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Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
Does God belong in the public arena of politics, business, law, and education? Or is religion a private matter only-personally comforting but publicly irrelevant? In today's cultural etiquette, it is not considered polite to mix public and private, or sacred and secular. This division is the single most potent force keeping Christianity contained in the private sphere-stripping it of its power to challenge and redeem the whole of culture. In Total Truth , Nancy Pearcey offers a razor-sharp analysis of the public/private split, explaining how it hamstrings our efforts at both personal and cultural renewal. Ultimately it reflects a division in the concept of truth itself, which functions as a gatekeeper, ruling Christian principles out of bounds in the public arena. How can we unify our fragmented lives and recover spiritual power? With examples from the lives of real people, past and present, Pearcey teaches readers how to liberate Christianity from its cultural captivity. She walks readers through practical, hands-on steps for crafting a full-orbed Christian worldview. Finally, she makes a passionate case that Christianity is not just religious truth but truth about total reality. It is total truth. This new study guide edition is filled with fresh stories, examples, and illustrations. Based on questions and comments raised by readers of the book, it is ideal for individual or group study.
512 pages, Paperback
First published June 29, 2004
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7763 people want to read
About the author
Nancy R. Pearcey
29 books538 followersNancy Randolph Pearcey is the Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute, where she teaches a worldview course based on the study guide edition of Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. In 2005, Total Truth won the ECPA Gold Medallion Award in the Christianity & Society category, in addition to an Award of Merit in the Christianity Today book awards.
A former agnostic, Pearcey studied violin in Heidelberg, Germany, in the early 1970s and then traveled to Switzerland to study Christian worldview under Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri Fellowship. After graduating from Iowa State University with a Distributed Studies degree (philosophy, German, music), she earned a master’s degree in Biblical Studies from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, then pursued further graduate work in the history of philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto (with emphases on ancient and Reformational philosophy).
Pearcey is currently a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, where the focus of her work is on the cultural and philosophical implications of the evolution controversy. A frequent public lecturer, Pearcey has spoken to actors and screenwriters in Hollywood; students and faculty at universities such as Dartmouth, Stanford, USC, and Princeton; scientists at national labs such as Sandia and Los Alamos; staffers at Congress and the White House; and various activist and church groups around the country, including the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. She has appeared on NPR, and a lecture based on Total Truth was broadcast by C-SPAN.
She began writing in 1977 for the nationally distributed Bible-Science Newsletter, where for 13 years she wrote pioneering in-depth monthly articles on issues related to science and Christian worldview. In 1991 she became the founding editor of “BreakPoint,” a national daily radio commentary program, and continued as the program’s executive editor for nearly nine years, heading up a team of writers. Under her leadership, the program grew into an influential organ for teaching a Christian worldview perspective on current events, with an estimated weekly audience of five million. She was also policy director and senior fellow of the Wilberforce Forum, and for five years coauthored a monthly column in Christianity Today.
Pearcey has served as a visiting scholar at Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute, managing editor of the science journal Origins & Design, an editorial board member for Salem Communications Network, and a commentator on Public Square Radio. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including the Washington Times, Human Events, First Things, Books & Culture, World, Pro Rege, Human Life Review, American Enterprise, The World & I, Homeschool Enrichment, Christianity Today, and the Regent University Law Review.
Pearcey has authored or contributed to several works, including The Soul of Science, which treats the history of science and Christianity, and the bestselling, award-winning How Now Shall We Live? She was invited to contribute the Foreword in The Right Questions, as well as chapters in Mere Creation, Of Pandas and People, Pro-Life Feminism, Genetic Ethics, Signs of Intelligence, Reading God’s World, Uncommon Dissent, and a Phillip Johnson Festschrift titled Darwin’s Nemesis.
Pearcey resides in Northern Virginia, where she and her husband are homeschooling the second of their two sons.
A former agnostic, Pearcey studied violin in Heidelberg, Germany, in the early 1970s and then traveled to Switzerland to study Christian worldview under Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri Fellowship. After graduating from Iowa State University with a Distributed Studies degree (philosophy, German, music), she earned a master’s degree in Biblical Studies from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, then pursued further graduate work in the history of philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto (with emphases on ancient and Reformational philosophy).
Pearcey is currently a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, where the focus of her work is on the cultural and philosophical implications of the evolution controversy. A frequent public lecturer, Pearcey has spoken to actors and screenwriters in Hollywood; students and faculty at universities such as Dartmouth, Stanford, USC, and Princeton; scientists at national labs such as Sandia and Los Alamos; staffers at Congress and the White House; and various activist and church groups around the country, including the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. She has appeared on NPR, and a lecture based on Total Truth was broadcast by C-SPAN.
She began writing in 1977 for the nationally distributed Bible-Science Newsletter, where for 13 years she wrote pioneering in-depth monthly articles on issues related to science and Christian worldview. In 1991 she became the founding editor of “BreakPoint,” a national daily radio commentary program, and continued as the program’s executive editor for nearly nine years, heading up a team of writers. Under her leadership, the program grew into an influential organ for teaching a Christian worldview perspective on current events, with an estimated weekly audience of five million. She was also policy director and senior fellow of the Wilberforce Forum, and for five years coauthored a monthly column in Christianity Today.
Pearcey has served as a visiting scholar at Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute, managing editor of the science journal Origins & Design, an editorial board member for Salem Communications Network, and a commentator on Public Square Radio. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including the Washington Times, Human Events, First Things, Books & Culture, World, Pro Rege, Human Life Review, American Enterprise, The World & I, Homeschool Enrichment, Christianity Today, and the Regent University Law Review.
Pearcey has authored or contributed to several works, including The Soul of Science, which treats the history of science and Christianity, and the bestselling, award-winning How Now Shall We Live? She was invited to contribute the Foreword in The Right Questions, as well as chapters in Mere Creation, Of Pandas and People, Pro-Life Feminism, Genetic Ethics, Signs of Intelligence, Reading God’s World, Uncommon Dissent, and a Phillip Johnson Festschrift titled Darwin’s Nemesis.
Pearcey resides in Northern Virginia, where she and her husband are homeschooling the second of their two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 442 reviews
September 13, 2009
Has anyone else ever had the overwhelming desire to buy 100 copies of a book you just read and pass them out to anyone and everyone you thought would actually read it? That is how this book left me feeling. Nancy Pearcy does an amazing job of stripping cultural assumptions down to their roots, then following their development through the ages, in order to show the reader the basis of philosophical assumptions we have inherited through culture. Reading this book was like chewing up a plaque indicator tablet after brushing your teeth... the ones that show you all the spots you missed. I was able to recognize many places in my own mind that have been shaped by the world instead of by the Word.
April 15, 2024
One of the most helpful books that I've ever read. It took a while (I think I started in September or October 2010), but I plowed through it like I did with Beeke's book on Calvinism. Pearcey covers basic worldview elements, then dives into an exploration of how deeply Darwin's thoughts have affected American thought, education, religion, home life, etc. A significant point here—one that I was already aware of, but one that she hammered home—is that Darwinism is not simply a neutral, faithless position that deals strictly with facts, but rather a full-fledged worldview with beliefs and truth-claims about God, the universe, people, and morality. The last major section provides an enlightening look at American religious history, and she explains how things now got to be the way they are. The last chapter gives some advice on how to make a worldview practical, not just theoretical.
