I grew up in a working class neighborhood and attended an evangelical Christian church. I generally hid my academic achievements because I sensed a prevailing opinion that intellectual activity was too removed from practical issues and might even lead one astray. I loved learning for its own sake. Was that chasing after forbidden fruit, like clandestine passion?  Of what use was it?

This attitude reflected our social and economic status more than any religious teaching. The missionaries I met during my growing up years were among the most intelligent, compassionate people I knew, a far cry from the stereotypical images often portrayed in fiction. Nevertheless, practical learning and revelation were prized over intellectual pursuit in my childhood community.

The novels that I write as an adult continue to grapple with a fish/fowl schizophrenia. I don’t think I write “Christian” fiction or at least not what is termed “inspirational” fiction. Many of my characters belong to the Christian fold, but their problems reflect a different level of struggle—searching for vocation, for purpose, or for meaning.

In grappling with the place of the mind, that is the use of the mind, in the Christian pursuit, I read a book written by Mark Noll, now history professor at the University of Notre Dame. His book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, was first published in 1994. He sets out a challenge for evangelical Christians in the use of the mind. He describes the evangelical life of the mind as: ” . . . to think within a specifically Christian framework—across the whole spectrum of modern learning, including economics and political science, literary criticism and imaginative writing, historical inquiry and philosophical studies, linguistics and the history of science, social theory and the arts.”

For Christians to neglect the use of the intellect is to ignore a gift. One uses the gift in scientific inquiry, in searching for economic and political solutions, and other fitting pursuits. I explore this thin place where faith meets mind in my writing.