Part I
Americans are living in an uncertain and dangerous time. So I decided to look at our current condition from the perspective of our Worldview.
You might ask why would I attempt to do an essay on Worldviews? Well you might call it a confluence of events, but I believe it was God speaking to me. Within the last month I watched a video about Worldviews on The Dennis Prager Show and another on Albert Mohler’s “The Briefing” and lastly a podcast on Quillette.
About this same time I was having breakfast with a friend and he was talking about his frustration with the youth in a Christian ministry he helps with. These are middle and high school kids raised with Christian values. His concern was that he just didn’t think these kids had much of a Worldview. That they did not have a very concrete belief system. In defense of these kids, the deck is stacked against them. In a world where Critical Social Justice Theory is taught to them as early as junior high they are discouraged from having any social views outside this dogma. In the world of academia the most oppressed group wins. That pretty much excludes Christians. So I began to wonder about my own Worldview.
Below is Webster’s definition of “Worldview”.
Worldview
Merriam Webster Definition
: a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint
— also called- weltanschauung
With this definition we are again trapped in a reductive fallacy. This definition is a major over-simplification. In the past, Worldviews were a collection of our beliefs and values knitted together by a common thread or belief system. Secularism has no common foundation nor belief system or so we previously thought.
In a 2002 article by Michael W. Goheen delivered to the Education Conference in Tivadarfalvai Ukraine, he states that, “Worldviews are not simply theoretical beliefs. Rather they are rooted in the religious nature of humankind. Human beings are created in the image of God. They are created to live in response to God. When human beings rebelled their religious nature did not change. What changed is where they placed their faith and trust. Now instead of trusting God for the meaning and significance of their lives, their faith now is directed towards some aspect of creation. When some part of creation takes the place of God, it is an idol. That is why all Worldviews that are not rooted in Jesus Christ are rooted in idolatry.”
In an interview with Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Douglas Murray a British author and lecturer put it this way. When people begin to move away from their religious foundations they create “God shaped holes” in their lives. The problem for these people is that only God can fill that hole. Something like a big puzzle. Only the piece that fits a certain shape can fit in that hole and complete the image.
The United States of America was built on a Christian Worldview. We only need to read the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. In dissolving the colony’s relationship with the British, the Declaration of Independence states that this new nation was being formed under the “Laws of Nature’s and Nature’s God”. “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” The Declaration and Bill of Rights go on to describe those rights. This is the Worldview our country was founded upon. A set of beliefs and rights knitted together by the common foundation of faith in our Creator. It is a document that gave us a way of looking at and behaving in a new world.
There are obviously many other Worldviews.
The American Indians, for instance, have a Worldview. Even after 140 under the supervision of the U.S. Government they have pretty much kept this Worldview intact. They have partially assimilated into a Christian culture but on the reservation their Worldview still dominates.
Western Europe and France in particular, had a Christian Worldview at one time but now are reaping what they have sewn over the last 100 plus years. As a result of post-modern philosophy and open borders, Europe has become more and more secular creating a void needing to be filled. They have lost any concrete Worldview, but Islam has been waiting to fill that space. As a result, Emmanuel Macron is now facing a country that is quickly becoming Muslim. Competing Worldviews cannot work together in the same space. France has seen this coming but has ignored the problem. Mark Steyn, in his 2008 book “American Alone”, states “More immediately, Europe will be semi-Islamic in its politico-cultural character within a generation.” Steyn was just a few years ahead of his time. Europe is now post-Christian and soon becoming neo-Islamic, their new Worldview.
Christianity has always had its own Worldview. It is based upon God as its creator and Jesus Christ as its ultimate savior. Its tenets are Biblicaly based. To hold a Christian Worldview God expects certain things of us. First and foremost, we are expected to accept His son Jesus as Lord and Savior. Beyond that the expectation is that we will live lives pleasing to Him and for him, giving testimony to our faith in our daily living. It is undoubtedly the longest surviving Worldview.
There are people who struggle with a commitment to this Christian Worldview. They want to pick and choose what aspects of Christianity work for them. There are those who say they reject abortion themselves but would never suggest someone else not have access to one. Some people will make their church choice based a doctrine that works for them. Some people want a church that doesn’t force you to believe in the divinity of Christ. Others want a church that doesn’t require that a person believe that acceptance of Christ is the only entry way into heaven. A Christian Worldview doesn’t work that way. As soon as people begin to make these exceptions it ceases to be a Christian Worldview. Things begin to breakdown morally. They create “God shaped holes”.
Critical Social Justice Theory or Critical Race Theory, call it what you like, has its own Worldview. In an article in “New Discourses” James Lindsay describes it this way. “There are a number of points within Critical Social Justice Theory that would see having a debate or conversation with people of opposing views as unacceptable, and they all combine to create a mindset where that wouldn’t be something that adherents to the Theory are likely or even willing to do in general. This reticence, if not unwillingness, to converse with anyone who disagrees actually has a few pretty deep reasons behind it, and they’re interrelated but not quite the same. They combine, however, to produce the first thing everyone needs to understand about this ideology: it is a complete Worldview with its own ethics, epistemology, and morality, and theirs is not the same Worldview the rest of us use.” https://newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-wont-debate-you-heres-why/
The point is we have a number of Worldviews to choose from. Only one fits within our existing paradigm and others do not. But for children and the uninformed competing Worldviews can be dangerous. Children do not have capacity to make those choices and so we much be vigilant about what they are being exposed to. We need to be prepared to interrogate their choices. Even though adults get to choose which Worldview they own we need to be equally vigilant. It is no secret that over time we have seen a breakdown in the Christian Worldview upon which this country was founded. We see it in our churches and our schools. This becomes increasing problematic as our culture becomes more progressive and we should be careful that we do not create “God shaped” holes that cannot be filled.
Next week we will look at the tension between a Christian Worldview and the new “woke” culture.