For Such A Time As This!

Not quitting the game. Just passing the puck.

It is a great pleasure to announce today that I (Christian Overman) am turning the reins of the “Worldview Matters” blog over to RenewaNation.  

Last month I turned 71. For several years leading up to my septuagenarian era, we searched for an organization that could carry on the work of Worldview Matters. The Lord sovereignly connected us with Jeff Keaton, Founder and President of RenewaNation, and we cannot think of an organization (and a person) I’d rather be turning things over to than Renewanation and Jeff Keaton!

RenewaNation is not only taking over the weekly blog content, and the training materials we have developed, but also the name, “Worldview Matters.” We are thankful find an organization that carries such a like-minded passion for training teachers, parents, pastors and students in Biblical Worldview thought and practice.  

Tonya Gordon, at RenewaNation, will be at the helm of the weekly blog, determining its content. I asked Tonya to write a brief description of what the Worldview Matters blog readers can expect to see in the future:

“RenewaNation has a heart to continue carrying the torch of educating people in seeing all of life through a Biblical Worldview lens, and using the Worldview Matters blog as an equipping platform for each of our Divisions at RenewaNation. 

We will provide articles and resources for Christian schools, as well as for families who have felt called to Homeschool.  We will also feature testimonies to the transformational power of formulating a Biblical Worldview perspective through both the iLumendEd Academy staff and students' experiences, as well as provide a platform for other individuals to share their own Biblical Worldview accounts. 

The blog will also be an avenue where we provide articles and resources from our Church and Family Ministry led by Dr. Josh Mulvihill.

It will also be the launching ground for great Biblical Worldview champions to share their expertise.

We prayerfully go forth utilizing the wealth of Biblical Worldview training that you have poured into each of us to champion the cause for the glory of our Lord!”

Thank you, Tonya!

Many blessings on you, and RenewaNation, for such a time as this!

This blog is a service of  RenewaNation www.renewanation.org 

 

A Model City For Applied Christianity

Is there a lesson here?

In the 1500's, the walls of the city of Geneva were in disrepair, the people were poor, and the condition of the church was deplorable. Proof? Priests operated houses of prostitution.

The people ran the bishop of Geneva out of town in 1530. William Farel, a French evangelist, came in 1531. Preaching in the marketplace, he cried out, "We must reform the church in order to reform the nation!"

Farel sought out John Calvin, imploring him to come to Geneva to apply the theology he had written about in Institutes of Religion: "May God curse you and your studies if you do not join me here in the work He has called you to!"

Thomas Bloomer notes that Calvin came to rebuild Geneva on three principles:

1. Preaching the Gospel: "...so that people would be saved and start to be transformed and the church would be restored to biblical purity."

2. Teaching: "...so that people would know how to live, the authorities would know how to govern, and all would know how to work in their different spheres."

3. Accountability: "...so that the teaching would not just be theoretical but applied in all areas of life."

Geneva, once called “the smelliest city of Europe,” became a model city for applied Christianity, from the way banks operated, to how shoes were made, and children were brought up.     

Geneva became known as, “the city on a hill,” referring to Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:14-16: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

John Knox came to study what Calvin was doing, and took what he learned to Scotland. England was influenced by Geneva, and brought this influence to North America, where John Winthrop used the phrase “a city on a hill” to describe his vision for the Massachusetts Bay colony to become a shining light for the world.

We recommend Bloomer's essay, Calvin and Geneva: Nation-Building Missions, here.

Geneva’s revitalization through the 3 principles mentioned above is to be remembered today—and taught in our history classes.

This blog is a service of  RenewaNation www.renewanation.org 

Have We Lost Our Christian Mind?

Have we lost our Christian mind?

Generally speaking, yes.

Our culture has forgotten how to “think Christianly” about most things. We may “think Christianly” about church, and Bible study, but it gets fuzzy beyond that.

Having divorced Christian thought from the study of mathematics, history and language in school, it’s no surprise our culture divorces Christian thought from business, civics, and writing skills after graduation.   

“Thinking Christianly” is a learned skill we can intentionally develop and refine. We must teach our children/students to do the same.  

How?

CAUTION: The following requires more than 60 seconds.

First, understand that “thinking Christianly” requires viewing any topic in the context of a biblically-informed bigger picture.  

Seeing topics in context is the key to understanding anything properly. All topics have a context. Often, the context is as important as the topic itself. Facts are never neutral, because all facts have a context.

If you look at the photo below, it is easy to misinterpret the object because there's not enough context to decipher its meaning:

But if you see the larger context, its meaning becomes clear. Scroll down to view the bigger picture.

It’s the “bigger picture” of Biblical Truth that provides the necessary context for understanding anything rightly. Specifically, the “bigger picture” is the Biblical view of God, Creation, Humanity, Moral Order and Purpose.

Here are 101 Biblical Truths to get started: short form or long form.  

