This morning in my worldviews class, we had a fascinating and inspiring speaker. Bill is passionate about many things: Jesus, politics, history, worldview. And he gave my students and myself lots to think about this morning. He discussed the fact that everyone has a worldview (a basic underlying set of assumptions through which we view reality): some are consistent, some inconsistent; some are rational, some irrational; some are coherent, some are incoherent. But it is never a case of someone having a "neutral" stance while someone else has a religious viewpoint. All worldviews are religious because they are the beliefs we hold.
Bill has been a friend of this class since before his life became so very public, because he was a close friend of the man who conceived of this class here in Los Alamos before "worldview" classes became the rage, Tim Wilson. And Bill reminded us this morning of Tim's often quoted motto: If you get the answer to the God question wrong, you get all the other answers wrong as well. Bill also helped the students unpack the most important sentence in the most important document in the most powerful nation in the world (the US Declaration) and see that it is rationally based on a Creator from whom all human rights flow, and that the job of a govenrment is not to grant human rights, but to secure those given by God.
And a few of my favorite Bill quotes of the day:
"Don't be a rebel without a clue!"
"Stupid for Jesus is still stupid!"
"If the world is dark or decaying, it isn't the fault of the world. Where is the light and the salt to take care of the dark and the decay?"
"Equality is three fold: we all are created in the imago dei (image of God), the ground before the cross is level, and the judgement at the final day is impartial. Do you see room for racism in there anywhere?"
"There are no atheists, only idolaters."
I wish you all could have listened in with me this morning, Gentle Readers. It was inspiring and challenging!
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