Tag Archives: Calvinism

Banished, A Book Review

This entry is part 10 of 12 in the seriesBook Reviews

I recently finished reading, Banished, A Memoir, Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church. The book is written by Lauren Drain (along with Lisa Pulitzer) a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. The book is 295 paged long and is published by Grand Central Publishing.

Laura Drain spent her teenage years as a member of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. The Drain family moved to Topeka to join the church in 2001 and they remain members to this day. In 2007, Lauren was kicked out of the church. For a time she continued to live in Topeka. She is a nurse and now lives in Connecticut with her fiancé.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. Anyone who can escape the clutches of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church is to be commended. Throughout the book, it is evident that Lauren was mistreated and abused, and it is a wonder that she escaped with any sense of self-worth. The church and her family did their best to destroy her mentally and emotionally, yet she came through it, and she deserves a lot of praise for what she has done with her life post-Westboro.

Banished reads like a teenage girl’s diary. Page after page details Drain’s angst over boys, make-up, dating, marriage, and the fear of going to hell. Drain spends significant time repeatedly detailing how she craved the approval of the Phelps’s and how she went about trying to gain their approval. Sadly, the book became quite redundant and I found myself speed reading.

Banished does offer a first-person account of how the Phelps clan lives. However, Drain says very little negatively about the Phelps’s or the church. As one reviewer on Amazon noted, it seemed like Drain, if she could, would go back to Westboro. I doubt this is actually the case, but Drain spends little time critiquing the vile behavior and beliefs of the Westboro church family. I don’t want to be harsh in my judgment because I have not walked in her shoes, and since her family is still members of Westboro, I can easily understand her hesitancy over being severely critical of the Westboro church family.

Drain was not kicked out of Westboro because of her beliefs. She still believes in the Christian God, albeit a different version of the Christian God, a kinder, gentler, loving God. She still reads and studies the Bible and has come to see that there are many different ways to interpret the Bible.

In telling her story, whether intentionally or not, Drain shows that the Phelps family and the Westboro Baptist Church is made up of vile, nasty, vindictive people, who, due to their doctrinal beliefs, have lost the capacity to love anyone other than their own. (and even then, their love is conditioned on obedience to what the church beliefs and the edicts of the pastor)

Drain reveals that the Phelps family has a few secrets of their own, like the fact that two of Fred Phelps’s daughters became pregnant outside of wedlock. I am sure this was especially galling to Drain since the reason she was banished is because she desired to have a relationship with a boy that was not a member of the church. That’s right, her big sin was being a normal, heterosexual teenage girl.

And this is the crux of the story. It is the story of an American teenage girl who wanted to be like other teenage girls. She wanted to have a boyfriend. She wanted to feel loved. She had wistful thoughts about getting married some day. (the only available boys in the church to marry were grandsons of Fred Phelps) Her parents, the Phelps’s, and the Westboro Baptist Church, robbed her of her youth. They used and abused her and then threw her away like a piece of trash. (to this day she has no contact with her parents)

I wish Lauren Drain well. She deserves a good life, a life with those who will love her for who she is. I hope that someday her family will be delivered from Phelps cult and that her relationship with them can be restored. I can only imagine the pain she must suffer from being completely cut-off from her parents and siblings.

Drain gives the impression that the Westboro Baptist Church in an aberration and that most Christian churches and people are not like the Phelps’s and Westboro. Unfortunately, my extensive involvement in Evangelicalism tells me this is not the case.

Westboro uses the threat of church discipline to control its members. I know of many Calvinistic Baptist churches that do the same. When I was co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas, I saw church discipline routinely used to keep people in line. People who refused to obey were excommunicated. When I decided to leave the church and return to Ohio, I was excommunicated because I did not ask the church’s permission to leave. To this day, the church considers me a publican and heathen.

Drain reveals that Fred Phelps is the domineering, controlling man everyone thinks he is. (as is his daughter Shirley who rules the church with her father) As the pastor of the church, he rules the church with a rod of iron. His word is the law. Is such behavior by a a pastor an aberration? Maybe in some sects, but in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church and in many Evangelical sects, extreme pastoral authority and control is the norm.

Westboro Baptist Church is a cult. Drain refuses to say this in the book, but any cursory reading of Banished will clearly show that the Westboro Baptist Church is a cult and Fred Phelps is a cult leader. The same cult markers found in the Westboro Baptist Church can be found in countless Evangelical churches. If anything, Banished should be read by every church member in the IFB church movement. They will have no trouble seeing themselves in the book. As I have said many times. there is little difference between many Evangelical churches and pastors and Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps. The difference is one of appearance rather than substance. There is nothing in the beliefs of Fred Phelps and Westboro that can’t be found in Calvinistic churches in the IFB church movement, in the Reformed Baptist movement, the Founder’s Group in the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Sovereign Grace Baptist movement. Theologically, there is little difference between Fred Phelps and Al Martin and Al Mohler.

Happy is the Man That Has His Quiver Full of Them

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When Polly and I married in 1978, we planned to have three children. We wanted to wait a year or so before we started having children, but six-weeks into marriage Polly became pregnant. Our son Jason was seven weeks before our first wedding anniversary.

