Earlier today, I had the privilege of appearing on The Freethought Hour, a live program hosted by John Richards. Due to a glitch, viewers weren’t able to watch the program live. It is now available on YouTube.
Give it a watch and let me know what you think. Let me apologize in advance for me accidentally spilling water on my shirt. Drove me nuts, but I was on a live program, so there was nothing I could do. 😂
If you are so inclined, please click LIKE on the video and leave a comment.
Here’s the YouTube video link.
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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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Thanks Bruce. I just watched, well, listened to the programme. I’m about to wallpaper a room which I enjoy, but hate painting door frames and base boards, so got up early to get it over with, but the job seemed to get done real quick, with this to listen to. For some reason, cos I like accents, I enjoyed the contrast between John’s standard english one and your Ohio (?) one. And the content was great too of course!
Thanks for sharing Bruce. You did a great job. I’m also glad you wore the rainbow suspender after all of your clothing deliberations, I am glad you share your story, I think it has meaning to a lot of people and no doubt helps people walking the path you have walked.
And glad you have learned coping skills to deal with the hateful people. I cope by – well you have seen how I cope…..I suspect I should build a few coping skill of my own.
I recall you mentioned that you dislike video conversations. Am I correct in that? You certainly handled this one very well and very smoothly.
I hate talking on the phone 📞. I’ve “adapted” to the YouTube world —mostly. 😂 I plan to do my own videos soon. ❤️
Hi Bruce the water dried up quickly not an issue. I enjoyed the interview and thought the interviewer was very professional and experienced, and that you were able to share your story very well.
When I was watching/listening to the interview I thought about how John mentioned about the new evangelical bent in Anglicanism… If memory serves with what I have read I am sure this happened before when Anglican church attendance declined during the Victorian era. It seems like there is so much information to know and it made me wonder about how feeble we can be to form opinions as it always seems like there is more things we could know or don’t know 🙂 A huge problem with Christianity in my opinion is its rut it’s created to take things in the bible literally, rather than allegorically, which from what I can tell started with Roman authoritarianism and continued with Calvinisn and fundamentalism. None of these things are criticisms, I suppose listening to the show just made me think.
The anglican church proudly describes itself as a broad church. You can believe everything or nothing to be a full member. As my vicar friend said of a bishop’s non-answer about a current topic, ‘We nail our colours firmly to the fence in anglicanism.’ Vicar daughter has taken confirmation classes and confirmed folk who believe in reincarnation, ghosts and discount much of the bible as well as fervent fundies. The policy has always been to appoint a high church and then an evangelical primate alternately. Some of us, when anglican, hoped, when the Synod sat, that finally they’d see sense and become inclusive of LGBTQTIA+ folk. We were disappointed, the Archbishop has to pander to the huge african/asian homophobic membership which would split on the issue. A gay vicar didn’t get appointed as a bishop in an affluent London area diocese because the outcry from some in its evangelical churches in the diocese threatened to split. That would have meant a large drop in income for the diocese and anglican central funds which they obviously wanted to avoid. In some ways I salute the gay Synod member who fights for equality and inclusion every time it meets. I know her slightly so know all about the death threats and vile abuse she receives from fellow anglicans every time!
I also say thanks to Bruce for doing this. I agree with William that many christian groups. have painted themselves into a corner by trying to make everyone take the bible literally. Anglican church/Calvinism/fundamentalist is a good example.
Especially I think you are right about christian culture having mimicked Roman authoritarianism.
I especially dislike Calvin. He probably would have dammed me because I have epilepsy (even though it only started at age 30) as an original sin. Who knows whether they would have hung me or thrown me off the city wall?
Parts of it made me think about the nonsense of talking about “Christian children” or “Muslim children” – and before we even get near the hyper-nonsense of “Protestent children”, Sunni children”; or on and on into the intellectual masturbation of the various sects that follow from that. “Children of Christian parents”, “children of baptist parents” – fair enough. A statement of fact. But if children aren’t old enough to be responsible for voting for a political party, they are not old enough to be responsible for electing to follow a religion. This is a problem in my home city, where the press has in the past talked often about street trouble between “Protestant and Catholic children”. Even a small thing like just changing that description to “the children of Protestant and Catholic parents” might get people to actually start THINKING.
How can you legislate for this? For many their culture is uniquely tied to their religion. Parents have to teach their children something, it’s a dangerous precedence to have too much interference in the upbringing of a child. For most an upbringing of faith is harmless, perhaps you refer to extremism.
You said, ” For most an upbringing of faith is harmless.” This is patently untrue in many places in the world. You live in the UK, a place where religion is largely unimportant and marginalized (though Evangelicals are trying to change this). Here in the US, Christianity dominates every aspect of our lives. Evangelicalism dominates our government, even though they are a declining demographic. In 2016, Evangelicals, along with conservative Catholics and Mormons, put Donald Trump in office. These same people attempted to overthrow our government on January 6, 2021. If they have their way, they will turn the United States into a theocracy.
Indoctrinated children grow up to be indoctrinated adults who continue the indoctrination cycle with their children. Worse yet, millions of American children attend private religious schools where they are sheltered from getting a proper, comprehensive education.
I can’t imagine ever making religious indoctrination by parents illegal. We can, however, criminalize religious practices that are clearly child abuse. Corporeal punishment comes to mind. We can also use our public schools to combat religious indoctrination. Teaching logic, philosophy, and World Religions would be a good start. Public school students should be required to take these classes.
Non-Americans often grossly underestimate how Christianity affects every aspect of our lives. We see this in the Middle East, India, and some African countries too.
Davie is from Glasgow which is in the UK yes? Besides, I’ve never said which part of the world I’m from in your blog, thank you for sharing information you’ve no right to share.
William, I deduced you were from the UK from your vocabulary and your focus on the Anglican Church. Not that those are definitive markers, but they sent me that direction.
I think you are completely right about religion indoctrinating children. They do not have a choice or understand what is going on while this is happening.
As I said in other comments, I think the best way thru this is to show that a lot of religious children are abused definitely emotionally and intellectually. We need laws and the people to enforce those laws.
I also think education is a good way to go. There should be a test at the end of every grade for all children no matter where they are educated. Questions about mathematics and science (and probably logic etc.) in every test. If the child does not pass they must go to a “recovery” school or tutored by teachers who do not bow down to any religion.
The child must pass a test to get anything higher than a GED. If you want to get a high school degree you must prove you have leaned.
The parents must pay for this. There will probably need to be financial help also for poor people.