What is a Christian Worldview?
Justin Buzzard over at Buzzardblog recently posted the following paragraph from D.A. Carson’s Christ & Culture Revisited. I think we can tend to talk about worldview and Christian worldview without really understand what we mean. Hope this is helpful.
“Christians whose worldview–whose way of looking at the world–is decisively shaped by the Bible’s story line cannot forget that we human beings have been made in the image of God; that our first obligation is to recognize our creatureliness, and thus our joyful obligation to our Creator; that sin is nothing other than de-godding God; that our dignity as God’s image bearers is horribly marred by our rebellion; that the entire race, and all of human history, is rushing toward final accountability before this God who is no less our Judge than our Maker; that there is a new heaven and a new earth to gain and a hell to fear; that our sole hope of reconciliation with this God is by the means he himself has provided in his Son; that the people of God are made up of human beings from every language and tribe and nation, and, empowered by God’s Spirit, are growing in personal and corporate obedience and love, rejoicing to come under the reign of God in anticipation of the consummation of that reign. Meanwhile, we are enjoined to do good to all, especially–but certainly not exclusively!–those of the household of faith. In other words, Christianity does not claim to convey merely religious truth, but truth about all reality.”
This second quote is from the blog Of First Importance and specifically speaks to the end- where things are going. It is from “The End of History — The Moral Necessity of Eschatology” by Al Mohler.
“Put simply, the Christian story unravels unless God brings the entire course of human history under His visible and perfect judgment, unless God’s justice is perfectly displayed, unless the Christ is revealed in glory so that every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father [Phil. 2:11], unless Christ claims His redeemed people, unless God’s triumph in Christ over death, sin, evil, and injustice is made universal. Put simply, unless every eye is dry and every tear is wiped away.
There is no Christian Gospel if history simply unwinds into a meaningless puddle, if the cosmos simply escapes into a cataclysmic black hole, or if the universe finally dies of exhausted energy. Without belief in a biblical eschatology, there is no Christian hope. Without a sense of perfect moral judgment in the end, the human heart is homeless.”
In short, a Christian worldview is about understanding where the world has come from, where it has been, where it is going, and what God’s activity and purposes are in all of this. It is about understanding the gospel not only on the smaller scale of our own lives but also in the bigger picture of God’s plan for the world.