Christian Worldview Concepts

Introduction to Worldview Studies

What is a Worldview?

A brief review of the current literature on worldview will yield a variety of definitions, all of which in one way or another come down to the way a person sees the world. In essence, a worldview is everything about everything. Every experience we have, every thought, every pain and every pleasure gets interpreted through our beliefs about the way things are and they way things should be. How we react to pain or pleasure, even what counts as pain and pleasure, come from our worldview.

In this is true then everyone has a worldview. If a person is capable of using the term "worldview," they have one. They may not be able to articulate all of their beliefs about everything, or even consciously know what those beliefs are, but they do hold beliefs about everything in the world and about the world. How they arrive at these beliefs is complicated since it entails where they were born, how they were reared, what education they received, what sorts of experiences they've had, and so forth.

The study of worldview is particularly important for Christians who take the Great Commission seriously, because an increasingly diverse culture represents a challenge to the Gospel. Multiculturalism, pluralism and the commonly-held belief that no one belief system is better than any other challenges the exclusive claims of Christianity. To claim that one belief system is superior to another, especially a religious belief system, is regarded as oppressive and intolerant today. "Tolerate everything and judge nothing" is the motto of this increasingly Postmodern and Post-Christian civilization. For this reason, it is essential that the Christian be equipped with the vocabulary and a grasp of the concepts that empower him or her to engage in the world of ideas, to challenge false beliefs and to boldly proclaim that Jesus is indeed the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)

Unfortunately, many believers are turned off by what they perceive to be "intellectualism," shunning serious thought and reflection on ultimate questions. In 1980, during the inaugural address at the dedication of the Billy Graham Center on the campus of Wheaton College, former U.N. Ambassador Charles Malik addressed this problem directly and he provided a clear description of the importance of Christian worldview for evangelism:

I must be frank with you; the greatest danger confronting American evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism. The mind in its greatest and deepest reaches is not cared for enough. But intellectual nurture cannot take place apart from a profound immersion for a period of years in the history of thought and the spirit. People who are in a hurry to get out of the university and start earning money or serving the Church or preaching the Gospel have no idea of the infinite value of spending years of leisure conversing with the great minds and souls of the past, ripening and sharpening and enlarging their powers of thinking. The result is that the arena of creative thinking is vacated and abdicated to the enemy. Who among evangelicals can stand up to the great secular scholars on their own terms of scholarship? Who among evangelical scholars is quoted as a normative source by the greatest secular authorities on history or philosophy or psychology or sociology or politics? . . . For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus Christ, as well as for their own sakes, evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence.¹

Malik exhorts Christians to shed their anti-intellectual mindset and re-engage the world of ideas. Philosophers J. P .Moreland and William Lane Craig correctly point out that Christians cannot afford to be indifferent to the struggle of ideas taking place in Western civilization, a struggle that is particularly raucous within American universities². They warn us that it is the universities that train society's doctors, lawyers, legislators, judges, teachers, artists, business executives, bankers, etc. Thus, the worldview they absorb in the process of receiving their training is the worldview they will incorporate into their profession and, ultimately, into their influence as they shape the culture. The following are some of the definitions various Christians have assigned to the term "worldview:"

• "A worldview is a set of assumptions about the basic makeup of the world. It is a person's complete and foundational system of beliefs." — James Sire
• "A worldview is an explanation and interpretation of the world and an application of this view to life." — Phillips and Brown
• "A worldview provides a model of the world, which guides its adherents in the world." — Walsh and Middleton
• A worldview is a person's complete system of beliefs, values, ethical principles, commitments — it is everything about everything. — Blocher

¹ Charles Malik, "The Other Side of Evangelism," Christianity Today, November 7, 1980, p.40.
² J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL:InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 2