I used to enthusiastically preach that Jesus was hope for the hopeless and rest for weary. Unfortunately, for many people, Jesus, or I should say Evangelical Christianity, made them weary and hopeless.
What should have been a source of hope and rest turned into something destructive — so destructive that some people have thoughts of committing suicide.
It shouldn’t be this way. I am convinced that Jesus — real or not — is not the problem. I find nothing in the words of Jesus that would cause me to lose hope or have thoughts of suicide.
No, it is what the church has done with Jesus over the past 2,000 years that is the problem. God, Jesus, and the Bible have become tools of manipulation, control, and destruction.
I wish I could share with you the emails I get from people who are former, or trying to be former, Evangelicals. I can’t share them because I respect the privacy of those who email me. For some, my email inbox has become their confessional. I can tell you this: there are a lot of people who are hopeless and weary as a result of their immersion in the Evangelical Christian religion.
They often have no place to turn. In many instances, their families or spouses are still in the church. They desperately need someone to talk to, but they have no place to turn. They can’t go to their pastor — he wouldn’t understand. If they live in a small town, they can’t even seek out a local counselor because everyone will know (you would have to live in a small town to understand this).
So they suffer in silence. In the night they toss and turn and wonder what has gone wrong. Where is God? There is no God. Where is the God of hope? There is no hope. Where is the God who gives rest? There seems to be no rest.
Their thoughts turn to suicide. No, I can’t do that, I’ll go to Hell. Wait, there is no God, who gives a shit?
I want you to know that I give a shit. I have been where you are and some days I am still where you are. There are a lot of readers of this blog who know your story. They have lived it. They are still living it. They know the struggle you are going through — the struggle of a life of faith that has turned into faithlessness, a life of believing that has turned into unbelief. Maybe you are like the man in the Bible who cried “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.”
I am not out to convert you to my cause or change you. It does not matter whom you worship, where you worship, what you believe, or what label you give yourself.
My desire for you is hope and rest.
For many of us, the Evangelical Christian faith has caused psychological harm. The wounds and scars run deep. All the attempts in the world to marginalize our feelings will come to naught. We know what we know.
It’s late . . .
I can hear the clock ticking.
Another night with no sleep.
I hear my lover snoring.
I think of our life together.
So much time wasted.
So much work invested in things that do not matter.
Years have passed us by.
God, we served you.
God, we loved you.
God, we worshiped you.
God, we left all to follow you.
Careers, ambitions, wealth, family . . .
All forsaken to follow you.
Only to find out it was all a dream, and a bad dream at that.
And so, in the still of the night, I reflect on the heap of my life.
What am I to make of all this?
Can I go on?
Will I go on?
I must go on.
God or not, there is a life to be lived.
God or not, I still must live as if I am dying.
Because I AM dying.
So much life yet to live.
So much life yet to experience and enjoy.
God is back on the shelf where he belongs.
Maybe I’ll dust him off again on my final day.
Probably not.
Until then, I will live morally and ethically.
Until then, I will love and hate.
Until then, I will walk the path called life the best way I know.
Without God, without the Bible, and most certainly without the church.
I still have hope.
My hope is no longer built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
My hope is built on the love and goodness of humankind.
These days, the only gods I see are my family, friends, and fellow humans.
I devote myself to these gods.
I worship them.
That’s enough for me.
I will leave eternity to another day.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.
I look forward to reading and answering your questions.
Cubs Fan asked:
As an evangelical pastor did you ever engage an atheist?
This question will not take me long to answer. Outside of “meeting” a pair of atheists while knocking on doors in the 1970s as a student at Midwestern Baptist College, I never interacted with anyone who claimed to be an atheist.
This could be the shortest post I have ever written. Not really. Remember, I was a preacher for twenty-five years. I always have something to say on a subject. That said, the short answer to this question is this: absolutely nothing. I have no recollection of my pastors or my professors at Midwestern Baptist College ever mentioning atheism or atheists. In the 1970s and 1980s, the enemies of Evangelicalism — particularly in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement — were: liberalism, the Southern Baptist Convention, modern Bible translations, situational ethics, and sexual immorality. The culture wars fueled by Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority were all the rage. I heard lots of sermons about abortion and prayer/Bible reading in schools, but not atheism proper. At times, atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s name would come up in sermons, but only in the context of the aforementioned culture war issues.
