Heart Knowledge is Better than Head Knowledge?

Although it's an amalgam of several different sources, the post on Anti-Intellectualism in Christianity over at Beyond Rivalry really spoke to me on a number of levels.

Not that I consider myself an 'intellectual', but I sometimes feel that we in the Methodist Church particularly value the question: 'How can I use this idea within the next twenty four hours to achieve some kind of concrete result?' There is certainly nothing wrong with this kind of pragmatic focus, but I do sometimes wonder whether we have also devalued the exercise of stepping back and actually thinking or praying about whether our actions are oriented toward God, our Christian values or our identity.

I also do worry that we (I'm speaking of the British Methodist Church here) by and large think that faithful academic theology is useless. We seem to think that unless immediate theological reflection can be done which results in a thought I can use in the next twenty-four hours, that studying theology is a waste of time. I don't think most of us are in the camp of thinking that theology ruins one's faith, but I'm not sure that collectively as a church we value theological study.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not an academic but I've found that the theology I've read just for pleasure has served me well over the long term. I don't always have immediate 'use' for it, but I do feel that it's given me a good foundation both for preaching and for my own faith. John Stott seems to think so too and he can hardly be accused of being a liberal.