St John's Parish Church, Lindow http://www.saint-johns.org.uk

Christianity Speaks Today

Week 1: The world – how does the Christian understand it?

The title for week 1 in many ways summarises what we will be aiming to do over these next five weeks together. We will be looking at the world and trying to discover how Christians make sense of it. Or in other words our aim together is to develop what is known as a Christian worldview. Let me show you what I mean.

Now all of us have those ‘spectacles’ through which we see the world. We can’t help it. We all think about the world in a certain way. We all have some sort of framework in our heads that makes sense of life for us. Some have thought it through, others have simply developed it subconsciously through many years of life experience. But each one of us sees the world through a pair of ‘spectacles.’ These ‘spectacles’ are our framework of reference that determine how we interpret what we see in the world at large. They have an impact on all aspects of our life.

For example, they help us determine what is right and wrong; about what is acceptable and what is not; about what is justified and what is unjustified; about what is natural and what is unnatural. None of us can live in this world and not have a worldview. We all have one! We all have a particular way of making sense of the things that happen in our world.

To show this let’s look at a practical example together. Below is a rather gruesome image of a lion eating its prey.

It’s not a pretty sight is it? But people can look at that picture and understand it in different ways. You can look at the picture and say ‘Well that’s just the way the world is, nature red in tooth and claw.’ Another way would be to say ‘What a horrific scene! I’m sure looking forward to the resurrection at the end of the age when all this will be stopped and all the lions will be vegetarians.’ You could say that. It would all depend on your frame of reference. There are many ways to understand the picture but the way you do is determined by your framework of reference, your worldview. For example, if your worldview tells you that the world has always been the way we see it today then that picture would be completely natural to you. However, if your framework of reference told you that at some point the world had undergone a cataclysmic change then that picture may encourage you to hope for better things. It all depends on how you see the world.

Now the aim of this course is to present you with a Christian framework of reference that you can use to make sense of the world around you. Consider this course ‘the Vision Express of St Johns Lindow.’ The course that will provide you with Christian ‘spectacles’ through which you can understand the world. We’re not going to change the facts of the world (we cannot do that) but we are going to look at a Christian way of interpreting them.

In fact, let me tell you exactly what we will do over the next five weeks.

Tonight we will begin to develop that Christian framework and then in the weeks to come start to apply it to concrete and practical situations. It’s an ambitious task and so let me ask you to set your expectations at the correct level.

So there we are, that’s what this course is about – developing a Christian mind. It’s a course that will show us what a Christian worldview looks like.

Why will we do it?

• Biblical beliefs

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV): "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Romans 12:1-2 (The Message): "So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out."

You may have noticed the word ‘therefore’ at the beginning of Romans chapter 12. Paul has just spent the past 11 chapters talking about the mercy God has shown to us as Christians and now turns his attention to the response we are expected to make in light of what God has already done for us. Our response to God’s mercy is to offer him everything that we are and everything we ever will be. There is to be no part of our life that is to be kept from God’s sovereign influence and control. There can be no control freaks in the kingdom of Christ! When we declare Jesus is Lord we mean he is Lord over every aspect of our lives. And this includes our minds! Paul says that we are not to conform to the world’s thinking but instead are to undergo a radical mental transformation of thinking. Or as ‘The Message’ puts it we are not to become so well-adjusted to our culture that we fit into it without even thinking. We have a duty and an obligation to develop a Christian mind!

Ephesians 4:17-24 (NIV): "So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continued lust for more. You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

Here Paul takes up a similar theme to his statement in Romans. The Christian always has an obligation to change their character in the light of what they have been taught and come to know about Jesus. In this passage he tells them to ‘put off’ their former way of life (the illustration of undressing) and ‘put on’ the new way of living. And as in Romans chapter 12 this new way of living includes a new attitude of the mind.

So we can say that the Christian does have an obligation, in response to God’s mercy, to develop a renewed way of thinking. There is a Biblical basis to cultivate a Christian mind.

• Cultural concerns

In the 1960s Harry Blamires wrote a book called ‘The Christian Mind.’ In it he laments, what he calls, ‘the surrender to secularism’ of the Christian mind. That is the abandonment by Christians of a Christian mind in favour of a secular worldview. A few quotes from his book with give us some food for thought and a flavour of his position:

"The Christian mind – a mind trained, informed, equipped to handle data of secular controversy within a framework of reference which is constructed of Christian presuppositions."

"There is no longer a Christian mind …(it) has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history. It is difficult to do justice in words to the complete loss of intellectual morale in the twentieth-century Church. One cannot characterise it without having recourse to language which will sound hysterical and melodramatic. There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality … but as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularisation."

"My thesis amounts to this. Except over a very narrow field of thinking, chiefly touching questions of strictly personal conduct, we Christians in the modern world accept, for the purposes of mental activity, a frame of reference constructed by the secular mind and a set of criteria reflecting secular evaluations."

