The mind

Lazy minds breed lazy hearts and hands. Presupposing the naturalistic worldview of their neighbors, liberalism assumed that religion inhabits the realm of inner mystical experience and universal morality. Why would anyone feel compelled to consider Christian claims if their would-be defenders either denied them or denied intellectual access to them? The greatest threat to Christianity is never vigorous intellectual criticism but a creeping senility that transforms truths into feelings, public claims into private experiences, and facts into mere values. Christianity is either true or false, but it is not irrational. If its claims are not objectively true, then they are not subjectively useful. If our only reason for believing that Jesus is alive is that "he lives within my hearth," then as Paul said, "our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." "We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ ... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins ... If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Cor. 15:14-19). We must recover our distinctively biblical commitment to rigorous, inquisitive, and persuasive thinking before there can be a genuine renewal of Christian conviction, faith, repentance, and discipleship. It is time once again to love God with our minds.

- Excerpted from Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World, p. 262