In summary fashion, I consider several long-term trajectories impacting followers of Jesus that yield anti-intellectualism and biblical ignorance: the schism between revelation and reason, consumerism and the church, and communication technologies and the mind.

Consumerism
The essence of consumerism consists in a commitment to autonomous self-definition. Individuals alone provide themselves with meaning and purpose. Human happiness is something constructed for ourselves in the here and now in what we choose and buy.

Consumerism cultivates unbounded desire and insatiability. We consist of unmet needs and inadequacy that can only be appeased by commodities and experiences, which is the deification of dissatisfaction and desire.

In my article “Economics and the Present Evil Age’” I wrote:

Mass consumerism is an all-embracing reality with imperial ambitions, seeking to homogenize peoples and cultures into a global civilization of manufactured expectations and engineered through the advent of modern communication. In one sense, it is the Enlightenment’s myth of progress in the form of luxury for all.

Benjamin R. Barber depicts consumerism as the process of global “infantilization,” or an “induced” and “enduring childishness” packaged and exported as a totalizing narcissism expressed through Western symbols typified by Hollywood lifestyles. It has infiltrated every sphere of our existence: personal identity, spiritual aspiration, ecclesiastical life, education, sports, spatial organization, and systemically in social and economic policy.

Consumerism, therefore, functions as an alternative gospel and a false view of reality. The authors of StormFront: The Good News of God (7) summarize the ecclesiastical impact:

When Christians accept a consumerist culture’s definition at face value, they look to the church primarily to provide them with the means to improve their private lives, enhance their self esteem, and give them a sense of purpose. Worship becomes a form of therapy whose sole aim is to improve the emotional state of individuals and to energize them for the week ahead.

Does your church participation function to boast “your self esteem”? Is your worship experience mostly a self-help “form of therapy”?

In summary fashion, I consider several long-term trajectories impacting followers of Jesus that yield anti-intellectualism and biblical ignorance: the schism between revelation and reason, consumerism and the church, and communication technologies and the mind.

Reason verses Revelation
Yoram Hazony describes an intellectual “distortion” concerning the Bible that arose during the Enlightenment. Scripture was depicted as superstitious and irrational, unworthy of attention. The Biblical writers were prejudiced, “weak-minded or liars.” The aim was to “knock the Church out of the ring as a force in European public life.” The practical result was that serious thinking (“reason”) took place on Monday through Saturday, the secular realm, whereas speculation and irrationalism (“revelation”) occurred on Sunday, the sacred domain. (The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, 3–6)

A parallel development was the creation of the German research university as the epitome of higher learning.  Associated with this was a passionate interest in ancient Greek thinking as the “sole source of learning and knowledge” (emphasis in original) that coincided with a “profound reconfiguration of Christian Europe’s self-understanding” (14). Thousands of North American thinkers traveled to Germany for training.

Two related tendencies appeared. First, religious studies in general and the liberal arts in particular were minimized. The big questions in life (ontology and ethics, for instance) were not considered practical, especially when viewed from a religious lens. Classic literature and the Great Books were speculative and irrelevant for the modern age. Gradually, learning how to think with the Bible was deemed unreliable. Second, university education became increasingly market-centered―the means to gain a profitable skill for a lucrative job and the good life in consumerism.

Now, fast forward to our day. Think about the implications of minimizing God’s revelation to mankind. Brent A. Strawn shows that “For many contemporary Christians, at least in North America, the Old Testament has ceased to function in healthy ways in their lives as sacred, authoritative, canonical literature.” He predicts, “If the Old Testament dies, the New Testament will not be far behind it.” (The Old Testament is Dying, 4–5, 18)

Is the Old Testament functionally “dead” for you?

Is the New Testament “terminally ill” as “sacred, authoritative, canonical literature” regarding your thought, speech, motivation,  and behavior?

(Check out my previous blog, which is related to this theme.)

“We’ll make them stupid and irrelevant!”

In my book about thinking in the Old Testament, I began with an imaginative scene: a strategic planning session of Satan’s chief lieutenants. After commending themselves for their diabolical harassment of the church, the leader announced a bold new challenge: “But now, the Master wants a nuclear option. We’re looking for a way to stunt the growth of the enemy’s sect once and for all!”

 Below is an excerpt of the ensuing debate. One precocious demon articulated a three-part plan that captured the leader’s imagination:

First, we’ll lead them to redefine spirituality. No longer will they believe that their so-called gospel—what we know to be heresy—applies to all of life. They must come to believe that spirituality is private and subjective. It will be something they feel, but never anything they think. We can teach them that spirituality exists to promote self-fulfillment. We must train them, also, to think that their so-called salvation concerns only their souls, so that their gospel has nothing to do with the world they live in.

Part two consists of injecting dualism into their thought and conduct. We should introduce the concept of the sacred and secular dimensions. Since their new spirituality will be egoistic, the church will progressively neglect all exterior dimensions, such as society and ideas, because these are secular. And they’ll come to view Sunday as religious, but Monday through Saturday as secular. As a result, slowly, they’ll develop two modes of thinking and behaving: one set for spiritual times and actions, the other set for secular times and actions.

Third, we will erode confidence in their book of lies, what they call “scripture.” We will undermine its credibility and its false claims so that it will become less and less plausible. Over time, the infamous sect will lose its intellectual foundation, and its members will become far less discerning. In this way, they will learn not to listen to the great impostor Jesus anymore. We can even train them to focus on how and when thinking, and never on why or what thinking. In other words, we’ll make them stupid and irrelevant!

And meanwhile, practically speaking, they’ll cede the world to us! We’ll do the thinking! In fact, we’ll make we’ll make them afraid to think!

And all the while, the kettle will get hotter and the little Christian frogs will cook even faster.

Later in my book, I suggested that Ephesians 2:1–3 depicts an intellectual context that echoes the devil’s strategy in the Old Testament, particularly the book of Job. Several months later, I produced a fifteen-minute video called “Our Intellectual Matrix,” which is an overview of that passage. I invite you to watch it.

Consider how the devil fosters anti-intellectualism and ignorance, even among the followers of Jesus Christ. His goal is to render believers “stupid and irrelevant.”

(Check out other videos based on my book in my channel.)