Though J.P. Moreland’s book Love Your God with All Your Mind is mostly helpful in its diagnosis and prescription for effecting change in the area of intellectual engagement, it contains several missteps that hurt its overall appeal.
First, Moreland occasionally places unrealistic expectations upon churches and ministers, expectations that do not have as much to do with Moreland’s goal as he thinks they do. One striking example is the first step in “Recapturing the Intellectual Life in the Church:” no senior pastors (190-191)! Moreland claims that the Bible teaches churches to have a plurality of elders, not one senior pastor. He then adds several reasons why this is not only biblical, but better for growing healthy churches.
Perhaps Moreland is right in his understanding of the biblical call for eldership. But this can hardly be the first step in “recapturing the intellectual life in the church.” It might take many existing churches several years or even a decade to make such a large shift in polity. Does Moreland think that this step is so crucial as to be first? Can there be no intellectual life in the church under a different polity?
Moreland is unrealistic to demand such a large change and also naïve to think that a change in polity will naturally lead to greater intellectual accountability. Many churches with a plurality of elders are plagued by the same kind of anti-intellectualism as those with a senior pastor. Frankly, Moreland fails to establish how this polity contributes to anti-intellectualism in the first place.
Secondly, Moreland critiques the church for its anti-intellectual agenda without emphasizing how most of the culture is facing the same problem. In his chapter on evangelism, Moreland bemoans the reasons why one woman leaves Catholicism for the Baptist church (130) because her reasons are not at all doctrinal, but surface. He then launches into a section that seems to equate evangelism with apologetics (131-136).
Moreland is to be applauded for his insistence upon apologetics as a crucial part of the evangelistic task. He rightly notes that evangelical failure to be well versed in apologetics hinders evangelism. But he seems to think that everyone outside the church thinks deeply about these things, whereas those in the church are oblivious. Most of the people I speak to outside of the church are as woefully anti-intellectual as those inside.
Apologetics as an evangelistic tool works with many people. But a greater number of unchurched people today simply do not ask these kinds of questions.
There is greater openness among the younger generation to miracles, the resurrection, and the Bible’s historicity than one might expect, though this openness includes a sometimes-illogical belief that all the other major religions are “true” as well. What is most needed in the way of apologetics today is a defense of Jesus as the only Truth, not a defense of supernaturalism.
One final area of disagreement again centers on Moreland’s apologetic task. The Church is absent in the apologetic discussion. Moreland’s advice works well for two educated men or women sitting down over coffee and hashing out the differences to their respective worldviews. Surely this model can be an effective way of engaging someone’s ideas.
But is there not a sense in which the Church’s existence in itself serves as an “apologetic” of Christian doctrine? Is not someone much more likely to believe the Christian claim that “Jesus is Lord” if they see a community of faith living according to this truth, rather than being led through rational arguments about its merit?
Moreland rightly argues for Christians to be “ready” to give a defense when someone asks us about the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15). He is also right in his statement that most Christians are not ready to give such a defense. What he fails to notice, though, is that in most cases, the world is not asking. Until the Church begins to live out the hope that is in us, as an embodied apologetic, our reasoned defenses of faith will fall on deaf ears. We will master the answers to questions that no one is asking.
Love Your God with All Your Mind contains three suggestions that I hope to apply in future ministry.
First, I have begun to see all my reading and study as an act of worship (166-169), not just my seminary or devotional reading. Because of this, I have begun the practice of praying after every chapter of every book I read, thanking God for whatever insights I have learned from the book. This includes non-Christian books as well.
Secondly, I hope to emphasize in my preaching and teaching that all vocations are a calling from God and are not “secular” or cut off from sacred mandate (177-181).
Finally, I believe that worship services should not center only on feelings and sentimental impulse, but on the proper preaching of God’s Word and the doctrines contained therein (158-159). Worship is not successful because it provokes feelings of ecstasy in the worshiper, but because it leaves us with a correct picture of our transcendent, personal God.
Love Your God also leaves me with several questions. How do we convince our churches of the need for intellectual engagement? More specifically, how do we stir up in our people a love for study and reflection? How does the Church’s existence help or hinder the apologetic nature of our evangelistic efforts? How can we compete with the onslaught of entertainment choices in our efforts to cultivate the Christian mind? Should we use entertainment as a springboard to further discussion?
J.P. Moreland’s Love Your God with All Your Mind is a thought-provoking book that deserves to be read by all evangelical Christians. Moreland rightly perceives the damage done to the Church by today’s anti-intellectual climate and he offers sound, biblical suggestions for overcoming this barrier to greater Christian influence.
