From Worldview to World News

On Love Thy Body, by Nancy Pearcey

I’ve often felt confused, saddened, and angered, all at once, about the state of our culture’s ethics. From abortion to gender transition to racism, the value of life and sense of self hang in the balance. But to be more than just reactionary and to grow in compassion, I’ve wanted to understand the thinking behind these issues. 

A moral action is not simply an isolated or random decision; a worldview has informed it, shaped it, expected it. Even if someone cannot articulate it, a certain worldview upholds their behavior. Nancy Pearcey writes in Love Thy Body, “Every practice comes with a worldview attached to it - one that many of us might not find true or attractive if we were aware of it.”  

Pearcey explains our current cultural worldview through a two-story building analogy, which she credits to Francis Schaeffer. Each story represents a division in worldview priority: science & facts in one story, vs. morality & values in the other. Throughout the book, she illustrates how this division exists in the popular cultural mindset as person vs. body. A person “has moral and legal standing” and the body is “an expendable biological organism”. From this worldview, actions once seen as immoral can be applauded by society as long as they support science over morality or the person over the body. 

I believe her writing can equip followers of Jesus to have: 

• more informed, compassionate conversations

• confidence that a biblical worldview unites the categories that our culture says are at odds with each other 

“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

1 Thessalonians 5:23