"The modern Christian … (is a) schizophrenic type who hops in and out of his Christian mentality as the topic of conversation changes from the Bible to the day’s newspaper, or the field of action changes from Christian stewardship to commercial advertising, or the environment changes from the vestry to the office."

Is this still the state of Christianity today? Os Guinness, in his book ‘Fit Bodies, Fat Minds,’ argues that it is. Although the focus of his study is on American Christianity (and more particularly on American Evangelicalism) we in Britain would be wise to listen to his prophetic words. In his book he traces the gradual decline of Christian thinking over many years, highlights some of the reasons for this, and then leads us to the inevitable consequences – in his words ‘a ghost mind’ ending in ‘an idiot culture.’ One of his main points is that the vacuum left when we stop thinking Christianly is quickly filled by other ways of secular thinking. If his analysis of the situation is right then there are cultural concerns that should prompt us to cultivate a Christian mind.

There are many ways we could approach the task of constructing a Christian mind but my personal preference is to follow the framework provided by the Bible itself.

Let us be clear about this – we are not looking for simple proof texts! No our task is to "saturate ourselves in the fullness of the Scriptural revelation." When we do this we discover that the overall Bible story divides into 4 major events – we will adopt these for our Christian worldview.

• The Creation (The beginning of everything)

It is fundamental and foundational to the Christian faith that in the beginning God created the universe out of nothing. The magnificent Bible story opens with the main actor on page 1 – it is God in all his glory creating a good world for his creatures to live in. The Bible informs us that God was in sovereign control and that the original creation was very good. Planet earth, all the animals and the human race did not emerge by chance but as the result of a conscious decision from the all-powerful God.

Humans were created to have a central part in God’s plans for the world. Only they were said to have been created in the ‘image of God’ and only they were given the responsibility to care for the planet in which they would inhabit. God had special plans for the human race. Next week we will look in more detail at the Christian doctrine of Creation but for now let us be satisfied that this planet is not here by chance and that in the beginning everything was very good.

(some useful references: Genesis 1-2; Psalm 8; 104; 139)

• The Fall (The rebellion of mankind)

The second pillar in our Christian framework is the Biblical doctrine of the Fall. I cannot stress enough how important this aspect of Christian teaching needs to be in our own thinking. Without it we will never understand why the world that we live in has turned out to be the way it is or why people behave in the way that they do. John Stott has said that "All our human alienation, disorientation and sense of meaninglessness stem from this." The doctrine of the Fall tells us that although mankind was created to live in God’s good world under his loving rule they rejected that rule and rebelled against their maker. The consequences of this action, by our distant ancestors, are still felt in our world today. What they did in the past still effects us today. Some of those effects are listed in Genesis chapter 3:

• A distortion of the relationships between mankind and nature
• A distortion of the relationships between mankind and God
• A distortion of the relationships between men and women
• The introduction of death, decay and suffering into the world (remember the lion picture!)

Much of what we see around us was not part of the original creation. Each one of us is born as a fallen creature and we all live in a fallen world. The problem of sin is all around us!

(some useful references: Genesis 3; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 5:12-21)

• The Redemption (The plan of rescue)

But God did not abandon his creatures or his creation. Instead he chose to begin the process of redemption. From as early on as Genesis 3:15 there is the promise of restoration – the promise of the Serpent Crusher! One day there would come a Saviour who would reverse the effects of the Fall and deal with the problem of human rebellion. Jesus is that promised Saviour! His mission was bigger than just the rescue of a few human souls. He came to bring in a new age of restoration. Only his death and resurrection could achieve this!

(some useful references: the whole Bible; Romans 3:21-26; 1 Peter 1:17-21)

• The Consummation (The end of the story)

This last strand of Biblical thinking is important because it introduces us to the tension of our modern predicament. The Bible says that as Christians we live in the tension between the now but the not yet. Yes Jesus did come to establish a new age and yes he did come to restore all things but we still await the full inauguration of that age. There is a day coming when death, decay, suffering and pain will vanish but that day is still not here. There is a day coming when this fallen world will be restored and recreated but that day is still not here. We are in the process of restoration now but will not see it completed until the day when Jesus returns again. There is a tension between the ‘already’ but ‘the still to come.’

(some useful references: Romans 8:18-27; 2 Peter 3:10-13; Isaiah 11:1-9)

Here then are the four aspects of a Christian worldview. These should help us to think about the problems and concerns of our modern world from a Christian angle and should also set our expectations correctly for what we might be able to accomplish in this life.

Summary

• We need to develop a Christian mind – a Christian framework of reference
• We do this because of Biblical beliefs and also cultural concerns
• To do this we saturate ourselves in the whole Biblical story

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