What Is Worldliness?

Worldliness. Anyone exposed to American fundamentalism or the Mennonite teachings of central Pennsylvania will be familiar with the word. These schools of thought have marshaled countless sermons against such evils as alcohol, dancing, movies, and rock music. From their perspective, no doubt, these folks are the church’s last bastion against wily satanic plots devised to rot Christian brains with unhealthy back-beats or give them nasty hangovers. Without them, the rest of us would be easy prey for the dangers of “worldliness.”

But does Scripture - the ultimate authority for faith and practice - really give us such a Mohammedan definition of worldliness? I found out from the inside that this concept of what constitutes “worldliness” can’t be justified biblically. I too once believed that worldliness involves drinking, smoking, and the rest. But when I got a better grasp of biblical teaching, I saw things in sharper perspective.

One particular catalyst was my introduction to (and growth in) the theology of the Reformation. The Reformers didn’t frame the question “What is worldliness?” around fundamentalist taboos. Luther savored good German beer, and Calvin indulged in such diversions as bowling. Baptist great Charles Spurgeon was even known for his love of fine cigars!

Getting It Wrong

In essence, the Mennonite/fundamentalist conception of worldliness can be traced to a misreading of two key biblical terms: world and flesh. “Do not love the world or the things in the world,” writes John. “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Paul offers the same warning: “Do not be conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2). Both Paul and John hate on something called the “world.” Same thing with the “flesh”—“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Ro-mans 7:18). “So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8). It’s easy to read the English translation of the terms cosmos and sarx and conclude that by condemning the world and the flesh Scripture is talking about the earth and the body. Hence fundamentalists tend to be wary of any-thing that gives the body pleasure.

But a more careful approach takes into account the biblical affirmation of creation as “good” (1 Timo-thy 4:4) and “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Creation, matter, earth, and body are not inherently evil or dubious. Such a theory, more in line with Platonic and dualistic thought, doesn’t square with the clear biblical statements above.

When we read the scriptural condemnations of “the world,” it makes more sense to think about the world as a system, an ethical and philosophical edifice erected in opposition to God and His revelation. “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20). And while flesh can mean “body,” in Paul’s writings (as Gordon Clark points out) it usually means man’s sinful nature.

Following a faulty definition of these two terms, obviously, will lead us to a faulty understanding of worldliness. And perhaps the most convincing evidence that the fundamentalist view is faulty is that it would lead us closer to Paul’s opponents than to Paul:

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:20-23, emphasis added)

Paul cuts down false teachers who whipped up false humility by devising their own acetic commandments and imposing them on their followers. Note that, strange as it may seem to those of us who’ve imbibed fundamentalism, it’s quite possible to neglect the physical body while still satisfying the flesh - our sinful nature.

Paul’s warning to Timothy is even more strongly-worded: “[S]ome will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies…forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving…” Those who impose man-made, anti-body rules have departed from the faith, have their conscience “seared,” and are influenced by “devils.”

Now, our modern fundamentalists and Anabaptists aren’t quite so bad. But the basic tendency to blame earthly pleasures for our sins and impose extrabiblical rules is disturbingly similar. James Montgomery Boice was right to point out that to mischaracterize worldliness “is to trivialize what is a far more serious and far more subtle problem” (James Montgomery Boice, Whatever Happened to the Gos-pel of Grace? [Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001], p. 42).

The Real Worldliness