Monday, July 9, 2012

Why “Worldview” isn’t enough

Okay, so “worldview” is and has been the buzzword in conservative Christian circles for a while now. It’s all about worldview, you see. In the great American culture wars, presenting and converting people to your worldview is the key to victory. Or so you’d think, considering all the noise you’ll hear about worldview.
Here’s just one example. Someone I know well and deeply respect recently made this statement:  “The biggest failure of the Church today is its failure to pass on a Christian worldview to our children.” He meant by this that the church, at least in America, was losing teens and young adults because they were being secularized. Their parents, pastors, and youth leaders weren’t teaching them to think in a Christian way, and this was why they were either leaving their churches or straying while staying (staying in the pews but straying from the church’s teachings).

As I said, people I deeply respect are the ones saying these things. I don’t intend to mock or ridicule those who think this way, but I respectfully disagree with the emphasis on worldview. The first problem with worldview is this:  Worldviews are effect, not cause. You hold the worldview you have because you’ve seen certain things from a certain perspective. It’s more than what you’ve been taught; worldview is as much emotional as rational. It’s not rational, for example, to root for the underdog. How you felt about your mom and dad (or church, if you attended one) likely played as big a part in taking or rejecting their values as any rational breakdown of those values
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The second problem with the worldview argument is that it’s not, in fact, the biggest failure of the Church (or church) today. Our biggest failure has really been the same all along. It’s not a muddled worldview but a simple failure to live up to Christ Jesus. We say all these things about him; we talk about being disciples; we call him “Lord,” and are left in the same place as the disciples to whom Jesus said:  “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46, ESV)

Intellectual arguments are attractive. Obedience issues are not. Framing arguments to influence worldviews will be much more fun than giving food to a beggar or holding our tongues when we’re angry. And, let’s admit it, there’s something convenient about blaming apostasy on something besides the mere fact that we aren’t all that much like the Jesus we call Lord. I respectfully suggest that it is time to work on seeing Christ Jesus as he says we are supposed to see him. Then we can work on how we see the world.

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