Who's Afraid of Romans 1?

I still remember the first time I was confronted with those words. In response to a question from a university friend about the fate of those who have never heard about Jesus I breezily asserted that, since God is good and loving, he would definitely save all of them. An older, wiser Christian took me aside and simply pointed me to Romans 1: ‘since what may be known about God is plain to them…people are without excuse.’ To be honest, I didn’t instinctively warm to the idea that everyone who denies the existence of God is suppressing the truth by their wickedness. Rather, I was tempted to avoid the claims of Romans 1 by finding a different explanation for unbelief. What I’ve only come to understand recently is that the uncritical adoption of the concept of worldview risks succumbing, even if inadvertently, to precisely that temptation.