Why is it that so many Evangelicals have no desire to be curious? Yes, I know many are, so don’t get your panties in a bunch if you are a curiouser-than-a-cat Evangelical. I frequently get emails or blog comments from Evangelical Christians wanting to “help” me find my way back to Jesus. Such people are certain that they possess the requisite knowledge and skill necessary to reclaim the famous Evangelical-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser for Jesus. They are sure that if they just befriend me, quote the right Bible verses, soothe my hurts, or understand my pain, I will fall on my knees and call on the name of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I was a pastor for twenty-five of those years. I have a Bible college education. Surely they understand that I am not an atheist out of ignorance, right? Of course not, and here is where their lack of curiosity gets them in trouble. They often don’t know anything about me or this blog. Why? Because they did a Google/Bing/Yahoo search for _________________ and their search brought them to a single blog post of mine. They read that one post and immediately decide that I am a poor wayfaring waif in need of their peculiar brand of God/Jesus/Christianity.
When I get comments such as these, I go to the logs and see what pages they read. Usually, they have read only the page their search brought them to. Their lack of curiosity (or laziness) is astounding, and leads them to make wild judgments about me, and come to rash, ill-informed conclusions. If these people would just read the About page, the WHY? page, or the Dear Evangelical page, they would be better informed about me and this blog. But they don’t. Why is that?
I suspect part of the reason Evangelicals are not, in general, known for their curiosity is that they are 100% certain they are absolutely right. In their minds, they worship the one, true God and this God lives inside of them in the person of the Holy Spirit. This God walks with them, talks with them, and tell them that they are his own (from the hymn In the Garden). They have an inerrant, infallible supernatural book given to them by this supernatural God. This book contains all the answers about life that they will ever need.
When you are filled with certainty, there is no need to think, reason, investigate, or doubt. When the man upstairs is on your team, no need to consider any other team. Why be a lowly Reds fan when you can be a Yankees fan? When your church has declared that Moose Tracks ice cream is the one true ice cream, no need to try any other ice cream.
Simply put, there’s no need to know anything else when you already know all you need to know. God said it, I believe it and that settles it for me, the Christian ditty goes. One true God, one true religious text, one way of salvation. The earth is 6,027 years old, created in six literal 24-hour days. The Bible gives the blueprint for having a Christ-honoring family, a happy marriage, obedient kids, and awesome missionary position sex — but only to try to catch up with the Duggars. When the answer to every question is “God” or “the Bible says,” it’s not surprising to find that Evangelicals are not, by nature, curious.
The good news is that more and more Evangelicals are discovering the curiosity that lies dormant beneath the surface of their lives. Once they make this discovery, they are on their way out of the closed-mindedness and senses-dulling prison of Evangelicalism. They will find out that science can and does explain the world they live in. Science doesn’t have all the answers, but it is asking the right questions.
Still want/need to believe in a transcendent deity or some sort of spirituality? Once free of the Heaven/Hell, saved/lost, in/out, good/bad paradigm of Evangelicalism, people are free to wander at will. When the fear of Hell and judgment is gone, they are free to experience those things that are meaningful to them. Once the question is no longer “Will you go to heaven when you die?” the journey, rather than the destination, becomes what matters.
Curiosity may kill the cat, but trust me Evangelicals, it won’t kill you.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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The awesome missionary sex position bit made me laugh. I needed some humor today, thanks!
I wish I knew the answers to everything and what to do about it. It sounds secure, peaceful, and comfortable, free of worries and uncertainties. Some would call it smugness. In hindsight, My environment set me early on a path to non-conformity and probably atheism. Growing up I noticed authority figures and people all around me were wrong about so much and could not be trusted or depended upon for anything. That being so must be why I learned not to accept prevailing narratives about anything. Doubting everything and wondering what was true became second nature. I was always one step ahead or one step behind or just out of line, (thanks Waylon for that line) I believe that defines curiosity. As I recall stepping out of line, trying new ways, questioning how everyone does it had me labelled a misfit, screwball, and troublemaker in NW Ohio. I guess it hung them up to see someone like me make my own kind of music. Going with the herd feels comfortable, safe, and seems more secure than it really is. Herds get herded in directions they might not choose given the curiosity and temerity to find their own way. The genius of religion is taking advantage of the human weakness to prefer the security, comfort, and certainty, in the conformity of the herd.
