Editorial

Thinking in stereo

Sometimes I just want to go back to the bush! By "the bush" I mean the wilderness of Africa, where I was born.

Willmore D. Eva is the former editor of Ministry Magazine.

Sometimes I just want to go back to the bush! By "the bush" I mean the wilderness of Africa, where I was born. When I feel enclosed, a captive of the artificial sophistication of silicon-chips and materialistic mazes, I long for the simple untouched bush that was mine as a boy. But I barely begin to luxuriate in those memories when I am unmercifully pulled back to the realities of my present world.

A similar thing happens with my Christianity. Confronted by the bewildering torrents of shifting thought, at times I long to return to the quiet cur rents that once made up my faith. This is a common and profound longing, 1 think, especially in conservative Christians these days; the desire to return to something more primal and simple, to the way it was, however mythical that way might actually be.

But, try as we might, as Thomas Wolfe once wrote, "You can't go home again."

Because of this we have developed elaborate mechanisms to reassure our selves as we search for the feelings of certainty that once were one of our most prized possessions. One significant way we build protective walls around ourselves is to deny the immense need to rethink the essentials of our faith in the light of current paradigm shifts. This is a very significant part of our role as spiritual leaders among our people. It is something we cannot leave undone with the hope that some how things will get better.

Of course, it is true that much con temporary thinking, especially a lot of the rethinking that has gone on, has ushered in corruption and confusion, both moral and spiritual, all of which we want to avoid. But the fear of this corruption should never lead us to stop thinking and praying deeply, because any form of well-practiced denial always leads to false security and further confusion. To dive under the incoming waves of changing perspective (eyes tightly shut) is no guarantee that we will surface on the far-side, in the calm we once had before the waves first swept over us. Inevitably as we surface, another wave is just ahead.

Of course, thinking by itself, no matter how deep it might be, is a futile pastime. The transcendent, uninhibited work of the Holy Spirit is indispensable to us here and now. It is a matter of carefully re-thinking our faith fundamentals in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Genuine spirituality, authentic thought—these are by no means mutually exclusive.

"Martyn Lloyd-Jones ... addressed a conference in 1941 that was called to assess reasons for the intellectual weakness of British evangelicals that then seemed so obvious to its own leaders as well as to outside observers ... [He] first highlighted the kind of ardent supernaturalism, which was manifest in the United States . . . which lessened the need of scholarship."1 These sincere approaches, he showed, reduced any real interest in a deeper, more thoughtful scholarship. He described the "false simplicity" behind the idea that any significant use of the human intellect is to be suspected as dangerous to the faith. He was concerned that it was generally considered unlikely by some that a good theologian could at the same time be a holy person.2

Lloyd-Jones's last diagnostic description concerns me. It is the notion prevalent today in many Christian circles, that a deep-thinking minister cannot also be holy. This is an ill-founded suspicion that soon leads, I fear, to simple intellectual laziness—a potent enemy to God's high calling to real, complete Christian ministry.

In all of this lies the essential virtue: That of bringing into balance a manifestation of our whole person as ministers of Christ; that we be both good, responsible thinkers and, at the same time, holy, dynamic persons. Power lies in devoting our whole being to God. The Holy Spirit can use such a holistic dedication all the more effectively.

As watershed shifts in our thinking and perspective occur, we must minister in stereo.

The greatest Christians are those who lived and ministered stereophonically— with heart and mind, in Spirit and in truth. We must and we can master the art of pastoral surround sound.

The disrespect for Christians and Christianity, prevalent in so much of contemporary culture, is largely due to our trying to do ministry in monaural mode.

We can pray, and we can think, and we can become Christian ministers in the fullest sense of our highest calling.

The bush is fine. Most of us, however, just can't live there anymore. And that is increasingly so the world over.

1 Mark A. Noll. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub- Co., 1994), 123.

2 Ibid., 124.


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Willmore D. Eva is the former editor of Ministry Magazine.

November 2001

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