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Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity

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An evangelical Christian who works on Capitol Hill once told me that God put him there just so he could share the gospel with his colleagues. Sadly, he's not alone in thinking that God cares only about saving souls, and is uninterested in the legislative battles raging in Congress, much less the renewing the culture through the arts, academia, and entertainment.

True, most orthodox Christians think that God hates abortion and is not so thrilled about same-sex marriage. But beyond those "culture-war" issues, many of them have no idea that their faith has implications for all public policies, from welfare to transportation to taxation. They are privately spiritual, but publicly agnostic.

Nancy Pearcey's new book, Total Truth, was written to shake them up.

Her central thesis is that Christianity is not just religious truth, but truth about all of reality. It is a comprehensive worldview. As such, it is meant to straighten out God's creation which has been twisted by sin. This, Pearcey says, includes not just the Great Commission to bring others to faith, but a cultural commission to bring health to every aspect of human experience, from network television and Broadway plays to biology and astronomy.

Unfortunately, too many American evangelicals have bought into the lie that it is "true for me" or true about a slice of reality, but not true for everybody and true for explaining the world.

Pearcey seeks to uproot the historic anti-intellectual tendencies of American evangelicalism that have contributed to its banishment from the public square.
She traces the long tradition in American evangelicalism of emphasizing the spiritual dimension and denigrating the intellect. Some early American evangelicals like Geroge Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards managed to make Christianity a passionate, personal experience without compromising the life of the mind. Sadly, much of evangelicalism quickly devolved to a privatized faith that transformed one's personal life but was indifferent if not hostile to rigorous thought.

Even as evangelicals gained hearts, they surrendered their minds to secularism.

As Darwinism gained traction in academia, Christians further retreated to the realm of personal values. In the end, they were left with a "two-realm theory of truth" in which the upper story holds the private/spiritual/nonrational/noncognitive dimension, and the lower story the public/scientific/rational/verifiable. The upper story became "true for me," and the "lower story" simply fact. Challenging this bifurcation of reality is step one in liberating Christianity to shape every aspect of culture, argues Pearcey.

Step two is challenging the philosophical naturalism that masquerades as science.

Pearcey has spent years writing about the philosophical underpinnings of Darwinian macro-evolution. Her rigorous logic makes clear that until Christians challenge the naturalism that begins with the assumption the universe is closed and there is no God, they will fight a losing battle for the soul of the culture.

That may explain why Americans are among the most religious people on the planet, yet whose cultural elites in academia, media, and entertainment are among the most secular.

She closes the book by showing that true spirituality is rooted in a comprehensive Christian worldview. If Christianity really is the total truth about the world, then it is logical that the life of the spirit not be relegated to a private, mystical experience, but is necessarily open to facts, reason, evidence and wed to one's everyday activities.

Pearcey skillfully explains difficult concepts in plain language. Her formal education in theology and philosophy - in Germany, Canada, the U.S. -- combined with her conversational writing style, make her otherwise dense subject matter easily digestible. Perhaps this is so because she's a homeschooling mom. Or maybe because she's a former atheist who wrote a paper on "Why I'm not a Christian" when she was still in her teens and long before she learned of Bertrand Russell. Her grappling with philosophy has not been esoteric but a lived experience of great personal consequence.

Pearcey's work reflects the life and thought of her mentor, the late Francis Schaeffer, who hosted seekers at his chalet in the Swiss Alps in the 1960s and 1970s. After rejecting the faith of her parents and embracing the despair of nihilism and the drug culture, Pearcey was won over by Schaeffer's rigorous intellect and his passionate conviction that Christianity was meant to renew every part of the culture.

But if you're looking for a simple redux of Schaefer's work, look elsewhere. Pearcey advances well beyond Schaefer, both in the maturity of her thought and in her original work with source documents.

Total Truth is written with evangelicals in mind, but it should be read by orthodox Christians of whatever theological stripe who want to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the American religious tradition, dominated as it has been by evangelicals. It will help them see more clearly the flawed view of knowledge that has relegated Christianity to the private sphere and muted its witness in what seems to be a pervasively religious population.

