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From Evangelicalism to Atheism — Part Four

Bruce Gerencser 19 Comments
creamery road zanesville ohio
Creamery Road, Zanesville, Ohio

After two short stints pastoring Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas (1994) and Olive Branch Christian Union Church (1995) in Fayette, Ohio, I started a Sovereign Grace Baptist congregation called Grace Baptist Church in West Unity, Ohio. Several years later, we would change the church’s name to Our Father’s House to better reflect our inclusiveness.

When I started Grace Baptist Church, I was a five-point Calvinist, not much different theologically from my description in part three of this series. I remained a Calvinist until the late 1990s, at which time my theology and political beliefs began lurching leftward. The church changed its name and I began to focus more on inclusivism and good works. During this time, my theology moved from a Calvinistic/Reformed viewpoint to more of a liberal/progressive Mennonite perspective. Much of my preaching focused on the good works every Christian should be doing and the church’s responsibility to minister to the sick, poor, and marginalized.

As my preaching moved leftward, so did my politics. By the time I left Our Father’s House in July of 2002, I no longer politically identified as a Republican. The single biggest change in my beliefs came when I embraced pacifism. The seeds of pacifism were sown years before when the United States immorally attacked Iraq in the first Iraq War. I opposed this war, and as I began reading authors such as Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, John Howard Yoder, Gandhi, and Eileen Egan, I concluded that all war was immoral.

By the time of the Y2K scare:

  • I was preaching inclusivism, encouraging interaction and work with all who claimed the Christian moniker.
  • I was preaching a works-centered, lifestyle-oriented gospel. Gone was the emphasis on being “born again” or making a public profession of faith. In particular, I focused on the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
  • I believed the institutional, organized Christian church was hopelessly broken and increasingly indifferent toward the needs of the poor and marginalized.
  • I was a committed, vocal pacifist, opposing all war on moral grounds. I remain a pacifist to this day.

In 2003, I pastored Victory Baptist Church — a Southern Baptist congregation in the central Michigan community of Clare — for seven months. Both Polly and I agree that we never should have moved to Clare.  It was a wasted seven months (more on that in a future post) that ended with me resigning from the church. This was the last church I pastored.

While I was pastor of Victory Baptist, a friend of mine from Ohio came to visit us. From 1991-1994, he had been a member of the church I pastored in Somerset, Ohio. After listening to me preach, he told me that he was astounded by how much my preaching had changed, how liberal it had become. And he was right. While my preaching was orthodox theologically, my focus had dramatically changed.

In 2004, Polly and I moved to Yuma, Arizona. We lived in Yuma for almost seven months. We then moved to Newark Ohio, where we lived for ten months. In July of 2005, we moved back to the northwest Ohio community of Bryan. In May of 2007, we bought a house in Ney, Ohio where we currently live.

As you can see, we did a lot of moving over four years. We were restless seekers. Every place we lived, we diligently, Sunday after Sunday, Wednesday after Wednesday, visited local churches in hopes of finding a spiritual home. Instead of finding a home, we increasingly became dissatisfied and disillusioned. We concluded that, regardless of the name over the door, churches were pretty much all the same. Dysfunctional, incestuous, focused inward, entertainment/program driven, resembling social clubs far more than the church Jesus purportedly built. This would prove to be the emotional factor that drove me to investigate thoroughly the theological claims of Christianity and the teachings of the Bible. This investigation ultimately led to my deconversion in 2008.

From 2004-2007, Polly and I visited over a hundred churches of numerous sects:

  • Baptist (Independent, Southern, American, Conservative, Reformed, Sovereign Grace, Free Will, Primitive, GARBC, Missionary)
  • Lutheran (American, Missouri)
  • Church of Lutheran Brethren
  • Church of Christ (instrumental, non-instrumental)
  • Disciples of Christ
  • Methodist
  • Free Methodist
  • Christian Union
  • Church of Christ in Christian Union
  • United Brethren
  • Christian Missionary and Alliance
  • Roman Catholic
  • Apostolic
  • Vineyard
  • Calvary Chapel
  • Bible Church
  • Pilgrim Holiness
  • Greek Orthodox
  • Episcopalian
  • Church of God
  • Church of God Anderson
  • Pentecostal
  • Charismatic
  • Assembly of God
  • Mennonite
  • Old Order Mennonite
  • Presbyterian Church USA
  • Orthodox Presbyterian Church
  • Christian Reformed
  • Protestant Reformed
  • United Church of Christ
  • Friends
  • And a plethora of independent, unaffiliated churches

You can read the entire list of churches we visited here.