In 1981, Nathan was born and in 1984 Jaime was born. Three sons. We wanted a girl, but we took having three boys as meaning God didn’t want us to have a girl. We had the three children we planned on and we decided not to have any more.

In 1988, my doctrinal beliefs changed dramatically. I abandoned the doctrine I grew up with and was taught in college and embraced five-point Calvinism. As I began to read the Puritans and more modern authors like Martyn Lloyd Jones, A.W. Pink, J.C. Ryle, and Rousas Rushdoony, I came to the conclusion that God’s sovereignty over my life included how many children my wife and I were to have. As I later learned from Calvinistic writers like John MacArthur, if Jesus wasn’t Lord of all is he wasn’t Lord at all.

Polly and I began reading books that taught using birth control was an attempt to usurp God’s sovereignty and that God wanted us to have as many children as he chose to give us. After all, it was God who opened and closed the womb and we would only have as many children as God intended us to have.

We came to see that children were a blessing from God and, as the Bible says, happy is the man who has lots of children. ( As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Psalm 127:4,5 ) If God wanted us to have one more or ten more children, we were willing to have them.

It was not hard to convince Polly that this was the will of God for us. Polly loved being a mother. Whether she was just a product of the time and our religious beliefs or she really loved having lots of children, (or maybe both) Polly was a dedicated, hardworking, loving mother.

When we told Polly’s Mom that we intended to have more children she was incensed. She told us, you can barely take care of the children you have. How will you take take care of any more? I told her, God was sovereign over our lives and we would trust him to provide.

For a time, things were really tense between Polly and I and her Mom. It got so bad that we wrote her a letter and included the book we had read about not using birth control. We told her that it was our life and she needed to respect our wishes.

In retrospect, Mom was right. We were in no position to have any more children. We were living in SE Ohio, pastoring a new Independent Baptist church. (I started the church in 1983) The church was growing rapidly and reached a high attendance of 200 in 1988. But, most of the people in the church were working class poor, The most money the church took in was 40,000.00. We were quite poor and had to rely on Medicaid for insurance and Food Stamps to eat.

But, God was sovereign and in December of 1988, Polly got pregnant. Here’s one thing Polly and I knew….she was a rabbit. All I had to do was look at Polly and she would become pregnant. Each time we decided to have a child it was only a matter of a few weeks or months before Polly became pregnant.

In September of 1989, Bethany was born. Our first daughter. And she had Down Syndrome.

In September of 1991, Laura was born,

In May of 1993, Josiah was born.

Do you see a pattern? Can you imagine how many children we might have had if reason and common sense had not intervened?

May 24, 1993. Polly’s water broke and I took her to the hospital in Zanesville, Ohio. Polly had a lot of trouble during labor. Eventually, Josiah was born. The obstetrician told us, “Polly is too pooped to push,” and based on her age (35) and health recommended we not have any more children. Even our Catholic doctor recommended we not have any more children.

What where we to do? God is sovereign! God is in control! Surely, God could protect Polly if she got pregnant again!

Over the course of the next few months, we spent many hours talking about our future and having more children. We finally decided to listen to the doctors and so we began using birth control again.

For a time, we felt guilty. We thought, we are disobeying God. Where is our faith?

In the end, in spite of our theological beliefs, we put our faith and trust, not in God, but in doctors. As we look back on it now, perhaps this was the first small crack in our Evangelical Calvinistic worldview.

We now see how foolish we were and how dangerous certain beliefs were.

We are blessed to have six wonderful children. We love all of them dearly. But, if we had to do it all over again, knowing what we know now, I doubt we would have had six children. Health and economics should have been the criteria we used to determine whether or not to have children. Instead, we let the folly of youth and our religious beliefs determine what size of family we wanted to have. We are fortunate things turned out as well as they did. I can only imagine how life might had been if Polly had died having child seven or ten. I am grateful that the wife of my youth is alive and we are able to enjoy together the latter years of life.

Ray Lewis, the Super Bowl, and Performance Enhancing Drugs

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Yesterday, Ray Lewis, linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, said:

I don’t look back, I look forward. Everything that is behind me is supposed to be behind me. Everything that is in front of me, God has predetermined to be in front of me.

If God has predetermined everything, then God has predetermined who is going to win the Super Bowl, yes?

Ray Lewis is a Calvinist and he doesn’t even know it.

When asked about the allegation he recently used performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) Lewis said:

That’s the trick of the devil. The trick of the devil is to kill, steal, and destroy. That’s what he comes to do, He comes to distract you from everything you are trying to do.

My Mom taught me to put my complete faith in God. I truly believe impact and belief are two separate things. Anyone can have success. Impact is totally different. You talk about the walk about Jesus, his whole walk was impact. So that is what my life is based on.

Ray Lewis, like many Christians, lives in a neat, dualistic world, where everything is ascribed to God or Satan. However, Lewis has competing theological beliefs. He believes Satan is behind all the bad stuff in life, yet he says God has predetermined everything.

