Evangelical Pastor Instructed by God to Give Me a Message

Over the past twelve years, I have received countless emails from Evangelicals, Muslims, and Catholics who say that they have a message for me from God. Yesterday, I received yet another such message, this time from Pastor Nelson, AKA Servant of Christ.

Here’s what the good pastor had to say:

I hurt for what you have experienced. I know that you said that you do not want hear it, but thousands of true born-again believers/ Christians have felt like you and have experienced some of the same degree of Pain and Hurt as you have. The apathy, anger, hatred and lukewarm actions of so many who profess to be a part of God and Christ have caused millions to fall, stumble and give up on the Christian Faith. However, I Know firsthand that God is Real and that He still loves you and awaits to Restore you through Jesus Christ His Son our Redeemer. I was preparing a sermon when I came across a recent article of yours. My heart sorrows for you and others who have been damaged by so many “well meaning” believers who misrepresent the true Kingdom of Christ. In closing, I am instructed to let you know that God still Loves You and Invites you to return back to Him for Restoration & Reconciliation.

In Christ Love,
Nelson

Keep in mind, he knows “I don’t want to hear it” but, since God ordered him to deliver this message, he going do it regardless of what I want.

Pastor Nelson wants me to know:

Bruce, I can tell you have been hurt
Thousands of true born-again believers/Christians have felt and experienced the same things I have
The apathy, anger, hatred and lukewarm actions of many Christians have caused other people to give up on Christianity
God is real
God still loves me
God invites me to return back to him for restoration and reconciliation

What, exactly, did Pastor Nelson read on this site?

One or more posts on the front page (he had the front page open in his browser for 26 minutes
A Letter to My Friends: There is Peace Without Certainty (A guest post by Bill Mathis)
Why Accepting Evolution is Incompatible with Christianity
James Dobson Tries to Scare Evangelicals Into Voting for Trump Again
Testing God: Putting Out a Fleece
Christians Say the Darnedest Things: God Requires Christian Couples to Have Children
A Note From Bruce
Why I Hate Jesus
About

Keep in mind, Pastor Nelson read all these posts, save whatever he read on the front page AFTER he emailed me with his message from the Almighty. It is also noteworthy that Pastor Nelson didn’t read any of the posts on the WHY? page; no autobiographical posts. Why is that? Was his mind already made up? I suppose since God had given him a message to deliver to me, there wasn’t any reason to read any of the posts I wrote that explain WHY I actually left Christianity. No need for facts when you have God talking to you, right?

Had Pastor Nelson showed the slightest bit of curiosity, he would have learned exactly why I deconverted. (Please read Curiosity, A Missing Evangelical Trait.) Instead, he ignorantly delivers to me a message he believes is straight from the lips of the thrice-holy God.

Let me state it one more time: I am not an atheist today because of some hurt in my past; that mean Christians hurt me, so I picked up my toys and went home. Anyone suggesting this is either a liar, can’t read, or has no interest in letting me tell my own story.

Here’s the thing, if Pastor Nelson’s God is always present, all-knowing, and all-powerful, surely he can deliver a message to me without human middlemen, right? Surely, God can carve a few seconds out of his busy days helping baby Christian Donald Trump get re-elected to send me an email or a text. (Here’s my text number, God, if you are reading: 419-666-6669.) Yet, God is silent. Why is that? Is he pissed off at me? Am I really still a Christian as once-saved-always-saved Baptists assert? Or maybe, just maybe, there is no God. Pastor Nelson says he knows for certain that his peculiar version of the Christian God is real, but he provides no evidence for this claim outside of a message he says is from Jesus. Sorry, but that’s not good enough for me.

No, the fact of the matter is this: Evangelicals such as Pastor Nelson have a pathological need to be right; to evangelize; to force their beliefs on others; to scour the Internet looking for non-Christians they can bother with their religious nonsense and prattle.

Pastor Nelson, consider “God’s” message delivered. I reject it out of hand. Maybe when your God cures COVID-19, ends world hunger, or a host of other things plaguing our world, I might pay attention. Until then, all I see is a puppet show; one in which God is the puppet and Pastor Nelson is the puppet master.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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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Comments

22 responses to “Evangelical Pastor Instructed by God to Give Me a Message”

August 16, 2020

kittybrat

Ah, Pastor Nelson has no curiosity, you see. Nor does he have any respect of boundaries. So typical, and such a waste of life. It ALWAYS gets me how these folks ALWAYS know it’s because we have been hurt by someone, a stumbling block. Nope. It’s called ENLIGHTENMENT!
Keep up the good work, Bruce!

August 17, 2020

Karen the rock whisperer

(Love the last paragraph.)

I wonder about people who keep hearing messages from God/Jesus/Allah/Whoever. Or maybe people are hearing the messages their own minds want to share with them. The human mind is a complex and tricky beastie, all too willing to deceive us. My mind has been good at that, though the messages aren’t from deities, they’re from the part of me that learned to put myself down early on in life. Consider that it’s taken me decades to still those messages, after I knew they were there and wrong, and I wanted them gone. Imagine if my mind had given me messages that I wanted to hear, like a deity talking to me. I’d have a hard time even recognizing there might be a problem.