Some Sundays, we attended the services of three different churches. We also attended Wednesday prayer meetings (all poorly attended) and a fair number of special services such as revival meetings during the week.

The most astounding thing from our travels through Christendom is the realization that most pastors don’t care if people visit their churches. Less than 10% of the churches we visited made any contact with us after we visited. Only a handful visited us in our home without us asking them to do so.

In November of 2008, I told Polly that I was no longer a Christian, and that I no longer believed the central tenets of the Christian religion. Not long after, Polly came to a similar conclusion. In 2009, I wrote my infamous letter, A Letter to Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners. This letter was my official coming out. Later in 2009, a former parishioner, friend, and pastor of a Christian Union church came to see me in hopes of rescuing me. I later wrote him a letter. You can read the letter here.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

From Evangelicalism to Atheism — Part Three

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments
creamery road zanesville ohio
Creamery Road, Zanesville, Ohio

Originally Published in 2015. Edited and Expanded.

I am often asked, when did you first begin to doubt? This is not an easy question for me to answer. As I look back over my life, there were many instances where I had doubts about certain theological or political beliefs. If there is one constant about life, it is change. Over time, our understanding, beliefs, and ideologies change. Sometimes, the change is so subtle that we are not really aware of it until we look back on our lives years later. Anyone who says that he has never changed his beliefs — and I know several pastors who say this about themselves — is either intellectually lazy, a liar, or living in denial.

Every preacher leaves Bible college with a borrowed theology. His theology is the theology that his parents, church, pastor, and college professors taught him. He believes what he believes because of the influence of others. Only when he is free of these influences does he begin to develop his own theological beliefs.

I have always been an avid student and reader. One of the frustrating things about the health problems I have is that I can no longer read as I used to. For many years, it was not uncommon for me to read 500 or more pages a week of theological and biographical texts. To this day, I rarely read fiction. Over the course of twenty-five years in the ministry, I accumulated a large library of books. These books were my constant companions and friends. When I left the ministry in 2003, I sold off my theological library on eBay.

While I learned many things as a student at Midwestern Baptist College, most of my theological education came from the countless hours I spent reading theological books, the Bible, and studying for my sermons. It was in the study that I began to come to theological conclusions different from what I had been taught by my parents, former churches, former pastors, and college professors. The most dramatic theological changes took place while I was pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in Somerset, (later Mt. Perry) Ohio.

I started the Somerset Baptist Church in July of 1983 and pastored the congregation for eleven years. At that time, I was a typical Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor and remained so until the Jack Hyles scandal rocked the IFB world in 1986. As I waded through the Hyles sewer, I began to question the gospel preached by many IFB pastors and churches. Noted preachers such as Jack Hyles, Curtis Hutson, and the preachers associated with the Sword of the Lord, preached a truncated gospel, believing that repentance was a change of mind and not a change of conduct. Simply put, the unconverted sinner was against Jesus and now he was for him. Around this time, John MacArthur came out with his seminal book, The Gospel According to Jesus. MacArthur attacked the easy-believism gospel preached in many Evangelical/Baptist churches. MacArthur stated that repentance was not only a change of mind but also a change of behavior. If there was no turning from sin, then there was no true repentance, and without repentance, there was no salvation.

The Hyles scandal, my careful assessment of the gospel preached by many in the IFB church movement, and MacArthur’s book, led me to conclude that the gospel I had been preaching was wrong. I began preaching a gospel that demanded sinners turn from their sins. I believed that if Jesus was not Lord of all your life, then he was not Lord at all. I believed that if people said they were Christians, then they should act like it. Unless unregenerate sinners were willing to turn from their sin and fully embrace Jesus, there was no salvation for them.

In the late 1980s, I began to reconsider my eschatological beliefs. I was taught dispensational, pre-tribulational, and premillennial eschatology (end times) in college, and every church I attended growing up preached this end-times scheme. As I restudied the various eschatological positions, my beliefs gradually shifted and matured until I embraced post-tribulationalism and amillennialism. At this point, I was clearly theologically wandering outside the boundary of my IFB heritage. This shift in eschatology resulted in some people leaving the church; however, it also attracted new members who held similar eschatological views.

