intellectual faith

a few months ago i had a rather heated debate with a friend over the usefulness of theology. over the course of the few days we hung out she made repeated jabs at seminaries, and specifically at theological studies. to be honest, i was the heated one. i finally had enough and became defensive, myself being a seminary student and an aspiring recreational theologian. my issue was not so much the personal implications of her attack as it was the practical.

the "evangelical" church is, for the most part, an anti-intellectual society. that is to say, it does not appreciate a biblical education or personal, disciplined, academic study of either the bible or extra-biblical subjects. it does not understand the need to rationally defend faith against the philosophies of humanism and scientism.
there are several reasons for such sentiments which i don't plan to list comprehensively. i will simply state that it has been a growing problem over the last century, resulting in the loss of the voice of the church in the public square; academia, the media, and politics. our voice has been lost because we cannot intelligently articulate a defense for our beliefs or create arguments against opposing beliefs. This has resulted in a divide between what is secular and what is sacred both inside and outside of the church. This division places what is sacred, what is of faith, on a level much lower than what is secular, undermining the defense of any guiding morality in society. due to the church's inability to affect the culture it is now affected by the culture, thus faith has been privatized and undervalued in minds of believers.

certainly, people could possibly get caught up in study and become irrelevant to the needs of society. i'm not arguing that any should go to such extremes with their education. however, we have most definitely become irrelevant by our neglect of academic study to improve our faith. doctrine without faith will be useless and faith without doctrine will be misguided. what i would like to see is the encouragement of a well-rounded faith, which includes studying a variety of topics from the perspective of a christian worldview in the midst of biblical study. the average lay-person does not necessarily need to attend a seminary, but a pastor does.
furthermore, doctrine should not be a bad word, and it should not be thought to be boring. doctrine is the result of passionate study of God's Word in order to understand His will for His church. we learn from the bible to understand the means by which we may please Him. everyone lives by doctrine without realizing it, so we should do our best to live by the right doctrine. and who better to direct us than the one or ones (ideally) who have spent the time studying God's Word truly?