Transcript: Lesson 2 - Worldview as Story

Friends, welcome back. This is unit one of sexuality and God's story we're thinking about especially  worldview and stories, understanding and thinking about how the big picture story of Scripture about  how the big picture of the Christian worldview connects with particular everyday topics, especially  things like singleness, marriage, sexuality, and family. So oftentimes, when we think about worldview,  we looked at last time at Al Walters definition of worldview as this comprehensive framework of  basic beliefs about things very broad, very big. But there's another angle to think about worldview as  well. And that is to think about a worldview as a story as a particular story. And in particular, to  understand it as a story that answers some specific questions. That part of what these the questions that  are posed through worldview, a story are these, who am I? How do I understand who I am, and my  place in the overarching order of things? We think about questions like, Where am I? How do we  understand the nature of reality? Right, the bigger world of which I am a part? What's the problem?  And by this, I want to clarify this question, especially all worldviews recognize, to some degree or  another, that, that something has gone wrong in the world, that there's something about the way things  are, that is actually not the way things are supposed to be. And so every worldview, whether it's  Christianity, or another religion, or or even things that we wouldn't even think of as religions. For  example, one of the most common worldviews in our time is individualism. And we'll unpack this a  little bit more in the next unit. But But a lot of times individualism says, The problem with the world is  that other people try to define me, other people try to tell me who I am, or they limit my own  understanding of myself. And so the problem is, is in many ways, other people, or something about my  own family, or background, or culture or tradition that that limits me. And so that is the problem that  gets identified. And then we ask, what is the solution? How do we address the problem that's identified. And so obviously, different worldviews, if they identify different problems, they're going to highlight  different solutions to those problems. And so it's important to recognize that all worldviews are telling a story about the nature of reality, that is really answering these different questions. Who am I? Where  am I? What's the problem? What's the solution? Now, I want to clarify as well, when we think about  these questions, these are not questions that are answered say in a typical classroom setting, at least for  most people, you don't, you'll go to kindergarten or somewhere along the line in fourth grade or  something like that. Your teacher says, Okay, here are these questions, and here are the answers to  them. So where do we learn the answers to these stories? Where do we learn the answers to these  questions that really shape how we think about our story and the world around us? It's not from that  kind of schoolroom setting, it's actually I would suggest, it's it's through symbols through images  through through stories that we tell through practice. And by practice, I just mean, the way that we live  our everyday life. So I think about this, let me give you a couple examples to help clarify this. A lot of  people one thing that many people care about is devotion to their particular country. Earlier this month,  we celebrated the Fourth of July, here in the US. And so this is a time when you know, people celebrate by shooting off fireworks by, you know, being thankful for American independence by looking back at  American history, by grilling out and just enjoying a day off with family and friends. That you can  think about the Fourth of July as actually really important day that teaches a lot of Americans some of  the answers to these questions. Who am I, I'm, I'm an American. I live in this country, here's how I  should think about this country. Here's maybe even the kind of loyalty or here's the kind of things I  should do to show that I care about my country. 

And so we learn all that typically not just through a kind of question and answer in a classroom setting,  but we learn it by Fourth of July day parades by times that honor veterans and other military members  who have served by even by how we conduct the posture of our bodies at certain points, that you if you 

go to a baseball game, in the summertime, the national anthem is played, what happens is everybody  stands and people will remove their hats or put their hands on their hearts. And so what's going on there is that something is being taught something is being communicated through the symbols and images  that we engage the flag, the National Anthem, so all of those things are teaching us are forming and  shaping Americans to think of themselves in a certain way, to function in that way. And now, this is 

what we have to be careful of, as Christians, even while we might say, I think, we can say political  structures are a good thing, different nations are a good thing. It can be easy to sometimes start to slip  actually into idolatry, of some of these other stories that are out there in our culture, even perhaps, in  different nations. And this is true of, of, I think many nations around the world that you can easily slide  from a kind of proper love for your country, love for your nation, into almost an idolatrous perspective  that says my nation is right no matter what that actually puts the kingdom of God kind of in a second  place after your particular nation. And so we learn, we learn the answers to these through our everyday, everyday practice. Let me give you one other example. down the road from my house. There is a  Meijer store in West Michigan. Fred Meijer, a couple of generations ago pioneered this idea of we're  going to have one store that has everything you could possibly need in that one location. So it's a  grocery store, it has clothing items, it has household goods, it has toys, it has pet store things, it has  outdoor garden stuff, it has hardware, automotive, it has a pharmacy, it has health and beauty section. I  didn't grow up in West Michigan, so the first time I came here, and I saw this store, I thought what in  the world is happening? It was it was beyond anything that I had ever seen before. Because where I  grew up in Iowa, we didn't have this kind of thing. Well, you know, one of the interesting things is that  going to Meijer on a regular basis, I think, shapes my attitude, and behavior. Meijer is all about  convenience. And so it's one stop shopping, I can go there, I can get everything I need, I expect an  abundance of choices, I expect that I'm going to be able to, you know, interact with employees who are  going to put my needs first and my convenience first. None of that is necessarily bad. In fact, it's a it's  been a good business model for Meijer, it's worked well. But I have to be aware of that, that is also  shaping me in a certain way so that I can start to place convenience, as this sort of most important  priority. So now when I, as a Christian, go to my church, I can oftentimes carry that attitude with me  that everything revolves around me, everything revolves around my convenience. And that it actually  weighed, it's damaging to what Scripture teaches about the call to serve love to call to care for others.  And so it's important to realize that worldview is not as simple as what I'm thinking of here. But that  I'm actually in my life. In my daily life and culture, I'm being trained all the time to think about what is  most valuable, what's most important, some of which are ways that are compatible with my faith, and  some of which are ways to actually work against my faith. And so I have to be sensitive to those things  and reflective about how that works. Now, when we talk about worldview as story, it's also important to see that all of these were all worldviews function as a kind of redemptive story. So Wilkens and  Sanford, in their book, hidden worldviews, saying this, all worldviews are ultimately about salvation,  even if they don't use that vocabulary. And what they mean by that is going to reference the story of  individualism, that there's a kind of salvation narrative there that, that if you're just true to yourself, and if you maybe don't let other people get in your way, don't don't. If you can remove them as obstacles.  Then you'll be able to function truly as an individual. 

