A white building stands near my home. Heavy oak doors guard the entrance. Stained glass windows adorn each side. A cross rises from a single bell tower at its front, and the cornerstone still declares the date this particular structure was dedicated, over a hundred years ago, “to the glory of God.”
But it’s not a church. Not anymore. It’s called “The Choir Loft,” and it houses a business that sells fabrics and craft items. The structure looks like a church, but it is no longer Christian because it no longer functions Christianly.
That building symbolizes what has happened among Christians in the past century. Most of us still look, act, and speak like Christians, but inside—in our minds—we function no differently from our non-Christian colleagues and coworkers, acquaintances and antagonists. “There is no longer a Christian mind,” wrote Harry Blamires over thirty years ago in his classic, The Christian Mind. In other words, we may think as Americans or Canadians, Kenyan or Laotian. We may have a Midwestern or southern frame of reference. Our thinking may be colored by our race, ethnicity, or gender. Our perspective may be Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative. But with few exceptions, we do not think Christianly; we approach issues from a thoroughly secular perspective.
“To think secularly,” Blamires wrote, “is to think within a frame of reference bounded by the limits of our life on earth. . . . To think christianly is to accept all things with the mind as related, directly or indirectly, to man’s eternal destiny as the redeemed and chosen child of God.” Yet, for the most part, we form opinions on politics, economics, commerce, history, art, literature, entertainment, sports, family, law, technology, philosophy, and science without a thought for how the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) should inform our conclusions. We sometimes choose and (especially) pursue our vocations in much the same way as do our non-Christian colleagues. We treat fortune and misfortune, authority and celebrity in ways that are indistinguishable from those around us.
In doing so, however, we cheat the world and ourselves.
The Rewards of the Christian Mind
“The spiritual man,” Paul the Apostle wrote, “makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:15, 16, NIV).
The man or woman who learns to think Christianly is empowered, in a way the secular-thinking Christian is not, to “understand what God has freely given us” (1 Corinthians 2:12, NIV). This occurs because thinking Christianly is obedience to God and his Word. God will reward those who love him with heart and soul and mind (Matthew 22:37), who are transformed by the renewing of their minds (Romans 12:2). These rewards will take several forms, among which are:
1. An antidote for confusion. Gary Sweeten, author of Rational Christian Thinking and director of the Lifeway family of ministries, says, “There is enormous confusion in our culture these days, and it looks impossible to make any sense of today’s cultural, ethical, and moral climate. Thinking Christianly can prevent that overwhelming sense of confusion by giving us a set of lenses for the mind.” A man or woman who has never seen a chess game may watch the game being played for hour after hour, and may even form opinions regarding certain pieces, players, and strategies; but imagine if that same person were to sit down next to a true master who explains the invisible rules, strategies, and purpose behind every move. Now imagine the change of expression that would appear on the novice’s face as confusion disappeared, replaced with insight and informed judgment. That is what can happen for a man or woman who begins to perceive the world around him or her with the mind of Christ.
2. A new sense of empowerment. J.P. Moreland, professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and author of Love Your God With All Your Mind, says that many of us as Christians have a sense “that society’s going crazy, and we don’t know what to do about it. We watch the news and see our values trashed . . . and we end up feeling disempowered and frustrated.” But learning to think Christianly can change that, he says. “I’ll never forget a man named Bob who came up to me after a twelve-week class I taught on Christian apologetics. With tears running down his cheeks, he thanked me for treating him like an adult, and said that he had always been embarrassed and afraid to speak up in his workplace, but the previous week had shared his faith with three coworkers because for the first time he felt he had some answers, some insight.”
3. An increased sense of meaning and enjoyment in life. “It’s obvious,” says Dr. Wade Bradshaw, former director of the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary, “that our culture knows very little about meaning and enjoyment. Our society has very little grasp of true sexual enjoyment, for example. People live only for the weekend, but the weekend leaves them feeling empty and unfulfilled. Thinking Christianly is an antidote to the boredom, depression, and cynicism that pervades the world around us, because enjoyment increases as understanding grows.” The more you understand a movie, for example, and what it is trying to say, the deeper will be your appreciation of it. The more you understand the world, and everything that’s in it, from a Christian perspective, the richer and fuller will be your enjoyment of it.
4. A greater sense of fulfillment in friendships. J.P. Moreland points out that Aristotle described three levels of friendship: friendships based on usefulness, those based on pleasure, and the highest level, when people band together around a conception of the good life, and their friendship involves mutual stimulation and encouragement in the pursuit of wisdom, character, knowledge, and virtue. “That’s New Testament koinonia, as far as I can see,” Moreland says. “Friendship should involve being fully informed and fully Christian. If I want to be a good friend, I need to bring all that I can to my fellowship with others, and the more stimulating I become, the more fulfillment I’ll be able to get—and give—in my relationships.”
5. A deeper sense of meaning in vocation. Dr. Bradshaw, currently on staff at L’Abri Fellowship, a residential Christian study center in England, relates the experience of a Chinese scientist who came to L’Abri believing that the Gospel was true, but that his scientific pursuits were somehow separate from his Christian beliefs. One day, in the middle of a conversation, his eyes opened wide, and he said, “Oh, but you mean it is true,” meaning the Christian message was not just a “religious”message but that the truth of Christianity could actually inform his pursuit of scientific knowledge. He returned to China with a new enthusiasm for his faith and his vocation. While some fields present greater challenges than others to someone working to integrate his or her Christian discipleship into a career, there is no area of life and no vocation in which the truth and reality of the Gospel doesn’t have some application.
6. An enhanced ability to deal with hardship. Thinking Christianly will also give a new perspective to life’s struggles and misfortunes. For example, the woman who has the mind of Christ will be better equipped to endure physical affliction with a sense of worth and dignity, knowing that her significance is not rooted in her appearance or her health, but in an understanding of what it means to be a human being created in the image of God. A man who loses his job will certainly struggle with the difficulties of his situation, but if he is thinking Christianly, he will be aided by a perspective that is rooted not in temporal ease or pleasure but in the priorities of eternity.
Former SA officer
USA East & USA Nat’l HQ
Copyright © 2005, Bob Hostetler, use only with permission.
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