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.
Last week, I reported on the conviction and sentencing of Jerome Milton, pastor of Open Door Bible Church in Tyler, Texas. Milton was astoundingly sentenced to six months in jail for his crimes. His co-conspirator, Jerome Anthony Milton, has now been arrested and charged with credit card/debit card abuse.
The son of Rev. Jerome Milton who pleaded guilty last week to stealing from an elderly couple, his former church and a local nonprofit has been arrested in connection with the elderly theft case.
Jerome Anthony Milton, 27, of Tyler, was charged Monday on two counts of credit or debit card abuse against the elderly. He was released from the Smith County Jail the same day. His bonds totaled $125,000, jail records show.
The younger Milton was indicted on a credit or debit card abuse against the elderly charge on March 31; however, records currently show that indictment is no longer on file.
Through a plea deal on Aug. 12, Rev. Milton, who leads Open Door Bible Church in Tyler, admitted to using bank transfers and credit cards to steal from two elderly congregation members as well as stealing from the previous church he led and the East Texas Communities Foundation.
Rev. Milton will serve 180 days in the Smith County Jail and 10 years’ probation through his guilty plea. Once released from the county jail, he will have a hearing in February to address restitution payments, prosecutors said.
According to the March 31 indictment, over a seven-month period, the younger Milton fraudulently benefited from using the same elderly couple’s debit cards.
Police documents obtained in October 2021 state Rev. Milton unlawfully took money from congregation members, Wayford and Marilyn Brown, using multiple check withdrawals and ATM transactions while he serving as their power of attorney and finances.
The document states Rev. Milton used the funds he took for car payments and hotel rooms.
In the affidavit regarding Rev. Milton’s arrest, the document stated that Jerome Anthony Milton was seen making ATM withdrawals from the elderly man’s bank account.
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.
Reynaldo Crispen, pastor of New Horizon Christian Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a school teacher, pleaded guilty to lewdness with a child charges and was sentenced to six to fifteen years in prison.
A man who was a Las Vegas schoolteacher and pastor is wanted on suspicion of multiple sex crimes, according to authorities.
A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Reynaldo Crespin, 59, on 10 counts involving sex assault against a child, lewdness with a child and open and gross lewdness, court records indicate.
Las Vegas Metro Police want you to be on the lookout for this man: 59-year-old Reynaldo Crespin.
There’s a warrant for his arrest for nine felony charges, including lewdness with a child and sexual assault against a child.
….
Court documents say police went in there [the church] last Wednesday with a search warrant.
Sunday services have been canceled. And officials posted this letter that reads: “Crespin committed acts of domestic violence, stalking, or aggravated stalking against his wife and minors. Also, Crespin’s daughter allegedly disclosed her father had been inappropriately touching her over the past several years.”
When I went to the church this afternoon, Crespin wasn’t there, but this lady who wouldn’t identify herself was.
“The family would like respect. If you have any respect, we ask that you leave,” said the unidentified woman.
“We didn’t know this was the family’s home. Is this not the church?” asked News 3 Reporter Kay Dimanche.
“It does not matter,” said the unidentified woman before slamming the church door shut.
In addition to being a preacher, police say Crespin was a CCSD teacher.
Found on Crispen’s church’s Facebook page. Evidently, Crispen had a clean Bible.
Crespin was later located and arrested. In May 2022, Crispen pleaded guilty to attempted lewdness with a child. Last Monday, he was sentenced to six to fifteen years in prison. Astoundingly, Crispen’s lawyer asked for probation.
The Midland Daily News reports:
A former Las Vegas elementary school teacher and church pastor has been sentenced to six to 15 years in prison and lifetime supervision as a sex offender after pleading guilty to a child sex crime.
Reynaldo Cruz Crespin, 59, apologized Monday before a Clark County District Court judge who rejected his lawyer’s request for probation.
If there was a case that warranted punishment, I believe this is that case,” Judge Kathleen Delaney said, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
….
Crespin was arrested in February in Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than a week after he was named in a warrant in Las Vegas on multiple charges including sexual assault involving children.
All but one lesser charge were dismissed when Crespin avoided trial and pleaded guilty in May to attempted lewdness with a child under 14.
KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported that Crespin taught second grade from 2016 until this year and was a pastor at New Horizon Christian Church in northeast Las Vegas. The television station said none of the charges related to his students.
The Review-Journal reported that Crespin and his wife founded the church in 2002. His wife sued in February to take custody of their children.
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.
In 2018, Robert Harris, an elder at Repairers Kansas City (also known as Repairers of the Breach Christian Center) in Kansas City, Missouri, was charged with murdering his wife, Tanisha Harris. The church has no Internet presence.
The Kansas City Star reported at the time (link no longer active):
An Overland Park man was charged Wednesday with the killing of his wife, whose body was found in Cass County.
Johnson County prosecutors charged Robert Lee Harris Jr. with premeditated first-degree murder in the death of Tanisha Harris.
Overland Park police said Tuesday that officers were called to the couple’s apartment in the 8000 block of Perry Street around 4 p.m. Monday for a domestic disturbance.
