Worldviews In Conflict

We are living in the midst of worldviews in tension. It explains any number of very real issues facing the church, especially in Western society. For much of Western secular society, the climax of human history is the Enlightenment. This is when human history surged forward and our journey into ever greater human accomplishment began reaching extraordinary heights. Reason emerged, and the pathway to a secularized society began. And indeed, many great accomplishments have come from this period, and human reason is a God-given gift. Despite the holocaust, world wars, nuclear weapons, and various other atrocities, we also have seen diseases cured, human rights championed around the globe, and amazing quality of life advancements enjoyed by hundreds of millions (though certainly not by all).

For many, the underlying framework for understanding human reality is rooted in seeing our story through the lens of the Enlightenment as the climax of our story. The (Western) arrival at Reason marks the centerpiece of our existence, but more than that it shapes the way we understand our existence. That is, progressive achievement and human knowledge supersedes -- and often displaces -- revelatory encounter. Our epistemological worldview becomes rooted in human progress as our authority. However, for followers of Christ, the Western Englightenment is not the grand summit of human history. As we are "transformed by the renewing of our minds", our worldview experiences (or perhaps should experience) a major shift. It is not, I certainly should say, a rejection of such helpful tools as scientific method nor a wholesale adoption of fundamentalist principles and the problems that come that. However, such a reorientation is indeed a completely different framework for understanding human history, standards of morality, and existential truth.

Followers of the Way have embraced a different way of seeing reality. Our shift in allegiance is accompanied by an exchange of lenses -- a shift in interpretative frameworks. Simply put, we believe that the incarnation, passion, and victory of Jesus is the climax of human history. Jesus -- not the Enlightenment -- is the centerpiece of our story and provides the framework for interpreting what is real. Giving our allegiance to Jesus is so much more than a personal spiritual moment but is indeed paramount to entering a new narrative of human experience. The great summit of human history is not the Enlightenment nor the progressive achievements that have followed. Rather, at the core of our confession is that the defining moment of history is the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Incidentally, at a time (and for the last two centuries) that the Bible has been increasingly marginalized, this highlights why the Scriptures are our source of authority for faith, morality, and our understanding of what is true. Jesus himself embodies divine revelation, and the nearest witnesses of that revelation speak with the greatest authority about what was indeed revealed through his incarnation. The writers of the New Testament shared a proximity with Jesus -- who stands at the climax of human history as the Incarnated Word -- that no one else in human history may claim. While some were actual eye witnesses of Jesus, others were companions and contemporaries of these eye witnesses. Everyone is within a generation of God's clearest revelation of truth embodied in the crucified Messiah. These early witnesses shared a cultural, geographic, temporal, and spatial proximity to Jesus, and so they set the stage for a worldview rooted in the life and proclamation of the Resurrected Messiah. Along similar lines, Jesus models a way of reading the Bible as he interacts with Hebrew Scriptures in light of particular contemporary challenges in His first century context. It's worth saying that embracing Scripture's authority doesn't equal a license for reading it badly. Nevertheless, the witness and instructions passed down from those with greatest proximity to Jesus the Word provide our essential framework for discerning morality, ethics, and essential truths. Our center for understanding human experience and our existential hope is in Jesus and His Resurrection.

Today, at least in Western nations, these two worldviews are in conflict. Post-Enlightenment worldviews who inherently root their understanding of reality in human progress, often perceive that modern Reason trumps claims made by Christian scriptures. Many Christian believers have internalized the conflict because they believe the story of the Resurrection, but yet they are tied to a different (ie., post-Enlightenment) meta-narrative. Such an internal conflict stirs no small amount of dissonance. Furthermore, many secularists fail to recognize the extent to which much of our generally accepted ethics are rooted to varying degrees in the Christian story. Of course, the modern meta-narrative continues to be challenged as humanity graduates from slaughtering thousands with spears and swords to killing millions with bullets and bombs.

As followers of Jesus, we are called into a different story. As a result, our framework or worldview for interpreting truth, evaluating Biblical texts, and guiding our morality is rooted in the revealed Word, the apex of human existence. When we place our faith in Jesus, we are doing more than simply adopting another set of religious practices. We step into the narrative that shapes an alternative worldview, and so we share in telling an alternative story.