Horse and CartIn our culture, the battle for worldviews is warring at a fever pitch.  Many see the battle as being between political mindsets: conservatism, which is grounded in practical, common sense thinking that gives people the freedom to pursue their dreams; and liberalism, being grounded in the desire to level the playing field and give everyone equal chance to meet the same dreams, even if it means denying some the ability to pursue their dreams further.  This political battle is played out on the nightly news, talk radio, rallies, schools, protest gatherings, and more.  It is seen as a battle as being between political parties, between the upper class and the average Joe.  However, the political aspect of this battle is really only part of a much bigger issue.  Conservatism and liberalism must have a source for their beliefs, somewhere that they draw their thinking from.  The real battle, the one where the war for worldviews rages hottest, is between truth and emotionalism.

Not all conservatives ground their arguments in truth and it is not just liberals who argue from an emotional viewpoint.  To determine how the battle for the mind is to be fought, we must understand the weapons of our warfare.  The worldview of truth seeks to determine what is actually true, to know that which comports with reality.  Upon knowing and understanding what is true, this worldview then informs the actions and emotions of the person who is submitting to truth.  By way of example, when someone learns that the law of gravity is what holds them to the ground, they understand that stepping off a cliff will result in death or serious bodily harm.  This knowledge informs their actions and emotions.  The person fears the possible consequences of falling and steps away from the edge of the cliff.

However, the worldview of emotionalism starts with the premise that what one feels about a matter is what determines truth.  The concern is not for what comports with reality, but rather with what is perceived by the person submitting to this worldview.  Perception and emotion determine what is true in the mind of this person and their actions will follow.  To use our same analogy, if a person perceives that gravity is simply a state of mind that can be overcome through intense concentration, then no matter how much evidence is submitted, they will deny that the dangers of falling will apply to them.  Thus, their emotions and perceptions overcome reality and the possible consequences their actions.  Eventually, the person will be driven to act on their beliefs and step out over the edge.  Sadly, the denial of the actual truth will have disastrous results.

Currently, much of our culture is in the grip of post-modern thinking.  This is the idea that all truth is valid truth.  If one person believes gravity can be defied, then his belief has equal weight and validity to the person who states that it cannot.  Post-modernism is fully grounded in emotional based thinking.  The one sin that cannot be tolerated is intolerance.  If the person who believes in gravity tells the unbelieving person they are wrong, that person is considered intolerant.  Why?  Because the gravity believing person has had the audacity to deny that the perceptions of the non-believer in gravity have any validity.  In doing so, he has allegedly offended the non-believer and harmed his emotional development.  Thus, emotion trumps fact resulting in a no-win situation.  The believer in gravity must either stand his ground and risk being ostracized, or capitulate and watch someone ultimately plummet to their doom.

As I said above, neither conservativism nor liberalism have a lock on these worldviews.  Conservatives and liberals alike argue from emotional perspectives given the right subject.  However, it is more often than not that liberal arguments will fall in the emotional worldview because most often liberalism concerns itself with how people feel about a given subject.  Issues such as wealth, education, gay “rights,” gender equality, and many more deal directly with how the concerned parties feel about the issue.  If confronted with factual evidence that is contrary to their argument, most liberals will either appeal a sense of perceived wrongs or resort to calling the opposing party intolerant, bigoted, etc.  This is not to say that persons of a liberal persuasion are incapable of holding to a truth worldview.  All of them expect to receive a paycheck at the end of the week that reflects the promised wages.  They would most certainly become very intolerant of their employer if he argued that he thought the promised wage really meant something less than was agreed upon.

Given that liberal arguments tend to fall into the emotional worldview, it is easy to position this battle solely in the political realm.  However, to do so creates a myopic view of the world.  It becomes far too easy to see conservatives as the good guys and liberals as the bad guys.  As a result, we can easily fail to examine both conservative and liberal arguments to see if they are true.  We ought not to assume that an argument made on the evening news, on the internet or around the cooler is correct simply because it comes from our preferred camp.  As Christians, our concern should always be what is true, not what conforms to our political affiliations.

That is the point to this article, to challenge Christians to ensure that they are subscribing to a worldview of truth rather than emotion; and, to be able to challenge emotional arguments from the truth of God’s Word.  In John 1:14, Jesus is referred to as the Word become flesh who is “full of grace and truth,” and verse 17 states that grace and truth came through Him.  In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” And in John 18:37, Jesus spoke to Pontius Pilate saying, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Jesus made it clear that he was the truth and that all those who proclaimed to follow Him were followers of the truth.  Thus, as Christians, it is of the utmost importance that our thinking, emotions, and actions be grounded in Biblical truth.

With rise of seeker sensitive and church growth models in America, we have seen an increased emphasis on addressing the “felt needs” of a community.  It has been argued that, in order to draw in the unchurched masses, pastors need to speak to the emotional desires of the people.  Doctrinal truth and sound theology have been considered taboo subjects as they drive away potential congregants.  Despite Christ’s clear teachings that it is the true bride, the true believers, who desire to hear His voice, churches began rejecting the truth en masse in order to fill pews with unbelievers.  Such an approach was born of the preconception that increased numbers meant spiritual success.  It came from the need to feel as though one could actually tabulate and demonstrate how much had been done for the kingdom of God.