Robert Harris was alone in the apartment, police said.
But later Monday night, he called police back to the apartment and and told them his wife was missing. Officers became suspicious of what he told them, and he then allegedly admitted he had a role in her disappearance, according to police.
The body of Tanisha Harris, 38, was found Tuesday morning in Cass County, and her 30-year-old husband was booked into the Johnson County Detention Center.
Court documents do not say how Tanisha Harris died.
….
Today, Harris was convicted of first-degree murder.
The Kansas City Star reports:
A former elder in a Kansas City, Missouri, church was convicted Friday of killing his wife four years ago. Robert Lee Harris was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of 38-year-old Tanisha Harris at the couple’s home in Overland Park, Kansas. The couple was active in Repairers Kansas City, a nondenominational church. where Tanisha Harris was an associate pastor.
Police went to the couple’s apartment in Overland Park on Jan. 8, 2018, to investigate a report of a domestic disturbance. Officers found Robert Harris alone in the apartment and left. They returned when he reported his wife missing. Her body was found later near Raymore, Missouri.
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.
Over a century ago, upon reviewing the work of the white churches, Frederick Douglass had this to say:
Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity . . . .
White evangelicals have a real and deep reckoning coming. They have embraced exactly what Fredrick Douglass refers to as the bad, corrupt and wicked. This is not anything new. They have always done so. The white Evangelical movement has a long and dark history of racism, bigotry, misogyny, child abuse, and intolerance in general — all of which are unchristian at their core.
I am not saying that all white evangelicals embrace these evils. Large and increasing numbers are rejecting these flaws and are instead finding a new path of greater love and tolerance for their fellow man. Still others are leaving the movement entirely. There is a wide diversity of beliefs under the umbrella of evangelicalism so it is very difficult to say anything that applies to all of them. Instead of trying to parse all the variations in the beliefs of these groups, it is easier to simply call those that still embrace the evils of the past as the “Religious Right.”
It is those who still adhere to the conservative values of 150 years ago who are most being blinded to the harm that they perpetuate. The more conservative they are, the more they cling to the ideas of the past. When you fast forward to today and look at the beliefs and actions of the Religious Right, they are still rooted in bigotry, racism, misogyny, hypocrisy and intolerance. If you look at what is important to them today, you can see the basic values are still the same.
Movement of faith becomes movement of grievances. For the Religious Right, the big three issues are Abortion, LGBTQ rights, and evolution. They have been trying to overturn Roe v. Wade for decades. Their goal is to give local state governments the power to outlaw abortion, thus allowing the government to tell women what they can do with their bodies. To say that women don’t have the right to decide for themselves is clearly misogynistic. They have been trying to overturn LGBTQ rights from the first moment these rights were affirmed by the courts. They want to be able to discriminate against them with no consequence. They want to be able to deny them seats in restaurants, service by businesses, and even health care. This is the same old racism we saw leveled against African Americans for centuries. Now, it’s against gays. The last of the big three is evolution. The Bible has a creationist view of our origins. The Religious Right has been attacking evolution for a century, not simply because the story is different, but because it is incompatible with the bible. And the Religious Right is totally intolerant of any view that is incompatible with theirs. Their intolerance does not begin and end with evolution. It permeates virtually every core belief that they have, which leads to all the other issues we see with the Religious Right. This goes in lock step with their denial of science as a whole. Science is not biblical.
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
Eric Hoffer
All of this would not really be a problem for the rest of us except for the fact that the Right has chosen a path of political power over religious persuasion. Political power can be wielded quickly. Persuasion takes time and patience. Political power can be wielded nationally while persuasion starts locally and only spreads nationally when locally successful. Persuasion has been largely a failure in expanding their views so the cudgel of the force of law has become the weapon of choice. They are less interested in changing minds and more interested in changing laws. They believe that they are doing “God’s work.” They believe this gives them the right to do anything regardless of the ethical and moral problems associated with it. In short, they have come to believe that the end justifies the means.
They raise huge amounts of money and embark on acquiring the political power that comes with the money. They forge relationships with governors, senators, lobbyists, leaders of industry, and anyone who can advance their agenda. They donate huge sums of money to political campaigns. Little by little they make moral compromises. One piece at a time, they sell their souls to the devil. They become duplicitous and dishonest. To that end they have made a devil’s bargain. Their support of a man like Donald Trump is only the latest manifestation of this bargain.
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Eric Hoffer
Pastors of mega-churches amass fortunes on the donations of people who can ill afford to donate. We see them hawking “prayer cloths” and “holy anointing oil” supposedly blessed by God with the promise that God will answer their prayers if they buy this stuff. They preach the “prosperity gospel” telling their people that they will become rich and prosperous if they pray hard enough and donate enough money. The leaders of these movements become richer and richer while their spiritual worth becomes poorer and poorer. They preach Christian values to ensnare the followers and behind closed doors they behave as corruptly as the worst of us. From the sexual scandals of Jimmy Swaggert, Ted Haggard, and Jerry Falwell Jr. to the financial crimes of Jim Bakker and Ephren Taylor, they are as hypocritical as they can get. They have been seduced and corrupted by fame, money, and power absolutely. They continue to fleece their flocks of trusting followers week after week, year after year, becoming obscenely rich on the donations of the faithful. And for good reason, it’s easy: They just tell their followers what they want to hear.
