People who have a biblical worldview are rare in America. I firmly believe that to be the case. I’ve been in youth ministry for over twenty years, and I’ve watched our society spiral downward in that very short time.
I believe that this is due, in part, to our humanistic educational system. I’m not necessarily talking about the local school systems, although they could take a stronger stance on what they do and don’t teach. No, the problem reaches much higher than that, into the higher educational systems, and even the government board of education.
It’s been like this for decades. And it shows very little indication that it will get better soon.
Our culture has thrown away the Bible. It no longer has any authority in our lives.
Listen to what Josh McDowell says in The Last Christian Generation:
Barna’s research of “born again Christians” showed that ninety-eight percent of professed born-again young people do ‘believe in Christ,’ but they do not reflect Christlike attitudes or actions!
Or again:
It is apparent that here at the beginning of the twenty-first century we face a generation of young people who no longer hold to what most evangelicals consider to be the true foundations of the Christian faith: belief in the deity of Christ, the reliability of Scripture, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
And I would add to this list the reality of Creation, Noah’s flood and the Tower of Babel!
Or consider what Woodrow Kroll has to say, in Taking Back The Good Book:
21st century Christians have become so biblically ignorant that they have forfeited any chance of thinking Christianly. Christians accept the idea of living a moral life and worshipping God in church, but nothing in their lives is so transformed that the neighbors notice the difference or the boss wonders what’s happened to them. They don’t view the world any different than non-believers.
The proportion of Americans who believe the Bible is literally true fell by half in a quarter of a century. In 1963, 65 percent of Americans believed the Bible was literally true. This figure fell to 38 percent by 1978.
“Science” has convinced us that Genesis simply can’t be true. “Science” has stated firmly that it has replaced God. There is no need to believe the Creation story, because we “know” that life evolved from non-life 4.5 billion years ago.
So which is true? If evolution is true, than the Bible cannot be. But as Christians, we say that we accept God’s Word as infallible. The two are mutually exclusive! And we have accepted the word of men over the Word of God. We have thrown away the Bible! We no longer see it as a valid authority in our lives. We’ve stopped reading it. We’ve stopped basing our laws on it. We’ve taken it out of schools, out of the courts, out of the public places. We don’t even know what it says anymore.
According to Barna Research Group, just 9 percent of all adults in America who claim to be “born again” have a biblical worldview. Nine percent.
And less than 50 percent of ministers claim to have a biblical wordview. Stop and read that sentence again. Men in the pulpit, preaching the Word of God… Less than 50 percent have a biblical worldview. Can you see the problem here?
Christians who lack biblical knowledge are the products of churches that marginalize biblical knowledge. And their worldview is distinctly non-Christian.
If we are going to reset our lives, and our nation, on the foundation of the Bible, then we need to regain a biblical worldview. And that starts with accepting God’s Word at face value: reading it and believing it. And God’s Word starts with our origins, our beginnings.
Question: Do you have a biblical worldview? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Great post, Jeff.
(And I really like how you did the text boxes at the beginning and end! How did you do that?)
Thanks!
It's pretty easy. I use the following code:
*blockquote style="border: 1px solid #999999; padding: 10px; background-color: #eaeaea;"**span style="font-family: Arial;"*This is the beginning of a three part series on the need for a biblical worldview in America today. In this post, I will address the need for a biblical worldview. The the next two posts I will take a look at the worldview issue, and the battle for a biblical worldview.*/span**/blockquote*
Just replace the * with opening and closing . There you have it.
Nicely done. While we're on the subject, what do you use for the rotating personal images and the accompanying info box below it?
I use the SlidePress plugin. I set up a gallery with my personal images, scratched the navigation bar, and used a simple script to gather one at random upon page load. I placed all of that in a text box in the side bar, and used a simple hyperlink for the "read more" tag. It leads to my "about" page. I don't remember off hand where I got the script; probably from the Standard Theme forums. They are extremely helpful with the coding! I highly recommend Standard Theme from the simple point of view that they've helped me tweak my site in so many ways that I could never have done on my own very easily. Great team!
Steven, you're using a theme by Site5, right? I've got one of theirs that I'm tweaking for a site to showcase my hobby of photography. They've got some great stuff as well.
I am using a Site5 theme. I have really liked it so far – simple to set up and use out-of-the-box without much tweaking. I do have Standard Theme and I am working with it on my dev site (dev.stevencribbs.com). I am still learning a lot about the theme and trying to figure out what kind of look I really want. I would like to move it to my production site in the next month or two.
I like my Site5 theme as well. But it's nowhere as nice as Standard Theme.
I second Josh's words…great post!
I am not surprised that the research confirms what we have been observing with the decline in those holding a biblical worldview. There just seem to be so few influences that really demonstrate a biblical worldview and even fewer that teach it.
I can't wait to see your next couple of posts!
Thanks! It really saddens me to see that so many people in ministry lack a biblical worldview.
We have become comfortable in our American Dream Christianity (taken from Radical) and I think a lot of people have just not seen the need or wanted to take a chance on something that might affect their comfort.
I haven't read the book yet (just a 21-page review sent from my pastor) but, Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins, seems to be taking this a step further and trying to change what a biblical world view even looks like – to make it more comfortable for those that really just want to live life the way they want to.
I absolutely loved Radical. And I think you're right: people want comfort and convenience over almost everyting else it seems.
I'm intereted to read Bell's new book. Based on all the controversy, I'm pretty sure I won't agree with it, but I want to read it anyway. I would be interested in reading that review though, from your pastor. Is it online?
The review came through the Gospel Coalition (not written by my pastor – just distributed to our staff). I will send you an email with the PDF file.
Just got the email. Looking forward to reading it tonight. Thanks!