The issue is not the number of Christians, but their ability to let their religious convictions shape their view of the world. For when Christianity is no longer just an affair of the heart but a total picture of the world as it actually is, its power is unleashed to transform culture from top to bottom.

This book is must reading for all Christians and Christian critics.
Pearcey's mastery of the material, her clear thinking, her outstanding
ability to express herself, and her compelling arguments are all a major
reason why I predict that this book will become the standard work in the
area. Pearcey makes a persuasive case for Christian involvement in
society (to become the salt of the Earth). In my opinion, as a professional
biologist very interested in the Darwinian controversies, the strongest
part of the book (and the main reason why I bought it) is the section on
Intelligent Design. She makes an excellent case for this world view and
why it is critically important. I believe that her well done critique of
Darwinism and her defense of Intelligent Design will improve the book's
chances at achieving a wide audience. Many works exist that go into
detail about the many problems with the conclusions of John
Polkinghorne, Nancy Murphy and, especially, Ken Miller, as well as
others who dissent from Intelligent Design's scientific and
philosophical conclusions. To conclude that God may have created the laws of
the universe and sat by watching as the creation created itself due to
mutations being selected in the struggle for life, as does Ken Miller,
suffers from major theological and, from my prospective, even more
serious problems with the evidence from biology, genetics and,
especially, molecular biology. My work is on mutations and it is clear
that mutations have a limited ability to create. They may damage
ribosome receptors in bacteria and, as a result, confer resistance to an
antibiotic, but even here a fitness cost usually results.

Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth explains the essence of Christian worldview. While many scholars, including Francis Schaeffer, have extensively discoursed on worldviews, Pearcey communicates these lofty thoughts in an understandable manner. Total Truth is a must read.

Using a plethora of external sources, Pearcey dissects the philosophy of modern society. She starts with the fact/value split in society, showing how our society constrains religion to the relativistic values realm while society deems science the only realm that universal absolutes can exist. Our society allows for religion and its moral implications provided that the religious do not impose their morality on others as universally valid. We have created a sacred/secular dichotomy that restricts Christianity to the realm of religious truth. Christianity must be viewed as ultimate Truth that pervades every part of our life.

She delves deeper into the meaning of worldview. She explains, "[E]ach of us carries a model of the universe inside our heads that tells us what the world is like and how we should live in it. We all seek to make sense of life. Some convictions are conscious, while others are unconscious, but together they form a more or less consistent picture of reality." In essence, a worldview answers the question, "Why does reality exist?"

Pearcey also tackles the most pervasive worldview in society, philosophical naturalism, which is an extension of atheism. After explicating the biological impossibility of evolution, she explores the philosophical implications of naturalism. From a naturalistic standpoint, the chemical processes in our minds should not reflect the order of the universe. For example, math, which is a conjuring of the human mind, should not function in nature. Naturalism has no rational explanation for reason or logic. Pearcey also notes, "[E]thics depends on the reality of something that materialistic science has declared to be unreal."

After eliminating other worldviews as antithetical to reality, Pearcey traces the roots of Christianity, identifying the fact/value split in even the Great Awakening. She concludes with a call to Christians: we must "liberate Christianity from its cultural captivity," because Christianity is a worldview, not just a religion.

A necessary for every Christian, philosopher, and inquisitive mind, Total Truth should be on every bookshelf.

If there is one thing that Nancy Pearcey has done in Total Truth, it is her homework. Extensively referenced to current and historical sources, this work is an excellent gateway into the study of worldview and the development of a Biblical worldview for all of reality.

Perhaps the most important aspect of Total Truth, however, is a logical and comprehensible guide to worldview analysis. For those who live or work in hostile intellectual territory, like myself, it is a critical aid to understanding the epistemological underpinnings of worldviews that compete with Christianity for our minds and the minds of those close to us. Pearcey also provides considerable information regarding how the worldview thought has changed throughout the course of history. For the seeker interested in how Christians see the world, the book is a comparative analysis in worldview opposed to the prevailing worldviews of the secular world. It is also quite useful for those interested in apologetics, as Pearcey devotes a substantial portion of the work solely to explaining her search for God, and how the logical inconsistencies of other worldviews forced her (even against her will!) to accept that Christianity was the only logical way to explain reality.