Week after week, year after year, the faithful hand over their money as if they were in a trance. Their trust in these charlatans is seen as a measure of their faith in God. In a sense, it is their reward for their naïve, childlike trust in these charismatic authority figures and their willingness to be deceived. It’s easy to fleece them blind once you are seen as God’s messenger. And the grift goes on and on. What do you get when you mix a conman preacher with sheep asking to be sheared? You get what you deserve.
It has been reported that child abuse is worse in the Evangelical Church community than in the Catholic Church, and like the Catholic Church, the leaders of the Religious Right would rather bury these cases than own up to them. There is a long history of sexual child abuse by the pastors of Evangelical churches and, so far, no real effort to confront it. Instead, the powers that decide the response choose to hide the abuse and blame the victim for reporting the abuse, thus abusing the victim a second time. This is being exposed by the Guidepost Solutions audit and report of 2022 to the SBC Executive Committee. Finally admitting that this is happening and dealing with this will be a major part of the coming reckoning.
Evangelical treatment of women is just as bad. For the sake of “biblical purity”, they treat women like second-class human beings, worth less than a man. From their views on abortion to their beliefs that women should be totally subservient to their husbands, they see women as being less. Women are treated as less. Women are devalued as less.
A friend of our family, an evangelical, once characterized Democrats as “baby killers.” She was completely oblivious to the fact that many Democrats are Pro-Life Catholics. She didn’t comprehend that you could be Jewish and Pro-Life either. Her view is the prevailing view of evangelicals.
Their intolerance is like the blinders on a horse. Their view is deliberately narrowed; their understanding is simplified into black vs. white; us versus them; good versus evil choices. There is no room for gray areas; no understanding of other points of view; no room for tolerance.
All of these sins of the Religious Right are coming to the surface in today’s politics and are becoming ever more visible. This has never been more self-evident than in their unconditional support for Donald Trump, a man that stands 180 degrees opposite from everything that they profess to believe in. They are willing to support and defend separating immigrant children from their parents at the border and putting them in cages; a move that experts say will leave these children with lifelong emotional damage. By their support for the program separating the children from their parents, they enable destroying immigrant families, increasing violence against Muslims and other minorities. They support a man who lies with every breath, steals at every opportunity, and has no regard at all for the rule of law or the political norms that have made our democracy so successful. They support a man whose cruelty and lack of empathy harms everyone in his orbit. And they continue to support him in spite of the overwhelming evidence that he does not give a damn about their faith, their country, or anything else but himself. To think that they support Trump in spite of his values would be wrong. They support him because of his values. They support his racism, misogyny, and bigotry because these are also their values. It’s not faith that decides their beliefs, it’s the politics of racism, bigotry, and intolerance — intolerance that is systemic and pervasive. It’s a longstanding bigotry that extends all the way back to our time of slavery. Evangelicals are perpetuating it to this day and they see in Donald Trump a strong man who will allow them to impose the worst in their nature on all of American society by the force of law. This is the bargain they struck with this evil man. This is what they have sold their souls for.
There is another aspect of the Religious Right that needs acknowledging, perhaps the most dangerous aspect. We see violence and militancy in the movement that is both striking and alarming. White Christian Nationalism has become a prominent part of their ideology. Instead of messengers of God, they see themselves as “soldiers of God.” They see the world in a binary “us versus them” war of good versus evil, God versus the devil. As a result, they are prone to justify the use of violence to fight this war. The bombings and arson of abortion clinics are examples. The harassment of abortion clinic workers is an ongoing and persistent occurrence. The murders of abortion doctors such as George Tiller and Barnett Slepian are additional examples. Paul J. Hill, a Pastor, shot and killed Dr. John Bayard Britton (an abortion provider) in July 1994 in Pensacola, Florida. Before he was executed for the crime Hill stated “I’m willing and I feel very honored that they are most likely going to kill me for what I did,” The Religious Right has adopted an end-justifies-the-means attitude that again, has roots that run long and deep in their history, and runs counter to all that is Biblical. Violence for political gain has become an accepted method of the Religious Right. Many of the rioters that stormed our capitol on January 6th were doing so with a religious motivation to “go to war” for God. After all, Trump is God’s President.
The reckoning is coming. I believe that it has already begun. I see it coming in many forms. The unconditional support for Trump has alienated an entire generation of young evangelicals who not only reject Trumpism but reject the entire racist underpinnings that pervade the evangelical movement. The evangelical movement is losing the young at alarming numbers. The youth have seen the movement for what it is and many have moved beyond the tipping point and are leaving. It’s not just the young. Many of the more progressive corners of the movement have already spoken out against the racism, bigotry, and misogyny in the movement. They have denounced Trumpism for what it is and have put their words to action. Political action groups and progressive publications are all starting to dot the otherwise red landscape. More and more, pastors and other church leaders are speaking out about how their movement has been corrupted by the pursuit of wealth, fame, and political power. They speak of how their movement has been enablers of racism, misogyny, bigotry and Trumpism.
