A teacher sent me a very good article today by an English professor at Huntington College named Jack Heller. It is entitled
Further Scandal: Christian College Professor Doesn't Teach from a Christian Worldview. Heller, by all appearances a sincere and orthodox believer, provides some thoughtful counterpoints to the emphasis on biblical worldview teaching. The brief article can be found here:
www.newpantagruel.com/issues/1.4/further_scandal_christian_coll_print.php
He makes some very good points:
- First, much of what passes for Christian worldview is badly misplaced. He is correct that the Nehemiah Institute's description of a biblical worldview is nothing more than neo-conservative politicism (http://www.nehemiahinstitute.com/). We need to reject that as an identifier of biblical worldview even if many of us are, in fact, conservatives. Let's face it, if capitalism were part and parcel with a Christian worldview, why did it take 1700 years for Christians to figure that out? That is not to say that capitalism is necessarily opposed to a biblical worldview, only that many of the sacred cows to which we hold are not necessary to a Christian worldview. On that, I believe Heller is right.
- He is also correct that by affirming the fallenness of our intellect, we must then affirm the impossibility of identifying and living a consistent and thoroughly true Christian worldview. We will never arrive in this age at an agreement on what the one true biblical worldview is. And even if everyone were to agree on it, it still might be flawed.
- He is also correct that other things may legitimately influence our worldview other than divine revelation - cultural, geographical, personal influences. All of these things may influence how we perceive the world and legitimately fall under Christian liberty. One person finds meat sacrificed to idols offensive, another finds it no problem at all.
The above are real issues that we ought to consider when we think about worldview.
There are issues, however, that I believe he is, at best, only partly correct on, and it causes him to draw conclusions with which I disagree.
- First, while there may certainly be legitimate differences about what consitutes a Christian worldview on issues, he seems to ignore the fact that there is no legitimate disagreement on foundational principles of Christian wv. For instance, there is no debate among orthodoxy on the trinity, on the doctrine of God as creator, on the fallenness of man, etc. So when he claims that there is no continuity between the medeival Christian worldview and 21st c. evangelical wv, he is wrong. While the worldviews separated by 1000 years clearly are not identical, there is a continuity to them that makes both identifiable as Christian. Neither of them perfect, remember, but then if he wishes to apply that standard to worldview, he must apply it to his own essay. Is not his own essy a product of his own wv?
- Next, I believe he mischaracterizes the purpose of worldview teaching. Perhaps that is because wv teaching's espousers too often present it poorly and so people develop misunderstandings about it simply by how they speak. He writes that, "worldview criticism too often depends on facile labeling that makes a work's artistry mere window dressing for amateur philosophizing." While that may be true, it does not lessen the need to point out in the discussion of a novel how an author's worldview affects the themes of the work. Being able to understand an author's presuppositions and whether those presupps are true or not are vital to understanding the work and our response to it. (It is not only Christians who respond to art vis-a-vis their worldview, yet Heller seems to ignore that.) So legitimate comparisons may be made between their wv and a biblical one. We do not make such comparisons merely do to "deconstruct" the work and provide a straw man we can then tear down. We do it so that we can train our minds to identify how people think so we can engage them with truth. He is wrong by stating in the first paragraph that worldview teaching must "let students evade the issues the text raises by dismissing it as stemming from a naturalistic worlview." That is not what good WV teaching does. And if it describes what we do, we must change. It is easy to fall into the trap of dismissing postmodernism or Darwinism rather than addressing the reall issues they present. But good WV teaching must engage those issues so that we can wrestle with how Christians must respond to them. Contrasts must be made between truth and error. Otherwise, how would we ever identify sin and the need for redemption?
- While he may be correct that Derrida and other postmodernist writers have less of an influence as other things (poor teaching in churches, lack of quality reading, nationalism, etc.) on the thoughts and actions of Christians, he seems to ignore the obvious - that although almost no one in the church has the foggiest clue who Jacques Derrida or Michele Foucault are, they are still living in a culture heavily influenced by them and the culture influences everyone. Just because a person has not read Origin of the Species does not mean they are not influenced by Darwin. Derrida and Foucault have similar influences.
There are other issues in the article worth wrestling with. Heller raises some worthwhile ideas. And even if we disagree with them, the value is that it forces us to clarify our own thinking. In fact, isn't it really better to read people with whom you will likely disagree? Or perhaps you disagree with that statement!