If Lewis is consistent with his theology, and like most Christians he isn’t, he would have to say that God predetermined the works of Satan, including the charge that Lewis used PED’s.

Atheists and The Meaning of Life

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As an atheist, I am often confronted with who and what Christians think atheists are and believe. Often their view of atheists is formed by reading screeds against atheism or listening to pontificating preachers disparage atheists. Sadly, many Christians think atheists are Satan worshipers who eat babies for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day in hedonistic worship of pleasure.

When asked, how many atheists do you know…the Christian stammers, “uh, well, I don’t know any BUT our Pastor said _______________________ and I read in “The Awful, Ugly, Secret Truth about Atheists” how atheists really are. In other words, they are making a judgment about a class of people without actually knowing anyone in the class. (and I am talking about knowing atheists who can actually articulate what atheism is all about )

I remember thinking like many Christians think. I didn’t know any atheists, Mormons, liberal Christians, Catholics, or homosexuals, but that didn’t keep me from preaching against the lot of them. I read this or that book, so that I knew all I needed to know. In other words, my knowledge about the above mentioned people was like a pool of water a quarter-inch deep and 10 feet wide. (and I regret how disparaging I was of people I did not know.)

Actually getting to know someone requires time and effort. Often it requires sitting down face to face with someone, perhaps sharing a meal with them. These days, we don’t have the time to cultivate a deeper and more complete understanding of these who are different from us. We have the internet with its instant news, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Instantgram. We are awash in data and we often make rash judgments about people, institutions, and ideas. We don’t have time to research things or attempt to better understand someone…the next data update is coming in thirty minutes.

I pastored my last church in 2003. I left Christianity is 2008. Over the course of the past nine years, I have had very few Christian people make a sincere attempt to understand my beliefs and understand how and why I ended up where I am today. (maybe they all read my blog and think there is no need to talk to me) Smile

Over the course of nine years:

One former church member, friend, who later entered the ministry, came to my home to get me to repent and return to Jesus and the ministry. He wasn’t interested in anything but that. He wanted the order of his world restored, with me being the Bruce Gerencser he once knew. (I wrote this letter to him afterward)
One former church member and friend took me out to dinner and we talked about my loss of faith and my liberal politics. He was far more interested in talking about my politics than my atheism. (all in all, our discussion was great and we remain friends)
I have received emails from former church members and men who were my colleagues in the ministry . None of the email writers made any attempt to engage me on a friend to friend basis. No attempt was made to understand what I now believed and how I got to where I am today. In every instance, the email writer either quoted Bible verses, rebuked me, called me to repentance, or personally attacked me.

That’s it. Polly and I do have two dear friends who are Evangelical Christians. We go out with them ofte,n but I made up my mind that, for the sake of our friendship, I would compartmentalize my atheistic views, and only talk about it when asked. This has worked well for us but it does. at time leave a big elephant standing in the room. (and my friend’s preacher brother-in-law warned her that they should not be associating with us. Come out for among them and be separate saith the Lord)

What bothers me the most is that family members keep their distance and do not make any attempt to understand what I believe and how I got to where I am today. (and the same could be said of how family has responded to my wife’s agnosticism) I was told that some family members are afraid to talk to me because they don’t want to get into a deep discussion with me about religion and atheism. Perhaps, my counselor is right. When I told him that I was perplexed that Christian family and friends had made no attempt to find out what I now believe he said, “Bruce, you assume they give a shit about what you believe. They don’t.”

So, instead of engagement and understanding, people like myself continue to find misunderstanding and judgment. As an atheist, I am increasingly weary of attempts by Christians to paint a fraudulent picture of atheists. In a religion that purports to value honesty, Christians routinely lie and distort what atheists (and humanists) really believe and how they live their lives. They often prop up a straw man, set it on fire, and then gleefully say, sure told that atheist didn’t I ! Sadly, the atheist destroyed is a figment of the Christian’s imagination.

In a recent post at Triablogue, Steve Hayes wrote:

Atheists have different responses to tragedy. The usual response is to use every tragedy as a pretext to attack the Christian faith. However, that leaves unanswered what positive response, if any, an atheist can offer in the face of tragedy.

Some atheists resent Christian eulogies. They resent the claim that they have nothing to say in the face of tragedy. They get very defensive.

If atheists were truly honest, this is what they’d say:

You know what? You’re right. Atheism can’t offer any consolation in situations like this. Atheism is a creed for the living, not the dead.

We’re sorry about that. Sincerely. We wish there was something edifying we could say. We wish we had some uplifting words to offer you in your time of loss, but we don’t. We’d be fooling ourselves, as well as you, if we said otherwise.

We don’t say that to be callous. We wish for our own sake, as well as yours, that the story had a happy ending. But we can’t just make things up. That’s not the world we live in. No use pretending.

Reality is whatever it is, and–unfortunately–the reality of the situation is grim. It’s just a cosmic fluke that humans even exist on one lonely little planet in the vast, indifferent cosmos. We are here for a blink of an eye, and that’s that. No encore. Unlike lower animals, we are just smart enough to know that you and I are screwed. I’m afraid it doesn’t get any better than that. We were dealt a losing hand. There’s no way to prettify the situation.

