The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Against Worldview: Reimagining Christian Formation as Growth in Wisdom
Simon P. Kennedy
Lexham (2024). 133 pp.
Framing ministry and education in terms of “worldview” has become standard practice in evangelical churches, Christian schools and universities, and parachurch organizations. Marketing often emphasizes an institution’s commitment to teach, preach, and minister from the perspective of a “Christian worldview.” A common practice for apologetics and evangelism training is to emphasize the importance of worldview and the need to refine or change one’s worldview. Such worldview language is ubiquitous and expected.
Despite its widespread usage, however, the concept of worldview and how to put it into practice is not always clear. Definitions tend to be broad and imprecise. Which concepts are specifically Christian (and therefore part of a Christian worldview) and which are not is not always obvious. Worldview conversations tend to emphasize the intellectual aspects of a person over their affective aspects. The framing of worldviews is inherently subjective, rather than objective. Depending on the discipline, professors can struggle to know whether they have explicitly taught from a Christian worldview or not.
In response to these issues, Simon P. Kennedy, a research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia and a non-resident fellow at the Danube Institute in Budapest, aims to challenge popular conceptions and practices of worldview education while offering what he believes is a better way to do worldview education, centered around the idea of wisdom. Kennedy has no desire to stop using the concept of worldview (which he believes would be futile), but instead proposes what he believes is a more biblical approach.
In the introductory chapter, Kennedy presents the concept of worldview, the problems he believes are inherent in the concept, how those problems work themselves out in Christian worldview education, and what he believes is a better way forward. He then provides a metaphor that guides his entire project. He believes worldview education should be akin to crafting a mosaic. Teachers shouldn’t treat a Christian worldview as a finished project that provides all the right answers and guidelines, something they must force their subject to fit, but as something they contribute to with their expertise. In this way, teachers provide specific “tiles” for their students that the students then use as they construct the mosaic that is their Christian worldview. Worldview education becomes inductive rather than deductive, a kind of wisdom toward which teachers guide students.
In Chapter 2, Kennedy provides a helpful historical and cultural analysis of the Christian concept of worldview, demonstrating why he believes the concept needs to be reformed. He traces the origins of the idea in the thought of James Orr and Abraham Kuyper near the end of the nineteenth century, establishing how they used the concept to respond to the religious pluralism of their time. He then ties that work to the contemporary rise of worldview education in the 1970’s through authors such as Francis Schaffer and Charles Colson, whose ideas continue to massively influence the concept today. At the end of this chapter Kennedy argues that our current cultural context is different, and therefore the application of worldview should also be different.
Chapter 3 begins to offer this different application. The focus in this chapter is on epistemology and theories of learning. Kennedy appeals to Herman Bavinck’s critical realist epistemology as a way forward for worldview education. Rather than follow Kuyper’s deductive approach of understanding the world through a total picture of reality, Kennedy proposes teachers follow Bavinck’s inductive approach, understanding worldview as a starting point, something that people build piece-by-piece, growing up into the big truths about themselves, God, and the world. Teachers then help students move from the particular to the universal.
In Chapter 4, Kennedy brings in the biblical idea of wisdom to sup port this approach. He argues that putting together one’s worldview is like growing in wisdom, and that teachers therefore should help their students grow in both spiritual and practical wisdom, knowing God and his ways. Chapter 5 then brings together the critical realist epistemology of Bavinck and the biblical concept of wisdom to form an entire vison for Christian worldview education. Having a Christian worldview means knowing the truth about reality, or the truth about God and the world he created. This is true wisdom. While no one ever puts together the entire mosaic in this life (only God knows all), Christian education helps students build their own Christian worldviews through the imparting of spiritual and practical wisdom. A concluding chapter then summarizes the findings of the book in seven theses.
Ultimately, Kennedy’s purpose is to help teachers move from under standing Christian worldview as the structure of education to understanding it as the goal of education. This has significant implications not only for schools and universities, but for churches and pastors too. Christian education is not primarily about imparting a predetermined worldview to someone, but about helping them build a worldview that increasingly reflects God’s understanding of the world. As a professor and a pastor, this is a book I will come back to again and again. All who teach in any capacity would benefit from thinking deeply about Kennedy’s critique of popular worldview education and his reframing the enterprise in terms of helping others gain wisdom.
Gary L. Shultz, Jr. (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the Associate Professor of Theology and Editor of Baptist University Press at Baptist University of Florida. He is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
