It has been more than 15 years since Mark Knoll wrote the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, the landmark book that outlined evangelical abandonment of intellectualism. Noll argued that Christians were neither prepared nor inclined to join the academic side of life and had become marginalized as a result. But now the pendulum has swung the other way, as a series of overcompensations have led the evangelical world straight into another scandal.
Now, Carl Trueman suggests in The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind that the problem is exactly the opposite of what Noll diagnosed-evangelicals don't lack a mind, but rather an agreed upon evangel.
What Trueman sees is a number of PhD-toting Christians entering fully into the life of the secular academy and even teaching at the most prestigious research universities. What he doesn't see are Christian scholars standing up strongly for gospel distinctives.
We now have more and more evangelicals in the academy, yet somehow we are making less and less difference for Christ. It is time to stand apart on intellectual matters where our beliefs call us to-resisting the lure to sell out just fit in.
