From My Perspective - - -

Worldview – what is it? Is it completely objective or somewhat subjective? Does it identify itself by and with present trends or by foundational Core Beliefs and Values? Those who attempt to define it state: “It is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy; fundamental existential and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics…it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it.” From a German Perspective, it is noted as – “The Weltanschauung of a people originates from the unique world experience of a people, which they experience over several millennia. The language of a people reflects the Weltanschauung of that people in the form of its syntactic structures and untranslatable connotations and its denotations. Worldview can be expressed as the fundamental cognitive, affective, and evaluative presuppositions a group of people make about the nature of things, and which they use to order their lives…” Does that assist you in understanding what a Worldview is or should be? I didn’t think so!

A simpler approach and statement about a Worldview is: “Everyone has a worldview. Whether or not we realize it, we all have certain presuppositions and biases that affect the way we view all of life and reality. A worldview is like a set of lenses which taint our vision or alter the way we perceive the world around us. Our worldview is formed by our education, our upbringing, the culture we live in, the books we read, the media and movies we absorb, etc. For many people their worldview is simply something they have absorbed by osmosis from their surrounding cultural influences. They have never thought strategically about what they believe and wouldn't be able to give a rational defense of their beliefs to others.” A Worldview that borders on the subjective will be flawed and non-constant. It is devoid of reality and rests on hopeful/wishful thinking.

An example of this is given in a New York Times article on October 16th, 2010 written by Martin Fackler. It is entitled: “Japan Goes From Dynamic To Disheartened.” Following is a description of a Worldview: “Like many members of Japan's middle class, Masato Y. enjoyed a level of affluence two decades ago that was the envy of the world. Masato, a small-business owner, bought a $500,000 condominium, vacationed in Hawaii and drove a late-model Mercedes…his living standards slowly crumbled along with Japan’s overall economy. First, he was forced to reduce trips abroad and then eliminate them. Then he traded the Mercedes for a cheaper domestic model. Last year, he sold his condo — for a third of what he paid for it, and for less than what he still owed on the mortgage he took out 17 years ago.” What happened to cause this disintegration and overall collapse of personal wealth and lifestyle? The answer is seen in this observation: “Few nations in recent history have seen such a striking reversal of economic fortune as Japan…Japan rode one of the great speculative stock and property bubbles of all time in the 1980s to become the first Asian country to challenge the long dominance of the West. But the bubbles popped in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Japan fell into a slow but relentless decline that neither enormous budget deficits nor a flood of easy money has reversed. For nearly a generation now, the nation has been trapped in low growth and a corrosive downward spiral of prices, known as deflation in the process shriveling…to an afterthought in the global economy…”

Jesus addressed a worldview not based on core values and firm foundations when He taught in Matthew 7:26-27 (ESV): “…everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. "The choice Jesus set before the crowds was both clear and obvious – build on solid rock and endure, or build on shifting sand that will result in collapse and failure. The wise man chooses the rock – the firm foundation and solid core values, whereas the foolish man – grabs for what he deems to be the fastest means to achieve a short-term goal – but in the process loses it all! What choice(s) have you made? Are you among the “dynamic” with a strong faith in God, or among the “disheartened” because your hope was in a man-conceived Weltanschauung? Consider these things with me!