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What is a Worldview?

Much like the obviously simple question “What is a Woman?” which made headlines when then-Supreme Court Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson couldn’t or wouldn’t answer it, many people cannot answer the question “What is a Worldview?”

An online search for the term quickly provides a number of definitions. WorldviewU.org describes it as “a type of belief system or ideology,” adding that “a person’s worldview can influence the way everything in the world is viewed, interpreted, and explained.”

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines worldview as “a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint,” which sounds plausible enough given that Webster has in recent years gone “woke.” An example of this wokeness occurred in fall 2020 following Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s famous use of the term “sexual preference.” A hysterical outcry arose from the Left, and the Federalist observed that Webster responded by changing the term’s definition to “note it is ‘offensive’ on the same day that senators scolded her for her use of the word during day two of her confirmation hearings.”

Teen Eagles explore worldviews

In their first video installment called Worldviews Explained, available on YouTube, the St. Louis Teen Eagles (TE) organization defines the term simply and succinctly as “how we think, understand, and act.” The TE video explains the Biblical Christian worldview in terms of theology, biology, politics, economics, and history, starting with the obvious premise that it is Christ-centered, and that all things point to a trinitarian theism: one God who exists as three separate persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, “equal in essence but different in function.”

When Education Reporter reached out to ask what prompted the Teen Eagles to explore this subject, the group’s president, Ava Aschinger, responded:


  • Our objective in creating this series is to give a summary of the top competing worldview beliefs of our day, specifically the Christian, Marxist-Leninist, and Secular Humanist worldviews, and what each believes about common topics. We want the audience to know that everyone has a worldview and that your worldview determines your internal motives, decisions, and actions. With this knowledge, one will be able to defend their worldview and teach others.

Aschinger further explained that the organization plans to build on its first video series, using it as “a foundation for future projects.”

The TEs believe it’s important to know and understand what worldview means. As the group’s administrator Andrew Muller observes:


  • How you view everything in life, whether that be movies and marriage, truth, religion, politics, or government, is based on a set of assumptions and values. In an effort to educate our fellow Americans on the importance of this reality, the St. Louis Teen Eagles have started our three-part video series we’re calling “Worldviews Explained,” which summarizes three of the main worldviews at work in America.

Teen Eagles Poised for Growth

The St. Louis Teen Eagle (TE) program began back in 1996 as an outgrowth of classes taught at the St. Louis-based Pillar Foundation, and championed by the late Phyllis Schlafly. The goal, as stated on the TE website, was “to give high school students leadership development... Today, Teen Eagles strives to develop the next generation of leaders, communicators, and movers-and-shakers in society.”

Daniel Hite, Director of The Pillar Foundation and adult sponsor of the group, says the activities of the organization stay very close to their TE Mission Statement which “is very worldview oriented.” Its opening sentence, for example, reads: “The St. Louis Teen Eagles is a group of serious-minded Christian conservative students expressing a Biblical worldview by developing and equipping young leaders to positively influence our culture.”

“This year,” explains Hite, “the St. Louis group launched ‘Eagle Nest’ which is their new media emphasis to reach a broader audience with the Biblical Christian worldview as well as understanding conflicting worldviews in our culture. TE monthly meetings have now expanded to weekly as they grow their studio work. The TEs get educated on these conflicting philosophies and how they affect America—what is consistent with American values and what is not.”

He adds: “They also have many opportunities to express their worldview not only in the educational realm, but in the grassroots political realm as well.”

Interested readers are encouraged to visit the TE website and YouTube page (@stlteeneagles).

Biblical Christian Worldview

Christians believe in a Creator and a Redeemer, and that the Bible is divinely inspired. This worldview accepts that mankind, as a fallen race due to the disobedience of our first parents, can only be saved by our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, through the repentance of sins, a willingness to reject self, and by taking up our crosses and following Him. Thus, the Biblical worldview establishes a moral code that is based on objective truth.

As the TE presentation describes, biologically, the Biblical Christian worldview embraces Creationism, the belief that God created “each living organism separately, in much their present forms.”

Politically, this worldview accepts that human rights are God-given, and that human governments should exist to protect those rights, while guarding against human tendencies to suppress them. The presentation quotes David Noebel, who wrote in Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews (Volume 2): “God ordains governments to administer His justice. When government rules within the boundaries of its role in God’s order, we submit to the state’s authority willingly because we understand that God has placed it over us. But, when the state abuses its authority or claims it to be sovereign, we must acknowledge God’s transcendent law rather than that of the state.”

The TE presentation traces America’s constitutional republic to a verse in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (33:22): “For the Lord is our judge [judicial], the Lord is our lawgiver [legislative], the Lord is our king [executive]; it is He who will save us.”

The video further states that in the field of economics, the Biblical Christian worldview embraces a form of “democratic capitalism that allows for the free exchange of goods and services that helps others without fraud, theft, or breach of contract.” Add to that respect for the ownership of private property and the result is a view of economics that can be said to be scripturally based.

Historically, Christians believe in God’s creation, the fall of mankind, and our redemption by the life and death of God’s son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and they know that the Bible provides a reliable chronology of world events. Archeologists have confirmed this truth through various discoveries, particularly in recent decades.

Other Worldviews

The names and number of other worldviews can vary depending on the information source. A few have been selected for review here.

The atheistic, or naturalistic view of the world is ever popular, and is also known as the secular humanist worldview. It is nonreligious and in essence holds the belief that there is no God, and that only the physical, natural world exists.

Writing on CrossExamined.org, author and pastor, Dr. Brian Chilton, notes that, among other problems with this worldview, atheism cannot explain away “the existence of human consciousness,” which is a non-material reality. “It has been mathematically demonstrated by the theorem of Borg, Vilenkin, and Guth (i.e., the BVG Theorem),” wrote Chilton, “that there cannot be an infinite regress of material worlds. Every material world must have a beginning point.” In other words, the question of who or what created the matter that resulted from the atheistic notion of a “big bang” remains unanswered, since even that single “primordial atom” had to have somehow been created.

The agnostic and pantheistic worldviews each accept a different form of God. Some agnostics believe God may indeed exist, but that it is impossible to know anything about Him, while others claim it is impossible to know whether or not God exists at all.

Panentheists (not to be confused with pantheists) believe “all in God”; that is, everything and everyone is God. Pastor Chilton cites Hinduism as the best example of the panentheistic worldview.

The polytheistic worldview embraces belief in many gods, and is one of the oldest and most widely held worldviews. The ancient Greeks and Romans embraced polytheism; it has been the belief system of many religions down through the ages.

Yet another recognized worldview is Deism, which accepts the concept of a Supreme Being but rejects divine revelation. Deism “asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe.” This worldview gained traction after the Age of Enlightenment in 18th Century Europe and North America. Deism posits that God did indeed create all things but, conveniently for the enlightened, He stays out of the affairs of mankind and “does not intervene in the universe.”

Of all the worldviews, Biblical Christianity alone embraces objective truth stemming from a Creator God as the source of everything in the universe, handed down to mankind through His inerrant Word which is the Bible. For the better part of two centuries, Darwinian evolution has been the accepted cause of all living and non-living things in the visible world. Mankind has become god, and “science” has replaced faith.

As previously noted, the Teen Eagles’ presentation is now live on its YouTube channel (@stlteeneagles), and a summary of the Marxist and Secular Humanist worldviews is slated to follow soon.

Education Reporter will update readers when these important, informative videos become available.

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