Earlier this week, I was delighted to do a live interview with Jonathan Pearce, A Tippling Philosopher. We had a wide-ranging two-hour discussion. If you were unable to watch it live, please watch our discussion on YouTube.
Let me know what you think. If you are so inclined, please click LIKE on YouTube and leave a comment. Your support is greatly appreciated.
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.
Yesterday, I worked through a backlog of sixty-three emails. As far as I know, at 11:57 pm on August 4, 2022, I have no outstanding emails to respond to. If you are awaiting some sort of response from me, please resend your email and I will promptly respond.
Thanks!
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.
Today, I noticed a new search engine in this site’s server logs, neeva.com. Curious to see what a search on my name would return, I typed Bruce Gerencser in a search window and hit enter. Most of the links returned can be found on major search engines. However, what I found interesting was two questions about me that were answered by neeva.com, I assume by artificial intelligence (AI).
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.
Our vacation came to an abrupt end on Monday. We are back home, sweltering with the rest of you.
As some of you know, I have gastroparesis—an incurable stomach disease (constant nausea, frequent bouts of vomiting, severe bowel problems). I also have fibromyalgia and live with unrelenting pain in my spine and neck from arthritis, degenerative disease, and numerous herniated discs. I knew taking a trip anywhere was going to be a challenge, but I took the “fuck it, you only live once” approach. Polly doubted I was up to the trip, but she knows not to push back when I’m hellbent on doing what I want. Little did she know how bad it would be.
While it was pain and nausea that brought me home, I must confess I had, for a variety reasons, a mental meltdown.
I have OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder). I like and need order. I’ve always been this way. Living with me can be a challenge, but Polly and I have found a way to make peace with each other’s shortcomings and phobias. We will soon be married for forty-four years, so I guess we’ve figured a few things out. 😂❤️
In our forty-four years of marriage, we have stayed in the homes of people not family five times. That’s it. I have a hard time staying or sleeping in any home but my own. We rented a VRBO property for our vacation. I thought, “Bruce, you can do this.” Boy, was I wrong. The place was not clean. I got a total of three hours sleep over two days. The house had a chemical smell from the improper cleaning of the floors. The floors had a film on them, so much so that walking on them left footprints. These things, among others, pushed me over the edge mentally (and I’ve been on the edge for awhile).
One of the reasons we vacationed in southeast Ohio was so we could retrace the sixteen years we lived there in the 80s and 90s. I pastored two churches, one in Buckeye Lake, another in Somerset. I grossly underestimated how doing so would psychologically affect me. I couldn’t help but think about the sacrifices I made serving a lie; how my commitment to the ministry harmed Polly and our children; how I sacrificed our economic well-being, believing God would provide; how I worked myself to death in God’s vineyard, causing me physical and emotional harm; how Polly never had an opportunity to be anyone other than the Preacher’s wife; how my children became extensions of my work and ambition.
If this is TMI for you, I understand. I’m human, and right now I’m broken. I’m grateful that I scheduled a therapy session before I left. I need it — badly. Don’t let anyone tell you certain expressions of religious faith can’t cause harm. They can, and for me anyway, I will spend my remaining days trying to come to terms with my Fundamentalist past and the harm it caused, hoping to somehow make an uneasy peace with the past.
Polly and I and Bethany are taking a vacation, starting tomorrow through next Sunday. We will be spending time in central and southeast Ohio. I won’t be posting any new articles during this time, though I will post a few Christians Say the Darnedest Things, Black Collar Crime articles.
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.
Last year, tired of dealing with trolls and insufferable Evangelical zealots, I left Facebook. Unfortunately, this move cut me off from many of my friends and family members. So, I have decided to return to Facebook. If you are inclined to do so, please send me a friend request. I am interested in friendships with people who regularly read my writing and support the work I do. I am NOT interested in friendships with trolls and apologists. I treat Facebook like the corner pub on a Friday night; a noisy boisterous place to hang out with family, friends, and acquaintances.
I look forward to interacting with you on Facebook.
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.
Next week, I will not post as many articles as I typically do. I need to take care of some things on the homefront. I also need to devote a couple of days to get my podcast off the ground. So, if you come to this site and don’t see any new posts, don’t worry, the rapture hasn’t taken place. Once saved, always saved, baby. When Jesus comes in the clouds to snatch away his bride, Bruce the Atheist will be going with him. 🙂
You can help me a bit while I am off doing other things by writing a guest post. If you want to share your story or have something you would like to share with the world, please send it to me and I will have Carolyn edit it. Posts of any kind are welcome, especially deconversion stories. Please email your submission to me here.
Thank you for your love and support.
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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Thank you for supporting my work!
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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