The Prevailing Worldview in the Church (Part 1)
In my last post, I suggested that at the core of the disagreement between Job and his friends was a clash of worldviews. Job saw God and humanity very differently than his friends did. That’s a pretty core belief. Rather than listening and learning from each other, they just argued.
Sound familiar? This is how many conversations on social media go, right?
We see the same thing happening in the church today. Conversations about faith are turning into battles because we’re operating from fundamentally different ways of seeing the world. The problem isn’t just that people are asking hard questions—it’s that the dominant worldview in the church wasn’t built to handle those questions well.
So, if we want to have a meaningful conversation about deconstruction, we need to start by getting honest about the worldview that has shaped the church for generations. That doesn’t mean dismissing it. It means understanding it—where it came from, why it worked for so long, and why so many, me included, are now struggling to fit within it. This is a tough post to write. The majority of my mentors, men and women of faith who have deeply impacted me, people who love Jesus, share this worldview. So while I will critique it a bit, hear me in that these are people who love Jesus.
The Prevailing Worldview in the American Church
A worldview is just the lens through which people understand reality—how they make sense of God, humanity, truth, morality, and purpose.
For most of Western church history, the prevailing worldview has been shaped by a structured, hierarchical, and authority-centered framework.
This framework worked well for centuries. But here’s the tension: The world has changed and changed fast. And the dominant worldview hasn’t changed with it.
Where This Worldview Shows Up in the Church
I see this showing up in 5 major ways. We’ll look at the first three in this post and then wrap it up in the next post with the remaining two and why all this matters for deconstruction.
1. Leadership is Hierarchical
The church is structured from the top down. God sits at the top, then Scripture, then pastors, then the congregation. Authority flows in one direction—downward. And most of us are at the bottom.
This isn’t necessarily wrong. Institutions need structure. So do micro churches, house churches, and my closet (anyone want to bring structure to that?) But when authority is too centralized, it creates environments where:
Questioning is discouraged.
Abuse of power is easier to hide.
People feel like they are just cogs in a machine rather than valued members of a community.
I just vomited a little writing that. Trauma reaction. Moving on.
2. The Church is an Institution First, a Community Second
I have to be careful here as this is a big generalization. I’ve been a part of small and large churches that this might be a stretch to say. But, for many, church is less about relationships and more about structures—budgets, buildings, programs, and policies. I think the trend in the institutional church is more in this direction.
The result?
Success is measured by attendance and financial giving rather than relational depth or spiritual transformation.
Pastors burn out trying to maintain an organization instead of fostering community.
People feel like customers rather than participants in a shared faith journey, which no pastor gets excited about.
3. Truth is Fixed, Absolute, and Revealed Through Authority
Going to start by saying I believe in absolute truth. Someone is going to take this section out of context and roast me. Here we go. In the traditional church worldview, truth is clear, absolute, and unchanging. There’s a right way to believe and a wrong way.
Faithfulness is often measured by alignment with doctrinal statements rather than personal engagement with God.
The challenge?
Many find it hard to reconcile faith with science, psychology, and historical study. It doesn’t have to be that way in case you’re struggling with that.
The assumption that “we have the correct interpretation of the Bible” makes it difficult to wrestle with complexity and nuance. In its worst form, this perspective doesn't just dismiss hard questions—it twists reality so that sincere, reflective Christians begin to doubt their own experiences and insights. In other words, it gaslights them, making genuine questions seem not only irrational but also a personal failing. Been there. Been silenced by that.
Doubt is treated as a problem to be solved rather than a pathway to deeper faith. Which let’s be real. Doubt IS NOT the opposite of faith. Faith DOES NOT equal certainty. I’ll step off the soap box.
Rethinking our view of doubt might just open the door to a richer faith. Could the same be said of morality? We’ll pick that thought up in the next post.