A worldview that is. Fascinating article from the Director of Education at Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston, S.C., Colin Kerr. Here are a few excerpted paragraphs. The entire article can be found at The Post and Courier website.
We’ve forgotten the art of cultivating worldviews.
A worldview determines how we make sense of everything that we see and experience, from spirituality to sex, ethics to economics, purpose to politics. A healthy worldview ties it all together in a way that is consistent and self-reinforcing. It may hold tensions, but doesn’t contradict itself. Worldviews are inherently exclusivist to at least a degree, that is to say a worldview means declaring some beliefs, values and lifestyles are true while others are false. While that kind of statement can make our politically correct sensibilities squirm, it is nothing more than the rational acknowledgement that if we attempt to pluralistically approve all beliefs, values and lifestyles, we will have ceased to have any views at all and essentially will have given our brains a furlough.
We’re not in Kansas, or the 1950s, anymore.
Now, churches are tasked with educating their flock against a rising tide of culturally sanctioned materialism, relativism and general narcissism. Felt boards and warm, fuzzy sermons are no match for the thousands of competing worldviews attempting to convert us (both believer and nonbeliever alike) daily by way of media, advertising and culture. Cultivating a Gospel-centered worldview then, one robust enough to counter the systems that are out of sync with the way of life presented by Jesus, is now absolutely critical in a church’s educational framework. This is serious educational business we’re talking about here.
A Gospel-centered worldview is meant to put on the gloves and go all nine rounds.
However, it is important to note that this kind of biblically oriented worldview cannot be produced through religious indoctrination, a system of top-down learning designed to instill doctrine without a personal understanding and experience of its truth. Indoctrination is the fundamentalist’s primary tool for creating a worldview, but it is one akin to blowing up a balloon — a system of thought easily popped with sharp run-ins of reality. Indoctrinated worldviews are dependent on staying within the shelter of a protective group and rarely survive the scrutiny that occurs should an individual stray from the nest.