Step 1: Think about which of the 101 biblical Truths given above have a direct relationship to your topic at hand. Think deeply about it. Take your time.

Step 2: After doing Step 1, ask yourself (or your children/students) a few thought-provoking questions to put your topic into the context of a biblically-shaped “bigger picture.”

Here are some questions to consider (not all of these questions will fit every topic, but choose the ones most relevant to your topic): click here.

Step 3: Discuss these questions around the dinner table, or use them as conversation starters in the classroom.

Here is an example of “contextualizing” the topic of plants, putting plants into the larger context of a biblical worldview, through a teaching template called, “The Conversation Stater:” click here.

With tools like this, we can re-cultivate a “Christian mind” in ourselves and the next generation. If we’re willing to carve out the time for it.

Some things are worth carving out time for, aren't they?    

This blog is a service of  RenewaNation www.renewanation.org 

What Has Happened To America?

Noah Webster (1758-1843), the "Father of American Scholarship and Education," said education was "useless without the Bible." 

In the Preface to his Dictionary of 1828, Webster wrote: "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed."

John Adams, the 2^nd President of the United States, declared: “…we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

If you think the “morality and religion” Adams had in mind could be something other than morality and religion as defined by the Bible and Christianity, you may be under the age of 25.  

Adams realized the future of the American system rested upon the continuing existence of a body of people who practice self-government under the God of the Bible.

Noah Webster, Founding Father called, “The Schoolmaster of the Nation,” once wrote: “…the education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. Education, in a great measure, forms the moral characters of men, and morals are the basis of government.”

Webster recognized the Bible is “that book which the benevolent Creator has furnished for the express purpose of guiding human reason in the path of safety, and the only book which can remedy, or essentially mitigate, the evils of a licentious world.”

In a letter written on October 25, 1836, to David McClure, Webster wrote:

“No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people….The foundation of all free government and all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth. Young persons must not only be furnished with knowledge, but they must be accustomed to subordination and subjected to the authority and influence of good principles.…And any system of education…which limits instruction to the arts and sciences, and rejects the aids of religion in forming the character of citizens, is essentially defective.”

Many people are asking, “What has happened to America?” Noah Webster gave us clues.

In 1787, when the Constitution was first drafted, it was not unreasonable to think U.S. citizens could be the kind of “moral and religious people” necessary for the American Republic to work. In the church-established schools of the day (nearly all schools were church-established then), early Americans became Bible-conscious, and they learned what “self-government under God” is all about.

Where are the Noah Websters of today?

You’ll be hearing from them in the days ahead.

 

This blog is a service of  RenewaNation www.renewanation.org 

Where The Most Resplendent Music Came From

What is the origin of "Western" music?

 

You can tell a lot about a worldview by the kind of music it produces.

If you visit a Muslim mosque, you will not see an organ or a piano. No choir will sing, nor will the congregation. Devout followers of Mohammad believe music is heram, which means "illegitimate." Westernized Muslims are not as strict when it comes to music, but in fundamentalist Islam, music-making is intentionally absent.  

Buddhists view life as a cycle of suffering caused by human desire. Salvation, for the Buddhist, is escape from suffering through the extinction of desire. Joy To The World is not something you’ll hear in a Buddhist temple. There’s no living God to sing about. The closest thing to music coming from a Buddhist temple is a single-note drone. Some Buddhists now incorporate Western-style music into their practice, but this is a relatively recent phenomenon.

“Westerners” take melody and harmony for granted. But "Western" music did not spring from a vacuum. It came from Christianity. Any music history 101 course taught at any university in America will tell you this, unless they’re re-writing music history, too.

"Western" music came out of worship by monks who birthed single-voice melody, called Plainsong, which later developed into Gregorian Chant, starting in the 3rd century. In the 9th century, two-voice melodies appeared, and then polyphony [multi-voice music]. Out of this came Handel, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. That’s the remarkable, true story of how “Western" music developed. 

The next time you listen to your favorite pop tune, you can thank Christian monks for making it possible. Better yet, thank the living God who inspired the monks to create polyphony! 

They saw music as a means of worshipping the living God. “Western” harmony sprang out of a worldview of hope and joy, producing polyphony as an expression of praise, thanksgiving and celebration. Multi-voice harmony made worship come alive.

Think what this world would be like if Christ had never been born. As C.S. Lewis described it, “Always winter, never Christmas.” Would the extraordinary Handel's Messiah be here? Don’t kid yourself! Not even Johnny Cash music would be here.

It's an unpardonable postmodern sin to compare the Christian worldview with others and find the others wanting. All worldviews are supposed to be equally grand. But the music tells a different story. 

We’ve just forgotten where the most resplendent music came from.

Start your year off with some Chopin: https://youtu.be/DhQ5KpeZMEo

 

This blog is a service of  RenewaNation www.renewanation.org