Today Don Miller asks, “are Evangelicals getting dumber?” Honestly, I can’t say that we are or are not, but I can tell you that those who teach in the broader Evangelical church must think we are. Little attention is paid in most churches to deep theology, church history or exegetical Bible study. This is a sign to me that our shepherds have a low opinion of the sheep.
Read the whole post, but here is his bottom line (which I agree with wholeheartedly):
My question in leaving the service, however, was whether or not Evangelicals are having to dumb down their messages for an American audience. Fill in the blank notes? Circle the word on the page? There’s a star out there for you somewhere?
To say evangelicals are dumb is to say too much. It’s hard to imagine a greater academic culture than evangelicals enjoy. We literally have thousands of schools and even more annoyingly combative scholars, always at each others throats over whether the anti-christ will enter the world on a thursday.
So here is what I surmised: American culture has become a consumer culture, and a large demographic within the culture simply does exactly what they are told, as long as what they are told promises a pay off of some sort. They do not ask questions. They trust you if you seem trustworthy. Many evangelical leaders, then, simply become info-mercial-type salesman, selling their understanding of the truth to this large demographic. Most of them are extremely well intentioned, and do remarkable ministry around the world for the poor. The dumbing down of what we must loosely call truth is just a sign of the times.
Tags: bible-study, evangelicalism, preachers, scholarship
