Raised amidst the fervor of faith and football in rural America, Billy Earp is a former evangelical minister who has journeyed through the realms of the pulpit, politics, and the open road. A father to three adult children and one teenage child and a proud grandfather to a spirited granddaughter, he has penned this book as a heartfelt journal of letters to his children, unraveling the beliefs that shaped him and the events that led to his life-altering transformations.
In high school, he excelled in football, basketball, and track and continued to showcase his athletic prowess on the football field at Emory and Henry College. But in 1980, he left behind the gridiron glory to marry and answer a higher calling—the ministry. For two decades, he fervently served as a pastor, guiding congregations with unwavering faith and zeal. He graduated from Lee College (now Lee University) in 1987 with a BA in Biblical Studies, spent one year in M. Div study at Pentecostal Theological Seminary in 1988, and in 2001 completed the requirements for a US History minor at East Tennessee State University.
However, the tides of political turmoil—the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the contentious 2000 Supreme Court decision, and the onset of the Iraq War—ignited a profound questioning of his long-held evangelical Republican beliefs. From 1984 to 2002, he was a staunch Republican, but the relentless churning of these events propelled him into a wilderness of doubt and reflection.
For the next 25 years, he traded the pulpit for the solitude of the open road, becoming an over-the-road truck driver. The cab of his semi-truck became a rolling confessional, a place of introspection where he grappled with his faith, politics, and purpose.