The Scandal

I just finished reading Mark Noll’s landmark book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. The book is over 12 years old now, but it strikes me as deeply relevant still. Noll is a historian, but he describes the book “not [as] a thoroughly intellectual volume” but more as “a historical mediation in which sermonizing and the making of hypotheses vie with more ordinary exposition” (from the preface). His thesis in a nutshell is that despite a rigorous, colorful history of American evangelical intellectual study, the fruits of that history have yielded anti-intellectualism which is, Noll argues, an affront to the Creator God who has made all things, including the human mind, to be good. To pursue a life of the mind in a Christian context means to use God’s gift of thinking and study for the glory of God and the edification of the Body of Christ. In essence, evangelicals today need to realize their historical place and identity instead of plastering their cultural (though not perceived so) slogans across the walls of the world and decreeing that these slogans are the essential elements of the Christian faith. They are “distinctive…not essential to Christianity” (243, emphasis his).

This last point is, I think, hugely important, though I as a new pastor am still not quite sure how to translate this to people in the parish. Being a Covenant minister, I can point to the Covenant Affirmations: The centrality of the Scriptures; The necessity of new birth; The Church as a fellowship of believers; The ministry of the Holy Spirit; The reality of freedom in Christ; and the commitment to the whole mission of the Church. I can also quote the phrase: “In essentials—unity; in non-essentials—liberty; in all our beliefs—charity.”

In the last chapter, Noll discusses whether there is hope for the evangelical mind. Again, he reiterates that evangelicals need a historical self-understanding in order help cultivate the evangelical mind. Not only that, but evangelicals need a broader understanding of the world, a willingness to balance activism with study, and healthy ecumenical cross-pollination with other denominations (which seems to be happening more today).

One of my enduring frustrations with many evangelicals has been their disdain for the intellect, their blind acceptance of the Bible, and their assumption that their understandings of how one comes to know God (personal conversion, personal relationship, personal devotions, personal faith) should be standard for all Christians. There is nothing innately wrong with these understandings, but they need to be understood for what they are—specifically Evangelical (capital E). A Roman Catholic would lean more towards the importance of the Mass, being a part of the Church, and following the Church’s teachings—that is part of what makes Roman Catholicism distinctive.

When I came to the University of Portland as a cock-sure evangelical, the Catholicism there threw me. I went through several interwoven stages: all-out condemnation, curious conversation, discovery of commonalities, appreciation of differences, and flirtation with conversion. Now as a (more-or-less) evangelical in ministry, I continue to wrestle with my “Catholic upbringing,” wondering whether I am home or running away. I do grow to realize, however, that my exposure to Catholicism was rather golden—at a university rather than at a local parish. Things always look and feel better at the university (whether or not they actually are). There were plenty of nominal Catholics—the kind we evangelicals have been so quick to condemn—but there were also plenty of devout Catholics for whom faith was indubitably alive and active.

I think these two experiences of mine--going to a Catholic school as an evangelical, and reading Noll's book--are important for me because: the first made me evaluate what I believed in contrast to the environment around me; the second made me more acutely aware of my historical and cultural DNA.

It will not do, then, simply to “agree to disagree,” to “live and let live.” That is not life together. That is not seeking Christian unity. Sadly, we can use our commonality--faith in Christ--as the end rather than the beginning of the conversation. And, as Noll has argued, we elevate our distinctives without understanding them as such. What might happen when we are given the space to allow for a pluralistic expression of faith in Christ, rather than make our evangelically distinctive expression the essential and standard by which one talks about faith?