King James Only Archives

The Myth of the Inerrant Originals

Bruce Gerencser March 13, 2024 Evangelicalism 10 Comments

Repost from 2015. Edited, updated, and corrected.

Most Evangelical preachers and church members believe that the Bible they carry to church on Sundays is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. If you ask them if the Bible has any errors, mistakes, or contradictions, they will likely say, absolutely not! While they know that their Bible is a translation of ancient Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, they assume there is a perfect word line from God to the writers of the manuscripts to the translations they use.

Ask college/seminary-trained Evangelical pastors if the Bible has any errors, mistakes, or contradictions, and they will likely not say anything at first, and then will say, well, you need to understand ___________________________ (insert long explanation). They will likely tell you that modern translations are faithful or reliable, or that there are no errors, mistakes, or contradictions on any matter that is important to salvation. If you press them hard enough, they will tell you that no translation is perfect. (Remember, inerrancy demands perfection.) At about this point in the discussion, Evangelical pastors will say, I DO believe the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts are inerrant (perfect, without error, mistake, or contradiction).

The next obvious question is this: so where are the original manuscripts? Well, uh, l-o-n-g pregnant pause, the original manuscripts don’t exist, the Evangelical pastor says. That’s right, the original manuscripts don’t exist. No one has ever seen or read the “original” manuscripts of the Bible. In fact, most of the extant manuscripts are dated hundreds and thousands of years after the events they record. According to Wikipedia, the oldest Old Testament manuscript (a fragment) dates back to the 2nd century BCE and the rest of the Old Testament manuscripts are dated from the 3rd century CE to the 11th century CE. Most of these manuscripts are NOT written in Hebrew.

But what about the Dead Sea Scrolls? Uneducated Evangelical church members erroneously think the Dead Sea Scrolls “prove” the Bible is the Word of God. Here is what Wikipedia says:

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. They were found in caves about a mile inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name. The texts are of great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the earliest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.

The texts are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean, mostly on parchment but with some written on papyrus and bronze. The manuscripts have been dated to various ranges between 408 BCE and 318 CE…

Due to the poor condition of some of the Scrolls, not all of them have been identified. Those that have been identified can be divided into three general groups: (1) some 40% of them are copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible, (2) approximately another 30% of them are texts from the Second Temple Period and which ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152–155, etc., and (3) the remaining roughly 30% of them are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk and The Rule of the Blessing.

So much for the Dead Sea Scrolls “proving” the Bible is the Word of God.

The oldest New Testament manuscripts date back to the 2nd century CE. Most of the extant manuscripts are dated from 9th century CE forward. Here is what Wikipedia says about the New Testament manuscripts:

Parts of the New Testament have been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. The dates of these manuscripts range from 125 CE (the John Rylands manuscript, P⁵²; oldest copy of John fragments) to the introduction of printing in Germany in the 15th century. The vast majority of these manuscripts date after the 10th century. Although there are more manuscripts that preserve the New Testament than there are for any other ancient writing, the exact form of the text preserved in these later, numerous manuscripts may not be identical to the form of the text as it existed in antiquity. Textual scholar Bart Ehrman writes: “It is true, of course, that the New Testament is abundantly attested in the manuscripts produced through the ages, but most of these manuscripts are many centuries removed from the originals, and none of them perfectly accurate. They all contain mistakes – altogether many thousands of mistakes. It is not an easy task to reconstruct the original words of the New Testament….”

As you can see, there are no originals. Any talk of inerrant originals is just a smokescreen that hides the fact the extant manuscripts and EVERY Bible translation is errant. Any Evangelical who says that the Bible is inerrant in the originals is making a statement that cannot be proved. Every college/seminary trained-Evangelical pastor knows this, but few of them are willing to tell their congregations. Why? Why not tell church members the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Preachers fear that their congregations will lose “faith” in the Bible and that the Bible will lose its authority if they tell them the truth. They would rather lie — and they ARE lying if they don’t tell their congregation the facts about the origin, translation, and text of the Bible — than have people doubt the Bible or God.

If there are no inerrant manuscripts, then there can be no inspiration. Most Evangelicals believe that God inspired (breathed out) the Bible. If you ask Evangelical church members exactly WHAT God inspired, they will likely point to their Bible. Ask Evangelical pastors the same question and they will likely start praying for the rapture to happen immediately. Why? Because the Evangelical doctrine of inspiration is based on the notion that the Bible is inerrant in the original manuscripts. Since there are no original manuscripts, and there are thousands of variations in the extant manuscripts and translations, then there is no such thing as an inspired Bible. At best, all that Evangelicals have is a flawed, errant translation of a flawed, errant, ancient manuscripts. Inerrancy and inspiration, as defined by Evangelicals, are myths, lacking any proof whatsoever.

This does not mean that the Bible has no value, but understanding that the Bible is not an inspired, inerrant text keeps a person from giving the Bible supernatural, God-like power. It may be a good book, a useful book, an inspirational book, but it is not a book that is straight from the mouth of God to our ears.

Our culture is awash with men and women who say they speak for the Christian God. What is the one belief that these speakers for God have in common? That the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. Every Sunday, Evangelical Joel Osteen, pastor of the largest church in America, leads his congregation in this:

The culture wars that continue to rage in the United States are based on the belief that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. When Evangelical culture warriors quote proof-texts from the Bible, they believe they are speaking the very words of God — in American English of course. What they are really speaking are the words of an errant, fallible text that may or may not be the words of God/Jesus/Moses/Paul/Peter/James/John — to name a few. Since the original manuscripts no longer exist, it is impossible to know if the words of the Bible are God’s words. And even if the original manuscripts did exist, how could anyone prove that they were the very words of God? Would there be an endorsement statement on the last page that said, This is God and I approve of these words? Of course not.

The Evangelical Christian says, the pastor says, the denomination says, the Bible says, but there is no way of knowing what God said. And this is why the foundation of Christianity is not the Bible but faith.

Let me conclude this post by illustrating how pervasive is the belief that the Bible is inerrant/inspired. The following Gallop Poll charts tell a depressing story about how Americans view the Bible:

Gallup concludes:

The percentage of Americans taking a literal view of the Bible has declined over time, from an average of 38% from 1976-1984 to an average of 31% since. However, highly religious Americans — particularly those of Protestant faiths — still commonly believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

In general, the dominant view of Americans is that the Bible is the word of God, be it inspired or actual, as opposed to a collection of stories recorded by man. That is consistent with the findings that the United States is a predominantly Christian nation and that Americans overwhelmingly believe in God.

Perhaps it is time for Christian churches to stop studying the Bible for a year so they can focus on reading and studying a few of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books. Of course, if pastors did this they might risk being fired because their congregations would know that they’ve been lying to them about the Bible — and it IS a lie to omit facts about the origin, nature, and history of the Biblical text.

Until Evangelicals are disabused of their errant beliefs about the Bible, they will continue to arrogantly think that they have THE truth, that their God is the one, true, living God, and that the words of the Bible are God directly speaking to them. Until they understand that the Bible is not what they claim it is, there is no hope of having rational discussions with them. The Evangelical position can be summed up like this: God said it, end of discussion.

Notes

Some groups take inspiration and inerrancy a step farther and say that the King James Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. The followers of Peter Ruckman even believe the italicized words added by translators to improve the reading and understanding of the King James translation, are inerrant and inspired. Ruckmanites believe the italicized words are an advanced revelation given to the translators by God.

Some Evangelicals believe that God has preserved his Words down through history. These Evangelicals admit that the original manuscripts do not exist, but they believe God, down through the centuries, has magically preserved (kept perfect) his Word, and that the King James Bible is the preserved Word of God for English-speaking people.

If you want a complete, detailed understanding of what most Evangelicals believe about the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, please read the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Here is a Who’s Who list of Evangelical scholars who signed the Chicago Statement.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Who Determines What the Bible Says?

Bruce Gerencser February 13, 2024 Evangelicalism 31 Comments

Repost from 2015. Extensively edited, rewritten, and corrected.

Two thousand years.

Two thousand years of Jesus.

Almost from the beginning, Christians put their oral traditions, teachings, and beliefs into writing. The Bibles used by twenty-first-century Christians all trace their authority back through history to Christian writings dating from around 50 CE forward. The original writings, the first edition writings do not exist and any claim of inspiration for the “original” writings is nothing more than wishful, fanciful thinking. Every claim ever made by the Christian church rests on the text of the Bible and how the church has interpreted that text. I am aware of the fact that the Christian church has been influenced by Gnosticism for most of its 2,000-year history, but for the most part, Christianity is a text-based religion that places the text of the Bible above personal experiences and revelations. Even when personal experiences and revelations are given greater weight and authority — as in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches — they are almost always expected to conform to what is found in the text of the Bible.

