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Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Christian School Coach Andre Johnson Accused of Numerous Sex Crimes

andre johnson

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.

Andre Johnson, a coach at Sumter Christian School in Sumter, North Carolina stands accused of 1 count of sexual exploitation of a minor in the first degree, 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in the second degree, disseminating obscene material to a person under 18, assault and battery in the third degree, and incest. Sumter Christian is a ministry of Sumter Bible Church — a congregation similar to Independent Baptist churches.

The Christian Post reports:

A former coach at a South Carolina Christian school, who was accused of sexually exploiting a minor, now faces over 20 new charges for allegedly committing other sex crimes involving minors.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office announced on Facebook on May 24 that 54-year-old Andre Girard Johnson of Dalzell had been rearrested on additional charges, having previously been accused of disseminating obscene material to one person under the age of 18 in March.

Charges include 11 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in the first degree, 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in the second degree, disseminating obscene material to a person under 18, assault and battery in the third degree, and incest. 

The alleged crimes involve two juveniles and authorities do not believe there are any other victims. 

“Of the many cases our investigators work, the crimes against the most vulnerable in our society, like children, are always the hardest,” Sheriff Anthony Dennis said, as quoted by WIS News 10.

In an earlier report, WIS reported that Sumter Christian School’s administration had initially reported to law enforcement in March that Johnson had been sending inappropriate text messages to a minor. 

The minor reportedly told school administrators about the messages as they made her feel uneasy, investigators confirmed. Investigators stated that Johnson also sent pornographic images and sent a text message to the victim telling her that he wanted to have sex with her.

Deputies said Johnson surrendered himself on March 20 and was then transported to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center. At the time, he was then released on a $5,000 surety bond.

Over multiple weeks, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office continued to conduct a full and in-depth investigation, bringing to light over 20 additional alleged sex offenses carried out by Johnson against minor victims. 

Johnson was rearrested on May 23 and reportedly transported to Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center. He later posted a $28,000 surety bond and was subsequently released on Tuesday, May 24.

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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Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Youth Pastor Caleb Toney Charged with Intent to Commit Sexual Abuse, Pleads Guilty, Given Probation

caleb toney

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.

Caleb Toney, a youth pastor at several unidentified Iowa Evangelical churches, stands accused of two counts of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, as well as two counts of supplying alcohol to a minor involving the same teen and one other.

WHO-13 reported in December 2022:

A former youth pastor is facing charges in Polk and Story counties for allegedly sexually abusing teens and providing them with alcohol.

Twenty-six-year-old Caleb Toney of Elkhart is charged with two counts of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, one count of assault, three counts of supplying alcohol to persons under the legal age, and one count of permitting minors to consume alcohol.

Cmdr. Dan Walter with the Ames Police Department said the first charges stem from incidents in the fall of 2017 at a residence where Toney lived at the time. Toney is accused of giving a 15-year-old alcohol and once the teen was intoxicated Toney allegedly touched him in an “unwanted, insulting, and offensive” manner. Court documents show he provided alcohol for a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old on multiple occasions and allowed them to drink at his Ames residence.

The other incidents are alleged to have happened in Ankeny and Elkhart between January 2019 and May 2020. In court documents, the victim alleges Toney got into bed with him and touched his genitals when he and an underage friend spent the night at his home in Elkhart. Toney is also accused of touching the victim’s genitals while the two were sitting on a couch at an apartment where Toney lived in Ankeny.

Police in Ankeny and Ames did not have information immediately available about which church or churches Toney was a youth pastor at when the alleged abuse occurred.

Toney was arrested on Monday and bonded out of the Polk County Jail on Tuesday night. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on December 16th for the charges in Polk County.

The Des Moines Register reports:

A former youth minister from Elkhart has been sentenced to probation for sexually abusing an underage student.

Caleb Toney, 27, was arrested by Ankeny police in December. According to Polk County court complaints, Toney on multiple occasions had sexual contact with a teen boy, then a high school student, in 2018 and 2019. The teen told police that Toney was his youth pastor at the time.

Toney was charged with two counts of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, as well as two counts of supplying alcohol to a minor involving the same teen and one other.

….

