A Biblical Worldview “Out of Focus” … A Case Study:

Sherm Douglas was raised in Oklahoma and educated in Texas. In terms of the Bible belt, his notch in life was near the buckle. His dad was a well-to-do hardware store owner in a suburb of Tulsa. His mom had no need to work but was quite involved in volunteer groups around town.

He was reared in a Sunday-go-to-meeting Baptist family. They never missed church. The family Bible was prominently displayed on the coffee table in the living room. Though rarely read, Shem’s mother dusted the Bible weekly without fail.

Sherm grew up believing in God. “After all, doesn’t everybody?” he would ask when questioned about his belief in a higher power. He knew, by heart, old-time hymns like “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art.” Often the family would gather around the piano in the den on a Sunday afternoon to sing church songs in four-part harmony. If the pastor and his wife were guests for Sunday dinner (a common occurrence), the hymn-sing was a given. The Douglas family was also big on singing the “Doxology” before every dinner. A plaque of the Lord’s Prayer hung in the entryway of their large colonial home.

Although church attendance was a guarded core value, the choices of Douglas family members were not necessarily consistent with sermons they heard their pastor preach. For example, Sherm’s dad failed to report on his income tax return the income he received in cash payments. The family liquor cabinet was stocked with whiskey, vodka, brandy, and wine, and it was not unusual for Mr. Douglas to have a hangover on Saturday mornings. Sherm’s sister got pregnant in junior high school and had an abortion. (Her daddy drove her to the clinic and paid the doctor bill.) And Sherm’s two brothers both chose not to marry but to live with their girl friends after graduating from college.

Sherm graduated with honors from Baylor University and proceeded to get his MBA at the University of Texas. It was during graduate school that he exchanged his nominal churchianity for a deeply personal Christianity after a campus ministry leader succeeded in getting Sherm to attend a weekly Bible study with sharp, intelligent grad students who loved the Lord. In this small group of CEOs in training, Sherm realized that Jesus was more than a cultural mascot.

Unlike the superficial religion to which his parents and siblings had subscribed, Sherm embraced the Word of God as his guide for life. Because he viewed the Scriptures as absolute truth inspired by the Creator, the lifestyle principles he discovered framed his views on managing his finances, compassion, interpersonal conflict, the use of alcohol, the stewardship of the environment, as well as the kind of commitment marital vows imply.

No longer did Sherm march to the cadence of what culture deemed appropriate. Instead, he began to consistently ask two diagnostic questions:

1. “What does the Bible say about this issue?”
2. “What would Jesus do?”