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Total Truth

by Nancy Pearcey, Phillip E. Johnson (Foreword by)

4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 · rating details · 1,053 ratings · 127 reviews

Is God a public figure? Does Christianity have a legitimate role to play in the public realm of politics, business, law, and education? Or are secularists right when they relegate religion to the strictly private realm of faith and feelings?

In Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey offers a razor-sharp analysis of the split between public and private, fact and feelings. She reveals t...more

Hardcover, 511 pages

Published September 2nd 2005 by Crossway Books

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May 29, 2008 Kirk rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Thinking Christians

Whoever controls the origin story—the foundational belief about our origins—controls the culture. That is the premise of this provocative, articulate book. In our culture the origin story is controlled by Evolutionists with the result being that Christians have lost their voice in the culture—we have become culturally irrelevant. She makes an erudite and impassioned argument against Evolution and in favor of Creation citing numerous scholarly works.

Nancy Pearcy, a scholar who is equally at home...more

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Feb 28, 2008 Joel rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone interested in developing a Christian worldview

Recommended to Joel by: Sarah Viggiano

If you want a comprehensive presentation of worldview apologetics, this is the book to which I would turn. Excellent scholarship covering historical development of philosophy to today, as well as the concurrent development of Christian thought. Great reflection on where we have come from, where we are headed, and what sense to make of the world in which we live as believers. Best of all, Pearcey avoids sounding like a textbook and remains readable throughout the book's near 400 pages.

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May 31, 2013 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Rereading.

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Jan 28, 2009 Keith rated it 5 of 5 stars

As I finished this book I was washed over with a variety of impressions. First, this book should be read by every Christian educator, no matter what grade level of training. Second, if you haven't been impressed to read F. Shaeffer's works before you read Pearcy's work, I think you will be after reading it. Third, I'm exhausted having to just keep up with the end/footnotes! But I love this thorough documentation. Don't overlook one of them. Fourth, I find the final chapters a paradox. They appea...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Nate San rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Very few books have shaken my paradigm as much as "Total Truth" by Nancy Pearcy has. She is amazing at exegeting the culture and pinpointing where Christianity has pulled away from the public sphere and bought into the dichotomy of value/fact. The book is split into several parts, beginning with a set up of how we got into the mess we find ourselves in and then she hits a homerun with recommendations towards resolving the problem. I've read far too many books that bash Christianity without offer...more

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Jun 05, 2012 J. rated it 1 of 5 stars

I agreed with her criticism of an uncritical bifurcation between sacred and secular, since--as Oliver O'Donovan points out--the opposite of "secular" as properly understood is not "sacred" but rather "eternal." Yet her view of the world as portrayed in this book is sorely lacking for a notion that even if God is sovereign over both secular and eternal realms the applicable rules in each may be slightly different.

I spent the book wishing she would go back to Christian Thought 101 and pull out Au...more

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Sep 04, 2011 Katie Casey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Nancy Pearcey really did make some great points in this book about the importance of unifying our faith with our lives. She is very convincing about the need to have a Christian worldview in order to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” as Peter states in 1 Peter 3:15. She is obviously also very in-tune with some of the problems that campus ministry faces today since she herself wrestled with some misgivings in college. She...more Nancy Pearcey really did make some great points in this book about the importance of unifying our faith with our lives. She is very convincing about the need to have a Christian worldview in order to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” as Peter states in 1 Peter 3:15. She is obviously also very in-tune with some of the problems that campus ministry faces today since she herself wrestled with some misgivings in college. She writes: “the group I associated with after my conversion was spiritually committed but hopelessly anti-intellectual.” Pearcey warns that when “young people start their classes and are confronted by new, plausible-sounding ideas, they may begin to wonder whether the adults in their lives were covering something up” (126). Her solution is to provide parents, teachers, and campus ministers the tools to “defend” Christianity.
Admittedly, I wrestled with some of the things she was saying in her book because after so long, I’ve gotten a little sick of apologetics and Intelligent Design and all that. I can see where there has to be a balance of loving God with your heart and mind though – it’s just that in the last year, I’ve been leaning more to the heart side of things. It really struck me that I may have leaned too far to one side when she wrote that “despite the common stereotype, intellectual questions are not always merely a smokescreen for spiritual or moral problems” (127). And honestly, I have probably fallen victim to that stereotype a few times this year, or at least I have entertained those same judgments.
In the end, this has been a good grounding book and it was very enlightening to read about some of the worldviews and historical events that have taken their toll on Christianity. However, I still think that Pearcey may have been a little too hard on the “heart” side of Christianity, and part of that may be her Lutheran background. I know there is a happy medium out there between head & heart understanding, but I wonder if it’s not different for every person. Some people are just more intellectual while others are more emotional. It’s how we’re wired. It’s the difference between Mary and Martha. Still, I would agree wholeheartedly that developing a Christian worldview is clearly the only way to have total understanding no matter what side you’re on! After all, your worldview is the glasses you put on to see through and if they’re not right, then everything you see is going to be skewed!
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Feb 18, 2011 Bryan Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: apologetics, sociology

