Over the weekend, an Australian Evangelical man by the name of Richard left the following comment on the post titled Dear Jesus. My response is indented and italicized.
I stumbled on to your website and man, I would have lost my faith ten times over!!.
What did you actually read on this site? Did you break anything when you stumbled? The Dear Jesus post primarily deals with the problem of evil and suffering, told from an intimate, personal perspective. If you want to understand my story in its entirety, please read the posts on the WHY? page.
I appreciate your recognition of the fact that I had a difficult and traumatic upbringing. One of your fellow Christian apologists, Mike Kuvakos, took a different approach, choosing instead to tell me, “get over it.”
That said, the primary reasons for my deconversion are intellectual, not emotional. Despite all the trauma mentioned in the Dear Jesus post, I remained a committed follower of Jesus Christian until age fifty. If past trauma was going to derail my faith, this would have happened years ago. Instead, I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years, leaving the ministry in 2005, and leaving Christianity in 2008.
If asked to give the primary reasons I left Christianity, I typically say:
1) I no longer believed the Bible was inerrant and infallible
2) I no longer believed the central claims of Christianity were true
3) Christianity no longer made sense to me
Secondarily, I concluded that Christianity had no persuasive arguments for:
1) The problem of evil
2) The problem of suffering
3) The hiddenness of God
I lost my faith for many years (for lesser things) suffered violence and poverty, had nothing, lost everything. I was bitter with God for his failures , the hypocrisy of the pastors, the immorality of church leaders, the molesters and the thieves, but now I believe again. He reached out to me and brought me back.
I get it, God/Jesus/Christianity works for you. You find meaning, purpose, and direction in your faith. I, however, find the opposite. My life is better in every way post-Jesus. I have learned that I don’t need God/Jesus/faith to have meaning and purpose in my life. A good life is possible without Jesus. I humbly suggest you give it a try.
You see, we cannot run away, we will eventually go back, there is nothing else in this world that is better than Him, no matter how we see and rationalize the failures.
Running away implies that I am trying to avoid something — I’m not. You seem to think I am wrongly rationalizing what I consider faults and failures within the structure of Christianity. However, I have honestly and opening weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting. Do you think it was easy for me to walk away from Christianity; to walk away from the ministry; to walk away from that which I held precious and dear for fifty years? I can tell you this: divorcing Jesus was painful and traumatic — even to this day. Yet, after carefully studying and investigating the central claims of Christianity, I had no choice but to say that I no longer believed. You see, truth matters to me. I couldn’t go on believing things that I knew were lies.
I know he will call you back, you don’t have to go, He will come. As you, you will believe when He comes, I am sure he will. You are a man of truth and God will honour you.
Richard, how do you know your peculiar version of God will call me back to himself? Has God told you this? Or do you just “hope” God will reclaim me? I hope for all sorts of things: the Reds winning the World Series, the Bengals winning the Super Bowl, me winning $1,000,000 in a vax-a-million lotto, my unrelenting pain to miraculously disappear. I can hope for these things to happen, but facts, reason, logic, and probabilities tell me that there is little chance that any of these “hopes” will occur in 2021-2022. I didn’t say “no chance.” Our family has nine entries left in a vax-a-million lotto. Maybe, just maybe, one of us will hear, “winner, winner, chicken dinner.”
I “could” become a Christian again. Perhaps, my conclusions about God, Christianity, and the Bible will be overthrown by overwhelming evidence to the contrary. However, thirteen years in, no Christian has provided such evidence to me, yourself included. Thousands of Christian zealots have tried to win me back to Jesus, without success. Thus, I highly doubt that sufficient evidence is forthcoming, and I am sure I will remain an atheist until I die. And then? I will be a dead atheist. 🙂
Further, I could be a reprobate or an apostate — someone who has crossed the line of no return (Romans 1). Many Christian apologists believe there is no hope for me, that I have a sinful, darkened heart and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:29). My advice to you is that you focus on low-hanging fruit — people more likely to buy what you are selling. I am not such a person.
It’s possible that you believe that God is letting me wander for a time, and someday he will draw me back to himself. Sure, that’s possible, I suppose. However, I don’t believe God exists. If, by chance, I am wrong, then God, the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit know exactly where I live. This three-headed supernatural Marvel superhero can stop by my house, email me, or send me a text. Why has it not done so? Instead of dealing with me directly, God sends the Richards of the world — thousands of them. Why is that? Why can’t God speak for himself?