It was also in the late 1980s that my theological beliefs dramatically shifted from the one-point Calvinism (eternal security, once saved always saved) of the IFB church movement to five-point Calvinism. My introduction to Calvinism came through the preaching tapes of Rolfe Barnard, a former Southern Baptist and Sword of the Lord evangelist who died in the late 1960s. Barnard’s sermons were powerful declarations of the gospel according to Calvinism. As I listened to these tapes, it was like a light went on in my head. For a time, I was angry because I thought those who had taught me theology had lied to me. Why had no one ever told me about Calvinism? All they told me at Midwestern is that they were against Calvinism and anyone caught promoting it would be expelled.

I began devouring books about Calvinism. I opened a book account at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service and bought countless Calvinistic, Puritan, Sovereign Grace Baptist books. I read the books of Puritan/Calvinist authors from the 17th,18th, and 19th centuries. I discovered that Baptists, at one time, were quite Calvinistic, and some of my heroes of the faith, including Charles Spurgeon, were five-point Calvinists. I even learned that there were Calvinists, such as the late Bruce Cummons, pastor of the Massillon Baptist Temple, in the IFB church movement.

From the late 1980s until the early 2000s, I was a committed, zealous five-point Calvinist. My preaching style changed from topical/textual sermons to expository sermons. I stopped giving altar calls as I began transforming the Somerset Baptist Church into a Calvinistic church. This move cost me 99% of my IFB pastor friends, a handful of church members, along with almost all of my Arminian friends.

For several years, I published a newsletter called The Sovereign Grace Reporter. I sent the newsletter to hundreds of IFB pastors, and this caused quite a shit-storm. Surprisingly, Polly’s uncle, the late James Dennis, pastor of the IFB Newark Baptist Temple, was quite supportive. Keith Troyer, then pastor of Fallsburg Baptist Church, was also quite supportive. I would later be accused of leading Keith astray with the pernicious doctrines of John Calvin. (At the time, I considered Keith my best friend.)

Probably by now, some readers are wondering, Why the history lesson, Bruce? I think it is important for me to establish several things:

  • I was an avid reader of books
  • I was an avid student of whatever subject I was reading about
  • I was willing to go wherever the evidence led me
  • I was willing to change my beliefs even if it materially cost me or made me unpopular
  • Truth mattered more to me than being accepted by my peers, friends, or family

These things are still true today, though I can no longer read like I once did.

In my pastoring days, my colleagues in the ministry, friends, and parishioners loved me for these traits. They applauded my willingness to be true to the Word of God, even if they disagreed with me. Now these same people think I read and study too much. I have been told that the reason I am an atheist is because of books (and there is some truth in this statement)! If I would only stop reading all these books and just read THE BOOK, all would be well, one former parishioner told me.

Just as the leopard can’t change its spots, I can’t stop reading and studying. Sixty-two years ago, my mother created an intellectual monster when she taught me to read. She wanted her eldest son to be like her, a devourer of literature, a person who valued truth above the approbation of men. I owe her a great debt of gratitude.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

From Evangelicalism to Atheism — Part Two

Bruce Gerencser 12 Comments
creamery road zanesville ohio
Creamery Road, Zanesville, Ohio

Originally Published in 2015. Edited and Expanded.

One of the questions I am often asked is, why did you become an Evangelical or why did you become an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist?

This is the wrong question. The real question is this: how could I NOT have become an Evangelical or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB)?

Every child is born into this world without a religion. None of them knows anything about God or religion, sin, salvation, or morality. As far as God and religion are concerned, every newborn is a blank slate (outside of what may come from DNA).

Belief in a tribal God must be taught and learned. This teaching is done by parents, extended family, and the culture/society the child grows up in. Children taken to a church, temple, or synagogue are taught to KNOW God and their parents’ religion.

Most children embrace the religion of their parents. Parents who worship the Christian God generally raise children who are Christian. This is especially the case for Evangelical children. From their toddler years forward, Evangelical children are taught that they are broken, vile sinners alienated from God who need personal salvation. They are taught that, unless they ask Jesus into their hearts, they will end up in Hell when they die. Every Sunday at church, at home during the week, and at school, if they attend a Christian school or are homeschooled, Evangelical children face an onslaught of manipulative, aggressive indoctrination methods geared to help them accept Jesus as their Savior and turn them into dutiful, tithing Evangelical Christians.

