Worldview Weekend and the Will to Power
August 13, 2004
In the current issue of tNP, Jack Heller’s article on “Christian worldview tests” administered by WorldviewWeekend.com and the Nehemiah Institute has grabbed the attention of quite a few bloggers.
Like David Mills at Touchstone, initially I thought this silliness was an easy target and not terribly significant. However, it turns out Worldview Weekend has quite a reputation among those fearful of a radical religious right due to the program’s association with the Christian “heritage,” “dominion,” and “reconstruction” movements.
Two years ago Americans United for the Separation of Church and State commented at length on Worldview Weekend and US Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) who got in hot water for saying at one of their events that Baylor University and Texas A&M were becoming hotbeds of sin and secularism. What is most interesting about the first piece (“Weekend Warriors”) is how Americans United does not make facile generalizations about a monolithic “religious right” but distinguishes the “reasonable” evangelical mainstream from the root-and-branch extremists:
“Most Religious Right leaders these days at least give lip service to religious pluralism. They talk of “Judeo-Christian” values and sometimes labor to bring traditionalist Catholics, conservative Mormons and others into the fold in the hope of achieving common political goals.
“Not Worldview Weekend. These events are run by far-right fundamentalist Christians for far-right fundamentalist Christians. The whole point of the conference is to learn how fundamentalists can win greater political influence, overturn the separation of church and state and bring government under religious control. The goal is “dominion,” not a corner of a “big tent” or power sharing with non-believers. Worldview Weekend organizers and attendees don’t want a place at the table they want the whole table.”
If this movement continues to grow, it will present the questionably “solid middle” of evangelicaldom with new and profound challenges in its ongoing self-fashioning.
* Note DeLay’s comment in this article that “he was motivated to ‘get out of the church and into the streets and standing for [God’s] worldview’ by Chuck Colson’s book (primarily written by Nancy Pearcey) How Now Shall We Live? This book makes a case for an understanding of worldview that is largely based on the work of Dutch Calvinist philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd. It was hoped, in some Reformed circles, that this book would bring the fundamentalist and evangelical right to less ham-fisted approaches to political issues and civic engagement. No such luck, at least with DeLay.
This is Worldview Weekend and the Will to Power in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: The People Walking In Darkness Have Seen A Great Light | Next: Christian History: “We Report, You Decide” | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
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