Especially that thing that you’re sure it doesn’t.
In John’s prologue we’re told that ‘all things’ were made through Jesus, and that there is nothing that has been made that was made without him. We’re hedged in by the positive and negative affirmations: if it was made, Jesus made it. Paul says something similar in Colossians’ great hymn to Jesus.
So that’s all things with one notable exception: Yahweh. Since the New Testament is at great pains to make it clear to use that Jesus is Lord, i.e. is Yahweh, the God of Israel, the only thing Jesus didn’t make was himself. All things were made by him, and he was not made.
The theologian David Ford comments, on John, that this basically means that Christian thinkers can be interested in absolutely anything they like and how those things relate to each other. A Christian academic (well, he says a philosopher, but we can broaden it) can be interested in as many disciplines as they want and they ways they relate to each other.
Chris Watkin modifies this by reminding us, when he comments on Ford’s claim, that all things are tainted by the fall and so that same Christian academic will find that each discipline is also tainted by sin in its own ways.
I think we can be even broader: Christianity speaks to everything. Everything is a legitimate field for a Christian to consider—though I’m talking about ‘thinking’ I suspect this widens to a host of skills too—and there will be a distinctly Christian way of approaching it. This is not just ‘Christians can be physicists but that they will be Christian physicists. There may even be a Christian physics, but that is a step further than I’ve demonstrated.
Most of my readers aren’t academics, and those who are will find themselves constrained by the fact that most academic institutions do not agree with my assessment there. I would forgive anyone for shrugging their shoulders because it doesn’t mean anything practical.
Last year I wrote that we can’t ‘think or live Christianly’, which I argued was a problem. This is the flip side of that. Christianity speaks to everything. Everything you do is Christian. Everything you do can be thought about Christianly. There is no neutral endeavour.
Most of my readers do want to think about things (sorry if you don’t, but thanks for coming along for the ride!). We should think about every thing that there is as a Christian. Here in the UK, I fear that we are—as a body, me included—so accommodated to our culture that the task is gargantuan. It certainly sounds exhausting.
I think you could apply this idea to encourage a very intense approach to life where we deeply think about every thing we do before we do it and are dour and serious as we try to be good Christians. I think I could have that tendency. Don’t do it. You’ll not have any friends. And you’ll grind your bones to dust under the weight of your own pomposity. And, most importantly, you’ll lose your joy: Christianity is meant to be joyful.
Instead, my suggestion is that you think about the things that you think about, Christianly. What actually occupies your mind? Think about that thing that you are already thinking about, Christianly. In other words, take every thought captive to Jesus (2 Corinthians 10). That isn’t just about not thinking certain ‘bad’ things, but seasoning every thought with reality and love.
Think about the things you think about in reference to Jesus. I can’t tell you what that looks like for everything, I know almost nothing about trains, for example, and don’t know what thinking about them Christianly would be. It must exist. I imagine it starts with loving trains for God’s sake rather than their own, and thanking him for the delight they bring to you. I suspect that it would go further than that.
Of course, if you’re not so inclined then thinking about the theory of history to make sure your historiography is Christian would be of no interest, you just want to enjoy the history you like! Nevertheless, think where you can and give thanks where you aren’t so inclined.
Then, those who have turned their minds to a particular feature and are edging around what thinking about it Christianly might look like, you need to share it with likeminded people to have it sharpened and clarified, and then with unlikeminded people to improve our general mind in Christ.
If your thinking is about something everyday that we all do, it will need a wide distribution to help us all live more Christianly. You’ll have to trust God for that.
I suppose I am proposing a wholesale renaissance in Christian thought. I’m not naïve about the likelihood and well aware that we are not structurally prepared for such a thing. But friends, imagine where we could be in ten generations if our thinkers thought and our teachers taught.
Whether that happens or not, it will in the new creation. Before then, the earth remains the Lord’s, and everything in it.
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash
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