When I was a boy, I loved “choose-your-own-adventure” novels. There was one I especially loved in my school library, a Star Trek one if I recall correctly. Depending on how you answered a question, Captain Kirk could be romancing a lady with green-skin and low standards, or a Klingon warship could de-cloak and blow up the Enterprise.
In hindsight, the book was pretty cheesy, but there was something really exciting about discovering the outcome of a particular choice. What I chose drastically impacted the story.
Who’d have thought this would make a great template for a book on worldviews? Inspired by “choose-your-own-adventure” novels, James Anderson set out to write a book allowing readers to see how their answers reveal what they believe about life, the universe, and everything. And this is exactly what you’ll find in What’s Your Worldview?: An Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions.
By up to 21 questionsâdealing with freedom, truth and knowledge, unity, matter and mind, and pretty much everything in betweenâAnderson takes readers on a journey to discover their worldview. Depending on how you answer, you may discover you’re a Deist, Christian, Relativist, Skeptic or any one of a number of alternatives.
This is extremely helpful for readers to see, as I’ve no doubt there are many who don’t give any thought to the idea of worldview at all. After all, “worldviews are like belly buttons,” he writes. “Everyone has one, but we donât talk about them very often. Or perhaps it would be better to say that worldviews are like cerebellums: everyone has one and we canât live without them, but not everyone knows that he has one” (12).
He continues:
A worldview is as indispensable for thinking as an atmosphere is for breathing. You canât think in an intellectual vacuum any more than you can breathe without a physical atmosphere. Most of the time, you take the atmosphere around you for granted: you look through it rather than at it, even though you know itâs always there. Much the same goes for your worldview: normally you look through it rather than directly at it. Itâs essential, but it usually sits in the background of your thought.
If our worldview is this important, then we ought to be more aware of it. We should wrestle with the beliefs undergirding all our other thoughts and beliefs because it truly changes everything. Take the issue of abortion, for example. What we believe about its validity  as a practice is necessarily tied up in what we believe about the nature of humanity, when life begins, its value⌠The same can be said of same-sex marriage, poverty alleviation or any number of hot-button issues.
What we believe drastically affects our response, so we should seek to be more aware of the framework undergirding our thinking.
But readers should also be quick to understand this is not an in-depth analysis of any particular worldview. What Anderson offers readers is a basic sketch covering the major points of each of worldview mentioned (21 in all). Although there’s part of me that would love to have seen more, Anderson’s approach is a welcome one since it’s clearly meant as a launch pad for further study, rather than a one-and-done experience.
When I read through What’s Your Worldview?, I immediately began thinking of the different applications for it. I believe there are two distinct uses for it. First, the book would be an excellent tool to use with newer believers or those who are looking for a basic primer on what a worldview is, and what some of the major ones out there look like.
Second, and most importantly, this seems to be an ideal book with which to engage non-believers to open the door to the gospel. The style of the book itself is extremely non-threatening, eschewing editorializing and the temptation to persuade to a specific way of thinking (at least as much as any of us are capable).
In fact, if there’s anything he’s attempting to persuade readers of at all, it’s this: worldviews really, really matter. “Your basic view of the world shapes how you feel about the world and how you engage with the world” (102).  What you believe drastically impacts what you do. What’s Your Worldview? is a wonderful tool to help us understand this truth, and I trust it will be a blessing to all who engage with it.
Title: What’s Your Worldview?: An Interactive Approach to Life’s Big Questions
Author: James N. Anderson
Publisher: Crossway (2014)
Buy it at Westminster Book | Amazon
Does this book “devolve” into mere litmus tests on hot-button issues of the day? If it’s yet another screed on young-earth creationism versus evolution I wouldn’t be interested. If it’s addressing more “how now shall we live” if indeed the kingdom god is breaking in and seeing all of life through that prism – I’d be interested.
Nope, doesn’t deal with hot-button issues at all. It’s big essential questions: “is there any objective truth,” “is there more than one valid religion,” “is everything ultimately material in nature,” and so on. Your answers to the various questions lead you to a worldview (Deist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Nihilist, etc.).