Evangelicals are known for pleading with non-Christians to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Evangelicals have a very narrow view of the world and who will make it to Heaven after they die. Evangelicals are clear on the matter: Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Liberal Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, humanists, pagans, and, well, anyone who is not an Evangelical, will end up in Hell after death. Unless these people, by faith, repent and believe the Evangelical gospel, they are doomed, headed for eternal torture, pain, and suffering in the Lake of Fire. This is why Evangelical zealots plead with non-Christians to ask Jesus to save them. Evangelicals genuinely don’t want non-Christians to be tortured by God for eternity. Well, most Evangelicals, anyway. I have received countless emails and blog comments from Evangelicals who find it quite satisfying knowing that I will one day meet Jesus face to face and be punished for my sin. Several of them have even prayed for my soon demise. The sooner in Hell the better for Bruce Gerencser, right?
So many Evangelicals beg and plead with family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers, hoping that they will be convicted by the Holy Spirit and ask Jesus to save them. Yet, despite this pathos, we unbelievers can’t or won’t embrace Evangelical Christianity. Just because Evangelicals really, really, really want us to be saved doesn’t mean that we can lay reason aside and get saved. What kind of salvation would it be if we could be argued, badgered, or emotionally manipulated into believing?
You would think that Evangelicals would support the full disclosure of what becoming a Christian requires. Shouldn’t unbelievers have all the evidence and facts before deciding whether to believe? As with many con artists, however, Evangelicals frequently withhold truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Instead, evangelization targets are given just enough information — Four Spiritual Laws, The Romans Road, Chick Tracts — to get them to pray the sinner’s prayer. (Please see The Top Five Reasons People Say the Sinner’s Prayer) All the other stuff is withheld until converts can be thoroughly indoctrinated. Why not disclose everything upfront? Simple. Evangelical pastors and churches know that doing so would result in far fewer converts. Telling people upfront that they will be required to give ten percent of their gross income to the church, along with other offerings, would quickly run off most prospective Christians. Better to tell them AFTER they are saved that the church and pastor — I mean GOD — require ten percent of their income each and every Sunday, no questions asked.
Those of us who spent years and years in the Evangelical church realize that this withholding of information doesn’t work. I was part of the Christian church for fifty years, an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five of those years. I know all there is to know about Christian theology and church history. I know what goes on behind closed doors, and I know where the proverbial bodies are buried. My unrepentant unbelief is not due to a lack of knowledge. I know all I need to know, and it is for that reason I reject the Christian gospel. I know there are people who really, really, really want me to believe, but I can’t. Doing so would run contrary to what I know about Christianity in general and Evangelicalism in particular. I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting. And so it is for many of the thousands of people who read this blog. (Please read The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.)
Winning me over to Jesus requires more evidence than what Christians currently possess. I know my believing would make lots of Christians happy, but I can’t violate my conscience. I know what I know, and until new evidence is presented, I will remain an unwashed, uncircumcised Philistine. (Please see the WHY page for other posts about why I am no longer a Christian.)
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I have had numerous internal discussions with myself about whether to write this post, and how to frame the subject if I did. This is a story about personal space and bodily autonomy — for a man. I am cognizant of what women — my wife, daughters, teen granddaughters, sister, and friends — go through every day in a sexualized world dominated and controlled by men who see women as playthings put on earth for their use and gratification. The #metoo movement brought to everyone’s attention how pervasive sexual harassment and assault really are. I have spent countless hours thinking about my own complicity in treating women as less than; of not recognizing their absolute right to personal space and bodily autonomy. As a result, I have changed my ways: my actions and speech. For example, I had taken it for granted that female acquaintances of mine were okay with me hugging them when we came in contact with each other. I had always hugged them. “That’s what friends do,” I told myself. However, I never bothered to consider if they wanted to be hugged. I just assumed . . . . I came to understand that I had no right to hug a woman without her permission. So, I ask first before hugging them. It is literally the least I can do.
When I go out in public, I always dress well. No slumming for me. You will never see me in public wearing sweatpants or ratty clothing. I pay attention to what I wear, making sure that my hat, suspenders, socks, and shoes match my shirts and pants. Welcome to OCPD. 🙂 Some may say my attention to these things is obsessive, however looking right, looking smart, and looking dapper matters to me. Quite frankly, I don’t give a shit about what others think about my appearance.
I also know that I have a nice beard, one I take great pride in. I know I look like Santa Claus. During the holiday season, it is not uncommon for adults to call me Santa and for children to stare with that wide-eyed look when I pass by. I have embraced my Santaness, taking time to talk to children about Christmas. Quite frankly, I enjoy doing so.
Unfortunately, I have had adult women take things too far, invading my personal space without my permission. Several years ago, a woman plopped herself on my lap at a high school basketball game. At another game, an attractive woman in her late 20s snuggled up to me, putting her hand firmly on my leg, so she could tell me what she wanted for Christmas. I have had women, without asking permission, touch and run their fingers through my beard. Others have complimented me on my look while telling Polly how lucky she should feel for having a good-looking man like me. Creepy stuff. Uncomfortable, to say the least. And believe me, I am the one who got the better end of the deal when I met and married Polly.
Polly’s mom died last week. Her funeral was on Saturday. Before the service started, I was talking to Polly’s aunt from Michigan and her son and his wife. It’s been years since I have seen them. We had a delightful conversation. One of our family’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers deigned to come near me. His only words to me as we shook hands were: “Hey, Bruce. God bless your heart.” And with that, he walked away. I said to myself, “fuck you.”
As I looked up, my eyes connected with his wife, a cousin of Polly’s whom I have known for forty-seven years. As a toddler, this woman was in our wedding. We have gotten along well over the years. She is quite outgoing, much as her mother was. What happened next, though, was quite disturbing and offensive.
As the woman saw me, she said loudly, “Bruce!” As she came closer to me, she asked, knowing my battle with chronic illness and pain (her mom died of bone cancer and couldn’t bear to be touched), “are you doing hugs these days?” I replied “yes, ” and we embraced. (Yes, I was in a lot of pain, but I typically — my counselor says wrongfully — defer to others.) As we broke our embrace, this woman proceeded to put her hands on each side of my face, slowly running her fingers through my beard — twice. She then pulled me back close and said, “you sure smell nice!” (I use cologne from Scentbird — a monthly subscription service. High quality colognes at an affordable price.)
Here we were in the middle of an IFB church. Polly and her husband were mere feet away. I felt uncomfortable, to say the least. We traded several more pleasantries, and then I walked away to my seat. I have only seen this woman twice in the past seventeen years. She assumed a familiarity with me that she did not have. As I sat down next to Polly, I said to her “what the fuck was that?” We later talked about the fact that I had but a taste of what many women go through every day of their lives. Did the woman in question mean anything by her actions? No. She was, however, raised in a church environment where taking liberties with the personal space and the bodies of others was common. Greet one another with a brotherly kiss, the Bible says. Affectionate hugs are common. No one bothers to ask for permission before hugging.
