End of Summer Reading

Winston Churchill once quipped that “In order to lead, one must read.” The best preparation for times of difficulty--and believe me, leaders will face times of difficulty--is a well-rounded, well-trained mind. Sloppy thinking is a terrible handicap in the day of testing—whether that day of testing is the loss of a job, the birth of a child, an unexpected medical diagnosis, the beginning of a new semester, or the resolution of an intractable conflict. I have always found that when the pressure is on my best course of action is feed my mind with provocative books. Of course, I need to maintain my spiritual disciplines, eat right, get plenty of rest, make sure I get out and exercise, and stay connected with those God has placed around me. But, if I am not reading, most of those other aspects of a healthy life seem to fall by the wayside.

The last couple of weeks have been very intense for me. There have been the typical difficulties of preparing for a new fall semester and new academic year. There have been the typical messes of a life lived in covenant community. And there have been the typical criticisms of my leadership, character, projects, ministries, writings, sermons, and lectures--all of which long experience has taught me just goes with the territory of being in leadership, but none of which ever gets any easier to handle emotionally.

So, rather than fretting, obsessing, or emoting, I have taken to a fresh round of wide-ranging reading:

Just in the last couple of weeks I have read four remarkable books by Umberto Eco—always one of my favorite thinkers and writers despite his coarsely determined skepticism. His comprehensive History of Beauty is simply amazing. It is going to take me years to process everything in this work. Part anthology, part historical survey, and part encyclopedia, it is a stunning achievement. Likewise, his new novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is brilliant. I actually enjoyed it in places—but, long ago I discovered that with Eco I tend to have more reading awe than reading enjoyment. His On Literature is a collection of essays that should not be missed by anyone who teaches literature or who is serious about reading the classics. You’ll never read the same way again. But, the best Eco book I have read this summer is perhaps the shortest and most ephemeral. It is not likely to go down as one of his classic, memorable works. Serendipities is a book about language, lunacy, and translation and it demonstrates the wide range of Eco’s interests. But, I love the book for the insights it reveals into his thinking and writing. Now, I want to go back and reread The Name of the Rose and Foucalt’s Pendulum all over again.

During the last couple of weeks I have also discovered a new favorite: Margaret Visser. Her exploration of church architectureThe Geometry of Love is one of the best books combining history, aesthetics, and cultural commentary that I have ever read. It is marvelous, illuminating, informed, and entertaining. I was so wowed by Visser’s worldview virtuosity that I immediately went out to buy her better known books, Much Depends on Dinner and The Rituals of Dinner. Both explore the extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos of ordinary meals and ordinary table manners. In truth, both works provide delightfully intimate histories of Western Civilization, of chivalry, of Christian influences on art, music, and literature as well as on pot roasts, potatoes, and green beans. This is all heady stuff. I am going to read everything I can find by Margaret Visser—she serves up a fine feast for the heart as well as the head.

In It for the Long Haul

However long it takes, whatever the costs involved, however hard the task, and whatever the risks, principled leaders finish what they start. They fulfill their responsibilities. They are in it for the long haul. This is one of the hallmarks of maturity.

Examples of this kind of determination to work faithfully with the end in mind abound throughout history. But perhaps no man in all of history modeled this virtue any better than William Wilberforce.

A member of the British Parliament, he introduced anti-slavery measures year after year for almost 50 years. In 1833, as he lay dying, he received word that his bill to outlaw slavery everywhere in the British Empire had finally been passed. The dream for which he had struggled day in and day out, year after year, decade after decade for nearly half a century had finally been realized.

As a youth Wilberforce was a witty, somewhat dissipated man about town who had misspent his time at Cambridge and squandered his considerable talents on silly amusements. He was a member of the high society elite and he reveled in it. Though he was brilliant, energetic, and ambitious, he appeared to be little more than another in a long line of lordly dilettantes.

Despite this, he seemed assured of a bright political future simply because of his social connections. He was close to William Pitt—who later became Prime Minister. He was a confidante of many of the most influential people in Parliament, the Foreign Service, industry, commerce, the military, and the landed gentry. He even had close ties to the royal family.

In 1784, after winning his election in Yorkshire, he decided to accompany his mother and sister for an extended holiday at the French the Riviera. As an afterthought, Wilberforce invited Isaac Milner, a university tutor from Cambridge and an old friend, to join them.

To pass the time on the long journey south, Wilberforce and his friend read and discussed Phillip Doddridge’s classic devotional work The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul as well as large portions of the New Testament.

