The Gap
by Kathy Brown on June 2nd, 2010 | 0 comments
No one does a better job explaining worldview than Francis A. Schaeffer. His book, The God Who Is There, (written in 1968, L’Abri Fellowship), is prophetic and fascinating. Here’s an excerpt from the very first chapter: The tragedy of our situation today is that men and women are being fundamentally affected by the new way of looking at truth, and yet they have never even analyzed the drift which has taken place. Young people from Christian homes are brought up in the old framework of truth. Then they are subjected to the modern framework. In time they become confused because they do not understand the alternatives with which they are being presented. Confusion becomes bewilderment, and before long they are overwhelmed. This is unhappily true not only of young people, but of many pastors, Christian educators, evangelists and missionaries as well. So this change in the concept of the way we come to knowledge and truth is the most crucial problem, as I understand it, facing Christianity today. A good example of cultural confusion was on Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor” (Fox Channel.) He discussed with his blond contributors, with whom he is ever enamored, what is moral and immoral. They more or less voted on it. Homosexuality was moral. Unfaithfulness to a spouse was one, for sure, example of immorality. Interestingly, the host announced that “religion” guides how the public determines right and wrong. This was said as though “religion” were a club with a set of particular rules agreed upon among its members. The idea that Truth existed, whether or not anyone acknowledged it, wasn’t considered. The slide away from one particular presupposition has been gradual and certain. Which presupposition is it? As Schaeffer states, it is the “basic one”: there are absolutes. He goes on to say: The really foolish thing is that even now, years after the shift is over, many Christians still do not know what is happening. And this is because they are still not being taught the importance of thinking in terms of presuppositions, especially concerning the truth. The chasm is not fixed. We can be the ones to bridge the gap: (Foundational Presupposition Chart)
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