It should come as no surprise, then, that most Evangelical children make a salvation decision when they are quite young. This initial salvation experience usually carries them into their teenage years. They are safe and secure in Jesus until they are thirteen or fourteen years old.

It is not uncommon for Evangelical children, during their teenage years, to either make another salvation decision or rededicate their lives to Christ. Why is it that so many Evangelical children make another decision during their teenage years?

Think about it. What happens during the teenage years? Children reach puberty, and they begin to discover they have sexual desires. They start wanting to do things that their pastor, church, and parents say are sinful. Most Evangelical teens, if not all, give in to sinful desires. They feel guilty for doing so, and conclude that they must not “really” be saved or need to recommit their lives to Christ.

Many Evangelical teenagers find themselves caught in a constant cycle of sinning, getting saved/rededicating their life to Christ, sinning, getting saved/rededicating their life to Christ. As much as Evangelicals deny it, this cycle becomes the Protestant version of Catholic confession.

In the early 1960s, my dad moved us from Bryan, Ohio to San Diego. California was the land of opportunity in the 1960s, and my Dad was certain his pot of gold was somewhere in San Diego. He ended up selling patio awnings and driving a truck, and three years later we moved back to Bryan. That pot of gold turned out to be empty.

While living in San Diego, our family attended Scott Memorial Baptist Church, an IFB institution. The pastor at the time was Tim LaHaye, of Left Behind and Act of Marriage fame.  Both of my parents made public professions of faith in Christ at Scott Memorial. I also asked Jesus into my heart in Junior Church. I was five years old.

Politically, my parents were right-wing extremists. They were members of the John Birch Society, hated Martin Luther King Jr., and supported the war effort in Vietnam. Their salvation decision at Scott Memorial fit well with their political and social ideology.

From this point forward, until my parent’s divorce in April of 1972, the Gerencser family was in church every time the doors were open. Sunday morning, Sunday night, prayer meeting, and revival meetings — we were front and center of whatever Fundamentalist church we were attending at the time. When I became a teenager, attending youth group after church was added to the schedule, along with regular youth group activities.

In the fall of 1972, Evangelist Al Lacy came to our church, Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio, to hold a revival meeting. On Sunday, during Lacy’s sermon, the spirit of God came over me, telling me that I was a sinner in need of salvation. When it came time for the public invitation, I quickly stepped out of the pew, came down the aisle, and knelt at the altar. There, a church deacon by the name of Ray Salisbury took me through the Romans Road plan of salvation and I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and come into my heart. I was fifteen. I was baptized that night, and a week or so later I went forward during the altar call and let the church know that God was calling me to be a preacher. Two weeks later, I preached my first sermon.

As a first-grader in San Diego, I told people that when I grew up, I was going to be a preacher, and now, as a fifteen-year-old boy, I was telling the world that God was calling me to be what I had wanted to be my entire life. From this point forward, most of the preachers I came in contact with worked with me and steered me toward fulfilling my calling. It came as a shock to no one that I enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan in 1976 to study for the ministry.

All told, I preached for thirty-two years, spending twenty-five of those years pastoring seven churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I preached more than four thousand sermons and taught countless Sunday school classes. For many years, I also preached on the street and at the local nursing home. So when someone asks, Why did you become an Evangelical? or Why did you become an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist? I counter that the real question, based on what I have written here is this: How could I have become anything else?

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

From Evangelicalism to Atheism — Part One

Bruce Gerencser 19 Comments
creamery road zanesville ohio
Creamery Road, Zanesville, Ohio

Originally Published in 2015. Edited and Expanded.

In this series, I intend to explore my journey from Evangelicalism to atheism. In future posts, I plan to look carefully at the process that took me from a card-carrying member of the Evangelical church through a loss of faith that ultimately led to atheism. In this post, I want to define the words Evangelicalism and atheism.

Ask an Evangelical to define Evangelical or Evangelicalism and it is unlikely that he or she can do so. In fact, it is doubtful that any two Evangelicals would give you the same definition of their shared heritage.

According to the National Association of Evangelicals, all member churches and groups MUST adhere to the following:

  • We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
  • We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  • We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
  • We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
  • We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
  • We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
  • We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In answering the question, What is an Evangelical, the National Association of Evangelicals website states:

Evangelicals take the Bible seriously and believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The term “evangelical” comes from the Greek word euangelion, meaning “the good news” or the “gospel.” Thus, the evangelical faith focuses on the “good news” of salvation brought to sinners by Jesus Christ.