Most Christians believe the Bible is inspired by God. They believe the words of the Bible came from God or at least represent, in fallible human form, what God wants humankind to know about God, life, salvation, death, judgment, and the afterlife. Many Christians believe every word of the Bible is inspired by God, and some Christians even go so far as to say that a particular translation, the King James Version, is inspired by God. Christians who hold this extreme view believe that God has preserved his Word through time and that every word of the King James Bible is from the lips of God himself. And countless other Christians believe the text of the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Ponder that thought for a moment. Every word in a book thousands of years old is true, without error, and perfect in every way. To quote the Evangelical bumper sticker, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me.” Some Evangelicals say, “God said it, and that settles it for me. It doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not!”

Most Christians believe the Bible is truth. While they may not believe ALL the Bible is truth, every Christian, at some point or the other, says THIS is truth. A person who does not believe the Bible is truth is not a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word. There is a form of Christianity floating about these days that suggests a person can be a Christian and not believe the Bible. This kind of Christian says “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” He embraces Jesus as his Savior and guide, but often has no connection with organized Christianity. However, even the “spiritual but not religious” Christians must, sooner or later, appeal to the Bible. Without the Bible, they would have no knowledge of Jesus, the locus of their faith.

Other Christians are what I call cafeteria Christians. They pick and choose what they want to believe. Most cafeteria Christians believe in Jesus since they DO want their sins forgiven and they DO want to go to Heaven when they die, but when it comes to the hard sayings of the Bible, the teachings that get in the way of the American dream and living the way they want to live, cafeteria Christians dismiss such sayings and teachings as old, outdated relics of the past that have no value or application today. Simply put, they want a Jesus divorced from anything else the Bible says. Cafeteria Christians become quite adept at explaining away anything in the Bible with which they disagree.

This brings me to the point of this post. Who determines what the Bible says? Who decides what this verse or that verse says? Who is the arbiter of truth? Who is the final authority?

Some Christians say GOD is the final authority. The Bible is God’s Word . . . THUS SAITH THE LORD! These well-meaning Christians think that the teachings of the Bible are clear and understandable, needing no explanation or interpretation. Why, then, do they go to church on Sundays and listen to men tell them what they think the Bible says? Why do they read books and commentaries written by people telling them what they think the Bible says? If the Bible is a self-attesting, self-explanatory text, why all the middlemen?

Some Christians say the HOLY SPIRIT is the final authority. God gave New Testament Christians (Old Testament believers only got a part-time Holy Ghost who came and went at will) the Holy Spirit to be their teacher and guide. Supposedly, the Holy Spirit teaches them everything necessary for life and godliness. It is not hard to see the Gnostic influence in this kind of thinking. If there is ONE Holy Spirit who teaches and guides every Christian, why is there no consensus among believers on what Christians believe or how they are supposed to live? Why does the Holy Spirit give contradictory instructions or lessons? Why are there so many Christian sects? Surely, if the Holy Spirit is on his game, every sect would believe the same thing, and they would become ONE body with ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism.

Some Christians are what I call red-letter Christians. They give weight and authority to the “words” of Jesus in the gospels, the words that are in red in many modern translations. With great passion and commitment, they attempt to walk in the steps of Jesus (WWJD). Unfortunately, they rarely consider whether the words attributed to Jesus in the gospels are actually his words. Jesus didn’t write any of the books found in the Bible, which, in my opinion, is quite odd. Most Biblical scholars question who actually wrote the gospels, and mainstream scholars have serious reservations over Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John being the authors of the gospels that bear their names. Since the gospels are, at best, stories passed down by those alive at the time of Christ and not put in written form until decades after the death of Jesus, the best a modern-day Christian can say about the gospels is that they are words written by an unknown people who recorded what a third, fourth, fifth or twentieth party told the writer Jesus said.

Claims that the Bible is some sort of inspired text require faith. There’s no evidence for the claim that the Bible is inspired outside of the text itself. Either you believe the Bible is, to some degree or the other, supernatural truth or you don’t. I am an atheist today primarily because I no longer believe the Bible is truth. While it is certainly a book filled with entertaining and thought-provoking stories, it is not, in any way, a supernatural text. While it certainly contains maxims worthy of emulation, it also contains God-approved behaviors that we moderns now consider at odds with human and scientific progress.

Every Christian belief rests not on God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, but on the authority of a human being or a group of human beings. It is humans who decide what the Bible says. It is humans who decide what this or that verse means. Whether it is a denomination, the Pope, theologians, a pastor, or an individual Christian, it is a human who is the final authority. At best, the only thing a Christian can claim is THUS SAITH THE POPE, MY DENOMINATION, MY PASTOR, MY COLLEGE PROFESSORS, OR MYSELF! Any claim that it is God speaking or leading is a matter of faith, a matter that cannot be proved empirically. In other words, you are just going to have to take their word for it — or not.

Christians need to get off their Bible High-Horse and admit who the real final authority is. The fact that there are thousands of Christian sects shows very clearly that humans are the ones with the final say on what the Bible does and doesn’t say. It is humans who preach, write books, teach theology classes, blog, and debate. God may have said a particular something — and there is no way for us to know if he did — but it is humans who get the final say about what God actually said or what he meant to say. Every Christian statement of belief is an interpretation of the Bible. It is that person or group saying, this is what the Bible says. In other words, the person is saying I know what God said. (One of the purposes of this blog is to demonstrate that the Bible can be made to say almost anything.)

Can you name one Christian teaching that ALL Christians agree upon? Outside of the fact that Jesus was a real person, every other teaching of the so-called “faith once delivered to the saints” is disputed by some Christian sect or the other. If the Christian church were a married couple, they would have long since been divorced for irreconcilable differences. Oh wait, that is exactly what has happened. The Christian church is hopelessly splintered into thousands of sects, each competing with the other for the title of God’s Truth Holder. Children in Evangelical Sunday schools learn to sing the B-I-B-L-E song. In light of what I have written above, the lyrics of the song should be changed:

The B-I-B-L-E, yes that MIGHT be the Book for me, I SOMETIMES stand alone on the WORDS OF MEN, the B-I-B-L-E. B-I-B-L-E!!

Until God shows up in person and says yes, I wrote this convoluted, contradictory book that makes me out to be a hateful, vindictive sadist, I am not going to believe the Bible is God’s Word. If a benevolent, loving God really wrote the Bible, do you think he would have written what Christians say he did? If God had control of the writing process, do you think he would have included his unsavory, immoral side? If God was involved in putting the Bible together, don’t you think he would have proofread it to make sure there were no mistakes and that the text was internally consistent?

Instead, Christians spend countless hours trying to harmonize (make it all fit) the text of the Bible. They put forth laughable explanations for the glaring errors found in the Bible. Well, you know Bruce, Jesus cleansed the Temple at the start of his ministry AND the end of his ministry! Sure he did. I wonder if Christians know how foolish some of their harmonizing attempts sound to those on the outside of the church or to someone like myself, who has been on both sides of the fence? Of course, according to the Bible, the various harmonization schemes sound foolish because non-Christians don’t have the Holy Spirit inside of them teaching them how to make square pegs fit in round holes. And round and round the merry-go-round goes.

If Christians want to believe the Bible is some sort of truth, and worship God/Jesus/Holy Spirit based on what is written within its pages, I have no beef with them. If they want to believe the Bible and its teachings, who am I to say they can’t? However, when they insist everyone acquiesce to their beliefs about the Bible and God, and that their peculiar belief system is the one true religion, then I have a problem. When Christians insist that the Bible and its teachings be taught to public school children or demand that their interpretations of the moral and ethical code taught in the Bible applies to everyone, they should expect pushback from people such as myself. Since history gives us ample warning about what happens when any religion gains the power of the state, secularists like myself will continue to fight any attempt to enshrine Christianity as the official state religion.

Here’s what I am saying to Christians. Take the Bible, go to your houses of worship, and believe and worship as you will. However, I expect you to keep your beliefs to yourself. If I don’t ask, you don’t tell. Stop all the theocratic, God-rule talk. Stop trying to turn the United States into a Christian nation. Stop demonizing everyone who disagrees with your beliefs. In other words, treat others with decency, love, and respect. Stop being a religious fanatic who thinks everyone should hear about your version of the Christian God and embrace your peculiar beliefs.

Do you think American Christians, especially conservative Catholics and Protestants, Mormons, and Evangelical Christians, can do what I mentioned above? Not a chance! They will continue to push, fight, and infiltrate until they have no more soldiers to fight with. They are like a disease that is only curable by death. The good news is that this brand of Christianity is slowly dying and, in time, long after you and I are dead, the American Jesus will have drawn its last breath. (Please see Why I Hate Jesus.)

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My First Steps Towards Believing the Bible Was Not Inerrant

Bruce Gerencser August 23, 2023 Evangelicalism 12 Comments

I grew up in a religious faith that taught me the Bible was the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. The word “inspired” meant that the Bible was the word of God; that holy men of old who wrote the Bible were told by the Holy Spirit exactly what to write. Some of my pastors and professors believed in the dictation theory. The authors of the Bible were mere automatons who wrote what God dictated to them. Other pastors believed that men wrote the Bible, thus their writing reflects their personality and culture. God, through some sort of unknown supernatural means, made sure that human influence on the Bible was in every way perfect and aligned with what he wanted to say.

