Do Christians Intellectuals Have the Heart of Jesus?

The heart of Jesus—you know, Jesus had a heart, passions, motivations and values that drove him from deep within.  Just as he preached to others, that heart was love, agape.  A commitment to act out of a deep concern for the good of others.  The gospels sometimes give us a glimpse of heart driving Jesus’ life: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  At his core, he had a concern for the helpless, the lost, and the needy, and this concern drove him to heal and to provide.  He was like his father, who sent his son because of his great love for the world and the lost within it.  (We should remember, however, that some, many, or possibly all of his miracles were also done for the sake of saying something about his messianic identity).  Importantly, this heart of compassion or love was also the motivation for him teaching.  “Jesus saw the huge crowd…and he had compassion on them…So he began teaching them many things” (Mr 6:34, NLT).  Jesus’ ministry, his healing, his providing, his teaching, even perhaps his whole vocation, was driven by a love for people.

Do Christian intellectuals have this heart?  I’m a student at Princeton Theological Seminary; I’m surrounded by people who either love or at least devote themselves to studying the Bible, church history, theology, or other intellectual issues of relevance to the Christian faith.  And these people surround themselves by scholars in the field who devote themselves to research and writing about these topics.  Are we doing this out of a love for the church?  Perhaps the harder question, and it is indeed harder because it is more concrete, is, Are we doing this because we have compassion on people, because we see the needs of real people and want to meet that need?  Aren’t the students and professors here at Princeton the best of the best?  Certainly they’re top tier.  But are these the people who are most performing their impressive labours out of a concern for the real needs of people whom they wish to love and serve by their work?  

This kind of heart seems conspicuously absent among Christian intellectuals, (perhaps proportionally to how “academic” they are?).  We are the ones who live in the church’s treasury; we examine, study, and appraise all of its resources—the word, its saints, etc.  And yet we are often the ones least concerned for the ways that people need the resources to which we have such access and exposure.   We have the knowledge, but do we have the love to serve with it?  We are the ones who know the mind of Christ; but do we have his heart?  At the end of the day, Christian intellectuals are to model their lives after their savior, and I don’t see how that can avoid meaning that they are compelled to appropriate his heart into their lives—leading them to research, think and write about the Bible and theology for the real, (most likely spiritual) needs of real Christians.  

Expectations and Christians' Ingorance

Most American Christians don’t know practically anything about the Bible or church history—and no one seems to blink.  Take the books of the Bible: most people know that Genesis is about the creation of the world (let slide the fact that that is only the subject of the first 5% of the book); some know that the Exodus is about people leaving Egypt.  But what percent of people in the church know what Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy is about?  Could any normal Christian give a paragraph summary of those books?  A one sentence summary, of any of them?   How about 1 or 2 Samuel, or a summary of any of the 17 prophetic books?  Is it even possible to overstate the typical American lay-persons’ ignorance about the books of the Bible? And all this still says nothing about knowing a basic story of the Bible or the basic chronology of Biblical narrative (knowing that “Christians” “pastors” and “disciples” aren’t in the OT).  The more I study the Bible the more I realize that we Christians absolutely do not have even most basic acquaintance with it. 

It’s the same case with the typical Christians’ knowledge of Church history—actually, it’s probably worse.   What percentage of people in a typical church congregation could even name just 10 Christians from 100AD – 1900AD?  Some probably would mention a few names from the reformation or post reformation period.   It’d be even harder to name 7 from 100 – 1500.  And this doesn’t even include knowing anything about those people!  (Honestly, I could only tell you the smallest bit about 4 or 5).  Could any Christians you know tell you of even one event, person, period, or issue from Church history that has taught, warned, or inspired them as a Christian? 

