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What in the World is Weltanschauung?
By chris | January 20, 2007
Move over “Postmodern” and “Emergent!” Step aside “Missional!” Go home “House Church!” Make room for the Grandfather of all Christian buzz words: “W O R L D V I E W.”
In ministry, communicating the truth of God’s Word to real people will run you headlong into their personal application of epistemology, also called worldview. Yeah, epistemology, the lecture you slept through in Freshman Philosophy class! — Blast you Dr Smellfungus! Why couldn’t you have been more interesting to listen to when I was in your 8:15 AM class? Now I am drawing a blank–what in the world is epistemology?
In short, epistemology is the study of the “nature and scope of knowledge and belief.” (See also, Narcolepsy) The Germans also called it Weltanschauung (worldview); you’ll call it your lifelong ministry communication problem.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Missionaries have been struggling to understand how to communicate the gospel to people of all kinds of worldviews for ages. What’s all the fuss about? People think differently in different places. Anyone with a passport knows that. But the American church spends an inordinate amount of time trying to decide if it is possible to think another way, and if it is—what if the kids in the Youth Group find out? Yikes!
Most people float through life with little thought about why they think things. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t influenced by a particular way of thinking, or worldview. Recently, evangelical Christians have been engaged in a lot of talk about the ways the world has changed its presuppositions about truth. We wring our hands that we live in a “post-Christian” world. I agree we are in an environment where Christianity is not the influential force it once was in the USA.
But how did it happen? I think we disengaged from the public forum and have not been engaged in the dialog about truth. Instead of speaking truth, as “Salt and Light” into our world, we created a separate world for ourselves safe from all that “Secular Humanism” and “New Age” stuff. We kind of wanted to talk about worldview in the 70’s and 80’s when Francis Schaeffer was alive, but deep down, but we had our doubts about the topic even then. I mean, they guy wore knickers after all! What’s up with that?
It’s time to understand the times we live in and speak boldly and prophetically to the people of our times! I think we are coming to terms with the problem now. The emergent discussion, the Missional movement, the House church movement is fueled by the talking. But how do we help the pastor of First Church Slapdabinit, Texas? We can’t assume we understand what will help him reach his community. The people in his community may have a traditional Christian worldview, but they could also be animistic. You have to understand what the worldview really is there.
Weltanschauung meets Ministry Communications
We need to apply a more savvy understanding of people if we want to seriously get the gospel into the mainstream discussion. First order of business, stop making a scene about the state of things and get involved in understanding and meeting people where they are today.
Many of the movements that are the most written about in Christian circles aren’t nearly as important as church people think they are. If you want a quick and easy way to know which movements are over, just go to the local Christian bookstore. If there is more than one Christian publisher publishing on a particular subject—that movement was over 20 years ago in the general marketplace. [ 
Be nice, I am just playing!]
Don’t just study postmodernism, study worldview. Learn as much as you can about Missiology, but don’t try to replicate missionary strategies from the other side of the planet in your town. It may not work. Don’t merely study graphic design or imitate secular marketing, study how people decide what matters to them most—how they arrive at truth. Then you can speak to them in ways they will understand and with which they will easily relate.
If you embrace the fact that what you are doing is attempting open people up to the power of the gospel through the teaching and preaching of the Word of God, you will realize you need to understand how they think so you can connect with them. You know, it’s basic missionary work.
Worldview in Action
We don’t have a choice about engaging worldview in our daily lives. The Weltanschauung show has come to our town and we get to “enjoy” it. The great clash we are experiencing between the West and Middle East is a crash of competing worldviews. The wave of change that is coming to America due the increasing influence of the Latin Worldview is what will shape ministry communication for years to come. The changes in economic drivers that will happen as the Asian countries rise in global influence will also bring more contact with the Asian worldview chez nous.
This is not cause for alarm, it is time for understanding!