We don’t say that to sound courageous or superior. We say that because that’s all we can honestly say.

However, Christians and atheists are in the same sinking boat. The difference is that atheists admit it’s taking on water.

In reality, Christianity has nothing better to offer. Sure, Christianity can promise you eternal life. But that’s a broken promise. So there’s no point comparing the wonderful, but futile hope of Christianity to the hopelessness of atheism. That’s not a real comparison. You’re comparing something with nothing….

While I sure there are some atheists who think like Steve Hayes writes in his post, most atheists don’t think this way. (and Steve Hayes is actually attacking nihilism rather than atheism) Most atheists are every bit as compassionate and loving as any Christian. Yes, we may wage war against Christianity and its pernicious hold on America, but I doubt many atheists are interested in adding further pain to the lives of those who have suffered loss. While we can’t pray for them or offer them promises that God is watching out for them and caring for them, we can love them, comfort them, help them, and, most of all, be their friend. Steve Hayes seems to think that atheists are unable to have the same empathy and compassion towards others that Christians do. Sadly, he is grossly misinformed.

One commenter on the Triablogue post had this to say about atheists and the lives they live:

When challenged with the meaninglessness of a godless life, atheists often counter that they can create meaning for their lives. But isn’t that merely an act of make-believe? Isn’t that the very same thing that they ridicule Christians for?

Evidently, it is not enough for the atheist to say his life has meaning. the commenter presupposes that all meaning comes from the Christian God, so atheists, no matter what they say, can not have lives that have meaning.

Christians have used this line of thinking with me more times than I care to count. In their God centered world, a life of meaning begins and ends with God. I have found it impossible to break into their closed-mindedness about this. If I tell them I find meaning in life as it is, that I find meaning in loving my wife, children and grandchildren, and doing all I can for them, that I find meaning in trying to promote peace and justice…the Christian will always say, Yeah, but you die Bruce and that’s the end of it.

It seems that a lot of Christians think a life lived in the present has no value unless there is a divine payoff after death. Let me grant their premise for a moment. Let’s say I lived the live I mentioned above without God. (or course the fine saints at Triablogue would never grant this since they are Calvinists and believe all good works, even those done by atheists, come from the Christian God) Let’s say at the end of my well-lived life I die without Jesus and go to hell. Does the fact that I am being tortured in hell for all eternity by the Christian God negate the good life I lived and the good works done on the behalf of others?

Keep in mind, Christians like the ones found at Triablogue, think that all religious sects but their own are every bit as deluded as the atheist. Worse yet, being the good Calvinists they are, they think this is all according to God’s purpose and plan. In their minds, most of the people in the world live lives that do not have true meaning.

This is a common way of thinking among Calvinists. (not a stereotype, I was part of the elect for a long time) Personally, I think it helps bolster the notion that they are God’s chosen remnant, God’s call out people. Simply put…in common parlance…they are s-p-e-c-i-a-l. How could they not be since God chose them to be his children before the foundation of the world?

And yet, the unwashed, uncircumcised mass of humanity marches on…living lives of meaning that Christians like Steve Hayes can never understand because they can not understand any other way of believing or living life than their own way of believing and living life.

As I was looking for a graphic to use with this post, I found an article about atheism and the meaning of life, I will close out this post with a quote from Vjack at The Atheist Revolution:

…The difference between the religious and the non-religious is not that one group has meaning and the other lacks it. Nor is it that one group derives meaning from gods and the other does not. In this context, the difference is that atheists do not find the use of god concepts necessary or even relevant. From what I have observed, we have much the same sense of meaning and purpose as do the religious but get there without the religious baggage.

For both the theist and the atheist, meaning comes from within. The difference is that the atheist recognizes and accepts this reality while the theist does not…

The Fundy World Tales Part 17

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This entry is part 17 of 17 in the seriesFundy World Tales

Somerset Baptist Church, Somerset, Ohio 1986-1994

I pastored the Somerset Baptist Church in Somerset, Ohio (actually 5 miles east of Somerset. near Mt Perry, Ohio and Sego) from July of 1983 through March of 1994. Please see my previous posts about my time at Somerset Baptist Church. Part 15 Part 14 Part 13)

In the late 1980’s, my theology began to change. Each change brought conflict and a loss of church members and friends. The Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement was known for strict adherence to what we called the fundamentals of the faith. Deviating from these fundamentals brought instant trouble from those who thought I was going New Evangelical, Liberal, or, God forbid, Southern Baptist.

My first big doctrinal change came when I abandoned pretribulational, premillennial eschatology for posttribulational, amillennial eschatology. I also abandoned dispensationalism.

My next big doctrinal change came when I rejected as heresy what I had been taught in college about the doctrine of repentance. Like many IFB pastors, I believed that repentance was a change of mind. When a person repented they were saying, I was against Jesus and now I am for Jesus.

