I have been blogging for seventeen years. I have had several blogs over the years. This one has been live since 2014. Titled The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, this blog focuses on my journey from Evangelicalism to atheism, with a lesser focus on sex crimes committed by Evangelical preachers and critiques of Christianity in general.
While this blog has a biographical bent, it is not, strictly speaking, a biography. Over the years, I evolved theologically and changed my beliefs on all sorts of social issues. For example, I entered the ministry as a hardcore, King James-only, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB). Over time, my beliefs have evolved, so much so that the Bruce Gerencser of 1983 would not recognize the Bruce Gerencser of today.
When new readers frequent this site, they rarely read all of my biographical writing. Brought by a search engine to this site, they might read one, two, four, or even fifty posts, thinking that is sufficient to understand by story and beliefs. It’s not, and this leads readers to reach wrong conclusions about me. For example, countless Christian readers have told me that my problem is that I was raised and schooled in the IFB church movement. Is this claim true? No. I left the IFB church movement in the mid-80s, twenty years before I deconverted. Sadly, pigeon-holing me this way allows critics to dismiss my story out of hand. “No wonder he’s an atheist. He was an IFB preacher.” Lost on my critics is the fact that I only pastored three IFB churches; that I also pastored Sovereign Grace, Christian Union, Southern Baptist, and non-Denominational churches. The last church I pastored was a Southern Baptist congregation in Michigan. One Sunday, a young man who was a member of a church I pastored for eleven years in southeast Ohio came to hear me preach at this Southern Baptist church. Afterward, he told me that my preaching had changed; that I was now preaching a “social gospel.” And to some degree, He was right. My beliefs had changed, a reflection of my deep immersion in Mennonite and progressive Christian theology.
Many readers pick a point on my timeline and judge me accordingly. What they fail to see and understand is that I was no longer at that point, belief-wise; that my theology had changed, as had my understanding of social issues. Today, I am an atheist, secular humanist, liberal, progressive, socialist, and pacifist. Twenty-five-year-old Bruce would have despised sixty-eight-year-old Bruce.
With these thoughts in mind, let me address several false judgments Evangelicals and other Christians make about my life.
First, some critics say that I left the ministry (2005) and Christianity (2008) because I was unhappy as a pastor. This idea is not anywhere in my writing, but taking disparate stories and putting them together, critics often conclude that I was unhappy was a pastor. This claim is patently untrue. I was generally happy as a pastor. I loved preaching and teaching the Bible and helping those in need. Did I battle with depression as a pastor? Sure, but that doesn’t mean I was unhappy. My depression — as it is today — was driven by perfectionist tendencies, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), and a Type A personality. When I couldn’t meet impossible expectations put on me by church members and myself, depression ensued. This is true to this day, though years of therapy have helped me see myself in a different light. I still find myself “driven” to perform, but one thing serious health problems have done is make it impossible for me to meet my lofty self-imposed standard.
Second, some critics think I deconverted because of how poorly churches paid me over the years. This assertion reveals that they really haven’t read much of my biographical writing. Had they done their homework, they would have learned that I would have pastored churches for free; that I was bivocational on and off during the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry. I was never a part-time pastor. Instead, I often pastored full-time while working outside the church. As a result, I worked long hours, often six or seven days a week. If there is one thing I would never do again, it is giving the ministry priority in my life. Both Polly and I devoted ourselves to every church I pastored, regardless of the time and effort it took. We felt, at the time, that this was God’s calling for us. In college, Polly was reminded by professors that she would have to accept playing second fiddle in Bruce’s ministerial orchestra. The same went for our children. The church always came first. It took me twenty years to change my ways.
Third, some critics claim that I deconverted because the “church” hurt me. When asked for evidence for their claim, none is provided. How, then, do they know the church hurt me? Supposedly, they can read the “hurt” in my writing or by looking into the eyes of a photograph of me. I have not once suggested that “hurt” was a reason I deconverted. This claim is an assumption made without evidence for the truth of it.
Have I ever been “hurt” by church members? Sure, but never to the degree that I wanted to leave Christianity. Most of the hurt came after I deconverted; when lifelong friends and colleagues in the ministry turned on me after I left Christianity. From nasty emails and letters to sermons especially about me, I quickly learned that fidelity to certain theological beliefs was the glue that held our relationships together. Once this fidelity evaporated, I was branded an apostate; a tool of Satan; a false prophet; an enemy of the one true faith.
Okay, Bruce, why DID you leave Christianity? I deconverted because Christianity no longer made sense to me. I came to believe that the central claims of Christianity were false — especially its supernatural claims. I no longer believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible. I no longer believe that Jesus was in any way supernatural. Jesus was an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who lived and died — end of discussion. I concluded that I couldn’t believe these things and still be a Christian. Unlike many Christians, I was unwilling to close my eyes to errors and contradictions in the Bible and the harm caused by its teachings. Once I started treating the Bible as I did other books, everything changed. Sure, I could have faked it as many Christians do, but I’m not one to lie about what I believe.
