Reddit reviews The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

There is a whole book on that observation

Was supposed to read it in college for a class... never did

I got to study philosophy as an undergrad in college before turning to theology at a Presbyterian grad. school, and I ran circles around many of my friends when it came to systematics. Of course, there were also others who ran circles around me, but I digress...

Many Protestant theological institutions require or at least offer the study of philosophy in tandem with theology. Unfortunately, philosophy is typically not as highly regarded in a contemporary Protestant milieu as sees to be the case in a Roman Catholic context. I'm not sure exactly why this is, but the ramifications vis-a-vis Noll's Scandal of the Evangelical Mind are hardly surprising. I think a lot of Protestants have a hard time figuring out how to love God with all their minds despite Deut.6:5, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27, etc. It's as if we have overly sentimentalized our faith such that heart and mind are put at odds, where being faithful all too often requires suppressing rationality rather than submitting it joyfully to Christ's lordship along with everything else.

On this point, I find it really instructive to return to Deut.5 with the understanding that the rational and emotive parts of oneself were regarded as being mutually seated in the heart in an ancient Near Eastern perspective. Sort of reminds me of the way that Socrates partitions the soul into rational, passionate, and appetitive elements rather than just pitting the rational against the emotive.

Try some Mark Noll

> But I also think that God made man and woman separately than the other living organisms.

It should bother you that the science experts you want to associate with say that view is ridiculous.

You can't have it both ways. Either reject the relevant science or accept it. I'm pretty sure you are not qualified to know why basically nobody publishing in the field (including the one you brought up) rejects it, making you unqualified to reject it yourself. Furthermore, by rejecting it you condemn your views to the dustbin of history. Not today, not tomorrow, but in a very small number of generations if you don't start taking reality seriously.

Here's a book by another ex-BioLogos employee you might really want to consider reading, as well as Mark Noll's classic text.

> There's really no fear of Christianity growing extinct any time soon, either. The number of Christians is growing as of right now.

In the developed world, it's dropping like a stone. The US is an outlier for the same reasons we are not like most of the developed world with their guaranteed healthcare, lower crime,and most importantly lower income inequality. Even so, protestant Christianity in the US is dropping quite quickly now also, especially among young people. The main reasons seem to be what is seen as the unwarranted confidence of the church in demonizing everything they don't understand, the anti-gay teachings of the church, and rejection of science.

One of the few things Josh McDowell and I agree on is that the Internet has changed the game. The strategy of insulating your children from facts and dissenting opinions that has served theological fundamentalists and evangelicals so well for the past 100 years is at it's end. It's time to change strategy and face facts, or go extinct.

As a rule, no. I don't think stupidity is more prevalent among Christians. The criticism I find myself suppressing the most frequently is that many Christians, particularly Evangelical Protestants, seem glib and incurious to me. I am not alone in this assessment.