Yes, never mind what qualified historians have concluded concerning Washington's religious sentiments based on the available data. They're all wrong because a delusional religious fanatic with a TBI said so in 1880. She probably would have fainted on the spot if she had ever seen one of Washington's bar tabs.
So my wife's church just had its VBS last week. She's the children's ministry director and voluntold me to help out with the program's opening and closing skits. I enjoy acting so it honestly wasn't that bad, I just tried to remind myself that it was for the kids.
The program, put out by the NAD, was "Cactusville," and it was, to put it mildly, dreadful. It was so bad in fact that I took it upon myself to do an almost complete rewrite because I felt the kids deserved better (I highly suspect it was written at least partially by AI). The main character, a sheriff (of course this is never actually relevant throughout the entire program, no good Adventist program for kids would ever have something as interesting as a cattle rustling or a bank robbery, the only purpose served by making the character a sheriff is to imbue him with authority and contribute to the "Western" theme) literally just straight monologued for most of the first program. It was so bad I actually split that one part into two just so it wouldn't be just one person talking at the kids the whole time.
Another major problem was the way lessons were taught. Characters were never allowed to learn anything from experience. Instead, they would come in with some problem, and the sheriff would just tell them what they should do, and they would do it because of course the authority figure is always right. Nobody ever explained the concept of "show don't tell" to whoever or whatever wrote this program; never would characters so much as try to figure things out on their own before realizing that maybe the older, wiser character was right, and there certainly was never any justification for why the authority figure was right beyond "this is what I--I mean, the Bible says." I did my best to at least try to turn the sheriff into more of a "gentle parent" kind of character who actually talked things through with the other characters rather than just talking at them, but as limited as I was on time, there was only so much I could do.
I also wasn't able to do anything about the songs. On the whole they weren't terrible as far as Christian kids' songs go, but there was one that just made me laugh every time I heard it because it was about how "people think we're odd" for being Christians and how "we are different" and "unique." Like, nobody thinks you're "odd" for being a member of the majority religion in the US, and there is nothing "unique" about being the most conformist people on the planet.
Another thing I found amusing was the obvious discomfort the production had with anthropomorphic animals. Every day there was a new "critter" native to or characteristic of the American Southwest for the kids to learn about. The critters were fairly decently designed and were clearly anthropomorphized, with cute names, cartoonish faces, and even some amount of clothing. However, whoever was responsible for the program clearly drew the line at having the animals actually talk. Each pre-made informational video (which I therefore couldn't alter) began with the preface "if [animal's name] could talk, he/she might say something like..." leading into a paragraph written in the first person giving some information about the animal. To me it felt very much like the segments were originally intended to actually be narrated by the animal until some old white guy at the NAD objected that talking animals was too much like fun (never mind that in the Bible snakes and donkeys talk), so it had to be hastily edited to "clarify" that this is just what the animal might say if it could talk.
Thanks at least in part to typically Adventist low standards and expectations, the VBS program was a resounding success, with some people at the church musing how on earth they would be able to top it next year.
A while back--I don't know exactly how long--the North American Division decided the Master Guide uniforms needed a refresh. Of course, Pathfinders have been wearing black pants or skirts (for girls only, obviously) for a long time, probably because they realized most Adventist parents were too cheap to buy their kids more than one pair of "dress" pants so they ditched the green for a color most of them already had anyway. Most Master Guides also wore black pants/skirts, but for those few who cared enough to buy the full uniform with tunic, until somewhat recently it was green. I believe the official reason for the change was to make the uniform look less "militaristic," but I suspect the real reason was, again, cost: Adventists never being the most fashion-conscious lot, but frugal to a fault, they probably figured if they made the tunic black it could be "matched" with any cheap black pants or skirt that most folks already had hanging in their closet (anyone who has actually seen this uniform being worn "in the wild" knows that this is quite obviously not the case).
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Anyway, more to the point of this post: I find it somewhat ironic that in ostensibly seeking to make the Pathfinder/Master Guide uniform less "paramilitary" in appearance, they ended up precisely matching the color scheme of perhaps the most (in)famous paramilitary organization in history. To the eyes of this historian, the new uniforms give off a distinctly "discount SS" vibe, minus the Hugo Boss quality and fit of course.
I was reflecting this morning on how one of the most common apologetic responses to the question "if God exists, why doesn't he give us undeniable proof of his existence" is to quote the words of Jesus that "if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead" (Luke 16:31 NRSVUE); and yet, a key part of Adventist eschatology is that as the end draws near, Satan will impersonate Christ and perform signs and wonders so that all who are not already "safe" because they believe in the Adventist message and have been warned beforehand will be deceived. This is how Adventists "solve" the problem of how the whole world, most of which is not Christian, would suddenly be convinced to implement a global Sunday law, because at that point, faced with incontrovertible proof that the supernatural exists, there will suddenly be no more atheists, and because the one with demonstrable supernatural power is claiming to be Christ, just like that every other world religion other than Christianity will be proven false and literally everyone on earth will now either be a "false" Christian following the imposter or a "true" Christian who believes the Adventist message (never mind that plenty of world religions have no problem with Jesus being real and being a god, so someone simply showing up and claiming to be him wouldn't magically convince them not to be whatever their current religion is anymore).
So if that's all it will take for Satan to deceive the entire world, why doesn't God just do that now? Surely if the whole world would be convinced by Satan's deceptive display of counterfeit power, wouldn't it be even easier for God to just show his genuine power and get everyone to believe the truth? Moreover, if this actually did happen, what good reason can Adventists give for why we should believe their claim, lacking any evidence whatsoever, that the person claiming to be Christ, and actually bringing receipts to back up that claim, is really the deceiver? Seems like "Satan" in this scenario is giving us more reasons to trust him than the Adventists are. Even in the completely fictional scenario that Adventists made up, they're insisting that we all ignore the evidence right in front of us and just believe whatever they say without questioning just because they say it.