A local Fundamentalist Christian man by the name of Robert Sturges sent me the following message via e-mail:
Your assessments are woefully inaccurate, Christians do know Jesus intimately and we have a very real connection with him on a daily basis. That you lived so long off the church as a hypocrite and liar is a horrible crime against God and man. I pray all those influenced by your attacks against Gods people see you for the reprobate you have confessed yourself to be. My prayer is that God limits your influence and use it for his Glory to strengthen the church locally. And God shortly uses your damnation to glorify his name seeing you reject his grace and truths. Not content to be a reprobate you use your influence to try and subvert others. God will shortly lay it out before you, every single word.
Funny how one man telling his story is deemed a threat to Christianity. IF God is the all-powerful deity the Roberts of the world say he is, surely he could smite me, open up a fissure in the ground, and throw me into Hell. Now if God did THAT, well, I suspect other blasphemers would think twice about speaking ill of the Big Kahuna. As things stand now, it seems that God doesn’t care if I subvert others or can’t care because he doesn’t exist.
To Robert, I say: keep on praying! Join countless others who are praying for my demise. Years and years of praying for the Evangelical God to pour judgment upon my head . . . yet here I am, as reprobate and unrepentant as ever. Perhaps these Christian zealots should examine their own lives. Why isn’t God answering their prayers?
Sturges later added in the comment section of this post:
The judgment is to let you stumble over your sin into hell. God has everywhere and in everything left you a witness you refuse to acknowledge. Even satan has his uses and you are serving a purpose that God is pleased to allow until the appointed time. No one is praying for your demise those are your words, I am praying for God to negate any evil influence you have from doing any eternal harm. Your like a deranged man banging his head against a wall. The God who gave you breath and wrote your very DNA. Who upholds all things by the word of his power and gives men who do not love the truth over to deception and a lie will someday soon deal with all those who refuse to obey the gospel.
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 judgment is to let you stumble over your sin into hell. God has everywhere and in everything left you a witness you refuse to acknowledge. Even satan has his uses and you are serving a purpose that God is pleased to allow until the appointed time. No one is praying for your demise those are your words, I am praying for God to negate any evil influence you have from doing any eternal harm. Your like a deranged man banging his head against a wall. The God who gave you breath and wrote your very DNA. Who upholds all things by the word of his power and gives men who do not love the truth over to deception and a lie will someday soon deal with all those who refuse to obey the gospel.
“The God who gave you breath and wrote your very DNA.”
Well at least you must acknowledge the fact of evolution if you know about DNA.
By the way, you misspelt ‘Santa’ as ‘Satan’.
Robert, I can right see through your sanctimonious drivel. While it is true that you don’t use the precise words, it is clear that you just can’t wait for Bruce to be thrown into the fiery pit. You may even be hoping for an observation platform/window so you can stroll by and see that he is being sufficiently tormented. Your idea of the eternity that awaits Bruce is a sadist’s dream and your all-too-apparent glee at its implementation is clear. I do not recall sadism being called a fruit of the Spirit. Emmanuel, called Jesus of Nazareth, has been my spiritual brother and the Holy Spirit my guide for more than 4 decades and I fail to see anything of either in your words. I will keep seeking the Truth and using the life of the Christ as my example, but your judgemental attitude is why I will no longer accept the label of Christian. The bile you spew is a toxic poison that has tainted that label too much for me to claim it any longer.
Anotherami, don’t reject the name of “Christian” because others have not acted as such. After all, it is derived from our Lord Christ! Rather, pray for those such as our friend Bruce and for those misguided Christians that seem to take pleasure in condemning others. That is not for them to do, and they too will have to answer to God for that. It is His place alone to judge, as you well know. God bless you, Bruce, and all of God’s children. Cheers!
Actually, the name Christian was first used to describe the church at Antioch.
T. Paine, judgemental rejection has nothing at all to do with you, I see! It is all God using the mouth you no longer own. Why on earth would anybody want the name of “Christian”? There are few groups who take greater pleasure in condemning others than Christians. ISIS maybe, other extremist beliefs. I prefer the performance of parrots themselves over bipeds acting like parrots.
Cheers, indeed…
Damn, Robert, did you have to make such a mess? Sanctimoniousness is so hard to clean out of the grout on a tile floor…
“The judgment is to let you stumble over your sin into hell.” I’m curious how you know this. I mean, it could just as easily be that the judgement would be to have couple of beers with Jesus in the Celestial Pub while He explains all the things that our frail human understanding failed to comprehend. That would seem to be more in keeping with the character of a God of Love, but maybe that’s just me.
Meanwhile, since you “do know Jesus intimately” and you “have a very real connection with him on a daily basis”, perhaps you could introduce us. I mean, I’d like to meet the guy. I’m getting together with some of the family for Thanksgiving, and he’d be welcome to show up; there’s always more food than we can eat. If I send you an invitation, can you pass it along?
” I mean, it could just as easily be that the judgment would be to have couple of beers with Jesus in the Celestial Pub while He explains all the things that our frail human understanding failed to comprehend.”
That’s gold man; I love it. Do you think Jesus is a craft beer kind of guy or does he go for the big label names? What kind of music is on the jukebox at the Celestial Pub?
I suspect Jesus prefers anything that’s handcrafted, including His beers. (Also: what would a 2,000 year aged single malt Scotch taste like?)
