Continuing with my series of essays about the fundamental beliefs of contemporary Evangelical Christians — assumptions that drive the entire movement, including those who would identify as MAGA Christians — let’s deconstruct the idea of a “Biblical Worldview”, as in, “Our school teaches a Biblical Worldview.”
This worldview is then used to divide and separate the behavior of Christians from the rest of the culture.
So common is this phrase in evangelicalism, that everyone takes it for granted. I mean, if you believe every word of the book, why would you not wish to live by it? That’s the simplicity that it offers, and “I want all my neighbors to do the same thing. Therefore, I’ll do the best I can to recruit them into the way we live, and everything will be just fine.” It’s the ultimate disrespect for the beliefs of others, but it doesn’t seem that way to them, for they are “saving” their neighbors from eternal damnation.
In postmodern vernacular, this “world view” is the same thing as a “Grand Narrative,” the overarching story of what’s presented at all levels throughout the narrative. The difference, however, is what gives us the wiggle room to deconstruct the narrative, because these things are usually presented as fact, although we cannot fool nature into performing as we would wish. Many, if not most, grand narratives have at least an element of this, which is why deconstruction can very much become the monkey wrench in the plans of humankind. However, it’s also wise to question such narratives in order to gain wisdom and understanding and to prevent culture from completely running off any self-interested rails.
To have a “Biblical” worldview, we must first choose which Bible we’re going to use, and this alone can take a lifetime of study and still not completely affirm the grand narrative selected. At this point, many simply create a new translation, one that better fits the story being presented. Moreover, once a translation is selected, believers must completely believe in its inerrancy. So important is this belief, that movement leaders refer to it as “the WORD of God.” In other words, the Bible provides all that’s necessary to prove itself as the literal voice of God, therefore it proclaims the true wishes of the final authority. In this way, these people view the Bible and its words literally, at least so far as they help frame the narrative.
(Aside: If you wish to understand what is meant in the Bible about the Word of God, read the books of Adam and Eve, apocryphal literature that presents the lives of Adam and Eve and their progeny after the garden.)
It is this authority that has driven Western Civilization for over 2,000 years, beginning with the Council of Nice in the 4th Century A.D., through the Dark Ages when the church governed everything about salvation of the saints, including the selling of special dispensations to royals in order to keep its coffers full. Then came the printing press and decades of complaints from the church about losing its authority over the book. This led to The Enlightenment and the protestant revolution of “the just shall live by faith.” On and on, our history is filled with wars and other conflicts over the inerrancy of scripture. “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.” On the one hand, it’s nice to have the rules of life all handily laid out for us, so that we can “decide” if we want to follow them or not. This places the onus for what they view as “salvation” in our own hands, meaning we must live by these rules, which begin with “the just shall live by faith.” Confused? On the other hand, whatever happened to “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”?
So, you can see the problem with this Biblical Worldview profession, because it turns out to be better for the evangelicals than those being recruited. I’m reminded of The Shirky Principle, that institutions will always try to preserve the problem for which they are the solution. It’s very easy to do that when you insist that even though Jesus is believed to have redeemed humanity (“It is finished”), the Biblical Worldview suggests that we play a role in our own redemption, so much so that the word redemption itself requires its own deconstruction. Therefore, the correct response to this Biblical Worldview is one of separating ourselves from the sins of others, and maintaining that separation regardless of the begging and pleading of the have-nots. We’re taught not to link ourselves with such people, which is why this crowd feels its Biblical to reject others in the name of God, regardless of how it appears on the surface. After all, what’s to stop these heathens from taking what I’ve earned in following the rules? They are the problem, not me.
The elites of Western culture have always maintained a special relationship with Christianity, for the “saving” of heathen cultures was a fast-track to manipulation in terms of maintaining peace among the working class while profiting enormously from their labor. It’s no surprise therefore that the same is rampant today. The printing press temporarily disrupted this cozy relationship between man and mammon, prompting the powerful, 15th-Century priestly statement: “The jewel of the elites is in the hands of the laity.” The internet, however, is an even greater disruption to organized Christianity, because the web is a 3‑way communications medium. The top can talk “to” the bottom. The bottom can talk “to” the top. But the greatest cultural changes are coming from the 3rd way, which is that the bottom can talk with the bottom without interference from the top, and this is simply not compatible with the church’s one-to-many hegemony.
An important part of modern Christianity’s Grand Narrative is its relationship to Israel and how Zionism is a necessary part of Jesus returning to earth to claim the redeemed humans and take them to Heaven with him in what’s known as “The Rapture of the Church.” The Biblical Worldview teaches that Israel is sacred and that all promises made by God to the ancients still apply, and that to criticize Israel is to displease God or challenge God. Moreover, since the end will begin in a Jewish Jerusalem, we should support Israel’s existence at all cost. This is what authorizes Evangelical Christians to proclaim that the return of Jesus is near, a belief that has undergirded evangelicalism since 1948 and why the U.S. gives Israel so much no-strings-attached money. Call it a Strategic Defense Initiative if you’d like, but this is what a Biblical Worldview teaches. In addition, the Zionists will eventually have to replace the mosque on the Temple Mount with a new temple, which will result in violence and bloodshed on a scale we’ve yet to witness in the Middle East, but you won’t hear it condemned completely by the U.S. Why not? Because that’s where Jesus will return, so there’s nothing wrong with (wink-wink) helping it along.
