Tool or Lens? Worldview Theory and Christian Conservative Legal Activism

Bibliographic Data

ID20384347
AuthorsJason E Whitehead (0000-0002-6721-480X, California State University, Long Beach, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume36
Issue1
Pages29-66
Publication date2021-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Law and Religion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0748-0814 • E-ISSN: 2163-3088
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/jlr.2020.58
OpenAlexW3132666433
LanguageEN
References cited16

This article combines historical and philosophical analysis to examine and critique the ideas motivating Christian conservative legal activism. Such activists routinely claim to be motivated by a Christian worldview, which they define as a comprehensive explanation of reality that determines all their thinking and action, including their legal activism and argumentation. Examination of the historical and philosophical roots of the concept of worldview identified by Christian thinkers reveals two understandings of the concept: an analytic tool for rationally comparing the evidence for different social philosophies, and a pre-theoretical lens that determines what counts as evidence in the first place. Christian conservatives have largely favored the first sense of worldview as a tool to understand issues like sexuality and gender identity in an essentialist way and to demonstrate with foundationalist logic the rational superiority of their legal conclusions about these issues. However, a comparison of the Christian conservative worldview and the queer theory worldview illustrates how this understanding of worldview as a tool fails because there is no neutral perspective outside of any worldview, from which one could examine and compare one to another. The idea of worldview as a pre-theoretical, historically, and socially contingent lens can be more productive. Embracing this notion of worldview in a personalist way is necessary to build a culture of dialogue that uses narrative to pursue the truth while also respecting and honoring the different perspectives from which these narratives are told

Aesthetics · Argumentation theory · Epistemology · Essentialism · Foundationalism · Narrative · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment

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