I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. I can’t recall preaching one sermon on atheism. I mentioned O’Hair on occasion, but not her atheism per se. In fact, I didn’t know any atheists. As far as I know, no atheist ever attended one of the churches I pastored. Were there atheists in the midst? Sure, just like there were LGBTQ people too. Such “abhorrent” beliefs and identities were, however, hidden — deeply buried in the proverbial Fundamentalist closet.
There is one atheist story I would like to share with readers, a humorous conclusion to this post. During my freshman year of college, a fellow dorm student and I were out knocking on doors one Saturday, hoping to find someone willing to let us share the gospel with them. Students were required to go soulwinning every week. Then we were required to report our evangelistic endeavors to the college. Many students, myself included, lied about how many doors they knocked on, how many people they led to the Lord. During the three years I attended Midwestern, I led a total of two people to Christ. I was, when it came to winning souls, a failure.
As my friend and I went from door to door in a Pontiac neighborhood, we had little to no success when it came to the “souls saved” department. What happened next, however, left an indelible impression on two virgin Baptist preachers-to-be. First, as we walked up the sidewalk to the next house, we noticed a number of squirrels in the yard. All of a sudden, one of the squirrels ran for my friend, jumped on his leg, and proceeded to scale his tall frame before jumping off his shoulder. Once we regained our composure, we walked up to the door and knocked. I should note before I tell the rest of this story, that locals were frequently harassed by Midwestern students. Imagine, being up late on Friday night, only to have a couple of Bible thumpers banging on your front door first thing in the morning. Many of us went soulwinning early on Saturdays so we could have the rest of the day to ourselves. It was the one day when I could spend significant time with my wife-to-be.
Then, as we knocked on the door, we heard people scuffling inside. Soon the door opened, and standing there stark naked were a man and a woman. My fellow dorm mate and I were speechless — I mean dumbstruck. Before either of us could start our soulwinning spiel, the man said, “we’re atheists, and we are not interested in what you have to say.” And with that and a laugh, the man shut the door.
This would be my first and last interaction with an atheist until I started reading books by atheist and agnostic authors in 2008. I still haven’t met many atheists in person. Most of my interaction with godless people has come through this blog and social media.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Evangelicals love the Jews, or so they would have you believe, anyway. Grossly misinterpreting what the Bible says about Abraham and Jehovah’s chosen people, the Jews, many Evangelicals believe the future of the United States rests squarely on the unconditional support of Israel and its genocidal war against the Palestinian people. God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who don’t, so the thinking does. What’s not stated outside the safety of Evangelical churches is what else they believe about Jews:
Jews are not chosen in a salvific sense of the word. Because Jews reject Jesus as their Messiah, they will go to Hell when they die.
After Jesus returns to earth and raptures away his chosen ones — born-again Christians — earth’s inhabitants will face seven years of violence, torture, bloodshed, and death at the hands of God and the AntiChrist.
Many Jews will eventually bow a knee to Jesus, but going to Heaven after they die requires them to be martyred for their faith. As the movie A Thief in a Night showed, many of these Jewish martyrs will be beheaded for their allegiance to Jesus.
Jews need to be aware that these teachings lurk behind all the “We Love and Support Israel” talk flowing from Evangelical mouths. The Jews are just a means to an end, and when all is said and done, they will burn in Hell.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— U.S. Constitution, First Amendment
From coast to coast and college to college, students are protesting Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people. Politicians on the left and the right seem ignorant of the First Amendment and its protections of free speech and protest. Many of the protesters are anti-Zionists and not anti-Semites. Just because the protesting students oppose the state of Israel doesn’t mean they are anti-Semites. But, even if they are, it doesn’t matter. The First Amendment protects anti-Zionists and anti-Semites alike, just as it protects those supporting Israel’s murderous actions in Gaza. It seems that far too many Americans, including politicians on both sides of the aisle, think anti-Semitic speech is not constitutionally protected; that people should be arrested and prosecuted for saying anti-Israel slogans.