If you actually believe this would be God’s will, I feel very sorry for you.
People mostly stay silent about these realities, choosing instead to trust the church overall or their place of worship and leaders who attended seminary and are professionally trained. How could such academic thinkers be wrong, right? Ask them questions, however, and they’ll refer back to their own catechism, which uses the Bible to teach the inerrancy of the Bible. It’s the greatest illustration of circular reasoning in the history of humankind. For example, is the story of God stopping the rotation of the earth for 24-hours to enable Joshua to completely conquer his enemies a myth or a true story? “Well, cough-harrumph, Terry, God can do anything, right?” What God “can” do is not evidence of what God did or didn’t do.
Walt Disney built his entire empire on the idea of “the plausible impossible,” which was a reference to the death-defying feats of animated characters. To be kind, let’s make the assumption that religions contain many elements of the plausible impossible, only Christians refer to them as fact in the name of the miraculous. This is a vain attempt to fool nature, but we buy into it with regularity.
There is no greater mystery with these believers than the combining of the New Testament with the Old Testament in order to come up with cultural rules for believers.
To further study all this, let’s turn to an insider definition of a Biblical Worldview, and what better document to examine than one created by the monstrous heresy known as “Focus on the Family” and its prophet, James Dobson. The ministry calls its worldview a “Christian Worldview”, which is the same thing as Biblical Worldview. Here are just a few paragraphs that explain the concept.
A biblical worldview is based on the infallible Word of God. When you believe the Bible is entirely true, then you allow it to be the foundation of everything you say and do. That means, for instance, you take seriously the mandate in Romans 13 to honor the governing authorities by researching the candidates and issues, making voting a priority.
Do you have a biblical worldview? Answer the following questions, based on claims found in the Bible and which George Barna used in his survey:
- Do absolute moral truths exist?
- Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?
- Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?
- Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today?
- Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?
- Is Satan real?
- Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people?
- Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings?Did you answer yes to these? Only 9 percent of “born- again” believers did (according to Barna research). But what’s more important than your yes to these questions is whether your life shows it. Granted, we are all sinners and fall short, but most of our gut reactions will reflect what we deep-down, honest-to-goodness believe to be real and true…
…Here is the big problem. Nonbiblical worldview ideas don’t just sit in a book somewhere waiting for people to examine them. They bombard us constantly from television, film, music, newspapers, magazines, books and academia.
Because we live in a selfish, fallen world, these ideas seductively appeal to the desires of our flesh, and we often end up incorporating them into our personal worldview. Sadly, we often do this without even knowing it.
For example, most Christians would agree with 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and other Scriptures that command us to avoid sexual immorality, but how often do Christians fall into lust or premarital and extramarital sexual sin? Is it simply because they are weak when tempted, or did it begin much earlier, with the seductive lies from our sexualized society?
Notice how this narrative forces cultural problems on those who don’t use their Biblical Worldview. This will forever keep their fingers pointed at others in their pursuit of happiness and is justification for not loving their neighbors.
You can see the requirement that the Bible be considered the absolute and infallible authority in order to live what’s called a Biblical Worldview. The irony is that the entirety of this worldview is in opposition to their claim that they represent love and serving God. The Bible serves as law enforcement here, which is inconsistent with the essential belief that the just shall live by faith.
The most astonishing claim presented by Focus on the Family here is that voting for Christians who share this worldview is a part of “honoring” the governing authorities. Again, this claim demands our deconstruction, but most followers simply say “Amen” and do what they’re told.
One of the most common phrases we hear from this group is that if you give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you’ll feed him for a lifetime. It’s a nice sound bite, but it assumes an entirely level playing field for all. All have the same access to fish, the same equipment and techniques, and plenty of fish for everybody. I assure you that this not the case, and so the wording is at best wishful thinking, a thought that works only in the abstract but not practically. To many, it’s simply a statement of shirking responsibility to love our neighbors, if it results in us losing anything that we believe belongs to us.
The absurdities we’re hearing today from the Christian Right all stem from the grand narrative first considered at Roman Emperor Constantine’s Church Council at Nice, where concepts considered heresy were discussed and dealt with, especially involving the divinity of Christ. Faith was transformed into creed, and thus was born the “true” church, one based on the rules and regulations of how all “should” behave in order to form a better society. That it led instead to the Dark Ages should surprise no one,
We are heading in that direction once again, if the fascism of the extreme right becomes the law of the land. We are much closer to civil war than anybody thinks, as the 21st-Century searches for its identity. If the right gets its way, that identity will certainly begin with the authority of its Biblical Worldview, because most are afraid of it or ignorant to its real purpose, which is to support and strengthen the grip of self-centered capitalists on Western Civilization.
If you wish to study the Bible, make sure you include serious time in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which spells out the best way to live our lives “under the sun” — our lives as human beings on planet Earth. There is nothing in this book that’s altered by the redemption of the Christ, so its wisdom is universal in how to best live our lives. This book is extremely significant for ferreting out the religious, because it contains the “shit happens” realities of living under the sun. It contradicts those Christians who insist that they are somehow immune from tragedy, above the wages of sin, and the worst comforting statement ever made by Christian “friends” to the suffering: “there’s a reason God allowed this to happen.”
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
Time and chance? That can’t be part of a Biblical Worldview, and yet, there it is.
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