Worldview Confusion

The other day I happened upon a website that “helps” you evaluate your worldview (www.christianworldviewnetwork.com). Most of the questions had to do with the American government and the founders intent for various government institutions. First of all, can we not evaluate the biblicalness of our worldview apart from views of American government? Are we not called to be citizens of heaven?

Christians in America are not transitioning very well to a post-Christian society. For some reason, Evangelicals have it in their heads that we can legislate American back into good, solid, 1950’s Christianity. I am thankful for the late missiologist, Lesslie Newbigin, and the Gospel and Our Culture Network who beckoned us to approach the West humbly and missionally. We shouldn’t be playing the same political manipulation games as the rest of the world. We should be markedly different, characterized by our love and forgiveness.

I’m not saying that we should enclose ourselves in little Christian pods away from the world of politics and power-grabbing. We should actively engage the world, but it should look different than it currently looks. Yale professor, Lamin Sanneh challenges us with these words:

“How well Christians manage their great pluralist heritage in these twilight years of the twentieth century will have enormous implications for the kind of society people live in.” (Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message, 6)

This quotes—obviously written at the end of the twentieth century—encourages to this differently about society as a whole. Society-at-large is not Christian. When will we figure that out! We need to focus on growing in our Jesusness and inviting others to enjoy the new life Jesus offers us. A brief look at divorce rates, pastor immorality, and church splits shows that the church is not acting very different from the world. They don’t know we are Christians by our love. We need to recapture the essence of being a disciple of Jesus and resembling a community that embodies Jesus.