In April, Toney pleaded guilty to two reduced charges of lascivious conduct with a minor and the two alcohol charges, all serious misdemeanors. On May 18, he was sentenced to two years of probation in lieu of a four-year prison term.

Toney also was ordered to register as a sex offender and remain on supervision for 10 years. As part of his probation, he was ordered to stay off Craigslist and other online personal ad or escort services.

He must pay a fine of $1,720 on top of other court costs and surcharges.

Toney also was charged last year with assault in a separate Story County case. According to that complaint, Toney provided alcohol to a 15-year-old boy at a residence in Ames, then after the boy was intoxicated, began touching the boy’s body until the teen stopped him and moved away. That charge was dismissed at prosecutors’ request in January.

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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Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Raymond Chang Accused of Sexually Assaulting a Child

raymond chang

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.

Raymond Chang, the pastor of Resurrection Church and an employee of Sweetser Adult Crisis Residential Facility in Rockport, Maine, stands accused of sexually assaulting a child.

The Courier-Gazette reports:

Raymond K. Chang, who is both a pastor and works at a Sweetser crisis unit, was arrested by the Knox County Sheriff’s Office on a warrant charging him with felony unlawful sexual contact and misdemeanor unlawful sexual touching.

Chang was taken to the Knox County Jail in Rockland. Judge Sarah Gilbert set bail Wednesday, May 31 at $2,500 cash during Chang’s initial appearance in the Knox County Court in Rockland. The judge also ordered Chang to wear a GPS monitor, not have contact with the victim or her mother, and to have no unsupervised contact with people younger than 18 years old.

Assistant District Attorney Mari Wells had asked for bail to be set at $5,000, citing the seriousness of the charges.

Defense attorney for the day Daniel Purdy had asked for bail of no more than $1,200 which is the amount he said Chang could raise.

Chang is a pastor at his church and operates a Sweetser facility, Purdy said.

Sweetser Communications and Public Relations Director Justin Chenette said Chang works at a Sweetser adult crisis residential facility in Rockport but does not run it. Chang is on unpaid administrative leave, the spokesman said.

The affidavit filed in the court by the Sheriff’s Office stated that the victim said Chang had been kicked out of his last church and started a new one in Rockport called “Resurrection Church.”

The affidavit stated that the victim reported being sexually assaulted by Chang multiple times from when she was 12 to 14 years old. The initial criminal complaint filed by the district attorney’s office lists two counts in 2019.

Chang was not asked to enter a plea at Wednesday’s hearing because one charge is a felony and that must first be presented to a grand jury.

The affidavit quotes the victim as saying that she reported the sexual abuse to a family member and in response the family got together with members of the former church (which is not named in the affidavit) and she was told she needed to apologize and that both needed to forgive each other.

The victim reported the matter to police in early April and the Sheriff’s Office began its investigation.

The victim and her mother obtained a temporary protection from abuse order against Chang on April 21 from a state judge in Lewiston, citing sexual and physical abuse, according to the affidavit.

The Sheriff’s Office contacted Chang by telephone on April 27 and he referred Detective Justin Twitchell to his attorney. Chang said he did not have a contact number for the lawyer, and hung up. The man’s attorney Adam Sherman of Lewiston then called the detective back moments later, according to the affidavit.

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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Prayer: Asking and Receiving

asking-and-receiving

Evangelicals believe the words printed in red in the New Testament were uttered by Jesus himself. Thus, in John 14:13, Jesus says to his followers: whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Jesus’ unambiguous statement makes it clear that whatsoever Christians prayerfully ask in his name, he will do. Awesome, right? Mark 11:24 records Jesus saying: Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Jesus’ statement in Mark 11:24 is even more extreme. Whatsoever Christians desire and pray for, if they will really, really, really believe that God will give it to them, Jesus will affirmatively and fully answer their prayers. If only this were true, why I might become a Christian again. I have a lot of things that need fixing in my life. I am more than happy to let Jesus take the wheel! But, alas, the Jews buried the steering wheel with Jesus in an undisclosed location, so I am on my own.