Anyone interested in integrating their view of the world with Scripture would find this book a good read. It has been very helpful to me personally, so I highly recommend Total Truth.

I have often lamented the overuse of the term "life-changing" amongst Christians. It is not unusual to hear people walk away from a particularly captivating sermon or conference saying "that changed my life!" The real measure and test of life change is time, for only in time will we really know what has made a significant impact on our lives. Having established that I do not use the term lightly, I would like to suggest that Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey may just be a life-changing book. As believers we collectively spend millions of dollars and countless hours reading about Christian living - making our homes better, making our families better, making our lives better, discovering our purpose, rediscovering our masculine soul or our feminine soul and so on ad infinitum, ad nauseum. There are some who love to supplement with the study of theology or church history, and those are great pursuits. But if we buy so many books and read so much, why do we dedicate so little time to examining and studying worldview? I do not mean to indict the reader and clear my own name, for in all the reading I have done, this is the first book that deals predominantly with that topic.

Total Truth is subtitled "Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity" and this is the task to which Pearcey dedicates the book. She shows how Christians have adopted a worldview that is bound and influenced by our culture, so that we now understand Christianity through a secular worldview. She teaches that the opposite needs to be true - that we need to see society through a distinctly Christian lens, allowing a Christian worldview to interpret all that we see, do and think. She says "This book will address [the hunger for a Christian worldview] and offers new direction for advancing the worldview movement. It will help you identify the secular/sacred divide that keeps your faith locked into the private sphere of 'religious truth.' It will walk you through practical, workable steps for crafting a Christian worldview in your own life and work. It will teach you how to apply a worldview grid to cut through the bewildering maze of ideas and ideologies we encounter in a postmodern world." (Page 17) In short, the purpose of the book is 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. "The purpose of a worldview is to explain our experience of the world-and any philosophy can be judged by how well it succeeds in doing so. When Christianity is tested, we discover that it alone explains and makes sense of the most basic and universal human experiences."

As a devotee of Francis Shaeffer, Pearcey borrows heavily from his writing and ideas. Most notably, she understands, as did Shaeffer, that Christians have mimicked the world in adopting a two-level worldview which she calls a fact/value split. It can be represented as follows:

VALUES
Individual Preferences
---------------------
FACTS
Binding on everyone

In the upper level are values which are mere individual preferences and on the bottom level are facts which are binding on everyone. Facts represent knowledge drawn from and proven by science and in this way they are considered objective and rational. On the other hand, on the top level are values which are considered subjective and a product of tradition. Thus are not binding beyond the individual's conscience and are essentially irrational. They have little to say about reality. This split has pervaded all aspects of society.

The thesis of this book is "the key to recovering joy and purpose turned out to be a new understanding of Christianity as total truth - an insight that broke open the dam and poured the restoring waters of the gospel into the parched areas of life." The first step in recovering a Christian worldview is to understand the bifurcated worldview which is inherent in our postmodern world. Having understood that we have made false disctinctions between secular and sacred, we can begin integrating our faith into every area of life so that we bear a consistent witness throughout. Politicians are beginning to come to the realization that politics is downstream from culture. In order to change the politics of our nations, we must first influence the culture, and to do that we must reclaim a Christian worldview. "Ordinary Christians working in business, industry, politics, factory work, and so on, are 'the Church's front-line troops' in the spiritual battle. Are we taking seriously our duty to support them in their warfare? The church is nothing less than a training ground for sending out laypeople who are equipped to speak the gospel to the world." That is the subject of the bulk of the book - training and sending laypeople who can share the Gospel with the world. Pearcey continually exposes those areas that have been polluted by a secular worldview and explains how Christians need to reclaim them.

