Was Mother Teresa a Christian?

So, most of you who know me know that I'm kind of passionate about the concept of clashing worldviews. We currently live in a world where we are transitioning from a "Modern" worldview to a "Post-modern" worldview.

Now, I try not to beat this topic to death but I've had a specific request... and I must indulge my reading public! The request was to present some of the material of a seminar I sat in on last week. The seminar was titled "Worldviews in Tandem, Tension, and Conflict." It was exploring how this transition from Modernity to Post Modernity is showing itself within the Evangelical Churches of North America. The beauty of this seminar was that it was presented by a father and son. Both are knowledgable theologians; the father has been a pastor for several decades while the son is working on his doctorate at Canadian Baptist Seminary.

The father and his son; the pastor and the student; the modern and the post modern.

I can hardly begin to scratch the surface of what they got into so I'll just give you the outline and, should you choose to direct the comments, we can go from there.

Oh, and if you don't care then just skip down to the picture of Mother Teresa.

**Please keep in mind that these are hugely, broad generalizations that can only be understood to represent the very basic ideas of each worldview within an evangelical Christian context.**

Where the Modern and Post Modern Worldview are in:
Tandem: (agree)
1. The Centrality of Christ
2. The Reality of Relationship with God
3. The Importance of the Church

Tension: (may not totally agree but don't completely disagree either)
1. Perspectives on God
a. Post Modern emphasis on God's "Immanence" (closeness)
b. Modern emphasis on God's "Transcendance" (greatness, holiness, implied distance)
2. Perspective on Mission
a. Post Modern emphasis on Social Justice
b. Modern emphasis on Evangelism

Conflict: (areas where PM and M worlviews are in direct contradiction)
1. View of History
a. Post Modernity views us as being 'interdependant' with history. We are shaped by history... we do not live in a vacuum. This view also emphasises a return to a 'historical' view of Christianity.
b. Modernity is the era of the 'self made man.' Man is independant of history. History does not shape us, we shape the future.
2. View of Culture
a. Post Modern Evangelicalism views 'church culture' as being fabricated (see below). It is a false reality. Culture is something to be redeemed. Not only that, we can learn from culture. All truth is God's truth regardless it's cultural source.
b. Modern Evangelicalism views the world as the enemy. Thus the church focuses on protecting / isolating itself from the world more than interacting with it. Create a 'Christian Culture' so that we are not ruined by the world's culture.
3. Views of Truth ... THE BIG ONE
a. Post Modernity views truth as being a relationship to be engaged with. Truth is too big to be pinned down by propositional statements (see below). Truth is to be experienced.
b. Modernity views truth as being best described through propositional statements. Mental acceptance of truth statements are emphasised over lifestyle. Hence it's emphasis on flawless doctrine.

While there are about a billion things that could be discussed here I just want to highlight one example that they used. The modern christian worldview focused more on Right Belief than on Right Action. The post modern view is reversed; it is more important to act like a christian than to have all of your theological ducks in a row.

The perfect way to see this divergence is this: The modern evangelical would look at someone like Mother Teresa and question if she was actually a christian. They might say, "Sure she acted like she loved God and loved those around her... but she was a Catholic." Thus, disagreements with her theology overpower her obvious Christian lifestyle.

The post modern evangelical would say, "Sure I may not agree with all of her theological views, but come on! It's so obvious by her lifestyle that everything she did was driven by her love for God and her fellow mankind. Who cares if we don't agree on every little thing? The main thing is that she believed that Jesus was God's Messiah."

So, what do you think?
Talk to me.

What is Water?

If you want to know what water is don't ask a fish.

I am constantly intrigued by the concept of "worldview". I forget where I heard this statement about fish and water but I love it. It demonstrates so well our relationship to our worldview... most of the time we don't even recognize its existence. Yet our understanding of the way the world works affects absolutely every area of our lives; especially the way we view God.

James W. Sire is one of the leading authorities when it comes to understanding our worldview. In his book "Naming the Elephant", Sire tells this story to highlight the role of worldview in our lives: (I am, of course, only briefly summarizing his story)

One day a little boy come to his father and asks, "Dad, what holds the world up? Why doesn't it fall down?" The father, chuckling at this childish question, gives his son a childish answer, "A camel holds up the world, son." The boy is temporarily satisfied with this answer, after all, camels can carry all sorts of things. But soon the son comes back with another question. "Dad, if the camel holds up the world, what holds up the camel?" The dad, for lack of a good answer keeps going with his theme and says that a kangaroo holds up the camel. Again, the boy is only temporarily satisfied and soon comes back asking what holds up the kangaroo. Well, of course an elephant holds up the kangaroo. And what holds up the elephant? Now the father is done playing this little game and so he ends it by answering: "The elephant goes all the way down."

Naturally, we all ask the question, "all the way down to what? What is the bottom?" At some point each one of us has to give a similar answer; but what is it? What is our elephant? What is our way of getting to the bottom? And what is the bottom?

For years many Christians' elephant was the phrase "because the Bible says so". When they lacked any "real" answer they would simply say "God" or "Jesus" or "the Bible". Is this sufficient? When we are faced with questions that we honestly can't answer is it fair to ourselves, others, and God Himself to give quaint "Sunday school answers" like "because the Bible says so"?

While I am personally uncomfortable with these "Sunday school answers" I am comfortable resting in the fact that in Christianity God has provided us with a complete worldview. This is all explained in Sire's book "The Universe Next Door". According to Sire (and I am inclined to agree), no other worldview can satisfactorily answer the essential questions of a worldview. In Christianity, God answers all the questions of the nature of reality, knowledge (epistemology), and identity.

Is "because the Bible says so" a fair answer? Upon what basis can this statement be authoritative?

In your opinion, how aware are we of our own worldview?

How have our western worldviews effected Christianity in the west?