"Christian" What?

I love to read. I feel, as an educator, that reading is an important part of my job. Recently, in my reading, I have begun to pick up on the word “intellectual” and its use in reference to Christians who want other Christians to engage the mind and not just the heart. Articles with interesting titles like “The Vocation of a Christian Intellectual” or “Can an Intellectual be a Christian” are just a few examples of this. Why do I have an issue with the use of the term “intellectual,” especially in conjunction with the term “Christian?” . Let me explain.

Bertrand Russell, an atheist, once replied to the term:

“I think an intellectual may be defined as a person who pretends to have more intellect than he has, and I hope that this definition does not fit me.”

When looking at the past semantics of the word, we find a history rooted in the secular.

The word ‘intellectual” in the 17th century was employed primarily as a noun in reference to a person that holds that all knowledge is derived from pure reason. You can now see one of my reasons for concern as this term begins to appear in association with the term “Christian.” Francis Bacon wrote, in Advancement of Learning, of intellectualists as abstract metaphysicians. David Hume wrote that “the eighteenth-century intellectuals, took Reason for their guide of the whole nature of man.” As a noun, the term barely appeared at all in nineteenth-century dictionaries. The twentieth-century use has a direct link to those bitterly opposed to established social institutions. The term in America appeared first with a direct link to the political and social movements of liberalism. As it appeared and stayed in America, it was linked philosophically with pragmatism and other experimental undertakings in education and social morality.

As you can see, the term has a history that is anything but Christian. As a matter of fact, it is the bi-polar opposite of all things that are Christian. While all these things are issues within themselves, I really have no objection with the use of the word in Christian circumstances…as long as it is used according to its correct definition. My issue here goes beyond the word’s past or the word’s definition, but instead, it is with the word’s placement in the sentence structure. It seems rather vogue right now to use the term “Christian” as an adjective that modifies all sorts of nouns, and this is another instance of that trend.

As a Christian, I believe the term “Christian” is who I am, first and foremost, and all other characteristics that define me are modifiers of who I am in Christ. If I am an intellectual, and I am not claiming to be one, than I am an intellectual Christian, and not an intellectual who is Christian. When Christ becomes the modifier of who we are we run the real risk of division in the ranks of Christians for one simple reason: we base who we are not in Christ but in who we are in the world before Christ or without Christ. I can be an intellectual without Christ, but I can not be a Christian without the Lord Jesus who saves me.

I have been learning some lessons, as of late, from my pastor's sermons (Come to Westminster Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, AL if you get the chance to hear the sermons of Dr. Wingard; you will not be sorry!). I have become convinced that I must be a Believer in Jesus Christ first, and everything else modifies who I am in Christ. When I use Christ as an adjective to describe who I am, I believe, as a Christian, that I am effectively sitting in a seat reserved only for Him. I truly believe, with all of my heart, that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, and that I can do all things through Him who strengthens me! What do you really believe with all of your heart?