Christian Worldview as One among Many Historical Worldviews: Analysis and Reflection
What a Christian Worldview of History Is
As an academically trained historian and linguistic specialist with a focus in African history, Egyptological translations, transliterations, and grammatical applications, and historical comparative linguistics, my analysis and perspective of the Christian worldview mainly agree with Cornerstone University’s definition: “The Christian worldview is a comprehensive outlook on all parts of life based on the Holy Scriptures of the Bible.”[1] It also agrees with Liberty University’s definition that “the Christian worldview paradigm emphasizes that the Gospel has something to say to all of life.”[2] The Christian worldview of history is a "Biblical foundation for the study of history" which provides ethical guidance for the historian reconstructing the past.[3]
Why It Is Important to Me as a Person and as a Historian
Ezana Stone Inscription
As a purely secular historian, this worldview of basing all life from a Biblical or Scriptural lens can be both beneficial to quantitative and qualitative based studies and research, as well as extremely problematic. It can be beneficial in that it deals with the moral ethics of the researcher and that if one believes that all humans are God's creation, then therefore the research should inspire to reach historical truths concerning all of creation with no biasness attached. Also, the historian can appreciate the deep body of Christian primary sources and literature that appear in the Biblical Scriptures, Coptic Christian texts, Nubian Christian texts, Ethiopic Christian texts, Early Colonial American Puritan texts, and various non-canonized texts and other ancient Christian texts which are important for all those practicing the historians craft. The historian Fea states, "Though I am skeptical about the use of providence as a tool of historical investigation, there are still plenty of resources in the Christian tradition that historians might find useful in doing their work".[4] Personally, when doing African Nile Valley research, I found Christian Coptic, Christian Nubian, and Christian Ethiopic texts highly useful for Black historical research. Problematic issues are when the causations of certain historical events, or other processes are explained with God's providence.[5] As if a human, according to the Christian beliefs has capabilities to comprehend and explain the mind of an everlasting God, which directly contradicts Biblical scripture as well as problematic for historical research, "For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God" (1 Cor 2:11, NRSV). Despite the beneficial and non-benefical aspects of the Christian Worldview when applied to historcial research, we must know that this particular worldview is just as important to me as all other worldviews that appear in the sociological folkways of all humans. Other worldviews like the African-centered worldview, the Islamic worldview, the European worldview, the Colonial worldview, the Catholic worldview, the African traditional worldview, and others are all important to historians. As a historian who studies history as a discipline, my role is to "understand and explain the character and behavior of humans through the concept of time."[6] So by this, worldviews are part of the sociological folkways of all humans. There are diverse worldviews in various cultures in which the Christian worldview is one of them, and all human worldviews are important and could benefit any secular historian reconstructing the past.
What a Christian Worldview Is Not
The Christian worldview is not itself a secular institution, but a thriving folkway for those who share that particular worldview and lens. A prime example of this is Dr. Sir E. A. Wallis Budge (image is to the right of this paragraph), who in my opinion stands as one of the greatest Egyptologists because of his uncanny ability to implement an unbiased interpretation and linguistic explanation of the Egyptian language as fundamentally African in origin rather than Semitic a position that stood in direct divergence from the dominant Egyptological Whig interpretive consensus of his time. Wallis Budge did not explain the Egyptian language in its African linguistic context by appealing to God’s providence, but by means of linguistic inquiry and comparative analysis, tools that also apply to the historian’s craft even though he was himself a Christian. As Fea states, “History became a science, and thus references to God’s intrusion in human affairs were no longer considered a legitimate way of practicing the discipline.”[7]
Budge states:
"Now no one who has worked at Egyptian can possibly doubt that there are many Semitic words in the language, or that many of the pronouns, some of the numbers, and some of its grammatical forms resemble those found in the Semitic languages. But even admitting all the similarities that Erman has claimed, it is still impossible to me to believe that Egyptian is a Semitic language fundamentally. There is, it is true, much in the Pyramid Texts that recalls points and details of Semitic grammar, but after deducting all the triliteral roots, there still remains a very large number of words that are not Semitic, and were never invented by a Semitic people. These words are monosyllabic, and were invented by one of the oldest African (or Hamitic, if that word be preferred) peoples in the Valley of the Nile of whose written language we have any remains. These are words used to express fundamental relationships and feelings, and beliefs which are peculiarly African and are foreign in every particular to Semitic peoples. The primitive home of the people who invented these words lay far to the south of Egypt, and all that we know of the Predynastic Egyptians suggests that it was in the neighbourhood of the Great Lakes, probably to the east of them."[8]
Though Wallis Budge was a Christian, it seemed to not interfere with his ability to apply scientific thinking to his Egyptian language inferences in which todays peer reviewed linguistic publishings agrees. Though some of his terminology is outdated, some of his contributions are indeed important in the study of Egyptology despite him being a Christian. The Christian worldview is one of many different worldviews cross culturally and I regard it with the same historical importance and respect as others.
Notes:
1- Cornerstone University, "The Cornerstone Christian Worldview," Cornerstone University, accessed April 23, 2026, https://www.cornerstone.edu/about/christian-worldview/.
2- Liberty University, "The Identity of a Christian University: An Interview with James K. A. Smith," Liberty University, accessed April 23, 2026, https://www.liberty.edu/ace/articles/the-identity-of-a-christian-university-an-interview-with-james-k-a-smith/.
3- Liberty University, Department of History, “Biblical Worldview Principles,” Liberty University, accessed April 26, 2026, https://www.liberty.edu/arts-sciences/history/biblical-worldview-principles/.
4- John Fea, Why Study History?, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2024), 83.
5- Ibid. 80
6- Ibid. 67.
6- Ibid. 67.
7- Ibid. 69.
8- E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1920), lxviii.
8- E. A. Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1920), lxviii.
References
Budge, E. A. Wallis. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary. Vol. 1. London: John Murray, 1920. https://archive.org/details/budge-e-a-w-egyptian-hieroglyphic-dictionary-vol-1-1920/page/n1/mode/2up?q=African.
Cornerstone University. "The Cornerstone Christian Worldview." Cornerstone University. Accessed April 23, 2026. https://www.cornerstone.edu/about/christian-worldview/.
Fea, John. Why Study History? 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2024. https://libertyonline.vitalsource.com/books/9781493442706.
Liberty University, Department of History. “Biblical Worldview Principles.” Liberty University. Accessed April 26, 2026. https://www.liberty.edu/arts-sciences/history/biblical-worldview-principles/.
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