Inspiration gets complicated when dealing with the question of WHAT, exactly, is inspired. Were the original manuscripts alone inspired? If so, there’s no such thing as the “inspired” Word of God because the original manuscripts do not exist. Are the extant manuscripts inspired? Some Evangelical pastors believe that the totality of existing manuscripts make up the inspired Word of God, and some pastors believe that certain translations — namely the King James Version — are the inspired Word of God. Regardless of how they answer the WHAT question, all of them believe that God supernaturally preserves his Word down through the ages, and the Bibles we hold in our hands is the very Words of God.

The word “inerrant” means “without mistake, contradiction, or error.” Some Evangelical pastors, knowing that every Bible translation has errors and mistakes, say they believe the original manuscripts are inerrant, and modern translations are faithful, reliable, and can be depended on in matters of faith, practice, morality, and anything else the Bible addresses. Of course, these men are arguing for the inerrancy of a text they had never seen Whatever the “original” manuscripts might have been, their exact wording and content are lost, likely never to be found.

The word “infallible” means incapable of error in every matter the Bible addresses. Thus, when the Bible speaks about matters of science and history, it is always true, and without error. No matter what scientists and historians say about a particular matter, what the Bible says is the final authority. That’s why almost half of Americans believe the Christian God created the universe sometime in the past 10,000 years.

At the age of nineteen, I enrolled in classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. Midwestern was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) institution that prided itself in turning out hellfire and brimstone preacher boys. My three years at Midwestern reinforced everything I had been taught as a youth. Every professor and chapel speaker believed the King James Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I was a seedling and Midwestern was a controlled-environment hothouse. Is it any wonder that I grew up to be a Bible thumper; believing that EVERY word in the Bible was straight from the mouth of God? If ever someone was a product of his environment, it was Bruce Gerencser.

I left Midwestern in 1979 and embarked on a ministerial career that took me to churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I stood before thousands of people with Bible held high and declared, THUS SAITH THE LORD! For many years, I preached only from the King James Bible. I believed it was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God for English-speaking people. Towards the end of my ministerial career, I started using the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and after that, I began using the English Standard Version (ESV).

Many of my former colleagues in the ministry and congregants trace the beginning of my unbelief back to my voracious reading habit and my abandonment of the King James Bible. One woman, after hearing of my loss of faith. wrote to me and said that I should stop reading books and only read the B-I-B-L-E. She just knew that if I would stop reading non-Biblical books, my doubts would magically disappear. In other words, ignorance is bliss.

As I ponder my past and what ultimately led to my loss of faith, two things stand out: a book on alleged Bible contradictions and a list of the differences between the 1611 and 1769 editions of the King James Bible.

As I studied for my sermons, I would often come across verses or passages of Scripture that didn’t make sense to me. I would consult various commentaries and grammatical aids, and, usually, I was able to reconcile whatever it was that was giving me difficulty. Sometimes, however, I ran into what could only be described as contradictions – competing passages of Scripture. In these times, I consulted the book on alleged contradictions in the Bible. Often, my confusion would dissipate, but over time I began to think that the explanations and resolutions the book gave were shallow, not on point, or downright nonsensical. Finally, I quit reading this book and decided to just trust God, believing that he would never give us a Bible with errors, mistakes, and contradictions. I decided, as many Evangelicals do, to “faith” it.

For many years, the only Bible translation I used was the 1769 edition of the King James Bible. I had been taught as a child and in college that the original version — 1611 — of the King James Version and the 1769 version were identical. I later found out they were not; and that there were numerous differences between the two editions. (Please read the Wikipedia article on the 1769 King James Bible for more information on this subject.)

I remember finding a list of the differences between the two editions and sharing it with my best friend — who was also an IFB pastor. He dismissed the differences out of hand, telling me that even if I could show him an error in the King James Bible, he would still, by faith, believe the KJV was inerrant! Over the next few months, he would repeat this mantra to me again and again. He, to this day, believes the King James Bible is inerrant. I, on the other hand, couldn’t do so. Learning that there were differences between the editions forced me to alter my beliefs, at least inwardly. It would be another decade before I could admit that the Bible was not inerrant. But even then, I downplayed the errors, mistakes, and contradictions. I continued to read about the nature of the Biblical text, but I kept that knowledge to myself. It was not until I left the ministry that I finally could see that the Bible was NOT what my pastors and professors said it was; that it was not what I told countless congregants it was. Once the Bible lost its authority, I was then free to question other aspects of my faith, leading, ultimately, to where I am today. My journey away from Evangelicalism to atheism began and ended with the Bible.

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Bruce, In Your IFB Days Did You Encounter Peter Ruckman?

Bruce Gerencser July 13, 2023 Evangelicalism 5 Comments

Matt asked, In your IFB days did you ever encounter Peter Ruckman? If so what was/is your assessment of him?

For readers who are not familiar with Peter Ruckman, Wikipedia has this to say about him:

Peter Ruckman was an American Independent Baptist pastor and founder of Pensacola Bible Institute in Pensacola, Florida (not to be confused with Pensacola Christian College).

Ruckman was known for his position that the King James Version constituted “advanced revelation” and was the final, preserved word of God for English speakers.

Ruckman died in 2016 at the age of ninety-four. He was a graduate of Bob Jones University, and for many years the pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. Bible Baptist’s website describes Ruckman this way:

Dr. Peter S. Ruckman (November 19, 1921 – April 21, 2016) received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alabama and finished his formal education with six years of training at Bob Jones University (four full years and two accelerated summer sessions), completing requirements for the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Reading at a rate of seven hundred words per minute, Dr. Ruckman had managed to read about 6,500 books before receiving his doctorate at an average of a book each day.

Dr. Ruckman stood for the absolute authority of the Authorized Version and offered no apology to any recognized scholar anywhere for his stand. In addition to preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible, Dr. Ruckman produced a comprehensive collection of apologetic and polemic literature and resources supporting the authority of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures.

The thrice-married Ruckman was either loved or hated by IFB preachers. He was a man known to engender strife, believing that rightness of belief was all that mattered (except, evidently, what the Bible said about divorce). Much like their mentor, his followers are known for their arrogance, nastiness, and argumentative spirit.

I first met Peter Ruckman at Camp Chautauqua in Miamisburg, Ohio — an IFB youth camp owned and operated at the time by the Ohio Baptist Bible Fellowship. I attended Camp Chautauqua two summers in the early 1970s. Attending camp was one of the highlights of my teenage years. Lots of fun, lots of girls, and yes, lots of preaching. One year, Ruckman was the featured speaker. I don’t remember much about his sermons, but I vividly remember the chalk drawings he used to illustrate his sermons. Ruckman was a skillful, talented chalk artist, so he naturally used his art to “hook” people and reel them into his peculiar brand of IFB Christianity.

This would be the only time I heard Ruckman preach. I later would read some of his polemical books and commentaries and come into close contact with some of his followers. While I believed, at the time, as Ruckman did, that the King James Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God and the only Bible for English-speaking people, I found his personality and ministerial approach (and that of his devotees) to be so caustic and abrasive that I wanted nothing to do with him.

I would later learn that King James-Onlyism was not only irrational and anti-intellectual, but in its extreme forms, it was a cult. I know a few pastors who are still devoted followers of Ruckman’s teachings. They are, in every way, small men whose lives have been ruined by arrogance and certainty of belief. The only cure I know for this disease is books written by men such as Dr. Bart Ehrman. Until they can at least consider the possibility that they might be wrong, there is no hope for them.

In 2005, I candidated at a Southern Baptist church in Weston, West Virginia. The church was very interested in me becoming their next pastor. One problem — I had preached my trial sermons from the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible. One of the core families was a follower of Peter Ruckman. The pulpit committee asked if, out of deference to this family, I would only preach from the KJV. I told them that I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) make such a promise. The church decided I wasn’t the man for them. Such is the pernicious effect of Ruckmanism; causing controversy and division wherever it is found.

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Bruce, What Was Your View on the King James Bible?

Bruce Gerencser July 13, 2023 Evangelicalism 6 Comments

Richard asked: During your time in the IFB what was your particular view on the KJV? Did you change this view prior to leaving Christianity?

I grew up in Baptist churches that only used the King James Bible. These churches weren’t King James-only per se. It is just that the King James Bible was the only version these churches used. I don’t remember ever hearing a sermon on why church members should only use the KJV. This all changed with the publishing of the New International Version (NIV) in 1978 and the New King James Version (NKJV) in 1982. This forced Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches and pastors, along with IFB colleges and seminaries, to stake out positions on English Bible translations. The college I attended in the 1970s, Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, was decidedly King James-only. Professors and students were required to use only the KJV, and chapel speakers were required to do the same. Using a different translation was grounds for immediate expulsion. At the same time, however, the KJV extremism of Peter Ruckman was also banned, I suspect out of trying to avoid the infighting that Ruckmanism tended to foment. (Please read Questions: Bruce, In Your IFB Days Did You Encounter Peter Ruckman?) That said, Ruckman’s teachings found fertile ground in which to grow, and more than a few Midwestern graduates became Ruckmanites. These pastors advertise their beliefs about Bible translations by displaying on their church signs and literature KJV 1611. (Back in the day when Polly and I were looking for a church to attend, we took KJV 1611 on a church sign to mean: Danger! Infected with an incurable disease. Do not enter!)

