Using the Concept of Worldview Well

ACT 3 Weekly

May 31, 2010

Using the Concept of Worldview Well

John H. Armstrong

A worldview, as we’ve previously seen, is a conceptual scheme by which we attempt to place or fit everything that we believe into a framework through which we can then interpret and judge reality (Ron Nash). Missiologists speak of differing worldviews because of their study of various people groups and how hear and receive the gospel and put it into practice. The term worldview actually comes from eighteenth century German philosophy. (I’ll write more on this subject next week.) For many conservative Christians in America the term has come to refer to a systematic approach to theology.

Conservative worldview thinkers want to embrace a way of interpreting the world, through distinctively Christian thought, that stands in opposition to naturalism, empiricism, humanism, positivism, scientism and secularism. Add to this an increasing desire to make sure that Christianity stands out as clearly in opposition to Islam and other religions now impacting the West as possible and you have a strong emotional context for the development of worldview seminars and courses being offered to Christians today. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that Christianity is incomplete or that it is merely relative to all other faith claims. I am suggesting that the rise of worldview thinking in popular contexts has created some negative thinking and responses that are not clearly related to the mission of Christ and the kingdom of God.

Worldview as Corrective Concept

Most people do not think about worldview at all. They simply live their lives based upon assumptions they have inherited from one or more cultural forms. Fundamentalists, to use a religious illustration, do not generally think about their faith assumptions unless they are forced by exposure to the wider world around them. I grew up hearing phrases that are closely linked to this way of thinking. One I recall went like this: “God said it; I believe it; that settles it.” Of course I eventually had to ask, “How do I know what God said and if I do then how do I apply it to the context of my life?”

Another phrase I often heard was: “If it is new, it is probably not true; and if it is true it is probably not new.” I think this statement can have several meanings but the one I remember best was that anything that I came up with was likely to be false since it was new. Anything my pastor, my leaders or my denomination taught was right. Their ideas were not new but proven and sound. A little better understanding of how thought actually works, and how church history reveals that there was/is a good deal of debate about the old and the new, chastened my sense of certitude about all of this a great deal.

Some Christians are convinced that there is an unbroken line of correct interpretation of the Bible that has been clearly understood by faithful people down through the ages. While I do believe that there is such a thing as core orthodoxy, or a universally confessed faith in Christ as Lord that has been believed down through the ages, I also believe that there are “truths yet to beak forth from his Word.” (The pilgrim John Robinson spoke this way as he traveled to the new land of America centuries ago.)

Creeds have a proper role and place in the church. The Protestant Reformers began each confession they wrote with reference to the consensual counsel of the creeds and councils of the early church. They were quite aware that they were not creating an entirely “new” church but rather attempting to reform the church they knew. But it is a huge paradigm leap to go from this background to the assumption that we can read the truth, all of it, right off the pages of the Bible with complete assurance that we know all that is contained therein. The church is a learning community precisely because it is not a collection of scribes (experts) but of disciples (learners).

My problem with so much worldview thinking lies precisely here. When worldview is seen as a corrective concept used almost solely to dismantle other worldviews then it has become a huge club the church can use to silence other views and ideas. This is not only unhealthy when it happens inside the church but it makes us intolerant toward those who are still outside. This is why I ended last week’s article with the reference to the present homosexual debate.

The Homosexual Debate and Worldview Thinking

I believe we should continue to stand for a distinctly Christian (and Jewish) view of marriage and sexuality, the truth of which is revealed in Scripture (cf. Genesis 3) and supported by all Christian traditions down through the ages. Some Christians appeal to rethinking the church’s present stance by saying that the church was wrong about slavery and the role of women thus it can be wrong here too. The problem with this kind of appeal is that Scripture actually helped to directly foster most of the significant changes in these debates. Further, there are good illustrations (though quite often they were silenced by the power of the church) of a direct challenge to the church’s stance on these issues from inside the Christian tradition; e.g., in both the early church tradition and, down through the history of the church’s ongoing tradition, one can trace a clear strand of teaching on both of these issues down to the full-flowering of the changes that came in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the issue of same-sex practice such a consistent strand cannot be found, at least not in the same way.

