Worldview Reviews

Happy New Year!  It's been a crazy and difficult past month ... no blogging has been realistically possible. 

To start off the new year, I would like to share a couple of reviews of An Introduction to Christian Worldview - the worldview text that David Naugle, Michael Clark, and I co-authored and recently published with IVP Academic.

The first is an extensive, constructively critical review by Dr. Randal Rauser, Associate Professor of Historical Theology at Taylor Seminary in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  Rauser's extended review essay is outstanding, and highlights some very real shortcomings of our worldview book (including at least one embarrassing face-palm moment on my part ... failing to include nationalism in our concluding treatment of worldlyviews).  I hope one day soon to have sufficient time to respond in more depth to some of Rauser's specific critiques - but for now will encourage you to read his extended review, and share his concluding assessment of the work:

... the developed extent of my criticisms should be taken as evidence that this is an engrossing book which is absolutely packed with information and provocative analysis that is worthy of serious engagement. I may disagree with the authors at points, but that’s in large part because they write with clarity, concision, and savvy cultural awareness. Oh yeah, and they cover a dizzying range of topics in an intriguing and thought-provoking manner. All told, the result is an excellent and comprehensive introduction to worldview thinking.

So what’s the final verdict? To sum up, ICW is a great value for money and is an ideal textbook for upper-level undergraduates or seminary students. That is why I am enthusiastically adopting ICW as the main textbook in my seminary worldview course. It’s also why I commend it to every interested reader.

The second review of An Introduction to Christian Worldview is by Dr. Michael Philliber, Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Edmonton, Oklahoma.  Philliber's short review notes the contributions the text makes, and highlights its appropriateness in some settings (but not others!).

I am thankful to Dr. Rauser and Dr. Philliber for taking the time to engage with our text!  If you'd like to check the book out for yourself, check it out on Amazon or Amazon.ca.

An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Finalist in IVP's Reader's Choice Awards!!!

Excited.  Honored.  Pumped.  I struggle with the right words - but it's pretty neat to see that our co-authored worldview text has been nominated as a finalist for InterVarsity Press's annual "Reader's Choice Awards." 

Please support the book!  Vote via web or mobile app.  And, of course, feel free to support the book by purchasing a copy - Amazon link   Readers' Choice Awards voting is open until December 3.

Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, October 2017. 384 pp. 

Worldview Matters: Confirmation Bias

Why Does Worldview Matter? The Impact of Worldview I – Confirmation Bias

Have you ever wondered what the big deal is about ‘worldview’? Why care about what your worldview is, or someone else’s worldview is? What is the big deal about worldview studies, or worldview awareness? I hope to address the importance of worldview awareness and analysis in a series of posts, drawing on insights worked out more fully in our recently-released text, An Introduction to Christian Worldview (IVP Academic).

Worldview is the conceptual lens through which we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it. Worldview develops in and flows through the heart, the center of the human person, and necessarily involves answers (propositional or narrative) to four questions: What is our nature? What is our world? What is our problem? What is our end? Every person possesses a worldview that provides an answer or set of answers to these core worldview questions, but these individual worldviews can be compiled under broad categories.

The Impact of Worldview

I greatly enjoy mysteries and detective stories, from Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot, Law & Order to NCIS. When cops or crown attorneys have a working thesis concerning a particular crime, their approach to evidence is affected by how that evidence relates to their governing thesis. For example, if they suspect someone of committing a particular crime, tiny bits of evidence will strengthen their position.

An Introduction to Christian Worldview - Book Launch!

Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, 2017. Amazon link

Formal Book Launch - Friday, November 3 @ Oklahoma Baptist University

Over the past few months, I have written a series of blog posts about our newly-published worldview textbook.  On Friday, OBU will host the official book launch for An Introduction to Christian Worldview.  The book launch will be hosted by Heath Thomas, Dean of the College of Theology & Ministry at OBU.  Three distinguished visiting scholars will deliver critical engagements with the book - Jim Baird (Oklahoma Christian University), Mark Coppenger (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), and Robert Stewart (New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary).  After their presentations and responses, there will be a panel discussion about the book, featuring the three guests, myself, and Louima Lilite, Professor of Music at OBU and one of the co-originators of the worldview textbook.

Please check out the linked (below) article on OBU's website - I'm pumped about the conversations that we'll be able to have on Friday!   Book Launch Article

What's In A Worldview? Star Wars and the 4 Worldview Questions

What’s In a Worldview? Part II – Star Wars and the 4 Worldview Questions

Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, 2017. Amazon link

Contemporary Cultural Worldview Meditation

 

In my last few posts, I have been talking about the nature of worldview – what is a worldview, and what all is a worldview comprised of? I have suggested that worldview is the conceptual lens through which we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it. Our worldview is generally formed pre-theoretically – that is, without our conscious thought and consideration. Worldview takes root based on our experiences and the influences exerted upon us by friends, family, education, and culture.

