Recently, I received the following email from a Christian man named William:
NOW THAT YOU HAVE RENOUNCED CHRISTIANITY DO YOU FEEL YOU OWE IT TO THE CHRISTIANS YOU PREACHED TO AN EXPLANATION – HENCE, YOUR BLOG? AND WHEN YOU WERE A PREACHER DID YOU “TRULY” BELIEVE(AT LEAST AT THAT POINT IN TIME) WHAT YOU WERE TELLING THEM? OR WERE THERE DOUBTS FORMING EVEN THEN?
Evidently, William must think I am deaf since he SHOUTED his message to me. That aside, Williams asked three questions:
DO YOU FEEL YOU OWE IT TO THE CHRISTIANS YOU PREACHED TO AN EXPLANATION?
WHEN YOU WERE A PREACHER DID YOU “TRULY” BELIEVE WHAT YOU WERE TELLING THEM?
WERE THERE DOUBTS FORMING EVEN THEN?
No, I don’t owe former congregants an explanation for my loss of faith. Why should I, any more than anyone else, owe people an explanation for the major decisions I have made in my life? I owe my partner, Polly, an explanation, and maybe my children, grandchildren, siblings, and close friends, but everyone else? I don’t owe them anything. That said, I have spent the past eighteen years explaining why I left Christianity. Anyone, including former church members, can easily read about and understand my story. Millions of words have been sacrificed in my attempt to share my past and present experiences. A quick search of this site will answer every question a person might have.
William asks if I “truly” believed what I was preaching to church members? Of course, I did. There’s nothing in my life that suggests I was anything other than a committed follower of Jesus. You will search in vain for someone who knew me at the time that would suggest otherwise. While I am now an atheist, at the time I believed the core tenets of Christianity and did my best to follow the teachings of the Bible.
Doubts? We all have them. Did I ever have doubts as an Evangelical preacher? Sure. The difference between then and now is how I handle doubts. As a Christian, I trusted God to make all things known to me at his appointed time, according to his perfect will for my life. Instead of trusting God, I now trust my intellect and the academic skills I have developed over the years. When doubts crop up, I try to resolve them. And when I can’t, I say a prayer to Loki and put the matter away until I have better knowledge and understanding. Doubt is very much a part of the human experience.
I hope I adequately answered William’s questions.
Saved by Reason,
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
When it comes to supernatural or extraordinary claims, I always ask for evidence to justify said claims. When someone makes a religious, historical, political, or science claim, I expect them to justify their claim . People should expect the same from me. I never expect someone to take my word for any substantial claim I make.
Granted, some things don’t matter in life, so evidence is unnecessary. That said, we should want to believe as many true things as possible. When I am confronted with things I know little about, I tend to rely upon and trust experts. I mean real experts; men and women who either have relevant academic training or have committed themselves to an apprentice program where people learn by doing. Both are a path to expertise.
As a religion writer, I frequently interact with Evangelicals who disagree with me — all well and good. I don’t expect anyone to take my word for it, though it would be nice that when they do disagree me, they would interact with me on an academic or evidentiary basis instead of sharing personal testimonies or opinions. Part of the problem is the result of Evangelicals being unable to distinguish between evidence and opinion (personal interpretation). The Bible is a book of claims, not evidence. It makes all sorts of supernatural and extraordinary claims. Just because the Bible makes a claim doesn’t mean it’s true. The truthfulness of a claim requires evidence, which, for the most part, Evangelicals are unable to provide. Proof texts and cross references don’t cut it. Want to convince a skeptic of the veracity of a religious claim? It will take more than quoting Bible verses or following apologetical manipulations of the Biblical text. As you might know, Evangelicals have an explanation for every error, mistake, or contradiction in the Bible. Not good explanations. but they do have them.
