In Jesus Name: Week 2
The Problem with a Christian Worldview
Robin Monroe – World Peace
Before we begin, here are a few questions on which I would like for you to reflect:
Were you raised to have a certain view of the world? As a child what did you hear the adults in the room say about the state of the world and where it was headed? What did parents, teachers, church leaders teach you about the best way to proceed in the world? Did they give you a philosophy or creed on how you should live in the world? What were you told about the nature of truth? Were you ever given an origin story to explain how the world was formed and how humans came into the world?
The greatest problem with the adherence to a “Christian worldview” is that the world is ever-changing because God is ever-expanding and forever revealing their will and their nature upon the world.
And what is God’s nature and will? To make real to us the declaration that all God created is “very, very good.” The whole of the world is always spooling out rivers of light to reveal this in the trees, in the soil, in the sky, in the stars, and in each and every breath of life.
If I’ve already offended you with the mere suggestion that there may just be something problematic in our understand of the phrase “Christian worldview,” may I ask, why do you want so desperately to hold so tightly to something so limiting? Don’t you think it curious that we Christians will defend our so-called worldview to the grave if necessary?
But we won’t even consider that perhaps our view is too small. After all, the God of the Bible is the God of the universe. The universe is far greater than the handful of dust that we Christians comprise in the grand scheme thing. Maybe we should shoot for something greater—an Imago Dei worldview, a God-Reflected-in-Everyone-and-Everything-Worldview. We would have such a better view. Rather than looking at things from one small window, all of existence would become a world of made of windows.