Will the Real Christian Life and World View Please Stand Up?
August 25, 2010
Regarding my recent comments about events at The King's College in New York, there seems to be some confusion about what I was actually trying to say. The confusion is at least strongly implied in the Christianity Today web report, and has also been suggested in private -- and, I should stress, genuinely courteous, gracious, and helpful -- correspondence I have had from a King's faculty member. The misconception is this: my comments on the doctrinal significance of the appointment of the new president are seen as a result of me confusing the different roles of a seminary and a college. My problem, apparently, is that I want King's, a college, to behave like a seminary.
Nothing could be further from the truth. My problem, rather, is twofold: first, what does it mean when an institution has a doctrinal statement, which must be subscribed by all faculty and which presumably forms at least part of the basis for fundraising and student recruitment, and which then appears to be sidelined in a key hire? I doubt that the institution wrote the document when, in a moment of madness, it confused itself with a seminary. Still, I have said all that I want to say on that.
Second (and this was really the underlying burden of my original post): in what does a Christian world and life view (and the various synonymous terms) consist? If a liberal arts college says that it teaches such a thing, then doctrine is surely important. All world and life views are doctrinal, after all; and a Christian one is presumably constituted by Christian doctrine in some basic way Further, as the very term indicates total comprehensiveness, the teaching of such a thing does not seem to me to require any less clarity on doctrine at a foundational level than the curriculum at a seminary would so do (albeit the curricula at the two types of institution might be markedly very different). For example, does my view of God's personal being affect my view of the world? Does my view of God's sovereignty affect my view of the world? Does my view of scripture affect my view of the world? Does my view of justification affect my view of the world? Does my view of eschatology affect my view of the world? I every case the answer is surely `Of course. Is that a question?'
Just to be clear: all this `Christian world life view' talk is not my language. I am myself very uncomfortable with it because it fails to respect difference among Christians; but I do not consider it inappropriate to ask those who do use this language with such confidence to explain it to me; to explain, for example, why they use the singular not the plural; and what are the doctrines that can be set to one side as matters indifferent when constructing this singular Christian world life view?
For myself, I am very comfortable with the view of the world expressed in the Westminster Standards. The theology therein profoundly expresses my view of life, the universe and all that. Does that mean I deny the name Christian to someone who is, say, an Arminian or a Lutheran or an Anabaptist or a Catholic? Not at all, though they would be as ineligible to serve as an officer in my church as I would be in theirs. But -- and here's the rub -- does it mean we share the same comprehensive world-life view? I would say not -- holding to Catholic sacramentology profoundly shapes how a Catholic looks at the world; holding to justification by imputation profoundly shapes how a Protestant looks at the world; holding to dispensationalism profoundly affects how a Fundamentalist looks at the world; and holding to Anabaptist ecclesiology profoundly affects how an Anabaptist looks at the world. And, while we're at it, to be indifferent to these things, to assume their a priori unimportance, profoundly affects one's view of the world as well. In other words, there are as many CWLVs as there are Christian sects (I use the term non-pejoratively); and it is extremely odd, not to say depressing, that, in a world where we are now supposed to rejoice in difference, it is frankly so hard to get people to see what seems to be a fairly obvious point.
The result: my concern for doctrinal indifferentism at a Christian College arises not out of a seminary-college category confusion but rather out of my belief that one huge mythological misconception is simply being allowed to continue unchallenged: that there is `a [singular] Christian life and world view' that can be separated as some kind of Platonic ideal from the phenomena of particular confessional commitment, whether Reformed, Anabaptist or whatever. It is time to come clean: we need to speak of Christian life and world views (plural) and we need to acknowledge that those who talk of such in the singular are more than likely privileging their particular view of the world (including their politics -- Left and Right) as the normative Christian one, and thus as being essentially beyond criticism and scrutiny -- whether that view is doctrinally complex or indifferent to all but being `born again.'
Nothing could be further from the truth. My problem, rather, is twofold: first, what does it mean when an institution has a doctrinal statement, which must be subscribed by all faculty and which presumably forms at least part of the basis for fundraising and student recruitment, and which then appears to be sidelined in a key hire? I doubt that the institution wrote the document when, in a moment of madness, it confused itself with a seminary. Still, I have said all that I want to say on that.
Second (and this was really the underlying burden of my original post): in what does a Christian world and life view (and the various synonymous terms) consist? If a liberal arts college says that it teaches such a thing, then doctrine is surely important. All world and life views are doctrinal, after all; and a Christian one is presumably constituted by Christian doctrine in some basic way Further, as the very term indicates total comprehensiveness, the teaching of such a thing does not seem to me to require any less clarity on doctrine at a foundational level than the curriculum at a seminary would so do (albeit the curricula at the two types of institution might be markedly very different). For example, does my view of God's personal being affect my view of the world? Does my view of God's sovereignty affect my view of the world? Does my view of scripture affect my view of the world? Does my view of justification affect my view of the world? Does my view of eschatology affect my view of the world? I every case the answer is surely `Of course. Is that a question?'
Just to be clear: all this `Christian world life view' talk is not my language. I am myself very uncomfortable with it because it fails to respect difference among Christians; but I do not consider it inappropriate to ask those who do use this language with such confidence to explain it to me; to explain, for example, why they use the singular not the plural; and what are the doctrines that can be set to one side as matters indifferent when constructing this singular Christian world life view?
For myself, I am very comfortable with the view of the world expressed in the Westminster Standards. The theology therein profoundly expresses my view of life, the universe and all that. Does that mean I deny the name Christian to someone who is, say, an Arminian or a Lutheran or an Anabaptist or a Catholic? Not at all, though they would be as ineligible to serve as an officer in my church as I would be in theirs. But -- and here's the rub -- does it mean we share the same comprehensive world-life view? I would say not -- holding to Catholic sacramentology profoundly shapes how a Catholic looks at the world; holding to justification by imputation profoundly shapes how a Protestant looks at the world; holding to dispensationalism profoundly affects how a Fundamentalist looks at the world; and holding to Anabaptist ecclesiology profoundly affects how an Anabaptist looks at the world. And, while we're at it, to be indifferent to these things, to assume their a priori unimportance, profoundly affects one's view of the world as well. In other words, there are as many CWLVs as there are Christian sects (I use the term non-pejoratively); and it is extremely odd, not to say depressing, that, in a world where we are now supposed to rejoice in difference, it is frankly so hard to get people to see what seems to be a fairly obvious point.
The result: my concern for doctrinal indifferentism at a Christian College arises not out of a seminary-college category confusion but rather out of my belief that one huge mythological misconception is simply being allowed to continue unchallenged: that there is `a [singular] Christian life and world view' that can be separated as some kind of Platonic ideal from the phenomena of particular confessional commitment, whether Reformed, Anabaptist or whatever. It is time to come clean: we need to speak of Christian life and world views (plural) and we need to acknowledge that those who talk of such in the singular are more than likely privileging their particular view of the world (including their politics -- Left and Right) as the normative Christian one, and thus as being essentially beyond criticism and scrutiny -- whether that view is doctrinally complex or indifferent to all but being `born again.'
