Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
Why Does Your Worldview Matter? DNA Core Message Series
Our worldview shapes what we think, how we live, and the kind of culture we create. So when our communities bear bitter fruit—poverty, corruption, injustice—we need to look at the roots below the surface. In this episode, we explore how worldviews are formed, how they shape entire societies, and why true transformation comes from working at this level.
Too often, Christian mission stops at conversion and overlooks the need for deep worldview discipleship, leaving people with many unbiblical cultural assumptions. Lasting change comes when our minds are renewed, leading to flourishing not only in our lives, but also in our families and nations as we live into God's design.
Main Topics:
- What Is a Worldview? – How it forms and why it matters
- Ideas Flow Downstream – From philosophers to principles to lifestyles
- Rooted in Truth – How biblical worldview transforms hearts and societies
It starts with us. We must intentionally think and act differently than the world, based on the reality of God’s Kingdom.
- Core Video: Why Does Your Worldview Matter?
- Our Strategy at DNA
- View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
There's a variety of forms of worship, a variety of world views in the world, right, but they all aren't true and there's only one. That's true, and that seems kind of like an arrogant thing to say, but when you think about it in a different way, it's not at all. There's only one world. We only live in one world, right, you know.
Tim Williams:So that's what we have in common, this world that we live in, and you can see it rightly, correctly accurately, or you can see it in a way that's completely distorted, and I don't think a lot of people, even Christian believers, think about how they're formed by that type of thinking, because it impacts. When do they have children? When do they get married? How many children do they have? How do they view and value the family? How much do they work? What kind of a job? How much do they relocate? How much do they rest? What is it that they find fulfilling? So, again, all of these things are just kind of in these unconscious thoughts and they're forming daily decisions and habits and generations of people, generations of people.
Luke Allen:Hi, friends, welcome back to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. Here on the show, we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world, to all the nations, but our mission also includes being the hands and feet of God to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God. Hey guys, a quick FYI before we get started the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God. Hey guys, a quick FYI before we get started.
Luke Allen:Today's going to sound a bit unique because we're actually going to be doing a video review episode and, since this is an audio-only podcast, you obviously can't watch us react to the video. So if you want to visualize this episode, then all you have to do is pull up the video that we're highlighting today, which is linked in the episode description and is also on YouTube, and the video is called. Why Does your Worldview Matter Again, to find it, just click on the link in the description, or you can search it on YouTube yourself. Enjoy.
Scott Allen:Well, welcome again everyone to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by my co-workers and dear friends. Tim Williams, all the way from North Carolina, great to be here. John Bottimore, joining us from the sunny state of Florida today. Hi, john and Luke Allen. Hey, luke, good to see you as well.
Luke Allen:Yeah.
Scott Allen:Looking forward to our discussion. Luke, why don't you tee it up for us today what we're going to be talking about?
Luke Allen:Yeah, sure, yeah. This is kind of a fun episode, guys, that we've been hoping to do for a little while. This has been a project of ours that we've worked on for about three years and essentially the project is we're calling it the Core Message Video Project and for the last 30 years of the DNA we've had this kind of basic teaching of the DNA that the guys have traveled around the world teaching. That we have turned into our first basics course. Now we call it the Kingdomizer 101. So just the core DNA teaching, what we're all about here at the Disciple Nations Alliance. We wanted to turn that into something even more digestible shorter, more compact, concise. So we decided to go with short animated videos, because they're great at explaining concepts in depth and yet a great way also to condense things and make them as digestible as possible for everyone. So that's a project that we started about four years ago. Now We've broken up all of our core teaching into five videos, all of which are about five minutes or shorter, and today we just wanted to go over the first video with you guys.
Luke Allen:This is a video that's been up on YouTube for a couple years now. It's called why Does your Worldview Matter? It's one of our most popular videos, but we just wanted to break this video down for you guys because it is dense. We'll admit that it's only 4 minutes and 20 seconds, but it packs a punch and it explains what worldview is. It explains why we all have a worldview why does worldview matter and then it kind of summarizes with why the biblical worldview is the only one that actually works in this world and if we want to see free, flourishing, thriving nations, then a biblical worldview is the only way for us to bring us there. So there's a lot of information there. I know those things I just explained right there.
Luke Allen:You're probably already asking questions what do you mean by that? How can you say that? Those kind of questions. But we'll break that all down today. So, again, it's called why does your worldview matter? And this video is soon going to be. The reason we're doing this today is because this is soon going to be part of our new basic training here at Disciple Nations Alliance. We're actually taking that training that we've been teaching for almost 30 years around the world and we're going to be giving it a new update, a 2025 edition update, maybe 2026 and this video will be a part of it. So, uh, we hope that you guys enjoy the discussion well, why don't we do this?
Scott Allen:here's how we're going to run this today. We're going to go ahead and show the video in its entirety, and then we're going to go back and we're going to watch it in segments and comment on it. So, luke, with that, why don't you go ahead and get that teed up here and we can watch it?