Cultural apologetics at its finest. A tasteful analysis of various worldviews (particularly the Christian worldview), their historical and philosophical roots, and the story of how each has impacted and shaped the culture over time into what it is today. A truly great read.

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May 18, 2009 Steven rated it 5 of 5 stars

I discovered this book accidentally when something I read on the internet brought me to Pearcey's analysis of anti-intellectualism in the Evangelical church. Many can agree on the problem, but Pearcey places it in its interesting historical context.

This book is about much more, however, as its title suggests. Pearcey argues, rightly of course, that Christianity is meant to convey all truth, the Total Truth. Not that the Bible contains every possible answer but that truth is not something you can...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Jonathan Harris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, apologetics, theology, worldview, christian-living, history

Perhaps the best book I've ever read outside the Bible up to this point has been Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. . . The book is divided into four sections: What's in a Worldview, Starting at the Beginning, How We Lost Our Minds, and What's Next: Living It Out. Section one reads a little bit like How Shall We Then Live tracing dualistic thought from Platonic Dualism through Augustine and Aquinas all the way to our present modernist outlook. The second section deals with the Intelligent Design vs....more

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Jan 04, 2013 Matthew Green rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I debated whether or not this should be a two or three star review before eventually deciding that Pearcy's good points were tertiary to her intent. Thus, I felt like what could have been fair was less than.

However, it's difficult to rate this book in the first place considering that it felt like three or four books ranging from decent to atrocious. Still, it is somewhat easy to differentiate between those books thanks to Pearcy's handy separation of the tome into four parts.

Part One is her atte...more I debated whether or not this should be a two or three star review before eventually deciding that Pearcy's good points were tertiary to her intent. Thus, I felt like what could have been fair was less than.

However, it's difficult to rate this book in the first place considering that it felt like three or four books ranging from decent to atrocious. Still, it is somewhat easy to differentiate between those books thanks to Pearcy's handy separation of the tome into four parts.

Part One is her attempt to provide a definition of a worldview and the effect one's worldview has on one's life as well as the need for one's worldview to be Christian. Already the seeds for problems were planted when it became clear that her understanding of what a worldview is had been strongly shaped by the worldview she had; she failed to be able to step out of her perspective to gain a larger picture. There is a feedback loop - one's worldview shapes one's interpretation of facts, including Scriture, which in turn shapes one's worldview - that she doesn't seem aware of. In the midst of this, however, her consideration of the sacred/secular split was actually quite astute and helpful.

In Part Two, Pearcy's real problems begin manifesting. She seems to make the assumption that everyone has a single, coherent worldview, which is potentially an impossible feat. We all bear fractured and conflicting perspectives, but she argues from the understanding that one's worldview is always unified and non-conflicting, just usually wrong. She also repeatedly provides the logical results of illogical thinking, which is in of itself illogical since illogical thinking does not, by definition, have to lead to a logical end. The assumption that human beings are driven primarily by analytical processes is prevalent throughout as well as the belief that the catalyst for one's worldview to change is primarily through intellectual confrontation, both of which are questionable if not completely faulty.

