Pain-Pleasure and Our Response by David Williams In these four articles, I have suggested that the Western world is moving from a guilt-innocence to a pain-pleasure worldview. In this final article, I want to explore how the Bible engages the theme of pain and pleasure. Pain-pleasure or suffering-glory? The Bible’s answer to pain-pleasure is not Joel Osteen’s answer. Its answer is not that…
Pain-Pleasure and the Seduction of the Church – Part 3 By David Williams In this series of articles, I have argued that we are living through a radical change in the Western worldview. We are moving from being a guilt-innocence culture to becoming a pain-pleasure culture. Western societies increasingly are making their most fundamental decisions based on what brings us pleasure and…
How the Pain-Pleasure Worldview Attacks Christianity – Part 2 By David Williams In the first article of this series, I suggested that the Western world is moving away from being a guilt-innocence to a pain-pleasure culture. This article explores the ways that guilt-innocence and pain-pleasure worldviews attack Christianity in different ways. The Double Assault Of Culture In 2018, God’s people in Australia are facing…
Introducing the Pain-Pleasure Worldview – Part 1 by David Williams At St Andrew’s Hall, we train future missionaries to understand and engage cultural worldviews with the gospel. Perhaps the broadest categorisation used by missiologists and anthropologists is to divide human cultures into three predominant worldviews: guilt-innocence, shame-honour and fear-power. Ruth Benedict is credited as the first anthropologist to distinguish guilt-innocence and shame-honour…