Or others, you know, the consumeristic story of Meijer says, you know, if things are convenient enough if you accumulate enough or if you have what you want and need, that's where you're going to find  salvation. Another way to think about that this question is this, we asked what is going to provide true  rest. St. Augustine, one of the most well known and influential theologians of early Christianity, said  this, he said, Our hearts are restless, until they rest in you, speaking to God. And part of what he  realized is that the dynamic of human life is that we are often looking to some creative thing, not God,  looking to some creative things to provide that sense of real rest for ourselves where we say this, this is  the meaning of life, I really understand what it's about. And I really find peace and rest in this. But  because we struggle with sin, one way to understand that struggle with sin, is that we are looking for  rest in the wrong places. And so my friend, Laurie Krieg, puts it this way, she says, we tried to get the  good needs of our heart met through things that don't glorify God and don't satisfy us. And so part of  what we have to be aware of as Christians is that as we're engaging a broader culture, as we're engaging different stories out there about the meaning of life, is that these are alternative redemptive stories, that  they are, in that way, competitors, to Scripture as to the worldview of Christianity. And so as we engage

our broader culture, this means that we have to be aware of the way the different worldviews the the  way, the different, even anti christian worldviews are embedded into reality, and embedded into our  daily life and practice. Because of that fact, we have to start to cultivate the ability to see hidden  worldviews. This is the book I've referenced a couple times by Wilkins and Sanford hidden  worldviews. And what they say is that, I think is really helpful since these other worldviews are hiding  in plain sight. And what they mean by that is recognizing that these are ways of life that just seem  normal, or natural to us. So So, for me, living in West Michigan in 2019, it's normal and natural to  participate in the lifestyle of Meijer or participate in the lifestyle of Amazon, where I expected  everything to be convenient, where I'm constantly searching for the lowest price, I just think that's  normal. And part of what they want us to see is that there's actually a deep consumeristic worldview  under underneath that, that is aimed at really trying to satisfy the needs of our heart in ways that are not going to ultimately satisfy us, and they're not going to glorify God. So we have to start to cultivate this  ability to be reflective about our own experience, reflective about our own culture, to see the way that  those things are training us to function. They also highlight, I really appreciate this as well, that  Christians need a Christian worldview. And what they mean by that is, you know, it's not enough just to say, Hey, there are these other worldviews out there as Christians, so we need to be aware of them and  maybe even attack them or, or at least have an apologetic defense against them. But But what they're  saying is that, if we're honest, none of us are fully living out our faith, that all of us have areas where  maybe we are our confessional beliefs, what we say about what we believe are out of line with our  convictional beliefs, how we actually live and how we actually function. And so it's not that, you know, part of what I want to do in this course, is not to say here, let's think about a Christian worldview of  marriage, a family of singleness of sexuality. So you can use that to go like beat other people over the  head who don't get this, right. That's not the goal. The goal is not to use a Christian worldview, or use  scripture as his weapon to kind of hit people over the head. But rather, it's actually to say, how do we,  as Christians actually need to understand this and embody this in a better way ourselves, trusting that,  that as we are faithful to God, and as we live this out, this is going to be something that we'll use to  speak to others to communicate to others. 

But but the aim of this is actually first back at ourselves to be reflected in that way, not first and  foremost, to attack others out there. And so when I think about some of the topics we're going to  engage singleness, marriage, family, sexuality. You're these are these are topics these are these are ways of life things that we practice in our culture that oftentimes are very unreflective that we, we don't think about, you know what, why do I think about family this way? Why do we think about marriage this  way? Why do I think about singleness this way? It's often hiding in plain sight, that we are trained by  our broader the broader culture, by maybe our church cultures, by our families, by our friends, to think  about these things in certain ways. And maybe there's a level of reflection there. But what we want to  do is really dig deep and say, let's think about these things from a Christian perspective. Let's see what  Scripture says, Let's reflect on this together. So that we can, again, not not reflect on that so that we can beat people over the head out there, but so that we ourselves, understand that the depth and the riches  of how God is calling us to live and function in this way. And so we're trying to connect the  overarching story of Scripture with each of our individual stories, particularly how we understand our  sexuality, our singleness, our marriage, our families. And so that's, that's the goal is to bring those  things into line. Now in the next video, we're going to dig a little bit deeper into the biblical story, just  reflect a little bit on what that is, so that we have that as a baseline as we move forward into some of  the particular topics we're going to look at together. So until next time, blessings