You seem to be deliberately ignorant and tone deaf. Last week, I publicly responded to your email. Please see Another Day, Another Evangelical Tells Me I’m Going to Burn in Hell — with All the LGBTQ People if you have forgotten what I said.
Since then, you have sent me several more emails:
I appreciate your response.
Sadly friend and I am not trying to be unkind but it appears that you spent 50 years trusting in your good works and position as a pastor for salvation.
Then I don’t know you read something or someone planted a seed of doubt or what that’s between you and the Lord.
Good works can’t save anyone not even a pastor!
I’m a deacon and street evangelist and neither of those make me holy or righteous only by the grace of Jesus Christ through his suffering and death and resurrection do I have any righteousness!
Heaven and hell are real and there is more proof for the resurrection of Jesus Christ than there is for napoleons defeat at Waterloo.
It exists whether a person believes or not.
Salvation cannot be earned it is only by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:8-9,Titus 3:4-6.
Jesus Christ was beaten to bloody shreds and was crucified to pay the penalty for sins (and yes sin exists if it doesn’t I encourage you to leave your door standing wide open the next time you go away for a few days and post that in the blog!)
Jesus rose from the dead to give eternal life in heaven and salvation from sin and hell.
Romans 6:23
1 Corinthians 15:1-4
There is only one way and it is through Christ by realization that you are a sinner and need him Trust in him and him alone for eternal life
Millions will face him one day and will offer up how good they were and it won’t matter.
A person can do a million good things with one sin they are unclean before Christ who is Holy and righteous.
It’s like making a delicious 4 egg omelette with three fresh eggs and one nasty rotten egg.
Unacceptable to serve to you or anyone.
Or making a cake and adding just a small ounce of dog crap. Again disgusting ! And unacceptable to serve to anyone.
I encourage you to seek Christ and turn to him by genuine faith and receive his gift of eternal life.
and:
It is truly sad how the prince of darkness has blinded all of you to the truth.
The lake of fire is NOT a threat it is a real place where real people who die in their sins without Jesus Christ will spend a real eternity!
I would strongly suggest you watch the movie HEAVEN’S WAR.
Blessings,
CRW
Do you remember me saying to you:
Randy,
If you want to have a discussion on these, and other, issues, please take it to my blog. You will find plenty of people willing to engage you.
If your goal is to preach — and it seems it is — please stop emailing me. You are not going to say anything I haven’t heard before (or said myself).
Thank you.
Bruce Gerencser
And what did you do? You sent me another email that said:
Ok I will respect your wish and not email again.
I appreciate your response.
And may come to blog for discussions later.
I do hope you will sincerely accept Jesus Christ before it is too late.
Atheists and Anti-Christians will one day wish they were at a water park……
I tersely replied:
Yet, you emailed me again.
You just can’t help yourself — signing off with another cute threat of Hell.
Why would I want to be like you, Randy?
Bruce
And, contrary to your promise to NOT email me again, you did:
Ok I’m only responding to answer your question.
I don’t want you to be like me. Be like the one who created you Jesus Christ. And who you evidently pretended to serve for 25 years.
Hell is not a threat it is a PROMISE and WARNING.
The eternal lake of fire in torment for Satan,the demons and each soul who chose to reject the gift of eternal life.
And religion is man trying to reach GodJesus Christ is God reaching out to sinful man through his grace and mercy and death and resurrection.
Blessings.
My “question,” Randy, was not a question I wanted you to answer. What I wanted is for you to think about your behavior. I wanted you to do a bit of soul searching, asking yourself whether your approach with me and other non-Christians is effective and whether your words reflect well on you, Jesus, and Christianity. Did you read the comments on the aforementioned post? Only “Asshole for Jesus,” Dr. David Tee/David Thiessen/TheologyArcheology, agreed with you. You are in rare company, Randy — and not in a good way.
Do you seriously think attacking my character, saying I’m a liar, and threatening me with Hell are effective ways to evangelize me? Or is the real issue this: you can’t square my story with your peculiar theology?
It seems that your Christian faith is based on cliches. You have sure used enough of them in your emails. Let me give you one more: “You are the only Jesus people see.” Your ill behavior, threats, and attacks speak volumes about the Jesus you say you follow. If the best transformative work the Holy Spirit can do is you, Randy, why would anyone want to follow your version of Jesus? Are you so obtuse that you cannot see how your words drive people away from Jesus and not towards him? I don’t understand your behavior and that of others like you. Your fellow Christian, “Dr.” David Tee, frequently shits on my doorstep, finding joy in being as hurtful and mean-spirited as possible. Granted, you seem to be a tad bit nicer than Mr. Tee, but neither of you (and scores of other Evangelicals) reflects the fruit of the Spirit:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:22,23)
Note what the Bible says: the fruit of the Spirit IS [present tense]. This is not an ideal, something to strive for. A True Christian® evidences the fruit of the Spirit in his daily life. Perhaps instead of calling my Christian past into question, you might want to look at your own life. Are YOU a Christian?
