Fit Bodies, FAT MINDS_Why Evangelicals don’t think and What to do about it
From reading memoirs that touched my heart, to a refreshingly enlightening material that touched my mind, it has been a excellent month so far. The next book on the agenda was Fit Bodies and Fat Minds by Os Guinness. Os is fast becoming my 'must listen/read' author and speaker. I was first introduced to Os when he spoke at the L'abri Jubilee conference. He spoke on "The Third Mission to the West: Winning back our civilization." The message was crisp, clear and very challenging. I doubt there is anyone who listened to him that was not stirred in their hearts and challenged in their minds.
Dr. Os Guinness is a writer and speaker living in Northern Virginia. He is the co-founder of The Trinity Forum and served as Senior Fellow and Vice Chairman of the Board from its inception in 1991 until 2004. Os directed the first seven Trinity Forum seminar curricula and many other projects during that period and was a regular Moderator at Forums in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
He has written or edited more than twenty books, including The American Hour (Free Press, 1993), The Call (Word 1998), Time for Truth (Baker 2000), Long Journey Home (Doubleday 2001), Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror (HarperCollins, 2005), and The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It (Harper One, 2008).
His deep concern is to bridge the chasm between academic knowledge and popular knowledge, taking things that are academically important and making them intelligible and practicable to a wider audience, especially as they concern matters of public policy. (Trinity Forum Website http://www.ttf.org/)
Before I took up the book to read, I found a excellent review on the book by Allan Harvey on the following link (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13530.htm)
The book as Allan points out is divided into 3 sections
Part One - A Ghost Mind
The title is apt to what Os clarifies in this section. What does he mean by Ghost mind? Well, in the early 19th century a consequence of the rapid frontier expansion was the creation of the ghost towns and ghost colleges-towns and colleges left behind in the great rush west. In a similar way the story of the retreat from a Christian mind is the story of a number of influences raging like a fire through the evangelical movement. They have left in their wake a devastation of the earlier Puritan mind and the creation of a virtual ghost mind with a few distinctively Christian strengths left. And then he lays the damaging trends in eight P's as below
1. Polarization - Is the Polarization of truth. In the sense of a false antagonism between heart and mind. To be sure, no one in the fallen world-believer or unbeliever-has the capacity to hold God's truth in its entirety. Os agrees that some tension between mind and heart, intellect and emotions, is a recurring theme in Christian history. And yet despite this condition a hallmark of the Puritan mind was its commitment to unity of truth and thus to the integration of faith and life, worship and discipleship, faith and learning. All of these things were under the lordship of Christ. Each was part of its own sphere and calling. None was to be isolated ot treated as a favored part of truth.
2. Pietism - Pietism is a 'heart religion' an understanding and way of believing that places piety, or total life devotion, at the centre of Christian faith. Pietism in itself is neither wrong nor destructive. It helps us see the potential for distortion. Os's conclusion is that evangelical pietism has not yet degenerated that far. But the outline of the same weaknesses has emerge, especially in the form of a stoop gap, privatized faith, that in one observer's words, is socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging.
3. Primitivism - Sometimes called restorationism or restitutionism, is the impulse to restore the primitive or original order of life as revealed in the Scriptures. Os is very pointed in his observation when he says that Primitivism, is an ingredient of American hypocrisy. Primitivism has contributed to the evangelical bias towards the simplistic, and secondly it has contributed to the evangelical bias against history.
4. Populism - Understood as a movement committed to the rights, wisdom, and virtues of common people, populism is one of the greatest strengths and weaknesses. A passion for revival and a passion for popular sovereignty lies at the heart of populism. Populism has 'democratized Christians' and 'Christianized America'. Populism rejected educated leadership and put a boundless trust in the common person. The result was a populist style of interpretation in which the right to personal judgment became 'the magna carta of the common man'
5. Pluralism - It is a social condition in which numerous different religious, ethnic, and cultural groups live together in one nation under one government. Pluralism, in this sense, is a social fact, and not, like relativism, a philosophical conclusion. Pluralism made to important contributions to evangelical anti-intellectualism. 1. It helped create a religion of civility. Civility is good; however religion of civility is different. It is a corrupt form of civility - an oppressive form of tolerance-that in seeking to give no offense to others ends with no convictions of its own. 'Tolerance' as G K Chesterton said, ' is the virtue of those who don’t believe anything'. The second negative effect was that it reinforced Protestant indifference to truth by shifting the accent from belief to behavior or Deeds, not Creeds.