All speech (on public property) is protected (with a few narrow, specific exceptions), including that of Donald Trump, MAGA nutters, KKK members, and other racists. Evangelical Christians are free to say all sorts of things that decent, thoughtful people find repugnant and offensive. Just because someone’s speech offends you doesn’t mean he or she should be silenced. If a group of people want to protest ____________ on public property, whether you like it or not is irrelevant. That something is offensive is not grounds for arrest and prosecution. One of the reasons the United States is so great is that freedom of speech and protest are sacrosanct. All that college students are currently doing is exercising their Constitutional rights to speak their minds in public. Don’t like it? Tough shit. I personally support the pro-Palestinian protesters. I agree with their point of view. That said, if it were pro-MAGA or pro-Christian people protesting, I would also resolutely support their right to do so. Either the First Amendment applies to all of us, or it doesn’t apply to any of us. When it comes to free speech, ALL of us should be on the same page.
I will soon be sixty-seven years old. I vividly remember the protests and riots in Los Angeles and Detroit. I remember civil rights protests and opposition to the draft and the Vietnam War. These protests forced the end of the Vietnam War and the enactment of the Civil Rights Act. Protests can and do make a difference.
Local, state, and federal governments seem to have learned nothing from the upheaval of the 1960s. Who can forget armed police and National Guard soldiers using force to quell protests, including murdering four students at Kent State? What do we see today? More police and soldiers armed to the teeth, using tear gas, rubber bullets, and physical violence to put an end to pro-Palestinian protests. The difference between 1968 and today? Our police forces have been militarized, stocked with automatic weapons and other tools of war. What possibly could go wrong?
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I am often accused by readers of misrepresenting Evangelicals in my writing; that my descriptions and criticisms of Evangelicalism don’t apply to a reader’s sect, their church, or to them personally. I have heard, more times than I can count, Evangelicals say: my church is different, my pastor is different, my denomination is different, my college is different, I’m DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT!While it is certainly true that not all Evangelicals are the same, often the alleged differences are little more than the differences between ice cream flavors. Same basic ingredients with different flavors and toppings. Evangelicals can whine, bitch, moan, and complain about my writing, but the fact remains that I was part of Evangelicalism for 50 years, an Evangelical pastor for 25 of those years, and have Evangelical family members — including pastors, evangelists, and missionaries — and closely follow the machinations of the Evangelical community. I am confident I have a good handle on Evangelical beliefs and practices.
Over the years, I have perused the doctrinal statements of numerous Evangelical sects, churches, and parachurch organizations. The agreement I find in these documents allows me to determine what Evangelicals believe. For twenty-five years, I pastored seven Evangelical churches, so I think I have a good handle on the “faith once delivered to the saints.”
But, Bruce, Evangelicals don’t agree with one another ona host of theological beliefs! I understand that, but such differences are tangential to the cardinal doctrines (almost) all Evangelicals profess to believe. Thus, Charismatics speak in tongues, Baptists don’t. Holiness Christians believe in entire sanctification, Baptists don’t. Some Evangelicals are Calvinists some are Arminians, and others are Calminians. Evangelicals are all over the place when it comes to eschatology and ecclesiology. Some believe baptism is required for salvation, others don’t. The list of differences is extensive. See, Bruce, you are proving my point! No, I am not. If you look underneath these peripheral differences — often called “distinctives” — you find unity of belief:
The inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of the Bible
The sinfulness, depravity of man
The deity of Christ
The virgin birth of Christ
The blood atonement of Christ for man’s sin (usually subscribing to the substitutionary atonement theory)
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead
The second coming of Christ
Separation from the world
Salvation from sin by and through Jesus alone
Personal responsibility to share the gospel with sinners
Heaven and Hell are literal places
Anyone who claims to be an Evangelical yet denies one or more of these cardinal doctrines is Evangelical in name only. The fringe of the Evangelical tent is littered with pastors, professors, and congregants who hold all sorts of liberal/progressive Christian beliefs, yet refuse to own what they are. And I get it. Towards the tail end of my ministerial career, some of my beliefs were definitely not Evangelical. Yet, Evangelicalism was home. It was all that I had ever known. I couldn’t bring myself to abandon my metaphorical family, even though I was liberal/progressive belief-wise. Even today, sixteen years removed from walking away from Christianity, I still, at times, miss my family. Not Jesus, not the ministry, but the social connection I had with many loving, wonderful people.
