The Christian Mind

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5.17

The Christian Mind
Harry Blamires (1916-)
“The Christian mind is no longer cultivated. The Christian mind is too provocative, too dangerous, too revolutionary perhaps. If nourished, if fed fat on the milk of the word, it will perhaps collide so violently with the secular mind which dominates our comfortable and complacent set-up that we Christians shall find ourselves, mentally at least, persecuted again.”

We need only think of some of the ways the Christian mind, being made new in Christ, challenges the settled assumptions of our secular age: that morality is not evolving, but fixed; that education should not be for economic success, but for loving God and neighbor; that revelation, not reason – typically in the garb of science – is the final bar of appeal for matters of truth and life; that truth is not merely subjective and utilitarian, but revealed, objective, changeless, and real; that religion is not a private matter, but a matter of the greatest urgency for all people at all times, and therefore should not be reserved for discussion only within the confines of religious activities. Most Christians will affirm such ideas; the problem, however, is that we do not stand on them, precisely because we know them to be provocative, dangerous, and revolutionary to the secular people with whom we live and work. We have not cultivated the Christian mind to anything more than the status of museum piece, which, having indulged and admired, we leave on the shelf in our churches or homes when we must go out into the world and do business with our secular age. Isn’t it time for this old way of thinking to pass away as well?

Do you talk with the people you see each week about your Christian faith? Do you discuss issues of the day – politics, current events, culture – from the perspective of the mind of Christ? How can Christians help one another to be more consistent in this?

Renewing the Mind
We are currently running a multi-part series on Renewing the Mind in our daily ReVision series. The fourth installment is entitled, The Mind of Christ in His Word: Part 2, and is available as a free PDF download by going to the website, www.ailbe.org, clicking on today’s ReVision column entitled, “The Cure for Doctrinal Revulsion” and clicking the link at the end. I urge you to follow this entire series, and to consider using it with your leaders. If you are not subscribed to ReVision, you can do so at the website. Or you can download each week’s PDF study in a format suitable for group or personal use.

Thinking for a Christian Worldview
Christian thinkers have a Christian worldview. Our course, One in Twelve: Introduction to Christian Worldview, uses twelve diagrams to provide a comprehensive framework for thinking and living Christianly in the world. It’s free, online, and available for you to study by yourself or with your leadership team, at your own pace and on your own schedule. For more information and to register, click here.

The Fellowship of Ailbe is supported through the generous and faithful gifts of those who benefit from and believe in our work. Does the Lord want to use you in this way? Please look to Him in prayer over this question. You can contribute to The Fellowship of Ailbe by using the Contribute button at our website, or by sending your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 19 Tyler Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452. Thank you.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All quotations from The Christian Mind are from Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind (Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1963, 1978).