The W(h)it(e)ness of Worldview Theory: On the Troubled Genealogy of a Favorite Framework

In this lecture, Jacob Alan Cook will trace the impulse toward and development of worldview theory from modern philosophical discourse conceived in a moment with the age of colonial exploration and global exploitation through contemporary American evangelical political engagement in terms of “the biblical worldview.” Connecting with postcolonial currents in philosophy and theology, he will underscore where world-viewing is a fundamentally broken posture for human beings living in a world that only God can truly view. And Cook will mark some trailheads for faithful ways of inhabiting the world as but creatures whose widely sought security can never be so much epistemological as relational.

Jacob Alan Cook (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is an academic program director and a visiting assistant professor of Christian ethics at Eastern Mennonite Seminary of Eastern Mennonite University. He is the author of Worldview Theory, Whiteness, and the Future of Evangelical Faith(Fortress Academic, 2021) and has published, presented, and taught around topics like a theology of identity, theories of (non)violence, formation for peacemaking, and ecological ethics. He is currently writing a book-length practical theology of freedom and agency that builds constructively from the radical, little-b baptist tradition and several shorter projects.

This event is free and open to the public and will take place in Blanchard Hall   Room 339, located at 501 College Avenue in Wheaton. For more information, contact Amy Park at 630.752.5040 or amy.park@wheaton.edu.