Our worldview is how we see the world. As covered last week, there are four basic, dominant worldviews—Christian, Islamic, Secular, and Marxist. As stated, most of the troubles and conflicts in the world today are the result of the clash of these four worldviews. Understanding these is a key to understanding the world in our times.
To the Marxist purist, the entire world must be conquered and brought into submission to the one world order. True Marxism cannot work until the entire world is compliant with it. This world order is defined in Marxism. It is a world without religion—all values and all moral principles are what the state says they are. The state controls every major decision in every person’s life, including where you live, where you work, whom you marry, and even how many children you can have. Under pure Marxism, the state is everything, defines all values, and dictates all behavior. This is why in communist countries there is virtually no color. Most of what you see is just a drab brown or gray because no one dares to stand out. The most basic image of God given to man—creativity—is almost completely smothered under Marxism.
As is true today with Christianity, there are many faces to Islam. Islamic states exist in which considerable freedom is allowed and where there is considerable respect and tolerance of other faiths. Even so, the Koran does teach the conquest of the entire earth for Allah and that those who do not bow the knee to Allah are to be either enslaved or killed. Just as Christians have done with The Bible, Islamic reformers have brought various interpretations of these texts in the Koran. However, as in Christianity, the devout take their book literally and seek to fulfill it literally.
The most extreme Islamists seek to impose the totalitarian Sharia Law on the entire world. Sharia is only in small part religious, yet it is the most extreme and strict code of conduct for all facets of life including social, economic, political, legal, and military. When an Islamic person who believes in Sharia uses the word “justice,” it means something very different from what we would think of as justice—it means justice as defined by Sharia.
For example, under Sharia justice, a non-Muslim’s word can never stand against that of a Muslim. Therefore, a non-Muslim could never win a legal dispute against a Muslim. Neither does a woman’s word count as equal to that of a man’s. Under Sharia, a conviction of rape requires four male witnesses. A few years ago, a fourteen-year old girl, who lived where Sharia was imposed, accused her older cousin of rape. Because this young girl could not produce four male witnesses, she was executed for adultery. This created an international outcry, but that is justice under Sharia.
Sharia is not held to be the law by a majority of Muslims. Many Muslim scholars believe that it is an aberration, and even a heresy within Islam. This is a reason for many of the clashes within Islamic states such as we have witnessed recently in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to impose Sharia, which the majority of Muslims today still reject and want no part of.
Even Saudi Arabia, which imposes strict Islamic Law but not Sharia, recently named the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, while some western nations have shockingly allowed Sharia courts to impose its form of justice within Muslim communities. Sharia is obviously in basic conflict with the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. To allow Sharia Law in the U.S. would be a basic renouncing of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
These are basic, and necessarily superficial, treatments of the Marxist and Islamic worldviews, which we will develop further in the future. However, first we need to examine what a biblical Christian worldview is. This we will begin next week.
