Pearcey on Integrating Worldview

Amongst other things, firstly we need to understand that we have a clear command to shape and order culture from God’s command in Genesis 1 to “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue and have dominion over it”, and secondly that our work is not some curse, to make our lives painful and sad, but rather a good thing created by God for our benefit.

So how do we re-integrate our lives and understand our work from a biblical point of view? Nancy Pearcey in her book “Total truth” has developed a model of analysing our work (or any aspect of life) through the frames of Creation, Fall and Redemption.
• Creation. How did God originally create things to be?
• Fall. How has sin corrupted how things are?
• Redemption. How can things be redeemed back to reflect better how God originally intended them to be?

In the workshop of the Gospel and Work Seminar (Leeds:2010), people gathered in work types and asked the following questions.
• What aspects of my job reflect the way that God originally created things to be?
• How has my job been distorted and corrupted by the fall?
• What can I uniquely do to redeem my work place back to something that God originally intended things to be like?

Christian Smith on Therapeutic Deism

What do you think is the number one most popular religion in America?
I’ll give you a hint: its not Christianity.
Its also not Islam, Judiasm, Buddhism, Taoism, or the Home Shopping Network.
According to Christian Smith, a sociologist at Notre Dame, the primary expression of faith in our day–at least for young adults–is what he calls “Moral Therapeutic Deism.”
This religion is characterized by five beliefs:
–There is a God who created earth and watches over it
–God wants people to be nice, fair and good (as it taught in the Bible and most other religions)
–The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself
–God doesn’t need to be involved in your life except when there’s a problem that needs Celestial Performance Enhancement
–Good people go to heaven when they die.

This is a religion that is far more about comfort, individualism and conformity that it is about meaning, calling, and sacrifice. What makes it particularly challenging is that it is not offered through a new MTD movement or denomination. It is actually catching on and being practiced in churches where we leaders think of ourselves as historically Christian.
It cannot sustain a life.
It cannot build a community.
It cannot call people to take up a cross.
We want something more.

One other piece of bad news has to do with where young adults learn MTD.
I’ll give you a hint. Its mostly from older adults. These are themes that have captured our culture in such deep ways that we’re hardly aware of them.

Richard Niebuhr on Liberal Christianity

Richard Niebuhr?s 1937 description of liberalism is alive and well: ?a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.?

CS Lewis on Christianity

I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only that I see it, but by it I see everything else.