I entered the ministry as a defender of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Word of God; “Word of God” being the King James Bible. While I was never a follower of Peter Ruckman — I despised his nasty, vulgar disposition and that of his disciples — I generally believed as he did: that the King James Bible was God’s perfect word for English-speaking people. I wasn’t one to spend much time preaching about Bible translations. Everyone knew that at the churches I pastored we ONLY used the King James Bible.

In the late 1980s, I read several books that called into question my belief that the King James Bible was inerrant. I concluded that no translation was without error, and that inerrancy only applied to the original manuscripts. I took the approach that the KJV was the best and most reliable translation for English-speaking people. I held this position until the late 1990s.

In 1995, I started a non-denominational church, Our Father’s House, in West Unity, Ohio. I would pastor Our Father’s House for seven years. It was here that my theology, politics, and social values began to change. In 2000, I decided to change which Bible translation I used when preaching. I had already been reading other translations in my studies, but using anything but a KJV for preaching was a big deal, at least for me. Congregants? They couldn’t care less. I used the New American Standard Version (NASB) for a year or so, eventually moving to the English Standard Version (ESV). I was still preaching from the ESV when I left Christianity in November 2008. Devotionally, I read Eugene Peterson’s masterful translation, The Message. I found great joy and satisfaction when reading The Message translation. It was a Bible that truly spoke the language of the common man.

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Bruce, You Don’t Know Anything About the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church Movement — Part One

Bruce Gerencser March 30, 2023 Evangelicalism 9 Comments

I am widely regarded as an expert on the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. I was raised in an IFB home, attended IFB churches as a youth, prepared for the ministry at an IFB college, married an IFB pastor’s daughter, pastored IFB churches, and have studied and followed the IFB church movement most of my adult life. Yet, it is not uncommon for an IFB zealot to read one or more of my posts on the IFB church movement and conclude that I don’t know anything about IFB churches, pastors, colleges, and parachurch ministries. Gary Richards, whose real name is Gary MacKay, is one such man.

Today, Richards left the following comment on a post titled “Old-Fashioned” Preaching: Calling Sin Sin, Stepping on Toes, And Naming Names. Based on the server logs, this is the only post Richards read. (Please see Curiosity, A Missing Evangelical Trait.) My response is indented and italicized. All spelling and grammar in the original.

What is obvious in the 1st paragraph is that you really know nothing of the IFB or IB churches. Their only claim is that they believe in the total Word of God & teach that from it. The term “old fashioned” is just that not from 2,000 years ago, be serious. What this means is from back in the day before the church was hijacked from liberal & progressive ideologies.

“Old Fashioned” is a term used by IFB churches and pastors to denote that their beliefs and practices predate the modern age; that their beliefs hail from better days in times past. Sometimes, the term is used to suggest that present beliefs are the same as those of Jesus, his disciples, and first-century followers of Jesus.

In 2015, I wrote a post titled, What Independent Baptists Mean When They Use the Phrase “Old-Fashioned.” Here’s what I had to say:

Many Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches advertise themselves as “old- fashioned” churches. Many IFB preachers call themselves old-fashioned preachers. What do they mean when they say they are an old-fashioned church or an old-fashioned preacher?

An old-fashioned church is one where members yearn for the past — usually the 1950s. In their mind, if society and Christianity would return to the 1950s all would be well. In the 1950s, Blacks knew their place, women were barefoot and pregnant, birth control was hard to come by, abortion was illegal, homosexuals and atheists were in the closet, and Joseph McCarthy terrorized Americans with attempts to root out communism. In the 1950s, we fought a war against communism, teachers still prayed and read the Bible in school, creationism was considered good science, and Christianity controlled the public space.

Then came the rebellious 1960s and 1970s, and everything changed. Sixty years later, Blacks no longer know their place, Whites are becoming a minority, couples no longer get married, women have access to birth control, homosexuals and atheists are out of the closet, a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist communist black man was president, abortion is legal, prayer and Bible reading in school are banned, creationism is considered religious dogma, same-sex marriage is legal, and Christianity is no longer given a preferential seat at the head of the cultural table.

From the fundamentalist Christian’s perspective, I readily understand why people yearn for the old-fashioned days of the 1950s. The fifties were a time when their brand of Christianity was the norm. Now they are fighting to be heard. Thousands of church members have left, seeking out the friendlier confines of generic, hip Evangelical churches. Instead of hard preaching against sin, Christians clamor for pastors who will “feed” them and minister to their felt needs. Most of all, they want to be entertained. Nones and atheists are increasing in number, and more and more people consider themselves spiritual or not religious. Pluralism and secularism are on the rise, and cultural Christianity is the norm and not the exception.

So what’s an old-fashioned Baptist church like? Their services are quite traditional; traditional meaning as it was in the 1950s. The focus is on “hard” preaching, often from the King James Version of the Bible. The goal is to convert sinners and strengthen church members so they can withstand the wiles of the devil and pressure from the “world.” Everything the old-fashioned Baptist church does is a throwback to yesteryear — an era when preachers preached hard, hymns were sung, altar calls were given, couples stayed married, women saved themselves for marriage and the kitchen, and the Christian church was the hub around which the community revolved.

Millions of Americans attend some sort of an old-fashioned church, even if the Baptist name is not over the front door. They love the respite their church gives them from the evil, sinful, atheistic world they live in. They love the certainty they hear in their pastor’s sermons. They are glad to be a part of a group that thinks just like they do. For those who desire to live in the 1950s, an old-fashioned church fits the bill. It heals their angst and gives them peace. It does not matter if their beliefs are true or whether their practice accurately reflects the 1950s. People seeking and finding value, hope, peace, and direction do not require truth. All they require is faith, and their belief that their “old-fashioned” version of Christianity is true. This is this power of myth.

Keeping the straight path of God’s Word bothers many since adoption and integration of evil & worldly vices, lifestyles and ideology ain’t happening. To suggest that it’s straight out of “one flew over the cuckoos nest just shows your true spirit. There are those & have been that were not drawn by God & grew up in the church & can’t wait to get out & talk smack about it, this is fleshly behavior, nothing new. There are preachers, pastors & teachers that were never called by God for this gift and promote a false gospel & distort God’s Word. There are ex- church attendees maybe even members that have left and claim to be now unbelievers. I would suggest they were never born again and never received God’s Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ sent. This is and always has been a problem since Jesus walked on this earth in the flesh.

Based on what Richards wrote above, it sure seems that there are a lot of unsaved people in the church he attends. All that old-fashioned preaching, yet people are still unsaved; “unsaved” meaning people who believe and behave differently from Richards. IFB zealots are known for their harsh, hateful judgments of people who dare to leave their cult. I have received thousands of emails, comments, and social media messages from Evangelical Christians. IFB Christians — a subset of Evangelicalism — stand at the top of the chart when it comes to people who hurl invectives, hatred, and even death threats. I can’t tell you the last time I have interacted with an IFB believer who was a thoughtful, respectful human being. When called out on their awful behavior, they make all sorts of excuses and justifications, but the fact remains that their ill-bred behavior does little, if anything, to advance the cause of Christ. I remain convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is missing from most IFB Bibles.

LOL – Old fashioned preaching. Preaching that doesn’t make people feel good but rather strokes their flesh is what worldly church attendees desire and it’s their sign they probably are not saved. Once the pastor of the flock preaches on a topic or subject that makes you uncomfortable is your sign. If it makes you butt hurt then go cry to the devil. Now, when it comes to feeling the Holy Ghost from certain type of preaching, you’re not qualified since you’ve never known the Holy Spirit.

Did you notice how Richards seems to be the arbiter of who is and isn’t saved? I thought God was the only one who knows whether someone was saved?

Richards wants me to know that I don’t know anything about the subjects at hand because I never was saved; that the Holy Spirit never lived inside of me. This claim, of course, is ludicrous. I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years. Saved at age fifteen, I spent thirty-five years loving, serving, and following Jesus; preaching the gospel, teaching the commands of Christ, winning souls, and starting churches. Richards tries to dismiss my life out of hand, but he can’t. The evidence suggests that I was once was a devoted follower of Christ. That Richards can’t square his theology with my story is his problem, not mine.

Richards cleans carpets for a living. By all accounts, he is good at what he does. Imagine if I went around the Internet leaving comments that said, “Gary Richards doesn’t know how to clean carpets. He can say whatever ever he wants, but I know he can’t clean carpets.” Why, Richards would rightly be outraged. Why? I am dismissing out of hand his carpet cleaning experience. No matter what Richards says, I know better. I am absolutely right. I wonder if Richards will get my sermon illustration?