Before engaging Evangelicals on this or that claim, I suggest debunking the claim that the Bible is inerrant and infallible first. This is a claim that can be easily debunked in five or so minutes. It only takes one error, mistake, or contradiction to overturn the claim that the Bible is without error. Of course, when you succeed, that doesn’t mean Evangelicals will agree with you. Conditioning and indoctrination keep them from seeing things as they are. When your family, church, and pastors repeatedly make supernatural or extraordinary claims, it is difficult not to believe them, even when evidence is lacking. Why would someone’s family, church, or pastors lie to them? Lost in the discussion is the fact that religious indoctrination and conditioning is often multi-generational. People raised in church tend to embrace the beliefs taught to them by their pastors or other authority figures. In the Gerencser family, four generations of people believed the Bible was inerrant and infallible. I was the first person in the family to ask for evidence for this claim, but none was forthcoming until I stepped outside of the people I trusted. If Evangelicals want me to believe the Bible is the Word of God; that it is without error and true in all it says, they will have to do more than quote proof texts or provide doctrinal statements.
I am not an anti-theist, though there are days when I think I would be better off if I were. That said, I am open to evidence for the central claims of Christianity. It is unlikely that such evidence will be forthcoming, but as a skeptic I am more than willing to have my beliefs challenged. As I stated previously, I want to believe as many true things as possible. Want me to believe Jesus is the son of God, that he was a miracle worker who was executed and came back to life three (or was it two?) days later before he ascended back to Heaven — never to be seen again? Don’t quote me Bible verses. Show me actual evidence for these claims; evidence, as of this date, that is unavailable. I’m not holding my breath.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
When you read articles like this who say people are leaving Christianity, they are not really leaving at all. What is happening is that fake Christians are leaving long dead churches that have the appearance of life.
Kevin Schaal would have us believe that the people leaving Christianity are all fake Christians; that anyone who deconverted is a fraud. Surely Schaal knows this claim is a lie. Surely he knows people who left Christianity who were committed followers of Jesus Christ. Does he really believe that these former Christians, who were pastors, evangelists, missionaries, youth pastors, worship leaders, deacons, Sunday school teachers, or junior church workers — all people who were devoted believers — are all frauds?
No, the real issue here is Schaal’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) soteriology. Once a person is saved, they never, ever can lose their salvation. Whether called once-saved-always-saved or the perseverance/preservation of the saints, the bottom line is this: once a person prays the sinner’s prayer, they are forever saved. The problem, of course, is that born again church members can and do walk away from Christianity. Some IFB preachers claim that these scoffers are saved, no matter what; that they will lose rewards in Heaven because they weren’t faithful until the end.
I suspect Schaal finds the very thought of people such as the Evangelical-preacher-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser being in Heaven with him disgusting, so he cooks up ways to claim that these defectors were never Christians. According to the quote above, Schaal believes people like me were fake Christians. Talk about a conspiracy theory. Schaal would have us believe that these former servants of the most high God deceived everyone around them. Does he realize how absurd this is? I would have had to deceive scores of people, including close friends, colleagues in the ministry, professors, IFB family, and five IFB preachers in my wife’s family. This is about as believable as the moon landing hoax or the existence of God.
Regardless of Schaal’s rigid theology, followers of Jesus do deconvert. They do reach a place in their lives where the central claims of Christianity no longer make any sense to them. The deconversion process is messy, but in the end, those who deconvert do so because they can no longer buy what Christianity is selling.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those who by their injustice suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made. So they are without excuse, for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless hearts were darkened.
Engage in discussion and debate with Evangelical apologists long enough, and Romans 1 is sure to come up. The moment an atheist or other unbeliever denies the Evangelical God’s existence, Evangelicals will quote Romans 1, saying that unbelievers KNOW the truth because God has revealed it to them, so they are without excuse.
According to Evangelical apologists, God revealed himself to all of us several ways:
Creation
Conscience: the law of God written on our “hearts”
Divine revelation:the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God
The thinking goes is that all any of us need to do is look at the wonders of creation and conclude, “God did it.” Fine, I always say. Which God? Why do apologists assume the creator God is their deity? I have yet to have an Evangelical connect the dots between the God of creation and the triune God of the Christian Bible.
