Reaching the West - C omm uni cat i ng in the

Mod e r n Tongue

The Problem of Authority — the Assumed Worldview

To reach any culture, you must be able to speak to it with authority, but the West does not recognize
religious or moral beliefs as having that authority. The reason for this rejection of religious authority is
because of the foundational principles and assumptions of the Western worldview. A worldview is part of
a culture, and to reach a culture you must be able to communicate in the language of the culture. While we
do not need to adopt or agree with a culture’s worldview, we at least need to understand it, so that we may
speak to it effectively.

What is a Worldview?

A worldview is the deepest set of core assumptions; often unspoken and unconscious, about what
constitutes the nature of reality. Because these assumptions are often unconscious, individuals in a culture
do not realize how their core values and beliefs are influenced and affected by this deeper substratum. For
example, the West assumes that the triad of Democracy-Capitalism-Individualism is the best political-
economic-philosophical and social system for all of mankind. It is the worldview for most Christians in
our culture. Christians rarely challenge this value system, which draws some, but not all, of its roots from
the bible. Rather it is assumed and acted upon as if it is the best of all possible worldviews and a faithful
expression of Scripture. This unconscious assumption of the culture’s worldview makes it difficult for
Christians to prophetically challenge the powers of this age that rule in opposition to Christ. In fact, those
Christians who do challenge the worldview assumptions are often seen as enemies of the Church as well as
of the state (government).

The Key to reaching the West is to understand its worldview and then challenge it on its own terms of
authority.

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How is the Worldview Rooted in the Culture as a Whole?

According to Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader there is a 4 tiered circle of how
western culture is structure, each larger than the next.

• In the center, or core circle is the Worldview - which is the most fundamental belief about What is
Real?
• The next larger circle is circle of Beliefs - What is True?
• The next circle is Values - What is good or Best?
• The outer circle is Behavior — How Should we then Act?

HowWhat
shouldis we
good?
act?
What is true?
What
is real?

What, then, is the Western Worldview?

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1. The Western Worldview — Scientific Materialism The Material World is a product of Chance,

Natural forces, and Evolution without any divine involvement. The Ultimate truth is that there is no
ultimate religious truth. Since there is no Creator, there is no purpose to life, there is no design, and there
is no ultimate meaning to this world.

2. The Western Belief Structure- Scientific Empiricism The Empirical Method defines the nature of

ultimate reality. Reality can be verified through experimental demonstration. Anything that cannot be
tested and demonstrated empirically is therefore uncertain and merely a hypothesis or opinion — hence
untrue or of questionable value. Therefore, all spiritual and moral beliefs are made relative by the
epistemological priority of doubt and uncertainty. Since religious claims cannot be verified, they are
merely matters of human opinion or conjecture, and hence untrue or of only questionable value. Religious
or moral truths are not matters of reliable certainty.

Subsets:

a) Since the truth of the material is known through reason and rationalism, the only way to know the truth
is through the use of reason and the mind. Propositional knowledge, knowledge of facts, is the medium of
discovering and expressing the truth.

b) Since knowledge of the real world of matter is dependent upon study and the ability to reason,
education is the primary means of coming to know what is true.

3. The Western Value Structure — Individualism Since there is no design to creation or ultimate

purpose to life, we ought to be free to create our own meaning and identity. Therefore, no one has the right
to decide what is good or best for any other individual. There is no standard of right and wrong. Each
person is essentially responsible to himself. He is the god of his own life. What is good or best for the
culture depends in large part what seems good to the individual. Since there is no ultimate standard by
which beliefs can be measured for validity or priority, freedom of individual choice is the chief good for
the social whole.

Subset:

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a) Man is basically good, and if just given the right information through study, he will not only know what
is right, but will also do what is right.

4. The Western Behavior Model — Libertinism aka. Anything Goes By and large, all behaviors

are acceptable or have the potential of being acceptable since they are the expression of individual choice,
desire and preference. Since there is no standard of right and wrong aside from individual choice, almost
all behavior is inherently presumed to be good and acceptable. However this presumption of hedonistic
liberty is restrained by another cultural worldview and value system: individualism and individual human
rights. One’s liberty cannot be exercised over against another individual without violating a liberal
standard of tolerance. To ignore other’s rights to do as they please, and to trample those rights, threatens
the social Value Structure. So murder is still unacceptable [except in the case of abortion, where the rights
of the child infringe upon the right of the parent(s) to be free do as she pleases].