This is why I like the scientific method. Properly applied by lots of people, it steers humanity in the direction of finding truth. Certainly there are wrong turns, but someone in the car figures it out and gets back on track, so to speak. If humans discover evidence of any deity using the scientific method, then I’m open to considering the existence of a deity…after the experiment has been reproduced a few times by different groups of scientists. Otherwise, I’m going to live my life as though there are no deities, and all we’re left with is supporting our fellow humans and getting support from them.

August 17, 2020

BJW

I sense this pastor was sincere. But if he really was interested in understanding you, I concur that he should’ve wanted to read your autobiography. Sad to say, when I was a Christian I would’ve sincerely insulted non-Christians in a similar fashion. Because the Bible has the answers and believing in Jesus is enough. sigh Or so I believed once upon a time.

PS–glad you’ve gotten through some of your medical problems. I’m delaying having a couple things checked since our insurance deductible is high. (And I’m still glad to have SOMETHING.)

1. August 17, 2020
  
  Howard Grant
  
  They’re all “sincere” in their deluded minds. I often wonder how hopeless these people really are. They talk about how happy they are in God but when you see their faces, listen their life stories and the things they experience, they’re miserable. But they’ve convinced themselves that they’re happy.
  
  I find that to be truly sad.
  
  1. August 18, 2020
    
    Astreja
    
    How could they be happy? They subscribe to a belief that tells them they were born with inherited sin, and the only way to avoid eternal torture is to show proper gratitude for a {rather temporary} human sacrifice that supposedly happened a long time ago in a faraway land. They’re scrabbling for reasons to believe that they’ve said the right magic words, and that they won’t be the ones shoved into the eternal Bad Place, but that kind of deep-seated fear doesn’t let go of the human psyche that easily.
    
    And if you look at their eyes a lot of evangelicals have this painful-looking squint, as if they’re bracing themselves for more pain.
    
    Heck of a psychological price to pay for third-rate “life in abundance.” I would not trade places with them for anything, anything at all.
    
August 17, 2020

Matilda

A former JW commented on this topic, that it didn’t matter if your evangelising got no converts, it was enough to be able to report back every Sunday that you’d done a lot of it that week. This guy’s the same, programmed, brainwashed into doing it. Bet he thinks it’s a real ‘nice touch’ to tell you he’s ‘hurting’ for you. And don’t forget the gazillion brownie points he’s expecting, the special place in glory for being the one responsible for the re-conversion of a famous atheist, Bruce. He could dine out on that for the rest of his life.

1. August 17, 2020
  
  GeoffT
  
  I have a theory about JWs that I’ve been expressing for some while. JWs have a limit, apparently, on the numbers of people who will go to heaven (144000, though now some of them are starting to quibble about this). So when they go on the street to proselytise they do NOT want to convert you, quite the opposite in fact. If they succeed in converting you then their place is threatened! On the other hand, as you say, they are obligated by their faith to go out and spread the word….oh boy, can they not see the duplicitous paradox of their nonsensical beliefs!
  
  1. August 17, 2020
    
    Matilda
    
    My silly anecdote. I live by the sea and it’s kind of traditional in our village to go for a walk on xmas day afternoon on our nice promenade. Children push new dolls’ buggies, ride new bikes, wear new superhero capes and wield new light sabres etc that Santa’s just brought them. This year, I saw the JWs there on the prom with their leaflet stand. I really wanted to go over and say ‘So, you really think this is a good day to choose to proselyise? Will you tell kids that if they join you, this will be the last xmas they’ll ever get gifts from Santa, the last time granny and grandad bring them presents or they can have parties? Oh, and if you injure yourself falling off that new skateboard, be prepared to bleed to death.’ Maybe I’ll have that conversation if they appear next xmas. They really haven’t thought it through as you say. I might also mention their cult’s appalling record at covering up child abuse too while I’ve got the bit between my teeth!
    
August 17, 2020

ObstacleChick

He seems sincere, and he’s doing what his religion tells him to do. I just wish he had read more of your work BEFORE making assumptions and writing his own version of the Bruce Deconversion Story. I doubt if he would have understood, but at least it would have shown effort to hear you out before love-bombing you with his favorite version of the gospel.

August 17, 2020

Rachel

“I know you must have been hurt by someone in the Church”, this is the comfortable fiction they tell themselves. Because they don’t want to admit that there might be any other other reasons, that large numbers of people all over the world don’t feel the need for religion.

But, intriguingly, the same people who say “I know you must have been hurt by someone in the Church” are usually the same people who turn a blind eye time and time and time again to the clerical abuse of children, to homophobia, to misogyny, to all the things within churches that very much do hurt people.

August 17, 2020

… Zoe ~

Dear pastor Nelson,

How many people “come to Christ” because they have been hurt and are in pain?

Is their conversion illegitimate because they came to Christ for emotional reasons?

I came to Christ for emotional reasons. I was 13 years old and scared shitless by fear of a parent’s possible death and then retraumatized by camp counsellors a few years older than me telling me that even though I had believed in Jesus I had not yet “asked Him into my heart” therefore headed to hell if by chance I fell off the Lake Erie cliff that day and died.

