nancy pearceyNancy Pearcey explained in her book, Total Truth, that every worldview consists of three basic elements: creation, fall, redemption.  Every worldview starts with an account of beginnings (where everything comes from, and how everything is supposed to be), which in turn shapes its concept of the fall (what’s wrong with man and his world) and redemption (how to fix man and his world).  Because the fall and redemption logically follow the creation story whoever has the authority to shape a culture’s creation story is de facto the “priesthood” of the culture, “possessing the power to determine what the dominant worldview will be.”  This is important for two reasons.

First, the creation story of our modern, secular society is Darwinian evolution.  According to evolution, there is no design or purpose to the universe.  There is no right and wrong.  Morality is whatever helps someone pass on their genes to the next generation.  The problem with man is not moral, but biological and environmental.  Man is competing against everyone else for survival.  In such a worldview the Gospel becomes absolutely irrelevant.

The only way the Gospel will be effective in modern culture is if we replace the Darwinian creation myth with the Christian creation story.  Indeed, the Christian message does not begin with Christ, but with creation.  Rather than starting our message with man’s sinfulness, we need to start our message with man’s dignity rooted in creation.  Beginning with sin instead of creation is like trying to figure out a book by starting in the middle—you won’t know the characters and plot.  Even redemption ceases to make sense because the purpose of redemption is to restore us back to our original created state.

When Paul talked with the Jews he started with Christ because they already understood creation and the fall.  When he addressed the Greeks (Acts 17), however, he started with creation: God made the world and everything in it (you’ll have to remember that the Greeks believed the universe was eternal, not created by God).  He pointed out that if God made us, He must have some qualities like us.  He can’t be stone.  A non-personal being could not have created beings like us.  Only after establishing the Creator did Paul move on to sin and redemption.  In a culture that is fast becoming Biblically illiterate our approach must be similar to Paul’s approach to the Greeks: we start with creation.  Only in that context does the fall and redemption make sense.