All of us have a conscience, but there’s a lot we don’t know about it. Evangelicals, on the other hand, are convinced that their deity has written his law on the conscience/heart/mind of every human being. This is how mortals determine right from wrong, Evangelicals say. However, left unanswered is the question, “What law?” The Ten (or nine) Commandments? The law of Moses? Where is this “law” so we can know exactly what God expects of us.
Evangelicals will confidently state that God supernaturally gave us the Bible so we can know exactly what it is he requires of us. The Bible is the divine blueprint for life, teaching believers everything they need to know about life and godliness. If this is so, why are so many Evangelicals stupid as a brick, showing that they know very little about what the Bible says? You would think Christians would make studying, knowing, and understanding the Bible the most important priority of their lives. But, they don’t. Why is that?
As an atheist, I am not suppressing anything. I am willing to embrace truth wherever it is found. If Christian apologists can provide compelling evidence for the existence of their God, I’m listening. Whether I would convert remains to be seen, but I would, at the very least, give their evidence a hearing. Unfortunately, I remain unconvinced. I haven’t heard an Evangelical apologist give a compelling argument for the existence of God and the veracity of Christianity in years. Same old arguments over, and over, and over again. Setting aside esoteric philosophical arguments for which I have zero interest, Evangelical apologists use a handful of arguments to justify their beliefs. Some of these defenses of Christianity are “interesting,” but none of them close the deal — at least for me, anyway.
Maybe Evangelicals should ask themselves whether they are the ones suppressing the truth; that conditioning and indoctrination keep them from hearing any other arguments but their own.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This is the latest installment in The Voices of Atheism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. Know of a good video that espouses atheism/agnosticism or challenges the claims of the Abrahamic religions? Please email me the name of the video or a link to it. I believe this series will be an excellent addition to The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser.
Thank you in advance for your help.
What follows is a video of an interview with Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, a professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. The main focus of her research is on the Hebrew Bible, and on Israelite and Judahite history and religion. Her seminal book, God: An Anatomy, is a must read.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Sophomore class, Midwestern Baptist College, Pontiac, Michigan 1977. Polly is in the first row, the first person on the left. Bruce is in the third row, the eighth person from the left
Last week, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor David Bulka stopped by to preach to me his peculiar version of the Christian gospel. Bulka left the following comment on the post titled Seven Reasons People Get Saved. He didn’t bother to engage my writing, choosing instead to preach and testify.
I am not sure what Bulka hoped to achieve. We both went to Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan at the same time in the late 1970s. I only knew him in passing since he didn’t live in the dorm. Bulka surely knows that I was a pastor for twenty-five years, so I am at a loss to understand what value his comment may have to me or the other readers of this blog.
SEE YOU LATER”. I am 69 years old.
Burba tells me “SEE YOU LATER” four times. See me later, where and why, exactly? Is he meeting me at the strip club?
I want to ask you these Questions. Did Jesus Christ Rise from the dead after he was crucified?
No. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a myth.
Is He the son of God?
No.There is no God. No God, the Father, no, God, the Son, and no God, the Holy Spirit.
Is He the way the truth and the life as He said He was?. John 14:6.
No.
You will respond, either, yes , no or I am unsure.
You do know these are claims, and not evidence, right? If you want me to believe a Jewish apocalyptic preacher was executed and resurrected from the dead, you are going to have to provide evidence for your claim. Not the Bible, either. The Bible is a book of claims, and if you want to convince unbelievers of the veracity of your claims, you are going to have to do more than preach sermonettes and regurgitate prooftexts.
My personal experience, and Faith, say YES. and since Jesus Christ has changed my life to a better life and I have seen Him work miracles in my life and others. I have decided, What Jesus is, was and will be…. I will follow and encourage others to do like wise.
