Introduction – The Smartest Dumb Thing We’ve Ever Done
I was sitting in a campus café a few months ago when I overheard a group of students arguing over whether coffee is technically a fruit juice.
It started as a joke, but within five minutes one had pulled up research on the coffee cherry, another had cited a sustainability blog, and a third announced that she “identified as caffeine-neutral.”
By the time I left, they were red-faced and furious.
Nobody was smiling, but everyone was sure they’d won.
That, I thought, is the most reasonable thing I’ve seen all day — and also the most unreasonable.
We have more degrees than thermometers, but less wisdom than our grandparents.
We can land a robot on Mars but can’t have dinner with someone who votes differently.
We have facts at our fingertips but peace nowhere in sight.
Welcome to the age of being unreasonably reasonable.
We talk endlessly about science, logic, and rationality. We trust the data, the experts, the algorithms. Yet try questioning the narrative, and watch how fast the rational mask slips. Suddenly, the guardians of reason are shouting, “How dare you ask that question!”
It’s as if our modern creed reads:
> “I think, therefore you must agree.”
1. The Cult of the Smart
Once upon a time, reason was humble — a candle flickering in a dark room, helping us see truth.
Today, it’s a blowtorch. We aim it at anyone who disagrees.
Reason used to ask, What’s true?
Now it asks, Who’s trending?
We’ve created a new priesthood — the Cult of the Smart.
Its temples are lecture halls, its liturgies are TED Talks, and its sacred relics are credentials.
Dissent isn’t heresy because it’s irrational; it’s heresy because it’s unfashionable.
We think intelligence can replace integrity, and cleverness can replace conscience.
We assume the “educated” are automatically the enlightened.
But if you can justify anything, you can also rationalize everything.
And we do.
You see, when reason is divorced from morality, it doesn’t lead to truth — it leads to excuses.
We’ve become masters at justifying whatever our hearts already want.
We call it “being reasonable.”
God calls it “being deceived.”
Paul wrote it bluntly:
> “Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” — Romans 1:22
The more we worship reason, the less reasonable we become.
2. From Faith to Formula
Once, people believed that truth existed outside of them — that it was something discovered, not invented.
The universe had a Designer; life had a purpose; morality had meaning.
But modern man decided to be his own compass.
He said, “I don’t need God — I have Google.”
So truth moved from the heavens to the headlines.
We traded conviction for convenience, wisdom for information, and revelation for opinion.
We stopped asking, Is it right? and started asking, Does it work?
That’s how we ended up with people who are moral relativists in the classroom but moral absolutists on Twitter.
They’ll say, “There is no objective truth,” and then post, “Silence is violence.”
Friend, if there is no truth, silence can’t be anything.
This is what happens when the formula replaces faith.
Reason becomes an idol — an unreasonably reasonable god who promises enlightenment but delivers confusion.
3. Cultural Totalitarianism with a Smile
You’ve probably heard of “cancel culture.” It’s the modern version of book-burning, except now the fire fits in your pocket.
Say the wrong word, question the wrong idea, and the algorithm will escort you to digital exile.
What used to be conversation is now condemnation.
What used to be persuasion is now prosecution.
We tell ourselves we’re open-minded — as long as everyone agrees with us.
We preach tolerance — but only for people who believe what we tolerate.
This is what Melanie Phillips calls cultural totalitarianism:
No alternative may be permitted, because the ideology itself claims to be synonymous with goodness.
To disagree is to be evil.
So people stop speaking.
And when people stop speaking, thinking soon follows.
Freedom dies not with a bang, but with a polite “I’d better not say anything.”
Here’s the irony: we’ve become unreasonably reasonable — so obsessed with protecting feelings that we’ve forgotten how to protect truth.
4. The Disappearance of Dialogue
In the Book of Isaiah, God says,
> “Come now, let us reason together.” — Isaiah 1:18
Notice: God doesn’t fear our questions.
He invites them.
Real reason doesn’t cancel; it converses.
The Enlightenment gave us marvelous tools — microscopes, telescopes, and microchips — but it also gave us swollen egos.
We began to think that if something couldn’t be measured, it couldn’t be meaningful.
But love can’t be graphed.
Conscience can’t be peer-reviewed.
And hope doesn’t fit neatly in a spreadsheet.
The tragedy of modern reason is that it amputated half of what makes us human.
We are souls pretending to be software.
We’ve reduced mystery to math and worship to wellness.
And then we wonder why our generation feels anxious, alienated, and addicted.
Because the human heart was not built to run on reason alone.
5. The Reasonable Rebellion Against Reason
Let’s be honest — humans have never been as rational as we think.
