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…our lives are often fractured and fragmented, with our faith firmly locked into the private realm of the church and family, where it rarely has a chance to inform our life and work in the public realm. The aura of worship dissipates after Sunday, and we unconsciously absorb secular attitudes the rest of the week. We inhabit two separate “worlds,” navigating a sharp divide between our religious life and ordinary life.
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Nancy Pearcey (author of Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity)
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William Lane Craig has observed that, “Our churches are filled with people who are spiritually born again, but who still think like non-Christians.” This is hard to hear, but more often than not, it is a true assessment. Christians don’t value thinking well much anymore. But Christians aren’t alone; this is symptomatic of our culture as well. Ravi Zacharias laments that “Thinking is a dying discipline in a society that throbs with activity.” Now the Christian faith concerns far more than intellectual issues, but certainly no less!
Since all truth is God’s truth, Christians are committed to seeking the truth wherever it is found, and a “commitment to truth implies, in turn, a resolve to cultivate the mind as a part of our discipleship under the Lordship of Christ.” Jesus Christ perfectly modeled what living a life of integrated devotion looks like (Luke 10:27). We must not lose sight of the close connection between truth, worship, and the knowledge of God. As Mark Noll eloquently puts it, “It is not simply advantageous to love the Lord with the mind; it is good, sweet, holy, beautiful, and honoring to God. The last reward to be had from the exercise of a Christian mind is to know God better, and that reward requires no other justification.”
Philosopher Jay Wood does well to remind us all of the fact that, “Your intellectual life is important…for the simple reason that your very character, the kind of person you are and are becoming, is at stake. Careful oversight of our intellectual lives is imperative if we are to think well, and thinking well is an indispensable ingredient to living well.” We are not to allow the world to squeeze our minds and patterns of thinking into its mold (Rom. 12:1-2). Rather, the truth revealed by God in His Word and in creation is to shape the way we think and live. And this can only be achieved if we are not passive in our thought life. The bottom line is that while everyone is not called to be a scholar (and thank goodness for that!!!); we are all called to think Christianly about all of life to God’s glory.
Christians need encouragement. Christ followers are constantly being told through certain elements of the media that religion (and by extension Christianity) is only a matter of private / personal belief and therefore should not have a place in the public realm. This is simply false. Also our culture generally frowns upon any worldview that allows for the supernatural and so as a result Christians are repeatedly told that all that is real is what can be apprehended through the five senses (i.e., that which is seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard). This too is false. The “spiritual” realm is just as real as the “physical.” But the constant barrage of these ideas takes its toll on the spiritual health and passion of Christ-followers.
As Christians we are God’s ambassadors to the world (
2 Cor. 5:17-21). Ambassadors interact with the ideas of a culture and then represent their sovereign in the midst of those ideas. As ambassadors for Jesus Christ we need to know God’s Word, be prepared to share the gospel, daily strive to live in the power of the Holy Spirit, and recognize that we are not to “go it alone” but rather do life and ministry together in authentic community. On top of this, we need to be equipped to be the best ambassador for Jesus Christ we can be to the specific part of the world (i.e., workplace, education, neighborhood, network of friends, families, children, law, politics, and government) God has commissioned us to. This takes time, resources and most of all intentionality. ThinkChristianly.org exists to equip Christ-followers with the tools and resources they need to be the best ambassador for Christ they can be right where they are at with the gifts God has given.
We use the terminology of “Christ Follower” because it indicates an active trust, a humble dependence and dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ.
What we think about matters. Christian Philosopher J.P. Moreland rightly states that “beliefs are the rails upon which our lives run” and “we almost always act according to what we really believe.” As Christian we are called to love God with our minds (
Luke 10:27) and to have our minds renewed (
Rom 12:1-2). We are to take “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (
2 Cor 10:5). This is not a cold intellectualism, but a passionate pursuit and application of the Truth God has revealed.
There should be no separation between a Christian’s private and public life. If Christianity is True, then it is True for more than just two hours on a Sunday morning. Our charge is to live all of life to the glory of God (
1 Cor 10:31).