Decades ago, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist John R. Rice wrote a book titled, Prayer: Asking and Receiving. Rice, the long-time editor of the Sword of the Lord newspaper, believed that “getting” what you wanted from God was as simple as praying and asking God to deliver. Granted, Rice, and others who followed in his footsteps, had all sorts of explanations for “why” God failed to come through, but these Fundamentalist men of God sincerely believed that getting what they needed in their ministries and personal lives was but a prayer away. Rice believed that the primary hindrance to answered prayer was “sin.” He advocated praying for forgiveness as soon as you become aware that a behavior or action is a sin. “Keep your sin lists short,” Rice said. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: Pray without ceasing. Rice believed that Christians should always be in a spirit of prayer, ever-ready to shoot a prayer up to God. In Asking and Receiving, Rice wrote:

The normal Christian life is a life of regular, daily answer to prayer. In the model prayer, Jesus taught His disciples to pray daily for bread, and expect to get it, and to ask daily for forgiveness, for deliverance from the evil one, and for other needs, and daily to get the answers they sought.

For many years, IFB churches, parachurch ministries, and education institutions grew numerically and financially. In the minds of many IFB Christians, this proved Rice’s contention that prayer was believers asking and God delivering. Today, the vast majority of these churches, ministries, and schools are shells of what they once were. Many of them have closed their doors. What are we to make of their precipitous decline? Did Rice’s prayer formula no longer work? Or, perhaps, it never did work, and answered prayers came from and through human instrumentality, not God.

In the 1980s, I pastored a rapidly growing IFB congregation. Starting with 16 people, in four years the church grew to 200. I thought, at the time, that God had answered my prayers. I pleaded with God to save the lost, stir the saints, and cause Somerset Baptist Church to be a lighthouse in the community. And for five or six years, it seemed God was coming through every time I asked him to do so. Not that I was ever satisfied. I remember Rice saying, “It is not wrong to have a small church — for a while.” I attended numerous IFB preacher’s conferences and Sword of the Lord conferences in the 1970s and 1980s. The theme was always the same: building large churches for the glory of God. I was never, ever happy with the numbers. I took it personally when people skipped church. How dare they miss out on what Bruce — uh, I mean God — was doing at Somerset Baptist. I would learn, over time, that it wasn’t God that “blessed” my ministry, it was me and a handful of dedicated volunteers. One day, I looked behind the vending machine IFB preachers called God, and I noticed it was unplugged. Prayer wasn’t asking and receiving. At best, it was asking, asking, and asking, and then acting accordingly. I found that it was humans, not God, who answered prayers; that I was asking “self” for this or that, and “self” gave me what I asked for.

Rice went to his grave believing: “According to the Bible, a genuine answer to prayer is getting what you ask for.” If he had any doubts, he never uttered them in public. While John 14:13 and Mark 11:24 are clear – that if Christians ask, they will receive – evidence on the ground is clear: God doesn’t answer prayer. Either God can’t answer prayer because he doesn’t exist, or Christians live such sinful lives that their God has turned a deaf ear to their petitions. My money is on the former.

The next time an Evangelical says to you, THE BIBLE SAYS __________, ask him about John 14:13 and Mark 11:24. Does your own version of THE BIBLE SAY __________? Ask him if Jesus meant what he said in these verses. The answer that comes next will likely prove to be long on obfuscation and theological gymnastics and short on, The B-i-b-l-e, yes that’s the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-i-b-l-e. BIBLE!

How did your pastors and churches handle verses such as John 14:13 and Mark 11:24? Please share your thoughts 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.

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Black Collar Crime: IFB Pastor Josh Price and His Son Accused of Growing Weed at the Church

pastor josh price

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.

Josh Price, pastor of Southside Baptist Church in Lexington, North Carolina, and his son Matthew stand accused of growing marijuana in the church building. According to news reports, the church closed sometime during the Pandemic. Price and his son, however, kept serving the Lord by growing weed.

The Dispatch reports:

A former pastor and his son have been charged with growing marijuana at his former church.

Josh Price, 50, and Matthew Price, 28, were arrested after an investigation that recovered approximately 13 pounds of marijuana and 20 plants as well as other drugs at the former Southside Baptist Church south of Lexington, the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office said. The church has been closed since the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the investigation, it was determined Josh Price, who lives in the fellowship hall behind the church, was growing marijuana, the sheriff’s office said.

