Jack Walker, a member of the “Ridgetop Awakening Group” has passed away at the age of 86. Jack Walker was kind of the leader of the Ridgetop group. I don’t really remember him, but have a very faint feeling that he was a fun guy.
My mother was a believer in the Awakening message by Robert Brinsmead in the mid 1960s up to around 1972. This caused extreme friction in our family, as my father was very much against the “offshoots” as they were termed, and more derisively “Brinsmeads”. One of my first recollections of life is of a Seventh-day Adventist pastor of the church in Madison Tennessee screaming at my mother, and then later, my mother hurrying away with me into the neighborhood/fields behind our house to escape my dad who we could see driving his car looking for us, knowing that he would kill us if he found us in his rage.
There was an uneasy truce with frequent flare-ups in our house after that incident. Often, on Sabbaths, my mother would drive the 25-30 miles or so to Ridgetop Tennessee where she would fellowship with like-minded believers in the Awakening message. Normally I would listen to a few minutes, and then run off downstairs to play or whatever. Towards the end of that experience, I remember sitting in an old building in Coalmont Tennessee with maybe around 20 people, and the solemnity, earnestness, deep study etc. has left an impression on me that I thank God for, and for which I keep longing will be resurrected or even exceeded before I go the way of all humans.
In 1972 when Robert Brinsmead came to Nashville TN, he was teaching that Ellen White isn’t to be trusted, and even the first few chapters of the Bible can’t be taken literally. I can still remember my mother standing up in front of around 200 people at the Ramada Inn conference room, asking with tears in her eyes if he was rejecting the authority of parts of the Bible and Ellen White, and then leaving when getting an affirmative response. So after being rejected by the official SDA structure, she now was rejected by the Awakening people too. That was the single, bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do in my life. Sadly, most of the Awakening people were following Robert Brinsmead, instead of the truth, and Jack Walker, along with around 95% of them, left the truth and started forging their own path.
There was no more contact between myself and any of the Ridgetop Awakening people after that incident until around 2009 when I met Mr. Poulton at the Lebanon TN SDA church. At the potluck we talked a bit, and he was so lost in a fog of “no 2 apartment sanctuary in heaven, Jesus did it all on the cross” etc. I knew that Robert Brinsmead had gone from disbelieving Ellen White to rejecting the Sanctuary and Investigative Judgment to rejecting the Sabbath, and recently is on record as saying that he isn’t even sure if there is a God or not, but would like to think so, so I expected that.
Somehow I found Jack Walker on the internet in 2011. He remembered me, or more rightly, my mother, and kindly sent me a picture taken around 1968 with a young boy standing in front of him. Sure enough, it was myself 🙂 We had a few emails pass between us, but it was sad to see that he had rejected the basic truths of Adventism. He wrote me once: “The atonement was made on the cross. It is another human error to place the atonement some where in the last days.” He believed that Jesus will save all people except only those who outright reject him. I pleaded with him to come back to his earlier understanding of the Bible and Adventist and Awakening doctrine, but he wasn’t moved. Then yesterday, this email about his passing…..
Another piece of the puzzle that is my life is fixed forever in place in one respect, and lost forever in one respect. How is it with my soul today? With yours?
“I remember sitting in an old building in Coalmont Tennessee with maybe around 20 people, and the solemnity, earnestness, deep study etc. has left an impression on me that I thank God for, and for which I keep longing will be resurrected or even exceeded before I go the way of all humans.”
I grew up in the Awakening movement. I have similar memories and also wish that the atmosphere of the Awakening could be recreated. Awakeners had a strong sense of urgency because they believed Jesus’ return was imminent and they must be ready. That sense of urgency is not felt by many today. There is certainly very little talk of obedience.
“How is it with my soul today? With yours?”
I am praying for strength to give up all my besetting sins so that I can surrender completely to God and His will for me.
My Redeemer lives and I want to be ready to see Him face to face.
We need to pray more for each other so that God can work in our lives.
I met Jack in’69 or ’70 when a friend invited me to go to a Sabbath afternoon study at the university. It was sad to see what happened to so many of these believers that got more accustomed to a particular individual and less faithful to ‘every word’. I would like to compare notes from that time, let me know how to connect.
I would love to talk to Shireen also. I know Dr Harbolt who for many years was helping in the Awakening which I did not know anything about at the time. My Grandparents were the first missionaries on that mountain and trained at Madison. They were the first student couple that got married at Madison. My Grandfather and father with three other men built the Monteagle SDA church that is there today. I first learned some about the Awakening from a Mrs. Lawrence who had moved to the mountain with two young children and she worked in Coalmont and went to meetings there, but at that time I did not have an opportunity to attend them. I met several other Adventist at that time that were in the Awakening, I would love to talk to Shireen.