Lots of folks are talking about the current Vanity Fair story on the Creation Museum in KY. I’ll let someone else start a chat about the story in particular or the museum (follow the Scott Lamb link below for one such discussion); I wish to deal with something more general and foundational.
Check out this quotation from the Vanity Fair story (heads up: if you follow the link, remember the nature of VF’s photography):
“This place doesn’t just take on evolution—it squares off with geology, anthropology, paleontology, history, chemistry, astronomy, zoology, biology, and good taste. It directly and boldly contradicts most -onomies and all -ologies, including most theology.”
(h-tip: Scott Lamb , who notes that the VF story seems surprised by this wide-ranging engagement on the part of the museum.)
Now compare that with this quotation from Abraham Kuyper:
“In the total expanse of human life there is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare, “That is mine.”
These two statements distill the essential difference between a secularist worldview and a Christian one.
A Christian worldview is relentlessly unified, viewing knowledge itself as pointing to an ultimate unity. Christ is Lord over all (Acts 10:36 & Phil. 2:10-12). He is reconciling all things (2 Cor. 5:19). We are called to take captive every thought to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). Indeed, the hermeneutical key to the entire universe is God’s self-revelation of Himself.
A secularist worldview is hopelessly fractured. Each academic discipline is a silo. Each perspective on the world, no matter how contradictory, is equally valid; there are no “priorities.” Each opinion is entitled to a seat at the table of ideas (except, of course, for any opinion that dares to point out the logical inconsistencies of the other opinions). There can be no meaningful interpretive key for knowledge because there is only disintegration and brokenness among the various stakeholders.
Once we understand these radical differences, we can see how high the stakes of the conversation really are, and how far-reaching, whether in cultural issues or theological disputes.
February 3rd, 2010 | 11:23 pm | #1
I agree that the secularist worldview is hopelessly fractured, and that the stakes of the conversation are high. However, it seems those silos you reference exist, practically if not theoretically, among those who claim a Christian worldview as well. There are myriad disagreements over the interpretive key itself.
Also I’m not sure the VF comment illustrates fractured-ness in this case as much as surprise that the museum would make a case against such a weight of evidence as presented by all those “ologies,” in unity themselves (over evolution and old-earth theory).
February 3rd, 2010 | 11:25 pm | #2
Coming from a Van Tilian/Kuyperian perspective, i butt heads with this hopeless, fractured secularism every time i enter the classroom. The two shall never find common ground, so I create an environment that gives both the students and myself freedom to express the content of our individual worldviews. I find it terribly distressing to try to do otherwise. Rick Pearcey wrote somewhere, “people seek to externalize their most deeply held convictions” and I remind my classes through the use of this quote that there is no real common ground and butting heads is inevitable.
February 4th, 2010 | 5:05 am | #3
Sarah Flashing: “Coming from a Van Tilian/Kuyperian perspective, i butt heads with this hopeless, fractured secularism every time i enter the classroom. … there is no real common ground and butting heads is inevitable.”
Heh. Watch out for Christian instructors who wear helmets! These billy goats are looking to butt heads!
;-)
February 4th, 2010 | 10:19 pm | #4
Read the VF piece: it is by a pompous jackass. Oh, did we mention the magazine is named Vanity Fair? ‘Nuff said. Give me 50 creationist for one metrosexual busy chasing Tom Ford’s every shadow..
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