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The Opening of the Christian Mind: Taking Every Thought Captive to Christ

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This is a very good book to encourage all Christians to take very seriously the commandment of Christ to love the Lord our God with all of our minds! Gill examines some of the common obstacles in today's world that serve as excuses for many which has resulted in a loss of the "Christian mind." He challenges Christians who are well-educated by today's standards to examine if they are thinking and applying their Christianity to their fields of study or expertise - most are not. Gill then dives in to explain what he thinks are the six characteristics which define a Christian way of thinking: (1) a theological mind; (2) a historical mind; (3) a humanist mind; (4) an ethical mind; (5) a truthful mind; and (6) an aesthetic mind. Gill goes on to encourage the reader to develop a plan that would strengthen their Christian mind, and learn to apply this Christian worldview in practical ways even at work. Gill obviously encourages a greater emphasis on reading and challenges Christians to redeem their time, not waste it watching TV!

The primary audience for the book seems to be college-aged students or young professionals who are looking to engage the world for Christ, but are lost as to what that looks like. The book is easy to read, and gives the reader some practical insight into developing a personal plan for self-examination as well as setting forth a comprehensive reading plan based in Scripture but fortified with the great works of the faith.

David Gill is the founder, and now President, of New College Berkeley, a graduate program for students who desire to integrate their university education with their Christian faith. Gill believes that all liberal studies can be geared around and integrated with a Christian worldview. The thought of Francis Schaeffer permeates his belief and this book. And of course the title offers a Christian alternative to Bloom's contention that American university minds are being closed due to the teaching of relativism.

Gill advocates "a holistic commitment of the activities going on in our heads to Jesus Christ as Lord" (p. 22). This includes reason, will, and aesthetic judgment (or feeling). Our every thought should be captive, and our minds transformed by Christian renewal. Every field of study should be illuminated by God's Word. He supports his contentions from Scripture and reason, through his presentation on the latter is weak.

Gill believes pluralism gives Christians a great opportunity to perform these tasks. But his case for pluralism is extremely weak rationally, and he gives no biblical support for the concept. Gill appears also to misunderstand the religious nature of secularism. He even welcomes the secularization of social institutions, just so long as Christians have the freedom to have their own private ones. Though Gill doesn't like a "multiversity" education (he has been heavily influenced by Newman), he advocates a multiverse world, one not unified by a Christian worldview. His reading and analysis needs a good dose of other Catholics like Christopher Dawson, Thomas Molnar, and Russell Kirk. For the most part, his social and political philosophy is patterned after wimpish evangelicalism, who themselves admit they don't have a well-developed philosophy, let alone a biblical one (cf. Skillen's latest work). That is perhaps why, as Holmes and Gill admit, for the most part Christian college professors have no Christian worldview regarding their disciplines. Faith is privatized from not only the disciplines, but from the social institutions themselves.

His analysis is somewhat Ellulian, though he believes secularism has no god, rather than sets humans up as god. Yet Gill doesn't write with the power of Ellul. And he appears much more pluralistic than Ellul. Gill is against any strategy that would "recapture and rule" society from a Christian worldview; rather he believes the Christian faith can only be salt amidst a secular society. To me, this is a false dichotomy.

Like most evangelicals, Gill is confused about tactics because he is confused about the nature of the gospel and how it should influence society and culture. On the one hand he writes, "What God thinks and says about law, justice, money, health, disease, history, race, sex, politics, anxiety or any other subject is more fundamental and important in the end than anything our scientific, rational or technical methods might dictate" (p. 67). While on the other hand, like Holmes, he endorses and promotes the secularization of society and culture and believes we shouldn't base civil law upon Scriptures because that would be forcing our beliefs upon others. Gill ignores the religious basis of all culture, and compartmentalizes God's Word to private lives.

Despite these key drawbacks, faults in most contemporary evangelical worldview philosophy, the book is a good introduction to college education for university and grad students who are just beginning to examine how their faith integrates with their studies. Other more academic-oriented will also find benefit.