Always the decisive conflict in religion will be where important concepts are joined in opposition, concepts so vital that they are capable of saving or wrecking the Christian faith in any given generation. At this critical juncture in church history, the real conflict is between those who hold to an objective Christianity capable of being grasped in its entirety by the human intellect and those who believe that there are far-in areas of religious experience so highly spiritual, so removed from and exalted above mere reason, that it takes a special anointing of the Holy Spirit to make them understood by the human heart. The difference is not academic merely. Should the advocates of religious intellectualism succeed in setting the direction for the church in this generation, the next generation of Christians will become helpless victims of dead orthodoxy. In conversation with one of the better-known devotees of neo-intellectualism in evangelical circles, I asked the question bluntly, "Do you actually believe that everything essential in the Christian faith may be grasped by the human intellect?" The answer was immediate--"If I did not, I would be on my way toward agnosticism." I did not say, but might properly have said, "And if you do, you are on your way toward rationalism." For such indeed is the truth.
