Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.
I look forward to reading and answering your questions.
Merle asked:
What are the benefits and downsides to being an atheist?
Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of God. An atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God. Technically, I am an agnostic atheist. I cannot know for certain whether a deity of some sort exists, so I am agnostic on the God question. However, when it comes to the extant Gods — especially the Abrahamic Gods — I am convinced that these deities do not exist, thus I am an atheist. It is possible someday a God might make itself known to me, but until then, I remain an atheist.
We live in a society dominated by religion in general and Christianity in particular. I can’t think of one benefit I gained when declaring my atheism. Benefits accrued when I left Evangelicalism, regardless of whether I embraced atheism. I was no longer bound by the authority of the Bible and the church. I no longer had to play by the rules or believe certain things. I was free to believe and do what I wanted. So the most important thing gained by deconverting was FREEDOM! I can now “sin” to my heart’s content. I can cavort with prostitutes, smoke crack, get drunk, rob banks, and commit murder — if I want to. I choose not to. I am no longer bound by religious creeds, rules, and standards. I no longer need them to guide my life. No need for religious texts or religious authorities determining for me what these texts mean. I am a rational human being, capable of deciding for myself how I want to live. I have never felt freer than I do today, and my partner, Polly, can say the same. We do what we want, when we want, with nary a thought about what God thinks or the Bible says. It is a great way to live. Of course, I will burn in Hell if I am wrong about the God question. 🙂
Now to the negatives of being an atheist. If you are a private or secret atheist, you will likely face few, if any, problems. It is when you publicly declare your lack of belief that problems can and do arise. Atheists are roundly considered in an unflattering light as people who lack moral and ethical values; people who have secret desires to commit sexual sin; and people who are child molesters or pedophiles. Stupidly, many Christians believe that moral and ethical values require religion. This is absurd. I can’t think of one value that can’t be formulated without religion — not one. I don’t need the Christian God, the Christian Bible, or the Christian church to know how to live morally and ethically.
As an atheist, I have faced discrimination. I am an outspoken atheist, the village atheist who regularly writes letters to the editor of the local newspaper about Evangelicalism, Trump, MAGA, liberal/progressive politics, abortion, LGBTQ issues, handicapped parking, and degenerates who kill cats for sports. I am a well-rounded letter writer. These letters have resulted in personal attacks from locals on social media or in response letters to the paper. Polly and our children have been accosted at work and the local community college by people demanding they defend something I wrote. Too cowardly to confront me directly — I’m easy to find and contact — they go after my family instead. Last year, a local high school teacher gave one of my granddaughters a hard time over one of my letters. I told her to tell this bully that I would gladly publicly debate him or address his class, answering any questions students might have. There have been several times when business owners made it clear they weren’t interested in doing business with me. I have also lost out on job opportunities; more than qualified — I mean, really, really qualified — yet not receiving an interview.
I consider the aforementioned things to be the price of admission. If I am going to be an out and proud atheist and humanist, there are costs involved I must be willing to pay. (Please see Count the Cost Before You Say “I am an Atheist.”)
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
President Joe Biden thinks giving Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel billions of dollars in direct military aid is a “good day for peace.” His statement is irrational. U.S. military aid is directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the past year, and millions of deaths since the inception of our nation. Many of these deaths were children and civilians.
Colorado coach Deion “Prime Time” Sanders is a bully. His treatment of Colorado’s football players shows he has no regard or respect for them as men.
Social Security is not broken, contrary to what Congress tells us. Congress owes the Social Security Administration the 2.7 trillion dollars it “borrowed” from the fund. Repay this first before saying the fund is insolvent.
According to Evangelical megachurch pastor and grizzled culture war general John MacArthur, there’s no such thing as mental illness, especially PTSD. Someone should sue MacArthur for not only being an asshole, but practicing medicine without a license.
President Joe Biden supports “peaceful protest.” Evidently, “peaceful” means doing what you are told or we will send in the police to arrest you. Biden is clueless when it comes to war, peace, civil disobedience, and nonviolent resistance.
Atheists, agnostics, and nones overwhelmingly support Joe Biden. Why, then, does the president and the Democratic Party pretend we don’t exist?
Kristi Noem shot and killed her fourteen-month-old puppy. She also killed a goat that she deemed unworthy of continued life. Noem is a bad person, yet she is being considered for vice president on the Republican ticket. The Republican Party lacks a moral and ethical foundation. Trump is their God, and whatever he says is law.
Evangelicals think Taylor Swift’s latest album is Satanic and anti-Christian. Good job, Taylor! Anyone that pisses off Evangelicals is good by me.
Childhood immunization should be required before students enter school. No religious exemptions, and that includes students in private religious schools.
God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah due to homosexuality. It’s in the Bible. Look it up.
Bonus: Churches should be required to run annual state and federal background checks on all clerics. staff, and volunteers. Churches that refuse to do so should lose their liability insurance coverage.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I used to enthusiastically preach that Jesus was hope for the hopeless and rest for weary. Unfortunately, for many people, Jesus, or I should say Evangelical Christianity, made them weary and hopeless.
What should have been a source of hope and rest turned into something destructive — so destructive that some people have thoughts of committing suicide.
It shouldn’t be this way. I am convinced that Jesus — real or not — is not the problem. I find nothing in the words of Jesus that would cause me to lose hope or have thoughts of suicide.
No, it is what the church has done with Jesus over the past 2,000 years that is the problem. God, Jesus, and the Bible have become tools of manipulation, control, and destruction.
I wish I could share with you the emails I get from people who are former, or trying to be former, Evangelicals. I can’t share them because I respect the privacy of those who email me. For some, my email inbox has become their confessional. I can tell you this: there are a lot of people who are hopeless and weary as a result of their immersion in the Evangelical Christian religion.
They often have no place to turn. In many instances, their families or spouses are still in the church. They desperately need someone to talk to, but they have no place to turn. They can’t go to their pastor — he wouldn’t understand. If they live in a small town, they can’t even seek out a local counselor because everyone will know (you would have to live in a small town to understand this).
So they suffer in silence. In the night they toss and turn and wonder what has gone wrong. Where is God? There is no God. Where is the God of hope? There is no hope. Where is the God who gives rest? There seems to be no rest.
