Worldview

Worldview

By Ryan Bush

Worldview

1.What is worldview?

2.How is worldview formed?

3.How is worldview transformed?

What is worldview?

Every human seeks to make sense of the world by answering four fundamental questions:

1. Who am I?

2. Where am I?

3. What has gone wrong?

4. What can be done to fix it?

What is worldview?

Humans answer these questions with a meta-narrative that explains origin, purpose, suffering, and future hope.

What is worldview?

It is from this meta-narrative (and the smaller narratives which are embedded within it) that humans derive an understanding of the world and their place in it, their worldview.

What is worldview?

From worldview spring beliefs, values, and behaviors.

From worldview springs culture.

What is worldview?

Existential Questions

Overarching Story

Worldview

Values

Beliefs

Behaviors . . .

Discussion Questions:

Which circle should Christians be concerned with impacting? Why?

Does your ministry reflect this reality?

What is Worldview?

“If missionaries wish to produce lasting change, they must focus on worldview transformation.”

Stan May, Cultures and Worldviews, 387.

What are the elements of a worldview?

What is worldview?

“Worldview is the way a people characteristically look outward upon the universe. . . It is the way we see ourselves in relation to all else.”

Robert Redfield, The Primitive World and Its Transformations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1957), 85-86.

What is worldview?

“The worldview of a people is their way of looking at reality.”

Michael Kearney, World View (Novato, CA: Chandler and Sharp, 1984), 41.

What is worldview?

A person’s view of reality.

What is worldview?

Paul Hiebert described worldview as, “the basic assumptions about reality which lie behind the beliefs and behavior of a culture.”

Paul Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids: 1985), 45

What is worldview?

Charles Kraft wrote, “A people’s worldview includes the most basic assumptions, values and allegiances of that people. This deep level of culture affects and underlies all surface level behavior.”

Charles Kraft, “Worldview for Christian Witness” (Unpublished Manuscript)

What is worldview?

Stan May wrote that worldview is a, “set of underlying assumptions and allegiances that interprets existence.”

Stan May, “Cultures and Worldviews”, 381.

What is worldview?

James Sire wrote, “Our ground-floor assumptions—ones that are so basic that none more basic can be conceived—compose our world view.”

James W. Sire, How to Read Slowly: Reading for Comprehension (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1978), 39.

What is worldview?

A person’s assumptions about reality.

What is worldview?

What does worldview do?

What is worldview?

Orville Boyd Jenkins described worldview as, “a coherent thought-system that helps make sense of [shared] experiences and maintain the values developed over the history of that group.”

Orville Boyd Jenkins, Dealing with Differences: Contrasting African and European World Views (Nairobi: Communication Press, 1991), 13.

What is worldview?

“[W]orldview binds people together and provides the basic mental and cultural framework by which individuals and groups understand and respond to reality.”

May, “Cultures and Worldviews”, 381.

What is worldview?

Norman Geisler said, “It is the framework through which or by which one makes sense of the data of life.”

Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999), 785

What is worldview?

Worldview provides people with a means by which to understand and respond to reality.

What is worldview?

Worldview is: (1)the way people see the world, (2)based on assumptions about the world, (3)which gives them a means to understand and respond to the world.

Formation & Reinforcement of Worldview

Worldview (and culture) is learned. One’s perspective and interpretation of reality is completely dependent upon the environment in which one is reared. “One comes to perceive the world—God, man, nature, history, values, and so forth—in a way prescribed by one’s own culture and/or subculture.”

Hesselgrave, from World Mission, “Putting on Worldview Glasses”, 13-12.


How are worldviews formed? What is the vehicle by which worldview is transmitted and reinforced?


Hesselgrave contends that worldviews are formed and reinforced, “by the telling of a story (and stories within a story) and drawing inferences from it. That’s why all peoples have their story (myth, legend, history—in one sense it makes little difference) and draw upon it to sustain their values.”

David J. Hesselgrave, Scripture and Strategy: The Use of the Bible in Post-Modern Church and Mission (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1994), 50.


LaNette W. Thompson wrote, “When people experience life together—sharing life stories—their worldviews are similar. Schemata are created through personal experience, by hearing others’ stories, and by fantasizing.”

LaNette Thompson, Tell His Story so that All Might Worship, 394.


“A culture houses its central convictions in its fundamental narrative, whether its narrative is implicit or explicit. The ancient mythologies that we find in cultures around the world are explicit examples of this.”

Lovejoy, Making Disciples of Oral Learners, 33.

What is worldview?

Existential Questions

Overarching Story

Worldview

Values

Beliefs

Behaviors . . .


Hiebert said that worldview provides people with their basic framework for understanding reality. Further, religion provides the specific content of this reality. It provides them with, “things in the people’s model of the universe and with relationships between these things.” He contended, “people express their religious beliefs in creeds and stories and in ritual behavior.”

Paul G. Hiebert, Cultural Anthropology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), 371.


The oral tradition of a people serves not only to form worldview, but to reinforce worldview. Kraft indicated seven ways in which this occurs:


. . . provides a basis of common origins and identity.

