Whatever Happened to Worldliness?
You don’t hear much preaching against worldliness these days. Having grown up hearing negative references to “the world,” “worldly” and “worldliness” on a fairly regular basis, the absence seems odd to me sometimes. On the other hand, where worldliness is still a frequented topic, the term seems unclear, disconnected from biblical intent—or both. Whatever happened to worldliness?
More than one phenomenon is occurring.
First, we have a problem of omission. In some cases, this is due to nothing more than uncertainty by pastors and teachers as to how to handle the subject effectively. But sadly, in many ministries, the neglect is due to philosophies of ministry that embrace worldliness as the number one way to “reach people” and achieve “relevance.” What has happened to worldliness in these cases is that—as a pulpit and classroom topic—it has been shelved.
Second, in some ministries, the terms “worldly” and “worldliness” occur rarely from the pulpit simply because they occur rarely in Scripture. Though references to “world” abound in the Bible, “worldly” occurs only twice in the KJV (Titus 2:12 KJV, Heb. 9:1 KJV). The 1984 NIV uses it ten times (Luke 16:9 NIV; Luke 16:11 NIV; 1 Cor. 3:1 NIV, 1 Cor. 3:3 NIV; 2 Cor. 1:12 NIV, 2 Cor. 1:17 NIV; 2 Cor. 5:16 NIV, 2 Cor. 7:10 NIV; Titus 2:12 NIV). Still, the term “worldliness” does not occur in the Bible at all. So, what has happened to worldliness in these ministries is that it is being handled biblically using different language.
Third, in more traditionally fundamentalist ministries, we have another problem: obscurity. A thing is obscured when it’s only partially visible, when it lacks clarity—and it may lack clarity despite the fact that we refer to it quite frequently. What has happened to worldliness in this case is that it has been confusingly distorted either by inconsistent use (equivocation) or by consistent misuse (often in the form of an assumed, though faulty, definition).
PTC, Culture and “the world”
A week or so ago I attended (and this time, participated in) the second, bienniel Preserving the Truth conference in Troy Michigan. The focus this time around was “Christ and Culture.” Since the conference organizers (and most attendees, I’m pretty sure) are traditional fundamentalists, attention to “culture” meant there would be a good bit of attention to “the world” and the idea of worldliness.
Personally, I applaud that. Though fundamentalism has always had some missing links in its thought about culture and the world, we can hardly do worse in this day an age than to ignore the topic completely. It’s a huge battlefront—and will be an even larger one in the future as Christian sexual ethics in particular become more and more incomprehensible (or “hateful” in some cases) to the average American.
But in addition to giving thoughtful attention to a vital subject, the plenary conference speakers made several timely and important obserations. A few worth noting:
- Christians must cultivate (no pun intended) awareness of the ways our culture influences us. Way too much oblivious absorption is going on.
- By default, believers should view cultural norms and trends with suspicion.
- Christians must approach cultural questions with a humble, yielded, “living sacrifice” attitude (in contrast to a “my rights,” a.k.a. “my liberty,” emphasis).
- The affections in that sense are indeed integral to handling the old “what about believers who don’t see the harm and how do we help them?” problem.
- Similarly, we do “need to get past an act ethic to a virtue ethic” (Paul Hartog’s phrase, if my notes are accurate. The idea is that we need to see values as the key—and understand how things that are good in themselves become bad because they are part of a messed up set of values.)
- The “world” passages truly are extremely important for ordering our relationship to culture.
Whatever it is, we’re agin’ it!
But these strong points were accompanied by the long-standing problem of definition. We cannot properly apply the “world” passages to cultural matters unless we first understand what the world, in the negative biblical sense, is. And even then, we’re only half way there. Once the intent of Scripture is clear to us, we must have an equally clear understanding of the life choices we’re facing. To hitch up the trailer, you have to align both the powered vehicle and the trailer then successfully join them. And the right sort of hitch combination is required. So we have to understand the Word and the culture before we can apply the Word to the culture.
Arguably, confusion about the meaning of “world” and “worldliness” has hindered both sides of that application process. Too often, “the world” is, in the minds of leaders, synonymous with an unexamined set of no-no’s. And then, in the more muddled cases, both the no-no’s and the idea of “the world” become part of an impenetrable bit of circular reasoning: Why is cultural trend A wrong? Because it’s obviously “of the world.” How do we know it’s “of the world”? Because it’s obviously wrong.
Many who grew up hearing this sort of case against certain musical styles or entertainment venues or clothing trends came to the conclusion that the whole question of worldliness ought to be dismissed as nothing more than some traditionalists’ method of imposing their stodgy tastes on everyone.
But that’s a tragic mistake.