Also in Part Two, Pearcy makes two glaring errors. The first is where she comes exceedingly close to stating that a Christian does not believe until he/she has formulated a complete Christian worldview, which is absurd and makes Christianity about rational analysis rather than about faith or the heart. The second is where she attributes various moral failings in American culture to an evolutionary worldview despite the fact that such failures were prominent in many cultures throughout history far before evolution was ever conceived. In addition, she attacks some cultural phenomena without understanding them. On the positive end, she does posit some good questions and observations about evolution science, though Francis Collins (whom she upheld as an evangelical scientist) countered many, though not all of them, in his book published two years after. Still, I wish she had examined the strengths and flaws of each perspective rather than considering only one side, a move that seemed to lack humility.

Finally in Part Three, Pearcy feels like she begins writing in her strengths. She analyzes the birth and progress of Evangelicalism, beginning with the Great Awakenings, where she draws parallels to the style of those movements to the contemporary evangelical culture. She posits where the origins of evangelical emotionalism and celebrity come from and traces the philosophical ideals in its theology, though her solution to Evangelicalism's current problems being to allow theology to determine its character is naive. Regardless, these were actually quite worthwhile chapters.

Part Four is but a single chapter, and while I agree with a good portion of it, it also fails to sound out much beyond, "Do the right thing." In the end, Pearcy's recommendation is right thinking and the application of willpower, which undercuts the cross and fails to understand the intricacies of human nature.

There are two, final issues that I was unhappy with throughout. The first is Pearcy's over-reliance on reason and the intellect. She fails to understand the person as a whole, perceiving only the mind as meaningful and worthwhile. The second is her aggressive response to problems. Her answer is always to fight back against untruth and evil, but this flies in the face of Jesus' life and sacrifice. For her, truth seems to trump love rather than finding a means of integrating them. I fear she is like the Greeks who sought wisdom and thereby missed Jesus. (1 Cor. 1:22-23)(less)

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Feb 07, 2012 Jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion, non-fiction, apologetics, favorites

One of the most helpful books that I've ever read. It took a while (I think I started in September or October), but I plowed through it like I did with Beeke's book on Calvinism. Pearcey covers basic worldview elements, then dives into an exploration of how deeply Darwin's thoughts have affected American thought, education, religion, home life, etc. A significant point here—one that I was already aware of, but one that she hammered home—is that Darwinism is not simply a neutral, faithless positi...more

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Jan 03, 2012 Paul DeBusschere rated it 2 of 5 stars

Pearcy makes a few good points in her book. However, I was more struck by the fact that she, on one hand, takes dualism to task (a good thing), but yet ends up establishing her own sort of dual construct. Although Pearcy makes a good case for the Christian worldview, she trips up by insisting on a legalistic framework that would restrict the church in how it interacts with the world. She seemingly wants to sing hymns and pass out church bulletins when the rest of civilization is listening to roc...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Lynn Joshua rated it 5 of 5 stars

I just re-read this. It's the most valuable book I have read in the last few years.
The author's conversational style makes what could be difficult subject matter (history, apologetics, philosophy) easy to follow.

Every worldview must answer three questions: 1) Creation -- How did we get here? 2) Fall -- How did we get in the terrible mess we're in? 3) Redemption -- How do we get out of this mess?
Her arguments not only challenge the different worldviews' direct truth claims, but pushes some of t...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Robbie Pruitt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey, is a fantastic book on truth and living from a Christian and Biblical worldview. This is simply a must read for anyone in education or ministry, or anyone who is looking to think and live rightly, Biblically, holistically, and from a Biblical and Christian worldview. This is a very important work as the culture has shifted, and continues to shift, to a postmodern and to a post Christian thinking and worldview. We must think rightly about all of God's truth and all...more

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Jun 22, 2009 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars

A heady worldview number by Nancy Pearcy, a student of Schaeffer, Total Truth attempts to prove that underlying assumptions about the world infiltrate every facet of our lives. Though the work is not as audacious as to suggest it itself is total truth, it does argue for the existence of total [capital-t:] Truth in the world.
She has interesting comments on philosophy, women and work, Darwinism and the rise of Evangelicalism (a particularly fascinating section). Pearcy uses philosophy and logic i...more

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May 31, 2011 Jesse rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: education