The serpent in Eden didn’t tempt Eve with chaos; he tempted her with logic.
> “Did God really say…?”
It sounded like reason — it was rebellion dressed up in sophistication.
That’s still our trick today.
We use reason not to find truth, but to justify what we already decided.
We are unreasonably reasonable whenever we use logic to hide from the Light.
Jesus asked in John 8:46,
> “If I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?”
That’s the question of the century.
We can build AI that writes poetry, but we can’t admit the obvious:
Truth is not invented — it’s revealed.
And revelation requires humility.
The truly reasonable person isn’t the one who knows the most;
it’s the one who bows first.
6. The New Religion of Self
Having exiled God, modern man needed a new deity.
So he looked in the mirror.
Self became the sacred object.
Self-expression became the highest virtue.
Self-esteem became salvation.
And now, we live in a paradox: everyone is free, but no one is fulfilled.
Everyone has a voice, but no one feels heard.
Everyone is special, but no one feels significant.
Because when you worship self, you inherit its limits.
You can’t forgive yourself into peace.
You can’t redeem yourself into purpose.
You can only exhaust yourself trying.
The gospel offers something far more rational — and far more radical.
It says: You are not the center of reality, and that’s good news.
Because truth doesn’t orbit you — you were made to orbit truth.
7. The Death of Wonder
The saddest casualty of our unreasonably reasonable age is wonder.
We’ve analyzed the rainbow until we can’t see its colors anymore.
We’ve dissected the rose and called it progress.
We’ve learned how to split the atom but forgotten how to kneel.
A student once asked me, “If we can explain everything, why do we need faith?”
I said, “Because you can’t explain why you want to explain everything.”
Faith isn’t a substitute for thought; it’s the seedbed of thought.
The early scientists — Newton, Kepler, Pascal — didn’t study nature instead of believing in God.
They studied nature because they believed in God.
They saw order because they believed there was a Mind behind it.
To lose that is to lose the very reason for reason.
8. The Gospel of the Mind and the Heart
Christianity isn’t anti-intellectual. It’s anti-idolatry.
The Bible doesn’t ask you to shut your brain off; it asks you to open it fully — to truth, not just data.
Faith and reason are not enemies; they are dance partners.
Faith leads reason where reason cannot see.
Reason steadies faith when emotion runs wild.
You might call it a divine duet: the mind bows, the heart sings.
C.S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
That’s faith and reason married — the only reasonable way to live.
9. The Courage to Think Again
If this generation wants to reclaim reason, we must first reclaim courage.
Courage to ask forbidden questions.
Courage to listen before labeling.
Courage to doubt our doubts.
A civilization that cannot question its own dogmas isn’t enlightened; it’s enslaved.
So here’s the invitation: be brave enough to think again.
You won’t lose your mind by believing in God — you’ll finally find it.
Because the moment you believe in absolute truth, everything else can find its proper place.
The truth will not silence you — it will set you free.
> “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” — John 8:32
10. The Restoration of Reason
Imagine a campus where students argue passionately but listen patiently.
Where facts matter, but so do souls.
Where conviction and compassion are not opposites.
That’s not a fantasy — it’s a glimpse of what happens when faith re-enters the public square.
Faith doesn’t destroy reason; it disciplines it.
It anchors thought in humility and steers logic with love.
If reason is a compass, faith is true north.
Lose one, and you spin in circles.
To be unreasonably reasonable is to have all the right tools and no direction.
To be faithfully reasonable is to know where home is — and to walk toward it with both mind and heart engaged.
11. Bringing It Home
So, what does it mean for you — the student, the thinker, the skeptic, the believer sitting in the back row scrolling your phone?
It means that God is not threatened by your intellect.
He gave it to you.
He just doesn’t want it to become your idol.
You don’t have to check your brain at the door of faith.
You just have to check your pride.
The smartest decision you’ll ever make may also be the most reasonable:
to trust the One who made reason itself.
When you do, something extraordinary happens.
Logic finds love.
Skepticism finds surrender.
And the age of unreason starts to look a little less permanent.
Because faith doesn’t end thinking — it redeems it.
> “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” — Proverbs 9:10
Conclusion – The Reason for Hope
You and I are living in a time when everything feels upside-down.
Truth sounds like hate.
Virtue sounds like vice.
And standing up for common sense can get you called a radical.
But take heart.
Every age that has lost its mind eventually goes looking for one.
And when it does, it finds the same thing waiting — the God who still says,
> “Come now, let us reason together.”
So think deeply. Laugh freely.
Question bravely. Believe humbly.
And remember:
To follow Christ is not to abandon reason — it’s to come home to it.
