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Anti-Intellectualism: Difference between revisions
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Unfortunately, much of modern Christianity is guilty of a drippy sentimentality, or worse, of sensationalism. With the latter, preachers sound more like religious professional wrestlers hyping an audience. We seem more interested in trying to create emotional feeling than in providing an understanding of God and wisdom for living. As a result, many of the world say to Christians, ''“Your thinking is too superficial for the complexity of the world in which we live.”'' Christians have reacted against the extremes of this world without thinking through the implications of their choices. This needs to change. A church should be a place for analysis, reflection, and reasoned discussion about the significance of the gospel. Christians should have a reputation as people who think.<ref>Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 88–89.</ref> | Unfortunately, much of modern Christianity is guilty of a drippy sentimentality, or worse, of sensationalism. With the latter, preachers sound more like religious professional wrestlers hyping an audience. We seem more interested in trying to create emotional feeling than in providing an understanding of God and wisdom for living. As a result, many of the world say to Christians, ''“Your thinking is too superficial for the complexity of the world in which we live.”'' Christians have reacted against the extremes of this world without thinking through the implications of their choices. This needs to change. A church should be a place for analysis, reflection, and reasoned discussion about the significance of the gospel. Christians should have a reputation as people who think.<ref>Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 88–89.</ref> | ||
=Anti-intellectualism in the message= | |||
If you follow anti-intellectualism to its logical conclusion, if and when your faith is tested, you can’t defend it, because you have divorced your spirituality from any connection to logic or reason. The only recourse is to throw out one shallow, emotional, logical fallacy after another, trying to cut the legs from under many things that a reasonable person believes to be true, in order to associate their beliefs with those “truisms”, scripture, science, etc. | If you follow anti-intellectualism to its logical conclusion, if and when your faith is tested, you can’t defend it, because you have divorced your spirituality from any connection to logic or reason. The only recourse is to throw out one shallow, emotional, logical fallacy after another, trying to cut the legs from under many things that a reasonable person believes to be true, in order to associate their beliefs with those “truisms”, scripture, science, etc. | ||
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Meanwhile, every single discovery of fact in the life and ministry of William Branham does just the opposite, making the position of “message believer” an increasingly untenable position. | Meanwhile, every single discovery of fact in the life and ministry of William Branham does just the opposite, making the position of “message believer” an increasingly untenable position. | ||
=References= | |||
<References/> | |||