Milner had become a deeply pious evangelical Christian while at the old Puritan bastion of Queen's College Cambridge. As they read and discussed, he began to share his testimony with the vacationers—particularly urging Wilberforce to commit his life wholeheartedly to Christ and to the work of the Gospel in the world. Like most aristocratic Englishmen of the day, Wilberforce had always thought of himself as a good Christian. But he encountered in Milner a faith far deeper than anything he had ever known before. He struggled under the weight of conviction and anguish for several months. Finally, he relented. And his life was forever after changed.

After he returned to his home in Westminster, he began to struggle mightily with his calling and vocation. “What was God’s purpose for him?” he wondered. “Was it possible to be both an effective politician and a devout Christian? Was it possible to maintain worldly power and humble piety simultaneously?” He confided his dilemma in Pitt. The ever-ambitious politician, wanting Wilberforce as an ally, urged him to remain in the political arena. But still unsettled in his conscience, Wilberforce spoke to his pastor, John Newton. Best remembered as the author of the hymn Amazing Grace, Newton had been converted while he was a blasphemous sea captain and a notorious slave trader. He counseled Wilberforce to remain in politics as the champion of good causes—and in particular the cause of abolishing the vile trade in human flesh. Wilberforce resolved to heed the counsel and take up the cause.

Sometime afterward, he recorded in his diary the conviction that God had called him to remain in politics for the purpose of “two great objects.” They were “the suppression of the slave trade” and “the reformation of manners.”

With all the zeal of a reformer, Wilberforce took up the slavery issue. He even had the encouragement of his old friend Pitt. So he entered into the fray full of confidence in the self-evident righteousness of his cause. He expected a quick victory. He was sorely mistaken, however. “The path to abolition was fraught with difficulty,” wrote biographer David Vaughan. “Vested interest, parliamentary filibustering, entrenched bigotry, international politics, slave unrest, personal sickness, and political fear—all combined to frustrate the movement.”

In 1787, Wilberforce first proposed emancipation legislation. He fell ill shortly afterward and had to postpone his efforts for more than a year. In 1789, he made his maiden anti-slavery speech in Parliament. He gained support from political stalwarts in each of the major parties: Edmund Burke from the Whigs and William Pitt from the Tories. But the bloody Revolution in France was claiming most of the attention of Parliament so the resolution was referred to committee. Despite effective lobbying, the issue was defeated on the floor of the House of Commons the next year.

Wilberforce was persistent. He was determined to finish what he had started. He introduced his bill again in 1792. Again, he was defeated. In 1793, he reintroduced the bill. And yet again, he was defeated. Later that year, war broke out with the Jacobin government of Revolutionary France. The abolition of slavery suddenly seemed to be a very minor issue to most politicians.

He was not to be deterred however. He rewrote the bill in 1794 and was defeated by a mere two votes. Still, he remained undaunted. Every year for the next fourteen years he reintroduced some version of his emancipation legislation. Again and again and again he came up short. In 1804, he actually won the vote in the House of Commons only to have his bill overturned by the House of Lords.

Still, Wilberforce refused to give up. He remained confident that his cause would one day prevail. And so he soldiered on. Through the difficult years of the Napoleonic Wars, the reigns of four monarchs, and the great parliamentary reforms. During all that time he not only fought against slavery but also against every other sort of modern vice and for all manner of social reform. He worked on everything from education for the poor masses, support of Bible societies, and private relief organizations to protection of day laborers, creation of Sunday Schools, and establishment of domestic and overseas orphanages.

Even so, it was the abolition of slavery that remained at the forefront of his concerns at all times and in all circumstances. He wrote, “In the case of every question of political expediency there appears to me room for consideration of times and seasons. But in the present instance where the actual commission of guilt is in question, a man who fears God is not at liberty. If I thought that the immediate Abolition of the Slave Trade would cause an insurrection in our islands, I should not for an instant remit my most serious endeavors. Be persuaded then, I shall still even less make this grand cause the sport of caprice, or sacrifice it to the motives of political or personal feeling.”

After yet another defeat in 1805, the Clerk of the House of Commons suggested that he just give up. His was a lost cause. He had little hope of every prevailing. Yet Wilberforce would have none of it. He rebuked the man, “I expect to carry it. And what is more, I feel assured that I shall carry it speedily

The following year, he was able to persuade Parliament to pass a restrictive measure, banning the slave traders from importing new slaves into British colonial possessions. The next year, the entire apparatus of the trade was banned from British dominions, domestic and colonial. When the final vote was taken, every man in the House of Commons rose to his feet to laud the great man’s perseverance and longsuffering. Wilberforce was overcome with emotion and collapsed with his head in his hands. He wept for joy.

