Several books on
having a Christian mind have been in print for a good number of
years. We will be mentioning at least one of these in each
review section of Equip to Disciple for the purpose of
making certain that you have read them. If you have not read
them, you will want to do so while they are still available.
This book, The Christian Mind, by Harry Blamires is one
of those books, first published in 1963.
If Blamires was
not the first to use the phrase “the Christian mind,” he was
certainly among the first. I first read this book in the mid to
late 1960’s and have quoted from and referred to it numerous
times when speaking and writing on the topic. His major thesis
was twofold. First, the modern mind is a secular mind; and
secondly, there is no longer a Christian mind. Though we are
seeing somewhat of a spiritual revival in our culture, the
modern and/or postmodern mind is not oriented towards the
supernatural, which is not to be confused with Christianity. He
says, “As a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed
to secularization.” Today’s mind accepts religion but not as a
way of life. “There is no Christian mind; there is no shared
field of discourse in which we can move at ease as thinking
Christians by trodden ways and past established landmarks.”
I would like to
say in the forty-six years of this book’s existence that things
have improved. However, all that can be said regarding there
being no Christian mind is that the situation has gone even more
downhill. Certainly more books have been written on the topic,
some of which we have reviewed in the past, but no significant
change for the better has taken place. Mark Noll wrote The
Scandal of the Evangelical Mind in which he concluded, there
is no evangelical mind. Earlier, Allan Bloom wrote The
Closing of the American Mind with a broader emphasis on how
the Western mind is not a thinking mind.
The main thing
that underscores our being the image of God is namely our
ability and capacity to think. How tragic when we do not. People
in general, but Christians in particular, face some extremely
serious, complicated, and complex issues. The need to know how
to think from a Christian perspective has never been more
urgent.
But what is a
Christian mind? Part two of the book identifies six
characteristics.
- A
supernatural orientation. There is more to reality than the
here and now and what we can see.
- An
awareness of evil and what it has done in perverting “the
noblest things.”
- A
conception of truth that depends on God’s revelation.
- An
acceptance of authority. We must know what God requires and
submit to it. He is the final authority in all of reality,
things present and things to come.
- A concern
for the person, realizing that people are not machines.
Human life has value.
- A
sacramental cast. In a sacramental view of life, the
Christian mind recognizes things, such as relationships and
sexual love, as God’s ways of opening reality to us.
In his
conclusion, Blamires asks the question: what will Christians do
during the next fifty years to strengthen the Christian mind
against secularism and the anti-supernatural? His time frame is
now up, and our response is not very encouraging. Blamires
concludes, “it is better to define, establish, and nourish a
Christian mind in freedom now, as a positive last effort to
bring light and hope to our culture and our civilization, than
to have to try to gather together the miserable fragments of
Christian consciousness after triumphant secularism has finally
bulldozed its way through the Church, as a body of thinking men
and women.”
If you have not
read this book and been challenged by it, please do so. It will
make a strategic difference in your outlook.
-
Charles Dunahoo
CEP Coordinator |
Third
Quarter 2009 Book Review