Hi, and welcome back to this the third and final session of our series. In this session, I'm going to lead you to the next step, where understanding how a biblical Christian worldview can become a transformational vision, a vision for our life, for our work and for our culture. But I want to begin again with a quick recap. In our first session, we explored the national worldview. And we understood that everybody had a worldview. And that worldview was something that was all encompassing, something that was influenced by everything that we did, and influences all that we do, in a sense a mental model of the world, which guides us as its adherence in that world.

In fact, we came to the conclusion with Washington That a worldview is something that is a vision of life, as well as a vision for life. And that our worldviews are often determined by our communal influences, the spheres of influences that surround us such as our faith, our educational communities or cultures. All of these helped to build on communal meanings that then lead us to a communal vision. And in fact, everything we do, whether it is in our faith, or in our education, or in a culture arises out of and is then directed by our shared worldview. If we were to draw that as a picture, as we saw, it might look something like this. And as we explored in our second session, those spheres of influence included those four that we saw there with us at the center and each of them Those contributed to our communal meanings, which then helped us to determine a communal vision.

We then ask the question, where does this leave the church effect as just one sphere of influence amongst the many, or does it have a bigger part to play? We found that Moshe Middleton actually believe that overviews are based on our ultimate faith commitments. What Schaefer called presuppositions ideas that we share in common that are foundational to our worldview. For a biblical Christian worldview, Crampton bacon stated that the first and absolutely essential presupposition is that the Bible alone is the word of God. Schafer went so far as to say that this was a watershed issue. He passionately believed that the accuracy and inerrancy of the Bible is the foundation of all average depositions and he went on to identify four basic presuppositions that build on that foundation that make up a biblical Christian worldview, as you can see in the list on the slide, and as we discussed in detail in our last session.

We must understand, in this discussion on a biblical worldview, that Christian perspectives have great significance, especially when it comes to the big questions of greater meaning that we face today and in our day to day walks. This is what understanding our worldview helps us to do. So hopefully you already have a draft of your worldview. As you have engaged in the exercises throughout this course, responding to some of the questions that I have posed, because knowing and understanding what we believe what our presuppositions are, helps us to understand and respond to some of these big questions. Of course, the challenge for us as Christian educators is not always the Big Questions, though these are actually important, but also to reflect on our curriculum and our educational practices in the light of these biblical truths. Now, to be honest, for many of us, it would be very attractive if there was an automatic connection between our Christian faith and our educational practice.

If having a genuine faith meant that we would automatically have an educational practice that was consistent with his faith, however, things don't always work out that way in practice. This automatic connection with between faith and practice clearly doesn't occur in all areas of life, or even in other areas of life, because if it did, scripture would not be so full of exhortation to believers to act in ways that are consistent with their faith. To take an example, Paul wrote his first letters to the Corinthians, to quote to go sanctified in Christ Jesus. In other words, to those who have God's grace had been given in Christ Jesus. And yet, in that same epistle, he very quickly went on to rebuke them for practices that were inconsistent with the faith of Christ. So how do we make the connections?

What actions can we engage in, that help us to be consistent in our faith? diligence, the sincerity of personal faith requires constant diligence, what Paul calls the renewing of the mind. And this happens through prayer through a healthy devotional life, through a gathering together, but also by being in the world, but not of it. As Christian educators, we cannot isolate ourselves from the world. And as the biblical mandate says, to be in the world, but not of it. It wouldn't be good for us to try and do so.

First of all, it's because we live in this society for which we are called to prepare our students to also Live as stewards and disciples of the Lord, a Christian education developed in isolation from the realities of the society will not be able to prepare students adequately for their calling as stewards and disciples. Secondly, to ignore all the ideas and the possibilities that are generated from the world around us, would cut us off from much that by God's very grace can enrich our understanding. God in His grace allows those who do not honor him to also gain fruitful insights into the working of his creation, including us as human creation, in the sciences, in biology, and so on. And really, we cannot afford to ignore these gifts of His grace. The problem often arises when we view items as either faith based or secular, either Christian, or secular.

And really, it's not uncommon for us Christians to talk about this need to integrate their faith in secular areas in terms of their work their life and they play. This approach appears to suggest that we have two categories, each of which operates on its own in internally sufficient principles. But that needs to be brought together in order to provide a coherent total view of the world of human experiences. According to Mila, we have developed split personalities. And we begin to compartmentalize our lives according to one or the other. It might look something like this.

What many of us end up with is two sets of worldviews that impact us and how we operate in the world. The conflict arises most sharply when we accept that the experience world and the cultural community are essentially secular and governed by secular principles as is common to all And we limit the Christian faith to the spiritual realm of human experience, that in our personal lives and in our faith communities, and the educational communities caught in the middle, as we are not sure how to respond to this. Of course, if we work in a Christian educational institution that makes it slightly easier, and we are left to make the best of the outer worlds of our experience based on the secular notions, because these do not appeal to us very much on a day to day basis. But this is very different when we work in a secure environment, when this can then impact us on each day.

