The following quiz is taken from our featured book, Assumptions That Affect Our Lives, by Christian Overman.

What time and place in history do the following statements describe? 

• People, especially the educated ones, have rejected traditional religion.
• Cults from the East have been accepted.
• Astrology is practiced.
• Patriotism has declined.
• Men practice manners which have previously been considered effeminate.
• The upper class is consumed with the pursuit of pleasure.
• Education stresses knowledge more than character, and produces masses of half-educated people.
• Public athletic games have turned into professional contests.
• Homosexuality is popular.
• Men who want to watch dances by unclad women do not have to go far to find them.
• The dramas of the day are full of seduction and adultery.
• A Women’s liberation movement has brought women into active roles in a culture which has previously been male oriented.
• Motherhood is devalued, and the bearing of children is viewed as an inconvenience.
• Abortion is commonly practiced.

Choose the best answer from the following:

A. America, during the 1950s

B. Ancient Greece, during the later stages of its decline

C. America, during the 1990’s

If you selected B or C, you are correct.  Either one will do.

 

Paradigm Shift

God used this book, among other things, to do a complete paradigm shift in my thinking several years ago.  I didn’t realize how many knee jerk decisions I was making in life, simply based on underlying assumptions that I had grown up with and learned by osmosis through my cultural environment.

We all make decisions and live life based on these assumptions, whether we are aware the assumptions exist or not.  Assumptions affect decisions like who we will marry, how we will vote, whether or not we will have children, and when…and how many…where we will live, what kind of church we will attend, how we will eat, what kind of work we do, how we invest our free time, and so forth.

And we all live with the consequences that ensue as a result.  Not only do our personal assumptions affect the trajectory of our lives, but the assumptions that our culture holds around us also have a huge impact on the direction our culture takes.

I think we’d all agree that our culture is in a less than satisfactory state of health at this point in history.  And the church has fallen into the same disrepair…following in culture’s footsteps by about 10 years or so.   So it would behoove us to take a look at the underlying assumptions that we hold which have directly contributed to the mess around us.  Only then can we hope to make a shift…in our own paradigms…and ultimately…in the destructive direction in which our culture at large is currently headed.

Overman makes the argument that America is currently “swimming in Greek soup”, meaning that “we are surrounded and immersed in ways of seeing and doing which date back to ideas planted and cultivated over a period of about 300 years (600-300 B.C.).”

 

What’s so bad about Greek soup?

Nothing…IF there is no Creator God…and everything is up for grabs.  Nothing…if any and every philosophy is true and right.  (Which, logically, makes none of them true or right.  Right?)

The fact is, there IS a Creator God…and nothing is up for grabs.  All of life and all of Truth and all of US belong to Him.  Not every philosophy is true and right.  That isn’t even remotely intelligent to think that way.  It’s goes against the rules of logic.  If there is such a thing as Truth…then everything that is not Truth…is Lie.  False.  Wrong.

What Overman does is compare and contrast Greek thinking/philosophy/life to Hebrew thinking/philosophy/life.  Why Hebrew?  Because the Hebrews were the ones through whom God originally chose to reveal Himself and His Ways. They had the great responsibility of reflecting to the heathen world around them HOW the ways of God should play out in the nitty gritty of life.  They were to be an example of what happens when a culture loves, honors and serves their Creator…and what happens when they don’t.

Here is a list of questions that Assumptions addresses.  How would you answer these questions?  How would our culture answer them?

• How did life originate?
• What is “nature”?
• Who, or what, is God?
• What is a human being?
• How do we know what is really true?
• What is morality, and how is it determined?
• What determines the value of children?
• What role should parents play in rearing them?
• What is religion?
• How does religion fit into business and public life?
• What is sacred and what is secular?
• What is man’s purpose in living?

If you’d like to get a nice, clean overview of the basic differences between Greek thought and Hebrew thought, I encourage you to check out a pdf file called Living Out God’s Word: A Hebraic/Greek Comparison.

Visionary Womanhood will be taking a tour through an exciting maze of world view issues raised by Assumptions throughout the months of January-March 2012.  If you are starting or joining a Visionary Womanhood group, you’ll be reading through this book together with the women in your group.  If not, you may want to be part of a “cyber group” by joining our Facebook Gatherings group and reading along with other women “out there”.

Remember that this book is part of December’s Resource Giveaway package, and all active subscribers to the VW blog are automatically entered to win. If you have not subscribed to get our posts sent to your e-mail inbox yet, you may do so in the sidebar.  Our posts are delivered in their full format now, making it convenient to read them without having to hop over here if you don’t want to!

I do encourage everyone to get their hands on this book and read it, and if you have teens in your home, make them read it too.  It’s an important book for our day, and I’m excited to spend the next three months with YOU journeying through many of the concepts it presents!