TAKE UP AND READ. Our May 2024 book recommendation is an older book but a relevant and “must read” for Christians in the 21st century. Originally published in 1963, The Christian Mind, authored by Harry Blamires, addresses the critical place of the mind in Christian living. As we watch the chaos and radicalization of many in our world, it is all about the mind. And Christians must learn to combat humanism, secularism, materialism, individualism, and atheism with a thorough Christian mind, but that doesn’t mean just having Christian thoughts. Here is an excerpt from chapter one – “There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality. As a moral being, the modern Christian subscribes to a code other than that of the non-Christian. As a member of the Church, he undertakes obligations and observations ignored by the non-Christian. As a spiritual being, in prayer and meditation, he strives to cultivate a dimension of life unexplored by the non-Christian. But as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. He accepts religion – its morality, its worship, its spiritual culture; but he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues within the context of the eternal, the view which relates all human problems – social, political, cultural – to the doctrinal foundations of the Christian faith, the view which sees all things here below in terms of God’s supremacy and earth’s transitoriness, in terms of heaven and hell.”
This is an incredibly insightful book that will cause us to rethink what it means to be a Christian in a post-modern world and the place our mind holds in being salt and light in a dark place.
Recommendation Source: Pastor Jim Sole (May 02, 2024)
Additional Details: Published by Regent College Publishing, 224 pages.