Saved by Reason,
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 think my Marvel god would be Loki, though. I will not admit to any ideas that it is because Tom Hiddleston is a mighty fine dude. Think what you will. 😉
Bethany agrees with you. 😂 Bethany is counting the days down (and nagging me) before the new Loki series comes out on June 9.
Oh man, I’m counting the hours. But I expect to be heartily entertained! Glad to know Bethany and I have something in common. 😉
Hi Bruce.
Your last comment was “Why can’t God speak for himself?”
But what if he has and is but you can’t or won’t see it? Yep, he isn’t showing up at your door like a Marvel superhero. You aren’t witnessing some astonishing miracle. Yet every day you see creation…or I’m sure nature is your preferred word…amazingly in order and beauty in spite of also having decay and death. Every day your body, though dealing with health problems like you have mentioned, is undergoing many amazing functions just keeping you alive, breathing, thinking, and feeling. At this point I know you will argue those points are both science, and while true, they point to design.
At this point I’ll be honest and say I’m struggling with some things with my faith, unanswered prayers, depression, and discouragement from other Christians lack of care. Sometimes I just go into neutral since having feelings is too painful. I say that just so it’s clear I’m no super Christian in my own mind. At any rate…I’m hoping this comment was at least worth considering. Also I’m so sorry for your physical pains. I’m glad you have a loving family who is giving you much happiness. 🙂
Marie
Marie, the problem with your comment is simply that Bruce is bombarded with such comments, day after day after day. Isn’t it enough to know that he doesn’t want this on his blog? Honest inquiry, yes…Christian apologetics…no. Comments about God designing well, anything can’t be proven. Wish Bruce well and leave out the “I’m praying for you because God loves you” stuff. Bruce doesn’t believe it, and it insults his intelligence. If you were saying it to me, it would be different. But Bruce gets every fundie coming here to claim to love him, that God loves him. And in the end they usually end up threatening him with hell. So no, it doesn’t come off as loving or kind.
This is, perhaps unfortunately, the point where I start asking: Look, do you think God is all-powerful or not? I mean, if God is speaking and I can’t hear him, then presumably He needs to speak up. If I’m somehow avoiding listening to Him (and if so, I promise you I’m not aware of it) then again, maybe He needs to try a different approach. Email, for example. Thing is, an all-powerful being should be able to make itself heard and understood with literally no effort at all; that’s what omnipotence means. So when I call and He doesn’t answer, I’m forced to assume that either He’s not interested or He isn’t there. Either way, why waste my time and energy?
Calvinism offers another possibility: maybe I’m just not one of the Elect, in which case He doesn’t answer because He’s known since before I was born that I was unworthy and destined for Hell, but that’s monstrous and I assume not in line with your beliefs.
Order is not design, and does not require a guiding intelligence; the world looks me far more like the result of impersonal natural processes than a deliberate, thoughtful intelligence. Heck, the very existence of wisdom teeth looks more like the result of impersonal natural processes than some deity’s idea of a good design.
I don’t say any of that in an attempt to shake your faith; I’m sure you have your own reasons for believing, and I’m sure they make sense to you. We’re all doing the best we can with what we have. But it’s worth remembering that if you’re talking apologetics with ex-Christians, there’s essentially nothing we haven’t heard before; you can safely assume that our lack of belief has already taken all the traditional arguments into account.
God put wisdom teeth in our mouths so oral surgeons could make thousands of dollars extracting them. 😂😂 Vestigial organs are sure signs of natural processes. Either that, or the CAD software God is using is buggy. 😂
The problem, Marie, is that your illustrations can all be explained without God. I see wonder everywhere I look, but it doesn’t say to me there’s a God. And not just any God, the Christian God of the Bible — an absurd claim, if there ever was one. I could “almost” be convinced that there is a deistic God of some sort — almost, I said almost 😅— but the Christian God? Not a chance.
I’m currently reading Alex Bezzerides book, Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Our Bodies Work (Or Don’t). If our bodies are testimonies to Gods perfect design, he either has a cruel sense of humor or was high the day he created animal life. Just think about urination/defecation/sexual intercourse/menstruation/eating/swallowing/breathing. By all means, point to God’s wonderful/perfect design. Again, bad design, not what you would expect from a perfect designer. Look at a giraffe. God’s awesome design? Or are these things evolution gone awry?
You might want to read Dr. Jerry Coyne’s book, Why Evolution is True.
Here’s a couple of short videos you might find interesting:
https://youtu.be/PHmjHMbkOUM
https://youtu.be/0L4eOkdBIrg
Marie, you say
“ At this point I know you will argue those points are both science, and while true, they point to design.”