Despite the popularity this methodology has found, there is not one doctrinal truth that supports it.  There is not one clear command from God to forsake the truths of Scripture in order to teach self help techniques that make unbelievers feel better about their lives.  In embracing these concepts, churches fled from the truth and dove headlong into man-centered, emotional based thinking.  Succumbing to pride which must be satisfied by seeing “growth,” pastors have bought into the pragmatic lie that the end justifies the means.  Truth has no place in such churches unless it can be twisted and contorted into something that tickles the ears of unbelievers.  This has created a flood of professing “Christians” who are far too quick to think with their feeling rather than Scripture.

While it is quite easy to point fingers at “those churches” and say how bad they are for rejecting truth, such emotional thinking has bled down into the ranks of the average Christian.  Stop and consider this; how often have we heard that we do not need to preach the gospel to people, we just need to “let them see Jesus in us;” that speaking of sin, judgment, repentance and faith is divisive, so we should not do it? Or how often have Christians been unwilling to tell friends and family that their favorite TV preacher is speaking heresy to them for fear of losing relationships; that preacher is at least talking about Jesus, so we should not be judgmental about them?  So often, we believers are simply unwilling to do as Christ commands because we are afraid of what we will lose.  The cost to our relationships, our reputations, our positions at work, etc. is often too great.  We have an emotional need to cling to these things; we see them as defining who we are.  If we hold to the truth of what God commands of us, we risk denying our emotional satisfaction.  In doing so, we become like the denier of gravity, willing to risk tragedy so that we might be content in our daily living.

The tragedy in this case is not the immediate death resulting from a horrendous collision with the earth at terminal velocity.  In fact, the danger is much, much worse.  The truth of the matter is that every person who is outside of the saving grace of Jesus Christ is condemned in their trespasses and sins.  Without the truth of the gospel, they have no hope of salvation.  Therefore, it is essential that we as Christians be people of truth.  We know it because it is revealed to us in the Scriptures.  God has given all that we need for life and godliness in the pages of the Bible.  Rather than submitting to our emotional need to feel liked and accepted, we should dive into the Word and learn it so that we might be able to proclaim it unashamedly to those trapped in worldly thinking.

Let us look back to the worldview of the emotionally driven thinker.  I recently saw a young teen on Twitter who was engaged in a conversation about gender identity.  In her effort to assert that people should be able to choose their own gender, she made perhaps one of the most ludicrous statements imaginable, “genitals determine SEX. gender and sex are different: gender is a social construct, sex is biological ie XX/XY chromosomes.”  In her effort to make a claim that gender is optional depending on your emotional perspective, this young lady ignored all that biological science has proven.  Sex and gender are not separate from one another; they are one and the same.  But the emotional presupposition that whatever a person desires to call themselves is what they are completely overrode the truth.  It resulted in an irrational and indefensible statement.

As Christians, we must be able to stand in bold confidence against emotional thinking that drives such statements.  It would be very easy to ridicule the thinking of such a person.  We could simply call her ignorant and belittle her.  It might result in shutting down the discussion, but would it change the thinking of such a person?  Absolutely not.  The emotional based thinker has been given nothing to challenge her.  She has not been shown the fallacy of believing personal perception can overcome actual biology.  She has not been challenged to consider that her emotions are fleeting and that without a solid foundation of truth, they will eventually lead her into disaster.  We must be willing to engage such a person at a foundational level, dismantling her belief that emotions trump reality.

As stated above, all truth resides in the being and person of Jesus Christ.  In order to change people’s emotional thinking, we must bring them to the truth of the revealed Word.  If we are to demonstrate that gender is not optional, for example, we must teach people that God has made us “male and female” (Gen. 1:27).  It is only in the Scriptures that we can demonstrate the truth of how God has made us, how we have fallen in sin, how the world is tainted in its thinking, and that redemption can be found only in Jesus Christ.  It is God’s gospel message that breaks through the sin hardened heart and mind.  It penetrates the stony ground and breaks it into fertile soil.  The Christian does not argue from statistics, studies, and man-centered political ideologies.  He argues from the very truth of God’s Word.  While studies and ideologies may cause surface level changes, it cannot affect heart change.  An emotionally minded thinker may be swayed by worldly facts and figures for a time, but he cannot submit to the absolute truth of Jesus Christ unless he is born-again.  Therefore, it should not be the intent of the Christian to be satisfied to move someone from liberal to conservative thinking.  Too much is at stake for those with whom we converse.  We should desire to see people submit to Christ so that they will be redeemed from their sins, not just so they will change their voting patterns.

Christian, where do you find your beliefs being grounded?  Are they in what you think and feel, or are they solidly grounded in the Word of God?  Do you approach your time of study asking what you feel about the scriptures, or do you ask what is God going to reveal to you today?  Our Savior is the very definition of truth, therefore, let you thinking be grounded solely in Him.  Stand firmly in the truth and let it give you boldness in your emotions to stand against the lies of the world.