Posted: January 17th, 2011 Permalink Announcements, Events

Seriously, my elementary (junior high and high school too) would just look at me and realize that it was easier to dismiss my question with a sigh and or argument from authority and respond, “because I said so!” Little did I know that these seemingly complex mathematical problems were pondered and solved by generations upon generations of people before me. As a matter of fact, I could say that a problem as simple as two plus two equals four had a legacy of thought behind it, no matter how simple it was. Here I was not realizing what I had on my hands: I was working on a conceptual problem that either blessed or plagued thinkers way before me. In fact, it has been classified so important that every generation feels it is important enough to pass it down to the next generation.

Here I am, in the 21st century and as an adult, I now realize that if I do not understand simple mathematical processes I will not understand concepts such as budgeting, percentage points, and interest rates on that credit card that I can never seem to pay. Without giving these math problems too much importance (I still hold resentment against them), I know that without them I would be “lost in translation,” as it may, in many of areas of society. In fact, society cannot function without these “rules” of math. If you think I am making a big deal about math, I think it really is a big deal. This “big deal” could also be applied to other disciplines such logic, language, grammar, and even spelling.

Let me bring the aforementioned illustration to the topic of Bible study and Christian thought. When engaging in the proper study of God and his word, every Christian should be asking the following questions. Well, before we go there and since we do not want to put Christianity on the hot seat as to whether all of us practice a good thought life, I am going to use my fictional character named Joe to take this role. To make it even easier, I am going to give Joe the script of questions he should be asking as a thoughtful Christian. Ok Joe, fire away.

Well,
1. Why do I need to read and get to know my Bible?
2. Why do I need to know if the resurrection happened or not?
3. Why do I need to know if God exists? (in the sense that I can articulate why)
4. Why do I need to know what truth is?
5. Why do I need to study theology?
6. Why do I need to study apologetics?
7. Why do I need to study epistemology? Episte-what?
8. Logic! Are you kidding me?! I am not Spock and my spouse knows I am not logical sometimes.
9. Metaphysics – ok, this is getting weird and somewhat uncomfortable, what is metaphysics?
10. Can we just do devotions at this point; I am mentally exhausted.

Ok, Joe, we will let you off the hook. You did a good job and you hung in there for the series of questions.

You see, just like those math questions I asked many moons ago, people should be asking these questions in their Christian life. However, unlike math, many Christians have never engaged in anything deeper than a casual bible study. More importantly, many, many people do not know the rich history behind these deeper fields of study. There have been entire church councils that have discussed these subjects at length. Moreover, a lot of the language these godly men used in forming what is called Theology are principals outlined by the peculiar words found in points 7, 8 and 9 above. Entire periods of church history were marked by a rich intellectual tradition that goes back all the way to the apostles themselves.

To put it more concretely, think of the one aspect that us humans share: we long to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes we see those in entertainment industry or on the big screen as “larger than life” and when we see them in real life, we seem to feel as though they have a social gravitational pull on us. How many of us have laid claim to a friend, neighbor or even a family member that was made famous for something? It’s even happened to me. For example, it is funny how I love to talk about the fact that my brother in law is an Olympic boxer that won Mexico’s first bronze medal in Tokyo 64. I don’t know a lick of boxing, but I talk about it as though I am an expert on the subject. I even make it seem as though we talk every day and that somehow I am a part of his legacy. This is what people call, being “star struck” and this contributed to the fact that we always long to be a part of something bigger (hint, this is where God fits in with Pascal’s quote but I will leave it for another day).

Now, let me relate this to our Christian experience so that the above scenario can make more sense. What if I was to tell you that you have a great intellectual legacy? It is a tradition so old and so prestigious that it goes back to God himself. Even Jesus, during his time on earth was the crowning jewel of this tradition. Jesus’ knowledge of the father was so close, so rich, so intellectual, yet so intimate (Jn. 10:30). Even Peter declares that, “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out.” (2nd Pet 2:94)

Let me try a mental experiment here to drive the point even further. As I am writing this, one of the headlines on the world scene is the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Prince William of Wales is the eldest son of Prince Charles and Dianna and is second in line to the throne. It seems that all the eyes of the world are on him, as he is getting ready for the royal wedding of the decade. Even attaching the word “royal” to everything he does ups the ante quite a bit. The words that come to mind when you think about the prince and the soon to be princess of Wales are prestige, honor, tradition, glamour, royalty, castles, family crest, etc., etc.

