A good worldview book is all many people can process, but they almost surely should process that much. Read Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth not as the last word on any topic, but as a good word from a careful Christian public intellectual. As for the rest of us who write, if we disagree with Pearcey, then we should work hard to present readable alternatives agreeing where we can and dissenting where we must.

Google “Christian worldview” and you will discover a large number of people whose profession it is to teach Christians to look at issues from a Christian perspective. The most common explanation of “worldview” is the intellectual “glasses” we use to clarify our vision of the world.

Safe to say, there are two different opinions about “worldview” education that I encounter. Christian academics (or want to be academics) generally dislike it while standard church goers are not big fans, either.

The funny thing is that this opposition is for entirely opposite reasons.

For the average Christian I meet, “worldview training” sounds too intellectual and distracting from the central mission of the church. For most Christian academics, particular worldview programs are too generalized and more than a little embarrassing in their simplicity.

One group is daunted by the “big book of answers” and the other, by training, sees any “big book of answers” as almost surely bad.

Let’s get two problems out of the way. Some “worldview programs” seem adverse to questions. They have five arguments for the existence of God and if a student keeps pressing or is unpersuaded, they shut down discussion. This is a bad thing.

The good news is that presenting what an instructor believes to be true can begin a discussion. It does not have to end it. One can start with a set of answers, hold them fiercely, and still be a good discussant.

Another problem is the “worldview program” centers which condemn “non-Christian” points of view and “syncretism” without acknowledging what is good, true, and beautiful about other points of view. Some programs even behave as if there was a pristine “Jewish” thought that evolved without contamination into “Christian” thinking. This is entirely wrong.

The idea that any part of the Bible was written or produced apart from the surrounding cultures is indefensible. God used human writers and human languages to express His eternal, infallible truth.

There are worldview programs that recognize this fact as well.

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