Anemic Faith

My friend Pam sent me a link to a Yahoo News story about a recent Pew study.  The Pew forum sampled over 3000 people about their religious beliefs and some of the conclusions were shocking (or perhaps not).  Self-proclaimed evangelicals reportedly know less about religion than atheists and agnostics.  What was even more surprising was the lack of knowledge that Evangelicals know about their own professed faith.  Lest we evangelicals read the article and think, "well at least we scored better than Catholics," we should rather ask the question about whether we are truly loving God with all of our mind.

Perhaps nominal Christians are afraid that a serious intellectual look into their faith will leave them wanting.  I assure you, it will not.  Perhaps nominal Christians are more focused on their big screen TVs than they are on the sovereign Creator of the universe.  I assure you, He is far more worthy of our attention. 

Individual Christians need to take initiative to learn the Bible and to study it deeply.  Proverbs 4:7 reads, "The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight."  How can we share the gospel with others if we do not even know what we are talking about?  Romans 10:14 says, "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?"  How are we to preach if we don't even know Whom we preach about?!? 

Brothers and sisters, take the initiative and step out of the bumper sticker theology that is a plague in the American church today.  Flee from an anemic faith derived from T-shirts, coffee mugs, and Doctor Phil.  Study the word.  Read early church fathers.  Explore apologetics.  Sit under Biblical teaching and take notes.  

Do not be afraid that your faith will fall short--we have the answers to life.  Go learn them.  

If you want to learn more, here are some places where you can start:

Stand to Reason

Reasonable Faith

White Horse Inn

HT: Thabati Anyabwile for the pic