Faith Refractioned

Bill Wilson is a native of County Durham, now living in Lincolnshire. He has studied in a number of fields including civil engineering, theology, philosophy, organisation theory, behavioural science and education. He has practiced professionally as a civil engineer specialising in bridge design; an ordained clergyman with a particular interest in industrial chaplaincy; a lecturer in adult higher education specialising in industrial relations; and finally as a Principal of a Further and Higher Education College. Bill believes that all human beings behave and find fulfilment consistent with their inner 'world-view', that is, what we believe about the meaning and purpose of life and any 'god' who oversees it all. Having been brought up a strict practicing Methodist, his early 'world-view' was that of classical Protestantism. But as his education developed and he engaged with the world of civil engineering, industrial chaplaincy and state education, he began, almost subconsciously, to appraise his inherited 'understandings', finally becoming unhappy with the expressions of faith passed down in the creedal formulations of the Church in favour of the bottom-up enquiry of ordinary people. For Bill, meaningful religion must address the issues on the minds of human beings today, living in a rapidly changing world, rather than those living in the fixed static world of yesterday.