My Response to IFB Evangelist “Dr.” Arv Edgeworth — Part Three

Part One — Part Two — Part Three — Part Four

What follows is my response to another email from Independent Fundamentalist Evangelist Arv Edgeworth

Mr. Gerencser,

So nice to hear from you.  I don’t read your blog so I won’t be reading your replies to my emails to Carolyn.  I read your “Why” section, and all I saw was poor logic on your account, so I have no desire to read any further.

 That’s up to you. Remember, you came to this site and then emailed me.

You claim I use poor logic, yet you provide no evidence for your claim. What laws of logic have I violated?

Bruce, you blame God and the “Church” for you neglecting your family.  I have known several pastors who built strong ministries, and they had strong family ties, and I saw no evidence they neglected their families in any way.  I’m sorry you neglected yours.  But that is on YOU, not God.

I don’t blame “God.” He is a myth, so it would be foolish to blame a mythical being for something that happened in my life. I accept full responsibility for the choices I have made throughout my life. Part of accepting responsibility is determining why a certain decision was made. From this perspective, my pastors, professors, and the churches I pastored all played a part in how I neglected my family. I was indoctrinated and conditioned to view the world a certain way. The same goes for how I viewed my calling and the work of the ministry. I can’t be at fault for practicing what I was taught or what was modeled to me by my pastors and peers. I did what I thought was right in the eyes of God. Over time, my thinking changed. How I viewed the ministry in 1976 was very different from the way I viewed it in 1997. Unfortunately, Edgeworth does what many of my critics do: he takes a snapshot of a certain point in my life and applies it to the sum of my life, not allowing for change as I got older and matured.

I was a Creation evangelist for over 20 years, giving over 450 seminars in 27 different states.  Sometimes my wife couldn’t go with me because she was our church secretary for 27 years, but she is my best friend, and we are both close to our kids.  We will celebrate 60 wonderful years of marriage this week.

Okay? I’m not sure what the point is. We all have a storyline. In my case, I was saved at the age of fifteen and called to preach several weeks later. In the fall of 1976, I enrolled in classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan — an IFB college started in 1954 by Dr. Tom Malone. (Malone, by the way, had an earned doctorate from an accredited state school.) While at Midwestern, I met a beautiful IFB preacher’s daughter. Two years later, we married, and this July we will celebrate forty-seven years of wedded bliss. We are blessed to have six adult children, sixteen grandchildren, and four cats.

My ministerial career of twenty-five years took my partner and me to Evangelical churches (IFB, Southern Baptist, Sovereign Grace Baptist, Christian Union, and Nondenominational) in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I left the ministry in 2005 and converted from Christianity in 2008. I am now an atheist and a humanist.

You claim you had an intimate relationship with Christ for many years, but now claim He never existed.  It can’t be both.

People change their minds. When I was a Christian, I had an intimate relationship with Jesus. I was a sincere follower of Christ. And now I am an atheist. I learned over the years that religious faith is complex; that people, myself included, can hold beliefs that are not true.

I have never said Jesus wasn’t a real person. I am not a mythicist. I think Jesus was a Jewish apocalyptic preacher who was executed for his opposition to the Roman government. He was buried in an unknown grave, never to be seen or heard from again. What I reject are the supernatural claims made for Jesus.

You blame God for all bad things in the world, then claim God doesn’t exist.  More bad logic?

If God is the sovereign creator of the universe, then, yes, he is responsible for the good and bad that happens in the world. I can make a solid theological argument for this claim; a belief, by the way, I held when I was a pastor.

I can easily defend my past beliefs if challenged. After all, the Bible can be used to prove almost anything.

Like I told Carolyn, you blaming God for everything bad, would be like me seeing a smashed Chevy and no longer believing in General Motors as a great company because they build automobiles that can be smashed by humans.  Poor logic.

If God is in control of all things, then, yes, God is responsible for everything, including automobiles.

If Edgeworth wants to discuss or debate this issue, I am game.

 You might want to reconsider being an atheist though, if God doesn’t exist then you can’t blame Him for all your failures and the failures of other people.  Then the responsibility for you neglecting your family falls only on you.  If God doesn’t exist, then you can’t blame Him for creating a world where bad things can happen.

As I have repeatedly stated, I accept responsibility for every decision I have ever made. I have been honest and open about the churches I pastored, detailing both my successes and failures. That said, I refuse to accept blame for things that were not my fault or over which I had no control.

