About Saving Leonardo
Is secularism a positive force in the modern world or does it lead to fragmentation and disintegration? In Saving Leonardo, best-selling award-winning author Nancy Pearcey (Total Truth, coauthor How Now Shall We Live?) makes a compelling case that secularism is destructive and dehumanizing.
Pearcey depicts the revolutionary thinkers and artists, the ideas and events, leading step by step to the unleashing of secular worldviews that undermine human dignity and liberty. She crafts a fresh approach that exposes the real-world impact of ideas in philosophy, science, art, literature, and film -- voices that surround us in the classroom, in the movie theater, and in our living rooms.
A former agnostic, Pearcey offers a persuasive case for historic Christianity as a holistic and humane alternative. She equips readers to counter the life-denying worldviews that are radically restructuring society and pervading our daily lives. Whether you are a devoted Christian, determined secularist, or don't know quite where you stand, reading Saving Leonardo will unsettle established views and topple ideological idols.
Download an excerpt from Saving Leonardo »
Praise for Saving Leonardo
- “A feast for the mind and the eye” -- Makoto Fujimura, artist, author
- “Balanced, fair, impactful” -- Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist, author
- “Intellectual prophet” -- J.P. Moreland, philosopher, author of The Question of God
- “Astounding” -- James W. Sire, author of The Universe Next Door
- “Brilliant” -- Gene Edward Veith, author, Provost, Patrick Henry College
- “Unsurpassed” -- Leland Ryken, professor of English, Wheaton College
- “May be Nancy’s best book yet, and that’s saying something” -- David Limbaugh, syndicated columnist, author
Praise for Nancy Pearcey
- “One of the most profound writers today” -- Ted Baehr, founder, Movieguide
- “A mind like a jewel” -- Lael Arrington, author, Worldproofing Your Kids
- “An author of unusual ability” -- Phillip E. Johnson, author, professor emeritus, Berkeley
About the Author
Nancy Pearcey authored Saving Leonardo while serving as research professor of Worldview Studies at Philadelphia Biblical University. She is editor at large of The Pearcey Report and has authored or contributed to several works, including The Soul of Science and How Now Shall We Live? Her bestselling book Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity won the 2005 ECPA Gold Medallion award.
About the Book
Release Date: September 1, 2010
Publisher: Broadman and Homan Publishing Group
Price: $26.99 Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-4336-6927-9
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Background
Q: Why have you chosen to write about secularism?
A: People in every age have complained that politics is stained by corruption and wheeler dealing. But today's disillusionment runs deeper. It's the tragic fruit of a secular worldview, which has decoupled politics from morality. And by recognizing how it happened, we can shed new light on the destructive impact of secularism across all of life.
Q: What is the fact/value split?
A: Through much of the 20th century, American academia was dominated by the philosophy of empiricism, the doctrine that all knowledge is derived from the senses -- what we see, hear, touch, and feel. Even moral statements were reduced to feelings. According to empiricism, we call things good when they give us pleasure. We call them bad when they cause pain. Thus was born the fact/value split -- the idea that humans can have genuine knowledge only in the realm of empirical facts. Morality was reduced to subjective preferences. The term values means literally whatever the individual happens to value. This was a crucial turning point in the American mind. When moral convictions are reduced to arbitrary preferences, then they can no longer be debated rationally.
Q: Because the word secular is the opposite of religious, many people assume that secularism is a problem for religious groups only.
A: Not so. When politics loses its moral dimension, we all lose. When political discourse is debased, the entire society suffers. The reason Christians should be concerned is not to protect their own subculture, but to protect the democratic process for all people.
Q: What are you pointing at in the title, Saving Leonardo?
A: Artists are society's barometers, sensitive to new ideas as they percolate through the cultural atmosphere. Leonardo da Vinci was scientist, inventor, mathematician, engineer, and above all, artist. For Leonardo, the painter was a "god" capable of creating images at will. Standing at the threshold of modernity, Leonardo is a symbol of the modern mind and its tragic inability to find a unified truth.
Q: What do you want readers of Saving Leonardo to understand?
A: Those who aspire to a Christian worldview must remember that when St. Paul talks about "the renewing of our minds" (Romans 12:1), that verse is in the context of a call to lay our entire lives on the altar as a "living sacrifice." In other words, the path to intellectual renewal is to offer up one's entire self -- mind, body, heart, and spirit -- in solidarity with the sacrifice of Christ.
Francis Schaeffer said, "One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary." We are called to revolt against false idols and the power they exert over minds and hearts. Christians should be on the front lines fighting to liberate society from its captivity to secular worldviews.
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Praise for Saving Leonardo
"A feast for the mind and for the eye. Nancy Pearcey not only is a trustworthy guide for a nuanced discussion on the relationship between culture and the gospel, but she is a gifted teacher as well . . . Saving Leonardo is a rare, precious gift to the churches and universities alike."
Artist and author of Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture
"G. K. Chesterton said 'the danger when Men stop believing in God is not that they'll believe in nothing; but that they will believe in anything.' Nancy Pearcey understands where believing in anything leads and in this book she reveals where a secular philosophy is taking us. A balanced, fair, and impacting work!"
Syndicated and USA Today columnist
"Nancy Pearcey helps a new generation of evangelicals to understand the worldview challenges we now face and to develop an intelligent and articulate Christian understanding . . . Saving Leonardo should be put in the hands of all those who should always be ready to give an answer--and that means all of us."
President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
"Nancy Pearcey is an intellectual prophet in our day and one of Evangelicalism's foremost cultural observers. Saving Leonardo is a tour de force. In it, Pearcey provides a penetrating analysis of the nature of contemporary secularism, a helpful exposition of how we got to the present situation, and a well-crafted strategy for changing the situation. This is her best effort yet . . . a must read."
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Biola University and author of The God Question.
"Nancy Pearcey is unsurpassed in the current generation of Christian thinkers . . . The magic continues with this book. Pearcey's virtues as a writer and thinker are once again fully evident in the range of material that she has mastered, the encyclopedic collection of data that she presents, and the analytic rigor with which she separates truth from error in worldviews. She is a prophetic voice for contemporary Christians."
Clyde S. Kilby Professor of English, Wheaton College
"Nancy Pearcey has taken the complex sophistication of the best cultural analysis and laid it out for any person to grasp, enjoy, and use to live out their daily lives honoring Christ. An astounding accomplishment."
Author of The Universe Next Door