MINI-COURSE: Reconstructing a Biblical Worldview
For Leaders:
For Readers:
- The Brutal Truth Why People Make Bad Decisions - - It Has Nothing to Do With Not Having Enough Information
Bonus: Faith Deconstructed or Reconstructed (Yancey)
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Brad Vaughn -
Tim Gombis’ Power in Weakness is a provocative little book that will doubtlessly cause readers to reexamine their own evangelical backgrounds.
Contemporary readers are prone to equate “Pharisee” with “religious non-Christian.” Whatever a Pharisee is, “Christian” is the contrast. Paul did not think that way. Gombis reminds us, “Paul remained a Pharisee after his conversion” (15). Paul even states, “I am a Pharisee. I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 23:6).
He speaks about more than mere doctrine. As Gombis summarizes,
Paul’s zeal for God far exceeded that of his peers (Gal 1:14). Gombis writes, “He longed to see God’s word enacted in God’s people. In his mind his motivations were pure!” (20). Formally, Paul belonged to the “evangelical” [Note: read, zealous, not a specific brand of theology] tribe of his day.
In a similar fashion, Paul adopted some of the same traits we find in evangelical subcultural today. It was when I read the following quotes that I immediately thought about several prominent camps and organizations within evangelicalism.
I’ll highlight two observations that jump out to me in particular. First, Gombis says of Paul,
Also,
When not to imitate Paul
Second, consider the behavior such confusion elicits in Paul and today’s evangelicals. Gombis states,
He is even more direct when he adds,
In this environment, what results? So much effort is poured out “toward image maintenance” (27).
(Regarding a student accepted to a Christian college)...Apparently, agreeing with the school’s faith statement isn’t enough. Applicants must also agree on personalities, book, and subcultural debates.
Similarly, I myself was dismissed last year from The Gospel Coalition’s journal Themelios because I criticizes the founders’ theological methodology (not their conclusions) concerning the topic of women in the church.
Several Take-Aways
I highlight these things for a few reasons.
1. We all need to be aware of how we are just like Paul prior to his knowing Christ. Don’t villainize Paul so much that his testimony ceases to be a tool of correction for us.
2. Gombis’ analysis helpfully demonstrates ways that we absorb the worst parts of evangelical subculture yet excuse it because we claim to have evangelical theology.
3. I urge people to check out Gombis’ book if you want to consider seriously a different approach to following Christ and leading his people. One of his key ideas is that we need to have converted ministries, not simply converted hearts, minds, politics, and private lives.
Gombis will help readers to “reflect on how you can inhabit [your] weaknesses and make them the markers of your identity” (99). In so doing, evangelicals can embrace “cruciformity” in the pattern of Christ.
The American Gospel
It is impossible to be a good American and a Follower of Jesus
The Gospel according to a white evangelical Christian in Colorado Springs differs vastly from the Gospel according to a Hispanic Episcopalian immigrant in Pueblo.
How can two people read the exact same Bible and come up with two radically different Christianity's? Because the Gospel was, is, and always will be culturally conditioned. We’ve never had an unadulterated, unfiltered understanding of “the good news.” Even teachings as clear as nonviolence, enemy love, caring for the poor, and welcoming the stranger are either ignored, or eisegeted into irrelevance based on one’s culture.
The Gospel was originally proclaimed out of the mouth of a first century Palestinian Jew and into Mediterranean minds. When Jesus announced the good news, his original hearers understood it in terms of liberation from their Roman overlords. As Christianity spread throughout the world, this original meaning changed.
When the gospel enters a culture, it is not received in a vacuum—it is filtered through cultural perspectives. One’s national identity profoundly shapes how the gospel is understood, interpreted, and lived out. More than anything else, culture shapes how we see the world. It informs values, relationships, and assumptions. In Latin, culture (colo, colere, cultum) means to cultivate, tend, and till. In the words of Jesuit priest John F. Kavanaugh:
COACH YOUR...
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Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.”
— Alfred North Whitehead, (1861–1947), English philosopher
Commentary -
Everyone has a worldview. Even the person who says worldview studies are a waste of time says it because of their worldview. A worldview is a person’s perspective of the world, but at its core, it is a set of basic presuppositions that a person believes through which they filter all other non-basic beliefs. There are thousands of religions and ‘ism that people hold, and no one can learn all of them, but there are only a handful of worldviews into which they all fit. If you learn the underlying worldviews, you will be better able to understand where a person is coming from, no matter what they call themselves. Some of the basic worldviews are theism, deism, naturalism, existentialism, postmodernism, and Eastern pantheistic monism.
James Sire, in his book, The Universe Next Door does us a huge favor by cataloging these worldviews and providing us with seven questions to get to the heart of any worldview. By asking these seven questions, we can find out not only where someone else stands, but where we stand as well. They can also reveal where a person may be inconsistent in their beliefs. I was once talking with someone who answered one questions by telling me all roads lead to God, and then when asked “what happens when someone dies,” told me that a person either goes to the light or the dark. When I asked if the dark was God too, she then saw the conflict in her two views and said that she needed to think things through a little better. That moment became a perfect opportunity to share the gospel.
Here are the seven questions to get the to the heart of any worldview, followed by a few possible answers.
1. What is prime reality—the really real?
Christians will say it is God. The atheist may answer matter, the universe, or natural laws.
2. What is the nature of the world or universe around us?
Was it created, did it just pop into being, is it ordered, is it chaos, does it even exist or is something we create in our mind?
3. What is a human being?
Is it created in the image of God, a highly complex machine, a cosmic accident, an evolved ape?
4. What happens when a person dies?
Is it heaven with God, or hell, a higher state, reincarnation, or do we cease to exist altogether?
5. Is it possible to know absolute truth?
Is it, yes, we are made in the image of God. Christ, who was fully God, became flesh and knew all truth. Therefore, we can know truth as well. Or is it, no, consciousness is something that evolved based on the survival of the fittest, and we cannot have confidence that what survives can necessarily know truth. It is all just chemicals firing in the brain. What we call knowledge is just a mental phenomenon, and we cannot know whether it corresponds to reality.
6. How do we know what is right and wrong?
Are we made in the image of God and have his law written on our hearts and told to us in His revealed word? Or is morality something we make up to order society, so there is no ultimate right and wrong?
7. What is the meaning of human history? Or who is in charge of history?
Did God create it for a purpose and has a plan that all things are moving toward? Or is no one in charge? All of it is random chance and ultimately meaningless, and though we may place some meaning on it, even our meaning is relative.
All of these questions reveal a person’s worldview, and you will see that at the center is either the true God or something else. Any worldview not based on the God of scripture cannot ultimately hold together. In Jesus, the creator and sustainer of all things, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Not only is it important to understand where other people stand in order to show them that their foundation is sinking sand, but it is important to make sure Christ is the rock upon which we stand in all matters of truth as well.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. – Colossians 2:8
D. Eaton
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