I expect that a number of congregations will be seized by a spirit of “wokeness” commensurate to how other congregations were seized by a spirit of #MAGA. It’s all a false idol. All of it. The path out of this dark wood leads through pain and suffering. There’s no doubt about it. The church is not the Republican Party (nor the Democratic Party) at prayer — and to the extent that it is, it deserves to die.
His words echo the growing awareness of how the movement has been corrupted by politics. This awareness is growing in strength and numbers, leading to a fragmentation of the Evangelical movement. Many are speaking out. Many more are leaving altogether.
In her blog, The LPM Blog, Beth Moore, a prominent and outspoken Evangelical leader, author, and founder of the Living Proof Ministries publicly said the following:
Some key Christian leaders ’had attitudes’ that smacked of misogyny, objectification and astonishing disesteem of women and it spread like wildfire.” She further goes on to say: “I came face to face with one of the most demoralizing realizations of my adult life: Scripture was not the reason for the colossal disregard and disrespect of women among many of these men. It was only the excuse. Sin was the reason, ungodliness.
In response to the support for Donald Trump, Beth Moore also tweeted in December, 2019, that “Evangelicalism as we knew it, as imperfect as it was because we are imperfect, passed away in 2016. History will plant its grave marker there.”
Beth Moore has paid a heavy price by the Evangelical Southern Baptist establishment. Not only has she been widely criticized for her views, but she has also been called a heretic. She has been accused of being “at war with the Bible” and called a “rabid never-Trumper.” She was so marginalized that in March of 2021 she left the Southern Baptist Church and joined the Anglican Church where she remains today.
Russell Moore, a prominent evangelical theologian and (former) member of the Southern Baptist Counsel was forced to resign his position on the SBC for criticizing Donald Trump in 2016. He was also a prominent critic of the way the SBC handled allegations of misogyny and sexual abuse within the church. Thousands of public comments calling him a Democrat and liberal and therefore an enemy of the evangelical world had the impact of shunning him from the church and evangelical community. Today, Russell Moore is a writer for Christianity Today magazine and a full-time theologian.
Bruce Gerencser was an Evangelical Baptist pastor for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. In 2005 he left the ministry. In 2008 he left Christianity completely. His parting words on his blog in 2008 summed up the reasons for leaving simply and revealingly.
Dear God,
I can’t pretend anymore.
I can’t lie to myself anymore.
I can’t lie to others anymore.
And most of all, I can’t lie to You.
I still believe that You are the Living God.
I still believe Your Word to be Truth.
I still believe I am your Child.
But I can’t stand some of Your Children.
Their hatred wounds.
Their self-righteousness cuts.
Their narrow-mindedness tears.
And I can’t have those kinds of people in my life anymore.
What is a man to do when all that he has ever known is found to be a lie?
What is a man to do when hatred and self-righteousness are passed off as virtues?
What is a man to do when he can’t find God where God should be found?
This man quits.
Today Bruce Gerencser writes a “post-Evangelical” blog. He identifies himself as a Humanist and Atheist.
Beth Moore, Russell Moore, and Bruce Gerencser are not unique. A growing number of former Evangelical leaders have left the movement and sometimes the Church as a whole, never to return.
A slow shattering of the Evangelical movement is happening before our eyes. Instead of being centers of faith and religious thought, in the words of Peter Wehner writing in The Atlantic,
Evangelicals have become political, tribal and repositories of grievances. Their religious priorities have been replaced by political priorities. Evangelicalism is dying by its own hands and thru its own actions. Trump was not the root cause but was the accelerant that triggered a slow ember of resentment and fear of “the other” to explode into a raging fire. This fire will consume not only evangelicalism but is likely to consume the Baptist world as a whole. It’s too late to put out the fire. There is little that the rest of us can do except wait until the fire has consumed all that it will and pick up the pieces. Until then, try not to get burned.
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.
It’s been fifteen years since I first started blogging. Initially, I was still a Christian — barely. I was struggling to hang on to some recognizable form of Christianity. For almost two years, I slid down the slippery slope toward unbelief. Emerging church. Liberal/progressive Christianity. Universalism. Agnosticism. And finally, atheism. At every stop, I hoped I had found a resting place. I was weary on my journey. I just wanted to quit thinking and reading, plop myself in my recliner, and watch the Reds lose another ballgame. But, I couldn’t. I continued to read, study, and explore, and that’s why I am an atheist today.
Along the way, I have had my life minutely dissected by Christians — mainly Evangelicals and Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB). Thinking that I am an existential threat to their faith, these devout believers have laid all sorts of charges and allegations at my feet. One such charge is that I am “bitter.”