This is an important and comprehensive book. Nancy Pearcey is well-read and easy to read. The book breaks out nicely into three sections: diagnosing the problematic worldview of today’s society, the rise of this dominant paradigm, and the history of Christianity’s slow acquiescence to this paradigm. Stated simply: the dominant paradigm is evolution (and a few others: atheism, modernism, and postmodernism) and Christianity gave up the battle because we’re Gnostics. The book was a good over view a...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Heidi'sbooks rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great book. Clearly establishes why Christianity is relegated to the private life in our culture instead of all of public and private life. She sets different worldviews including Christianity in context with the history of various philosophies. She shows why all worldviews need to start with creation, what caused the fall, and redemption. Very interesting and detailed. Best when used with others in a small group discussion using the study guide at the end of the book. If you ever wondered why i...more

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May 16, 2013 Brian Eshleman rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: audible

The middle portion of this is five-star material, wherin the author makes good on her claim to trace today's assumptions within and without the Church back to the roots and coolly asses the strengths and weaknesses that have come down to us in current worldviews. Why was the main stage of culture left vacant for a philosophy under-penned by secular assumptions? Why has there been a persistent anti-intellectual strain in evangelicalism? Why does today's Church when it does engage the culture, see...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Julie Clark rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is a must read for any Christian. It’s long. It’s heady. It took me a long long time to get through it because I had to read many of the paragraphs three and four times to “get it.” Very comprehensive book on the importance of having a Biblical, Scripturally sound Christian worldview. She makes the case that it is of the utmost importance that we quit living “fragmented” lives. Essentially, she says that when we filter certain parts of our thinking through secular rather than Bible bas...more

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Jun 29, 2009 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: counseling

This book was a wonderful explanation of how Christian's worldview impacts every part of life. There can be no fact/value, sacred/secular, or private/public dichotomies in the life of a Christian. Everything on earth can be expressed through the creation, fall, redemption framework.
Creation = how did GOD originally design it?
Fall = how did the fall of man/nature corrupt it?
Redemption = how can GOD restore it (and how can we help in that)?
What is the natural end conclusion for any other worldvie...more

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Sep 13, 2009 Cathy Rape rated it 5 of 5 stars

Has anyone else ever had the overwhelming desire to buy 100 copies of a book you just read and pass them out to anyone and everyone you thought would actually read it? That is how this book left me feeling. Nancy Pearcy does an amazing job of stripping cultural assumptions down to their roots, then following their development through the ages, in order to show the reader the basis of philosophical assumptions we have inherited through culture. Reading this book was like chewing up a plaque indic...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Brian Watson rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a very good book. It's a good exploration of why Christianity is true and why naturalism is not. It also explores how Christianity in America has become the way it is now (anti-intellectual). I think I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book, which focused more on apologetics, than the last third, which traced the history of Christianity in America. Negatives: an emphasis on the "cultural mandate," which I just don't buy, and a somewhat poor understanding of the Great Awakening (Edwards...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Patrick Powell rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I admit that despite multiple attempts I could not bring myself to finish this all of this book. The author is trying to sell something history has long debunked. Building a society around a 'biblical worldview' has failed so often I wonder why Evangelicals continue trying to sell it. I agree the Bible is true and Gods Word but consider this. Did the settlers come to America to escape Muslims? Pagans? Martians? No. They arrived in America to escape other Christians! And when these Christians arr...more