I came to see such a belief as heresy. I came to believe that repentance was a change of mind AND a change of conduct. A person who had truly repented would evidence their repentance by a changed life. John MacArthur’s book,Lordship Salvation had a big influence on me.

I adopted the belief that unless Jesus was Lord of a person’s life they were not a Christian. This radically changed how I preached the gospel and the evangelistic methods I used.

In 1989, I abandoned IFB soteriology and embraced five-point Calvinism. I began to voraciously read books written by the Puritans and popular Calvinistic writers. I had an open book account at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service , (along with several other book sellers) and over the course of the next ten years I amassed a library of over a thousand theology books.

By the time I became a Calvinist, church attendance had declined to around 75 people. Many of the people we gained from other churches over the years left and returned to their old churches or found a different church to attend.

The decline in attendance brought a steep offering decline. This forced us to stop running the church busses. Eventually, we also stopped having church on Sunday night.

We began to face difficulties heating the buildings in the winter, so we raised money to put in coal/wood furnaces. Every fall, until the church closed. we would cut 6-10 cords of wood and we would buy coal from the nearby coal mines to heat the church buildings.

Heating the buildings with wood and coal required us to build the fires the night before. My three oldest sons have less than fond memories of having to stoke the furnace fires through the night so the building would be warm for Sunday service.

12×60 Mobile Home we lived in from 1989-1994

In 1989, my wife and I bought an old, dilapidated 12×60 mobile home for 2,800.00 from Williams-Burg Square in Frazeysburg, Ohio and parked it next to the church. A friend of ours gave us 1,000.00 to put down on the trailer and we made 12 payments to pay off the balance. This was the first home we owned.

After doing a bit of remodeling, we moved our family of six into the mobile home. We would add two more children before we moved away in 1994. (I will have much more to say about this in a future post)

My adoption of Calvinism brought wholesale changes to the church. I got rid of our Sword of the Lord hymnals and replaced them with Gadsby’’s Hymns. I also stopped giving altar calls.

The biggest change took place in how I preached. Until 1989, I was a pretty typical IFB preacher. I preached topically or textually. n 1989, I began preaching expositionally. I would continue to preach expositionally until I left the ministry in 2003.

Surprisingly, my adoption of Calvinism was well received by the church. We lost several families over the change, but everyone else went right along with me. I don’t think everyone instantly became Calvinists. In the mind of most church members the social connection and love of their preacher was more important than any doctrinal change I might have had.

Once I became a Calvinist I lost many long time preacher friends. The Youth Fellowship I started made it clear I was no longer welcome and outside preaching engagements came to an abrupt halt. The only preacher friend that continued to fellowship with me and the church was Keith Troyer. (Keith pastored Fallsburg Baptist Church in Fallsburg Ohio. He is now pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Greenville, PA.)

As a Calvinist I began to fellowship with Sovereign Grace Baptist and Reformed Baptist pastors. I attended special meetings held at Calvinistic churches, often travelling several hours to attend the meetings. I usually took a van load of church members with me to these meetings.

During this time I started two new ministries, a newsletter called The Sovereign Grace Reporter and a cassette tape lending library called The Charis Tape Ministry. Hundreds of pastors received the The Sovereign Grace Reporter free of charge. The Charis Tape Ministry had hundreds of preaching tapes available for anyone who requested them. We sent out thousands of tapes over the course of five years.

My two favorite preachers were Henry Mahan and Rolfe Barnard. Barnard died in 1969, so all I got to hear of his preaching was on tape. Mahan, on the other hand, was pastor of the Thirteenth Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky, and I traveled several times to his church to hear him preach. Henry also came up to our church to preach a special meeting . He was the first and last guest speaker to ever preach in a church I pastored that said he wanted no money for preaching . Henry paid all of his expenses while at our church and even paid for meals when we went out to eat.

While I lost most of my IFB friends, I gained many new acquaintances among Sovereign Grace and Reformed Baptists. I would later lose these friends when I became more liberal in my doctrinal beliefs.

Joe Maldonodo Family and Pat Horner Family 1993

It was during this time that I met Pat Horner, then pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas. In 1994, I left the Somerset Baptist Church and became co-pastor of the Community Baptist Church. I will have much more to say about this in a later post.

The Calvinistic years, from 1989-1994, brought in a few new members who were sympathetic to the doctrines of grace. All in all, this was a peaceful time and there were few church conflicts.

A Twitter Discussion with a Calvinist

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I had a Twitter discussion over the past few days with a Calvinistic Christian named Michael Morth. He has a blog titled Biblical Orthodoxy. Michael responded to Former Christian Atheist’s guest post My Life. The Vyckie in the discussion is my friend Vyckie Garrison (she has a large Twitter following) who tweets all of my posts. Vyckie blogs at No Longer Qivering.

Michael: 1. There are no former Christians Jn 6:37-40, 1 Jn 2:19 2. Christianity is not assent, but repentance and faith!

Bruce: Nice try Michael. Keep telling yourself this as the number of former Christians who repented and had faith grows.

Bruce: Do you really think Vyckie or I spent our whole adults lives “assenting” and not faithfully living?