I have been to Charasmatic churches where fakers abound, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where these type of churches came out of. As with all fakes you will naturally spin them into the Christian religion even though they are not. It’s just as ludicrous as to trying to convince true believers that a lesbian preacher in a gay church is Christian. I’ve been to quiet lukewarm boring churches that would put anyone to sleep where members go just to punch in their time card and get Sunday over with. Been to churches that have no gospel & a lot of strange wierd things going on like meeting in the basement for a variety of herbs and such. Then you get to a church where the preacher speaks louder which does keep your attention, preaches on the Word right out of the KJV with a non scripted message direct from the Holy Spirit that speaks to everyone, you know you’re in the right place. Worse to y’all no doubt is that message ties directly what you heard before you hot to church.

Again, Richards seems to know who is and isn’t a Christian. He is showing signs of having Elijah Syndrome.

In 2021, I wrote a post titled Evangelical Preachers and the Elijah Syndrome. Here’s an excerpt from this post:

Elijah saw himself as the one remaining true prophet in the land. God reminded him in First Kings 19:18 that there were actually 7,000 prophets who had not yet bowed a knee to Baal.

Every time I think of this story, I am reminded that many Evangelical preachers see themselves as some sort of modern-day Elijah. And like Elijah, each thinks he is the one remaining prophet in the community standing up for God, the Bible, and Evangelical morality. Such preachers delude themselves into thinking that they alone are standing true, that they alone are preaching the right message.

….

I remember thinking this of myself back when I pastored Somerset Baptist Church in Mount Perry, Ohio. Everywhere I looked I saw churches and pastors who were not winning souls and who were not waging war against Satan, sin, and godlessness. As the church began to grow, I convinced myself that people were attending the church because they wanted to hear a true man of God.

….

This “I alone remain true to God” way of thinking is what turns preachers into insufferable, arrogant, hypocritical pricks. Thinking that they have some sort of inside knowledge about God and the Bible, they are determined to share what they think they know with everyone, even if people don’t want to hear it.

Preachers such as Jack Hyles, Fred Phelps, James Dobson, JD Hall, and Greg Locke didn’t start out as pontificating bloviators. Over time, they convinced themselves that they had been chosen uniquely by God to speak on his behalf. Once convinced of this, their pronouncements became more shrill and severe. These Elijah-like prophets of God, thinking that most churches and pastors are Biblically and morally compromised, withdrew from the larger Christian body.

— end of quote —

Over the course of his comment, what has Richards done? He has narrowed his list of “who is a True Christian®” further and further until he reaches a point where only he and a few other believers are True Christians®.

Now, your KJV problem, obviously you haven’t researched that enough. If you study with the greek & Hebrew then you know it’s the closest available in English. The changes in translations like the NIV are crazy & even the creator of the NIV apologized for it before his death. Same with other translations. Sure, the KJV is a pain in the butt to those that don’t study God’s Word.

I don’t have a “KJV problem.” It is Richards who reveals that he is woefully ignorant about the King James Version and other English translations. He is also ignorant of the various manuscripts underlying the various translations; that KJV is based on a small number of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts; that other translations use a wealth of manuscripts for their text. No, the issue here is this: Richards believes the KJV is supernaturally inspired, inerrant, and infallible — an irrational, unsupportable belief. If Richards wants to spar with me on the KJV, I am more than happy to do so. I think he might find that I know a wee bit about the subject; especially since I attended a KJV-only college and read, studied, and preached from the KJV most of my ministerial career. I might even know something something about the Hebrew and Greek texts. 🙂

But……..for the life of me I don’t understand how a pastor of 25 years changes gears & goes into calvanism. I mean, to be a pastor you should be full of the Holy Spirit, called by God to preach and you know God’s Word. Then to walk away & become a humanist & athiest? It isn’t a great surprise because we have countless counterfeit ministries & fallen preachers that were never real. That is a problem & the Word tells us this as we draw closer to that time.

Now we get to Richards’ grand finale.

First, it’s CALVINISM not calvanism — a spelling error common among people who know nothing about Calvinism. I am more than happy to discuss why I embraced Evangelical Calvinism with Richards if he is up to the task. I suspect he is not. The basic IFB position on Calvinism is this: “we ‘agin it. It’s from the pit of Hell.” I doubt he has read John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion or any other book written by Calvinistic authors. Richards might want to check out my series Why I Became a Calvinist — Part One.

Richards is having trouble squaring my story with his IFB theology. HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE? Richards says. I don’t know what to tell him. I once was an Evangelical Christian and now I am an atheist and humanist. The inability of Richards and others like him to take the round peg of my life and put it in a square hole forces them to dismiss my story and deem me unsaved. Sadly, they never ponder whether the real problem is their theology or their understanding of the Bible.

Richards says I am a “fallen preacher” that never was real. I think deep down he knows better; that if I weren’t a Christian, neither is he.

Saved by Reason,

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Fundamentalist Baptist Man Tells Me I Am Following the Humanistic Teachings of Shaitan

Bruce Gerencser March 23, 2022 Atheism 17 Comments

Several years ago, a man by the name of Todd W Frederick stopped by to comment on the post Why I Hate Jesus. Based on the server logs for this site, Frederick read two or three posts and the comment rules page. While it is possible he read other posts, I have my doubts Frederick showed any interest in finding out who and what I am. As you will see in a moment, Frederick has already passed judgment, saying that I am headed for an eternal ass-whooping in hell.

According to Frederick’s website, he attends Rock Springs Baptist Church in Easley, South Carolina. Rock Springs Baptist is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. [Based on a mention on his business Facebook page, Frederick might attend Forestville Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina.] Frederick owns Whiter Than Snow Appliances, and in 2014 he ran in the primary election for District 26 County Council. He received thirty-five percent of the vote. Fredrick is also the owner of Absolutely Beachy Hair Products — an online hair paste company. (Facebook page)

Frederick has two years of Bible training via correspondence from Victory Bible College (no active website) in Roan Mountain, Tennessee and Bethany Bible College in Dothan, Alabama. Neither institution is accredited. I can say of Bethany Bible College that their curriculum is Sunday School class level. Back in the 1980s, I thought about finishing my degree through Bethany. After receiving the first materials, I was appalled to find out how weak they were academically. There are numerous such institutions scattered around the United States, offering easy paths to undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Some of these colleges are considered diploma mills.

Frederick and his wife Heather do what he calls “harp evangelism” through a ministry titled Upstate Celestial Strings. Frederick’s wife is an accomplished harp player:

Currently Heather and her husband, Todd W. Frederick, participate in ministry opportunities with their local Baptist Church in Greenville, SC. They also enjoy working together as a team doing harp evangelism meetings for local Bible believing churches. Todd preaches a message from the Bible and Heather plays her harp. At UPSTATE CELESTIAL STRINGS, we echo the prayer of Psalm 71:22 with King David who stated:
“I will praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.”

Frederick is unapologetically Christian; and not just any kind of Christian. He is a King James-only, Muslim-hating, pro-white (his business website says “call … to speak to a live “European-American” citizen), Donald Trump-supporting Fundamentalist Baptist. I encourage you to peruse the Whiter Than Snow Appliances website. Besides having an atrocious 1990s website design — as all of his websites do — Frederick makes it clear that he is a Fundamentalist Christian businessman interested in only doing business with Fundamentalist Christian South Carolinians. Are you gay? Don’t even think about shopping at Whiter Than Snow Appliances. The front page of its website says:

The Colours of the Rainbow do not truly represent Sodomites (aka-“gays” which actually means “merry” or “happy”). The sodomite terrorists hi-jacked the sign of the rainbow and claimed it as their symbol; yet, they do that which is why Jehovah-Elohim destroyed the “old world” – because of sins [II Peter 2:5 –KJV], sins that the queers celebrate! They hold to the lifestyle of Sodom! The queers have tried to pervert the rainbow which is actually a perfectly good Biblical Symbol of God’s Promise to never destroy the earth again by a world-wide flood because of wickedness; such as Homosexuality. It’s sad, but the homosexual crowd does not have a clue about happiness (joy in the Holy Ghost)… just look at their suicide rate! Even attacking each other in their perverted relationships. They’re a very sad, not gay, people group.]

I am sure local LGBTQ people flock to Frederick’s appliance business. Not only is Frederick anti-gay, he is also anti- any other religion except Evangelical Christianity, and anti- any other political persuasion except conservative Republicanism. It’s fortunate that Frederick’s business is located in Fundamentalist Baptist, Evangelical South Carolina. Almost eighty-percent of South Carolinians self-identify as Christian. Frederick’s business is located in the small town of Piedmont — the home of Piedmont Bible College (a Fundamentalist Baptist institution with 740 students) — so I suspect the percentage of Christians is even higher than in larger South Carolina. Such behaviors here in Northwest Ohio — an overwhelmingly Evangelical area — would likely result in business failure. Local Evangelicals might have similar beliefs to Frederick’s, but most of them, at least to your face, are polite. (See Local Response for some notable exceptions.)