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Dec 18, 2012 Joshua rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After reading reviews on Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth by Francis Beckwith, Tim Challies, and Al Mohler, writing my own seemed daunting. Al Mohler wrote, “In Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey offers a solid theological engagement with the critical intellectual issues of our times.” Such a bold statement is characteristic of thoughtful books reviews. In light of other reviews, my goal is to provide a concise analysis of Pearcey’s book, stating its main argument and identifying salient points.[return][retu...more After reading reviews on Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth by Francis Beckwith, Tim Challies, and Al Mohler, writing my own seemed daunting. Al Mohler wrote, “In Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey offers a solid theological engagement with the critical intellectual issues of our times.” Such a bold statement is characteristic of thoughtful books reviews. In light of other reviews, my goal is to provide a concise analysis of Pearcey’s book, stating its main argument and identifying salient points.[return][return] It would be impossible to understand Total Truth apart from its connection to Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer himself was instrumental in Pearcey’s conversion to Christianity. The skeptical author first encountered this 20th century intellectual giant at the L’Abri community in the Swiss Alps. Perched on the side of a mountain, he influenced Pearcey and many others who were disillusioned with religion in the 60’s. Schaeffer’s scathing critique of modernism and its inability to answer the deep questions of the human soul led to Pearcey’s conversion, which resulted in a lifetime of intellectual work on behalf of the Christian faith.[return][return] This is Pearcey’s book though, not Schaeffer’s. She breezes through centuries of philosophical systems—deconstructing them as she goes—in order to show that the Christian worldview is the only one that can truly account for all of reality. The Christian worldview is total truth. [return][return] Why is developing a Christian worldview important? Postmodern America is awash in a “sea of secularism.” There are many ideologies competing for attention in today’s marketplace of ideas. However, are any of them capable of providing a comprehensive account of all of reality? This is the question Pearcey poses… and answers.[return][return] Pearcey’s thesis is that the majority of Christians have been subject to cultural captivity and must be set free, hence the title of the book, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. We are in a state of intellectual bondage where a sharp divide has been drawn between the sacred and the secular. There has been a bifurcation between religion and reason, science and faith, that has inexorably driven Christians to retreat from the public sphere and succumb to the prevailing cultural norms and mores of their day. [return][return] Pearcey states her thesis in the introduction: “This book addresses that hunger [to have a Christian worldview] and offers new direction for advancing the worldview movement.” One of the reasons Christians have a truncated, lifeless worldview is because they’ve bought into the fact/value distortion which has permeated Western culture for centuries. The onslaught of the Enlightenment and the impact of revivalism within the sphere of the emerging Evangelical empire has created this distortion. [return][return] The fact-value distortion is described as a two-story way of looking at the world. In the “lower” story are facts, which are binding on everyone. The “lower” story of Science is built on empirical knowledge, rational thinking, and objective facts. In the “upper” story are values, which are based on individual preferences. A person’s religious beliefs would fit here. The “lower” story is what is universally accepted by the public and accepted as “objective” truth, whereas the “upper” story is both cursorily dismissed and not taken seriously by the public.[return][return] One of the strengths of this book is Pearcey’s ability to analyze and explain large strata of the intellectual, economic, and religious foundation of Western Culture. Schaeffer’s influence is certainly evident as she explains how the two-story divide has played out in the various strands of Western thought. For instance, postmodernism can be seen as the “upper” story in today’s prevailing worldview; it is subjective and relative to particular groups. The “lower” story, on the other hand, is modernism with its accompanying emphases on what is objective and universally valid. [return][return] This dichotomy, she explains, “is the single most potent weapon for delegitimizing the biblical perspective in the public square today.” Those who don’t believe in God have been able to subvert Christianity by relegating its tenets to that which belongs in the private sphere. Religion, particularly Christianity—which is what is professed by most Americans—is no longer taken seriously; not because it’s true, but because religion is seen as a matter of preference. Christianity opposed America and lost the fight. [return][return] There are four parts to this book. The first part explains how the secular/sacred split came into being. The second part “zeroes in on Creation, which is the foundational starting point for any world-view.” In this section she assesses Darwinism, which is the prevailing worldview today, and shows how this particular worldview fails to hold up when evaluated in light of recent scientific findings; it falls well short of providing a coherent, comprehensive worldview for all of life. The third part criticizes the author’s own tradition, Evangelicalism, and looks at how we arrived at where we’re at now. The fourth part shows how “submission of our whole selves to the Lordship of Christ” is the only way to develop a Christian worldview. [return][return] I even found Pearcey’s method for the development of a Christian worldview to be theologically supple. Her explication of suffering in context of a vibrant, lived-out faith is a much needed slice to the prideful, therapeutic, flabby Christianity that has developed over the years. She advances Martin Luther’s theology of the Cross as a means by which we die to ourselves and the idolatry of our hearts on a daily basis. She writes, “True knowledge of Christ comes only as we are willing to give up up our dreams of glory, praying to be identified with Him on the cross.” Ouch. [return][return] Furthermore, her incorporation of Schaeffer’s “Rejected, Slain, Raised” concept of sanctification shows that she’s not afraid to swim upstream against the currents of much of the Evangelical self-help chicanery. A slight criticism might be that Pearcey relies too heavily on Schaeffer here and the concept of “Rejected, Slain, Raised” doesn’t fully capture other means of grace, such as the importance of reading the Bible, prayer, and service, which serve to develop a full-orbed view of Christianity. [return][return] This book is a must-read for all young people heading off to college, pastors, lay leaders, and anyone interested in learning more about the Christian worldview. This is a primer on why a Christian worldview is important and how we should go about identifying competing worldviews while developing a solid, mature, biblically-informed one of our own.(less)