6. Pragmatism - Pragmatism is the philosophy of considering practical consequences or real effects to be vital components of meaning and truth. One flamboyant outgrowth of pragmatism was the rise of the prosperity doctrines or the 'health and wealth gospel.’ The early Puritans in contrast had a striking combination of diligence in worldly business yet 'deadness' to the world. A second outgrowth is the long stream of 'self help' and 'positive thinking' - the general belief that optimistic thinking carries beneficial results.
7. Philistinism - A philistine is some on who is either crucially uninformed in a special area of knowledge or openly disdainful of intellectual or artistic values. The connection here is to the great Philistine giant Goliath whom David killed. Popular evangelicals like Billy Sunday and Jonathan Blanchard (Wheaton’s first President) were of the belief that 'Real men don’t need a theology/scholarship'. Philistinism reinforces the prejudice that hides behind populist disdain for those such as 'the media elite'. On the other hand, it blocks evangelicals from truly appreciating culture and the arts. It also isolates evangelical artists - as the least understood and most alienated single group of people in the evangelical churches.
8. Premillenialism - It is the belief that the present age of human history will end in Christ’s thousand year reign on earth (Revelation 20:1-10). Os stresses that Premillenialism it not itself the problem. Dispensational premilleniasm however has had unfortunate consequences on the Christian mind. The dispensationalist movement reinforced the anti intellectualism of the seven earlier trends. A recurring feature of dispensational populism is its careless crossover between Bible and historical events of the day. Secondly it reinforces anti-intellectualism by its general indifference to serious engagement with culture. 'Distracting preoccupation with the end times. Thirdly it has often had overlooked unintended consequences. It called evangelicals to 'flee the world' but did so in a way that laid them open to new form of worldliness.
Part two - An Idiot Culture
This section was named "A Junkie Spirit" in 1986; its new title is taken from a 1992 New Republic essay by journalist Carl Bernstein. Guinness discusses eight trends in modern culture that contribute to a "dumbing-down" not only of society but of the Christians who live in it.
1. Amusing Ourselves to Death - Entertainment. Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other, they do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions, they argue with good looks. celebrities and commercials.
2. People of plenty - World of Ads. What is it and how are we as Christians effected by it.
3. All Consuming images - Style is all that matters...
4. The Humiliation of the Word - Literally word. Word has lost its power. Save the word to save the World. A word deficient culture is heavily biased toward a image dominated expression and perception. It is also biased against understanding.
5. Cannibals of the PoMo (Post Modern)- Cross as a fashion statement. Doing things simply to conform to the culture.
6. Tabloid Truth - Tabloid Christianity
7. Generation Hex - Tribalism. Generational identification.
8. Real, Reel or Virtual Real? - Person to Person and not face to face. Christian needs to be concerned with Truth and Reality.
Part three - Let my people think
From reading memoirs that touched my heart, to a refreshingly enlightening material that touched my mind, it has been a excellent month so far. The next book on the agenda was Fit Bodies and Fat Minds by Os Guinness. Os is fast becoming my 'must listen/read' author and speaker. I was first introduced to Os when he spoke at the L'abri Jubilee conference. He spoke on "The Third Mission to the West: Winning back our civilization." The message was crisp, clear and very challenging. I doubt there is anyone who listened to him that was not stirred in their hearts and challenged in their minds.
Dr. Os Guinness is a writer and speaker living in Northern Virginia. He is the co-founder of The Trinity Forum and served as Senior Fellow and Vice Chairman of the Board from its inception in 1991 until 2004. Os directed the first seven Trinity Forum seminar curricula and many other projects during that period and was a regular Moderator at Forums in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
He has written or edited more than twenty books, including The American Hour (Free Press, 1993), The Call (Word 1998), Time for Truth (Baker 2000), Long Journey Home (Doubleday 2001), Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror (HarperCollins, 2005), and The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It (Harper One, 2008).
