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Worldview as Redemption

Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford in Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories That Shape Our Lives argue that all worldviews are ultimately about salvation, even if those worldviews don't use that vocabulary.All worldviews offer definitions of the man's fundamental problem and provide solutions on how we might fix it. When you get right down to it, every worldview attempts to answer the question, "What must we do to be saved?". Here is a helpful chart from the book that summarises how each worldview answers this question:


The problem with each of these models of salvation is that their redemption offer is only for a portion of life. They envision the individual in need of redemption as a spiritual self, an economic self, a political self, a psychological self, a cultural self, an individual self, a moral self or a rational self. Because their understanding of the person is partial their plan of redemption is necessary partial. It fails to embrace all of life.

In contrast with other worldviews, Christianity acknowledges the failure of human efforts at salvation. Redemption comes from God's initiative. God is the Savior who pursues us even in our state of rebellion. But he does not just come to redeem us, he comes to remake our entire existence. The new redemption comes with a new man living in a new heavens and a new earth in a here and now and in the future.

Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2013
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