By John C. Oster

 What we can see depends on our perspective. The view from space is far different than the view from a coal mine. A skyscraper looks far different from a helicopter than from a taxi. Our "worldview" is the place from which we view the world.

The word "worldview" has taken on new importance in the cultural clash that surrounds our planet.

The World Heritage Journal proclaims itself a proponent of the "Christian Worldview in 2008". That is who we are but what does it mean?

Scholars discuss worldview by referring to the German word "Weltanschauung" which means, appropriately enough, welt (world) plus "anschauung" (vision.).

In brief, a worldview means a platform from which we view the world.. It’s nowhere near a new idea although it is uniquely appropriate to the year 2008. Sigmund Freud, in his "Lectures on Psycho-Analysis" defined weltanshcauung as "an intellectual construct which solves all of the problems of our existence uniformly on the basis of one overriding hypotheses which accordingly leaves no questions unanswered and in which what interests us finds a fixed place".

The Oklahoma Wesleyan Worldview Institute in Bartlesville, OK, speaks to the nation, and to the world, bringing "biblical wisdom to bear on pivotal issues of contemporary life," acknowledging that "Ideas move men and nations. Sound ideas foster a free and morally responsible society; flawed ideas corrode it."

At the living academic heart of the restored, historic La Quinta Mansion, the Institute examines the key ideas of our day in this light, through events and research on social philosophy, public policy, ethics and religion. The Institute is in the second phase of a proposed three phase development with full implementation slated for 2009.

Worldviews need not be religious. No infant has a worldview. Each person’s understanding of how the world operates grows in the context of his or her family and community experiences.

Michael Houdman says that every worldview deals with at least three fundamental questions.

1. Where did we come from (and Why are we here?)

2. What is wrong with the world?

3. How can we fix it?

Houdman then answers these three questions from the Christian and Secularist worldviews like this.

Question	Christian Response	Secularist Response
1. Where did we come from?	God’s creation	Random acts of nature
2. What went wrong?	Sin Against God	Lack of respect for nature
3. How do we fix it?	Redemption	Ecology

There are of course other questions that go into our worldview. For Christians, our view of Biblical prophecy drastically affects our worldview. More of this later.

Now, I am going to throw some highly specialized words at you, but please be patient. It’s important for all of us to know where we start from and how to chart our life’s course with certainty. In other words, we need to know our own personal worldview. To do so we need to at least think a little about seven ideas usually reserved for elite academia. The following are my own highly simplified definitions of these seven important ideas.

1. Epistemology–The nature of knowledge.

2. Metaphysics-The nature of reality.

3. Cosmology-The origin of reality

4. Teleology-The purpose of reality

5. Theology-The nature of God

6. Anthropology-The nature of man.

7. Axiology-The nature of good and bad, right and wrong

To be honest, I had never heard of axiology, but I am convinced that these seven ideas will lead us to an authentic worldview that will safely usher us through whatever lies ahead..