Author wrote a book he can no longer read
Updated 3/30/07
Author wrote a book he can no longer read
By George Henson
Staff Writer
DALLAS—Dallas Baptist University professor David Naugle’s thoughts and views are being read and discussed by students in a language he can neither read nor understand.
Naugle’s book, Worldview: The History of a Concept, has been translated and published by Peking University Press for student use in China.
| David Naugle, a philosophy professor at Dallas Baptist University and member of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, wrote a book that has been translated and published by Peking University for student use in China. (DBU photo by Tim Gingrich) |
The book was selected by Christianity Today as the 2003 Book of the Year for theology and ethics, but the decision to translate and publish the book came through the recommendation of David Lyle Jeffrey, distinguished professor of literature and humanities at Baylor University.
Jeffrey has a long association with Peking University, and he helps the publishing houses there choose books for translation and publication.
“I’ve been working in China for many years, for much longer than I’ve been working at Baylor, and teaching at Peking University,” Jeffrey said. He helps the publishing houses find books that present a “full-bodied and coherent exposition of Christian thought from an intellectual point of view.”
After reading Naugle’s book, he felt it met the criteria.
The book was not written to be published and distributed in China, or even Texas for that matter. Naugle wrote the manuscript as a doctoral dissertation when he pursued his studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.
The research topic occurred to Naugle after he heard a lecturer say that while many people spoke about worldview, “no one had actually investigated the history of the concept of worldview.”
The first indication Naugle received that his book was being considered for translation into Chinese, a language spoken by 20 percent of the population of the world, was an e-mail during the fall of 2005. The e-mail came from a professor of English language who was translating the book and had difficulty with a few passages.
“It was something I, in a sense, just stood back and watched happen,” said Naugle, a member of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas. “I didn’t initiate it.”
It is especially interesting to Naugle that a book that supports Christianity and a biblical worldview is being published by a Chinese university, and now it will be studied by students in their philosophy classes.
“My hope is that the book will bring readers to a deeper understanding of the comprehensive scope and significance of the Christian faith, that is, as a complete worldview, and that it will lead to the conversion and transformation of those who happen to read it,” he said. “It’s traveled long and far, and I’ve just been floored by these developments.”