Today, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Trese (Teresa) Drek. She totally ignored that I ask people to NOT send me emails like hers. Trese refuses to accept my story at face value. Why? She can’t square my story with her theological beliefs and personal experiences. This is a common problem Evangelicals have with me.
Here’s Trese’s email. All grammar and spelling in the original. My response is indented and italicized.
Hello Bruce,
Im writing to tell you ‘in love’ the truth …
Actually, you are writing to preach at me; to share your personal opinions and personal interpretations of the Protestant Christian Bible.
There’s no “love” in your email, just arrogance and self-righteousness. You can’t or won’t square my story with your peculiar theology, so instead you decide to attack me and trash my character. Instead of trying to honestly engage me, you chose to discredit me and call me a liar.
You had 50 yrs of “experience” as a fake christian who had a false conversion. You were never born again! Thus , you never had a deconversion. (“I know it must painful for you to read about my deconversion.”) That is my message to you in a nutshell.
What evidence, Trese, do you have for these claims? Outside of your own experiences and beliefs, that is? Think about all the people who heard me preach over the years. Think about all my Evangelical friends and colleagues in the ministry. Think about my Evangelical family members who are pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. All of these people observed my life up close, yet none of them ever said, “Bruce, you are not a real Christian.” Not one. In every way, my life said to everyone that I was a devout follower of Jesus (and by all means, you are free to seek out these people on the Internet and social media and ask them). Thus, I was either a master deceiver, or you, Trese. are full of shit. I’m going with the latter, as will the people who know me.
Why didnt the following verses ring true to you when ‘you decided’ you were ‘no longer a christian’?
The Father gives the heart of repentance and the measure of faith. Triune God is the author and finisher of ones faith. You never received real Godly repentance or real faith because those that do never leave!
“If I wanted to be a True Christian, I had to come forward to the front of the church, kneel at the altar, and pray a certain prayer. If I did these things, I would then be a Christian — forever. And so I did. ” ( this is the ‘Billy Graham way’ who was never a real christian either. )
Welp, there’s no God, so of course, I didn’t actually receive these things from him/her/it. Much like all Christians, including you, I was a product of indoctrination, conditioning, cultural experiences, and environmental factors.
I find it interesting that you cherry-picked one experience from my story to build this false narrative about me in your mind. Why not take my story as a whole? The answer, of course, is that doing so would destroy the caricature you built of me in your head.
Billy Graham was never a Christian? Really? I mean really?
1 John 2:19
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
Acts 11:18
When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”
2 Timothy 2:25
with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,
Romans 12:3
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
John 6:39
And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day.
John 6:65
Then Jesus said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has granted it to him.”
John 10:28
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.
Golly gee, I have never, ever read or studied these verses. *sigh* By the way, I have preached sermons from all of these verses. I preached a 100+ sermon series from the book of John.
Quoting Bible verses to me has no magical powers. The Bible is just words on pages, ink on paper. Do you have any evidence that suggests otherwise?
Isnt it amazing that a professed well read man can miss so many scriptures (or purposefully forget) that explain you and your newfound friends walking away?
Yes, I am well-read. Are you? As I mentioned above, I know these Scriptures quite well. Perhaps the real issue here is whether the Bible is what you claim it is: God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Word. I would love to engage you on this subject. If I can disabuse of the notion that that Bible is inerrant or infallible, perhaps you can then see that your peculiar interpretations of the Bible don’t hold water.
Have you ever read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books? Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and historian at the University of North Carolina. I am confident that if you will read several of his books you will see that the Bible is not what you claim it is. Are you up to my challenge? I will even buy one his books and have it shipped to you. Won’t cost you a dime.
“Everywhere I look, I see agnostics and atheists who were once devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Pastors, youth directors, worship leaders, missionaries, deacons, evangelists, soulwinners, bus workers, and Sunday school teachers; on-fire, filled-with-the-Holy-Ghost Christians. Thousands of former followers of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords read this blog. Were all of these washed-in-the-blood Christians deceived, never having tasted the goodness of God? Would a scientist doing a study on this group conclude that they were false Christians? Of course not. In every way, they were once numbered among those who followed the lamb wherever he went. When Jesus said “follow me,” they cast their nets aside, forsook all, and followed him. No matter what they now are, the past cannot be erased by the wave of a magic theological wand.”