Video Narrator :We hear a lot about culture these days, everything from culture wars to cancel culture. But what exactly is culture? In the broadest sense, culture is simply the way we do things. In the broadest sense, culture is simply the way we do things. Culture describes a group's values, customs and behaviors, whether the group is a family, a business, an organization, a community or an entire civilization. At the root of every culture is a deep system of belief or a form of worship. This isn't surprising. People are hardwired to worship. The object of our worship may be God, or it could be the self, or we might worship government, nature or our ancestors. Another word for these deep belief systems is worldview.
Video Narrator :Worldview, which is simply a way of seeing reality. A worldview is composed of, often unconscious, ideas or assumptions that provide answers to life's most important questions. The answer to these worldview questions provide order and meaning to our lives, whether they're true or not. But from where do our answers to these questions come from? Many of our beliefs are assumed, acquired in our earliest years. At a deeper level, our worldviews come from the ideas and philosophies of key historical figures. Their powerful philosophies are picked up by artists, who convey them in songs, literature, paintings, poetry and film. These in turn influence cultural gatekeepers in universities, public education, business, government, entertainment and law. They institutionalize the worldview in curricula, policies and laws and we absorb it.
Video Narrator :Why does this all matter? Because worldview shapes everything we think and do, and what we do shapes the world around us. It turns out. Nothing is more practical and more central than worldview. We can think of our worldview like the roots of a tree underground and hidden from sight. The trunk represents our values. The branches are behaviors and actions. Our behaviors and actions in turn shape our lives and the world around us. This is the fruit. Sadly, the world around us is filled with bitter fruit. This is unacceptable. As Christians, we are called to give ourselves to change the world for the better. But in order to change the fruit, we have to change the root.
Video Narrator :Genuine social transformation requires a change of culture, a change of worldview, and this change must start with us. The Bible speaks of this in many ways. We are admonished to think with the mind of Christ, to take captive every thought, to make it obedient to Christ, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. In short, we are to think and act differently, not according to the beliefs, values and norms of our surrounding culture, but according to reality as presented in God's word and the culture of God's kingdom. This worldview transformation doesn't happen automatically. It must be intentional and it takes time, often years. This is because we are profoundly shaped by our surrounding culture, yet we are not imprisoned within it, nor are we defined by it. God has given us all. We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. He has given us His Word, his Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth who guides us into all truth, and brothers and sisters in Christ to walk and learn with us. But we must decide to take the first step.
Video Narrator :In order to transform the world, we have to be transformed ourselves, and this begins at the level of worldview of worldview and continue to watch it at about 70 people a day. So it's been fun to see that people are enjoying this video, absorbing it. It's getting shared around, so that's encouraging for us and we hope that people are really learning a lot from this. I do know for myself, even though I'm around this teaching all the time, if I watch that video and I'm not cued in, I miss a lot of it. So today we're going to try to break this video down for you guys, to make it a little bit more digestible as best as possible and hopefully shed light on some of the concepts in here that, yeah, there's just a lot of meaning to them. You know, some of these things like like it says, a biblical worldview is the only one that builds free and flourishing nations. Why is that? You know? How can you say that? So we're going to try to break down some of those big questions and statements that this video makes. So to do that, we'll just watch it through in little snippets and give some dialogue along the way.
Video Narrator :So I hope this is helpful for you guys, and I just wanted to give a shout out to our animated videographer, samuel Felix, good friend of ours from down in Brazil who was the one that made this video. He is a genius when it comes to this stuff of taking concepts and portraying them in visual format. So great work, samuel. You might be listening right now. Thank you for this video. We really enjoy it. All right, let's hop back into it.
Video Narrator :We hear a lot about culture these days, everything from culture wars to cancel culture but what exactly is culture? In the broadest sense, culture is simply the way we do things. Culture describes a group's values, customs and behaviors, whether the group is a family, a business, an organization, a community or an entire civilization.
Video Narrator :All right, I'm just going to pause it there. Why culture, guys? Why are we starting with culture? This video is called why Does your Worldview Matter? And yet the first thing we want to talk about here is culture. I love this really simple explanation of culture, which it says here is just the way we do things around here. That makes so much sense to me. Oftentimes, I think we get confused with that definition of culture the very broad one and the more kind of specific cultural heritage, cultural fashion, form, cuisine, that type of culture that's more specific. But culture just broadly is really just the way we do things around here. So again, guys, why are we starting with culture?
Scott Allen:Well, I think, you know, I think starting with culture is important because our faith as Christians is, you know, we tend to, at the time that we live in right now, as evangelical Christians, we tend to think very personally and individually and we don't think in terms of culture. In fact, there's a lot of pushback, even if you talk about culture as it relates to the mission of the church, you know. But the faith, if it's faithfully lived out, our faith, needs to become a culture. It needs to become a way of doing things, whether, again, that's in a family or in an entire nation. Culture matters. You know, christian faithfulness, I think, in some ways is measured by whether it actually becomes a culture. And there's something deeply wrong when cultures, the ways of doing things, are destructive or unchristian and yet there's a lot of Christians in that culture. Like something's wrong there. Yeah, just echoing that, Scott.
