Religion Archives

Bruce, What if Christianity is True?

Bruce Gerencser March 2, 2020 Religion 6 Comments

pascals wager

“It’s just the ocean playing tricks on us. Just because it looks like we’re on land, and it doesn’t seem like we’re moving, doesn’t mean we should risk getting out.” “Our ancestors wouldn’t have sacrificed so much to stay in the boat if it wasn’t really on the water. And I wouldn’t feel such a dark, frightened feeling every time my doubts say we’ve been fooled.” “Absolutely. There’s no other explanation for it.” Source

Countless, Evangelicals have asked me, “Bruce, what if Christianity is true?” Usually, this question is couched in the use of Pascal’s Wager. For those of you unfamiliar with Pascal’s Wager, the RationalWiki explains it this way:

“”Pascal’s wager: Believing in and searching for kryptonite — on the off chance that Superman exists and wants to kill you.

Pascal’s wager is an argument that asserts that one should believe in God, even if God’s existence cannot be proved or disproved through reason.

Blaise Pascal’s original wager was as a fairly short paragraph in Pensées amongst several other notes that could be considered “wagers”. Its argument is rooted in what has subsequently become known as game theory. The wager argues that the best course of action is to believe in God regardless of any lack of evidence, because that option gives the biggest potential gains. Pascal’s original text is long-winded and written in somewhat convoluted philosophy-speak, but it can be distilled more simply:

If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain.

If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss.

If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss.

If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain.

….

Pascal’s wager makes a number of assumptions about reality, and a number of theological assumptions about the god it argues for. If any of these can be shown to either be false or undesirable, then the power of the Wager for determining one’s actions and beliefs is severely weakened — indeed, the argument of the Wager can be reversed in some cases and it can argue for non-belief. These mostly stem from the theological implications of applying the Wager to belief in God, rather than the game theory attributes and decision-making process presented.

People asking me this question genuinely fear what will happen to me if Christianity is true. Well, actually, their version of Christianity, anyway. I have yet to have a progressive or liberal Christian try Pascal’s Wager on me. Either out of not wanting to be impolite or believing in some form of universal salvation, liberals and progressives don’t try to evangelize me. All praise be to Loki for such grace and mercy. Evangelicals, on the other hand, adhere to an exclusionary, separatist version of Christianity. For them, it is all about right beliefs, who is in and who is out. Matters of salvation and eternal destiny are elevated to matters of life and death. If God is who Evangelicals say he is, and judgment and eternal torture await all those who refuse to bow a knee and worship Jesus, then I can, on a theological and personal basis, understand why they might be worried about me. There are those Evangelicals who seem to relish and glory in my soon death and torture in Hell, but most Jesus-lovers are decent human beings who don’t want to people to suffer (though their overwhelming support for the vile, anti-human policies of Donald Trump is cause for me to reconsider my view of Evangelicals as a whole). Thus, the question, WHAT IF CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE?

Such questions are laden with presuppositions. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. The God revealed in the Bible is the one true God. This true God reveals himself to everyone through creation and conscience, rendering every human who has ever walked on the face of the earth without excuse. That’s why Evangelicals say there’s no such thing as an atheist, or that atheists deliberately ignore the evidence for God out of some sort of secret desire to sin and live licentiously. No matter how many times atheists suggest otherwise, Evangelicals know better. Their presuppositions tell them so . . . end of discussion. This is why it almost always a waste of time to argue with Evangelicals who are psychologically tethered to these beliefs. Until they are willing to at least consider they could be wrong, there’s no way to reach them intellectually.

I get it. Fear of being wrong is a powerful motivator. So is fear of Hell and eternal damnation. Remove fear as a motivator, and I suspect many Evangelicals would be sleeping in on Sundays with the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. But, as long you worried about what might happen if you believe the wrong things, go to the wrong church, or any of the other “important” matters they clench their sphincter muscles over, you are likely to, at least, do the things that make one a Jesus-loving, Bible-believing, Evangelical Christian. It was only when I no longer believed that the Bible was what Evangelicals claim it is that I was able to break free of a lifetime of Fundamentalist belief and practice. It was the Bible that had a magical, powerful hold on me. Once, however, that hold on me was broken, the jig was up. Once the Bible lost its authority over me, I was free to think and believe whatever I wanted. And, here I am today, an outspoken ex-Evangelical turned atheist; a former card-carrying right-wing extremist who is now a progressive and a liberal. Truly reason and intellectual inquiry have transformed me into a new person. As the good book says, “If any man be in reason, old things are passed away and all things become new.” Okay, the original text says, “if any man be in CHRIST,” not in “reason.” However, I did have a born-again experience of sorts when I deconverted. The difference, of course, is that I have not arrived. I have not bought fire insurance and punched my ticket for glory. I am just a man wandering on the path of reason, knowledge, and understanding. Released from fear of God, judgment, and eternal fire and brimstone, I am free to wander at will across this landscape we call life. This is called FREEDOM.

Bruce, you never did answer the question. “What if Christianity is true?” Fine, here’s my answer. I have weighed Christianity in the balances and found it wanting. I have concluded that the central claims of Christianity are not true. Jesus? A naturally-born Jewish rabbi who got himself killed 2,000 years ago because he ran afoul of Roman (and Jewish) law. Once dead, Jesus stayed that way. No resurrection for Jesus, nor for the rest of us either. But what about all Jesus’ miracles? Works of fiction. That’s what reason and common sense tell me. I refuse to let a largely irrelevant religious text cloud my view of life.

