1. Worldview and the Mission of the Local Congregation
Michael W. Goheen
Catalyst West, 2010

2. Worldview and Academic Setting
Term ‘worldview’ introduced into English speaking Christianity end of 19th/ beginning of 20th c.
Just after mid-20th c. term very popular
Primarily in academic circles
Local congregation?

3. George Barna poll:
12% evangelicals knew what a worldview was
12% give adequate definition
4% said they needed to know anything about it!

4. More seriously . . .
How many Christians understand the implications of the gospel for whole lives?
How many Christians understand religious beliefs shaping their culture?
How many Christians understand the complex interaction of gospel and culture in every part of lives?

5. Margaret Oldham’s pragmatism
“I just sort of accept the way the world is and then don’t think about it a whole lot.”

6. Why it’s so important!
“ the deep-seated and persistent failure of the churches to recognize that . . .
. . . the primary witness to the sovereignty of Christ must be given, and can only be given, in the ordinary secular work of lay men and women in business, in politics, in professional work, as farmers, factory workers and so on.”

7. People in Local Congregation?
Businessman in business driven by profit motive
Ph.D. student in postmodern university
Worker in humanistic psych hospital
History teacher in public school
Politician in liberal government

8. Living Faithfully in Culture
The problem of leading a Christian life in a non-Christian society is now very present to us. It is not merely the problem of a minority in a society of individuals holding an alien belief. It is the problem constituted by our implication in a network of institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves; institutions the operation of which appears no longer neutral, but non-Christian; and as for the Christian who is not conscious of his dilemma—and he is in the majority—he is becoming more and more de-Christianized by all sorts of unconscious pressures . . .
(T.S. Eliot,1946)

9. My story Taught worldview studies in university for almost 20 years
Journey began as pastor of local congregation
Theological deepening
Gospel of the kingdom
Cultural mission of church
Communal nature of idolatry
Spiritual battle for all of human life

10. My story How can I equip congregation for callings?
How can I equip congregation to live faithfully in world?
Adult education—resources?
Two ‘toolboxes’ of resources: worldview tradition (Kuyperian tradition) and missiology (Newbigin etc.)

11. Biblical starting points
Gospel of the kingdom

12. Good News!
God’s intention to restore the whole creation and the full scope of human life to again live under his rule
Rich and comprehensive doctrine of creation
Scope and power of sin
Restorative nature and comprehensive scope of salvation
Present battle for entire creation

13. Narrowing of Salvation
The early Christian belief [i.e.,Scriptural belief] that the Fall and Redemption pertained not just to man, but to the entire cosmos, a doctrine already fading after the Reformation, now [under secularism of 19th c.] disappeared altogether: the process of salvation, if it had any meaning at all, pertained solely to the personal relation between God and man (Tarnas).

14. Biblical starting points
Gospel of the kingdom
Comprehensive mission of the church

15. The Spirit thrusts God’s people into worldwide mission.
He impels young and old, men and women, to go next door and far away
into science and art, media and marketplace
with the good news of God’s grace (CT, 32)

16. Following the apostles, the church is sent–
sent with the gospel of the kingdom . . .
In a world estranged from God,
where millions face confusing choices,
this mission is central to our being,
for we announce the one name that saves (CT, 44)

17. The rule of Jesus Christ covers the whole world.
To follow this Lord is to serve him everywhere,
without fitting in,
as lights in the darkness,
as salt in a spoiling world.
(CT, 45)

18. Biblical starting points
Gospel of the kingdom
Comprehensive mission of the church
Narrowing of gospel  narrowing of mission
Communal nature of idolatry

19. Incomparably the most urgent missionary task for the next few decades is the mission to ‘modernity’... It calls for the use of sharp intellectual tools, to probe behind the unquestioned assumptions of modernity and uncover the hidden credo which supports them...
- Lesslie Newbigin