Their thoughts turn to suicide. No, I can’t do that, I’ll go to Hell. Wait, there is no God, who gives a shit?
I want you to know that I give a shit. I have been where you are and some days I am still where you are. There are a lot of readers of this blog who know your story. They have lived it. They are still living it. They know the struggle you are going through — the struggle of a life of faith that has turned into faithlessness, a life of believing that has turned into unbelief. Maybe you are like the man in the Bible who cried “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.”
I am not out to convert you to my cause or change you. It does not matter whom you worship, where you worship, what you believe, or what label you give yourself.
My desire for you is hope and rest.
For many of us, the Evangelical Christian faith has caused psychological harm. The wounds and scars run deep. All the attempts in the world to marginalize our feelings will come to naught. We know what we know.
It’s late . . .
I can hear the clock ticking.
Another night with no sleep.
I hear my lover snoring.
I think of our life together.
So much time wasted.
So much work invested in things that do not matter.
Years have passed us by.
God, we served you.
God, we loved you.
God, we worshiped you.
God, we left all to follow you.
Careers, ambitions, wealth, family . . .
All forsaken to follow you.
Only to find out it was all a dream, and a bad dream at that.
And so, in the still of the night, I reflect on the heap of my life.
What am I to make of all this?
Can I go on?
Will I go on?
I must go on.
God or not, there is a life to be lived.
God or not, I still must live as if I am dying.
Because I AM dying.
So much life yet to live.
So much life yet to experience and enjoy.
God is back on the shelf where he belongs.
Maybe I’ll dust him off again on my final day.
Probably not.
Until then, I will live morally and ethically.
Until then, I will love and hate.
Until then, I will walk the path called life the best way I know.
Without God, without the Bible, and most certainly without the church.
I still have hope.
My hope is no longer built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
My hope is built on the love and goodness of humankind.
These days, the only gods I see are my family, friends, and fellow humans.
I devote myself to these gods.
I worship them.
That’s enough for me.
I will leave eternity to another day.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Several years ago, an Evangelical man by the name of Roger Smoak left the following comment on Why I Hate Jesus, the most widely read (and misunderstood) post on this site:
I would be interested in knowing what Really happened? Was it your fibromalga that wasn’t healed? Was it your oldest daughter with cystic fibrosis? Was it your dad dying at an early age or you mom who committed suicide? Was it depression you faced when you quit believing and/or your wife (pastor’s child) had to choose between you and her faith? Was it all the material wealth you experienced during your pastoring where you saw pastors who appeared to worship money instead of God? If the “Western Jesus” has destroyed your belief why can’t you believe in the Jesus of the New Testament? Every day you preached did you question is this was all a farce? What happened when you finally turned agnostic and publicly proclaimed this? Were you pastoring a church? I guess just as you judge others I would like to hear from yourself, church members, family, or someone who could shed some true light on what really happened to you.
When I receive comments such as this — and I have received hundreds of them over the past thirteen years — the first thing I do is look at the site logs to see exactly what the commenter has read.
That’s it. Right next to the Why I Hate Jesus page is a page titled WHY? On this page is a plethora of posts that curious readers can read, and in doing so, find most of their questions about my journey from Evangelicalism to atheism answered. Evidently, Roger didn’t see this page or couldn’t be bothered to look at its content.
Evangelicals tend not to be very curious, that is, unless they are surfing YouPorn. Then they are quite interested in every aspect of female and male bodies. But actually reading about and investigating the life of an Evangelical pastor turned atheist? Nah, how much information does one need to judge a man the Bible says is a fool, a follower of Satan.
Why is it that so many Evangelicals have no desire to be curious? Yes, I know many are, so don’t get your panties in a bunch if you are a curiouser-than-a-cat Evangelical, but many aren’t. I frequently get emails or blog comments from Evangelical Christians wanting to “help” me find my way to Jesus. Such people are certain that they possess the requisite knowledge and skill to win me to Jesus. They are sure that if they just befriend me, quote the right verses, soothe my hurts, or understand my pain, I will fall on my knees and fellate their God.
I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five of those years. I have a Bible college education. Surely they understand that I am not an atheist out of ignorance? Of course not, and here is where their lack of curiosity gets them in trouble. They often don’t know anything about me or this blog. Why? Because they did a Google/Bing/Yahoo search for _________________ and their search brought them to a single blog post of mine. (Or the past 90 days, 64,000+ first-time visitors have come to this site via a search engine — mostly Google.) These searchers read that one post and immediately conclude that I am a poor wayfaring waif in need of their peculiar flavor of Jesus.
When I get comments such as these, I go to the logs and see what pages they read. Usually, they have only read the pages their search brought them to. Their lack of curiosity (or laziness) is astounding, leading them to make wild judgments about me, and come to rash, ill-informed conclusions. If they would just read the About page and the WHY page they would be better informed about me and this blog. How hard can it be, right?
I suspect part of the reason Evangelicals are not, in general, known for their curiosity, is because they are one-hundred percent certain that they are absolutely right. In their minds, they worship the one, true God and this God lives inside of them. This God walks with them, talks with them, and tells them that they are his own. They have a supernatural book given to them by this supernatural God. This book contains all the answers about life they will ever need. Why should they read anything else?
When you are certain, there’s no need to think, reason, investigate, question, or doubt. When the triune God is on your team, no need to consider any other team. When your God/sect/church/pastor has declared that strawberry ice cream is the one true ice cream, no need to try Rocky Road, Mint Chocolate Chip, or any other flavor.
Simply put, Evangelicals feel no need to know anything else, when you already know all you need to know. God said it and that settled it. One true God, one true religious text, one way of salvation. The earth is 6,027 years old, created in six literal twenty-four-hour days. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible blueprint for Christ-honoring families, happy marriages, obedient children, and great sex. When the answer to every question is God, it’s not surprising to find that Evangelicals are not curious.
The good news is that more and more Evangelicals are discovering the curiosity that lies dormant beneath the surface of their lives. Once they make this discovery, they are on their way out of the closed-minded, senses-dulling prison of Evangelicalism. They will find that science can and does explain the world they live in. Science doesn’t have all the answers, but it is asking the right questions.
