CHAPTER TWO
THE BIG "SO WHAT?"
This book is not just about surviving as a Christian in high school, college, and beyond.That goal is much too defeatist and limited, like saying, “Okay, we know you’re going to get beat up, so here are the bandages. Just try not to get yourself killed.”
This book is also not about avoiding the “party hearty” crowd or about resisting sexual temptation. Rather, the focus here is to look at Christian faith in a whole new way -- as it contrasts with the other major worldviews out there. The aim is to give you a start at developing the worldview awareness you will need to hang tough with Jesus for the rest of your life.
In short, learn what’s in this book and you’ll become a more confident and effective public representative of Christian faith in the marketplace of ideas.
Let me expand a little on those key words.
Become more confident. . .
Paul had confidence when he wrote to the Corinthians, “Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God” (2 Corinthians 3:4-5). He was saying, “Hey, we’re not relying on our own shots—but on God’s power working through us.”
Yet confidence is not automatic. It’s something you have to keep depending on God for, even when your emotions are telling you that you suck. Confidence comes through learning to trust God bit by bit, through pursuing Christ through thick and thin, through maturing spiritually over time, through developing your relationship with God (which includes prayer, Bible study, confession, fellowship, depending on the Holy Spirit, learning to follow Christ in obedience – a teensy weensy bit of knowledge about worldviews won’t hurt, either). Gaining confidence doesn’t usually come overnight (God can break the pattern and give you extraordinary confidence in special circumstances). And it’s not dependent on you being the smartest or cleverest or most dynamic person in the room. It comes from being able to rely on God, on the truth God has revealed, and having a track record with God coming through in your life.
Become more confident and effective. . .
We want to be effective communicators. Paul said, “I have become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). Paul wanted his efforts to count for the gospel and the kingdom of God.
Communications theory says that the message sent is not always the message received. Kind of like this: If I’m all bright and cheery in the morning, and my friend just isn’t a morning person, my bright and cheery morning greeting might be taken as a deliberate annoyance. We want to do our part to make sure—as far as its up to us—that the message we send and that people receive is the authentic gospel. If people are going to be turned off to the gospel, we don’t want it to be because of misunderstandings. Sometimes to get the true message across, we will need to think of news ways of presenting the timeless gospel.
Become a more confident and effective public representative of Christian faith. . .
It is not enough to be a private, secret agent Christian, where no one ever knows that you are a follower of Christ. Jesus said, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33). Christian faith is intended to be public. We are to join in public debate, to oppose injustice in the public square, to rock the boat and make waves when our culture ignores God. Not every Christian is called to the same level of public exposure, but all Christians are called to live their Christian life out in the open. We can learn courage from brothers and sisters in Christ in other countries who do not have the luxury of living with laws of tolerance and religious freedom. Many martyrs have paid the ultimate price—yet Jesus says they are not missing out on anything now. They are in the presence of fullness of joy.
Consciously or unconsciously, everybody is a walking billboard for his or her worldview. We’re constantly advertisingwhat’s most important to us. So what are you advertising? Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
A lot of Christians have the idea that they only need to “witness,” to tell people of God’s love in Christ or to verbally defend Christianity against skeptics. But representing Christ in our culture means much more. We need to develop character and integrity. We need to do acts of goodness and kindness that point to Christ. We need to have ongoing conversations with people on all sorts of topics, not just “religious” ones. We need to strive for excellence and professionalism to make following Christ desirable. Christians need to establish institutions and projects that are not afraid to be known as Christian.
Paul, again to the Corinthians, said, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). We are not called to defend the church or Christian history. What has happened under the name of Christianity and Christians can be faulted in many ways. Rather, we are to focus on Jesus and on following him.
We are also not called to uphold our local church’s version of Christianity as the only true church. All who put their trust in the Trinity--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit--have much more in common with each other than with other religions and philosophies. Therefore, believing Christians of whatever background need to quit treating each other as unbelievers or second-class believers and recognize the unity we have in Christ so that we can have a more credible witness to the world.
Become a more confident and effective representative of Christian faith in the marketplace of ideas.
A pluralistic culture ought to be a marketplace of ideas. This is not a bad thing for Christian faith! Christianity got its start in an intensely multicultural and pluralistic culture. When God brings together people from different backgrounds to worship Jesus, it’s very exciting! It’s a lot like the early church, when God looked at the pluralistic culture of the time and formed a motley crew of people, “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female,” into one Body of Christ (Galatians 3:28).
In America, even though Christian principles have helped form our national soul, we’ve never had a state church. Instead, each version of Christian faith (each denomination), each semi-Christian sect, each sub-Christian cult and each non-Christian religion – in short, each religion and worldview – must vigorously compete. If we are accustomed to thinking and speaking of a single “Christian America” culture, this thought can be unsettling. But it need not be if we have confidence in the innate power, beauty and persuasiveness of God’s truth.
So we need to ask ourselves: Given an open marketplace of ideas, what can we do to best persuade ourselves (!) and others to follow Jesus?
We can no longer take for granted—as Westerners one or two hundred years ago could—that the man on the street has heard of the gospel, that he has the vocabulary and familiarity with the Bible to recognize biblical concepts, that he shares any allegiance to the Biblical worldview, or that he understands or accepts Christian morality and values. We can’t even assume that church-goers understand these things.* With many of our fellow Americans, we’ll need to start from scratch, just as if we were missionaries to a foreign (and effectively non-Christian) culture.
Avoiding Cow Pies
If you’ve never worked on a dairy farm, I recommend it highly. You’ll learn some character-building things about life you can’t learn elsewhere.
When you go into the field to mend a fence, or to bring in a cow that’s close to birthing a calf, or to chase cows out of the corn – if you don’t watch out it’s really easy to put your foot somewhere it doesn’t want to be. This happens even to experienced workers.
The same can be said for conversations. If you know how to keep your wits about you, maybe you can be spared stepping into the most obvious nasties. But even if you’re really good at tip-toeing around, if you’re in the field a lot your boots aren’t always going to stay clean.
Here’s some good news: you don’t have to be a genius to understand and use the concept of worldview. You just need a few basic facts under your belt and you’re good to go. Use a little bit of your worldview knowledge in public and people might start to think that you’re a genius!
Here’s another thing: In the marketplace of ideas, you have every bit as much right to present your understanding of truth as anyone else. No one can take that away from you. No one has the right to silence you.
You don’t have to be a know-it-all. But you can have confidence (despite unanswered questions that you might have) that the Biblical worldview stands up just as well – if not better – to all the other competitors out there.
