Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey, a review

by T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                     Vol. XVIII, No. 9, October 2005

[Nancy R. Pearcey, Total Truth, Crossway Books, 396 pp. ISBN 1-58134-458-9]

You may recall that Nancy Pearcey was co-author with Chuck Colson of How Now Shall We Live. She is the Francis A. Schaeffer scholar at the World Journalism Institute where Total Truth serves as the basis for a worldview curriculum.

Her information above may sound quite academic, but don’t let that turn you off toward Total Truth. It is an engaging book, a combination of personal anecdotes from her background, pertinent historical background, solid logic, and biblical perspective. If you can read The Baptist Banner, you will enjoy and benefit from Total Truth.

Pearcey describes how our modern separation of the religious/philosophical and the practical/scientific/”real-life” came to be compartmentalized in two different realms ... into what she terms in chapter 2 “Christian schizophrenia”. The importance of understanding this is highlighted in one (of many possible quotes): “As American culture moves away from its Christian heritage, the public classroom is becoming a battleground for competing ideologies, so that one of our most important tasks is to teach students how to identify and critique worldviews.”

Five chapters deal with Darwinism and its continuing and disastrous impact on our culture and on much of Christianity. An especially interesting chapter (12) is titled “How Women Started the Culture War”. Pearcey concludes with chapter 13, “True Spirituality and Christian Worldview”.

I highly recommend Total Truth to everyone from highschool age on up. Reading it will do much to help you understand the basic challenges of our time.