Is Worldview Thought Still Relevant?

Author's Note: The follow article was published yesterday in The Worldview Bulletin - a tremendous resource with links to contemporary news, articles, and worldview thoughts by leading authors and thinkers.  I invite and encourage you to check them out and subscribe to their bulletins and newsletters - Worldview Bulletin link 

The Contemporary Importance of Worldview Thought

Since the first-edition publication of James Sire’s The Universe Next Door in 1976, worldview thought has been a prominent fixture in western evangelicalism.  Christian leaders and teachers have acknowledged the tremendous benefits that worldview awareness and analysis provides in discipleship and spiritual growth, resulting in a veritable boom in Christian worldview exploration and publication—Walsh & Middleton’s The Transforming Vision; Goheen & Bartholomew’s Living at the Crossroads; Wilkens & Sanford’s Hidden Worldviews; Myers & Noebel’s Understanding the Times; Sire’s Naming the Elephant; the list goes on.  Worldview-oriented ministries have also blossomed—Summit Ministries; Probe; Worldview Academy; Leadership University, etc. 

But the rising prominence of worldview thought has also prompted skepticism and opposition from a range of Christian thinkers—including the influential public intellectual James K. A. Smith at Calvin College.  Critics charge that “traditional worldview studies” are reductionistic, and “lack explanatory power and often misinterpret people.” (Noble, A Disruptive Witness, 52-53) For his part, Smith’s primary charge is that worldview is overly rationalistic, and miss the reality that human habits (virtues) are shaped not by right thinking but by right loves/liturgy (see Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 17ff; idem., Imagining the Kingdom, 9ff).   

As we write in An Introduction to Christian Worldview (IVP Academic, 2017, see pp. 56-64) criticisms from Smith (and others) may apply to some specific worldview thinkers and ministries, but they miss the mark with the broad swath of contemporary worldview thought—which universally recognizes the primacy of heart orientation, cultural context, and pretheoretical influences in the development and articulation of worldview.  We also identify seven areas of benefit to understanding and studying worldview (An Introduction to Christian Worldview, 51-56).  Being familiar with worldview studies can also help one to grasp the powerful influence that our often-unconscious presuppositions and commitments exert over us through confirmation bias, experiential accommodation, the pool of live options, and life motivation (ICW, 29-42).

In addition to all that, though, it seems to me that there is an even more pressing reason that worldview thought and analysis is more necessary today than perhaps ever before.  Jamie Smith accuses worldview study of being overly rationalistic, and reducing human persons to ‘brains on a stick.’  That may be, at least in some cases.  But it is evident to me that the primary danger facing Western civilization (not just Christianity, but all of society) today is not hyper-rationalism, but rather ir-rationalism.

Exhibit A: The rise of postmodern relativism, not just in morality, but in truth.  “That might be true for you, but it’s not true to me.”  “I’m glad Christianity works for you, but it doesn’t work for me.”  “That’s just your truth.”  “Don’t force your truth down my throat.”  More famously, Richard Rorty claimed that truth is merely what your peers will let you get away with.

Exhibit B: The replacement of reasoned public discourse and disagreement with tribalistic shouting and merely emotional appeals.  Emotion and feeling certainly have a place, but when feeling entirely replaces fact, civilized society suffers.  “How dare you question my preferred self-identification?!”  The other aspect of feeling-over-fact is the readiness to immediately reject opposing data, truth-claims, and opinions as “fake news” or something worse (bigoted propaganda, hate speech, etc.).

Exhibit C: The lack of concern with logically inconsistent worldview beliefs.  “Logic is just an imperialistic western invention, anyway.”  “Jesus doesn’t care about incompatible beliefs; He just calls me to follow Him.”  I once pointed out an apparent logical inconsistency in faith-claims made by a friend (a Ph.D. in History, no less).  Their response: “I can’t be bothered with logical consistency in my faith; I have a hard enough time just trying to love Jesus.”

The poster-child for irrationalism in contemporary Christianity is the self-professing believer, who believes that we should not judge (critique) anybody else’s lifestyle or choices, but simultaneously condemns me for having the audacity to be pro-life; who accepts Jesus as Savior and Lord, but also thinks their faithful Hindu neighbor will be in heaven with them (even though that Hindu would rather achieve moksha and cease to exist); who proudly (and properly) crusades for social justice because God has a preferential concern for the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner, but thinks that the Bible’s prohibition of same-sex relationships is old-fashioned.

Do we need to do a better job of liturgical (habitual) discipleship, and inculcate Christian virtue within young believers?  Absolutely.  But to at least the same degree, the contemporary Church needs to reclaim the Christian mind from the blathering incoherence of postmodern relativism, emotionalism, tribalism, and blithely unconcerned logical inconsistency.  And on this latter front, worldview thinking is not just relevant, but absolutely indispensable.

In An Introduction to Christian Worldview, we propose three tests for worldview truth (pp. 76-90): internal consistency (logical coherence), external consistency (evidential correspondence), and existential consistency (pragmatic satisfaction).  As Christians recognize the unconscious way in which their worldview has taken shape, acknowledge the pervasive influence that worldview exerts upon their beliefs and actions, and subjects their worldview beliefs and actions to the scrutiny of worldview tests for truth, we just may be able to counter the contemporary specter of Christian irrationalism.  Lord willing, we might also make inroads with our beloved non-Christian friends and neighbors, and impact them with the Truth (not my truth, but the Truth) of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.