“But, Bruce, what if Christianity is true?”

sigh

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

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The Real Bankruptcy

Bruce Gerencser February 25, 2020 Religion 7 Comments

scouting for boys

Guest Post by MJ Lisbeth

The Boy Scouts of America recently declared bankruptcy. Not coincidentally, a number of Roman Catholic dioceses have declared bankruptcy during the past decade.

Today I live as a woman and an atheist. But I grew up as a Boy Scout in the Catholic Church. From my current perspective, decades after my involvement with the Church and the Scouts, I can see some parallels between the organizations—and how they are failing for essentially the same reasons.

According to a Pew survey, as of 2015, 32 percent of Americans were raised as Catholics, but only 21 percent remained in the Church. Moreover, while the number of Protestants who reported attending a church service during the previous seven days has held steady in the 40 to 45 percent range since the 1950s, during that same period, it fell by nearly half—from 75 to 39 percent—for Catholics. The fall-off is even steeper among young people: While Catholics of all ages attended mass at nearly the same rate in 1955, by 2017, only 25 percent of 21-to-29-year-olds (compared to 49 percent of Catholics 60 and over) went to church.

The Boy Scouts of America is hemorrhaging membership even more quickly than the Church. At its peak in 1972—when I was earning my Star Scout badge—6.5 million boys were in its ranks. By 2016, that number had fallen by nearly two-thirds, to 2.3 million. Two years later, in response to the BSA’s decisions to allow gays, transgenders and girls—and to change its name to “Scouts BSA” — the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) cut its ties with the organization. About 425,000 Scouts are also members of the Mormon Church, so the national organization faced losing 18 percent of its membership in one fell swoop.

The Mormons aren’t the only ones blaming gays and girls for the demise of Scouting, at least as their elders knew it. All manner of reactionaries in the mainstream as well as the fringe media are also laying the Scouts’ troubles at the feet of those who want to foist “political correctness” (i.e., an acceptance of reality) on the rest of the world. They hear raised glasses clinking in gay bars and in The New York Times and The Washington Post newsrooms when the Scouts’ troubles are reported.

Those same pundits, whoever appointed them as such, view the decline of the Catholic Church in America and Europe in much the same way. They hold to the discredited notion that “loosening moral standards”—by which they mean societal acceptance of homosexuality and gender non-conformity—are responsible for the epidemic of sexual abuse by priests and church officials. To bolster their claim, they’ll say that the incidence of such abuse peaked during the 1960s and 1970s. To be fair, perhaps they are making an honest mistake in not realizing that those numbers are of reported incidents. One reason those numbers are high is because of people like me (baby boomers) who came of age when sexual abuse by any adult, let alone priests, was not openly discussed and it was more likely that the child—if he or she had the vocabulary, let alone awareness, to talk about it—was likely to be shamed or punished for “lying” about a priest who held an esteemed status in the family and community. Many of us did not report our sexual abuse until decades later, while those who suffered before had died.

What conservative and reactionary commentators fail to realize is that both the Church and the Scouts in America are sinking, not only under the weight of lawsuits brought by those who were abused in their confines, but also through their own irrelevance—which, itself, is one of the reasons why those abuses happen.

In brief, both the Church and the Scouts were founded upon mythologies that were outdated and even demonstrably false the moment they were adopted. The Catholic Church, like other Christian Churches, is based on a belief in stories like the death and resurrection of Christ and other miracles that fly in the face of empirical reality. Those stories were told and re-told, written and re-written, in ways that appeal to the hope (or simply the wish) that one’s lot in life can improve. Yes, there is redemption and resurrection—as long as you align yourself with power (God), even if it is often cruel and capricious and destroys innocent lives that happen to be in its path.

How is this different from the goals and means of a paramilitary youth organization? (Not for nothing are Scouting units called “Troops” and the sub-units “Patrols”.) Lord Baden-Powell said, in essence, that his purposes in starting the Scouts were to inculcate boys with “good moral character.” (Is that a code phrase, or what?) The Scout Law says a Scout is “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” (I didn’t have to Google that: I still know it, by heart, all of these decades later!) They all sound like fine characteristics, and they are. But he did not mean that those values are intrinsically worthy. You see, he was not only a military man, but a full-on imperialist who saved the garrison in Mafeking by commandeering all of the food for the white population, leaving Africans with the choice of starvation in the town or dispersal in the veldt—where, of course, many more died of hunger and disease. He ordered the flogging and shooting of Africans who tried to “steal” food while caviar was being served in the Mafeking hotel.

His book Scouting For Boys (1908) is full of naked appeals to “national unity” and defenses of the British Empire—and what a duty and privilege it is for a young man to be one of its bulwarks. (Every page practically screams Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.) While perhaps more subtle, similar calls to duty and patriotism permeated my Boy Scout Handbook published more than six decades after Baden-Powell’s piece of propaganda. Notions of God and the King (or Queen) meshed with a frontier myth that appropriated Native American traditions for the purpose of asserting an American version of Victorian-style Muscular Christianity. Boys with whom I grew up were as ready to defend their country’s interests—whatever their leaders said those interests were—as young British men were to help Britannia rule.

Indoctrinating young and powerless people with myths and propaganda not only gives them a false sense of their own power and their right to exercise it, but also leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by those on whom power is bestowed in such a structure. That sense that the weak can be powerful, that those who lose the zip code lottery can find themselves living in Hammock Oaks if they align themselves with the values of the powerful—which is to say, to believe the myths they promulgate—make them prime targets for exploitation. So is it a surprise, then, that sex abuse has been so rampant in both the Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA and the Catholic Church?