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Mar 30, 2013 Joy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: christian, non-fiction

This is Nancy Pearcey's follow up book to How Now Shall we Live, a book she co-authored with Colson. This book is meant to fill in the gaps of that book so I do recommend reading the other book first. However, this book can and does stand alone if necessary.

In How Now Shall we Live, Christianity as a worldview was presented. This book takes the worldview idea and runs with it. Pearcey looks at every worldview as if it's a two story building; the first story is the foundation/ground and the secon...more This is Nancy Pearcey's follow up book to How Now Shall we Live, a book she co-authored with Colson. This book is meant to fill in the gaps of that book so I do recommend reading the other book first. However, this book can and does stand alone if necessary.

In How Now Shall we Live, Christianity as a worldview was presented. This book takes the worldview idea and runs with it. Pearcey looks at every worldview as if it's a two story building; the first story is the foundation/ground and the second story is more abstract. She shows how philosophies over the centuries moved the morals and basis of Christianity from the first story to the second story which paved the way for all the garbage philosophies that occur today. She looks extensively at Darwinism and shows how naturalism is really a religion (which is now taught in our public schools). Also explored is how Darwinism and naturalism have seeped into almost every other aspect of society.

The most interesting section to me was part three where she takes a look at the Evangelical movement. I'm am not considered an "evangelical" because I am Confessional Lutheran (on the conservative end of the Lutheran spectrum as well) and it always floored me how messed up some Evangelical doctrine is. When I read the section and she explained the philosophy behind it and the social conditions surrounding the "Great Awakenings" it was a kind of eureka moment.

One other thing that I take away from this book as an educator and a parent is that properly preparing your children for life in the real world that isn't Christian is so important. She has many examples (herself included) of young Christians who fell away so easily when faced with evolution in high school or college because they weren't prepared with a defense. I was blessed to go to Lutheran schools for all my schooling and I feel I am properly prepared to defend my faith but I notice that a lot of my grade school friends on Facebook have views that aren't Christian. Most of these friends went to Lutheran grade school with me but not high school and although we had Bible lessons every day in grade school, a lot of the application and apologetics didn't kick in until high school. But that's neither here nor there.

All in all, Pearcey has written an excellent book and reading it will open your eyes about the world's worldview versus Christianity.(less)

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Apr 27, 2013 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm trying to establish a bookshelf entitled "highly recommended books that have infuriated me." This book would go on it.

I know that I cannot give this book a fair review because Nancy Pearcey pushed all the wrong buttons as far as I'm concerned. I try to read, even books I don't like, on their own merits, but it was impossible for me to do so with this one. I kept getting the feeling that the author's alternative vision, which she had only hinted at up to that point, was one I would eventually...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Randy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Christians in North America tend to view their Christianity strictly in terms of their individual commitment to Jesus Christ, and they see their part in the Great Commission as sharing their faith and bringing others also into such a saving relationship. Yet they are frustrated by a feeling of having their hands tied, of unspoken assumptions which they may sense but not be able to put their finger on. More than in any other nation, professing American evangelicals make up a sizable percentage of...more

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Jun 18, 2011 Debi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended read for every Christian. It is a wake-up call for Christians at the ease with which our culture and its secular worldview is now taking over our schools and even our own way of looking at things. We have relegated the spiritual to a compartment of our lives instead of allowing it to integrate all facets of how we live.
Part of the book takes us through the historical aspects of how the church came to be what it is today. As well as how men and women's roles have changed through the...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-of-2010

Really good worldview summary from a Schaefferite.
Very clear classifications of worldviews in terms of Scheaffer's upper/lower story worldview analysis model.

