Worldviews Shaping American Culture

Worldviews Shaping American Culture

What’s Your Worldview?

You’ve got a worldview. Everybody has one.

What’s a worldview?

It’s everything you believe about what’s real and what really matters in life.

It’s the filter by which we process all of our information. The lens through which we understand reality.

Ronald Nash in his book, Worldviews in Conflict, defines it this way:

“A worldview is a set of presuppositions (or assumptions) which we hold

(either consciously or subconsciously) about the basic makeup of our world.”

Can you name the top 3 worldviews shaping American culture?

Mikel Del Rosario, a Professor of Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University, recently wrote an article in which he outlines the top 3 worldviews in America:

1. Historic Christianity

This is the main version of something called ethical monotheism. This is the idea that God’s real; that God created us and gave us a real moral law. And all people everywhere are obligated to obey the moral law—whether they want to or not. Some things, like loving your parents, treating others as you would like to be treated and telling the truth, are really good. Other things, like hurting a child, murder, lying or treating others unjustly, are really wrong.

The next two represent the major movements of the opposite camp.

2. Scientific Naturalism

What’s this? Think X-Men. No matter how out there something might seem (like bending metal just by thinking about it), absolutely everything can be boiled down to physical processes (like a genetic mutation). This view says only the physical world is real. You’re pretty much just your brain. And everything you do is just the result of things like your genetics and how you were raised.

Another key idea: Science is the only way we know things. If you can’t measure something in a lab or use science to prove it, you can’t know it. So you can say you know Advil will help with your headache. But you can’t say you actually know God exists.

3. Postmodern Relativism

For this one, think, “live and let live”. All truth and reality is relative to you or your community: “That’s true for you but not for me.” It’s supposed to be a feel-good, politically correct worldview where no one’s perspective is ever wrong about anything—especially when it comes to spiritual things (unless you happen to think Christianity is actually true). Another key idea is words don’t really mean anything. You decide what words mean to you.

These two worldviews agree you can’t know things about stuff you can’t see, touch, taste, hear or smell. This directly challenges historic Christianity which teaches that we can know the truth and the truth will set us free (Jesus, John 8:32).

So, there you have it. The top three worldviews shaping American culture: Christianity, Naturalism, and Postmodernism. Which one most shapes your views?

Whatever your worldview, a person’s worldview can be changed. It happens all the time. People can perceive reality in a new way. When people change from being cynical, critical, and sarcastic to being trusting, kind, and gracious, it encourages us not to give up.

There’s always hope...people can and do change!