These views are the operative model for Western Civilization, even if they are not held by all. It must be
recognized that these views are often held unconsciously and they are highlighted above by example in the
extreme. In other words, if people thought through their beliefs and values, they many not agree with the
conclusions or consequences. But they do act unconsciously as if these beliefs are true and universal.
When the excesses of individual libertinism start to unravel the social whole, only then does the
discomfort level rise to the point where people begin to question the underlying modus operandi.

After studying these cultural assumptions of Western world, you can see the reason why it is so difficult to
speak of religious values. The prevailing worldview of the West is material and not spiritual. What is truth
are facts. Facts are tangible and empirically verifiable through experiment and demonstration. Truth is
whatever is a material fact. All truth is provable by material means. Therefore, what is material is what is
"REAL" and constitutes the Real World. Everything else is just a feeling or an emotion without a basis in
concrete reality. Such feelings or beliefs may be personal or individually true, but they are not universally
true.

Religious insights are not verifiable and hence are a matter of speculation and hence only opinions and
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relative and cannot be, by their very nature, normative for the culture or for determining right and wrong.
They can only be privately held beliefs or preferences. Hence, moral considerations, like pro-life beliefs
and sexual mores, can be held privately, but cannot be imposed upon the culture as a whole. To do so
would impinge upon another’s freedom and rights. Since there is no verifiable claim to truth and no
authority there can be no way of proving one belief right or wrong. There is no way the culture can value
one truth claim over another. There are No absolutes! And in the secular arena, there is obviously no way
to judge the claims of one religious belief over against another. All religious beliefs are private opinions or
speculations, and hence no single belief can be considered as the only truth, way, and life. Certainly it
would be wrong to use any religious system as the basis for laws or running a culture. The West must take
a stand of "neutrality" on such matters. It is quite obvious however that such a stand of neutrality is in fact
a stand for the agnostic secular state. That agnosticism, is really a stand for secular, Scientific
Materialism, and it is totally congruent with the culture’s worldview.

What Happens When We Debate or Argue for the Truth?

I have found most debates about the truth to be fruitless exercises, which only fan the flames of competing
egos. The problem is that most debate takes place on the home turf of the Scientific Materialist. Truth is
not determined by an appeal to divine revelation or supernatural knowledge. No, it is decided by what
appears to be reasonable, logical, and materially verifiable. Divine Words are made subject to the
judgment of the Court of Human Reason. That court becomes the final arbiter of matters of The Truth.
God has been weighed in the balance of the scales of Human Reason, and has been found sorely wanting.
The home turf, the playing field, of Scientific Materialism is rationalism, intellectualism, propositional
debates. If you want to enter into debate, you must play on their field with their rules. So, if one declares
the Word of God is the Only, absolute truth, the position is immediately discounted. An opponent falls
back to the relativism of the cultural worldview about what is "really" Real. Religious beliefs are by
definition only matters of opinion, not matters of right and wrong. In other words, the one who disagrees
can dismiss a biblical argument, not by appeal to a higher authority or by appeal to a divine and
universal standard, but by an appeal to the universal lack of any ultimate standard!

If one insists on arguing that the bible or a moral value is God’s absolute truth, the debate degenerates

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very quickly into a rational argument that does not penetrate the worldview. It becomes a surface debate.
Usually, one’s opponent finds many reasons to see himself as "enlightened" and "more caring and
tolerant," while believing that anyone who disagrees is obviously ignorant, lacking compassion, or is some
kind of racist bigot. In short, there is no "Authority" to prove or show that one speaks with divine sanction.
Rather, he appears to speak merely of his own accord. Without a divine backing or seal upon the
confession, it quickly becomes a hopeless political debate to be decided NOT by right and wrong, but by
majority rule. One’s beliefs are merely a matter of opinion. And since they are just one individual’s
opinion, they can safely be ignored. What is more, such beliefs can safely be regarded as irrelevant in
determining social or political policy.

Likewise, a political pluralism is reigning in many of the mainline denominations today, where traditional
moral teachings and values are under siege by those who openly advocate homosexual lifestyles as
acceptable norms. What is true in the denominational debates is that the hermeneutical key for
determining truth [and hence what the policies of the church should be] is not what the bible actually
teaches, but what is established through majority rule. While conservatives look to the scriptures for their
fulcrum of truth, the liberals look to political majorities and cultural values. Neither side agrees with the
other on what constitutes truth or the authority for determining right and wrong. It is as if they are playing
on two different ball fields. One is playing baseball and the other is playing soccer, and both are insisting
that they are right. It is no wonder that the denominations are subject to the spirit of division and party
spirit. There is no basis for harmony or agreement, since neither side shares the same authority.

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