On May 28 officers with the patrol division and detectives with the Special Investigations Division conducted a search at the church building at 1014 Floyd Church Road. In addition to the marijuana, deputies found about 32 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, 41 THC vape pens (THC is the psychoactive chemical in marijuana) and about 2 pounds of marijuana wax, a dense, highly potent form of THC. Investigators also recovered grow lights, potting soil, fertilizer and several growing bins, the sheriff’s office said.

The Prices were both charged with felony manufacturing marijuana, felony trafficking in marijuana, felony possession with the intent to manufacture, sell or distribute a Schedule VI (THC wax) controlled substance, three counts of maintaining a dwelling for the distribution or sale of a controlled substance, felony possession with the intent to manufacture, sell or deliver a Schedule I controlled substance (psilocybin mushrooms), felony possession with the intent to sell or deliver marijuana, felony conspire to traffic in marijuana and misdemeanor possession of marijuana paraphernalia.

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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Quote of the Day: America’s Invisible Wars: Why Are We Blind to What is Right in Front of Us?

george w bush

The following is excerpted and adapted from David Barsamian’s recent interview with Norman Solomon at AlternativeRadio.org.

David Barsamian: American Justice Robert Jackson was the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. He made an opening statement to the Tribunal on November 21, 1945, because there was some concern at the time that it would be an example of victor’s justice. He said this: “If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down the rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

Norman Solomon: It goes to the point that, unless we have a single standard of human rights, a single standard of international conduct and war, we end up with an Orwellian exercise at which government leaders are always quite adept but one that’s still intellectually, morally, and spiritually corrupt. Here we are, so long after the Nuremberg trials, and the supreme crime of aggression, the launching of a war, is not only widespread but has been sanitized, even glorified. We’ve had this experience in one decade after another in which the United States has attacked a country in violation of international law, committing (according to the Nuremberg Tribunal) “the supreme international crime,” and yet not only has there been a lack of remorse, but such acts have continued to be glorified.

The very first quote in my book War Made Invisible is from Aldous Huxley who, 10 years before the Nuremberg trials, said, “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” Here we are in 2023 and it’s still a challenge to analyze, illuminate, and push back against that essential purpose of propagandists around the world and especially in our own country where, in an ostensible democracy, we should have the most capacity to change policy.

Right now, we’re in a situation where, unfortunately, across a lot of the political spectrum, including some of the left, folks think that you have to choose between aligning yourself with U.S. foreign policy and its acts of aggression or Russian foreign policy and its acts of aggression. Personally, I think it’s both appropriate and necessary to condemn war on Ukraine, and Washington’s hypocrisy doesn’t in any way let Russia off the hook. By the same token, Russia’s aggression shouldn’t let the United States off the hook for the tremendous carnage we’ve created in this century. I mean, if you add up the numbers, in the last nearly twenty-five years, the country by far the most responsible for slaughtering more people in more lands through wars of aggression is… yes, the United States of America.

….

Barsamian: At the White House Correspondents’ dinner President Biden said, “Journalism is not a crime. The free press is a pillar, maybe the pillar of a free society.” Great words from the White House.

Solomon: President Biden, like his predecessors in the Oval Office, loves to speak about the glories of the free press and say that journalism is a wonderful aspect of our society — until the journalists do something he and the government he runs really don’t like. A prime example is Julian Assange. He’s a journalist, a publisher, an editor, and he’s sitting in prison in Great Britain being hot-wired for transportation to the United States. I sat through the two-week trial in the federal district of northern Virginia of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling and I can tell you it was a kangaroo court. That’s the court Julian Assange has a ticket to if his extradition continues.

And what’s his so-called crime? It’s journalism. WikiLeaks committed journalism. It exposed the war crimes of the United States in Iraq through documents it released, through the now-notorious video that came to be called “Collateral Murder,” showing the wanton killing of a number of people on the ground in Iraq by a U.S. military helicopter. It provided a compendium of evidence that the United States had systemically engaged in war crimes under the rubric of the so-called War on Terror. So, naturally, the stance of the U.S. government remains: this man Assange is dangerous; he must be imprisoned.