Nancy Pearcey signed a copy on September 20, 2013, at Houston Baptist University.
Nancy Pearcey signed a copy on September 20, 2013, at Houston Baptist University.
March 1, 2009
One of the most satisfying books I have read in a while.
February 19, 2024
Five stars for the unflinching approach to hard questions and the sheer scope of exploration.
There's flaws for sure -- she skims past some hard questions and contradictions. Some areas are repetitive. In a few spots she claims some things are unique to Christianity alone which are also true of Judaism and Islam. But I enjoyed this overall.
This book references Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.
Pearcey is clearly influenced by Shaeffer, so I would recommend first reading How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture.
Phillip Johnson wrote a Foreword--see Darwin on Trial, which I found helpful.
Pearcey's other works are next up:
--Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning
--Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality
There's flaws for sure -- she skims past some hard questions and contradictions. Some areas are repetitive. In a few spots she claims some things are unique to Christianity alone which are also true of Judaism and Islam. But I enjoyed this overall.
This book references Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.
Pearcey is clearly influenced by Shaeffer, so I would recommend first reading How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture.
Phillip Johnson wrote a Foreword--see Darwin on Trial, which I found helpful.
Pearcey's other works are next up:
--Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning
--Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality
February 28, 2008
If you want a comprehensive presentation of worldview apologetics, this is the book to which I would turn. Excellent scholarship covering historical development of philosophy to today, as well as the concurrent development of Christian thought. Great reflection on where we have come from, where we are headed, and what sense to make of the world in which we live as believers. Best of all, Pearcey avoids sounding like a textbook and remains readable throughout the book's near 400 pages.
December 22, 2021
I admit, I went in with low expectations. I didn't know what to expect but I figured it would either be worldview content I was already familiar with or fear mongering. Neither sounded particularly appealing.
But was I wrong!
While not much of this book introduced something new to me, it succinctly laid out the argument for a Christian worldview and the many ways the church has shied away from our Christian foundation over the years. She makes the case for a broader view of Christian vocation, intellectual discourse, and clear doctrine. This is a practical, useful book to challenge how you approach the world and how we present ourselves as Christians.
I was challenged on several levels and I do believe it will take a few reads to fully wrap my mind around what I all think.
As a bottom line, though, this is an excellent resource for thinking about Christian worldview. It feels just as pertinent to 2021 as it must have in 2004 when originally published. I do recommend giving it a chance, particularly for the intellectual side of Christianity and how faith fits with reason.
But was I wrong!
While not much of this book introduced something new to me, it succinctly laid out the argument for a Christian worldview and the many ways the church has shied away from our Christian foundation over the years. She makes the case for a broader view of Christian vocation, intellectual discourse, and clear doctrine. This is a practical, useful book to challenge how you approach the world and how we present ourselves as Christians.
I was challenged on several levels and I do believe it will take a few reads to fully wrap my mind around what I all think.
As a bottom line, though, this is an excellent resource for thinking about Christian worldview. It feels just as pertinent to 2021 as it must have in 2004 when originally published. I do recommend giving it a chance, particularly for the intellectual side of Christianity and how faith fits with reason.
January 4, 2013
I debated whether or not this should be a two or three star review before eventually deciding that Pearcy's good points were tertiary to her intent. Thus, I felt like what could have been fair was less than.
However, it's difficult to rate this book in the first place considering that it felt like three or four books ranging from decent to atrocious. Still, it is somewhat easy to differentiate between those books thanks to Pearcy's handy separation of the tome into four parts.
Part One is her attempt to provide a definition of a worldview and the effect one's worldview has on one's life as well as the need for one's worldview to be Christian. Already the seeds for problems were planted when it became clear that her understanding of what a worldview is had been strongly shaped by the worldview she had; she failed to be able to step out of her perspective to gain a larger picture. There is a feedback loop - one's worldview shapes one's interpretation of facts, including Scriture, which in turn shapes one's worldview - that she doesn't seem aware of. In the midst of this, however, her consideration of the sacred/secular split was actually quite astute and helpful.
In Part Two, Pearcy's real problems begin manifesting. She seems to make the assumption that everyone has a single, coherent worldview, which is potentially an impossible feat. We all bear fractured and conflicting perspectives, but she argues from the understanding that one's worldview is always unified and non-conflicting, just usually wrong. She also repeatedly provides the logical results of illogical thinking, which is in of itself illogical since illogical thinking does not, by definition, have to lead to a logical end. The assumption that human beings are driven primarily by analytical processes is prevalent throughout as well as the belief that the catalyst for one's worldview to change is primarily through intellectual confrontation, both of which are questionable if not completely faulty.
Also in Part Two, Pearcy makes two glaring errors. The first is where she comes exceedingly close to stating that a Christian does not believe until he/she has formulated a complete Christian worldview, which is absurd and makes Christianity about rational analysis rather than about faith or the heart. The second is where she attributes various moral failings in American culture to an evolutionary worldview despite the fact that such failures were prominent in many cultures throughout history far before evolution was ever conceived. In addition, she attacks some cultural phenomena without understanding them. On the positive end, she does posit some good questions and observations about evolution science, though Francis Collins (whom she upheld as an evangelical scientist) countered many, though not all of them, in his book published two years after. Still, I wish she had examined the strengths and flaws of each perspective rather than considering only one side, a move that seemed to lack humility.
Finally in Part Three, Pearcy feels like she begins writing in her strengths. She analyzes the birth and progress of Evangelicalism, beginning with the Great Awakenings, where she draws parallels to the style of those movements to the contemporary evangelical culture. She posits where the origins of evangelical emotionalism and celebrity come from and traces the philosophical ideals in its theology, though her solution to Evangelicalism's current problems being to allow theology to determine its character is naive. Regardless, these were actually quite worthwhile chapters.
Part Four is but a single chapter, and while I agree with a good portion of it, it also fails to sound out much beyond, "Do the right thing." In the end, Pearcy's recommendation is right thinking and the application of willpower, which undercuts the cross and fails to understand the intricacies of human nature.
There are two, final issues that I was unhappy with throughout. The first is Pearcy's over-reliance on reason and the intellect. She fails to understand the person as a whole, perceiving only the mind as meaningful and worthwhile. The second is her aggressive response to problems. Her answer is always to fight back against untruth and evil, but this flies in the face of Jesus' life and sacrifice. For her, truth seems to trump love rather than finding a means of integrating them. I fear she is like the Greeks who sought wisdom and thereby missed Jesus. (1 Cor. 1:22-23)
However, it's difficult to rate this book in the first place considering that it felt like three or four books ranging from decent to atrocious. Still, it is somewhat easy to differentiate between those books thanks to Pearcy's handy separation of the tome into four parts.