His deep concern is to bridge the chasm between academic knowledge and popular knowledge, taking things that are academically important and making them intelligible and practicable to a wider audience, especially as they concern matters of public policy. (Trinity Forum Website http://www.ttf.org/)
Before I took up the book to read, I found a excellent review on the book by Allan Harvey on the following link (http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/13530.htm)
The book as Allan points out is divided into 3 sections
Part One - A Ghost Mind
The title is apt to what Os clarifies in this section. What does he mean by Ghost mind? Well, in the early 19th century a consequence of the rapid frontier expansion was the creation of the ghost towns and ghost colleges-towns and colleges left behind in the great rush west. In a similar way the story of the retreat from a Christian mind is the story of a number of influences raging like a fire through the evangelical movement. They have left in their wake a devastation of the earlier Puritan mind and the creation of a virtual ghost mind with a few distinctively Christian strengths left. And then he lays the damaging trends in eight P's as below
1. Polarization - Is the Polarization of truth. In the sense of a false antagonism between heart and mind. To be sure, no one in the fallen world-believer or unbeliever-has the capacity to hold God's truth in its entirety. Os agrees that some tension between mind and heart, intellect and emotions, is a recurring theme in Christian history. And yet despite this condition a hallmark of the Puritan mind was its commitment to unity of truth and thus to the integration of faith and life, worship and discipleship, faith and learning. All of these things were under the lordship of Christ. Each was part of its own sphere and calling. None was to be isolated ot treated as a favored part of truth.
2. Pietism - Pietism is a 'heart religion' an understanding and way of believing that places piety, or total life devotion, at the centre of Christian faith. Pietism in itself is neither wrong nor destructive. It helps us see the potential for distortion. Os's conclusion is that evangelical pietism has not yet degenerated that far. But the outline of the same weaknesses has emerge, especially in the form of a stoop gap, privatized faith, that in one observer's words, is socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging.
3. Primitivism - Sometimes called restorationism or restitutionism, is the impulse to restore the primitive or original order of life as revealed in the Scriptures. Os is very pointed in his observation when he says that Primitivism, is an ingredient of American hypocrisy. Primitivism has contributed to the evangelical bias towards the simplistic, and secondly it has contributed to the evangelical bias against history.
4. Populism - Understood as a movement committed to the rights, wisdom, and virtues of common people, populism is one of the greatest strengths and weaknesses. A passion for revival and a passion for popular sovereignty lies at the heart of populism. Populism has 'democratized Christians' and 'Christianized America'. Populism rejected educated leadership and put a boundless trust in the common person. The result was a populist style of interpretation in which the right to personal judgment became 'the magna carta of the common man'
5. Pluralism - It is a social condition in which numerous different religious, ethnic, and cultural groups live together in one nation under one government. Pluralism, in this sense, is a social fact, and not, like relativism, a philosophical conclusion. Pluralism made to important contributions to evangelical anti-intellectualism. 1. It helped create a religion of civility. Civility is good; however religion of civility is different. It is a corrupt form of civility - an oppressive form of tolerance-that in seeking to give no offense to others ends with no convictions of its own. 'Tolerance' as G K Chesterton said, ' is the virtue of those who don’t believe anything'. The second negative effect was that it reinforced Protestant indifference to truth by shifting the accent from belief to behavior or Deeds, not Creeds.
6. Pragmatism - Pragmatism is the philosophy of considering practical consequences or real effects to be vital components of meaning and truth. One flamboyant outgrowth of pragmatism was the rise of the prosperity doctrines or the 'health and wealth gospel.’ The early Puritans in contrast had a striking combination of diligence in worldly business yet 'deadness' to the world. A second outgrowth is the long stream of 'self help' and 'positive thinking' - the general belief that optimistic thinking carries beneficial results.