Often, Evangelicals think I am misrepresenting them when I have the audacity to claim that Evangelicals are Fundamentalists. This argument alone has led to all sorts of objections from Evangelicals who scream from rooftops, I AM NOT A FUNDAMENTALIST! However, as I show in my post, Are Evangelical Fundamentalists?, Evangelicals are inherently Fundamentalists both theologically and socially. There’s simply no way to be a consistent Evangelical and not be a Fundamentalist.
Well, Bruce, I don’t care what you say, I am an Evangelical, and I am not a Fundamentalist! You can self-identify any way you want, but just because you do so doesn’t change the fact that your theological beliefs and social practices are Fundamentalist. If you walk, talk, and act like a Fundamentalist, you are one.
I get it. Evangelicalism is one of the most hated religious groups in the United States. Thoughtful, kind, generous Evangelicals hate what Donald Trump and his merry band of culture warriors have done to our country. However, is the answer to stay on the deck of the Titanic as it rolls into the sea? If you are truly not a Fundamentalist, then join up with sects and churches that reflect your progressive/liberal beliefs and practices. Stop enabling the Evangelical monster. Let it die the death it so richly deserves.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
From your earliest recollection, you remember the church.
You remember the preacher, the piano player, the deacons, and your Sunday School teacher.
You remember the youth group and all the fun activities.
You remember getting saved and baptized.
You remember being in church every time the doors were open.
You remember everything in your life revolving around the church.
You remember praying and reading your Bible.
You remember the missionaries and the stories they told about heathens on the other side of the world.
You remember revival meetings and getting right with God.
You remember . . .
Most of all you remember the people.
These were the people who loved you. You thought to yourself, my church family loves me almost as much as God does.
You remember hearing sermons about God’s love and the love Christians were supposed to have for one another.
Like your blood family, your church family loves you no matter what.
But then IT happened.
You know, IT.
You got older. You grew up. With adult eyes, you began to see the church, God, Jesus, and the Bible differently.
You had questions, questions that no one had answers for.
Perhaps you began to see that your church family wasn’t perfect.
Perhaps the things Mom and Dad whispered about in the bedroom became known to you.
Perhaps you found out that things were not as they seemed.
Uncertainty and doubt crept in.
Perhaps you decided to try the world for a while. Lots of church kids did, you told yourself.
Perhaps you came to the place where you no longer believed what you had believed your entire life.
And so you left.
You had an IT moment — that moment in time when things changed forever.
You thought, surely, Mom and Dad will still love me.
You thought, surely, Sissy and Bubby and Granny will still love me.
And above all, you thought your church family would love you no matter what.
But they didn’t.
For all their talk of love, their love was conditioned on you being one of them, believing the right things.
Once you left, the love stopped.
Now they are praying for you.
Now you are a sermon illustration trotted out as a warning to people who question and doubt.
Now they plead with you to return to Jesus.
Now they question if you were ever really saved.
They say they still love you, but deep down you know they don’t.
You know their love for you requires you to be like them.
You can’t be like them anymore. . .
Such loss.
Time marches on.
The church is still where it has always been.
The same families are there, loving Jesus and speaking of their great love for others.
But you are forgotten.
A sheep gone astray.
Every once in a while, someone asks your mom and dad how you are doing.
They sigh, perhaps tears well up in their eyes . . .
Oh, how they wish you would come home.
To be a family sitting together in the church again.
You can’t go back.
You no longer believe.
All that you really want now is their love.
You want them to love you just as you are.
Can they do this?
Will they do this?
Or is Jesus more important to them than you?
Does the church come first?
Is chapter and verse more important than flesh and blood?
You want to be told they love you.
You want to be held and told it is going to be all right.
But here you sit tonight . . .
Alone . . .
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Christopher Codding, a youth pastor at Cassville Baptist Church in Cartersville, Georgia, recently pleaded guilty to molesting two young church boys. According to prosecutors, there were other victims who likely will never see justice. According to Floyd County Assistant District Attorney Emily Johnson, Codding was “one of the most sophisticated predators I have encountered in my career so far.” Cassville Baptist is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Despite the fact that a former Cartersville youth pastor pleaded guilty to molesting two young boys who attended his church, prosecutors said there were many more victims who may never see justice.
