Lost in Thought

Only 6% of the American population has a Christian worldview. Christian sociologist and researcher George Barna disclosed this stark finding in a recent presentation. When concentrating on the church, the percentage rises to only 21%. Put another way, for every five evangelical Christians that walk into the church, four of them have not adopted a biblical view of the world.

What, though, is a worldview, and what does it mean to have a Christian one? Worldview is a term used to describe how you explain reality. What is life? Where does it come from? Is the universe understandable? If it is, why? Is there meaning? Why is there evil?

Those are huge questions, and your answers to them reveal your worldview. But worldview not only affects how you answer big questions, it also affects small questions. Should you get married and to whom? How many children should you have? Should you run for office? What should be your relationship to medicine? To education? To politics?

To have a Christian worldview means you seek to think the way Christ does. The Bible is “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Therefore, to have a Christian worldview means you see the world through the lens of Scripture.

Unfortunately, many seem to think Christianity only answers one question: how do I get saved? Among those who attend church regularly, Christianity may be about how you get saved and how Jesus helps you feel better during the hard times of life.

But redemption and salvation are about much more than heaven and therapeutic help. God didn’t deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt so they would not have to make bricks in the hot sun. God bore Israel “on eagles’ wings” in the exodus and brought them to himself (Exodus 19:4). He did this “that [they] might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him” (Deuteronomy 4:35). In short, redemption resulted in knowledge.

Deliverance is equal parts what God has brought you out of and what he has brought you into. If God has saved you, it is so that you might grow in knowledge. It is his will that you should “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). One evidence of true salvation is a transformation of the way you perceive the world.

God later condemned Israel, saying, “For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’ – in doing evil! But how to do good they know not” (Jeremiah 4:22). Can this be said about the American evangelical church today? I fear it could, at least for about 80% of it.