Anti-Intellectualism: Christianity as Intellectual Suicide

an excerpt from "Distortions of Christianity" by Douglas Groothuis.

Some refuse to give Christianity the time of day because they deem it anti-intellectual--a religion that values ignorance and credulity above critical intelligence. In a book on how to leave one's religion behind, Lauren Winnell writes of a young man named Sandy, who was in Winell's "religious recovery support group", who lost his faith in college through an encounter with an anti-intellectual pastor. The young man was experiencing doubts as a result of what he was exposed to in college. Instead of addressing these questions head on, the pastor kept changing the subject. ONe day, when pressed by the young man, the pastor replied, "Sandy, it's about time we call this what it is--sin." The young man left the church and Christianity, being unwilling to follow "a religion that made thinking a sin".
No one should be willing to follow a religion that decapitates critical thinking. Anti-intellectualism has quite a grip on not only the Christian church, but many aspects of American culture. The reasons for an irrational faith in American Christianity are numerous and will not concern us here except to say that none of the reasons flow from the Bible itself or from the best and truest elements of the Christian tradition. While some have pitted faith against reason, the Bible does not endorse blind leaps of faith, but rather speaks of the knowledge of God gained through various rational means. Instead of a leap of faith, it commends a well-informed and volitional step of faith.
Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God with all of one's being, including the mind (Matt. 23:27). Jesus' own ministry led Him into intellectual debates with the best thinkers of His day, none of whom bested Him in argument. We find Jesus using various argumentative strategies, such as reductio ad absurdum, modus ponens, and appeals to evidence. He further reasoned from a well-developed theistic worldview. The apostle Paul reasoned with the philosopher's on Mars Hill (Acts 17:16-31) and the apostle Peter challenged his readers to "give a reason" for their hope in Christ (1 Peter 3:15-16).
Not long ago, Christian apologists faced an uphill battle against well-entrenched philosophies of unbelief. Natural theology was deemed long dead. Higher critics had reduced the Gospels to ragtag collections of scattered facts, idiosynratic theologizing, and existentially gripping myths. Philosophers and apologists were doing well to argue for the intelligibility of religious language (considered nonsense by logical positivists), let alone its rationality or truth. Evangelical apologetics--when pursued at all--was typically practiced outside the academy and often lacked intellectual power (although this could not be said of J. Gresham Machen, Gordon Clark, Bernard Ramm, Edward John Carnell, and Carl Henry.
Seismic shocks in the philosophy of religion, however, have realigned the intellectual world of unbelief in the past three decades, opening up fissures and toppling edifices. Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith recently wrote in the skeptical philosophical journal Philo that the philosophy departments of the academy have been "desecularized" since the late 1960s, largely due to the path-breaking work of Alvin Plantinga's writings. Given the renaissance in Christian philosophy during the past few decades, atheistic philosophers can no longer assume that their naturalism is justified. Smith even allows that "the justification of most contemporary naturalist views is defeated by contemporary theist arguments". As of 2008, Philosophia Christi, the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, had the largest subscription base of any philosophy of religion journal and features a roster of stellar contributors. In two important books, Philosophers who Believe and God and the Philosophers, many leading philosophers write of how their Christian beliefs inform their philosophical pursuits.
We find, then, that Christianity should encourage a robust life of the mind and that many philosophers today are owning and defending Christianity philosophically. There is, therefore, no reason to refuse to consider Christianity on the (false) basis that it demands intellectual suicide.

Further Reading:
Evangelical Philosophical Society
"Theism, Atheism, and Rationality" by Alvin Plantinga
Douglas Groothuis Wikipedia page
Quentin Smith arguments