As an atheist and a humanist, I accept and understand that bad things can and do happen, not only to me but to other people. I have had a rough road in life. Life is what it is. All I know to do is to learn from past experiences. I wouldn’t wish my childhood on anyone. Sure, I survived, but not without a hell of a lot of deep wounds and scars. As a 68-year-old man, most of my struggles these days are health-related. I have gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency — both incurable — osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and degenerative spine disease (that has left me with widespread disc damage in my neck and spine). In August, I had major surgery on my spine. Virtually every moment of my waking hours is dominated by debilitating pain and illness. I should note, before a Christian reader suggests that my health problems are God’s judgment for my unbelief, I started having health problems years before I deconverted. Countless prayers were uttered asking for deliverance or relief, without success.

I won’t be reading your blog that I am sure will be filled with more bad logic, but if you wish to communicate via emails that would be fine.  I hope you get things straightened out in your mind so you can put things in proper perspective.

Sigh. (Please see Why I Use the Word “Sigh.”)

As far as getting straightened out, I am as “straight” as I can be. One hundred percent heterosexual. 🙂

When Edgeworth says “proper perspective” he means seeing things as he does, believing as he does. Remember, certainty breeds arrogance, and there’s nothing more arrogant than expecting and demanding that others believe as you do. That said, I am more than happy to embrace Edgeworth’s beliefs, provided he can give me empirical evidence for his claims. It’s really that simple. I operate on evidence. My goal is to believe as many true things as possible. That’s why I deconverted. The central claims of Christianity no longer made any sense to me. I expand my thinking on this subject in the post titled The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.

We humans mess up sometimes.  Blaming a God Who you say doesn’t exist isn’t the answer.  Just curious, will you be worshiping the Easter Bunny next Sunday?

I have sufficiently addressed your false claim above. Again, let me be clear, I give blame and credit to whom blame and credit are due. I do, however, worship my wife. Now, there’s a God worthy of worship. 🙂

Unlike Edgeworth, I do not worship inanimate or mythical beings.

Bruce, what you BELIEVE isn’t the REALITY of the way things ACTUALLY are.  I know it makes things easier for you in the make-believe world you have built for yourself, which removes a lot of the responsibility for yourself.

Says who? What evidence do you have for this claim other than that you have convinced yourself that your worship and fealty to a mythical being is “reality.” It’s not. I am a materialist. Since God is an immaterial being and you cannot provide empirical evidence for his existence, “God” is not a part of reality (outside of having to live and interact with people who believe God exists and is personally involved in their lives).

Life is actually much harder for humanists. As a Christian, every belief and action was parsed through the teachings of the Bible. What the Bible said was all that mattered. THUS SAITH THE LORD! As a humanist, I have to develop carefully the moral and ethical framework by which I live my life. There are no humanist Ten Commandments, no humanist standard.

If God does exist, you messed up.  But guess what, if God doesn’t exist, you still messed up and are still messing up.  But now you are also responsible for all the people you are misleading.  If you cared about others, instead of just yourself, you would want them to know the REAL TRUTH.  Your whole blog or website is based on bad logic and delusion, and is leading people away from God instead of toward Him.

In what way am I “misleading” people? All I know to do is share my story. I don’t try to convert people to atheism. That said, scores of people have told me that I played a part in their deconversion. I don’t preach at people. I don’t comment on Christian websites. Seventeen years ago, I started blogging. My goal then is the same today: to honestly and openly share my story, answer questions people might have about Evangelical Christianity, and to help and encourage people who have deconverted.  

If this blog is based on bad logic and delusion, I suggest Edgeworth either deconstruct my story and posts on his website or start a blog to do the same. He makes all sorts of claims about me, yet provides no evidence to support his contentions.

I wish you well.  If you were ever IN the body of Christ, you can never be OUT of the body of Christ, that much is sure.  You will be in HEAVEN someday, but think of all those who may not be because of your DELUSION, and anger, which should be directed mostly at yourself, not God.

Answered, answered, answered.

If there is a God, according to the IFB gospel, I will go to Heaven when I die. Awesome, right? Thousands of people who read this blog will someday be in Heaven, too. What a party we will have; millions of Atheist Christians praising logic, reason, skepticism, and common sense for their glorious deliverance from the bondage of Evangelical Christianity, complete with rock music, Holy Ghost marijuana, and a free grace bar. And what will Jesus do? He will probably join us. 🙂

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 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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