Hidden Worldviews: Which Worldview Are Your Students Learning?
October 24, 2023
Katherine Schultz
A person’s worldview shapes every aspect of his or life. But which worldview are your students learning? Most worldviews are actually hidden from us like water is hidden from a fish – we live in our worldview without realizing it’s even there. Of course, this is especially true of children, because they are too young to understand the influence of what is around them. But the adults in their lives – their teachers, parents, and other influential people – can be more alert.
So what is a worldview? Well, in a very basic sense, a worldview is everything we believe, know, and hold to be reality. But it is more than that: worldview is our beliefs, yes. But it is also our behaviors and our attitudes. That is because what we believe profoundly affects how we behave. And our behavior is formative for our beliefs. And our attitudes shape what we will (or won’t) believe, and what we will (or won’t) do.
Where do Worldviews Come From?
Worldviews come from all the areas of our lives that we encounter. They start in the home with parents and other family members.
But they quickly get influence from other sources. School, community, friends. Church, clubs, teams. Social media. Pop culture. Television, websites, emails, text messages, apps. Games, movies, music, books. Experiences. Conversations.
Some of these influences can be positive, aligned with the parents’ worldview. Others might be slightly or significantly different.
And those worldviews can be blended with a biblical worldview before we realize it, pulling students away from that biblical worldview our Christian organizations are trying to develop. So what might that look like?
The Hidden Worldviews Your Students May Encounter – or Have Themselves
In their book, Hidden Worldviews, Steve Wilkens and Mark L. Sanford identify eight worldviews that have taken hold within modern culture: Individualism, Consumerism, Nationalism, Moral Relativism, Scientific Naturalism, New Age, Postmodern Tribalism, and Salvation by Therapy. Any one (or more) of these can have a strong influence on our students, and we need to be on the alert for these worldviews in our students (and perhaps ourselves). They may be obvious, or they may be mixed together into a blend of various worldviews.
Are students holding onto a self-centered view beyond what their age would normally indicate?
Do they seem to gather their self-worth from their possessions?
Have they elevated their citizenship in their country above their citizenship in the kingdom of heaven?
Do they question the existence of absolute truth, or of moral absolutes?
Are they behaving as though this world is all there is?
Have they begun to view themselves as creator rather than created?
Are they more driven by what sets them apart from others than what unites them with other Christians?
Do they think that counseling is a more powerful solution than repentance?
So what can we do if we see these trends in our students, and we want to direct them back to a biblical worldview?
Nurturing a Biblical Worldview
We can start with conversations. And we can encourage them to ask questions, seek wisdom (Proverbs 2:6), and work through the answers with them, showing them how we may have struggled, and found help in the Bible, and the community of believers who love Jesus as Lord.
We can handle conflicts by teaching them how to disagree respectfully, and showing them that conflicts don’t always have to divide. And by showing them what things are actually of so much importance that they are worth dividing over – while still demonstrating the love of Christ to our “enemies.”
We can encourage parents to spend family time studying the Bible together, and helping them with resources to do so. And we can be role models and examples (1 Corinthians 11:1), pointing our students to Jesus as the only perfect role model so that they do not abandon the faith when the adult human role models show their humanity in failures.
We can encourage our students to ask good questions, think great thoughts, investigate great truths, look for deep beauty, practice generous goodness, love well, and seek first the kingdom of God. And we can encourage them to be faithful participants in a Christ-centered church (Hebrews 10:25).
Now What?
And as a next step in understanding our students’ worldview, we can use a tool that will begin to help them and us better articulate where their worldview is now. Where it is – and isn’t – aligned with a biblical worldview. And then we can work with them to grow in their worldview to become more like Jesus.
- What Is the 3-D Worldview Survey?
- Take the 3-D Worldview for yourself
So if you haven’t yet used the 3-D Worldview Survey with your class, check out the pdf below for some questions to get you started.
#3dworldview #hiddenworldviews #assessingworldview
