Division of Worldviews

We were confronted with the undeniable reality this week. What we learned on Wednesday morning is more important than who the next president will be. It was something many of us had already suspected, that the culture we live in has changed. One article pointed out, “The changing U.S. electorate split in two Tuesday, not only along lines of political party and ideology but also by race and ethnicity, gender and marital status, region and religion, education and age.” The divisions are even sharper than they were four years ago. Republican pollster Whit Ayres says, "We have never had a more polarized electorate."¹ Dr. Mohler noted that “millions of Americans went to the polls and voted according to a contrary worldview." What does that mean for us as believing families? He goes on to say, "I think this was an evangelical disaster." He is right, and says “there's a danger that evangelicals won't see this larger lesson.” Mohler points out, “The popular vote reveals a deeply divided nation. The nation is divided politically, but that divide points to a division at the level of worldview.”²

He illustrates the point in an article published November 7, “The 2012 election makes clear that Americans are divided over fundamental questions. Americans are divided into camps that define and see the world in fundamentally different terms. The election did not cause this division, it merely revealed it. This deep division at the level of worldview is an even greater challenge for the church. The electorate is becoming more secular. Recent studies have indicated that the single greatest predictor of voting patterns is the frequency of church attendance.” 79% of those voting for Romney attend religious service as much as once a week, while 60% of those voting for Obama never attend any religious service. “Far fewer Americans now attend church, and a recent study indicated that fully 20% of all Americans identify with no religious preference at all. The secularizing of the electorate will have monumental consequences.”³

Clearly, we face a new moral landscape in America, and a worldview challenge that is far greater than any political challenge. Christians must never see political action as an end, but only as a means. Our main concern is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is, however, an urgent call to action. Maybe Jimmy Scroggins, Senior Pastor of The First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, tweeted it best, “This election ought to force evangelicals to change identities. Abandon 'moral majority' mindset & embrace living as 'missional minority.'”

The culture we live in is different, and now we know it. We ought to be raising our children according to this mindset, and training them to live in a throughly secular humanist culture. As I have already said this week, even though we are not the stumbling block, the culture will stumble over the gospel. When the culture stumbles over the gospel and is lost in the confusion of their own sinfulness, and we are faithful to confront the confusion and lostness with the truth of the gospel, in love, then we will receive persecution. It will come, and we must be prepared to receive it as a blessing from God. We must see it as a confirmation of our righteousness in Christ; that we are being held up by God, like Job before Satan, and sifted out like Peter. We must see that God has used it throughout history to strengthen His people and expand His kingdom; from Noah to Abraham, to the nation of Israel, to Christ himself, to the Church. When we have no other hope for rescue, and nothing else in which to trust, it causes us to look more to Christ and to rely on Him, for He is all we have. And, it is the remnant who trust in Christ that God always uses as a means to deliver his people and to draw a lost and dying world to himself. I have found that I, almost strangely, am already looking more to Christ. This has been the effect throughout history, and today I understand anew.

1http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2012/11/07/analysis-nation-moves-further-apart/1688031/

2http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/08/164711265/for-religious-conservatives-election-was-a-disaster

3http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/11/07/aftermath-lessons-from-the-2012-election/