The Christian Mind

Long before the term "Christian Worldview" was in common parlance, my friend Dave Rhodes recommended Harry Blamires' The Christian Mind to me and other Christian school teachers. It sealed once and for all my determination never to teach again in a secular setting. Blamires helped birth in me the realization that there are not two kinds of truth: stuff that's true for Christians,and can only be talked about on Sundays, geared primarily toward getting us all to heaven, eventually; and stuff that was taught in universities that would help us succeed here one earth. In gradute school I learned that this second kind of truth is generally determined by peer review committees, who look at the research of their colleagues and then vote it into or out of popular favor. I have come to refer to that as "consensual truth."

Continuing the search that Blamires started me on (concurrently fed by my reading of Francis Schaeffer), I came to see that the eternal wisdom of God in Scripture holds up under the toughest of scrutiny, and is applicable to every field of human endeavor: the humanities, the social sciences, and even the hard sciences. Although many great voices have added to this conversation along the way (some day I'll list them all here), I am always grateful to Blamires for building this category of thinking in my mind.

On the resource table in the back of Room 3, I will have copies of a thorough review (with lots of quotations) that I once wrote of the Blamires book at the next WorldMovers class. As I scoured my library schelves this morning, I could not locate either of the copies I once owned, so I ordered a new one, which I will also make available for loan to Dove Mountaineers when it arrives.

Thanks to Dave Bowen for mentioning it in his sermon Sunday, to Dave Dalton for reminding me that there are people who may still want to read this book, and Dave Rhodes, for first introducing it to me. And congratulations to Dave Rhodes on his retirement this week as regional director of the Rocky Mountain Region of Assocation of Christian Schools, International.