Worldview: What Do You Really Believe?

In today’s episode of Develop in the Dark, Brad Cooper, Trevor Cox, and Jeremy Jenkins continue the topic of evangelism with a discussion on worldview. What is a worldview and why does it matter? What happens when we leave our own worldview unexamined? How do we respond when confronted by the conflicting worldviews around us? 

Links and Sources: 

•  Soul Searching – This book by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton helps to define and explain Moral Therapeutic Deism. 
• Hevel, Hevel, Hevel is a sermon from Brad Cooper on our cultural moment from the book of Ecclesiastes.
• The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog – a book by James Sire
• Christian Worldview Handbook – a book by David S. Dockery & Trevin K. Wax
• It was Aristotle who brought forward the concept of an unmoved mover in Book VIII of the Physics and Book XII of the Metaphysics. Thomas Aquinas picks up this idea of an unmoved mover in Summa Theologica. 
• Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution –This book by Carl Trueman is written on a more popular level than his larger work, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution. 
• To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse – a book by Carl Trueman
• The 3D Gospel: Ministry in Guilt, Shame, and Fear Cultures – a by Jayson Georges
• Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible – a book by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien 
• Follow Jeremy Jenkins on Instagram @allthings.allpeople. Find resources from Jeremy, including a free worldview course, at All Things All People. Jeremy’s published works exploring LDS and Wicca can be found at phyliciamasonheimer.com. 

Questions: 

• How can an understanding of worldview be helpful when sharing Jesus with others? 
• What are some of the distinctives of our own culture? 
• Have you explored the fundamental questions of worldview (origin, meaning, morality, and destiny)? 
• Are there any areas of your worldview that conflict with your actual behavior? 
• What are the distinctives of a Christian worldview? 
• How do we cultivate our curiosity in others’ worldview? 
• How do we evaluate the validity of the various worldviews?