War of the Worldviews

IBC-Bolingbrook, August 1 ,2010

The Christian Worldview

Mark 12:30

“And thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…”

How do we (or they) think?• Western (and some near-Eastern) philosophy/worldviews can be broken down

roughly into 3 eras:

• Premodern, Modern, Postmodern.

• Overlap between the eras.

• Overall worldview answers the basic questions of existence. Who are we? How did we get here? Where are we going? How do we know what truth is? Reality?

• Culture reflective of the dominant worldview .

Premodern era

• From Christ until the late 18th century.

• In the West (and near-East), dominated by the Judeo-Christian and Classical (Greco-Roman) worldview.

• Belief in the rationality of the universe.

• Reality is not confined to the observable, and is more then just nature.

• There is purpose within the universe

Premodern era• There are reasons for things, not just “because,” but “so

that” or “in order that.”

• Truth is knowable, and corresponds to reality.

• Language is referential.

• The world has been created and sustained by God (or gods for the pagans).

• History is following a pattern, and is linear (going somewhere-God’s will).

Premodern era• Having “individual rights” and “personal religion” not

considered as important as today.

• Honor, social conformity, and “family values” more important.

• No such thing as “separation of church and state”.

• Metaphysics (beyond the physical world, “spiritual”) as a worthy and rational pursuit also important.

So….• How easily could Christians participate and

contribute to culture?

• What do you think morals and manners were like for the most part?

• What do you think “secular” culture was like in this era?

Modern Era• Roughly 1789-1989 (Oden)• Significant overlap with Premodern thought but

gradually dominant. • In short, kept the conception of the world but

removed the metaphysical or supernatural background.

• Early figures include Descartes, Kant, Bacon, and Newton

• Early Moderns such as Descartes kept Christianity, but deism and eventually atheism came to be in vogue.

Modern Era• Maintained that the universe is objective apart from

humanity.

• Maintained the referential theory of language.

• Truth is still knowable.

• Huge emphasis on rationality and certainty.

• Naturalism, restricts knowledge to what is observable with the five senses and deduced.

Modern Era• Humanism grows (man is the center of reality

and autonomous). • Naturalism, restricts knowledge to what is

observable with the five senses and deduced.• Meaning or cause found in the natural world

instead of above or beyond. • History is still linear, but the pattern is within not

without. • Only causes, not purposes.

Modern Era• Sought an overall theory that would cover all

things (Erickson). • Darwin accounts for biology.• Freud explains behavior.• Marx explains history as economically

progressing towards a class-less society.• “These ideologies offered universal diagnoses as

well as universal cures.” (Erickson)

So…• Early Modern thought was for the most part still

friendly to the Christian worldview (i.e., Newton dabbling in Theology).

• The 19th century is the focal point of a huge shift. (Origin of Species, 1859; The Communist Manifesto, 1848, Freud’s Books, 1898 and on).

• Causes big shifts in theology (“Higher criticism” and modernist ideology causes schisms in many denominations (1880-1930 in America, Fundamentalist vs. Liberal controversy).

So…• How easily could Christians participate and

contribute to culture?

• What do you think morals and manners were like for the most part?

• What do you think “secular” culture was like in this era?

Postmodern Era• Most easily understood as a reaction to or radical

extension of modernism.• Disillusionment and uncertainty are key.• World Wars, Genocides, Ecological Disasters,

Crime etc…are we getting better?• Two ways of looking at postmodernism: A reaction against modernism, or taking the extremes of modernism and making them more extreme (Oden calls this, ‘ultramodernism’).

Postmodern Era• Four modern ideas are breaking down:1. The idea that the universe is “self-contained.”2. The basis for a modern morality and society. 3. An optimistic view of “progress.”4. Knowledge is inherently good.

• An opportunity for the Christian worldview?

Postmodern EraFour late modern ideas that are collapsing:1. Individualism2. Narcissistic hedonism3. Reductive naturalism (depersonalization)4. Absolute Moral Relativism

This has led to, “gun battles between nine-year-old boys in ornate tennis shoes…300,000 babies born with drug addictions, and “family” entertainment filled with sex and violence…human freedom lost…relativist dogmatism.” (Oden, After Modernity…What?)

Postmodern EraRadical Postmodernism includes:1. Deconstructionism (Derrida). The reader

decides meaning, not the author or the text (reader-response).

