This Fall (beginning August 26, 2025), I will be teaching my signature course on the Biblical Worldview as a radical, liberating vision for the church and the world. The course has had a number of different names over the years, including “Exploring the Christian Worldview” (the undergraduate version at Roberts Wesleyan University) and “Biblical Worldview: Scripture, Theology, Ethics” (the graduate version at Northeastern Seminary).
I’ve taught non-credit versions of this course since I was a campus minister in Canada (at the University of Toronto, McMaster University, the University of Guelph, and Brock University) and in the US (at the University of Rochester, Cornell University, and Syracuse University).
My first book, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (IVP, 1984), which I co-authored with Brian Walsh, was based on this course.
When I began to teach the course for graduate and undergraduate credit at the Institute for Christian Studies, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Roberts Wesleyan University, and Northeastern Seminary, I was able to develop the content further with a deeper dive into Scripture and further analysis of our changing cultural contexts.
This Fall the course will be offered as a dual modality course, which means that it may be accessed in person (in the classroom) or remotely (by Zoom link). It may also be taken for undergraduate or graduate credit.
Although the term “biblical worldview” has been used and abused by Christians with a rigid, absolutist stance, I want to reclaim the term for the Bible’s liberating vision of shalom and flourishing. That’s the orientation of this course.
Although the term “biblical worldview” has been used and abused by Christians with a rigid, absolutist stance, I want to reclaim the term for the Bible’s liberating vision of shalom and flourishing.
I am planning a complete rewrite of my earlier book The Transforming Vision along these lines. It is tentatively entitled Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws: The Bible’s Liberating Worldview (to be published by Baker Academic).
The course has gradually changed over the years, in accordance with my expertise and context. The new version of the book will follow the content (and outline) of the course as I have been teaching it most recently (it’s a solo rewrite, since Brian hasn’t been teaching a comparable course).
The final course will meet for fourteen weeks on Tuesdays at 7:00–8:30 pm Eastern. The format will be a flipped classroom. Participants view the video lectures and do the readings in advance (auditors are encouraged to do as much or as little of the reading as they desire).
This weekly preparation gives participants a chance to formulate thoughtful questions that arise from the lectures and readings, which they are invited to bring to our hour-and-a-half synchronous meeting each week. These weekly meetings are a rich time of discussion and sharing, as we explore matters of biblical interpretation, worldview, theology, culture, and ethics, and their bearing on our lives.
* While registration for this course is now closed, we are deeply grateful for Dr. Middleton’s many years of faithful teaching and service at Northeastern Seminary. His scholarship and mentorship have shaped countless students, and we know that the impact of this final course will continue to ripple through their ministries, their communities, and the world.
We celebrate his legacy and give thanks for the way his work has embodied the Seminary’s mission of thoughtful, spiritually mature, service-oriented leadership.
If you are enrolled in the class, we can not wait to hear your thoughts and comments on all you have learned!
About the author
Dr. J. Richard Middleton
J. Richard Middleton, professor of biblical worldview and exegesis at Northeastern Seminary, is a widely published in religious periodicals and journals and is the author of five books. His new book, Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God, is published by Baker Academic (2021). Special areas of interest include Old Testament theology, the doctrine of Creation, Christianity and contemporary culture, and the books of Genesis, Job, the Psalms, and Samuel. Dr. Middleton has been president of the Canadian-
American Theological Association (2011–2014) and president of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021). He also serves as an adjunct professor of Old Testament at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston, Jamaica.