Dockery, David S., Gregory Alan Thornbury, ed. Shaping a Christian Worldview: The Foundations of Christian Higher Education. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2002. 438 pp. $24.99.
One could fill a library with the number of books written relating to the idea of a Christian Worldview. Many of those have generated much talk, while others add very little to the conversation. Has the subject of the Christian worldview been depleted? Is there anything left to be said? Editors David S. Dockery and Gregory Alan Thornbury believe that there is still more to cover, at least in the area of higher education.
Dockery, President of Union University, and Thornbury, Director of the Carl F.H. Henry Center for Christian Leadership and Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at Union University, have obvious interests in combining worldview and higher education. This interest likely lead to the writing of Shaping a Christian Worldview: The Foundations of Christian Higher Education.
Written by various faculty members of Union University and edited by Dockery and Thornbury, Shaping a Christian Worldview attempts to address the subject of worldview and its influence on higher education.
Dockery intended Shaping a Christian Worldview to be a “capable articulation” of the Christian worldview for “beginning college students” (preface). In the preface, Dockery says that the book was intended to “spur additional thinking and rich conversations” among these students (preface).
Dockery also makes it clear that it is a “call for worldview thinking by Christians in the academy” (preface). By this, Dockery is referring to all Christians in all the academies. This call goes well beyond collegiate freshmen. It is a call to the professors and the institutions as well. Dockery calls for all those involved in educational institutions with a “Christ-centered mission” to be “rigorously academic and unapologetically Christian” (preface).
It is clear that both Dockery and Thornbury are concerned with the lack of Christian worldviews among those involved in higher education. This includes concern for the individuals as well as the institutions themselves. Shaping a Christian Worldview suggests that out of the 3600 institutions of higher education, only about five percent actually claim a Christ-centered mission. Knowing that a person’s worldview controls his or her perception of, as well as direction in all things, the editors are genuinely concerned about the direction of higher education. “The reality is that everyone has a worldview,” Dockery says (2).
Shaping a Christian Worldview follows the lead of similar books like Charles Colson’s How Now Shall We Live and Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth. While similarly introducing their audiences to the idea of a worldview, Shaping a Christian Worldview focuses on an academic application of the Christian worldview. No other environment has the potential to shape one’s worldview like a university campus. Even so, few students are fully aware of the role their own worldview plays in their lives.
One nice thing about Shaping a Christian Worldview is that it offers applications as well as a foundation for a Christian worldview. The book first offers the authority of scripture as the foundation for a Christian worldview. It then strongly argues that the Bible should be “authorative for a Christian scholar or university” (20).
Shaping a Christian Worldview then looks at the history of the Christian worldview in higher education. As institutions of higher education become more and more secular, it is difficult to believe that many, if not most, of them come from Christian roots. The book suggests that there has been a “slow but steady severing of the university from the body of Christ in the local church” (50). One such school, offered up as a case study, is Bucknell University. Like Bucknell, many of these institutions lack “any clear theological standard” to which they can be held “accountable” (50). In addition to lacking a “theological standard,” many of these institutions have also tragically lost their “missiological impulse” (50).
Having established scripture as the foundation of a Christian worldview and then the results of not having such a foundation, Shaping a Christian Worldview then looks into the theological and philosophical foundations of one’s worldview.
Undoubtedly, one’s worldview hinges on one’s established, and often unconscious, presuppositions. Presuppositions play a critical role in higher education as they “have a profound effect on the way one thinks about research and conclusions” (21). In chapter one, George Guthrie points out that “the Bible has much to say to a Christian immersed in any of the academic disciplines at the level of presuppositions” (20). Brad Green explores those essential presuppositions in chapter three. Covering such Biblical essentials as creation, the fall, redemption, and the Lordship of Christ, Green also spends time on the ideas of philosophy such as knowledge, truth, and the “centrality of a telos” (91).
One could be both puzzled and pleased with chapter four. Harry Poe writes about the significant influence of C.S. Lewis on our modern day understanding of a Christian worldview. While Lewis undoubtedly provided major contributions to our academic understanding of worldview, he was not alone in his influence; authors, both before and after Lewis have added much to the discussion.
