If you get your worldview wrong, your decisions are not going to be things that honour God or that lead you to your best life.
Sadly, when it comes to building foundational beliefs, most people choose the easy path: avoid conflict or try to maximise pleasure. Dr George Barna in his book “How to Think Like Jesus” challenges Christians to examine their foundational beliefs, exposing the dangers of syncretism and identifying seven essential cornerstones of a truly biblical worldview.
As Jesus’ imperative in Matthew 7:24-27 states, the Christian’s faith is either built on the rock or on the sand. Foundations are important, Barna writes, because they make up our core beliefs. Our beliefs matter, he added, “because you do what you believe.”
This foundation is so integral to who we are that we don’t even think about it. Barna writes, “It’s always there. It always serves you. It is so reliable that it is ‘out of sight, out of mind’.” Using the analogy of a house in need of repair and realignment, he then asked, “But what if your foundation is inadequate?” “You would feel compelled to address the problem before a disaster occurs.”
“The foundation of your worldview needs to be handled with just as much urgency and care. If the foundation of your worldview is subpar, your worldview will suffer, which in turn undermines your entire life.”
Barna is encouraging readers to look at their blind spots. What is our foundation really built upon? Is it based on a rock-solid Biblical worldview or the sands of syncretism?
The Danger of a Pick-and-Mix Faith
He states that when it comes to building foundational beliefs, most people choose the easy path: avoid conflict or attempt to maximise pleasure.
For those in the United States, these choices, Barna stated, “reflect what is popular, common, comfortable, easiest, most beneficial, or expected. Surprisingly few Americans choose to develop their worldview based on what they believe God wants.”
We tend to choose what we want instead. This is one important reason why only 4 per cent of Americans have a biblical worldview.
Defining terms, he explained that a biblical worldview is “a philosophy of life that consistently reflects God’s ways and honours Him through your choices.” This is distinct from Postmodernism, Secular Humanism, Marxism, Eastern Mysticism, and Nihilism, among others.
Barna then notes that the most common worldview among them all is syncretism. This is, he argued, “a cut-and-paste philosophy in which each individual adopts a smorgasbord of ideas borrowed from multiple worldviews. It usually represents an inconsistent and chaotic philosophy, but even more so, it unveils the intellectual ignorance and moral and spiritual indifference of Americans.”
So, he added, “Don’t be lazy or disengaged when it comes to your worldview. That perspective impacts every decision you make every day of your life. If you do not thoroughly invest your mind, heart, and soul in getting your worldview right, you will pay a steep and constant price for that negligence.”
When talking with Tony Perkins from the Washington Stand about ‘How to Think Like Jesus’, Barna said, “Everyone has a worldview. It’s essentially their decision-making filter. So, if you get your worldview wrong, your decisions are not going to be things that honour God or that lead you to your best life.”
The shocking findings come from eight years of studying worldviews at the Cultural Research Centre.
Barna told Perkins that Americans not having a good, strong biblical foundation to build upon was the reason for the 4%. According to Barna, syncretism is America’s prevailing worldview. This exists even among those who consider themselves to be Christians and born-again believers.
He argued that worldviews built on syncretism pull in ideas from different worldviews. While it may make us feel good, feel comfortable and help make us popular, Barna said that approach is false. It’s not valid and not helpful.
This is why Barna says he wrote the book. “If you want to be a follower of Christ,” he asserted, “if you want to be a true Christian, you’ve got to be able to think like Jesus.”
Seven Cornerstones That Change Everything
Barna’s group found seven foundational beliefs that he said change everything if you own them and don’t just parrot them or say, ‘I kind of agree with that.’
These cornerstones, he added, “become part of your identity, and then you translate those beliefs into a lifestyle. They change everything. They give you that strong foundation. Then you develop a complete biblical worldview.”
Barna said it’s all based on research, not his own thinking.
“What we discovered is if you really own these seven, then you’ll have an 83% probability of going on and developing a complete biblical worldview. But if you reject even one of those seven, then the probability of having a full biblical worldview drops to just 2%. So, these seven things are very fundamental. They’re very simple.”
The seven are:
- God exists. He is the Creator and Author of the Bible. His account of the history of the Cosmos is accurate. “In the beginning God created…“. It did not evolve from nothing. Also, and importantly, the worldwide flood of Noah’s day was a real event that occurred just a little over 4000 years ago. The world does not acknowledge it and takes the evidence of billions of dead things buried all over the world, incorrectly, as evidence for billions of years of Earth’s history. God has raised up ministries such as http://www.creation.com and http://www.answersingenesis.org to overcome this satanic strategy of Satan.
- All humans are sinful by nature.
- This condition can only be forgiven and eliminated in Jesus Christ and by receiving the Holy Spirit. Without Him, you cannot live the Christian life. He is your counsellor, teacher, comforter and helper. Most people in pews of churches have never truly repented, been baptised and received the Holy Spirit.
- Absolute moral truths exist. These are defined by God, described in the Bible and are unchanging.
- The Bible is true, reliable and relevant.
- Humanity’s ultimate purpose is to glorify God, knowing and loving Him fully.
- Success on Earth is best indicated by consistent obedience to God in thoughts, words and deeds.
Each of the cornerstones, which Barna also refers to as elements in his book, aligns with most creeds and core doctrinal statements of sound biblical churches.
For example, element one reflects our Creator who made us in His image. Element two reflects original sin. Element three reflects the incarnation, atonement, and justification. Elements four and five reflect Sola Scriptura. Elements six and seven restate the Westminster Confession’s chief end of man.
The difference between cornerstones and the creeds is application.
As Barna explained, a worldview is about behaviour as much as it is about beliefs. He wrote, “In a nutshell, that is why this book was written: to help people who may not have embraced all seven cornerstones do so, and thus, get on track toward developing and living in harmony with a full biblical worldview.
“Why? Because all the evidence suggests that possessing such a worldview is truly transformational.”