You quote me, yet don’t interact with what I wrote. Why is that? What I wrote above is a statement of fact based on thirteen years of interaction with countless former devout Christians; men and women who were pastors, youth directors, worship leaders, missionaries, deacons, evangelists, soulwinners, bus workers, and Sunday school teachers.
You expect me and the readers of this blog to accept your testimony of Christian faith at face value — and we do. If someone says “I am a Christian,” I believe them. Why can you not extend the same courtesy to former Christians? Why do you refuse to respect the life stories of others, dismissing them out of hand, all because of your theological beliefs?
Oh and by the way; “evangelical christianity” is for the most part ‘main stream apostate christianity’ today thus it is not the term fruit bearing discerning christians use for themselves ; myself included.
*sigh* If it walks, talks, and acts like an Evangelical . . .
You have been infected by the A.W. Pink virus. Pink was a 20th century Evangelical Calvinist. In his early years, Pink was a pastor and an evangelist. Over time, Pink become more and more disaffected by what he saw in Evangelical churches. Instead of taking a hard look at himself, Pink blamed others for his disaffection. Pink eventually stopped going to church, believing that no congregation was pure enough for him. He spent the remaining years of his life writing books and raging against Christians who believed differently from him.
There’s a cure for the A.W. Pink virus: self reflection and a willingness to accept people as they are, even those who believe differently from you.
“Ask yourself, “how will my email reflect on Jesus, Christianity, and my church?””
My email glorifies my Lord Jesus Christ , true christianity that adheres the Gods word, and my entire church family who are those who are in Christ! It does so because my words to you are Christ’ truth written !
*sigh* I want to say that you are delusional, but then I remember that I once believed as you do. Yes, Trese, a never-saved preacher believed just like you. Ponder that for a moment.
“Always silent, Jesus. Why is that?”
Jesus speaks to mankind through his holy living scriptures . We speak to Jesus through our prayers. Why would a guy who “pastored” a church for 25 yrs expect Jesus to speak to him except through the holy scriptures?
Your comment reveals that you really don’t know your Bible very well. The Bible says that God speaks to us through creation, divine revelation (the Bible), the preaching of the Word, prayer, the sacraments, and personal interaction — the still small voice of God in our hearts. The Bible is replete with stories of God speaking directly to people. You do know that most Christians didn’t have a printed copy of the Bible for 1,500 years after the death of Christ. How did God speak to these Christians without the Bible?
You may print my email to you if you wish to! I used my real name and real email address. I am confident that if it is Gods will ; some of your readers will be drawn to the Father through scriptures provided. Scripture has a way into a mans soul like no other words written ever IF GOD IS DRAWING HIM! Perhaps , the Father will draw you to!
I assume you are a Calvinist. Most of the readers of this blog have read the Bible many, many times. Some of them were in the ministry for years. They are not ignorant of what the Bible says.
Let’s see if your magic book leads to the salvation of one person. If one regular reader, after reading your email, repents of their sins, and professes faith in Christ, I will stop blogging. There ya go, God and Trese, bring down your saving power on the deluded readers of this blog. Save them, Lord! In Jesus’s name, deliver them from darkness! We are waiting . . .
And when this doesn’t happen, Trese, are you willing to admit that you and your God are failures? Are you willing to admit that you and God are no match for skepticism, reason, and intellectual inquiry?
I deleted the remainder of Trese’s Bible quotations. I suppose I just damned some of you to hellfire and brimstone by not publishing the rest of the soul-saving verses. You were three verses away from eternal life. I’m sorry. I will see you in Hell.
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 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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Just an observation really. When I see people posting screeds of bible verses on the internet with no connection or explanation (like the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8:31), what do they hope to gain by copy pasta? I’ve found mostly they could not even recite the verses from memory, and memorizing the bible is a dying art amongst evangelicals.
My point? Teresa Drek does not display any love. There’s no thought or effort to be seen, no explanation or thoughtfulness, just a rant at Bruce and people who may be like him, and a bunch of internet copying and pasting. Even the Eunuch needed the scriptures explaining. Not that we don’t know the scriptures, but evangelicals like Trese don’t even apply the bible they claim to believe. Whatever happened to Christianity that it’s so backslidden, and people like Trese are apparently acceptable as evangelicals?