After Pearcey thoroughly deconstructed our society's postmodern worldview in the first few chapters of the book, I found I did not have as clear an idea as to how I could rebuild a Christian worldview. But perhaps this is because there are no easy answers - there is no happy W.O.R.L.D.V.I.E.W. acronym that will allow me to follow a 9-step program to worldview reconstruction. The key is to acknowledge the deficiency of holding a two-level worldview and by immersing myself in Scripture, allowing God to shape and mould me as He sees fit. A Christian worldview must necessarily flow from the study and application of God's Word. I need to understand and believe that Christian Truth is a unified whole, equally encompassing all of life.

In reading books written by intellectuals, rather than pastors and teachers, I have often found that their theology is shaped more by the Catholic intellectuals of days past than by the Protestant theology. This is not the case for Pearcey. She strikes a good balance of praise and criticism in her presentation of Protestantism, generally defending the actions and motives of the Reformers and believers of history. Similarly she praises various Catholic scholars (such as Aquinas) for contributions they made, but is necessarily harsh when discussing their shortcomings. Throughout the book, the author maintains this important balance. It was wonderful to see that Pearcey presents significant, deep theology that clearly aligns with the Reformed understandings of the Scripture.

I am in agreement with Al Mohler who said "Total Truth is one of the most promising books to emerge in evangelical publishing in many years. It belongs in every Christian home, and should quickly be put into the hands of every Christian young person. This important book should be part of the equipment for college or university study, and churches should use it as a textbook for Christian worldview development." Pearcey has crafted a masterpiece that is intellectually stimulating but still accessible and practical. It will challenge, motivate and change. I give it my hearty recommendation.

Faced with constant challenges to their fully credible faith, Christianity's defenders have too often been content to think about and discuss issues within guidelines established by the critics instead of bringing a Christian agenda of their own. Nancy Pearcey corrects this. Telling us that always playing defense is still a mistake, "Total Truth" prepares readers to stand on solid ground and even to take the offense in a practical and loving way.

Pearcey ably introduces readers to some of Christendom's best worldview resources: Luther's sturdy soteriology, the Scotch Reformers' epistemological confidence, and a too unfamiliar ontology from the Dutch Reformed school of Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd that provides a better (than faith vs science) framework to fully appreciate the Intelligent Design work of Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, and William Dembski. She does not dig deeply for the Dutch treasures, but fully admits to them the debt of her approach. A well selected reading list at the end will guide readers who want to follow any of these threads beyond the last page.

I agree with Nancy Pearcey. Francis Schaeffer is still a must-read for Christians in spite of some criticism for lacking academic rigor. He wasn't an academic. We'll benefit from his applied apologetic because its prophetic challenge to postmodernism becomes ever more useful with time. For the thirsty let me recommend Schaeffer's "The God who is There", "Escape from Reason", and "He is There and He is Not Silent". The last three contain his seminal thoughts. Readers will learn from them why worldviews are not empty ideas and words, they shape the way people live. Schaeffer's "The Mark of the Christian" is another small brilliant jewel.

What makes "Total Truth" so useful is Pearcey's dead-on assertion that analyzing any worldview can reveal clearly what its ground motive really is. By using her analytical toolkit readers can dissect alternative worldviews and learn their real strengths and weaknesses. And Christians should not shrink from sharing this biblical ground motive:
1) God's CREATION,
2) the subsequent FALL that distorts the image God designed-in, and
3) His REDEMPTION of humans and eventual recreation of the entire cosmos in Christ.
The Christian worldview explains all human experience and challenges other worldviews because it describes reality as it is.

My complaints about "Total Truth" are minor in light of its immense scope and value. Allow me these: Few ancient Christian contributions are mentioned. One quote affirms that humans are icons of God, images of His being-in-relation. That's important! But Pearcey darkly glosses the motives of monasticism and gives un-nuanced critical treatment of neoplatonism that ignores entirely it's handling by the Cappadocian fathers and Maximus Confessor. [A fascinating side note is that Schaeffer's son, Frank, became an Orthodox Christian.] Finally, Pearcey says Hindu and Buddhist ideas were imported to the United States in the 1960s. In fact, Vivekananda successfully launched the Vedanta Society here in the 1890s to promote a renascent form of Indian spirituality as compatible with Western science. But enough small pickings. The book is outstanding.