Still want/need to believe in a transcendent deity or some sort of spirituality? Once free of the heaven/hell, saved/lost, in/out, good/bad paradigm of Evangelicalism, people are free to wander at will. When the fear of hell and judgment are gone, they are free to experience those things that are meaningful to them. Once the question is no longer will you go to heaven when you die, the journey rather than the destination becomes what matters.
Curiosity may kill the cat, but trust me Evangelicals, it won’t kill you.
Now let me circle back around to Roger’s comment.
From the get-go, Roger says that he thinks I am lying or withholding information. He wants to know what REALLY happened to me. Well, shit, Roger, this blog is titled, The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser. This is a clue that says, HEY ROGER, THIS BLOG IS ABOUT THE LIFE OF EVANGELICAL PASTOR-TURNED-ATHEIST BRUCE GERENCSER!
Most readers would say that I am open, honest, and transparent about my past and present life. I have been willing to write about things that are painful and embarrassing to me. I have never wanted to paint a less-than-honest picture of my life. I watched too many preachers do just that back in my preaching days, and I see it going on still today. Sometimes, I want to scream to them, TELL THE FUCKING TRUTH! Alas, Evangelicalism is built on a foundation of truth avoidance; a culture that values name, reputation, and prestige more than honesty and truth.
Roger goes through a greatest hits list of reasons he thinks may be the reason I left the ministry and later left Christianity (grammar corrected for readability):
Was it your fibromyalgia that wasn’t healed?
Was it your oldest daughter with cystic fibrosis?
Was it your dad dying at an early age?
Was it your mom committing suicide?
Was it the depression you faced when you quit believing?
Was it your wife — pastor’s child — having to choose between you and her faith?
Was it your lack of material wealth you experienced during your pastoring, especially when you saw pastors who appeared to worship money instead of God?
Let me call Roger’s statements the Seven Was-Its.
Was-It Number One: Was it your fibromyalgia that wasn’t healed?
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 1996 — 12 years before I walked away from Christianity. During my career as a pastor, I battled chronic bronchitis, had bacterial pneumonia twice, had pleurisy several times, contracted mononucleosis — which almost killed me — and was treated for a plethora of joint and muscle problems. Not one time did I question God. I accepted being sick as God’s perfect plan for my life.
Was-It Number Two: Was it your oldest daughter with cystic fibrosis?
Actually, my oldest daughter has Down syndrome. When Bethany was born thirty-five years ago, my wife and I viewed her as a gift from God. We never questioned God blessing us with Bethany. Bethany having Down syndrome played no part in my deconversion.
Was-It Number Three: Was it your dad dying at an early age?
A curious reader would have found out that my dad and I weren’t close. We didn’t have an adversarial relationship, but we were definitely not close. I was outside the church raking leaves when Polly told me Dad was dead. We hugged, and I went back raking leaves. While I now miss my dad, his death played no part in my deconversion.
Two years ago, I had my DNA tested. I learned what I have long suspected — that Dad was not my biological father. I found that my father was a truck driver who lived in Chicago at the time. He likely met my seventeen-year-old mom while she was working at The Hub, a now-defunct truck stop in Bryan, Ohio. I have half-brothers and sisters in Michigan. Talk about messing up your ancestry tree.
Was-It Number Four: Was it your mom committing suicide?
Mom and I were close. Her suicide at age fifty-four deeply affected me. I so wish she were here today so she could play grandma to our grandchildren. (Please see Barbara.) That said, Mom’s death played no part in my loss of faith. My life with Mom certainly affected me in more ways than I can count, but not when it came to walking away from Christianity.
Was-It Number Five: Was it the depression you faced when you quit believing?
This one is almost funny. I have battled depression most of my adult life — from my early 20s. Thus, depression was the dark passenger of my life from the time I pastored my first church until today. The difference back then is that I buried my depression under a mountain of lies, prayers, and Bible verses. After I left Christianity, I sought out a secular psychologist to talk to. It was only then that I began to unwind the complexities and traumas of my life. I still battle depression today. It ain’t going away. My mental health goal is to keep from falling into the rabbit hole and having suicidal thoughts. Sometimes, I fail.
Was-It Number Six: Was it your wife — a pastor’s child — having to choose between you and her faith?
Now, this one is downright funny — and stupid. Yes, Polly is the daughter of a retired Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor. Her parents attended the Newark Baptist Temple in Heath, Ohio for over four decades. They both died in recent years. That said, Polly has never had to make a choice between her “faith” and her husband of forty-six years. I never sensed that she struggled with choosing between me and God. Sure, we left Christianity together, but that’s where the similarities end. Each of us has our own reasons for deconverting. One thing is certain, if I ever said I was planning to re-enter the ministry or start attending an Evangelical church again, Polly would likely divorce me or kill me with one of her Lodge cast iron pans. Trust me on this one, my wife has zero interest in Christianity. In many ways, her feelings about the past are much stronger than mine. The only difference is that Polly doesn’t write about her feelings on a blog that is read by thousands of people.
Was-It Number Seven: Was it your lack of material wealth you experienced during your pastoring, especially when you saw pastors who appeared to worship money instead of God?
Seven strikes and you are out, Roger. For most of my ministry, I believed that living in poverty was God’s chosen path for me and my family. A good case can be made from the Bible that materialism and wealth are contrary to the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. While I prayed for material blessing, I never questioned God’s provision. I worked my ass off, and let God take care of the details.
Roger goes on to ask, “if the ‘Western Jesus’ has destroyed your belief why can’t you believe in the Jesus of the New Testament?”
These are the kind of questions that make me want to scream. Roger evidently has never read a Christian history book. He thinks that his brand of Christianity is that of Jesus, the Apostles, and the first-century church, when it is, in fact, every bit as Westernized as mine was in my preaching days. In fact, I suspect if Roger had met me back in the day, he would have loved my preaching and teaching.
By not being curious, Roger misunderstands the chronology of my life. Roger writes:
Every day you preached did you question is this was all a farce? What happened when you finally turned agnostic and publicly proclaimed this? Were you pastoring a church?
