 
How are you, my reader, affecting those around you according to your culture?  How is your country affecting other cultures?  If we, the Christian subculture of America do not learn how to shift and change with the tide of culture we are in a dangerous place of loosing our effectiveness on society.  I hope that you, like me, are willing to constantly be reformed and shaped into a being that can be transparent so that nothing can distract your message of who you are and what you believe in.				
	
 	
	
	

  Mark A. Noll must have been very deliberate in his choosing of the word scandal.  When I was reading the text, and he would mention the scandal of the evangelical mind is this or that, I would stop and read the definition of scandal within the sentence.  It is such a powerful statement.  The evangelical mind of the nation disgraces itself.  Wow. 
	Honestly, I had trouble connecting with Noll for a while.  I understood his platform, but his passion at times seemed overwhelming.  Perhaps that is because I quite possibly could be one evangelical whose mind is not fully used.  It’s too easy to live day to day in monotony and not put to use our God given philosophical talents.  As I read through the text I highlighted statements, or portion, of the text that stood out to me (for good or negative reasons) and I would like to talk over a few of them.
	Let us start from the beginning.  On page seven Noll is closing his portion of subject on what he means by the “life of the mind”:
I consider Noll to be an extremely heavy thinker.  Within such a short paragraph he can convey so much that a normal reader might not understand.  And I do acknowledge the fact that this book is at a master degree program level, but even beyond that I still think of Noll as a very deep person.  I had to chew on this paragraph for a while.  I still am.  Is it really ‘acute’ in Christian society today that we do not think much on government, economy, the meaning of the past, artistic creation, and so forth?  I am not sure. 
 I do agree with him that we fail to think upon “circumstances attending our perception of the world outside ourselves.” (Noll, 7)  There is so much bulk in that one phrase.  It is completely true and I do agree.  I would like to expand beyond that and say specifically that if evangelicals do not get their heads straight about culture and the world around them they are going to lose the battle for the United States.  In fact, I would say that we are deeply losing now and only hanging on by a thread.  That is why the term “bubble” and “inside the four walls” are so popular. 