The present homosexual debate inside the church reveals the problem of using a worldview approach as a corrective concept. Since homosexual practice (read my words carefully here) is not supported by Scripture, or by Christian tradition, we can then use this worldview model to attack those who differ from us. We have become especially adept at doing this in the wider culture. This is why most non-Christians under 35 years of age think the church is hostile toward homosexuals and those who accept this practice, which is an increasingly a large percentage (if not a majority) of the younger generation. Meanwhile we have failed to demonstrate how the Christian faith can help to foster a successful and meaningful marriage between a man and a woman. For this reason the world looks at us and rightly says, “What is wrong with you people? You attack same-sex couples who love each other and cherish their union but you cannot even make your own marriages work.” (Divorce rates among conservative Christians are as high as in the general population, if not actually higher.)

Missional Contextualization

When worldview is used simply to be corrective then it becomes an instrument of war. It is used to dismantle opposing worldviews and to attack false ideas. This has led to a growing hostility toward missional contextualization, which is best defined as “the capacity to respond meaningfully to the gospel within the framework of one’s own situation” (Ministry in Context, TEF, 1972, cited in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, 225, Scott A. Moreau, editor). The lament behind this document was that the content and method of theology used by Europeans and Americans represented a framework that is deeply Western, thus it is one filled with cultural presuppositions that are not necessarily faithful to the good news. I track trends in U. S. missions, formally and informally, and I have heard a growing hue and cry against this concept of contextualization emanating from conservative preachers and writers in the last decade. I find this trend unhealthy and a huge step backward.

Worldview as Interpretive Concept

I believe a better use of worldview thinking is to adopt a modest view of how we actually understand theology, combined with an evangelical understanding of making disciples. We can then join this with a use of the Bible that attempts to truly understand the very people that we are addressing. I believe this begins with understanding language. We must work at hearing how people really speak and what they really mean if we are to effectively present the good news.

In this approach the contextualization of the gospel becomes an expression of real faith, not simply an option for some evangelists. This requires each of us to use appropriate concepts and words that are both compatible with biblical truth as well as with the ways people hear ideas that are found in words like God, atonement, grace and church. A worldview that openly embraces, to stay with my earlier example, homosexual tolerance has made great inroads in our culture. To properly address this problem does not mean that we must accept the sin along with our acceptance of the sinners. It does require that we rethink how we talk about this issue and how we speak to those we hope to reach with the good news. This is where current worldview thinking fails us badly. It seems to have one set of words, and one very discernable emotional response to an issue, thus the message it gives is entirely negative. But the good news is never negative. It is the great positive to our radical separation from God.

Conclusion

The increasingly pluralistic ways that we communicate and relate to one another present a great challenge to the church. If we get locked into the corrective worldview mentality then we will likely fail to interpret the gospel effectively in our time. This is why a growing number of missional churches are not openly preaching against homosexuality as if this was the singular sin of our time that must be continually discussed in public. These missional pastors and leaders have moved their ministry toward real people that they hope to bring to understand the good news, whether they are heterosexual and homosexual. They believe that doing this requires them to deal with these difficult issues in a manner that does not make them front and center in their church. They have moved their ministry about how to make hard life changes into the place where private counsel occurs and personal spiritual discipleship transforms people through healthy relationships. By this approach they are not hiding their beliefs but avoiding constant pronouncements on controversial moral issues in public venues where they are almost surely going to be misunderstood. They are seeking, and I believe correctly, to take the political element out of their public mission and thus to again show and tell how God truly loves all people. In my conservative background we once called this “loving the sinner and hating the sin.” I think we forgot what this simplistic statement meant. A lot of worldview thinking, when employed in the wrong way, just adds fuel to this raging fire.