Thinking to Believe

“A hallmark of spiritual abuse is treating the person who dares to point out a problem as the problem.”

—Roger Olson, “Pentecostalism’s Dark Side” http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=1871

The late philosopher, Mortimer J. Adler, had something really good to say about the pain of learning and the dumbing down of education. Read the following quote from his 1941 essay, “Invitation to the Pain of Learning”, published in the Journal of Educational Sociology:

One of the reasons why the education given by our schools is so frothy and vapid is that the American people generally—the parent even more than the teacher—wish childhood to be unspoiled by pain. Childhood must be a period of delight, of gay indulgence in impulses. It must be given every avenue for unimpeded expression, which of course is pleasant; and it must not be made to suffer the impositions of discipline or the exactions of duty, which of course are painful. Childhood must be filled with as much play and as little work as possible. What cannot be accomplished educationally through elaborate schemes devised to make learning an exciting game must, of necessity, be forgone. Heaven forbid that learning should ever take on the character of a serious occupation—just as serious as earning money, and perhaps, much more laborious and painful . . .

Not only must we honestly announce that pain and work are the irremovable and irreducible accompaniments of genuine learning, not only must we leave entertainment to the entertainers and make education a task and not a game, but we must have no fears about what is “over the public’s head.” Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles. The school system which caters to the median child, or worse, to the lower half of the class; the lecturer before adults—and they are legion—who talks down to his audience; the radio or television program which tries to hit the lowest common denominator of popular receptivity—all these defeat the prime purpose of education by taking people as they are and leaving them just there.

If this were true in 1941, how much more today?!

While Adler was speaking specifically to public education, I would like to extend this to religious education in the church as well. I am concerned that the church is often guilty of routinely and consistently dumbing down Christianity to the lowest common intellectual denominator. That may be a good strategy for presenting the salvation message to the masses, but it is not a good strategy for building disciples of Jesus Christ. And that is what pastors are meant to do: make disciples (not just converts) by teaching the saints, instructing them in the whole counsel of God.

I recognize that the church consists of a variety of educational backgrounds. We have everyone from the skid-row convert to the Ph.D. It’s impossible to deliver a message that will satisfy the intellect of every person present every service (which is why I think separate classes are a good idea). But too often we keep the intellectual level of conversation at its lowest point so that the message will not go over anyone’s head. Not only are we doing the intellectually-minded people on our pews a disservice, but we are doing the not-so-intellectually-minded people a disservice as well because they are never challenged to grow intellectually in the Lord. Yes, we must meet people where they are, but no, we can’t leave them there. At times we need to teach slightly above their head to help them see there are greater levels of knowledge and understanding to aspire to. As J.P. Moreland wrote in Love Your God With All Your Mind:

From time to time a minister should intentionally pitch a message to the upper one-third of the congregation, intellectually speaking. This may leave some people feeling a bit left out and confused during the sermon, which is unfortunate, but the alternative (which we follow almost all the time) is to dumb down our sermons so often that the upper one-third get bored and have to look elsewhere for spiritual and intellectual food. The intellectual level of our messages ought to be varied to provide more of a balance for all of the congregation. Furthermore, such an approach may motivate those in the lower two-thirds to work to catch up!

Babies need milk. That is their source of nourishment. It is simple, but effective at that stage of human development. But when is the last time you saw a 10 year old whose diet consisted only of milk? You don’t. As we get older and mature we need solid food. Milk, by itself, simply won’t do anymore. The same is true spiritually. People who have been in church for years need to progress beyond the milk and ABCs of Christianity, and yet too often churches teach the ABCs service after service for fear that anything else in the alphabet will not be understood by everyone in the congregation (or because the preacher doesn’t know much beyond ABC himself).

The church needs to be challenged intellectually. It is necessary for proper discipleship and spiritual growth in the Lord. We cannot settle for intellectual mediocrity. This is not just a pastoral responsibility, but an individual responsibility as well. All of us need to spend time doing the hard work of study that is required of disciples. Christianity is both a head and a heart religion. Christian faith is depends on knowledge, and the level of faith often correlates with one’s level of knowledge/understanding. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are commanded to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. There is so much more beyond Search for Truth and Acts 2:38. People are starving for meaty teaching, and they can handle much more than we give them credit for…even if the dinner we serve them goes over some people’s head from time to time.

HT to Justin Taylor over at Between Two Worlds for the quote