Every year the Cultural Research Center (CRC) at Arizona Christian University puts out the American Worldview Inventory (AWI). The AWI is designed to show what kind of worldview shapes Americans’ view of the world. In 2021 the AWI revealed that very few Americans hold a consistent worldview. That is to say, we Americans view the world in a confused way.
So, what is a worldview?
Very simply put, a worldview is a person’s interpretation of reality. A worldview is an ideological belief system. Everyone has a worldview of some sort and processes life through that worldview. We make sense of culture by understanding it through our worldviews.
From a Christian perspective, it is super important to understand the concept of worldviews because we are increasingly losing common ground with secular society’s understanding of reality. The gap between a traditional Christian worldview and the rest of society is widening.
It can be seen in the cultural conversations around ideas like whether or not there are such things as objective truths or moral duties. Whether or not the state supersedes a parent’s rights in healthcare or education for children. Those with a biblical worldview understand gender and race much differently from their secular peers.
According to the study of over 2,000 participants, only 6% of Americans now claim a biblical worldview. I don’t find this number unusually low. Contrary to popular belief among political conservatives, America has never been a Christian nation. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution from a Christian worldview when the Western world was hardly removed from being dominated by Christian thought. However, America is now firmly a post-Christian culture – meaning Christianity is just one way a person might view the world. Not the way.
The growing chasm between how Christians with a biblical worldview see the world and those who hold a secular view should not cause concern for Christians. Jesus makes it pretty clear that not only will there be a gap, but there should be a gap. Likewise, Paul instructs Christians not to fall prey to secular worldviews, saying, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” (Col. 2:8)
Yet, Jesus commands us to go to all the nations with his gospel. And this means that we Christians must understand the culture we live in so that we are aware of the danger posed and effectively share the Good News. So we have to study culture to some degree.
The Netflix understanding of reality
The AWI revealed that 88% of Americans hold what I like to call a Netflix worldview. A Netflix worldview is a mashup of different worldviews curated to the personal tastes of the worldview holder. Kind of like when I go to my Netflix profile, I will be offered up the types of movies I like to watch. Except, sometimes other people in my family watch movies under my profile. The suggestion algorithm for Netflix thinks I might want to watch a combination of WWII documentaries, children’s Christmas movies, Lego cartoons, and Seinfeld.
This odd combination of entertainment selections does fit the viewing habits of all the people in my house. There is something to watch for every situation. Whoever has the remote just picks the type of show that feels right for the moment. Which is how 88% of America views reality to some degree.
For example, someone with a Netflix worldview might curate their understanding of the world to include a Darwinian view of biology, with a Christian view of human value, mix in a Hindu understanding of the soul, and top it off with a postmodern understanding of subjective truth. Whatever works for the mood you’re in.
The problem with a Netflix worldview is that 88% of American’s do not hold a consistent understanding of reality. An evolutionary interpretation of biology would mean that there is no objective morality. After all, if we are all the product of blind selection, humans do not actually reason. We only respond to external stimuli through chemical and electrical signals in our brains. All of our actions are determined. Therefore, there is no morality. If there is no objective morality, then there can be no such thing as human rights. So, the Christian part of the worldview I described above would have to be chucked if one wanted to be consistent.
Want to make truth claims like black lives matter? Guess what? Moral truth changes over time for one who believes in a postmodern understanding of moral truth. The statement “black lives matter” doesn’t carry the moral force you think it does because a postmodernist doesn’t believe in objective moral truth. After all, moral truth changes. It is determined by culture. The current moral truth that all people are equally valuable by virtue of being human will also change. So even though it sounds right to say “black lives matter,” it is only a statement of preference. The person who says it is only saying that “I believe that black lives matter right now.” Nothing more.
What happens when you die? Do you reincarnate as something better? Something worse? If you hold a Hindu understanding of the afterlife but prescribe to Darwinian evolution, one of them has to go. Humans were either created by something, or we are the product of eternal matter and blind selection. But we cannot be both.
The confusion of how to understand reality by most Americans is one of the driving forces behind our rank cultural discourse. I intend to write about the worldviews identified in the AWI in the coming weeks and explore how they conflict with a biblical worldview. Until then, here are the results of the AWI in descending order:
88% – Netflix worldview
6% – Biblical or Christian worldview
2% – secular humanism
1 % each – moralistic therapeutic deism, postmodernism, and nihilism
.5% – Marxism
