The Secret Battle of Ideas about God Participant's Guide

Overcoming the Outbreak of Five Fatal Worldviews

Jeff Myers

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781434711533
• eBook ISBN: 9781434712196
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This seven-week participant’s guide helps readers dig deeper and strengthen their faith as they learn how ideas from the five fatal worldviews can infect their faith. Readers will understand more about Secularism, Marxism, Islam, New Spirituality, and Postmodernism, and how their faith can be affected by the ideas these worldviews spread.

Designed to be used alongside the book and DVD, this interactive guide gives readers tools to establish a strong, biblical worldview.

Session 1

Invisible Warfare

The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Lives

Discussing Chapters 1 and 2 of
The Secret Battle of Ideas about God

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

You live in the crosshairs of a secret battle of ideas. The Enemy’s objective is to win this battle for your mind. Satan knows your life will reflect the ideas you adopt. In fact, it’s likely this battle has already affected you, though you may not realize it.

Bad ideas are floating around us like infectious diseases. These ideas sicken us and, worse, make us contagious. We can spread idea viruses without even realizing that we ourselves have fallen victim to them.

We would never intentionally expose ourselves to a viral infection. Yet when it comes to destructive ideas, it’s as if we refuse a flu shot and then invite crowds of people to gather round and sneeze on us.

We expose ourselves to idea viruses because these deeply flawed worldviews promise to deliver the things we desire, such as peace of mind or some form of spiritual power or protection against setbacks in life. Counterfeit worldviews mix a measure of truth in with the lies, making it difficult to identify the destruction that will inevitably follow.

At first a virus does its work without being noticed. It’s only later, when we experience symptoms of infection, that we realize a virus has been active. This applies to our physical health as well as the ideas we adopt and live by.

The American system of government, for example, is known for upholding the principle of the rule of law. These foundational ideas, established in 1787, helped produce a strong, prosperous country known for stability and freedom. But not everyone embraces this way of thinking and living. In many parts of the world, the governing power changes as a result of a coup or revolution rather than through legally sanctioned elections. Much of the world’s population lives under totalitarian systems, where only the ruler’s decrees are binding.

Societies are organized around ideas, and ideas have consequences. Many of these ideas infect the minds of those who embrace them, such as the nineteen men from another part of the world who brutally attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, killing nearly three thousand people. After learning more about the ideas that inspire acts of radical Islamic terror, we can assume the 9/11 attackers were convinced they were doing the right thing. But in reality, they were following a deceptive worldview that justifies slaughter in the name of Allah.

Today, terror attacks continue with alarming regularity. A way of thinking that was previously unknown to most Americans now looms as one of the greatest threats to the safety and stability of the world.

REFLECT

What does the secret battle of ideas mean to you? I’ve said, “Life is about ideas. Ideas have consequences.” What does this mean to you? Think about a time when you were influenced by an idea that had a distinct consequence, good or bad.

Idea Viruses Are Not a Recent Development

The secret battle of ideas about God is not new. In ancient times, God told his people not to intermarry with the people from surrounding pagan nations because he knew the Gentiles would infect the Hebrews with false beliefs and lead them away from the one true God (see Deut. 7:3–4). Little has changed today. All around us are people who advance ideas that have the effect of blinding us to the way of God.

Two thousand years ago, Paul made clear in Ephesians 6:12 that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” As we begin to identify the impact of the secret battle of ideas, we are faced with inescapable questions.

In chapter 1 of The Secret Battle of Ideas about God (pages 21–22, 24–27), I tell the story of Rick Rescorla, a military veteran and the chief of security for Morgan Stanley at the World Trade Center. Rescorla lived according to a handful of unwavering beliefs that led him to sacrifice his life for the people he saved in the south tower during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

These words of Jesus fittingly describe people like Rick Rescorla: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Rescorla’s commitment to saving lives, no matter the personal cost, stood in stark contrast to the ideas that motivated the actions of the terrorists that day.

REFLECT

How can we accurately recognize what is going on in the war of ideas? How can we tell the difference between an idea virus that leads to destruction and the solution a Christ-centered worldview provides?

Which Worldview Influences You?

The Secret Battle of Ideas about God looks at the five most widespread and influential idea viruses (see fuller discussion on pages 37–39 of the book). These counterfeit worldviews are as follows:

• Secularism, which claims that we can use human intelligence to control life and make it turn out the way we want.
• Marxism, which declares that life is about capital and that the true path to peace and equality is through violent overthrow of all existing social structures (government, economic systems, family, and religion).
• Postmodernism, which insists that objective (capital T) truth doesn’t exist, only the subjective (lowercase t) truths we create for ourselves.
• New spirituality, which asserts that a higher consciousness or god force is at the core of reality.
• Islam, which teaches that everyone is born Muslim (in submission to Allah) and must conform to Islamic truth or be conquered through jihad (the struggle against anything opposed to Allah and Islam).

Each of these worldviews tells us something about God, right and wrong, life, the soul, society and government, law, money, and history. They often adopt disguises to keep their motives and strategies hidden. That’s why they can powerfully influence people without their awareness.

We often hear that ideas are neutral, neither good nor bad but simply different ways of looking at something. This view treats ideas as if they’re nothing more than topics for conversation. But in practice, ideas guide the way we live with thoughts and suggestions that purport to answer our deepest questions about life. The ideas we rely on to answer these questions reveal what we believe about God, and the answers we consider most valid shape our relationships with him.

A worldview is the collection of ideas that form our answers to these questions. Our worldviews monitor ideas we’re exposed to and isolate any that appear destructive. But worldviews can also be porous, allowing destructive ideas to infiltrate our minds without our knowledge that it’s happening.

REFLECT

Read Romans 12:2 and think about the steps Paul discussed for forming your worldview. How does this important teaching from Scripture apply to the secret battle of ideas?

We catch ideas from a variety of sources—church, culture, family, and friends. To live whole, satisfying lives, we need to catch good ideas and reject bad ones. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, however. Everywhere we turn, it seems, we encounter ideas from our culture that combine to sway us in one direction or another.

Idea viruses bombard us daily and can multiply out of contr...

Table of contents

• Introduction: The Secret Battle Rages, and You Are the Target
• Session 1: Invisible Warfare
• Session 2: Am I Loved?
• Session 3: Why Do I Hurt?
• Session 4: Does My Life Have Meaning?
• Session 5: Why Can’t We Just Get Along?
• Session 6: Is There Any Hope for the World?
• Session 7: Is God Even Relevant?
• Appendix A: Idea Viruses
• Appendix B: Summit Method of Inquiry
• Notes