As for the jukebox, it staggers the imagination: all eight of Hendrix’s studio albums, Prince and Bowie’s entire earthly discographies plus their latest releases…
And that’s just the recorded stuff. Sometimes on Fridays, Buddy Holly drops in to join B.B. King for a live jam session, or they switch off so Joplin can have a go at it, or…
This is exactly the kind of heaven of I want! I’d really like to chat with people too, like Ghandi, and Lincoln. If it really is some place that looks like the Donald’s apartment- you know, streets of gold, cherubim flying around playing harps all day, etc.- then I think I’d go completely bonkers after about a week. Maybe that’s why the evangelicals are supporting Trump? His apartment looks like their vision of heaven.
Robert: Your = belonging to you; You’re = you are. You mean ‘you are’ in sentence 4, not ‘belonging to you’. I see becoming a new creation doesn’t do anything to improve grammar and spelling. Jeez!
What gospel is it you want Bruce to follow? That of Mathew’s Jesus? John’s Jesus? Paul’s? The other looney tunes’ and forgers’ in the Bible? Every one presents a different gospel, so please specify which you mean.
If Robert was a one-off, I would not feel badly but it so happens that there are myriad haters just like him all over the country! They build gathering places tax-free and spew their hatred all over. Almost every town and village, every place with more than a half-dozen homes has a wart-church nearby. And these people all enjoy spreading their hatred just as Robert does, claiming that it isn’t them at all who does it: It is God. God wants to make an example of Bruce Gerencser. What a fucking prick, this God you speak of is, Robert. And his harn to others makes you smile. How damaged a human being you must be to spout such hatred far and wide. Like Steven Anderson, you go viral in your diseased speech. Move to Tempe. You have a kindred spirit there, a virus like yours.
Ho-ho …
“Bruce Gerencser: The Problem of Evil made flesh” … that should confound the ignoramuses for a while …
Best,
Bob
Why doesn’t God answer a prayer from numbnutted Christian zealots to smite you and all the rest us who want to tell our deconversion stories? Because either 1. God does not amswer prayer or 2. There IS no god to answer prayer!
“you lived so long off the church.”
Yes, we’ve seen stories about the wealth you’re currently wallowing in, praise gawd!!!! Those people worked hard to make sure your sacrifices were appreciated and your family was taken care of.
Also, who appointed Robert the judge?
This guy is so extremely nuts I expect it may be fortunate for Bruce that he does not know where he lives.
The Emailer: “My prayer is that God limits your influence and use it for his Glory to strengthen the church locally.”
Sounds like a threat for your “demise” to me Bruce. 🙁
Robert: You’re right. Bruce and his blog and this community DO have a purpose. They bring hope and healing and love and life to people like me who were so terribly hurt by horrible people just like you in these churches. Thanks, everyone.
There you go…thanks for reminding us why we keep showing up here. It certainly isn’t to waste our time on people like Robert. It’s for the community and support and encouragement we receive here from people who understand what it means to be harmed by religion.
Oh, dear! Seems Robert is just one more unhinged self-righteous zealot who takes delight in spewing dire warnings. Take the words Jesus and God and replace with Allah and you have a Muslim fundamentalist regurgitating the same dire warning. Yes, fundamentalists are alike, and they insist in the worship and following of THEIR PARTICULAR religious views OR ELSE!
I will be so happy when the Roberts of the world finally die off, so that we can have a sane, kind, progressive and reasonable relationship with one another.
Bruce, I want to thank you for your inspirational and helpful writings. As far as Robert, may dog have mercy on his pitiful soul.
As a non Christian, what I find puzzling is this – Robert is Christian? Espousing Christian tenets of love for all and turning the other cheek and showing compassion to lost souls? Then what happened to all of that, why is he condemning and judging Bruce? Not a great example of a Christian, more likely to make a non Christian like me run a mile from the faith.
Robert Sturges, another Anglo- American Christian, most likely from the South. Who revels in the kind of Christianity that is driving so many, especially the youth, out of churches . To become” nones” or possibly atheist or something else. I’d love to give a fierce beat down to such people.
rolls eyes in exasperation
Gee, Bruce, can’t you just feel the love Robert has for you? If “God is love,” who are Robert and his ilk worshiping?
Hmm seems like god is a little slow acting on this issue. But, Bruce, if god does decide smite you by sending in a few bears and snakes, then strike all of you with lightening, then open a fissure to suck you all in, then use a disembodied hand to write threats on a nearby wall while placing a rainbow overhead …..well just know your smiting will not be in vain because I will definitely be running to god.
Here’s yet another example of why I’m no longer a Christian. When I ‘came out’ as a non-believer, all of a sudden I became a wolf in sheep’s clothing, someone who was never a ‘proper’ Christian anyway, someone who could never have really known the love of God and, especially, someone who was surely possessed of demons – why else would anyone not believe! For a while, a few tried to reel me back in and got extremely frustrated and hateful when they didn’t get their own way.
What is it with guys like these? If I don’t like someone that experience is resolved by avoiding them. Not this guy though the secret fan boy.
poor Sturges. “The God who gave you breath and wrote your very DNA.”
so this god is a complete moron who made something that screws up constantly? Hooray!
Glory? What possible glory can there be in damning someone to eternal torture? That’s the kind of thing that should make any self-respecting god hang its head in shame.