Christianity is a worldview

First aired in Septermber, 2009, this archive BreakPoint commentary summarizes the Church’s great proposal to a dying age.

Today I want to tell you about a major new effort to renew the Church and transform the culture.

What is the vision of the Church? That was the sermon topic one Sunday a dozen years ago or so when I visited a friend’s church. But as I listened, I found my mind wandering. I had just signed a contract to write a book on Christian worldview, and I was experiencing writer’s remorse. Did this book really need to be written?

Suddenly the pastor’s words caught my attention. The mission of the Church, he said, is to prepare for Christ’s return in five ways: prayer, Bible study, worship, fellowship, and evangelism. In that instant, all doubts about writing the book vanished. Of course, these five spiritual exercises are central to the Church’s life, but we can never overlook our responsibility to redeem all of culture as well. Though well-intentioned, the pastor’s words were a prescription for the continued marginalization of the Church.

Just like this pastor, many evangelicals define faith strictly in terms of personal salvation. Yet soul-winning is not an end in itself. We are not only saved from sin, we are also saved to something—to the task of cultivating God’s creation. Genesis teaches that on the first five days, God did the work of creating. But on the sixth day, He made human beings in His image to carry on His work—to develop the raw materials of the world He had created.

This is called the “cultural commission,” just as binding as the “Great Commission.” It means our faith is intended to encompass every part of life, every sphere of work, every aspect of the world.

In short, our faith must be a complete worldview, the basic set of beliefs that function as a set of glasses helping us to see all of reality through God’s eyes. If God is creator and sovereign over everything, as we confess He is, then everything finds its identity and meaning in relationship to Him—not only our spiritual life but also our work, politics, science, education, the arts, etc.

Developing a Christian worldview is not some ivory-tower exercise. It is crucial for every believer—affecting every choice we make. The doctrine of creation tells us that God made the world with a moral and physical order—that there are God-given norms for every aspect of creation.

This is why I’m so excited to announce that we have launched the Colson Center for Christian Worldview™. This online Center is the culmination of years of work to help believers understand, articulate, and live out an authentically biblical worldview. I believe in this effort so deeply, that I will be devoting my remaining years of ministry to it.

When you visit ColsonCenter.org, you will be able to search for all kinds of articles, speeches, and videos by me and many of the leading Christian worldview thinkers today. We’ll also be providing online courses and opportunities to network with Christians who are passionate about renewing the Church and transforming the culture.

Visit us at ColsonCenter.org—and come back often.

If we don’t know the norms God as ordained for every area of life, then we will drift with the tide of this postmodern age, and, instead of transforming the culture, as we’re supposed to, we will transformed by it.

Next steps

Why not introduce your friends to The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview? Invite some friends over for coffee and take them on a tour of the newly redesigned website. Show them the resources they can use. Help them sign up for the ViewPoint newsletter. You might even consider setting up a reading plan where you would all agree to read regularly from the site, then meet periodically to share what you’re learning.

Be sure to order your copy of our DVD series, Doing the Right Thing. Here’s a great resource for investigating God’s way of helping us know what’s right to do.

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