My Worldview

So what's a worldview? In my opinion, a worldview should attempt to answer four basic questions about life. Origin, meaning, morality, & destiny. How did I get here, what gives life meaning, how do I define right and wrong, what happens when I die?

For folks who don't know me, I am convinced that the Christian worldview is true. Its not that the Christian faith makes me feel warm and fuzzy (although sometimes it does). Its that I believe the Christian faith provides the most comprehensive and collectively complete answers to these questions.

So why is that important? I guess I feel like too many times, I've seen non-Christians and Christians (myself included) get into a heated debate about something which is really a by-product of our particular worldviews. Take any of the heated political issues of the day. If someone believes that human life has happened by random chance and that each person can define their own moral code, we shouldn't be surprised at all to find out they are OK with abortion and stem cell research. What we need to do as Christians is understand that the problem lies a lot deeper than a person's view on homosexuality or the political candidate they happen to support. We need to find a way to meet them in their worldview and then show them the superiority of ours!

I think this is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said he wanted to be "all things to all people, so that by all possible means, I might save some." We live in culture that has a built-in discrimination against all things religious - particularly Christian. Not fair, but that's life. Our challenge should be to understand not only what we believe, but what's the worldview behind WHY we believe. Does Christianity make sense to us? If so, we should be able to explain why it does. Sometimes a simple question back to the person who is questioning us can open the door to the real foundational issue that needs to be looked at. (Just think about how often Jesus did this).

In any case, I don't think it takes an apologetics scholar or theology graduate to defend the Christian faith in everyday life. It simply takes each one of us being committed to always being "ready to give an answer for the hope that we have."