Part One is her attempt to provide a definition of a worldview and the effect one's worldview has on one's life as well as the need for one's worldview to be Christian. Already the seeds for problems were planted when it became clear that her understanding of what a worldview is had been strongly shaped by the worldview she had; she failed to be able to step out of her perspective to gain a larger picture. There is a feedback loop - one's worldview shapes one's interpretation of facts, including Scriture, which in turn shapes one's worldview - that she doesn't seem aware of. In the midst of this, however, her consideration of the sacred/secular split was actually quite astute and helpful.
In Part Two, Pearcy's real problems begin manifesting. She seems to make the assumption that everyone has a single, coherent worldview, which is potentially an impossible feat. We all bear fractured and conflicting perspectives, but she argues from the understanding that one's worldview is always unified and non-conflicting, just usually wrong. She also repeatedly provides the logical results of illogical thinking, which is in of itself illogical since illogical thinking does not, by definition, have to lead to a logical end. The assumption that human beings are driven primarily by analytical processes is prevalent throughout as well as the belief that the catalyst for one's worldview to change is primarily through intellectual confrontation, both of which are questionable if not completely faulty.
Also in Part Two, Pearcy makes two glaring errors. The first is where she comes exceedingly close to stating that a Christian does not believe until he/she has formulated a complete Christian worldview, which is absurd and makes Christianity about rational analysis rather than about faith or the heart. The second is where she attributes various moral failings in American culture to an evolutionary worldview despite the fact that such failures were prominent in many cultures throughout history far before evolution was ever conceived. In addition, she attacks some cultural phenomena without understanding them. On the positive end, she does posit some good questions and observations about evolution science, though Francis Collins (whom she upheld as an evangelical scientist) countered many, though not all of them, in his book published two years after. Still, I wish she had examined the strengths and flaws of each perspective rather than considering only one side, a move that seemed to lack humility.
Finally in Part Three, Pearcy feels like she begins writing in her strengths. She analyzes the birth and progress of Evangelicalism, beginning with the Great Awakenings, where she draws parallels to the style of those movements to the contemporary evangelical culture. She posits where the origins of evangelical emotionalism and celebrity come from and traces the philosophical ideals in its theology, though her solution to Evangelicalism's current problems being to allow theology to determine its character is naive. Regardless, these were actually quite worthwhile chapters.
Part Four is but a single chapter, and while I agree with a good portion of it, it also fails to sound out much beyond, "Do the right thing." In the end, Pearcy's recommendation is right thinking and the application of willpower, which undercuts the cross and fails to understand the intricacies of human nature.
There are two, final issues that I was unhappy with throughout. The first is Pearcy's over-reliance on reason and the intellect. She fails to understand the person as a whole, perceiving only the mind as meaningful and worthwhile. The second is her aggressive response to problems. Her answer is always to fight back against untruth and evil, but this flies in the face of Jesus' life and sacrifice. For her, truth seems to trump love rather than finding a means of integrating them. I fear she is like the Greeks who sought wisdom and thereby missed Jesus. (1 Cor. 1:22-23)
August 25, 2022
Every Christian should read this book in the middle of this cultural craziness that we live in. This is a masterpiece, Nancy did a fantastic job reading culture throughout the eras.
January 28, 2009
As I finished this book I was washed over with a variety of impressions. First, this book should be read by every Christian educator, no matter what grade level of training. Second, if you haven't been impressed to read F. Shaeffer's works before you read Pearcy's work, I think you will be after reading it. Third, I'm exhausted having to just keep up with the end/footnotes! But I love this thorough documentation. Don't overlook one of them. Fourth, I find the final chapters a paradox. They appear almost out of sync (at first glance) with the rest of the book while at the same time they are the manifest practical conclusion to such a work. I only wish this book would have been available when I was in seminary, or at least while I was still teaching at under and grad level courses. Thanks, Nancy!
May 4, 2022
This was insanely good.
Her insights into the family, the church and the public life are undeniably reliable. She majestically setup late conclusions upon the rock of the first half. I didn't expect to be held and captured by this book like I did.
I'm turning 30 years old today and questioning my submission and unquestioned approval to the effects of the industrialization on the men and their role in the family unit.
Her point on the worldly methodology of religious entities is particularly gripping too.
A worthy read.
Her insights into the family, the church and the public life are undeniably reliable. She majestically setup late conclusions upon the rock of the first half. I didn't expect to be held and captured by this book like I did.
I'm turning 30 years old today and questioning my submission and unquestioned approval to the effects of the industrialization on the men and their role in the family unit.
Her point on the worldly methodology of religious entities is particularly gripping too.
A worthy read.
May 1, 2015
Do you know that feeling you get when you find the perfect container to organize some unruly collection of items? That satisfied thrill of orderliness is the best way to explain what Nancy Pearcey's book did for my mind. She gave me new categories, better answers, and helped me cull out the mental clutter (like constructivism!) and left me with a clear worldview. This is one of the most original, intelligent, and thoroughly interesting books I've ever read.
No one can function in the world without having a worldview. Everyone has some presuppositions and expectations (often taken for granted) that guide their decisions. Nancy Pearcey explains what worldview is: essentially, a set of ideas about the CREATION of the world (where did we come from? why are we here?), the FALL (what has gone wrong with the world? why is there war and rioting and dissatisfaction?), and the REDEMPTION of the world (what can we do to make things better?)
Her goal is to help Christians understand that everyone has a worldview, not just Christians, and that when we better understand the Christian worldview we will be able to see that all of our work in the world--not just specifically religious work--is a means to speak the gospel into our culture.
The heart of the book demonstrates how evolution functions as a religion for modern secularists because "it tells you where you came from, where you are going, and what you should do on the way" (172). And, as Pearcey says, "whoever has the authority to shape a culture's Creation myth is its de facto "priesthood," with the power to determine what the dominant worldview will be" (154). She then exposes all the evidence for Darwinian evolution, showing how little of it there is and how little it reveals. It is her stated purpose that we are able to reimagine every field of study--from psychology to science--from a Christian instead of a Darwinian worldview.
After this, she just as thoroughly traces the threads of the history of Evangelicalism, showing how the divide between the upper and lower stories has affected the church's interaction with the world. (An interesting side note: She actually implicates the church for the contemporary obsession with celebrity, claiming that the first celebrities in America were its flashy revivalist preachers!) Her chapter on "How Women Started the Culture War" was one of my favorites.
Nancy Pearcey's insight into the philosophies that dominate and guide our contemporary world is so comprehensive and so accurate that it is hard to believe it wasn't written yesterday. Pearcey has been watching and writing about cultural trends for the last 30 years or so, and her book is filled with timely examples and salient quotes from leading thinkers in both the Christian and secular worlds. Her well-placed illustrations remind me of Malcolm Gladwell, whose books are always chock-full of relevant stories.
After finishing Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning just a few weeks ago, I was sure that this book would be more or less a rehash of the ideas found in that book. And while they both launch from the same concept (the upper story/lower story divide that will be familiar to anyone who has read Schaeffer or Pearcey before), these books are equally excellent examinations of different implications of this split. They reinforce but do not repeat each other's ideas.