I think not. To me, the only surprise is that even more people haven’t come forward because such abuse did not, as the conservative pundits assert, arise in the 1960s or 70s. It has become part of the DNA of both organizations because of their inherently imbalanced power structures, and the way those structures can be, and have been, used to exploit the vulnerable. If anything, I’d reckon that such abuses were even more rampant in the early history of the church and scouting, when fewer people questioned the authority of those who led and represented them.

Blaming the decline of the church or scouting on girls or gays, then, makes about as much sense as blaming bipolar disorder on demons. Both institutions are dying, at least in some parts of the world, because people—especially the young—are seeing them as irrelevant and corrupt as they are, and have been. No “return to traditional values,” whatever that means, can change that.

(In case you were wondering: In some of my previous articles, I talked about the sexual abuse I experienced from a priest in the late 1960s. I did not experience anything of the sort in the Scout troops to which I belonged. But long before the recent revelations hit the media, I heard stories from others who were Scouts.)

Quote of the Day: The “Angry” Atheist

Bruce Gerencser February 17, 2020 Religion 5 Comments

angry atheist

Karen, the Rock Whisperer, recently left the following comment on the post titled Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Atheists are Joyless and Angry:

I’m not joyless, but at the moment I’m pretty angry, Mr. Sorensen. The orange nutjob you and your people elected as our current US president is transparently evil, and has set about ruining the country as fast as he can along with the equally evil senators your people have elected, and your equally evil congresspeople who fortunately don’t have a majority right now.

I’m angry that you want to deny civil rights to me and other women, in total disregard of our bodily autonomy. I’m angry that your people latch onto pseudoscience as a justification for denying us medical benefits (access to birth control and abortion) when other medical benefits are covered.

I’m angry that you want to deny civil rights to my LGBTQ+ friends, and everyone else in this country who flies under that wide label, because some Bronze Age tribe had issues with their members engaging in same-sex relations that might be considered spiritual acts by neighboring religions.

I’m angry that you consider cruel, torturous treatment of people attempting to enter this country, including and especially children, a good idea.

I’m angry that your religion encourages xenophobia in utter defiance of its own holy book, and you have the political might to spread xenophobia in our country.

I’m angry that you and your people consistently vote for, and encourage, the destruction of whatever fragile social service safety net is left in this country. People who are poor, old, disabled…they mean nothing to you, and you’d like nothing more than to punish them for their own existence, instead of supporting them and helping them become the best contributors to society that they can be.

So, yes, I’m angry, Mr. Sorensen. But it isn’t anger directed at your probably nonexistent deity, as much as you wish it were. It is anger directed at you and your co-religionists, who are doing your best to destroy the most lives you can in the shortest period of time. There are days when I truly wish there were a Hell. But when you ended up there, and asked Jesus when it was that you’d denied basic care to him, rather than answering you as the Bible story indicates I suspect he’d just cover his face with his hands. Sometimes even deities might run out of words in the face of utter, carefully cultivated, obtuseness.

Bruce, Were You Ever a “Real” Christian?

Bruce Gerencser February 12, 2020 Religion 26 Comments

real christian

One of the common lines of attack Evangelical critics use against me is what is commonly called the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Rational Wiki explains the “No True Scotsman” fallacy:

The No True Scotsman (NTS) fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when a debater defends the generalization of a group by excluding counter-examples from it. For example, it is common to argue that “all members of [my religion] are fundamentally good”, and then to abandon all bad individuals as “not true [my-religion]-people”.

….

NTS can be thought of as a form of inverted cherry picking, where instead of selecting favourable examples, one rejects unfavourable ones. The NTS fallacy paves the path to other logical fallacies, such as letting the “best” member of a group represent it. Thanks to these remarkable qualities, the NTS fallacy is a vital tool in the promotion of denialism.

Simply put, “no matter what you say Bruce, you never were a REAL Christian.”

I was part of the Christian church for fifty years. I spent twenty-five of those years pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. At the age of fifteen, I made a public profession of faith at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. Coming under the Holy Spirit’s conviction, I went forward during the invitation, knelt at the altar, repented of my sins, and asked Jesus to save me. Several weeks later, I went forward again and professed publicly to the church that I believed that God was calling me to preach. From that time forward — until I walked away from Christianity in November 2008 — my heart and mind were set on worshipping, serving, and following Jesus. I committed myself to daily prayer and reading and studying the Bible. At the age of nineteen, I enrolled for classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. While at Midwestern, I met and dated the beautiful daughter of a Baptist preacher. We later married, had six children, and invested our lives in building churches, helping others, and evangelizing the lost. Simply put, we loved Jesus, and whatever the Holy Spirit led us to do, we did it — even if it cost us socially or economically.

That’s not to say that we were perfect Christians. We weren’t. Speaking for myself, I was temperamental, prone to mood swings that ranged from palpable excitement to brooding darkness. I now know that I was dealing with undiagnosed depression; that what I really needed was competent professional help. It took me more than a decade to see someone once I realized I needed help. Why so long? I grew up in a home with a mother who had serious mental health problems. (Please see Barbara.) I knew the shame that came from having a loved one who was viewed by others as “nuts” or “crazy.” I certainly wasn’t my mother — as my counselor has frequently reminded me — but I didn’t want my wife and children to have to bear the stigma of having a husband/parent who had mental problems. It was enough that they had to bear the brunt of my mood swings behind closed doors. I didn’t want them to bear that burden in public.

