science. When it comes to the life of the mind, in other words,
we evangelicals continue to have our problems.
That being said, it
must also be noted that were I to attempt such a book as The Scandal of the
Evangelical Mind today, it would have a different tone—more hopeful than
despairing, more attuned to possibilities than to problems, more concerned with
theological resources than theological deficiencies. The major reason for this
alteration in perspective is itself theological; a secondary reason is that
many developments on the ground now also seem auspicious. The theology, though
vastly more important and deserving of extensive exposition, I will treat
succinctly below. The signs of life on the ground I will explore at somewhat
greater length. Foundational theology and proliferating portents, taken
together, make me more hopeful now about Christian thinking by evangelicals
than I was a decade ago. And, for reasons that should become apparent, I do
mean to say "Christian thinking by evangelicals" rather than
"evangelical thinking" as such.
Theological reasons
to hope for better things from evangelical intellectual effort spring from the
resources of classical trinitarian Christianity. Even if those resources are
unused or abused, they continue to exist as a powerful latent force wherever
individuals or groups look in faith to God as loving Father, redeeming Savior,
and sustaining Spirit. Various forms of evangelical Christianity are, in fact,
burgeoning around the world; the evangelical proportion of the practicing
Christian population in North America
continues to expand; where there is evangelical life there is hope for
evangelical learning.
The intrinsic reason
for that hope lies in the biblical message that evangelicals identify as the
bedrock of our faith. Because evangelicals tend to disregard tradition, we are
liable to miss the rich contributions that other strands of faithful believers
have made to interpreting and applying the multitudinous biblical words that are
so potent for the life of the mind. But this can change. If evangelicals are
the ones who insist most aggressively that they believe in sola scriptura,
and if evangelicals are the ones who assert most vigorously the transforming
work of Jesus Christ, then it is reasonable to hope that what the Scriptures
teach about the origin of creation in Christ, the sustaining of all things in
Christ, and the dignity of all creation in Christ—about, in other words, the
subjects of learning—will be a spur for evangelicals to a deeper and richer
intellectual life: "He is before all things, and in him all things hold
together" (Colossians 1:15-17).
For evangelicals (as
for other Christians) the greatest hope for learning in any age lies not
primarily in heightened activity, nor in better funding, nor in sounder
strategizing—though all of these exertions have an important role to play.
Rather, the great hope for Christian learning lies in the Christian faith
itself, which in the end means in Jesus Christ. Thus, if evangelicals are the
people of the gospel we claim to be, our intellectual rescue is close at hand.
But how will
evangelicals pursue goals defined by phrases like "first-rate Christian
scholarship" or "the Christian use of the mind," when these
phrases sound like a call to backsliding for some in the churches and like a
simple oxymoron for many in the broader world? For a Christian in the
evangelical tradition, the only enduring answer must come from considering
Jesus Christ as sustaining the world and all that is in it. In the light of
Christ, we can undertake a whole-hearted, unabashed, and unembarrassed effort
to understand this world. In a mind fixed on him, there is intrinsic hope for
the development of intellectual seriousness, intellectual integrity, and intellectual
gravity.
If there is hope for
intellectual life in the theology that evangelicals profess to believe, so also
can encouragement be found in several concrete developments of recent decades.
Without denying that well-entrenched obstacles continue to frustrate an
honorable use of the mind, it is still possible to identify substantial signs
of progress. How those developments should be ranked in importance differs
depending on place and circumstance, but together they make for an impressive
list.
The first source of
hope I would point to is the increasing engagement between evangelicals and
Roman Catholics that has contributed dramatically to improved evangelical use
of the mind. As more and more communication takes place between these
once-warring camps, mutual enlightenment on many matters, including
scholarship, is the result. So rapidly has the situation changed from the cold
war that existed into the 1960s, that it is now barely conceivable that either
Catholics or evangelicals could once have thought that either could get along
without help from the other. The exchange between these traditions is probably
more important to Catholics for reasons other than intellectual, but the life
of the mind is where evangelicals benefit most. While evangelicals offer
Catholics eagerness, commitment, and an ability to negotiate in a culture of
intellectual consumerism, Catholics offer evangelicals a sense of tradition and
centuries of reflection on the bearing of sacramentality on all existence.
