There is a widespread belief in (free protestant) churches that could be summed up something like this: “The Gospel can be understood even by uneducated and less intelligent people. Therefore, adding intellectual depth to sermons, Bible studies etc. is an elitist program that has value maybe for a few who have the requisite cognitive capacities.”
In this article I am going to shed some light on the insights, but also the pitfalls contained in that statement.
The Gospel is for everyone
The first sentence of the statement is certainly true. No one denies that understanding the Gospel cannot demand extraordinary intelligence or a university degree. This wouldn’t be in line with the God who wants “all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). Also, experience shows that the Gospel can be grasped by even those with limited cognitive capacities (little children, mentally handicapped people etc.).
As much as it is true, we need to stake out the statement’s purview. The only uncontroversial way to do this is to identify the relevant object of understanding with “what you need to know to be saved”. This is not the same as the whole breadth and depth of biblical teaching. But to speak of knowledge or understanding means that the Gospel is something we can grasp with our cognitive faculties – which is, however, not to say that receiving the Gospel is exhausted by an act of cognition. Salvific knowledge is more, but never less, than propositional knowledge of basic facts about the Gospel.
The second sentence, which is a conclusion from the first, is the controversial issue. Its purpose is to fend off the addition of more intellectual depth to the usual proclamatory activities within church, usually for fear of losing people without the requisite cognitive apparatus, or else of bloating people’s minds at the expense of their spiritual and moral qualities. Now a lot can be said about those fears: that they are sometimes justified, but almost never because of the intellectual endeavors themselves but rather because of the sinfulness of people; or that using one’s mind is a divine command (Matthew 22:37); or that adding texture to Biblical teaching by drawing on history, archeology, cultural studies or philosophy is virtually never seen as useless; or that there simply are differences in intellectual abilities within the church which should not be levelled, even less so by adjusting the bar to the lower end of the spectrum.
I won’t go into any of those things, but rather focus on one intellectual skill that is virtually always useful, but whose lack is, conversely, always problematic.
Logic is also for everyone
I have so far been speaking of intellectual endeavors in a rather vague and indiscriminate way. It is now time to make this term clearer, by proposing a distinction between the material and formal intellectual endeavors. Material intellectual endeavors are those that convey world-knowledge, be it scientific, historic, sociological, theological or whatnot. Formal intellectual pursuits have as their objective not the world, but our thinking. The most important discipline falling under this rubric is logic.
It seems safe to say that material intellectual pursuits are generally more problematic than formal ones. Clearly, since the specialized knowledge of a scientist or historian is out of the reach of the ordinary layperson (in fact even if that layperson is a specialist in another field), such specialized knowledge should not be presupposed for the understanding of a sermon. Logic is different. Logic is basically the “science of thinking”, and thinking we must all do almost all the time, and certainly do it when delivering and listening to a sermon. Bad thinking, at least once recognized as such, is something no one in his right mind ever finds appealing – unless he were the one profiting from deceiving people with muddled logic (as is rampant in advertisements). On the positive side, clear explanations and convincing arguments are something that, again, every sane person finds helpful and desirable. I infer from this that all Christians (assuming they’re in their right minds, and not indoctrinated by an ideology or driven by a questionable agenda) will find logical biblical teaching appealing. This is neither surprising nor novel. Just carefully read Jesus’s sermons as well as those of the apostles recorded in Acts. Jesus regularly makes logically compelling points, even though he does not deliver academic talks about logic. Even someone not formally educated like Peter (Paul had Rabbinic teaching) puts forth a cogent case in more than one instance.
I am not breaking any news here by stating that many sermons nowadays in evangelical churches lack logical cogency. They could definitely benefit from a good deal of logical refurbishing. This requires no studies in any material discipline, just an improvement on an essentially human activity that we all do inevitably, though may do it badly at our own and our listeners’ detriment. Let me quickly point out a few straightforward logical problems whose rectification would immediately make any sort of Christian proclamation better, by making it more compelling.
Vague terms. To me, this is the mother of all muddled thinking. A vague term is, well, one about which you only have a vague idea. If I talk to you about a “quasar”, you may have a vague idea that it is some structure in deep space, something astrophysicists study – but any argument based on quasars will be lost on you unless I explain to you (in terms you understand, that is) what a quasar is and thus de-vague the term for you. Typical examples of vague terms in Christian sermons include “Greek thinking” vs. “Hebrew thinking”, and “a mere heavenly hope” vs. “a here-and-now resurrection hope”.
Inadequate analogies. Another problem, one rampant in Christian sermons, is that of inadequate analogies. Analogies are not per se problematic, in fact they are a helpful instrument of conveying knowledge, but inadequate analogies may lead people mentally astray. An analogy between A and B basically says: since A and B share features x and y, and A further has z, we can infer that B also has z. But whether this is so depends on the strength of the analogy. For example, the analogy “The Bible is a love letter to human beings, and a love letter is uniquely addressed to its addressee, therefore the Bible must be uniquely addressed to me” is obviously fallacious – try finding that personal address in the sacrificial laws of Leviticus, for example. Sometimes the analogy is so gerrymandered it should not even pass as an analogy. I recently heard a preacher talk about different ways to reach the unconverted through personal evangelization. He illustrated the different approaches by different opening tools, like a corkscrew or a bottle opener. But then he talked about the “sledgehammer method”, showing a hammer – which of course can never open a bottle but destroys it. The fact that we loosely speak of a “sledgehammer method” in the sense of trying to bring people to faith by mere and repeated appeals does not imply that we have the power of smashing them “open” as I can smash a bottle with a hammer.
Then there are also argumentative fallacies. These errors pertain to whole arguments instead of single words. The ones I heard most often in sermons are the following:
· The strawman fallacy: consists in seeking to destroy an opponent’s view by first constructing a caricature of it, then torching that “strawman”.
Example: “Greek thinking (vague term btw.) has the Platonic idea that the immaterial soul is all that counts. Thus, the body gets denigrated. This is not what we as Christians should believe. We should rather be committed to Hebrew thinking (another vague term).”
· Missing the subject: one draws a devious conclusion instead of a plausible one. Example: A preacher cited a guy who tried to master his vices by keeping track of them. The guy eventually gave up. The preacher’s conclusion was that no list of commands is useful for spiritual growth. But the cited case first did not involve any commandments but tracking; and second, the guy’s giving up may be due to his weakness of character rather than to a flaw in the method.
· Hyperboles: These are out-of-proportion statements or conclusions. For example “Doubting God’s love is a sign of stupidity”.
· False dichotomy: Very popular. Present two alternatives as the only ones, ignore in particular all better alternatives. Example: “Brotherly love is not something spiritual but something practical.” And I thought the spiritual and the practical went hand in hand. Silly me.
· Dicto simpliciter: This is the misapplication of a rule to a particular case.
Example: “We should be kind to all people, therefore if I see someone who looks like he’s in need I should under all circumstances talk to him even if I’m already late for work.” Or: “Nothing is more important than God, in fact all things dwindle in comparison to God, therefore we should not be sad when losing one of those things, including beloved people.”
Bottom line: more logic (in the sense depicted here) cannot ever be a bad thing. Ah, and by the way, logic comes from logos. And the logos is Jesus Christ. Therefore, logic should be part and parcel of Christianity. Whether this is a good argument I leave to your logical analysis.