John Bottimore:Something's wrong there. Yeah, Just echoing that, Scott, we will talk about transformation later. That's so critical that if we're going to be doing things consistent with our faith and consistent with Scripture, we have to have that transformation. Back to your fundamental question culture is the way we do things, and we can also say culture is first the way we think about. And we can also say culture is first the way we think about things and then do them, because how we think affects how we do and, as the video says, values, customs, behaviors, etc. Are all driven by how we think of culture. So the core questions are well, where do these things come from? What influences, both timeless and changing, affect what we think and do in culture, and that's why what we're going to talk about here is so, so important, so incredibly practical, much more so than just philosophical.
Tim Williams:Yeah, I would just echo what everybody else is already saying. I mean, you know one thing I think about with culture, which is so influential in what we do every day? It is culture. Culture is like our unthinking life, Like this is just automatic. It's what we do. We don't analyze it, but it is the way things are, it's how we think when we're not thinking. Yeah, well said Tim.
Tim Williams:Yeah, really great point we think when we're not thinking yeah, well said Tim. Yeah, really really great point. Yeah, yeah, so this is really, you know that we talk about culture because it's what's happening all the time, it's automatic, and what we're saying is culture is really important, but you don't get to what drives culture and what really drives people until you get into the belief system through which they're seeing the world, through which they're creating their culture. And we really, you know, just want to call people to think at that deep level and really really make some analysis there so that they can experience the fruit and the transformation that they desire to see.
Scott Allen:Yeah, well said, tim, well said.
Video Narrator :Yeah, I'm glad we started there. All right, let's keep going.
Luke Allen:At the root of every culture is a deep system of belief or a form of worship. This isn't surprising. People are hardwired to worship. The object of our worship may be God, or it could be the self, or we might worship government, nature or our ancestors.
Video Narrator :Okay, I just got to hold up there. What do you mean by everyone is hardwired to worship? I thought we could just leave that all in the old history books of when people worshiped their pagan gods and whatnot. Isn't that a fairy tale? We're not hardwired to worship, are we? That's why this is so so powerful.
John Bottimore:Yeah, sorry, scott. That's why this is so so powerful, because it's assumed, it's not known. Notice that it talks about the root is a form of worship. The roots are under the ground. We don't see them. We assume this, it's not. Do we worship? It's. What or whom do we worship? So we ignore this at our peril. We have no idea, but we actually are worshiping something or someone, and it is so absolutely foundational to where we go from there.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I think the worship, you know, it's getting to this question of what is your, what do you value supremely, what is most important to you? And everyone has an answer to that question. They may not have thought about it, but it's revealed in the way that they act. Again, that's what culture is. It's what we do, right? So at the root of the culture, the way we act, is this thing that we value most supremely, and it's a form of worship. And so, you know, I really love what Jordan Peterson has been, you know, kind of talking about over these last few years.
Scott Allen:He says at the root of every culture, every civilization, is a story, a deep story, you know, and you know that's what we're talking about here. A story, a form of worship, a religious form of worship, a story that gives rise to a particular culture. And he said hey, you know, the West was given rise from the story of the Bible, both the Jewish Bible and the Christian, you know, edition of the New Testament. That was what made it, was that worship that made the West. And he went on and said before we throw it away, you know, we better know what we're discarding, because it gave rise to a particular culture, a way of doing things, and that's what we're talking about here.
Tim Williams:I would just, you know, add. You know, as we think about belief, one of the things that comes to my mind is how the Scripture talks about the condition of the heart. It's out of the overflow of the heart that our mouth speaks. It's, you know, the religious leaders in the Bible were often concerned with Jesus. You know, about outward appearances and how things looked and were they you know they doing everything perfectly correct. And he said you're totally missing it. It's evil actions or otherwise. It comes out of the heart, and so, as we think about what somebody worships, what somebody values.
Scott Allen:We all have something that we prize and that we live our value and that shapes a particular kind of culture, in the sense that it shapes the way that people act and behave and make all sorts of decisions, for good or bad Ideas have consequences and there's a lot of bad fruit that comes from that self-worship, but that's probably the dominant form of worship in the West. You know, at least in my lifetime, yeah.
Video Narrator :Yeah, darrow often says I don't know if he made this up or if he's stealing this from someone, but from a you know, standpoint of etymology, the word culture. We often hear that culture is upstream from politics right, yes. But you can go one step further than that and say culture is sorry, politics is downstream from culture, right. And then culture is downstream from cult or worship. That's right. Actually, the root word of culture is cult or a form of worship. So you can drive it all the way back to that point. And I like what you were saying, dad too, about in the West that we often forget this. Like I was saying, uh, you know, we left worship behind in history. You know, we don't do that anymore.
Luke Allen:It's no, we just worship ourselves.
Video Narrator :We don't worship you know, bail or whoever, but we're we, we can worship ourselves, and you often see that when people's lives are threatened, they'll run to what they value most, right? Uh, so I I think back to that COVID pandemic. At the beginning, when everyone was freaking out, a lot of people wanted to. First thought was save myself, save my stuff, whereas, hopefully, with Christians, those aren't your first two thoughts. Your first two thoughts are go and help others, because we worship a God that tells us to love your neighbor as yourself, and you can kind of see that shine out when things get a little bit more scary.