Whenever evangelicals
in recent years have been moved to admonish themselves and other evangelicals
for weaknesses in ecclesiology, tradition, the intellectual life, sacraments,
theology of culture, aesthetics, philosophical theology, or historical
consciousness, the result has almost always been selective appreciation for
elements of the Catholic tradition. Whatever Protestants may think of
individual proposals, methods, or conclusions proceeding from any individual
Catholic thinker, the growing evangelical willingness to pay respectful
attention to the words and deeds of a whole host of Catholic intellectuals,
beginning with Pope John Paul II, makes an important contribution to better
intellectual effort.
The intellectual
harvests that evangelicals now reap from better relations with Catholics are
well illustrated by personnel and programs at the University of Notre Dame.
Although it is not the only place in the country where first-rate intellectuals
from both Protestant and Catholic traditions have been recruited to labor together
to Christian learning, it is the place where that recruitment has been most
successful. Naturally, the kind of Christian learning on offer—even the
definition of what Christian learning means—differs considerably from scholar
to scholar at Notre Dame. But for a Catholic university to offer graduate
students and the wider reading public (whether Catholic, evangelical, or other)
a lineup of Appleby, Cunningham, McGreevy, MacIntyre, McMullen, Marsden,
Plantinga, Turner, and many more is really something—something for learning
itself, but also something for illustrating how evangelicals have benefited
from entering intellectual space founded, funded, and fueled by Roman
Catholics.
Notre Dame has also
been the home of the Pew Programs in evangelical (or Christian) Scholarship, a
series of projects (now winding down) that represent a focused effort to spur
evangelicals to better Christian thinking. These ventures have provided
research fellowships for college and university professors, scholarships for
graduate students, and seminars of various sorts for Christian academics at
different stages of their careers. Scores of students from evangelical colleges
have been guided toward graduate education, dozens of evangelical graduate
students have been funded in leading doctoral programs, and many scholars have
been assisted in finishing major writing projects. The Pew initiatives at Notre
Dame have made evangelicals better scholars and also have leveraged evangelical
connections to improve Christian learning in general.
Consideration of
evangelical-Catholic cooperation at Notre Dame leads naturally to consideration
of a second source of hope for improved evangelical thinking—the ongoing
renascence of Christian philosophy. Beginning with a few intrepid Calvinists and
independent evangelicals, and stimulated by a large dose of modern neo-Thomism,
for several decades Christian philosophers in the United States have been
engaged in full-scale, first-order investigation at the highest level.
Evangelicals do not dominate this Christian philosophical resurgence, but they
have been key participants at every stage. For evangelical graduate students
and young professionals, philosophy has become the one academic discipline
where strong networks devoted to both intellectual rigor and Christian
integrity exist in all regions of the country and for almost every level of
higher education.
Results of this
resurgence are visible in the quality of work being produced. Philosophers and
theologians attuned to modern philosophy provide an unusually high proportion
of the serious orthodox theology on offer in the English-speaking world. Faith
and Philosophy, the journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, which
is now in its twenty-first year, offers further testimony, with its regular
publication of articles and reviews of great intellectual depth, with
thirty-eight stellar practitioners on its editorial committee, and with sixteen
institutions (including Catholic, evangelical, and mainline Protestant)
offering support. For evangelicals, the continuing strength of the Christian
philosophy project has provided stimulus, encouragement, models, graduate
school mentors, practice in intra-Christian diversity, and much more. Other
academic disciplines—including history, the visual arts, economics, political
science, sociology, music, and the physical sciences—enjoy active Christian
networks, but none has reached as high or mixed as many Christian traditions as
has Christian philosophy. No other academic network has contributed so directly
to the strengthening of evangelical minds.
Evangelical colleges and universities offer a third venue where hope can
be glimpsed. Because of how evangelicalism developed in the United States ,
evangelical institutions of higher learning have often functioned as sectarian
enclaves; they have regularly sought purity in isolation rather than public
engagement; and they have often been too tightly bound to the rise and fall of
their charismatic leaders. These features have not been harmful for all
Christian purposes, but for intellectual life they have been restricting. Over
the last half-century, however, more institutions of evangelical higher
learning—colleges, universities, seminaries, and even Bible schools—have
seasoned their sectarian certitudes with commitment to "mere
Christianity"; more have expanded goals beyond the socialization of their
own group’s rising generation; more have begun to promote the academic life as
a legitimate Christian vocation; more are coming to understand that there can
be no good teaching without good scholarship.
