Thread by @JemarTisby

I don’t think *most* of the Christians who try to discredit my work and that of other scholars are mean-spirited. I do think they’re so used to a narrow interpretation of the faith that they believe theirs is the self-evident and best way to think about and do Christianity.

When people come along who say A) your theological reasoning is just as socio-culturally influenced as you say mine is and B) your loved practice does not match your professed theological belief…they get defensive and default to what’s most familiar to them.

What’s most familiar to many Christians is a highly cognitive form of faith that explicitly or tacitly thinks that right belief necessarily, or at least mostly, leads to right practice. Pro-slavery and pro-segregationist church folk obviously show this fallacy.

It bears pondering as well: If church folk who pride themselves on having a high view of scripture and an erudite theology can be so bad at loving their neighbor, how “right” was their theology in the first place?

What we need is a more robust emphasis on Christian practice, theological ethics, and theological anthropology that takes right doing, especially at a community and society level, as rigorously as right believing.

We also need to realize that the “scandal of the evangelical mind” evinces itself in a distrust of expertise outside of (approved) biblical scholars and eschews the idea of common grace that understands truth may be found in people and places outside of Christianity.

We also should emphasize our discipleship practices. How are people being formed to think and live faithfully in regard to pressing issues such as race, class, and gender? Why is white Christian Nationalism so prevalent in many churches? How do we shape healthier communities?

If we believe in the noetic effects of sin, then we should eagerly interrogate the status quo within and beyond the walls of the church to constantly sharpen and correct our doctrine and practice.

Thus the people, many of whom remain committed to the local church and faithful living, should be encouraged in our efforts and not criticized or attacked at nearly every turn for unearthing unsavory truths about our traditions. Here’s to hoping…