"Religion Today"

          C U R R E N T   N E W S   S U M M A R Y
               by the Editors of ReligionToday

July 23, 2001

Evangelicals Focus on the Heart at Expense of the Mind

Twentieth-century evangelicals have so focused on bare emotion and
"winning the heart" that they are no longer contending intellectually
for the faith in the public square, Phillip E. Johnson said during a
recent conference at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Johnson, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley,
and author of several books on Darwinism and evolutionary naturalism --
including "Darwin on Trial," "Reason in the Balance" and his latest,
"The Wedge of Truth" -- served as a guest lecturer at the Louisville,
Ky., campus.

Johnson told Baptist Press he has grown increasingly frustrated at
evangelicals' lack of boldness in defending their faith. "I am
frustrated by many evangelicals who are indifferent to ideas, who don't
understand that ideas have consequences," he said. "[Many] think they
can preserve their faith by walling off a Christian subculture and
somehow keep that independent of the mainstream culture -- the public
schools, the television networks and so on.

"[Christians] are pretty good with feelings and the heart, but not so
good with ideas and facts and knowledge," he said. "There is no reason
why Christians have to be dumb. They can be well-educated, they can be
very smart and they actually have a better starting place than the other
side does."

(http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=11356)

To read the story online, go to:
http://news.crosswalk.com/religion/item/0,,358908,00.htm