Evangelical higher
education has been given a special boost in recent years by remarkable
developments at Baylor University and by less comprehensive but still bold
initiatives at Calvin
College . As is well
known, Baylor’s characteristically Texan announcement that by the year 2012 it
would dramatically improve the academic quality of its university and
demonstrably raise the Christian salience of its academic programs has met
serious internal resistance. A predictable alliance of theological liberals and
nervous naysayers has protested, but Baylor’s leaders have forged ahead.
Whether Baylor will reach its ambitious goals remains uncertain, but no one
should doubt that its efforts constitute the most far-reaching and most important
institutional attempt in many decades to do the proper thing for the life of
the evangelical mind.
In addition, a host
of evangelical colleges—and also quasi-evangelical and evangelical-friendly
institutions—have started new programs, added faculty, set up institutes,
sponsored conferences, raised money for research professorships, and otherwise
taken steps to improve their intellectual quality. Many of these institutions
are members of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, which from
its office in Washington , D.C. , has worked hard to strengthen its
members’ intellectual efforts. Evangelical higher education in North America remains a fragmented enterprise, both
nourished and impeded by the sectarian character of American religion. But
increasingly these schools are becoming more responsible in sponsoring serious
intellectual effort.
A fourth area in
which hopeful signs are visible is the domain of science. In the past, warfare
over evolutionary theory may have been necessary—especially to protect students
from crude philosophical naturalism masquerading as empirical science—but it
was regrettable insofar as it transformed questions requiring measured and
learned investigation into public arguments favoring simplistic demagoguery by
theists and secularists alike. Strife over "creation science"
continues to simmer, exacting a high cost in both serious study of nature and
serious learning from Scripture, yet several positive influences are evident.
Without claiming mastery of the recondite issues involved, I can say I am
heartened by the consistent quality of intra-evangelical debate in forums such
as the American Scientific Affiliation’s Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith. I am also encouraged by the boldness and clarity with
which evangelicals such as Denis Lamoureux and Keith B. Miller spell out why
they are evolutionists and why they hold evolutionary theory to be compatible
with traditional Christian orthodoxy. It is also heartening that promoters of
the intelligent-design theory, such as William Dembski and Jonathan Wells, are
trying to raise questions about the Christian stake in science to the levels of
metaphysical and teleological debate, where they should have been all along.
A fifth reason for
thinking more hopefully about evangelical intellectual life is the multiplying
Christian presence in the nation’s pluralistic universities, where far more
students of evangelical persuasion receive their higher education than at the
evangelical colleges and universities. One sign of that presence is a larger
roster of identifiably Christian faculty in the lead ranks of their
disciplines. Even though (or, perhaps, because) these visibly believing faculty
take up their tasks in many different, not always compatible, ways, their very
existence is a sign of hope. To compare the situation just three or four
decades ago to the situation today is to see a change for the better. Then
there was only a small handful of leading scholars willing to identify
themselves as believers; now it is possible to name a long list in many fields.
Evangelicals who read and study with such intellectuals are provided with
models and mentors.
Other signs of hope
at the pluralistic universities are modest but significant. Local churches and
individual denominations maintain Christian study centers at many universities,
and some of them are effective. Self-standing centers at the University of Virginia ,
Michigan State
University , the University
of Illinois , the University of Minnesota ,
and elsewhere offer encouragement by moving closer to the British and Canadian
pattern, where identifiably Christian units are embedded in the broader
university. The Veritas Forums that annually convene on many campuses bring
further connections and encouragement to wide audiences that include many
evangelicals.
At pluralistic
colleges and universities, campus ministries of many sorts also encourage
evangelical spiritual life. Especially with its major commitment to its
graduate and faculty ministry, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship offers reason
for hope. By providing Christian nurture and networks for evangelical students
and teachers who might otherwise feel isolated as believing scholars, the
grad-faculty IVCF may be doing as much in its low-key way to improve
evangelical intellectual life as any other ongoing national program.
A sixth arena where
favorable developments in recent years have helped evangelicals toward greater
intellectual responsibility is the world of publishing. Serious periodicals
such as First Things, Books & Culture, and Touchstone provide
meaningful Christian engagement with significant issues of contemporary life.