Want to win me back to Jesus? Want the readers of this blog to at least think admirably about Christianity, even if they choose not to believe? Change your behavior. Walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Ask yourself WWJD?
I would love to talk to you about your beliefs. However, before we do so, I want to offer to send you one of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books. All I ask is that you read the book before we talk. I warn you that Ehrman’s books have led countless Evangelicals away from Christianity. Are you willing to risk your faith, or are you so certain that you are right that no amount of new information will change your mind? Surely, you and the Holy Spirit can withstand the words of a lowly NT scholar. Anyway, if you are interested, please email me your address.
My final admonition is this: Do better, Randy, do better.
I ask that any further interactions with me take place in the comment section of this post.
Saved by Reason,
Update: Randy deleted his email account so I couldn’t respond to him. I can now check to see if someone is blocking me instead of deleting their account. Randy’s account no longer exists.
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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Randy, own your fucking threat. You don’t get to choose how we respond to it. In my eyes it is a threat, always will be a threat, and you’re a bullying piece of shit for using it. If only “warning” people of hell were an offense under the criminal code, so that you could be convicted and tossed in the slammer for, say, 18 months or so. I’d gladly spend hundreds of dollars to hop on a plane to testify against you.
I reject ChristInsanity unconditionally and eternally. I don’t bow to torturer-gods and I do not consent to anyone dying in my place (even temporarily).
heh, yep, the poor dear Randy, he has to make a threat but then uses the good ol’ “I am only following orders” defense since he’s a failure and coward.
He also does an excellent “Brave Sir Robin” impersonation. 😀
yes yes he does. Oh that imagery has served me well over the years
Randy, there is no hell, unless you count the hellish existence too many people have on our planet. But instead of ministering to hurt people in a loving way, you email Bruce to once again be smug, condescending and judgmental. I don’t understand how you can possibly think that trolling Bruce is a winning path to lead others to the lord, while exhibiting the opposite of the fruits of the spirit.
ok.. note to self.. do not use rhetorical questions, they are too hard to understand.
i will use a simple comparison for you Randy.
Example of warning. Do not go into that house, it is a very evil house, and chainsaw man will torture you brutally
Example of threat (or, as some call it, promise and warning). If you do not accept my friend as your leader, then he will bind you and take you to that very evil house, where the chainsaw man will torture you brutally
Keep in mind that good salesman will try to understand the customer. If a sales approach is not working, they will change the approach, and try to find a common ground from which to build a connection. It doesn’t help when you constantly pound the exact same point, repeatedly, when you were clearly told it does not work.
and I am sure I have said it before. You are the great example of a christian who is all talk, no action. Put this same effort into actually helping people who need shelter, food, clothing, and care, instead of cajoling and judging people.
I believe Randy is doing the evangelical God’s work and is therefore becoming, more and more, day by day, Chainsaw-Man… He doe not know it because this kind of belief is designed to ruin human Reason, to reduce humanity rather than create life eternal. What better way to to abuse others than to hide in plain sight and call hatred love. Randy hates himself and his Bible supports him in his demise…
We’ve been waiting 2000 years for the judgement, still the world goes on.
Randy, will you PLEASE respond here with all the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ that you say exists? Seriously, I would like for you to post it here. Or at least provide links to peer reviewed research supporting the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Randy,why do you waste time beating the proverbial dead horse here ?? If someone was once a believer,and there are admonitions in the New Testament warning people against backsliding,for example– you ARE aware that if someone chooses to return,they will do it– and in spite of you,not BECAUSE of you,see !! Good grief ! Let me guess,Randy. You’re from one of those Southern states,right ?
A street preacher! Nuff said. He is used to publicly harassing people in public settings, caring nothing about their right to peacefully go about their daily routine. He has certainly never convinced anyone in all of this street preaching to actually make a change in their belief system. He has certainly reinforced the belief of many people that Christianity is crazy. I’m sure he has a smug satisfaction for harassing Bruce much as he feels after a fruitless day of street preaching.
Here’s a tip for ya, “Coach” Randy. Try getting a real job and actually working for a living.
Oh, wait. My bad: one needs marketable skills to actually do that.