Instead of getting scared—get excited, you get to represent Christ as a missionary ambassador! David Hesselgrave has an excellent book that will help you, “Communicating Christ Cross-culturally: An Introduction to Missionary Communication”. Any serious ministry marketing coach needs to digest the content of this book. He has many insights that will help you save time and energy as you help churches communicate in this increasingly complex communication environment.
Worldviews now in operation in your own backyard discussed by Hesselgrave
- Naturalist Worldview
- Tribal Worldview
- Hindu Buddhist Worldview
- Asian Worldview
- Monotheistic Worldview
- Syncretistic Worldview
- Latino Worldview
- Islamic Worldview
The breakdown of borders through immigration and interaction via the worldwide web has changed the environment in many ways. You can’t just study people in broad categories; you need to understand individuals and their segments in your ministry area.
In my ministry to international students, I often found myself in a room filled with people from all kinds of religions and worldviews. I understood quickly I could not have a one-size-fits-all-template approach to communicate the gospel. I decided to learn as much as I could about the various religions and worldviews. When I returned to communicate with people with my newfound information, I found I still had a problem.
I tried to communicate with the Buddhists, Moslems and Hindus I knew by engaging them with my new understanding of their religious and cultural backgrounds. What I found is I would have had to teach them about Buddhism, Islam or Hinduism if I wanted to discuss faith with them. They were only nominal believers in their faith. What I learned was I didn’t only need to understand Buddhism—I needed to understand THAT Buddhist. I didn’t need to understand Islam as much as I needed to understand THAT new friend from Pakistan.
Culture Shock
As a missionary, I also learned that my job was to understand my people group’s worldview, not engage in trying to compare the value of theirs to mine. When I tried to compare, I was really reacting in shock to the variance of their cultural views to mine.
Much of the discussion in the church about worldview can be explained as culture shock. I used to see it when International students came to the USA to go to college. I have seen it in missionary colleagues on the field—I have lived it myself! When a person goes in to culture shock, they usually start making comparisons between their familiar background and the new environment. This is usually expressed in two extremes.
- These People are Nuts! The person sees their own culture as the “normal” right culture. The person shuts himself off from the new culture and builds a missionary compound with high walls around it to live in.
- These People are really cool! The person in shock sees the new culture idealistically and thinks their old culture is backward and wrong. The person “goes native” and drops affiliation with the old ways.
The truth is that you can’t compare cultures. I was surprised in my language study that you can’t say everything you can say in French or Spanish, in English. You can get the idea, but it loses a lot in the translation. Be careful not to compare too much. Many people have become trapped in culture shock while engaging in the great dialogues going on in the church. Some have gone native, some are building walls. In all the activity, the unchurched are not being reached because we haven’t been engaged in evangelism. Snap out of it America!
Ethnographics
This study of worldview leads naturally to an interest in Ethnographics. As a ministry marketing coach you need to become a student of people. Learn as much as you can about them. People are fascinating. Try this book “Designing and Conducting Ethnographic Research” by LeCompte Margaret Diane. At least, develop a strategy for getting a deeper understanding of people by being more open to considering their worldview. You can also get training in the application of ethnographic research in the ministry context from the Caleb Project.
Topics: Develop the Message |
August 21st, 2007 at 7:17 am
[...] But I do think we need to revisit the idea that ministry (and outreach) relevance is not a matter of style, it is more about really understanding people and meeting them at the point of their needs. Worldview is not a matter of what a person thinks, as much as how one thinks. If we hope to really reach people, we need to understand how they think and build bridges of understanding as we reach out (like missionaries do) to them with the gospel. [...]
June 6th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
[...] But I do think we need to revisit the idea that ministry (and outreach) relevance is not a matter of style, it is more about really understanding people and meeting them at the point of their needs. Worldview is not a matter of what a person thinks, as much as how one thinks. If we hope to really reach people, we need to understand how they think and build bridges of understanding as we reach out (like missionaries do) to them with the gospel. [...]