Bill Bekkenhuis

Bethlehem, PA
Posted to The Inclusive Christian on September 6, 1998
(Last revised on March 6th, 2001)

I was born and raised in Seaford, Long Island, New York.

Activities I was involved in included the Boy Scouts, the Seaford Public School's band program, various after school activities and table top war games, and - later - role playing games.

I also read everything in sight.

I went to college at Lehigh, in Bethlehem, PA, where I marched in the band, did volunteer work at a home for emotionally disturbed children, participated in the Christian fellowship, and pursued studies in behavioral psychology (more or less in that order).

During the summers I worked at Camp Minsi, a Boy Scout camp in Pocono Summit, PA.

After college, I went to Drew Theological School. I was baptized Roman Catholic, went to a fundamentalist Bible study while at Lehigh, learned the historical-critical method for reading the Bible at Lehigh, went to a Methodist seminary, worked in a Baptist church, and tried (unsuccessfully) to be ordained to the Episcopal ministry at Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem - so I guess you can say I'm ecumenical.

I currently attend the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley, which makes me a Trinitarian Unitarian :-)

I was told that my psychological profile at seminary showed a high tolerance for ambiguity, and I guess that my religious organizational involvement is as good a proof of that as anything. (About five years ago I found out that I was a Myers-Briggs INFP - which explains a number of things that have baffled my friends, my family and myself over the
years... :-)

My various jobs in the past 18 years since graduating from seminary include - in roughly chronological order - mental health worker, associate district executive with the BSA, sales associate with a variety of computer companies and Encyclopedia Britannica, messenger for a law firm, data entry operator, peripheral equipment operator, program assistant for the American Red Cross, and help desk coordinator for an IT consulting firm.

I've also written a well-written yet boring and unpublished young adult novel.

Aside from the constant supernatural intervention of God, I suspect that I've made it alive and semi-sane to this point through the tireless efforts of my sadly neglected family, my ever vigilant friends and coworkers (including Post 940).

I am still grieving over the death of Gretchen , a dachshund who was decrepit, ill-tempered, ancient  yet - despite all that - much beloved. As irreplaceable as she is, I have nonetheless threatened both friends and family with the possibility of my getting a rescue dachshund (when and if I'm ever ready to go through all that again, which isn't quite yet).

My current on-line presence (aside from my web page) is in the XTIANITY mailing list (graciously hosted by the Internet Infidels) as well as occasional forays into alt / talk atheism, the Unitarian-Universalist Christian Fellowship mailing list, soc.religion.christian, soc.religion.christian.bible-study, and talk.religion.misc.

I also post to rec.scouting.issues on the subject of BSA's policies regarding gays, girls and atheists - policies which I consider to be both hypocritical, immoral and inconsistent with their own Scout Oath and Law. To be honest, the religion discussions with the skeptical are more enjoyable (and civil).

My first on-line account was a190@lehigh.edu
and my first web page was http://www.lehigh.edu/~a190/a190.html.

Any of those links found in hyper space are outdated.

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Bill Bekkenhuis

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