More than Worldview

A full 48 hours with no Internet connection! I almost didn't survive... :-)
I spent last weekend at our annual state music teachers conference. Now that I'm home, I'm trying to catch up with everything.

As I read through all the updates at The Rebelution from the SAICFF, I was especially struck by this synopsis of a session given by R.C. Sproul, Jr.:

As Christians, particularly those of us who are Reformed, we often fall into the error of measuring our level of sanctification by the sophistication of our worldview. Our godliness is decided by our ability to drop names of philosophers and theologians whose works we've studied. We attempt to solve our problems by reading books, attending conferences, listening to sermons, and watching video lectures. In many ways, we're still snared by a foundational enlightenment worldview, that man is perfectible, and that education is his salvation. We don't change our problems by changing our worldview. Man doesn't sin because of errors in his worldview. Rather he constructs erroneous worldviews to cover over his sin.

Ouch! How often I have been guilty of just such an underlying attitude.

The rebuke is followed up with this application:

Because of this, making movies to change worldviews, simply will not work. That mindset is still enslaved to the enlightenment. It will only persuade audiences to construct different erroneous worldviews to cover up their sins. Mr. Sproul encouraged all Christians, whether watching or making films, to measure a movie, not by its ability to make us think true thoughts, but by its ability to encourage virtue.

Ultimately the substance of one's thoughts will be the motive of one's actions. Therefore, truly virtous actions can only be lived out as a result of a mind that has been renewed by the Lord and conformed to His worldview. However, the point seems to be that it is virtuous actions that will elicit a response from an unbelieving observer, rather than an overt presentation of the worldview behind those actions. My aim, then, ought to be to live in such a virtuous way as to cause others to question my lifestyle, then to be able to clearly articulate the underlying worldview in such a way that others can be persuaded to conform their thoughts to the authority of the Word of God, thus resulting in a lifestyle that is likewise lived in obedience to the Word of God. Too often, I attempt to impress people with a supposed understanding of intellectual matters, or an ability to persuasively debate or defend the truth. Such methods only succeed in further elevating the enlightened human reasoning that drives the lives of those who reject God in the first place.

Several poignant statements from Thomas A' Kempis in his book, The Imitation of Christ, further iterate these thoughts:

Surely an humble husbandman that serveth God is better than a proud philosopher that, neglecting himself, laboreth to understand the course of the heavens.

Cease from an inordinate desire of knowing, for therein is much distraction and deceit. The learned are well-pleased to seem so to others, and to be accounted wise.

Yet learning is not to be blamed, nor the mere knowledge of anything whatsoever to be disliked, it being good in itself, and ordained by God; but a good conscience and a virtuous life is always to be preferred before it.

As Christians, let us be committed to "having [our] conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against [us] as evildoers, they may by [our] good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." I Peter 2:12