Author Archives: Greg

Worldview If we can establish a legitimate basis for analyzing similarity and dissimilarity, it becomes feasible to answer the question at hand with more than surface-level comparisons. Because worldview is often the basis of comparison in the relevant literature, a meaningful model of the concept can provide such a basis. For easier (though not easy) reading, I have broken my discussion of worldview into fourContinue reading “Are Churches of Christ Evangelical?: A Pragmatic Cultural Question (Part 4)”

Wittgenstein, Weltanschauung, Weltbild, and Wherefore Pragmatism There is much to say about what Danièle Moyal-Sharrock calls Wittgenstein’s “logical pragmatism” in relation to missional theology (Moyal-Sharrock).  I will mention only some starting points for the present discussion of worldview.  Though Wittgenstein was cautious about Weltanschauung (worldview), the concept of Weltbild (world picture) was critical for hisContinue reading “On Worldview 3 (Wittgenstein/Pragmatism)”

Worldview in Philosophy My primary points of reference in this post will be David Naugle’s Worldview: The History of a Concept, followed by James Sire’s Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept, which Naugle’s work provoked.  In addition to these two, I will discuss with more depth than these two authors the importance of LudwigContinue reading “On Worldview 2 (Philosophy)”

Worldview I hope to pursue doctoral research in missional hermeneutics, focusing among other things on a missiological conception of worldview.  I emphasize a missiological conception, because that qualification signals a very specific appropriation of a problematic concept.  In a recent exchange with a New Testament scholar about my research interests, he stated: I do wonderContinue reading “On Worldview 1 (Missiological Anthropology)”

A Provisional Model of Worldview I understand worldview to be the narratively determined web of interpretive and evaluative systems that generates and regulates human knowing and doing.  This is a provisional representation of my understanding: Narratively Determined As Hiebert said, the “core” of worldview is the mythos, which is (ordinarily) a mostly tacit metanarrative aboutContinue reading “On Worldview 4 (A Provisional Model)”

Epistemological Priority In the lengthy quote last post, Hughes notes the similarities between fundamentalism and Restorationism that make their distance strange. If I’ve argued correctly that conservative evangelicals (eventually fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals) and Churches of Christ were actually nearly identical in regard to the eschatological ambivalence that has characterized them on the level of worldview,Continue reading “Are Churches of Christ Evangelical?: An Epistemological Question (Part 3)”

Richard T. Hughes’s Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America is rightly recognized as the premier reference point in Churches of Christ historiography.  Hughes’s analysis is insightful and compelling.  Yet, his slant merits some critique.  In particular, his underlying acceptance of the church-sect typology popular in mid-twentieth century sociology colorsContinue reading “Are Churches of Christ Evangelical?: A Historical Question (Part 2)”

The question remains open, first because everyone has such a hard time defining “evangelical,” and second because evangelicals aren’t sure they want to claim us, and we’re not sure we want to be claimed.  Yet, I find the most relevant answer in a sociological, descriptive mode that doesn’t have any regard for what anyone involvedContinue reading “Are Churches of Christ Evangelical?: An Open Question (Part 1)”

In how many sermons, in how many assertions, in how many minds this week has the belief that God abandoned Jesus on the cross overpowered the real message? For Christians, what we say about the cross must be among the weightiest matters. More specifically, what we say the cross reveals about God is of absoluteContinue reading “God Did Not Abandon Jesus”

The Missional-Incarnational Impulse The ideas that Hirsch presents in this chapter have been widely debated among those interested in the “missional” conversation.  Missional is a notoriously cliché as well as ambiguous word, and incarnational has seen its share of misuse and critique in recent years.  For my part, these words, properly defined, evoke some of the mostContinue reading “The Forgotten Ways: Ch. 5”