Crosspoint

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: A Brief History Of Stupidity (Hosea 4:6)


Senior Member

Status: Offline
Posts: 194
Date:
A Brief History Of Stupidity (Hosea 4:6)
Permalink   


My people will be destroyed because they have no knowledge. You have refused to learn, so I will refuse to let you be priests to me.

(Hosea 4:6 NCV)

- - - - - - - - - -

"God said it. I believe it. That settles it." There is truth in this statement, but every time I hear it I cringe. It's one of the three statements I've named the licenses for stupidity. The second one is, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Again, this is a very true statement, but all too often the way people use it, what they are really saying is, "The fear of the Lord is the end of knowledge." The third statement is the worst in that it contains not a shred of truth: "My Bible is the only book I need to read." My usual response to that is, "Well, you obviously do not read much of that either."

This verse (and a recent hearing of that first statement) got me to wondering when did things change? Throughout history church leaders had a reputation for being the most literate, the most practically wise people in a community. This was especially true in smaller towns and rural areas. Granted, the church dropped the ball with Copernicus, but by the time Galileo went on trial, those that tried him already agreed that the earth revolved around the sun. He was on trial more not for what he said but rather how he said it.

So when did this change? Is the modern perception of evangelicals fair? I think the first reason the church began shying away from academia came as a knee jerk reaction to what some of the smartest minds in Christianity around the late 1800's and early 1900's were saying. This began with Schleiermacher who denied the divinity of Christ and the importance of the cross for what he called Jesus' "God consciousness". This continued with men like Harnack and Bultman who viewed the miracles as mythology and denied the authentic of the gospel of John. These men along with many others like Albert Schweitzer, in their quest to find the "historical Jesus" lost sight of his divinity, the Bible's authority, and the miraculous.

There were two very different movements that sprang up as a response to this. The first, Neo-Orthodoxy, sought to engage the culture just as these liberal theologians did, but to do so only through the lens of Christ. Neo-Orthodoxy was for a time the more influential movement, but over time it faded to the background as the grassroots fundamentalist movement came to the fore. While beginning with a very noble goal of affirming five crucial doctrines, it soon took on an antagonistic ethos against the German higher criticism and the modern "scientific" culture from which it sprang. While expertly using aspects of culture (like TV and the radio), the fundamentalists spoke against it as antithetical to the cause of Christ. They in effect declared war on all things modern like science, art, education, and society while longing for a nonexistent utopian past.

The second reason so many in the church are antagonistic towards learning is a problem of our own making. Even as this bias continued to grow subconsciously, many Christians recognized the need to educate the next generation of Christian leaders. Their solution to this was the birth of many of our Christian Bible colleges and liberal arts universities. As a result there was not enough "salt" on our universities. Many of the would be Christian professors gravitated away from the secular and toward the Christian campuses and many of the strongest Christian students missed the opportunity to be spiritual leaders in the university. Don't get me wrong, I cherish the time I spent at Zion and CBC. But if I had the opportunity to do so again, I probably wouldn't. I see a spiritual depth and realism from the Christian leaders at SUNY Binghamton that is very difficult to teach in our bubbles.

Anyways, to pull back from that rabbit trail, with the decline of Christian professors and student leaders, our universities gravitated more and more towards a politically left and spiritually materialistic worldview. At the same time fundamentalism, with its conservative politics, became more and more mainstream and in many ways co-opted the burgeoning evangelical movement. The result has been a mutual animosity between the church and the secular university.

The final, and most basic reason is that the pursuit of knowledge is just so hard. In reading, I have a goal when I'm reading to have every other book something that is more intellectually challenging. I'd like to say I'm living up to this, but in reality I'm luck if by the end of the year it is even one third. It is just so much easier to read Hawthorne than it is Hegel. I'm much more likely to pick up James Patterson than I am J I Packer. I pride myself on not watching much TV, but seriously, most of what I read is just as much a brainless waste of time. Now I've made it seem like Christians are the only ones at fault here, but it is clear that intellectual laziness is a universal human trait. The difference is that the non-Christian needs no excuse while the Christian tends to spiritualize their laziness with such quotes such as I started out this blog with. So lets end our brainless wasting of time. Will you covenant with me to strive to make stupidity history?



__________________
Arlen Boyer

Date:
Permalink   

Read this, Christian!
This is an effort to live out Hebrews 10:24.

BJ- As I say "YES!"
... I feel like Moses "But Lord, I am not a good reader!" However, I pray that God will grant myself and others the strength and visioin to work through and see past that very likely respone.


__________________
Marceille... He's Here!

Date:
Permalink   

i have also seen a trend of fear in evangelicals, they seem to believe that if you look towards science you have to look away from G-d. no truth can ever disprove another truth. science can't disprove G-d because He isn't scientific just like art could never discredit math. we need to step away from fear and learn about G-d's glory instead of just talking about it.

__________________
Indestructable

Date:
Permalink   

Thanks for writing this blog. I hope people read it.

__________________
World Conqueror

Date:
Permalink   

Love the title, and the substance of it rocks, too. Go Spirit-filled Nerds! (Nobody's cheering? I thought there was a bigger group of us...)

__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.

Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse
Powered by ActiveBoard