The Sage VII Dictionary — my go-to software-based dictionary and thesaurus — defines “bitter” (relating to human behavior) this way:
Marked by strong umbrage, resentment, or cynicism
Proceeding from or exhibiting great hostility or animosity
Expressive of severe grief or guilt
Harsh, sarcastic, or corrosive in tone
Evangelicals read my writing, become offended over me saying shit about the dead Jesus or their fantastical beliefs, and angrily say that I am “bitter.” While they sometimes use the dictionary definition of bitter to describe me, typically they mean something very different. When Evangelicals are confronted with the life of a man who was part of the Christian church for twenty-five years; a man who pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years; a man who devoutly and resolutely loved Jesus, the Bible, and the church; a man whose life was governed by the teachings of the Word of God; a man who is now an avowed atheist and enemy of the one true faith, they don’t know what do with me. So they comb through my life looking for evidence of bad experiences or crises that might have fueled my eventual unbelief. Surely, I must have been “hurt” or God didn’t deliver on his promises. Unable to square my life with their beliefs, they search for answers to why I am no longer a Christian.
Instead of allowing me to tell my own story or accepting the explanations for my unbelief at face value, they psychoanalyze me, concluding that I had been hurt — by someone, a church, or the Big Kahuna himself — and that’s why I am so bitter today.
Here’s the problem with this line of thinking: I am not bitter. Ask anyone who knows me if I am bitter and, to the person, they will tell you no. Ask my wife. Ask my six grown children. Ask long-time readers of this blog. You will search in vain for someone that will say “Bruce Gerencser is bitter.” I could be bitter about all sorts of things that have happened in my life. Just look at how many Evangelicals treat me; the lies they say about me; their character assassinations; their attacks on my person, my wife, and my children. They have given me plenty of reasons to be bitter, but I am not. I choose not to let them affect my peace and happiness. My pervasive health problems and unrelenting pain have the power to make me bitter if I let them. I choose not to let them have this power over me. I choose, instead, to embrace life as it is. I understand that the universe yawns at my existence. I know life is hard, and then you die. All I can hope for is that there are enough good things in my life as I crawl towards the crematorium. This is my reality: a road paved with heartache and loss and pain and suffering; a road with rest areas where I am refreshed with love, joy, peace, happiness, and satisfaction.
Could I become bitter someday? Sure, but not today. My physical struggles are, at times, monumental and insurmountable, yet I still have much to live for: family, friends, writing, and working to make the world a better place to live. I live in hope of having our mortgage paid off, finishing my to-do list, watching my grandchildren graduate from high school and college, holding a great-grandchild in my arms, spending time with the love of my life, and yes, the Reds winning the World Series and the Bengals winning the Super Bowl.
Do Evangelical family members, friends, and former church members accuse you of being bitter? How do you respond to them? Please share your bitter feelings in the comment section. 🙂
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 Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Evangelical pastor Mark Clark telling congregants the “truth” about atheism. Clark’s bio states:
Mark Clark is the founding pastor of Village Church, a multi-site church with locations in multiple cities across Canada and online around the world, that seeks to reach skeptics and challenge Christians.
This video is only three minutes long, so give it a listen. Clark lies about atheists/atheism from start to finish, thus damning himself to the eternal flames of the Lake of Fire. The Bible says that no liar shall inherit the kingdom of God. Clark repeatedly lies in this clip, so based on the authority of the Word of God, he’s going to burn forever. God said it, I didn’t. 🙂
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.
Generally, I respect other people. I don’t respect all people without exception. Some people deserve nothing but scorn and disgust. These people are sociopaths or psychopaths who only care about themselves; people who cause great heartache and harm. When I hear of their demise, I will say good riddance. These people aside, I try to respect religious and non-religious people alike. Our society works best when we have mutual respect for others as people. However, there is a big difference between respecting someone as a person and respecting their beliefs. I have devoutly religious family, friends, and neighbors. I respect their persons, but I do not respect their beliefs. How could I? I’ve spent the past fifteen years preaching up and promoting reason, science, skepticism, and common sense. How can I possibly respect beliefs that go against these things? Evangelicalism, in particular, is irrational and anti-science. Evangelicals believe and practice things that cause harm not only to people, but to our Country. Sometimes, their beliefs actually kill people.
I am faced with a conundrum, locally. Using a quirk in the law, Lifewise Academy — an Evangelical ministry — is now holding release-time Bible classes for public school students who attend nearby Central Local Schools. I am downright angry that this is going on; that neither local newspaper has looked into the people and religion behind this program; that everyone around me seems to think Lifewise Academy is wonderful. The program for Central Local’s first-to-fifth-grade students will be held at Sonrise Community Church — an Evangelical congregation less than two miles from my home. The first quarter will feature lessons such as:
What is the Bible?