I pastored my last church in 2003 and left the ministry in 2005 — three years before my deconversion in November 2008. I still did some preaching, but I no longer was interested in the dog-and-pony show called the ministry. In 2005 — as a last fling of sorts — I candidated at several Southern Baptist churches in West Virginia. It became clear to me that my heart was no longer in the ministry, and neither was Polly’s. We spent the next three years trying to find a church we could call home. (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT! for a list of the churches we visited.) In the end, we concluded, that despite the names above the doors, churches are all pretty much the same.
Roger concludes his comment by saying:
I guess just as you judge others, I would like to hear from yourself, church members, family, or someone who could shed some true light on what really happened to you.
This brings me around to the fact that Roger thinks I am lying about my past and present life. He wants to “judge” my life, and determine for himself the “real” reasons I left the ministry and later left Christianity. Roger would love to interrogate my wife and children or “someone” — whoever the hell that is — who would confirm the “real” reasons I am no longer an Evangelical pastor. Something tells me that Roger thinks he already knows the “truth” about my life. He just needs someone to authenticate and confirm his judgments.
I have decided to be brutally open and honest with Roger. I sincerely — in the name of Loki –want him to know the truth about me.
Roger, I never was a Christian. The joke is on the thousands of people I pastored. I was a deceiver, a false prophet, a destroyer of souls. I spent most of my adult life living a lie, pretending to be a follower of Jesus just so I could work 60-80 hours a week, earn $12,000 a year, live off of food stamps, drive $300 cars, and raise six children in a 12′ by 60′ foot mobile home. Instead of accepting secular employment that paid fabulously well, I chose the aforementioned lifestyle all because I wanted to be a wolf among sheep.
I know you really want to know about the sex stuff. You got me, Roger. I fathered several children with female congregants. I also had gay relationships with several deacons. Not only that, I also was a porn addict, frequented houses of prostitution, and attended all-male revues at the local strip club.
I spent five years teaching church children without pay at our Christian Academy. I taught them the Bible and the doctrines of historic Christianity. Why? I was a deceiver, an apostate.
Today, I am a crossdressing worshiper of Satan. Every Halloween, I sacrifice Christian infants to Lord Lucifer. I spend every waking hour trying to destroy God. I hate him, as I do all Christian churches and pastors.
This, I suspect, is more akin to Roger’s narrative of my life than reality. Why read, investigate, ask questions, and attempt to understand when you can read a couple of pages and render infallible, self-righteous judgment?
Let me leave Roger with a verse from the Bible he says he believes. Proverbs 18:13 says:
New International Version To answer before listening– that is folly and shame.
New Living Translation Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.
English Standard Version If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.
New American Standard Bible He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.
New King James Version He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.
King James Bible He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
Christian Standard Bible The one who gives an answer before he listens–this is foolishness and disgrace for him.
Contemporary English Version (my favorite) It’s stupid and embarrassing to give an answer before you listen.
Good News Translation Listen before you answer. If you don’t, you are being stupid and insulting.
Holman Christian Standard Bible The one who gives an answer before he listens– this is foolishness and disgrace for him.
New American Standard 1977 He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.
American Standard Version He that giveth answer before he heareth, It is folly and shame unto him.
Douay-Rheims Bible He that answereth before he heareth sheweth himself to be a fool, and worthy of confusion.
Thus saith the Lord.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.
I look forward to reading and answering your questions. Spelling, grammar, and structure corrected and edited for readability.
Revival “I Lie for Jesus Fires,” asked the following question:
I have noticed on more than one post here that you talk about whiskey and beer drinking.
Sadly, a lot of people raised in church, and who have truly accepted Jesus, sometimes get it in their head that they “missed out” on partying and drinking from their teens and 20s and will want to do it in their 50s and 60s — such is the case with my mother-in-law.
Did you betray Jesus because you wanted to drink alcohol and get drunk?
I was in my forties before I drank the Devil’s brew for the first time. As an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), I was a teetotaler — as were my fellow church members. As an atheist and a humanist, I am free to drink alcohol any time I want. We have a well-stocked liquor cabinet and beer in the refrigerator. Typically, I drink whiskey, mixed drinks, or wine three or four times a month. Polly is primarily a beer and wine drinker. Neither of us has been drunk. I take narcotic pain meds, so I must limit my alcohol intake. Polly will drink a couple of beers and glasses of wine on the weekends, as will our oldest daughter Bethany.
My desire to drink alcohol played no part in my deconversion. That would be a silly reason to deconvert, wouldn’t it? Hey Jesus, I want my sins forgiven and I want to go to Heaven after I die, but I want to drink whiskey, beer, and wine more, so no thanks on salvation. Of course, the Bible does not condemn alcohol drinking. Jesus drank alcoholic wine, as did most people alive during his time. The Bible calls drunkenness a sin, but not social drinking.
Revival Fires asks if I am trying to live my youthful years now; if I am trying to do things I missed out on as a young adult. Christian Fundamentalism robbed me of many normal experiences, so, yes, I am trying to do some of the things that were forbidden years ago. I only wish I had a young man’s body. Alas, I make do with what I got. 🙂
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Bruce, did you and Polly try other “Gods” before you deconverted?
The short answer is no. I have never thought I had to try every flavor and brand of whiskey to decide whether I like whiskey. While the flavors can be distinct and brands can differ from one another, whiskey is whiskey. I have four different brands of whiskey in our liquor cabinet. Each tastes slightly different from the others, but none to such a degree that I can’t tell I am drinking whiskey. Get a dozen whiskey aficionados in one room and ask them which whiskey is “God,” and you will get all sorts of answers. But none of them will say that this or that glass of whiskey is not whiskey. So it is with “God.”
I was born in a Christian nation, a country that prides itself in freedom of religion, yet is dominated by Christianity. I came of age in Evangelical Christianity. Saved and baptized at the age of fifteen in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church, I later attended a small IFB college, married an IFB pastor’s daughter, and spent twenty-five years pastoring Evangelical (IFB, Southern Baptist, Christian Union, Sovereign Grace, and Non-denominational) churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. It is Christianity — particularly Evangelicalism — that I know well. It is the religion of my tribe and my culture. It is this religion I primarily deconverted from.
