In defense of worldview thinking, February 10th, 2025.

Introduction. In conservative Christian circles, worldview thinking was quite a hot item for a while.

Most recently, I reckon it became a thing among us during the Francis Schaefer Times, and

then it burgeoned into something of an industry.

In North American circles, the kickoff with Schaefer's How Should We Then Live, the book

and film series both.

There were World View Summer Camps for teens, and there were series of books published

addressing all manner of subjects in the light of a Christian worldview.

My book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, was part of a Christian worldview. My book,

Recovering Law Tools of Learning, was part of the Turning Point series, for example, a series

that was right in the middle of all of this. And organizations like the Nehemiah Institute

even developed a test that would evaluate the extent of your worldview soundness.

Of course, the idea of worldview didn't begin in the 70s. We should also mention luminaries from

previous centuries, such as Kuyper, Bovink, and Orr, and the thing itself has appeared in various

places, although not necessarily by that name. For example, Owen Barfield once said of Lewis,

that what he thought about everything was contained in what he said about anything, and it's

hard for me to imagine a better definition

than that of worldview thinking. Worldview thinking is nothing more than thinking and believing

as a whole person. It is to have an integrated intellectual life, instead of having an intellectual

life that is scattered around the attic and bits and pieces. But there have been critics.

Back in the days of the Calvinist International,

the idea of worldview thinking was found wanting. A recent book, Against Worldview, by Simon

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