2. Neo-Pragmatism. Truth becomes what is good or useful for us to believe.

3. New History. No meaning to be discovered, historians are supposed to be creative, pluralistic, no universal truths.

So…• Postmodernism can be difficult to define. • Critiques of the excesses of modernism are

good. • Rejecting Truth, Language, and Historical

Knowledge is “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”

• We live in an era of cultural “decadence,” where everything seems to have stagnated and become corrupt. (Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence)

So…• How easily can Christians participate and

contribute to culture?

• What do you think morals and manners are like for the most part?

• What do you think “secular” culture is like in this era?

What has been lost?• The Premodern and early Modern West’s cultural

history is church cultural history (also Classical). • Over 1800 years of Judeo-Christian cultural history.• The Church and the Court the two primary leaders

and supporters in arts and culture.• The Western Christian world has abandoned much of

this.• This can be seen in a variety of subjects, such as

Architecture, Music, Manners, Politics/Econmics etc… • And we wonder why Christians lack an identity?

Architecture

Which Church Buildings Do not Belong With the Rest?

Architecture

First Baptist Church, Providence, RI

Architecture

Sagene Church, Oslo, Norway

Architecture

Salisbury Cathedral,England

Architecture

IBC-Bolingbrook

Architecture

Leroy Baptist Church, New York

Architecture

Lutheran Cathedral, Helsinki, Finland

Architecture

Pisa Cathedral, Italy

Architecture

Park Street Church, Boston

Architecture

Abundant Living Faith Center, El Paso, Texas

Architecture

Hagios Demetrios, Thessaloniki, Greece

Architecture

Hodge Chapel, Beeson Divinity School, Alabama

Architecture

Barclay Church, Edinburgh, Scotland

Architecture

Grossmunster, Zurich, Switzerland

Architecture

Church of St. Bernedette, Barlay, France

Lifeway Survey (Southern Baptist)

• 1684 unchurched adults (haven’t attended in 6 months).

• Survey completed in April, 2008.• Given 4 church style building pictures, asking for

preference. • Winner by a 5 to 2 margin was the Gothic style

(like the medieval cathedrals). • Young people (25-34) preferred the traditional

style even more then the old.

Manners

• Manners reflect what a culture values.• Almost always communicated top-down in history

(Court, Church, Family).• “Manners have been called ‘little morals’, both

showing the respect due from one human being to another. In truth, one finds that the degree of formality in social intercourse varies in step with other cultural characteristics…it matches the dogmas of the age in politics, psychology, and aesthetics.”-From Dawn to Decadence, 351

Manners• What do you think manners were like in 16th century

Italy? 17th century Spain? 18th century England? • What are they like now?• Should Christians in today’s world have manners more

like 18th century Vienna or 20th century Chicago?• In reference to looser relations between the sexes in the

1920’s (Barzun writes, “Informality had become the fashion and it simplified encounters; for etiquette is a barrier, the casual style an invitation. The soft collar, the short skirt, the slip-on shoe accompanied a new feeling of camaraderie between the sexes that encouraged meeting and dashing about in sports cars…” (Barzun, 734)

Solutions?• Conforming to the late modern or extreme

postmodern views and the resultant culture is not a solution (perhaps part of the problem).

• “Getting Stuck” in the late 19th century without the 1800 years of Christian culture before, and the good things after not a solution.

• Voting won’t change this (although it is important).

• What about the Classical Christian tradition?

Solutions?• Informed young people are joining the “high

church.”• “Evangelicals profess a deep yearning for greater

spiritual authenticity. This yearning has led some into Catholic (Roman) churches, and others in to Greek Orthodoxy in a desperate search for a home…some pockets of Catholicism are less tainted by modernity…and Greek Orthodoxy is even less tainted then Catholicism…” (David Wells, God in the Wasteland, 226)

• Is IBC willing to step up?

War• There is a war going on for the heart, mind, and

soul of Western culture. • Should the church be leading or following?• If the Christian worldview is all-encompassing,

how are we doing? Music? Literature? Art? Manners?

• What about excellence? (Col. 3:23)• Can we reclaim and reform the West?• The foundation is already there…

Personal Info

Email: aarondhayes@gmail.com

Web/blog: hayesworldview.wordpress.com

Powerpoint/notes will be available on website