God Created the World
God Created People
Sin Entered the World
Cain & Abel
Noah and the Ark
The Tower of Babel
God’s Covenant with Abraham
God Tested Abraham
God Blesses Jacob
Joseph Sent to Egypt to Save Lives
Moses Born and Called
The Plagues, Passover, and Red Sea Crossing
I know many of the people involved with Central Local’s program. Good people. Honest people. Hardworking people. People I’ve sat next to at football and basketball games. People whose children I photographed when I was shooting sporting events for Fairview High School. If I ran into one of them at the local grocery, we would likely chat for a few minutes, catching up on what’s new. I respect them as people. However, they have religious beliefs that are, to put it kindly, bat-shit crazy. Look at the list of lessons for the first quarter, starting August 29. These lessons are going to teach myths as facts, stories as history, and creationism as science. Worse, young, impressionable children will be lied to about the nature and history of the Bible. I can only imagine how fanciful the lessons will be once they get to Jesus and the New Testament.
As one of the few outspoken atheists, humanists, and secularists in this area, I cannot and will not be silent about this egregious injection of Fundamentalist Christianity into our public schools. Sure, what they are doing is “legal,” but it is being done on false pretenses. I have talked to the Freedom From Religion Foundation about this. Sadly, there is nothing that can be done outside of publicizing who is behind Lifewise Academy, what their agenda is, and what they are really teaching children. The challenge, of course, is separating the skunk from his smell, the sinner from his sin, and the believer from his beliefs. As soon as I make my objectives public — and I most certainly will do so — local Evangelicals will take my objections personally.
Evangelicals are a touchy lot. They live in a country where their beliefs have been given preferential treatment. Dare to object to their beliefs and they take your objection as a personal attack. Recently, someone posted on a local Facebook group information about Lifewise Academy’s program at Bryan City Schools. My objection brought the scathing wrath of “loving” Evangelicals. Several people suggested that I butt out and mind my own business. Sorry, but that’s not how that works. When you drag your beliefs into the public square, you should expect pushback from people who disagree. The goal, then, is to try to separate sincere Evangelicals from their beliefs; to make it clear that it is their beliefs I object to.
For those who insist and demand that I respect their beliefs? I can’t do that. You believe things that cause harm; that retard intellectual growth; that stunt academic progress; that substitute myths for facts. In what other setting would this be okay? Yet, because it has to do with religion — particularly Evangelical Christianity — non-Christians (or moderate/liberal Christians) are expected to shut their mouths and mind their own business. I have never been one to keep his mouth shut or mind his own business. I see and know the broader picture and agenda. Lifewise Academy is just the first step in taking public schools back for the Protestant Christian God. Next comes restoring teacher-led prayer, Bible reading, and forced recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, with its “in [the Christian] God we trust” pledge of fealty. And then Christian teachers will be free to talk about their faith and the Bible in their classrooms. Creationism will make a triumphant return to science classrooms and “Biblical” morality will be taught in health classes and written into school codes of conduct. The goal is to return the United States to the good old days of the 1950s. Underneath all of this is theocracy — God rule. And what do we know about theocracies? Freedoms are lost and people die. We must not let this happen.
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.
When did humans first settle North America? According to the most common evolutionary view, this supposedly happened 16,000 years ago. But a new find of a mammoth tusk and bashed-in skull at an ancient butchering site in New Mexico is challenging this view and pushing the date back to 37,000 years. Of course, in a biblical worldview [alternate reality] we know that both of these dates are not correct—so when did Native Americans first arrive?
Let’s consider how biblical history can provide some boundaries for when this might have happened. God created everything in six days, finishing with the creation of the first couple. All humans are descended from this pair. The genealogies in Genesis tell us two thousand years passed between Adam and Abraham and we know there were about two thousand years from Abraham to Christ, and, of course, two thousand more years gets us to the present. That’s about 6,000 years for all of mankind’s history (so even the conservative date of 16,000 years is way off!).
Genesis chapter 6 records the wickedness of man and God’s judgment with a global flood. This reduced the entire human population to just eight people aboard the Ark. These eight were told to spread out and fill the earth, but their descendants wanted to stay together and build a tower. In judgment for their rebellion, God confused their language, splitting them up around the world. This means that no one could have reached modern-day North America until after the tower of Babel event. In other words, no one was in the Americas prior to about 4,200 years ago. At that time, the peoples were dispersed and began travelling and eventually settling all around the globe
I started the Somerset Baptist Church in Somerset, Ohio in July 1983. Sixteen people attended our first service. We later bought an abandoned, 150-year-old Methodist church building five miles east of Somerset for $5,000. Attendance quickly exploded, and by 1987, the church was running four bus routes and had a high attendance of 206. Across five years, roughly 600 people made public professions of faith. Countless Christian people came to the altar, knelt, wept, slung snot, and got right with God. Somerset Baptist had all the marks of a church on the move. We talked about adding space to accommodate the burgeoning crowd. Unfortunately, the cost was prohibitive, so we made do with what we had. This proved to be the right decision. Internal personal and theological squabbles led to people leaving the church and taking their money with them. Our total income dropped by 50 percent. We sold off all our buses and started a tuition-free member-only Christian school. In February 1994, we closed the church, sold the building for $25,000, and I left to become the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church — a growing congregation southeast of San Antonio, Texas.
