A couple of years ago I received a call from the minister of education in a church where I was teaching a course. He was interested to know how I thought things were going, and I responded that as far as I knew, everything was fine – there seemed to be quite a lot of interest, there were some interesting discussions, etc. After a minute or so he mentioned that the church staff had heard several comments about the class, but one person in particular had left them mystified when she remarked, "Dr. Breshears talks to us like we’re intelligent!" The minister of education went on to say, "Now we [the staff] are all wondering what she meant by that. What’s that supposed to say about us?" I just chuckled and changed the subject – it seemed imprudent to point out any obvious implications.
Does the metro-Atlanta area really need a Christian study center? After all, we have thousands of churches of every denominational (and nondenominational) persuasion, most of which have an education component to their ministry. Isn’t the task of providing continuing Christian education best left to them? I think not, for several reasons. But before going into that, let me acknowledge the obvious but essential distinction between a parachurch ministry such as The Aréopagus and the church itself. The fundamental organization through which the gospel of Jesus Christ is channeled is the local church, and any legitimate parachurch organization should serve as a support ministry to the church. A parachurch ministry is not a substitute for church. It can, however, effectively supplement and strengthen the ongoing ministry of the local church.
Given the fact that The Aréopagus is a new kind of ministry and that many of our courses deal with Christian apologetics, it is probably necessary and appropriate to present an apologia – a reasoned argument – for The Aréopagus itself.
A Partner in Education
There are three reasons why I believe a ministry like The Aréopagus can contribute to the health and vitality of the Body of Christ in the metro-Atlanta area. First of all, it can substantially augment the quality of Christian education in many churches. Some churches offer stimulating seminars and discussion groups on a variety of relevant topics taught by gifted and knowledgeable teachers, but many do not. The reasons vary from a lack of resources and qualified personnel in some cases to a lack of vision in others. Some labor under the erroneous assumption that their people wouldn’t be interested in anything that was intellectually challenging. As one minister of education told me a few years ago, “We have taken surveys in adult Sunday School classes, and most of our people just aren’t that interested in topics like Christian history and apologetics” – To which I replied, “But isn’t that part of your job as a leader, to discern what really is necessary and essential for the spiritual growth of your people? You can’t just follow their preferences, especially when many of them don’t realize the value of history and apologetics.” In Reasonable Faith, philosopher William Lane Craig notes the inevitable consequence of this kind of mentality:
Churches are filled with Christians who are idling in intellectual neutral. As Christians, their minds are going to waste. One result of this is an immature, superficial faith…. The Church is perishing today through a lack of thinking, not an excess of it.
If the truth be known, the crisis in education in America today is in our churches as much as our schools. I had been teaching at the university level for only a couple of semesters when it began to dawn on me that most of my students were absolutely clueless when it came to the Christian faith. About all that many of them “knew” was that the Church had unleashed crusades and inquisitions, oppressed women and minorities, sanctioned slavery, protected the rich against the poor, and perpetuated ignorance, superstition and bigotry throughout history. Oh yes, and a couple of other things: they also “knew” that the Bible is a voluminous collection of ancient myths and legends that contradicts itself and has some outdated ideas about sex, and that most Christians are judgmental, intolerant hypocrites.
Assuming that at least half of these students had grown up attending church at least to some extent, I decided to test their biblical literacy and general level of religious awareness. I started giving many of my classes a pre-test at the beginning of each semester – just a simple quiz of 50 questions covering some familiar names, events, terms, and concepts from the Bible along with some other basic information on Christianity and other religions. It was all very elementary-level, and of course I was truly dumbfounded by the results. Hardly anybody knew anything. Yet, just as I assumed, more than half checked the boxes indicating that they grew up attending church and Sunday School either regularly or at least half the time.
The data was sobering, to say the least. Let us assume that one can start teaching little Johnny or little Mary basic Bible stories and concepts at about age three, and that Johnny and Mary attend Sunday School and church about half the time until they graduate from high school and go off to college. Now in that fifteen-year interval they would have logged about 800 hours in Sunday School and church, yet when they showed up in my history class neither John nor Mary knew much of anything about the Bible, Christian theology, or church history – not to mention something as intellectually engaging as Christian apologetics.
Now if a student sat through 800 hours of instruction in mathematics and showed up at the university unable to add and subtract, we might reasonably conclude that his/her math education had been a dismal failure. Yet this is normative when it comes to church-based Christian education for our young people.
Unfortunately, the situation vis-à-vis adults isn’t much better. According to a recent survey, eighty-five percent of adult church members know little about Christian history other than perhaps a few random facts related to the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Reformation. Furthermore, eighty percent know virtually nothing of the background of their own denomination or individual church, nor can they identify any distinctive beliefs or practices of their particular denomination or church. If a similar test were given on Christian theology or apologetics, the results would probably be about the same.
Relatively few churches provide much intellectual stimulation or deal with the challenging issues of our day in any thoughtful and substantive way. Hesitant to take a stand on the hot controversies that swirl around us (which happen to be the very issues that most people are most interested in), many churches relegate themselves to irrelevancy. While keeping their people busily involved maintaining all the programs and activities of the church, few provide much meaningful interaction and dialogue among their adult members. No wonder many pastors complain about the low level of spirituality and commitment among their flock. As Craig noted above, many churches are starving their people intellectually, and the inevitable result is an immature and superficial faith.