David Gushee provides a chapter on culture and ethics. Gushee points out that “one of the great flaws in moral instruction” is that our students’ moral norms are not grounded in a “broader Christian worldview” (109). Chapter 5 seeks to provide a foundation beneath most students’ shallow morality.
The final chapters focus on the practical application of a Christian worldview. These chapters cover a range of topics from literature to business. These chapters provide great insight into how our worldview can and should be applied in our everyday lives. One should be cautious, however to limit his or her application to just the topics mentioned in the book.
Overall Shaping a Christian Worldview was well written and edited. The need for scriptural authority expressed in chapter one was clear and distinctive. In this chapter, George Guthrie points out that “adherence to what might be called ‘authority structures’ is a universal human phenomenon among those who have the ability for any kind of volitional activity” (21). Guthrie is also clear that adherence to scriptural authority does not necessarily conflict with “many of the general models and fruits of research in the broader academy” (22). Guthrie rightly holds that, if properly understood, truth has nothing to fear from biblical revelation or scientific research. Institutions of higher education do not typically reflect Guthrie’s view and as a result, more and more institutions, once founded upon biblical principles, are becoming more and more secular in both principle and practice.
Writing on the subject of Christian worldview and the arts, Karen Mulder makes one of the strongest statements in the entire book. In chapter nine Mulder comments “instilling the ‘response’ instinct rather than allowing the ‘reaction’ response to overrule ought to comprise a key principle of education” (198). One could easily agree with Mulder’s point here. Sadly enough one of the weakest comments, if not the most distressing, follows it. Mulder claims that this idea “ultimately distinguishes truly educated Christians from milk-fed Puritans trained up with platitudes and superficial attitudes from the safe subculture of American Christianity” (198). One could only hope that Mulder is not referring to such “milk-fed Puritans” as Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Keach. Both Edwards and Keach could hardly be seen as uneducated, must less “milk-fed.” To say that these men of the faith were “trained up” in boredom and shallowness seems to be ill spoken and errant. It is on the shoulders of such men that we stand or in this case fall.
Can anything be more subjective than art? The answer is yes or at the very least maybe. Paul Munson undertakes the challenge of making application of the Christian worldview to the realm of music. Though Munson asks whether music is objective or subjective, in his efforts, he leaves that question unanswered. Munson suggests that we can “broaden someone’s musical horizons” (226) by demonstrating “objectively the beauties of unfamiliar music” (226). Yet in the very next paragraph, Munson questions why bother if “beauty is subjectively defined” (226). Munson clarifies his position eventually but leaves the reader to struggle with his intentions much longer than necessary.
Another area within this article where Munson allows the reader too much time before he clearly states his position is concerning musical style. Munson refers to two main repertoires of music within the church. Most are familiar with the two. Many may even insist on one over the other. This issue is primarily what Munson is addressing.
It is a difficult issue and it has split many churches. In the battle of contemporary music versus hymns, Munson has taken the only biblically acceptable position. “So, then, the best church-music practice for our day will be passionately engaged with tradition and at the same time be passionately committed to renewal and intelligibility” (235). While this author believes Munson ultimately came to the right conclusion, it took him quite a few pages to get there. Again, a quick and casual reading of this article could leave one to believe Munson was arguing passionately for one view or the other.
“At the heart of a Christian higher education is the affirmation that God has spoken” (73). This fact alone dooms higher education to be primarily a secular endeavor. The confidence in this statement comes from God’s word itself. Scripture tells us “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor 2:14). The secular man will not and cannot accept the truth of what God is doing in this world. However, those with a well-formed Christian worldview can excel in the highest of academic achievements and, indeed, they should, at least, seek to do so. God has called us to do all things for His glory.
The authors of Shaping a Christian Worldview provide a clear need for a Christian worldview in higher education. They have also clearly communicated the foundations on which to establish that worldview. For this, a commendation is in order. However, several of the authors of the applications seemed to rely more on rhetorical technique and opinion than reason and scripture. If indeed, scripture should be the governing authority in our academic pursuits; its principles should govern the content of this book.
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