I try to hug my children and grandchildren when I see them. I love them dearly and I want them to know it. That said, some of them are huggers, and others are not. I respect their wishes. Last year, my oldest son’s girlfriend came over for a family holiday for the first time. As they were leaving for the night, I hugged my son. I turned to her and said, “is it okay if I give you a hug?” She said “yes,” and we embraced.
We don’t know the lived lives of others: family members who have been groped by uncles; women who have been assaulted by preachers, deacons, and Sunday school teachers in the name of Christian love; roving hands and lengthy embraces from men (and sometimes women) who are indifferent to what others want and find comfortable. Instead of assuming, ask. It really is that simple.
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.
Have you ever wondered why Blacks have dark skin? Back in the days of my youth, my pastors believed it an important question to answer. Now, no one ever asked, “have you ever wondered where Whites get their light skin?” What was vitally important was sussing out a definitive answer for why some people had Black skin. The easy answers, of course, were melanin and proximity to the equator, but when you believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the right answer to this question must come from the Bible. After all, the Bible is God’s supernatural answer book. Whatever the Bible says about history, biology, and genetics is true. Now, the Bible never explicitly explains why Blacks have dark skin, but since Adam and Eve were White, well, where did Blacks come from? No amount of white-on-white breeding will produce Black children, so there must be a “Biblical” answer to why so many people have dark skin, right?
As a young Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), I was taught that Genesis 4 clearly revealed to any racist who wanted to know why Blacks had dark skin. Genesis 4:15 says:
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
Genesis 4 details the story of Cain murdering his brother Abel. One of God’s punishments for Cain was setting a “mark” upon him. More than a few Baptist preachers, especially Southern Baptist segregationists in the South, believed that this mark was God turning Cain’s oh-so-European White skin Black. These Jesus-loving racists went to great lengths to trace the lineage of Cain down through history, showing — in their minds anyway — that Cain’s descendants had Black skin. Of important note was the fact that Noah’s son Ham married a Black descendant of Cain, thus continuing the curse down through human history. I knew of Baptist preachers who spent countless hours tracing the genealogy of Cain through the pages of the Bible. These preachers believed that Blacks were intellectually inferior to Whites, and were best suited for manual labor. Slavery in the United States was justified by Christian pastors who believed the Bible taught that Blacks were a cursed race that needed redemption. Slavery, then, was an act of benevolence — White slave owners giving their Black charges a far better life than they would have had in Africa or the Caribbean islands. This wretched thinking continues to drive how the United States interacts with countries with populations that are primarily non-White — you know, Trump’s “shit-hole countries.” These poor, inferior, ill-bred, ignorant people need our benevolence and help, even if it is given to them through military force or a coup.
By the time I left Midwestern Baptist College in the mid-1970s, I had cleansed my mind of the racist training of my youth. Sadly, Midwestern was rife with students and professors who believed that Blacks were inferior/cursed. I don’t believe the founder of the college, Tom Malone, held these views. After all, the college had a handful of Black students, far more than Bob Jones University had at the time. Malone, by the way, was a graduate of Bob Jones College and came of age in Alabama in the 1920s. If he was racist, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but I never saw anything from him that suggested he was. The same couldn’t be said for the man who was in charge of the bus ministry. Under his watch, he canceled all the bus routes to and from Detroit. These routes normally ran in the afternoon, bringing riders to what was called “B Sunday School.” Since most of the riders from Detroit were Black, students considered the afternoon “B Sunday School” to be “Black Sunday School.”
All freshman students were required to work on a bus route. After I returned to college for my sophomore year, I quit the bus ministry, choosing instead to preach on Sundays at a drug rehabilitation center in Detroit. The bus director cornered me one day as I was leaving school and chastised me for quitting my bus route. He told me I had a bad attitude — no shit, Sherlock! The bus director got more than he bargained for. I replied, “And you are a racist! I know why you canceled “B Sunday School!” We parted company, never to speak to one another again.
In the late 1980s, I attended a Street Preacher’s Conference in Washington, DC. While there, I met a man who was a rabid follower of IFB preacher Peter Ruckman. As we were fanning out from the Washington Mall to preach, the man told me that he didn’t bother witnessing to Blacks. “They don’t have souls, you know, so there’s no reason for us to witness to them.” I couldn’t believe what this “godly” man was saying. He was condemning to Hell a vast portion of the human race, all because they had the wrong skin color. I told him I didn’t believe such nonsense, and then I quickly walked away.
Racism is alive and well in the IFB church movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Evangelicalism as a whole. Thanks to our former White-Supremacist-in-Chief, Donald Trump, racists driven deep into the closets of Evangelicalism have now found the light of day and are quite willing to vocalize their racism and bigotry. That a Christian member of Congress can ponder out loud his wonderment over White supremacy being a “bad” thing, and Christian Fox News hosts can say that there’s no racism in the United States, tells me that we are far from living in a post-race world. And if God is for racism and bigotry, who are we to argue with the white Jesus, right?
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.
Back in the days of my youth, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches I attended banned their members from going to indoor and outdoor movie theaters. Their logic went something like this:
By attending movies, you were supporting evil, immoral Hollywood.
By attending movies, you might cause other Christians to think poorly of you. What if they saw you leaving a multiplex theater that offered G-rated and R-rated movies? They could wrongly assume that you were watching an R-rated movie and not a God-approved G-rated movie. This would lead to you having a bad testimony in the eyes of other believers.
By attending movies, you could cause spiritually weaker Christians to stumble. If these spiritually immature believers saw you attending a movie, they would assume that it was all right for them to watch a movie too. And their spiritual immaturity could result in them watching non-G-rated movies.
This same logic was applied to watching television and eating in restaurants that served the Devil’s brew, alcohol. (Please see Catch-All Bible Verses: I Will Set No Wicked Thing Before My Eyes) Several years ago, I wrote a post titled, The Preacher and His TV. Here’s an excerpt from this post that best explains how IFB churches view things such as movies and television:
My wife and I married in 1978. One of our first purchases was a used tube console color TV that we purchased from Marv Hartman TV in Bryan, Ohio. We paid $125. We continued to watch TV for a few years, until one day I decided that watching TV was a sin. This was in the mid-1980s. After swearing off watching TV, I decided that no one, if he were a good Christian anyway, should be watching television. One Sunday, as pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in Mt Perry, Ohio, I preached a 90-minute sermon on the evils of watching television and going to the movies. I called on all true Christians to immediately get rid of their TVs and follow their preacher into the pure air of a Hollywood-free world.
To prove my point, I gathered the congregation out in front of the church for a physical demonstration of my commitment to following the TV-hating Jesus. I put our TV in the church yard and I hit it several times with a sledge-hammer, breaking the TV into pile of electronic rubble. Like the record burnings of the 1970s, my act was meant to show that I was willing to do whatever it took to be an on-fire, sold-out follower of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Just before I hit the TV with the sledge-hammer, a church member by the name of Gary said to me, Hey preacher, if you don’t want that TV I’ll take it. How dare he ruin my sin-hating demonstration! I thought at the time. I gave Gary a scowling look and proceeded to knock the devil right out of the TV. I am happy to report that not one church member followed in my TV-hating footsteps. What church members did do is make sure that their televisions were OFF when the man of God made an appearance at their home.
