BAYSIDE COMMUNITY CHURCH

BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

WORLDVIEW?

WORLD-VIEW SYMBOLS

ESCHATOLOGY

Sola Scriptura (Magisterial)_______________________________ Reason - Church - Experience (Ministerial)

AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH

Sola Scriptura (Magisterial) ____________________________________

Reason – Church – Experience (Ministerial)

A CULTURE IN EXILE

GLOBALIZATION

GLOBALISM• We are witnessing the rapid erosion of nation-state power for the first

time in 800 years; nation states are being replaced by great metropolitan regions, and the world’s largest cities are becoming increasingly more connected to one another than they are to their particular countries.

 • The emergence of globalization is a source of great power for the major

cities of the world for two outstanding reasons: (1) The mobility of capital means national governments are now virtually powerless to control the flow of money in and out of their own economies, thus greatly decreasing their influence in general. The cities are the seats of multi-national corporations and international economic, social, and technological networks. (2) The technology/communication revolution means that national governments are powerless also to control what their people watch or learn. Consequently, the cultural values of world-class cities are now being transmitted around the globe to every tongue, tribe, people, and nation. NY and LA are now far more influential in forming the culture of, say, teenagers in rural Indiana or rural Mexico than are the national or local governments or civic institutions.

EMERGING ‘WORLD-ORDER’

GLOBAL CITIZEN’S DNA

FRTHE BELL TO THE WELL-CURVEThe bell curve defines normal distribution as being massed near the middle while being low on the extremities. As a graph the distribution looks like a bell-shaped curve. The implication is that most people gravitate toward the middle. Most people are of average height, make average grades (“C’s”) and have average sized families. Few people are really tall or short, make “A’s” or “F’s” and have very large or very small families.

Today a new phenomenon has emerged. The distribution for some choices is an inverted bell curve or “well curve”. In these cases the population gravitates toward the extremes and is lowest in the middle. Examples such as television screens getting both larger (60” plasma) and tinier (iPod); stores are getting huge (Wal-Mart) and small (specialty boutiques); people are eating more healthful food (organic) and more fast food (McDonald’s).

The well curve describes the disappearing middle-class, the demise of mid-sized companies and the polarization of politics in America.

This phenomenon is also seen in the increased numbers of “spiritual” people but decreased numbers of those actually “connected” to God.

GEO-POLITICAL CRISES• (1) Americans must face the fact that the challenge of living with our deepest—that

is, our religiously grounded—differences is one of the world’s great issues today.

• (2) All members of the world’s educated classes must face the fact that the perspective that has dominated Western thinking about religion for more than a century—namely, the secularization theory—is seriously flawed and damaging in its influence.

• (3) The global era is raising a brand-new issue for our time—the emergence of a global public square.

• (4) Americans must face the embarrassing fact that just when the world is ready to notice the significance of the American way of being modern, many aspects of the American way are under severe stress and are hardly capable of being a model for anyone.

• (5) The developments and conflicts over religion and public life of the past generation are coming to a head in a way that could produce a watershed moment for the United States.

APOLOGETICS