A HEALTHY WORLDVIEW vs. NAIVETY

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​Before attempting to flesh out what a healthy worldview looks like, I think it beneficial to first call attention to something that is a deeply ingrained obstacle to our pursuit.

Naivety
1. Lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment.
2. Innocence or unsophistication.
 
Naivety is a consistent underpinning for ill-conceived and mutated worldviews. 

Idealism is cool. It should be the fuel for protest and insistence on paradigm shifts where corruption, repression, and collectively self-destructive behaviors remain entrenched. However, we are all vulnerable to its dark side: the part of idealism that can make us naive. 

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn is one sage/author who helped me through the naive stage. Eleven years in Soviet concentration camps (The Gulag Archipelago), followed by forced exile in Siberia until Stalin’s death, taught him a few things about humanity. The camps sucked any remaining drop of naivety from his bones.

What shallow lack of understanding of timeless human nature, what naïve confidence of inexperienced hearts. “We’ll just oust these vicious, greedy oppressors and rulers, and those next in charge (that’s us!), having put aside grenades and submachine guns, will be compassionate and just.” Some chance indeed!
The Solzhenitsyn Reader, Nobel Lecture, 1970, (Alexis Klimoff, translator), p. 522.

​We think our youthful, inspired generation will throw off the shackles of past mistakes. We think we have discovered new truths and new ways to live better in a difficult world. We feel compelled to fight for change. Yet winning the fights we pick will not lead to a happily-ever-after movie ending. When the dust settles, we will have become what we thought we were conquering. We will be the thugs lording it over the next generation of idealists. We would be naive to assume otherwise.

Solzhenitsyn again:

Let us not forget that violence does not and cannot exist by itself: It is invariably intertwined with the lie. They are linked in the most intimate, most organic and profound fashion: Violence cannot conceal itself behind anything except lies, and lies have nothing to maintain them save violence. Anyone who has once proclaimed violence as his method, must inexorably choose the lie as his principle.
The Solzhenitsyn Reader, Nobel Lecture, 1970, (Alexis Klimoff, translator),  p. 526.

When we suffer from an absence of empathy…  when we feel compelled to denigrate other people by groups… when there is any incitement to hate… or any carrying out of a violent deed… we should admit to ourselves that our worldview stinks. We would be naive to assume otherwise.

We are born self-centered… self-absorbed. We don’t naturally exude true empathy. Our esteem for humanity sounds grand enough until a particularly disagreeable human being moves in next door. We are not celebrating humanity if we are not celebrating each and any human being in our path. We would be naive to assume otherwise.

Among my kind, there is the highest regard for foreign missionary endeavors. People give their lives to the cause. Many give sacrificially to help send them around the world. But historically a glaring inconsistency has been the backdrop for all of this fine effort. Among those who promoted and supported foreign missions were some who also practiced segregation at home. The “white flight” being talked about today was and is a real thing… and white Christians have had their part in it for generations. Apparently, it is easier to give money to foreign missions than to give ourselves to outsiders moving into our neighborhoods...  yet another mutated worldview. We would be naive to assume otherwise.

A healthy worldview stems from a position of security and assurance about our eternal position in Jesus Christ and the beautiful reason God lets us breath a while longer.

since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."  (Romans 5:1)
"God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."  (Romans 5:5)

Has each of us personally embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? If so, his love has been poured into our hearts. He will heal and enlarge our worldview. We have been filled to overflowing with a foundational love for all… a bottom line of respect and dignity that leaves no space for less… toward anyone… ever. God’s love in us will love without measure, without favor, without exception. We cannot love any human being as we should until we come to love every human being as we should.

Anything less would be a tainted and dangerous worldview. We would be naive to assume otherwise...

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