….
In the early 1990s, I would, from time to time, rent a television from a local rent-to-own business. Two times come to mind: the World Series and the 1991 Gulf War. Outside of that, my oldest three children grew up in a television-free home. They were teenagers: 18, 16, and 13, before they watched TV (except for watching Saturday cartoons when they were little). Well, this isn’t entirely true. When they visited their grandparents, they were permitted to watch TV (even though I wasn’t happy about them doing so). Like Amish children, they were mesmerized by Disney movies and cartoons.
After our family attended their first movie, I decided I would buy a television, setting in motion seven years of what any competent psychologist would call bizarre behavior. While what I am about to share will sound hilarious to those who never spent any time in Christian Fundamentalism, at the time, there was nothing humorous about my actions.
From 1998 through 2005, I purchased and got rid of at least six television sets. I gave one TV to the local crisis pregnancy center. I also gave one set to my son. The rest I sold at a loss. Why all the televisions? you might ask. Simple. After watching TV for a time, like a moth to a flame, I was drawn towards watching shows that I promised God I would never watch. Dear Lord, I promise I will only watch G or PG rated programming, and if there is any nudity, cursing, or gore I will immediately turn off the TV. No matter how much I wanted to be holy and righteous, I found that I loved watching programs that contained things that I considered sin.
My “sinning’ would go on for a few weeks until the guilt would become so great that I would say to God, you are right God. This is sin. I will get rid of the TV and I promise to never, never watch it again. Out the TV would go, but months later I would get the hankering to watch TV again and I would, unbeknownst to Polly, go buy a television.
It is clear now that my beliefs made me mentally and emotionally unstable. I so wanted to be right with God and live a life untainted by the world, yet I loved to watch TV. One time, after I came to the decision to get rid of yet another TV, Polly arrived home from work and found me sitting on the steps of the porch, crying and despondent. I hated myself. I hated that I was so easily led astray by Satan. I hated that I was such a bad testimony. Look at ALL that Jesus did for me! Couldn’t I, at the very least, go without watching TV for the sake of the kingdom of God?
I have written before about my perfectionist tendencies. I wanted to be the perfect Christian. God’s Word said to abstain from the very appearance of evil. Psalm 101:3 was a driving force in my life:I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
Television was a wicked thing, I told myself, yet I continued to battle with my desire to watch sports and other programs on TV. Needless to say, the advent of internet, brought into our home a new way for me to be tempted to sin against the thrice holy God I pledged to serve, even unto death. I’m sure that my children will remember me putting a sign above our computer that quoted Psalm 101:3. This was meant as a reminder that we should NEVER view inappropriate, sinful things on the internet.
My three oldest children, now in their 30s, continue to rib me about my TV-crazed days. One of them will periodically ask if I am ready to get rid of our flat-screen TV. Their good-natured ribbing harkens back to the day when their Dad acted like a psycho, buying and selling televisions. At the time, I am sure they thought I was crazy, and I wouldn’t blame them if they did.
In the late 1990s, I came to the conclusion that it was not a sin to watch a movie as long as it was G or PG-rated. One Saturday evening, Polly and I loaded our children into the car and drove to a nearby drive-in theater. Polly was fearful, thinking that God would judge or kill us for going to the theater. I told her that I was confident that God wouldn’t judge us for watching Air Bud and George of the Jungle. Not that I knew this, of course. I had concluded that some of our Fundamentalist phobias were legalistic nonsense, and the prohibition against movie attendance was one such phobia. Over time, we, however, proved that IFB preachers were “right” about movies; right in the sense that once you start watching movies, you are on a downhill slide that leads to R-rated, NC-17-rated, and even X-rated movies. Over the years, our viewing habits did change, especially once we moved away from Evangelicalism. We didn’t, however, turn into vile, evil people who thirsted for the things of the flesh. Today, we watch what we want to watch, regardless of the rating. We generally prefer PG-13 or R-rated movies or M-rated TV programs.
Several years ago, a monumental event took place with Polly’s parents; one that we NEVER, EVER thought would happen. Polly grew up in a home where movie attendance was verboten. Well, almost verboten. Her family had a dirty little secret. When they went on vacation to Florida, they would go to the movies. Their logic, if you call it that, was that no one from their church would see them. This same logic was played out at the college we attended. Female students were not permitted to wear pants. Students were also not permitted to travel more than ten miles from the school. One Saturday evening, while out on a double date, Polly and I stopped at a mall that was outside of the ten-mile radius. Imagine our surprise when we saw the college president’s wife and her daughter strolling through the mall wearing pants! They never expected to run into students, so they felt safe wearing sinful, wicked, immoral pants. So it was with Polly’s family and movies while they were on vacation: out of sight, out of mind.
While at home, Polly’s family NEVER attended the movies. Doing so was a sin. But Bruce, weren’t Polly’s parents (and preacher uncle and aunt) being hypocritical; living one way at home and a different way while on vacation? Sure they were, but such inconsistencies were common among IFB preachers and congregants. As the case for almost all Evangelicals, they made it up as they went along. Behaviors that were sins in the 1970s became approved actions in the 1990s. In the late 1970s, the church Polly’s parents attended believed having facial hair was a big, fat s-i-n. Today? It is not uncommon to see male church members sporting mustaches and beards — but no long hair. Their current pastor has a beard! I have concluded that IFB churches, standard-wise, are about 20-30 years behind the “world.” Just wait long enough, and things that once were sins will no longer be so.
Back to the monumental event that took place during the holidays. My oldest son and his children visited Polly’s parents over Christmas. While there, he and his cousins and their children got together and went to a movie. While the cousins claim varying degrees of Evangelical Christianity, none of them has a problem with movie attendance. The shocking part of this story is that Polly’s mom and dad went with them! This was the first time in over fifty years that they attended a movie on their home turf. All told, twenty-two of them went to see a racy, violent movie — Mary Poppins Returns.
Only one family member held to the IFB standard: Polly’s widowed aunt. Her husband had been a hardcore IFB preacher for over fifty years. She couldn’t bring herself to violate the standard her husband had preached over all those years. Of course, once the movie comes out on DVD or Netflix, well then it will be okay to watch it. I remember having a “discussion” with her preacher husband back in late 1980s about the inconsistency of his stand on movies. He preached against attending movie theaters, mainly because doing so supported Hollywood and could lead to a bad testimony. However, he had no problem renting movies at the local video store; a store which, by the way, had a special room where they stocked explicit X-rated movies. Hypocritical? Yep, but that’s the norm in Evangelical churches, including IFB congregations. If a preacher or congregants want to do something that violates the law of the Medes and Persians, well they will find a way to get around the law. My problem was that I was a perfectionist who demanded strict obedience to the law. If going to a movie theater was a sin, so was renting movies from a video store. In the early 1990s, I tried to live — quite comically — according to the standard of not doing business with any concern that sold alcohol. I found that it was IMPOSSIBLE to do so. Every grocery store and most gas stations sold alcohol, as did upscale restaurants. Thus, I had to — dare I say — compromise my beliefs. Purity of belief was impossible.
