Countering Culture: Arming Yourself to Confront Non-biblical Worldviews (Worldviews in Focus)

by David Noebel and Chuck Edwards

Broadman & Holman Publishers

This course serves as a follow-up to Thinking Like A Christian, although it can be used on its own. As with the first course, Summit Ministries has worked with Broadman & Holman Publishers to come up with another very affordable and flexible worldview course that can be used by homeschoolers, youth groups, college classes, or adult groups.

This course differs from the first course because rather than teaching students the essence of a biblical Christian worldview, it instead focuses on the three dominant worldviews that Christians are most likely to confront in the United States: secular humanism, postmodern Marxism, and cosmic humanism. Think of it as the "how to recognize the enemy" end of worldview education. Students really learn to apply critical thinking as they develop their worldview. The first two lessons are an overview, so this course will work for students without previous worldview education.

The course includes a video and a teaching text. A CD-ROM that comes packaged in the back of the teaching text has detailed lesson plans for teaching all of the four groups listed above. PDF files for each lesson include a set of outline and activity pages for students as well as lesson presentation pages for the teacher. Mid-term and final tests are also on the CD. You should print out these files and put them in teacher and student binders for easy access. Students should each also have access to the teaching text for the background reading material. If you are teaching a group class, each student will likely need his or her own book.

The courses outlined on the CD-ROM for each audience direct the teacher when to use which components. The teaching textbook itself serves more as a background resource for both teacher and student. You do not teach directly from it but rather from the PDF lesson plans.

There are twelve lessons that should each take about a week to complete. However, the first lesson is briefer and the second lenghtier than most other lessons, so you'll need to adjust your time accordingly.

Lessons can be used with a single student, but it would be much better if you can gather at least a few more students and do a group class so you can generate more discussion. It might be possible to do this course within a two-hour session once a week, but I think twice a week is likely to work better.

Lessons include video excerpts for viewing, but lessons are primarily driven by teacher presentations and discussions. Students work through the selected assignments between meetings. Some of these assignments might be course-long projects or papers.

The 127-minute video has segments that range from just a few minutes for the first lesson, through more than 20 minutes for the second lesson. Other segments generally run about five minutes. Segments feature interviews with well-known authors, theologians, and specialists such as Dr. David Noebel, Phillip Johnson, Ron Nash, J.P. Moreland.

Countering Culture is based upon belief in Scripture as the source of our knowledge. The viewpoint is supportive of what most consider a conservative view of government and a capitalist approach to economics (as opposed to socialism).

Like the first course in the "Worldviews in Focus" series, this course is great for the parent with little or no background in worldviews because it presents the information in the teaching text.