The Promise Keepers devotional Men of Integrity used an excerpt from Rethinking Worldview for its February 15-16 entry. The topic was "Healthy Fear," and each day's material is posted online at Christianity Today:
If you're looking for some more excellent reading on the subject of worldview, be sure to check out my review of Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview, now online at Reformation 21. Here's the skinny:
Like The Drama of Scripture, Goheen and Bartholomew's earlier collaboration, Living at the Crossroads is the sort of book you begin recommending before you've finished the first chapter. Drum-tight, comprehensive, and wonderfully suggestive, it will be invaluable as much to teachers of worldview thinking as their students.
Cross pollination is a beautiful thing. In addition to prompting some folks to recommend Rethinking Worldview and add it to their reading lists, some remarks made in my recent CPYU Bookshelf interview prompted thrills and frustration at Caddickisms, where the question turned on whether my devil-may-care attitude toward accommodating material to the supposed understanding of the audience could apply in corporate training environments: "Challenge students?! Are you crazy?!"
Teaching involves plenty of challenges. If no one understands what you're saying, have you really taught? My own experience has been that they do understand, and that the reason they've tuned out in the past wasn't lack of comprehension so much as lack of interest. That's not to say that after prolonged disengagement some students don't find it difficult to switch back on. But over-simplifying material often results in the impression that what you're teaching is just common sense, and people can only be lectured so many times on things they "already know." Anyway, click on the article and read the link -- it's much more interesting than the quote of mine that inspired it.
Brandon Schmidt read Rethinking Worldview in his seminary class on Ministry in a Cultural Context, then posted a review at Shore Youth Ministry. Here's his conclusion:
"Overall, I felt that the book served as a helpful guide to a Christian worldview. For the novice, the author not only provides a guide, but also explains why a Christian worldview is important. And for someone familiar with studying worldviews, Bertrand challenges your thinking and causes you to reevaluate your own worldview. While reading this book, I was constantly looking at my own life and evaluating how I see the world. I have now been noticing more how I view the world, and how that affects myself, my relationship with others, and in my role in my ministry."He gives it a 4 out of 5 rating. Thanks, Brandon!
I did an interview recently for the CPYU Bookshelf, which has posted today. A small taste:
How can the church help this process? By not letting the quest for a biblical worldview end as a doctrinal abstraction. By letting the faith be as big and intractable and mysterious as it really is, and instilling a total reliance on Christ. Also, instead of having expectations about what young people will do when they go out into the world, we can start having expectations about how they will do it—and for whom. This is where a dogged and determined pursuit of a biblical worldview really pays off. The worldview nurtures a life of wisdom and that life expresses its highest urges in contributing truth and beauty to the surrounding culture.CPYU, by the way, is the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, and if you're looking for some good books to read, the CPYU Bookshelf blog is a great place to spend some time. The Fall 2008 issue of CPYU's journal -- Engage: The Journal of Youth Culture -- is now available for free. It includes Derek Melleby's review of Rethinking Worldview.
I joined Mike Schutt for a panel discussion at the Values Voter Summit over the weekend, where we spoke to a delightfully packed room and fielded a series of interesting questions. As Mike would say, it was "good, clean fun."
At next month's Values Voter Summit in Washington DC, I'll be on a panel titled "God & Caesar: Worldview, Government, and the Good Life," which is scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday, September 13. Here's the official description:
This panel will address the basics of sound, biblical thinking about government and politics, beginning with the religious roots of political order and the definition of true freedom. It will discuss the key concept of "jurisdiction", the biblical idea that God grants authority to various interdependent governments--including church, state and family--in diverse spheres. Throughout the discussion, the panel will highlight the importance of godly wisdom as individuals engage the world through the political process.Since worldview thinking is meant to address all of life, and politics is a big part of our everyday existence (especially in an election year), this is an opportunity to flesh out a conceptual framework for engagement from a Christian perspective. I'll be joined on the panel by Michael Schutt, author of Redeeming Law, and we'll be moderated by Worldview Academy co-founder Randy Sims.
I'd just spent a couple of hours in a particularly discouraging meeting, and when I checked my e-mail afterward a bit of providential encouragement was waiting. My friend Diana Moore, whose husband Pete was a mentor of mine back in Houston, finished Rethinking Worldview and reported that not only had she enjoy it, but she'd made use of it in her counseling work, too. She granted permission for me to share this quote:
"As a Biblical Counselor, I spend much time working with discouraged people. In the past two weeks, I have read your last chapter to most of my adult clients. Without exception, their hearts have been lifted by being exposed to the scene in heaven that caused them to once again be awe-struck with their Savior. You put the information together so beautifully. The connection to 'on earth as it is in heaven' has literally given hope to many over these weeks." -- Diana J. Moore, Biblical Counselor
It's always a pleasure to hear from readers, but I take particular joy in having given back to someone who did so much to help form my own perspective. Thanks, Diana! God has once again used you to say the right thing at the right time.
The scene in heaven Diana refers to is found in Revelation 4 and 5, which I write about in the book's final pages. If it's permissible to have a "favorite" passage in the Bible, this would be mine. It's where the new song, my favorite song, is sung:
“Worthy are you to take the scrollIt's hard be anything but awestruck with such music in the air.and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Whenever I come across a reader of Rethinking Worldview who blogs about the experience, I try to post a link. Here are a couple of recent mentions.
Adoption-Through-Propitiation has a long post full of quotes from the book and some commentary. (I enjoy reading this sort of post, because I get to compare a reader's favorite passages to my own.)
At Thoughts from a Christian Worldview, Phillip Woeckener quotes a passage from the book, cites a parable, and poses a question.
At Not a Tidy Religion, Dave -- who's been reading Rethinking Worldview for his Philosophy class -- has some great things to say about the value of narratives.
Ed Roden, who blogs at Ministry in the Marketplace, calls Rethinking Worldview a "gem."
The First Quarter 2008 issue of Equip to Disciple, the quarterly publication of the Presbyterian Church in America's CEP (Christian Education and Publications), includes a review of Rethinking Worldview. It's on page 21 of the print journal (available in PDF) and also online. The conclusion:
There are 12 chapters providing good material for group study. The book will not only help you fine tune your worldview and how it impacts the transformation of your thinking but it will also provide good teaching on communicating your worldview to those around you. If there is any truth in the idea that the medium is the message, we must work doubly hard to develop our worldview, which will impact the way we think, which in turn will impact knowing what God would have us do. You will appreciate this book.
