Summary of Mark A. Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

By IRB Media

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#1 The evangelical mind is not well-developed, and this is especially true for American evangelicals. They have failed to sustain a serious intellectual life, and have largely abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of high culture.

#2 Evangelical Christians are, however, in the position of theological conservatives in Great Britain: they play a small, but vital, role in shaping the secular mind. They accept the secular mind’s frame of reference and criteria, and there is no shared field of discourse in which writers can reflect christianly on the modern world and modern man.

#3 Throughout the book, America will mostly mean the United States, even though the inclusion of Canada in the study of Christian developments in North America is an immensely rewarding effort. Occasional efforts will be made to include Canada in the pages that follow.

#4 By the mind or the life of the mind, I do not mean theology as such. I mean the effort to think like a Christian and 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822522121

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Insights on Mark A. Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The evangelical mind is not well-developed, and this is especially true for American evangelicals. They have failed to sustain a serious intellectual life, and have largely abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of high culture.

#2

Evangelical Christians are, however, in the position of theological conservatives in Great Britain: they play a small, but vital, role in shaping the secular mind. They accept the secular mind’s frame of reference and criteria, and there is no shared field of discourse in which writers can reflect christianly on the modern world and modern man.

#3

Throughout the book, America will mostly mean the United States, even though the inclusion of Canada in the study of Christian developments in North America is an immensely rewarding effort. Occasional efforts will be made to include Canada in the pages that follow.

#4

By the mind or the life of the mind, I do not mean theology as such. I mean the effort to think like a Christian and 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.

#5

Evangelicalism is not an -ism, but rather a collection of shifting movements, temporary alliances, and the lengthened shadows of individuals. Evangelicals are the largest and most active component of religious life in North America.

#6

A recent in-depth survey in Canada showed that individuals holding evangelical beliefs made up a larger proportion of the Canadian population than most pundits had thought. However, despite being a majority in both countries, evangelicals do not appear to play significant roles in either nation’s intellectual life.

#7

The term anti-intellectual is a problem for evangelicals. It is too simple to label adherents anti-intellectual and then move on to other considerations. The question for American evangelicals is not just the presence of an anti-intellectual bias, but the sometimes vigorous prosecution of the wrong sort of intellectual life.

#8

The evangelical ethos is activistic, populist, pragmatic, and utilitarian.