Bio
William James is an attorney, writer, and the voice behind Altar’d Thoughts, a growing platform where fellow sojourners follow his honest and often humorous reflections on Adventism, deconstruction, and the uneven road toward spiritual clarity. What began as a personal attempt to process his own story has resonated widely with others navigating belief, grief, and the spiritual mystery.
A lifelong Seventh-day Adventist, William served as an ordained deacon, worship musician, and contract estate planner in both a regional and state conference context, immersed not only in the theology but in the structures that sustained it. His debut memoir, Greatly Disappointed, chronicles that immersion and the slow excavation out of it: the cost of cultivating certainty and the courage required to release it.
By day, William practices law, having worked in both criminal defense and transactional practice; two fields that require clarity, nuance, and the ability to hold competing narratives at once. That tension informs his writing about fear, perfectionism, identity, and what it means to let go of a God shaped by anxiety.
He lives in Edmond, Oklahoma, with his wife, two children, a dog, and a turtle.
Still recalculating
Behind the Book
Ask the Author #1
Ask the Author #2
Signs of the Times
Why did you decide to write this book?
What makes this book necessary?
Placing a certainty on the altar.