If you are a Christian who wants to grow in confidence as you engage the ideas of the world, you can do no better than Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. Her ideas have provided the frame that has transformed the way I see the world. This is an important book.
No one can function in the world without having a worldview. Everyone has some presuppositions and expectations (often taken for granted) that guide their decisions. Nancy Pearcey explains what worldview is: essentially, a set of ideas about the CREATION of the world (where did we come from? why are we here?), the FALL (what has gone wrong with the world? why is there war and rioting and dissatisfaction?), and the REDEMPTION of the world (what can we do to make things better?)
Her goal is to help Christians understand that everyone has a worldview, not just Christians, and that when we better understand the Christian worldview we will be able to see that all of our work in the world--not just specifically religious work--is a means to speak the gospel into our culture.
The heart of the book demonstrates how evolution functions as a religion for modern secularists because "it tells you where you came from, where you are going, and what you should do on the way" (172). And, as Pearcey says, "whoever has the authority to shape a culture's Creation myth is its de facto "priesthood," with the power to determine what the dominant worldview will be" (154). She then exposes all the evidence for Darwinian evolution, showing how little of it there is and how little it reveals. It is her stated purpose that we are able to reimagine every field of study--from psychology to science--from a Christian instead of a Darwinian worldview.
After this, she just as thoroughly traces the threads of the history of Evangelicalism, showing how the divide between the upper and lower stories has affected the church's interaction with the world. (An interesting side note: She actually implicates the church for the contemporary obsession with celebrity, claiming that the first celebrities in America were its flashy revivalist preachers!) Her chapter on "How Women Started the Culture War" was one of my favorites.
Nancy Pearcey's insight into the philosophies that dominate and guide our contemporary world is so comprehensive and so accurate that it is hard to believe it wasn't written yesterday. Pearcey has been watching and writing about cultural trends for the last 30 years or so, and her book is filled with timely examples and salient quotes from leading thinkers in both the Christian and secular worlds. Her well-placed illustrations remind me of Malcolm Gladwell, whose books are always chock-full of relevant stories.
After finishing Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning just a few weeks ago, I was sure that this book would be more or less a rehash of the ideas found in that book. And while they both launch from the same concept (the upper story/lower story divide that will be familiar to anyone who has read Schaeffer or Pearcey before), these books are equally excellent examinations of different implications of this split. They reinforce but do not repeat each other's ideas.
If you are a Christian who wants to grow in confidence as you engage the ideas of the world, you can do no better than Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. Her ideas have provided the frame that has transformed the way I see the world. This is an important book.
August 26, 2024
― “‘The gospel is like a caged lion,’ said the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. ‘It does not need to be defended, it simply needs to be let out of its cage.’ Today, the cage is our accommodation to the secular/sacred split that reduces Christianity to a matter of personal belief. To unlock the cage, we need to become utterly convinced that, as Francis Schaeffer said, Christianity is not merely religious truth, it is total truth- truth about the whole of reality.”
― Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
What is your worldview? If you are a Christian, do you have a Christian worldview? A person’s worldview consists of the values, ideas, or the fundamental belief system that determines their thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and actions. Typically, this includes ones view of issues such as the nature of God, man, the meaning of life, nature, death, and right and wrong.
Nancy Pearcey is a Christian apologist who focuses her work on the intersection of faith and culture. A former agnostic, she experienced conversion while studying under Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri, where she found answers to her questions and developed a real faith in Christ. She maintains that it was seeing faith being put into practice and lived out that captured her heart.
Pearcey demonstrates how Christians have adopted a worldview that is being influenced by our culture. As a result, the church is increasingly having less influence on education, the workplace, and the political arena.
Why has this happened? Pearcey says, “Religion is not considered an objective truth to which we must submit, but only a matter of personal taste which we choose.” Pearcey uses Schaeffer’s upper and lower stories to demonstrate how modern Western man has accepted the dichotomy between the rational and the irrational, between the natural and the spiritual. Faith, personal preference, and the spiritual have been placed in the upper story of values, the nonrational and noncognitive, while scientific knowledge has been placed in the lower story of rational, verifiable facts.
― “This same division also explains why Christians have such difficulty communicating in the public arena.”
― Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
The result of this dichotomy, Pearcey says, is that “Religion is not considered an objective truth to which we must submit, but only a matter of personal taste which we choose.” While we are allowed to have faith and personal values, we must never be allowed to influence the public sphere.
In the second part of the book, Pearcey demonstrates how this division has affected the world in which we live. She points out that Darwinism is the prevailing worldview today and is accepted in the lower story of fact. Intelligent Design is considered to be a pseudoscientific argument that does not belong in the lower story of truth; it has been relegated to the upper story of values. She points out that Creation is the foundational starting point for any worldview. Yet, as Pearcey effectively argues, Darwinism falls well short of providing a coherent, comprehensive worldview for all of life. It fails to hold up when evaluated in light of recent scientific findings.
What are we to do about this?
― “We have to reject the division of life into a sacred realm limited to things like worship and personal morality, over against a secular realm that includes science, politics, economics, and the rest of the public arena.”
― Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
In this excellent book, Pearcey seeks to help Christians free their faith from its cultural captivity and to see that Christianity is not merely religious truth but is Total Truth – truth about the whole of reality.
― Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
What is your worldview? If you are a Christian, do you have a Christian worldview? A person’s worldview consists of the values, ideas, or the fundamental belief system that determines their thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and actions. Typically, this includes ones view of issues such as the nature of God, man, the meaning of life, nature, death, and right and wrong.
Nancy Pearcey is a Christian apologist who focuses her work on the intersection of faith and culture. A former agnostic, she experienced conversion while studying under Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri, where she found answers to her questions and developed a real faith in Christ. She maintains that it was seeing faith being put into practice and lived out that captured her heart.
Pearcey demonstrates how Christians have adopted a worldview that is being influenced by our culture. As a result, the church is increasingly having less influence on education, the workplace, and the political arena.
Why has this happened? Pearcey says, “Religion is not considered an objective truth to which we must submit, but only a matter of personal taste which we choose.” Pearcey uses Schaeffer’s upper and lower stories to demonstrate how modern Western man has accepted the dichotomy between the rational and the irrational, between the natural and the spiritual. Faith, personal preference, and the spiritual have been placed in the upper story of values, the nonrational and noncognitive, while scientific knowledge has been placed in the lower story of rational, verifiable facts.
― “This same division also explains why Christians have such difficulty communicating in the public arena.”
― Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
The result of this dichotomy, Pearcey says, is that “Religion is not considered an objective truth to which we must submit, but only a matter of personal taste which we choose.” While we are allowed to have faith and personal values, we must never be allowed to influence the public sphere.
In the second part of the book, Pearcey demonstrates how this division has affected the world in which we live. She points out that Darwinism is the prevailing worldview today and is accepted in the lower story of fact. Intelligent Design is considered to be a pseudoscientific argument that does not belong in the lower story of truth; it has been relegated to the upper story of values. She points out that Creation is the foundational starting point for any worldview. Yet, as Pearcey effectively argues, Darwinism falls well short of providing a coherent, comprehensive worldview for all of life. It fails to hold up when evaluated in light of recent scientific findings.