We are a vibrant and diverse group, including believers found in many churches, denominations and nations. Our community brings together Reformed, Holiness, Anabaptist, Pentecostal, Charismatic and other traditions. Our core theological convictions provide unity in the midst of our diversity. The NAE Statement of Faith offers a standard for these evangelical convictions.

Historian David Bebbington also provides a helpful summary of evangelical distinctives, identifying four primary characteristics of evangelicalism:

  • Conversionism: the belief that lives need to be transformed through a “born-again” experience and a lifelong process of following Jesus.
  • Activism: the expression and demonstration of the gospel in missionary and social reform efforts
  • Biblicism: a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority
  • Crucicentrism: a stress on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as making possible the redemption of humanity

I know of NO true Evangelical who would dispute any of the above statements. I say TRUE Evangelical because many Evangelical church members, pastors, parachurch leaders, and institutions are Evangelical in name only. They say they are Evangelical, when in fact their beliefs make it clear they are actually liberals or progressives.

It is important to understand that ALL Evangelicals are Fundamentalists. I’ve had countless Evangelicals object to me calling them Fundamentalists. However, if they believe the statements above, then they are Fundamentalists. If it walks, talks, and quacks like a Fundamentalist, it is a Fundamentalist. (Please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?)

Some Evangelicals are confused about Fundamentalism, or they want to distance themselves from the crazy, extreme right-wing Fundamentalists that are common in Evangelicalism. However, their lack of understanding about their theological and historical heritage or their dislike of the crazy uncles within Evangelicalism does not mean they are NOT Fundamentalists.

Within Evangelicalism there are two lines of Fundamentalism:

  • Theological Fundamentalism
  • Social Fundamentalism

If a person believes the National Association of Evangelicals’ statements regarding Evangelical belief and what an Evangelical is, then he or she is by definition a theological Fundamentalist.

Many Evangelicals wrongly think that because they are not like the Fundamentalists found in sects such as the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, they are not Fundamentalists. However, when it comes to theology, there is little difference between a mainstream Evangelical and an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist.

Social Fundamentalism focuses on how a person lives the Evangelical Christian life. Independent Fundamentalist Baptists, along with many Holiness and Pentecostal groups, are known for all the rules and regulations they have dictating how a professing Evangelical Christian should live. These kinds of sects strictly control everything from how a person dresses to whether or not a church member can watch or own a TV.

Many Evangelicals consider such rules and regulations legalism, and, wanting personal freedom, reject many of these rules and regulations as extra-biblical or works-salvation. These theological Fundamentalists make a concerted effort to distance themselves from social Fundamentalism.

However, can it really be said that an Evangelical can be a theological Fundamentalist, but not a social Fundamentalist? Strictly speaking, the answer is no. Because Evangelicals believe the Bible is “the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God” and have “a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority,” at some point every Evangelical is a social Fundamentalist.

If you doubt this, ask an Evangelical, Do you think a Christian must live according to the precepts, commands, and teachings of the Bible? He or she will resoundingly say Yes. They are, then, by definition, social Fundamentalists. Evangelicals who do not believe the Bible is the standard of living for the Christian are not really Evangelicals. They are liberals or progressives dressed up in Evangelical clothing.

Defining the words atheist or atheism is much simpler. According to Wikipedia:

Atheism is in the broadest sense an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

When I say I am an atheist, this is what I mean:

I am an agnostic and an atheist. On the God question, I am an agnostic. I can’t know if some sort of a deity exists. The extant data tells me there is no God, and I am confident that the deities presently worshiped by humans are human creations and no gods at all. I am confident that the Christian God is a myth, that the claims made for God and Jesus are untrue. It is “possible,” but unlikely — based on probabilities — that a deity of some sort exists. Maybe we will learn one day that what we call “life” is a game simulation played by an advanced alien species, or that somewhere “out there” — right Mulder? — lives our creator, a deistic sort of God. Again, unlikely, but since I don’t possess absolute knowledge — and neither do the religious — I remain agnostic on the God question. Since it is improbable any sort of God exists, I live my day-to-day life as an atheist — as if there is no God.

Now that I have made clear what I am talking about when I use the words Evangelical/Evangelicalism and atheist/atheism, I am ready to start telling my story.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Help for Christians Who Doubt

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments
no explanations

You are an Evangelical Christian.