Christopher Matthew Codding, 44, pleaded guilty to two counts of felony child molestation and one count of sodomy in Floyd County Superior Court on Thursday.
“He is one of the most sophisticated predators I have encountered in my career so far,” Floyd County Assistant District Attorney Emily Johnson said.
As part of that plea, Codding will be sentenced to 60 years on probation and serve a sentence in prison of up to 19 years. The amount of serve time will be determined by a judge during a sentencing hearing on May 16.
The case involves the anal penetration of two boys, both approximately 10-years-old at the time, who attended the church where Codding was a youth pastor between 2012 and 2017.
“Most of these kids had troubled home lives,” Johnson told the court. “He would basically step in as a father figure to these kids…Basically he set up his house as a man cave and would have boys over to his house.”
Using the apologue of a frog not noticing that it’s boiling to death in water if the heat is slowly increased, Johnson said Codding would slowly manipulate the boys to do what he wanted.
She described how Codding, once the boys were at his home, would walk through the house naked or while on a trip tell them they could swim naked. That would graduate to viewing pornography with the children and then to molesting the children.
Despite the timeline of the charges in this case, prosecutors said there is evidence of prior incidents as well.
According to court records, one of the associated cases prosecutors intended to use as evidence occurred sometime between 2002 and 2005. That incident occurred in New York where Codding, who watched pornography with a minor, also instructed the young boy to masturbate. Another incident concerned what may have been several boys trips, between 2014 and 2017 to Berry College where Codding would swim naked with the young boys.
Codding is not criminally charged in either of those incidents.
At the time of his arrest in 2022, Codding was employed as a radiologic technician, often working in Baltimore, Maryland, and an instructor at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. He volunteered as a youth pastor at Cassville Baptist Church in Cartersville.
To add insult to injury, Codding taught child abuse prevention and youth protection classes at the church, Johnson said.
The case began when one of the victims learned that Codding was attempting to adopt two young boys, and stepped forward, Johnson said. Once the floodgates were opened, more and more victims came forward.
“Every time we turned around there was another individual who stepped forward,” Johnson said.
In the hearing, Codding’s attorney Alicia Lanier sought to enter the plea as an Alford plea, essentially a legal formality in which a defendant acknowledges the evidence while still maintaining their innocence.
“This case was a horrible situation and my client’s agreed to the plea as the evidence is overwhelmingly against him,” Lanier told the judge.
“I’m not going to go along with an Alford plea,” Floyd County Superior Court Judge John “Jack” Niedrach said. After a brief recess, Codding chose to enter the guilty plea.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Vernon Williamson, a former associate pastor at Assembly of the Body of Christ (the church is defunct) in Jacksonville, Florida, was recently sentenced to life in prison on four counts of sexual battery. Williamson’s fellow pastors, Paul Dyal and Jerome Teschendorf were arrested on similar charges and await trial. These men are 87, 80, and 70, respectively. According to news reports, their alleged crimes date back to the 1970s.
In the first of three sexual assault cases against a pastor and two associates charged with offenses that began in the 1970s at a Jacksonville church, Vernon Lavern Williamson was found guilty Thursday and sentenced to life in prison.
Williamson, now 87, was arrested in Oklahoma and charged with four counts of sexual battery in March 2022. It followed a raid at the Jacksonville Assembly of the Body of Christ on Old Kings Road, where the pastor, 80-year-old Paul Brady Dyal, was jailed and charged with capital sexual battery on a child 11 or younger, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
In addition to Williamson, authorities also arrested Jerome Teschendorf, 70, on related capital sexual battery charges in Oklahoma. Both Dyal and Teschendorf are awaiting trial.
The ages of the children were redacted in arrest documents, but an information report cites they were younger than 12. Williamson’s arrest report says he was living on the church’s property at the time. One girl who came forward as an adult said her mother left her in his care when the sexual abuse occurred.
She reported it to the Sheriff’s Office in 2008 and told investigators she disclosed the incidents to the pastor, Dyal, in 2004. Williamson denied the allegations, and Dyal told investigators he didn’t believe the child at the time.