In cultures, things such as fashions, musical styles, language, etc., have both meaning and influence. More importantly, the NT is full of warnings about our relationship to “the world.”
In my view, the road back to taking worldliness seriously—and also to getting it right—starts with understanding and teaching what “the world” means in the New Testament and doing so in a way that is persuasive, memorable and handy. It’s a tall order, because the topic is complex—not easily reducible to soundbytes. But it’s work well worth pursuing.
(Tomorrow or Friday, we’ll post an article by Les Lofquist that includes such a study of “the world.” In the mean time, if you have a few minutes, take in Dave Doran’s January 11 video or Kevin Bauder’s excellent audio series—if you can find it. We’re still looking for a link. An article series of my own is available here at SI, though I tend to see it now as a slightly clumsy first effort.)
Aaron Blumer Bio
Aaron Blumer, SharperIron’s second publisher, is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in a small town in western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored Grace Baptist Church for thirteen years. He is employed in customer service for UnitedHealth Group and teaches high school rhetoric (and sometimes logic and government) at Baldwin Christian School.
- 12 views
A thought-provoking beginning - looking forward to more….
Questions come out of all this for me, such as:
1. I agree that there are a great amount of Christian ministries today that simply “embrace worldliness”. My fundamentalist roots and Scriptures such as I John 2:15-17, Romans 16:17-18, etc. tell me that I’m supposed to separate from them (there’s that word again!). Therefore, I’m “judgmental”, which seems to be the sin above all sins today for those believers with a worldly mindset. I’m concerned about the ministries that embrace worldliness and how much they want to marginalize those who judge it. The strategy seems to be to “suck up all the oxygen” and to leave no room for any others to be right because they are (a: judgmental; or (b: small (what could be a worse sin than that!); or (c: “not cool”.
2. I agree with the idea of the “virtue ethic”. It is not so much the individual acts of worldliness as the “love of the world” that is the issue. Do you think that there has become an acceptable form of “Christian worldliness” that is both world-like in its emphasis on “being in with the in-crowd” as well as being “separate but parallel” to the world. So our trappings of culture are not just like the world of today, but slightly separate and trailing the culture. Aren’t we “worldly” just as much as someone who is stuck in a certain era of culture?
Aaron,
Are these the audio files you’re looking for?
http://seminary.wcts1030.com/resources/mp3-audio?start=10
Thanks for bringing up this topic. I look forward to the Lofquist article. It’s been my recent experience in talking with people that worldliness (to them) refers only to materialism or greed. Anything else that’s suggested to be worldly is excused as long as people’s hearts are right or they are sincere. There tends to be a misuse of an Augustine quote that gets paraphrased as “Love God, and do whatever you please.”
[Steve Newman]Therefore, I’m “judgmental”, which seems to be the sin above all sins today for those believers with a worldly mindset.
The beauty of American history has declined into the insidious nature of everyone doing what is right in his own eyes, sugar coated by the words Freedom and Liberty (whether patriotically speaking or scripturally speaking). We all have some degree of this mindset, and I believe it is one of the greatest obstacles to overcome in order to stay on the holy road and off the worldly road.
V/r
Ashamed of Jesus! of that Friend On whom for heaven my hopes depend! It must not be! be this my shame, That I no more revere His name. -Joseph Grigg (1720-1768)
Brenda, yes, the page you linked to there does have the 5 part series by Kevin Bauder. I’ll probably add that link to the main article later.
[Steve N] Do you think that there has become an acceptable form of “Christian worldliness” that is both world-like in its emphasis on “being in with the in-crowd” as well as being “separate but parallel” to the world. So our trappings of culture are not just like the world of today, but slightly separate and trailing the culture. Aren’t we “worldly” just as much as someone who is stuck in a certain era of culture?
I’m not sure how useful the phrase “like the world” is (much depends on what “being conformed” means in Rom12.2 and what ‘the world’ means).
I remember hearing—and seeing—the illustration often of “the world” drifting in a particular bad direction. The speaker would say something like “let this spot represent the world 50 years ago” and over here is where Christians were (further in the good direction; let’s say left). Then the world moved to here (moves to the right) and Christians went here—where the world used to be. And so on.
My thought at the time was if you extrapolate that thinking backwards into history you can do it until you reach the Flood… and then eventually Adam. If it’s bad for us to be ‘three steps behind the world’ now, was it OK in 1628?
I don’t think we can reduce our relationship to “the world” to a matter of distance or, much less, reduce what the world is to what we can see in culture (“world” has to include only some of what can see and much of what is not visible at all).
One of the sermons I remember hearing in which this moving “world” and trailing church occurred, referred to it being worldly for women to show their calves in the 1940s (or 20s or whenever it was), and now skirts are much shorter, etc. The point seemed to be that the current fashions were worldly and not for Christians.
