A Christian woman by the name of Merry Lily Bradley sent me the following email over the weekend:
It is notable that you are still peddling your beliefs and welcoming donations, just like so many Christian preachers. You are cashing-in on so-called knowledge.
Jesus did not save the lost in order to line your pockets, give you business, and build your prestige as a great garu [sic].
Normally, I ignore such comments or tell the person to fuck off. However, today I thought I would respond to Bradley’s uncharitable comments. In the United States alone, there are 380,000 churches, most of them funded through collections and donations. Many of these congregations are pastored by men and women who either earn a full-time or part-time living from their churches. They directly benefit from preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible. Yet, if an Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist makes money off telling his story and critiquing Evangelicalism, somehow it’s “cashing in.”
Bradley is implying that it is inappropriate for me to earn income from this blog. Doesn’t the Bible says that the “laborer is worthy of his hire?” Why is remunerated pastoral labor okay, but not mine?
I have been blogging since 2007. I have never one time pleaded or begged for money — as Evangelical preachers often do. I have never threatened to stop writing if readers don’t shower me with donations. The extent of my fundraising is the Patreon and PayPal links on the sidebar and at the bottom of each post. If people are inclined to donate, fine; if not, I plan to keep on writing, regardless. When I started blogging almost fourteen years ago, I determined that I would pay all the costs associated for operating this site. This remains true today.
In 2020, this site generated $2,800. Hosting and domain expenses through Flywheel and Name Cheap totaled $1,300, leaving me an income before taxes of $1,500 ($29 a week). I also have to pay federal income tax, social security tax, Ohio income tax, Ohio school tax, and local income tax on the money earned after expenses.
As you can see, I am fabulously rich from blogging. But let’s assume that I was making a full-time living from my writing. Why is that wrong, or in some way unethical or immoral? Why does Bradley and other Christians like her condemn me for doing what takes place in their churches every Sunday?
Bradley’s second paragraph is incoherent to me. Jesus’ atonement on the cross doesn’t have anything to do with my writing, save when I mention it from time to time. Wouldn’t it be pastors, evangelists, and missionaries who are profiting from Jesus’ death; that it is preachers who are lining their pockets and becoming famous thanks to Jesus?
Perhaps Bradley is upset because she thinks I am “famous” or that some readers view me as a “garu.” On the latter, I can assure you that I am not, in any way, a guru. People don’t hang on my every word. All I am is one man with a story to tell. That my writing resonates with an increasing number of people is not my fault. Most writers I know want as many people as possible to read their work. That I have been “blessed” with a widely read blog is encouraging and certainly motivates me to continue writing. The more eyes that are reading this blog, the better. Whether this one day makes me “famous” remains to be seen. Sure, I am well-known in some atheist or Christian circles, but I am no Sam Harris, Bart Ehrman, or Matt Dillahunty. I am content to be who and what I am. If wealth and fame come my way, so be it.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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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You’re my favorite garu!!
Only a garu of your stature could garner the attention you get.
And you’re so easy to find, too. It’s that trail of money fallin’ out your, well, that trail of money you leave behind.
I particularly loved this line, “peddling your beliefs and welcoming donations, just like so many Christian preachers”
Yep. That’s exactly what they do. Peddle their beliefs and hold out their hands for money. Apparently she doesn’t see how stupid her comment is.
Keep peddling, Bruce. 😀
Making a living off challenging religion is a difficult thing to do. I have to admit that I don’t closely follow any atheist writers (though I’ve read works by many), but I think many of them are academics or other kinds of professional writers. (That isn’t a dig at academics, by the way. You gotta publish to have tenure, keep a lab if you’re a scientist, and so on.) Writings on atheism might pay some of their bills, but certainly not all, even for the most successful.
But to be honest, I don’t see being paid to write as a bad thing, unless what you’re turning out is stuff you know to be lies, or stolen from someone else. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and so I believe that most folks who write apologetics, the people at Answers in Genesis, and the like, really don’t think they’re presenting BS. Note that I said MOST. And of course, there are horrible gray areas, like pastors who deconvert while still employed in that capacity, and need time between deconversion and quitting their job in order to find a secular one. I’m not gonna judge folks in that terrible situation.
I think her real beef is that you, the atheist writers/debaters you mentioned, and anyone who disagrees with her theology should be allowed to write or speak at all, with or without remuneration. That any of you actually gets paid for it is just the chocolate fudge on the sundae of unacceptableness.
Looking forward to hearing about your private jet! 😂
OH, Bruce! Can you imagine?!!? It’s such a silly high horse this woman rode in on that she has to be so high up in the bridle as to not see the error of her ways.
Thanks for being the wonderful human being you are and for helping me navigate my way through the bullshit!
Merry Lily Bradley:
“It is notable that you are still peddling your beliefs and welcoming donations, just like so many Christian preachers. You are cashing-in on so-called knowledge.
Jesus did not save the lost in order to line your pockets, give you business, and build your prestige as a great garu [sic].”
Zoe: Well this is rich.
Merry is jealous.
GeoffT, exactly my thought! You beat me to it!