I am sure an Evangelical zealot or two is itching to ask, “Bruce, did you ever “sin” against God?” Silly boy, of course I did. I daily sinned in thought, word, and deed; sins of omission and sins of commission. Let me ask you the same question, “did you ever sin against God?” That’s what I thought. Of course you have. Whatever failures I had in my life, and they were many, doesn’t negate the fact that I loved Jesus (and the church) with my all my heart, soul, and mind. I spent the prime years of my life — ruining my health in the process — laboring day and night in God’s vineyard. I chose a life of poverty so I could provide the churches I pastored with a full-time preacher. There’s not one former congregant who can say of me that I didn’t give my all to the church; to preaching the gospel to sinners and teaching the saints the Word of God. Critics will search in vain for anyone who knew me at the time that would say of me, “Bruce was not a real Christian.” Several years ago, a woman who knows me quite well, told a family member, “if Butch (my family nickname) wasn’t a Christian, no one is!” And that’s my testimony too. There’s nothing in my story, when taken as a whole, that remotely suggests that I wasn’t a real Christian.

What happens, of course, is that my Evangelical critics skim over the book of my life, choosing instead to just read the last chapter; the chapter where Bruce, the Evangelical pastor is now Bruce, the atheist; the chapter where Bruce rejects, criticizes, and stands against everything he once believed; the chapter where it is clear to Bruce’s critics that he is a reprobate and apostate. After reading the last chapter, my critics conclude, “Bruce, you never were a real Christian.” Once critics come to this ill-informed conclusion, it is impossible to change their minds (and I no longer try to do so).

The biggest problem my critics face is their theology. Most Evangelicals, particularly Baptists, believe that once a person is saved, his salvation cannot be lost. Once adopted into the family of God and married to Jesus, you are forever a member of the Christian family. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in Romans 8:31-39:

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Jesus himself said in John 10:27-29:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.

Did my long years as a Christian show that I was a sheep who had heard the voice of Jesus and followed him? Of course they did. If that is true, and it is, then based on the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, I was a born-from-above child of God who had been granted eternal life by God himself.

Many of my critics can’t bear to admit that I was ever a “real” Christian. They can’t bear to think of spending eternity in Heaven with me, an avowed atheist. So they take a lice comb to the hair of my life, looking for anything in my beliefs, practices, or conduct that reveals that I was not, according to their standard, a real Christian. Their minds are made up: I was a fake Christian. I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Never mind that the evidence of my lived life suggests otherwise. Instead of admitting the obvious, these keepers of the Book of Life strain at the gnat and swallow a camel finding ways to “prove” I wasn’t a real Christian.

On one hand, I agree with them. It is absurd to think that I am now a Christian, and that Heaven awaits me after I died. There’s nothing in my present life that remotely suggests that I am a follower of Jesus. A few critics, unable to square their theology with the sum of my life, take a different approach. According to them, I am still a Christian, and there’s nothing I can say or do to change that fact. This line of argument is equally absurd.

It is not up to me to help my critics make their theology fit the narrative of my life. All I know is this: I once was a Christian, and now I am not. I think of my life this way: At the age of fifteen, I married Jesus. We had thirty-five years of blissful marriage. However, at the age of fifty, I divorced Jesus, and fell in love with rationalism and freedom. When asked about my marriage to Jesus, I say, “all in all, we had a good life together.” There are times when I wistfully look at my marriage to Jesus and yearn for the “good old days.” Stupid thoughts, to be sure, knowing that humans tend to sanitize their past, ignoring or blocking out the bad things that happened. Sure, Jesus and I had a good life together, but he’s no match for my current lover. I could never go back to the leeks, onions, and bondage of Egypt, having tasted and enjoyed the wonder and freedom of the Promised Land.

Some readers, particularly lifelong atheists, often ask, “why does this matter to you, Bruce? The Christian God is a myth. Christianity is built on a foundation of lies. There’s no judgment, no Heaven, no Hell. Your life as a Christian was built on a fairytale!” As a godless heathen, I certainly agree with these sentiments. However, I WAS a devoted Christian for many years. I WAS a committed, sacrificial pastor for decades. It’s impossible to honestly and faithfully tell my story without sharing the fifty years I spent in the Christian church. Years ago, I had a social worker offer me some advice on how to write an effective résumé. She thought that my religious education and ministerial job history were turnoffs or red flags to many prospective employers. She suggested leaving these things off my résumé. I replied, “so what do you want me to do with the huge holes in my work history? Should I just put I was in prison for twenty-five years?” She was not amused.

My past is part of who I am. I can’t and won’t ignore the “Christian years” to make my story more palatable. Nor can I ignore the chapters that are presently being written. Are not all of us the sum of our experiences? Why is it we have no problem when someone says, “I was married and now I am divorced. Several months ago, I met someone who might be the right person for me.” That’s my life. I was married to Jesus, divorced him, and eleven years ago I met someone new; someone who has become just the right person for me. All I ask from Christians is that they accept my story at face value; that they allow me to tell my story honestly and openly without attempting to deconstruct my life. When Christians comment on this blog, I accept their claims of faith without question. Even when they promote bad theology or say contradictory things, I allow them to tell their stories on their own terms. If I have learned anything over the years it is this: there are millions of Christianities and millions of Jesuses. No two Christians believe the same things or worship Jesus in exactly the same way. To discern who is and isn’t a “real” Christian is an impossible task. Who am I to say to a follower of Jesus: you are NOT a real Christian. All of us bring unique books to story time. Mine just so happens to be one of devotion to Jesus and loss of faith. Regardless of what my critics say about my past, I know what I know. After all, who knows my life better than I do? And so it is with you.

