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Category: Evangelicalism

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Walter Masocha Convicted of Rape and Sexual Assault

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The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.

Walter Masocha, a pastor at Agape for All Nations Church in Scotland, was recently convicted of sexually assaulting two women, including a parishioner he claimed was possessed by demons.

The Christian Post reports:

A former church pastor in Scotland has been convicted of sexually assaulting two women, including a parishioner he claimed was possessed by demons. Walter Masocha, 61, was found guilty of multiple offenses committed over six years while leading an international religious organization he founded.

A jury at the High Court in Livingston this week convicted Masocha, originally from Zimbabwe, of attempted rape, indecent assault and sexual assault against one woman, as well as indecent assault against another, The U.K. Times reported.

He was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing scheduled for July 28, where the judge said his name was likely to remain on the sex offenders register indefinitely due to the length and nature of his offenses.

The first woman, now 39, testified that Masocha began abusing her when she was 20 and living in Stirling. She said Masocha told her repeatedly that God had given her to him and that she didn’t need a boyfriend.

During church “surgeries,” he would say he had been instructed by God to love her in whatever way she wanted to be loved. She recounted how the abuse began with Masocha forcing his tongue into her mouth, slapping her backside and ultimately attempting to rape her after pulling down her trousers and underwear in his bedroom.

She said she froze at the time but managed to break free and run away.

On another occasion, she said he placed her hand on his penis over his clothing at his mansion in Sauchieburn. The house, worth £500,000 (over $682,700), was used for many of his so-called healing sessions.

The victim’s husband also gave evidence, telling the court they confronted Masocha following the Zimbabwean tradition of seeking accountability from elders. Masocha responded by prostrating himself on the floor and asked them to pray for him, saying, “I’m sorry I loved you too much.”

The second woman, aged 58, told the court that about two decades earlier, she had approached Masocha to pray for her husband’s immigration situation. She said he told her God had given her to him as a gift, ordered her to kiss him, and groped her private parts under the pretense of casting out demons. He claimed she was receiving blessings in return.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Michael MacIntosh told the jury that Masocha preyed on women who trusted him for spiritual guidance. Masocha, who referred to himself as a prophet, denied all allegations and claimed the women were lying.

Masocha was previously a university lecturer in accounting at Stirling University. In 2007, he founded the Agape for All Nations Church, a Pentecostal ministry that grew to more than 2,000 members across the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and several African countries.

He styled himself as archbishop, claiming a salary equivalent to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and lived what court documents described as a jet-set lifestyle, traveling frequently to visit pastors and preach overseas.

He was referred to by church members as “the prophet,” “the apostle,” and “a man of God.”

The jury convicted Masocha on four charges spanning from January 2006 to July 2012, delivering a majority verdict on attempted rape and unanimous verdicts on the other counts.

Judge Susan Craig revoked his bail immediately, calling his behavior appalling and ordering background reports and a risk assessment to consider an extended sentence.

Though Masocha had no prior convictions at trial, it emerged that he was found guilty in 2015 of similar offenses at the Church of Agape, including groping a church deaconess and touching a schoolgirl under the guise of exorcism. He was sentenced to community service and placed on the sex offenders register, but the conviction was later quashed as a miscarriage of justice.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Youth Pastor Roy Andrews Sentenced to 4-12 Months in Prison for Sexually Molesting Child

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youth pastor roy andrews

The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.

Roy Andrews, a former youth pastor at Iglesia La Fuente in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was recently sentenced to 4-12 months in prison for sexually molesting a child.

MSN reports:

A Cumberland County man accused of sexually molesting a 9-year-old girl in a McDonalds will spend less than a year in prison, per a sentence handed down Tuesday afternoon.

A judge sentenced Roy Andrews, 77, to four months to a year in prison for touching a 9-year-old girl’s genitals in April 2024 while they sat in a McDonalds in Upper Allen Township.

Andrews also touched himself and had the girl touch him for more than a minute, according to police.

