Over the weekend, a Christian man named Steve Williams sent me the following message on Facebook Messenger. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original. My response follows.
I’ve been concerned about professing believers falling away from the faith since a teenager over fifty years ago. About a year ago I came across something of your story in Texas, I think you were involved with a church plant in San Antonio. It seems that I recall you transitioned from being an independent, fundamental Baptist to become a Reformed Baptist but there were problems with a dictator type pastor who greatly opposed you. I may be wrong on some of the details.
That’s way too bad. If sad stories like that made you feel justified to leave the faith, my guess is that there were doubts in your mind apart from that tragedy. I would plead with you to seek the mercy and grace of God, that He would do a saving work in your mind and heart and life. He is a merciful Saviour, however His judgment is severe for the apostate. Do turn to Him today.
I was actually the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elemendorf, Texas for seven months in 1994. I detail my experiences at Community in a five-part series: Part One — Part Two — Part Three — Part Four — Part Five.
Pat Horner, a former Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher started Community Baptist Church in 1983. Horner, as was I at the time, was a hardcore Fundamentalist Baptist and Calvinist. By the time I arrived in Elmendorf in 1994, the church was running several hundred people in attendance. Horner and I were hardheaded, opinionated, inflexible preachers. That said, personality-wise, we couldn’t have been more different. Both of us had what I call an entrepreneurial spirit. What Community had after I showed up on the scene was two chiefs; two managers; two owners; two honchos. For readers who have owned businesses or managed concerns for others, you know this was a recipe for disaster; a colossal clusterfuck-in-the-making. Both Horner and I were authoritarian, we expressed our authority differently. Horner was a stickler on doctrine. The slightest misspoken word would bring rebuke and correction. I had more grace in my theology than Horner did. That said, when it came to how we “lived” the Christian life, my standards were more extreme than his. These differences in focus led to conflict. There were personal squabbles too, as I recount in the series mentioned above. And after seven months of conflict, I had had enough (and I am sure Horner felt similarly). So, what we really were was a couple who ran headlong into marriage, only to find out that they were incompatible. Divorce was inevitable.
While I am sure my negative experiences at Community played a small part in my deconversion, what has troubled me more is my treatment by this church post-deconversion. I have added their words, sermons, and whispers to those of former friends and colleagues in the ministry. Their hateful, judgmental words were heard loud and clear; evidence of the moral bankruptcy of Evangelical Christianity. Again, these things played a part in my deconversion, but they were not the deciding factors. I left Christianity because I no longer believed the central claims of Christianity were true. (Please read The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.)
I was an Evangelical Christian for fifty years, and a Bible college-trained pastor for twenty-five years. I have written numerous posts about my story; about my life as a follower of Jesus, and my later deconversion from Christianity. Any fair reading of my story shows that I was a Christian; that I not only understood the gospel, but also preached it to others. There’s nothing in my story that remotely suggests that I never was a Christian, or that “God” had never performed a “saving work in my mind and heart and life.” Since God cannot speak for himself, it is up to my critics to provide evidence for their claim that I was a false Christian. I wasn’t perfect, but the bent of my life was towards holiness. Over the years I pastored scores of people and counted numerous men as colleagues in the ministry. Not one of them has ever said, “Bruce Gerencser was never a Christian.”
The bottom line is this: I once was saved, and now I am not. I know what I know, and no amount of rock-throwing from the outside will change this fact. That Williams and other Christians can’t square my story with their theology is their problem, not mine.
Williams ended his message as Evangelicals are fond of doing with a threat: “His [Williams’ God’s] judgment is severe for the apostate. ” In other words, “Bruce, you are going to burn in Hell unless you repent!” Over the past seventeen years, I have been threatened with eternal torture and Hell countless times — hundreds and hundreds of times. Look, I’m an atheist. I have not been presented with sufficient evidence for the existence of God — particularly the Christian deity. Jesus is dead, God is a myth, as are Heaven and Hell. Knowing this about me, why do Christians continue to threaten me with eternal, everlasting, neverending torture at the hands of their God? I suspect that these threatenings aren’t about me at all; that the need to be right fuels thundering pronouncements and imprecatory prayers against people different from them.
I am not low-hanging fruit, so it is beyond me why Evangelicals ignorantly think they can win me back to Jesus or, according to their theology, win me to Jesus for the first time. Regardless, I know all I need to know about God, Jesus, Christianity, and salvation. I am an atheist today, not because of a traumatic religious experience thirty years ago. but because I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting. It is really that simple. (Please read Why?)
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.
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Turn or burn. I guess those of us who actually examined that message and found it to be an abusive means of control were the ones who got out.
Thank you Bruce – If I may be so presumptuous –
“so it is beyond me why Evangelicals ignorantly think they can win me back to Jesus”
Evangelical Christianity is a Closed Loop system. An inflexible, male dominated, system of command and control.
Brought to you by those late era Romans losing their grip on the old vestiges of the Roman Empire.
They turned in their armor for those ridiculous robes and get ups. Courtesy of a failing military, corrupt society, and failing system of religous Polytheism. How to escape: Lay down the armor and ride on the new and latest CULT in fashion.