Last week, I had a Christian contact me, asking for advice on how to set up a blog and how to rank well with search engines such as Google and Bing. I gave him some general advice. The first thing I told him is this: “I encourage everyone, Christian or not, to tell their story. Blogging is an excellent way to do so.” I am convinced that the best way to help others is by telling our stories. Sure, there’s a time and place for polemical writing; attacks on the text and teachings of the Bible. I am certainly more than willing to take an axe to the roots of Christianity and the Bible. However, I have learned, as a public speaker and a writer, that the most effective way to reach people is by telling my story. As such, this blog will always remain “one man with a story to tell.”

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Local Christian Woman Blasts Evil Democrats for “Persecuting” President Trump

Bruce Gerencser February 11, 2020 Religion 10 Comments

libtard Recently, a woman wrote a letter to the editor of the West Bend News — a weekly publication. In the letter, the woman quotes Psalm 58:1-11 — implying that Democrats are wicked, evil liars and snakes — and then proceeds to rail against the Democrats for their slights against one President Donald J. Trump, also known as the Orange Menace.

Here’s the non-Bible part of her letter:

God has the last word, that’s why Donald Trump is in office. Put protection around the President. No weapons against the President Donald Trump will prosper. In Jesus’ name thank you Lord. Protect the security guards that lay their lives down for the President. A divided house won’t stand. You’re trying to get dirt on the president and wasting tax payers’ money (why) maybe you should look in your closet. If you’re without sin you can cast the first stone. Democrats are using the hatred act against our President Donald J. Trump. God’s still on the throne, “Avenges is mine,” said the Lord (not yours).

I am hesitant to say much about this letter due to the fact that its writer is almost 80 years old and a lifelong Republican. On the other hand, her letter is a perfect example of the Christian-Republican union that is prominent among older residents of rural northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana. In 2016, Donald Trump easily won the counties surrounding my home in Ney. Come November he will carry these counties again, likely by a higher margin than he did in 2016. The same will happen with the elections of local and state Republican candidates. Democratic candidates, if they run at all, will likely be thrashed, leaving them to wonder why they bothered running at all. When over seventy percent of locals vote Republican, it is impossible for Democrats to win elections. Locals of The Great Generation and Baby Boomers overwhelmingly vote Republican. While the future rests with younger residents, many of them are indifferent to politics, don’t vote, and those who are politically active find that local Democratic party officials are often clueless about the issues affecting younger Americans. I don’t know of one local active Democratic outreach to younger voters. Sadly, the people running local Democratic offices are generally in their 50s and up.

The aforementioned letter writer doesn’t say anything that I don’t hear locals say at ballgames, restaurants, or other public places, or write in letters to the editors of local papers or post on social media. I shoot upwards of a hundred local basketball/baseball/football games, volleyball matches, and track meets every year. I am retired, so I do this as a way to give back to our local school district and provide student-athletes and their families with quality photographs. Keeps me busy, allows me to meet new people, and takes my mind off the unrelenting chronic pain I battle each and every day. Doing so, however, exposes me to far more Trumpist Christian bullshit than I care to see or hear.

As I mentioned above, most locals vote Republican. Those I meet in public often “assume” that I am part of the Trump tribe. This is especially true on social media. I can count on two hands local Democrats I have met. And those who are as liberal as I am? One is the loneliest number, Three Dog Night sang in 1969, and I find that to be true when it comes to locals who line up with me politically. I’ve learned to accept that I am a vampire-like outlier. Even among Democrats, my view on abortion is a minority viewpoint. This is due, of course, to the pervasiveness of conservative Christianity. The overwhelming majority of the letters to the editors of the Defiance Crescent-News over the past decade advocating pro-choice positions were written by yours truly. I love living in rural Ohio, but politically I find it impossible to feel at home.

If locals want to read my pointed viewpoint on American politics, Donald Trump, the culture war, and Evangelical Christianity, they have to go to this blog, Twitter, or my Facebook page. On my personal Facebook wall, I am decidedly a-political and a-religious. Many of my Facebook friends are not so inclined, especially local Republicans I am “friends” with. Trump worship is common, and libtards and evil commie socialists — also known as Bruce “Santa Claus” Gerencser — are routinely savaged, abused, and slandered. I have no doubt that many of these people think the West Bend News letter writer is spot on with her God- and Bible-inspired attack of her Democratic neighbors and the Party in general (though I am sure many of them would wince at her atrocious grammar).

Later this week, I will plant in my front yard campaign signs for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. I am hoping one of the three will be the Democratic candidate for president. I hope one of the other two will be the chosen candidate’s vice president. In 2016, you may remember, I prominently displayed my support for Sanders. I only knew of a handful of other locals who were willing to show their support for Bernie. To do so is socially and economically risky. My sign “disappeared” before the election. It was, best to my knowledge, stolen by a Trump supporter who could no longer stand looking at my sign as he or she drove by my house. Here’s a screenshot of a discussion Trump supporters had about my Bernie sign in February 2016:

stealing bernie sanders sign

(Please see The First Bernie Sanders Sighting in Defiance County, Ohio, Encouraged by a Young Bernie Sanders Supporter, and Local Residents Threaten to Steal or Destroy Our Bernie Sanders Sign.)

