Why bother, right? I have spent the past seventeen years asking Evangelical Christian apologists and zealots to give Evangelicals-turned-atheists a fair hearing. I have asked them to accept our stories at face value. Who better knows their story than the person who lived it? When a person tells me that they are a Christian, I believe them. Who am I to say that they are not one? Sadly, Evangelicals refuse to offer the same grace to people such as I and countless other Evangelicals-turned-atheists.
Today, an Evangelical apologist going by the name Charles — today anyway, since he has used other names in the past, trying to evade moderation — left the following comment on the post How to Witness to an Atheist (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original):
Sorry to offend but most atheists were “intellectual Christians” before they “deconverted”. They likely never truly accepted the gift of God through Jesus Christ. Because once someone experiences the light of Christ they’re not going to run back into darkness.
Yes Bruce is a extremely rare bird. And actually reminds me of another pastor. Sam Kinison. If you don’t know who that is. He was a hellfire and brimstone holiness Pentecostal preacher in the 70’s sadly left the ministry in the 80’s and became one of the biggest foul nasty mouthed comedians of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s. I’ve never read anything where he advertised to have become an atheist but it was kinda obvious as he would make fun of Christianity in his comedy act.
And he would also do his comic routine the same way he used to preach Pentecostal sermons. With the loud yelling speaking in tongues style.
Sam kinision was killed in an auto wreck in 1992 and witnesses said he was talking to someone they couldn’t see or hear that assured him of something and he died peacefully. So if that’s true he was still saved.
Salvation is a gift and Christ will not take back a gift if it has been truly received. I hope it’s the same for Bruce as it was for Sam and that he was truly saved.
Charles begins his comment by saying “sorry to offend.” This, of course, is what someone says when he is going say something offensive to someone or a group of people. Charles isn’t “sorry” at all. Had he been, he never would have written his comment. No, Charles had every intention of offending. He wants, dare I say, needs, his words to cause harm.
How does Charles know that “most atheists were intellectual Christians before they deconverted?” No study I am aware of affirms this claim, so I suspect that Charles knows this because it “feels” right to him. Charles is claiming that most Evangelicals-turned-atheists were never “real” Christians; that they had head knowledge of Christ, not heart knowledge. (Please see Missing Heaven by Eighteen Inches.) How he determines the difference between heart and head knowledge, Charles does not say. Wouldn’t determining one’s locus of faith be God’s purview, and not that of fallible, sinful men? Yet, Charles, as all Fundamentalist Christians do, speaks with certainty on my former Christian life and that of thousands of people who read this blog. He KNOWS they are “intellectual Christians” because if they weren’t they would still be Christians. This is, of course, circular reasoning, much like Charles’ logic “The Bible is the Word of God because the Bible says it’s the Word of God.”
Charles tries to deflect criticism by saying that “[The Evangelical-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser] is an extremely rare bird.” Charles can’t find fault with my past beliefs, practices, and lifestyle, so he must grudgingly admit that I really was a born-again child of God. Not only does Charles think I used to be a Christian, he believes I still am. That’s right, outspoken atheist Bruce Gerencser is a Christian! Nah, nah, nah, once-saved-always-saved. Once you say the sinner’s prayer — and you really, really, meant it — you can never lose your salvation. No matter what I say or do, when I die I will go to Heaven. Sweet, right? Hell no. Why would I ever want to spend eternity with the likes of Dr. David Tee, Revival Fires, John, Steve, Charles, and a cast of thousands? No thanks.
For some reason, Charles decided to use the late Sam Kinison as some sort of object lesson. According to a story for which I could find no primary evidence, Kinison was seen muttering to “someone” before he died, and then he peacefully expired. This, according to Charles, is proof that Kinison died a believer.
Let me conclude that some Evangelicals would consider Charles’ soteriology heretical. I know I would have back in my preaching days. Charles’ gospel is what I was taught as a child and as a student at Midwestern Baptist College. I preached a similar gospel for years until I came to see that I was preaching a bastardized gospel; that faith without works is dead. For Charles to even suggest that I am presently a Christian is absurd. That Charles can’t square his theology with my life is his problem, not nine. This I know is true: I once was saved, and now I’m not.
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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And it’s actually even worse if “Charles” is right. I was a Christian; now I’m an atheist. So let’s assume for the sake of argument that I was (up to age fourteen or so) an “intellectual Christian”, that I somehow “never truly accepted the gift of God through Jesus Christ”. At that age, and younger? When I’d been raised in the church? When those were the things I knew, because those were the things I’d been taught? As far as my childhood self was concerned, water was wet, the sky was blue, and Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins. If I’d so much as glimpsed the light of Christ, I’d have gone after it the way my dog goes after scraps of chicken.
It was only when I got older and started really looking it at — intellectually, as it were — that it all fell apart for me. Prior to that, faith in God was self-evident; of course it was true. It hadn’t yet occurred to me to wonder how it could possibly be just for somebody else’s punishment to count against my sins, or how the price of sin is an eternity in hell but somehow Jesus managed to pay that off for everybody in the space of three days.
So if, as “Charles” asserts, I fell away because I’d only been an “intellectual Christian” and have never experienced the light of Christ, whose fault is that exactly? I was ready. I was willing. I wanted it. I asked for it.
I can only conclude that God must have known me, known that, and still withheld His grace. And from that, I can only conclude that what Charles calls God is in fact monstrously cruel: cruel enough to ignore my fervent pleas that He come into my heart; cruel enough to create me, knowing in advance that I would not receive His grace and after a few brief years of life I would be consigned to an eternity of torment.
Charles is, most likely, going to misread those last two lines as me being angry at God. I say this because I don’t believe he has the capacity to truly consider how things might look from someone else’s point of view. The simple truth is that I’m not angry at all; I’m simply outlining the logical conclusion to what his view of the world would mean in light of my own experiences. To be angry about it, I’d have to actually care about how Salvation works, and to care about how Salvation works I’d have to have some reason to think that Salvation was (as the kids say these days) actually A Thing.
But that doesn’t change the fact that if things really work the way “Charles” says they do, he’s worshiping a monster.
You will definitely not want to spend eternity in hell with satan and his demons and the foul. Although sadly every soul in hell will be in complete isolation. 😭
How do you know you aren’t going to hell, Revival Fires? What makes you think you’re so special?
Please give actual, empirical evidence that hell exists before asserting we are going there. Please and Thank you
P.s. “because the Bible tells me so” is not empirical evidence.
That’s very detailed granular knowledge of the protocols in Hell, including physical arrangements and who and what is there. Revival’s imagination is impressive if that’s his own fabrication. If he’s only repeating what’s heard from the pulpit, his gullibility is a pity. it begs (for) the question;”how do you know?”. That always leads impenetrable dead ends of logic like: faith, belief, inspiration, etc.
Hey if Revival finds harmless comfort in mythology, let’s not begrudge it.
IDK, Revival Fires, I was taught that “once saved always saved” so you’re going to be stuck with liberal LGBTQ-affirming equality and diversity approving all-compassionate ObstacleChick for all eternity! Maybe we can play tennis together with Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell! How fun.
This thing about atheists never having truly been saved, or proper Christians, is a defence mechanism. Believers are frightened as to the prospect that someone incredibly devout (Bruce for example) might one day renege and become an atheist. If taken at face value it’s a show stopper, because it means until someone takes their final breath then there’s always the prospect of becoming an atheist. Believers have, therefore, constructed this entirely false and unconvincing case that people cannot change their minds.