Cultivating Character

  I should be more specific about what I meant when I said I rejected Ellen G. White at the end of Part 1 of this series of blogs about my de-conversion, deprogramming, reconversion and awakening. The brevity of the sentence may have lead people to believe that I made a decisive and potentially emotional clean break from her writings and the Seventh-day Adventist Church (“SDA”), that would be an incorrect assumption.   For the next two decades I became more involved in church activities while exploring deeply what I personally believed. This careful approach is the direct result of an experience I had a couple of years before hearing Bishop Hill under that big tent. I was an undergrad at a public university experiencing what I would describe as my version of the Amish Rumspringa.   Rumspringa is described as a period of time in which Amish youth experience the non-Amish world. I was experiencing things that the restrictions my SDA parents imposed on me prevented me from p...

Under the Big Tent It happened under a big tent. The tent was smaller than but similar to those used by circuses, which was intentional. Starting in the 19th century evangelicals used these types of tents to host large revivals and recruitment meetings. The idea was to be able to accommodate large crowds and invoke the interest of any passersby. The meetings were known by various names. This one was called a crusade and it was held at the beginning of the 21st century and hosted by the local Seventh-day Adventist church.   The speaker was David Hill, a former bishop of the Church of the Living God. Bishop Hill had recently resigned from his position and persuaded 150 members of his congregation to leave their denomination with him.   The reason for their exodus was their new conviction of the importance and relevance of Saturday as the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.   This is precisely why he was invited by the local Seventh-day Adventist Church to speak during this eva...