Equipping Cultural Influencers with a Christian Worldview
Big Sky Worldview Forum
Foundational Scripture: Jesus said "For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have came into the world - to bear witness to the truth". (John 18:37 ESV) With His help we shall strive to point our culture towards this eternal standard.
We seek to represent Christianity in the traditional, orthodox approach based upon the Bible as the inspired word of God, the supreme source of truth and the final authority for faith and life. We believe in only one, living and true God, who exists eternally in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). We believe that salvation comes to us solely through a Holy Spirit-wrought relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the God-Man, fully divine and fully human, the only mediator between a holy God and sinful humanity, the eternal Son of God who became incarnate for us and for our salvation. This same Jesus, having risen from the dead, ascended to his Father's throne to exercise universal Lordship over heaven and earth. He will return at the end of history to judge the living and the dead. It is our purpose to promote, commend, and defend this Christian message as an all-encompassing worldview, and to contrast it to other worldviews that are "evangelistic" in nature and would seek to counter the Christian faith.
We support the orthodox view of the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. We will endeavor to speak with grace about those in the LGBT community, but we believe that this lifestyle is detrimental to the individual and the culture. We will strive to teach the pathologies of same-sex marriage and of the homosexual lifestyle using logic, philosophy and scripture. Those who differ with this viewpoint are welcome to the discussion at our forums. Our leadership and direction will be determined solely by those with the orthodox view.
We believe that LIFE is a gift from God and He alone determines the length of our days. We, therefore, support the right to life for the unborn in all situations. We also believe that physician assisted suicide and other means of ending a person's life is outside of the will of God. LIFE is to be orchestrated by God alone.
In conduct and manner we will strive to speak with conviction about our differences with those of contrasting faiths in a loving and winsome manner. While our primary focus will be equipping believers, we welcome others to our conversation and wish to treat them with dignity. It would be our hope that in the process of this "dialogue of ideas," they may be challenged to seriously consider the truth about Jesus.
In our emphases we will strive to address the major issues of key subjects and present as broad a platform as possible to preserve unity to the extent we believe the scripture allows. We encourage our lecturing guests to focus on key worldview differences that separate the Christian faith from non-Christian alternatives, and, with Christian humility, charity, and maturity, to focus on the "majors" instead of "minors," primarily emphasizing those things about which Christians are united rather than divided.
Our Challenge is like the men of Issachar, we will seek to understand the times and know what we as believers should do as we seek to influence our culture. (I Chronicles 12:32)
Respectfully Submitted,
Dick Pence & Dr. Brian G. Mattson