Surely you know — well, maybe not since you went to Midwestern, with its Sunday school-level classes — that personal and anecdotal stories aren’t evidence. Your testimony applies to you alone. I have no way of knowing whether it is true.
You said, “I have decided.” All well and good. Go with God, right? But, I have no intentions of following after a Christian pied piper. You want me to follow along? Please provide actual evidence for your claims.
My advise after studying the Bible for over 55 years. Is Doubt your Doubt, and have child like faith. I respect all people, but warn them not to risk being wrong, especially in believing HELL is real or not.
Childlike faith has led many people to deconvert. A childlike faith is no match for rigorous arguments against Christianity. That may play well within the walls of the church, but here in the real world, lambs with “childlike faith” tend to get eaten alive by wolves like me.
It was created for the devil and his angels. John 8.
No Hell, either. According to your theology, most of the people in Hell aren’t devils or angels. Hell is filled with your friends, neighbors, and church members. It seems, then, that Hell was created for humans too.
I have enjoyed the Christian life.
And I enjoyed the Christian life too, but not as much as I enjoy my life as an agnostic atheist and humanist. Sleeping in on Sundays, watching NFL games, sex in positions other than the missionary position, watching nudity on TV and not feeling guilty, drinking a shot or three of whiskey, and making liberal use of curse words — ah, the wonders of a secular life.
The Kingdom life which gives peace, Joy, righteousness.
Okay? I have similar feelings, as do most atheists (and other religious practitioners). Do you really think these character traits are reserved for your brand of Christianity alone?
My faith in a Holy , loving God, the God of Abraham, Issac Jacob, Sarah…etc has worked for me.
Okay? Your anecdotal stories are unable to provide evidence for the truthfulness of your claims. That’s why you ultimately appeal to childlike faith.
…. SEE YOU LATER….when we stand before the JUDGE of ALL CREATION. If you do not believe, Then thats on you. SEE YOU LATER…If it is not true… At least I have enjoyed life basking in peace, Joy, righteousness loving and serving the LORD Jesus Christ. A Atheist might say, in their faith…”.you Christians were wrong.” We will have to wait and see. But I have enjoyed the Kingdom Life, no regrets. “SEE YOU LATER”
There is no afterlife; no final judgment either. One life, twill soon be past, and then you are dead. Are you a Muslim? Are you a Buddhist? Why not? You using Pascal’s Wager reveals a fatal flaw in your argument. You only want to apply this to your particular flavor of Christianity, when you must apply it all of man’s extant religions. Surely, you want to cover all of your bases. If not, why are you unwilling to do what you are asking me to do?
You seem to ignorantly think that there is no life (meaning and purpose) outside of faith in Jesus Christ. This is patently untrue. I live a good life. I have a wonderful partner. We’ve been married for forty-seven years. We are blessed to have six children and sixteen grandchildren. All of our children are gainfully employed and generally live good lives. Two of our grandchildren attend college, one at Miami University (Ohio) and the other at Ohio State University. Our four inside cats are fat and happy, and we do everything we can to give our outside feral/stray cats a similar life (Tonight we put lights in their crates (27 gallon plastic tubs with a cut a hole inn for the cats to enter, and then put straw in tubs to keep the cats warm).
David, you have been lied to about unbelievers. Either that, or you have constructed a straw man in your mind, one that bears no resemblance to non-Christians like me.
Let me be clear, I don’t need God, Jesus, the Bible, the church, or saving faith to live a good life. You seem to forget that I was a pastor for twenty-five years. I pastored scores of born-again Christians; that I had numerous ministerial colleagues. I know first hand that things within the church are not as you seem to think they are. I’ve concluded that there is little to no difference between the lived experiences of Christians (of all stripes, including IFB believers) and those of the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world.
I am more than happy to discuss or debate these issues with you, David. All I ask is that you provide actual evidence for your claims, and not anecdotal stories, sermons, and prooftexts.
