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I can only offer two cavils. The first is that Naugle neglects worldview thinking in the arts and humanities, where I believe the risks and rewards might be greatest, as evidenced in Martin Heidegger's interest in poetry and the visual arts. The second is that Naugle seems to dismiss the potential abuse of worldview analysis a little too quickly (the danger that Heidegger observed, for example, that worldview thinking has transformed the human being into a "subject" that defines, explains, and masters the world as an "object"). I have a hunch that much of this abuse in the evangelical context can be traced to a penchant for enlisting Thomas Kuhn's captivating but ultimately reductive notion of the "paradigm shift."

But these criticisms are the result of the fecundity of Naugle's important work. We may hope that his book will engender a deeper, richer understanding of worldview among Christians who take both the cultural mandate and the Great Commission seriously.

Daniel A. Siedell is curator of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the editor of Weldon Kees and the Arts at Midcentury, forthcoming in January 2004 from the University of Nebraska Press.

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Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture presents Books & Culture Corner and Book of the Week Mondays at ChristianityToday.com.

Earlier editions of Books & Culture Corners and Book of the Week include:

'A Golden Age' of Religious Tolerance? | The Ornament of the World analyzes how the intellectual elites of medieval Spain eschewed fundamentalism and showed surprising sensitivity in reconciling competing truths. (August 11, 2003)

Looking for the 'I' | What happens to the self when the brain is injured or malformed? (August 4, 2003)

The Terror of the Therapeutic | Margaret Atwood's new novel considers the price we may pay for looking to technology to remedy our ills, personal and social. (July 28, 2003)

The Catholic Church's Regime Change | Would lay power really augur a new epoch of openness and honesty? (July 21, 2003)

One-Hit Wonder | The long swansong of Madalyn Murray O'Hair. (July 7, 2003)

Divinely Decreed? | Re-fighting the Battle of Gettysburg. (June 27, 2003)

Why There Will Be Sidewalks in Heaven | Isaiah and the New Urbanism. (June 9, 2003)

True Believers | Incoming! The McSweeney's crowd launches a new monthly. (June 2, 2003)

Facing the Past Günter | Grass and the debate over Germans as victims in World War II. (May 19, 2003)

Are Movies Fundamentally Inferior to Books? | Two responses to Ralph Wood's claim that "biblical tradition elevates word over picture." (May 12, 2003)

Buffy and the Meaning of Life | Buffy the Vampire Slayer finally gets some respect. Too bad the life is slowly ebbing out of the show. (May 5, 2003)

Bird Watching with Anne Lamott | A PBS documentary enters the unruly, grace-filled world of the author of Traveling Mercies. (April 21, 2003)

A Story Darwin Might Love | Brian McLaren's evolutionary interpretation of the faith promises more than it delivers, but what it delivers is good enough. (April 14, 2003)

Why We Are in Iraq | Michael Kelly, R.I.P. (April 7, 2003)

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August (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47