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Liberal Education Imperiled3 4 3reason’s ability to know. This development has led to anti-intellectualism. Philosophyhas been replaced by activism, populism, and political pragmatism:Evangelicals perceive moral vitality in terms of loyalty to variousideological positions and behavioral standards rather than as animaginative endeavor to resolve social dilemmas or to discern ethicalduties. Among modern evangelicals aesthetics run toward the commercialand pragmatic, as modern technology and media are embracedwidely as tools of utility for worship and witness; they are far less concernedabout philosophical and belletristic assessment. …Althoughevangelical churches have shed much of the separatist language of thefundamentalist past, sermons still routinely remind students of thedangerous lure of culture, encouraging avoidance rather than engagement,and offering occasional jeremiads on the debilitating state ofpostmodernity. Quite often, discussions of morality in public lifeamong evangelicals have been captive to partisan politics, which oftendiscourage students from thinking beyond conventional rhetoricabout social problems and possible remedies. 99Those who fall short of God and seem threatening to the Christian communityare labeled un-Godly. This development is partly the result of pietism,which has the tendency to move arguments from the complex to the simple.Thus, the spiritual and individual relationship with God is demoted to merepersonal association. Evangelical colleges emphasize simplicity and inspiration.Scripture alone is the goal of learning, and that makes them moreseminaries, or theology schools, than colleges. Because they teach that scriptureis inerrant, nothing but the consistent proof-texting will suffice. Yet theycannot hope to influence the culture when they despise the very culture theyescaped from when entering the school. Malik asserted that the mind is thetool of evangelization. In order to evangelize, a person must make argumentsand persuade, which is a province of the mind.The perplexing problem with this brand of religious education is thathuman beings have a mind. It must be used properly if we are to find the truthof things. We are living according to nature if we are using our mind. Firstprinciples may be lost if we are not reasoning rightly, or not reasoning at all:Each man can judge competently the things he knows, and of these heis a good judge. Accordingly, a good judge in each particular field isone who has been trained in it, and a good judge in general, a man whohas received an all-around schooling. For that reason, a young man is99Douglas V. Henry and Michael D. Beaty, eds., Christianity and the Soul of the University (GrandRapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 146. See also ibid., 40, 46, 47; Henry Lee Poe, Christianity in theAcademy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 7; Newman, Idea of a University, xxii.