Video Narrator :That's right, anyways, let's keep rolling with the video here when things get a little bit more scary.
Luke Allen:That's right. Anyways, let's keep rolling with the video here. Another word for these deep belief systems is worldview, which is simply a way of seeing reality. A worldview is composed of, often unconscious, ideas or assumptions that provide answers to life's most important questions. The answer to these worldview questions provide order and meaning to our lives, whether they're true or not. But from where do our answers to these questions come from?
Video Narrator :All right. Any thoughts about that clip guys?
Scott Allen:Yeah, I think just that's a simple kind of point that's being made there that's very valid, and that is that worldviews are the things that answer. Your worldview is the thing that answers those most fundamental, the biggest questions that you have, that we all have. You know who am I, you know what is the nature of this world around me, what happens after I die? Why is there evil in the world? How can that evil be overcome? Those big questions everyone struggles with and, at some level, has answers to. You know, because we have to live in the real world, right? You can't just say, oh, I don't have any answers to any of those questions. You live. Your worldview is actually determined this is a really important point I'd like to just underscore here but it's determined not by what you say, but what you do, how you live. That's what shows your worldview. So, yeah, so we all have answers, because we all have to live in this world based on some set of answers, and your worldview is what answers those big questions.
Video Narrator :Yeah, I was frustrated when I went to a Christian college and I took a class called, you know, worldviews of the World Biblical Worldview and Worldviews of the World and the class treated worldview purely as an academic subject of something that you can just think about, and it presented the other worldviews here's animism, here's postmodernism, here's Marxism and it kind of gave you an explanation of what they believe about the big worldview questions, but it left it there and they think this way and as Christians, we think this way and it's all in your head and yet we have to take it to the next step of yes, what you think is important, but what you think is how you live.
Scott Allen:Let me just comment on that, luke. It's such an important point that that way of thinking that you just described that we can. You know that this worldview is just the thoughts going around in our heads, with no bearing on the way that we live or act. This is all purely philosophical and not practical is another way of saying that that actually is the fruit of the Enlightenment rationalist worldview. That's true, you know, and we've all been shaped by that because you know that's been really a profoundly influential worldview in the West. It's not biblical, though. The biblical worldview doesn't separate belief and action. It ties those things tightly together and it says you know what you actually believe, what you worship is going to be proven by what you do. There is no separation there.
Video Narrator :Yeah, it kind of reminds me of. You know, faith without works is dead. Exactly, you can intellectually have faith in God, but if you're not actually living that out, it's a, and I'll tell people.
Scott Allen:You know, you can tell me, you know we can fool ourselves, we can say I believe this or that, but I'll say you know, you know I'll, I'll determine what you believe not by what you say, but by what I'm seeing you do, by your behaviors and actions. That's what you truly believe, actually. So, yeah, it is go, go ahead, john.
John Bottimore:And to miss the fact that worldview is eminently practical. It happens even in the church, and that's the root of the failure of the secular-sacred divide as well, and so it's very important to separate those things. It's interesting that worldview is, as the narrator said is, a way of seeing reality and the answers to the questions we have about what happens in the reality, these hard questions of life. They provide order and meaning to our lives, whether they are true or not.
Scott Allen:That's right.
John Bottimore:So we act and behave based on what we believe and what we see and how we're influenced, whether our beliefs are true or not, and that's a really just again a very basic and super important point, john.
Scott Allen:There's a variety of forms of worship, a variety of worldviews in the world, right, but they all aren't true and there's only one. That's true and that seems kind of like an arrogant thing to say, but when you think about it in a different way, it's not at all. There's only one world, we only live in one world, right. So that's what we have in common, this world that we live in, and you can see it rightly, correctly, accurately, or you can see it in a way that's completely distorted, and those are going to have real impacts on your life. If you're living in a way that's completely distorted and those you know those are going to have real impacts on your life. If you're living in a kind of an illusion or a false view of the real world, you know and we're going to get to that I know in the video it's going to have consequences, harmful consequences.
Tim Williams:I would just kind of mention for a second. You know, scott, as you were talking about kind of this worship of self, you know this focus on self. I mean, the word that stands out to me right now, with a lot of our culture, is just materialism you know, highly materialistic, and that's, I think, a manifestation of this focus on self. It's also a focus on a belief that there is nothing else.
Scott Allen:That's right.
Tim Williams:There is no God, there is no ultimate reality.
Scott Allen:It all ends when I die, right you?
Tim Williams:know beyond what I can feel and touch and have and get and gain for myself. And I don't think a lot of people, even Christian believers, think about how they're formed by that type of thinking, because it impacts. When do they have children? When do they get married? How many children do they have? How do they view and value the family? How much do they work? What kind of a job? How much do they relocate? Um? How much do they rest? What is it that they find fulfilling? Um, again, all of these things are just kind of in these unconscious thoughts and they're forming daily decisions and habits and generations of people.
Scott Allen:They need to come to that conscious level Right on, that's right.