But he was still not entirely satisfied. While slave trading—man-stealing, flesh-trading, buying and selling—was now illegal, slavery itself was not. There were still men in chains. The chattel property system still existed. So, Wilberforce carried on his fight for the total abolition of every last vestige of slavery.

He would have to persevere for another twenty-six years. He would suffer threats on his life, slander, attacks on his character, the prejudice of his colleagues, and the abandonment of his friends, peers, and party leaders. Yet, he remained resolute. He would finish what he had started. He would complete the task. He would fulfill his destiny. He would uphold his calling. He would bring it in for a landing.

And so he did, though ultimately had to retire from his parliamentary seat, He continued to fight the good fight into old age and infirmity. Finally, on July 26, 1833, word came to his sick bed that Parliament had passed the Emancipation Bill. His life’s work was done. He could finally rest from his labors. The great task was finally complete. He died less than sixty hours later.

Finishing Well

Edmund Burke said of the persistence of Wilberforce, “The greater the goal, the greater the labor required.” James Q. Wilson, a professor of management and public policy, makes the same point—not about Wilberforce or English political history, but about life in the here and now. He says, “The best things in life invariably cost us something. We must sacrifice to attain them, to achieve them, to keep them, even to enjoy them.”

That is one of the most important lessons we can learn in life. It is the message that we know we ought to instill in our children: patience, commitment, diligence, constancy, and discipline will ultimately pay off if we are willing to defer gratification long enough for the seeds we have sown to sprout and bear.

A flippant, shallow, and imprecise approach to anything—be it sports or academics, business or pleasure, friendship or marriage—is ultimately self-defeating. It is not likely to satisfy any appetite—at least, not for long.

The world is indeed full of seemingly harmless little distractions; humorous and silly things; banal and trivial things; things which take the path of least resistance; things which come cheaply and easily; things which may be abandoned at our earliest convenience. According to the poet Edward Lear, we ought to “beware of all such things.”

Now, that is not to say that we cannot have fun; that we cannot ever let down our guard; that we are compelled to be continually intellectually vigilant; that we have to hang on to every cause with bulldog tenacity. But as Lear explains, “It is all a matter of proportion. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with temporal things, fleeting things, transitory things, or silly things. It is when the shallow completely supersedes and supplants the serious that we get into trouble. When what people want now replaces what people need always, then the truth is obscured.”

Sadly, that is a lesson very nearly lost on us in this odd to-whom-it-may-concern, instant-everything day of microwavable meals, prefab buildings, bottom-rung bureaucracy, fit-for-the-market education, knee-jerk public misinformation, and predigested formula entertainment. Thus temporary expediencies supersede permanent exigencies.

As a result our pragmatism is no longer particularly pragmatic. Our practicality is no longer very practical. We can’t wait for anything. We lack the kid of stick-to-itiveness that enabled Wilberforce to endure for all those years—and ultimately to prevail in his great cause.

The race really does go to the tortoise and not the hare. It is perseverance that ultimately will win the prize, not knowledge, not talent, and not connections. It is that undying tenacity that sets itself on the end, that finishes the race, that completes the task, and that fulfils the responsibility.

As Calvin Coolidge sagely observed, “Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are overwhelmingly powerful.”

So, how do we train ourselves to finish what we start? How do we cut across the grain of our instant-everything culture? How do we subdue our got-to-have-it-now appetites so that we can undertake our tasks with forbearance and resolve?

First, we must come to the realization that such a virtue is hardly easy: Thus, o see things through to the end demands courage. Though we tend to admire courage, we often have to admit that there is in it an unexplainable admixture of boldness and madness in it. Concerned with our own health and welfare, we find it more than a little extraordinary when anyone is willing to risk life and limb for the sake of others—much less for the sake of some principle. Indeed, we have become an age with a dearth of heroes. Bravery has practically become a forgotten virtue—a lost cause. Nevertheless, its allure retains as strong a grip on us today as it has each of the many generations that have preceded us.

According to C.S. Lewis, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy, which yields to danger, will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful until it became risky.”