With tears in my eyes on top of a cabin bunkbed I looked out over the lake fog settled in on the campgrounds and quietly talked with “Jesus” as I understood him at the time. It was all emotion. A sincere young teenage girl sincerely emotional and placing her trust in other teenagers and a few young twenty-year olds and giving up her own intellectual mind to people she somehow thought knew better than her.

So pastor Nelson. Was I saved? Am I truly born-again? It was all emotional.

August 17, 2020

Suzanne Harper Titkemeyer

They think if they can wrap it in enough “I feel bad for you” that you’ll ignore the self-focused patronizing crapola rolling forth from their mouths. Contrast that with the behavior of the dude they all claim to follow. I forget the scripture book and number but when folks like this pull that nonsense I think about the time Jesus showed up post resurrection when Peter was bummed out about betraying Jesus and was out fishing. Did Jesus say “Hey I know you’ve been hurt. Come here to me!” Nope, he kept cooking and yelled ‘Y’all come eat’ instead. They claim to follow Jesus yet act nothing like him. No wonder you, me and the lamppost do not believe any longer. They are playing cheap carnival games in the dark.

August 17, 2020

Diane

The road to hell is paved with preachers bearing their messages of love from their God/Jesus.

August 17, 2020

Nan

The pastor writes: The apathy, anger, hatred and lukewarm actions of so many who profess to be a part of God and Christ have caused millions to fall, stumble and give up on the Christian Faith.

Of course HE is totally “perfect in Christ” because he has shed all that apathy, anger, hatred, and lukewarm actions. Right? (Wonder if he glows?)

August 17, 2020

Arkenaten

Dear Pastor Nelson,
You are ignorant, indoctrinated, inconsiderate … and a Dick!

August 17, 2020

Ubi Dubium

So, pastor Nelson, you say are in contact with an all-knowing all-powerful god. This god would know exactly what we need to hear or to see to believe that it exists. It would know this better than we would ourselves. It would be capable of communicating to you an extremely personalized message, one that would be sure to reach its target. It might not even make sense to you, but it would be perfectly clear to the person you are talking to.

So has your god given you this sort of message? No, you are delivering generic dreck like this:

” …am instructed to let you know that God still Loves You and Invites you to return back to Him for Restoration & Reconciliation.”

So either your god is sending you here to make you look foolish, or this “instruction” came from your own head.

Go back and pray to your god, and ask it why it won’t give you an effective message. See if it will explain itself, or send you anything better. For instance I have a personal passcode, and if your god is real, he already knows what it is. Ask it to tell you what it is, so you can reach me.

August 17, 2020

dale m

It all comes down to this …. there R actually 2 Jesus’. We R critical of the Man himself “Jesus of Nazareth”. When we criticize this real person (perhaps), we run smack into the other one. The Christ. The Image. Christians have yet to learn, like Muslims, to separate the 2. I believe this image of a higher, never wrong image is a genuine holdover of our need as children to turn to our parents when we R in trouble. We have no curiosity towards how they get us out of trouble, only as long as they get us out. Some children learn to stand on their own 2 feet and turn into adults. Some never learn to quite toss away the security blanket. So. Offer the religious …. Security, so they can grow into adults.

August 17, 2020

Yulya Sevelova

Rev. Nelson. I want to thank you for one thing, and that is resorting to the usual abusive speech practices of Fundies commenting on Bruce’s blog here. I hope though, you’re aware of the fact that since he is a former pastor himself, and a long-time studeier of both Testaments, and has a relationship with God and Jesus at one time, he does know how to return on his own, and needs no instructions. If that day comes, no doubt we’d be told, and wouldn’t hold that against him. Spiritual matters a personal thing, after all.

August 17, 2020

amy b

Certainty can make you condescending. When I was a Christian, sadly, I might have well been like this guy, skimming over an atheist’s blog with no desire to really understand where he’s coming from, so sure that the only reason he doesn’t believe is because of some trauma in his life or some error in logic or something.

Then again, the only reason I started reading atheist blogs is because I was doubting, and the apologists’ arguments were increasingly unsatisfactory to me.

August 17, 2020

mary

oh my the old you’ve been hurt scam. or bitter, etc you name it. i have seen people do the most crazy dangerous illogical things in the name of god told me to. all we can do is ignore it and maybe laugh at their stupidity. also wanted to say that i hope you and polly are feeling better and on the road to recovery.

August 18, 2020

Dave

This guy actually knows “firsthand” God is real. If only he had shared his firsthand evidence I might have been convinced.

August 23, 2020

John Arthur

Pastor Nelson,

Some people leave the faith because they actually read the bible and discover that it is full of contradictions, myths or legends and isn’t the word of any god. Although some of its passages might be beautiful, much of it seems to have been written by barbaric savages who created god in their own likeness.

If you wish to be kind and compassionate to all you meet, you don’t need any holy books or religious gurus to interpret them, nor any temples and other holy places to worship in. All you need to do is practice kindness and respect towards others, including those with whom you disagree.