Mission Implausible

I'm in the middle of reading this book. A central theme is that modernity and postmodernity in Europe has undermined the 'plausibility' of Christanity so Christians need to build structures that protect and reinforce the plausibility of the Christian story.

I've just been mulling over this. My question is this: does following Jesus depend on a worldview? Is Christianity a worldview?

My feeling is that it isn't. My feeling is that Jesus didn't come to start a worldview or a religion but to tell the people around him how to live their faith more authentically in a transformed relationship with God. When the Jesus movement later expanded there was the need to build a 'worldview' that successfully married Hebrew and Greek culture. And so a philosophical system was created and so were the creeds.

But I don't think Jesus' message is actually tied to that worldview. I think worldviews come and go, and that one is going, or it has already gone. I think worldview and philosophy actually has more to do with 'culture' than 'gospel' and the gospel can exist in more than one culture.

So we can reject a worldview, and should if it is no longer plausible to us. But I think the gospel of Jesus is much deeper and more universal than that. It does not depend on words, but expresses truths beyond words, and beyond any particular theology.

If our lives are authentically transformed by the Spirit then it doesn't matter very much what our worldview is, or at least it is a secondary activity to work out a worldview.

These are the half-finished thoughts I wanted to record tonight.