20. Culture: Common way of life rooted in shared core of religious beliefs

21. Biblical starting points
Gospel of the kingdom
Comprehensive mission of the church
Cultural idolatry
Individualising of sin
Neutral public square
Spiritual battle for all creation

22. Clash of Kingdoms

23. Can worldview studies help to recover this biblical teaching?

24. Origins of worldview tradition
Important lectures by Abraham Kuyper and James Orr
Orr, Kerr Lectures, Scotland, 1891
Kuyper, Stone Lectures, Princeton, 1898
Deep sense of need to liberate and protect the Christian faith from a hostile cultural worldview
Cultural engagement: Positive and negative
Took hold of term from German philosophy: weltanschaaung which meant a set of comprehensive beliefs that underlie and shape all of action and thought
Made popular by a whole host of writers (e.g., Francis Schaeffer)

25. Common Commitments of Kuyper and Orr
Christianity has a comprehensive and unified view of the world rooted in gospel
Modern worldview threatening gospel:
Another comprehensive and unified view of the world
Fundamentally religious
Embodied in forms of social and cultural life
To some degree antithetical to Christianity
Christianity’s only defence against the power of modernism is to develop an equally comprehensive worldview.

26. ‘If the battle is to be fought with honour and with a hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle; then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing life system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life system of equally comprehensive and far reaching power.’ (Abraham Kuyper, Stone Lecture 1).

27. Kuyper’s primary concern . . .
All of life be lived under Lordship of Jesus Christ
“There is not a square inch of the entire domain of human life of which Christ the Sovereign does not say ‘That is mine!’ ”

28. Kuyper’s vision of cosmic Lordship of Christ challenges three assumptions:
Reality is segregated into two realms, sacred and secular, and gospel concerned only with the sacred

29. Sacred/Secular Dualism

30. Kuyper’s vision of cosmic Lordship of Christ challenges three assumptions:
Reality is segregated into two realms, sacred and secular, and gospel concerned only with the sacred
Gospel transforms only individuals but not society
Enlightenment notion that public life is religiously neutral

31. Importance of Tension
The deeper the consciousness of the tension and the urge to take this yoke upon itself are felt, the healthier the Church is. The more oblivious of this tension the Church is, the more well established and at home in this world it feels, the more it is in deadly danger of being the salt that has lost its savour
(Hendrik Kraemer).

32. Areas of worldview studies
Biblical story and its most basic beliefs
Cultural story and its most basic beliefs
Tension of living at the crossroads between two stories

33. Living at the Crossroads

34. Enriching and critiquing worldview tradition?
Pietistic tradition
Missiology
Three neglected themes:
Suffering
Spirituality
Community

35. Resources for local congregation
To enable people to live whole of lives as witness to Lordship of Christ
To understand relation of gospel to various sectors of life
To understand the religious nature of culture

36. Need for . . .
Pastors and leaders who understand worldview issues

37. Pastors who understand worldview issues
At the most sophisticated level we have to think of our task in a city like Madras to train our lay members who are playing key roles in the life of government, business, and the professions to become ministers of Christ in these secular situations. All of this is involved in our calling and ordination (Newbigin).

38. A True Pastor
For the Christian layman who is really out in the world, really seeking to be subject for the Lord’s sake to the human institutions about which we are speaking, the political order, the economic order and so forth, really seeking to face the desperate difficult decisions that this involves, seeking to bear on his heart the obligation of his participation in these orders, to keep his conscience both sharp and clear, this man knows that he needs one thing: he needs a true pastor.

39. Need for . . . Pastors and leaders who understand worldview issues
Congregational structures and adult education to equip for callings

40. There is urgent need for the Church to give higher priority to the formation of groups of Christian men and women in particular sectors of public life. These would include education, industry, commerce, politics, drama, the arts, the natural and social sciences, and historical studies. The groups would explore ways in which a Christian perspective can be developed in these areas, and ways in which this perspective can challenge and redirect contemporary practice (Newbigin).