HO Week 2 (9/3)

How to Impact the Culture

[It's week 2 because there wasn't a post for the first week. And yes, I am late on posting this!]

For the second week of Honors Orientation, we read the first chapter of Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Through his book, Noll makes the case that Christians have not given themselves enough to the pursuit of intellectualism. While I strongly disagree with his categorization of creationists, I did agree with his main point and many of the things he said. It was a thought provoking chapter, and I certainly want to read the rest of the book.

Noll talks about the "life of the mind," meaning "the effort to think like a Christian—to think within a specifically Christian framework—across the whole spectrum of modern learning" (7). I am familiar with this same concept being referred to as having a Christian world view. Noll goes on to describe three areas where Christians have failed to be active participants: the areas of culture, intellect, and theology.

I see myself as most likely to impact the area of culture. Noll makes the case that Christians focus too much on “urgencies of the moment” or “over-simplification of issues” when they try to change the culture (12), and I can see his point. The reason I am studying journalism is so that I will hopefully be able to play a part in changing the culture of America. I have strong beliefs about many cultural issues, and I believe that God has given me the gift of writing well. I want to combine these two characteristics by writing as a political or cultural analyst, encouraging Christians to think about issues from a Christian world view.