Ben Joiner's Blog

Churches and Anti Intellectualism:  Dangerous Anyone whose been involved with conservative churches is aware of the anti intellectual ideas that so often prevail.  The message is one of worship, conviction, devotion, etc.  But it is not one of education.  Let me be clear that those other things should take up more of the time than education.  But when the prevailing mood is anti intellectual, then there will be no education at all. And so the message will be essentially moral or ethical.  This is a good thing.  For, in liberal churches, there is neither ethics nor learning.  But ethical teaching without education can only ever be a celebration of normal moral standards.  There will be no asking of the hard questions where the right thing to do isn't obvious.  And that type of ethical teaching is not teaching.  It is a form of entertainment.  It is no accident that movies have moral messages and make millions of dollars. ...