. . . answers questions about human destiny and what may help or alter it.

. . . reinforces basic assumptions of authority, respect, and rights to land or other material possessions.

. . . clearly pictures who are to be included and who are to be excluded, who are the “we” and who are the “they.”


. . . teaches and reinforces moral values.

. . . serves to illustrate ideal and sub-ideal behavior and the rewards and punishments that go along with either.

. . . serves as encouragement in times of difficulty and uncertainty.

Kraft, Unpublished Manuscript, 13:7-8


Tom Steffen wrote, “Worldview . . . finds its foundational meaning in myths and stories. . . To survive, any worldview required the recitation of myths and stories.”

Tom Steffen, Reconnecting God’s Story to Ministry: Cross-cultural Storytelling at Home and Abroad (La Habra, CA: Center for Organizational and Ministry Development, 1996), 31-32.

Discussion Questions:

Why is it important to determine whether or not worldview can be transformed?

How does determining the manner in which worldview is formed help us develop strategies for worldview transformation?

Worldview Transformation

Stories constitute the core of every culture’s worldview. (N.T. Wright) N.T. Wright said, “[Stories] are, in fact, one key element within the total construction of worldview. Stories thus provide a vital framework for experiencing the world. They also provide a means by which views of the world may be challenged.”

N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 39.


“A culture houses its central convictions in its fundamental narrative, whether its narrative is implicit or explicit. The ancient mythologies that we find in cultures around the world are explicit examples of this. Those stories answer four fundamental worldview questions: Who am I? Where am I? What has gone wrong? What can be done about it?”

Grant Lovejoy, Making Disciples of Oral Learners, 33.


“Christianity has its own distinctive answers to those worldview questions. In order to influence the worldviews of disciples, we need to tell biblical stories that offer alternative answers to the fundamental worldview questions.”

Lovejoy, Making Disciples of Oral Leaners, 33.


“When we tell biblical stories chronologically, we are offering a powerful alternative worldview from the very beginning of our presentation. Biblical stories and the view of the world embedded in them, can replace or refine the cultural stories and the worldview embedded in them.”



This is why Jesus so often told stories, particularly parables. Jesus intended to challenge the existing Jewish worldview and to provide an alternative picture of reality that he called “the kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven.”


“Stories are, actually, particularly good at modifying or subverting other stories and their worldviews. Where head-on attack would certainly fail, the parable hides the wisdom of the serpent behind the innocence of the dove, gaining entrance and favor which can then be used to change assumptions which the hearer would otherwise keep hidden away for safety.”

N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 40.


Stories do, however, come into conflict with each other because the worldviews they characterize are in sharp disagreement about what is true. People perceive these alternative understandings of reality at a threat. The only way to adequately deal with the clash between opposing narratives is to tell yet another narrative that corroborates and explains how the evidence for the challenging story is in fact deceptive.


“If stories anchor people’s existing perspective on the world, then the best thing Christians can do in order to displace that perspective is to tell better stories, and we have them!”



Our narratives must provide adequate (biblical) answers to the essential questions of existence.


“The more biblical stories people know and can fit into a single comprehensive story of God’s saving work, the more completely they are able to embrace a biblical worldview.”



Stories lie at the core of worldview. Formal belief statements, including propositional and theological statements, grow out of those stories.


Thus discipleship that offers only propositional teaching does not reach to the center of the worldview.


If we give only propositional teaching and do not present biblical stories to challenge existing worldview stories, we run the risk of syncretism. The cultural stories will continue to comprise the heart of the worldview and discipleship will deal only with the dimensions of the person’s life represented in the outer circles in the diagram.


How are conversion and worldview transformation related?

As missionaries seek to transform worldviews, is it more important to practice sound missiology/anthropology or to depend on the Holy Spirit?

Practical Application

Study oral tradition of your culture.

Know the Biblical worldview and the stories which comprise it.

Become fluent in telling Biblical stories to tell in everyday situations in order to deal with worldview issues instead of just surface issues.

Robert Redfield, The Primitive World and Its Transformations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1957.

Michael Kearney, World View. Novato, CA: Chandler and Sharp, 1984.

Paul Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries. Grand Rapids: 1985.

David J. Hesselgrave, Scripture and Strategy: The Use of the Bible in Post-Modern Church and Mission (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1994), 50.

LaNette Thompson, Tell His Story so that All Might Worship, 394.

Paul G. Hiebert, Cultural Anthropology. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983.

Dorji Penjore, “Folktales and Education: Role of Bhutanese Folktales in Value Transmission,” Journal of Buhtan Studies, Vol. 12 (Summer 2005). Thimpju: The Center for Bhutan Studies.), 54. [47-74]

Tom Steffen, Reconnecting God’s Story to Ministry: Cross-cultural Storytelling at Home and Abroad. La Habra, CA: Center for Organizational and Ministry Development, 1996.

N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992.

Grant Lovejoy, Making Disciples of Oral Learners,

Worldview

Spiritual

william carey library

orville boyd jenkins

baker book house

cornell university press

reconnecting gods story

fundamental worldview questions

worldview transformation stories

fortress press