My esteemed friend Scott Emery is writing his M.A. thesis. I read this paragraph and found it particularly poignant, especially after reading The InternetMonk's posts on the Collapse of Evangelicalism. One reason Christianity has not been able to persuade its surrounding culture to its public relevance is the (American evangelical) Church’s lack of theological depth. The Church has lost its intellectual acuteness and has suffered the consequences. The days of loving the Lord with all one’s mind have vanished. Replacing them has been the ambiguity and apathy that has demonized the Church for decades. This is not to say that there has not been important pertinent theological discussion. This is to say that when the world began to become skeptical of religious claims in light of autonomous reason, Christianity escaped into the world of exegetical study. Philological studies and movements bent inwards toward the Church left society bereft of any Christian theological foundations. As such, the plurality and relativism marked by postmodernism diluted the Christian truth for both the pious and impious alike. Rather than knowing the truth of Scripture, the Church has sought after the life hereafter, mainly in heaven. Not did the Church seek refuge in its intellectual escapism, but also in its spiritual escapism. The earth and its defiant inhabitants are to be destroyed regardless, so the rightful attitude is to seek comfort in heaven. However, the biblical theological truth is found in the new heaven and new earth, not in the common afterlife of heaven alone. Thus, theological ignorance has led to missiological ignorance. The Church does not know how to act and live because it does not have the proper theological truth to live out of. There must be a rekindling of theological study if the Church is ever to have a voice in the public realm.