What are we to do about this?
― “We have to reject the division of life into a sacred realm limited to things like worship and personal morality, over against a secular realm that includes science, politics, economics, and the rest of the public arena.”
― Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity
In this excellent book, Pearcey seeks to help Christians free their faith from its cultural captivity and to see that Christianity is not merely religious truth but is Total Truth – truth about the whole of reality.
October 6, 2017
The middle portion of this is five-star material, wherin the author makes good on her claim to trace today's assumptions within and without the Church back to the roots and coolly asses the strengths and weaknesses that have come down to us in current worldviews. Why was the main stage of culture left vacant for a philosophy under-penned by secular assumptions? Why has there been a persistent anti-intellectual strain in evangelicalism? Why does today's Church when it does engage the culture, seem to be selling a product or a star rather than the way of suffering of following Christ? The author covers all these with an experts precision and with a deftness of touch that makes her answers accessible regardless of the readers breadth of knowledge of the matters under discussion.
It takes her a while to hit her stride, though. She defends the need for developing a Christian worldview FAR past the point where, if that was not the reader's interest, he or she would have given up. The Greek strains in or modern thought fallacies I'm sure are important, but she doesn't do enough to flesh them out and relate them to current battles. Personal sketches of the individuals involved might have helped.
Then, after singing a string of GREAT notes, she ends up with an odd coda. She is vexed by famous Christian figures taking credit for the work of subordinates, and she should be, but this is note a fitting topic in scale to match with the Big Ideas she spent most of the book discussing.
It takes her a while to hit her stride, though. She defends the need for developing a Christian worldview FAR past the point where, if that was not the reader's interest, he or she would have given up. The Greek strains in or modern thought fallacies I'm sure are important, but she doesn't do enough to flesh them out and relate them to current battles. Personal sketches of the individuals involved might have helped.
Then, after singing a string of GREAT notes, she ends up with an odd coda. She is vexed by famous Christian figures taking credit for the work of subordinates, and she should be, but this is note a fitting topic in scale to match with the Big Ideas she spent most of the book discussing.
February 11, 2012
Very few books have shaken my paradigm as much as "Total Truth" by Nancy Pearcy has. She is amazing at exegeting the culture and pinpointing where Christianity has pulled away from the public sphere and bought into the dichotomy of value/fact. The book is split into several parts, beginning with a set up of how we got into the mess we find ourselves in and then she hits a homerun with recommendations towards resolving the problem. I've read far too many books that bash Christianity without offering any formidable solution. This is not one of those books. Pearcy is a phenomenal thinker and one who challenges me to integrate faith and life at all levels. This is a "must-read" for anyone wondering where we went wrong as a whole.
October 13, 2011
Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey is a very important book. I found myself often trying to retell the truths contained in this book to my husband. I found especially informative her walking the reader through the concept of two- story truth. Also very enlightening was the history of the evangelical movement.
August 6, 2011
Christians in North America tend to view their Christianity strictly in terms of their individual commitment to Jesus Christ, and they see their part in the Great Commission as sharing their faith and bringing others also into such a saving relationship. Yet they are frustrated by a feeling of having their hands tied, of unspoken assumptions which they may sense but not be able to put their finger on. More than in any other nation, professing American evangelicals make up a sizable percentage of the population, but in terms of cultural impact, they are almost invisible. Nancey Pearcey argues that this is because they have implicitly accepted a secular/sacred divide which keeps the power of the gospel locked up, like a caged lion. Her purpose is to give us the tools to recognize where and how this has happened, so that by liberating Christianity from its cultural captivity, it may become a redemptive force that really permeates our culture.
The cultural captivity that Pearcey refers to is the banishment of Christian ideas to the private sphere of values and subjective feelings, and out of the public sphere of facts, objective knowledge, and science. This two-tiered division of truth that our culture (and many Christians) accepts results in both the truth claims of Christianity not being taken seriously since they are not seen as belonging to the realm of knowledge, and in Christians themselves not knowing how to integrate their faith to the whole of reality. Worse, evangelicals (conservative Bible-believing Christians) have gone from dominating the culture of the nineteenth century, to being completely marginalized today. And it is largely their own fault.
Though they controlled all the cultural institutions at that time, nineteenth century evangelicals, as a result of the First and Second Great Awakenings, had come to view Christianity primarily in terms of non-cognitive categories of emotion and experience. Their religious beliefs were still an integral part of their "lower story" activities such as science, but because they did not view their Christianity as "total truth", a worldview which orders all of reality, they could not recognize the threat of competing worldviews which came along at that time. When the Baconian view of science that Enlightenment intellectuals had become intoxicated with, promised that knowledge could be based on bare empirical facts, unfiltered through any religious or philosophical grid, Christians were persuaded to set aside their own religious framework. But this view of science, or any other activity, as religiously neutral, is false, and so the withdrawl of Christian presuppositions created a vacuum that was quickly filled by alien philosophical frameworks, namely naturalism and empiricism. These were introduced under the banner of "objectivity" and "free inquiry" whereas Christian views were seen as biased. As a result Christian perspectives were driven out of the lower story to the upper, where they have remained to this day.
"It is nothing less than tragic that Christians themselves were partly responsible for the privatizing of religion", Pearcey notes. Then and even today, many embraced as perfectly reasonable the subsequent principle of methodological naturalism, thinking that it was simply a refinement of scientific practice to limit the scope of investigation of the natural world to natural explanations. They did not recognize that this opened the door to metaphysical naturalism. "After all, if you can interpret the world perfectly well without reference to God, then His existence becomes a superfluous hypothesis." Historian George Marsden is quoted as saying that "the naturalistic definition of science was transformed from a methodology into a dominant academic worldview."
All worldviews, Christian and non-Christian, seek to provide an overarching metanarrative that answer the questions of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. The worldview of naturalism, that the natural world is all there is, has been around since the ancient Greeks. But it never really caught on because it was not able to answer the fundamental question of Creation without smuggling in concepts from a theistic worldview. Darwinian evolution finally provided this creation myth and so laid the foundation for a century and a half of naturalism as the dominant worldview in our culture. If we understand this, we can understand why the biblical teaching of Creation is under such relentless attack today. What is at stake is the first principle of the Christian worldview; everything stands or falls with its teaching on ultimate origins.
This concept is absolutely critical, and so Pearcey devotes a third of the book to discussing evolution. It was not just a mere scientific theory which sought to explain the facts of the natural world; its significance rather was that it signalled a revolution in what counts as knowledge. Christians, then and now, who do not know how to construct their own worldview and critique competing ones with the grid of Creation, Fall, and Redemption, have missed this clash of worldviews, and have either retreated into Fundamentalism, or have attempted to reconcile their theism with evolution, a move which, because of what is at stake, is very dangerous.
