Steve Wilkens and Mark L. Sanford. Hidden Worldviews. Inter-Varsity, 2009.

This book was recommended by a school counselor whom I respect. I confess I chuckled to myself a bit: Wow! A book put out by Inter-Varsity Press on worldviews! This is certainly not the first! Indeed, I wondered how this would compare to the classics on the subject by James Sire, namely The Universe Next Door and Naming the Elephant.

This book takes a little different approach. The authors note eight worldviews that have all had an effect on Western culture and Western thinking today. This is not a comparative religion book, though some of the worldviews may come from religions.

But the authors do not simply explain and critique each worldview. They try to point out how each has affected our thinking. Then they challenge us: What is true about these different outlooks? Where do they fall short? What can we learn from each one—both about the world around us and about ourselves. Perhaps we may fall short, too.

As is typical today, the authors point out that most of our worldviews come from a story, a narrative that becomes a metanarrative, to use the postmodern terminology, a personal story that hangs everything together. How do we communicate? How do we act and react? There is both a subjective and objective element to how we view the world and our lives in the world. (Coleridge lives!)

Each of the eight worldviews has a chapter devoted to it. The chapter title and subtitle give us an idea of what the chapter will be about. Even by simply naming the chapters, we can probably see things from each of them that we or other people we know embrace as truth.

“Individualism: I Am the Center of the Universe.” While this sounds superficially selfish, we in the West recognize certain individual rights such as life and liberty. What can we learn from this since we are all finite individuals? When does this go too far?

“Consumerism: I Am What I Own.” While many might dismiss this, most of us have to admit that we value things and often esteem others according to their wealth, their possessions. Again, we do have needs for food and shelter, as even Thoreau admitted, but is it really true that He who dies with the most toys wins?

“Nationalism: My Nation Under God.” In many places in the world, ethnic identity is important. Most tribes and nations have stories of heroes and justifiably proud traditions. We all have a need to belong, but when does nationalism go too far?

“Moral Relativism: The Absolute Truth about Relativism and Something Like Relativism.” Much conflict in Western culture today is rooted in the question of absolutes. I recall a professor when I was in grad school saying, “There are no absolutes, even though I know that that is an absolute statement.” Even if we do not believe it or we recognize the obvious fallacy, we often act as if morals were relative or situational. But nearly all of us draw lines, too. Are we being hypocrites?

“Scientific Naturalism: Only Matter Matters.” This was an important idea when Sire was writing. Many people still believe this way. If the material world is all there is, what does that mean for us? Nowadays many people will say, “I am spiritual,” but they live and act as if everything can be explained according to physical laws.

This writer notes that the author uses the term scientific naturalism. When I was in college we used the term materialism, i.e., the material world is all there is, for example, Marx’s dialectical materialism. However, that term has come to be identified with consumerism. More recent writings use the term naturalism, but that can be confusing for those studying the arts and literature because of the naturalist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century which meant something different.

“The New Age: Are We Gods or Are We God’s.” This is attempt to explain things in pantheistic terms, that everything is God. It might be rooted in Hinduism and Buddhism, but in our culture it has been Westernized. Back in the 1850s Thoreau and Emerson subscribed to this, but most people did not. Now it seems almost pervasive, especially in Hollywood.

“Postmodern Tribalism: My Tribe/My Worldview.” This seems to be tearing apart our culture right now. What party? What sexual orientation? What race do you identify with? Whose lives matter? We need to ask ourselves, what is it that we are conforming to when we identify with a particular group?

“Salvation by Therapy: Not as Good as It Gets.” About six years ago I reviewed a book that described a kind of pop religion as moralistic therapeutic deism. Be nice, behave morally. Your religion or your meditation or your therapy can help you through your problems, and there might be some kind of god or spiritual force out there somewhere. How far does therapy go? We know it can help, but is that all there is? In our Internet age, we are inundated with advice. How do we know what really works? And is efficacy or efficiency or expediency the same as truth?

Clearly, there is a lot more here. Hidden Worldviews will get the reader thinking. And isn’t that what good books, especially nonfiction books, are supposed to do?