I pastored my last church in 2003. Between July 2002 and November 2008, my wife and I and our children personally visited the churches listed below. These are the church names we could remember. There are others we have either forgotten or vaguely remember, so we didn’t put them on the list. Churches in bold we attended more than once. All told, from 2002-2008 we visited about 125 churches.
As you can see, we covered our bases when it came to organized Christianity. We didn’t visit any IFB churches, nor did we focus solely on Evangelical congregations. Been there, done that, right? Seen one, seen them all? Go ahead and start whining now. I know, I know, your church is DIFFERENT! Sure it is.
We saw no need to visit Jewish or Muslim congregations. While there are differences between the three Abrahamic religions, not so much so that you can’t determine their veracity without immersing yourself in their writings. All three are text-based monotheistic religions that allegedly worship the same deity.
We understood that we were frail, finite beings, marching one step at a time towards death. Having been taught that non-Christians would spend eternity being tortured by God in a burning Lake of Fire, we were naturally fearful about choosing the wrong religion or worshipping the wrong God. Once we determined that the Bible was not what Evangelicals claimed it was and the central claims of Christianity were false, we lost our fear of Hell. Not right away. It took time to undo five decades of religious indoctrination and conditioning.
Granted, some Christians reject a literal Hell and eternal punishment, crafting all sorts of workarounds meant to not make God look like the monster he most certainly is. I read several books on annihilationism, universalism, etc., and concluded that all of them were intellectually lacking; written by authors who couldn’t bear to let go of God and their chosen religion. (And I am not suggesting their writing was without merit. I just concluded that their views were not intellectually compelling; not enough to sway me to their side.)
I am an agnostic atheist. While I can’t say for certain that no gods exist, I am confident that they don’t. I could be wrong, but I doubt that I am. When it comes to the Christian deity, I am convinced that he is a work of fiction. No amount of reading or study will convince me otherwise. I have studied the lay of land, having spent decades reading the Bible and Christian theology. I can’t imagine a Christian apologist saying something or making an argument that I have not heard before. Thus, I have closed the book on Christianity. Perhaps, in the future, a God not yet known will reveal itself to us. If that happens, I will consider that God’s or its follower’s claims accordingly (if he or she makes any).
Humans worship countless Gods. According to Wikipedia — the one true God — there are approximately 4,200 world religions or denominations. Need I study all of them, attend their worship services, or read their texts before I conclude they are false? No. It would take a lifetime to do so — a waste of time if there ever was one. Remove the religions that threaten judgment and eternal punishment, there is nothing left to fear. Religion then becomes personal and social in nature; that which meets felt needs and gives people meaning and purpose. I have no need of religion to find these things. Secular humanism provides the ethical and moral foundation for my life, and family gives me all the meaning and purpose I need. I have no thoughts about life after death. I don’t want to die, but I know it is inevitable. I don’t fret over that which I cannot control. I choose to live for the moment; to live each day the best I can, surrounded by those who matter to me. Even though my body is wracked with horrible pain, I try to find enjoyment in life. Having six children, sixteen grandchildren, and three cats gives me plenty of opportunities to enjoy life, as does watching wild animals and stray/ferals cats in our backyard, working in the yard, building my model train layout, taking country drives with Polly and Bethany, and writing for this blog. I have much to enjoy in life — all without God.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Several weeks ago, a young Southern Baptist preacher contacted me via direct message. Since then, we have had several thoughtful, polite discussions. I am of the opinion that he genuinely wants to understand my story. And I want to do all I can to help him see the light.
Yesterday, Pastor J sent me the following message:
Bruce, if okay, I would like to continue our conversation. What in your life at age 15 compelled you to be saved, baptized, and begin preaching?
I replied:
Conviction of the Holy Spirit and calling by God.
Here’s some of the relevant discussion that followed:
J: Respectfully, may I ask — those same things do not compel you now?
Bruce: No. I now understand such things are psychological, environmental, and cultural in nature.
J: So what you deemed as “conviction of the Holy Spirit” and “calling by God” then, you deem as perhaps a religious delusion now?
Bruce: Religious belief is psychological in nature, driven by cultural, societal, and tribal norms. How we were raised, where we lived, and the expectations of family, friends, and community deeply affect and influence what we believe. Why do most Americans (74%) self-describe as Christian? Why do most Indonesians self-identify as Muslim (87%)? The answer is found by studying religion from a sociological perspective. Whether God exists, matters not. What matters is external influences.
J: I don’t disagree to an extent that we are influenced by those around us and where we live affects how we believe. The statistics you provided intrigue me. I’d be interested how they collect that data. I’ve never been polled personally, or known anyone who was polled. I do think it’s somewhat preposterous to suggest countless people, across thousands of years, have merely gone into a psychological delusion in believing in the God of Christianity, when He doesn’t exist (in the minds of some), and you were somehow duped by your own mind for some 25 years before you had an epiphany.
Bruce: Do you believe Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians?
J: I believe anyone who is regenerated by the Spirit of God, repents of their sins, and places their trust in Jesus Christ’s redemptive work on the cross is a Christian. Most denominations differ on secondary matters, but hold to the core beliefs of the gospel — the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
Bruce: Please answer my question. Your dodge is telling. Do you believe practicing Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians? I don’t know of one IFB church/pastor who believes such people are Christians. Are they not cultists who believe in and worship a false Jesus?
J: To be honest, I don’t know all the ins/outs of their religious beliefs. I know more about the Baptist, and Methodist denominations and “charismatic” types like the Church of God, Assembly of God, Pentecostal, etc. With that being said, what specific tenets of their faiths are you asking if I agree or disagree with? I am in the SBC, but came up Missionary Baptist, which differs slightly from IFB.
Bruce: My point is tens of millions of people follow the false Jesuses of these sects. The same could be said for one billion Roman Catholics. This fact directly contradicts your claim that it is preposterous to think Christians are believing in and following a mythical being. If Mormons/JWs/Catholics are following false/mythical Jesuses, why can the same not be said about Evangelicals? (Other than you pleading that your Jesus/God is the “right” one.) The number of people believing something proves nothing.
