Navigating Our WEIRDER World

Andrew Wilson’s book, Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, takes the reader on a journey to show how the happenings of 1776 changed the way we perceive life today.

• Wilson reminds us that 1776 was the time of Thomas Paine, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, James Watt’s steam engine, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Captain James Cook — all whose work then profoundly shapes our lives today.

The year 1776 saw many important movements sweep across the world.

• These included the call to end slavery, the disestablishment of the church, the movement that led to women voting, the reimagining of human ethics, and the desire to throw God out and base all morals on reason alone (thus, abandoning all morals).

The result is that we now live in a world that Wilson calls “WEIRDER” — Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, Ex-Christian, and Romantic (as in Romanticism).

• As church leaders, we see the impact our WEIRD world has on people every day. We live in a time where people rely on themselves to form their worlds, where there is no story more significant than their own to be a part of, and where there are no clear pathways toward what constitutes a good, well-lived life.

Wilson’s book concludes with wisdom for churches, church leaders, and church members — including three things the church offers that are essential for a WEIRDER world.

Three things the church offers a weirder world

1. Free grace

• In a world where the question is constantly “Have I Done Enough?”(see Eliza Hamilton’s last scene in “Hamilton”), Christ offers an amazing grace that makes us adopted sons and daughters of the great King. The church needs to be awash in grace.

2. True Freedom

• “Free people, free people,” says Wilson. This freedom is the wonder of Jesus’ words about his own ministry in Luke 4:18-19, as well as each individual’s freedom from sin and condemnation. The church needs to be a place that brings this freedom in Christ.

3. Gracious Truth

• In a post-truth world, the church comes with the one true story of the whole world. This story is filled with the hope the world needs.
• Wilson writes: “It is possible to know what is true, not just about God, but about creation, humanity, history, and the future. Creation is coherent, created with purpose by an all-loving God. Every human being possesses inestimable value simply by bearing God’s image. History is heading somewhere under divine guidance rather than going round and round in circles. The future will be better than the present, culminating in the renewal of all things.”

Wilson believes that the path to church renewal is relatively straightforward. It is simply for the Church to be the Church. The church must love one another, love our neighbors, pray, worship, share the sacraments, and serve the poor — building a “renewed commitment to the doctrines, practices, and experiences that have sustained the Church in the past.”

• Wilson presents a clear path to renewal, but it also takes time, investment, and wisdom to navigate the WEIRDER realities of the world we live in.