The Aréopagus can help. As a Christian study and resource center that provides high-quality, seminary-level seminars and workshops in biblical studies, history, apologetics, cultural studies, the arts, and other fields, we can offer the kind of intellectual and spiritual stimulation that many people are searching for. Many of those involved in The Aréopagus will be teachers and leaders in their respective churches, and the knowledge and inspiration they glean from our courses will inspire them with fresh ideas and a new vision that will impact their own ministries in their own churches. By providing a forum in which Christian leaders, Sunday School teachers, Bible teachers, scholars, philosophers, theologians, students, spiritual seekers, and the merely curious can come together and interact in a stimulating intellectual and spiritual environment, The Aréopagus can enhance both the breadth and depth of Christian education in the Atlanta area.
An Interdenominational Approach
A second reason for The Aréopagus is that it will foster a much-needed interdenominational approach to study, dialogue, and cooperation. In our current social and cultural milieu in which traditional Christian values are under assault from both inside and outside the church, a transdenominational orientation is imperative if biblical Christians are to make a united stand against the forces that threaten our historic faith and pollute our moral and ethical culture. An interdenominational study center that draws people from a variety of backgrounds can enhance our appreciation for, and strengthen our bond with, those in other traditions who are waging similar spiritual battles against the dark and sinister principalities and powers that threaten to extinguish the true light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
An interdenominational environment challenges us to transcend our often-too-narrow comfort zones. It opens us up to new avenues of learning as we interact with others whose thought patterns, frames of reference, and terminology call us beyond what is strictly familiar and routine. Most historic Christian traditions have made their own distinctive contributions to the ongoing development of the faith, and the universal Body of Christ suffers unduly when we focus too narrowly on our own particular tradition to the neglect of others. As we interact with committed and thoughtful Christians of other traditions, we gain new appreciation for the diverse and creative ways in which God uses his people to bring light and love to our dark and dysfunctional world. And if nothing else, a transdenominational orientation is good preparation for eternity: As far as we know, there will be no Baptist Quarter or Catholic Quarter in the New Jerusalem – nor any walls separating Calvinists and Arminians, charismatics and non-charismatics, nor even conservatives and liberals, for that matter. So we ought to start preparing now lest we experience some serious postmortem culture shock.
In a dynamic and interactive interdenominational setting, there must be, of course, reasonable and responsible limits to what we tolerate. The ministry of The Aréopagus is open to all, Christians and non-Christians alike, but those who serve in leadership and teaching positions are committed to the basic doctrines of the faith that all orthodox Christians have held throughout history. In this respect, the staff and faculty of The Aréopagus adhere to the Statement of Faith.
An Untainted Alternative
Finally, an independent study center such as The Aréopagus can attract those who, for various reasons, have an aversion to mainstream institutional Christianity. For a variety of reasons, many people fall into this category, including some serious spiritual seekers and even some Christians. Some are cognizant of only the darker side of church history and want nothing to do with a religion that has sanctioned crusades, inquisitions, superstitions, bigotry, social injustice, political oppression, and the other unsavory aspects of our checkered tradition. Some, either philosophically or through personal experience, equate mainstream Christianity with self-righteousness, hypocrisy, greed, financial exploitation, and even sexual abuse.
Regardless of the merits of their reasoning, the reality remains the same. Like Christian history in general, all denominations, institutions, and churches carry with them a certain amount of baggage from the past. For spiritual seekers who are turned off to mainstream Christianity – for those searching for what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity” – a nondenominational study center can offer an appealing alternative untainted by past scandals and sectarian controversies.
For non-Christians who are looking for some quality social and intellectual stimulation, we will integrate into our curriculum courses in history, literature, music, the arts, health issues, and other topics of general interest. Like everything we offer, these general education courses will be taught by gifted instructors who are experts in their respective fields. Our hope is that non-Christians will come to appreciate the quality of our courses and the unique social environment that we offer. Having earned their respect and friendship, we hope that eventually they will be drawn to our classes in biblical studies and other topics that more directly convey our mission. When it comes to outreach to non-Christians, there are definite advantages to being perceived as a new and independent alternative.
Fulfilling Our Calling
The problem today with many Christians is not that they believe the wrong things but that they have no basis for what they believe. Relatively few can actually defend what they profess. Thus, when confronted by skeptics, cynics, pseudo-intellectuals, atheists, cultists, New Agers, or anyone else who comes along to question their faith, many Christians are virtually defenseless. If challenged beyond the limits of a few well-worn clichés, they capitulate. In reality, this begs the question: Do they really believe, or is their faith merely a profession? To be authentic, a subjective faith requires an objective reality. Even a “purpose-driven life” is ultimately an exercise in futility and self-deception unless the purpose driving our life correlates to objective reality. When we truly believe something, we do so because we have definable reasons – we have processed the issues and understand the ramifications of what we profess.
One of the early Church Fathers, Justin Martyr, taught that every true Christian should aspire to be a philosopher. I think Justin was essentially correct. Any Christian who has been blessed with a sound mind should aspire to be a philosopher, a theologian, a Bible scholar, and an astute cultural observer, just as we are called to be evangelists for the cause of Christ. And in reality our evangelistic witness is seriously compromised unless we are able to share not only our subjective personal testimony but the objective factual and rational reasons why we believe in Christ.
We need in our society today an intellectual and spiritual vanguard who can address the issues of the day and articulate a relevant and convincing apologetic. The Aréopagus cannot replace the local church as the nexus for Christian education, but it can contribute significantly to the quality of church-based Christian education by helping inspire, inform, and equip Christians for the task of being salt and light in the midst of our culture.
Ultimately, of course, the purpose of a Christian study center is not to wage intellectual battles – and it certainly is not to dispense knowledge for knowledge sake – but to help build a firm foundation so that we might live more thoughtfully, more faithfully, and more responsibly before God and others. My prayer for The Aréopagus is that God will use it to inspire and motivate many to "study to show themselves approved unto God" – people who can read the times and interact with the culture in such a way as to present a credible and effective witness to the life-changing power and love of Jesus Christ.