I decided not to file a theft report, but this time around, if my signs come up missing, I plan to file a police report. Or beat the shit out of the thief with my cane. 🙂

Such is life in rural northwest Ohio. There’s much I love about the place of my birth, home to my parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren. When we returned to this area and bought a home in 2007, we decided that there would be no more moves in our future. There are days, however, when I am so discouraged over the local and national political climate and the shenanigans of the most unfit man to ever sit in the Oval Office, that I want to move to a remote area and live off the grid. President Trump and his supporters have literally worn me out emotionally. The constant lies, distortions, and mixing of church and state makes me sick. Just today, Trump released his budget. More money for the military, Trump’s anti-Mexicans wall, and severe cuts to social programs and regulatory agencies. No surprises. Trump and the Republican Party will not rest until they destroy every vestige of FDR’s New Deal and the social progress the United States has made since the Great Depression. What’s a thoughtful liberal to do? Vote. What else can I do, but cast my votes for people who, at the very least, promise to stem the tide of the Republican/immoral capitalistic/theocratic Christian horde? I know my vote locally is little more than pissing in the face of a hurricane. There’s no chance for local Democratic candidates to win elections. I’m not being pessimistic or fatalistic. It’s just the facts of life here in northwest Ohio. I do, however, believe that on the state and federal level, my vote can make a difference. Will Democrats unseat President Pussy-Grabber in November? Maybe. My greater hope is for Democrats to retake the Senate and strengthen their hold on the House of Representatives. If Democrats fail on every front, I am headed to the wilderness with a bottle of whiskey in each hand and a backpack of weed. I feel as if liberal/progressive Democrats have one last opportunity to turn back and repair the social and economic damage done to our Republic by Trump, Republicans, and spineless, money-grubbing corporate Democrats. (And even if they succeed, the damage done to our judicial system by Trump will take decades to undo.)

In 2008, Barack Obama called for hope and change. In 2016, Bernie Sanders called for a revolution. What will be our rallying cry for 2020?

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Songs of Sacrilege: Thoughts and Prayers by Drive-By Truckers

Bruce Gerencser February 10, 2020 Evangelicalism 0 Comments

drive by truckers

This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Thoughts and Prayers by Drive-By Truckers.

Video Link

Lyrics

When the carnage was over you could hear the cellphones ringing
You could smell gunpowder in the air
On the bloody ground the LEDs were blinking
Deliver us from evil, thoughts and prayers

They’re lined up on the playground, their hands all in the air
See it on our newsfeed and we cry out in despair
They’re counting up the casualties, everyone’s choosing sides
There’s always someone to blame, never anywhere to hide

Thoughts and prayers
Thoughts and prayers

This white noise in my head, I think I need a filter
A pressure valve to keep from blowing up
And when the shit comes down I pray I can rise above it
Hold me closer when I’ve had enough

Thoughts and prayers
Thoughts and prayers

Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers

The Flat Earthist realized as he flew through the skies
The curve of the horizon as he fell
He saw the world was round just before he hit the ground
And gravity called out to close the deal

When my children’s eyes look at me and they ask me to explain
It hurts me that I have to look away
The powers that be are in for shame and comeuppance
When Generation Lockdown has their day
They’ll throw the bums all out and drain the swamp for real
Perp walk them down the Capitol steps and show them how it feels
Tramp the dirt down, Jesus, you can pray the rod they’ll spare
Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers
Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers

Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers

Witnesses To Abuse

Bruce Gerencser February 3, 2020 Religion 1 Comment

witness

Guest post by MJ Lisbeth

Thirty-five years ago this month, Paramount Pictures released Witness.

It was tailor-made for the Reagan administration, and for the religious right, in that it depicts the hardworking, pious Amish as virtuous and anyone associated with The City (in this case, Philadelphia) as depraved and corrupt. That said, I will admit that I saw the movie twice and enjoyed it, mainly for some of the acting performances (which were charming or engaging, if not incisive) as well as individual scenes.

One scene that sticks out, in my mind, takes place in the 30th Street station, where Samuel Lapp, an 8-year-old Amish boy and Rachel Lapp, his recently-widowed mother, are transferring from one train to another. Moments before he witnesses a brutal murder, he sees an elderly man wearing a black coat and hat. The boy believes, for a moment, that he’s met a member of his own community; the man’s face quickly turns into a frown of rejection, which the boy mirrors. That man, it turned out, was a Chasidic Jew.

The scene was inserted mainly as a visual comic relief. Were the writing and direction of Witness more sensitive, or simply more conscious, that scene could have highlighted the “so close and yet so far” relationship between the two religious communities and cultures: While the Amish are farmers and most Chasidic Jews live in or near large cities, both reject modern secular society in nearly all of its manifestations, right down to the way people dress.

Oh, and there’s another similarity between them. It came to light only recently, but I’d had an inkling of it for some time.

During my childhood, my family visited an Amish family every summer. Although I enjoyed seeing the countryside and animals, and learning about a different way of life, I was always glad to return home, even with the emotionally unsupportive family I had: I am a city girl at heart. (All right, I was living as a boy in those days.) But I don’t think that I would have liked spending any more time than I did in that bucolic setting for another reason: Even though the people were friendly and generous, something I couldn’t articulate troubled me.

Ironically, it became a bit clearer to me when I was teaching at an Orthodox yeshiva many years later. Of course, my relationship with the pupils was very different from my experience with the Amish children I met. My family’s visits to the Amish farm were “fun” for the kids—and us—in the same way as time spent with cousins or other peers whose company you have, and enjoy, only on holidays and other occasions. While I had to be the literal and proverbial “adult in the room” for Jewish boys I taught, we didn’t have to live with each other: Their expressions of vulnerability were momentary, and we went back to our lives afterward. Still, it was hard not to see that both the Jewish and Amish boys were more vulnerable and felt more like they were failing, in one way or another, than their parents and other adults in their lives might have realized.

