Everyone has a worldview. Our worldview is how we make sense of and interpret the world around us. If you aren’t sure what your worldview is you might find out by asking yourself questions like: “Where did the universe come from?” “How do I decide what is true?” “Is our existence simply material or is it also spiritual?”
At its core, the Christian worldview answers these questions with a narrative. This narrative can be summarized as: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.
I am convinced that the Christian worldview is telling your story. By your story I mean your greatest convictions, your deepest hurts, and the things you simply know to be true from years of life.
Here are four reasons the Christian worldview is telling your story, as seen through the creation, fall, redemption, and restoration narrative.
1) Creation: You know that life is precious and that all people deserve to be treated equally.
Should we be outraged by the sexual assault of women? When a natural disaster wipes out countless lives, is this a staggering loss? Are all humans equal regardless of race? These are not hard questions to answer, but why?
The Christian worldview resoundingly declares “yes!” to the equality and value of all people and can explain why: God created all women and men with dignity, equality and enormous value because he created them in his image.
Consider a naturalistic worldview: the belief that all that exists is the material, no God. Naturalism has no (or arguably a very weak) explanation for human value and equality. If my personhood is nothing more than a random byproduct of time + primordial soup, then human value is an illusion. Such a view crumbles under the conviction of the human experience.
The human story has returned a verdict: people have enormous value. The Christian worldview makes sense of this verdict.
2) Fall: You know that this world is not as it should be.
There is great suffering in the world. Humans do terrible things to humans. Great evils seem to flourish all around us. You may even have experienced great loss or suffering personally.
Perhaps this caused you to draw the conclusion that no good, loving God could possibly exist. I can understand this reaction! However I would implore you to consider: if brokenness is in your story, then your story is the Christian story.
According to the Christian worldview this current world is not as God first designed it. God created a perfect world, but when sin entered the world everything became broken. This is called “the fall.” All that we see in this world that is not right is the result of the fall. As our hearts look at the world and cry out “broken” we are experiencing the world as described in the Christian worldview narrative, a fallen world. Our heavenly father is pained when his children hurt so deeply. God will not allow evil to flourish forever.
Other worldviews crumble under the claim of brokenness and objective evil. Consider moral relativism: the claim that there is no objective moral truth. Moral relativism triumphs, “What is true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me, so believe what you want.” This is a very seductive option because then no one ever has to be wrong – all faith is on equal ground. Everyone wins, right? Certainly not. Consider what our soul just testified to us: evil is tragically flourishing in our world. We can all look at a horrific act like rape and agree it is objectively evil. Evil. If moral relativism is true then evil doesn’t even exist, it’s just someone else’s truth. We know this must be false.
We don’t need a doctorate to know this world is truly and deeply broken; we only need a few years of life experience. If brokenness is in your story, and if we are honest it is in all of our stories, the Christian worldview is telling your story.
But the Christian worldview does not leave us hopeless in brokenness.
3) Redemption: You know there is something significant in beauty and love.
The human story is one that knows and values beauty. Interestingly and perhaps paradoxically some have found beauty to be the best compass to find truth in science. The human story is one that knows and values love. If you’ve watched the movie Interstellar, you may remember Anne Hathaway’s character considering the transcending meaning of love. But more importantly than these examples, I would imagine that beauty and love are real parts of your story.
At the heart of the Christian worldview is a beautiful love story. This is a story of loss, pursuit and deep sacrificial love.
The Christian story tells the story of how God has come to save his beloved. God’s children are lost, exiled from God’s presence in a broken world. But when Jesus came he suffered the consequences that his children deserved to suffer, making a way back home to God.
I love the poetic way the band The Gray Havens tell this story:
To the serpent low
Said the king upon his throne
You’ve deceived and lied
My child has gone into exile
But I will go
I will make a way home
And I will bleed
Like the enemy
Every human heart was built to gaze upon beauty and to be filled up with love. But like a man dying of thirst drinking salt water we decided we preferred exile and have tried to fill up our hearts with so many other things. God’s beautiful story tells of the God who made a way home to him. This story displays the deep fulfilling love that God offers to those who take this way back to him.
4) Restoration: You know that the world needs a deeper solution.
What is the greatest problem in the world? Selfishness? Injustice? And what is the solution to that problem? Education? Government? We must seek to make this world a better place, and mankind has made great progress at times. However, I wonder if you would resonate with the reality that the problem is deeper, that we are more deeply broken, and that this brokenness will not be solved without a real change from within the human heart.
The Christian worldview tells the story of restoration. It teaches us that the human heart is broken, innately bent inwards to selfishness. What God offers is deep spiritual healing. He calls us to turn from trusting and worshiping ourselves to trusting and worshiping him. Specifically to trust in Jesus and his beautiful loving work to make a way home to God. Our part is to turn and when we do God heals our broken hearts. He orients our hearts away from self love and towards love of others and love of him.
The restoration God offers now is deep spiritual healing. The way home to him begins for these people with a secure relationship with God, knowing and experiencing his love. Total restoration of this world and all brokenness is coming when Jesus returns at the end of time. For those trusting in Jesus we eagerly await this day!
If your story tells you something deep is broken that needs spiritual restoration from inside, then the Christian worldview is telling your story.
In these ways I am convinced that the Christian worldview is telling the human story. As we find ourselves fighting for the value of human life, shaken by the brokenness of this world, recognizing the power of love, or longing for a real solution, I hope we see that our story is bearing witness to the Christian worldview story.
You probably also noticed that the Christian worldview presents a very real problem and a solution to that problem. If you want to learn more about embracing that solution by turning to God and trusting in Jesus, check out:
Cru at the University of Illinois 