CRITICAL THINKING &SCRIPTURE NEVILLE BARTLEY | Youth Team Leader, SUNZ
C
ritical thinking is a term used all through education and a catch phrase of business today. Unfortunately, Christians often seem to think that church is not the place for it. Some may argue that Christians are meant to be loving and understanding rather than critical. I believe this viewpoint reflects a lack of understanding of what critical thinking really is and its value to help us engage with scripture.
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What is critical thinking? Peter Facione, a Los Angeles-based education research consultant, has written: ‘Critical thinking is skeptical without being cynical. It is open-minded without being wishy-washy. It is analytical without being nitpicky. Critical thinking can be decisive without being stubborn, evaluative without being judgmental, and forceful without being opinionated.’ 1
A slightly more humorous definition attributed to Richard W. Paul says: ‘Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking in order to make your thinking better.’ 2
Critical thinking is a tool to help distinguish between facts and opinions or assumptions. Many things that we have been taught to be facts will, when tested, turn out to just 20 www.sunz.org.nz
have been somebody’s opinion. Testing is an important skill for followers of Jesus to have so we can evaluate what we read online or are taught from the pulpit, theological college or our small groups. We have a freedom today to think, analyse, test and make sure that we understand as much as we possibly can about what God is saying to us through scripture. So here are some tips and tools that I hope will be useful for you as you engage with Scripture on your own and with others. All our study of scripture at Scripture Union NZ (SUNZ) recognizes the role of the Holy Spirit. We know that the Spirit of God was active in the life and hands of those who penned scripture. The Spirit of God guided the words of the prophets as they spoke to their generation. And the Spirit of God speaks to readers of scripture today to help us to understand what we are reading and its relevance to our lives. I like to think the role of the Spirit is to allow readers to understand the text in a way that will transform them into the image of Christ. Before we start critical thinking about scripture we must recognize our own biases, opinions, and assumptions, and then put them to one side. Without this, we will just end up using critical thinking to justify what we already believe.
