David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, noted that Barna Group survey results dealing with worldview are a “mixed bag.”
“A 2021 survey found that 51% of professing Christians claim to have a biblical worldview on issues like marriage, gender and abortion, but only 6% do when pressed on specifics,” he said.
Tim Throckmorton insisted “the world at its worst needs the Church at its best.”
RELATED: For more research stories on faith and culture, click here.
Throckmorton, who is national director of church engagement and community impact with FRC, partnered with Alabama Policy Institute and Alabama Citizens Action Program to sponsor biblical worldview training in Birmingham on Oct. 9.
He explained that Greg Davis, president of ALCAP, is a partner in FRC’s mission to disseminate biblical truth and to equip the Church to speak authoritatively on Scripture.
‘Taking God’s side’
Joseph Backholm, FRC senior fellow, defined biblical worldview as “taking God’s side in a spiritual war.”
“The Apostle Paul said we must make our thoughts captive to Christ,” he said. “Standing on the truth of Scripture takes courage and sometimes brings pushback. Believers don’t look for a fight; the Bible says we’re to live at peace with all people. But we also present an alternative. The Scripture declares that in His presence there is fullness of joy, so this is the positive alternative we ask people to accept.”
“Confusion comes because our world is filled with moral relativism that distinguishes between ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’ rather than God’s truth.”
Closson said the timeline of moral change in America includes the Food and Drug Administration’s decision in 1960 to allow the sale of birth control drugs, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision allowing gay marriage and the U.S. Congress’s adoption of the marriage statute in 2022 — a law signed by President Joe Biden.
Closson talked about “personhood theory,” which is the current debate about gender issues that states that a person can be distinct in personhood from what one is biologically.
‘Created with a purpose’
“The biblical message is that we are made uniquely in the image of God, we’re dead in our sins and we need salvation in Christ,” he said. “This means we’re created with a purpose, we know right and wrong and we’ll give account to God.”
Closson noted Christians often choose to affirm the feelings of our young people who have gender dysphoria, believing this is the best way to show love.
“But we don’t affirm all feelings as valid,” he said. “For example, a teenager suffering from anorexia might say, ‘I feel overweight.’ We don’t affirm this but offer insight and biblical counsel for health and deliverance.”
Additional research by the Barna Group, Closson noted, suggests that a person’s worldview is established between ages 12 and 13.
“But the good news is the surveys show 71% of believers want to hear biblical truth in their churches,” he said. “So as we often say, we must ‘inform the moral imagination of our people.’”
The Family Research Council was founded in 1983 by James Dobson, who was then the president of Focus on the Family. Resources for further study, including the Washington Watch podcast with Tony Perkins and email updates from The Washington Stand, are available at frc.org.
The Alabama Policy Institute website is alabamapolicy.org.
Share with others: