Stones Cry Out

[O]n 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.

Professor Noll provides examples of improvements, and offers suggestions for additional action, but his conclusion remains, although he ends on a hopeful note:

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.

(If you are interested in further reading, First Things held a symposium on Noll's book in 1995.)

Our own Matt, in a post at Matt Crash, offers similar thoughts with respect to evangelical political thought:

I've talked before about how I'm bothered that the major conservative publications don't have many writers from the red states. Nor do they have many evangelicals. In fact, I can only think of two - Hugh Hewitt and Fred Barnes, both at the Weekly Standard. Hugh's talked a lot about influence, and Joe Carter's doing a great job gathering traffic for the God-blogs, but we should not limit ourselves to the blogosphere. There will always be a place for conservative publications like the Standard, NR and Commentary. At what point will evangelicals make a concerted effort to be a full-fledged part of intellectual conservatism? Not just the blogs or social activism of the Dobson variety. Both of these things are good. Indeed, they have become crucial to party mobilization. Yet, if as they claim, evangelicals have something to offer conservatism (and I believe we do), then we should seek to become a part of all aspects of the movement. Are we trying?

As to the overall state of the evangelical mind, and evangelical religious thought in particular, I don't quite share Professor Noll's pessimistic current evaluation. The periodicals First Things, Touchstone, and Christianity Today and the audio journal Mars Hill Audio provide substantive intellectual content on matters religious, social, political and artistic. (I recognize that, with the exception of Christianity Today, none of these can be termed exclusively evangelical, but I believe each has a strong evangelical following.) Authors such as Ravi Zacharias, Lee Strobel, Norman Geisler, Walter Elwell, Alister McGrath and Chuck Colson are providing solid books on faith. In addition, many evangelical studens are going to solid institutions of higher learning and forming their minds.

Unfortunately, though, for every Ravi Zacharias, there is a Benny Hin, for every Alister McGrath, a Joel Osteen. Bad theology and sloppy thinking abound in the evangelical world, not just on the internet, but in Christian bookstores that cater to evangelicals--the Left Behind series being a prominent fiction example, and at evangelical churches.

Evangelicals, then, have their share of intellectual heavyweights, but at the everyman level, there is much work to be done.

Where is this going? I think that evangelical blogs can help in this task, both with the issues that Professor Noll identifies, and with the issues that Matt identifies. Blogs are a good medium for addressing specific topics and many evangelical bloggers are already providing great content on important issues. For examples, see the sites listed in our blogroll at the left (not all are evangelical but a number are). In addition, check out Jollyblogger, Adrian Warnock, Wittenberg Gate, Allthings2all, and any of the blogs in the Decablog not included in our blogroll or above.

One goal of this blog is to aid in this effort. We are all dedicated to facilitating the growth of the evangelical mind. Obviously this cannot be done in a systematic way through a blog. It is done topically. However, working together with journals, books and solid Christian schools, blogs, including this one, can aid in the reformation of the evangelical mind.

For those of you who are either Christians from other traditions, or who are not believers, please note that this blog is for you too. We offer an evangelical perspective on the world, particularly religion, politics, social issues, arts, and sports. However, we are here to engage the world. This is not intended to be an evangelical echo chamber. Please interact with us. If you don't like evangelicals, tell us why. If you don't like Christians, tell us why. If you're not an evangelical but think we have an interesting take on an issue, let us know that as well. Come now, let us reason together.

In any event, this is what motivates me, and I think, to a certain extent, the others. We want to improve the state of the evangelical mind, and we want to engage the world, from an evangelical perspective. We need your help to do it.