How we view the world shapes how we see everything else. Worldview really can't be emphasized enough when considering our actions, motives, desires, and dreams. Ask someone if they believe that people are inherently good, and then ask them about welfare or social reform, correlations abound. Ask someone if they believe people can really change on a character level, then ask how they treat people who have betrayed them.
When you consider what Jesus had to say about forgiveness, sin, grace, and punishment, much of it reflects Christ's worldview, the Christian worldview. In saying Christian worldview, what I actually mean is to view the world as really is- both in the physical and spiritual reality. Neither the ideal [and future Kingdom] of "if we could all just obey God's commands," nor the pessimistic rhetoric of "we're all just stuck here and we do the best we can" will suffice in this description.
[SIDE NOTE: Doug Pagitt calls for a little reform in this discussion of worldview, asking for worldlife instead of worldview. Since it illustrates the point further that we live out of what we view, I'll go with it. Worldlife it is.]
The Christian worldlife, then, would be a grand view of God's kingdom in the middle of this world. It would be the acknowledgement of suffering, the hope of a future, the beauty of a flower, and the glory of spiritual [re]birth. Many clamoring voices today are calling for a separated worldlife. Some want "religion" in it's own little compartment, away from the facts of real life. Others want to issue moral codes, and cannot wait for God to come back and clean up this place.
I guess the trick is following God through the terrain of this life. Sometimes it's green and shady, other times it's miry and dirty, but through both we tread, onward in obedience as our agenda. I believe the only time when we will be able to obediently walk with the lepers and weep with the prostitutes is when we are near them physically. Incarnational.
It's all still so foreign to me, but I'm making strides to get there. I'm becoming a Big Brother this month, and our desire is for Vox to be embedded in the community for God's sake [literally]. Making rubber meet road here is so difficult and, as a good friend pointed out recently, quite messy. So, here's to worldview meeting worldlife...
aching view
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