There are good sections on Intelligent Design and science, and the application of Darwinian Naturalism to all spheres.

The history section on how anti-intellectualism took hold in american (and british) evangelicalism was very good. Whitefield was one of the first promoters of the personality of the evangelist, by stirring up enthusiasm for...more

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About Nancy Pearcey

Nancy Randolph Pearcey is the Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute, where she teaches a worldview course based on the study guide edition of Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. In 2005, Total Truth won the ECPA Gold Medallion Award in the Christianity & Society category, in addition to an Award of Merit in the Christianity Today book awar...more Nancy Randolph Pearcey is the Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute, where she teaches a worldview course based on the study guide edition of Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. In 2005, Total Truth won the ECPA Gold Medallion Award in the Christianity & Society category, in addition to an Award of Merit in the Christianity Today book awards.

A former agnostic, Pearcey studied violin in Heidelberg, Germany, in the early 1970s and then traveled to Switzerland to study Christian worldview under Francis Schaeffer at L’Abri Fellowship. After graduating from Iowa State University with a Distributed Studies degree (philosophy, German, music), she earned a master’s degree in Biblical Studies from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, then pursued further graduate work in the history of philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto (with emphases on ancient and Reformational philosophy).

Pearcey is currently a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, where the focus of her work is on the cultural and philosophical implications of the evolution controversy. A frequent public lecturer, Pearcey has spoken to actors and screenwriters in Hollywood; students and faculty at universities such as Dartmouth, Stanford, USC, and Princeton; scientists at national labs such as Sandia and Los Alamos; staffers at Congress and the White House; and various activist and church groups around the country, including the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. She has appeared on NPR, and a lecture based on Total Truth was broadcast by C-SPAN.

She began writing in 1977 for the nationally distributed Bible-Science Newsletter, where for 13 years she wrote pioneering in-depth monthly articles on issues related to science and Christian worldview. In 1991 she became the founding editor of “BreakPoint,” a national daily radio commentary program, and continued as the program’s executive editor for nearly nine years, heading up a team of writers. Under her leadership, the program grew into an influential organ for teaching a Christian worldview perspective on current events, with an estimated weekly audience of five million. She was also policy director and senior fellow of the Wilberforce Forum, and for five years coauthored a monthly column in Christianity Today.

Pearcey has served as a visiting scholar at Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute, managing editor of the science journal Origins & Design, an editorial board member for Salem Communications Network, and a commentator on Public Square Radio. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including the Washington Times, Human Events, First Things, Books & Culture, World, Pro Rege, Human Life Review, American Enterprise, The World & I, Homeschool Enrichment, Christianity Today, and the Regent University Law Review.

Pearcey has authored or contributed to several works, including The Soul of Science, which treats the history of science and Christianity, and the bestselling, award-winning How Now Shall We Live? She was invited to contribute the Foreword in The Right Questions, as well as chapters in Mere Creation, Of Pandas and People, Pro-Life Feminism, Genetic Ethics, Signs of Intelligence, Reading God’s World, Uncommon Dissent, and a Phillip Johnson Festschrift titled Darwin’s Nemesis.

Pearcey resides in Northern Virginia, where she and her husband are homeschooling the second of their two sons.(less)

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Books by Nancy Pearcey

Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning

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Quotes from Total Truth

“Having a Christian worldview means being utterly convinced that biblical principles are not only true but also work better in the grit and grime of the real world.” — 8 people liked it

“The gospel is like a caged lion,' said the great baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. 'It does not need to be defended, it simply needs to be let out of it's cage' Today, the cage is our accommodation to the secular/sacred split that reduces Christianity to a matter of personal belief. To unlock the cage, we need to become utterly convinced that, as Francis Schaeffer said, Christianity is not merely religious truth, it is total truth- truth about the whole of reality.” — 5 people liked it

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