Furthermore, what if I were to tell you that through geneology.com I found out that you were somehow related to the prince? In addition, he found out about your existence and made sure to include you in the festivities that are set to occur before and after his wedding ceremony. In fact, the prince would like you to meet all of his family and would like to take you to a tour with the family’s historian so that you can know more about them before your meeting with them. How would you feel? What would you do in the meantime?

In my case, I know that I would be so nervous; I would feel disbelief at the fact that somehow I am part of this great family crest. But wait, there’s more (not a sham wow commercial). Let’s say that in your pursuit to know more about who you are interacting with and the colossal history that is a part of every one of them, you find out that your great to the 9th degree cousin is William Shakespeare and that Beethoven somehow, through another distant Nth degree cousin is also in your family tree. Wow, what can you say? You are not only part of the royal lineage, you are also part of something so big, that both of these relatives influenced and changed symphonies and plays forever.

At this point, I would wake up and get coffee; but follow me here. You would probably feel as though second Peter 2:9 starts to sound familiar and very applicable. In fact, it is. Now, before you pull out that purple Barney robe and the hiking stick you are now calling a “scepter,” let me elaborate. I know that the majority of us know or should know that we are part of salvation history and heirs to God’s kingdom. However, there is a part of this great tradition that is often overlooked, underestimated, and even disregarded by many of us. We have a great intellectual history that has not only enriched our knowledge of God so much, but has also contributed to the knowledge of science, math, logic, engineering, astronomy among other disciplines.

Christianity’s intellectual heritage is so vast and so rich that I propose that if the church today would even know 10% of this vast repository of knowledge, we would be in different shape. Unfortunately, history has also showed us what happens when the church flees into ignorance and disregards this great tradition. This has led us to lose our relevance in society and when this happens, we stop becoming effective as the salt of the earth. In addition, society starts to bite the hand that has intellectually fed it and when this happens, society regresses.

I am kind of giving the answer before the question here but now we know why in the last hundred years or so, we have lost relevance. Hence, we resort to phrases like, “just preach the cross!” to a society that is lost in its own skeptical mire and has deemed all truth as relative. This enthusiastic clamor then falls on death ears. Metaphorically, just as the behaviors of the son are usually a reflection of the parents, (I am going out on a limb here) I think that the church is somewhat responsible for fostering this rampant relativism and closet subjectivism that now plagues our society.

Even though this would be a subject for another article, I am going to use some of JP Moreland’s assessment about culture and our current predicament. In essence, during the last two hundred years, when the going got tough, many in the church retreated into personal pietism and a mentality of retreat. In other words, when a few radicals moved the carpet from under the church through Immanuel Kant’s fact/value dichotomy, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and those rebel kiddos that served us a hefty plate of theological liberalism, the church’s immediate response (and this can be verified by historical analysis) was to retreat and concentrate on revivals. Now, this wasn’t happening to the whole church per se, but it was still a significant amount of people. And even though there were a few significant responses, many in the pew preferred experience over engagement and thus we started to fade into non-relevance.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I am all for revival. In fact, even revivalist and scholar Jonathon Edwards actually argued that you could have a true spiritual revival without sacrificing your mind. Nevertheless, these actions did so much damage, I personally think we still have yet to recover from that crucial period in church history. Furthermore, I think that if we had continued the work started by our spiritual ancestors, these intellectual rascals like Darwin and gang wouldn’t have spawned the dishonest scientific children that have dominated the scenes for close to two hundred years. We could say the same things of other ideas that have plagued us equally. Take relativism for example. This is the idea that all truth is relative and that it’s all a matter of perspective. This has done so much damage in our intellectual, theological and even biblical heritage that these mental termites have eaten away at truth, thus leaving us an eroded view of reality and a society swinging above the chasm between fact and value. This is evident even in our churches when people’s response to harsher biblical truths by saying, “well, that might be true for you but I feel differently about that!”

I think that if we are going to “win this world” over to God’s kingdom and be relevant again, we need start rediscovering our heritage in the treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge and ask simple questions such as, “Why do I need to know this?” I think that we would be surprised to find out how important these questions are. Even more and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this search for truth will lead us to God himself. For as Arthur Holmes once wrote, “All truth is God-truth.”