“Is our age passing from civilization to barbarism? Civilization is too fragile. Always the result of human consciousness and its confidence, it is never the product of its achievements, however glorious, or its institutions, however solid. The West today, with its self-confidence sagging, vitality ebbing, and order eroded, knows only introspection, lethargy, traditions. Prone from exhaustion, a prey to its own fears, it is in danger of being overwhelmed by the anxiety, apathy, and anger of a humanity strangled within it. Thus it is vulnerable to the frustration and fury of those enraged by the betrayal of it meaning.”

Os Guinness, The Dust of Death (Buy on Amazon – US|UK)

Written in 1994, The Dust of Death: The Sixties Counterculture and How It Changed America Forever, speaks to the heart of the problem in the UK today in the face of the recent rioting.

“Schaeffer was the first Christian I met who was concerned to, and capable of connecting the dots and making sense of the extraordinary times that puzzled and dismayed most people.”

From An Interview with Os Guinness on the 25th Anniversary of Francis Schaeffer’s Death.

Some great thoughts and reflections from Dr. Os Guinness. We’ve just been looking at Apologetics and Worldviews in the Reformation Generation seminar.

Francis Schaeffer has been hugely influential in my understanding of how to “think Christianly” and how to engage in this world. I belive that Biblical faithfulness without cultural awareness is useless to those who are lost. I’m reminded of something Schaeffer says in The God Who Is There (US|UK):

“An orthodoxy without understanding or compassion is ugly.”

We are to feel the issues and reality of life and have good answers to speak to the problems we encounter. Answers alone are not enough.

How and what we think affects how we act. Ideas have consequences. What we believe informs what we will do so it is crucial that we spend time thinking, shaping our ideas, forming and, when necessary, destroying beliefs.

We live in a culture where instantaneous is only just on time. We demand instant results, instant decisions and instant action. Our statements are barely conceived before they are tweeted, sent by text, emailed or spoken aloud. Our minds are playing catch up with our mouths. Some celebrities fall foul of this, many of the rest of us get away with it.

Rational thinking has been relegated, replaced with the seemingly fresh ideas of spontaneity and living by impulse. This attitude has left a charged atmosphere where deep thinking is associated with snobbery and feeling has surpassed reason. Os Guinness describes this as “anti-intellectualism”.

“Anti-intellectualism is a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind.” (Fit Bodies, Fat Minds).

The worrying thing is that it could now be said that it is becoming fashionable to be anti-intellectual. So, it turns out, if you want to be a counter-cultural Christian, start thinking. Guinness goes on to say,

“Anti-intellectualism is quite simply a sin. Evangelicals must address it as such, beyond all excuses, evasions, or rationalizations of false piety.”

The Buddy System

Back to discipline. My local gym have posters up highlighting the benefits of training with a friend. And aside from the fact that if I bring a friend they make a new member (and I receive a smoothie maker – ooo) they are right. It is easier to train in companionship with others.
So what does this have to do with training our minds? Quite simple: get a buddy, form a group, centre it around a topic and get on with it.

It doesn’t need to be complicated. It could be deciding to spend a year studying a theme and going through a few books together. Get together periodically, have a drink and talk through the ideas. Bounce thoughts off of each other. Give yourself and the group freedom  and permission to really think.

Wrestle with passages of the Bible. Look at a period of history. Examine contemporary culture. Look at the arts, the music, films, poems, popular art of today and yesterday. Think it through on your own and think it through with friends. Not only does the accountability help, different brains with different ideas will challenge you. They will test the robustness of your ideas and provide inspiration for new thoughts.

The Goal

Our minds are a great tool given to us. We can ignore them, we can use them selfishly, or we can use them in worship to God. Thinking well enables us to love better, as John Piper explains in talking about his book on this subject:

We have a responsibility to look after both our minds and our bodies to use both well.

The Royal Marines physical trainers use the phrase mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body). I like that.

Further Reading

• Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t think And What To do About It. Os Guinness. (UK|US)
• Think. John Piper. (UK|US)
• The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Mark Noll. (UK|US)
• The Closing of the American Mind. Allan Bloom. (UK|US)

Found at A Better Hope