Christian Worldview...or not? And who decides?

“Polls consistently show that a large percentage of Americans claim to believe in God or to be born again – yet the effect of the Christian principles is decreasing in public life. Why? Because most evangelicals have little training in how to frame Christian Worldview principles in a language applicable in the public square. Though Christianity is thriving in modern culture, it is at the expense of being ever more firmly relegated to the private sphere.” This dichotomy, which in layman’s terms is commonly stated as “acting one way on Sunday morning and another the rest of the week,” is a concerning factor in our society. In some ways, it seems all too closely related to the walk of the Pharisees in the days of Jesus. What this short paper seeks to explore is the possible reasons for this dichotomy based upon the past and present leadership of the church and the reception of their words by those following.

There are many possible causes to this thinking, but let us begin with history. Historically, we have seen moves in Christian thought that may have helped perpetuate this condition. But we cannot just begin with Christians, because the Roman thinking of Jesus’ day was consumed with Platonic thinking. Plato basically proposed the path to true knowledge is to free ourselves from ourselves, mainly our spiritual selves from our material selves, so that reason can gain insight into the reality of Forms. The problem with this rationale is that evil is lined up with God’s creation, and creation was divided into two parts: the spiritual (good) and the material (bad). This seemed to heavily play into the monastic life of the middle ages when the really committed Christian was the one who rejected ordinary work and family life to live in prayer and contemplation. Unfortunately, many of the church fathers seem to subscribe to this train of thought in part. Although Origen, Jerome and Augustine take a strong stand on the goodness of creation, they also seemed to absorb some part of platonic thinking towards the material world.

As far as this author can tell, Augustine, who once was a Platonist prior to his conversion, retained the thought of a double creation. This meant that he believed God first made the Platonic intelligible Forms, and afterward made the material world in the imitation of the Forms. This dualism undercuts Scripture and finally leads one into a dichotomy where the immaterial world (Forms) would function separate from the material world (bad). This thinking seems to continue through the middle ages causing havoc among the theologians, including the likes of Anselm.

But in the thirteenth century, the rediscovery of Aristotle’s works proved to be a challenge because it seemed to present a comprehensive system of thought that moved into many disciplines. Because of the comprehensive nature of the argument, Christians seemed to give into and even teach Aristotle’s view that the world was eternal and that the world was created. G. K. Chesterton summed it up this way: “There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world, which contradicts the supernatural world. While we are being naturalists, we can suppose that Christianity is all nonsense; but then, when we remember that we are Christians, we must admit that Christianity is true even if it is nonsense.”

Aquinas rose for the battle, but in his view of “Christianizing Aristotle,” he kept the dichotomy in an altered format. He ended up keeping Aristotle’s view of nature (which did not need God, but was capable of reaching full potential on its own) as a lower truth with God’s grace (supernatural addition) as the higher truth. But this did not help in the long run because the “nature” was self-sufficient and “grace” was merely an add-on. They were separate entities. This seemingly carried until the Reformation.

But the reformers were quick to banish the monastic life and state that all of life held vocational value in the sight of God, crushing the dichotomy of scholasticism. The current dualism caused many to stress among the laity, as Melanchthon stated: “This error greatly tormented devout consciences, which grieved that they were held in an imperfect state of life, as in marriage or in the office of magistrate…. They admired the monks and such like, and falsely imagined that the observances of such men were acceptable to God.” So, although the reformers seemed to do away with the dualism, one can still see scholasticism continued today. “Keep God in the Bible, but out of the classroom,” or “science is totally separate from religion.” These types of statements make it clear that we still haven’t shaken the dichotomy of Aristotle and Plato from our thinking and theology. Even the distinctly Lutheran approach to the two kingdoms, when not taught carefully, could be seen as possibly aiding the separation of faith and world, splitting the sacred and secular even further.

Pearcey explains the failure to retain the reformers renewed thoughts in this way: “The problem was that they [the reformers] failed to craft a philosophical vocabulary to express their new theological insights. Thus they did not give their followers any tools to defend those insights against philosophical attack – or to create an alternative to the dualistic philosophy of scholasticism. As a result, the successors of Luther and Calvin went right back to teaching scholasticism in the Protestant universities, using Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics as the basis of their systems – and thus dualistic thinking continued to affect all the Christian traditions.”

The sacred/secular split in thinking shows up in everyday life all the time. It is seen in the classroom, the mentoring times between parent and child, politics, sports, and the everyday value judgments of our materialistic-minded Americans. It is the reason a pastor will speak, walk, teach, and even dress differently on Sunday than on other days of the week. Of course, one cannot help but notice such a thing, so the laity is quick to follow. But even with good leadership driving the church there is not a promise of those who claim membership to follow the lead.

