I Was Born With Eleven Toes
Of course the title of this article is entirely untrue although I do know someone who was born with eleven toes! No, the real reason I called the mass of words before you “I was born with eleven toes” is because it attracts attention; it sounds like something interesting that you’ll want to read. Although I was born with the standard ten digit foot wear I have some other interesting stuff to talk to you about. It’s actually about you but its also about life as well. In fact it’s about everything we see, touch, feel and think… it’s about worldviews. Basically I am going try and tell you what they are and why they are fun/important to think about.
The question that needs answering from the get-go is what is a worldview? Unfortunately this question is extremely hard to answer but I‘ll have a go at explaining it anyway.
Basically a worldview is the fundamental approach a person takes to life. That is your worldview is the fundamental approach you take to life. Your worldview includes all that you think, all that you feel and all that you do. More importantly it includes how you think and why you do what you do.
A Christian writer by the name of Francis Schaeffer describes a worldview as the “grid” through which a person feeds knowledge. I reckon this is a helpful way to think. We all carry around some beliefs. Many of our beliefs (our ‘grid‘) don’t have to justified at the beginning of every conversation. For example, I don’t have prove that I exist before I can talk to someone. Neither do I attempt to prove that God exists every time I talk about Him or something He has done: I just assume that these things are true.
It’s pretty obvious from that kind of thinking that everybody has a worldview. We all carry around assumptions about the world in our head otherwise we’d never be able to speak to each other. Most people (and by most people I think I mean just about everyone) don’t think about their worldview too much. But I think that this is a fairly dangerous way to live. Which leads me to the next question: why is it important to think about worldviews as a Christian?
A few years back the Paul Coleman Trio put out an album called “Serious Fun.” I guess that’s how they think about their music but I reckon its also a good attitude to take to worldview thinking. It is serious because there is a lot on the line - just think about the consequences for a Christian if atheism were true. But it is also an opportunity to have a lot of fun. Anyway here are three reasons why I think meditating of worldviews is good. The first two reasons relate to why I think you should think about your own worldview and the worldviews of others while the third is more general.
1. HOLINESS
As followers of the Messiah we want to think and act like Jesus did. Its a bit hard to do this if we don’t actually think about why we live the way we live. If we want to take a Christ-like attitude to environment for example, we need to understand Jesus’ attitude and then seek to live it out as wisely as possibly (see Phill Birtles’ The Page article on the environment for a discussion on these matters). Also we need to remember that not all the options available to us in life are necessarily good - should we follow all of the fashion trends of society for example. Thinking about our worldview will help us make wiser, more godly choices.
2. COMMUNICATION
If we hope to express our faith clearly to others then we need to think a bit about it ourselves. More than that we need to think about how some other people might be thinking. By doing this we will be better able to understand the people we talk to and better able to speak to them in helpful ways. I think this point is really important to understand because preaching the gospel is not all about what you say but also how you say it. By understanding where others are coming from we will be able to help them understand where we are coming from much more clearly. I have also found that in thinking about worldviews my compassion for other people has grown along with my confidence in sharing my faith.
3. OTHER PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT WORLDVIEWS
This was pointed out to me at a conference I went to last year. The speaker showed several places where the word or concept of ‘worldview’ was used in popular culture. It is used in philosophy, religion, popular magazines, popular literature (The Da Vinci Code for example), politics and yes, even in the Koorong Catalogue. If other people are talking about it why not at least have a peak at what is being said?
By this stage I hope that you are convinced that the subject area of worldviews is both important and interesting. I hope also that you are inspired to rock up to TEAM on Monday nights from 5:30pm-6:30pm! During this hour we talk about some different worldviews and have time to discuss our questions if we have any. Alternatively you can grab a copy of The Universe Next Door which is a book introducing some of the major worldviews. To leave you and make one last attempt to convince you that thinking about worldviews is good for you and not just a bunch of whacked out arts students, I want to comment on something Francis Schaeffer (who I spoke of earlier) once said. In speaking of the reasons worldview thinking is good for everyone he said:
“…in reality you must always have ground into your bones the fact that every man is a philosopher.”
What Schaeffer recognises and stresses in this statement is the fact that all people have to think about life. Whether you are a bus driver, a drug addict, a pilot or lecturer in philosophy we all have a perspective on life. Why not seek to choose the best one on offer?
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