We will have to come to the place where we realize that to see things through, to finish what we start, and to fulfill all our responsibilities is going to require genuine valor. We will have to face down tremendous obstacles, fierce opposition, jeering criticism, and perhaps even physical danger.

To finish well will cost us something. It may cost us everything. Just ask anyone who has ever run a marathon or competed in a triathlon. Starting is easy. It is finishing that is hard. It is finishing that requires blood, sweat, and tears. It is finishing that requires courage.

To see things through to the end also demands wisdom. We admire knowledge. We covet understanding. But, we tend to be more than a little suspicious of wisdom. It is a notion that seems to carry with it the taint of dusty ideals and musty aspirations. It has the appearance of advanced age—and all the out of fashion traits of reticence, hesitation, caution, recalcitrance, and anachronism that goes with decrepitude. Even so, throughout ages past, men and nations have cherished wisdom as more that mere wishful thinking or hopeful yearning. They have acknowledged its vital role in stable societies and healthy cultures. And they have comprehended its essential role in enabling us to finish what we start.

The great English etymologist, novelist, and essayist Samuel Johnson said, “There are, indeed, many truths which time necessarily and certainly teaches, and which might, by those who have learned them from experience, be communicated to their successors at a cheaper rate: but dictates, though liberally enough bestowed, are generally without effect, the teacher gains few proselytes by instruction which his own behavior contradicts; and young men miss the benefit of counsel, because they are not very ready to believe that those who fall below them in practice, can much excel them in theory. Thus the progress of knowledge is retarded, the world is kept long in the same state, and every new race is to gain the prudence of their predecessors by committing and redressing the same miscarriages.”

Likewise, Shakespeare wrote, “This is a practice as full of labor as a wise man’s art, for folly that he wisely shows is fit, but wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit.” If we are going to finish the race set before us, then we will not only need to run with endurance, we will need to run with discernment. This is precisely why William Butler Yeats argued that, “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. Of such is wisdom.”

To see things through to the end also demands work. According to Richard Weaver, “Exertion, self-denial, endurance, these make the hero, but to the spoiled child they connote the evil of nature and the malice of man.” Alas, most of us do not have the stuff of heroism—such virtues have been bled out of us by our modern devil-may-care culture.

Indeed, most of us do not much care for work. We complain about it. We chaff against it. We will do just about anything to get out of it. Nevertheless, we probably would all reluctantly admit that nearly everything in life worth anything at all demands of us a certain measure of labor and intensity. And though this might appear at first glance to be a plight of woe and hardship—perhaps a deleterious effect of the Fall—it is in fact a part of the glory of the human experience. The good news is that work is good. Work is the means by which we achieve, at long last, our destiny. It is the means by wich we attain to our calling.

And the even better news is that the lost cause of diligent labor, strenuous industry, and purposeful calling may be reclaimed, restored, and reinstituted—as the example of so many wise men and women who have gone before so ably and aptly demonstrate.

The remarkable Helen Keller once said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.” Every time we simply put our nose to the grindstone and do our work, every time we put our shoulder to the plow and undertake our labor, every time we push through our exhaustion to the end of the day, we move the world along with our tiny pushes.

It was for precisely this reason that Teddy Roosevelt asserted, “I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease but the doctrine of the strenuous life; the life of toil and effort; of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes not to the man who desires mere easy peace but to the man who does not shrink from danger, hardship, or from the bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”

OK. So, How?

Since courage, wisdom, and hard work are such rare virtues, how do we begin to build them into our lives so that we will be able to stand during the storms of conflict and controversy that inevitably and invariably rage around us?

First, we really need to focus on the solutions not the problems. Often we get so caught up in the problems that we neglect the most important responsibility a principled leader has in a crisis: solving the problems and ending the crisis. We focus on the fact that we have been unfairly treated, that we have been blind-sided, that our words have been misquoted, that our ideas have been misrepresented, and that our goals have been subverted. All those things may be true. But proving that all those things are true really doesn’t get us anywhere. What we really need to do is to address the root of the problems. What we really need to do is to train our attentions on solutions. What we really need to do is provide answers. General George Patton had a basic rule for all his commanders, “Never bring me problems without at least three possible solutions.” It would behoove us all if we too would adhere to that notion.

Second, we need to keep your eye on the rim not on the scoreboard. Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden constantly exhorted his players to focus on their game, their skills, their fundamentals, and their strategy. If they did that, the score would take care of itself. All too often though—and this is particularly true when the storms of life hit us—we tend to obsess over the scoreboard rather than taking heed to our shot. We’re looking over our shoulder paying more attention to the next guy than we are to ourselves. We will inevitably loose track of what actually matters, why we are there, and what we are trying to do. And then we will have a very hard time finishing well—if we are able to finish at all.