When Christianity is articulated as a full fledged worldview, it is liberated from the two-story division that has reduced it to an upper-story private experience and is restored to the status of objective truth. We can then recognize the non-Christian assumptions and methods that have permeated our thinking. We will once again begin practicing theistic science (and economics, and law, etc.) because it will once again seem appropriate to consult all that we know when doing these activities. Intelligent Design is seeking to do just that in the realm of science, but is encountering resistance among Christians who don't yet recognize the conflict as one over competing worldviews. This resistance is even among Reformed Christians, where worldview thinking has a long and rich history. What this tells me is that the conflict runs deep, and that time, wisdom, and humility are needed before we can purge all wordly ways of thinking and take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.
The cultural captivity that Pearcey refers to is the banishment of Christian ideas to the private sphere of values and subjective feelings, and out of the public sphere of facts, objective knowledge, and science. This two-tiered division of truth that our culture (and many Christians) accepts results in both the truth claims of Christianity not being taken seriously since they are not seen as belonging to the realm of knowledge, and in Christians themselves not knowing how to integrate their faith to the whole of reality. Worse, evangelicals (conservative Bible-believing Christians) have gone from dominating the culture of the nineteenth century, to being completely marginalized today. And it is largely their own fault.
Though they controlled all the cultural institutions at that time, nineteenth century evangelicals, as a result of the First and Second Great Awakenings, had come to view Christianity primarily in terms of non-cognitive categories of emotion and experience. Their religious beliefs were still an integral part of their "lower story" activities such as science, but because they did not view their Christianity as "total truth", a worldview which orders all of reality, they could not recognize the threat of competing worldviews which came along at that time. When the Baconian view of science that Enlightenment intellectuals had become intoxicated with, promised that knowledge could be based on bare empirical facts, unfiltered through any religious or philosophical grid, Christians were persuaded to set aside their own religious framework. But this view of science, or any other activity, as religiously neutral, is false, and so the withdrawl of Christian presuppositions created a vacuum that was quickly filled by alien philosophical frameworks, namely naturalism and empiricism. These were introduced under the banner of "objectivity" and "free inquiry" whereas Christian views were seen as biased. As a result Christian perspectives were driven out of the lower story to the upper, where they have remained to this day.
"It is nothing less than tragic that Christians themselves were partly responsible for the privatizing of religion", Pearcey notes. Then and even today, many embraced as perfectly reasonable the subsequent principle of methodological naturalism, thinking that it was simply a refinement of scientific practice to limit the scope of investigation of the natural world to natural explanations. They did not recognize that this opened the door to metaphysical naturalism. "After all, if you can interpret the world perfectly well without reference to God, then His existence becomes a superfluous hypothesis." Historian George Marsden is quoted as saying that "the naturalistic definition of science was transformed from a methodology into a dominant academic worldview."
All worldviews, Christian and non-Christian, seek to provide an overarching metanarrative that answer the questions of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. The worldview of naturalism, that the natural world is all there is, has been around since the ancient Greeks. But it never really caught on because it was not able to answer the fundamental question of Creation without smuggling in concepts from a theistic worldview. Darwinian evolution finally provided this creation myth and so laid the foundation for a century and a half of naturalism as the dominant worldview in our culture. If we understand this, we can understand why the biblical teaching of Creation is under such relentless attack today. What is at stake is the first principle of the Christian worldview; everything stands or falls with its teaching on ultimate origins.
This concept is absolutely critical, and so Pearcey devotes a third of the book to discussing evolution. It was not just a mere scientific theory which sought to explain the facts of the natural world; its significance rather was that it signalled a revolution in what counts as knowledge. Christians, then and now, who do not know how to construct their own worldview and critique competing ones with the grid of Creation, Fall, and Redemption, have missed this clash of worldviews, and have either retreated into Fundamentalism, or have attempted to reconcile their theism with evolution, a move which, because of what is at stake, is very dangerous.
When Christianity is articulated as a full fledged worldview, it is liberated from the two-story division that has reduced it to an upper-story private experience and is restored to the status of objective truth. We can then recognize the non-Christian assumptions and methods that have permeated our thinking. We will once again begin practicing theistic science (and economics, and law, etc.) because it will once again seem appropriate to consult all that we know when doing these activities. Intelligent Design is seeking to do just that in the realm of science, but is encountering resistance among Christians who don't yet recognize the conflict as one over competing worldviews. This resistance is even among Reformed Christians, where worldview thinking has a long and rich history. What this tells me is that the conflict runs deep, and that time, wisdom, and humility are needed before we can purge all wordly ways of thinking and take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.
October 6, 2023
Es un libro, super extenso, muy tecnico, con muchos datos historicos, para poder demostrar todos y cada uno de los 11 puntos mencionados en cada capítulo.
La base de todo es la explicación completa de una fase muy famosa "hemos sacado a Dios de todas las cosas", y se ha generado un fuerte combate en la vida de cada persona, teniendo un doble comportamiento, de decir, "hasta aquí se puede meter Dios en esta parte de mi vida, porque yo tengo derecho a decidir libremente en esto", sin tener en cuenta a Dios, cada persona "pone límites a Dios" en cada esfera de su vida o piensan que Dios no podría meterse en estos temas de religión, moral, ciencia, etc etc
Cuan lejos estamos de la verdad, Dios no sale de absolutamente nada de nuestra vida y Dios no pierde el control de absolutamente nada en nuestra vida, somos nosotros los que experimentamos está verdad, que no podemos escondernos de Dios y no podemos huir de su presencia, en la ciencia, en la política, en mi trabajo, en mi matrimonio en mis vacaciones, etc etc en todos lugares está su presencia.
La base de todo es la explicación completa de una fase muy famosa "hemos sacado a Dios de todas las cosas", y se ha generado un fuerte combate en la vida de cada persona, teniendo un doble comportamiento, de decir, "hasta aquí se puede meter Dios en esta parte de mi vida, porque yo tengo derecho a decidir libremente en esto", sin tener en cuenta a Dios, cada persona "pone límites a Dios" en cada esfera de su vida o piensan que Dios no podría meterse en estos temas de religión, moral, ciencia, etc etc
Cuan lejos estamos de la verdad, Dios no sale de absolutamente nada de nuestra vida y Dios no pierde el control de absolutamente nada en nuestra vida, somos nosotros los que experimentamos está verdad, que no podemos escondernos de Dios y no podemos huir de su presencia, en la ciencia, en la política, en mi trabajo, en mi matrimonio en mis vacaciones, etc etc en todos lugares está su presencia.
January 11, 2024
Wonderful book. One of my favorites.
July 9, 2013
I've reviewed "Total Truth" before, so I don't think I'll review it again except to say that a subtitle could be "The decline of the evangelical mind," a phrase the author uses. Keep in mind, though, that her purpose is not to tear down evangelical Christianity but to bolster it.
Excerpts:
"In Minnesota, teachers are instructed to be tolerant of 'multiple mathematical worldviews.'"
(Where were those teachers when I took math?)
"When the only form of cultural commentary Christians offer is moral condemnation, no wonder we come across to nonbelievers as angry and scolding."
"We need to begin our message where the Bible begins -- with the dignity and high calling of all human beings because they are created in the image of God."
