Abstract

This work is comprised of an Introduction and two Parts. Part One treats, by way of historical review and evaluation, the disestablishment of the Christian worldview in a postmodern age. Part Two proposes the means by which the Christian worldview might be reestablished. The reestablishment includes the use of some of the benefits of postmodernism by Christians as well as a return to the responsible reading of texts, especially the biblical text. ;Part One, The Disestablishment of the Christian Worldview, is composed of three chapters. Chapter 1 chronicles the change that has occurred in Western culture because of the ascendency of postmodernism. It is best described as a change in authority from the logocentric metanarrative which has characterized Christianity to the deconstructionist rejection of worldviews by postmodern literary critics. Chapter 2 reviews the paradigm shifts that have occurred in belief systems that have occurred in the West as a result of this change, and Chapter 3 shows the effects of all this in the culture's principal institutions. ;Part Two, The Reestablishment of the Christian Worldview, is also composed of three chapters. Chapter 4 shows the impact that postmodernity has had on the efforts now being made on behalf of reestablishing the Christian worldview as a viable intellectual position in Western culture. Chapter 5 is occupied with the negative and positive responses of certain Christian scholars to the challenge of postmodernism, and Chapter 6 closes the study with an extended treatment of the factors that must be in play for a reestablishment of the Christian worldview to occur in Western civilization