Who controls the voices that may be heard? That is the fundamental question of civil liberty and free speech. In a couple of recent articles I have contended that far from liberating all voices to be heard relativism merely shifts the right to decide into the hands of a relativist media (at least in the UK). What can be said and heard in the public square is most usually contingent on the prevailing worldview of the media that authorise or excommunicate.
The thing I find intensely alarming is the way that this leads to people rejecting claims that truth may be known without investigation. The assumption that truth - in any ultimate sense - may not be known is accepted by most, prima facae, as the basic normal, unconscious position of almost every non-Christian in the UK.
But more alarming still is how many Christians I come across who, unthinkingly, hold the same view. In many cases we are not helping people become strong disciples through having a biblical worldview and careful, thoughtful reasons for why they believe what they believe. In the absence of that careful reasoning, the drift in this culture is always towards confusion, if not to unbelief. "I believe it just because I always have" is a response that ought to make us extremely uncomfortable when we hear it from someone professing to know Christ.
Helping people come to a clear biblical worldview is a basic concommitment of making disciples. Maybe it is the even the difference between seeing a conversion and making a disciple. In a previous post I reflected that many people plateau in the Christian life because they never go from being passive receivers of the teaching of others to being active self-feeders on the word of God or actively submitting every area of life to him. But to take that stpe is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, without a biblical worldview. It is the worldview that helps you join the dots to see that the good news consequences for every area of life.
This started intended to be a post on truth and revelation from a recent article. Its now too long so I will post that tomorrow.