Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey

I can't put this book down! The author, Nancy Pearcey, worked closely with Francis Shaeffer the well-known Christian philosopher who wrote the book How Shall We Then Live? Schaeffer also started the L'Abri Fellowship that has many campuses, but the most well-known is in Switzerland. This book addresses many intellectual issues but does so in language that is understandable. As I read through Part one of the book which discusses worldviews it seemed as though Nancy was answering the questions, "Where did these American ideas come from?" and "Why do we see the world as we see it?" She sheds light on those questions by walking us through historical events and philosophical influences that changed the way Christianity was viewed and also changed the educational system. Her description of Christianity being in the upper-story and science being in the lower-story was very clear to me. I think I may even have fallen to this dualistic approach to life. She says, "Human reason was regarded as perfectly competent on its own for understanding the state, society, science, economics, philosophy-infact, everything outside of theology. Thus the Christian mind itself began to be split. God's Word was limited to the upperstory, but was deemed irrelevant and unnecessary in directing the lower story." Christianity is itself a complete worldview. True Christianity is total truth for every area of life, both spiritually and materialistically. Christians must learn how influenced we have been by liberalism and naturalism. Here is another quote, "The crucial flaw in liberalism is that it adopts the two-layer concept of truth. It accepts a naturalistic account of science and history in the lower story, while relegating theology to the upper story where it is reduced to personal, noncognitive experience."