Against Worldview: An Interview with Simon Kennedy

Simon Kennedy is the author of Against Worldview: Reimagining Christian Formation as Growth in Wisdom. He challenges the conventions of Christian worldview education and provides a better way. But rather than shattering the lenses of Christian worldview, Kennedy reframes worldview around wisdom.

In our interview below, Kennedy reflects on his writing process and the ways it stretched him out of his comfort zone.

Simon P. Kennedy is research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia and a non-resident fellow at the Danube Institute in Budapest. He is associate editor of Quadrant magazine and teaches at a variety of institutions, including the Lachlan Macquarie Institute and Queensland Theological College.

---

Lexham Press: Let’s start with the story behind Against Worldview and its basic thesis.
Simon Kennedy: I argue that worldview isn’t working. What do I mean by that? Well, I don’t mean that thinking about Christian worldview is wrong. I mean that the way Christians typically deploy the worldview concept doesn’t work because worldview was originally not used for framing how we think about Christian education. It’s like a square peg in a round hole. I argue that we need to rethink worldview, and center our idea of Christian education around the biblical concept of wisdom. Christian education should be understood as building a Christian worldview through growth in wisdom about God, God’s world, and ourselves.

LP: Tell us what contribution you hope to make with your book?
Kennedy: I hope to make a difference to the way pastors, parents, teachers, educators, and administrators understand the task of Christian education by refocusing our Christian worldview thinking on wisdom. I’m praying that Against Worldview helps people move away from deductive, top-down approaches to framing the task of “worldview education”, and move toward the biblical vision of education in wisdom.

LP: What was a particularly surprising or enjoyable aspect of writing your book?
Kennedy: I’m not a philosopher of education, nor am I a theologian or biblical scholar. I’m a historian! So I felt like a fish out of water when writing Against Worldview. But I also knew I had something to say, and I found it enjoyable engaging in the multidisciplinary approach that the book required. I’m not sure I can call myself a philosopher or theologian after writing the book — but I certainly enjoyed playing in those spaces.

I also found that I had fun reading and writing on Herman Bavinck, who forms the basis for my chapters on epistemology and is important in laying the basis for my reframing of the worldview concept. Two other important thinkers for the book are J. H. Bavinck and Charlotte Mason. It is always a delight to delve into new thinkers and find ways to engage with their ideas.

LP: Can you share a surprising fact about yourself that only your friends would know?
Kennedy: People might assume scholars like me only read huge, heavy, dusty tomes. But my wife will tell you that my current reading passion is the novels of John Buchan. If I had to choose between taking Bavinck and Buchan on a desert island, the Scotsman wins hands down!