Books to recommend for thinking about Worldviews

One of the main things that has kept me busy as of late is preparation for a short course on Worldviews which I will be conducting in my church. The course is meant to introduce the average lay person in the church to the concept of worldviews and how in understanding the biblical worldview, we can engage with the other worldviews out there. To that end, I have found the following books helpful in the preparation.

1) James Sire, Naming the Elephant (http://www.amazon.com/Naming-Elephant-Worldview-As-Concept/sim/083082779X/2)

In this book, Sire clearly and succinctly explores the concept of a worldview by asking and answering the follow questions (which happen to be his chapter divisions):
· What’s the history of the concept? How has it been used in both philosophy and theology?
· What comes first in worldview – reality or knowing the reality?
· Is a worldview primarily theoretical or pretheoretical?
· Is a worldview expressed as a rational system of propositions; as a way of life; or as a grand story or narrative?
· Are worldviews public or private?
· Can we now have a (re)definition of worldview?
· Of what use is the concept of worldview in engaging others?

I’ve found this book relatively easy to read, and Sire does a good job in summarising the key academic discussions that have occurred in recent worldview studies. His usage and commendation of David Naugle’s Worldview: The History of a Concept (which is a more technical book exploring the same ideas as Sire does) can be seen throughout his book. Overall, his definition is ‘all-encompassing’ enough to allow for the various schools of thought that have arisen within worldview studies.

“A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions which we hold about the basic constitution of reality and that provides the foundation on which we move and live and have our being.” (p.122)

Readers familiar with Sire’s thought will realise he has allowed a greater place for the role of narratives or story in expressing (and likewise influencing) one’s worldview.

2) James Sire, The Universe Next Door (http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Next-Door-Worldview-Catalog/dp/0830827803/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b)

This is Sire’s earlier book on worldviews. Earlier would also mean that Sire here holds on to his earlier thinking that worldviews are primarily expressed as a set of presuppositions or propositions that we hold to the big questions of life. He hence distinguishes the different worldviews according to philosophical categories – theism, deism, naturalism, nihilism, existentialism, Eastern Religious worldview, New Age worldview, and postmodernism.

This book is useful because Sire masterfully summarises the key tenets of each philosophical worldview (according to the big questions of life) such that we can observe the general pattern for each worldview and what is it that distinguishes one worldview from the next. Though critics may accuse Sire of over-generalisation (which he recognises and tries to show the variances within each worldview), he has nonetheless done his best within the scope of the length of the book. It is up to us the readers to contextualise in our own peculiar situation – for e.g. in Singapore society, I think the philosophical worldview of the average Singapore is driven by a funny mix and combination of deism (though not Christian deism, but more of the gods of other religions) and naturalism (expressed most in pragmatism). But Sire’s book provides us the foundation to do this contextualising by enabling us to know the major tenets of each philosophical worldview. It is also important not to totally eject the ‘presupposition/propositional’ approach to worldview in favour of the ‘narrative’ approach because I remain convinced that behind every story or narrative stands propositions or presuppositions which shape that story – even though we may not be conscious of it, let alone articulate what these presuppositions or propositions are. Sire’s book draws our knowledge to what some of the presuppositions and propositions could be.

3) Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads (http://www.amazon.com/Living-Crossroads-Introduction-Christian-Worldview/dp/0801031400/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251430431&sr=1-1)

This is actually the 2nd book in a series of 3 that Goheen and Bartholomew ( henceforth abbreviated as G&B) have come up with. The 1st focused on Biblical Theology (see earlier review here) and the 3rd will be on philosophy.

It is clear in this book that G&B adopt the story or narrative approach to worldview. The layout and the sequence of thought in the book is clear – starting first with a discussion on the concept ; then looking at how the biblical grand story (or metanarrative) of Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consumation actually provide or express a Christian worldview ; then tracing the other metanarrative that has largely affected the world – that of the story of secular or autonomous humanism (i.e. by our own reason, we can understand life and work towards a utopian life). Over the span of two chapters, G&B skilfully explores how this story of secular humanism was born and grew and blossomed over the whole course of human history and thought ( they begin with the Greco-Roman times and move through the Medieval, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment – showing at each stage the development of the story of secular humanism). G&B proceed on to show how despite the advert of postmodernism, the grand story of secular humanism is still well and alive as expressed in the story of consumerism, which grips so many of us. The effect of the story of secular humanism is the increasingly secularisation of society - religion or God is forced into a private corner and has limited domain or say only in the ‘religious’ affairs of the world.

G&B’s challenge is that, rightly understood, the biblical grand story will lead us to realise the fact that ‘Jesus is Lord’ and God’s Kingdom and the salvation He brings is comprehensive and restorative. i.e. God’s Kingdom has every influence and area over our lives and this world we live in and should not be forced into the private corner. In the last 2 chapters of the book, G&B provide some brilliant ideas and insight (and a good list of references for those who want to chase it up more) on how our biblical worldview should impact us in the way we think about business, politics, sports, art and culture, scholarship, and education. One cannot walk away from reading this book without realising the ‘big-ness’ and ‘grand-ness’ of God’s kingdom penetrating into every area of life, and repenting of the way perhaps in our religious piety, we have ‘narrowed’ the scope of God’s salvation to our individual salvation or merely the salvation of the church, while forgetting the comprehensive restorative nature of his salvation to life in this world as well.

One minor point though – I felt G&B have not given enough weight and attention to the penal effects of sin and the penal substitutionary work of Christ on the cross. Instead sin is largely presented as a deconstruction and reconstruction (in a negative way) of the structures of this world God established at creation. Jesus’ death is hence presented as the way to undo the power of sin in this regard, hence enabling the restorative work of God in these structures of the world and life. While all this is true, it is my opinion that G&B could have showed more sufficiently the linkage between the restorative work of the cross and resurrection on creation and the wrath of God towards sin and sinners – it is precisely because that wrath has been dealt with, the penalty of sin paid for, that God can now restore what sin has damaged.

Overall, the two books – The Universe Next Door and Living at the Crossroads – complement each other. I have been greatly encouraged in my thinking and also in my pastoral ministry of the effectiveness of using the concept of worldviews as we proclaim the gospel, engaging with them at a level which matters most to them existentially – their understanding of life and this world we live in.

(pictures taken from Amazon)