During the eleven years I was privileged to pastor Somerset Baptist Church, numerous evangelists preached for us. Men such as Doug Day and Don Hardman preached multiple meetings. Other men were, for a variety of reasons, one and done. Dennis Corle, a well-known evangelist in IFB circles, preached at least two meetings for us, one in 1984 and another in 1987. Corle may have preached another meeting, but my memory is sketchy, so I will focus on the two meetings I remember best. Corle also preached a meeting for my father-in-law at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Buckeye Lake, Ohio, a church I started with Dad in 1981.
Dennis Corle was saved on January 15, 1975, at the age of 20, and began preaching just a few months after his conversion. He worked on staff at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Ski Gap, Pennsylvania, for over 2 years. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Beth Haven Baptist College in Louisville, Kentucky, under the ministry of Dr. Tom Wallace in 1980. He completed the four-year course in 20 months and graduated valedictorian of his class.
He spent one-year training under the ministry of veteran evangelist, Dr. Joe Boyd traveling and working in his revival meetings. He received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Tri-State Baptist College in Memphis, Tennessee, with Dr. Ron Westmoreland, and a Th.M. and Th.D. degree from Great Commission Theological Seminary. He also received a Doctor of Humanities from Truth Baptist Theological Seminary; and a Doctor of Literature from Faith Baptist College; as well as a Th.M. and Th.D. from Landmark Baptist College. He has started eight different churches through the years and has helped over 100 other church planters get started.
Dennis Corle entered full time evangelism in 1981. In the past 38 years: he has traveled over 4 million miles, held over 2,085 revival meetings and over a thousand one-day meetings as well as Soul-winning and Revival Fires Conferences.
In his ministry he has had over 71,336 saved and 19,422 baptized. He has seen thousands of young people surrender for full time ministry many of whom are presently serving the Lord full time as well as thousands of members added to independent Baptist Churches during his meetings.
He is the founder and president of Revival Fires Baptist College which is a correspondence college that offers a full 4-year program. He started and teaches a summer institute designed to train young evangelists in the field. Dr. Corle also teaches in several fundamental Baptist colleges each year.
Dennis Corle is the founder of Revival Fires Publishing. His ministry has published 127 books to date.
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Dr. Corle is the Editor/Publisher of the monthly fundamental publication, Revival Fires! For 31 years in its present form and three years prior in a smaller format he’s hosted the Revival Fires! National Conference. He has also hosted the Shooters’ Expo, Evangelists’ School, and Church Planting Conference for years.
Brother Corle travels with his family to hold around 100 meetings each year all over the United States and a few foreign fields.
As you can see, Corle is a bean counter and braggart. It’s one thing to humbly share your accomplishments, and another to say:
In the past 38 years: he has traveled over 4 million miles, held over 2,085 revival meetings and over a thousand one-day meetings as well as Soul-winning and Revival Fires Conferences.
In his ministry he has had over 71,336 saved and 19,422 baptized. He has seen thousands of young people surrender for full time ministry many of whom are presently serving the Lord full time as well as thousands of members added to independent Baptist Churches during his meetings.
Corle has always been a promoter of one-two-three-repeat-after-me evangelism. (Please see One, Two, Three, Repeat After Me: Salvation Bob Gray Style.) Corle told me that he could win any sinner to Christ in five minutes. Just follow the plan, get them to pray the sinner’s prayer, and move on. Corle led numerous people to Christ while holding meetings at our church. Few of them ever visited the church or were baptized, yet they were all notches on the grips of Corle’s gospel six-shooter; one of the 71,336 people saved under his ministry.
Corle thought very little of spending significant time studying in preparation for preaching on Sundays. He told me pastors should only spend four or five hours a week preparing their sermons. Better for them to spend the bulk of their time knocking on doors and winning souls for Christ. I, of course, rejected Corle’s advice. By the late eighties, I was spending 20 hours a week studying for my sermons.
Corle’s preaching was typical IFB stuff. Lots of fear and guilt. Corle could be a bully, especially during invitations. His goal was always the same: to beg and plead for people to come forward, and if that didn’t work, cajole and berate them. One night, Corle preached on the importance of church membership. His objective was to get people to come forward and join the church. During the invitation, Corle asked everyone who was not a member to raise their hands. One such couple was Kerry and Linda Locke (who later joined the church). Corle proceeded to call out Kerry, demanding that he give a good reason for not joining Somerset Baptist. Corle tried to badger Kerry and his wife into coming forward, but they declined. I was so embarrassed by Corle’s behavior. I later apologized to the Lockes.
The first meeting Corle preached for us took place in 1984. At the time, attendance was small. We were meeting in a rented facility, the upstairs part of the Landmark building. Not many souls were saved during this first meeting, but that would change in 1987. By then, we were in our own building, and attendance was averaging 150. Corle preached Sunday morning and Sunday night, and Monday through Friday nights. We had good a turnout for each service. Corle also held a service for children one hour before. I did not attend these services, so I had no idea what was going on. That would be a big mistake on my part.