Whether such journals do so from explicitly evangelical angles or from the
perspective of other believing traditions, their net effect is to demonstrate
how essential it is for communities of faith to think their way through the
modern world rather than just reacting to it.
The number of serious
books that can be identified as Christian, near-Christian, or
Christian-friendly also continues to increase. Presses such as Eerdmans, Baker,
and InterVarsity Press were midwives at the birth of postwar evangelicalism,
and they have continued to make Herculean efforts. They have now been joined by
many other religious, commercial, and university presses willing to publish
books written by evangelicals or treating seriously the subjects that most
concern evangelicals.
Beyond question,
evangelical intellectual life is being strengthened by developments in these
six areas. Yet when assessing the current situation, realism is also required,
as well as precision about what is actually taking place. We are indeed
witnessing some advances by evangelicals in Christian intellectual life, but
these improvements do not point toward the development of a distinctly
evangelical mind. Common, generic evangelicalism and the activistic
denominations that make up evangelicalism do not possess theologies full
enough, traditions of intellectual practice strong enough, or conceptions of
the world deep enough to sustain a full-scale intellectual revival.
Without strong
theological traditions, most evangelicals lack a critical element required for
making intellectual activity both self-confident and properly humble, both
critical and committed. In order to advance responsible Christian learning, the
vitality of commitment must be stabilized by the ballast of tradition.
Tradition without life might be barely Christian, but life without tradition is
barely coherent.
Part of what makes
it possible for a particular stream of Christianity to support vigorous
intellectual life is simply the passage of time: an older movement obviously
has had more opportunities to broaden out into fruitful scholarship. But
another part is a self-conscious commitment to learn from the teaching and
experience of past believing generations. The current dilemma for Christian
learning in North America could be broadly
described as follows. On the one side, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, members
of Holiness movements, seeker-sensitive churches, dispensationalists,
Adventists, African-American congregations, radical Wesleyans, and
lowest-common-denominator evangelicals have great spiritual energy, but they flounder
in putting the mind to use for Christ. On the other side, Lutherans, Catholics,
Anglo-Catholics, the Reformed, and the Eastern Orthodox enjoy incredibly rich
traditions that include sterling examples of Christian thought, but they often
display a comatose spirituality.
This picture is, of
course, a generalization. Yet think how natural it sounds to talk of
Pentecostal Signs and Wonders, intense holiness spirituality, vigorous
seeker-sensitive evangelism, a dispensationalist devotion to Scripture, and
Baptist missionary zeal. It seems equally self-evident that we can speak of
such things as an estimable tradition of Lutheran sacred music, art history
pursued from a Kuyperian Reformed perspective, profound social theory from
Catholics, and a solid trajectory of Anglo-Catholic belles lettres. But
try to shift and mix the categories and hear how unexpected some of the
combinations sound: Kuyperian Reformed Signs and Wonders? Vigorous Catholic
evangelism? An Anglo-Catholic devotion to Scripture? Intense Lutheran
spirituality? Or, to run it the other way: Art history pursued from a Baptist
perspective? A solid trajectory of seeker-sensitive belles lettres?
Profound social theory from the holiness movement?
Active Christian
life of the sort that defines evangelicalism is a prerequisite for responsible
Christian learning. But unless that activity is given shape, it will remain
ineffective. The older Christian traditions provide depth, because they are
rooted in classical Christian doctrine, and they offer breadth, because they
have nurtured outstanding examples of faithful Christian thinking. There is, in
other words, no neo-Thomist personalism without centuries of God-honoring moral
casuistry; no J. S. Bach without Luther’s theologies of the Incarnation and the
Cross; no Dorothy L. Sayers without Anglo-Catholic sacramentalism; no Flannery
O’Connor without a Catholic theology of redemption; and no contemporary revival
of Christian philosophy among American evangelicals without the legacy of
Kuyperian Calvinism.
Evangelicals of
several types are beginning to learn the lessons taught by such exemplars. As
they do so, many are becoming more serious Christian thinkers. To embrace the
energy of American evangelicalism, but also to move beyond the eccentricities
of American evangelicalism into the spacious domains of self-critical, patient,
rooted, and productive Christian tradition, remains the great challenge for the
evangelical mind.
Mark Noll, Professor of History at Wheaton College ,
is the author most recently of America ’s
God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Oxford University
Press).
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