Catch up with Part 1 here.
As you’ll recall, I’m discussing my own research agenda, moving beyond generic phrases such as “religious communication” or “the rhetoric of American (white) evangelicalism”. In part one, I gave a brief(ish) description in part one as follows:
I study religious rhetoric and communication regarding Heroism, especially as it is expressed in white American Evangelicalism.
That involves three major components that get discussed a lot in religious circles (Evangelical and otherwise): (1) worldview, (2) goodness, and (3) personal significance—both how understandings of these components are constructed in religious communities themselves, and how they interact with outside constructions of them in the broader culture.
Let’s dive into the first component as I’ve laid it out: worldview.
If you have a superficial knowledge of the world of American evangelicalism, you probably know that “worldview” is a key and common term within that subculture. The cultivation of a “biblical worldview” is, in some sectors, used as a synonym of Christian discipleship. To give some definition, I’m going to pull a quote from my response to a question from my comprehensive examinations. Note that this is in reference to “worldview” broadly as a philisophical concept, not specific to any groups use of the term.
My working definition for “worldview” is drawn from Aerts, et al. (1994): “A world view1 is a comprehensive collection of concepts and theorems that must allow us to construct a global image of the world, and, in this way, to understand as many elements of our experience as possible”. The key element is the universal nature of worldview: comprehensive collection, global image, as many elements of our experience as possible. Worldviews are designed to be a systematic compilation of one’s cumulative understandings of the world. Further, Aerts, et al. explain that the key elements of a worldview are coherence (that is, there must at least be a satisfactory degree of internal consistency) and fidelity to experience (that is, it must make sense in the context of known experiential facts). The philosophical subject of worldviews, then, is concerned with how worldviews are constructed and maintained, as well as the interaction between both complementary and conflicting worldviews.
It is an evergreen conversation among evangelical leaders: “How do we move our people from simply a Sunday faith to a seven-day-per-week faith?” That is, how do we encourage people to see the relevance of their relationship with Jesus to every different aspect of their lives. An excellent frame for discipleship , to be sure. The answer, in many cases—particularly among the evangelical youth in settings such as an evangelical K-12 school—is the cultivation of a comprehensive “biblical worldview”, which posits that all aspects of life can be systemically explained through the Bible, evangelical theology, and adjacent sources of understanding.
Now, I’m here right now to talk about this as a field of my academic research, not to evaluate the “biblical worldview” system of discipleship from my own faith standpoint. As a product of an evangelical K-12 school myself, I am well-schooled in the “biblical worldview” model of discipleship. I think there are some fundamental flaws with it as an approach to discipleship at a conceptual level. But that’s really neither here nor there for my purpose as a researcher.2
For the time being, I want to highlight three things about “worldview” that are particularly important for my purposes as a researcher, as they play a role in my research as detailed above:
It is a common claim particularly within evangelicalism that “everybody has a worldview”. That statement is possibly true depending on exactly what is meant by the statement. What is usually meant by the statement is that everybody sees the world (as the analogy was often put to me) through “their pair of glasses” formed by their beliefs, values, etc. That much is certainly true. No doubt, some have a greater self-awareness of those beliefs, values, etc. than others, and a greater capacity to suspend them in order to approach life and other people with an openness to others perspectives than others. However, it is patently untrue that all people have a systematized and coherent global conception of the world, and belief that such a global, systemic view of the world is crucial to living well is a matter of value. There are absolutely people who intentionally approach life with a degree of open-mindedness and epistemic curiosity. What does this observation have to do with my research? In addition to the content of the evangelical worldview, the prioritization of a systemic, global, coherent worldview is itself an important aspect of the American evangelical subculture.
Recall Aerts’, et als, observation that worldview requires a degree of “fidelity to experience”. This makes sense. A worldview cannot exist if the life experience of the user illustrates that components of the worldview are patently untrue. Note, though, that this can be managed in two different ways. Theoretically, components of the worldview will be constructed in ways that adjust to the realities of the world in which it finds itself to maintain coherence and fidelity. But there is another option: the context in which a worldview is constructed can be deliberately narrowed and limited in order to keep threats to the perceived coherence/fidelity of the worldview out of sight. Said another way, there is a reason that American evangelicalism works so diligently to construct an all-inclusive subculture: when cultivating a worldview, it can be tremendously helpful to limit or eliminate whatever might be considered a threat to the fidelity of that worldview to users’ experience.
Given that worldviews are, by definition, comprehensive, it obviously includes notions of what makes a person virtuous and heroic. It goes without saying that evangelical notions of a “biblical worldview” certainly do include notions of virtue and heroism, often times at odds with notions of virtue and heroism in the broader culture.
In short, the evangelical notion of the “biblical worldview” or “Christian worldview” seek to construct a comprehensive system for understanding the world. At times, those constructing this worldview will adjust it to maintain fidelity to experience or restrict experience to eliminate threats to that fidelity. And, as a comprehensive system, evangelical understandings of worldview necessarily construct a unique vision for heroism.
That’s why “biblical/Christian worldview” within American evangelicalism is a key field of my research.
Rendered as two words for fidelity to the quote. The most common rendering is the single word “worldview”. Aerts, et al. is a translation, which my contribute to the variation.
Apart, of course, from ethical responsibility as a researcher to have an awareness of my own biases, how they may affect my observation of the phenomenon, and make those things openly known to the audience of my work.
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