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January 4 - January 8, 2021
For millennia, the Judeo-Christian worldview gave the West an overarching narrative, a framework and basis for justice, and sufficient grounding for human dignity.
A worldview “is the [mental] window by which we view the world, and decide, often subconsciously, what is real and important, or unreal and unimportant”11 says Phillip Johnson
Dallas Willard similarly writes: Our “worldview . . . consists of the most general and basic assumptions about what is real and what is good—including our assumptions about who we are and what we should do.”
Every one of us has a worldview. Nobody can “opt out.”
Our worldviews are proven by our actions more than our words.
We must be intentional about uncovering unconsciously held assumptions, exposing them to the light of Scripture.
God provides all that we need to be successful.
John Stott says, “If we want to live straight, we have to think straight. If we want to think straight, we have to have renewed minds.”
Jeremy Rifkin: We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home and therefore obliged to make our behavior conform with a set of preexisting cosmic rules. We make the rules. We establish the parameters of reality. We create the world, and because we do, we no longer feel beholden to outside forces. We no longer have to justify our behavior, for we are now the architects of the universe. We are responsible for nothing outside ourselves, for we are the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
The groups we belong to shape us. They do not define us.
In this fraught cultural moment, we need to emphasize what unites us, not what divides us.
Ideological social justice can only divide because it has no basis for unity. It can only segregate us into competing tribes, pitted against each other in an endless power struggle.
Followers of Jesus Christ must never be complicit in an ideology that encourages the dehumanization of our neighbors,
Unless we wake up to its dangers, social justice will destroy us—and it will do so in the name of “justice.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart”
While many social justice advocates, such as Hathaway, say they want to build a better world, they seem far more animated about tearing the existing one down.
“But let justice roll down like waters, / and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24 ESV).
Biblical transformation encompasses both the inward and the outward, the personal and the societal, the regeneration of fallen human hearts and minds and the reformation of society.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).
“Our primary means of transforming the world is through proclaiming the gospel,” says pastor Grover Gunn. “We must today never question the effectiveness of the gospel message as the cutting edge of positive social change.”
John Stott agrees: “Evangelism is the major instrument of social change. For the gospel changes people, and changed people can change society.”19
Christianity’s ethic of humility, personal responsibility, love, and forgiveness fosters reconciliation.
rooted in God’s law. Jayme Metzgar perceptively describes the new social justice morality: Without God’s goodness as a plumb line for right and wrong, moderns have no framework with which to judge the clear evils that exist in human behavior. So they’ve settled on a simplistic moral standard that boils all sin down to a single category: oppression.
Nancy Pearcey explains, “Truth has been redefined as a social construction, so that every community has its own view of truth, based on its experience and perspective, which cannot be judged by anyone outside the community.”
Truth, and a basic sense of honesty, is a glue that holds societies together.
By denying objective truth, and devaluing logic, reason, facts, and evidence, ideological social justice actively and intentionally weakens the bonds of our society.
Truth, by contrast, is a central, load-bearing pillar of the Christian worldview.
Truth is known through a combination of Divine revelation supported by the proper use of our God-given capacity for reason and logic, evidence and argument.
“We don’t create the truth; we find it, and we have no power to change it to our tastes,” said Charles Chaput,
In Jesus, ultimate power and authority are combined with humility and sacrificial service.
power and authority in the Scriptures are not intrinsically negative. They are actually sources of great good when they are used to serve and benefit those under authority.
Christians should never allow anything other than God and the Bible to be our ultimate authority on what is true.
The Bible, not the person who claims to be a victim, must have the final say.
Only the biblical worldview holds out the promise of perfect justice, while also allowing for a culture marked by tolerance, grace, forgiveness, and mercy. Even in the face of great evil, we can forgive and love our enemies, trusting in God’s promise to right every wrong when He returns.
We have a unity, but not a uniformity.
Diversity without unity is not a strength. It leads to chaos and conflict. Unity without diversity is also negative. It leads to stifling, totalitarian conformity. Human flourishing requires both, which is why the Bible affirms both. God’s own triune nature affirms both.
“victim.” This word can describe circumstances, but it must never describe identity.
Good can come even from the worst of circumstances.
Jewish Encyclopedia says, “That covetousness is the cause of the individual’s discontent and unhappiness is certainly true.”
“The claim is not that the West is and has always been a perfect paradise of justice and equality,” Bo Winegard says. “It is not and it has never been. But, whatever its flaws, it has raised more people out of indigence, misery, superstition, and intolerance than any other civilization in history. Today, it is laudably cosmopolitan and largely free from grotesque forms of discrimination and bigotry.”
Dwight L. Moody captures the mindset perfectly: “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a lifeboat and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.’”
This moral upheaval didn’t happen by accident.
as Christians, our primary obligation is to the truth and to love.
Andrew Sullivan, “No racial group is homogeneous, and every individual has agency. No one is entirely a victim or entirely privileged.”
Crime rates rise as the capacity to self-govern erodes.
The crying need today, as it was in the early twentieth century, is to recover a biblical, orthodox approach to justice and cultural engagement.
People need a comprehensive, overarching story of reality in order to make sense of their lives. If the church isn’t out in the culture championing the true story—the biblical worldview—the only alternatives will be false and ultimately destructive worldviews.
They need to hear a story in which everyone bears God’s image.
Everyone is capable, responsible, and accountable.
They need to hear a story in which power isn’t ultimate, love is.