As I read Frederick’s email to me, I was perplexed by one line: these unfortunate events were brought about by Shaitan of whom you are now obeying his humanistic teachings. I thought, at first, that Frederick had misspelled the word Satan. Nope. Frederick says, in a first for this site after 38,000 comments and thousands of emails, that I am following the humanistic teachings of Shaitan. According to Wikipedia Shaitan is:

Shayṭān is a malevolent creature in Islamic theology and mythology. They are usually assigned to the category of jinn (spiritual entities). Apart from its generic designation, used with the definite article Al-, Shaitan refers to the head of shayateen, known as Iblis.
….
The term Shaytan has the same origin as Hebrew שָׂטָן (Sātān), source of the English Satan. However Arabic etymology relates Shaytan to the root sh-t-n (distant or one who goes astray). As an adjective, it can apply to any other being. The term “Shaytan” referring to this specific creature, may either be translated as “demon” or as “devil”. In Pre Islamic Arabia this term was used to designate an evil jinni. With the emergence of Islam the meaning of ‘Shayatin’ moved closer to the Christian concept of demons.

Frederick and I, indeed, have one thing in common: both of us are following non-existent, mythical beings.

Now that you know a bit about Todd Frederick, I give you his email. I will leave it to readers to make their own judgments. I plan to un-ban Frederick so he can so respond to this post and any comments it might receive.

You reap what you sow here and in the hereafter. I was right, you are ‘Bruce Nobody’ because you are unwilling to pick fights with other cultural gods, e.g. Allah; you talk big: aren’t they imaginary, too? So just shut down your website for these whiners about baby Jesus until you and your “brainwashed” followers grow a spine and declare war on all of the followers of god(s) throughout the world, or let’s just say the gods that are worshiped in Ohio alone. Once you and your devotees to humanistic logic can offend and persuade all of those outside of your “little box” to realize they have been duped and you can “free” them, as you did for one of your female converts to atheism then you will be “Bruce Almighty.”
Furthermore, you call my comments for you to stand up against the Quran “nasty, abusive words” yet you’re permitting your fellow infidels to run rough shod over others coming to express his or her viewpoints. An example of this is from one of your devotees: “Bruce, how do you deal with assholes like this Charlie asswipe?” Yes, enjoy yourself while you can ‘Bruce Nobody’ even though you are in control now as to who you can delete or block when it comes to comments and IP addresses but the time will be soon when you’ll stand before this “imaginary god” only to find that you don’t have a delete button for the terror you’ll be facing. Mock, be cocky now and talk behind people’s back when they’re unable to defend themselves and you will be reaping this, too. Remember: Prov. 1 26 “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:”
I know you don’t like it when the bible is used, except when it benefits your trite, empty arguments but how can ‘Bruce Nobody’ be so sure of what you’re espousing to even though all of the cultures of the world have some form of having a creation account, writings that depict the “gods were angered at the original parents…”, a universal flood and even the evidences of antediluvian artifacts found in archeological digs in the Middle East. So shameful that you’re destroying the possibilities that your grandchildren to be able to make a conscience choice to receive god and a home in heaven because you are so spiritually sick. Just be sick for yourself if this is what you are irresistibly drawn to but to take your family to the lake of fire with you is what’s really “nasty and abusive.”
Like it or not, the truth tells you these facts and I am now your enemy because I tell you the truth. God didn’t foreordain for you to “suffer more than Jesus did”; these unfortunate events were brought about by Shaitan of whom you are now obeying his humanistic teachings. Continue in his doctrines and you will truly understand what suffering will be but it doesn’t have to be this ending for you: Jesus suffered your sin penalty in hell, baring in his body the sins of the world; thus, making all who repent and believe on Christ to be made righteous.
God is the purest form of love: John 3:16 – KJV. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God…

Sure makes me want to return to Christianity and follow after Jesus, right? Fundamentalists such as Frederick are only interested in hearing themselves talk. Frederick doesn’t really care about my mythical soul. All he cares about is putting a word in for Jesus. Fuck the atheists, let them burn in hell, people such as Frederick think. All that matters to such people is the preaching of their peculiar version of the Christian gospel. Little do they know or care how much damage they are causing to the Christian cause. Keep preaching, Bro. Frederick. Such beliefs and practices are partly behind the overall decline of Evangelical Christianity. Frederick might “feel” good after telling the ex-Evangelical pastor Bruce Gerencser the “truth,” but his truth is poisoning a whole generation of potential Christians and church members. I don’t need to evangelize for atheism, the Fredericks of the world are doing all the soul-saving work for me. If you doubt this to be so, consider the following review left on the Whiter Than Snow Appliances Facebook page. The reviewer is a Mormon:

Todd Frederick, the owner, was professional and helpful with our new stove, I will give him that much. We need a new dryer and fridge as well and were convinced at first that we were doing business with him further until on his way out he asked what church we attended. He did not agree with the church that we are members of and proceeded to tell us why we were wrong. As if this wasn’t bad enough, he would not stop berating us about it. He was absolutely relentless with this ridiculousness. We asked him several times to leave because he had gone well past being rude to being totally disrespectful in our own home. He not only would not leave, he had the audacity to tell us that since we were renting it wasn’t even our home. I could not believe the gall of this man. My wife and I both had to walk to the other end of the house just to get away from this man hoping he would eventually leave. The most unprofessional experience I have ever encountered. The saddest part of all this is usually when something like this happens you can walk away from the individual, but how can you walk away when the offender is right in your own living room and won’t leave when asked…simply UNBELIEVABLE!

Fredrick responded:

Danny Mortimer, the Mormon missionary, just didn’t like me having some knowledge about his cult. Therefore, he has stooped so low as to smear my business. Fact is, Joseph Smith’s translations from Egyptian ancient papyri is utter nonsense and simply UNBELIEVABLE!
Here’s the true account of what occurred during the dialogue that I had with Danny Mortimer and his wife. Since Danny believes he will one day be a god, he needs to stop lying about people with whom he disagrees with. Otherwise, he will be like his brother Satan, a.k.a. in Mormon doctrine: “a spirit son of God.”
….
I simply asked Danny if he had good church to go to; he said he’s a Mormon. I said ‘I was going to invite you to Forestville Baptist Church.’ He said he attended there when he was younger but converted to Mormonism later and became a Mormon missionary. [Danny’s religion is known for challenging people themselves.] I then asked the question ‘What made you change from being a Baptist to a Mormon?’ His ans: “I studied Mormon doctrine and logically it made sense to me.” He asked me if I knew anything about Mormonism; I said ‘Yes, I studied up on Mormonism to explain what’s wrong w/ Mormon doctrine to our divorced neighbor lady w/ 3 children who were visited continually by Mormon missionaries.’ Danny asked me if I’d read the book of Mormons, I said ‘No.’ He said “You can’t speak about Mormonism until you read the book of Mormons.”
I then brought up fallacies in the Mormon doctrines, such as: How Mormons believe: “As God was, so is man and as God is, so shall man be.” Thus, they teach you can become “Gods.” They also believe that God spawns/makes “spirit babies” that are sent down to earth to inhabit human physical babies born to Mormon couples. Also teaching: each Mormon married man (even to multiple wives) will have children, being recipients of “the spirit babies.” Then after he dies, will become a “God” over his own planet, inhabiting it w/ his children and his favorite wife (who he will call up from the dead). They’ll then repopulate their planet. Thus, they will repeat the cycle that the “God in heaven is now experiencing.”’ [These doctrines are all erroneous teachings] I then asked Danny ‘Do you believe that you’ll be a “God” someday?’ To this he said “I hope so.” Then he went on to say again that I still couldn’t speak about Mormonism until I read the book of Mormon. Danny expressed anger because of the truth I was exposing about his false-religion, saying “You’re talking ‘Calculus’ when you haven’t even studied Algebra.” (Meaning: I was revealing too much about his false teachings and he didn’t like it.)
Neither Danny, nor his wife, ever once asked me to leave; instead, he asked me what I knew about Mormonism and I answered him/them. Not only are Danny Mortimer and his wife in a false religion but he’s also spreading lies about our discussion. Before I left, I told them that I also have discussed doctrinal differences with an imam (an Islamic priest) for over 2 hours (at the mosque). [Actually, I had a friendlier dialogue w/ this Imam than I experienced from Danny who exhibited much anger (being under conviction by the Holy Ghost that he’s wrong.) [I spoke w/ Danny and his wife for only about 20 minutes, making me late to church.] I ended the discussion by telling Danny that hopefully I didn’t offend him and I enjoyed our dialogue. I shook his hand and left. I’m shocked that Danny would act so child-like by ignoring our 1st Amendment Right to freedom of speech then go on and attack my business. Even the Mormons take liberties to try and make converts by incorporating opportunities into their work-a-day meetings to speak one-on-one to people they come in contact with. [Just ask anyone who has gone job hunting in Utah or Idaho.]
Jesus Christ has given the Great Commission. As a Christian, I’m to reach the lost, giving them the only hope that can bring salvation to them. The biblical Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is that hope: Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, was crucified for our sins and was resurrected from the dead; thus, he is able save all who call upon him. Believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and you, who are sorry for your sins and repent of them, will be given the Holy Ghost. He will guide you into all truth; empowering you to live out the will of God. [You won’t become a “God.” Lucifer tried that; see where that’s gotten him.]
….