The attitude of the corporate media, Congress, and the White House has traditionally been and continues to be that the U.S. stance in the world can be: do as we say, not as we do. So, the USA is good at pointing fingers at Russia or countries that invade some other nation, but when the U.S. does it, it’s another thing entirely. Such dynamics, while pernicious, especially among a nuclear-armed set of nations, are reflexes people in power have had for a long time.

More than a century ago, William Dean Howells wrote a short story called “Editha.” Keep in mind that this was after the United States had been slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines. In it, a character says, “What a thing it is to have a country that can’t be wrong, but if it is, is right, anyway!”

Now, here we are in 2023 and it’s not that different, except when it comes to the scale of communications, of a media that’s so much more pervasive. If you read the op-ed pages and editorial sections of the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets of the liberal media, you’ll find such doublethink well in place. Vladimir Putin, of course, is a war criminal. Well, I happen to think he is a war criminal. I also happen to think that George W. Bush is a war criminal, and we could go on to all too many other examples of high U.S. government officials where that description applies no less than to Vladimir Putin.

Can you find a single major newspaper that’s been willing to editorialize that George W. Bush — having ordered the invasion of Iraq, costing hundreds of thousands of lives based on a set of lies — was a war criminal? It just ain’t gonna happen. In fact, one of the things I was particularly pleased (in a grim sort of way) to explore in my book was the rehabilitation of that war criminal, providing a paradigm for the presidents who followed him and letting them off the hook, too.

I quote, for instance, President Obama speaking to troops in Afghanistan. You could take one sentence after another from his speeches there and find almost identical ones that President Lyndon Johnson used in speaking to American troops in Vietnam in 1966. They both talked about how U.S. soldiers were so compassionate, cared so much about human life, and were trying to help the suffering people of Vietnam or Afghanistan. That pernicious theme seems to accompany almost any U.S. war: that, with the best of intentions, the U.S. is seeking to help those in other countries. It’s a way of making the victims at the other end of U.S. firepower — to use a word from my book title — invisible.

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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What is Life?

life

I will soon celebrate my sixty-sixth birthday. In July, Polly and I will celebrate our forty-fifth wedding anniversary. We now have thirteen grandchildren. Two of our granddaughters will start their senior year of high school in the fall. Both are straight-A students, and both have boyfriends! OMG, where had the time gone? I am now, without question, an old man, a cranky curmudgeon. I have seen a few things and experienced a lot of this thing we humans call life. As I comb through my past, I have come to the conclusion that life is the sum of our choices (and, at times, the choices of others), held together by the mortar of luck and circumstance. As I carefully examine my life, I can see how certain decisions I made in the past materially affect my life today. For example, as a married, full-of-life, physically fit young preacher, I decided to opt out of Social Security. For the next seventeen years, I paid no social security/Medicare taxes on my ministry-related income. I leveraged the clergy housing allowance and other legal tax avoidance schemes in such a way that I often ended up showing no personal income on my tax return and paid zero taxes for the year. This went on for years. Not bad, right? My motivation was simple: as a die-hard right-wing Republican, I believed that the government didn’t deserve my money. In my mind, the less money local, state, and federal agencies had, the better. I thought, at the time, “Why should I pay real estate taxes? My children attend a private Christian school or are homeschooled. Why should I pay for the world’s children to be educated in government schools?” When I bought automobiles, I purchased them through the church, thus avoiding paying sales tax. I expensed everything I could, with the goal in mind that I was economically starving the government.

In the late 1990s, I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized, for the first time, that I was one day going to be where I am now, and that I would need some sort of retirement income. I also started having niggling health problems, and in 1997, after months and months of unexplained fatigue and pain, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. At that moment, Bruce-with-a-big-S-on-his-chest learned that he was not invincible; that life was a kryptonite of sorts that will, in the end, lead to my demise.

