I read a quote from C.S. Lewis the other day, and he said, "The problem when I became a believer in England was that you were left with either the hysterical rantings of the fanatics, or the intellectual elite of the clergy." He said, "Had theologians been doing their work, I would have been unnecessary." Why is it so rare for academics to connect to the mass of people?
I think the answer is partly just sheer pressure of time. If you're an academic and you want to get tenure, or you want to maintain your credibility within the guild, you've probably got academic projects which you're eager to get on with and write articles, and books in order to get your main ideas out among your peers.
There's always the hope that they will trickle down to the ordinary folk in the churches. That sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't happen. One of the reasons that I left the academy some years ago and went into full-time work in the church instead was that I found I was getting more of a buzz myself out of meeting clergy who were at the [coal] ...
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Dick Staub was host of a eponymous daily radio show on Seattle's KGNW and is the author of Too Christian, Too Pagan and The Culturally Savvy Christian. He currently runs The Kindlings, an effort to rekindle the creative, intellectual, and spiritual legacy of Christians in culture. His interviews appeared weekly on our site from 2002 to 2004.