Yowzer!

Todd W. Fredrick is one of those rare birds who behaves the same way in public as he does on the internet. I have concluded that Frederick does indeed have an advanced degree; a degree in passive-aggressive behavior toward people who don’t line up with his religious beliefs. I am not against Evangelicals attempting to engage me or the readers of this blog in thoughtful discussions about God, Jesus, Christianity, the Bible, human sexuality, abortion, atheism, agnosticism, and humanism. Over a million Evangelicals have stopped by this blog over the past decade. More than ninety-nine percent of them never leave a comment or send me an email. And those who do? Most of them are argumentative, arrogant, judgmental assholes. Rare is the Evangelical who acts like a decent human being. I long ago concluded that many Evangelicals believe that I am beyond the grace of God: that as one who does “despite unto the spirit of grace” and “trods under foot the son of God,” and “considers the blood of the covenant an unholy thing” (Hebrews 10:29), I have passed a point of no return. I am a reprobate (Romans 1,2) who has committed the unpardonable sin. And since there is no chance of my return, it is okay to treat me like shit on the bottom of one’s shoes.

After a decade of such abuse, there is zero chance that I would ever reconsider the claims of Christianity — especially Evangelical/Fundamentalist/Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Christianity. Perhaps historians or archeologists will find some sort of evidence that might cause me to reconsider Christianity. Even if this unlikely event occurred, I wouldn’t return to the Christian faith. Much like an abused spouse, I would be out of my mind to return to a religion that harbors violent pathological abusers. Well, what will you say on judgement day, Bruce, when Jesus casts your sorry ass into the Lake of Fire? I will say, Jesus, many of your followers were assholes who showed me no love, kindness, or compassion. Some of them threatened to murder me, and others threatened to harm my daughter with Down syndrome. Lord, who are these people of yours? I wouldn’t want to live next door to such people, and I sure don’t want to spend eternity with them in God’s Heavenly Trump Tower®. Please, Lord, send me to hell. Let me enjoy the eternal company of Christopher Hitchens, Gandhi, my atheist/liberal Christian friends, and billions of other “sinners” who just so happened to have the wrong beliefs. I don’t like warm weather, Lord, but I will endure it as long as I don’t have to go to heaven. Thank you.

Of course, there is no Heaven or Hell. All we have is the here-and-now. And as a man who lives very much in the present, I plan to do all I can to suffocate the life out of Evangelical Christianity, or at the very least banish it to the fringes of American society. I hope you will continue to help me in this important task. We ARE making progress, as surveys show. The number of atheists, agnostics, NONES, and those who are indifferent towards religion continues to increase. The NONES are the fasting growing religious demographic in America. We ARE winning the battle, all praise be to Shaitan and Loki.

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IFB Zealot Says He’s Surprised God Hasn’t Killed Me Yet — Part Two

Bruce Gerencser December 21, 2021 Evangelicalism 11 Comments

Several days ago, I received an email from an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) zealot named Noah Zielke. Zielke ignored my requests on the Contact Page and emailed me anyway. What follows is my response to him. Best I can tell, Zielke is a computer science major at the University of Alabama. I do give him credit for reading some of my autobiographical material, along with a few posts about the IFB church movement.

I publicly responded to Zielke’s email with a post titled IFB Zealot Says He’s Surprised God Hasn’t Killed Me Yet — Part One. As I expected, Zielke responded to my post with another email. What follows is the text of his email and my indented and italicized response.

Thanks for the response, I have only a few points to reply:

Yes, you ignored or disregarded pretty much everything I said.

In regard to: “It’s evident your momma didn’t raise you right, that you lack basic decency and respect for other people. This is a common trait among IFB Christians. What kind of person goes around calling people he disagrees with “stupid”?”

I assume you are being a bit tongue-in-cheek having read your other content, but if not, this is pretty hypocritical. One of your flagship articles is practically a treatise on how much you hate evangelicals, but you abstract this by making it seem like you just hate the “Jesus” that we have apparently constructed (which you just use as an effigy for us).

No, I was not being tongue-in-cheek. Going around calling people who disagree with you “stupid” is indecent and disrespectful. Outside of Donald Trump, you won’t find me saying anywhere that I hate anyone. Sorry, hating people is not in my DNA. Oh, it was at one time. Love what God loves, hate what God hates. And since God hates sinners, Christians should too. Such thinking caused untold harm to self and others.
I am a plain-spoken person. People who “misunderstand” my words typically do so on purpose — as you are doing here. If I “hated” someone, the readers of this blog would know it.
You reference the post Why I Hate Jesus in your thinly veiled attempt to smear my character. You are certainly not the first nor the last person to attempt to do so. Rather than take what I wrote at face value, you choose instead to attribute ulterior motives, and in doing so, attack my character.
The aforementioned post is difficult for Fundamentalists, who are Bible literalists, to parse. Such people have a hard time understanding metaphors. I don’t hate Jesus — he’s dead. I don’t hate people — including Evangelicals. So what do I mean when I say in this post I hate Jesus? As you discerned and then quickly turned it into a personal attack, the “Why I Hate Jesus” post is about Evangelical beliefs — not flesh and blood Evangelicals. It is Evangelical beliefs I hate, not Christians themselves.
I make no apology for my opposition to Evangelical beliefs and practices. And let me be clear here, I vehemently oppose Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) beliefs. The IFB church movement is a cult that causes untold heartache and pain. IFB churches and colleges are dying on the vine. I hope I am alive when the movement draws its last breath. I would love to be the one holding a pillow over the IFB movement’s face, ending its reign of psychological (and at times, physical) harm. Do I “hate” IFB preachers and church members? Of course not. I have family members who are IFB preachers, evangelists, and missionaries. I regularly interact with IFB adherents, hoping through my writing and private emails to help them see that one can be a Christian without buying into the violence and harm peddled by IFB churches and pastors.
My goal has never been to evangelize for atheism. That said, more than a few people have said that my writing was instrumental in their deconversion. Am I grateful for this? Absolutely. The goal of any writer is to persuade and help people. If I play some small part in helping people break free from the pernicious chains of Fundamentalism, I’m fine with that.

You recommend a book in which Jesus is called a “Stupid, Working-Class Hick from Galilee” (End of Christianity Ch. 2, John Loftus) among other things. Your general tone is condescension (occasionally love and understanding, it depends on the article).

John Loftus is an acquaintance of mine. I recommend John’s books because I think doubting Evangelicals will find his writing helpful. This doesn’t mean that I agree with everything John writes or says. I will leave it to John to defend his word choices.
You will find all sorts of atheists using the word stupid. I don’t use the word when referencing people — not in a literalist sense anyway. Have I ever said someone is stupid or ignorant? Sure. But my focus is always on their beliefs, not their person. I think you hold stupid, ignorant beliefs. That doesn’t mean, however, that I think YOU are stupid. Indoctrinated? Ill-informed? Lacking knowledge? Sure. But, not “stupid.”

Basically, it seems like you delight in pushing people to anger by crudely attacking everything that they believe, and then when they respond you act like an innocent do-gooder (like a big brother punching his younger brother and then acting innocent when the younger brother retaliates).

There ya go again with the attacks on my character. You just can’t help yourself. Again, I attribute this to your IFB upbringing. It’s just part of your metaphorical DNA.
I do two things on this blog: tell my story and critique Evangelical Christianity. I am pointed and direct. I have never been one to mince words. This is who I am. Don’t like it? Don’t read my writing. That thousands and thousands of people read my writing suggests that most readers connect with and appreciate what I have to say — including some Evangelical Christians.
I am just one man with a story to tell. If what I say provokes Christians to anger, what does that say about them and their faith?
I find it interesting, Noah, that you haven’t made one attempt to challenge my beliefs or conclusions. Why is that? Instead, you go after my character, assigning false motives to my work. Instead of accepting my story at face value, you have built in your mind a straw-man Bruce Gerencser. Doing so, allows you to dismiss what I say out of hand.

I think that if everyone is honest, they subconsciously believe that people who disagree with them on major issues are stupid, meaning at the very least ignorant and ininformed [sic], or are viewing facts from a misgiven or dishonest perspective. I believe that in this sense, you certainly, and probably your readers, believe that I’m “stupid”, you are just being a hypocrite who is afraid to say so.

Yes, I think you are ignorant and uninformed. Nothing you have said so far changes my opinion of your words. However, as I stated above, I do not think people are “stupid” in the sense you are using the word.
All you are telling me in this paragraph is how you perceive people who hold different beliefs from yours. It seems, then, you are the one who needs to change his behavior, not I.

What I sent you was quite literally the thoughts that crossed my mind as I read your blog. I figured based on what you write that you enjoy getting inside the mind of an evangelical.