I opted back into Social Security and started paying taxes again, but this was too little too late. Fortunately, over the course of my work career — from age fourteen to today — I worked numerous “secular” jobs:

janitor, gas station attendant, short order cook, newspaper motor route, life insurance salesman, sweeper salesman, restaurant general manager, network manager, durable medical equipment supply office manager, dairy department manager, grocery stock clerk, workfare/court offender program manager, litter control manager/officer, building code enforcement officer, grant manager, real estate updater for an auditor’s office, farm worker, auto mechanic, cable box repairman, shipping and receiving, turret lathe operator, and numerous general laborer jobs in factories

These jobs provided enough work quarters for me to qualify for a nominal monthly social security payment of about $800. While this is not a large amount of money, retirement-wise, it makes a meaningful difference for us. Neither of my parents lived long enough to collect social security, so I have outlived them and will win the prize. Woo-hoo! However, I can’t help but think about how much better off I would be as a disabled retired man had I paid social security/Medicare taxes on my ministerial income. The difference would be significant, but due to a singular decision made long before I ever had a thought about getting old, I am forced to live with the consequences of that decision.

I always made more money working secular jobs than I did working for God. The most I ever made income-wise as a pastor was $24,000. Most years, I made $8,000-$20,000 (including housing) pastoring churches. If it hadn’t been for secular work, government assistance, and Medicaid insurance, we would have been destitute. As it was, we were dirt poor for most of the years I spent in the ministry. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that things improved for us. Polly started working for Sauder Woodworking (she just celebrated her twentieth-seventh anniversary there) and our oldest sons started working jobs of their own.

It’s unfortunate, though, that I had decided as a young husband and father to let “God” take care of our wants and needs. As anyone who has ever done this has learned, “God” loves keeping his followers in the poor house. Why, if “God” had backed up a Brink’s truck to our home and unloaded some of the “treasure” he supposedly has, we wouldn’t have “needed” him any longer. So, “God” kept us on our knees, ever begging for divine assistance. I sincerely believed that “God” would meet our needs and even throw in a few wants from time to time, so I accepted that our poverty was God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will for our lives (Romans 12:1,2). Of course, I never asked Polly or our children what they thought of this arrangement I had with God. I was the family patriarch. End of discussion. I wonder how different our lives might have been had I put the financial and material welfare of my family first; had I built a career managing restaurants or working in government alongside my work as a pastor. Would we have been better off? Probably. But, who really knows for sure?

Have you ever thought about certain decisions you have made in your life and wondered how things might have turned out differently? I call this the what-if or would-of, could-of, should-of game. While we like to think that life would have been different if we had only made this or that decision, there are too many variables for us to know for sure how things might have turned out. For example, at age eighteen, I was madly in love with a twenty-year-old college girl named Anita Farr. (Please see 1975: Anita, My First Love.) For much of 1975, we had a torrid relationship — as no-sex-before-marriage Baptist relationships went, anyway. I was sure she was the one. However, our relationship didn’t last, and in late ’75, I packed up my meager belongings, hopped a Greyhound bus, and returned to Ohio. As I look back at this time in my life, I see two people who had similar personalities and dispositions. Both of us were quite outgoing, personable, and temperamental. I told Polly a while back, as we were talking about past choices, “If I had married Anita, one of us would have murdered the other and ended up in prison.” Our relationship was very much one of a lit match and gasoline. A year later, I enrolled in ministerial classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. My game plan, girl-wise, was to play the field. I thought at the time, “what a blessing from God, a dormitory filled with fine Baptist women!” Sure enough, I started dating a girl by the name of Peggie. After a few weeks, our casual relationship petered out and we moved on to other people. Next up for me was a seventeen-year-old dark-haired preacher’s daughter named Polly. She was (and is) a beauty, but I had no thoughts at the time that she was a woman I was ready to settle down with. It was not long, however, before Bruce, the player, was smitten and in love. On Valentine’s Day in 1976, I proposed and Polly said “yes.” So much for playing the field!

Choosing to marry Polly — a choice I would make again in a heartbeat — certainly changed the course of my life. On a hot day in July,1978, at the Newark Baptist Temple, we stood before our family and friends (and God, or so we thought at the time) and pledged our troth to one another. We were two mutually infatuated children, ill-prepared for the pressures and challenges of married life. Six weeks after we married, Polly informed me that she was pregnant. Six months after that I was laid off from my job. This forced us to leave school and move to the home of my birth, Bryan, Ohio. So much for our “plans,” or God’s, for that matter. From there, my ministerial career and our married life took a completely different path.