The investigation was suspended, but in 2019 another woman was interviewed stating Williamson would take care of her and her brothers during the day while their father worked. She said the incidents started out as molestation when he would bathe and dress her. It progressed, and about a year later it became rape, according to the arrest report.
The time frame was not included in the report, but it states Williamson was about 61 to 63 years old during the incidents. A separate information report lists the years as 1996 to 1999.
The victim said she was scared and had urinary tract infections and would frequently urinate on herself. After noticing this at school, a woman asked her what was wrong and she told her what Williamson was doing, the report states.
The woman at the school told Dyal’s wife. Once it was made known to Dyal, the girl and her brothers were separated and sent to live with other families in the church, which is what the girl said she feared would happen if she disclosed the assaults. Williamson was allowed to stay at the church until the girl told another woman about him, and he was sent away, according to the report.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.
I look forward to reading and answering your questions.
Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, continues to write posts about me and my British friend, Ben Berwick. I have largely ignored him. Thiessen is a rabid Fundamentalist, and at his advanced age, it is unlikely that anything will move him away from Bible literalism and young earth creationism. He is not interested in debate, argument, or discussion. He is convinced that he is one hundred percent right, and that atheists, agnostics, liberal Christians, and other people he deems “unsaved,” are one hundred percent wrong. Thiessen has no room for question, doubt, or nuance. As a true-blue Fundamentalist, everything to him is black and white. So, I no longer try to reason with Thiessen. I have kicked the dust off my sandals and left him to his own devices.
I do, however, want to respond to a post Thiessen wrote yesterday titled I Have a Question. As you will see, Thiessen really doesn’t have any questions to ask me. He just wants to attack my person and besmirch my character. I will be the better man and answer him anyway.
All spelling and grammar in the original.
BG [Bruce Gerencser] may say that we are not banned on his website but we are not going to post there and give him the opportunity to ban us. We will address any information we glean from his website here. That way nothing can be edited or changed on us.
Thiessen is NOT banned from commenting on this site. Any assertion that suggests otherwise is a lie. Thiessen is free to comment any time he wants. I have also offered to debate him. I have even offered to publish a guest post of his. He claims that he is afraid to do so because I might edit or change his words. I have told him several times I will publish exactly what he writes — unedited. I will even leave his misspellings and grammar errors as is. Come on Derrick, time to man up.
Currently, he has this annual theme where he allows his readers to ask him any question they want. it goes under the same title heading above – I have a question- and I guess he selects the ones he will answer.
Note that Thiessen tries to suggest that I pick and choose which questions to answer. This, of course, is untrue. I answer every question I receive, even from him and his bunkmate Revival Fires.
Question One: Why does a guy with nothing to offer keep posting ‘his’ story which hasn’t changed in 10 or 11 years?
As you can see, Thiessen makes a value judgment: a guy with nothing to offer. I am a guy who has nothing to offer closed-minded Fundamentalists like him. It seems thousands of other people disagree with him; people who found value and support from my writing. I know my work is not for everyone, so why doesn’t Thiessen stop reading it and mosey on his way? If certain foods constipate you or aggravate your hemorrhoids, change your diet. Instead, Derrick would rather bitch about how much his anus hurts.
I suspect I have a lot more of my story to tell, even from my Christian days. Unlike Thiessen, my life continues to move forward, and as I continue to walk this path called life, I will have new and varied experiences. And when I do, I will write about them. I am a story-teller, Thiessen is not. He chooses, instead, to preach, teach, and rage. And that’s fine, but there’s no reason for him to criticize me for choosing a different path.
My story is not the only subject for my writing. I write about sports, politics, humanism, atheism, cooking, chronic illness, chronic pain, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, Evangelicalism, and a plethora of other subjects. And even if I did ONLY write about my story, what’s wrong with that? Every blog has a niche, Thiessen’s included.
His previous answer to us was ‘he wanted people to know his story’. Yet, he could have done that in one website page or one post. However, he keeps repeating the same thing over and over, and over, as if no one has read it before.
