A New Series
You may notice by the title of this article that our present concern is over something called a Christian worldview. I don’t doubt that the adults reading this understand what a worldview is, even if you have never really stopped to put a distinct definition to the concept. To make sure we are all on the same page, and to give you something to help explain this to your children, suffer with me a moment while I explain what that means. I will then explain why I plan to devote a considerable amount of my time over the coming months to try and help you realize that you already have a worldview, and that your worldview likely needs some work.
In the forward for Advancing the Kingdom: Declaring War on Humanistic Culture, Donald Schanzenbach defines worldview as the following:
Worldview: noun
(1). A network of ideas and presuppositions which individuals hold in order to explain reality as it interfaces with every area of human civilization. (2). A belief system comprised of several ideas, theologies, ideologies, and philosophies used to explain things and events within the realm of time, space, and history.
That is a fair definition for us to work with. Your worldview consists of the sum of your unique system of presuppositions, intellectual commitments, and faith beliefs. It is shaped by a vast array of seemingly unrelated influences in your life, and it affects the way you see, understand, and think about everything you encounter.
Your worldview is a bit like a pair of glasses through which you view everything around you. If the lenses are heavily shaded, you will struggle to appreciate colors of nuance. If the lenses are distorted, everything you see will be out of focus and confused.
Considerations Concerning Your Worldview
1. You don’t have to know you have a worldview to have a worldview.
A worldview is not something you obtain only after serious thought and planning. Everyone has a worldview. By default, a person’s worldview will closely match that of those who have the largest impact in their life.
Young children quickly start developing a simpler and less defined worldview much like the ones they observe in their parents. As they grow their worldview will blend itself toward the worldview of their peers, their teachers, their favorite athletes, or entertainers, just about anyone with whom they spend extended time.
By default, your worldview will be some amalgamation of the worldview of the people and institutions that surround you.
2. A worldview need not be internally consistent.
In fact, most people have a worldview that conflicts with itself in many places. People have an uncanny ability to care deeply about ideas, interests, or beliefs that would prove mutually exclusive if they ever bothered to consider them against one another.
There is a notable segment of the population that has demanded the right to live however they want and do whatever they want – total personal freedom. At the same time, they demand the government punish those who try to live in a way that is consistent with their beliefs, by say, not baking a cake that celebrates something they find reprehensible.
It isn’t uncommon for a parent to promote the taking of risks and the need to experience life and face consequences, who at the same time suffocatingly coddle their children. Denying them the opportunity to experience much of what their parents feel is vital to a well-lived life.
There are many examples, both trivial and consequential. Often conflicts reek of hypocrisy, but it isn’t always that easy to diagnose or understand how such contrary positions can be simultaneously held.
3. People don’t like to evaluate the merits of what they believe.
I would like to think this is just a modern phenomenon, but I have a feeling that for the most part, people have never been too fond of having their deeply held beliefs and assumptions challenged.
There are probably many contributing factors to people being sensitive to others questioning them about their worldview. I suspect many of them come down to insecurity born from uncertainty, and good old-fashioned laziness. People don’t feel like they can defend what they believe or how they act, and they don’t want to be made to feel like they should have to.
People like to think they are thoughtful and live lives of purpose and meaning. When pressed, however, they soon find they can’t really explain why they believe what they do. That is not a very pleasant position in which to be placed – especially against one’s will.
So, everyone has a worldview, and almost no one wants to think hard enough about it to understand theirs. It is even harder to find someone who will work to rightly understand the lenses they are looking through and then try to change their prescription to match what is real. Of course, to know what is true, one needs a perfect standard against which to judge one’s values and perceptions.
Everyone else might struggle to piece together some sort of illegitimate or haphazard standard, melding together scientific certainty with emotionalism, but Christians have a better place to which they can go. Christians should never fear the question; “By what standard?” In fact, that should be a question we learn to ask early and often, of ourselves and of those around us.
Christians must get over the insecurity and oversensitivity of the world and be willing to do the work to evaluate our worldview. We simply cannot afford to accept the status quo. We dare not fall into madness with the world around us.
Do Not Be Conformed, But Be Transformed
Paul gave us some great help for this conversation in his letter to the church in Rome.
Romans 12:2 (ESV)
2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
By default, we will be progressively conformed to this world. That is what it means to be a sinful man in a sin-cursed world. If we are not diligent to understand the right standard, and then to align our worldview appropriately, we won’t have a hope of escaping the madness of the culture around us.
Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Have your mind renewed by the Spirit of God working within you, through the ordinary means of grace that we have been given (i.e., the preaching of the Word, Bible study, prayer, the ordinances of the church, Christian community). There, by God’s help, we will learn the will of God – that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
That is the goal of this series on worldview, to apply that verse to better understand a wide array of subjects or spheres in which we engage according to a transformed and renewed mind – to understand the world around us through a Christian worldview and to think and live like a Christian.
There is simply too much at stake for us to refuse to set out on this journey. As we progress in this study, we will see in every sphere of life it makes all the difference in the world.
Listen to the NEW Series on Building a Thoroughly Christian Worldview
Your worldview consists of the sum of your unique system of presuppositions, intellectual commitments, and faith beliefs. It is shaped by a vast array of seemingly unrelated influences in your life, and it affects the way you see, understand, and think about everything you encounter.
Your worldview is a bit like a pair of glasses through which you view everything around you. If the lenses are heavily shaded, you will struggle to appreciate colors of nuance. If the lenses are distorted, everything you see will be out of focus and confused.
As Christians we must work to cultivate a thoroughly biblical worldview in the face of a secular culture that is constantly bombarding us with their own worldview that worships the creation rather than the Creator. Listen in to an ongoing series on the Reformed Faith and Family Podcast as we discuss how to cultivate a Kingdom-centered mindset – and how to pass this worldview on to the next generation!