Yet the fact is that the human body is a horribly flawed system, such that if it were produced by a design student it would result in a great big FAIL. It works, after a fashion, though much better in some than in others, and there is almost no consistency. The point is that if it didn’t work we wouldn’t be here discussing it, but even the most casual of assessment clearly shows that it is the result of unguided evolution, and hence why we have such poor dietary systems, reproductive systems, tendency to disease, and susceptibility to infection. Whilst you’re on check out the laryngeal nerve, then get back.
Richard sent me the following email:
Richard here again, thank you for your response. I dont like labels, I follow Jesus Christ thats all. In response to you comments (humbly)
I responded:
If you want to interact with me, please comment on the post. I have no interest in interacting with you privately. You ignored my commenting guidelines. What does that say about you and your faith?
Go away, and find someone else to bother.
Bruce Gerencser
Richard responded:
Dear Bruce,
My apologies for not following your commenting guidelines. It was not intentional. I was using my mobile. Sorry for bothering you and I will not bother you again but I hope this tells you something about my faith, I am able to admit to making mistakes. God bless.
sigh 😂
A problem is that evangelicals can only appeal to feelings. Paul in his day applied reason as well – they really did believe in an Adam and Eve as up to date science so Paul could appeal to feelings and the reasoning of that day. Given what we now know, would Paul still have wrote and reasoned today from the perspective of original sin? I suspect not.
It’s a rather predictable script, isn’t it?
Christian: “You will return to Jesus someday. He will show himself to you. It doesn’t matter what you do, there’s no escaping him.”
Unbeliever: “Well, could you ask Him to drop by? People keep telling me this, and He keeps not showing up.”
Christian: “Well, you have to have faith.”
Unbeliever: “Which I can’t do, because He keeps demonstrably not showing up.”
Christian: “You have to beg Him humbly for forgiveness.”
Unbeliever: “What happened to ‘He will show himself to you’? And also, I’ve done that and He still keeps Not Showing Up.”
Christian (usually): “Well, you’ll accept Him now while you’re alive or you’ll believe in Him while you suffer for eternity in the lake of fire…”
Unbeliever: “See, now you’ve moved to threatening me because, again, He keeps not showing up….”
…I mean, there are some variations to it, but somehow they never get past the fact that I called and He didn’t answer. It gets tedious after a while. (A very short while, actually.)
Tedious, indeed. 😂
Oh Richard, why don’t you just enjoy Jesus on your own with your fellow Jesus followers of like mind? There are many of us who have left religion, and there aren’t many of us anymore who are “called back”, or rather, there may be some humans telling us why we should go back (mostly through threats). If you like your version of Jesus and Christianity, that’s great, you do you. Many of us are more than happy without religion, or a supposed relationship with a deity.
Christians like Richard desperately need a remedial course in respecting boundaries.
Sorry to bother you, yet, is he? I don’t think so. The person who is bothered is Richard himself. He’s only following the story about a God who is bothered. And I can’t blame Him. The whole story is quite bothersome.
Hi, Richard. It seems from your posts that you mean well. You also seem to care about Bruce’s ongoing woes, what he went through before- and what he must deal with currently. But you need to understand that you aren’t saying something that Bruce hasn’t heard previously, or doesn’t grasp. All Christians/ ex- Christians know very well about this concept regarding ” backsliding ” as we heard sermons/ threats over the years. It’s not news. And not respecting the commenting rules doesn’t help your case,for openers. If you truly believe praying helps, you can do that. But wheedling only alienates people. And don’t forget, if someone decided to return to Jesus( though I’d leave church out of that scenario)they will do it. You can’t browbeat people, Richard. It won’t work, and usually causes a bad response. Want to help Bruce in a practical way ? You can donate to his Patreon account if able. Ohio is not a rich state. Gov. De Wine is a jerk who keeps most Ohioans down. Unless they’re wealthy like him. As for me, I haven’t taken the plunge just yet. The restraint that I learned/ chafe under, from Christian doctrine benefits others, not me though. I keep waiting for ironclad proof that the Bible is a total fraud. It sure would take a load off, and free me to settle old scores overseas, and elsewhere. I wouldn’t be ” tamed” anymore. It would be so strange in one sense, because couldn’t go back to my pre- Christian beliefs either,as there’d be nothing ” up there” to refer to. Rest assured, badgering never works where spiritual issues are concerned. I hope this clears up the conundrum for you.