Our modern society is a paradox. On one hand, adrift and rudderless, seemingly lacking the sense of vision & adventure that was the hallmark of the 1960s and 70s, gripped by a sense of ennui that paralyses people with cynicism and world weariness.
On the other, we yearn for and many actually sign up to big ideas, as demonstrated by President Obama’s “change agenda” that motivated large tranches of the American population.  At the same time we are growing increasingly dependent upon others for our ideas.
Today’s young people are
increasingly happy to take other peoples’ opinions on board or unquestioningly trust organs like Wikipedia, eschewing the opportunity to discover facts for themselves, choosing rather the consumer pick and mix approach to information.
If you were to chart these trends what you would see is the
coalescing of people around big
coherent ideas.  The key is that these ideas are coherent, and this is the key that Western Christianity seems so patently to be lacking.  If you scan the world you can see the way in which organisations and religions are strategically using the media to put across ideas, perspectives and with increasingly aplomb world views.
Al Jazeera is a highly effective outlet for a specific strand of Islamic thinking, giving space and room to particular views and values and in the process allowing its viewers to subscribe to those ideas.  Viewers may come from different cultures, different lines of thinking, different backgrounds and yet they find common ground and cause around the views espoused by Al Jazeera.
Indeed there are documented examples of where Al Jazeera is so effective that you have the phenomenon of Christians actively aligning themselves with other faiths to criticise their Christian brothers and sisters, forgetting the travails of the Christian population in the countries they are aligning themselves with.
In contrast our mainstream media, newspaper, television and radio, here in the UK is incontrovertibly and unequivocally liberal, propounding a liberal worldly agenda that increasingly relegates people, such as Susan Boyle, to the status of a story, forgets that they are people and engages in a feeding frenzy around that story, regardless of who or what gets trampled on in the process.  There is no space for a right-wing voice, no room for an alternative view and no opportunity for the British public to reflect on a faith-based approach that presents internal and domestic news from a Biblical perspective.
In the interests of balanced reporting, an even-handed approach and for the opportunity for some to point out that the Emperor has no clothes, Great Britain desperately needs a daily news vehicle that will report, review, analyse and comment on the news.
Christians need a perspective that aligns with the central pillars of their faith as well as informs their decisions and opinions.
Some will not agree with everything presented, which is absolutely fine. The duty of news media is to report the news and leave the reader/viewer/listener to draw their own conclusions.  For those who are adequately informed such news media would simply serve as a litmus test.
However, for those looking for guidance, a provocative thought or simply an alternative view, such news media would stand distinct from any other news media as chalk is from cheese.
It must be admitted that we live in a time of transition.  If you believed the Pied Pipers of online media, the whole world is going on the web.  Well, it may make for a snappy sound bite for their PR purposes but the sad fact is that it simply isn’t true.  Yes newspaper circulations are falling but that is as much a factor of uninspired news reporting and celebrity focus as it is the move to the web.  The recent Daily Telegraph revelations over MP’s expenses had the effect of revitalising circulation, driving up sales figures in a sustained fashion.  It is clear that there is a distinct niche within the printed newspaper market for a clear, articulate voice that coherently and confidently puts across a Biblical perspective on the news.  The issue is not whether such a publication could commercially survive, rather it is whether or not a publication of this nature could maintain a clear, unhindered focus on reporting news with an unshakeable commitment to integrity, earning the respect and trust of its readers and witnessing to the redemptive potential of journalism.
Visit www.lifebite.co.uk to see unmissable views on the news!