I also couldn’t help but notice that in both communities, the women and girls didn’t seem happy. Rather, they seemed dutifully resigned to their fate. Perhaps some even found a way to “make peace” with it, or to find some sort of fulfillment in conforming to the roles their cultures and religions prescribed for them. Even the boys—who, like their counterparts almost everywhere else, enjoyed more freedom than their sisters, mothers, aunts or grandmothers—seemed to be living in a fear that ran deeper than that of simply displeasing, and incurring scorn from, their elders.

A year ago, I wrote about a yeshiva student of mine who was sexually exploited by a rabbi at his synagogue. Around that time, the media were reporting sexual abuse of children in ultra-Orthodox communities. Those revelations came not long after a wave of stories about clergy members and others in positions of authority who took advantage of altar boys and other children in various churches, including the Roman Catholic and Mormon, as well as evangelical sects. Around the same time, the “Me-Too” movement was spreading.

None of those developments surprised me, as I had just recently “come out,” if you will, about my own experiences of sexual abuse by a priest. It was the first time I’d talked about them with anyone besides a therapist or a former partner of mine. Some might say I am “projecting,” but any subsequent revelation of sexual abuse in a religious organization or community has not caught me by surprise. I include one of the most recent, namely, the horrors of sexual abuse recounted by people who grew up in Amish communities.

Although there is much I respect about the Amish way of life, in particular, their rejection of war, it is as rigidly hierarchical — specifically, patriarchal — as just about any other highly-organized orthodox religion. The perceived proximity of the elders, priests, rabbis, ministers — or, in some cases, even the family patriarchs — to God gives them power and authority that is rarely questioned. Challenging the position of such a leader can lead to the loss of a person’s entire way of life, not to mention his or her family and friends. That, along with the suppression of knowledge about sexuality and people’s (especially women’s and girls’) bodies and the insularity of such communities, all but ensures not only that the vulnerable will be victimized, but also that victims will not have the language to express their experiences or the means to escape from the aftermath of their trauma.

So, perhaps, the Amish and ultra-Orthodox communities have even more in common than Witness suggested, though it might not have been what the movie’s makers had in mind.

Songs of Sacrilege: Fellas Get Out the Way by Scott Cook

Bruce Gerencser January 22, 2020 Evangelicalism 1 Comment

scott cook

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Fellas Get Out the Way by Scott Cook.

Video Link

Lyrics

No lyrics publicly available

Songs of Sacrilege: Talkin Anthropocalypse Blues by Scott Cook

Bruce Gerencser January 21, 2020 Religion 1 Comment

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Talkin Anthropocalypse Blues by Scott Cook.

Video Link

Lyrics

Remember Y2K?
Remember what you did that day?
Were you scared the machines would turn on us all?
Or maybe your phone just wouldn’t work?
Maybe aliens would come to earth?
Could’ve been a mushroom cloud, or heaven’s bugle call
Me and some friends took a trip down south
And we were on a beach, hanging out
With folks from all over the world, feeling nothing but fine
We drank until we got demented
Counted down for each time zone represented
And partied like it was 1999
‘Cept it actually was, it wasn’t just a figurative thing
And when it turned 2000, well, we kept on partying
Getting kinda silly by that point
Stumbling around, yelling at clouds
The new millennium was looking pretty messy so far

But you can’t always party daily and nightly
And not everyone takes those kind of things lightly
Some folks got more serious concerns
Take William Miller, back in 1818
With all the scripture he’d been studying
He got to figuring out when Jesus would return
Once he was done calculating
He got to proselytizing & debating
And within several years he rounded up thousands more
They had pamphlets and meetings, the more the merrier
Saying God would cleanse the sanctuary or
Something like that, October, 1844
And after waiting years for their coming king
They started giving away everything
Unconcerned with possessions or employment
But when the day finally rolled around
And Jesus was nowhere to be found
They had what was called “The Great Disappointment”
Some said they’d botched their calculations
Used the wrong calendar or computations
And He was still coming, just a few months or years later
Some other folks just figured they’d been wrong
Figured they’d better try and keep their home
And think of a way to explain it to the neighbours
And somehow find the wherewithal
To stock that pantry after all;
Heck, maybe they should even go and see the dentist!
But some other folks insisted it really did happen
Just not on earth, but up in heaven
And they became the Seventh-Day Adventists
Now, if there’s any Adventists listening
I really don’t want to offend you…
Really, I’ve got friends who are Adventists!
I mean, I met one one time
Besides, we’ve all got crazy ideas of our own
For instance, I thought this would be
A nice little subject to write a song about!

Back in the first century, off the Turkish coast
On a little Greek island called Patmos
A guy wrote down a bunch of visions he thought reliable
And rather than asking “what’s this guy on?”
People named it the Apocalypse of John
And 300 years later they decided it was in the Bible
And I grew up believing it’d all come true
Just when and how nobody knew
But God was coming back to get His biz done
First time by water, next time fire
Righteous and wicked to divide
And we’d get a new world in exchange for this one
And it was gonna happen soon!
‘Cause things are obviously getting worse
There’s no turning it around
There’s no saving this Earth
Nothing worth saving anyway!
You got men marrying men, men marrying dogs, trees…
Next thing you know some guy’s gonna marry his truck!
It’s just wrong!

