Warning: On the longish side.
Carl Trueman wrapped up Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church’s Renew Conference Saturday morning with an address on whether Christianity is a world-and-life view. In brief, Trueman’s answer was that there are multiple Christian world-and-life views, as many as there are Christian traditions. World-and-life views (worldviews for short) are, for Trueman, so inextricably bound up with doctrine as to make any generic worldview something to be eschewed. Pan-denominational worldview thinking is dangerous because it undercuts doctrinal truth by substituting pragmatic results. In short (and in my words), worldview thinking is evangelical in the peculiarly American sense of the term. Contrasting with Trueman’s commitment to confessional orthodoxy, worldview thinking will always come up short.
Trueman cited several examples from recent history in support of his characterization of worldview thinking as a cover for evangelical pragmatism. First is the about-face in the evangelical reaction to Roman Catholic candidates for president of the United States. In 1960, evangelicals were opposed to John F. Kennedy because they thought he might be “too Catholic” and put loyalty to the Pope above the loyalty to the Constitution. Fast forward to 2004 when evangelicals were opposed to John F. Kerry because they were concerned that he wasn’t Catholic enough. What happened over those 44 years according to Trueman? Morality—in terms of opposition to abortion—had come to trump doctrine. Not that abortion isn’t a great evil. And not that there should not be civic cooperation between evangelicals and Roman Catholics on issues like abortion. Only that such cooperation should not be couched in terms of a generically Christian worldview. Protestant and Catholic common opposition to abortion, according to Trueman, comes not from a common worldview but in spite of different worldviews.
In addition to evangelical and Catholic rapprochement along pragmatic grounds covered by the fig leaf of worldview, Trueman pointed to the appointment of the devout Roman Catholic Dinesh D’Souza as president of The King’s College in New York City, a Protestant institution. Such an appointment could be explained from Trueman’s point of view only because of shared conservative political beliefs, fleshed out in terms of an abstract “worldview.” Worldview cast at a level of generality sufficiently high that it can be shared by Catholics and Protestants cannot do the heavy lifting necessary to run a college so for Trueman it must be political pragmatism, and not worldview, that provides the unifying core for a place like King’s.
Lest it be thought that Trueman casts bric-a-brac only at Protestant/Catholic pragmatic ventures, he leveled the same sort of criticism at the thoroughly Protestant Gospel Coalition whose members agree to disagree about important doctrinal matters such as baptism but must share a complementarian view of gender roles in the Church churches. Trueman didn’t have time to address how it is that there can be a common civic platform among doctrinally discreet ecclesial bodies but one can assume it has to do with a “two-kingdoms” approach. (See some of my many posts on two- vs. one-kingdom thought here, here, and here.) Had Trueman reached this topic I would like to have asked him if the two-kingdom approach amounts to a worldview. I suspect the answer would have been, “No, it’s a doctrine of the Church,” but that’s a hard claim to substantiate given the diversity of opinion on the subject within a denomination as small as even the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Trueman’s ecclesial home in America.
As one who prefers to identify himself as a confessional Protestant instead of evangelical, I find much to like about Trueman’s critique of worldview thinking. From my observation far, far too much that passes for worldview thinking is an excuse for not thinking. Pigeon-holing those with whom one disagrees as modern, pre-modern, or post-modern is certainly not the same as actually coming to understand what she or he is saying. As Mark Steiner noted earlier, evangelicals must earn the right to be heard in the public square and sloppy, simplistic worldview categories simply won’t cut it.
Yet I don’t believe sectarianism is the answer. Narrowing world-and-life view to ecclesiastical doctrine leaves too much of the world out of the picture. Even a tradition with as robust a set of doctrinal statements as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church cannot find the answers to all of life’s persistent questions therein. Surely there is some level of “worldview” specificity below the broad categories of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation but above the specifics of the Westminster Standards from which we can begin the process of analyzing and critiquing modern culture and the world of ideas. At least I hope so since the Westminster Standards have only so much to say about my field of the law—contracts. And although I may be wrong, I believe my scholarly writing and teaching substantiates that conviction that such a middle level exists.
All in all, much grist for the mill. I certainly enjoyed Trueman’s provocative ideas, straightforward explanations, and earnest demeanor. I learned much and at the least my own thinking has been sharpened.
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