Andrews helped found a Hispanic church in Harrisburg called “Iglesia La Fuente” where he was a youth group leader from 2014 to 2022. After the church closed, Andrews began transporting Harrisburg children to a church in Mechanicsburg.

On the day he was seen molesting the girl in the restaurant, Andrews said he took the children to church, got them food and took them shopping, then back to his house where they “just kind of hung out” and “played,” according to police. He denied inappropriately touching the girl.

Two weeks later, when police showed up to arrest him, Andrews tried to run away into his home but police tackled him in his kitchen, they wrote in court documents. Police later found a suicide note and a gun near where Andrews had tried to run.

Surveillance footage of the interaction inside the McDonald’s showed Andrews letting the girl’s brothers run around the parking lot while he sat in a booth in the corner of the restaurant, holding the girl on his lap.

Police originally charged Andrews with several counts related to indecent assault of a child, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children and resisting arrest.

Andrews pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors: resisting arrest and indecent assault of a child. After his jail time, he will spend a year on probation and have to register as a sex offender and accept treatment.

Seibert allowed Andrews to report to Cumberland County Prison Thursday instead of being arrested during his sentencing hearing to allow him to get his affairs in order.

Corey Fahnestock, Andrews’ attorney, said the incident was “out of character” for Andrews, and Andrews told Seibert he was remorseful.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is Answered Prayer Evidence for the Existence of God?

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Every day, millions of Christians pray to the God of the Bible, believing that he hears and answers their prayers. Today, I heard an Evangelical man say that he KNOWS God answers his prayers. How does he know this? Well, his story went something like this. He was having a lot of trouble in his life. Feeling helpless and hopeless, the man cried out to God. You know what happened next? Various people came to him offering their help. See! God answered his prayer! Really? Are there any other explanations for his alleged deliverance? How could he possibly know God answered his prayers? Did God send him a return receipt, “proving” that God heard his prayer? The man never says. In his mind, good things happening to him are evidence for the existence of God, even though the “good” done to and for him were solely performed by mere mortals.

This bad thinking is common among Evangelical Christians. Instead of seeing the hands of their fellow humans, they see the hand of God. They “see” God because they “see” God everywhere. God is the sum of all our experiences, according to Evangelicals. We MUST pray to God because he controls our lives. He has in his hands the keys of life and death. Or so it goes, anyway.

Christians have far more misses — unanswered prayers — than they do hits — answered prayers. However, they don’t pay attention to the misses. They might pray one hundred prayers that go unanswered, but let them pray a prayer that God allegedly answered, and there ya have it — God is real!! Never mind the fact that this God ignores them ninety-nine percent of the time. In any other setting but Christianity, a person would be fired if they only correctly performed their work one percent of the time.

Matthew 7:7-11 (NSRV), Jesus said:

Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone? Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

According to Jesus:

  • Ask (pray) and it will be given to you
  • Search and you will find
  • Knock and the door will be opened for you
  • Everyone who asks receives
  • Everyone who searches finds
  • Everyone who knocks will find doors opened to him
  • God will give good things to everyone who asks (prays) him

Dear Christian, I ask you, is this how your prayer life works? I suspect not. Most Christians futilely spend their lives praying unanswered prayers, searching and not finding, and knocking on doors that never open.

In Luke 17:5 (NRSV), Jesus said:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

In Matthew 17:19-20 (NRSV), we have the disciples asking Jesus why they couldn’t cast a demon out of a person:

Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

Jesus told his disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed that they could say to a mountain, “move from here to there,” and it would happen. According to Jesus, nothing is impossible for his followers. Such a minute faith, yet mighty works are done! Or so the thinking goes, anyway. I’ve yet to see a Christian move a mountain. How about you? It seems, at least to me, that God doesn’t do what he promises. Most Christian prayers are attributable to human intervention, and not God. The few that are not or are unexplainable aren’t enough to justify the existence of a prayer-answering deity.