Each person’s worldview answer four fundamental sets of questions about life, the universe, and everything: What is our nature? What is our world? What is our problem? And What is our end?

It is interesting, then, to consider the worldviews displayed by people around us, including the worldviews displayed in popular culture. So today – consider a brief jaunt into the worldview of the Star Wars world …

What's In A Worldview? The Questions We All Must Face

What's In A Worldview? Part I - Questions all Worldviews Answer

Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, October 2017. 384 pp. Purchase via Amazon

Philosophers, educators, sociologists, missiologists, and anthropologists alike can agree that worldview is an important concept to understand and apply. Furthermore, scholars in each discipline agree that there is an identifiable set of common components to worldview.  Some

scholars propose categories of thought or belief as the common components to worldview. Other scholars suggest that all worldviews address a set of unavoidable common questions.

I contend that it is best to approach universal worldview components with four core questions in mind: What is our nature? What is our world? What is our problem? What is our end? On one hand, asking such questions helps to bring worldview commitments to the surface in a way that categories or classifications may not; the route of questioning embodies the still-valuable Socratic method of philosophical inquiry. Furthermore, approaching worldviews via questions is more attuned to the predominantly storied or narrative structure of worldview. Thus, we believe that our worldview—conscious or not, consistent or not—answers four fundamental questions (actually, four sets of questions) about life, the universe, and everything. Each question (or set of questions) has multiple possible answers that can be given in the form of stories or propositions; together, the answers compose a comprehensive view of reality. The questions posed for and answered by every worldview have been asked by thinking persons for millennia.

What Is Worldview? Part III - Engaging James Sire

What Is Worldview: James Sire, Dean of Worldview Thought

James Sire is arguably the most influential evangelical worldview proponent over the past two generations. Given my interest in worldview studies (as exemplified in our recently-published An Introduction to Christian Worldview, with IVP Academic), I think it is healthy and important to understand what Sire has written on worldview over the past 40 years, and to build upon his wisdom. His classic text, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, first published in 1976, is currently in its fifth edition. The first three editions focused on worldview as primarily a set of basic concepts or intellectual presuppositions. After rethinking his approach, Sire thoroughly revised his understanding and explanation of worldview. Sire no longer understands or explains worldview in terms of philosophical propositions alone. Instead, he provides a comprehensive and holistic definition:

A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being. [James W. Sire, Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), 13.]

Sire’s definition is helpful on several levels and deserves to be unpacked.

Today's the Day!!!

Anderson, Tawa J., W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017.

After five long years of collaboration, writing, revising, re-writing, editing, and indexing, our co-authored Worldview textbook is officially released today (October 10) by IVP Academic.  A hearty shout out to Dan Reid, our chief editor at InterVarsity Press, along with the editing and artistic team, for a truly beautiful product (inside and out!).  The book is casebound, hard-cover, 384 pages, with beautiful cover art; some charts, figures, and illustrations in the main text; well laid-out (and interesting) sidebars and scenic byways engaging worldview in pop culture; with a helpful (and painstakingly-produced) index.  I'm biased, of course, but it's a fantastic product both in its content and its presentation.

The promotional blurb from IVP (also on Amazon): Everyone has a worldview. A worldview is the lens through which we interpret the cosmos and our lives in it. A worldview answers the big questions of life: What is our nature? What is our world? What is our problem? What is our End? As Anderson, Clark, and Naugle point out, our worldview cannot simply be reduced to a series of rational beliefs. We are creatures of story, and the kinds of stories we tell reveal important things about our worldview. Part of being a thoughtful Christian means being able to understand and express the Christian worldview as well as developing an awareness of the variety of worldviews. An Introduction to Christian Worldview takes you further into answering questions such as

• Why do worldviews matter?
• What characterizes a Christian worldview?
• How can we analyze and describe a worldview?
• What are the most common secular and religious worldviews?

Well organized, clearly written, and featuring aids for learning, An Introduction to Christian Worldview is the essential text for either the classroom or for self-study.

How can you get a copy?  ...

What Is A Worldview? Part 2

What Is A Worldview? Origins & Definitions

Excerpted from Anderson, Clark, and Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview (IVP Academic, 2017), 9-13. (To be released October 12, 2017.)

The English term worldview is derived from the German Weltanschauung, a compound word (Welt = world + Anschauung = view or outlook) first used by Immanuel Kant to describe an individual’s sensory perception of the world. The term spread quickly in German idealist philosophy “to refer to an intellectual conception of the universe from the perspective of a human knower.” In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, German philosophers used Weltanschauung increasingly for the concept of answering pivotal questions regarding life,

the universe, and everything.

