Inertia is “a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged” or “a lack of activity especially when movement is needed.” Intellectual inertia is mental laziness and anti-intellectualism.

The Bible commands Christians to honor God “with all of our mind” (Mark 12:30). I suggest, however, that a profound inertia hinders many evangelicals from obeying this demand. Mental activity is desperately needed, but many Christians are unable or unwilling to embrace intellectual discipleship or to integrate faith and ideas according to the biblical worldview.

The inevitable result is the status quo, marginalization of the church, aversion to risk and entrepreneurialism, and worst of all, the restriction of evangelical Christianity to private emotionalism and cultural irrelevance. Where I live, the evangelical church has little impact upon the educated or elite, the university community, and the cultural gatekeepers. Many believers have ceded worldview dominion, popular culture, and public policy to secular power brokers.

Sadly, our intellectual sluggishness affects every aspect of Christian life and practice. It is “deliberate ignorance,” according to the theologian, John Frame. Why? Because the hegemony of the secular worldview fosters an anti-intellectual outlook that severely restricts faith and practice to the private, subjective, and behavioral realms. As a result, the biblical worldview is neither intellectually plausible nor existentially credible. And of course, God is not honored with our minds and his glory is not displayed in our ideas and practice. Evangelical Christians are complicit and culpable in this dilemma.

When we retreat from the world of ideas, theoretical analysis or cultural critique, how can we discern, for example, the relationship between faith and philosophy, conflicting truth claims and alternative worldviews, faith and science, political ideology and social advocacy, psychology and counseling, business and economics, education, the arts, and so forth?

In contrast, Frame declares that Christians have a God-given “stewardship of the mind and intellect.” He wrote:

It is remarkable that Christians so readily identify the lordship of Christ in matters of worship, salvation, and ethics, but not in thinking. But . . . God in Scripture over and over demands obedience of his people in matters of wisdom, thinking, knowledge, understanding, and so forth. (“A History of Western Philosophy and Theology,” p. 5)

Perhaps then, we should ask a few honest questions that promote intellectual self-awareness:

Are we personally afflicted with self-imposed intellectual inertia?

Is there inertia that hinders the gospel and limits the evangelical church, particularly in your culture?

What does it mean to “love God with all the mind” in your society, especially among cultural gatekeepers, such as the educated and elite classes?