Saturday, February 18, 2012

A Christian mind

Christian conversion means a total renewal. Complete salvation means the renewal of heart, soul, strength and it definitely includes our mind.

In 1963, Anglican theologian Harry Blamires laments,
“There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality. As a moral being, the modern Christian subscribes to a code other than that of the non-Christian. As a member of the church, he understands obligations and observations ignored by the non-Christian. As a spiritual being, in prayer and meditation, he strives to cultivate a dimension of life unexplored by the non-Christian. But as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion - its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues within the context of the eternal view which relates all human problems - social, political, cultural - the doctrinal foundations of the Christian Faith, the view which sees all things here below in terms of God's supremacy and earth's transitoriness, in terms of Heaven and Hell." (The Christian Mind, pp 3-4)

50 years later, thinking Christians are still few and far between. Why?

Because developing a Christian mind takes time and effort. It requires reading, knowing and submitting to the authority of the Bible. It requires a wrestling with the secular thoughts and culture.

Our fallen humanity is used to mixing lies and packaging man’s wisdom as gospel truth. Its premise is this-worldly and its arguments persuasive. But with prayer and obedience to God’s Word, we “have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor 10:4-5)

May Harry Blamires not be able to indict us with the same words 50 years from now.