Video Narrator :Yeah, that's really helpful. This next section I like because it talks about where most of our worldview is acquired from. I got a couple of young kids in the house and that's good to keep in mind when most of your worldview is formed. A lot of people say about about age eight. 80% of your worldview has been formed. So, uh, if you have an under eight year old in the house, keep that in mind. They're absorbing like a sponge, right now like a sponge, absolutely let's keep going, guys.
Video Narrator :Let's also pick up the pace a little bit, because, uh, we're only a minute and 20 seconds in and we already could be talking.
Luke Allen:This is way too fun, but we'll keep going many of our beliefs are assumed, acquired in our earliest years. At a deeper level, our worldviews come from the ideas and philosophies of key historical figures. Their powerful philosophies are picked up by artists, who convey them in songs, literature, paintings, poetry and film. These in turn influence cultural gatekeepers in universities, public education, business, government, entertainment and law. They institutionalize the worldview in curricula, policies and laws.
Video Narrator :And we absorb it all. Right, this is a. This is a point that we've been talking about on the team a lot this week actually the flow of ideas through culture and how, uh, carl marx is still having his effects on teenagers looking at their iPhones today. Um, it's because, uh, there's this.
Video Narrator :There's this general pattern that ideas often take, where they start with an idea from someone. Usually it's a kind of a paradigm level idea that someone has, um, and then that gets passed on to often the balladeers, the artists who pick up on that kind of early on. There's something about artists where they're able to grasp new ideas quickly and then put those into a digestible form. That's very catchy and can take a lot of people, capture a lot of people's imaginations. From there they often move on to we call it the principle level.
Video Narrator :So from the paradigm to the principle level, where these things in universities and through our policymakers, mostly through, often through the universities, the thinkers will actually take these concepts and they'll turn into those principles right, what's right and wrong, what's moral, these kinds of things and then those turn into the policies of the nation, those turn into the things that actually affect and shape our lives, and then those, of course, turn into the practice level. Right here on the screen we have the guy looking at the iPhone. These are the things that eventually end up on TikTok and train the way that we think about things. So any thoughts here, guys, on this kind of flow of ideas?
Scott Allen:This section makes two points. The first one is that, as you were saying, we all have a worldview. Okay, nobody's, you know, exempt. Everyone's got a. A worldview, uh, helps them live in the real world. You have to have some way of understanding and living in the world.
Scott Allen:Where does it come from? Where do these ideas come from that shape our worldview? And they come from um the culture around us. We absorb it culturally and, you know, from our youngest ages we get the these ideas and assumptions from our parents, from our friends, just from the world, us, just from observing the way people act and do things, and that shapes our worldview. Often, those assumptions. Then we carry those the rest of our lives. They may not even be something that we're even aware of, we just operate off of them. We've never actually kind of taken time to kind of look at them individually and go do I really believe that we just kind of operate off of them. It was Aristotle that said the unexamined life is not worth living. It's this idea that we've got all these assumptions about reality, but most of us have never even thought about it. You know, we just kind of function off of it. But the first point is that we are all shaped by our culture, profoundly, you know, especially by those most basic relationships, from the time that we're born.
Video Narrator :Yeah, uh, just as far as this flow of ideas goes, uh, tim, you helped me create a graphic this week explaining how the the conversation right now in the U S. One of the conversations being tossed around is the one around DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion.
Tim Williams:Uh, how did that idea start and how did that idea end up today being something all of us understand to a basic amount, and are talking about putting you on the spot here yeah, um, uh, I mean that conversation is especially scott's baby, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna take some stabs at it and then we can kind of hand it over to him for some support. But you know, um, again, just kind of walking through the flow of ideas, right, I mean like there's there's carl marx and there's. You know again, just kind of walking through the flow of ideas, right, I mean like there's there's Karl Marx and there's, you know, university thinking and educational institutions, and then you know that flows out, these create, and you know, at that level, these kind of key principles kind of become like well, being colorblind is is vector of oppression. Moving on from those principles, you get into policies, and that's where we kind of got into these diversity, equity and inclusion policies and laws, and this begins to go into human resource departments and the way, you know, everybody in institutions begins to operate.
Tim Williams:And then, finally, you just get into the, the day-to-day practice of how does how does this then play out for people's lives? And you see that you know, at the level of like, hiring it's not based on, it's not based on merit, it's not based on qualifications and what you earn it's based on are you part of a group that maybe was historically considered to be oppressed, and a minority, and you know. So that's one practice that just kind of gets into the day-to-day but people don't always analyze. Then where did it come from? You know, it came all the way back here, and is the thinking that got us here to this? Is that clear and useful thinking? Or how does it contrast terribly with my actual beliefs and thinking? Because it can use a lot of the same language in a very convincing and emotional way.
Scott Allen:Yeah, a couple of things, tim, on that. You know we experience these things at the level of policies. They might affect us or we might be part of organizations where these policies are put into practice and they shape the way we think. But they like DEI, but we don't. You know, we don't often think where did it come from?