Michael: Well, I don’t know either of you, but I do believe God’s word. I think some people are false converts and fall away because they didn’t trust wholeheartedly. Trust and faith requires abiding and staying; many threats.

Bruce: So you believe what a book says rather than what you can see and what a person knows about themselves?

Michael: Faith is a gift of God and a drawing to Christ. The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29)

Michael: I don’t believe that the elect, after being born-again from above , will be able to turn away; God preserves.

Bruce: I don’t care what you believe. How we lived our lives tell the story. If we weren’t Christians no one is.

Bruce: Besides, millions of Arminian Christians disagree with your Calvinism. How do you know you are right?

Michael: I’ve been on both sides of the fence, but ultimately was convinced by the overwhelming testimony of Scripture.

Bruce: This is what they all say. Arminianism, Calvinism. Amyraldianism. All taught in the Bible. All with overwhelming evidence.

Michael: The Word of God is a better judge of humanity than our own finite understanding and experiences. We change often

Michael: then, what made you stop trusting? I’m a believer because God caused me to be born-again; didn’t start with me.

Bruce: who knows better what happened in my life? You or the person who lived it? I know I was a Christian and now I am not.

Bruce: Again, you can’t know for sure. Unless you persevere to the end you weren’t saved. You might yet fall away.

Bruce: and if you fall away how do you think you would respond to people who said you were never really saved?

Michael: The scriptures say that God “gave” people to Christ and Christ won’t/cant lose any. Also see Romans 8:28-30

Bruce: I am well aware of what you think the Bible says. Been there done that. I know Calvinism inside and out.

Michael: Again, I must ask what caused you to disbelieve? Cleverly crafted arguments? Scientific theory? Sinful desire?

Bruce: if Calvinism is correct, it was God who was the agent of my unbelief. God is in control of everything, yes?

Bruce: I stopped believing because I came to see that the Bible wasn’t truth, it wasn’t inerrant, inspired,infallible.

Michael: What led to those conclusions? Cleverly devised arguments?

Bruce: You really want to frame my answer according to your own conclusions with your use of the word clever.

Bruce: Facts and evidence born out of Intellectual pursuit led to my conclusions about the bible and its central message and teachings

Michael: What fact and evidence?

Bruce: Read Bart Ehrman. His books succinctly address the text issues and many Internal contradictions. Inerrancy can not be sustained

Michael: “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit… of the world, and not according to Christ. Col 2:8

Bruce: Whatever

Michael: Did you read anything by biblical scholars that hold to inerrancy/infallibility?

Bruce: You might what to check out who you are talking with? I pastored Evangelical churches for 25 years. So yes, I have read the books.

Michael: Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.

Bruce: No offense. However, quoting Bible verses that I already know and used to expositionally preach from has no effect.

Michael: So, no belief in God at all? Did you check out any other religious traditions?

Bruce: I am an atheist, so no God at all. Yes, I have checked out all the “other” gods and none of them ring true.

Michael: Do you think that you were living in a protracted delusion all those years? How long since you left?

Bruce: No, I was a Christian, plain and is simple. 8 years since I pastored, 4 years since attending church.

I Was A Cult Leader, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

12 Replies

(my response is in italics)

Despite a clear request on the contact form to NOT send me emails like the one that follows, some Christians just can’t help themselves. It is like they have this pathological need to prove themselves right and what better way than to tell a man who was a Christian for 50 years, a pastor for 25 years, that he is wrong.

A man in his 40’s who self-describes himself as a scientist/engineer and loosely associated with the emerging church movement writes:

I find your blog very interesting….

….Suppose someone is telling you he used to be Mormon/Yehovah’s Witness/Moonie, but now is no longer a Christian. You would be puzzled, right? So was I when I read that you were a fundamentalist, but now you are no longer a Christian.

Why is it puzzling. I once was and now I am not. The fact that you can not wrap your mind around this fact doesn’t change it. The problem is that your theology is getting in the way of common sense. People change beliefs all the time. I once was a Republican and now I am a Democrat. According to your logic, I never really was a Republican. After all, if I was, I would still be a Republican.

People change. People mature. You admitted yourself that you changed beliefs and churches a few times. Are you not being hypocritical?

Your error is a common one among the human species. We take our experiences, our beliefs, and we judge everyone else by that standard. Of course I don’t measure up. How could I….after all…….are your ready for it…I AM NOT YOU!

….There were commentators claiming that, on the basis of the once-saved-always-saved doctrine, you never were a Christian. You insisted you were a Christian because you had a conversion experience, you honestly believed what the Church believed, and you were serving as a pastor for 25 years.

No, you are dead wrong here. I was a Christian not only because I had a conversion experience BUT as a result of that conversion experience I followed after Jesus Christ. I didn’t believe what the Church believed. I believed what I thought the Bible taught and I taught that every Sunday and Thursday from the pulpit.

I think the once-saved-always-saved doctrine is nonsense. Otherwise, the passage in Hebrews 6 you mentioned in a recent post would make no sense. Nevertheless, I believe you never were a Christian.

