Everybody has a world view, ladies and gentlemen, whether they know it or not. Simply put, a world view is a broad grid that allows a person to interpret the details of their world. A world view is that person's broadest understanding of how the world is structured. If, for example, we believed--really believed--that we were just merely characters in a dream, our actions would be deeply influenced by that.

Some people are actually self-conscious of the fact that they're dreaming when they are in the midst of their dreams. This isn't true for everyone, but I've had occasions like that and maybe you have, too. Think about when you dream when you are aware that you're dreaming--and you're aware that it is just a dream. It changes the way you relate to the things going on in the dream, whether they're frightening or not. It changes your total perspective.

That's the way world views work. They interpret the world for you and they instruct you on how to act and how to think about the world around you.

Christians have a world view. We believe, for example, that God is real. We believe that the world is a result of God's purposeful creation, that God is a person, and that He created personal qualities in human beings. Because God created with a purpose, there seems to be some sense to our existence. Although there are a lot of other details involved in a Christian world view, this sense of purpose is essentially where it starts.

Part of the Christian world view asks: What is man? What, if anything, is his value? What is his future? What gives him value and purpose in life? The Christian world view says that man was made in the image of God by a direct act of God. Man wasn't simply an accident of creation. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when we talked about the problems of evolution and the impact it would have on the ultimate dignity and value of man.

This isn't new ground we are plowing here. I'm recapping it because I want to make an application. The foundation is simply that we have a view of the world which entails God's role as a central figure in everything. God is responsible for everything, including the creation of man, which means that man is a particular kind of creature. Man is a creature with a soul. Animals have souls, too, but man's soul is different. Man's soul has the imprint of the Creator. The Scriptural term for this is that man is "made in the image of God."

The Scriptures identify the fact that we're made in the image of God, and that somehow our non- physical selves, our souls, bear a likeness to God that nothing else in Creation bears. This is what gives us special value. But the Scriptures don't spend a lot of time talking about what this means. If you recall in Genesis 9, after the flood, capital punishment was instituted for the first time. God instituted it for this reason: "If you shed man's blood, by man your blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He created man." In other words, because we are especially valuable, there is a very, very high price to pay if we destroy that which bears God's image.

The notion that man has the image of God is the very foundation of all Christian ethics. The notions of moral guilt, moral innocence, justice, and how one ought to treat or care for another human being are tied into the Christian world view of man bearing the image of God. Some of us haven't thought about that too much and, consequently, our ethics are anemic, and our treatment of other human beings suffers as a result. We need to have a robust understanding of this because if we allowed this notion to influence our conduct, it would radically change how we treat other human beings.

It ought to teach us that we don't treat human beings as merely means to other ends, but as ends in themselves. Human beings are valuable in themselves. They aren't valuable because they can live a satisfying life, or because they can be healthy, or because they can make a contribution to society. They're valuable because of the kind of beings that they are innately.

This is why many Christians--and I hope more and more--are deeply concerned about the abortion issue, for example. In abortion we're taking the life of a young, defenseless human being who is made in the image of God. We're destroying them because of some other factor. Either they are awkward, or they are in the way, or they are inconvenient, or they are painful. Maybe the parents can't afford them. They may look different than the rest of us, or they might be handicapped. If they don't fulfill some standard, we consider their lives forfeit and we're willing to take their lives.

Christians, informed properly by the Bible, and others who hold this same view are aghast at the process, the procedure, and the practice of abortion. Why? Because you can't treat human beings like that. You can't destroy human beings because they are in the way or because they are awkward, or because they malfunction, or because they are handicapped and their machinery doesn't work right, or because they don't look like the rest of us. You can't do that. This is the foundation for our treatment--our kind, gracious, charitable and just treatment--of other human beings.

Let me read to you from the L. A. Times , Saturday, August 26, 1995. It's an article about Robert Mugoby, the President of Zimbabwe. He is very outspoken against homosexuality. The article states, among other things, that, surprisingly, an event was held in Zimbabwe earlier this month which had human rights as its theme. The L. A. Times reports:

"The fair's organizers, facing strong pressure from Mugoby's aides, barred a group called Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe from operating a stand where they could hand out pamphlets about gay rights and counseling. Mugoby then officially opened the gathering with a scathing speech that denounced gays as sodomists and sexual perverts who have no legal rights. He lashed out again the next week saying that gays are 'worse than dogs and pigs'. [Those are Mugoby's words.] Newspapers have printed scores of letters denouncing gays as morally repugnant. One of the spokespersons, Lynn Francis, who provides counseling for gays, said several of her patients have been beaten by police, raped or forced into marriages. Some have even been put into psychiatric hospitals, she said."

One of the things I want to point out about this is the failure, I think, in the public discourse on the issue of homosexuality. Those involved in the discourse don't allow for a middle ground in this issue. You have those who are extremely opposed to homosexuality, like apparently President Robert Mugoby of Zimbabwe happens to be. This is the side who believes that homosexuality is immoral and homosexuals should be destroyed. In reaction to that, the other alternative is extreme to the other side. This side believes homosexuality is morally benign and should be encouraged. Neither of these comports with a biblical, Christian world view.

The Bible teaches that homosexuality is immoral. In my mind, there is no confusion about that. But it teaches something else about human beings, as I've just mentioned. It teaches that human beings are valuable in themselves and therefore you don't mistreat them. I personally agree with Robert Mugoby's moral assessment of homosexuality--I do think that it's not only immoral, but that homosexuality is sexually perverse. It's a perversion and distortion, and it is not what God had in mind. But, you see, I can make this moral assessment about homosexuality and homosexual people, without in the next breath saying, "Now we should destroy homosexuals and treat them as subhuman."

I don't at all believe that we're obliged to promote a sexual ethic in our country that is, quite frankly, destructive, repulsive, and immoral to most people. We are not obliged to do that. So, my beef with Mugoby is not so much that he didn't allow homosexuals at this particular fair. I don't think any society, even our society, is obliged to allow people to actively promote things that are destructive. I think we ought to discourage that. However, not allowing something to be promoted because it is destructive to society and is different from treating human beings like animals---attacking them, beating them, raping them, forcing them into marriages, putting them in psychiatric hospitals, and treating them worse than dogs and pigs.

Christians should be among the very first to condemn this treatment. I'm choosing my words carefully here. We ought to condemn the treatment, not the moral point of view. The moral point of view is sound. But the treatment doesn't follow from the moral point of view. You could say that homosexuality is immoral just like we say a lot of other things are immoral. But it doesn't follow from that, that we have to mistreat other human beings. It's very important that you understand that.

I'm speaking now to Christians, not to homosexual non-Christians about the issue of homosexuality. I'm speaking to Christians who have a commitment to a world view in which God is central, the commands of Jesus Christ are central, and where we treat people the way God tells us to because He made them in a particular way.

We have the same obligation to homosexuals as human beings that we have to anybody else. The same obligation as to a brother in Christ, or to an unborn child, or to a starving woman or man in Ethiopia. We have the same obligation to treat even those who disagree with us in a fashion that is becoming of their personhood before God.

Ladies and gentlemen, every one of us is twisted in some way. We need to be careful not to glorify or encourage the twistedness. But the twistedness does not efface the image of God. It doesn't destroy the value.

Remember, there is somebody valuable in there.