I’m working my way through Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey because it is so useful to both Christians and non-Christians today.  In our western world it is not considered polite to mix public and private, secular and sacred areas. This division keeps Christianity from having as big an impact as it could have.  This is a second blog on the book with more to come because we all need to be reminded of the total truth that Christianity claims (and represents in my view).

Pearcey says the tragedy of the two-story split is that the things that matter most in life (dignity, freedom, personal identity, ultimate purpose) have been cast into the upper story with no grounding in accepted definitions of knowledge.  The bottom story is reserved for reason, scientific knowledge, facts, rationality.  But no one can live in that lower story because it takes all the joy and beauty out of life.

Pearcey wants all aspects of life to be injected with a Christian worldview perspective.  To do this, she says we must ask three sets of questions:

Creation: how was this aspect of the world originally created?  What was its original nature and purpose?

Fall: how has it been twisted and distorted by the fall?  How has it been corrupted by false worldviews?

Redemption: how can we bring this aspect of the world under the lordship of Christ, restoring it to its original, created purpose?

One example she uses appeals to me since that’s where I work everyday as a teacher — education.  Creation says that children are created in the image of God.  Education should seek to address all aspects of the human person.  Yet the biblical view of human nature is realistic enough because of the fall to remind us that children are prone to sin and in need of moral and intellectual direction.  Children are not naturally innocent and shouldn’t be allowed to come up with their own morality.  Finally, redemption means that education should help equip students to take up vocations to bring about a better world.