While on vicarage, this process occurred before my eyes as I happened upon one of the elders of the church within his weekly job. As he related with his “9 to 5” “Monday through Friday” crowd, it was painfully obvious to me that his demeanor was almost as night is to day in regards to his likeness on Sunday. The body language changed as did the vocabulary, but most prominent were the topics engaged. I only remember thinking that my mother would wash out my mouth with soap in order to clean up the gutter talk I had heard on that day. It was enough to give pause to the situation and question the direction that was leading the leadership. This, of course, is not an isolated incident. I often marvel at some seminarians who, while aspiring to the office of the ministry, somehow neglect to remain within the simple guidelines of Paul’s writings. Not to say that we will be sinless, but filthy language, drunkenness, erratic, quarrelsome or poor managers of their families are all traits that I have perceived while attending. Of course, we would never see that side during Sunday morning, but somehow this unsanctified approach to living is acceptable when we aren’t in vestments.

Speaking of vestments, of which I have only grown in appreciation for after learning of their original meaning in worship, can it really be said that this “uniform” is to take the personality out of the man and focus on the office? Is it really possible to separate the man from the office? Understanding that we are not from the Pentecostal sects claiming to be free of sin, one still must consider all that Paul and the apostles say on things like not giving offense to others or the law of Christ. To sin in front of the comforting crowd of “mature” believers is one thing, although not to be tolerated, but toting drunkenness before the humanistic atheistically trained students of Washington University only perpetuates their idealism of rightness over religiously intolerant views such as Christianity. At best it touts are philosophies and worldviews as equals. At worst, we are seen as merely another set of hypocrites caught in the dialogue and wandering in the world, ultimately proving their theory of us correct, and sealing their justified positions.

I wondered what the robes of the pastor conveyed to some today, so I asked my beloved wife. She gave two possibilities in her answer: One, that it was some custom from ‘a long time ago’ that has just ‘stuck,’ or two, that the pastor was showing that he was holier than the rest. By enlarge, this may be the perception of most in the pews, which at the very least would cloud their vision of what is happening. At worst, it may totally distract, even turning them into mockers during worship. This can lead to a very informal, even irreverent approach of worship towards a holy and righteous God, although I do not believe that pastors in ties and suit coats equivocate this idea. However, where worship is irreverent in nature, other than the fake worship described by Jesus in Mark 7, it can generally be pointed in the direction of some informal approaches of today.

Another realm which contributes to this factor would include the school systems by which we train the next generation. Not even to mention the public institutions of our day, even the Lutheran schools separate faith from the regular course load, unless, of course, we have some disciplining measures to take care of. Then the “thus saith the Lord” becomes quite handy. But when it comes to course load, how often do we see our own synodical teachers conveying their concepts within the Lutheran framework and hermeneutic of life? As a trained and experienced teacher in our synodical schools, I was amazed at how a Lutheran could support ideas such as evolution (science), abortion (sociology), all roads leading to heaven (sociology/history), and still consider themselves Lutheran. The answer becomes clearer when we hear phrases like “the Bible isn’t a science/history/anthropology/etc. textbook.” While this is true, one must also assert that when the Bible speaks on these issues, it does so correctly.

This is why it is an utter failure to teach children that God is the Creator of all things, and in the next class teach that we are the great-great-great grandchildren of earthworms. It doesn’t take long for some students to put two and two together and realize that one of the accounts of life is inconsistent with the other. I have had a few talks with high school age students on this topic, but my vicarage experience is most telling. While visiting a shut-in family (Grandmother, Mother and Granddaughter), the Grandmother divulged some sensitive information during dialogue, post-communion. She told me that her Granddaughter was an atheist. Although she did not know why her Granddaughter held that position, she was concerned. I was still there when the child came home from high school, so being my extrovert self after introductions, I said, “So, I hear you are an atheist.” To my great concern, she looked my collar-wearing face right in the eyes and said, “Yes, I am.” This bold and unapologetic confession led me to ask her of hthe reasoning behind her ideas, to which she quickly said, “Dinosaurs and science class.” This poor girl, like a sheep without a shepherd, was taken by the doctrine of today which ultimately led to her lack of faith in Christ. I would venture a guess that she never heard the interpretation of those “facts” from anyone within the church. What a shame that many think there is no way to understand such things from a Christian point of view. And the list goes on into so many fields of research: sociology, anthropology, astronomy, geology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, psychiatry, and other disciplines.

No, somehow, this faith must invade every part of our lives, directing and interpreting our every thought of the world around us. Until this happens, we may continue to be those which the agnostics, atheists, and others laugh at when it comes to a serious look at what a disciple of Jesus really looks like. This only perpetuates the concern drawn from John 17: 20-21: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” So that the world may believe; the dichotomy shown by the greater Christian church today, which seems to be everywhere around us, that is a separation of our faith from our everyday lives, becomes our biggest enemy, aside of Satan, to the evangelism of those around us. May God’s Spirit sanctify us through and through, that we may not sin publicly, but show the mercy and truth of Christ in all that we do and say.