But the reasoning didn’t hold up. If it was bad to bare calves in 19xx, why is OK now? In my view, it is OK now, but the case shows that “proximity to the world” (as in “what’s normal all around us”) is not the criterion for answering these kinds of questions in any era. In some ways, being “normal” in the current culture is not a problem and in others it is. In some ways being “like” the culture of 1940 or 1910 or 1810 or 1610 is a problem, and in other ways not.
Though there is a cultural trajectory in the West that is mostly negative, it’s not all negative… so it’s not possible to strongly identify biblical holy living in terms of changes in culture and points in time.
…. I’m mostly thinking out loud here. Hope there’s something useful there.
(It’s way easier to point out inadequate answers than to provide adequate ones!)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Hi Aaron
Always a timely topic. Part of the problem with definition is that we are defaulting to a notion that “world” = “bad”. From there we squabble about what part of our environment = world and what part does not.
The reality is that the world is everything around us. The Scriptures call us to “love not the world” and to pursue godliness. If we are pursuing the world and the things of the world, we are worldly. If we are pursuing God, we are godly, and we will eschew a good deal of what is in the world, or find it of only passing interest.
For example, next week we are going to have a group from our church go to a hockey game. Is that the world? Of course it is. Is it worldly to go to a hockey game? That depends on the heart. There are things that happen at hockey games these days that are really grievous to Christians - the loud music (oh, how I miss the organ players in the old hockey rinks!), the Vanity Fair environment, the cheerleaders (in some places), etc. Even the game itself can be a grief to Christians if it is pursued with devotion that should be reserved for God.
But is it worldly to enjoy a hockey game once in a while? Mostly not.
Of course, most Americans wouldn’t probably understand the purity of the hockey experience, so maybe my illustration is lost on you all!! (heh, heh)
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
[Don Johnson] SnipOf course, most Americans wouldn’t probably understand the purity of the hockey experience, so maybe my illustration is lost on you all!! (heh, heh)
Brother, for many Americans, baseball season doesn’t really start until our team either wins Lord Stanley’s Cup or our team is eliminated from winning it.
Viva Los Tiburones de San Jose.
2012-13 first the Giants win the World Series, the Niners take the Super Bowl, come spring the Sharks win the Cup.
Hoping to shed more light than heat..
Often in Fundamentalist circles worldliness is …
Someone else [Person B] doing something one [Person A] doesn’t approve. Could be:
- Person B having the latest IPhone or techno-gadget
- Person B going to a movie / renting a video (say from RedBox) while A only watches TV shows from the 60’s (Bonanza (one of my favorites!)
- Person B having nicer, more contemporary clothing than A
- Person B’s vacation that is more expensive than Person A’s (say Person A stays at Motel 6’s and B at the Hilton)
- Person B having a newer car or fancier options (heated seats) while Person A drivers a clunker.
- Person B having a better job (or a perceived better job) than A
- Person B having a retirement plan while A has failed to save
And then you have the traditional fundamentalist taboos: dancing, cards, drinking (it’s always ‘social drinking’ (which I would surmise is much to be preferred than anti-social drinking!). But taboos that A has accepted (say the wife wears slacks out to shopping) are OK
Then the “my music is better than your music”. Why? Because my music is better than your music!
Throw in the homeschooling, Christian Day school, vs public school debate as well. (Best, Good, very-bad!)
And then A’s kid goes to the remote North woods Bible College while B’s to the U!
Cynically … there you have it!
As a result of this idea of ‘Political Correctness’ that has taken a hold of our minds, Christians have been programmed to not express unpopular ideas, save in the privacy of their own homes. Christians can see that expressing their beliefs at school, or in the workplace, or even on the street, will get them into trouble.
Add to that, the fact that Christianity in this country has become commercialized, and does not differentiate itself from the world, but rather tries to imitate it, in order to seem more attractive to the unbelievers. When I was young, it was considered ungodly to listen to Rock, or Rap, or watch movies with monsters or witchcraft. But now you have ‘Christian’ versions of those types of music, and now you have the so-called ‘Christian’ media telling us that it is not only OK, but actually spiritually edifying to read books like The Hobbit or The Narnia series.
The truth is, the line between Christian and non-Christian has been blurred so much, that it is hard for people to even know what Christian is supposed to look like.
Young Person B goes out to see the Disney move Wall-E with two children she is baby-sitting (better to call it child-care because they were 10 and 12) for a weekend. Young Person A, citing that that one theme of the film is environmentalism, is shocked that Young Person B would view this film.
(This is a real story)
My wife and I saw this film on a hot hot day when we were vacationing in Northern MN. Oh the air-conditioning in the theater! I had a glorious nap for much of the middle of it!
