Christian Formation III
If we’re formed by what we think, what we feel, and what we do—as I’ve argued we are—how does being formed by what we think work?
You do actually need to learn the faith. We balk at this, for good reasons. Can knowledge of the Bible puff up rather than lead us into the fruit of the Spirit? Undoubtedly. That’s a good concern. Can we treat learning the ‘content’ of the Bible and theology like a work that justifies us before the Lord? That’s possible yes. I think it’s less common than people who decry it are, but it definitely could happen. We aren’t rescued by Jesus because of our knowledge, we’re rescued by his mighty arm and his humility that meant he would stoop to scoop us up.
So, is it reasonable for me to say that we need to, when clearly you can be saved without it? People also seem concerned that we’re suggesting there’s a mental aptitude required for faith, which would clearly be nonsense. Many devoted followers of Jesus would not score well on an IQ test. Though we should note that in both the UK and the US you’re more likely to go to church weekly if you’re highly educated, correlation does not imply causation.
I think it is reasonable to say we need to learn the faith, not because it saves, but because we’re supposed to grow up mature in the Lord. Maturity is not knowing the Bible well either, but it does include discipling our minds. In the charismatic and Pentecostal worlds in the UK, this is unusual. It’s perhaps less unusual in certain conservative evangelical circles, and we can learn from them as they can from us, but we need to have our minds formed towards the faith. Not to the exclusion of our hearts and lives, but in concert with them.
We can have all the things.
Does this mean I want much more theological preaching? Not necessarily, though obviously that depends what you’re usually getting! What I’d love to see is churches taking this seriously and so providing opportunities for people to develop their minds too. There will be some instruction on a Sunday, but you’re always talking to a mixed group and are aiming for shallow and deep at the same time, which means you have limited opportunities. We should use them as well as we can.
Beyond that, there are numerous things we can to foster people’s minds within the church that go further than recommending a good book or podcast for people to absorb on their own. Regular readers won’t be surprised at any of them, and I’ll take my time to outline my suggestions later in this ongoing series.
The point I’m making here is that growing towards Jesus requires you to work on your heart, yes, and on your life—your habits and community—but also your mind. This works in two ways.
Firstly, we acquire knowledge. Perhaps we learn a creed and then start to dig into what it means. We begin to see reality through the prisms of these new ideas. This story starts to renarrate our internal story (though that’s our ‘hearts’) but also the stories we’re told and encounter in the world around us. We learn to see differently. We (slowly) learn to apply this knowledge to the vexing questions of our age. We discover that this repository contains what we need. We go further and learn that the Bible is full of weird and wonderful depth that shows us Christ and shows us humanity. We learn to discern truth from error. We learn to discern our own hearts, and to some extent those of others. We learn to see patterns.
Secondly, our minds are shaped by this acquisition. If our minds were a field, then the story of the gospel starts to plough furrows for us—or irrigation channels, perhaps—that slowly our thoughts start to flow down. Slowly we find not just that we can take these facts and stories and apply them, but that they shape the way that we think. I don’t expect most of us to think hard about epistemology or theological method, even most Pastors aren’t going to do that, but we find that the way that we approach the world is being changed. We think in more Christian ways. We notice that our friends who don’t know Jesus think differently about things, and when Christians think in modes which are the same as those friends.
This is difficult to falsify. It can become easy to wave your hands and write off those who disagree with you about something as those who just can’t ‘think Christianly.’ Since we should learn some humility (including epistemic humility) we shouldn’t be doing that, but we should be noticing it. It’s understandable, it takes all of us time to relearn everything. I’ve seen these changes in how I think over time, I suspect there is much more to come. That humility is important too: we haven’t arrived until we see him face-to-face.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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