Be 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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Over the past four months, an Evangelical woman named Terri has sent me more than fifty emails and commented over one hundred fifty times. I asked her five times to please stop emailing me. I also let her know that many of her comments were unhelpful, and, at times offensive. Did this stop her from emailing me? No.
Terri is friendly and polite, but she lacks all sense of personal boundaries and respect. If someone politely asks you not to do something, yet you repeatedly do it anyway, that reveals a lack of respect. Terri will deny being disrespectful or not honoring boundaries, but most readers will likely conclude that sending me fifty emails and leaving one hundred fifty comments — many of which were sent after I asked her to stop — is excessive. Include the comments I didn’t approve, and the total nears two-hundred.
I don’t understand this kind of behavior, mainly because I have never emailed- or comment-bombed someone. What’s the point? I suspect Terri thinks she is duty bound to “share” the truth — her personal interpretations of the Bible — with me, even if I know a hell of a lot more about that Bible, theology, and church history than she does. She likely believes God wants her to share the gospel and the love of God with everyone, even those who have told her they are not interested in what she is peddling. I wish Terri and other Evangelicals would stop behaving like this, but I fear it’s pathological. “Bruce is headed for Hell, and needs Jesus,” zealots think, and God dammit, they are going to irritate the hell out of me regardless of whether I ask them to stop. In their minds, my personal discomfort is the price I must pay for the “good news.” Little do they know or care that their behavior is actually driving me away from Christianity, and I suspect that thousands of the people who read this blog will say the same.
Several days ago, Terri sent me the following email:
Bruce! Just wanted to encourage you here…
Want to encourage me? Send me bags of cash or mind your own business. I told Terri several times that I was not interested in what she had to say about my health. She has no relevant expertise other than the ability to do a web search, so there is no reason I should pay attention to her anecdotal stories and personal opinions. It is evident Terri either doesn’t understand how sick I am or doesn’t care. Or she could be one of those Christians who thinks it is their calling in life to “fix” people. I regularly see a primary care doctor, neurologist, endocrinologist, dermatologist, gastroenterologist, and a podiatrist. I have had a full-day work-up for multiple sclerosis (MS) at Toledo Hospital and a comprehensive examination for fibromyalgia at the University of Michigan. These and other medical professionals treat me for gastroparesis (lack of proper bowel function), endocrine pancreatic insufficiency (pancreas doesn’t produce digestive enzymes), peripheral neuropathy (nerve pain), fibromyalgia (which causes widespread muscle pain and fatigue), degenerative spine disease (think, my spine is literally falling apart), Morton’s neuroma (nerve inflammation in both feet), high blood pressure (well managed), diabetes (well managed), increasing memory loss (early-stage dementia? God, I hope not.), tinnitus, vision problems (my vision flipped from nearsightedness to farsightedness), bladder and bowel incontinence, and four bouts of basal/squamous cell skin cancer.
Most of these diseases are incurable. All that my doctors can do is encourage me and treat my symptoms. My primary care doctor — who has been treating me for almost thirty years — admits that I am his enigma — perplexing, challenging, difficult to treat.
I live with constant pain, from my head to the bottom of my feet. I require a cane to get around home, and a wheelchair or walker when I (rarely) have the opportunity to go to town. I have lost more than one hundred pounds, and I am plagued with frequent bouts of nausea and vomiting. And then comes nighttime; you know when most people go to sleep. I too lie down to sleep, but it takes me HOURS to fall asleep — with narcotic pain medication and cannabis — thanks to horrible pain from my neck and spine to my legs. Sure, if I took a lot more Hydrocodone and cannabis, my pain would be less, but I would sleep all the time, and this blog you are reading would be no more. I must choose between the two.
