Over the past few months, an Evangelical woman named Terri has repeatedly emailed me and left comments on this site. I asked her to stop emailing me, which she largely ignored, thinking what she had to say was more important than respecting my wishes. You can read my last two responses to Terri here and here.
Terri’s latest email to me is reproduced below. My response follows.
You emailed me after banning me from emailing you.
I emailed you to send you a notification of my post that mentions you. I do this for EVERY person I mention in a post.
You were not banned from emailing me or commenting on this site. I asked you to voluntarily stop emailing me. You have never been banned from commenting, though I have deleted some of your comments due to duplication or volume. Less is always better, and when a new reader starts leaving a plethora of comments, I am inclined to not post some of their comments. Again, less is better.
I have just one thing left to say.
Now, that’s not true. You have never had “one thing left to say” and that is certainly not the case with this email.
To express my disappointment in the way you brush off extreme violations to human rights, is an understatement.
Please provide evidence for your claim that I “brush off extreme violations to human rights.” I am confident that no evidence will be forthcoming, and longtime readers know the same. No, the real issue is that you are butthurt that I didn’t take your anecdotal stories at face value. Further, I made a lengthy defense of my position on religious persecution. Let me be clear, I have never denied the existence of religious persecution. What I object to is how Evangelicals (and Catholics) glamorize martyrdom, teaching children and adults alike that they may suffer persecution for the cause of Christ. This has led to millions of believers thinking that inconvenience or prosecution for breaking the law are persecution. They are not, as I made clear in my post. Not only that, I provided quotes from the leading scholar on Christian persecution, Dr. Candida Moss.
I responded to you dozens of times, including to your assertions about Christian persecution. I asked numerous questions, most of which you ignored. If you are unwilling to answer my questions or provide justification for your claims, forgive me for thinking you are a troll or an ignorant believer. I am not interested in your opinions or rationalizations. The same goes for your penchant for prooftexting. I am not expecting academic arguments from non-academics or uneducated believers, but I do expect Christians to answer the questions I ask them and interact with what I actually wrote.
I honestly had thought you were better than that. I was shocked and heartbroken 💔 at the glib cartoons you put up about “You are persecuting me!” after I mentioned something as serious as the wholesale slaughter of innocent people. Whether they be Christians, peaceful Muslims, or whatever, human rights are human rights.
Please see my comment above. The cartoon reflected how I view much of the persecution talk coming from American Christians. Want to change my mind? Engage my arguments. Better yet, buy Dr. Moss’ book, The Myth of Persecution, and give it a careful reading.
You are attempting to paint me in a bad light, all because I challenged some of your assertions. At no time did I say that religious persecution is not happening in the world.
But I guess your humanism only conveniently extends to those whose ideologies you agree with.
*Sigh* You know this isn’t true so I assume you are just expressing your butthurtedness.
That was the most tone-deaf response, to reduce it all to a cartoon flippantly depicting very petty “Christians” complaining of “persecution” for nothing.
It’s a fucking cartoon. The real issue is that you CHOSE not to respond to or engage my post — and this is not the first time you have done this.
You KNOW that was not at all what I was talking about. I honestly never thought you would respond in such a callous way.
No, I don’t, and that’s why I asked you questions.
You don’t really know me, so you have no idea how I will or won’t respond to particular readers. Go back and read my posts and emails and see how many times you ignored my questions.
That’s all I have to say.
I know that’s not true.
I wish you well.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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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