I have written this trip down memory lane — one that will receive the voluminous treatment it deserves in my book — to illustrate how the many choices we make, along with external influences, materially and permanently affect our lives. I don’t believe in soulmates. I don’t think for a moment that Polly is the only suitable woman on planet earth for me. She is, however, the woman I chose to love and marry, and together we have made a good life for ourselves. We have made a hell of a lot of bad decisions and wish we could have a do-over on more than a few things. But, on balance, we’ve had a good life. The sum of our choices has led to where we are today. Hopefully, we have learned a thing or two over the past forty-five years, but I am confident that we still have a few fuck-ups left in our lives. Live and learn, right? Or, well, live anyway . . .

Do you ponder the decisions you have made in your life and how things have turned out for you? Do you wonder about how different life might have been for you had you made different decisions? Do you have a simple philosophy by which you govern your life? Please share your erudite thoughts 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.

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Letter to the Editor: Come Show Your Support for the Defiance Pride Parade on June 24

letter to the editor

Letter submitted to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News

Dear Editor,

Last year, I participated in Defiance’s pride parade — a first for me. I came of age in the Evangelical church, attended an Evangelical college in the 1970s, married an Evangelical preacher’s daughter, and pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. I was virulently homophobic. Not that I knew any LGBTQ people — I didn’t. I would later learn that several of the people who called me pastor were, in fact, gay. Children, at the time, they were forced to endure attacks on their persons, complete with quoted Bible verses and a pulpit-pounding “thus saith the Lord.”

In the mid-90s, I met a gay man in the course of my work for a restaurant in Zanesville. We offered free drinks to mall employees. All they had to do is bring their refillable cup to the store and we would refill it. I vividly remember the first time this man handed me his cup to fill. I thought, “does he have AIDS? Could I get it?” Over time, I got to know him — a delightful human being. I wish meeting him put an end to my homophobia, but it didn’t. It was, however, a first step towards where I am today — an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ people.

What caused the transformation in my life? Certainly, leaving Evangelicalism helped, but the biggest influence was actually meeting and befriending LGBTQ people. Having a widely read blog helped too. This exposed me to people different from me. Sadly, many of the locals who angrily oppose LGBTQ people on social media and on the editorial page of the Crescent-News, live in religious monocultures, safely protected from icky gay people. One local Baptist preacher preached numerous sermons on the evil “transgenders.” No LGBTQ people attend his church, but much like the Jim Crow preachers of yesteryear, he wants his congregation to know who the real enemies are.

On Saturday, June 24, there will be another pride parade in Defiance. Hundreds of people attended the first one, and I hope even more will attend this one. Opposition to the parade is organizing, promising to picket the event. Some of these followers of Jesus are even encouraging people to “open carry,” subtly threatening violence toward peaceful parade participants.

I hope people will ignore the protesters, choosing instead to show their support for the LGBTQ community. It’s time for all of us to come out of the closet.

Bruce Gerencser
Ney, Ohio

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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The United Methodist Battle Over LGBTQ People Comes to Rural Northwest Ohio

gay marriage

The United Methodist Church is facing a split over the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life of their congregations. Some churches are inclusive, others are not. Those who oppose LGBTQ people — and make no mistake about it, they ARE hatefully opposing real, flesh and blood people; people who are Christians — are leaving the Methodist denomination and either starting new sects, joining Fundamentalist Methodist denominations, or becoming independent churches.

One such church is Asbury United Methodist Church in Williams Center, Ohio. Asbury, a rural congregation of twenty or so people, has left the Methodist denomination, becoming an independent church named Calvary Community Church of Williams Center. Thomas N. Graves is listed as the church’s pastor.

Calvary Community posted the following on Facebook (their account is currently marked private):

Our Name has Changed to: Calvary Community Church of Williams Center

We have disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church, as of April 16, 2023.

We as a church would like to express some of our views to you, our community.

We want to minister to our community and families.

