Firebrand at Three: The Cultivation of the Christian Mind

Photo by Tim Zänkert on Unsplash

Theology matters. The Bible matters. Christian praxis matters. You can put those words on my tombstone when I’m pushing up daisies. If we do not think like Christians, we will not act like Christians. If our lives are not formed by Scripture and the community of faith both past and present, we will neither think nor act like Christians. The church is a theological community in thought, word, and deed—or at least it should be. If it is not, we are like sailors adrift at sea who lack the navigational skill to arrive at their destination. In all likelihood our fate will be to sink or be shipwrecked. 

The Christian Mind 

In 1963 Harry Blamires, a student of C. S. Lewis, wrote a piece called The Christian Mind in which he made a rather startling observation: 

There is no longer a Christian mind. 
It is a commonplace that the mind of modern man has been secularized. For instance, it has been deprived of any orientation toward the supernatural. Tragic as this fact is, it would not be so desperately tragic had the Christian mind held out against the secular drift. But unfortunately the Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history. It is difficult to do justice in words to the complete loss of intellectual morale in the twentieth-century Church. One cannot characterize it without having recourse to language which will sound hysterical and melodramatic.

Charles Taylor makes a similar point in his massive and masterful book A Secular Age. In the Global West, at least, our default thought processes are formed by the assumptions of modernity far more than by the Great Tradition of Christian faith. 

One might counter that modernity is, in many ways, beholden to values of Christianity. Our notions of human rights and individual dignity, for example, would not have developed apart from Christendom. Yet modern Western culture, while bearing the residual effects of centuries of Christian formation, is not itself Christian. It often warps the values of Christianity into something one cannot properly call Christian. Near the beginning of the chapter called “The Suicide of Thought” in his classic Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton wrote, 

The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

In other words, a single Christian virtue taken to the extreme, disconnected from other virtues of the Christian life, will curl in on itself like an overgrown claw and hurt rather than help us. To think Christianly requires more than we can soak in simply by existing in the modern West. It requires intentional, ongoing formation. 

Firebrand is an attempt to help people in the Wesleyan world think Christianly. A group of us started this project three years ago because we wanted a forum for the advancement of Wesleyan theological discourse from a traditionalist, orthodox perspective. We were driven by John Wesley’s conviction that “the one rational end of all our studies, is to know, love and serve ‘the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent’” (“Scriptural Christianity”). Over time, we have also tried to bring the Wesleyan world into dialogue with the wider church, particularly the Anglican tradition and various forms of evangelicalism. Thinking Christianly isn’t simply a Wesleyan project after all. To think Christianly is in part to think in dialogue with the wider tradition. 

A Liberal Approach 

One problem, however, is that it is not always clear what it means to think Christianly about a given topic. The relationship between the church and secular politics, for example, is complex and requires examination from a variety of angles. When we discuss topics such as the nature of the church or the nature and function of Scripture, we benefit from multiple voices and perspectives. For what it’s worth, we quite often publish pieces in Firebrand with which I have significant disagreements. Writers are allowed to make their cases, however, as long as they do so in ways that are consistent with our four core values: (1) the authority of Scripture, (2) the Nicene-Chalcedonian faith, (3) the Wesleyan tradition, and (4) the cultivation of intellectual virtue. 

If you read Firebrand very often, you have undoubtedly run across articles with which you disagree as well, perhaps vehemently so. At least, I hope you have. It is impossible to make intellectual progress without considering dissenting positions. G.W.F. Hegel viewed history as a “dialectical” process. As Peter Kreeft describes it, this process is “a three-step, waltz-like movement from a ‘thesis’ to its opposite ‘antithesis,’ and then to their reconciliation in a higher ‘synthesis’ which preserves and combines the best features of both the previous, opposite stages by attaining a higher point of view” (Socrates’ Children, vol. 1, 48). This, says Kreeft, is “the process by which all humans learn all things” (48). In other words, we cannot make intellectual progress—including progress in the field of theology—if we are constantly walking in lockstep with one another. 

In this sense, Firebrand is a liberal project. I do not mean “liberal” in the sense of the theological tradition initiated by Schleiermacher that has sought to revise the core doctrines of Christian faith. Rather, I mean “liberal” in the sense of its commitment to good-faith argument and the advancement of knowledge that takes place when we consider and evaluate a range of ideas on a given topic. While conservatives are often chastised for their fixed opinions, I find that today, both in the political and ecclesiastical world, people we call “liberal” or “progressive” often have adopted illiberal attitudes toward ideas with which they disagree. Ironically, it is now a particular type of conservative that is the custodian of the classical liberal tradition. 

Parting Thoughts 

Some time back we passed 1 million hits on our site. Firebrand has been a success, and we plan to continue in our mission “to promote theological reflection in various related traditions, including Methodist, Arminian, Holiness, Pentecostal, and others.” We have readers as far flung as Australia, Mexico, India, Japan, and Kenya. Our writers have explored a wide array of topics, from entire sanctification to artificial intelligence to the role of bishops to the dangers of Christian celebrity. At three years of age, there is much more to be done—more ideas to be explored and debates to be had. 

I want to thank four groups of people in closing: 

First, I want to recognize our outstanding Editorial Board. We have assembled a crew of extremely talented, faithful individuals to help guide the work of Firebrand. Within the editorial board we have an outstanding Lead Team: Suzanne Nicholson (Assistant Lead Editor), Ryan Danker (Assistant Lead Editor), and Maggie Ulmer (Managing Editor). Putting this magazine together each week is no small task, and they handle it with care and diligence. Matt Reynolds also serves on the lead team, though normally in an advisory capacity. Matt is President of Spirit & Truth, of which Firebrand is one of several ministries. 

I am also grateful to all of our authors. Each of you has made a contribution to the ongoing conversation on faith and life in the Wesleyan tradition. These conversations matter. Please keep the articles coming. 

Thank you as well to those who read Firebrand, who talk about it among friends, who comment on our posts, who bring these articles to your Sunday school classes for discussion. 

Finally, thank you to our sponsors and those who support this ministry with your financial gifts. Firebrand is a lean operation, but it does take money to keep us afloat. Your support is crucial, and without it, we could not continue this work. 

Theology matters. The Bible matters. Christian praxis matters. I don’t want to spend my life spinning my wheels in a tradition that is more beholden to Peter Drucker than Saint Peter. Business models and growth strategies have their place, but they are no substitute for the rich and formative intellectual life of the church. Thus the work continues of lifting up the significance of the Christian mind.

David F. Watson is Lead Editor at Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.