Over the years, I have received many emails and social media messages from Evangelical preachers, evangelists, missionaries, college professors, youth pastors, worship leaders, and everyday church members, thanking me for something I wrote that they found helpful. This is especially true for people affiliated with the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement.
I find it gratifying when someone tells me that my writing helped them. Often, something I wrote helps them to see the light or the errors of Fundamentalist Christianity. Typically, such people hang on to the Christian moniker, choosing, in their minds, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And this is the point where their praise of my writing turns into Fundamentalist judgmentalism they can’t seem to shake. You see, I may have helped them, but I am still headed for Hell because I am an atheist. Until they abandon the doctrine of eternal punishment, I will remain, in their eyes, a good man who is going to split Hell wide open after I die. Not because of how I lived my life, but for one reason alone: I have the wrong beliefs.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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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I heard this on Threads: Next time someone tells you “I love the sinner, but hate the sin” reply with “I love the believer, but hate the beliefs.”
Thanking you for help while condemning you to Hell shows they haven’t learned anything.
It sounds crazy. They are so full of themselves, and think their Christian beliefs make them superior.
Christians are always talking about getting to heaven and seeing their dead loved ones again, even through their impotent “savior” specifically told them that this is not how heaven works. Well, I want to see my Jewish grandma again – she was KIND, CARING and generally WONDERFUL – but she went to hell because she was Jewish, right? That’s why I WANT TO GO TO HELL. Plus, all my friends will be there. And NO CHRISTIANS. Hell sounds like heaven to me.
Are people still doing this nagging, Bruce? You already know all these verses by heart. And what they mean, so what’s the point. It’s ridiculous by now . If you decide to do a 180 layer down the road, that’s your decision alone. That’s something lots of people do, at the end of their lives, it’s pretty common. And anyone who says these things needs to understand this.
How are they different from the people who thank you for something you did for them and then decide they have no further use for you?