As I look back on my life, I can see how my grandparents and my mom got into fundamentalism. My grandparents were kids at the start of WWII – they got married at 18 and 16, and my grandfather got drafted just a few months after they married in 1942. He was gone in Pacific combat zones for 3 years – my mom was 3 years old before she saw her father. My grandma and mom lived with relatives during the war. When my grandfather came home, he was a 6th-grade-educated WWII combat veteran with a wife and child. My grandma’s only job outside home was during the war -18 months in a shoe factory to support the war effort and bring in much-needed cash. Grandpa went to night school on the GI Bill, they lived in the projects or with relatives, and it wasn’t until my mom was nearly in high school that they could afford to buy a house. Extended family and church offered them community and stability in a changing world.
My grandma was a top student but had dropped out of high school due to severe anemia – she got her GED later because it bothered her she’d never finished. My mom was also a top student, one of 3 girls in her HS class allowed to take higher level math and science because of the US Cold War goals to beat the USSR. Her HS guidance counselor scrambled to convince my mom and work out a way for her to go to college, which she did attend for 5 semesters. She dropped put to marry some guy….who cheated on her and they divorced a year later. My mom suffered severe shyness and self-esteem issues, probably exacerbated by sexual abuse she suffered from her uncle as a 5-year-old. She never knew what she wanted to do with her life. She married my bio-father who also cheated on her, but this time she ended up a single mom, and my bio-father disappeared and didn’t pay child support. My mom and I moved in with my grandparents and great-grandmother and became immersed in Southern Baptist church culture.
My mom became more conservative after her divorce. I figured it was because she craved stability, or maybe she thought her failed marriages were the result of straying from religion. I don’t know for sure, but what I do know is that for several years she tried dealing with her inquisitive child’s tough questions about religion and life with thoughtful answers about allegory, that the Bible stories probably weren’t literal, and that we should look more at the lessons rather than whether they’re literal or not. But then she put me in a fundamentalist Christian school that was even more stringent than our church, and my thoughts about allegory and lessons had to be buried. It didn’t help that at the sane time, she started dating, got married, moved out of my grandparents’ house and away from me, and had another child within a year. I was 11-12 during that time, and I got my period to boot. It was a year of upheaval for me. Plus, my grandpa was openly mad about my mom getting remarried yet again, and he became my only ally. At that time, he started teaching me that my education needed to be my #1 goal so I could have my own career and be financially independent from any man. And I did it, all of it.
That’s a long way to say that from my own family, I see how social and life upheaval can make the preached certainty of fundamentalism seem appealing. I see it with my brother too – he wasn’t super religious until after my mom died in 2014. It was a quick turnaround for him to get into charismatic church teaching deliverance messages, seeing demons in every video game, movie, or yoga. He’s literally seeking stability, safety, certainty in a world that is anything but.
It’s a lot harder to understand the world for what it is and to navigate it. Fundamentalism offers answers and action items with promise of security, stability, and a good life if one follows the rules.
Life in this world is a hot mess of uncertainties. Religion, fundamentalism especially, offers addictive illusions in the form of answers where none exist. Thinking of religion as an addiction solves some puzzles about fanatic devotion. It’s emotional addiction. Fundamentalism is the emotional dope that gives the big high you can’t get enough of. Seems like something so dangerous it should be controlled like alcohol tobacco and firearms. Oh, right. There’s that amendment saying government must keep hands off religion. Uncle Joe Stalin wasn’t hindered by laws protecting religion and he tried to eliminate it from Russian society. Even with absolute power he couldn’t stamp out the addiction. At least we can just say no.
It boils down to one word: fear. Fear of hearing something that’ll rock the boat and upend their world view.
https://youtu.be/tEZ2lbIwM4M?si=X5Bw2tPXL92OvBH5