You put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

You’ve been baptized by immersion, and you are a member in good standing of a Bible-believing, Bible-preaching church.

For years, everything was fine between you and God.

But now, suddenly, you have questions and doubts.

Maybe something happened in your life to cause you to question your faith.

Maybe you’re having trouble accepting some of the teachings of the Bible.

Maybe you’ve come to see that Christianity is not all it is cracked up to be.

Maybe you have read a book by an author such as Dr. Bart Ehrman and now you have questions.

So, now what?

Going to your pastor or a fellow church member won’t help you. They will tell you to pray, trust God, or resist the temptation of Satan. I suspect you have tried all these things, yet still have doubts.

Christians are taught not to doubt. Just believe. Just have faith. Only in Evangelical Christianity is the natural human experience of doubt considered a bad thing.

Doubt means you have questions. Doubt means something doesn’t make sense to you. Doubt means that the answers of the past no longer answer the questions of the present.

First, it is okay to doubt. Anyone who tells you otherwise has something to hide or has an agenda. Your pastor wants to keep you as a church member, and he knows that the exit door of the church swings out on the hinges of doubt. This is why he tells you to trust God, pray, read your Bible, attend church more, and confess any sin in your life. You know these “solutions” will do nothing to assuage your doubt. Why can’t your pastor see this?

Second, the only way to find answers to your doubts is to be willing to read and study. You must be willing to work hard. If you really want to know, the answers can be found.

Third, be honest. I mean completely honest. Don’t lie to yourself.  Be willing to meet the truth in the middle of the road. Engage every bit of new information and weigh it carefully. Don’t move forward until you really understand the new information.

Fourth, you must be willing to follow the path wherever it leads. Are you willing to lose your faith if that is where the path leads? Are you willing to leave the church you are a part of if that is where the path leads?

Fifth, the only person you have to answer to is yourself. This journey of yours is singular. It is a lonely walk that you must take by yourself. No one can guide, direct, or tell you which way to go. You alone must chart your course. Remember, the journey is more important than the destination.

Sixth, don’t be in a hurry. Take your time. You have your whole life ahead of you.

Seventh, be careful with whom you share your doubts. Evangelical Christians are known to turn on those who don’t think as they do. They think their God demands conformity and obedience, and if they know you are a doubter, they will have “doubts” about you.

It doesn’t matter where your journey takes you. Maybe you will stay right where you are, but I doubt it. Your doubts are likely telling you something about where you are now. Staying where you are is not an option IF you are serious about finding answers to your doubts.

Not all people can embrace their doubts. They fear losing their faith. They fear the judgment of God. They fear Hell. They fear disappointing their family and friends. Ask yourself: should fear be a motivator for doing anything?

Here is what I know from my own experiences: you will always have doubts. Having questions is how we mature and grow. As we seek answers to the doubts we have, we develop a better understanding of self and the world we live in. Pity the person who never doubts, who never seeks answers to questions. Ignorance is not bliss, and understanding self and the world we live in is key to living a happy, productive life.

I am here to help you, no strings attached, I don’t want your money, life, or soul. I have no desire to convert you to atheism. In fact, I am quite certain that most people will not end up where I am. It is not about you being like anyone else. It is your life, your journey, and I hope you will walk on in openness and honesty.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Why Most People Become Christians

Bruce Gerencser 18 Comments
conversion

By Neil Robinson, who blogs at Rejecting Jesus

I’d be interested to know, of those of you who are no longer Christians, what led you to become one in the first place.

There are thousands of websites and books that argue philosophically for the validity of Christianity, presenting their evidence for the resurrection and generally taking an intellectual approach to promoting the faith.

I’d be very surprised if this ‘evidence’, which is poor at best, and Christians’ philosophical arguments lead anyone to Jesus/God/faith.

My own experience is that conversion is an emotional experience. As a teen I listened to speaker after speaker at the YMCA I attended tell me how their sins had been forgiven and how getting to know Jesus had given them a great sense of peace and purpose. I originally went along to the Y, as we called it, to meet friends, play table–tennis and drink coffee while listening to the jukebox. I had no idea I was a sinner, nor that I needed forgiven, but I liked the enthusiasm – they said it was ‘joy’ – that the speakers conveyed. I thought too I could maybe do with a sense of purpose though I was, as a fifteen-year-old, quite happy drifting along relatively aimlessly.

