Why I don't use the term worldview much anymore

Hey guys, John from the Conversations That Matter podcast. Quick video for you today on why I don't use the term worldview very much anymore. And my reason is a little different than some of the guys who are ditching the term like Stephen Wolfe.

So, let me give you my explanation. First, let's talk about why people use the term worldview. The term worldview has been used, especially over the last 30 years in many circles, but most notably Christian circles, to describe this matrix of evaluation that one brings to the table when interpreting any fact.

So, it's like a lens that you look through in order to understand the world. It's comprehensive. So, every little fact is interpreted by one's worldview. And what happens when you have a non-Christian who doesn't have a Christian worldview and they do something right?

They do something genius. Maybe they put a rocket into space and it goes to Mars. How do you explain this? And oftentimes the explanation is that, well, they are using a Christian worldview. They just don't know it.

They're on borrowed capital somehow and they're suppressing the truth, but they know the truth and the truth is this holistic Christian worldview, this grid of interpretation. And the assumption behind this is that every fact must be interpreted.

There are no facts that are just uninterpreted, right? So, you have to start off with an a priori commitment to a holistic view of life. And I have some issues with this, but I think there's some good things we need to admit about this.

The good things we have to admit are that it is true that if you have certain assumptions about reality, for example, that we're in a designed universe, there's a creator who made things with purpose, you're going to see purpose, right?

If you think it's chaotic and the product of chance, then you're not going to see a reason for morality. It's not going to have order. So, obviously things as simple as that do affect our beliefs downstream.

There's no doubt about that. It is important for people to understand things from a Christian perspective in order to make sense of reality. But here's the thing, there are also common notions. And this is where some guys are ditching the term worldview because they think it rubs against this idea that there's common notions.

They also think that it gives you a false sense of security, that you can answer any question by appealing to this worldview matrix instead of doing the actual study, gathering data in the field, and evaluating it.

Common Notions, Natural Knowledge, and the Limits of Worldview Thinking

So, the first issue is this denial of common notions. Common notions being things that we just have by nature of being humans. God made us that way. God made us to care about the people around us. You see this in the scripture.

Even non-Christians take care of their families. You can learn from nature. Nature communicates to you certain things, even things about God's attributes. And you can be somewhere isolated, never heard of Christianity.

You don't have a holistic Christian worldview. You don't know about the Trinity. But you can certainly make some true assessments about the world simply based upon the fact that God has given you some understanding, some reason, some common notions that you share with other people.

So, I think without developing that further for now, I think that there is a truth to this, that there are common notions. Now, you can't suppress those things. Obviously, sin can suppress these things.

But this is the way God made us. Even non-believers would say that someone who kills their children is a psychopath, right? That's a deviant. That's weird. Why is it? Is it because they deny the Christian worldview or is it because of something else?

Well, they're denying a basic instinct that God put into His creation. So, that's one of the issues. The other issue, of course, is that you can get a false sense of security. I read this book, I started to read it, called Biblical Critical Theory.

And as I got into it, I thought, this is just like every other worldview book I've read. They're a dime a dozen. There's so many of them. And they do try to give you these comprehensive explanations by appealing to an interpretive grid.

And there are people, there are Christians, who try to combat every problem that threatens Christianity by appealing to a worldview instead of perhaps gathering data and doing analysis. I know one of the recent ones brought up was a global warming.

What's actually happening? Let's ask the questions. Let's go gather information. Is the globe really warming? And if so, is it really caused by humans? Does the data actually tell us this? And a lot of Christians want to appeal to a Christian worldview instead of doing any of the data or the scientific analysis, which I think is actually very important.

They want to just appeal to theological concepts like, well, we know how the earth is going to be destroyed and there's going to be uniformity until that point. And so to make a claim that we're going to destroy the planet because of our own human action is against theology.

Well, there's some truth to this. But what about the fact that a lot of it's just made up or it's numbers that are actually manipulated and they don't take into account certain factors? And I mean, these things are all worthy of delving into and it's not a worldview kind of analysis that's going to give you these kind of refutations.

All right?

Why “the Christian Worldview” Can Hide Anglo-Protestant Particularity

So those are the reasons that I see young guys, younger guys who might have used to use the term not using it. My reasons may be slightly different than that. So I think that a lot of Christians, just common everyday ordinary Christians, use the term worldview in kind of loose ways.

Okay?

So not every Christian is meaning a Kantian perspectivalism when they say worldview. They're just talking about your general outlook, the way that you view reality in general, your, I don't know, philosophy of life, how you live your life.

