The Life of the Mind

Mark Noll describes the life of the mind as:

“…the effort to think like a Christian—to think within a specifically Christian framework—across the whole spectrum of modern learning, including economics and political science, literary criticism and imaginative writing, historical inquiry and philosophical studies, linguistics and the history of science, social theory and the arts…to think like a Christian the nature and workings of the physical world, the character of human social structures like government and the economy, the meaning of the past, the nature of artistic creation, and the circumstances attending our perception of the world outside ourselves” (The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, p. 7).

In other words, the life of the mind works to understand a subject and measuring its validity.

Attending a Christian college that strives to integrate faith into learning does not automatically apply Noll’s concept.  John Brown University, for example, does a wonderful job in encouraging us to explore all aspects of God’s creation, to passionately pursue knowledge and truth, and to gain a solid understanding of this world.  Yet, the JBU faculty cannot make us think like Christians.  It can only teach and encourage.  We must be willing to let God transform our minds into truth-seekers founded on His Word.  It does not take as much effort to learn a subject well as it does to engage in the subject and weigh it against scriptural truth.  To engage in something, one must ask questions and strive for understanding about why that something works the way it does or is the way it is.  So much depends on our attitude, though.  We have to be willing to grow intellectually and must learn from Jesus’ parable about the three servants by investing our minds in knowledge instead of burying them in the ground of willful ignorance.

Well, now I would like to know, how did North America fall into an apathetic, intelligence-lacking evangelical mind?  And, how can I tell if I or another person lacks evangelical intelligence?  How does one discern something like this?