J: Great point. One way I know Mormonism differs is that one particular individual, Joseph Smith, claimed he received a special vision/revelation from God and that’s how the Book of Mormon was developed. I think you would agree that the same cannot be said of the Bible. 1,600 years, 40 authors, and one central message of Jesus Christ. That the Bible is divinely inspired is not questionable in my opinion. I know many will say that some books were left out (apocrypha) and they do have historical value, but I believe the Bible to be the true words of God and without error.
Bruce: You missed or cannot see my point. The only difference between Mormonism and Christianity is time. What about Islam or Catholicism? Both are ancient Abrahamic religions, each with their own religious texts. Why should I consider them “false” yet consider Christianity true?
J: Christianity is distinctly different from the other religions. Salvation is based, not on anything meritorious on our part, but simply in placing faith in Christ to obtain eternal life. Islam believes that Jesus was a prophet, nothing more. The fact is, when comparing Christianity to the other major religions like Islam and Buddhism, neither of the latter can stack up to the former. There is an empty tomb in Jerusalem. No traces of Jesus’ physical remains are there or have been found. Shrines have been set up for the bones of Mohammed and Buddha. Detractors must explain the empty tomb. Christianity hinges on the truth of the gospel — the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Eyewitnesses were so convinced that Jesus rose from the dead that they went about preaching the gospel and lived and died championing this cause. Either Jesus Christ’s claims are all fabricated and everyone was deceived by this masterful con artist, or He is exactly as He says He is — God Incarnate, the only Savior of the world, and will come again to judge the world in righteousness.
Bruce: Except, it’s not, and that’s my point.
J: We must respectfully disagree sir.
As readers can readily see, Pastor J is steeped in Evangelical dogma and talking points. He wrongly thinks that my facts are just opinions; that statements of faith are empirical facts. Once you reach a point in a discussion where one party thinks facts and evidence is “opinion,” it’s impossible to move forward. I appreciate J’s genial tone — a rare character trait among Evangelical preachers — but I do hope that he will think about what I said: that he will ponder and wrestle with the truthfulness of my claims. I’m not trying to convert Pastor J to the one true religion of atheism. My goal is to get him to critically think about the things he believes and the arguments he makes for his peculiar religion.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
if one of your children or grandchildren accepted Christ and were called to preach what would you say ? how would you react?
In December 2008, my partner, Polly, and I asked our children and their spouses to come over so we could talk to them about some significant changes that were taking place in our lives. Until this time, Polly and I had been devout Christians, having spent twenty-five years pastoring churches. Our children had traveled from church to church with us, having heard every one of the 4,000+ sermons I preached. Our three older sons, in particular, had been deeply immersed in their father’s ministerial work, spending countless hours attending church services and doing everything from construction work to cleaning buildings to cutting wood to fuel furnaces. They were their father’s gophers, rarely far from his side as work was done on church buildings and outdoor property. Such is the life of preacher’s kids.
Our children knew that Mom and Dad were going through some changes in their lives. I had left the ministry in 2005. In 2004, I pastored my last church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Clare, Michigan. Polly and I had spent the ensuing four years moving from Arizona to Michigan to five communities in Ohio (Stryker, Newark, Bryan, Alvordton, and Ney), seeking a place and church to call home. I call these our “wandering years.” As our political and religious beliefs moved markedly leftward, our social beliefs began to change too. “Sins” I once preached against and for which the children were once punished, were no longer sins; or at the very least, they were no longer behaviors we paid attention to.
Polly and I had spent months talking about our religious beliefs, experiences, and practices. We read numerous books that challenged our theological beliefs, leaving us with many doubts and questions. Eventually, we concluded that we no longer believed that the central claims of Christianity were true. While this process was agonizingly painful, we knew we were on the right path. This path eventually led to us deciding that we were no longer Christians, in the classic meaning of the word. On the last Sunday in November 2008, we attended a service at the Ney United Methodist Church. When we walked out of the church doors for the last time, we knew our lives would never be the same. It would be almost sixteen years before we would attend church again — April 7, 2024, to hear our United Church of Christ pastor friend preach his last sermon before retirement.
We gathered our children and their spouses together to let them know that we were no longer Christians; and that we would no longer attend church. I made it clear to them that I was no longer the patriarch of the family; that I would no longer dictate to them what they should or shouldn’t believe; that they were free to believe whatever they wanted. Polly and I wanted them to know that they were free to make their own decisions; to come to their own conclusions about God and Christianity.
Our children said very little. I suspect they were shocked by what we told them, having only known their parents as a pastor and a preacher’s wife. I was, for the most part, the only pastor they ever had. Our children, by this time, were 29, 27, 24, 18, 16, and 14. Our oldest sons were married/divorced, while the three youngest were still homeschooled and lived at home. Today, none of our children attend an Evangelical church. One of our sons and his family attend a Catholic church, and another son flirts with church from time to time. The other four do not attend church and would not identify as Christians.
In one generation, the Evangelical curse has been broken. For that, Polly and I are grateful. If any of our children want to attend church or self-identify as a Christian, we are fine with it. But, what if they attended an Evangelical church? Their choice, end of discussion. I would say the same regardless of what religious beliefs they had.
Most people who get saved and are called to preach were raised in Evangelical churches. Their salvation and call are predicated on years and decades of indoctrination and conditioning. Polly and I have sixteen grandchildren, ages four to twenty-three. Outside of our Catholic grandchildren, none of them attends church. Without exposure to Evangelical indoctrination and conditioning, it is highly unlikely any of them will get saved or called to preach. Such things are foreign to them. Saved from what? Who would want to be a preacher? Besides, thirteen of our grandchildren are girls, so they are not permitted to be preachers (though they sure do a hell of a lot of preaching). 🙂
My grandchildren know nothing of Pastor Bruce Gerencser. To them, I am a Grandpa, a disabled old man who loves them, jokes with them, harasses them, annoys them with philosophical questions, buys them books about religion and science, and supports them in all of their endeavors. Polly is Nana, a woman who indulges them when they say “I am hungry” or need help with a recipe or sewing project. We see our grandchildren regularly, and, by all accounts, are close to them. I have had countless discussions about science, religion, and philosophy with my older grandchildren. They know they can ask me anything, as long as they understand that I will answer them and they might not like what they hear. They also know that Grandpa is an expert when it comes to discussions about the Bible and Christianity, so if they want to discuss such things they better be prepared for a serious discussion. That said, if one of my grandchildren decides to become a Christian or enter the ministry, I would respect their wishes and support them. I would do my darnedest to steer them towards kinder, gentler forms of Christian faith, but at the end of the day, I am going to love and support them as they are.
