Books: Christology, Christian Learning, and Christian Formation

Mark Noll's "Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind."

Mark Noll's project in Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind is to make a case for Christians engaging in serious learning and to offer some guidelines for how they should think and act when they do. His discussion is ecumenical; but he indicates that it is especially evangelicals that he has in mind.

He begins his line of thought where most evangelicals would begin, namely, with Christ. "My contention," he says, "is that coming to know Christ provides the most basic possible motive for pursuing the tasks of human learning." But rather than adopting the typical evangelical interpretation of Christ, as little more than our savior from this present evil world, Noll turns for his interpretation to the classic Christological statements to be found in the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the declarations of the church councils of Nicea (325) and Chalcedon (451). His book consists, at its core, of teasing out the implications of these statements, and of their biblical background, for Christians engaging in serious learning and for how they should think and act when they do.

Let me summarize, all too briefly, the rich and imaginative Christological case that Noll makes for Christians engaging in serious learning. It's a seven-fold case. Read more