Mark Noll, a professor of history at University of Notre Dame, wrote a book back when he was the professor of my college, Wheaton College. The book was "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" and this book addresses the issue that “The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind” It is talking about the anti-intellectualism within the evangelical community, how it has very little institutional influence nowadays in science, art, philosophy, politics and the rest of the spectrum of modern learning.

Now, even though I would disagree with his generalized attack on fundamentalism and creationist by claiming that they are ALL anti-intellectuals (some of them are), I do believe that this is true to some extent for many evangelicals who have a lack of an intellect or an "evangelical mind" with a focus of confronting all aspects of learning.

When comparing to the reformers and the puritans of the past, like John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards, who emphasized the incorporation of all learning into Christianity, the evangelical community may seem to lack it. For my personal experience, it bothers me when I have friends who are Christians who don't care about knowledge and learning and they don't want to learn. Where as I think Christians cannot just plainly say that they believe in their faith, but must also know what they really believe, and integrate faith and learning together.

What do you think? Are we still plagued in a community of anti-intellectual Christians, or is the seeking of knowledge coming on the rise? Or do you think that having a intellectual mind has nothing to do with the Christian faith?

"Or do you think that having a intellectual mind has nothing to do with the Christian faith?"

ALL truth about the world comes from God. He knows everything... so for us to know anything then that is where we get our knowledge. So, anything we learn that is true (that is a the big key) is beneficial to us in my opinion.

And I REALLY dislike the idea among some Christians that religion and science are totally incompatible. I completely disagree with this idea. The problem is that both sides refuse to find common ground.

I think that the intellectual mind is on the rise among Christians. After all, the Christians are digging into science more to find reasonable explanations for Christianity. I don't agree with the assumption that Christians are against knowledge. I think as Christians, we use knowledge to strengthen our faith in God. I think we just look at knowledge differently, and apply it differently.

geeogree : You stole the words right out of my mouth lol. Why, when we claim to believe in the God of absolute truth, would we ignore knowledge? Learning truth gives us more and more ways to give evidence for His hand.
Hoochman : You have a good point there. Institutions like Answers in Genesis show us that Christians truly are beginning to see the importance of knowledge.