Gordon Clark on anti-intellectualism and disparagement of creeds

Image: Gordon Clark (1902-1985)

I ran across this quote in Gordon Clark’s Religion, Reason, and Revelation (Craig Press, 1961):

From the standpoint of Calvinism, anti-intellectualism, a disparagement of creeds, an essentially emotional outlook or a reliance on some ineffable mystical experience is a far more serious error in religion than some unfortunate illustration in popular preaching. It may sound pious to minimize belief in a creed and to exalt faith in a person; but the implication is that it makes little or no difference what a man believes. Religion, I refuse to say Christianity, thus becomes non-doctrinal. This anti-intellectualism, clearly, is a broader theory than faulty psychology; and if faulty psychology conflicts with Christianity at one or two points, the broader theory will conflict at many more—in fact, all points (p. 101).

JTR