	Bob Hostetler > Writing

The Christian Mind

by Bob Hostetler

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.

The Marks of the Christian Mind

What does it mean, then, to think Christianly? What are the distinctives of the Christian mind? There are many, of course, but five are most significant.

1. An acknowledgment of the supernatural. As has already been pointed out, a fundamental characteristic of the Christian mind is the perspective of eternity—not just life after death, but the understanding that there exists a reality beyond this world and this life. In other words:

The Christian mind sees human life and human history held in the hands of God. It sees the whole universe sustained by his power and his love. It sees the natural order as dependent upon the supernatural order, time as contained within eternity. It sees this life as an inconclusive experience, preparing us for another; this world as a temporary place of refuge, not our true and final home.

Thinking Christianly means viewing life and labor, politics and pleasure, from the perspective of the supernatural.

2. A holistic view of self and service. “Most conservative Christians today,” says Gary Sweeten, “operate with a dualistic view of life and the universe, a view that is rooted in Gnosticism and Eastern thought. They separate their thinking into sacred and secular, spiritual versus material.” But the Christian view is that of Romans 12:1-2, in which Paul urges Christians to offer their bodies “as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God”—which, he says, is their spiritual worship, and to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. Moreland adds, “Following Christ is not just a little compartment of my whole life, and as long as that compartment called piety or ‘spirituality’ is in line, I’m doing a good job; following Christ affects every part of my life, including my mind,my intellect. There is no room for a sacred/secular separation in the life of Jesus’ followers.”

3. An affirmation of truth. The secular mind asserts the individual as the judge of truth; “you must decide what’s right for you,” it says, “and I must decide what’s right for me.” The Christian mind affirms the nature and character of God himself as the measure of truth; “I am the way and the truth and the life,” Jesus said (John 14:6, NIV). Harry Blamires wrote:

The marks of truth as christianly conceived, then, are that it is supernaturally grounded, not developed within nature; that it is objective and not subjective; that it is a revelation and not a construction; that it is discovered by inquiry and not elected by a majority vote; that it is authoritative and not a matter of personal choice.

4. An awareness of evil. The Christian mind is aware of evil in the world. The man or woman who is thinking Christianly will consciously acknowledge the fall of the human race, and the continuing battle between good and evil, right and wrong, remembering (in the words of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn) that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being”—including ourselves. To quote Blamires again:

The Church would have us turn to the world in judgement, with the utmost clarity and power in our identification of evil, yet in full acceptance of our common guilt—and, finally, with a deeply moving message of hope. For the Christian mind cannot separate from its judgement upon the world and its judgement upon the self, its realization that the world and its inhabitants are nevertheless God’s, by him created and by him redeemed.

5. A high regard for the person.The person who is thinking Christianly will not fail to consider the human element in every equation. In contrast to the claims of Darwinism, human beings are not animals, to be exploited or engineered. In contrast to secularism, human beings are not cogs in a social machine. They are immortal souls, fashioned in the image of God. “Thus,” writes Blamires, “the Christian’s conception of the human person is a high one, his sense of the sacredness of human personality being deeply grounded in revealed theological truth.” This concept, of course, will necessarily influence a thinking Christian’s view of issues regarding life and death, science and health, and race and ethnicity (among others).

These hallmarks of the Christian mind—an acknowledgment of the supernatural, a holistic view of self and service, an awareness of evil, an affirmation of truth, and a high regard for the person—are by no means exhaustive. But they do sketch the basic outlines of the Christian mind.

The Making of the Christian Mind

The development of a Christian mind cannot be accomplished merely by reading an article, or even a series of articles. Nor is it accomplished by reading an entire book, or enrolling in a course. “A mind that is learning to function well,” writes J.P. Moreland, “is both part of and made possible by an overall life that is skillfully lived. . . . You must order your general lifestyle in such a way that a maturing intellect emerges as part of that lifestyle. If you want to develop a Christian mind, you must intend to order your overall form of life to make this possible.”

The first step in the learning to think Christianly is prayer. Make the development of a Christian mind a matter of regular, focused prayer. Enlist the prayers of others in your efforts, and pray for the development of a Christian mind in those around you—your spouse, your children, your friends, your pastor.

Second, try to approach Scripture with “unfamiliar eyes.” Wade Bradshaw suggests, “pray for a new sense of unfamiliarity whenever you open God’s Word. Ask him to let you read it, not for what you think is there, but to read it with unfamiliar eyes, to catch the surprising perspective, the new insight that might challenge your worldview.”

Third, acquire the habit of examining your own life. “The life which is unexamined,” said Plato, “is not worth living.” And Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves. . . . test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5, NIV). Regularly examine your thought and behavior, your opinions and statements, in the light of Romans 12:1-2, and in the light of the five marks of the Christian mind above.

Fourth, cultivate new habits that encourage the development of a Christian mind. J.P. Moreland suggests the following:

Often, when our energy is low. . . we go into a passive mode and turn on the television. I believe that an intellectual life is easier to develop if a person learns to limit television watching and spends more time getting physical exercise. . . Learn to use low-energy times, or moments like after work or dinner, as occasions to engage in physical exercise. Try something. After dinner go for a walk instead of turning on the TV. When you get back, sit down for thirty minutes to an hour and read an intellectually challenging book. The important thing here is to get out of passive ruts, especially those passive couch potato moments, and replace old habits with new ones that create energy to read, reflect, and be more proactive.

This will take effort, of course, but it will quickly become energizing, not draining. Active lifestyles encourage active minds.

Finally, set some goals that will encourage the development of a Christian mind, such as reading a book like The Christian Mind or Love Your God With All Your Mind every six months. Team up with a friend from church and hold each other accountable to read and discuss challenging books and periodicals, tackle specific issues, and develop new habits. Be alert for conferences, seminars, and classes that will stimulate your intellect and help you to think Christianly on various topics.

“If we are going to be wise, spiritual people prepared to meet the crises of our age,” writes J.P. Moreland, “we must be a studying, learning community that values the life of the mind.” We must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We must reflect the mind of Christ to our families, our friends, our churches, and our world. We must pray, in the words of the hymnwriter Francis Ridley Havergal:

“Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose.”

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