The current formal study group consists of students taking the Worldview Foundations course at the Institute for Christian Studies, (Toronto, Canada).


This conversation is facilitated by Gideon Strauss, whose day jobs are at the Christian Labour Association of Canada and as the editor of the Work Research Foundation's quarterly journal, Comment. Gideon also blogs and helps to maintain a news link blog, labourzone.


If you live in or near Toronto, it should still be possible to register for the formal seminar. If you want to audit the seminar for fun and/or personal enrichment, please e-mail Gideon Strauss.


Below you will find the required readings, the discussion questions, and the research assignment for the current study group (Fall 2002).


Particular discussion questions (and the research assignment) will be posted again during the week in which the formal study group will consider them. The participants in the formal study group will post their written responses to the questions each week. Informal participants and occasional readers are welcome to post their comments using the discuss function. We request a high level of civility from everyone taking part in these conversations.



Discussion questions for Garber (part 1).

Read Garber, the introduction and chapters 1 and 5.

1. Garber writes (p. 15):

Why do you get up in the morning? For nearly twenty years I have been teaching university students in many different kinds of settings -- both those laboring away at secular-spirited institutions and those within Christ-centered colleges and universities, both undergraduate and graduate students, both within the classroom as a professor and outside as a campus minister -- and in a variety of ways I have asked this question. It gets at the relationship between what one believes about the world and how one lives in the world, partiularly as that dynamic interaction is being formed as young people begin to move out of their parents' worlds and worldviews and take up their own convictions as frameworks within which to live and move and have their being. But it also focuses a student's attention, asking for a good reason to get up -- beyond the call of the cafeteria or the classroom.


At heart that more playful question is rooted in more substantive ones: Which commitments will give shape to my life? Is my life about something that matters? What do I really care about?

So ... why do you get up in the morning?


2. Garber interviewed numerous people for this book. He found that “in the tapestrylike stories of the experiences of those interviewed . . . three factors were the major influences, as seen retrospectively, on the construction of their respective visions of what is real and true and right.” What are these three factors? What is their influence in your own life?


3. Garber found in his research that “As those interviewed answered questions about how they make sense of life and the world, two factors stood out. . . . No other issues seemed as central to their articulation of their worldviews as these two; together they are woven into the fabric of faith of those who still believe and who act on what they believe.” What are these two factors? What is their influence in your own articulation of a worldview?



Discussion question for Calvin and Schreiner.

Read Calvin, book 3, chapters 6 to 10. Read Schreiner, the introduction, the internal conclusions to chapters 1, 4, and 5, and the conclusion.


What can you tell from the reading of the broad contours of Calvin’s worldview?



Discussion question for Heslam and Bratt.

Read Heslam, chapter 4. Read either Kuyper's "Common Grace" or his "Sphere Sovereignty" in Bratt.


What can you tell from the reading of the broad contours of Kuyper’s worldview?



Discussion question for Wolters and Marshall. Part of the seminar discussion will be to compare the presentations of a Christian worldview by these authors.

Read Wolters, chapters 2 to 4, or read Marshall, chapters 2 to 5, 16, and 17.


How does Wolters or Marshall present the Christian worldview?



Discussion question for Colson & Pearcey and Middleton & Walsh. Part of the seminar discussion will be to compare the presentations of a Christian worldview by these authors.

Read Colson & Pearcey, the introduction and chapters 1 to 4, 7, 15, 23, and 31 or Middleton & Walsh, chapters 1, 5, and 8.


How does Colson & Pearcey or Middleton & Walsh present the Christian worldview?



Discussion questions for Being Human.

Read Being Human, chapters 1, 2, 3, and 7.


1. What does Seerveld claim when he says that being human is (a) being meant to pray, (b) being prone to sin, (c) being fragile, and (d) being in the order of Melchizedek?


2. Select one of Seerveld’s four claims. What is the relevance of the selected claim to your own life?



Discussion question for Freston, Jenkins, and Martin.

Read Freston, the introduction, the general introduction to each of parts two, three, and four, and the conclusion, or read Jenkins, chapters 5, 7, and 8, or read Martin, chapters 1, 3, and 8.


1. How has your reading of Freston, Jenkins, or Martin influenced your understanding of our times?


2. How might the Christian worldview contribute to cultural engagement by today’s emerging global church?



Discussion questions for Garber (part 2).

Read Garber, chapters 6 to 8.


1. How would you articulate the broad contours of your own worldview?


2. How does your worldview shape your way of life?



Research assignment


Evaluate the contribution of an articulated Christian worldview to cultural engagement in one of the following organizations that have their roots in the reformational/neocalvinist tradition:


1. The Center for Public Justice (Washington, DC);

2. The Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario;

3. The Christian Labour Association of Canada; or,

4. Citizens for Public Justice (Canada).