English professor at the University of California Berkley, Carolyn Kane wrote an article for Newsweek about the general lack of important thinking in modern American culture. After the posed question she revealed her answer in front of both God and the audience of Newsweek: “But how do we revive interest in the art of thinking? The best place to start would be in the homes and churches of our land.” She did not appeal to government, or for an increase in money for public school systems or for more adequate college faculties. Professor Kane realized that the church was meant to be, and when we look back at history can see has been, the instrument for reason in society. So what happened? Why did this jettisoning of reason take place? America met its breaking point with reason during the Counter-Cultural Movement of the 1960’s. By reason I mean the process used to gain knowledge in order to justify beliefs. Several sub movements defined the Counter-Cultural Movement of the 1960’s:
- Psychology – Situation Ethics
- Philosophy – God is Dead Movement
- Theology – Neo-orthodoxy
- Arts – Theatre of the Absurd
These sub movements helped influence postmodernism, the sexual revolution, and misrepresentations of the God of the Bible. Outside of prestigious universities “intellectuals” smoked pot and experimentation became emphasized. Everything that was once held to be sacred and private became open and free. Homosexuality and abortion became accepted and intolerance became the only evil. The Counter-Cultural Movement of the 1960’s was truly a Anti-intellectual Movement because there was total abandonment of reason. Men and women thought and believed in nothing and those who were the rebels then are the professors, educators, and people in power today. The culture and mind of America has changed and is yet to recover. So how do we fix it? To answer that, we need to take a step back because anti-intellectualism didn’t just simultaneously combust in the 60’s. No, it came long before that. It came with the theory of evolution. Science originated in Christian Europe and was studied for the main purpose of learning about God; so when new science claimed an alternate to God and denied his existence the church was left speechless. With the church not having any intellectual arguments against the theory many Christians left the faith and science gained the credibility that Christianity “lost”. People than began to believe that things were only true and reasonable if they could be tested using the five senses; hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting, and feeling. Thus making faith unreasonable and false because it cannot be truly tested. What both science and the church failed to realize though was that science only studies nature and that God, by definition, is supernatural (outside of nature). My point is that if the church had had an intellectual argument for the scientific revolution than the church would not have lost its place as the “instrument of reason in society”. Instead it gave secularism the power for a revolution that we (Christians) are not likely going to see an end to unless we make a radical effort for revival and promptly at that! The main cause for lack of revival in America is the lack of intellectualism and knowledge of apologetic arguments for the church. Theologian and pastor R.C. Sproul said “We live in the most anti-intellectual period in the history of all Western civilization… We must have passion-indeed hearts on fire for the things of God. But that passion must resist with intensity the anti-intellectual spirit of the world.” Five things need to change if we want revival and intellectualism to take over the church:
- Faith and reason need to be equally as strong as one another.
- There can be no separation between sacred and secular things.
- Live largely on mission.
- Don’t make the Gospel relevant. Show the relevance of the Gospel.
- Be bold, confront, and witness.
G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Once people stop believing in God the problem is not that they will believe nothing, rather it is that they will believe anything.” If we can spark intellectualism and knowledge of apologetics in the christian church, than we can spark revival. Once revival happens in the church, the judgment seat will be able to retake its throne as the instrument of reason in society. Amen.
ryanwortman 
Ryan,
That was a fantastic first post. Your analysis of culture was enlightening and fascinating. I am not sure that I totally agree with you but it really made me think and I appreciated greatly how you tied together multiple intellectual movements to find a metanarrative. I have two questions for you.
1. Is the church really supposed to be “the instrument for reason in society”? I mean yes we are supposed to be proclaiming, defending, and explaining the gospel. Yes this clearly involves intellectual endeavor, but should the church be the intellectual source where people go to for philosophy? A Christians philosophy should be informed by the bible and by their church, but there is also many areas of “reason” that the bible never touches on, is the church supposed to be an authority in those areas?
2. “The main cause for lack of revival in America is the lack of intellectualism and knowledge of apologetic arguments for the church.” Really? That is the main cause for the lack of revival? Maybe you are right, but what about the lack of the Spirit falling? What about lack of spiritual conviction and passion? What about moral failings of the church? What about spiritual apathy? What about lack of conviction for the gospel? What about Pastor’s who don’t preach the gospel? etc.
Some questions I have, but I must say, a brillant post. I can’t wait to see where this blog goes.