If you frequently pass up books about Christian ideas, get just this one, relax and give it some time. A few reviews here make it sound very technical. It's not. Pearcey takes readers on a first-class tour of ideas and historical movements that affect us all. If you want to think and act more like a Christian and less like the crowd you'll find "Total Truth" quite useful indeed.

Why are American Evangelicals so stupefied, uninformed, and theologically illiterate? Why are there so few public intellectuals thoughtful Christians? Why is so much preaching so thin, weak, emotional, and decision oriented? Why do many Evangelical seminaries fail to require a basic apologetics class for their Master of Divinity students? Why do Evangelicals typically know nothing of creeds, confessions, and the history of theology or philosophy? And what can be done about this abysmal state of affairs?

Nancy Pearcey, an independent writer and editor who formally co-wrote material with Charles Colson, answers these questions in a conversational, anecdote-rich, yet intellectually solid fashion. As student of Francis Schaeffer (and the Reformed Tradition in general), she explains the meaning of a "worldview," develops the concept of a Christian worldview, explains why Evangelicals have lost a biblical worldview (creation/fall/redemption) and how their thinking tends to be wrongly divided into the secular and the sacred. But Christ is Lord over the entire creation and Lord over the intellect as well. Thinking well is part of divine worship.

Pearcey's treatment of Darwinism and Intelligent design is the best introduction to this vital topic I have seen. She, unlike many Evangelicals, realizes that Darwinism is incompatible with Christianity and that Darwinism is rooted in and fueled by philosophical materialism, not by the empirical facts of science. She has labored fruitfully for many years in this area.

I have used "Total Truth" for a seminary course called Christian Ethics and Modern Culture, although it could be used at the college level as well--or even for more precocious high school students preparing for the intellectual warfare of college life. Even Schaefferites and academic philosophers such as me will find thought-provoking and beneficial material in what is essentially an introductory book.

The book, however, is flawed in a few ways. Pearcey at times sounds like a fideist (in spite of herself), especially when she speaks of worldviews being based on what cannot be proven. What she needs is a version of foundationalism in which basic beliefs are either self-evident, logically necessary, inescapable, or incorrigible. Then one reasons from those beliefs to other beliefs. One may then verify or falsify worldviews on the basis of these foundational beliefs. Worldviews can be tested for truth according to (1) the coherence of their defining beliefs (2) the factual adequacy of their claims and (3) whether or not the worldview can be lived out without deep philosophical hypocrisy. Pearcey address this third test very nicely on page 220. Pearcey engages in this type of intellectual critique, but her foundation is wanting in some respects.

I could carp about a few other more minor issues, but my primary concern some of her comments on epistemology, as noted. The Dooyeweerdian school from which she draws (and who, along with Van Til, influenced Schaeffer himself) is weak in this area, despite the richness of its critique of non-Christian schools of thought.

All in all, I heartily recommend "Total Truth" as a powerful antidote to "truth decay." So, please: Turn off the television, turn off the video games, take out the iPod, and read this book as soon as possible. Then give copies out to your friends.

With the kids back in school, you too can delve into your own studies by picking up Nancy Pearcey's TOTAL TRUTH: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity. This hefty tome is the ideological sequel to the bestselling HOW NOW SHALL WE LIVE? that Pearcey wrote with Chuck Colson a few years ago. Whereas HOW NOW SHALL WE LIVE? presented the case that America is "post-Christian" and that we need to eschew a solely personal faith and work to rebuild our culture with a biblical worldview, TOTAL TRUTH digs into the specifics of that culture and demonstrates what such a worldview might actually look like.

Pearcey is a devotee of the Swiss theologian Francis Schaeffer, and as such the foundation of her work is his assertion that modernity is built on a "two-story" view of reality with "facts" on the first floor and "values" upstairs. In such a paradigm, Christianity is banished upstairs, unable to interact with all that is empirically verifiable on the first floor. Pearcey contends that many Christians themselves live with this upstairs/downstairs mentality and don't realize how this dualistic mode of thinking keeps them from integrating their faith with the stuff of their everyday lives.