Scott Allen:And it does have its source in a worldview. And in this case, you know, this worldview had its source with Karl Marx. And you know, even more broadly than that, I mean, marx's big idea wasn't really his own. It's that there is no God. Okay, everything evolved in a haphazard and random fashion. There is no God that makes sense of the world, and so everything has to be understood separate from God. And the way that he then kind of understood that was that.
Scott Allen:You know, humans organize themselves into groups based on various, you know, factors. It could be wealth, or it could be, you know, the fact that they're workers, or you know middle class class or impoverished groups, or it could be based on skin color or sex. People organize themselves into groups and the groups define them and those groups are pitted against each other because in Marx's worldview all that exists is power and kind of domination. It's a very dark worldview. So you know, somebody is going to be on top and dominating or oppressing somebody else for their own selfish advantage. That's the basic idea of Marx's worldview. You have to understand that, you know. So that was the basic yeah, the basic assumption. Go ahead, john.
John Bottimore:And it's a zero-sum thinking.
Scott Allen:Zero-sum. Yeah, there is no win-win here, right.
John Bottimore:Yeah, not to be true in real life, in economics and in other fields. Taking us back to this section of the video, that these beliefs are acquired and assumed and Scott, you touched on this is most of us don't challenge them, most of us don't question them. We go through education, they're reinforced all the way up to the university level and such, and so, just as a preview of coming attractions as we go on here, the only way that we're really going to be able to challenge these is when our minds are transformed, by the renewing of our minds, and only with a biblical worldview can we do that. Otherwise, we accept these views and beliefs and buy into the actions that they lead to, which do not lead to ultimate flourishing and other-centeredness in the world.
Tim Williams:Yeah, I would say just either people, when it comes to policies, right Like people either are super focused on policies and that's where they spend all of their time and attention, thinking that that's where culture is going to transform.
Scott Allen:If we can change this policy Exactly Law or they say we don't need to mess with policies at all.
Tim Williams:And you know it's, it's part of the picture, it's an important part of the picture and it's not the whole picture.
Video Narrator :That's so well said All right, guys, back to the video. The question on the screen right now says why does this all matter? That's a very important question, one that I asked many times after going to the conferences, going to church and hearing people talk about a biblical worldview. So I'd be like, all right, sounds interesting. But then you leave the building and you kind of forget about it. Okay, why does this all matter? Later on in the video you'll see the statement that essentially says as Christians, our job description, you could say, is to go and make disciples of all nations. That's something we're all called to the Great Commission. You can't do that without a biblical worldview, understanding it and living it out. So, in short, that's why we need to keep watching this video.
Luke Allen:Because worldview shapes everything we think and do, and what we do shapes the world around us. It turns out. Nothing is more practical and more central than worldview. We can think of our worldview like the roots of a tree underground and hidden from sight. The trunk represents our values. The branches are behaviors and actions. Our behaviors and actions in turn shape our lives and the world around us. This is the fruit.
John Bottimore:Yeah, that's really the important thing here. The bitter fruit is not something that just happens to itself out in the weather. The bitter fruit is because of bitter roots, so that's why it's so important to to have our roots and foundations right.
Video Narrator :Yeah, yeah, as you guys uh have probably noticed our logo here on the podcast ideas have consequences starts with a tree, and this is the exact same tree that we're talking about here is ideas have consequences. The ideas affecting the worldview level are going to eventually result in the fruit the bitter fruit or the healthy fruit that produces a life lived the way God wants us to. But it all starts back with the ideas and the roots, so we use this tree analogy all the time. If you have been a DNA follower for a while, you started this section, luke, with the.
Tim Williams:it had a question on the screen why does all this matter? I mean, dna got a lot of its start working with people around the world and developing countries where there was just tremendous poverty and there were believers, and it was like you know, what is it about this? And we found, you know, that worldview was essential in addressing and helping people move from a culture that created poverty unintentionally and a culture that created pain unintentionally to a worldview that cultivated life and flourishing and healthy families and healthy individuals and healthy churches. Who healthy individuals and healthy churches who see and understand the world in a comprehensive way, formed by the Bible. And so why does it all matter? Because God doesn't want his people to live unnecessarily in pain and suffering. He wants them to realize their own dignity and opportunity to live the purpose-filled lives that he's called them to.
Scott Allen:I just want to add something to what you said, tim. It's really important. You know, when we started at the DNA, you know we were working in communities in context of extreme poverty, a lot of corruption, brokenness, high infant mortality just a lot of bitter, bad fruit. And you made the point that there were Christians, and it's true. Not only were there Christians, the church was growing rapidly and that was really the tension that people felt.
Scott Allen:How is it that the church is here, present, and yet we still have all of this bitter fruit in our culture? Something's wrong, and here's the answer. It's that you can actually make this error, and the evangelical church has done this. You can say we don't have to go and deal with these issues of worldview. We just have to get people saved, give them the gospel message, have them raise their hand yes, I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. But then everything about their worldview that's giving rise to all this bitter fruit remains untouched, and that's what we've done all over the world, sadly. So you've got Christians. In a place like Guatemala, let's say, for example, lots of them. It's one of the fastest-growing churches in the West Lots of people in church on Sunday, but their worldview is still very deeply shaped by kind of false animistic assumptions that give rise to all sorts of brokenness and poverty.