The meeting came and went with nary a thought. Weeks later, I received the latest issue of the IFB rag the Sword of the Lord. The Sword had a section where IFB evangelists could report their stats. Imagine my surprise to read that 45 souls were saved under the preaching of Dennis Corle at Somerset Baptist Church. I had a Baptist version of WTF moment. When were these people saved? There weren’t 45 people saved during the revival services — not even close. Was Corle lying about his soulwinning prowess? Maybe. After all, he ran in Sword of the Lord/Jack Hyles circles. Exaggeration (lying) was common. Not so much these days since the IFB church movement is largely a smoldering dumpster fire.
Come to find out, Corle was using high-pressure evangelism techniques to “save” largely church children. He would scare the Hell out of these captive youngsters, and then ask them if they wanted to get “saved.” Of course, they wanted to get saved. They were trembling in fear from being threatened with God’s judgment and eternal torture in Hell. Today, I view such techniques as child abuse.
Corle did not get another opportunity to preach at our church. The only positive thing I can say about Corle is that his wife Kathy had a wonderful singing voice.
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.
Two priests rose to positions of power in large American dioceses. After attaining their positions, one went on to become the Archpriest of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the major Papal basilicas in Rome. The other would be laicized and therefore a pariah in the Church community, not to mention among his former clerical colleagues.
Oh, and being laicized was the latter priest’s punishment for, in part, doing what the other priest should have done: namely, calling out priests’ and other church officials’ sexual abuse of children.
Two decades ago, the Boston Globe(behind paywall) published a series of articles—which became the basis of the 2015 film “Spotlight”–documenting allegations, which were later proved, of sexual abuse by priests and lay members of religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church. Although there were reports and warnings about such abuse as early as 1985, it took the Globe report to call attention to the problem, in part because the Boston Archdiocese has long been one of the largest and most influential in the United States, while the 1985 report focused on incidents in Louisiana. Also, by the time the Globe series came out, the language, culture and attendant attitudes about sexual victimization were changing: Although the “Me Too” movement was another decade and a half in the future, public awareness, and victims’ willingness to speak of, sexual violence was growing, however slowly. Also, the Church was losing—again, however slowly—its grip on public discourse.
The Globe reports revealed not only the identities of some predatory priests, it also showed how Archdiocese and Church officials—including Archbishop (and Cardinal) Bernard Francis Law— helped to cover up the abuse by, among other things, moving offending priests from parish to parish and intimidating victims into silence.
Not long after the Globe exposé was published, Law—arguably the most powerful American priest after Cardinal/Archbishop O’Connor of New York—was forced to resign his post. But, being the resourceful executive he was, he landed on his feet—in Rome, where Pope John Paul II appointed him the Archpriest of Santa Maria Maggiore. That made him a citizen of Vatican City, and therefore immune to prosecution by American authorities.
In contrast to Law, a priest in Oakland, California did what secular law (ironic, isn’t it?) and basic human decency dictated: He called attention to the sexual abuse his administrative superiors claimed not to know about or denied. In 2005, Tim Steir refused an assignment in the Oakland Diocese over its handling (or, perhaps, lack thereof) of sexual abuse claims. For more than a decade, he spent every Sunday outside the Diocese cathedral calling for church accountability and justice for its victims.
Although he hoped for the best, he wasn’t naïve: he wasn’t surprised when, earlier this year, the Vatican came for his collar. Still, he said, “it felt like a blow.” He was sad and angry because, “If I’d been raping kids, I wouldn’t have been thrown out of the club.”
Perhaps no more damning indictment—or truer observation–of any organization has ever been made. I know: the priest who abused me as a child died long before I, or any of his other victims, could speak of our experiences, and he enjoyed all of the post-mortem benefits of a man who “dedicated” his life to God—or, more precisely, the institution of the Church. When, a few years ago, he was listed—like two other priests from that same parish—as a sexual abuser, some members of that church—who include some of my classmates from that church’s school—branded his victims as “liars” and “opportunists.” (Mind you, I have not benefited, except in terms of my emotional well-being, from speaking of my abuse.)
For his honesty and forthrightness, Father Steir was rewarded by—having “Father” removed from his name. In the ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy, he became a persona non grata earlier this year. As his “parting gift,” if you will, to the church—but, more specifically, to his former colleagues and any Church members who are paying attention—he wrote an open letter to them. In addition to denouncing the ways in which the worldwide Church and its individual Archdioceses, Dioceses, and parishes have denied or covered up abuse, he made a clarion call for more tolerant attitudes toward LGBTQ and other non-conforming people, and called for the Church to restore a right priests had until the 12th Century: marriage. While I don’t think allowing priests to wed would eliminate pedophilia (plenty of married men molest children) or change the priesthood’s status as a haven for closeted gay men, it would at least give priests a more realistic idea of the challenges faced by the married couples they counsel.
Call me cynical, but even under the current Pope, I don’t envision the changes Steir recommends coming to pass. I also fully expect that after the current Pope leaves his office, voluntarily or otherwise, the College of Cardinals—the Church’s real power, much as the Supreme Court in the United States—will appoint someone more reactionary, not only than the current Pontiff, but also his predecessor. People such as Tim Steir will be ex-priests—and prelates like Bernard Law will be even more privileged than they were under Popes John Paul II and Benedict.
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.
