Total Truth
Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
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4.6 • 15 Ratings
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
Pearcey passionately argues that Christianity is truth about all reality, not just religious truth, and that to keep it privatized is stripping it of the power to challenge and redeem the whole of culture.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As a religiously adrift young adult in the 1960s, Pearcey found her way to the Swiss retreat, and the intellectually rigorous faith, of the Calvinist maverick Francis Schaeffer. This book continues the Schaeffer-inspired project that Pearcey and Chuck Colson began in How Now Shall We Live? awakening evangelical Christians to the need for a Christian "worldview," which Pearcey defines as "a biblically informed perspective on all reality." Pearcey gives credibly argued perspectives on everything from Rousseau's rebellion against the Enlightenment, to the roots of feminism, to the spiritual poverty of celebrity-driven Christianity. She also provides a layperson's guide to the history of America's anti-intellectual strain of evangelicalism. Unfortunately for the book's chance at a wide audience, several chapters are devoted to a critique of Darwinism and defense of Intelligent Design with no substantive engagement with the many thoughtful Christians (John Polkinghorne, Ken Miller, Nancey Murphy, etc.) who dissent from Intelligent Design's scientific and philosophical program. Still, Pearcey deftly applies Schaeffer's core insight that modernity has been built on a "two-story" view of reality with "facts" on the ground floor and "values" up in the air. Her critique of this view is compelling, and her final chapters, which begin to sketch an integrated Christian way of living and thinking, are exceptional. This is the rare long book that leaves one wanting to read more.
Customer Reviews
I Enjoyed "How Now Shall We Live?" More
Nancy Pearcey, former scholar for worldview studies at Philadelphia Biblical University's Center for University Studies, wrote Total Truth in 2004. The 512-page Study Guide edition was published the next year and won a Christianity Today Award of Merit and the ECPA Gold Medallion Book Award in the Christian and Society category. Total Truth is one of seven additional books you must choose from to read in order to complete the ACSI Christian Philosophy of Education requirements. It is a book that helps the reader understand how to develop a Biblical worldview and is a follow-up book dealing with the worldview themes in How Now Shall We Live?. Pearcey shows us that there are many, including Christian educators, who are dividing matters into sacred and secular. This is even happening at Christian universities across the United States. Many Christians fail to see that all truth is God's truth. Christianity is not just religious truth, but total truth. I have met in small groups on a couple different occasions to discuss the contents of this book, and more meetings are planned for the future. Total Truth is not light reading and much can be taken from it. I found the last two sections to be more enjoyable than the first two sections primarily because I found the first two sections to contain a lot of information that I have already read. Despite that, I benefited greatly from reading Total Truth and would recommend it to others.
Total Truth
This book should be mandatory reading for all pastors and youth pastors. It would also be good for any Christian going off to a secular university. It is very concise and well written. It is engaging and deals directly with the subject matter which is - "is Christianity a viable belief system?" and "How does it compare (and how do I defend) it to other competing philosophies?"
If you are a Christian, and your kid is going off to college, you need to read this and insure that you spend time with your kid in discussing the points of these chapters!!!!