“YOU ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH…YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD…”
MATTHEW 5:13-16

We believe that The Family Can Be Redeemed by Restoring:

  • Marriage, which God created to be between one man and one woman only
  • The family unit of Father, Mother and Children as He has ordained it
  • Parents Authority over raising their own Children without government encroachment
  • Abolishing abortion, addressing sexual promiscuity, and acknowledging the harms of pornography

We see the Church’s Part in the Restoration of our Culture by:

  • Being Biblically Correct and not Politically Correct
  • Exercising our God-given right and using our voice
  • Refusing to be silenced and marginalized
  • Learning to love in Spirit and truth those with unbiblical doctrines and ideologies
  • Maintaining religious freedom as ordained by God and refusing state/governmental intervention on matters of conscience

We believe our government Can be Restored by:

  • Upholding the foundational, Judeo-Christian operating system of America.
  • Understanding that God is first. We, the people, answer to God-government answers to us.
  • Understanding that government originates with everyone, if we govern ourselves according to the Word of God, all will fall into place.

Those are our beliefs, come join us to bring them into the life of this community.

Pastor Tom [Graves]

christians condemn gays

Graves’ word salad is just his way of saying that Calvary Community is a homophobic Christian nationalist congregation, most of whom voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Graves’ manifesto is a call to theocracy — God rule. Graves says “come join us.” However, LGBTQ people, liberals, progressives, and people different from him are not welcome. Graves wants a monoculture where his peculiar version of Christianity rules supreme.

Graves says that if “we govern ourselves according to the Word of God, all will fall in place.” I assume the good pastor supports stoning to death sodomites, adulterers, fornicators, rebellious sons, and anyone who worships any other God except his. Keeping it real! Thus saith the Lord.

Small Methodist churches dot the rural Ohio landscape. I suspect more congregations will come out of the closet in the coming weeks and months. I say, good for them. No more hiding their bigotry, racism, and homophobia. The only question I have is whether other local Methodist churches will take a stand against bigots such as Graves and his merry band of Christians, and say, everyone is welcome here.

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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Black Collar Crime: Disciples of Christ Children’s Minister Christopher Fourcade Accused of Sex Crimes with Children

christopher fourcade

The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.

Christopher Fourcade, a children’s minister at First Christian Church of Norman, Oklahoma, stands accused of four counts of lewd acts to a minor and two counts of possession of child pornography. First Christian is affiliated with The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

ABC-5 reports:

Christopher Fourcade was arrested and charged with four counts of lewd acts to a minor and two counts of possession of child pornography. The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy said he was in a position of authority as a trusted adult, fostering children and working in a church.

“Oftentimes, these predators will enter as a ruse with churches because they feel that is a safe place where they’ll be trusted,” Dorman said.

The First Christian Church of Norman, where Fourcade worked, said he’s no longer an employee, and the investigation doesn’t involve any of their children. They also said no adults work one-on-one with children.

Fourcade also volunteered at multiple local organizations. Some told KOCO 5 volunteers are under the direct supervision of staff, while others said they didn’t have contact with children.

Fourcade was arrested Thursday evening and was in the Cleveland County Jail but has since bonded out.

An affidavit revealed more details in the case describing Fourcade making the victims feel comfortable to be alone with him. The OICA said it may be an example of grooming, but there are ways parents can spot potential predators.

The Oklahoman adds:

Christopher Fourcade, 48, director of children’s ministries at First Christian Church in Norman, has been arrested on four counts of lewd acts with a child and two counts of child pornography possession, according to the Norman Police Department.

The Norman Police Department responded to a Norman residence on Dec. 28, 2022, where the reporting party said a caregiver facilitated lewd acts with a child.

An investigation was immediately initiated, and additional juvenile victims were identified, officials said. Norman police obtained an arrest warrant Thursday.

Fourcade was also a member of Fostering Futures, a Cleveland County nonprofit organization that provides “financial and emotional support for children and their families who receive services from the Cleveland County Child Welfare System.”

The church released the following statement:

The church is aware of the arrest of Chris Fourcade. He is no longer employed by the church. While the investigation and arrest does not focus on any children from the church, our staff is fully committed to the truth, and is fully cooperating with any requests regarding the investigation. It is the church’s practice to never have adults alone with children, and we remain vigilant in that practice.

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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Bruce Gerencser