Intellectuals and the Church

“Jesus didn’t call smart people.”

It took me a few moments to recover—did one of the pastors in my church really just say that Jesus didn’t call smart people?

“What about Paul,” I asked. The pastor responded: “Paul became a fool for Christ, and foolishness always means lacking intelligence. Peter wasn’t smart, the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus were not smart …”

I continued, “What about Matthew, Luke, and … ??” The pastor persisted: “When you walk in the church door, you need to give up your riches and knowledge. Both cause division and support pride.”

I sought a new church, but this led me to think about anti-intellectualism.

We tend to believe that the modern Western world is very intellectual. We have medicine, science, computers, the ability to solve almost any problem through engineering, and “modern government.” We fail to see the anti-intellectual current under the avalanche of knowledge. There is a difference between knowing things and clear thinking.

Modern churches, for the most part, have followed the world in wanting to know things without thinking. This might sound harsh, but let’s consider the evidence.

How often have you heard something like: “Knowing about God doesn’t matter—what matters is experiencing God”? Why do we believe knowing and experiencing contradict one another? Consider Matthew 12:22–24:

Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”

The crowds and Pharisees saw the same thing but interpreted their shared experience differently.

Is this because the Pharisees were “educated” and the crowds “were not?” Do the Scriptures actually say: “Everyone who was educated said … but the crowd, which consisted only of uneducated people said …?”

Is there anywhere in the Scriptures we can turn to support an animus against education, and thinking? The Scriptures seem to portray education and intelligence as somewhat beside the point when comes to faith.

Pharaoh was formally educated and the elders of Israel were (presumably) not—yet they both misunderstood the initial few miracles of the Exodus. Daniel and the Magi were both educated in the same schools, as it were, and yet they had different reactions to dreams and events.

That we even read “educated” and “not educated” into these passages shows how deeply anti-intellectualism permeates our culture.

Think about these two statements:

• Our thinking about God is useless without a spiritual connection to God.

• We cannot understand our spiritual connection with God without proper thinking about God.

While we often think the first is true and the second is not, both statements are true.

Every miracle in the Scriptures can only be rightly understood within a theological framework. How do we learn to think rightly about God? Through a proper education.

The problem is not education. It is that so much of our education is the misbegotten child of poor thinkers focused on telling us what rather than how to think. We have built an educational system that seeks quick fixes rather than intellectual virtue.

Anti-intellectualism’s Effects

Our anti-intellectualism is driving people away from Christianity. Why should clear thinkers seeking the truth place any stock in a church that says things like: “Jesus didn’t call smart people” or even: “You shouldn’t pursue a theological education because it will just mess you up?” Should saying: “You need a deeper experience of God,” impress someone asking serious questions about the shape and content of our faith?

We place experience first. Then, we whine when people leave Christianity because Satan seems to offer better experiences (at least in the short term).

Our anti-intellectualism is causing crises of faith. I often encounter people who are questioning their Christian faith. Rather than digging into theology and learning more about God, they almost universally dig into their feelings. They often “give up” their knowledge in this process, becoming weaker Christians who are eventually becoming Ephesians 4:14 Christians. They move into “liberal” churches where “love is the answer,” but no one really knows what the question was any longer.

Our anti-intellectualism fails to prepare people for real problems in the real world. Churches are so afraid of theological discussion and church splits that we no longer talk about anything of substance. We say things like: “I don’t care about the end times or salvation theology, or … I just want to help paint this public school and spread the name of Jesus.”

I wonder how Paul would react. Would we even accept Paul in a modern church after he confronted Peter face-to-face over something we would likely consider a deep point of theology? “Hey, Paul, get back to painting and handing out tracts!”

Countering Anti-intellectualism

What can we do? I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some thoughts on the attitude of anti-intellectualism we have allowed to creep into our churches.

First, don’t confuse a degree with an education or good thinking skills. Everyone knows someone (or lots of people) with degrees who are not good thinkers.

However, we often forget the opposite is also true. Not having a degree does not make you a better thinker. Contrary to popular belief (and what I’ve heard from many pulpits), college does not ruin everyone. Seek the person’s attitude rather than what degrees they have—or have not—earned. Percentages don’t matter. People do.

Second, if someone wants to seek an education, don’t discourage them. Encourage them to have the right attitude towards education and build a solid faith foundation before and during the process.

“But so many people lose their faith in college …” Yes, and many people lose their faith going to Nirvana concerts, going to Christian concerts, listening to pastors on Sunday morning, watching popular television shows, and in the company or union required DEI training.

Life is full of potholes. If you want to avoid all of them, don’t live. If you want to live, build your strength up so you can take the potholes. There aren’t any other choices on the menu.

If you decry theological education, don’t use commentaries of any kind, and don’t say things like “scholars say” in your sermons. The people you quote are considered scholars because they spent the time and effort getting a theological education.

Third, learning to think well requires work. Trying to build your thinking skills by only reading things you agree with is like trying to build muscle by lifting balloons. Building muscle requires working against effective resistance. Building thinking skills requires engaging people you don’t agree with.

Many pastors fear teaching theology because they don’t want to be challenged—“being challenged undermines my authority.” Many pastors teach theology while claiming it isn’t theology. Many pastors refuse even to support theological inquiry in their churches because “it might cause a division.”

Discouraging theological discussion might prevent all these things, but it also creates weak-minded Christians and weak churches unable to face the real world. God never calls on us to have perfect theology. God does, however, call on us to learn and think.

The Bottom Line

We look at the world through stained glass windows and think: “The world is so intellectual … if I offer feelings and emotional support, the world will flock to my church.” Whether this was true a hundred years ago is questionable—but it definitely is not true today.

Modern culture is not intellectual—it is anti-intellectual. If Christians want to stand out, we need to be counter-cultural. We need to dive into the Scriptures intellectually. We need to study theology and the best thinkers. We must pit ourselves against the best intellectual arguments every detractor can bring.

If you want to be counter-cultural, learn to think.