10 May 2012

Do you live in an intellectual ghost town?

"While the vast majority of Americans believe in a God, few have well-articulated worldviews. This is revealed in poll after poll showing that high percentages of Americans both (1) believe in God and (2) are moral relativists. This means that God, the ultimate reality in any theistic worldview, has nothing to say about the conduct of one's life. This mass of Christian worldview underachievers includes professing evangelical Christians. A 2003 Barna poll (often the harbinger of grim news, it seems) reported that only 12 percent of evangelicals knew what a worldview is or could provide a proper definition for one. A scant 4 percent said they should know anything about the concept. Added to this are repeated polls indicating massive biblical illiteracy, which may at least partially account for the dearth of evangelical influence in the world of ideas. Many Christians live in an intellectual ghost town and possess ghost minds. They may know something of a rich (but lost) intellectual heritage and be able to point to a few intellectuals "on our side" (like C.S. Lewis), but they have not attuned themselves to the cultivation of their inner map of reality." -Doug Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, pages 77-78.

Based upon my experiences in talking with people, this seems to be an accurate statement.  Many believers, even those beyond nominal faith, lack the ability to clearly articulate and ardently defend a consistent worldview, in some ways because they eschew deep thinking as unnecessary and they don't know what their Bibles say. 

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