Well, Bruce. It seems to me that the so-called True Christians who choose to proselytize you by some form of mail (against your wishes) are playing some sort of personal game. I suppose some are honest on a surficial, idealistic level. However, I strongly suspect they have two underlying alternative motives:
(1) They are trying to test their internal Holy Spirit Mojo (a.k.a. “How strong is the Holy Spirit that supposedly dwells within me?” I guess it is kind of like the motor oil level in an auto engine. “How am I today? Am I the full 5 quarts of Holy Spirit necessary to have a good chance to reel in Bruce, or am I 4 quarts low on Holy Spirit?” I think I’ll test it on Bruce and see.”
(2) “Gee. I want to try my hand at returning Bruce to the True Christianity of his youth. If I can pull that off with success, I will have demonstrated the biggest Holy Spirit Mojo in True Christian history (even if that history is only about 100 years old.)” If I am successful, I will be nationally famous. Celebrity pastors will beat a path to my door. There will be book deals. I will have my own ministry, airplane, and Jesus cable channel. I will be a regular on the paid lecturer and talk show circuit. Millions and millions of dollars and enormous material wealth will flow toward me like a mighty wave. I will be wealthy beyond the dreams of Midas—-or maybe even the dreams of Kenneth Copeland.
It is an odd thing though. I have only a small handful of readers at my blog entitled “Flee from Christian Fundamentalism.” It is my understanding that you have many thousands of readers. I almost never get any of these odd letters or e-mail messages that you get so often—–maybe one in the entire 5 years my blog has existed. Frankly, I do not like such messages anymore than you do. I too have warnings to fundie and Evangelical readers under my CONTACT tab and my POLICY tab. You have similar warnings offered to those fundies and Evangelicals who would contact you. Why do such readers run away from my warnings so easily and so often ignore your warnings and write straight to you with no respect at all for your stated wishes. It’s a mystery to me. Do you have any insights?
I suspect Evangelical zealots see me as prey worthy of their attention; a big name ex-Evangelical. Imagine if I got saved or returned to Christianity. That would be big news in the Evangelical world —- especially in the IFB.
Another fundamentalist is smug and judgmental. You need better enemies, Bruce.
Wow, Trese, I’ve never seen it explained that way. I spent a few years (we don’t need to discuss the amount, but its enough) but you really clarified so much for me. The way you put together those verses, and the way you countered Bruce’s views.. wow. It has to be spirit led and I have to say, I am surprised but I have finally seen the light. Being a christian is simple, all you have to do is defy logic, use random scripture, and invalidate everything a person tells you about themselves. I am truly impressed, your ability to completely ignore logic and write with such confident ignorance is impressive.
I say that in love, of course, so that you can see the way. I truly want you to be saved. That is why I will pray to the Great Unicorn Goddess for your soul, so that you can avoid the pitfalls of Bruce, Billy Graham, and all the others that are fallen away. Our Goddess (we can’t use her name, so we just call her Goddess) has prepared the way for us, and even lived some time on earth in the form of Pegasus, who was fully Goddess and fully Unicorn (people who call Pegasus a flying horse are evil reprobates). Now we have the Holy Monokeros who indwells us and shows us the path of the Unicorn. This Triune Goddess is available to you, all you must do is repent and believe.
I trust the Goddess will soften your heart, and allow the scales to drop from your eyes so you can see Goddess’s truth clearly. Behold, the Goddess stands at the door, knocking with her horn. Won’t you open that door and let her into your heart?
I know this is probably hard to hear, and I suspect your heart may be hardened, if you are not careful. But remember, even though you are now an evil, disgusting, hateful christian who puts yourself over others and demands they follow you, I only hate that christian faith part of you, but love you. You now, hate the christian faith, love the christian.
And honestly, the Goddess understands. This is just who you are. So you can come to the Grove and worship the Goddess with us, and you can still be a christian, you just can’t act on and participate in those disgusting christian activities. The Goddess is sufficient to help you overcome those christian urges that control you now.
Now, won’t you just take this moment to ask the Goddess into your heart, and repent, so that your life can be Unicorn blessed?
Sage, I need to be a member of the Church of the Holy Monokeros. Do you have membership cards? 😀
I still have my pope card from the House of the Apostles of Eris.