"The first step in forming a Christian worldview is to overcome this sharp divide between 'heart' and 'brain.' 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. This dichotomy in our own minds is the greatest barrier to liberating the power of the gospel across the whole of culture today."

Pearcey defines her worldview as "a biblically informed perspective on all reality" and subsequently covers her bases, providing credible commentary on everything from stem cell research, to Rousseau's rebellion against the Enlightenment, to the impact of the industrial revolution on the function of the home and family unit.

"After the Industrial Revolution, the home eventually ceased being the locus of production and became a locus of consumption --- which means that women at home were gradually reduced from producers to consumers. Household industries with their range of mutual services were replaced by factories and waged labor. Instead of developing a host of varied skills --- spinning, weaving, sewing, knitting, preserving, brewing, baking, and candle-making --- women's tasks were progressively reduced to basic housekeeping and early childcare. Instead of enjoying a sense of economic indispensability, women were reduced to dependants, living off the wages of their husbands. Instead of working in a common economic enterprise with their husbands, women were shut off in a world of private 'retirement.' Instead of working with other adults throughout the day --- servants, apprentices, clients, customers, and extended family --- women became socially isolated with young children all day."

This interesting glimpse at the roots of the feminist movement is a good example of the illuminating context TOTAL TRUTH puts our cultural experience into. With Pearcey's mastery of such a broad range of discourse, it's no wonder that a number of programs are using TOTAL TRUTH as a textbook. But don't let that scare you off. Pearcey has a gift for making complex issues clear. This is a book that even a worldview novice can enjoy and benefit from. Class is in session!

--- Reviewed by Lisa Ann Cockrel

This book has been one of my personal favorites. It is packed with insight I never realized was so vital, especially considering the concept of dualism. Pearcey points out that without realizing it, we live double lives, a concept I had always heard mentioned, but never in such detail. The concept our country has flows into this, the concept of separation of church and state. At a more individual level, it is the separation of social life and private, spiritual life. Can the two be one? The research that went into this book amazes me and I have learned so much about my own life as well as the Christian culture I grew up in and the importance of infiltrating the truth to every aspect of my life.

After reading Total Truth, I feel empowered to take the Truth of Christianity to unbelievers and go head-to-head with post-modernists and others who hold strong intellectual objections to the Christian worldview. I've always struggled with how to get past the "that's your personal belief, and this is mine" mentality, often feeling that I must apologize to my non-believing friends and family for my belief in absolute truth. Now I realize that by doing so I was giving the other side precious ground. As Nancy Pearcey writes so eloquently, Christianity is not simply one personal truth of many but the One and Only Truth! While I have always known this to be true, I've failed miserably at articulating it to others.

I grew up in a Pentecostal-Charismatic church, and I was taught that my Christian faith was first and foremost an emotional experience. So when it came to defending Christianity, I attempted to do so on purely emotional grounds. When my agnostic father challenged me to tell him how I knew Christianity to be true, I would answer, "I just know it in my heart," and then I'd try to explain my personal relationship with Jesus. This answer has never been enough for him. Nancy Pearcey shows in her book that Christianity is more than just a personal, emotional experience. It is an intellectual experience. We can "know" it to be True in our minds as well as in our hearts!

Nancy Pearcey also reminds us that we do not need to fear secular worldviews. God has the answer for every argument this world can manufacture. As she points out, God is shouting to us through Creation, exposing every false worldview with the light of Truth, and urging His children to redeem every area of culture.

The concepts Pearcey lays out in Total Truth also have tremendous implications for the culture war that is raging throughout the United States over issues such as abortion and marriage. To win this war, we not only have to understand the intellectual foundations of the competing worldviews that promote death and degrade sex, but we must also "take back" the intellectual ground we have given up to the other side. Total Truth shows us how to do this, and I recommend it to every believer who wants know what it means to be a true cultural redeemer.