When President Obama was in the Whitehouse and the Supreme Court was preparing to release its ruling in the Obergefell case, I wrote about worldview. Specifically addressing the question “What is a Christian Worldview?” Ten years later, we can look back and see diminishing returns when a Christian worldview is being abandoned.
Albert Wolter said a Christian Worldview involves three fundamental dimensions: the original good creation, the perversion of that creation through sin, and the restoration of that creation in Christ. In other words – Creation, Fall, Redemption.
Christianity is capable of holding its own when challenged in the marketplace of ideas. It is not enough to teach believers (especially young believers) how to have a personal quiet time, follow a Scripture memory program, and link up with a Christian group. We also need to equip them to respond to the intellectual challenges they face day in and day out. Christians should be well acquainted with all the “isms” they will encounter, from Marxism to Darwinism to postmodernism. It is best for believers to hear about these ideas first from trusted parents, pastors, and youth leaders, who can train them in strategies for analyzing competing ideologies.
Parents are urged to pass on biblical truths to the next generation. As the Israelites were poised to enter the Promised Land, Moses emphasized the need to pass on their religious heritage to their children: “You shall teach [these words] to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Dt.11.19). The language paints an image of families passing on the faith not only through formal instruction but also through everyday conversation.
In every period of history, Christians have taken the charge of education seriously founding schools, promoting literacy, and preserving the literary heritage of the surrounding culture. After the fall of Rome, it was the monks who carefully preserved the great literary and philosophical masterpieces of the classical world, painstakingly copying ancient manuscripts, along with commentaries and glosses to explain the meaning of the text. The Reformers preached the priesthood of all believers – the responsibility of each person to know and understand the Scriptures – and they founded catechism schools to teach children the principles of the faith from an early age. When the Puritans landed on American shores and began to clear the wilderness, within six years they had founded the first university (Harvard) to train young men for the ministry and for political leadership.
In thinking about why we need a Christian worldview, I would suggest that it is nothing less than obedience to the Great Commission. As Christians we are called to be missionaries to our world, and that means learning the language and thought forms of the people we want to reach. In America, we don’t have to master a new language, but we do have to learn the thought-forms of our culture. We need to speak to philosophers in the language of philosophy, to politicians in the language of public policy, and to scientists in the language of science.
If the grid of Creation, Fall, and Redemption provides a simple and effective tool for comparing and contrasting worldviews, it also explains why the biblical teaching of Creation is under such relentless attack today. In any world- view, the concept of Creation is foundational: As the first principle, it shapes everything that follows. Critics of Christianity know that it stands or falls with its teaching on ultimate origins.
To become more effective ambassadors for Christ, then, we must learn how to defend the biblical view
of Creation, both scientifically and philosophically.
We must learn how to defend our faith against the challenges of Darwinian naturalism while also crafting a positive case for Intelligent Design. We must learn how a Darwinian worldview helped propel a host of damaging cultural trends, from the legalization of abortion to the decline in public education. To communicate a Christian worldview, the first step is learning how to make a winsome case for creation.
Redemption means that we should aim at equipping Christians to take up their vocation in obedience to the Cultural Mandate. Each believer should understand that God has given him or her special gifts to make a unique contribution to humanity’s task of reversing the effects of the Fall and extending the Lordship of Christ in the world. As the poet John Milton once wrote, the goal of learning “is to repair the ruins of our first parents.” To do that, every subject area should be taught from a solidly biblical perspective so that students grasp the interconnections among the disciplines, discovering for themselves that all truth is God’s truth.
At the same time, we must be alert to the false visions of redemption that shape various theories today. Proponents of virtually every ideology seek to gain a foothold in the classroom in particular, because they know that the key to shaping the future is shaping the minds of children. We may have to fend off New Age methods of meditation and guided imagery applied to the classroom (redemption through cultivating a higher consciousness); or the misuse of therapeutic techniques to change students’ attitudes to fit some progressive agenda (redemption through psychological adjustment); or programs of political correctness and multiculturalism (redemption through leftist politics). As American culture moves away from its Christian heritage, the public arena has become a battleground for competing ideologies.
May we “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you,”
Maranatha!
(mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”)
Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org