A few days ago, I received an email from an eighty-one-year-old woman named Wanda Sims. Sims read all of two posts before sending me a message that God allegedly laid upon their heart. My brief response follows. All spelling and grammar in the original.
There is one Go ,in 3 persons Father, Son Holy Spirit.
Sims provides no evidence for her claim there is one God, uh I mean three Gods, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As most Christians do when they come to this site to deliver to me a message from their peculiar version of God, Sims makes all sorts of claims without providing any evidence for them. She presupposes that her God is the one true GO, and all others deities are false. Thus Sims is an atheist too.
God is love!!
I see no evidence in our world that this claim is true. In fact, what I do see is that God is anything but love. Look at all violence, pain, suffering, and death in the world. Where is God? Even in the Bible we see a God, as Richard Dawkins suggests:
“is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
I would love Sims to take the events of Genesis 6-9 (Noah’s Flood) and justify her claim that God is love. Her God drowned millions of people, including children, infants, and fetuses. What an awesome God!
I pray you will have your eyes opened ,and the truth will guide you to see truth.
My eyes today are more open than they ever have been. If Sims wants me to see and know “truth,” I suggest that she share it with me. Let’s talk about “truth, Wanda. I’m game, are you?
You gave up on God, he still loves you. If you repent he is faithfull and just to forgive you.
I didn’t give up on God. I weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. Surely Sims would want me to follow the evidence and believe as many true things as possible.
How does Sims know God still loves me? According to countless Evangelical zealots, I am an apostate; a reprobate; a tool of Satan; an enemy of God. Based on the teachings of the Bible, God doesn’t love me. I have crossed a line of no return. I have been repeatedly told that I am a modern-day Judas, a son of perdition. Did Jesus savingly love Judas? Of course not.
I put Sims’ claims to the test. I just repented of all my sins, even the “secret” ones, and asked Jesus to save me from my sins. Did God forgive me? Is it really that easy? Nothing more is required of me but to repent and believe? Good to know. I am now s-a-v-e-d! 🙂 Yes, Wanda, this is me mocking you and your silly, bankrupt gospel.
I don’t want to be your BFF, but my heart hearts for you and those you have lead astray.
That’s good, because why would I want to be friends with someone who doesn’t respect me? Sims chose to deliberately ignore my requests on the Contact page. She sent me a preachy email, hoping that I would see the “light.” She paid no attention to my background, thinking that her rambling email would do anything to return me to the faith.
I’m not a Crack pot
I don’t know about that. What should I make of someone who seeks out strangers on the Internet and emails them? What should I make of someone who shows no regard for me; whose only goal is to put in a good word for Jesus? Jesus Fucking Christ, I am a fellow human being. How about treating me like one?
I spent fifty years in Evangelical Christianity. I pastored churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan for twenty-five years. I preached over 4,000 sermons, and spent 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. I am confident I know more about the Bible and Christianity than Sims goes. What possibly could she say to me that I don’t already know?
Of course, Sims read none of my autobiographical writing, so maybe she doesn’t know these things. If so, I would like to share with her what God says in Proverbs 18:13: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
just a 81 yr old woman that loves the Lord and have seen his love,beauty,miraculous works and mercy and love.
And I am just a sixty-five-year-old man who loves his wife of forty-five years, six grown adult children, thirteen grandchildren, and cats named Joe Meower and Socks. I have seen their love, beauty, mercy, and works. My family is the only God I need.
I pray you find your way back to this one true and loving God.
Well, as I mentioned above, I repented, so I am good to go. All praise be to Loki, the one true God of rural northwest Ohio.
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.
Connect with me on social media:
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
I don’t know. If Loki was our god in NW Ohio, I’d expect more interesting mischief-making. But I’m willing to believe!
No, no, I’ve been looking at the politics up there and Loki as the Patron Deity of Rural Ohio actually scans pretty well.
nah, loki isn’t stupid. Most in rural ohio are. (the same holds for western PA too).
One sentence summary of “I’m not a Crack pot” Wanda’s message is this: “Bruce, I know how you should live your life better than you do.” The arrogance of evangelical Christians is astonishing.
When I saw, “I am not a crack pot,” I thought she was telling Bruce she isn’t a vessel used to make the drug that ravaged neighborhoods during the ’80s and early ’90’s.
Anyway, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I can predict, practically verbatim, what folks like Wanda are going to say when they contact Bruce. The only variations, it seems, are in their grammatical and spelling errors.
Sigh Another know-it-all evangelical makes their appearance. At least she didn’t threaten you with hell!
Wanda: ” If you repent he is faithfull and just to forgive you.”
Zoe: I think Wanda leaves room for hell here . . . “if you repent.” And if he doesn’t repent Wanda, then what?
wanda is a pretentious cultist.
Image if you were to get into a time machine and go back and visit the Bruce Gerencser of the 80’s. I suspect the Bruce of the 80’s would try to win your soul, and the new Bruce would set his straight. The conversation might sound much like the post above. That would be a conversation I would love to hear!