Typically, I get up in early afternoon. After getting up, I use the bathroom, dress, and wait for Polly to come home from work at 3:20 pm. We talk a bit, eat dinner, and then I watch a sports news program. Afterward, if I have any steam left, I start to write. I usually have three to five hours to maintain this blog and publish content. Some days (increasingly so) I don’t have the physical wherewithal and mental acuity to meaningfully write. On these days, I spend the night reading, watching TV, and listening to podcasts. If I am able, I try to do household chores or take care of smaller projects around the house. Three years ago, I reignited my love for post-war Lionel O-gauge electric trains. I threw myself into the project, hoping to build a train layout in an upstairs room for my grandchildren and I to enjoy. Sadly, it’s been almost two years since I navigated the stairs to work on the 12′ by 12′ layout.
Knowing these things, do you really think I want to receive medical advice from you, especially when you have no relevant expertise nor do you know me will enough to invade my personal space to give me advice? Readers such as Carolyn, my editor, Zoe, ObstacleChick, Geoff, Ben, or Troy, to name a few, have been my friends for a long time. They have invested a lot of time in reading my writing and supporting my work. None of them offers me unsolicited medical advice. At best, they might send me a link to an article, asking me if I had seen it, but that’s it. They know what I need is love, respect, and understanding, and not uneducated, unprofessional medical advice.
a beautiful thing happened in our city a few months ago…a man who lived alone, and who was an atheist, became very sick. He was all alone, no family to take care of him, and so he decided to pray for 3 days straight. At the end of it, he found himself healed!! He’s doing great now!!
This story sounds like a sermon illustration; a fictional story meant to prove a point. If this really happened, I would love to interview the man. I want to know what sickened him. Did he take medication or see doctors? Who was the doctor, so I can interview him too. I want to know if he thinks this man was miraculously healed.
Further, how does Terri KNOW it was her God who healed this man? Satan, a divine healer too, could have healed the man. How does she know that the man was healed as the direct result of three days of non-stop prayer? All we have is a story told by an Evangelical Christian who has spun other fantastical stories before this one. I didn’t believe those stories, and I don’t believe this one either. My unbelief can be easily remedied by providing sufficient empirical evidence to justify the healing claim. I am ready to start a betting pool on whether this evidence will be forthcoming. My money is on “no!”
Terri refuses to accept that most of my physical maladies are incurable. All doctors know to do is treat my symptoms. I have had major surgery twice, five outpatient surgeries, and endured several experimental procedures. There’s not anything else that can be done for me (though I may need surgery on my spine again). So I understand the compulsion some Christians have to offer unsolicited medical advice or prayers. That said, I have made my desires clear, so this unwanted email tells me that what I want or need doesn’t matter to Terri.
God is no respecter of persons…if He did it for him, He will do it for others, too. That’s hope!!
Which God? If the woman who sent me the email worships the Christian deity, I ask again, which Christian God since there are so many? Terri knows I am an atheist, so God talk has no effect on me other than to irritate and annoy me. That’s why Evangelicals are typically given one opportunity to comment. I approve ALL first-time comments, but I encourage Evangelicals to say all they need to say in their first comment. Preach away, but you will likely only have one opportunity to put in a good word for Jesus. I gave Terri a lot of space to spread her viewpoint, but eventually I had enough. I asked her to write one final comment, which I would turn into a post. No edits, no moderation. Say what you want, but that’s it. What did Terri do? She sent me a link to a video she wanted me to post. I, of course, refused.
I love it when Evangelicals say that “God is no respecter of persons,” when the Bible reveals a deity that is very much so, starting with God initially choosing the Jews as his covenant people over the Gentiles. The doctrines of election and predestination also show that God is certainly a respecter of persons.The Bible is littered with examples of the triune God playing favorites.
Further, I am an atheist, so claims of God’s existence fall on deaf ears. Personal testimonies and subjective experiences have no power to explain the existence of the Evangelical deity. These are faith claims, a faith I do not, nor will ever, have.
Does the Bible reflect a God who heals people with respect to who and what they are? Of course not. If God is no respecter of persons and prayer can affect healing, why do MOST Christians go through life unhealed? Churches are filled with praying sick people.