And many of us struggle with how to make sense of this. And it is in fact a really complex issue. And our response is to attempt to integrate what is in essence a dualistic approach. The world can be seen as having two areas of meaning that peacefully coexist. One is the culturally derived Meaning of the secular life and the other is the faith meaning that governs the spiritual world of faith. Faith does not play an active formative role in the secular world, but rather decrease the boundaries of secular living.

And so what we end up doing is arriving at two meanings, a culturally derived secular meeting, and affects me by different routes, and subsequently integrating them into one coherent world meaning at the center. What this means in practice is that we often adopt practices presented to us as official maybe from a government or regulatory practice, or a requirement or practice that carries the endorsement of leading authority without critically testing its compatibility with our faith, because it's secular. So we run the risk of developing a pattern of practice that in fact ends up distorting our faith. Now, the distortion may be hidden from us because we have developed over time and rationalization. That has modified our vision and practice of a Christian walk, or work to accommodate for the practices in question. And the problem is that it is most likely to be quite a plausible rationalization rather than a sound reason firmly grounded in our faith.

And over the course of time, even our faith itself can then be adjusted and may be adjusted to accommodate our chosen pattern of practice that we have adopted. So how can we avoid this? remembering that a faithful Christian educational practice does not automatically follow from a sincere Christian faith? And then it requires diligence in applying that faith to educational issues. And it's an awesome, great questions about this. Do we just add praise to God for subject content?

Is that how we bring the two together? Do we do it by showing excellence? Or, as often the case do we adopt some sort of blue blended approach a little bit of secular in a little bit of Christianity? And at what level? Do we do that? Do we do that at a surface level?

Or do we actually do that a qualitative level? Do we put God first? Do we start with the Christian? Or do we even put God in? These are all really good questions. And these are questions that many of us are challenged with, and that we seek to get an answer to as we try to bring the two things together.

But what we need to do is we actually need to develop a theoretical framework which is sensitive to and rooted in the biblical worldview. It needs to be a comprehensive vision, a vision that addresses all of our life, so that rather than being conformed to the world, we actually become the transforms of that world, and our communities renewed by the influence we bring on the communal vision. As we become Transformers of the communal worldview. We need to develop a transforming vision. Now I deliberately use the ongoing transforming vision, rather than the more final transformed in the light of Paul's own words, when he calls us to an ongoing transforming of the mind when he says by the renewing of your mind, so that you may know that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable, and perfect will of God from Romans 12 verse two.

And we engage in this transforming of meaning, not just in the more obvious religious and moral issues of life, but also all the secular areas of learning. In this we as individuals have not changed, or our communities. However, our practices now reflect the belief that we can achieve authentic, meaningful life in this world only as the meaning getting WORD OF GOD plays a central role in shaping our understanding of meaning in every part area of our lives. Of course, we do not deny that others in our communities. And we've said this before, those that do not share our faith can give us valid insights into the world, or human creation. For by God's grace, they can do so.

However, there should be an insistence that where the central formative role of the Word of God is not taken seriously in an area of life, including the second areas of learning, the meaning that results will inevitably be a distorted meaning. So for this reason, I take an approach to the understanding of meaning neither by rejecting or insights that come from the secular sources, nor by accepting uncritically any understandings that are shaped by the secularists communities to which we belong. Rather I adopt the approach that is continually transforming the sort of meanings in submission to the authority of the meaning giving Word of God and in turn this Then leads to a transforming life and practice in every other area to avoid the danger of distortion, therefore, we must interact critically with the prevailing ideas of our social environment. In this critical interaction, we are going to test all practices for consistency with the faith and the beliefs that we profess as the final and ultimate test in deciding whether to incorporate them in our own actions and practices.

However, this will not always mean an outright rejection of preventing practices that are inconsistent with our faith. But what it may require to a greater or lesser degree is the reconstruction of a particular practice to ensure that the overall pattern of our practice remains consistent with affects the outcome of this transformation of this transforming of meaning will be an ongoing transforming of that educational practice. Along with every other area of our living, anything less than this must lead to educational practice that falls short of an authentic Christian educational practice, and to the acceptance of educational changes that compromise a Christian educational vision. So it is your turn. By critically interacting with your practices, review what you know you do and understand why you do it in every area of your life. What changes, if any, would you now make in the light of what we have learned about the potential for dualism or a transforming vision?

And remember that this is an ongoing struggle. We are in the process of renewing, we are not yet transformed. And also understand that we now seem part and each time you engage with this topic, you are going to learn more Every time I know for myself as a presenter every time I present this information as I reread the textbook, I understand and see it a little more clearly. And so I encourage you to review and to engage with this in an ongoing way and I wish you all the best