"After half a century of bombarding fruit flies with radiation, scientists have not coaxed them into becoming a new kind of insect -- or even a new and improved fruit fly. None of the mutated forms fly as well as the original form, and probably would not survive in the wild."
"If a principle is false, then restating it in the vernacular does not make it true."
"Both sides of the evolution debate agree that, taken at face value, living things look for all the world as though they are designed."
"The notion that we are free to act in un-Darwinian ways is completely irrational within the Darwinian worldview."
"In every historical period, the religious groups that grow most rapidly are those that set believers at odds with the surrounding culture. As a general principle, the higher a group's tension with mainstream society, the higher its growth rate."
"(David) Hume himself said that, after reasoning his way to radical skepticism in the solitude of his study, he would clear his mind by playing a good game of backgammon with his friends."
"When did it become socially acceptable for a Christian man to admit that he is incompetent as a father?"
"The truth is that men will be drawn back into family life only when they are convinced that being a good husband and father is a manly thing to do; that parental duty and sacrifice are masculine virtues; that marital love and fidelity are not female standards imposed upon men externally, but an integral part of the male character -- something inherent and original, created by God."
Excerpts:
"In Minnesota, teachers are instructed to be tolerant of 'multiple mathematical worldviews.'"
(Where were those teachers when I took math?)
"When the only form of cultural commentary Christians offer is moral condemnation, no wonder we come across to nonbelievers as angry and scolding."
"We need to begin our message where the Bible begins -- with the dignity and high calling of all human beings because they are created in the image of God."
"After half a century of bombarding fruit flies with radiation, scientists have not coaxed them into becoming a new kind of insect -- or even a new and improved fruit fly. None of the mutated forms fly as well as the original form, and probably would not survive in the wild."
"If a principle is false, then restating it in the vernacular does not make it true."
"Both sides of the evolution debate agree that, taken at face value, living things look for all the world as though they are designed."
"The notion that we are free to act in un-Darwinian ways is completely irrational within the Darwinian worldview."
"In every historical period, the religious groups that grow most rapidly are those that set believers at odds with the surrounding culture. As a general principle, the higher a group's tension with mainstream society, the higher its growth rate."
"(David) Hume himself said that, after reasoning his way to radical skepticism in the solitude of his study, he would clear his mind by playing a good game of backgammon with his friends."
"When did it become socially acceptable for a Christian man to admit that he is incompetent as a father?"
"The truth is that men will be drawn back into family life only when they are convinced that being a good husband and father is a manly thing to do; that parental duty and sacrifice are masculine virtues; that marital love and fidelity are not female standards imposed upon men externally, but an integral part of the male character -- something inherent and original, created by God."
April 3, 2021
Livro excelente!
Leitura profunda e densa, porém com uma linguagem de fácil compreensão, a autora fala sobre cosmovisão, e aborda vários temas desde darwianismo, politica, filosofia, e etc... Tudo sendo abordado com lentes bíblicas. Excelente!
Leitura profunda e densa, porém com uma linguagem de fácil compreensão, a autora fala sobre cosmovisão, e aborda vários temas desde darwianismo, politica, filosofia, e etc... Tudo sendo abordado com lentes bíblicas. Excelente!
October 16, 2024
Immediate takeaways from the book.
1. Addresses relevant issues within the modern American church with (in my opinion) better than average apologetics. However, it is heavily philosophical… which makes it feel historically lean.
2. I didn’t love the us vs. them engagement of secularism. I get the sense that Pearcey assumes ill will from the antiquated naturalist philosophers. I’m also not convinced naturalism was the singular catalyst for our current secularism.
3. I guess I should explore Schaeffer now.
I’d recommend reading this book, then “Fundamentalism and American Culture” by George Marsden, followed by “A Secular Age” by Charles Taylor.” I find these to be a helpful supplement to what Pearcey presents in this book.
1. Addresses relevant issues within the modern American church with (in my opinion) better than average apologetics. However, it is heavily philosophical… which makes it feel historically lean.
2. I didn’t love the us vs. them engagement of secularism. I get the sense that Pearcey assumes ill will from the antiquated naturalist philosophers. I’m also not convinced naturalism was the singular catalyst for our current secularism.
3. I guess I should explore Schaeffer now.
I’d recommend reading this book, then “Fundamentalism and American Culture” by George Marsden, followed by “A Secular Age” by Charles Taylor.” I find these to be a helpful supplement to what Pearcey presents in this book.
March 15, 2020
A simple structure with complex details. Will definitely read again.
May 28, 2015
This book is a multifaceted expansion of one simple thesis introduced by Francis Schaeffer: that today we think scientific pronouncements are binding on everyone, while religious and moral beliefs are not. That we operate on the lie that gravity and evolution are absolutely true no matter who you are, yet Jesus Christ can be both God and not God, depending on your perspective. In her confusing (in my opinion) subtitle, she means that our culture holds Christianity as a captive within the subjective realm, preventing it from shedding any light on objective reality.
As she explores her thesis, she spends most of her time tracing historically our path to a bifurcated worldview. She is thorough and detailed, yet she makes every bit of it relevant to her thesis. She is a master at asking questions before she takes the time to answer them, so that the history never gets old or tiresome. It is fascinating and sobering to see how wise men throughout history may have had sincere intentions to serve God, yet their thought provided the framework for future apostasy.
Especially memorable was the history of American Evangelicalism. Here we see how zealous servants of God earned immediate results while compromising the philosophical foundations of a Christian society. Most Evangelicals rejected the intellectual side of faith (rather than rejecting the misuse of intellectualism), and the rest began to think that man could understand the world apart from God's revelation. Both of these trends served an immediate purpose, but ultimately resulted in a weak and impotent faith. The reader is constantly forced to think about how our pragmatic decisions today could affect the faith of future generations. That is a chilling realization.
For me personally, the chapter about men's and women's roles through history was simply mind-blowing. She shows how biblical distinctions gradually became "man goes to work while woman cooks and cleans," "man is macho and smells funny while woman is beautiful and delicate," "man lets woman do all the parenting," etc. As each reactionary movement sprung up in history, the biblical view became more and more obscured. Her historical survey provides a roadmap for unified families seeking to recover God's design for them.
Another thing I very much appreciated about Pearcey's approach is that she always strives to balance intellectual pursuit with practical application and with humility. Again and again she reminds us of the implications of these ideas on our lives must be carefully followed, or we are at best wasting our time. Also, her desire to never look down on those she critiques is always evident and challenging.
As a student of Schaeffer, Pearcey expands and clarifies his thought. Not that it needed clarification, but her more extended, more carefully documented historical analysis brings the issues he raised into greater focus. She understands the spirit of our age and the practical issues we face, and she uses her analysis to help us realign every part of our lives to the Truth of God's revelation.
As she explores her thesis, she spends most of her time tracing historically our path to a bifurcated worldview. She is thorough and detailed, yet she makes every bit of it relevant to her thesis. She is a master at asking questions before she takes the time to answer them, so that the history never gets old or tiresome. It is fascinating and sobering to see how wise men throughout history may have had sincere intentions to serve God, yet their thought provided the framework for future apostasy.