This is your opinion, nothing more and nothing less. Millions of Christians disagree with you. Whole denominations disagree with you. Calvinism and Arminianism and all their step-children can clearly be found in the Bible. That is what is so neat about the Bible…..it supports virtually every theological system.

Of course the real issue here is that you KNOW you are right. What YOU believe is the faith once delivered to the saints. You are so certain of your certainty that you feel you can judge the spiritual relationship of others. In other words, you are God.

Some commentator was pointing out that being a Christian is a relationship rather than a religion. You replied that Christianity is text-based, therefore it is a religion.

I have heard fundamentalists preaching over and over that being a Christian is all about a relationship to Christ and not at all about following religious rules. I would be surprised if it was different in your case. When you still were in office, you probably did not preach that there is no such thing as a relationship to Christ, but, on the contrary, Christianity is entirely a text-based religion.

You are a careless reader or you have not reach much of what I have written.

Christianity IS a text based religion. No Bible=No Christianity. However, I never would have said that a relationship with Jesus Christ is not important. If you read carefully what I write you will notice that what I reject is the notion that a person can have a relationship with Jesus apart from the teachings of the Bible. How does a Christian KNOW they have a right relationship with Jesus? Is it a touchy-feely emotion? Of course not. The standard is the teachings of the Bible.

The modern, It’s a Relationship movement is just an attempt to ignore or reject any part of the Bible they don’t like. I reject such thinking. I am an all-in kind of person. Say you are a follower of Jesus? Then follow him all the way. Like the Bible says, “follow the Lamb withersoever he goeth.”

Fundamentalists preach that Christianity means a relationship to Christ, but they actually believe something else – namely that being a Christian means (i) having a conversion experience, (ii) believing that the Bible is “inerrant”, and (iii) participating in Christian activities. As it is characteristic of sects and cults, they hide their true believes behind coded language. They are deceiving themselves and others. It is the same with political sects. For example, communists and Nazis frequently use the term “freedom”, but it has a different meaning for them.

Maybe in the “cults” you were a part of but not the “cult” I was a part of. All religions, by the way, are, by definition, cults.

The Bible is clear that being a Christian means having a relationship to Christ. There is a warning about false Christians who think they are Christians but are not. They are called wolves, because they are dangerous as they lure people in their cults and keep them from the true knowledge of Christ.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves … On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.”

I will assume that you think I was a cult leader, that I never had a relationship with Christ, and that I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

What can I say to such closed minded, arrogant thinking that I have not said countless times before?

I have come to realize this about people like you. It is not about me, it is about you. You need certainty. You need to know you are right. You need your past and present validated. What better what to do it than to deconstruct and invalidate a prominent Evangelical Pastor turned atheist’s life story.

Interestingly, these people are unaware that they are wolves, but consider themselves Christians on the basis of their works (e.g., going to a Bible college, serving as a missionary). Jesus makes clear that they are not Christians because they don’t know him.

No, again, I considered myself a Christian based on the relationship I had with Jesus. That said, faith without works is dead and 1 John 1 makes it clear that the measure of true Christianity is how a person lives. Want to compare Christian dicks? I bet mine is bigger than yours.

Because of the relationship I had with Jesus, I worked day and night to win souls to Jesus and build up the body of Christ.

Here is what I find so interesting. You read a few blog posts and you KNOW I was never a Christian. You KNOW I was a cult leader and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Yet, for 50 years as a Christian and 25 years as a pastor, not ONE pastor or parishioner ever questioned whether or not I was a Christian. I came into contact with thousands of people and not one person EVER suggested I wasn’t a Christian. They might have disagreed with what I taught but they never doubted that I was a sincere follower of Jesus. Yet, you have a special gift from God to be able to discern whether or not someone is a Christian. I suspect there would be a huge demand for a Christian detector like you IF such a gift was real. (hint:it is not)

Apparently you did not know Christ. You did not taste the heavenly gift, became partaker of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come. Otherwise, you could not be an atheist today. You could not believe that these things you have once experienced do not exist.

In my opinion, the key to becoming a Christian is honestly searching God. This will be rewarded by finding God.

I choose to understand my Christian past in a sociological and psychological context. My birth, upbringing, and environment had a lot to do with the fact that I was a Christian. Of course you reject such notions, but the facts, from study after study, are on my side. Who a person’s parents are and where they are born go a long way in determining what religious belief they have.

The fact remains, I once was a Christian and I now I am not. I know what I know and I was there when it happened. I only respond to your email in this manner because I think some of the readers of this blog will find my response helpful.

Your final paragraph is quite careless and could lead one to conclude that as long as someone is seeking God that is all that matters. Of course, I would somewhat agree with that. However you mean YOUR God, don’t you? The Christian God. Your flavor of the Christian God. When a person is like YOU then they will know they have found the true God. Seems quite cultic to me.

Can Anyone Really Know They Are Saved?

13 Replies

Yes.

No.

Maybe.