What I cannot fathom about all this is that no one else is bothered (or that its only a small minority of us who are).  How can the people who confess that the Bible is the word of God also be the one who know nothing about it?  How can the people who confess that God works among his people and gives them gifts to understand him also be the ones who ignore the teaching and testimony of the majority of the Christians—namely, those who have come before us?   Cleary our ignorance of it is nothing else than the result of not taking the time and effort to really learn about it.  Is it that we think it is not worth learning?  I’m sure most would say that knowing the Bible is a good thing.  But for most, I think this opinion—that knowing the bible is a good thing—is intended as a generality; I don’t think most think very strongly that it would be a good thing for them.  If they did, perhaps they’d be working toward it.  So maybe the issue is that we don’t see the value; maybe part of the problem is that despite seeing the value, we are simply lazy.  Just like the overweight person thinks that being in shape would be nice, their often times too lazy to put in the effort to attain that reality. 

Ultimately, however, I think the real root of our widespread and profound ignorance is rooted in the fact that in the culture of our churches, knowing the Bible or church history is simply not essential to the Christian life.  Certainly learning about the Bible and Church history is not on the standard agenda for those Christians who see the Christian life as being merely about believing in Jesus, being saved, and trying to be good (i.e. those for who do not focus on the importance and normalcy of spiritual “maturity”).   And for those other congregations that do preach about sanctification and discipleship as the calling and journey of the Christian life—the knowledge of the Bible or of church history is typically not a very important goal.  In either camp, knowing the Bible or church history is simply not necessary to being a Christian. 

And so, as creatures of necessity, we are ignorant.  In life, what needs to get done is what gets done, and often little else.  To prove my point—that the cause of our ignorance is in the culture of our church generally, and more specifically, in what we consider to be necessary or essential to the Christian life—consider this: did any of us grow up in a church that said, “if you’re going to be a Christian, you have to learn the Bible and church history”?  No we did not.  And I bet if we did, we would have been forced to make a choice: either learn, or leave.  Now I’m not commending this approach for church’s today; it’s probably unbiblical.  But it does helpfully show that the cause of our ignorance well lies in the fact that knowledge has not been required or expected of us.  But is that right?  Should we really not expect Christians to learn the Bible and know their past?  I believe those concerned with the increasing biblical and theological illiteracy and ignorance in the church today need to alert the church with a call to a change in what is expected of Christians. 

Stories of Vigilante Justice as a Witness to God

I recently watched two action movies (Shooter and 24-Season 8) where the main character, a lethal killer, found himself up against a government system determined to cover up the evil it sent him to expose.  The government's moral vision was so corrupted that it though it best to protect the guilty and punish the hero laboring for justice.  In this circumstance, the main character determined that he needed to take matters into his own hands—which meant hunting the guilty down and executing them. 

Of course, this vigilante justice—where an individual appoints himself to bring justice to wrongdoers—probably has an unethical aspect to it.  Only certain people are actually allowed to execute the guilty, namely, those appointed by and acting as agents of the state.  But at the same time, we love these stories and probably find ourselves cheering the main character on. 

Is this story a myth—a story with a transcendent ideal embodied in it?  These stories of vigilante justice are based first on the belief that sometimes a system cannot be trusted, and that the correct moral analysis of a situation is one rooted in the heart of a righteous individual.  An upright heart, not a system, is ultimately the only thing that reliably perceives what is right and what is deserved.  Second, these stories are based on the belief that while the guilty may go free in our human systems of governance and justice, they should not and (hopefully) will not escape the righteous judgement of that individual.  Our love for these stories speaks to a deep human belief that the right perception of justice sometimes resides in one righteous heart, and that that the guilty should meet that righteous heart and receive their due judgement. 

I see in this ideal a unconscious longing for and witness to God, an echo in our heart of the fact that a truly correct moral perception is found only in one heart—the heart of God.  Our human systems are corrupted by human frailty and human evil.  But even when our systems fail, when the guilty walk free in them and we are blind to it, they will not escape justice itself, for there is one who sees the truth.  And that one who sees the truth is the exact one who will bring the guilty what they deserve: judgement, execution, justice.

This is incredible.  These stories testify to a longing for justice, and even a vision of justice, that is directly fulfilled in God.  Our hearts truly do seem draw to the story of God...