A worldview can be helpfully defined as “the conceptual lens through which we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it.” There is, however, a multitude of ways to define and explain worldview.

What Is a Worldview? Part 1

What Is a Worldview? Stories & A Definition

Excerpted from Anderson, Clark, and Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview (IVP Academic, 2017), 8-9. (To be released October 12, 2017.)

Three friends once went to a nature preserve in the African Serengeti and experienced the majestic beauty and diversity of native African wildlife—zebra, elephant, gazelle, lion, and rhinoceros. Each was awestruck by the diversity of creatures observed.

The first friend, John Luther, commented boldly: “The Lord God has definitely created an amazing array of creatures that sing his praises and declare his glory to the ends of the earth, has he not?”

The second friend, Charles Dawkins, immediately responded: “An amazing array of creatures, to be sure. But you err, my good man, in ascribing their existence to a Creator. No, these incredible animals are the result of the unguided, purposeless combination of random mutation and natural selection. We too are the product of a natural evolutionary process. Indeed, we are no different from the creatures that we see.”

The third friend, Shirley Chopra, serenely replied: “I pray you both would be enlightened to the full reality disclosed by our brothers and sisters on the nature preserve. For they too bear the same spark of divinity that lies within you and me. Do you not sense them calling to you, seeking to communicate with your spirit? We are all potential gods and goddesses; we just need to awaken to our heightened state and take hold of the possibilities that lie before us.”

The three friends see the same animals within the same nature preserve. Thus, they experience the same objective truth. Nevertheless, due to their vastly different perspectives, the three friends see different things.

It's Almost Here!!!

"It's time!  It's time!  Did he just say it's time?!"

Over five years ago, Michael Clark, Louima Lilite, and I conceived of a textbook project.  We had just finished co-teaching a J-Term (three weeks at the start of January, between fall semester and spring semester) class at Oklahoma Baptist University entitled "Christian Worldview," and geared for first-time freshmen.  The goals of the 1-credit-hour course were to introduce students to the concept of worldview, the importance of worldview thought, the contours of a Christian worldview, and some elementary worldview comparison and analysis. 

We used James Sire's excellent text, The Universe Next Door (5th edition) as our only textbook for Christian Worldview.  Sire does a phenomenal job of laying out worldview questions, and how 8 different worldviews compare with one another on those questions.  His text is rightly a classic in the field.  But we wanted, in our course, to do more in two areas: (1) consideration of what worldview is and how it affects us; and (2) outlining and analyzing the contours of a robust Christian worldview.  There are, of course, other books that accomplish those tasks admirably.  For (1), David Naugle's Worldview: The History of a Concept is outstanding; James Sire's somewhat-shorter Naming the Elephant (recently released in a 2nd edition) is also very helpful.  For (2), Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew's Living at the Crossroads and Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton's The Transforming Vision also do a competent job.  (Both also do a bit of work on the first aspect, too.)

But no matter how we searched, we could not find a one-stop text that accomplished the three purposes that we had articulated for our J-Term Christian Worldview course: (1) Worldview as a concept; (2) Contours of Christian worldview; (3) Comparison and analysis of other worldviews.  Given that we had three weeks to work with in J-Term, we naturally wanted to allocate one week to each of our three purposes, and desired to have course materials that reflected those goals and the desired balance.

We came up empty on our book search.  And so the three of us thought it might be a good idea to write our own materials.  In 2012, we spent the calendar year sketching, outlining, and then writing the book, which we used in January 2013 with our freshman worldview course.  The first go-around was a bit rough around the edges, but the material was helpful and solid.  At that point, it seemed like the project was worthwhile, not just for our use internally, but for a broader public as well. 

So in Spring 2013 we pitched the course text as a book project to InterVarsity Press, in my estimation the top publisher in academic Christian philosophy and apologetics.  Andy LePeau, a senior editor with IVP Academic, adopted the project, and we began working with IVP to revise our materials.  Over the subsequent three years, various events intervened: Michael left OBU to pursue a second doctoral degree (in law); Louima withdrew from the textbook project (but graciously left his outline, wisdom, and plans with the project) and was replaced by our good friend David Naugle (from Dallas Baptist University); Andy LePeau retired from IVP and was replaced by Dan Reid as editor for the project. 

It has been a roller-coaster of a project, seeing this Worldview textbook along the way.  But now, finally, after thousands of hours of research, collaboration, writing, revising, editing, footnoting, indexing, and proof-reading, the book is coming out in 18 days (not that I'm counting)!