What do I mean by the word saved? Delivered. Redeemed. Set free. Bought by the blood. Justified.(looked at by God just as if I never sinned)

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.(Romans 10:9, 10)

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8.9)

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:3,4)

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9)

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Mark 16:16

oops. Scratch that last one. Don’t want to start a war between the Baptists and the Campbellites. (Church of Christ)

Let me set aside, for a moment, the fact that these verses teach several different salvations. Most Christians interpret these verses, and others, in a very basic, generic way.

I am a sinner. Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. Three days later he resurrected from the dead. Believing this message I admit I am a sinner, I repent of my sins and by faith I trust Jesus to forgive me of my sins and save me. I am trusting Jesus to save me and keep me until I die. By putting my faith and trust in Jesus I know I will go to heaven when I die. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

There are three basic schools of thought when it comes to salvation. (and yes I know there are shades of all of these. Please, spare me the emails and comments that I didn’t properly describe YOUR tribe)

There is the “once saved, always saved” school. According to this school of thought once a person is saved they can never be un-saved. No matter what the person does, no matter how the person lives, they are saved forever. A person can stop attending Church, stop doing ANYTHING that remotely suggests that they are saved, yet “once saved, always saved.” One noted writer even said that a person could go to the altar and be saved and then leave the Church, curse God, and live like a heathen the remainder of their life…it matters not, “once saved, always saved.”

This is the belief of most Baptists and many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Salvation becomes a form of “fire insurance.” People don’t want to go to hell, so they get saved. Whew, that’s over. Next!

Coupled with this belief is the notion that the believer will be rewarded some day for doing the right things in this life. 2 Corinthians 5:10 says For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. So, a person might be “once saved always saved” but if they don’t live right they will lose their rewards in heaven. What this loss of rewards is is never clearly defined. Maybe their mansion won’t have indoor plumbing? (John 14:1-6)

Some “once saved always saved” believers realize that their version of salvation really looks bad. They know their brand of salvation looks like it is preaching a “live like hell, still go to heaven” message.

To counter this they teach that Christians who live carnally will be chastised (corrected) by God in this life. If a carnal Christian is not chastised it is proof that they were never “really” saved. After all the Bible says in Hebrews 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Arminian groups hold to a conditional salvation. They believe a person is saved by grace but kept by works. (works they do by the power of God so it is really all of grace) In this school of thought a person can only know they are saved in the present moment. Their future salvation is conditioned on them doing the right things. This is the belief of groups like the Free-Will Baptists, Methodists, Wesleyans, etc.(groups who trace back their heritage to John and Charles Wesley and Jacobus Arminius)

A believer can do certain things that will result in the loss of salvation. Some Arminian groups believe you can only lose your salvation one time. In other word, “once saved, one lost, always lost.” The Bible says in Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

Other Arminian groups believe a person can repeatedly saved, lost, saved, lost, saved. They often talk about a line that is crossed, when a person goes from a state of grace to being lost again. I have asked repeatedly over the years exactly where that line is and no one can tell me. I have been told by more than one Arminian preacher, “You just KNOW when you have crossed the line.”

The final school of thought is the Calvinistic school. Calvinist groups, like the Presbyterians, some Baptists, Episcopalians,etc adhere to what is commonly called the five points of Calvinism. (which were actually articulated as a reply to the Arminians) Point number five is the Perseverance of the saints or the Preservation of the saints.

Perseverance of the saints is “once saved, always saved” with a twist. Calvinists believe that salvation is a work done totally by God. From start to finish it is God who does it all. A person can not believe, exercise faith, or anything apart from God giving them the power to do so. Those whom God saves, God keeps. Now, God only saves a certain number of people. God knows exactly how many he will save. They are the elect. They have been predestined to salvation.

The God who saves is the God who causes the believer to persevere to the end. If a person doesn’t persevere to the end then that is proof that they were never saved to start with. For this reason the Calvinistic commenters on this blog consider me unsaved, never having been saved. I didn’t persevere. I have received common grace but not God’s special, saving grace. In other words, God toyed with me and then said fuck you.

No Calvinist can know for sure they are saved. They can HOPE they are. They can constantly examine their lives to see if they are availing themselves to the means of grace, but until they die they can not know for sure they are saved. They MUST persevere to the end to be sure. They are hoping God comes through for them but they won’t know for sure until the end. After all they TOO could be deluded. They TOO could be following a false Christ.

Imagine a person going Church to Church trying to find out the true Christian message of salvation. You would think Christians could agree on the most basic of truths…salvation.

But they don’t.

I am convinced that Christians better hope that God is a universalist. If not…hell is going to be filled with Christians.

Do Christians REALLY Know Who God is?

God Does What He Wants, so Shut Up!

The Way Forward

Featuring the Writing of Bruce Gerencser

Tag Archives: Calvinism

Banished, A Book Review

Happy is the Man That Has His Quiver Full of Them

Ray Lewis, the Super Bowl, and Performance Enhancing Drugs

Atheists and The Meaning of Life

The Fundy World Tales Part 17

A Twitter Discussion with a Calvinist

I Was A Cult Leader, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Can Anyone Really Know They Are Saved?

Do Christians REALLY Know Who God is?

God Does What He Wants, so Shut Up!

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