Worldview

A high-level discussion between the prime minister and premiers of Canada and the leaders of the aboriginal communities gets bogged down. The native leaders insist that the morning session begin with a prayer from one of their elders. And before the prayer can be sung, there needs to be a rather lengthy introduction describing the role of the elderly in native communities. After the prayer the leaders then want to pass the peace pipe amongst all the participants. So far the prime minister’s patience is being tried, but he remains gracious, though he is starting to worry about the time. But during the first speech of the morning (already forty-five minutes late!) one of the native leaders reminds his governmental discussion partners that the land of Canada was given to the aboriginal peoples as a gift of the Great Spirit and that they have a responsibility to care for this gift as an inheritance to their children and their children’s children. At this point the prime minister’s patience runs out. Interrupting the speaker, he exclaims that this interjection of religion into a political discussion about land and constitutional rights is totally out of order and will only serve to grind the discussion to a halt. The native leaders sit in silence for a moment, totally dumbfounded by this outburst.

In this vignette we see two conflicting worldviews at work. Involved in these worldviews are different understandings of community leadership and land, together with parallel views of the environment and economics. For the aboriginal leaders the elders are the source of wisdom and continuity who teach and remind the younger generation that the land is entrusted to them as a gift. Consequently, the aboriginal peoples judged that sacrificing the environment to narrowly defined economic interests is reducing the land to a commodity that can be sold to the highest bidder. They believe that to consider this “progress” is an odd and alien way to think and act. Just as odd to the prime minister that morning is the idea that the land is a gift of the Great Spirit.

Another vignette from modern urban life points out the powerful influence of worldviews. During a time of economic boom this sign is found in front of a downtown construction site: “Freedom for $999,000!” One is torn between thinking that this is a deal and that perhaps freedom is a tad too expensive. What could this sign mean? It is an advertisement for a condominium tower that is being erected. You can buy a luxury downtown condo for this amount of money. As you walk away, you know that you do not have that kind of money. But more importantly you are wondering whether any price can be put on freedom.

The notions of land as a gift of the Great Spirit and freedom as purchasable for a mere $999,000 are literally worlds apart, indeed worldviews apart.

What Is a Worldview?

The term worldview comes from the German word Weltanschauung and connotes a global perspective, an overarching view of the world that directs our life in the world. Worldviews are communally held frameworks of interpretation that provide the normative orientation of a community. A worldview tells the community what the world is ultimately like and how they ought to comport themselves in that world. As such, worldviews are always incarnated; they take on cultural flesh. Far from being merely a system of thought, a worldview animates a culture’s imagination, being the source of dreams, ethos and passion. It is the context in which the language of purchasing freedom for $999,000 or receiving land as a gift of the Great Spirit is deemed plausible or implausible. For the condo dweller this Great Spirit talk is nonsense. For the aboriginal leader, the language of buying freedom is inconceivable.

Worldviews are both visions of life and visions for life. They are both descriptive of the world, providing their adherents with the lens through which they can understand and interpret the world, and prescriptive for the world, providing the community with its most foundational values and norms. As such worldviews tell us both what the world is and what it ought to be. Never a matter of interesting speculation, a worldview, like the leaven of the gospel (Matthew 13:33), permeates and flavors one’s whole life.

Worldview Questions

Worldviews are religious in character. They provide their adherents with ultimate answers to ultimate questions, at least these four: (1) Where are we? or What is the nature of the reality in which we find ourselves? (2) Who are we? or What is the nature and task of human beings? (3) What’s wrong? or How do we understand and account for evil and brokenness? and (4) What’s the remedy? or How do we find a path through our brokenness to wholeness? Such ultimate questions require ultimate answers. Worldviews then are rooted in a faith stance—a stance in relation to that which is taken to be ultimate. Implied in the difficulties of communication in the story recounted at the beginning of this article are different sources of ultimacy.

