The Seven Dimensions of Christianity

The word worldview means how an individual view the world around them. A worldview is a complete system of how we perceive the world and process it. According to Waddell (2014), “a worldview is a foundational set of assumptions to which one commits that serves as a framework for understanding and interpreting reality and deeply shapes one’s behavior.” The worldview of an individual is usually influenced by the person’s cultural background, life experiences, and upbringing. The Christian worldview is under the board umbrella of theism, which is “a worldview that entails belief in the existence of at least one personal and intelligent divine being” (Cosgrove, 2006). A person of a Christian worldview itself is someone who believes in the teaching of Jesus Christ and believes God created the world and everything in it. This paper would attempt to summarize and analyze the essential elements of the Christian worldview describing God, Humanity, Jesus, and Restoration. The writer will also reflect on his own worldview.

These 7 features include the Doctrinal and Philosophical Dimension, Narrative or Mythological Dimension, the Ethical and Legal Dimension, the Practical and Ritual Dimension, the Experiential and Emotional Dimension, the Social and Institutional Dimension and the Material Dimension. These dimensions collaborate with each other to form the basis on which a ritual lies. In the Catholic sacrament of confession, these dimensions all play an important part which contributes to the outcome of the ritual. The Doctrinal and Philosophical dimension describes the dimension which incorporates the intellectual components of religions. The Narrative or Mythological dimension is the dimension which makes up the stories of religions, for example the story of creation or dreamtime stories. The Ethical and Legal dimension concerns what is good and bad, and what you must do if you do something against the religion. The Practical and Ritual dimension is what the adherents of a religion do as a part of the religion, such as prayer and ritual. The Experiential and Emotional dimension focuses on the subjective and emotional side of the religion or what happens on the inside. The Social and Institutional side of the religion is how people’s interactions are planned within the religion. The final dimension, Material, is the physical forms of the religion, such as a church or a statue. Although these 7 dimensions aid the process of determining whether or not an action is a ritual, confession is

“None of us can meet God’s standard. As a result, none of us deserve to don the robe and stand behind the bench and judge others.” (MaxLucado39) Christians have a hard time abstaining from a judgemental mindset, but that is not always the case. Non-believers have a tendency to show their judgemental side by just saying that “Christians are always judging me.” whenever a Christian may approach a certain non-believer. This is one of the reasons that Christians are considered flat characters rather to the approach of flat characters becoming round. Christians are perceived as one dimensional and hypocritical but in all honesty Christians are striving to become a picture of Jesus Christ.

“ You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left it open to us. He did not intend to.” (Lewis 78.) In Mere Christianity, Lewis talks about the silliness of accepting Jesus as another great moral teacher. According to Lewis, we must all make a choice to call Jesus liar, lunatic, or Lord.

Christianity is one of the dominant religions on the planet, and Christian Theism has played a major role in shaping the development of Western culture. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Christian missionaries, Christian doctrine has even influenced the views of non-Christians. Nevertheless, the contemporary world is a pluralistic and diverse one, and postmodern perspectives have arisen to challenge the wide-ranging influence of Christian Theism. The purpose of this paper is to show how a belief in Christian Theism can help one understand the nature and meaning of life, and this paper will show evidence that this belief brings both uniformity and order to everything.

Christianity is a religion that provides adherents with the ability to fulfill their relationship with God every day. However not all Christians exercise this covenantal relationship the same way or act out the principal beliefs to the same extent. Different denominations represent their beliefs - the foundations for their lived expression - in different manners. Some of the Christian principal beliefs include, Revelation, Salvation, the Trinity, and the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. It is through environmental ethics and ethical teachings, and the practice of baptism that adherents are able to connect to their one God and attain a healthy relationship with God to a certain extent.

This is the third week in my seven week semester in this Christian Worldview requirement. Chiefly, I am having a difficult time communicating to my professor. In reflection, Dr. Rasor can;t understand my posts any longer and my latest 60-point assignment totaled to an F. As a result, I looked ver the rubrics and the content that I produced and I demand another opinion because I think the assignment deserves a much better great. Plese, assist me in this matter, even if this situation has to go to the Dean of the school (Christian Worldview).