Scott Allen:Why? Because missionaries that went didn't set out to change worldview. They didn't, you know. They just wanted to see hands raised and churches planted. Good. But you've got to go down to the level of worldview. There's something deeply wrong Again. If this doesn't become a culture and it doesn't bear good fruit, something's deeply wrong with our understanding of mission. So that's really why we we exist at. The DNA is to correct that problem.
Video Narrator :Exactly, yeah, yeah, we exist at. The DNA is to correct that problem. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And one of the root issues there is that a lot of people assume that when you become a Christian, you automatically get a medical degree. You automatically.
Scott Allen:It all automatically changes and it does not.
Video Narrator :It has to be.
Scott Allen:Your roots are still yeah yeah, that deep worldview that you got from the time you were a kid.
Tim Williams:It doesn't automatically all just change overnight, so you see, on the other side of the spectrum, people who just go and they, you know, do very well, they bring clean water or something, but you know they also aren't operating at the level of worldview. And what we've seen at DNA is, you know, when we address things at the worldview level, the people themselves take ownership to bring about and identify the strategic changes that they need to make.
Scott Allen:Yeah, if you can get down to that level of worldview change, they themselves right when they function according to realities. God created it, you know. That's the key to bringing about the flourishing right.
John Bottimore:It's a lasting change.
Scott Allen:Yep.
Video Narrator :All right, let's keep going.
Luke Allen:Sadly, the world around us is filled with bitter fruit. This is unacceptable. As Christians we are called to give ourselves to change the world for the better. But in order to change the fruit, we have to change the root. Genuine social transformation requires a change of culture, a change of worldview.
Video Narrator :All right, that's pretty much what we were just talking about. That's what we were just talking about exactly. Yeah, you know, and again this is an error.
Scott Allen:We go into a situation, a culture, let's say, and we go, wow, this is really horrible that this fruit exists. Let's just change the fruit. Let's swap out the apples for the oranges. No, that doesn't do any good if the root is still an apple. You know, just pasting on an orange isn't going to change things. You've got to actually go down all the way to the level of those roots and change at that level.
Video Narrator :Exactly Yep, okay.
Luke Allen:And this change must start with us. The Bible speaks of this in many ways. We are admonished to think with the mind of Christ, to take captive every thought, to make it obedient to Christ, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And sure we are to think and act differently.
Video Narrator :I'll definitely include this in the show notes for you guys. But on our website, disciplenationsorg, there's a page called Our Strategy and it kind of explains what we're talking about here is how we're the Disciple Nations Alliance strong connection there to the Great Commission go and make disciples of all nations again, how do you do that? Like we're saying here, this all starts with God and God transforming our minds through the regeneration of his spirit at conversion, so you become a Christian. Then what? Well, then you need to transform your mind again. Like we were saying, you can't just keep living with this bitter fruit.
Video Narrator :So you got to drive back to that worldview level and once your worldview changes, it's obviously going to change the way you think and the way you see the world your worldview, right and then that's going to affect your actions. So it's going to affect the way you're living your life and, of course, anyone around you will notice that your life is looking differently. So your worldview is going to affect them. It moves on from there, from like your close friends and your family, to your society, as it affects you and your friends, and it's going to affect your society, community, city, and that's how you disciple nations. It all starts. It all starts that way. So again, I'll share that. Our strategy document that has that essentially explained in more depth. So any thoughts here on this last segment?
Scott Allen:No, it's just that I think God wants to see the world transformed. There is a true worldview. It's the one that aligns with the world as it exists and with God as the creator of this world, and that we can know that truth because God's revealed it to us, he's revealed it in the creation, he's revealed it through his word, and we can have that power of enlightenment through the Holy Spirit. And you know we are not even though we're deeply shaped by false worldviews and the cultures around us. We can have our minds renewed and transformed. And that's actually as it says here the beginning of this process of transformation has to start with us.
Video Narrator :Exactly, and we'll keep learning about that here in this next segment.
Luke Allen:In short, we are to think and act differently, not according to the beliefs, values and norms of our surrounding culture, but according to reality as presented in God's Word and the culture of God's kingdom. This worldview transformation doesn't happen automatically. It must be intentional and it takes time, often years. This is because we are profoundly shaped by our surrounding culture, yet we are not imprisoned within it, nor are we defined by it. God has given us all we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. He has given us His Word, His Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth who guides us into all truth, and brothers and sisters in Christ to walk and learn with us. But we must decide to take the first step. In order to transform the world, we have to be transformed ourselves, and this begins at the level of worldview.
Video Narrator :All right, I guess there was a lot there in the last segment. I probably should have broken that up into two chunks, but yeah, this is practical we're talking about here. This is not, this is not theory. Again, this is this is going to affect your life. This is going to affect the way you look at everything, everything from sports to food, to what kind of car you buy, like the biblical worldview affects everything and it's not automatic like it said there, and in fact it's not just not automatic, but this is an upstream battle. You know, I always think of like kayaking in a river and we're going upstream here with the biblical worldview thing because we live in a fallen world, a world affected by sin, and constantly that's gonna wanna pull us towards our fleshly kind of desires and the worldly desires. But we have to keep on pushing against that as we work towards this. It's all part of the sanctification process, but it's not easy, but we can do it.