And third, we need to balance patience and urgency. In a crisis, things are rather urgent. Something has to be done. And it has to be done now. A principled leader never hesitates when action is called for, when decisions must be made, or when duty calls. But the leader will also always look before he or she leaps. While a sense of urgency is a virtue when lives are on the line, when justice is threatened, or when truth is jeopardized, that urgency needs to be placed in its appropriate context. That urgency must be balanced by patience. All action must be considered action. All decisions must be weighed decisions. The consequences of our ideas and actions must be kept in view. Before we pull the trigger, it is always a good think to take a deep breath. It is always appropriate to season urgency with patience and discretion. In a crisis there is nothing worse that someone who has suddenly become a wild card. In the midst of a storm of controversy there is nothing worse than someone who has suddenly become a loose cannon.

I keep telling myself these things in these days. I know they are true. Now, I simply must practice them.

Stick-to-it-iveness

Often we put too high a premium on flexibility. In times of difficulty, it is tenacity that enables us to prevail. Old-fashioned stick-to-it-iveness is normally in short supply but strong demand and thus is the first attribute of true leadership. Principles matter. And sticking to those principles demonstrates that they matter.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, James Madison was one of the most active speakers—and many wise provisions in the final document owe their origin to his foresight and learning. Deeply versed in theories of governance and profoundly affected by his Christian faith, he realized only too well that his gravest flaw was a tendency to become rather over-zealous during debate.

Along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, Madison wrote the brilliant Federalist Papers and was the trusted advisor and confidante of both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Later, he would make a mark on history as the fourth President of the fledgling nation during particularly difficult days. But it was at the Convention that his gifts were most evident and star shone brightest.

Knowing that he was apt to get carried away when addressing the Convention, he asked a fellow Virginian to sit by his side and tweak his coattails if he seemed to be getting too obviously excited. After a particularly impassioned speech he sat down, almost exhausted, and reproached his friend for not pulling at his coat.

“Sir,” said the now obviously awestruck man, “I would just as soon have laid a finger upon lightening.”

Similar stories are told of many of the other founding fathers. When Patrick Henry spoke his hearers were always utterly mesmerized. When the firebrand Samuel Adams addressed his fellow patriots, it was said that he spoke with the voice of the divine. And when the stately Peyton Randolph rose, an admiring silence always seemed to envelope the hall.

There is a peculiar power in unswerving conviction that inevitably arrests the attentions of both men and nations. There is an almost indescribable appeal that attaches itself to uncompromising vision and principled passion. This fact is illustrated again and again all throughout history.

Standing Fast

“Knowledge is knowing; understanding is knowing what to do; wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is actually doing it.” Tristan Gylberd

“He that is warm for truth, and fearless in its defense, performs one of the duties of a good man; he strengthens his own conviction, and guards others from delusion; but steadiness of belief, and boldness of profession, are yet only part of the form of godly vision.” Samuel Johnson

“A coward dies a thousand deaths, the valiant dies but once.” William Shakespeare

“The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently but to live manfully.” Thomas Carlyle

“A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.” James A Garfield

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength. Industry and determination can do anything that genius and advantage can do and many things that they cannot.” Theodore Roosevelt

“Brethren, standfast.” Paul of Tarsus

“Without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men have lived. The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences and dangers and pressures—and that is the basis of all human morality. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience—the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men—each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient—they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.” John F. Kennedy

“The wise does at once what the fool does at last.” Baltasar Gracian

Worldview Basics

We are what we think. In our very practical modern world, we tend to think that what a man or woman does or does not believe is really not all that important. We like to think that we can separate private from public concerns, character from performance, worldview from responsibility. But such a notion carries a fearful implication. It really means that it does not matter what anyone of us believes so long as we do not take our beliefs seriously. But throughout history, wise men and women have understood that far from being an irrelevant, superfluous, and private affair, our inmost faith is the utmost aspect of our outmost lives.

What we do is not just affected by what we think, it is determined by it. What we think—even when we are not fully aware of what it is that we’ve been thinking—shapes our perceptions, our preferences, our prejudices, and our priorities. As Anton Chekhov quipped, “Man is what he believes.” What we think will determine not only how we interpret what we see, hear, and feel, but how we react to those sensations. Even if we never actually think about what we think, it is at work in us in a dramatic way. We are what we think.

