The Evangelical Mind
As a follow-up to Rachel Held Evans’ thoughts yesterday on the Scandal of the Evangelical Heart, we thought we would post this reflection by Peter Enns about the Deeper Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. He claims that in the current environment when professors and pastors are constrained by the consequences of asking difficult question, they are not even free to really use their minds with integrity.
From the blog post:
Calling for Evangelical involvement in public academic discourse is useless if trained Evangelicals are legitimately afraid of what will happen to them if they do.
A more basic need is the creation of an Evangelical culture where the exercise of the Evangelical mind is expected and encouraged.
But, with few exceptions, that culture does not exist. The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that degrees, books, papers, and other marks of prestige are valued–provided you come to predetermined conclusions.