Sage has the BEST response!
BTW, I, too, am steps further in my disgust for evangelical bullshit with this letter. “Please do not” equals “I SHALL!” to those who discard personal autonomy and consent. Oh, Ms. Drek, you’re not nice and you’ve forgotten one of the most important verses in your quest: “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.” Proverbs 18:19.
Guess you’ll just be disregarding that one, eh?
Sign me up for Team Unicorn too. May Her holy hooves never be shod!
an appropriate last name to describe what she wrote.
Yet another simpleton who has never read that Book of Drivel from cover to cover but instead has been force-fed cherry-picked verses on which she bases her whole so-called “theology” on. A complete and utter moron. Not an ounce of common sense but an over-abundance of arrogance and narcissism. If it were to rain, she would surely drown.
I came from a background like hers where we swore Billy Graham was leading millions, if not billions, to Hell and that everyone, except for the small “remnant” found in the “Church of God”, were going to Hell. If your church was named anything other than “Church of God”, that was reason enough to know that you were apostate, fake and going to burn in Hell.
She is mentally warped. She is the epitome of religious mental illness.
How brilliant – “A. W. Pink syndrome”! In the last few years I managed to find (on the internet):
1) A Christian who claims that Peter, James, and their allies in the Jerusalem church, who supposedly preached a “works-salvation” theology, were not true followers of Jesus’ teaching. Paul was the real apostle. The rest was fake.
2) A Christian who is a proponent of “Jesus’ word only” approach to Christianity. One needs to show fruit in order to be saved, Paul was a fake apostle who promoted the heretical idea of “salvation through faith”.
“Every man is his own pope” indeed.
Trese Drek – what an appropriate name for someone who sends shitty e-mails.
Fuck off, Trese.
Astreja–I was thinking exactly that!
Trese Drek, God’s Appointed Universal Arbiter of Determining Who Is a True Christian (TM).
When folks like Trese Drek say they are browbeating you out of “love,” they remind me of those life-forms that tell you about their gay brother, sister, best friend or co-worker before they do or say something bigoted. Of course, they have no idea of what it’s actually like to be gay, trans or anything else on the “rainbow,” just as the likes of Trese Drek don’t know anything about the Bible, let alone the people to whom they preach.
The deluded little twerp says “My email glorifies my Lord Jesus Christ…”
Ah. This is obviously some strange new definition of “glorifies” that I wasn’t previously aware of.
Your e-mail, Trese, is pure hubris. There is nothing glorious about it. It is your pathetic little ego pretending to know the truth, all the while libeling the experiences of real, live people. As such, it’s not too much of a reach to say that your e-mail commits the Unforgivable Sin by indirectly attributing your ignorance and mendacity to the Holy Spook. See you in {nonexistent} hell, beeyotch.
Dear Bruce,
I am coming to the point of believing in saints, as you have the patience of one. I worked diligently for decades developing my patience and I will not have idiots abusing it. I feel your pain in having to deal with righteous assholes who will not leave “well enough” alone.
No one damns people to hell quite like an evangelical. They’re only reaching out from the pit to pull us all back in. Time to cement the pit over. Put a lid on it.
Anyone who abandons or modifies their belief system tends to draw this variation on the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Those of us who have left the Catholic Church have reaped the Traddie Cath twist on it: “You left because you were not properly catechized.” Being both a former Catholic (left the RCC fifty years ago to become an Evangelical) AND a former Evangelical That came later, after college, law school, and admission to the bar), I took a lot of notes along the way.
I guess “You left because you were not properly catechised” is the general explanation. If you go one step further and offer any intellectual reasons for your disbelief, it would probably morph into “You haven’t properly understood St. Thomas”.
(I am never a Catholic but this is my impression from reading online discussion.)
Ugh, so condescending. I’ll refrain from making fun of the last name, as others here have already noted its Yiddish connotation. I do admire your attempts to get Ehrman’s work into the hands of these folks, Bruce; but if their entire belief system is predicated on the infallibility of the “bible” (as if that was just one immutable text) then they could read every one of his books and still dismiss him out of hand. Much like going to the Creation Museum–“the earth can’t possibly be millions of years old because we know it’s only 3000 years old, ergo every serious paleontologist in the world must be wrong.”