Do we really have a Christian worldview?

Christianity is a distinct worldview in the best sense of the term. It is a way of understanding the world around you, your place in the world and the purpose of life. Christianity says that the world matters to the one who created it as good, you matter to the God who created you in His image, and the purpose of your life is bound up in Him and your life matters and has meaning, but not a meaning you determine independently of your creator, who alone knows the purpose for which you were created.

A Christian worldview allows me to see creation, time and space, as coherent and moving towards something. Science says that in beginning was an explosion and that everything that is the universe was set in motion moving away from everything else and that expansion continues to the present day. What Christianity says is that this particular planet and the life on it matters to God enough that HE came in the form of Jesus and died in order that this life form might continue to live forever. There is something unique about us in the cosmos.

It is that worldview that impels Christians to go to places and do things that are dangerous and that might cost them their lives. Even extreme sports measure risk better than Christians. Base jumping might be risky but no one does it without a parachute. Since the day of Pentecost Christians have chosen to take risks that they knew were likely to result in death but not with the despair and hopelessness of suicide, but rather in affirmation that my life matters. It matters enough that I am willing to risk it on behalf of the Gospel and on behalf of others.

It is easy to pick on Richard Dawkins but the truth is that Christianity as a worldview is different from Dawkins' worldview in that people who have a truly Christian worldview will take risks that Dawkins' worldview would never demand. The one thing I will say is that Dawkins is willing to risk popularity for his worldview and most western Christians aren't willing to do the same. It is easier to keep your head down and not speak out. If some are willing to risk their lives for the sake of the Gospel, it should shame the rest of us into at least speaking up and speaking out and risking people's opinions of us in order that they might hear the Gospel.