Earlier today, I received an email from an Orthodox Christian physician located here in Ohio. For his sake, I won’t reveal his name, though I did Google him. He read all of one post, The Biggest Lies in the Bible: Ask and It Shall be Given to You and Seek and Ye Shall Find. After spending five minutes perusing my writing, the good doctor sent me the following email:
Hello my friend I read your post very carefully. I do believe that verse is quite difficult to understand ask and you shall receive seek and you shall find. You’ll notice that it’s repeated approximately six or seven times in the New Testament and at least three in the old. I would like to talk to you about this. I’m a physician by trade, but also and more importantly I’m an Orthodox Christian. I would welcome a conversation with you for [phone number redacted].
I replied,
[name redacted]
You do know that I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years, that I have a theological education, that I preached over 4,000 sermons, and spent thousands and thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible? Surely, you bothered to understand my background before sending this email, right? Of course not. You read all of one post and then fired away. You might want to read Proverbs 18:13: He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. The Message translates Proverbs 18:13 this way: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
I am not your friend, though I realize you are using the word in a colloquial sense. You seem to think that I need educated, and that you are the one tasked by God for the project. Imagine a patient comes to see you for the first time, ignores your training and expertise, and tells you what his diagnosis is. You would be irritated and offended by such ignorant and boorish behavior.
The fact that you are a doctor is irrelevant. I suffer from gastroparesis (which is killing me), fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis. I have met scores of doctors over the years. While I trust these people with my medical care, I wouldn’t turn to them for advice or instruction on non-medical things. Why? Lack of expertise. Doc, all you have is a personal opinion/interpretation about a particular verse (verses) in the Bible. I have been blogging for almost fourteen years. Thousands — yes, thousands — of Christians have deigned to “educate” me about the Bible or pass judgment on my past/present life, including the fifty years I spent in the Christian church. So you will forgive me if I find your email irritating. I am sick, tired, and in pain — lots of pain. In the future, take time to learn about the targets of your evangelistic offers of education/friendship. Had you done so, you would have found out that I am not interested in engaging in such discussions.
Thank you.
Bruce Gerencser
Unbeknownst to me (my fault), Carolyn, my editor (who has been answering most contact emails for me) also responded to him. Here’s what she had to say:
Mr. [last name redacted],
Sorry — Bruce does not take or make telephone calls to readers. If you have something to communicate to him, you may email him just as you did today. But before you spew your biblical knowledge all over Bruce’s blog and email, please read Bruce’s Dear Evangelical page and his Why? page. Once you have read those and all the links therein, if you really, REALLY feel the need to write Bruce again, I promise you that he will read whatever it is you have to communicate to him. Right now, I am Bruce’s gatekeeper, answering emails for him because he is far behind on them and referring to him those that are worth his time. Your message is not.
Happy reading,
Carolyn [last name redacted], editor for Bruce Gerencser
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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I love the last two lines of Carolyn’s reply!
Carolyn is awesome! ❤️❤️
Carolyn got that one absolutely right. Talk about a pithy reply!
I also think Carolyn is awesome. Her response was perfect, short and sweet. While she didn’t cater to the doctor, I don’t think she was rude, just straightforward.
“God told me to tell you”, is a favorite of my Christian friend. But her most manipulative thing is every morning she writes a letter to God and then she says he writes back to her. But she’s the one writing his answer. He always tells her what she wants to hear. Is this a unique thing, or can anybody top that?
“Hello my friend I read your post very carefully. I do believe that verse is quite difficult to understand ask and you shall receive seek and you shall find. You’ll notice that it’s repeated approximately six or seven times in the New Testament and at least three in the old. I would like to talk to you about this. I’m a physician by trade, but also and more importantly I’m an Orthodox Christian. I would welcome a conversation with you for [phone number redacted].”
hmmm, bets that the “Doctor” would only insist that god’s ways are mysterious and we shouldn’t question? I bet a million quatloos on that.
unique to a point, but every Christian pretends that their god agrees with them.
Someone could if they wanted to, make a case of justification from the Bible 2 Peter 3:8, Psalm 90:4, where Peter (or someone) refers to Psalms. Basically it says a thousand years is like a day unto the Lord….so you need to be patient while you wait on a response.
I don’t mean to be rude but think about this for a moment. A kid falls and breaks his arm. For that kid a minute feels like an hour because of the pain. Is God in these verses the type of dad who leaves you there while he watches the match on TV while the child is in agony? Or maybe if you wait 2 years to get a job it’s just because…2 years was a long time.
Way to go, Carolyn!
On another note, I would be wary of a doctor who jumps into correspondence without conducting adequate research beforehand…..
I just don’t understand why he had to say “I am a physician by trade”. How is that relevant in any way?? He could have just as easily said “I eat pizza every Friday night” and it would have the same meaning.
I don’t know, maybe he slept in a holiday in last night, so now he understands all things god related.
I was raised in an Orthodox Church, and while I truly appreciate your blog and that of many other atheists, sometimes I am a little frustrated that there’s little on the web (that I know of, in the English language) that criticizes Orthodox Christianity, which to me is just as noxious as the Evangelical and Catholic churches.
Here’s one example of the mindset I hate: at my old church, menstruating women were not allowed to take communion because to take communion (every week) you approach the altar, which is holy, and menstruating makes you “unclean”. This is pretty consistent with what’s found in the Bible. (I rarely took communion when I was a Christian because I often felt unworthy, but I’ll note that several mean girls and overall assholes felt no such reticence, because as long as you observe the fasts and don’t sleep around or whatever it’s OK to treat people like shit, you’re still totally a great Christian.)
I’d also like to note that my father helped build this church and worked as the treasurer for several years, giving a lot of time and money, and when he retired (due to a sudden onset of dementia arising from a health problem) not only did most of his former friends start ignoring him, the Pope of this church, in a rare visit to the U.S., pretended not to know him and really hurt his feelings.
Sorry about all that, just needed to vent.