CLIFFORD WILSON

What is your worldview?  Better yet, what is a “worldview”?  Is it something you’ve ever given much thought, and does it matter anyway?  I invite you to think with me for a few minutes on a topic that I believe is incredibly important to you, me, and to our collective future.

In its simplest form, a worldview is a set of core beliefs and principles that guide how you see the world around you and what your role is in it; where you came from and what happens when you die.  It thus animates how you order your time, talent, and resources as you live out your life, because behavior follows beliefs.

Worldviews are informed by many different sources:  family, religion, life experience, history, social media etc.  Every one of the roughly 8 billion people on the earth has one and no two are exactly the same because each of us is unique in how we’re made and in those life experiences (Did you catch the worldview implication in what I just said?).  If Truth really exists, to the degree that different worldview’s truth claims conflict, they can’t all be equally valid.  They can all be wrong, but they can’t all be right.  Although our individual worldviews are not identical, historically societies have been ordered by and work the best when they share a common set of core beliefs about God, religion, economics, virtue, and vice, and the very nature of truth.  When they don’t, they fall apart.

America is falling apart.

My love of country was taught to me at the public school and modeled for me at home.  In 1976 my third-grade class celebrated America’s bicentennial all year long.  We read of God’s providential hand on our founding and of the exceptional men and women he used to make it so.  As I learned of the sacrifices willingly made by so many, my young heart swelled with pride that my father and grandfather both served in the US military.  This grabbed me in such a way that it led to my first “published” short story and speaking engagement.  On a routine assignment to write about “living with the early pioneers” I wrote a synopsis of the entire American Revolutionary War.  My story was chosen from the class to print in the school circular and I was made (against my will) to read it aloud to each class at my elementary school. 

Our public schools no longer teach these things.

My parents and church introduced me to Jesus Christ when I was young.  They taught me that I was a sinner living in rebellion to a holy God and in violation of His perfect standard.  I knew this deep down but the Bible, comprehensively studied, was a mirror into my soul.  From it I learned that God is a just God who can’t allow evil to reign permanently in me or in the world He created.  But His greatest attribute is love.  He loved me so much that He, in the bodily form of His son, died for my sins and offered me eternal life as an unearned gift.  I embraced this Biblical worldview at a very young age.

Sadly, these truths are taught less and less in America’s homes and “churches”.

I believe that America was exceptional in its founding in that it was uniquely established of, by, and for a people, the majority of whom held to this Judeo/Christian or Biblical worldview.  The proof jumps off the pages of our Declaration of Independence as well as many other founding documents.  It is affirmed by the biographies of the founders.  I, like them, believe that all men were created in God’s image.  It is a complex belief found only in the Bible that gives ultimate meaning to all human life.  It animates our obligations before God to our fellow men and women, no matter where they are from, what they look like, or what they believe.

Behavior follows belief.  As a middle-aged man I can say that I have lived my life immersed in a world that increasingly rejects my beliefs.  I spent 20 years as an officer and pilot in the United States Air Force and have been a pilot at Southwest Airlines for 23 years.  I’ve been to every corner of this globe and interacted with hundreds of thousands of God’s image bearers along the way.  My agenda (and everyone has one) is to order the time, talent and resources gifted to me by God in a manner that makes the Invisible God, visible.  I want to introduce those with whom I interact to the lover of their souls.  I’m a beggar telling other beggars where to find bread.

As a patriotic American with a Biblical worldview, I do not believe that our nation can survive without a spiritual reversal of course back to our worldview roots.  Although my hope has never been in the future of the United States, as a steward of this great country, I take my stewardship seriously.  If all the above resonates with you, then this website is for you.  In me you will find a kindred spirit and together we will find common cause.  If this is new, compelling, or maybe even scary, fear not.  We are pilgrims passing through a world that we are not of.  On these pages you will find great encouragement on how to be an agent of change as we sojourn together.  The way of the pilgrim is the way of purpose and joy.  Join me in the journey; I’m here to help.

You may not believe anything that I do.  You might even think the exact opposite.  That is okay with me, and I love you anyway.  I invite you to see if we can find some common ground (I’ll bet we can) and enjoy standing there as friends discussing substantive things.