Jared,
Thank you for the nice words and support. And thank you for asking questions as well.
1. First know that as I say “instrument of reason in society” I don’t mean it as a totalitarianism regime in which the church reigns supreme. I rather mean that if the church is not the instrument for reason in society then society in its entirety is going to live in total contradiction with itself. I agree with you that there should be separation between church and state but I believe that the state should be ran in light of the church. So the bible doesn’t talk about some areas of “reason”, does that mean we can go live like hell in those areas? By all means no. These issues should be controlled by the state, with states laws, but those laws should be made in light of the church.
2. You need to remember that I said in order for revival to happen “Faith and Intellect need to be equally as strong.” Spirit doesn’t fall because the spirit we are trying to get to fall is so lukewarm. If we want a true convicting spirit to fall we need to strengthen that spirit and we do that by increasing knowledge in theology, apologetics and intellect. People don’t have the balls to speak out because they are afraid they cannot answer the questions and that they will give themselves and Christianity a bad name. If everyone had faith as strong as reason revival would happen. I completely agree that because there is a lack of unction in the pulpit revival is stagnant but the reason there is such lack of unction is because they God they preach about is nothing to be passionate about. Faith+Intellect=Big God. Big God=Revival.
I tried to answer those as best I could in a timely fashion, if I didn’t answer any bring it up again and if you have any response arguments feel free to brawl.
Is your name knowledgebomber?
Yes 🙂
Ryan, I agree with Jared, great first post!
My question is aimed at this statement: “Five things need to change if we want revival and intellectualism to take over the church: Faith and reason need to be equally as strong as one another.”
Why do they need to be equally strong? Doesn’t faith, for the Christian, trump reason? Shouldn’t I rely on faith more than my powers of reason? Therefore, shouldn’t faith be “stronger” per se?
Maybe I’m confused and that’s not what you’re saying though. Please do clarify 🙂
Thanks dude!
The point I am trying to make, and I probably could have wrote better, is that anti-intellectualism has drained the church of boldness in witnessing and speaking out about important issues in places and arguments that count. Because of this problem Christians can come off as defensive, reactionary and shallow instead of loving, confident and articulate. Simply put, people need to know what they believe and WHY otherwise the church no longer has soldiers fighting for it but defenseless children. Don’t get me wrong faith is ever so important but its defenseless without reason.
Did that help
Anais was so impressed by your writing that she has asked me to read your post. Like all the above respondents, great job Ryan!
Here is my humble response to your post!
Your question about what has happened to the church for no longer being “the instrument for reason in society” stems from its long history. Throughout centuries, the Christian church has seen reason and intellect as heresy (see what happened to Galileo, Copernicus and others). In the Middle-Ages, there was no separation of church and state. The clergy kept people from learning how to read and write. Universities were taught by ecclesiastic members to control the mind of the intellects. Until the 19th century, science and theology had cohabitated in these learning institutions. Great scientific work resulted from pushing the boundaries of religion (See Descartes, Spinoza, Newton, etc.). Nietzsche’s declaration that God is dead propelled us into the 20th century with a sense of nihilism and existentialism only confirmed by 2 harrowing world-wars. The social revolution of the 1960s is just a continuum of earlier events.
There are more reasons for doubting God than there are to believing in his existence. All religions and their followers have done their fair share of damages throughout the centuries (and continue to do so). Reviving the Christian church to find reason or reuniting Church and State, will only take us back to a world that was just as unethical and inhumane. Revolution has brought us an end to imperialism, and laïcité has brought us freedom of religion.
Science is not what has pushed God away from the equation over the centuries. In the contrary, questioning the existence of God and evolution has helped us understand him and his work much better. Believing that the earth was created in 7 days and that humans were created from dirt is just as exhilarating as believing the big bang theory and DNA indicating that we share 99% of our genes with monkeys. Both arguments are based on the philosophy that if God exists, he is amazing in his creations. Faith and science work together. Without testing the universe, we would still believe in a flat world. Without the faith supported by science, Columbus may have never found the Americas.
I propose that rather than reviving the Christian church we take a closer look at our individual soul. Does it exist? What is it made of? There is some great on-going neuroscience research being done by Dr. Antonio Damasio on this topic. Maybe understanding our souls, our essence of being, will take us closer to being better humans, first, and closer to God.