Ordinary Evangelicals

For several decades now, a familiar diagnosis has shaped discussions of evangelicalism in the modern West. From various accounts, the overwhelming conclusion is that evangelicals have struggled to cultivate a serious intellectual culture. The observation is commonly associated with Mark Noll, whose well-known assessment helped to crystallize a concern that many within the movement had already begun to feel.^[1] More recently, the conversation has taken a slightly different turn. Commentators now ask why evangelicals are underrepresented in elite institutions, why they do not occupy more visible positions of cultural and political influence, and whether this absence signals a deeper deficiency.^[2]

These questions are not without merit, but these inquiries tend to share an assumption that deserves closer scrutiny. Both the older critique and the newer concern locate the life of the mind primarily within recognized centres of civic power. Intellectual seriousness, on this account, is measured by academic output, institutional affiliation, and public visibility. But what if this is only part of the story? What if evangelicalism’s intellectual life has never been confined to such spaces, but has instead taken shape in more ordinary settings where belief, practice, and reflection are woven together?

To suggest as much is not to deny the need for evangelical presence in prestigious universities, societal institutions, or positions of public leadership. It is, rather, to propose that the life of the mind is not exhausted by these locations. Indeed, if we begin elsewhere, with a broader understanding of what it means to think well, a different picture of evangelical intellectual life begins to emerge.

The life of the mind, properly understood, is not first a professional identity but a cultivated habit marked by a disciplined attentiveness to truth, a willingness to interpret the world with care, and a readiness to submit one’s judgments to norms that are not self-generated. In a theological register, it is a way of living before God (coram Deo) that involves the ordering of thought as well as action. Evangelical theologians routinely insist that theology is not merely an academic exercise but a form of life, a participation in the attentive study of God.^[3] Transposed into a more general key, this insight invites us to see intellectual activity not simply as production but as formation.

If we adopt this wider lens, then many of the ordinary practices of evangelical life take on a different significance. Consider, for instance, the centrality of Scripture. Evangelical communities have long been marked by a persistent (and tumultuous) engagement with the biblical text. This engagement is not always polished or technically sophisticated, but it is often sustained, communal, and serious. Ordinary readers compare passages, wrestle with meaning, and test interpretations against one another. Pastors prepare sermons that require them to synthesize textual analysis, theological judgment, and pastoral awareness. Small groups gather to ask not only what a passage teaches but how it should be understood and lived.

Such practices are frequently dismissed as insufficiently rigorous, yet they involve habits that are recognizably intellectual. They require individual and communal attention, interpretation, evaluation, and articulation. They form a kind of distributed intellectual culture, one that does not depend upon formal credentials but is nevertheless concerned with truth and its proper apprehension. In this sense, evangelicalism has often sustained an ecology of thought that is less widely visible but no less real. This ecology is also deeply formative, as the repeated reading of Scripture trains the mind to attend carefully to language and meaning. The practice of listening to sermons cultivates the ability to follow an argument, to discern coherence or its absence, and to relate abstract claims to concrete life. Prayer, often understood primarily as a devotional exercise, also involves reflection, self-examination, and the articulation of judgment before God. Over time, these practices shape perception and order our affections. They form habits of reasoning that, while not always named as such, contribute to a distinct intellectual posture.

To be sure, this framework is not to romanticize the evangelical past or present. There have been, and remain, genuine shortcomings. Anti-intellectual tendencies have at times been real and damaging. Suspicion of expertise, impatience with complexity, and a preference for immediacy over depth have all left their mark. Yet it would be a mistake to allow these features to obscure the quieter, more persistent forms of intellectual life that have continued to develop within ordinary settings.

There is, however, a further pressure at work, one that is not limited to evangelicalism but is deeply characteristic of the present American cultural moment. Increasingly, to be known is assumed to mean being visible, and being visible is to be extraordinary. Influence is measured in terms of scale, platform, and reach. The ordinary, by contrast, appears unremarkable, even suspect (or boring). The ordinary does not attract attention; therefore, it is often assumed to lack significance. Evangelicals are not immune to this logic. In subtle ways, it has begun to reshape expectations, so that intellectual seriousness is associated with prominence, and prominence with a kind of exceptionalism that few can sustain.

