In his book The Closing of the American Mind Allan Bloom laments the decline of true education in this nation’s colleges and universities. Bloom decries the way many professors have dispensed with the traditional canons of literature in favor of whatever is trendy and vogue. He mourns the fact that critical thinking and thoughtful discernment have been displaced by that great hallmark of postmodern purity: openness. The mark of being educated, Bloom sadly writes, has shifted from being a person with a sharply honed mind to being someone who is open to all and critical of nothing.

Meanwhile in his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind Mark Noll laments what he perceives to be a marked decline of education in also Christian circles. Noll gnashes his teeth over the fact that there are precious few evangelicals who are recognized as excellent scientists, political analysts, historians, economists, or writers.

Finally, in his book Fit Bodies, Fat Minds Os Guinness rues the fact that many Christians are more interested in diet regimens than serious studies of theological topics, are more up-to-date on sports statistics than on biblical truths, are more apt to spend three or four hours a night watching television than in spending any time at all reading good books of fiction, biography, or history. We live, Guinness claims, in an “idiot culture,” but even worse than that, Christians are doing virtually nothing to increase knowledge in the many diverse fields of study that are available in this, God’s good creation.

Scott Hoezee