Having said all of that, I will make a wager with Terri’s God. “Jesus, you supposedly healed a sick atheist, so I know you can heal me. If you heal me, I will immediately profess faith in you and spend the remaining days of my life worshipping and serving you. I will shutter this blog, and do all I can to preach the gospel.” The ball is in Jesus’ court. “Heal me, Jesus, and I am yours. If not, I will continue on in my atheist ways, confident that you are a myth, a figment in the imagination of countless Christians.” Think Jesus will heal me? Imagine what a trophy I would be if Jesus healed me, leading to me confessing faith in him. I won’t hold my breath, stop taking medications, or cancel my doctor’s appointments. Stupid I am not. If I have learned anything in my sixty-eight years of life, it is this: Jesus is not the Great Physician and prayer is worthless outside of giving the appearance you are doing something meaningful for people, when you actually are not.
I hope Terri “hears” me. Same goes for others who think my health problems are opportunities for them to put in a word for Jesus. I am NOT interested, and the more you ignore my wishes, the farther you drive me away from Christianity. As of the writing of this post, I can’t think of one reason why I would ever want to become a Christian again. I know I will receive several emails/comments threatening me with judgment and Hell. Whatever — such threats have no effect on me — and I mean none.
Saved by Reason,
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I was an Evangelical Christian for fifty years, and a pastor for twenty-five years. I had a lot of personal experiences with the God of the Bible. How could I not since the Holy Spirit lived inside of me 24/7, teaching and guiding me in everything pertaining to life and godliness? My life was littered with personal interactions with the thrice holy God.
At the age of six, I had my first supernatural encounter, not with God, but Satan. One day, I “sensed” the Devil’s presence in my bedroom. I left my room, and when I came back, I found that my clothes that were on top of the dresser were thrown all over the room. Who did this? I was certain Satan did. The more likely culprit was my Satanic five-year-old brother or three-year-old sister. 🙂 However, thanks to the indoctrination and conditioning I had already received at Scott Memorial Baptist Church (now Shadow Mountain Community Church) in San Diego, I was certain that Satan was real and personally involved in my life (just as Jesus was).
At the age of fifteen, I attended an Al Lacy revival meeting at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay. By then, I had attended church almost 1,500 times, both with my parents and by myself. I heard scores of gospel sermons, yet until the Lacy revival, I had never repented and put my faith in Jesus Christ. On that night, I “felt” deep Holy Spirit conviction. At the appointed time, I went forward and was instantaneously saved. I had no doubt that it was God himself speaking me.
Two weeks later, I again felt Holy Spirit conviction, this time over what to do with my life. I decided on that night that God was calling me to preach. I went forward during the altar call and professed before the church, including dozens of my high school friends, that God was calling me to enter the ministry. Several weeks later, I preached my first sermon before one hundred or so junior high school students. My text? 2 Corinthians 5:20: Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. (KJV)
Over the years, I had numerous personal experiences with God. I sometimes felt his presence while I preached, and there were times when the presence of God was felt by most people in attendance. There were times when I felt God’s presence when praying, especially when I was praying by myself in the darkness of the church sanctuary.
For most of my life, I believed God was ever-present in my life, even though he rarely, if ever answered my prayers. How did I KNOW that I was experiencing the presence of God? What evidence did I have for those experiences? None, outside of faith.
A common thread in these programs is the requirement that religious believers (mainly Christians, Muslims, and Jews) provide EVIDENCE for their claims, and not personal stories and testimonies. The reason for this is simple. Personal experiences apply to the individual person alone. I shared several personal experiences in this post. Are these stories evidence for the existence of God? Of course not. All these stories say is that I had these experiences and believed they were true. By faith, I believed God was speaking to me and working in my life. Could I justify these claims? No, but I believed them to be true.
