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James SireThe Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
PrefaceChapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface to the Fifth Edition Summary
Sire discusses the number of cultural changes that have taken place since 1976, when The Universe Next Door was first published, and ways that he responded to those changes in the various revised editions of the book.
Foremost among the changes is the rise of the New Age worldview and of postmodernism. While just in its inception as the book was written, the New Age movement has now reached maturity, or at least “adolescence.” Postmodernism, a fairly new term in 1976, has now “penetrated every area of intellectual life” and given rise to a significant backlash (xi). The prominence of these two worldviews means that more than ever people need to come to an understanding of them.
As time went on, Sire rethought his definition of “worldview” and incorporated this change into the revised editions. For the original “intellectual” definition, Sire substituted one that took into account the “unconscious” and “personal” aspects of having a worldview. This shifted the emphasis away from a worldview as a “set of presuppositions” to a worldview as “a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart” (xii). Reflecting this new definition, Sire added an eighth question to the original edition’s Seven Basic Questions, which all deal with core life commitments. Sire states that his continuing interest in worldviews led him to write another book on the subject: Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept.
While other smaller changes were made to the individual chapters of The Universe Next Door, the one major change involved adding a chapter on Islam, authored by Dr. Winfried Corduan. This addition was inspired by the increasing prominence of the Islamic worldview on the world stage after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Finally, Sire responds to criticisms of his book as containing “pro-Christian bias.” He argues that all studies of philosophical subjects are colored by some kind of bias and that writing a study of worldviews from the vantage point of the Christian worldview is still valid.
Sire emphasizes that although written as an aid to Christian students in the midst of the cultural changes of the 1970s, the book has continued to interest a wide variety of readers in various academic disciplines and in secular as well as religious colleges. Further, apart from simply making an argument on behalf of the Christian worldview, Sire hopes that the book will help people define and understand their own worldviews and those of others.
Preface Analysis
In the Preface, Sire situates the book historically, justifies its point of view, and explains changes he has made to the text. Writing for the fifth edition, Sire observes that it has been “more than thirty-three years” since the book’s original publication in 1976 (xi). He states that, during that time, much has changed, yet if anything the book’s content remains even more relevant because the worldviews described continue to play out. Notably, New Age and postmodernism were both in their inception in 1976 but now are common parts of people’s vocabulary. Additionally, the Islamic worldview is now more frequently in the news following the events of September 11, 2001, and Sire responded to this by enlisting Winfried Corduan to write a chapter on Islamic theism. By directly acknowledging the changes that have taken place since the book’s original publication, Sire uses the Preface to lend additional evidence to the underlying claim of his book that, in spite of his own commitments to Christian theism, he is well equipped to provide a reasonable overview of the major worldviews of Western society.
In this vein, Sire shows that he listened to constructive criticism of the book and responded to it. For instance, he “reformulated the entire notion of worldview” (xi), which now has a more personal and narrative, rather than strictly intellectual and theoretical, orientation. At the same time, he defends the Christian bias of the book as a valid expression of his own worldview; he references famed Christian writer C. S. Lewis to argue that this point of view is an advantage in learning how Christianity relates to the other worldviews. Sire further justifies this by noting that the book has found broad interest among both Christians and secular audiences and in various disciplines. By presenting a new Preface for this edition, Sire emphasizes that, far from being outdated, his book is more relevant than ever.