Today, things are far different for Polly and me. God and the Bible no longer have any authority over us. We are free to do what we want. Having such freedom makes for living peaceable lives. We no longer worry about God raining fire from Heaven down on our heads or afflicting us with leprosy. We are free to live our lives as we wish. This doesn’t mean we are hedonists, doing as we want without compulsion or fear of consequences. We still live our lives according to personal standards and cultural norms, but we no longer let Christian beliefs determine how we live.
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.
Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches, colleges, and parachurch groups are stand-alone entities. While these churches, colleges, and groups may jointly affiliate with one another based on theology, educational institutions, or mission agencies (please see Let’s Go Camping: Understanding Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Camps), they are fiercely independent, coveting freedom of association above all else.
Pastors, then, are independent contractors, free to start and/or pastor any congregation they want. The independent local church decides which independent contractor it wants to be its pastor. All power, authority, and control rests with the congregation, not a denomination or some other controlling group.
No two IFB churches are alike. While there are core theological beliefs one must hold to be an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, there is a lot of disagreement among churches and pastors over eschatology (end-time events), ecclesiology (church government), soteriology (doctrine of salvation), music, worship styles, education, and social practices. IFB churches are known for their fussing and fighting, often over trivial things. IFB pastors tend to “major on the minors.” Polly’s mom died last week. At the graveside service, Mark Falls, Mom’s pastor, decided to take a swipe at people who think it is okay to be cremated after death. According to Falls, burial is the Christian way. Implied in his comment was the notion that cremation is some sort of pagan practice. Why focus on such a trivial point at a vulnerable, emotional time? Sadly, this is what IFB preachers do.
Most IFB churches are pastored by one man. A small minority of churches have a plurality of elders, but even then, there tends to be one elder who rules over them all. It is not uncommon for IFB pastors to stay at their churches for long periods of time. I was taught at Midwestern Baptist College to pray to God, asking him to direct me to a community that needed a “good” church — “good” meaning an IFB church. And once God had directed me where to go, I was to, without hesitation, move to that community, put my roots down, and stay for a lifetime. I know countless IFB pastors who have been pastoring the same church for twenty, thirty, and even fifty years.
IFB pastors tend to have autocratic tendencies. Some pastors, over time, become dictators. Pastors believe they were/are supernaturally called by God to preach. Their boss, then, is God, not the church. Some IFB church planters write into their church’s governing documents restrictions that make it almost impossible to get rid of them. One church I know of requires a 75% majority to remove the pastor. Another church’s constitution stated the current pastor was pastor-for-life, and the only way to remove him was for him to voluntarily agree to leave.
Over time, cultic IFB authoritarians tend to consolidate and increase their power. In the case of men such as the late Jack Hyles, they are revered as demigods. Even after the salacious truth came out about Hyles and his complicity in his son David’s criminal behavior, he is still revered by countless IFB Christians. A statute of Hyles and his wife still stands large and proud outside of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana — pastored by Hyles for forty-two years. No one modeled and promoted IFB authoritarianism better than Hyles. At one time, First Baptist had 600 deacons. However, there was never a question about who was running the show. (Please see The Legacy of IFB Pastor Jack Hyles.)
I have no doubt that Jack Hyles intended for his son David to take over his throne when he retired. Unfortunately, David’s serial adultery and alleged criminal sexual misconduct put an end to that succession plan. Hyles, then, turned to the next man in line for the throne, his son Jack Schapp. Schaap was later convicted of having sex with a teen church girl he was counseling and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Many IFB churches are family businesses, especially in churches where the pastor has a long tenure. It is not uncommon to find churches where multiple members of the pastor’s family work for the church in paying positions. Even pastors’ wives are hired to be their husbands’ secretaries. (Disclosure: Polly was my secretary for many years. Unpaid, except for those times when we locked the door and used my desk for intense “study.”) 🙂
Imagine a young man who grows up in an authoritarian IFB pastor’s home. He is either homeschooled or educated at a private Christian school operated by the church his father pastors. His father might even be the principal of the school. At an early age, the pastor’s son gets “saved” and later stands before the church to tell them that “God” is calling him to preach. Preacher Dad is, of course, peacock proud over his son joining the family business — as if he really had a choice. It was long expected that my oldest son would become a preacher. He was enrolled in fall classes at Pensacola Christian College when he started to have uncharacteristically spiritual struggles. Come to find out, HE didn’t want to be a preacher. No one bothered to ask him what he wanted. I set my son free from that oppressive burden. He, instead, went to work for the same manufacturing concern his mother works for. Twenty-six years later, he has an excellent-paying job and has scores of people who work under him. Sadly, Polly’s father, an IFB preacher, went to his grave unhappy that none of his grandsons followed in his footsteps. In the IFB world, there’s nothing more important than young men being called into full-time service for the Lord. (Young women? Christian school teacher or marrying a preacher is the zenith of your career path.)
After graduation from high school, the aforementioned young man heads off to an approved IFB college, often the very same college his father attended. After graduating from college, the newly minted preacher boy returns home to work for his father, either as his assistant, youth director, or some other paid position. Sometimes, the new preacher works for a pastor friend of his father first before heading home. Doing this supposedly lessens accusations of nepotism.
Eventually, the pastor’s son ends up at the right hand of his father — the CEO in waiting. At the appointed time, the heir will be installed to the throne, ruling for another generation. It shouldn’t take a genius to see that this is a bad idea. The second (sometimes third) generation pastor has no real-world experience outside of his father’s home and church. The college the young man attended was not tasked with expanding his horizons. The goal is the reinforcement of beliefs and practices, continued conditioning and indoctrination. What the senior pastor wants is a clone, a young man who can hold the line and continue in the IFB faith once delivered to the saints.
While I am sure there are IFB churches with healthy governmental structures, I just don’t know of any. What I have described in this post is common, leading to all sorts of dysfunction and dangerous authoritarianism.
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.
During the 1970s, I attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. It was there that I met my wife, Polly. Started in the 1950s by Dr. Tom Malone, Midwestern was a school known for turning out preachers. Most women attending Midwestern were there to snag themselves a man. My wife was no exception. She believed she was called to be a pastor’s wife. I was studying to be a pastor, so I suppose you could say our divine callings matched and our marriage was made in Heaven — or something like that, anyway. (We celebrated forty-four years of marriage last July.) All we knew for sure was that God called us to build churches and evangelize the lost. Everything we were taught at Midwestern had these two things as their goal. We left Midwestern in 1979 and embarked on a twenty-five-year journey that took us to churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Virtually everything we did was in fulfillment of God’s call upon our lives, yet, today, we are no longer Christians and it has been more than fourteen years since we darkened the doors of a church. What happened to us?
