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Worldviews and Culture: Worldview and Covenant N. T. Wright's helpful discussion of worldview suggests further lines of development. For what Wright has described as matters of worldview were, in ancient Israel, matters of covenant. The story of Israel was the story of God choosing her to be His covenant people, beginning with His calling Abraham out to follow Him. For ancient Israel, the questions and answers of life were all included within the basic truth of the covenant, which told them who they were, why they were where they were, what was wrong and what was the solution. The most basic symbols of her culture were defined in and prescribed by the covenant, though cultural change added and revised symbols like the temple, which Israel did not always have, the sacrifices, which during exile they could not offer, and secondary symbols like the city of Jerusalem, which endured cultural and physical changes that had a significant impact on its symbolic resonance. Praxis may be said to be the heart of the covenant since the covenant can be summed up in the ten words that commanded Israel in the way of life. The four things that worldviews do, then, were all done by the covenant word of the Lord. What I want to add to Wright's approach is twofold. First, I want to say that man is a covenantal creature. To say, as Wright does, that all men have a worldview and all societies function in terms of a worldview is actually just to express the fact that the psychology of the covenant is universal, though the particular way in which any group of people express their covenantal nature varies. Because God has created us in His image and because He is a covenantal God, human psychology and human society is, in its deepest as well as its most superficial and unconscious levels, inescapably covenantal. A Biblical outline of the covenant suggests points similar to Wright's.[17] 1) All men hold to some view of God, implicit or explicit. 2) All men have some story of the world that defines who they are, what is the meaning of their lives, collectively and individually. 3) All men live (and fail to live) in terms of some sort of a standard of right and wrong. 4) All men hold to some idea of success and failure, blessing and cursing, which is both individual and historical. 5) All men function in terms of some sort of vision for the future, however vague it may be to the individual. Relating the notion of worldview specifically to the covenant removes every trace of cultural relativity. Worldview is an aspect of what it means that man is created in God's image. This is the "deep structure" truth about who man is and it implies that in principle communication among men is possible since every individual has the same underlying covenantal psychology and all groups function in terms of a covenantal sociology. The second point that I believe needs to be added to Wright's analysis is that in the law of God - and I have in mind here not simply the ten commandments, but the law as a whole, including what are called ceremonial as well as social and civil laws - that was given to ancient Israel, God set forth a cultural ideal. I do not mean - I hasten to add - that the culture of ancient Israel is something that all modern cultures are supposed to emulate, as if we should all wear our clothes as they did, avoid certain foods, or structure our calendar according to Jewish festivals. The time of the law was a time of immaturity, and the law was clearly intended to be temporary instruction for God's children as children. Now that we live in a more mature age in which the promise of the law (and the laws) is fulfilled in Christ, it would not only be silly, it would be blasphemous to turn back to what Paul calls the "weak and beggarly elements" (Gal. 4:9). What the law gave to ancient Israel was an ideal for the time, a social and cultural ideal for the people of God in their childhood. Like any ideal for a child, it contains elements that are temporary and are quite naturally set aside when adulthood is achieved. Parents tell young children what to eat, when to get up and go to bed, what to wear, which room to sleep in, and so forth. So also, God decided all these things for the ancient Jews. When we become adults, we decide these things for ourselves. So it is also for the people of God in our day. God has not told us what to wear, what to eat, or where to live. We are not given instructions about the time or order of worship in the New Testament. Many things that were simply commanded in the old covenant are left to the discretion of the elders and congregation in the new covenant. However, the word discretion reminds us that though we leave behind the simple rules of childhood, it is presumed that we first learned something from those rules. The instructions that our parents gave us, assuming it was basically wise and good, will have much in it that will still apply to us in our adulthood, even if it does not apply in the same simple and direct way that it did in our childhood. So it is, I believe, with the law of God. To take a simple and clear example of what I mean, consider how the law directed Israel to harvest their fields. They were instructed by God to leave behind fruit for the gleaners and to not harvest at all the corners of their fields. Now, unless we live in an agricultural society, these laws would be very difficult to directly implement in any meaningful way, even if we tried diligently to practice them. But there is something we ought to learn about what we regard as our own property. We ought to learn also about a concern for the poor. There are things we might learn about how to help poor people, too. The law does not have to be kept as statutory regulation to be a real help to us, to teach us wisdom and give us insight into life. In the same way that our parent's instruction is still relevant for us, though it is not a rule that we live by, the word of God to ancient Israel set forth a cultural ideal that was fitted to those people at that time, but which still offers wisdom and instruction for all Christians in all times and places. This does not imply that all Christian societies will have exactly the same culture any more than the fact that we are all created in God's image implies that we will all have the same personality. Individuals have gifts and so do groups of people. Individuals have weaknesses and I believe, though it is not considered proper to say so, that groups of people do also. It is true, according to Paul, that Cretans are always liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons. But Paul did not rule them out of the kingdom. Instead, he told Titus to recognize their cultural weaknesses and to rebuke them severely so that they might overcome their sins and be sound in the faith.
[17] There is more than one way to outline the Biblical covenant. I am following a simplified version of the outline suggested by Ray Sutton, That You May Prosper (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987).
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