I hope this clears up the misunderstandings readers have about my story. If you still have questions, please ask them in the comment section. If you have not read the posts on the Why? page, I encourage you to do so. Still have questions? Email me and I will try to answer them.
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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It’s interesting, Bruce. Did you as a pastor have to sign doctrinal statements? These are actually very useful because they help people understand the exact dogma that one is supposed to tout. There’s no explicit analogue in the academy, but there are very much equivalents to this within given fields, such as linguistics, which I experienced during the era of Chomsky’s hegemony. Chomsky’s a genius, there’s no doubt, but there are many ways to analyze language, as we are so clearly seeing with AI LLM’s.
Doctrinal statements were very much a part of my ministerial career—signed or not.
As a student at Midwestern Baptist College, I was required to affirm the college’s doctrinal statement. The college/church would not ordain you without this affirmation. Some graduates sought out ordination through their home church m—as I did.
Were there blog posts during the transition that have now been lost? I see this blog begins with progressive letters to the editor on politics (as a liberal Christian) and then rather abruptly switches to an atheist tone (at https://brucegerencser.net/page/585/).
My deconversion occurred largely online. I wrote profusely during that time, but most of that has been lost. During that period, I went from arguing for 7-day creation and “Jesus alone is sufficient” for all psychological needs, to progressive thoughts on origins and psychology, to abandonment of the faith. I wish I had all of that documentation of the transition, but most of it has been lost.
Most people in France have the attitude that people “work to live”, that living is more important and people work to support themselves, they want to have good meals with friends, enjoy their pastimes etc. They say people from the USA “live to work”, that the most important thing about a person is their job title and how much money they make, and how high they are in the company for which they work. Many people from the USA also get their social standing by how many hours they work per week.
I agree with the people from France. We have created a society in which the people themselves do not matter. This is part of the problem with the IFB Baptists but it goes farther into the whole society. We need to make every person valuable whatever type of work they do or whether they have a job or not. We also have many Christian Nationalists now who want theocracy again so they can have power over everyone.
You bother people because you dare to think for yourself, and let others learn to think for themselves.
We appreciate that you share your truth of lived experience. It can be really frustrating when people don’t listen to what we’re telling them about our experiences. Don’t tell me why you think I deconverted without listening to what I’m telling you about why I deconverted!
Your journey is interesting, all the iterations you experienced so far.
We appreciate that you share your truth of lived experience. It can be really frustrating when people don’t listen to what we’re telling them about our experiences. Don’t tell me why you think I deconverted without listening to what I’m telling you about why I deconverted!
Your journey is interesting, all the iterations you experienced so far.
It was God-ordained that you left all that.
There is no God.
Yes there is. (Never was saved) buddy boy and one day you aren’t gonna like what happens when you stand before him.
I’ll be standing right next to you. It’s insane for you, as violent and vulgar as you are, to think you are going to Heaven when you die. If there is a Hell, you’ll be there.
Revival Liars I think you are the last person to judge anyone.
People like Bruce will be remembered for their kindness. What will you be remembered for in this life, other than your apparent expertise on sexual assault in the US prison system?
Terri, if God ordained it then that suggests we have no free will.
Yes, how can our will be “free” if the Christian God controls everything? And if we do have free will and can thwart the will of God, that means God doesn’t have free will. So goes Christian theology. 🤣🤣
Then take it up with your God.
Yes and no. Free will, yes. But God works all things for good, for those who love Him. ❤️
There is no God, so we are on our own.
As far as free will is concerned, there’s no such thing as (naked) libertarian free will. Every decision we make is conditioned by past experiences and beliefs, along with whatever our DNA adds to the discussion. That you think a god works all things out for you colors and conditions your thinking, affecting how you reason and make decisions.
Pick one. It is not both because according to you and your belief-system, it is all “God-ordained.” I could love God until the cows come home. If He has not ordained it, I cannot do anything about it. He works all things for good for those He has ordained it so.
Well, not really. Two things can simultaneously be at “odds” but function “as one”. It just depends what dimension they exist in. On a two-dimentional drawing, a circle 🔵 and a triangle 🔺️ don’t fit together. It’s that whole “square peg” in round hole obstacle. However, take that into three-dimensions, and they become a cone, which could never have been conceivable, let alone possible, in 2D. Hence, free will and God’s will CAN co-exist.
Theologically, either God is sovereign or he’s not; and if he’s sovereign, man doesn’t have free will. If man has free will, that means God is not sovereign.
Of course, this is just an academic exercise for me. God is a myth and humans do not have free will (as I explained previously).
Anything happy or supernatural couldn’t possibly be “God”. But, yeah, there is a big difference in how God’s sovereignty, AND the authority He has given to humans, is seen in the two different camps. Very different. But that’s a whole other topic, for another time.