I cannot and will not speak for Polly, but I can say, for myself, that the Christian narrative no longer makes sense to me. I wrote about this in a post titled, The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense. Most readers know my story, so I won’t retell it here. New readers are encouraged to read the posts found on the WHY? page for more information about my life as a pastor and my subsequent deconversion. My story has been deconstructed by countless Evangelical zealots determined to invalidate my past. Try as they might, the fact remains that I once was a committed, devoted, sold-out follower of Jesus Christ; a man who hungered and thirsted after righteousness for his name’s sake; a man who believed every word of the Bible was true; a man who preached the Christian gospel to countless people. Them there are the facts, regardless of what apologists might say. I know what I know because I was there when it happened. Who better to know and tell my story than me? That said, I do ponder the question, Why am I Different From the My College Classmates? Some of them have moved beyond the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) training they received at Midwestern, yet they still believe. Sadly, for most of my college classmates, their beliefs have changed very little, if at all. Many of them still attend or pastor IFB churches. Oh, they might agree with me about the crazy rules at Midwestern, (please see Thou Shalt Not Touch: The Six-Inch Rule) but their core theological beliefs are decidedly Fundamentalist. (Please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?) Why do they still hang on to these beliefs and I don’t?
The easy answer would be to call all of them stupid hillbillies, but that would be a cop-out. Many of my former classmates have wonderful families and ministerial careers. According to the theological and social standards of IFB Christianity, they are, in every way, successful. I have no doubt that many or even most of them are true-blue believers, completely and totally committed to IFB doctrine, thinking, and way of life. Yes, some of them now consider themselves garden-variety Evangelicals, but most of my classmates still believe the fundamentals taught to them by their pastors and their professors at Midwestern.
If I had to pick one reason for why my former classmates still believe, it is because they were taught to never, ever doubt the Bible and its teachings. All of them believe in some form of Biblical inerrancy, so the foundation of their lives is THUS SAITH THE LORD. Insulated from contrary or challenging thoughts, they see no reason to question their beliefs. Souls are lost, Hell is hot, and Jesus is coming soon. They have no time for doubting or questioning their beliefs. When Jesus comes again, they want to be found faithfully serving him, not reading Bart Ehrman’s latest book. For me, however, I reached a place in the late 1980s where I seriously questioned the doctrines I had been taught at Midwestern. I ultimately abandoned them and embraced Evangelical Calvinism. Calvinism allowed me to study theology and read books outside of the IFB rut. While the Calvinists I associated with were still quite Fundamentalist theologically and socially, they valued education and intellectual pursuit. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), the more I studied and read, the more questions and doubts I had. This is why people who knew me well told me that BOOKS were my problem, and what I needed to do is stop reading books and only read the Bible. Of course, saying this to a book lover is akin to telling a cocaine addict to stop using drugs. I was addicted to intellectual pursuit, and I doggedly followed the path until it led me out of Evangelicalism, out of the Emergent church, out of progressive Christianity, and right on down the slippery slope to agnosticism/atheism and humanism. I ended up where I am today because I couldn’t stop my questions and doubts. I ended up where I am today because Christianity had no satisfactory answers for my questions. Oh, they had “answers” but I found them to be hollow, circular, and, at times, farcical; answers that might placate those within the Evangelical bubble, but unsatisfactory to anyone on the outside looking in.
There are days when I wish I could be like my former college classmates. I see much in their lives I admire. However, I am unwilling to forsake the meat and potatoes of intellectual and scientific inquiry for the pottage of Evangelical Christianity. I have read and studied too much to go back to the garlic and leeks of Egypt. I would rather be known as a Midwestern Baptist College-trained atheist than a coward who couldn’t face doubts and questions head-on. “One” may truly be the loneliest number, but I would rather stand alone for truth than embrace theological dogma. If Midwestern and Dr. Tom Malone taught me anything, it was the importance of standing for truth and principle and being willing to hold to your beliefs and convictions no matter what. So, in that regard, Midwestern played a crucial part in my deconversion from Christianity.
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.
My wife’s mother died last Tuesday at the age of eighty-seven. Mom spent most of her life in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Dad, who died in November 2020, left a good-paying job with the railroad in 1972 to enroll in classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan — the same IFB college Polly and I attended from 1976-79. Dad was almost 40 when he graduated from Midwestern. After graduation, Dad and Mom moved south to Newark, Ohio to become the assistant pastor of the Newark Baptist Temple in Heath, Ohio. The Baptist Temple was pastored by Jim Dennis (The Family Patriarch is Dead: My Life With James Dennis), Mom and Dad’s brother-in-law. Jim, who died a few years ago, was the pastor of an IFB church in Bay City, Michigan in the early 1960s when Dad and Mom first met him. Jim would later marry Mom’s younger sister, Linda, and move to Heath, Ohio to assume the pastorate of the Baptist Temple — an IFB church plant started by the Akron Baptist Temple (once a megachurch, ABT is now defunct). Jim pastored the Baptist Temple for fifty years.
Jim Dennis and his wife Linda spent most of their lives in the IFB church movement, as did Dad and Mom. Jim and Linda had three children, all of whom are in the ministry. Their oldest daughter is the wife of IFB evangelist and Pensacola Christian College luminary David Young. Their youngest daughter is the wife of James “Jamie” Overton, an IFB Bible translation missionary. Jim and Linda’s son is a Christian Union pastor in Newark. While conservative theologically, Andy has left in the dust some of the social prohibitions of his father, the Baptist Temple, and the IFB church movement. He is generally considered the gray sheep of the Dennis family. (We had a delightful time speaking with one another at Mom’s funeral.) Jim and Linda’s grandchildren are reaching the age where they too are going off to IFB colleges and considering becoming pastors, missionaries, and teachers.
Dad and Mom’s parents and Jim and Linda’s parents were Fundamentalist Christians too. Are you starting to see the picture? Four generations of families deeply immersed in IFB theology and social practice. Four generations of cultic thinking and psychological and, at times, physical harm. You may be asking, “why the history lesson, Bruce?” To truly understand people, we must look at not only their present lives, but their past. For example, take Mark Falls, the current pastor of the Newark Baptist Temple. Falls orchestrated Mom’s funeral service, preaching a sermon that singled out Bruce, the Atheist, and led to me publicly calling him out. (Please see The End.) Why would Falls preach at the Gerencser family? We were the only unsaved people in the auditorium. Why, in such an emotionally vulnerable time, would he, instead of memorializing Mom, preach at us about sin, death, judgment, and Hell? What did he hope to accomplish?
Mark Falls, saved at age six and called to preach at age twelve, was raised in an IFB home, attended Pensacola Christian College and Seminary — a virulent IFB institution — and has spent the past twenty-two years pastoring IFB churches. All Falls has ever known is IFB theology and practice. Much like the four generations of Polly’s family, Falls lives in a bubble that insulates him and his family from the “world.” I can’t emphasize enough how growing up in and living in the IFB bubble affects your thinking and how you interact with those outside of the bubble.