Today, we watched the eclipse at my oldest son’s home in Defiance. We had a delightful time as we watched such an amazing solar event. My oldest grandson, who is almost sixteen, is a non-Christian. He is a science geek. He plans to take advanced physics and chemistry this fall. He is a voracious reader, devouring science fiction and non-fiction alike. He is quite the skeptic, showing no tolerance for woo or conspiracy theories. It would not surprise me if he became a world-renowned scientist someday — or a professional chess player. 🙂
My grandson and I, along with his father, talked about all sorts of things science- and religion-related. I am pleased with how well both of them have a grasp on science — much farther ahead than I was at their respective ages. Knowing that skepticism, secularism, and science are antidotes to the Evangelical virus, it is unlikely that either of them would get saved or become a preacher. I am confident that I can say the same thing for the rest of my grandchildren. And if I am wrong, and one of them professes faith in Jesus and becomes a preacher? I will respect them for who and what they are, The choice, as always, is theirs. Unlike the way Evangelicals treated me and Polly when we deconverted, we will never abandon our grandchildren or distance ourselves from them. One of them getting saved might be a phase he or she is going through, so we wouldn’t want to do anything to harm our relationship, knowing that, in time, they might come to see that Christianity is not what it claims to be. That said, I am not naive. If one of our grandchildren got saved in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church and became an IFB preacher, that could cause problems depending on whether they pushed their beliefs as such believers often do. And if that happened? I would tell them, “Each to their own. As a family, we respect each other’s religious beliefs and don’t try to evangelize each other or demand that everyone live by one set of 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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
As an Evangelical Christian, I believed that God was the sovereign ruler of the universe. I believed God held my life in the palms of his hands. I believed God controlled every aspect of my life, and that life and death were determined by God alone. I believed I wouldn’t die one moment before it was my time to go; that God penciled a death date next to the name of every person ever born. I believed that God had a purpose and plan for my life. I thought this way for almost 50 years.
I have faced numerous circumstances where I could have easily been killed. Accidents, stupid mistakes, exposure to environmental toxins and chemicals, bad decisions by myself or others, serious sickness, and being at the wrong place at the wrong time . . . I could have and should have died long before today.
But here I am, and until 2008, I gave the Christian God all the credit for my continued existence. God wasn’t finished with me, I told myself, wiping my brow after surviving yet another near brush with death. As disease and pain continued to ravage my body, I lived with the calm assurance that God still had plans for me. In some ways, this is a great way to live. No worries . . . God’s on the job and nothing will happen unless God wills it. The Apostle Paul had the same view:
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:31-39
I willingly subjected myself to a life of poverty because I thought if God wanted me to have more money or a better house and car, he would give them to me. When I began to have health problems in the early 1990s, I saw them as a test from God. God wanted to make me more holy or stronger. God wanted to root out the deep and secret sins that no one but him could see. And no matter how painful the process was, I knew that God loved me and was in charge of everything.
God’s providence: the belief that God knows what’s best for us and doesn’t give us more than we can bear, is actually fatalism. While Christians convince themselves that they are free moral agents, their belief system says differently. Proverbs 16:9 states:
A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?
Consider these verses:
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. Psalm 115:3
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. Genesis 50:20
That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Isaiah 40:23
This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Zechariah 4:6
O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. II Chronicles 20:6
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. I Chronicles 29:11-12
I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Job 42:2
Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Isaiah 46:9-10
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? Romans 9:21
Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? Lamentations 3:37
Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places. Psalm 135:6
But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. Job 23:13
See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. Deuteronomy 32:39
For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? Isaiah 14:27
The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: Isaiah 14:24
These verses are but a small sampling of the Bible verses that declare that God is the boss. He is in control of everything. Of course, this opens up a huge problem for Christians. If God is in control of everything, if nothing happens that God does not decree, purpose, and plan, what about sin and evil? At this point, most Christians run from their beliefs, denying that God has anything to do with evil and sin. However, the Bible says:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. Isaiah 45:7
That’s right, the Bible says God creates evil. No matter how Christians might object, if they believe in a God who is in control, then they must also believe that he is culpable for evil and sin. Dance any theological or philosophical jig one might, there is no escaping God being the creator of evil. But, but, but . . . no buts. Either God is the CEO of the universe or he’s not. Either he is the first cause, the beginning, and the end, or he is not. Either he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, or he is not.
Believing this way had a profound effect on my life. Instead of realizing that much of what happens in a person’s life is due to good or bad luck, I saw God behind every action, event, and circumstance. Like King David, I said:
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Psalm 139:11-12
God was omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. For those not schooled in the omnis, God was all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere.
In 2008, God lost control of my life as I began to reclaim it along with the personal responsibility that came with it. No more trusting God’s providence or letting go and letting God. No more puppet strings or “trusting” God to work out everything in my life according to his purpose and plan. As I began to reorient my life according to fact and reason, I was forced to reinvestigate past claims of miracles, moments when God reached down and supernaturally kept me from harm or death. I concluded that every God sighting in my life but one could be explained through natural means. All the supposed answered prayers were really Bruce or some other Christian answering the prayer.
None of us knows how our life will be beyond the next breath. For all I know, this could be the last blog post I write. The Bible is right when it says:
Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Proverbs 27:1
No one knows what tomorrow will be like. We can plan for the future, but we have no promise that things will work out for us. Life is a crapshoot. Live to your 60s and you will realize you are lucky to have made it to old age. The best any of us can do is make responsible decisions based on reason and probabilities and hope things work out for us.