I have explained this to Thiessen several times, so I can only conclude that he is being deliberately obtuse. A majority of readers on any given day are new. They don’t know my story, so as a good writer, I believe it is incumbent upon me to share with them who I am, who I was, what I believe, and where I’m headed. Yes, regular readers know my story, but most first-time readers don’t. I make no apology for making sure people know my storyline.
Thiessen shares nothing about his past and present life. He hides from accountability and responsibility in the Philippines, not letting anyone see and know the man he really is. Again, this is his choice, but I shouldn’t be faulted for choosing another path.
Thiessen must live a boring, uneventful life if it fits on a single website page or blog post. I have had an interesting life, filled with all sorts of experiences. Take my short stories series. I am sitting on over a hundred short story draft posts I have not published. I enjoy telling stories, and I plan to tell a lot more of them in the months and years ahead. Hopefully, many of these stories will be published in book form.
The obvious answer is that he is a narcissist and wants everyone to think he is a victim. His continuous reference to ‘his story’ makes his content useless, boring, and out of touch. He needs the attention.
Now Thiessen makes things personal, asserting without evidence that I am a narcissist and a victim. I will leave it to others to decide whether I am a narcissist, but as far as being a victim is concerned, I have faced a lot of trauma in my life. In a clinical sense, I am a victim, a survivor. Should I ignore these experiences in my life? I choose to use them to fuel my passion and help other people. My therapist tells me that my continued writing is essential to managing my depression.
Thiessen expresses his feelings when he says my writing is useless, boring, and out of touch. He is entitled to his opinions, but my email inbox and social media messages suggest that a lot of people find my work useful, engaging, and relevant. That Thiessen doesn’t is his problem, not mine.
Question Two: Why does he keep beating a dead horse?
The “dead horse” Thiessen speaks of is any subject I write about that he disagrees with. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Thiessen writes about the same subjects over, and over, and over. Again, he is free to do so. But why is Thiessen so obsessed with policing the content on another creator’s website. This would be like me telling the writers at Science-Based Medicine that they are beating a dead horse. All they talk about is science and medicine. Duh, right. I read their writing because it especially deals with these subjects. I don’t go to their site to find information on Evangelical Christianity. They have a wheelhouse, as do I. I talk about what I know. Too bad Thiessen doesn’t do the same.
Question Three: Why do you continually make yourself look bad?
This is a question about his black-collar series. As we have talked about this before, it does not make BG look like a saint for his reporting of these arrests. Actually, it makes him look bad as he piles on those unfortunate souls as well as rubbing it in their and their families’ faces.
Those types of postings are not making BG look good. It makes him look like some hate-filled person who does not have an ounce of sympathy, forgiveness, or kindness in him. One reason for that is because he is rifling through law enforcement and news outlet files to get the information LONG AFTER the ‘crimes’ have been committed.
He is not helping anyone but he does look vindictive and mean-spirited in his actions. he also looks void of any love and compassion as love does not rejoice in evil. He is rejoicing as he gets clicks when he posts those articles.
Thiessen wants me to “care” and “love” these predators. Give me a fucking break. I’ll tell you who I care for: the children they molest and rape; the church women they take sexual advantage of; the teens they seduce and assault; the church people whom they steal from and take advantage of. My care and love is reserved for the victims and the families of predators. The criminals themselves? I want to see them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I want to make sure they never, ever pastor a church or have an opportunity to harm people again.
Thiessen, on the other hand, thinks these perverts should be forgiven and restored to the ministry. How sick is that? I have often wondered why he is so anti-victim. What’s the story behind his support of sexual deviants, while at the same time deriding their victims?
As long as preachers continue preying on innocent, vulnerable children, teens, and adults, I plan to continue publishing the Black Collar Crime Series.
It will be interesting to see what his responses will be. He won’t be allowed to post them here. So hopefully we will get a pingback.
Thiessen refuses to let anyone comment on his blog. He also has disabled his contact page. He is immune from criticism and accountability. Nothing I can do about that.
I have sufficiently answered Thiessen’s comments. I am sure he will object to my answers, which he is free to do. As always, I will leave it to readers to weigh the worthiness and value of my writing. Thiessen not liking it is a badge of honor.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Every study I have read in the past decade suggests that atheism and agnosticism are on the rise; that nones — those who are indifferent towards religion are on the rise; that Christianity in the United States is in decline, as evidenced by shrinking membership, Sunday attendance, and income. As it stands today, non-believers are the largest religious demographic in the U.S. Christianity is on its way to becoming a minority religion.
