The Difference Christianity Makes

What is a Christian WORLDVIEW?

• “Biblical" worldview, but in today's sermon, I want to specifically highlight the worldview of the Christian faith.

• In short, a Christian worldview is one that believes that God created all things through Jesus Christ, that God's perfect will is fully revealed in the 66 books of the Bible, that God is offering a free-gift of eternal life without regard to merit and without demand nor acceptance of works, but based on faith alone, and that Jesus will return to establish the Kingdom of God on earth someday.

Christianity's Impact On Our World

• Art and architecture

  • “Christian" vs “Non-Christian" art“Christian" art being from an artist with a Christian worldview.

  • As artists left the Christian worldview, art transformed:

    • From Biblical or historical events/persons to landscapes and nameless workers of the world.

    • From realistic to impressionistic -- from expressing history to expressing emotion.

      
      

  • Architecture went from works of artistic and mathematical precision celebrating the spiritual/natural world to monstrous monuments to men.

    
    

• Medicine

  • Christianity's view of the physical grows out of the view of its God: Created with order, rational, predictable.

  • Because of this, Judeo-Christian thought produced science based on expectation verified by observation.

  • Because of this, the Judeo-Christian world made the greatest scientific advance of all history.

    
    

• Sport

  • What happened to the Greco-Roman Olympics? Christianity outlawed it because it was such a bloody, deadly affair.

  • What happened to the practice of Gladiator games, which lasted 600 years? Christianity outlawed it.

  • What happened to Ulama, the first known team sport, practiced in the Western Hemisphere by the Aztecs and others? Christianity outlawed it.

  • Christianity made athleticism and sport to be moral, humane, and honorable.

    
    

• Charity

  • There is virtually almost nothing in organized care for the poor, hurting, hungry, sick until the Christian era.

  • “charity" was a uniquely Christian word until modern times.

  • “Holy Cross," “Presbyterian," “Baptist," etc.? Because it was those of a Christian worldview that did medical care.

  • “Red Cross," “Salvation Army," and “YMCA"? Because Christians alone exercised charity on a mass scale.

    
    

• Economic Ideas

  • Capitalism is built on two principles: ownership of private property and the sinful tendency of mankind. Both principles are based in Scripture alone.

  • How to reduce crime: only give a man money when he produces something. This is a Biblical idea, and it works! A man who knows he must work to eat doesn't have time for crime.

  • It is no mistake that communism is atheistic, nor that it produces poverty and crime.

  • “useful idiots."

    
    

• Time does not allow a discussion on education, government, and so much more, but the Christen view always leads to the betterment of society.

What Kind of world would it be? …“What if" exercise

• What if you took a community and gave them an opportunity to be in one of two new countries, both with equal resources.

• What if the sole criteria for which of the two countries they would inhabit was their acceptance or denial of the first four words of the Bible: in the beginning, God. What difference would this make in the outcome of their societies?

• My prediction:

  • “land of denial" could not develop a society that would last beyond a few decades, and those decades would be troublesome and led by a dictator.

  • The “land of acceptance" would become a land of prosperity, freedom, and health. It would become the envy of the world.

  Two Fundamental Needs For a Prosperous and Happy Future