The Christian Mind and Christian Worldview Education
“There is no longer a Christian mind,” writes Harry Blamires.
This is a rather bold statement at the beginning of a volume titled, The Christian Mind, but Blamires makes a fairly convincing case over the course of his pages.
He goes on:
“There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality. As a moral being, the modern Christian subscribes to a code other than that of the non-Christian. As a member of the Church, he undertakes obligations and observations ignored by the non-Christian. As a spiritual being, in prayer and meditation, he strives to cultivate a dimension of life unexplored by the non-Christian. But as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion––its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues within the context of the eternal view which relates all human problems––social, political, cultural––to the doctrinal foundations of the Christian Faith, the view which sees all things here below in terms of God’s supremacy and earth’s transitoriness, in terms of Heaven and Hell.“
Perhaps another way to say this is that there is too little contrast between Christians and the remainder of the world.
This is readily apparent in the world of politics in the United States where political affiliation is a pre-determining factor in which political candidates and, more significantly, which policies they will support. A progressive Christian will be robustly anti-GOP and oppose policy that sounds “conservative,” whatever the content. On the other side, there are “conservative” Christians whose definition of conservative has more to do with economic libertarianism and globalization than faithfully adhering to the orthodox teachings of the Church.
There is no Christian mind because Christian has become an adjective that describes our lifestyle brand instead of the noun that encompasses the reality we seek to fulfill.
Catechesis and Christianity
Catechesis has traditionally been a central plank of making robust Christians. It was often a function of both the local congregation, particularly the clergy, in partnership with the family.
However it was accomplished, passing on the doctrines of the faith to the next generation was considered a significant goal. At least, it was considered so on paper. What we have documented are often the idealized instances where it actually occurred (as with John Newton teaching the local urchins, etc.).
But, perhaps more significantly in the Anglo-American tradition, society typically functioned as part of the catechetical system. There was inarguably a general consensus of society that the Judeo-Christian thought-world was normative. Thus, stealing was considered universally wrong and sexual promiscuity, while often tolerated to a significant degree, was seen as below standard. The point is not that people effectively lived out a Christian life, but that there was a tacit assumption of the truthfulness of Christian doctrine and practice.
Catechesis in an environment that assumes the Incarnation was a fact, for example, has a radically different feel than catechesis in a culture where only “truths” that bring immediate comfort to the individuals are deemed worthy of consideration.
Passing on Christian doctrine and teaching children to think as Christians is difficult in our world of constant entertainment and distraction, but that is why it is so very important. The lack of a Christian mind is a failure of discipleship.
Catechesis and Christian Worldview Education
One attempt at catechesis, especially in theologically conservative circles, has been by teaching curricula on a “Christian worldview.”
There is consistently a good intent in most attempts at spiritual formation, but often the product and practice is deficient. There are likely many contributing causes, but three seem to be more significant to me.
First, a great deal of the Christian Worldview curricula significantly over-simplifies various contrary viewpoints. This is necessary at some level because to have a conversation the students and teacher need to have some common definition of what a theological liberal, a Hindu, or a Muslim is. Then, when the individual gets out into the wild, they find significant variations in the actual beliefs and much of the worldview curriculum seems to crumble.
Second, many Christian Worldview curricula reduce acceptable Christian beliefs to a very narrow stream of Christian orthodoxy. It has come to the point where there is a strong overlap between Christian Worldview education and what amounts to a particularly American brand of Fundamentalism. You’ll often find an absolute emphasis on a six-day creation with a young earth, on separation of church and state, and on the rights of the individual. None of these are outside of the streams of orthodox Christianity, but in some circles they are treated as clear boundary markers of the apostolic faith.
Sometimes, it seems our efforts at discipling our children is more concerned with transmitting our second-order opinions than reinforcing the central Christian truths of the faith. We can become more concerned that our child will become a socialist than that they will have the tools to sift through the canons of Christian orthodoxy to embody a lively faith.
Third, some Christian worldview curricula tend to make over-confident prigs out of our children. Then, when they get destroyed in a later debate over their poor assumptions and pat arguments, many reject the faith or raise up a bunker of Fundamentalism to defend their opinions. Both are unhealthy responses, and neither reflects the Christian mind.
Teaching worldview can be helpful, but it needs to be done carefully, with nuance, and often needs local teaching that can be tailored more than canned curricula.
Toward Reinvigorating a Christian Mind
If we are to reinvigorate a Christian mind, I believe it will have to be done on a small scale by careful discipleship. But it will also have to have spaces for healthy conversations and controversy in public, as well.
The current knee-jerk mood of our culture is unsuitable to cultivating deep thinking of any stripe. For example, a Christianity Today article advocating against the sitting president on moral grounds was met by a bi-polar response along distinctly political lines, even among people with nearly identical doctrinal beliefs. But many of the supports and rebuttals were phrased as doctrinal rebukes. Politics was the driving force behind what people thought the magazine ought to publish, rather than doctrinal concerns.
To have a Christian mind, we have to be willing to have people disagree with us in public. We have to be willing to be proved wrong. We have to be willing to have our minds changed. This doesn’t mean we need to court every conspiracy theory and spend time debunking the obvious fringe theories, but it does mean that discussions can’t begin as anathemas.
As a population of individuals called to live as salt and light in our communities––as a contrast community within a community––the first step to having a Christian mind is to be able to have a Christian conversation. This is the sort of conversation where Christian orthodoxy is central, and doxology is perpetual, but where peripheral disagreements are possible with good will.
If a robust, white-hot, doctrinally orthodox Christianity is to be the reality of our lives, then we need to explore what that means in our local communities and public. We should be able to have disagreement on implications of Christian faith in public as we ask honest questions about the thought processes that led to those implications. Our Christianity, therefore, needs to be more robust than a lifestyle brand and become the character that defines how we think and live.
The way we talk about humans also has moral implications, which are more significant than how we treat our pets. In his 2011 book, Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, David Livingstone Smith explores how language changes culture and leads to the justification of extreme violence against others, especially when they become perceived as less than human.