The persistent drip feed of what Jesus could do for me (and others) was persuasive. It sowed the seed, as the Christian cliché has it. It took a lively young American evangelist from Arthur Blessitt Ministries to convict me. Jesus had turned his life around and he was on his way to Heaven. Denying Jesus, he said, was to crucify him all over again. So I prayed the sinner’s prayer and gave my life to Jesus too.

Nowhere in any of this was there anything philosophical; no ’proof’ of the resurrection; no explanation of how the Bible was the Word of God. All the talks were appeals to emotion: how I could feel forgiven, how I could know love, joy, and peace, how I could live forever after I died, up there with God in Heaven.

All the rationalisation came later, like it always does. Psychologists tell us that the intuitive part of the brain makes decisions ahead of the rational part, which seeks to catch up afterwards, supplying the reasons why the decision we’ve made is a good one. We’ve all done it when we’ve bought that item we don’t really need and have justified it all the way home. Religious conversion follows this pattern.

The thinking mind only becomes involved afterward, hence ‘post hoc rationalisation’. We then become complicit in our own indoctrination: Bible study (both group and individual), listening to sermons, learning from more mature Christians, worship (all those song and hymn lyrics reinforcing the mumbo jumbo), reading Christian books, immersing ourselves in the complexities of the religion. This is how it’s always been. As Paul puts in 1 Corinthians 3:2, we move from milk to meat as we delve further into ‘the mysteries of Christ’. Or, more accurately, we become more deeply indoctrinated.

But all of this comes later. The emotional experience is first, as it was for Paul, C S. Lewis (who described it as being ‘surprised by joy’), George W. Bush, and millions of other converts. In my Christian days, I personally ‘led people to the Lord’ by ‘sharing my testimony’ (I’ve still got the jargon!) and can assure you, those involved felt the Holy Spirit with a profound intensity. Only kidding. They became pretty emotional.

I know of no one who became a Christian by assessing the evidence for the resurrection, reading Paul’s theobabble, or analysing the central claims of Christianity. I suppose there might be some who, like Lee Strobel, insist they ‘came to faith’ this way. But faith and rational analysis are incompatible. When the writer of Hebrews (11:1) says: ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,’ he is oblivious to the fact that there isn’t any ‘evidence’ of unseen spiritual ‘things’. There are only our own feelings and emotional confirmation bias.

So that’s how it was for me. How was it for you?

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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My Heart Goes Out to You, or Please Try My Flavor of Ice Cream

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
ice cream flavors

Well-intentioned Evangelical Christians read this blog and come to the conclusion that what I lack is love from compassionate, caring Christians.

They assume that there is no love in Fundamentalist Baptist Christianity. They assume Fundamentalist Baptist Christianity is all hate and law, and no grace.

Their assumption is quite wrong. I met many loving people in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, and Evangelicalism at large. Their love may have been conditioned on my fidelity to their brand of truth, but they loved me nonetheless (and I loved them too).

My wife’s parents were Fundamentalist Baptist Christians, yet they loved me still.

So a lack of love is not the problem.

I tend to distrust people who tell me upfront about how loving they are. Such people are similar to a car dealer who tells you how honest he is or a doctor who tells you how proficient he is. Why do these people NEED to tell me this?

Often, those loving Christians prove to be anything but loving.

Many people think my defection from Christianity was an emotional decision. Certainly, there was an emotional component, but my decision was primarily and ultimately an intellectual one.

The compassionate, caring, loving Christians want me to try their flavor of ice cream. Their flavor is different. It’s not like all those other flavors.

After all, THEY are special and want me to be special too.

So, let me ask the compassionate, caring, loving Christians a few questions.

  • Can I deny the Bible is the Word of God and still be a part of your church?
  • Can I question whether God exists and still be a part of your church?
  • Can I deny the Trinity and still be a part of your church?
  • Can I tell everyone at church that Hell is a medieval fable and still be a part of your church?
  • Can I pass out books by Bart Ehrman and Richard Dawkins at church and still be a part of your church?
  • Can I espouse universalist beliefs and still be a part of your church?
  • Can I openly affirm pro-LGBTQ, pro-abortion, pro-drug, pro-sex worker views and still be a part of your church?

The compassionate, caring, loving Christians want to convince me that their church is different; that it is special.

But it isn’t.

They know it, and so do I.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.