CHRISTIANITY VS. ALTERNATIVE WORLDVIEWS WHITE PAPERS CRITICAL CONCEPT SERIES: VOLUME 1 The reason for the Critical Concept series is that there are important topics not covered in our Transferable Concepts that are, for any number of reasons, of critical concern to us today. Important concepts like this require more in-depth treatment, which is a discipleship challenge when so few are reading books. And so we have the Critical Concept series. Each article is roughly the length of a book chapter-about 16 pages. So it’s not a book, but it’s not a pamphlet either. Volume 1 contains five booklets addressing the following topics: Heaven and Hell: Alternative Endings Worldviews: War of the Worlds God’s Will: The Art of Discerning the Will of God Missions/ Great Commission: Mission Impossible Christ-centered Bible Study: Hearing the Music of the Gospel 1 WHITE PAPERS POSTCARDS FROM CORINTH ORDER ONLINE AT CRUPRESS.COM © 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.com Critical Concept Series VOLUME ONE WHITE PAPERSWAR OF THE WORLDS © 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.com WAR OF THE WORLDS WAR OF the label) have brought reproach on the name of God by and any requests he might have. That stopped him in misusing the Bible. At least some of the anti-Christian his tracks; he had to really engage with what she was sentiment we face is not without warrant. Eurocentric saying for a minute. He eventually came up with a THE WORLDS Christians, for example, have often confused the kingdom request about the safety and welfare of his immediate Understanding Worldviews: Being an Effective of God with Western culture. In the name of religion, the family. She prayed. Who knows what happened on a Witness to a Multicultural Campus West has a legacy of religious wars, colonialist oppression, spiritual plane? and anti-Semitism. And as I’m sure you’ve heard, the list goes on. (A fellow Californian who read an early draft of this God can use us whether we have it all together or not. But essay urged me to mention that the early missionaries to the wouldn’t it be better if we were able to really listen and find by Bayard Taylor Hawaiian Islands even banned the islanders from surfing. a way to hear what people were saying to us? Wouldn’t it be Dude, that’s, like, so uncool.) better to comprehend where people were coming from and If you’re excited about what Jesus has why they think the way they do? done for you, most likely you’re going to As Christians, we need to have the humility and brighten when a conversation turns toward There Will Be Blood forthrightness to confess our sins and admit the The Men-from-Mars Perspective spiritual things. All right! A chance to share Before we go any further, we need transgressions of our forebearers honestly and fully. We lose To find that way, here’s a thought experiment. Imagine space my faith! Yet more often than not we leave to realize that, in one sense, being credibility if we don’t. visitors coming to us from Mars on a fact-finding mission. such conversations with a nagging sense misunderstood, misjudged, and maligned These little green men (okay, and women, although I confess that somehow things didn’t go as well as goes with the territory of following Christ. What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate I don’t know much about Martian sexuality) are curious and we might have hoped. One moment we Jesus told us, in effect, “If they hate me, That said (and it did need to be said), I wonder how much want to discover the key ideas that drive the various cultures were talking about God and the next we they’ll hate you” (Mark 13:13; John 15:18). of the disconnect we feel with unbelievers is a listening here on earth. were off on some odd tangent or enmeshed The other New Testament writers warned problem—an inability on our part to understand and in a grotesque misunderstanding of God or us about the fires of persecution (Acts 8:1; empathize with where people are coming from. Maybe this Imagine also the following: (1) These visitors are able Christian faith. Get burned enough times 11:19; 13:50; Romans 8:35; Galatians 6:12; story will shed some light on what I’m talking about. to come to earth without attracting attention to their and the optimism of All right! A chance to 2 Timothy 3:12) and then went though technologically advanced saucerlike spacecrafts. (2) They share my faith is quickly replaced by the those fires themselves. At a Christian Conference for college students, I was can move around and blend into any surroundings dread of This can only end badly! sitting working on my laptop in the lobby of the hotel without being seen, so they’re able to study us without A pastor in India once told me, “In India, where we were staying. A girl from the conference their behaviors influencing our behaviors. (3) They all have This confusing and disheartening you always need to be ready to preach, came up to a guy sitting near me who was within the Martian equivalents of Ph.D.’s in anthropology and scenario is fairly typical on the university pray, or die for the gospel.” He said it with earshot. She was—bless her heart—attempting to ethnography and thus have completely freed themselves campus, where the marketplace of ideas a smile on his face, but he wasn’t kidding. witness. The man was a secular Israeli Jew passing from their own cultural prejudices and baggage. (I’ll is a multiplicity of conflicting “–isms,” And to a greater or lesser degree, what he through for a business trip. He was an atheist. admit this is going a long way to go to create a scenario of religions, and philosophies. What are we said is true everywhere. complete objectivity, but whatever.) to make of this jumble of ideas and chaos It was quite an interesting encounter. The young of diversity? And even if we manage to When Jesus died on the cross, he paid for woman did all of the standard things she had been What would our Martians see? get some idea of what’s going on, how our sins and he purchased the right for his trained to do, but it was mostly an exercise in missing I submit that at first our extraterrestrial visitors would do we minister without coming off as people to proclaim the gospel in all the the point because she couldn’t/didn’t correct her marvel at the startling diversity and complexity of us judgmental, hypocritical, narrow-minded, world—a right the church has called the course and adjust for the fact that this guy was (a) humans. After a while, though, their analytical skills would bigoted, hate-filled, homophobic, sexually Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). a secular Jew and not a practicing one and (b) an kick in and they would start to discern some distinctive repressed, rednecked, racist, warmongering, To advance this Great Commission, God atheist, which really confused her. patterns. If they then began writing their reports to their genocidal, capitalist, fascist. Am I the Father and God the Son sent God the A little course in worldviews could have been very superiors in English, they would soon be talking about the leaving anything out? Neocolonialistic? Holy Spirit to equip the church to take the gospel to the ends of the earth (John 14:26; useful at that point. Unfortunately, this was not a concept of worldview and how worldviews are the biggest Welcome to the campus of Postmodern 15:26). The gospel is the best possible news part of her training. clues to the earthlings’ thinking and behaviors, even more U—a microcosm of worldviews. If you for all peoples and cultures everywhere, and important than whatever religions or philosophies they say As a credit to her sensitivities, however, there was a want to be an ambassador for Christ in everyone on the planet should have the they believe. A critical observation (and one making us very point in the conversation in which she really seemed this world, you need to know how to opportunity to respond to it. vulnerable should the aliens pursue conquest, colonization, to make inroads with this atheist (who was cordial decode and interact with a wide assortment and/or body snatching).Through the Looking Glass but not afraid to speak his mind about the fact that of viewpoints and worldviews, and that In another sense, though, if we’re honest she seemed not to hear what he was really saying to begins with the ability to identify them. about history, we have to admit that Our word worldview comes from the philosopher Immanuel Christians (or at least those wearing her) and that was when she offered to pray for him Kant, who in 1768 coined the term as Weltanschauung (in © 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.com 2 WHITE PAGES WAR OF THE WORLDS German Welt = “world” and anschauung In the university and in life, no single = “view”). As the word itself suggests, a worldview has a monopoly on the smart worldview is as a way of looking at the people. You’re always going to find people world. Your worldview is like the eyeglasses who are smarter than you are and who will through which you view and interpret your passionately and eloquently promote their experiences.