Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture
Welcome to Your Place in a Worldview Minority In an increasingly secular society, those who have a biblical worldview are now a shrinking minority. As mainstream culture grows more hostile toward the Bible’s truths and those who embrace them, you’ll face mounting pressures-from family, friends, media, academia, and government-to change and even abandon your beliefs. But these challenges also create abundant opportunities to stand strong for Christ and shine light to those hurt by the darkness of our day. In Faithfully Different, author and apologist Natasha Crain shares how you can live out your faith with conviction, discernment, and courage. You’ll be equipped to identify and respond to today’s most significant worldview pressures, such as cancel culture, secular social justice, progressive Christianity, deconstruction, virtue signaling, and moreengage effectively with a world that ridicules biblical truthsdefend your faith from misguided influences and live as a bold witness for the Lord As the standards of our day mutate and devolve, Faithfully Different will give you the insight and encouragement you need to believe, think, and live biblically no matter what you face in these turbulent times. Review FOREWORD by John Stonestreet Worldview matters. Whether or not we realize it, everyone has a worldview. We all see the world through our most basic beliefs about life and the world. To be human is to live from a worldview. This feature of humanity separates us from all the other animals. Not only do we exist, we think about existing. We wonder why we are here, and what it all means. We imagine how the world could be different, and work to change it. We ask big questions like, Does life have purpose? Is there such a thing as right and wrong? Who decides? We may not have thought much about our worldview, but it’s there. Everyone we meet has a worldview too. This is why our disagreements can be so sharp. A worldview makes a big difference in how we think, how we make decisions, and how we relate with others. It’s common today to hear silly slogans like, “It doesn’t matter what you believe, as long you believe in something.” But, what we believe matters. Our ideas about life and the world have real consequences. After all, we live from our worldview. Our worldview will either help us see the world clearly or will keep us from seeing the world clearly. Our worldview will either help us live well or lead us astray. Christians should have a Christian worldview, of course, but many don’t. It’s quite possible to have a sincere, private faith and to think and live like a pagan (or an atheist). In fact, many do. Many others struggle to make sense of life, which is a real shame. After all, if Christianity is indeed the true account of the world, it’s more than big enough for life’s toughest questions and the most controversial issues of our culture.Christians not intentional about what is true will still have a world- view, but it will do more harm for them than good. People will often, in fact, catch a worldview like they catch a cold. Too many Christians have been infected in their hearts and minds by the culture around them. Theirs is more of a whirled view made up of random and wrong beliefs collected from the culture around them instead of from Christ. Which is why it’s important to know that…Culture matters too.All humans are, in many important ways, shaped by cultures. Our fashions, tastes, beliefs, and so many other things about us reflect the social environments into which we are born and live. In fact, a culture is most powerful in shaping us by what it makes seem normal.If you’ve ever traveled to another country, you’ve likely experienced the feeling of, seemingly, being in a different world. You’re not, of course. You’re in a different culture, a place imagined and built differently by a different group of people. This is what humans do. We build worlds within the world.In recent decades