Thinking Christianly – a conversation with colleagues
Sabbath Seminar
So I want to continue this exploration today with the help of three colleagues. I want to begin by asking the basic question, what is Christian Thinking? Next I want to point to one example that might be helpful in visualizing what it can look like. Then I want to ask my three colleagues to give us some of their insights out of their own disciplines. Finally, I want to engage you in dialog with us about what it all means, and where we might go from here.
What is Christian thinking?
- It is thinking. That is, it is rational activity. It is not emotional irrationality, yet it recognizes the role of emotions in human rationality. It is holistic.
- It is Christian. That is, it is thinking that is engaged in by Christians and easily identifiable as such.
- It is Christian in that it is characterized by humility rather than hubris. It recognizes human limitations. We are not God.
- It is Christian in that it allows, even adopts, Christian assumptions. It is friendly to the supernatural, not dismissive of it. It is accepting of Christian values, not hostile to them. It takes seriously the reality of sin and is skeptical of human perfectibility without Christ.
What Christian Thinking is not.
- Theology, only, or even mostly.
- Doctrinaire. It a way of thinking, not a result.
- Certainty
In summary, Thinking Christianly is making our Christian commitment the ground of our thinking and inquiry as Christian Scholars. If we are Christians, that fact should be recognizable in our thinking – and the products of our thinking -- in the same way that a historian influenced by Karl Marx might be recognizably Marxian or a psychologist enamored by Karl Rogers might be clearly Rogerian. That does not mean that we are closed-minded or that we do not continue to be self-critical. But Christianity brings with it, I think, unique assumptions, values, and sensibilities, some of which overlap with persons of other persuasions, but some of which are necessarily peculiar to Christians.
A recent example of Christian Thinking.
On November 9, David Neff of Christianity Today came to town, and gave a talk about the Christian response to the environment, and it occurred to me that here was an excellent example of Christian thinking. What Neff did was make a case for the care of the earth using the Christian message as the basic foundation. Not only was it Christian, it was Adventist to the core. And thus provided me with a good example of what I mean by "Thinking Christianly".
What impressed me even more than the basic Christian stance from which he spoke, was how he, a person out of the Adventist tradition, but not currently a part of it, used his Adventist understanding to show how an eschatological sensibility places an even greater burden on us to take care of the earth. His analogy of the desire of an engaged person to take care of the promise (the engagement ring) because of the hope for the fulfillment of the promise (the wedding ring) was particularly helpful. So we, as Christians looking forward to a New Earth must be even more inclined to take care of the earth we have, because of the promise. There was much to think about in that. As a practicing Sabbath-keeper, I might have added one thing. It seems that we who keep the Sabbath could see it as a perfect way of tying the two ideas together. For the Sabbath is a celebration of Creation, and a celebration of the promise of the New Creation. We who are Sabbath keepers cannot but be environmentalists if we take the Sabbath seriously.
So what made it Christian Thinking? Neff began his discourse by drawing a clear distinction between a Buddhist worldview and a Christian one, showing the uniqueness of a Judeo-Christian view of matter and how Christ's coming makes that view of matter even more profound - Christ sanctifying matter by becoming part of it. This is a contrast to the view of matter as evil. In doing so, he also showed how the Gnostic view, as well as some modern pagan views also fail to capture the way we as Christians view the earth. Thus, he showed how this Christian view of the earth gives us a mandate to care for it. Buddhists, Satanists, and Atheists can all be environmentalists. Yet the way in which we as Christians justify it and persuade others is rooted in our Christian worldview and a Christian understanding of our place on this earth and our destiny beyond it.
So my questions to my colleagues, and to the rest of you, ultimately, would be:
1. Is this notion of Thinking Christianly, one with which you can identify, and if not why not?
2. If you can, what would those peculiar characteristics look like in your own discipline? For example,
a. How would you, because you take your Christian commitment seriously, approach your research or practice differently?
b. Is a Christian biologist, writer, literary critic or social scientist necessarily different from a non-Christian biologist, writer, literary critic, or social scientist?
c. Would a scholar or clinician be recognizable as such, even when she or he is working on a non-religious problem? How so?
3. What are the difficulties that you face in this arena?
4. Are there contemporary examples that we can point to of successful scholarship in these areas?