Bill Muehlenberg, an Evangelical Christian who blogs at Culture Watch, is ignorantly or deliberately oblivious to these facts. According to him, atheism has lost its luster and is in decline. Worse, an increasing number of atheists are converting to Christianity, or, at the very least, confessing belief in God.
Who are these atheists who have left godlessness for religion?
Albert Henry Ross (1881-1950)
John Warwick Montgomery (1931-)
Josh McDowell (1939-)
Antony Flew (1923-2010)
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Whittaker Chambers (1901-1961)
Malcolm Muggeridge (1902-1990)
Peter Hitchens (1951-)
Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001)
William J. Murray (1946-)
Lee Strobel (1952-)
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969-)
Alister McGrath (1953-)
Rosaria Butterfield (1962-)
Josh Timonen (formerly worked for Richard Dawkins)
Color me grossly underwhelmed. What we have here is a list of Christian apologists (some of whom have sketchy conversion stories, alleged conversion stories that contradict Muhlenberg’s Evangelical Christianity, and people who lived using the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Where are all the present-day atheists who converted to Christianity? I guarantee you that there are a lot more notable, public theists deconverting than atheists are becoming Christians. It happens, but not often, and when it does, those who embrace Christianity do so for emotional, and not intellectual reasons.
As can be seen, most of these folks were/are noted public figures. Not only were they all either atheists or agnostics, but quite a few were also Marxists, Communists or socialists as well. I might add that I too was once not only a firm agnostic but a young revolutionary and socialist.
….
The list I have offered in this piece is very short indeed. Many more names could have been mentioned. And I also could have discussed some leading public figures who all seem quite close to becoming Christians – or perhaps already have – people such as Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, Douglas Murray, Russell Brand and many more.
God is clearly not dead. Many atheists are however. Or they have seen the light and left their former darkness.
Muhlenberg intimates that Christopher Hitchens was “open” to Christianity before he died and may even converted, relying on Alex Taunton’s screed, The Faith of Christopher Hitchens.
Taunton’s book attracted some media attention and Taunton was interviewed on Newsnight on BBC Two alongside Lawrence Krauss who strongly criticized the book and alleged Taunton was a “paid associate” and not a friend of Hitchens. He also suggested Hitchens’ widow was “disgusted” by the book. The Faith of Christopher Hitchens received a mixed critical reception. Nick Cohen, a friend of Hitchens, was strongly critical of the book in The Guardian. Cohen described it as “strange, spiteful”, the “work of a true fanatic”. Cohen is critical of the several attacks made by Taunton on friends of Hitchens. Cohen also wrote that “In a section that is tasteless even by his low standards, he ridicules Christopher’s father, Eric, as a weak man, because his failure to discipline his children ‘contributed to his son’s unbelief'” and wrote that the “willingness of believers to go further and invent conversions where none existed satisfies their infantile need for fairytale endings…they move from the extremely seedy to the outright creepy: from vultures to vampires.”
Also in The GuardianMatthew d’Ancona depicted the book as “meretricious” and as the latest example of falsified deathbed conversion stories. He also wrote that whilst it is “tempting to write off this book as outburst of epic self-deception” d’Ancona wrote that “its craven purpose – to claim Hitchens posthumously for evangelical Christianity – is to defame a man who was a champion of the Enlightenment” and an enemy of all religion. David Frum, writing in The Atlantic, stated that “In the months before he died, Hitchens repeatedly and emphatically warned that claims like Taunton’s would be forthcoming and should be disbelieved.” and that “Taunton mistakes curiosity for assent.”
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, Bill. What atheism may yet become is unknown, but it is clear that atheists are not going away or dying off. Atheism, as a movement, is evolving and maturing. The field has been cleared of theist arguments for the existence of God, so atheists have moved on to more pressing issues such as the separation of church and state, Christian nationalism, and other assaults on liberty and freedom. Talking about the Kalam argument, the argument from design, the ontological argument, and others is passé these days. Been there, done that, these arguments fail every time.
Try harder, Bill, try harder.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