By the way … isn’t environmentalism a good thing?!
The point of this post and my previous is that the Person A judging Person B is a problem in fundamentalism. And it is wrapped in the cloak of identifying “worldliness”.
Young man is preparing to teach on 1 John 2 which includes this classic passage: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Sensing that he may be clueless about the text I met with him several weeks before the lesson. We read the passage together. I asked him “what is worldliness”? He cites various examples.
At that time a permutation of the IPhone was released. The student (the old Person A not approving of Person B’s behavior!) mentioned another student buying the latest version of the IPhone as an example of worldliness.
––—
Several years later … he has a smartphone … I still have a 5 or 6 year old flip phone.
[Don J] The reality is that the world is everything around us. The Scriptures call us to “love not the world” and to pursue godliness. If we are pursuing the world and the things of the world, we are worldly. If we are pursuing God, we are godly, and we will eschew a good deal of what is in the world, or find it of only passing interest.
It’s really more complex than that. The “world” in the sense of everything around us is what God made and declared “very good.” It cannot be wrong to love what God has declared very good.
Add to the mix the fact that some passages express the disjunction between love of God and love of the world in radical terms. To even be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God in James 4:4-5.
The only possible conclusion we can draw is that “world” does not always refer to the same thing (whether the Greek is kosmos or aion) and we have to discern on a passage by passage basis what we’re looking at.
If a hockey game is “of the world” in the sense of John 17:14 we should never attend or view one at all. There’s no room for moderation there. On the other hand, if the game is “of the world” in the sense of 1 Cor. 7:33 (an exact match in that example is not likely!) the activity’s relationship to the world is in itself, not relevant to when or how we use time in that way. Other factors dictate.
Several years later … he has a smartphone … I still have a 5 or 6 year old flip phone.
This is more like asceticism, Jim! Meditate on Col. 2.23!
(I’m actually still a flip phone guy myself… or as I like to call it, a “dumb phone.” We should start a club: the older your phone the godlier you are. I didn’t even get a cell phone at all until about 2009… because that was the year they stopped being worldly)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
my sympathies are with Jim in this quest. it’s hard not to by cynical about it all ;)
I think worldliness is perhaps first of all our mindset, even just the things are minds are set on.
I don’t have a way to express it except through example. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about our finances, and it’s interesting, being in an international marriage and seeing what we each think are important things financially. Trying to wipe away things that are cultural (maybe “worldly”, in that it places self-care as a main priority), and ask God to renew my mind and make me think His ways about money—about retirement, about vacations, security, saving, about a lot of things. Things that don’t have frontal Biblical commands or directives, that are principle-guided, and asking myself if I’m laying down Biblical principles to guide me or culturally-created expectations of “normal.”
[Jim]The point of this post and my previous is that the Person A judging Person B is a problem in fundamentalism. And it is wrapped in the cloak of identifying “worldliness”.
But what is judgement?
Is warning a brother about the dangers of gambling, the same as judging him?
Is correcting my brother who has a habit of crude joking, judging him?
Does rebuking a person who is involved in an illicit relationship with a woman, count as judgment?
Is there not a valid place for exhortation, or reproof in the church?
And if so, over what matters can they be practiced?
Do not the apostles exhort believers to keep themselves pure, in mind, body, and spirit?
Are not certain songs, or movies, or books, capable of corrupting the hearts and minds of people?
And if so, should we not judge those things, to avoid being caught in the snare of the devil?
Essential vs. Peripheral Doctrine (chart from the ESV study Bible) 
- Is warning a brother about the dangers of gambling, the same as judging him? Response: Not all judgment is bad judgment. Gambling is pretty black and white. It’s gaining at the expense of another’s loss
- Is correcting my brother who has a habit of crude joking, judging him? Response: Yes is is (the good judging!) but we are to exhort one another. Hebrews 3:13
- Does rebuking a person who is involved in an illicit relationship with a woman, count as judgment? Response: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and many other verses
- Is there not a valid place for exhortation, or reproof in the church? Response: Answered above
- And if so, over what matters can they be practiced? Response: Need to be discerning between absolutes and preferences. Fundamentalists have a tough time with this! (see chart above)
- Do not the apostles exhort believers to keep themselves pure, in mind, body, and spirit? Response: Yes
- Are not certain songs, or movies, or books, capable of corrupting the hearts and minds of people? Response: Yes but best to teach the principles and let the Holy Spirit apply the details (or else we will preach a list of books, movies, songs!)
- And if so, should we not judge those things, to avoid being caught in the snare of the devil? Response: Yes
My list several posts above are peripheral issues. (Buy the new IPhone … etc)
Discussion