Mind Matters

Worldviews matter. More than two decades ago, Francis Schaeffer wrote his landmark historical survey, How Should We Then Live? In it, the seminal thinker, writer, and social reformer traced the extraordinary rise and distressing decline of Western Civilization. He argued that more troubling than any of the problems that are now undermining the remarkable freedom and prosperity of our culture is the fact that we no long quite know how to think about those problems. Indeed the most basic problem, which lay behind all other problems, was the fact that most concerned parents and community leaders are only able to see things “in bits and pieces instead of totals.” The result has been a kind of hesitant hit-or-miss approach to dealing with the dire dilemmas of our society. Thus, he says, we have “very gradually become disturbed over permissiveness, pornography, the public schools, the breakdown of the family, and finally abortion.” But we have not seen these issues “as a totality—each thing being a part, a symptom, of a much larger problem.”

Part of the reason for this is that, as he argued, we have failed to see “that all of this has come about due to a shift in worldview—that is, through a fundamental change in the overall way people think a view the world and life as a whole.” In other words, according to Schaeffer, part of the reason it has been so difficult to solve the grave cultural crises of the day is that we have largely ignored the fact that changes in our society have occurred first and foremost because of changes in our thinking. We’ve not only failed to recognize the fact that ideas have consequences; we’ve failed to recognize the existence of the ideas themselves. We’ve failed to see the central importance of worldview to all that we are and all that we do.

Weltanshauung

What we believe will ultimately determine how we act. Every belief system will have palpable, demonstrable, and visible results. It is not possible to divorce root from fruit. There is therefore is nothing more practical than clearly comprehending the character and content of our own worldview. The word worldview is actually a rather awkward English attempt at translating the German word weltanshauung. It literally means “a life perspective” or “a way of seeing.” It is simply used to describe the way we look at the world. All of us have a worldview. It is our perspective. It is our frame of reference. It is the means by which we interpret the situations and circumstances around us. It forms our presuppositions—our basic outlook on all the different aspects of our faith, and life, and experience. It is what enables us to process the information that comes to us through our senses.

According to social theorist, Alvin Toffler, in his seminal work Future Shock, “Every person carries in his head a mental model of the world, a subjective representation of external reality.” This mental model is, he says, like a giant filing cabinet. It contains a slot for every item of information coming to us. It organizes our knowledge and gives us a grid from which to think. “When we think,” economic philosopher E.F. Schumacher asserted, “we can only do so because our mind is already filled with all sorts of ideas with which to think.” These more or less fixed ideas make up our mental model of the world, our frame of reference, our presuppositions—in other words, they make up our worldview.

The differences between the art of Rembrandt and the art of Picasso were not just matters of style; they were determined by the differences in their worldviews. Likewise, the differences between the music of Bach and the music of the Beatles, the differences between the architecture of Wren and the architecture of Wright, and the differences between the politics of Washington and the politics of Mao are all attributable to differences in worldview. When a writer writes, he does so by the light of and in accord with his worldview. When a painter paints, she does so by the light of and in accord with her worldview. When a singer sings, he does so by the light of and in accord with his worldview. When a legislator legislates, she does so by the light of and in accord with her worldview. When a teacher teaches, he does so by the light of and in accord with his worldview. It is not possible to separate what it is we do from how it is we think.

Unintended Worldview Consequences

Unexamined ideas can have unintended consequences. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That may be overstating the case, but one thing is certain, the unexamined life will invariably produced unintended results. The fact is that our ideas and principles produce results. If we have never thought through the implications of those ideas and principles, they are going to surprise us with unintended consequences, undesired consequences, or second and third order consequences. If our ideas and principles are never articulated or scrutinized we will continually be caught off guard by the natural effects of our worldview. Follow a particular line of thought by adhering to a particular form of behavior for any length of time and there will be a whole string of effects. There will be a kind of worldview domino effect. One effect will lead to another and another and another and another.

This is worldview thinking at its most practical level. Let your mind dwell on forbidden and destructive fantasies and before you know it your thought life will be marked by unfaithfulness. Unfaithfulness will inevitably creates restlessness and discontent. That may lead directly to adultery. That may in turn result in separation or even divorce. The ripple effect of consequences may not end there: children are affected. Neighbors and friends are affected. On and on and on it goes. Worldviews matter. Ideas have consequences. Often, they have unintended consequences.