Scott Allen:No, and I think the key thing that's said here is that it has to be intentional. And I think this is where the church has really struggled. There hasn't been this intentional effort to disciple new believers at the level of worldview. And it's kind of like we're happy when people accept Christ, get baptized and yes, we are but if there's no intentional effort to disciple them, they have a worldview and it's shaped by the culture around them. In the West that's a very materialistic, very individualistic. In the West that's a very materialistic, very individualistic, selfish kind of culture. That's the way they think right, and it's possible to be a believer and still have that worldview kind of functioning in the background unless there's this intentional effort to disciple at the level of worldview and challenge those basic assumptions and really have that renewing of the mind.
Scott Allen:And I think we just have to do so much better at this. We just haven't done, we haven't set out to do it largely. So this is part of the reason, I think you know. We say how is it that we have so many Christians, a country like the United States, so many churches, and yet the culture is so deeply shaped by these non-Christian ideologies, our institutions? How is that? Well, it's because we haven't even set ourselves out to disciple ourselves at the level of worldview and then live it out in a way that shapes a culture. It just hasn't been on our radar to do that. You know, we've let other people do that.
John Bottimore:I agree with what Luke said earlier. Well said, this is part of our sanctification and this is part of what I'll call the church's sanctification to really understand this, to think differently, to act differently, to act with courage, to act with obedience to what scripture teaches us, and we see the beautiful fruit of that in flourishing society. So it's a long walk, an obedient and courageous walk in our lives, both individually and in churches, and it's our role, obviously, to seek to influence and contribute to the churches we attend so that this kind of fruit will ultimately ensue both in the church and through the church, and in our communities and nations.
Tim Williams:Yeah, I think if I had kind of a concluding thought, it's you know, I mean why? Or question, followed by thought why is the church right now, you know, especially in the United States ineffective in this? And I do think that it is because of some of these deep ideas that we've assumed. You know that what really matters is this spiritual reality. What really matters is this spiritual reality, and so we need to focus on the, you know, saving of souls and being in church and tithing and spiritual disciplines, reading our Bibles. But you know how we show up at work, you know how we manage our families, how we interact in communities. The policies, like those things aren't spiritual and they operate at a lower and less important level. I don't think that's true or real at all in God's reality as lived out in our daily lives.
Video Narrator :Yeah, it's kind of a yeah, like you're saying there. It's that sacred-secular split. It's a wrong view of discipleship also, I would say, and the fact that we think of discipleship as something we do when we're at our small group or our Bible study or when we're reading the Word. Discipleship should affect everything. I like what this video says here, and it says we are to be ambassadors of God's kingdom, representing his culture, the culture of God's kingdom, to this world.
Video Narrator :That statement right there, that's how you disciple the nations, and it's also a statement that's hotly contested right now. I would say, in a time of cultural relativism, how dare you say that you're going to influence someone else's culture? Right, we should leave cultures be and let them each be their own thing, because they're all virtuous in their own way. Right, that's cultural relativism. We're saying cultures are great, but there is a way, like we said earlier, there's a way to live in this world. There's only one way to live in it, and it's the way God laid out for us. So, again, that's the culture of God's kingdom that we're supposed to be representing here.
John Bottimore:That's right. They're universal measures and elements of flourishing that all cultures appreciate and seek. Sometimes they're done in different ways and such, but these general principles, through scripture, are lead to flourishing in all societies, regardless of the cultural differences 100%, yeah.
Video Narrator :So again, guys, this video, it's on YouTube, you can. It's on youtube, you can find it there. You can find it on our website. It's soon going to become part of our new overall basics course at the disciple nations alliance for anyone that wants to learn about how to disciple their nation, how to understand a biblical worldview and live that out in a way that affects all areas of their life. That course will be coming out. I can't give you guys a date yet, but it'll be coming out somewhat soon. For now, I would recommend just going and looking at this video on YouTube, like it, share it, subscribe to our channel if you feel like it. This video, I think, is great for discussions like this. If you want to bring it to your small group. A Bible study, I think, can be really useful in that context. Any context, any final thoughts from you guys? John Tim.
John Bottimore:Only that I enjoyed doing this and again, it is very much the foundation and the root of how we need to be thinking, both as individuals and as the church. When we get this right, our gracious Lord takes us, you know, a long way to other things being right. So the fruit starts at the root, as we've said, and it's just so great to know that, and it's his work. As long as we're obedient to him, Exactly, yep, it all starts with him.
Video Narrator :It's good to keep that in mind. All right, dad, over to you.
Scott Allen:Well, thanks again, guys. What a great discussion. Thank you for leading us, Luke, and for all of our listeners, thank you. Thank you for leading us, Luke, and for all of our listeners. Thank you for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
