📄The Areopagus Update – Jan/Feb 2019
In 1963 Bob Dylan wrote and recorded “The Times They Are A-changin’,” an anthem that helped crystalize and mobilize the massive social, political and cultural protest movements of the decade. Not only was it one of the defining songs of the Sixties, but it was also prophetic. Thirty years later, Dylan wrote and recorded another commentary on the times entitled “Everything Is Broken.” In retrospect, these two songs could serve as bookends for any analysis of our society and culture over the past sixty years.
I’m reminded of what Rod Dreher wrote in his 2017 best-seller, The Benedict Option, in which he declared that the culture war in America is essentially over, and we lost. In his words, “Conservative Christians have been routed. We are living in a new country.” Not that we should meekly concede, retreat and surrender. We still have a moral and spiritual mandate to be a source of light and truth in a society increasingly resistant to both. But in order to be so, as Dreher writes, “We are going to have to change our lives, and our approach to life, in radical ways.” I would simply add: We also are going to have to change the way we think.
Our Areopagus seminar at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church for the first semester of 2019 is “Alternative Universes: A Survey of Comparative Worldviews and Religions.” This in-depth course focuses on what every Christian should know in order to think and live in accord with a wholistic biblical worldview so as to be an effective witness for Christ in the midst of a society that is increasingly secular, pluralistic and religiously diverse.
Every religion, including even godless religions such as secular humanism, are based on a general worldview. As James Sire writes in his classic, The Universe Next Door, “A worldview is a fundamental orientation which we hold about reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live.” In her book, Is Reality Secular? Mary Poplin puts it this way: “Our worldview is the lens through which we interpret reality and by which we reason.”
Over the past thirty years the concept of worldviews has become an integral part of Christian cultural apologetics. While relatively few people have an articulate philosophy of life or a carefully constructed theology, everyone has a general worldview. However, surveys reveal that only about 20% of “born again” Christians (and less than 7% of the general public) hold a consistent biblical worldview. More alarmingly, only about 1% of young adults hold a biblical worldview!
Join us beginning in January for this important and relevant study of alternative worldviews and religions that every wellinformed Christian should know.
Also in this issue… 50 Recommended Films! by Jefrey Breshears
Also in this issue… 2018 Recommended Books by Jefrey Breshears
