Nancy Pearcey: Atheists often denounce Christianity as harsh and negat...

All of science is largely formalized common sense.

Nancy Pearcey

common-sense common

The first step in conforming our intellect to God's truth is to die to our vanity, pride, and craving for respect from colleagues and the public. We must let go of the worldly motivations that drive us, praying to be motivated solely by a genuine desire to submit our minds to God's Word - and then to use that knowledge in service to others.

Nancy Pearcey

motivation pride letting-go

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.

Nancy Pearcey

real christian mean

Darwinism has become our culture's official creation myth, protected by a priesthood as dogmatic as any religious curia.

Nancy Pearcey

evolution religious culture

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.

Nancy Pearcey

spurgeon religious reality

Many people operate as though the definition of faith were, Don't ask questions, just believe. They quote Jesus himself, who taught his followers to have the faith of a child (Mark 10:15). But I once heard Francis Schaeffer respond by saying, "Don't you realize how many questions children ask?"

Nancy Pearcey

believe children jesus

Competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best. A monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity.

Nancy Pearcey

mediocrity competition people

There are unprecedented numbers of movements for human rights and freedoms. But the dominant worldviews in academia, like materialism and naturalism, deny the reality of freedom, reducing humans to robots. So where does the concept of human rights come from?

Nancy Pearcey

rights numbers reality

Can reason be an idol? Certainly. The philosophy of rationalism puts human reason in the place of God as the source and standard of all truth.

Nancy Pearcey

idols reason philosophy

The human mind inherently seeks intelligible order. Thus the conviction that such an order exists to be found is a crucial assumption.

Nancy Pearcey

assumption mind order

Developing a Christian worldview means submitting our entire self to God, in an act of devotion and service to Him.

Nancy Pearcey

self christian mean

A worldview is not the same things a formal philosophy, otherwise it would only be for philosophers. Even ordinary people have a set of convictions about how reality functions and how they should live. Some convictions are conscious while others are unconscious but together they form a consistent picture of reality.

Nancy Pearcey

philosophy reality people

Schools ought to teach students to challenge secular ideologies masquerading as science in the classroom.

Nancy Pearcey

students challenges school

In many churches, the message of justification- how to get right with God- is preached over and over again. But much less is said about sanctification- how to live after you're converted.

Nancy Pearcey

church messages said

Christians must go beyond criticizing the degradation of American culture, roll up their sleeves, and get to work on positive solutions. The only way to drive out bad culture is with good culture.

Nancy Pearcey

degradation christian culture

Modern secular thought has its own dualism: It treats only the physical world as knowable and testable, while locking everything else - mind, spirit, morality, meaning - into the realm of private, subjective feelings. The so-called fact/value split.

Nancy Pearcey

mind feelings world

An idol is anything put in the place of God as the ultimate reality - the eternal, self-existent, uncaused cause of everything else.

Nancy Pearcey

idols self reality

The best organizations regard the nurturing of their employees as a spiritual mandate.

Nancy Pearcey

employee organization spiritual

In studies asking why young people left their family religion, their most frequent response was unanswered doubts and questions. The researchers were surprised: They expected to hear stories of broken relationships and wounded feelings. But the top reason given by young adults was that they did not get answers to their questions.

Nancy Pearcey

asking-why broken people

When people commit themselves to a certain vision of reality, it becomes their ultimate explainer. It serves to interpret the universe for them, to guide their moral decisions, to give meaning and purpose to life, and all the other functions normally associated with a religion.

Nancy Pearcey

giving reality people

Atheists often denounce Christianity as harsh and negative. But in reality it offers a much more positive view of the human person than any competing religion or worldview. It is so appealing that adherents of other worldviews keep free-loading the parts they like best.