How many lies, how much corruption, how much manipulation does it take to see throught this ridiculous mask of societal control?
The sun dosen’t revolve around the earth? B.S. – Burn Galileo or throw him in prison.
Wanna go to heaven? – Got the cash?? This pope will write you a “writ” if you got the coin brother!
Jesus and the Angels? Bruce – Where were they, say from 1346 to 1351? You know when 33-45% of every
Christian bitten by a flea developed Buboes. Or was Jesus just “culling the herd”, weeding out the “Carnals”?
Those poor flagelants were not “heard” by the Lord, btw, guess they didn’t whip themselves enough for Yahweh.
National Socialism? Rome greeted them with open arms, and I’m not talking about Missoulini, no, I’m talking about the Vatican.
Donald Trump? See above.
Kind of sad the current cultists never heard of the Reformation, the age of Enlightenment (when the Christians could not agree) the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution. Evangelical Christianity is just, still “pining away for the good old days …………… you know, the DARK AGE’s. The current set of frauds will only be satisfied when society is strangled to death by the chain of adherence.
Speaking of the “Dark Age”, why is it called that? Could it be because the CULT had control and held sway over all of Europe for 1,000 years? You know that fine, feudal living, being an indentured servent, with a life expectancey of 30 years, serving the Christian overlords. But thats a good thing, because one’s seperation from jesus is all the shorter.
Yes, it’s all fear- based,for the most part. Both because of scriptures that warn against backsliding, drifting, or walking away altogether. And then there’s the verses that say that you have to tell others about judgement and salvation, so that if they DON’T turn around and repent, you won’t have their blood on your hands, because you spoke up. They ” die in their sins” but you can’t be blamed for that. But then again, if you act like an a- hole all the time, especially in public as a Christian, it negates the entire purpose, doesn’t it ?! The ones who ARE the a- holes want to be in the limelight,front and center, like Tony Hutson, one example there. This is the main reason why people are dumping churches and not returning!
Good posts here- and I have a question for Steve Williams. How much of Bruce’s blogs, and the comments,have you actually read ? At least you weren’t as hateful as most of those who come right out and gleefully threaten Bruce with a terrible end. I’ll give you that. You at least have some manners, unlike those other characters. In case you haven’t already figured it out, nagging people to either become a believer,or to return to Christian belief never works! Bruce already knows all about the description regarding ‘apostates’ ,and he’s stated that if he is shown better proofs of Jesus than what he experienced, he’d go in that direction. Nagging and threatening will get you nowhere ! If his future afterlife really concerns you, then PRAY. Because of the antics of the American churches,and of course the Catholic one before the above existed, people have quit in disgust. Provoked into it. It’s NOT just a ” sin” thing. There’s no harm in praying for ” revelation knowledge.” Rather than those Southern imprecatory ” prayers” that are usually done.
How can a saviour be described as merciful if his mercy comes with conditions? It doesn’t make sense (I know, there’s a surprise! 😂). Mercy would be to grant the apostate this silly grace thing: if you’ve earned it by being a believer then it’s not mercy! That’s the trouble trying to invoke reason with anyone who has sunk into the rabbit hole of unquestioning belief, because in their world reason has no place.
You know what else is sad? A “God” putting a snake in The Garden of Eden. Mercy and grace? Hardly.
Exactly! I never could understand why things in Eden were rigged that way, it definitely felt rigged to me, having a talking snake there. There are many people groups who’s creation legends involved humans and animals being able to talk to each other,until something happened to ruin the situation.
Sticking a tree full of fruit in front of them and telling them not to eat is like putting an alcoholic in a bar and telling them not to drink. It’s a rigged card game and Yahweh’s the crooked dealer.
“I love you and if you don’t return my love by doing the following specific things, I’ll hurt you forever.” That’s God’s nessage to you via Steve. These evangelical men don’t get how abusive their messaging is.
Man, these guys just won’t let it go. Honestly, I think it scares the hell out if them that a guy like Bruce, who has such an extensive background and experience in evangelicalism, can just walk away from it all. It makes them think, “what if all this stuff we believe in is nothing more than ancient writings and superstitions that have no more reality than any other myths. Nah, that’s too scary a thought.” They’d feel so much better if he would just REPENT and rejoin the flock. I remember an old Baptist preacher saying how christians constantly need encouragement. I think thats true, because if you start thinking and studying for yourself you may just find the real truth that you”re scared of.
They know their religion is baloney. I knew it when I was one of them. But they are either too invested in it to leave. That or they want to keep their fire insurance just in case there’s really a burning hell.
Fire insurance. That sums it up pretty good . That, plus often it’s really not wanting to see someone else wind up in Hell, especially someone you know and like.
“Fire insurance.” I love it!
As others have pointed out, as it becomes clearer that there is no basis to the authority of the Bible or
faith in God/Jesus, Evangelicals and Fundamentalists will become more shrill and even violent in their attempts to “win” us “back”—and to remain in control. If they didn’t have their ostensible beliefs, or if they realize (but won’t admit) that faith alone won’t get them what they want, they’ll embrace raw, naked facism and authoritarianism.
At least Mr. Williams has some manners. That’s more than can be said for others who have tried to bring Bruce back into the fold.