Inside the bubble everything is black and white. Everything makes perfect sense. That’s why Fall’s abhorrent behavior during Mom’s funeral is viewed by people in the bubble to be normal and expected. Hell is hot, death is certain, and the Gerencsers aren’t saved. In Falls’ mind and that of his fellow church members, it would be criminal to NOT evangelize us. Unexpected was a crusty curmudgeon and Evangelical-turned-atheist who called out Falls on his bullshit. Of course, my vocal objection will be framed as “conviction.” The Holy Spirit was convicting me of my sin (atheism). Instead of falling on my knees in front of Mom’s closed casket and repenting of my sins, I rebelled against God, showing that I truly am an apostate and reprobate
Polly and I spent fifty years in the IFB/Evangelical bubble. Five decades of intense indoctrination and conditioning. Five decades of inerrancy, infallibility, and certainty. Five decades of black-and-white, in-and-out, us-vs.-them thinking. Five decades of an anti-culture, isolated worldview. The only difference between the Gerencsers and the other IFB families mentioned in this post is that we escaped. In November 2008, Polly and I walked away from Christianity. While Polly is a co-conspirator in this crime, her family blames me for our loss of faith. Polly is wrongly viewed as a hapless victim of my nefarious crimes. Polly didn’t know any better. Bruce led her astray. If she would get away from his evil influence, she would return to the faith. So the thinking goes, none of which is true. You see, the IFB church movement is patriarchal and complementarian. Women are less than, weak, and inferior to men. That’s why when Community Baptist Church excommunicated me in 1994 for leaving the church without permission, (please see the I am a Publican and a Heathen series) they didn’t excommunicate Polly or our children. They were under Satan’s influence — Satan being me. Thus, I have borne the brunt of the wrath of Polly’s IFB family and former IFB friends over our loss of faith and outspoken atheism. And that’s okay, but I do wish that family members would actually ask Polly herself why she is no longer a Christian. I am sure her thoughts would be a revelation to them. A mindless, hapless, helpless lemming she is not.
To understand those still part of the IFB church movement, you must understand their history. The how and why is just as important as the what. Sure, IFB beliefs and practices are certifiably insane, but the how and why people believe these things should lead to compassion from people who have escaped. I once was Mark Falls. Polly and I were card-carrying IFB Christians for twenty-five of our forty-five years of marriage. To this day, we bear deep, lasting scars from our IFB past. I have been in therapy for ten years, trying to understand and overcome the harm the IFB church movement caused not only to me, but my wife, children, and the people who called me pastor. Thank Loki, we broke free, but the scars remain. I suspect the best Polly and I can do is make an uneasy peace with our Fundamentalist past.
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.
During the 1980s, Polly and I took in foster children from Licking and Perry counties in Ohio. We saw fostering children as an opportunity to not only help children psychologically and materially, but to also lead them to saving faith in Jesus. Most of the children placed with us were teenagers, though we did care for a two-year-old boy and a pair of sisters. We also took in a Black girl, making her the only non-white student in the local school district. Some of the children were court referrals, teenagers who had been in trouble with the law. I suppose, if I am honest, I naïvely thought I could turn them around just by changing their home environment. We also had a teen church girl live with us for a year. She had been living with her grandparents, and they were unable to control her. I don’t remember what the exact issues were.
One girl was from Buckeye Lake. She was a delightful child who had the bad luck of growing up in a dysfunctional home. She lived with us several times over the years. On occasion, she would spend the weekend with her parents and siblings. Their home was quite unkempt, to say the least. Without fail, she would return from these visits infested with head lice. We would treat her with RID, only to find reinfestations after she came back from seeing mom and dad. This, of course, led to our children also getting head lice.
One time, another child went home for a visit, only to pick up scabies while she was there. By the time we figured out she had scabies, so did Polly and I and our two sons. At the time, I was the assistant pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Buckeye, Lake, Ohio. The church was holding a revival service with John Babcock — a pastor and friend of Polly’s parents. John stayed with Polly’s parents that week. One day, he mentioned to them that he had this funny rash on his belly. It was quite itchy and all he wanted to do was scratch. Of course, when Polly’s parents let us know that John had some sort of “mystery” rash, we knew what it was right away: scabies.
In the mid-1980s, we took in two teen boys who had been referred to us by the Perry County Juvenile Court. One boy lived us for quite some time, whereas the other boy was with us for only a short while. He would later attempt to rob someone at knifepoint. He spent time in prison for his crime. While living with us, he was quite a handful, constantly pushing the rules. The other boy was quite friendly and likable. He loved our boys and we got along quite well with him. Years later, he and his wife would live for us for a short time.
One day, Polly and I awoke to an epic nightmare. In the night, the boys had gotten up, stolen our money, checkbook, and car, and run off. The one boy picked up his girlfriend, and off the three went to infinity and beyond. Their joyride was brought to an abrupt end by a New Jersey police officer who had stopped them for running a red light. The officer discovered they were driving a stolen automobile and promptly arrested them. Local law enforcement went to New Jersey to retrieve them, charging the boys with felony grand theft auto. The girl was not charged with a crime.
The boys were released to the custody of their parents to await prosecution. What complicated matters was the car they stole did not belong to us. Our car was at the Chrysler dealership getting the engine replaced. The car they took was a loaner car. New Jersey law enforcement informed the dealership it was up to them to retrieve the car. They did, and then tried to bill me for their costs. I knew they had insurance for such things, so I refused to pay — end of story.
One day, the Common Pleas Court judge’s office called and asked me to come to the judge’s chambers so he could talk to me. After arriving at his chambers, I could tell that he had already had a few too many. He asked me, Reverend, what do you think I should do with these boys? I pondered his question for a moment, and then replied, I think they need to be punished, but I don’t want them sent to prison. The judge decided to sentence them to one year at the youth detention facility in Columbus. Unbeknownst to the boys, he planned to set them free after thirty days — a sentence I totally agreed with. I knew these two White boys were in for a rude awakening when they found themselves locked up in a facility where being White made them a minority. As I mentioned above, the one boy went on to commit other crimes, but the boy who had lived with us the longest was scared straight and did not offend again.
Polly and I like to think that we made a difference in the lives of the foster children who spent time in our home. We did what we could to give them a stable place to live, along with a little — okay a lot — of Jesus, too. We hope our small acts of love and kindness made a mark on their lives. Several years ago, someone whom knew us let us know that one of our foster children had told them we had made a positive difference in her life. Hearing this made our day. I do wonder from time to time what has become of them. I think of our first foster child, a two-year-old boy. After a year in our home, he was returned to his drug-addicted mom. The boy’s father had gotten out of prison and they were attempting to make a new start in life. I wonder if the new start lasted. What kind of man did this little blond-haired boy become?
Have you ever taken in foster children? Please share your experiences 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.
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, in front of first apartment in Pontiac, Michigan, Fall 1978 with Polly’s Grandfather and Parents
We arrived at the Newark Baptist Temple early, deciding that we would not let the church and its pastor “win.”
Mom died on Tuesday, at the age of eighty-seven. We knew what to expect, having attended (and preached) numerous Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) funerals. Very little of the service would be about Mom. The real guest of honor was Jesus.
