Anti-intellectualism prevails in modern evangelical
Christianity. Books and sermons advocate a mystical and irrational faith, and
many who claim to be God's people "love to have it so" (Jeremiah
5:31). The trend is so pervasive that some people closely associate anti-intellectualism
with Christianity, affirming a self-imposed disjunction between faith and
reason, so that it requires an irrational "leap of faith" for one to
embrace the Christian worldview.
However, this "faith" is not the Christian faith.
Far from favoring irrational thinking, the biblical worldview rescues,
preserves, and exalts the intellect, more so than any other worldview. Made in
the image of God, the mind of man is the part of him that has fallen in sin,
and it is the part of him that is renewed and reconstructed at conversion. The subsequent
process of sanctification likewise involves the development of the intellect in
conformity to the content of biblical teaching, which is "the renewing of
your mind" (Romans 12:2). Paul writes that one who has undergone
regeneration "is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its
Creator" (Colossians 3:10). Through the prophet Jeremiah, God says that
the "shepherds after my own heart" are those who will lead his people
"with knowledge and understanding" (Jeremiah 3:15).