Worldviews and Story

All worldviews entail a story, a myth that provides its adherents with an understanding of their own role in the global struggle between good and evil. Such a story tells us who we are in time and why we are here. For example, the way in which American history is taught to children and proclaimed on the political campaign trail is a good example of such a myth. The worldview of the “American dream” is the official and orthodox worldview of the United States and is proclaimed with equal conviction by both Democrats and Republicans. This worldview is rooted in the Enlightenment progress myth, which sees history as a story of cumulative development leading up to modern times and especially to America.

Therefore we can say that worldviews are storied visions of and for life. The grounding story of a culture provides it with its founding memories that serve as the source of its most hopeful visions. It is only by knowing from where we have come that we can begin to discern where we are going. Again, this is amply illustrated by our opening vignettes. If a culture’s story is one of conquest and progress defined in terms of economic growth and technological superiority, then the language of buying freedom for a price or negotiating land rights as if land were a commodity will make total sense. If, however, a community’s story revolves around dependence on and harmony with nature (not conquest) and tells tales of the Great Spirit and the ancestors’ wisdom, then that community will respond to contemporary life in a very different way.

Worldview Crises

A worldview is only sustainable as long as it serves to integrate and provide meaningful and normative direction for life. Just as worldviews provide an interpretive lens through which life is perceived and experienced, so also does the daily experience of life serve to confirm or undermine one’s worldview. For example, some people actually have that $999,000 to buy freedom. And they spend that money, get that condo, fill it with expensive furnishings and engage in all of the activities that the dominant secular worldview says will secure freedom. But they still don’t feel free. They continue to feel enslaved to the imperative to make even more money because this is the only way to guarantee their freedom. Or they continue to be plagued by past emotional crises. Or perhaps they are daily confronted with the poverty of those who live on the street just a block away from their $999,000 piece of freedom, and the contradiction between these two lifestyles drives them to begin to question the justice of their own affluence.

When a person (or a whole culture) begins to experience increased tension between his or her worldview and actual experience, then a worldview crisis begins to loom. For example, when the self-assured worldview of secular progress and unparalleled affluence is confronted with the realities of environmental breakdown, economic recession, international injustice and widespread personal and emotional brokenness, then that worldview is in crisis. Because the gap between the two is so great, the worldview begins to lose its grasp on the hearts and imaginations of its adherents. On a personal level a worldview crisis gives rise to the gravest sort of anxiety because the very ground on which you stand is now uncertain and you become unsure who you are, what the meaning of life is and where you are going. When such a crisis occurs within the dominant worldview of a culture, then the very scaffolding on which the culture stands begins to collapse, and the masses are cast adrift, exposed and unprotected.

A Christian Worldview

A Christian worldview is only Christian in so far as it is biblical. The Bible answers for us the ultimate worldview questions: (1) Where are we? We live in the creation that God calls into being, wisely structures and lovingly guides by his creative Word. (2) Who are we? We are special creatures called to love, worship and image God in our faithful stewardship of this creation. (3) What’s wrong? We are broken in our relationships with God, each other and the creation because we have fallen into sin and now serve false idols rather than the true God. (4) What’s the remedy? God has lovingly chosen to redeem us and the whole creation by making a covenant with Israel and fulfilling that covenant in the incarnation, cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Scriptures are a worldview book; they tell the story of God’s relation to us and to all of creation—a dramatic story of creation, lostness and rescue—which becomes our story and the basis of our identity as the people of God when we turn to Jesus Christ in faith. Moreover, a biblical worldview understands creation, fall and redemption in comprehensive terms. All of reality is creaturely, all of creation is distorted by human disobedience, and Jesus Christ comes to restore all things. Consequently, the biblical worldview is truly a worldview—all of reality falls within its compass.

» See also: Culture

» See also: Ethnocentrism

» See also: Mission

» See also: Pluralism

References and Resources

J. H. Olthius, “On Worldviews,” Christian Scholar’s Review 14, no. 2 (1985) 153-64; J. W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic World View Catalog, 2d ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988); N. Smart, Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs (New York: Scribner, 1983); B. J. Walsh, “Worldviews, Modernity and the Task of Christian College Education,” Faculty Dialogue 18 (fall 1982) 13-35; B. J. Walsh and J. R. Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984).

—Brian J. Walsh