We sat in the third row from the front, on the right side, in the same church that Polly and I were married forty-five years ago. We talked to Polly’s aunt from Michigan, several cousins, and Mom’s best friend. The pastor never spoke to Polly, and neither did Mom’s church family. Quite frankly, we were glad they left us alone.
At the ten o’clock hour, the man of God, Mark Falls, mounted the pulpit and read the obituary. He butchered our last name — Gerencser. All he had to do is ask and I would have told him how to pronounce my Hungarian name. I would have also told him that Mom’s daughter’s name is Polly, not Pauline — a name she despises. I would also have told him about Mom’s deceased brothers: Art, Floyd, Chet, Bob, and Everett; loving siblings whose names were omitted from the obituary. No matter what, the real man of the hour, Jesus — his obituary was all that mattered.
Next up was an IFB missionary married to one of Polly’s cousins. He delivered a mini-sermon, interjected with a story or two about Mom. Then a grandson and a son-in-law gave short testimonials about Mom, the highlight of the service. Soon Mom would fade into the background and the man of the hour would take the stage — Jesus.
A couple of hymns were sung, and a duet by our niece and her daughter. We lustily sang the songs — strange, I know — and enjoyed the duet — even though we didn’t believe a word of the lyrics.
Mom’s pastor came to the pulpit, opened his Bible, and after a few perfunctory comments, he started to preach. We knew what was coming: Jesus, Heaven, Hell, and salvation. I thought, Bruce, you can handle this! And I did until the last three minutes of the preacher’s fearmongering harangue.
The preacher decided to make his sermon personal, locking his eyes on me. There’s no doubt in my mind who he was talking to. As someone who preached for thirty-five years, one lesson I learned is that you don’t fix your eyes on someone as the pastor did me.
I knew what was happening. Here was his last chance to preach the gospel to the atheist Bruce Gerencser. (I am the villain in this story. Polly is viewed as misguided or led astray.) Maybe Mom wanted him to make sure the unsaved Gerencsers heard the gospel one last time. Never mind the fact all of us are already saved — once saved, always saved, right? In that moment, “it” happened, the period on the end of the sentence. As the pastor’s eyes locked on mine, I said with a low voice — one he and several rows of people could hear — Bullshit! Preach at someone else! (As of the publishing of this post, the church has removed the video of the funeral from Youtube.)
The pastor did not acknowledge my words, but he heard them. So did others, based on the number of biting glares I received. Outside of the church I briefly confronted him, telling him that he shouldn’t have singled me out. He, of course, denied doing so. I replied, bullshit! and walked to our car.
One final indignity awaited — the graveside service. More of the same, without an invitation. More bad theology about the state of the dead. Not surprising. Most IFB funerals are to some degree or the other heretical.
Polly and I left the cemetery and turned north on Hwy 13, headed for Mount Vernon. As we reached the community of St. Louisville, Polly asked me are you ready? I was. With a defiant, cathartic laugh, both of us raised up our middle fingers and said good riddance.
We lived in central/southeast Ohio for seventeen years. We will never return again. Rural northwest Ohio is our home. Our children and grandchildren live here, and it is here we will die. We have made a life for ourselves in the flatlands of Ohio. Mom chose to make a life for herself too; with a family that was not her daughter’s; with a church that was her “real” family. Family in Central Ohio will object and say that Mom repeatedly said how much she loved us. However, actions speak louder than words, and Mom’s behavior said I was a son-in-law she never wanted and Polly was a disappointment — always a disappointment. Mom will never know how much she hurt her daughter. Her harsh, judgmental words; her rejection of what matters most to Polly: her husband and her family.
Mom made her choices, and we ours.
The End.
Note: Next week, I will start writing a wide-ranging series titled: How the Newark Baptist Temple Affected Our Lives for Sixty Years — Part One. Hopefully, this series will explain the deep mark made on our lives by the Baptist Temple. I will be consulting Polly on this series. Her story begins ten years before mine, in the mid-1960s.
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.
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, in front of first apartment in Pontiac, Michigan, Fall 1978 with Polly’s Grandfather and Parents
In the fall of 1976, I met a beautiful, dark-haired seventeen-year-old girl named Polly. We started dating, and before long we were in love. A month or so after we started dating, Polly’s parents, Lee and Bonnie, drove up from their apartment in the central Ohio community of Newark to Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan to visit Polly. Both of us were freshman students. Polly’s dad had graduated a few months earlier and was now the assistant pastor at the Newark Baptist Temple. Polly’s uncle, the pastor of the Baptist Temple, was a 1960s Midwestern graduate.
I vividly remember meeting Polly’s parents that fall day. Lee was cordial and friendly. Bonnie was standoffish, leaving me with the impression that she didn’t like me. Contrast my first experience with Polly’s mom and that of Polly meeting my mom and sister for the first time in the spring of 1978. Polly was met with love and acceptance and more than a few questions about whether she knew what she was getting into marrying Butch. (Polly would not meet my father until the day of our wedding).
On Valentine’s Day in 1977, Polly and I got engaged. I bought her a 1/4-carat diamond ring from Sears and Roebuck for $225. We set a July 15, 1978 date for our wedding at the Baptist Temple, officiated by Polly’s uncle and dad.
Over the next seventeen months, Polly’s mom went out of her way to make me feel unwelcome and unwanted. During holidays and summers, I would drive 4-6 hours to Newark to visit Polly. One summer, I lived in Bryan, working two full-time factory jobs. I would then get in my car early on Saturday and drive four hours south to see Polly. Late in the evening, I would return home. Polly pleaded with her mom (who wore the pants in the family) to let me spend the night, but to no avail. I was so tired when I left Newark that it was impossible for me to drive all the way home without spending several hours sleeping at a rest stop or along the berm of a highway. On several occasions, Ohio State Highway Patrolmen stopped, thinking my car was abandoned. On another occasion, I was stopped outside of Delaware for weaving due to being so tired.
On Valentine’s Day in 1978, Polly’s mom and dad came to visit her again. By then, we already had our wedding plans in place. Both of us were excitedly looking forward to our big day. During their visit, Polly’s mom told her that they (she) were forbidding her to marry me. Why? My parents were divorced, and divorce is hereditary, so Polly couldn’t marry me lest she ended up divorced. Left unsaid was the real reason for not allowing Polly to marry me: Bonnie didn’t like me. She thought Polly could do better than marrying a lowly boy such as I.
After Polly’s parents returned to Newark, we talked about eloping. We came a “let’s do it” away from jumping in my car, leaving college (eloping was cause for immediate expulsion), and getting married. Cooler heads prevailed. Polly called her mom and told her that with or without their (her) blessing we were getting married. This would be the first time that Polly ever stood up to her mom (who could be a passive-aggressive bully). Polly’s mom relented and the wedding was on. What didn’t change was Bonnie’s dislike of me as a person.
The weekend before our wedding, Polly and I drove out to Dawe’s Arboretum for some alone time. Boy, did we need it. Polly was told she had to be back home at a certain time. We lost track of time and arrived back home late. Here we were nineteen and twenty-one, a week away from getting married, and Bonnie lit into us like we were schoolchildren. Of course, what she was worried about is whether we had been fornicating. We said nothing and got ready for church.