The result is a quiet displacement of the very conditions under which evangelical intellectual life has historically flourished. If the life of the mind is imagined primarily as something that occurs on visible stages, then the slow, local, and often hidden practices that form judgment begin to seem insufficient. The ordinary becomes something to move beyond rather than something to inhabit well. Yet it is precisely here, within these unremarkable settings, that the habits of attention and discernment are most reliably cultivated.

At this point, the more recent question of cultural power must be addressed. Should evangelicals aspire to greater representation within elite institutions? There are good reasons to answer in the affirmative. Universities, media organizations, and centres of policy formation exert significant influence over public life. A thoughtful evangelical presence in such spaces can contribute to the common good and enrich broader cultural conversations. And yet, there is a danger in allowing this aspiration to become the primary measure of intellectual vitality and/or credibility. A community may succeed in placing its members within positions of influence while failing to cultivate depth among its wider body. In such a case, individual visibility is achieved at the cost of communal depth. Conversely, a community that attends to the formation of its members, even in relatively obscure contexts, may generate a more durable and expansive intellectual culture over time. Influence that arises from depth is often slower to appear, but it can also be more resilient.

In my estimation, this is where the ordinary assumes a renewed importance. In a cultural moment marked by distraction, speed, and fragmentation, the habits associated with evangelical practice can take on a quietly countercultural character. The slow reading of Scripture stands against the erosion of attention. The gathering of a community for sustained listening resists the isolation of individual consumption. The effort to interpret experience in light of theological conviction challenges the tendency to reduce judgment to impulse or mere sentimentality.

Such practices do not announce themselves as acts of resistance. They are, in most cases, simply the ordinary rhythms of communal and personal faithfulness. Yet precisely in their ordinariness, they offer an alternative to the prevailing patterns of thought. They cultivate patience in an impatient age, coherence in a fragmented one, and seriousness in a culture often inclined toward superficiality.

If this account is even partly correct, then the future of evangelical intellectual life will not be secured only by strategies aimed at institutional ascent. It will depend, at least as much, on the renewal of ordinary practices that form the mind over time. Churches that take seriously the task of teaching, that encourage careful reading and thoughtful discussion, and that resist the temptation to reduce faith to immediate utility are already participating in this renewal. So too are individuals who approach their daily tasks with an awareness that thinking well is part of faithful living.

None of this precludes developing one’s abilities to maximum effect. Evangelicals may and should pursue excellence in scholarship, leadership, and public engagement. But such pursuits will be most fruitful when they are sustained by a broader culture of deep formation, one that does not depend upon recognition in order to exist. The life of the mind, in this sense, is not the preserve of a few but the vocation of many. In the end, the question is not simply whether evangelicals will occupy positions of power, but whether they will cultivate the habits of thought that make such positions worth inhabiting. The answer to that question will be found less in the corridors of influence than in the ordinary places where belief is practiced, language is attended to, and judgment is formed. It is there, quietly and persistently, that the evangelical life of the mind continues to take shape.

Justin McLendon is Professor of Theology at Grand Canyon University and Grand Canyon Theological Seminary in Phoenix, AZ, USA. He is an Associate Fellow with KLC.

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^[1] Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1995).

^[2] See Aaron Renn, “The Problem with the Evangelical Elite,” First Things (December 15, 2025). https://firstthings.com/the-problem-with-the-evangelical-elite/

^[3] Examples include Kevin Vanhoozer, Hearers & Doers: A Pastor’s Guide to Making Disciples through Scripture and Doctrine (Brazos, 2026); Joshua Chatraw, Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age (Zondervan, 2020); Justin Bailey, Discipling the Diseased Imagination: Spiritual Formation and the Healing of our Hearts (Baker, 2026).