Over the years, scores of Evangelicals, along with a handful of Catholics, Muslims, and Mormons, have dumped their personal testimonies in the comment section, thinking that I would be won over to Jesus by their experiences. And when I reject their supernatural stories, believers storm off in anger, thinking they have provided me evidence for the existence of God and the veracity of the Bible. They haven’t. No personal testimony is going to reach me for Jesus. Just because Evangelicals say that God did A, B, C, and D for them doesn’t mean he actually did. I remain unconvinced until empirical evidence is provided for supernatural claims. And until that evidence is forthcoming, I cannot and will not believe. I am unwilling to “faith it.”
Are you a former Evangelical Christian? Did you have supernatural interactions with God/Jesus/Holy Spirit? Did you ever sense the presence of God in your life? How do you explain these experiences now that you no longer believe? Please share your stories in the comment section.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
If is carrying a lot of weight in this question. How would one go about “proving” Christianity? So far, every argument I have heard from believers allegedly “proving” Christianity comes up short. Quite frankly, many of the arguments Christian apologists use are fantastical or absurd. These arguments may work with people already predisposed to Christianity, but they won’t usually work atheists. Apologists continue to churn out books defending Christianity, but these books aren’t for unbelievers. The target audience is believers, and the goal is to provide them with “evidence” to reinforce and justify their claims, along with settling their nerves after having an atheist eviscerate their beliefs. (Many atheists are former Christians themselves. They know the Bible inside and out.)
Is it possible that someone could convince me that Christianity is true? I would like to say yes, wanting to keep an open mind, but knowing all I do about Christianity, the Bible, and the various arguments used by apologists to defend the faith, I can’t imagine any Christian being able to convince me that I should return to Christianity. If you are a Christian, you are welcome to try to convert me, but I hope you can handle rejection and disappointment; that’s likely what you will experience by trying to put another notch on your gospel six-shooter.
Will this post stop apologists from trying to evangelize me? Of course not. As sure as the sun comes up in the morning, a believer will leave a comment on this site or send me an email detailing their supercalifragilisticexpialidocious argument they are sure will lead me to the light. Sorry, but I was a Christian for most of my life. I spent five decades in the “light.” I was a pastor for twenty-five years. I am confident that I have heard every possible argument for the existence of the Christian deity and the alleged veracity of Christianity. What could you possibly say that I haven’t heard countless times before? Feel free to advance whatever argument you think will reach me, but understand that there is little doubt about whether I have heard it (or used it myself) before.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I love it when a new reader assumes that I am just an illiterate atheist who doesn’t know anything about the Bible. Typically, such people lack curiosity, so they don’t read my ABOUT page. Then I let them know that I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years; that I spent twenty-five years pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. When told this, their arguments switch to questions about what I “really” believed or what hurt me enough to cause me to leave Christianity. Sometimes, Evangelicals, with a wave of their sanctimonious hands, dismiss my story out of hand, saying I never was a believer. What they never do is engage me on what the Bible actually teaches.
Sometimes, when confronted with posts by me that challenge their beliefs, Evangelicals dismiss me by saying that it is evident I have never read the Bible. I snicker when someone says this to me. I have read the Bible from table of contents to index numerous times — more times than MOST Evangelical Christians. Further, I spent 20,000 hours of my life reading and studying the Bible, reading countless (well, I could count them if I were inclined to do so) theological tomes in my studies. Years ago, a Christian school student walked into my study and looked at all my books, saying, “Preacher, did you read all of these books?” I smiled and said, “most of them.”
Recently, I bought an NRSV study Bible. I plan to re-read the Bible as time allows. I am interested in seeing how my thinking about the Biblical text has evolved over the past seventeen years. Granted, some atheists are illiterate about the core teachings of Christianity. Believe me, I find their pontifications embarrassing too. Atheism is not well served by apologists who are too lazy to study and understand that which they criticize. The good news is that many atheists are former Christians. We are not ignorant of what the Bible teaches.. Contrary to what Thiessen said above, We know the Bible inside and out — no Holy Ghost needed. We are living testaments to their false claim that people deconvert because they were poorly taught or lacking knowledge about the Bible. If you happen to think all atheists are stupid, by all means press your claims in the comment section. Let’s see who is stupid.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
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