Warning Will Robinson

If you understood the words in this title, you are at least as old as me and can remember when the dinosaurs roamed the earth. They are taken from the black and white sci-fi TV series called Lost in Space when a robot (surely the prototype of R2 D2) would warn the star, Will Robinson, when some bizarre interplanetary danger was afoot. This blog topic is a follow-up to our last piece when we explored whether the Bible could be a viable source for truth. I now want to play I want to play the part of the robot (can’t for the life of me remember its name) and warn you about two dangers that threaten all those who would seek to draw close to God through the Bible.

I remember a story that Gordon Fee told us in seminary. In his younger years he was the pastor of a growing Assembly of God church in the Pacific Northwest. The Assemblies are one of the historic Pentecostal denominations and their churches have often been on the experiential side of the reason/experience continuum. One semester Gordon was asked to teach a course in one of the denominational schools. When he got in the classroom he suddenly knew that he had found his niche. He went to his district superintendent and told him that he wanted to go on and get his PhD and teach. The superintendent’s response to Gordon was, “I’d rather be a fool on fire than a scholar on ice.” Gordon said that in that moment he resolved to be a scholar on fire.

This story introduces the possibilities of two opposite errors when reading the Bible. The first is the danger of intellectualism. This was what the superintendant was trying to warn Gordon about. In his experience he had no doubt seen kids go off to seminary on fire for Christ only to find later that their studies had put the fire out. The second is the danger of the overreaction of anti-intellectualism where one affirms a false dichotomy that prefers experiential Christianity over the use of the mind. Both extremes are wrong so I want to take a few minutes to address them.

The problem of intellectualism
Ultimately, we are spiritual beings, and the head must be submitted to the heart (by heart we do not mean “emotions” but that part of a human being created to receive communication from God). This doesn’t mean that knowledge gained at the heart level is subjective or unreliable. What it means is that, as the apostle Paul said, it is the eyes of the heart that first must be opened (Eph. 1.18; cf. 1 Cor. 2.11: “no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God”).

Imagine going to a fine restaurant, studying the menu, salivating at the thought of fine food, tipping the waitress and then leaving. That’s a ridiculous scenario. We study the menu to eat the meal! Let’s not become so enamored with the menu that we forget to partake of the meal, which is a personal relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ, mediated through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is the menu, and study it we must. We want to know everything about the heavenly meals, but an intellectualism that stops there has missed the whole point. Passionate love for Jesus at the level of the heart must fuel all our intellectual pursuits.

The problem of anti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism is, first of all, primarily a reaction, whether consciously or unconsciously, against the opposite error, which is the exaltation of the mind over experience. Both of these extremes are unbiblical.
Reason, logic and common sense are a part of God himself. God gave us our mind in order to be able to think, receive communication from him, and make godly choices.

It was God who exhorted Isaiah, “Come, let us reason together” (1.18). It was Paul who told Timothy to, “Think on these things, and the Lord will give you insight into them” (2 Tim. 2.7). In Proverbs 3.5-6, it says that we are not to lean on our own understanding, but it never says not to use it! In Luke 24.45, it says that Jesus opened the minds of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus so they could understand the Scriptures. In Acts it was the Berea Jews who were more noble than the other Jews in Greece because they “searched the Scriptures daily to see if the things Paul was saying were true” (Acts 17.11).

Modernism’s failure to affirm the limitations and purpose of reason must not force us into an overreaction against the true purpose of common sense and logic. The biblical posture is to affirm both reason and experience as valid and necessary for a balanced Christian life. This is what I call the “radical middle” (a term I actually heard from Fee to explain what it meant to be a scholar on fire i.e., those who hold Word and Spirit in proper tension). As was said above, reason and experience form checks and balances for each other. Does what seems reasonable make sense out of experience? Does what we are experiencing make sense out of biblical reason?

Some more problems with anti-intellectualism
• Anti-intellectualism is an inconsistent position because those who affirm it are consciously using logic to support their system.
• Anti-intellectualism can be an excuse for not wanting to do serious Bible study out of the fear that it might indicate the need for repentance and change.
• Anti-intellectualism is often espoused by those not gifted or drawn to the areas of school, books or study. It is, of course, OK not to prefer this arena, but it is not OK to project this preference onto others.
• Anti-intellectualism can often be an excuse for laziness.

An autobiographical finale
I vividly remember when Dr. Fee said that he wanted to be a scholar on fire that I said the same things in my heart. My trajectory after seminary, however, did not take me to the classroom but to the pastorate. In my twenty-five years in the Vineyard movement, a more experiential movement like the Assemblies, I have functioned as one of the teachers among our churches. I have regularly felt the pressure to be more experiential. In my pursuit of scholarship I had the opposite pressure. Scholarly evangelicals have continually questioned my commitment to the Vineyard as my personal choice of churches. In the end I have refused to capitulate on either side. I have always wanted to give my flocks a good look at the menu and then lead them to a four course meal of the risen Christ as he rules his Church through the Holy Spirit. Push me however you want. Ain’t budgin’.