(Not many readers are aware that Bruce already owns a Cirrus SR-22 and flies to the capital to advise the president regarding ‘the way he should go’. Actually, Polly pilots because Almighty is busy blogging from the air too, reaching billions of souls. If I am not mistaken, the crowd-funding efforts to garner a second, faster plane, are well underway. And no amount is too little to give!)
The Gerencsers are dare-devil fliers, this is well-documented!
I will be making a filthy-lucre donation to this blog in honor of Merry.
Well, bless her heart. I hope she is writing to Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, and a plethora of other preachers profiting from talking about Jesus.
Way to go, Obstacle Chick !! Mrs. Bradly is merrily ignoring the facts anyway. Bruce isn’t ” peddling” anything. People who are regular readers, many who, though still having their original beliefs, are NOT church goers after the negatives experiences endured for too many years. This blog is no threat to Christians. But because people do have complaints, it’s a supportive place to air them. By the way, you DO send money to evangelists,and missionaries don’t you ?? It turns out, quite a few of these Christian leaders/ authors crank out myths like the Prosperity Gospel, legalism, predicting when Jesus returns, etc they certainly exercise their right to free speech, and it made many millions for them, now didn’t it !? I looked up the net worth of all of the famous ones,and given how many poor Christians there are in the “1040 window”, it’s a bloody scandal what American preachers make,and they share precious little of it. Google them all, before commenting again, lady !
So I realize she was trying to say “guru” but honestly I think she just accused you of using Jesus to support your career as a Garou (werewolf!) and that is honestly the funniest thing I’ve read this week and I’m just sure there’s the seed of a weird fiction story in there somewhere.
And… fame and fortune? Really? Ms. Bradly is probably the sort that believes that college professors are buying summer homes in the Hamptons, too.
Exactly, Michael. Mrs. Bradly really ticked me off saying this claptrap about Bruce somehow achieving game and fortune with the blog here. I hope that woman, Mrs. Bradly is reading all our comments. She’s trying to blame Bruce for something he isn’t doing. Which is why I mentioned that no doubt she’s giving to the Christan organizations of her choice. And, if someone has the means to send donations via Patreon or whatever to support this blog, that’s our choice as well.
Bless her heart, she really should remove the log in her eye before commenting about the speck in Bruce’s. Thanks to several donations, the DFW metroplex is about to get another state of the art eyesore to creationism from the apologists and hucksters at the Institute of Creation Research(save your money, they will just tell you God did it). Thanks to a nonstop stream of donations we have several large megachurches within 20 minutes of where I live some that have their own coffee shops and slick graphics and sound systems and so on. A blogger though paying for hosting services and the occasional night out with his wife(and rendering unto Ceaser what is Ceaser’s) is the problem. Jesus did say something about rich people entering the kingdom of God, it involved a camel, a needle and I am pretty sure giving all your money to the poor or something. Of course, the M.O. for many evangelicals has been a total lack of self awareness, hypocrisy, holding everyone else up to standards they cant even bother following themselves, and of course putting their noses into everyone else’s business. Hopefully she sees the error of her ways but it seems unlikely to happen. Keep blogging Bruce. I know I don’t comment often anymore but I still find your writing helpful and informative.
Yes, Bruce really is in it for the money. I know: I just visited him in his villa on the Cote d’Azur. And he took me for a ride in his yacht.
MJ, I bet it was the small yacht. I on the other hand, spent a weekend with Almighty on his REAL yacht, just Almighty, a few members of his family and of course, the thirty-some staff that are required to operate the mansion on water.
Did he mention that he has several ‘boats’? Ha! He calls them ‘boats’ but they are ships! The one I spent the weekend on had two swimming pools, one at each end of the ship and the cabins were more like state rooms. I’ll never forget those jacuzzi baths and oh, the private theatre. I’m not kidding when I tell you that the seats in that theatre were huge lazyboy things that you could stretch out in as if on a warm cloud. We watched No Country for Old Men and O Brother…. for the millionth time, as I recall. Man, does Almighty live it up! He’s got it made!
Brian—Oh yeah. Well, Bruce and I went to Monte Carlo. He reserved the place just for us and Polly. Then we went back to his villa, where his sommelier decanted a 1985 Chateau Tour Emmerde for us. We imbibed as he took me on a tour of his chambers filled with Louis XVI furniture (for which he outbid the Louvre), and his gallery full of Picassos and Monet and Van Goghs. Finally, he took me on his private jet to his Fisher Island condo.
So…nyah, nyah, nyah!😉
“Jesus did not save the lost in order to line your pockets”…
Bruce, I am surprised that you did not reply to her that in your opinion Jesus did not save anyone ever.
MJ, Hmm… I don’t like Bruce anymore. He’s an atheist writer for money and fame.
Brian–Please indulge me in a bit of Christianese for a moment: Judge not Bruce. If he’s doing it for money and fame, well, I don’t blame him. If someone wants to pay me lots and lots of money for what I do, hey, I’ll take it.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, could you indulge me a bit of graduate school seminar-speak? Perhaps Bruce is engaging in post-modern irony.
Whatever he’s doing, I’ll keep reading his posts!
Sure, sure, but did you read how he treats MJ and then in comparison, how I was not even told of his art collection! I shall speak of this no more! Bah!