Especially memorable was the history of American Evangelicalism. Here we see how zealous servants of God earned immediate results while compromising the philosophical foundations of a Christian society. Most Evangelicals rejected the intellectual side of faith (rather than rejecting the misuse of intellectualism), and the rest began to think that man could understand the world apart from God's revelation. Both of these trends served an immediate purpose, but ultimately resulted in a weak and impotent faith. The reader is constantly forced to think about how our pragmatic decisions today could affect the faith of future generations. That is a chilling realization.
For me personally, the chapter about men's and women's roles through history was simply mind-blowing. She shows how biblical distinctions gradually became "man goes to work while woman cooks and cleans," "man is macho and smells funny while woman is beautiful and delicate," "man lets woman do all the parenting," etc. As each reactionary movement sprung up in history, the biblical view became more and more obscured. Her historical survey provides a roadmap for unified families seeking to recover God's design for them.
Another thing I very much appreciated about Pearcey's approach is that she always strives to balance intellectual pursuit with practical application and with humility. Again and again she reminds us of the implications of these ideas on our lives must be carefully followed, or we are at best wasting our time. Also, her desire to never look down on those she critiques is always evident and challenging.
As a student of Schaeffer, Pearcey expands and clarifies his thought. Not that it needed clarification, but her more extended, more carefully documented historical analysis brings the issues he raised into greater focus. She understands the spirit of our age and the practical issues we face, and she uses her analysis to help us realign every part of our lives to the Truth of God's revelation.
May 18, 2019
Este livro é fantástico!
Leitura profunda, porém agradável.
A Nancy fala sobre cosmovisão, iluminismo, ética, religião, política, educação, liberalismo teológico, darwinismo, bioética, psicologia, confessionalidade, movimento de despertamento na América, e muito mais! Tudo discutido sob um olhar rigorosamente bíblico. Fantástico!
Leitura profunda, porém agradável.
A Nancy fala sobre cosmovisão, iluminismo, ética, religião, política, educação, liberalismo teológico, darwinismo, bioética, psicologia, confessionalidade, movimento de despertamento na América, e muito mais! Tudo discutido sob um olhar rigorosamente bíblico. Fantástico!
December 30, 2020
Nancy Pearcey is the Kobe Bryant of Christian Worldview thinking 🤘
June 9, 2025
Ms. Pearcy did a great amount of research for this book showing how people thru history develop ideas to argue against the existence and Truth of God, and how people often live dissonant to their core beliefs. (No wonder there is a mental health epidemic!)
I found some parts annoyingly repetitive. It is quite scholarly, and, I get the gist and found helpful information, but it would require a deep dive and a discussion group for me to digest it fully. It turned out there was a study guide in the back of the book (I read it digitally and didn't realize it was there) which would have been so helpful during the reading.
I found some parts annoyingly repetitive. It is quite scholarly, and, I get the gist and found helpful information, but it would require a deep dive and a discussion group for me to digest it fully. It turned out there was a study guide in the back of the book (I read it digitally and didn't realize it was there) which would have been so helpful during the reading.
February 27, 2025
Really incredible book - if you are interested in worldview thinking this should be your first stop!!
October 21, 2022
Perhaps the most distinctive marker of modern life is its fractured nature: public from private, sacred from secular, truth from experience, body from soul, beauty from art, science from the humanities, work from home, men from women, nature from grace. Or to quote from G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy,
In this book Pearcey sheds light on the nature of this divide, diagnosing it in detail and then recounting how we got here, first by looking at the ebb and flow of dualism in Western thought with an especially intense focus on the rise of Darwinism and then by tracing the history of evangelicals in America and why they have gradually become content to rescind their role in the public square as long as they can go to heaven when they die. Suffice to say these issues are complex and have been stewing for many centuries, but are only now beginning to become fully apparent as even the appearance of Christian belief fades.
So what is the solution here? It may seem a daunting task for Christians when they consider that virtually all the public institutions are essentially hostile to orthodox belief, which is why it's temping to go hole up somewhere quiet and not worry about the outside world. But that approach is to be fundamentally unfaithful to God, to bury our talent. We must remember that the inheritance of the West (and ultimately, the whole world) is ours through Christ. He died for it, and He will have it in the end. The only question is will we work with His plan or against it in the time and place that we are given? Will we have the courage to be whole Christians, working out our faith in the realms of home, work, politics, economics, art, culture, science, and so on? Do we truly want to hear "well done good and faithful servant," or do we just want to be comfortable? We have done the latter long enough. It is time to believe God's promises and work towards the reformation of Western civilization, even if we do not live to see its full restoration in our lifetimes. God can take the few loaves and fishes we have and multiply them greatly, but we must die to ourselves first and take up our crosses.
"There is a huge and heroic sanity of which moderns can only collect the fragments. There is a giant of whom we see only the lopped arms and legs walking about. They have torn the soul of Christ into silly strips... They have parted His garments among them, and for His vesture they have cast lots; though the coat was without seam woven from the top throughout."
In this book Pearcey sheds light on the nature of this divide, diagnosing it in detail and then recounting how we got here, first by looking at the ebb and flow of dualism in Western thought with an especially intense focus on the rise of Darwinism and then by tracing the history of evangelicals in America and why they have gradually become content to rescind their role in the public square as long as they can go to heaven when they die. Suffice to say these issues are complex and have been stewing for many centuries, but are only now beginning to become fully apparent as even the appearance of Christian belief fades.
So what is the solution here? It may seem a daunting task for Christians when they consider that virtually all the public institutions are essentially hostile to orthodox belief, which is why it's temping to go hole up somewhere quiet and not worry about the outside world. But that approach is to be fundamentally unfaithful to God, to bury our talent. We must remember that the inheritance of the West (and ultimately, the whole world) is ours through Christ. He died for it, and He will have it in the end. The only question is will we work with His plan or against it in the time and place that we are given? Will we have the courage to be whole Christians, working out our faith in the realms of home, work, politics, economics, art, culture, science, and so on? Do we truly want to hear "well done good and faithful servant," or do we just want to be comfortable? We have done the latter long enough. It is time to believe God's promises and work towards the reformation of Western civilization, even if we do not live to see its full restoration in our lifetimes. God can take the few loaves and fishes we have and multiply them greatly, but we must die to ourselves first and take up our crosses.
November 9, 2023
This book is a treasure trove of insights, offering a comprehensive exploration of various worldviews and their origins. It's a must-read for any Christian seeking to critically examine their own worldview and that of others. Pearcey's writing is engaging with each chapter offering valuable knowledge. The book delves into Christian spirituality, epistemology, apologetics, testimony, and history, making it a rich resource. Pearcey writes from a Reformed apologetic perspective while addressing a wide range of topics and engaging with various streams of thought. This is one of those books you keep to refer back too.
June 29, 2019
WOW! This was so good. I listened to this book on audio and learnt so much from it. It made me think deeply about a lot of things. Especially how important truth is and how, when truth is not upheld, lies can creep in so easily and distort it. The truth can’t set you free unless you fully trust in the One who is Truth. I can’t wait to read more from this author.
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