Yesterday we returned to the Book of Acts, chapter 17. Paul and his companions are running around Greece, getting into trouble with the synagogue officials, and just generally stirring up excitement everywhere they go. Definitely not a guy you want coming to your hometown if you like peace and quiet. The funny thing is most of the animosity seems to be directed at him, not the people he converts. They are pretty much left to do their thing on their own. So it is something about Paul, and not necessarily his message.
Anyway the pastor was talking about the different ways people responded to Paul. That in one town in particular his listeners thought about what he said and studied the Scriptures to see if what he was saying made sense; in short, they responded in a rational, intellectual way. No blind faith here. (No miracles, ether!). Then to my surprise he began talking about a book called "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" which came out in the 1990's. The scandal, he said, is that there isn't any.
I was quite shocked. Not that I don't believe that the author is right, but that the pastor would recommend such a book. So I borrowed it from the church library and re-read it. And the more I read the more I became confused. Mark Noll, the author, calls himself an evangelist yet comes down against many of the things that define evangelism. He doesn't believe the Bible should be interpreted literally, when it comes to the creation versus evolution controversy, he is on the side of the evolutionists, and as far as Biblical inerrancy is concerned, I got the impression he does not believe that the Bible is inerrant in all things. Apart from the creation versus evolution thing, which hasn't yet been mentioned from the pulpit, the message I have been getting these past few months is that the Bible is to be taken literally and is inerrant in all things. So are we reading the same book?
Noll is not alone in his critique of American evangelism. I've seen other books with similar titles relating to the same issue, and I fear they are all voices crying in the wilderness. They won't be listened to because nobody is listening. Nobody really wants to listen. American evangelism is intellectually bankrupt because it has chosen to be. I once saw a film on evangelizing that explicitly instructed its viewers to avoid people like myself who have a tendency to ask the hard questions with difficult answers and to concentrate on those who were more pliant. And I have noticed that church services are structured so that there is no opportunity to ask those questions. Yes, there are Bible studies and small discussion groups, but even they follow a planned agenda. Ask something that the moderators don't like--ask the questions I have been asking here--and see how warm and loving everyone is.
After the service I had a discussion with one of the members in which I pointed out that the church is not welcoming to intellectuals. I said that I had often been accused of thinking too much--and always by fellow believers, never by atheists or agnostics, who in my opinion do the wrestling with these questions that the pastor demands. He said yes, he'd been accused of that, too, and then responded with a quote from Ecclesiastes about wisdom and learning all being worthless. I said, that is the type of thing that will send intellectuals running and screaming from the Gospel. Well, no, he was distinguishing intellect which is from God, from wisdom which is from Man. I said, you are going to scare them off with talk like that. And I said, Jesus told his followers that if their hand causes them to stumble to cut it off, if their eye is their difficulty, pluck it out, but what if it is your mind that is the problem? He totally misunderstood me on that point, thinking I was talking about lust or other sins of the mind. But that is not what I am talking about at all.
Well, maybe I will start asking some of these questions . . .
Anyway the pastor was talking about the different ways people responded to Paul. That in one town in particular his listeners thought about what he said and studied the Scriptures to see if what he was saying made sense; in short, they responded in a rational, intellectual way. No blind faith here. (No miracles, ether!). Then to my surprise he began talking about a book called "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" which came out in the 1990's. The scandal, he said, is that there isn't any.
I was quite shocked. Not that I don't believe that the author is right, but that the pastor would recommend such a book. So I borrowed it from the church library and re-read it. And the more I read the more I became confused. Mark Noll, the author, calls himself an evangelist yet comes down against many of the things that define evangelism. He doesn't believe the Bible should be interpreted literally, when it comes to the creation versus evolution controversy, he is on the side of the evolutionists, and as far as Biblical inerrancy is concerned, I got the impression he does not believe that the Bible is inerrant in all things. Apart from the creation versus evolution thing, which hasn't yet been mentioned from the pulpit, the message I have been getting these past few months is that the Bible is to be taken literally and is inerrant in all things. So are we reading the same book?
Noll is not alone in his critique of American evangelism. I've seen other books with similar titles relating to the same issue, and I fear they are all voices crying in the wilderness. They won't be listened to because nobody is listening. Nobody really wants to listen. American evangelism is intellectually bankrupt because it has chosen to be. I once saw a film on evangelizing that explicitly instructed its viewers to avoid people like myself who have a tendency to ask the hard questions with difficult answers and to concentrate on those who were more pliant. And I have noticed that church services are structured so that there is no opportunity to ask those questions. Yes, there are Bible studies and small discussion groups, but even they follow a planned agenda. Ask something that the moderators don't like--ask the questions I have been asking here--and see how warm and loving everyone is.
After the service I had a discussion with one of the members in which I pointed out that the church is not welcoming to intellectuals. I said that I had often been accused of thinking too much--and always by fellow believers, never by atheists or agnostics, who in my opinion do the wrestling with these questions that the pastor demands. He said yes, he'd been accused of that, too, and then responded with a quote from Ecclesiastes about wisdom and learning all being worthless. I said, that is the type of thing that will send intellectuals running and screaming from the Gospel. Well, no, he was distinguishing intellect which is from God, from wisdom which is from Man. I said, you are going to scare them off with talk like that. And I said, Jesus told his followers that if their hand causes them to stumble to cut it off, if their eye is their difficulty, pluck it out, but what if it is your mind that is the problem? He totally misunderstood me on that point, thinking I was talking about lust or other sins of the mind. But that is not what I am talking about at all.
Well, maybe I will start asking some of these questions . . .