They're using worldview and they're using it in different ways and oftentimes it's a loose sense. So I don't, I'm not allergic to someone using the term worldview. I may even use it at times just to describe someone and their posture, their way that they live their life and view life in general terms.

The thing that has made me, I think more so just say, you know what, I'm not going to use this term as much anymore is this question. Are you, and you can ask yourself this, are you as a Christian conservative, let's say, assuming that's your perspective, if you're watching this video, are you defending the Christian worldview in a universal sense?

You know, singular, the Christian worldview. It's always singular. It's not a Christian worldview. It's the Christian worldview. On the political front, on the cultural front, is it the Christian worldview?

Or is it Anglo-Protestant tradition? Is it the type of Christianity that you grew up in that speaks English, that sings hymns, that sits in pews, that dresses a certain way, that has potlucks, that have, dare I say, green bean casserole, which I'm not too fond of.

What are you actually defending? And you could say, well, I'm defending the Christian worldview in a broad sense. Like, there's this view that's commonly shared, orthodox theology, by everyone, all Christians.

Okay, I get that. But I am also defending something much more specific. And that's what's under attack. It's not just the Christian worldview that's under attack. It's also my specific form of Christianity, this culturally embedded form, because some of these attacks are not just coming, they're not just manifested on a strictly spiritual plane.

They're also manifested in physical, tangible ways. And one of the big attacks that I've seen on the things that I love, and the things that I think are actually true, valuable, and good over the last two decades, is attacks internally, within the church, from those who say they share the Christian worldview.

But yet, they want to rip down things that remind them of traditional churches. They want to get rid of steeples, and get rid of traditional hymns, and get rid of the way that we used to do sermons, and the way we used to dress, and cemeteries, because it might make you feel bad, and all kinds of things that have been ripped down, that have been stripped, that have deracinated us, and left us somewhat homeless, and left young traditional guys looking, unfortunately, to places outside of Protestantism for fulfillment.

And this whole battle has been with people, oftentimes, who say they share the Christian worldview. And you could go to a historic confession, and you're going to find you a line. Are they just not, you know, real Christians, or they really don't believe in the Christian worldview?

I know Jared Lovell said this on the podcast, like, maybe a year ago. He said, look, in China, are they going to have a Second Amendment? Let's say it was Chinese Christians controlled everything. Is that really a Christian understanding?

Does that come from a Christian worldview? Or is that part of something that developed as a mechanism for protecting ourselves in an Anglo-Protestant context with certain circumstances? Well, it's absolutely because of an Anglo-Protestant context with certain circumstances.

The issue is, are you protecting yourself? The issue is not necessarily how you do it. And the United States gun culture, the Southern gun culture, right? This is a mechanism that's suited for a particular environment.

And it's not a universal kind of the Christian worldview thing, necessarily. I would agree that the idea of protection and providing and protecting your family as a husband, this does stem from a general understanding in Christianity.

But I'm saying that the way that it's applied you're not going to get that from these general things. So, that's why I don't really use the term worldview anymore because it's so often used as a singular, it's so often broad, and it's so often universal.

And I am a particularist. I certainly defend these universal principles, but I understand in a cultural context, they are applied into specific settings. And I think we need a lot more of that. I mean, modernity is this universal impulse to boil down and find the one thing, the scientific principle that you can now, once you figure it out, relate to every problem and understand every problem.

And it's almost Gnostic. Like you get this secret knowledge once you unlock the door and you can now have a full understanding. And it's just not the case. Our world is a little more complicated than that.

And as a particularist, I don't have to know about every Christian group in every setting and what they must do. I just have to know about my setting and what's prudent and good for the people that I know and serve who are under my care and responsibility.

So, that's my reason.

Why I’ve Stopped Using the Term in My Own Writing

It's a preference. I'm not judging anyone who uses the term worldview. I'm not saying you have to do what I'm doing. I will, if you've noticed, my writings for the last, probably since about 2021 or 2022, I have not used the term worldview.

Hardly, hardly at all. Here and there maybe, but I've used other terms. Their outlook, their philosophy of life, their understanding, their approach. You know, I've used all these kinds of words instead of worldview.

So, there you go.

There's the explanation. If you don't like it, that's fine. I'm not, like I said, not judging you. Hopefully, if you really like the term worldview and you think it serves a purpose, hey, keep using it.

Don't get down on me because I'm deviating from this. We can, I think, be allies in this battle overall. It's a minor thing in the grand scheme, but I just wanted people to know why I'm choosing to go that direction.

So, hopefully that helps.

God bless.