The Goal
This was written in order to position worldview within the interests of the *Human initiative and to draw upon worldview themes as we imagine bringing those into the specific journeys of those we accompany. This is a document written by Pete White to help understand why worldview is a way to create safety and emergence for those we accopmany.
Worldview as a Lived System
Why is worldview the approach? By observing the Modern Self and the modern worldview demanded of it (i.e., regarding it as an entity—a ‘hypothetical self’—external to both Explorers and their guides), by properly observing and scrutinizing its internal structure and the ensuing dictates to which the Modern Self must adhere, Explore establishes a safe psychological and emotional distance for Explorers inside of which the effects of their worldview can be observed without aggression, personal condemnation or the familiar and combative modes of engagement often witnessed in Christian apologetic programmes and platforms.
In other words, Worldview dialogue allows us to deeply understand the other in front of us, and help them also critically think about their own worldview in a way that doesn't completely shake their identity. It is only in safety that any of us can do this.
Explorers require contexts rooted in trust, humility, and safety inside of which frank observations of the lived effects of ‘both’ worldviews can be properly engaged. When done so with care, both the rudiments and the fruit guaranteed inside of both (ours and those we accompany) views—views that become ways of life or living systems—can be properly seen.
In the spirit of the Christ who frames his call to humankind with the humble invitation, “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear,” Explorers (those we accompany) are honoured at the level of their humanity. In other words, they are engaged by the effects of a contravening worldview in a manner that offers gentle exposure of the suppositions and the properties that undergird the secularized modern worldview and its effects.
In solidarity with the Spirit of Jesus, we as guides, firmly established in love of neighbour, are compelled neither by argument or explanation, but by a deep interest in accompaniment. Philosopher, Dallas Willard, speaks well to this impetus as uniquely present in the heart and accordant relational ‘style’ of Jesus:
“Jesus' aim in utilizing logic is not to win battles, but to achieve understanding or insight in his hearers. This understanding only comes from the inside, from the understandings one already has. It seems to "well up from within" one. Thus he does not follow the logical method one often sees in Plato's dialogues, or the method that characterizes most teaching and writing today. That is, he does not try to make everything so explicit that the conclusion is forced down the throat of the hearer. Rather, he presents matters in such a way that those who wish to know can find their way to, can come to, the appropriate conclusion as something they have discovered--whether or not it is something they particularly care for.
"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." Yes, and no doubt Jesus understood that. And so he typically aims at real inward change of view that would enable his hearers to become significantly different as people through the workings of their own intellect. They will have, unless they are strongly resistant to the point of blindness, the famous "eureka" experience, not the experience of being outdone or beaten down.”
Thus, the guiding principle in such encounters with Explorers is to be present with them with accordant depth and humility.
We as guides trust the Imago Dei in our human neighbors and are not interested in ‘teaching them’ or patronizing them, as it were from a position of moralizing expertise. Thus, the primary ‘motif’ in worldview engagement from among guides and those we accopmany, is not theoretical or merely polemic in nature. Rather, guides represent their worldview by inhabiting the love of Christ as an invitation to their neighbour. Guided in such a manner, interactions with explorers will initially take shape around the needs of explorers at the level of their lived experience—and lived dilemmas—inside of the broader themes of meaning, of purpose, of connection and belonging.
What undergirds and permeates the *Human initative in its character is a certain penitence with regard to how it addresses the ‘un-churched’. Echoes of our shared and truncated interests from the past—to merely save people from hell, to merely put more bodies in pews, to merely increase the numbers of attendance at Mass, to merely increasing ‘giving’— each of these belied motivations that interrupted the dynamics of true listening, true exploration, true presence in solidarity with the un-churched neighbor whom we are called by our Lord to love. We guides will come armed with an inner caution, aimed, not at our neighbour, but at our own human proclivity for principled interests to become distortions of virtue. C.S. Lewis drew attention to our shared vulnerability along these lines:
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
If such personal vulnerabilities are not held squarely in our sights as guides as we engage our neighbours, we remain vulnerable to missing Christ’s profound admonition against our collective inner lean toward condemning judgment and veiled hubris. The spacious interest inside of the wish to meet 'seekers’ in their lived context—the heart of *Human—is carried along by a very careful humility and a deep love for each individual inside of the heart of Christ.
Against such a backdrop, worldview presents, not merely as an apologetic opportunity, but as a ministerial necessity. Inside of the heart of Christ, just as we would (and do) with our own offspring, our own spouses, our own loved ones in community, we guides aim at addressing *Human sojouners in the very nature of their thinking for their sake. Such a heart and accordant method of engagement runs as an unbreakable cord through every moment inside of which we witness Jesus in dynamic encounter with every person and every context that He graces with his presence. Such engagement with worldview is not, thus, merely a strategic necessity; it is plainly a matter of how to properly love someone in dynamic collaboration with the interests and Spirit of Christ.