Monday, January 16, 2012

World View: Modern, Post-Modern and Other

Each culture has a world view -- ie. a grid through which it interprets the universe. An extremely diverse culture, like modern America for example, might have a number of world views.

There is a large group with a modern world view. The universe and truth are knowable. The universe follows rules which we can discover and leverage using science and technology. Problems can be solved using these tools.

There is a group group with a post-modern world view. No one can really understand the universe and truth, because there is no starting point that we can be sure of. We can learn some things, but we have no basis for sureness.

There are a growing number of spiritual world views: Islam, Buddhism,  Hinduism, Feng Shui, Wicca. Traditional Christianity is decreasing. Is that because the power of the gospel is decreasing"? Or is it because traditional Christianity is linked strongly to modernism?

Modern science and technology are rooted in modernism. Modernism is rooted in Christianity. And Christianity was an appropriate place to begin, because there was a real God who created a real universe. The universe was designed and followed laws. And God revealed himself and sufficient truth about the universe so people had a real place to begin..

There has been a pulling away from the roots. There have been a pulling away from the source. So, traditional Christianity does not sit on a strong base anymore.

Followers of Jesus need to rediscover the roots. The need to re-establish links to the God who created them and not the forms of expression that once successfully displayed who God is and who his family is.

I am not calling for a complete abandonment of all tradition. But are we holding tightly enough to Jesus and loosely enough to its expressions, that we can let go of the expressions if they no longer serve the gospel?

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