7. Philistinism - A philistine is some on who is either crucially uninformed in a special area of knowledge or openly disdainful of intellectual or artistic values. The connection here is to the great Philistine giant Goliath whom David killed. Popular evangelicals like Billy Sunday and Jonathan Blanchard (Wheaton’s first President) were of the belief that 'Real men don’t need a theology/scholarship'. Philistinism reinforces the prejudice that hides behind populist disdain for those such as 'the media elite'. On the other hand, it blocks evangelicals from truly appreciating culture and the arts. It also isolates evangelical artists - as the least understood and most alienated single group of people in the evangelical churches.
8. Premillenialism - It is the belief that the present age of human history will end in Christ’s thousand year reign on earth (Revelation 20:1-10). Os stresses that Premillenialism it not itself the problem. Dispensational premilleniasm however has had unfortunate consequences on the Christian mind. The dispensationalist movement reinforced the anti intellectualism of the seven earlier trends. A recurring feature of dispensational populism is its careless crossover between Bible and historical events of the day. Secondly it reinforces anti-intellectualism by its general indifference to serious engagement with culture. 'Distracting preoccupation with the end times. Thirdly it has often had overlooked unintended consequences. It called evangelicals to 'flee the world' but did so in a way that laid them open to new form of worldliness.
Part two - An Idiot Culture
This section was named "A Junkie Spirit" in 1986; its new title is taken from a 1992 New Republic essay by journalist Carl Bernstein. Guinness discusses eight trends in modern culture that contribute to a "dumbing-down" not only of society but of the Christians who live in it.
1. Amusing Ourselves to Death - Entertainment. Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other, they do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions, they argue with good looks. celebrities and commercials.
2. People of plenty - World of Ads. What is it and how are we as Christians effected by it.
3. All Consuming images - Style is all that matters...
4. The Humiliation of the Word - Literally word. Word has lost its power. Save the word to save the World. A word deficient culture is heavily biased toward a image dominated expression and perception. It is also biased against understanding.
5. Cannibals of the PoMo (Post Modern)- Cross as a fashion statement. Doing things simply to conform to the culture.
6. Tabloid Truth - Tabloid Christianity
7. Generation Hex - Tribalism. Generational identification.
8. Real, Reel or Virtual Real? - Person to Person and not face to face. Christian needs to be concerned with Truth and Reality.
Part three - Let my people think
In part one and two we have the issues and in part three we turn to what evangelicals can do to 'Turn the tide'...
1. Back to our Right Minds - Repentance.
2. Minds in Love - Thinking Christianly
3. God Sense in a Good Sense - Overcoming the deepest of all obstacles to thinking christianly.
4. Going Mad for God - Counting the cost of discipleship entailed in thinking Christianly
5. No Automatic Pilot - A commitment to thinking Christianly as a form of active obedience
6. No, Not that way - Marking clearly the pitfalls and by-paths of Christian thinking
7. Knowing means doing - Focusing attention on a long neglected part of Christian thinking - developing a Christian thought style
8. The Defense Never Rests - Recovering the practice of Christian apologetics, or of making a persuasive case for the Christian faith for today's generation.
This book as been very effective, in changing the course of my thinking. It is a relatively short book to read and is therefore a reservoir of anecdotes. A great book to read and reread every few years to keep your mind and heart challenged to think Christianly.
1. Back to our Right Minds - Repentance.
2. Minds in Love - Thinking Christianly
3. God Sense in a Good Sense - Overcoming the deepest of all obstacles to thinking christianly.
4. Going Mad for God - Counting the cost of discipleship entailed in thinking Christianly
5. No Automatic Pilot - A commitment to thinking Christianly as a form of active obedience
6. No, Not that way - Marking clearly the pitfalls and by-paths of Christian thinking
7. Knowing means doing - Focusing attention on a long neglected part of Christian thinking - developing a Christian thought style
8. The Defense Never Rests - Recovering the practice of Christian apologetics, or of making a persuasive case for the Christian faith for today's generation.
This book as been very effective, in changing the course of my thinking. It is a relatively short book to read and is therefore a reservoir of anecdotes. A great book to read and reread every few years to keep your mind and heart challenged to think Christianly.