Polly and I have been married for almost forty-five years. We have six wonderful children and thirteen grandchildren. (Bonnie refused to claim two of our grandchildren, saying they weren’t “blood.”) We have built a good life together. It’s not been easy. We have faced all sorts of trials and adversity, yet our love for one another has endured.
One constant in our marriage has been Bonnie’s disapproval. No matter what we did, where we lived, what church I pastored, or how we raised our children, Polly’s mom disapproved. This got worse after we left Christianity in 2008. Bonnie blamed me for ruining her daughter and grandchildren, even though she never had a meaningful conversation with us about why we deconverted. For the past fifteen years, the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room got bigger and bigger, so much so that we found it impossible to have a meaningful relationship with Polly’s mom. (Polly’s dad died in November 2020.)
For the past decade, Polly dutifully called her mom every Sunday at 9:00 pm. They would talk for exactly one hour. Bonnie was insistent that they talk for a least one hour, even when they had nothing to talk about. Out of love and duty, Polly called, even though on some Sundays it took a bit of push from me for her to do so. Why? She was estranged from her mom. Their relationship was strained, with Bonnie causing untold hurt and harm to her ever-faithful daughter with her passive-aggressive, at times, mean-spirited comments and judgments. To the end, we never measured up and I was to blame for everything.
Bonnie died on Tuesday at the age of eighty-seven. Her obituary speaks of the fact that she was a devoted follower of Jesus, a fifty-year (actually forty-six) member of the Newark Baptist Temple. In lieu of flowers, Bonnie asked that people make donations to her church’s missions fund.
The obituary spoke of her love for family. Which family? Her church family? Polly’s sister’s family? Bonnie’s sister’s family? Certainly not the Gerencsers. Oh, she “loved” us in the way disapproving mothers and grandmothers do. A begrudging love that wished we had worshipped the right God and lived our lives the IFB-approved way. Her love for my family was different from that of her love for her family in Newark. You see, they are all Christians. Some of them even attend the Baptist Temple. The Gerencsers? We are a bunch of mutts, beer-swilling, HBO-watching heathens who love to curse. We have forsaken the tribal God, choosing to live “worldly” lives.
We were legally responsible for Polly’s mom’s legal affairs until a few months ago. By then, she had moved in with our nephew and niece, both of whom attend the Baptist Temple. Two months ago, we went to Newark to visit Bonnie, knowing that her time was short. We had a delightful visit, until the last few minutes. As we were getting up to leave, Bonnie let us know that she no longer wanted us to care for her affairs; that she wanted our nephew and niece to take care of things. A few days later, our niece was placed on Bonnie’s bank accounts. After Bonnie died, we also learned that she had called the funeral home and told them she didn’t want us to have anything to do with her funeral. Why would she do these things?
Religion.
In particular, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Christianity.
Bonnie was an IFB member her entire life. Her husband was an IFB pastor. Bonnie bought into every aspect of the “one true faith.” She viewed everything through IFB glasses. As long as Polly and I were IFB, she grudgingly accepted that I was a God-called preacher. Once we left the IFB fold, our relationship with her became more strained. And once we left Christianity altogether? We crossed a line that brought tension-filled relationships, hurt feelings, and harsh words. Both Polly and I tried to maintain a good relationship with Bonnie, but over time it became harder and harder to do so. Eventually, our relationship devolved into one where you see relatives a few times a year and go on with your lives until the next holiday.
Bonnie devoted her time and money to her church and what would be called in our neck of the woods her real family: her church, Polly’s sister’s children and grandchildren (Polly’s sister was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2005), and her sister’s family, the Dennises. Certainly, proximity played a part. The Gerencsers lived four hours away. Everyone else lived around the corner.
Mom paid little to no attention to our grandchildren, while at the same time giving gifts and money to her “real” family. Sure, there were the proverbial gifts at Christmas, but birthdays, graduations, and other significant events were rarely acknowledged. Lee and Bonnie came to visit from time to time and we did the same, but our relationship was not what it could or should have been. I can think of no other reason for this except religion.
Recent events have hurt Polly beyond measure. She’s resilient, but her mom’s rejection of her and forty-five years of disapproval and harsh judgment have caused untold harm. Tomorrow, we will drive to Newark and spend the night at the Hampton Inn in preparation for the funeral on Saturday at 10:00 am. We will not attend the viewing — sorry we cannot handle two hours of Bonnie’s church friends. We want to avoid interaction with people as much as possible, especially our nephew who called awhile back and screamed at me for twenty minutes (I finally hung up on him), calling me names, disparaging my family, and threatening me with physical violence. But, hey, he loves Jesus. [He apologized at the funeral. I appreciate him doing so.]
We will attend the funeral at the church. I am not sure why we are going to do so. Bonnie is dead, we hate the church, and despise its pastor. I suppose we will go for the sake of our children. They don’t have the same baggage with the church (or Bonnie) as we do. We know what to expect. Five minutes of talk about the deceased and fifty-five minutes of Jesus. ‘Tis the way IFB churches do things. Bonnie’s pastor has already asked the church to pray for Mrs. Shope’s unsaved loved ones. The “Gerencsers” are those unsaved loved ones. The rest of the family in attendance is “saved.” We will be the targets of evangelization. It would be what Mrs. Shope would want, right?
Polly and I are left with what to make of our relationship with her mom. Both of us loved her, but what are we to make of our strained relationship; the disapproval; the harsh words, and judgment? We can’t unring the bell, so to speak, so we are left with thoughts of what might have been. If only Bonnie could have loved me as I am and loved us as we are, how different our relationship might have been. Instead, we are left with a fractured relationship, one that is now too late to repair.
We will quietly say our goodbyes on Saturday, lamenting all that has been lost thanks to Fundamentalist Christianity. And when we get in our car to return home, we will raise in the rearview mirror a middle finger salute to Newark and the Baptist Temple, glad that we will never, ever make the trek to Newark again. Nothing remains for us. Even the money that was supposed to go to Polly has been partially spent, and it wouldn’t surprise us if the rest of it ended up in other pockets or the church’s coffers. One more time for Mom to show who and what she really loves.
Note: Polly read this post beforehand and approves of what I wrote.
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.
Have you ever wondered why Blacks have dark skin? Back in the days of my youth, my pastors believed it an important question to answer. Now, no one ever asked, “have you ever wondered where Whites get their light skin?” What was vitally important was sussing out a definitive answer for why some people had Black skin. The easy answers, of course, were melanin and proximity to the equator, but when you believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the right answer to this question must come from the Bible. After all, the Bible is God’s supernatural answer book. Whatever the Bible says about history, biology, and genetics is true. Now, the Bible never explicitly explains why Blacks have dark skin, but since Adam and Eve were White, well, where did Blacks come from? No amount of white-on-white breeding will produce Black children, so there must be a “Biblical” answer to why so many people have dark skin, right?
Back in the days of my youth, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches I attended banned their members from going to indoor and outdoor movie theaters. Their logic went something like this:
