Recently, Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, said the following in a post titled, We have Time Today. All grammar, punctuation, and nonsense in the original. My response follows.
Thiessen writes:
We quoted someone in our previous post and it got us thinking about an issue he and another person get so upset about. For some inane reason, our two antagonists have a problem with being called by initials.
The “someone” in this post is my British friend, Ben Berwick. The “another person” is Bruce Gerencser. You, of course, would never know this by reading Thiessen’s post. Evidently, readability and comprehension don’t matter to Thiessen.
I think I can speak for both of us when I say we don’t get “upset” by Derrick Thomas Thiessen’s refusal to use our proper names. It’s annoying and disrespectful, but “upsetting? Not a chance.
The reason why is only known to them and we wonder about it because starting from our freshmen year of college and going past our graduation day, our friends used our first initial to address us. We didn’t take offense at it and demanded they use our full name.
Thiessen spins a whopper when he says he doesn’t know why we don’t appreciate his use of initials in place of our given names. I have explained this to Thiessen several times, as has Ben. Besides, just because he doesn’t mind people calling him by initials, doesn’t mean we have to accept him doing the same with our names. Thiessen knows we want to be addressed by our proper names. He also knows we want him to provide proper attribution when he uses our writing. We can’t make him do either of these things, but his refusal to do so sure says a lot about him and how he treats other people.
In fact, we liked it. The initial was convenient, easy to say and as far as we know, we were the only ones addressed by that initial. Our two antagonists seem to take great offense at being called BG and MM of course, we could have used BB for the latter but we don’t think he would like to be named after children’s ammunition.
I don’t take great offense at Theissen calling me BG. I do, however, think he is being childish and petty. There’s no reason I can think of for not calling me by my proper name — especially after I asked him to do so.
Maybe their anger comes from the fact that it us who reduced their names to initials? We do not know but they seem to disagree with anything we say just because we say it. But why get upset over using a person’s initials?
This is done all the time and as far as we know very few people ever get upset about it. Some people also shorten Jesus Christ to JC and we have not decided if that is insulting or not. Maybe if the initials were used in a derogatory manner it would be considered wrong and insulting but that is another topic for another day.
No, it is NOT done all the time. Show me one website or blog that reduces the names of people mentioned to acronyms. By not using proper names when mentioning people on his blog, he leaves his readers perplexed and uninformed. Who is BG? Who is MM? Thiessen does not explain who these people are. And since he refuses to give proper attribution when he uses our writing, this means the ten people who read his blog can’t check his writing. It is proper and professional to provide attribution for every quotation. There’s no possible justification Thiessen can give for not using our proper names or providing attribution.
Or they may be upset because they suffer from extreme TDS and we do not attack or put down Mr. Trump. Who knows or who cares. Our intent was not to be mean, derogatory, or insulting and it is intent that matters not how people perceive something.
What is TDS? Tiny Dick Syndrome? Typical Derrick Shit? Here’s a good example of what happens when you use acronyms instead of proper names (or nouns?). If you care about readers understanding your writing, there is a proper way to use acronyms. For example, before using the IFB acronym for the first time, I write Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB). That way readers know what I mean when I say IFB. The same goes for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) or the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC). The goal is to provide understanding so there’s no miscommunication on my part.
Thiessen wrongly thinks that “intent” is all that matters. He must have missed the lesson in Bible college that talked about the importance of perception. If Thiessen doesn’t want to be perceived as an asshole, then he should behave appropriately. I deeply care about how people perceive my writing or me as a person. I don’t want to leave readers in the position of having to figure out my intent.
Everything I have written in this post is already known to Thiessen. If he wants to be considered an Asshole for Jesus, it is on him, not me. I will continue to use Thiessen’s real name and provide proper attribution when I respond to one of the endless posts he writes about me or my favorite Meerkat.
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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When I read his post, I saw desperation. I’ve ignored Derrick since the turn of the year, and this isn’t the first post he’s dangled, in the hopes of getting me to respond. He must realise by now that I won’t respond to a fantasy construct. His credibility – already at zero with us both – slipped into the minus when he wrote a whiny post about symbolism, aimed at my disgust at a piece of offensive graffiti.
I can’t believe the manner in which he approached you regarding the guest post. Did it not occur to him to at least try to be reasonable, or to at least offer some form of conciliatory gesture, before thrusting his poorly-written, excuse-for-bigotry post into your lap?!
Bwwwahaha! He wrote an incredibly whiny reply to you, and called us boring at the end! Considering he feeds off our material like a parasite, what does that say about him?!
He wants to paint me as a liar. Take me agreeing to the subject of his post. All I said was any subject is fine. I had no idea he would write what he did. I should have known. He’s obsessed with genitalia. 🍆🍑🤣🤣
This is Thiessen’s response. If you don’t want to read it, let me sum it up for you: BRUCE IS A LIAR. 😈🤣🤣😈
So much for any integrity or character on the part of BG. He not only broke his word but also lied about the interaction. But what do we care, people lie about and to us all the time, and have done so for over 60 years.
As we read his ‘post’ he misrepresents everything about the entire transaction and the article itself:
Dr. David Tee Demands to Know Why I Didn’t Publish His Guest Post Submission
We didn’t demand anything. We will quote it for you:
This is the guest post we sent to BG in response to his offer to publish a guest post by anyone on any topic. We simply got tired of waiting for him to post it. If he eventually does, we may take this one down so there is no duplication.
Our initial thought for his delay is that he got very afraid to publish it, but we do not know the real reason.
No demand is present, and we do not care whether he posted it or not. I believe we said that in our article Observations, #2:
BG has failed to post our guest post. We wrote it because he made the offer and opened it up to everyone and on any topic. We see that he has made his own posts since we submitted it, so it is not like there is a long line of authors trying to publish something on his website.
We will give it one more day, and if it doesn’t appear, we will post the content here. We do not care where it is posted as long as it gets published. He may not like the concluding remarks, as those do not bode well for him and his LGBTQ friends.
No demand or negative comments were made about him in that post either. But people like BG cannot help but lie. Especially when it is about someone they do not like. His comment
While I initially agreed to publish his post, I regretted doing so after reading it. After a day of contemplation on the matter, I decided not to make his post available to the readers of this blog. His vitriol towards LGBTQ people in general, and specifically transgender people, was enough for me to pass on publishing his post.
The door was left open for us to write about any topic, and we asked him if he had a preference. Unbeknownst to him, we kept the emails. Not for any particular reason, but keeping them in our inbox has proven to be the right move. Our initial email to him:
Message:
I am game to write another one for you and I will avoid you as a topic. Do you have any special topic preferences that I could consider? I am off topic as well.
As you can see, we were not going to write one if he refused. Notice we kept both him and ourselves off the topic list. We were not going to insult or do him any injury, nor would we open ourselves up to the same thing. His answer was;
Your choice on subject.
Thanks.
Bruce Gerencser
He really has no leg to stand on and shows that he has no integrity or character, and we could say he is not a man, as a man keeps his word.
In his initial email to me, Thiessen demanded:
He did publish our email, but there was no demand in that as well. His comment there ignores one keyword
I have attached the document to this email, The instructions are the same as before. Do not let your editor or anyone touch the content or make changes. The content has already been through two spell and grammar checks
When we wrote a guest post for him once before, he had no problem with these instructions. Since he didn’t like the topic, he now creates a problem and lies about our words and communication.
Yes, we use two spell checks when we use the Word program, and even they cannot catch all the mistakes. Plus, the instructions were to protect our content from an unbeliever who does not understand what we wrote and would freely use her interpretive skills to change our content.
We are not opening our content up to that treatment. When we did not spot our guest post on his website, we sent a second email that was very friendly:
Hello BG
If you are not going to publish my guest post, let me know please and I will publish it on my site.
We were not going to post the content on our website as duplicate material on different websites can cause SEO problems. We were looking to avoid that situation. But does he ask or clarify our intent? No, he immediately went to lying about us.
He just published his post on his blog. I used comparison software to compare what … sent me and what he published on his site. Numerous changes were made to the text. So much for the text he sent me not needing an editor.
There were not many changes. It is a funny thing. Grammarly installed on our computer does not always agree with Grammarly that is on WordPress. The latter found some word problems, which we corrected. They were minor changes only. But BG can only lie.
The BG post goes on and on with more false representations, and why he does not ike a nickname with initials is beyond us. Like we said in a recent post, he and MM are the only two who have a problem with it.
There is no point in addressing any of the content after the last quote because it is useless to get involved in a discussion, debate, or conversation with a known liar who is so narcissistic that he has to make others look bad and himself the victim all the time.
He can’t help it as he does it in every post, especially with those he does not like. In all the years he has posted, about the only time he does not mention himself and his years as a pastor and Christian is when he publishes guest posts.
That is why he is never in the top 100 of all websites. He is boring, like MM, and repeats information ad nauseam that was covered in one web page on his website.
We just want to keep the record clear and not let his lies do us any harm.
Wow. I tried to read David’s guest post he published on his site (thanks for the link Bruce – you have always acted professionally for as long as I’ve been reading your blog, and that would be as far back as a couple of sites ago. One of the reasons I’ve followed you all these years. That and you are an amazing author with a gift of wordcraft and your art/photos, which can save your life I just learned).
Anyway, I tried to read David T’s guest post but my eyes kept crossing as his points looped back. Honestly if I had to describe a shape to his writing it would be spirograph. So many loops that I believe he confused himself. I know David was doing his best but sometimes ones best is not good enough.
Yes, he had footnotes and bullet points and lists but he totally missed logic, poetry of motion described in the word, and an understanding that behaviors always rest with the individual. Yes, exterior forces matter but when it comes down to doing a deed, ones teachings aren’t doing the thing, you are.
Easiest metric I’ve ever found to determine if my actions are correct/incorrect is will it cause another harm?
Hurt? Maybe I’ll chance it but harm? No. Not doing it. Right/wrong? I don’t care. If it causes harm (lasting and irreparable damage) then no, I’m not your person for the job. Note: I’m an old soul who believes to their toes that there are worse things than death, just saying.
Not sure David T would understand.
Tee Hee is such a boob,lol ! He always uses the term,” we.” His version of they/ them? I was watching a documentary about David Berg and his cult yesterday. These people who move to the Philippines to avoid charges, does that country have extradition treaties with the US ? If they do, officials should file against such cult members and put them on trial.
“We” wouldn’t reward a nuisance-barking dog with a treat. Why reward Dr Tee with the attention he craves?
BG and MM works for me. I don’t find it particularly disrespectful, and since virtually NO ONE reads his blog it isn’t confusing anyone. If anyone did actually read his blog, it would be standard practice to use the full name followed parenthetically by the truncated form: Bruce Gerencser (BG), then use BG subsequently. Making his blog even more bizarre and confusing only hurts Doc T. (See we do it to him too, and when I say “Doc” my tongue is firmly in cheek.)
I object because he refuses to follow accepted conventions for writing. If Thiessen’s goal is to be understood by readers, you would think he would give them as much information as possible. I have tried to educate Thiessen on this (and other writing/blogging) issues, without success. That said, you are right. He doesn’t have many readers, so this doesn’t matter much.