Several years ago, Polly and I took a road trip to Ottoville, Fort Jennings, and Delphos. Like most of our trips, I took my camera equipment with me. As we were wandering around Delphos, we stumbled upon a lock from the era of the Miami and Erie canal. Getting down to the lock was a bit treacherous for me. I wanted to get as close as possible, so I gingerly walked down the concrete abutment to the lock. I didn’t fall, slip, or trip. Lucky me, I thought.
After ten minutes or so, I was ready to return to the car. I had two paths I could take. I could retrace my steps or make a big step and little jump to ground level, Polly said she would give me a hand, so I chose the latter. Polly reached down, took my hand, and began to help me up. And then, our world went crazy. Polly couldn’t pull me up completely, and I violently fell forward, knocking both of us to the ground. If my weight had been balanced slightly the other way, I would have no doubt gone careening down the concrete abutment into the canal. The fall would have likely killed me.
The good news? My cameras escaped damage, though one body had a slight scrape. The hood on the lens kept it from being smashed. Polly ended up with bruised knees and I suffered a twisted ankle and hip and a nasty, bloody contusion on my left leg.
I know I was lucky. I should have retraced my steps. This was the safe and prudent choice. However, Polly was standing right there and she said she would help. Why not, right? She helps me out of the recliner and car all the time. What neither of us counted on was how difficult it was to pull up a 350-pound man. When Polly pulls me out of the car or the recliner, I help her. This time? I was a dead weight and I almost literally became so.
Lesson learned.
Several years ago, as we were eating lunch, our daughter with Down Syndrome began choking. Due to her disability, she has a thick tongue and can easily choke. This day was different. For the first time, she couldn’t clear her throat. Polly administered the Heimlich maneuver three times before the food was dislodged. I was one second away from calling 911.
This scary circumstance reminded us that we need to pay careful attention to how our daughter eats her food. I talked to her about chewing her food, taking small bites, and not eating hurriedly. She was scared, we were scared, but we all lived to face another day. Our daughter could just as easily have died on our living room floor. Living in the rural area we do, we know that sometimes it is impossible to get quick emergency help. We were lucky, and we know it.
Every brush with death should cause us to reflect on why it happened. Were we culpable? Could we have made a better or different decision? Sometimes, shit happens.
Living is a dangerous proposition. Smart is the person who understands this and acts accordingly. Thinking that God has the whole world in his hands only leads to delusion and discouragement. God isn’t coming to save the day. In 2015, a German airline pilot flew a plane into the ground, killing everyone on board. I am sure, mixed in with the screams, were pleas to God to stop the plane from hitting the ground. Prayer lost out to physics and everyone died.
How about you? How do you live your life? How do you determine risk? Have you ever escaped death after making a decision that should have ended your life? If you once believed in the sovereignty of God, how does a world without a God affect your decision-making process? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Originally posted in 2020. Edited, updated, and revised.
A boy dreams of being a major league baseball player someday. His parents were both athletes in their younger years, having had some success at the high school and college levels.
As a youth, he grows quickly, seemingly always a head taller than everyone else. He seems more agile than others his age. He is fast on his feet, quick with his mind, and excels at baseball.
Tee-Ball. Little League. Pony League. High School Baseball. College Baseball.
At every level, he excels.
Finally, his big day comes.
A Major League baseball team makes him their number-one draft pick.
It’s not long before he works his way through the minor leagues, and two years after being drafted he makes his major league début.
He is an instant sensation, quickly showing everyone that he is an all-star in the making.
One night, during a game where he went 4-4, hit a home run, drove in 3 runs, and stole a base, the TV broadcaster explains the greatness of this talented baseball player: He has a God-given talent to play like he does.
Nary a person will question such an utterance.
It seems if people excel in life, it is because God has blessed them or God has given thema special dose of talent.
Few are the people who excel in life. Most of us have a few things we are good at, and we try to nurture those things the best we can. We know we will not be remembered for any great feat, nor will the record books make any mention of us. We live, we love, we die, and then we are forgotten.
It would seem that God doesn’t want most of us to be standouts or superstars. God only has a chosen few he blesses with God-given talent.
How does the nontheist explain the baseball player mentioned above? If it is not God-given talent, what is it?
Genetics.
Home environment.
Passion.
Hard work.
Training.
Coaches.
Scouts.
Luck.
All of these are better explanations than God-given talent.
We demean people when we reduce their hard work to something a God allegedly gives them. Here’s what I know: the few things I am good at in life are the result of my diligence, commitment, and hard work. Granted, these things come easily for me, BUT I still work hard to cultivate and improve the talents I have. I suspect it is the same for you too.
I am all for giving credit to whom credit is due. However, God is not on the credit list.
The all-star baseball player helps propel the home team to the World Series. The team handily wins the series and the little boy, now a grown-up all-star player, is voted the series’ most valuable player.
As he is interviewed after the last game of the series, he says “I want to thank God . . .”
And I say to myself or the TV, No, I want to thank YOU. Thank you for playing hard. Thank you for hustling on every play. Thank you for working hard every day to be the very best player you could be.
This subject reminds me of my all-time favorite TV prayer. In the movie Shenandoah, Jimmy Stewart uttered the following prayer at the dinner table:
Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked Dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for this food were about to eat. Amen.
And all the atheists said AMEN.
Many Christians have been taught that without God/Jesus they can do nothing. Their very breath and motor skills come from God. God feeds them, clothes them, gives them a job, gives them a spouse, gives them children, and gives them, well, gives them everything. Jesus said in John 15:5, without me ye can do nothing. Many Christians take this verse to mean that without Jesus they can do absolutely NOTHING. Technically, they don’t really believe this. After all, they do sin. Does God give them the power and ability to sin? Well, that’s different, Bruce. Sin comes from Satan or the flesh. God, who created everything and gives us the breath of life and the ability to exist, gets the credit for the good, but not the bad, right? Good=God, Bad=Satan and the Flesh. But, if God is sovereign, if he is the creator of everything, isn’t he also responsible for sin and the bad things that happen? I thought God has the whole world in his hands and the universe exists because of him?
I am all for giving credit to whom credit is due. If someone can show me God did this or that or God gave so-and-so talent, then I will gladly give God the credit. One question, though. Which God? How do we know it is the Christian God handing out the talent? Does the Christian God put a Made by Jesus label on those he gives talent to? So many questions . . .
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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