As a project we were told to study a religion from an outsider’s perspective. We, as students, would attend that specific religion’s place of worship to observe their rituals and routines. Then after service we would conduct an interview with the participants to answer our personal questions such as “Why do they do the things they do?” or “How often do they do this?” I chose to study Christianity even though I am a Christian. I thought it would be interesting to see if most Christian churches practice Christianity the same way. However, prior to attending services I researched the history of Christianity.

PAPER #1 The six dimensions of religion include ethical, ritual, emotional, institutional, cognitive and aesthetic. The six dimensions can be applied to any and all religions that exist or did exist at some point. A good example of a religion from the past that the dimensions can be applied too is the Ancient Greek religion. Being polytheistic religion in which many gods ruled many different domains of the earth, the six dimensions can be applied to the Ancient Greek religion but some dimensions are more influential than others because of the way the Ancient Greek religion is structured.

Then and now religions shared common dimensions that provide society with a doctrine, narrative, ethics, ritual, experience and a social institution. These six dimensions that Ninian Smart derived spell out the framework for comparative study of religions1. The six dimensions hold true when comparing the daily routine Roman religious thought to modern Christianity. Interwoven into the core of both cultures is a strong unifying spirit that built a strong communal bond for its people.

Christianity, one of the oldest recorded religions of all time, throughout the centuries it has been distorted, mangled, and changed vigorously. Over 21,000 denominations exist, they range from slightly different to wildly conflicting, discrepancies have become a common occurrence. With such a host of diversity, God’s true message has faded and become lost I the sheer number of unique interpretations. Thankfully, at the base of all sects one thing is clear, God’s desire for us to succeed and grow in him, through prayer and study of his nature. He actively seeks out a relationship with us and to reach his kingdom we must reciprocate his love and attempt to show his light through ourselves. With such an insurmountable number of sects, finding the Lord’s true message becomes extremely difficult and seemingly impossible. I believe that the myriad of denominations detracts from the message of God;

Religion is the belief and worship of a higher power which is in control of the universe. The most popular religions in the world today are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. All four of these religions teach peace. However, followers do not always get along with each other peacefully. All of these religions have a moral code to live by and encourage devotion and prayer.

Since the beginning of time humans have endeavoured to explain the causes and reasons behind their existence. As a result of this thirst for knowledge many different beliefs and values have been formulated with the aim of explaining this age-old question. Most of these beliefs are prevalent today in the form of institutionalised religions. In order to gain an understanding of the word 'religion', we need to fully analyse and compare the components of religions in order to gain a more cultivated understanding of this enigmatic term. An extremely valuable way of classifying religion and its many aspects is through the Seven Dimensions, developed by Ninian Smart. (See Appendix 1) These dimensions explore the many aspects of religion in a

Christianity is one of the most influential religions on both ancient and modern Western society, with the religion based on the teachings of the prophet Jesus Christ who lived approximately between the years of 5 BC and 33 AD. It is claimed that Christ was the son of God whose spirit was embodied and sent to Earth as a human being to bring peace and prosperity to the less fortunate, and absolve the world of its sin. Jesus preached a doctrine of a supreme monotheistic god who ruled over the universe, as well as ethics and morals especially centred on the concept of faith and forgiveness. If one was to live their life in accordance to the Will of God and the teachings of Christ found in the written word of the Holy Bible, one would be absolved of their sin and ascend to the spiritual realm of God, known as Heaven, after their physical death.

A worldview is the way a person views and interprets the world around them. Life experiences and spiritual influences play a part in forming one’s worldview. A person’s worldview helps them to determine beliefs on creation, humanity, morals and what happens after death. According to Waddell, (2014) “Worldviews are also like lenses found in eyeglasses that serve as the means through which a person sees the world.” (para. 43) In this paper, the main components of the Christian worldview will be discussed, to include God, humanity, Jesus, restoration and analysis of Christian Faith as well as a reflection of my own beliefs.