War of the worldviews

HOW NOW SHALL WE LIVE?
By Charles Colson & Nancy Pearcey
Marshall Pickering. 574 pages
ISBN 0 551 03258 8

The late and much missed Francis Schaeffer once wrote a Christian overview of Western civilization entitled How Then Shall We Live? This new book is dedicated to Schaeffer's memory whose L'Abri Fellowship ministry was instrumental in the conversion of the female half of its authorship duo, Nancy Pearcey.

With the conviction that the Western world is now locked into a war to the death between two world views - the Christian and the secular - Colson and Pearcey have written a thorough and gripping volume which seeks to argue, in the Schaeffer tradition, for Christian truth at all the most strategic points of the battlefield.

The book falls into five parts along the lines of a classic Christian analysis of the human situation. First, worldviews - why they are important; second, Creation - where we came from and why we are here; third, the Fall - what's gone wrong with the world; fourth, Redemption - what can we do to fix it; fifth, Restoration - how shall we live now in the light of Christian truth?

Here are not only strong, sound arguments, but also many inspiring and challenging stories mostly drawn from Charles Colson's global involvement with Prison Fellowship. The section, I presume mostly from the pen of Nancy Pearcey as the scientist of the team, on creation over against evolution, is one of the most lucid, up-to-date and well-informed you are likely to read. The view, held by much popular psychology, of human beings as basically good is shown to inevitably lead to Utopian visions of society which end up bringing evil and oppression to the very human beings it is meant to release from the 'harsh truth' of our fallenness. In our lostness, mankind turns to such false 'Saviours' as sex, science, materialism and New Age religion, and the book does a worthy job in exposing the feet of clay of these modern idols. Time spent with this book will be well repaid. Ordinary people need to know that Christian faith makes common sense and until Christians make real headway in arguing for the plausibility of our faith, the gospel is unlikely to get much of a hearing.

However, there are some concerns with this book. First, often in the USA Christianity and politics are far more interwoven than they are in Britain. Coming out of America, Christians who stand on the right wing of the political spectrum will feel far more at home with some parts of this book than those who come from a more Christian-socialist stable. Second, with Charles Colson's well-known involvement in the Catholics and Evangelicals Together experiment, it is not surprising that the book fails to be as clear as it should on some major points of evangelical truth. This is reflected by the most minimalist of expositions of the cross. This reader felt there was much good apologetics here, but the heart of the good news was dumbed down.

JEB