Now some cheeky folks offer a service
To believers who are getting nervous
To ease their mind about their dogs and cats
‘Cause pets don’t get raptured, you see
So these folks say, for a small fee
They’ll feed and walk ’em in the unlikely event of that
And boy, if it happens like they say
And all the believers are borne away
You can be sure those atheists’ll come around then!
Once they find out they lost the bet
They’ll take real good care of your pets
It might be their last chance left at gettin’ in!
It’s written no man knows the day of the Lord,
But I saw it on some big billboards!
Harold Camping figured it out, and wrote it up high
God must’ve thought, who’s this hack?
Maybe He was even planning to come back
And then didn’t, just to spite the poor old guy!
After May 21st went by, people laughed but he stuck to his guns
Said it’d been a spiritual event, not a physical one…
And the real thing was coming, October 21st, 2011… Poor Harold!
He kinda lost his enthusiasm for predictions after that

2012 was gonna be big, right?
That shit was gonna be tight!
They had special calculations we could rely on
This wicked old world’s gotta make room
It’s the start of a new baktun
According to the calendar of the Mayans
Well, those Mayan dudes may’ve been rough
But they sure did make some amazing stuff
And they really must’ve been rapidly evolving
They didn’t waste time with messy elections
They put the pedal down on natural selection
By cutting off your head if you lost a ballgame
But what’d they think 2012 would mean?
Would the poles reverse? Would the sun turn green?
Would we see the planet Nibiru? Would it destroy Man?
Or was it the dawn of the Aquarian Age
Our ascension to another vibratory stage
Without war, injustice, materialism, or boy bands?
Terence McKenna predicted the singularity
With all the hard-earned sincerity
And certainty that goes with dedicated research
See, he made a computer program, threw the I Ching
Ate psilocybin mushrooms and some other things
And as a result, he was ’bout as sure as anyone on Earth
Funny thing about being sure:
The more you are, the less I believe you
Especially if it’s that crazy-eyed, foaming at the mouth kind of sure
The kind where no matter what happens, it still proves you’re right!
And if you don’t see it
Well, it was just more of a hidden, spiritual thing…
Anybody see a pattern here?

We’re pretty good at getting it wrong
This song’d be even more stupidly long
If I tried to tally up everybody’s guesses
One thing in common with all these tales
They depend on someone besides ourselves
As if we won’t have to clean up our own messes
As if we’re the last people on earth
As if these times are the craziest there ever were
As if we’re not just holding space here for our grandkids
As if it’s all gonna turn to black and white
And everyone’s gonna see the light
And convincing won’t be as hard as it always is
Like we won’t have to change minds one by one
It’ll just happen, it’ll just get done
We won’t have to take time with all the messy stuff
Of building bridges, loving people in
Realizing when we’re wrong even
And learning how to stop when we’ve had enough
Sounds like a pretty tall order, right?
God help us, you say? Or what?
It’s gonna take a miracle to save us from ourselves, right?
What if we’re the only miracle we’ve got?

This world has gotta end
This world has gotta end
It’s on us to make a new one my friends!

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.

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Songs of Sacrilege: The Next Day by David Bowie

Bruce Gerencser January 21, 2020 Religion 0 Comments

david bowie

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is The Next Day by David Bowie.

Video Link

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Look into my eyes he tells her
I’m gonna say goodbye he says, yeah
Do not cry she begs of him goodbye, yeah
All that day she thinks of his love, yeah
They whip him through the streets and alleys there
The gormless and the baying crowd right there
They can’t get enough of that doomsday song
They can’t get enough of it all
Listen

[Verse 2]
Listen to the whores he tells her
He fashions paper sculptures of them
Then drags them to the river’s bank in the cart
Their soggy paper bodies wash ashore in the dark
And the priest stiff in hate now demanding fun begin
Of his women dressed as men for the pleasure of that priest

[Chorus]
Here I am
Not quite dying
My body left to rot in a hollow tree
Its branches throwing shadows
On the gallows for me
And the next day
And the next
And another day

[Verse 3]
Ignoring the pain of their particular diseases
They chase him through the alleys chase him down the steps
They haul him through the mud and they chant for his death
And drag him to the feet of the purple headed priest
First they give you everything that you want
Then they take back everything that you have
They live upon their feet and they die upon their knees
They can work with Satan while they dress like the saints
They know God exists for the Devil told them so
They scream my name aloud down into the well below

[Chorus]
Here I am
Not quite dying
My body left to rot in a hollow tree
Its branches throwing shadows
On the gallows for me
And the next day
And the next
And another day
Here I am
Not quite dying
My body left to rot in a hollow tree
Its branches throwing shadows
On the gallows for me
And the next day
And the next
And another day
Here I am
Not quite dying
My body left to rot in a hollow tree
Its branches throwing shadows
On the gallows for me
And the next day
And the next
And another day

Category: Religion

Bruce, What if Christianity is True?

The Real Bankruptcy

Quote of the Day: The “Angry” Atheist

Bruce, Were You Ever a “Real” Christian?

Local Christian Woman Blasts Evil Democrats for “Persecuting” President Trump

Songs of Sacrilege: Thoughts and Prayers by Drive-By Truckers

Witnesses To Abuse

Songs of Sacrilege: Fellas Get Out the Way by Scott Cook

Songs of Sacrilege: Talkin Anthropocalypse Blues by Scott Cook

Songs of Sacrilege: The Next Day by David Bowie

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