The smartest people I’ve ever known
have all been religious. Most of them have been devout Christians. Whether within the academy or without, my whole life has been full to the brim with brainy, well-educated, introspective, self-critical, “enlightened” folks who also believe in an invisible, incorporeal, omnipotent Creator of all things who became human in the person of Jesus and who calls all peoples to worship and follow him.
The fact that a bunch of believers are also intelligent and well-informed doesn’t, in and of itself, entail anything about the truth of Christian faith. Perhaps they’re all wrong, just as Christians suppose atheists are all wrong. It doesn’t make a lick of difference that atheists include educated, thoughtful people. If Christianity is true, then all the smart atheists are dead wrong (at least about God)—and vice versa. On the topic of religion, as with any other topic, a lot of bright people in the world are wrong; their brightness doesn’t ensure their rightness.
I say this to make a point I’ve made before: It is a strangely persistent myth, but a myth nonetheless, that sincere faith or religious belief or devout piety is a kind of maturational stage that persons above a certain level of intelligence inevitably leave behind given enough time, education, and social-emotional health. It isn’t true. Anyone not living in a bubble knows it’s not true. Yet it endures. Not only among tiny scattered remnants of New Atheists but also among graduates of elite universities, the types who congregate in big cities and fill jobs in journalism, academia, and politics. The types who love to celebrate what they call “diversity” but look down on anyone who, unlike them, believes in God and attends church, synagogue, or mosque.
The joke isn’t on the dummies who keep on believing. The joke is on people whose social and intellectual world is so parochial that they’ve honestly never read, met, or spoken to a serious religious person—one who’s read what they’ve read, knows what they know, and “still” believes. Better put, someone who’s read and knows all those things and continues to believe in God because of the evidence, not in spite of it. Someone whose reason points her to God, not someone who has sacrificed his intellect on the altar of faith.
Christians and other religious folks in America are fully aware that there are people unlike them in our society. They know they’re not alone. They know that atheists and agnostics and Nones include geniuses, scientists, scholars, journalists, professors, politicians, celebrities, artists, and more. They’re no fools. They know the score. They don’t pretend that “intelligence + education = believing whatever I do.”
Yet somehow that equation is ubiquitous among the secular smart set. I’m happy to leave them be. They’re free to continue in their ignorance. But I admit to being embarrassed on their behalf and, yes, more than occasionally annoyed.
