I’m blogging through Nancy Pearcey’s excellent book Total Truth as part of a book discussion I’ve been doing. Last time, I covered the introduction. This time, I’m hitting some hightlights from Chapter 1. Part I of the book deals with “What’s in a Worldview?” and Chapter 1 is called, “Breaking out of the Grid.”

This chapter deals, in part, with the need to work out the implications of our faith for all of life, not just for our private/religious lives. Pearcey says:

…when we enter the stream of discourse in our field or profession, we participate mentally as non-Christians, using the current concepts and categories, no matter what our private beliefs may be.

We can, if we’re not careful, be “practical atheists” in the workplace. Of course we believe in God, but perhaps it might have no effect on the work we do or our attitude about doing it, other than a general goal of being a moral person or similar. But that’s not what God wants for us. The Bible has something to say about all of life, not just our church and moral life.

Pearcey also notes that Christians may end up with a sense of longing in part as a result of this – we WANT our life to be unified, rather than spending most of our time doing “secular” work which seems a distraction from what’s most important. We might see pastors and missionaries as those who are doing the “real” work while the rest of us just support the work:

The underlying message was that people in ordinary professions might contribute their prayers and financial support, but that was about it.

I’ve seen this attitude before, and I’ve even felt it myself, as a young Christian. In fact, that’s part of how this book helped me when I first read it. I realized it was wrong to see pastoral/missions work as the only important work for Christians. We can glorify God in our work life, and not JUST by using it as a missions field. I don’t always understand how God is glorified in our work (more on this later) but I know that we can glorify him there.

Worldviews begin with some ultimate principle

After this, Pearcey shifts to talking more about worldviews. Coming out of the enlightenment, some have thought that we can approach and study reality in an unbiased, rational, neutral way – “unaffected by any religious or philosophical assumptions”. This is completely untrue, however. If we reject God, it’s not that we can start from something more foundational; we’re just choosing another foundation:

Humans are inherently religious beings, created to be in relationship with God – and if they reject God, they don’t stop being religious they simply find some other ultimate principle upon which to base their lives.

That’s part of what is key to recognize about worldviews. Everyone has one, and worldviews always start with certain basic assumptions or foundational ideas:

Every system of thought begins with some ultimate principle. If it does not begin with God, it will begin with some dimension of creation – the material, the spiritual, the biological, the empirical, or whatever aspect of created reality will be “absolutized” or put forth as the ground and source of everything else–the uncaused cause, the self-existent.

That’s essential to realize. Everyone begins somewhere, with some assumptions, with a foundation. Everyone has their basic, core beliefs.

Pearcey points out, though, that this has implications for us, too: If we don’t deliberately take a Biblical approach to life, we will, perhaps unconsciously, take some other approach. If we’re not beginning with the Bible, we’ll be beginning elsewhere. And that’s a dangerous thing, and will lead us to a dangerous worldview.

The Bible itself is foundational

So, then, what if the Bible is foundational?

We must begin by being utterly convinced that there is a Biblical perspective on everything – and not just on spiritual matters.

To some extent, this seems the same to me as that basic Christian confession, “Jesus is Lord”. His Lordship extends to all of life, not just our personal or religious life – and indeed, the Bible has something to say about all of life, if we really seek after the wisdom it contains.

Work, I’d argue, dates even to before the fall. Adam and Eve were given responsibility to name the creatures and care for/watch over the earth for God, having dominion over it as his representatives. This was, I believe, a type of work – even before the fall. Yes, the fall increased the toil involved in work – but God had given Adam and Eve work to do even at the very beginning.

Pearcy points out that salvation is partly about restoration of what God had intended:

Redemption is not just about being saved from sin, it is also about being saved to something – to resume the task for which we were originally created.

That task involved this aspect of being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth and subduing it, what Pearcey says is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate:

This means that our vocation or professional work is not just a second-class activity, something we do just to put food on the table. It is the high calling for which we were originally created.

Part of our responsibility is to develop the talents and gifts God has given us, and develop/care for his creation in the way he wants. And that includes work that we could easily think of as purely “secular”.

Pearcey also writes:

After I spoke at a conference, a young woman said to me, ‘When you talk about the Cultural Mandate, you’re not talking about anything distinctively Christian; these are things everyone does.’ But that’s precisely the point: Genesis is telling us our true nature, the things we can’t help doing, the way God created everyone to function. Our purpose is precisely to fulfill our God-given nature.

God had called us to certain tasks, to develop and exercise abilities, to care for and develop his creation, etc. The fall corrupted that, made it more difficult, and brought sin into the world and into our hearts. But God redeems us from our sin and calls us not to completely abandon the tasks he originally intended, but to fulfill them. We can delight in engaging in creative, constructive work. Redemption, Pearcey argues is not, then, just a one-time conversion and rescue from sin, but a restoration to (at least in part) the purposes God originally intended for us. Part of that has an “already but not yet” aspect, where we will only get to truly experience what God intended in the new heavens and the new earth – but God redeems our secular work even now.

In my own words, it is not just that we are saved to fulfill the Great Commission. Yes, in some sense that’s why God has us still here on earth as opposed to bringing in the new heavens and new earth. But seeing that as our only purpose is, I think, seeing God’s plans for his creation too narrowly.

So, we clean the house, wash the dishes, etc. Pearcey writes:

It is imperative for us to understand that in carrying out these tasks, we are not doing inferior or second-tier work for the Kingdom. Instead, we are agents of God’s common grace, doing his work in the world.

We can enjoy the great aspects of creation

There’s a lot in this chapter, including Pearcey’s own conversion story, and I won’t cover all of it. But one other part I highlighted was this:

Christians can appreciate works of art and culture and products of human creativity expressing the image of God.

She highlights the ability of some to admire great works of art or music, while at the same time critiquing where the worldview behind these works might go wrong. We can enjoy the aspects of human work which reflect God’s glory, while still recognizing where they go wrong.

Not long ago, I read Metaxas’s biography of Bonhoeffer, and this was something that stood about to me about Bonhoeffer as well. He loved great art, music, drama, etc., and I think in just this same way – admiring the wonderful ways in which it can reflect God and his glory, while not seeing it as untouched by the fall.

Sometimes, it’s easier to be a cultural critic than to recognize what’s good, but Pearcey writes:

When the only form of cultural commentary Christians offer is moral condemnation, no wonder we come across to non-believers as angry and scolding. Our first response to the great works of human culture – whether in art or technology or economic productivity – should be to celebrate them as reflections of God’s own creativity. And even when we analyze where they go wrong, it should be in a spirit of love.

We can enjoy, I believe, the wonderful aspects of creation by recognizing the greatness of our God behind them all.