I grew up in the Christian church and pastored Evangelical churches for 25 years. I daily monitor over 100 Evangelical blogs and websites. Over the last fourteen years I have received thousands and thousands of emails, social media messages, and blog comments from Evangelicals; from IFB adherents; from countless Noah Zielkes. I know exactly what is (and isn’t) in the minds of Evangelicals. You knew this, ignored my contact form requests, and emailed me anyway — not to interact with me, but to tell me what you think about me.

I’ve read bits and pieces of Bart Ehrman’s books, and I reject all of his conclusions because I firstly reject his premises and general approach. He portrays well-known and oft-responded-to facts about the Biblical text as startling revelations that shake the foundation of Christianity!. He portrays his and his colleagues’ hare-brained theories as established, unquestionable fact. He’s just the latest hype-job in a long line of critics who have their roots in German higher criticism from the 19th century.

So, you haven’t actually read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books, yet you feel qualified to critique his writing and dismiss it out of hand? You do know reading blog posts, book reviews, and forum posts is not the same as actually reading his books, right? Do your homework, Noah, and then we will talk.
I noticed you commented on a website devoted to Peter Ruckman and King James-onlyism. Do you really believe the King James Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God? Do you really believe the KJV is without error? Surely you know such a belief cannot be rationally sustained; that such a belief collapses if I can show one “error” in the text? Inerrancy, in general, is a house of cards built upon a rotting foundation. (I once was KJV-only, so I am quite knowledgeable about the belief, along with its various strains, including Ruckmanism.) I would be more than happy to interact with you on this issue.

A Sinner Saved by Reason,

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Questions: What Can We Do to Hasten the Demise of Fundamentalism?

Bruce Gerencser August 4, 2021 Evangelicalism 14 Comments

I put out the call to readers, asking them for questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question, please leave it here or email me. All questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.

Steven asked:

I don’t care that the latest survey on American religion shows the ranks of Fundies and Evangelicals decreasing – I consider them the biggest threat to my livelihood, this country, and to the world.

What, if anything, do you believe we can do as individuals to hasten their religion’s decline and demise? Without violating anyone’s human rights, of course!

Let me focus on fundamentalism, in general, instead of Evangelicalism. While Evangelicals are inherently Fundamentalist (please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?), fundamentalism can be found in numerous religious sects, including Islam and the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). We also see fundamentalism in political, economic, and social ideologies and, yes, atheism.

Wikipedia defines fundamentalism this way:

Fundamentalism usually has a religious connotation that indicates unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs. However, fundamentalism has come to be applied to a tendency among certain groups – mainly, although not exclusively, in religion – that is characterized by a markedly strict literalism as it is applied to certain specific scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, and a strong sense of the importance of maintaining ingroup and outgroup distinctions, leading to an emphasis on purity and the desire to return to a previous ideal from which advocates believe members have strayed. Rejection of diversity of opinion as applied to these established “fundamentals” and their accepted interpretation within the group often results from this tendency.

When I use the word Fundamentalism with a capital F, I am referring to a specific subset of Protestant Christianity, namely Evangelicalism. When I use the word fundamentalism with a lower case f, I am referring to Wikipedia’s definition above. Far too often, we tend to focus on religious fundamentalism, ignoring the fundamentalist tendencies within our own groups, ideologies, and worldviews.

Thus, it is small f fundamentalism that is an existential threat to our wellness, livelihood, and future. Ideologues who say their truth is big T Truth and demand everyone bow to their beliefs are fundamentalists. We see this thinking among Qanon supporters, Trumpists, capitalists, socialists, vegans, vegetarians, essential oil practitioners, etc., ad nauseum. I am not suggesting that people who hold these beliefs (I am, after all, a socialist) are necessarily fundamentalists, but anyone who is so pigheaded and resolute about their beliefs that they turn their minds off from skepticism, reason, science, and common sense is prone to fundamentalism. One need only look at Trumpism, the “big steal” belief, and the 1/6/21 attempt to overthrow our government to see the terrifying fruit of fundamentalist thinking. This blog primarily focuses on Evangelicalism. Is there any doubt that fundamentalism causes psychological and social harm (and, at times, physical harm)? Evangelicalism is not a painful sliver in your finger that can be quickly removed with tweezers — problem solved. Evangelicalism infects every aspect of our lives, and if left unchallenged and unchecked, like an incurable disease, it will metaphorically kill us. Hyperbole? Perhaps. But consider this: without Evangelicals, Donald Trump would never have been elected, and the U.S. Supreme Court would not be overturning much of the social progress of the past sixty years. Here in Ohio, right-wing, anti-science Republicans control virtually every aspect of state government. Ohio is now a laughingstock, derision typically reserved for the backwaters of America.

How can we combat fundamentalism? Good question. The dystopian side of me says, “it’s too late, we are big F FUCKED!” I am not convinced our democracy will survive Qanon, Trumpism, and the increasing dysfunction in every aspect of our society. Times are bad and are getting worse. Anyone who thinks Santa Joe and his elves will “deliver” America (and the world) ain’t paying attention. I’m depressed by what I see, and I see nothing on the horizon that leads me to conclude that better days lie ahead.

There are some things, however, we can do, even if our actions are doomed to fail. We have two choices in life: do nothing or fight. I may be cynical and pessimistic, but I choose to fight. I cannot sit by while fundamentalists rape our land like a swarm of locusts, destroying everything they touch. None of us has the power to affect systemic change by ourselves, but each of us can do “something.” We can write books, blog posts, articles, and letters to the editor; produce videos and podcasts; challenge fundamentalist worldviews on social media; financially support advocacy groups; join local groups opposed to fundamentalist ideologies; use our buying power to force corporate change; vote for political candidates who truly understand the existential danger of fundamentalist thinking. Most importantly, we can do things that will materially make the world a better place to live. Bruce shouts, DO SOMETHING! If we don’t fight, we are guaranteeing our demise. This is no time to be indifferent or passive. We may not win the war, but we can bloody the fundamentalist horde marching against all we hold dear.

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Questions: Bruce, Which Bible Translations Did You Use?

Bruce Gerencser July 20, 2021 Questions 14 Comments

This is a follow-up question from the post Questions: Bruce, What Bible Do Evangelicals in Non-English- Speaking Countries Use?

I grew in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement in the 1960s and 1970s. I attended an IFB college in the mid-1970s. I married an IFB pastor’s daughter. After leaving college in the spring of 1979, we moved to Bryan, Ohio. I became the assistant pastor of an IFB church in nearby Montpelier. I later helped my father-in-law start an IFB church in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. From there, I spent eleven years pastoring an IFB church in Mt. Perry, Ohio. It was six years into my tenure at Somerset Baptist Church before I used any other Bible but the King James Version (KJV). For thirty-two years, I believed the King James Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I read the KJV, studied the KJV, and preached from the KJV. Only the KJV was used in the churches I pastored. No sermon from other than the KJV was preached from the pulpits of the churches I pastored.

I believed that there were no errors, mistakes, or contradictions in the KJV. I also believed the 1611 and 1769 editions of KJV were virtually identical; that the only differences between the two were corrections of typographical errors. Then, in 1989, I stumbled upon a list of word differences between 1611 and 1769. These differences were far more than typographical error corrections. OMG, there were word changes, meaning that my belief that the 1611 KJV was inerrant was untrue. Further study led me to conclude that the KJV was not inspired, inerrant, or infallible, and neither was any other Bible translation. For the next eight or so years, I believed the KJV was faithful and reliable; that it was the preferred Bible for English-speaking people.

In the late 1990s, I preached my first sermon from a non-KJV Bible, the New American Standard Bible (NASB). In 2001, I started exclusively preaching from the English Standard Version (ESV). I was still using the ESV when I preached my last sermon in 2005. I believed the ESV was a reliable translation, but not inspired, inerrant, or infallible. God inspired the original manuscripts, but not any Bible translation.

After I left the ministry in 2008, I started reading THE MESSAGE for my daily devotionals. For the first time in my life, the Bible spoke to me in my own language — the everyday language of commoners. I still used the KJV and ESV (and other translations) in my studies, but I found THE MESSAGE a delight to read.

Today, the only Bible in our home is my KJV preaching Bible — an artifact from a life lived long ago. I also use the E-Sword software program to look up specific verses when writing posts for this blog. Every atheist should have E-Sword installed on their computers, smartphones, or tablets.

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Tag: King James Only

The Myth of the Inerrant Originals

Who Determines What the Bible Says?

My First Steps Towards Believing the Bible Was Not Inerrant

Bruce, In Your IFB Days Did You Encounter Peter Ruckman?

Bruce, What Was Your View on the King James Bible?

Bruce, You Don’t Know Anything About the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church Movement — Part One

Fundamentalist Baptist Man Tells Me I Am Following the Humanistic Teachings of Shaitan

IFB Zealot Says He’s Surprised God Hasn’t Killed Me Yet — Part Two

Questions: What Can We Do to Hasten the Demise of Fundamentalism?

Questions: Bruce, Which Bible Translations Did You Use?

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