So a while back I went to a retreat for work (doesn’t that sound odd?) and we spent 4 hours with a guy who told us all about World View.
For all practial purposes, none of it was about what World View we should have, and I think that’s proper. It was really about figuring out what a Good World View is. A Good World View (as opposed to a Correct World View) is defined primarily as consistent, with a strong emphasis on the holder being heavily aware of it.
A great example given of a Bad World View is a guy who was Catholic (for real) and believed in re-incarnation. Regardless of what you believe about either, they don’t jive together.
Even more important than consistency is awareness. People need to be aware that they have a World View (because everyone does, whether they know it or not) because it’s a pre-requisite for intelligent discussion about their beliefs. Additionally, even if their World View is consistent at a given point, if they’re not aware of what their World View is and why, there’s no reason that it will stay consistent.
Everyone in that room agreed on the core beliefs of Christianity (One God, Fallen Man, Christ The Redeemer, etc). There is a pretty wide spread of beliefs in the arena of details though, which makes sense given the number of poeple there. One of the things I liked about the session was that it wasn’t about changing our World View to match that of the speaker, or anyone else in the room, but enabling us to discuss differences in an intelligent, intellectual manner. We didn’t actually DO that that day, but that’s the goal.
That’s good stuff.
