The Cost of Forgetting

Forgetting is never neutral. When something true is lost, something false rises to take its place. The loss of the inner life did not leave the Church empty — it left it vulnerable. Vulnerable to substitutes. Vulnerable to idols. Vulnerable to ideas that sounded holy but hollowed out the center.

One of the most dangerous was the belief that thinking rightly is the same as being transformed. That notion did not appear overnight; it grew slowly, nourished by centuries of philosophy, until René Descartes gave it its most famous expression: Cogito, ergo sum — “I think, therefore I am.” From that point forward, the center of human identity shifted. Reason became king. The spirit gave way to the intellect. The inner witness was replaced by inner reasoning. And though academics celebrated this “life of the mind,” apart from Christ it proved to be an empty throne.

Over time, the Church absorbed the shift. Faith grew cerebral. Doctrine defensive. Seminaries rose where prayer chambers once stood. Discipleship, once about becoming like Jesus, became a matter of thinking correctly about Him. Belief turned abstract. Salvation became a system. Theology itself was not the enemy, but thought slowly began to replace abiding.

Even today, much of our discipleship reflects this drift. Philosopher James K. A. Smith has warned that the Church has treated people as “brains on a stick,” assuming that information would suffice. But we are not thinking things; we are loving creatures, shaped by what we long for. We do not become like Christ by memorizing content. We are formed by contact. The heart cannot be discipled through lectures.

This is the cost of forgetting. We have traded presence for principles. We have created a faith that thrives in freedom but falters under fire. We have built churches full of believers who can debate but cannot abide. We did all this in an age of abundance, when Bibles are printed by the millions, sermons are streamed in high definition, and churches compete for attention like coffee shops. We assumed that access to truth would produce transformation, but access without intimacy only breeds pride.

And so we find ourselves in a paradox. We know more about God than any generation before us, yet we feel farther from Him than ever. We can define grace, but we struggle to receive it. We can explain peace, but we fail to embody it. We fill our minds with teaching, yet our hearts lie restless. We recite a theology of union, even as we live as if we were exiled and alone.

This is not the fault of Scripture. It is not the failure of divine love. It is the result of a gospel flattened into cognition — a faith reduced to the intellect. Jesus never said, “Think about Me” or “Memorize Me.” He said, “Abide in Me.” He did not give us a system. He gave us a vine. He did not promise certainty. He promised presence.

We are not saved by understanding, nor by mastery of the text. We are saved by union with Christ. By abiding, not by achieving. To forget this is more than a theological misstep. It is a wound — a wound to the soul of the Church. And now is the time to return, the time to remember, the time to heal.