For the last year I’ve been writing a political blog and trying to write it from a religious perspective. While my political view stem directly from my Christian beliefs, the focus of the blog was almost purely political. I struggle to find a way to incorporate my belief system in a way that was directly political.

A couple of times I tried to change the focus of the blog altogether but I somehow managed to always revert to politics. Then I went to a conference that changed everything.

Nancy Pearcey spoke for three or four nights at my church. If you aren’t familiar with Nancy Pearcey, she was the primary author of Chuck Colson’s book, How Now Shall We Live? and she’s recently written Total Truth. Her book is about worldviews, specifically the Christian worldview and how no other worldview actually encompasses all of the reality we face each day.

The conference I attended spoke to the dilemma I was experiencing with my existing blog. It also brought into focus some of the difficulty I’d been having trying to figure out how a Christian viewpoint was supposed to be realized in everyday life. In politics, for example, how does one have a Christian worldview? What does it look like? How is it realized?

If one is to live a complete and full Christian life, every aspect of that life must come under the control of the Holy Spirit. Most Christians go through life attending church on Sunday, maybe being involved in weekly church activities, but when they go home or to work, what they do is no different from what any non-Christian does.

Pearcey tells the story of a young attorney who was a “solid” Christian. He was very involved in his church. He had a family and he tried to live a moral life. But his job required him to do things that were, at best, unethical. It never really occurred to this young attorney that there was a problem. He had compartmentalized his life into home, church and work and work never touched home and church. What he did at work was what everyone did. It had never occurred to him that there was a Christian view of his job. When it finally did occur to him he was devastated.

It seems to me that most Christians go through life like this young attorney. We try to live good lives but we have no idea what that looks like. We don’t know how to apply a Christian worldview to our whole life. It’s pretty easy at church. We attend, we join, we volunteer, we work, we do things. But what about the rest of our lives? What is we’re in a profession where we;re asked to do things or behave in ways that are contrary to biblical teaching? How do we handle that?

Then there are larger issues. Things we can’t directly change or affect. How do we proceed on political issues? What about conservation or energy or dozens of other issues? How do we arrive at a consistently Christian position? Is it even possible to arrive at a Christian position that most other Christians would agree with.

Then there’s science. The prevailing view today is that the only truth is empirical. If you can’t test it, experiment on it, falsify it, it can’t be considered to be in the realm of truth. Or worse, there is no such thing as truth. What about Christians who are scientists? How do they reconcile their Christian beliefs with the teachings of their professions? How do they deal with the question of truth? What counts for knowledge?

There is a lot of ground to cover. This blog could easily go on every day for years and never change subjects. I don’t know where this will lead. I have some things to say at the start but not nearly enough. I have some ideas but they are, at best, incomplete. This is a journey. I hope you’ll take it with me.