Introducing a Symposium
As he is wont to do, Stephen Wolfe recent induced a disturbance in the evangelical force on X. James White, for example, was none too pleased, as is his custom. In case you missed it, here’s what he said:
“Worldview” is a reactionary word. Evangelicals found themselves embattled with innumerable, well-accepted ideas in complex fields requiring specialization that seem to oppose conservative Christianity. The average person lacks the expertise in these fields to challenge them on their own terms and by their own methodology. Yet they need to be challenged, because modern life strongly imposes them on everyone. “Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions.” And “worldview” explained social phenomena with exclusively Christian explanations. These explanations are typically simplistic and don’t explain much. Further, in effect no evangelical sees the need to know anything about these fields. They only need to know a universal method of “worldview analysis.” It’s a general skill for everything. No specialization required. This is why, I think, some evangelicals convert out of Protestantism. They find that their conservative professors, who actually know the field of study well, are often Roman Catholics (or maybe Anglicans), and they find among them an intellectual ecosystem that favors inquiry and critical thought without importing these “worldview” lenses to explains things away. (I’d also add that evangelical academics tend to be political squishes and center-left, at least in disposition). There is nothing about Protestantism or Roman Catholicism in themselves that explains this. Protestant intellectuals dominated intellectual thought in Europe for centuries. It’s entirely due to historical dynamics, reaction, and the democratization of apologetics. We would become much smarter if we dropped “worldview” entirely.
Provocative and insightful, Stephen’s post got some of our best contributors–Simon Kennedy, Benjamin Marby, Joel Carini, and Stephen Wolfe–thinking. What follows is their thoughts, prompted by Stephen’s initial volley, on the meaning, use, and history of “this fraught term “worldview.” First up is Simon Kennedy, “W-W Reformed.”
The unfortunate part of insisting on our sources having a Christian worldview is that it has made us arrogant without being infallible. And though while speaking in another context, what James Boice once wrote applies to Christians here when Insisting that those we learn from must have a “Christian” worldview. For that practice ‘overestimates the godliness of the godly‘ and underestimates the effects of common grace on even ‘rank unbelievers.’ Around my neck of the woods, insisting that the sources of information and teaching must have a Christian worldview is the Christian way of saying: ‘If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.’ The arrogance of such a practice is better illustrated by a quote from Martin Luther King Jr when speaking against the Vietnam War:
‘The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.‘
Note that when we replace the word ‘Western‘ with a fill-in-the-blank, that quote speaks to more than just to those whom King spoke to. It can speak to any of us. And what should most concern us with that quote is the arrogance that comes when we believe that we have nothing to learn from others When we think that way, we are embracing an attitude that is cotoxic to our Christian faith. For while arrogance claims that ‘we built it‘ while the Christian faith teaches us that all that we have we have received because of God’s mercy and grace.
We should also note that some of what we call the Christian worldview is neither monolithic nor universal for the Church.
Having written the above, that is not to say that having a Christian worldview is unimportant. It is to say that the advantages of Christian worldviews are limited and so we still need to listen to others outside the faith with the same curiosity and diligent examination that the Bereans showed to Paul when he preached to them.