Yesterday, floods ravaged Texas, leading to scores of injuries and deaths. Numerous children at a Christian youth camp were killed. Where was God? Surely Christians prayed for the safety and deliverance of these children, yet God ignored them. What does this tell us about prayer and God?

Dear Christian, I ask you, when was the last time you prayed for a tree to be uprooted and cast into the sea, and it happened? When was the last time God supernaturally answered your prayer? Not the superficial minutia of life. I’m talking about petitions that require a supernatural explanation

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Pastor Dan Delzell Shows He Knows Nothing About Atheists

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Delzell, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Papillion, Nebraska, said:

Atheists choose to limit themselves to only one cosmological option. They hitch their wagon to the wild fantasy that everything came from nothing. This foolish belief creates an irrational worldview. But unlike Christianity, which is an evidence-base faith, atheism has a religious-like devotion to the absurd belief that nothing created something.

Let me rewrite this paragraph for readers:

Christians choose to limit themselves to only one cosmological option. They hitch their wagon to the wild fantasy that everything came from a mythical deity. This foolish belief creates an irrational worldview. But unlike atheism/humanism, which is an evidence-base faith, Christianity has a religious-like devotion to the absurd belief that a mythical triune deity created everything.

Delzell went on to say:

Atheists should actually be afraid of ‘nothing.’ That is to say, atheists should fear the faulty assumption that nothing produced space, time, matter and energy at the beginning. This blind faith is rooted in a preposterous make-believe theory, without a shred of scientific evidence to support its impossible conclusion.

….

Lee Strobel posted in 2017: “To continue in atheism, I would need to believe that nothing produces everything, non-life produces life, randomness produces fine-tuning, chaos produces information, unconsciousness produces consciousness, and non-reason produces reason. I simply didn’t have that much faith.”

If an atheist follows the evidence, he or she can meet “the only true God” (John 17:3). But when atheists dig in their heels and continue trusting in their illogical ideology, they remain spiritually blind. Sadly, man with his free will can choose to close his mind to the truth he was created to understand and accept.

When an atheist faces a family crisis, he has nothing to rely upon for spiritual comfort. When atheists become disillusioned with life, there is nothing substantive to pull them out of the pit of discouragement. And when atheists stand before Jesus Christ on Judgment Day, they will have nothing good to say about why they rejected God.

A callous heart prevents a person from experiencing the appropriate fear of paying the penalty for his sins in Hell. Many atheists laugh off the notion of an actual place called “Hell,” but their laughing is tragically misguided and uniformed.

I wrote, “The man who refuses to trust God is a man who assumes he can trust his own opinions. And so he looks for ways to shore up his weak position, and to convince himself that his perceptions are in perfect alignment with the visible and invisible realities of the universe.”

If you are staking your soul on the idea that everything came from nothing, you need to wake up and snap out of your spiritual stupor. God created you with a body, soul and spirit. (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23) And it is impossible to extinguish your immortal soul. 

Therefore, you would be wise to get on board with the Creator’s design for your life. If you place your faith in Jesus, God will wash away your sins. But if you refuse to adopt the fear of the Lord, you will remain on a path that leads away from God throughout eternity.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: Quaker Declaration to King Charles II on War and Peace

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Declaration made in 1660 to King Charles II, as published by Quaker.org

Our principle is, and our Practice have always been, to seek peace and ensue it and to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God, seeking the good and welfare and doing that which tends to the peace of all. We know that wars and fightings proceed from the lusts of men (as Jas. iv. 1-3), out of which lusts the Lord hath redeemed us, and so out of the occasion of war. The occasion of which war, and war itself (wherein envious men, who are lovers of themselves more than lovers of God, lust, kill, and desire to have men’s lives or estates) ariseth from the lust. All bloody principles and practices, we, as to our own particulars, do utterly deny, with all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world.

And whereas it is objected:

‘But although you now say that you cannot fight nor take up arms at all, yet if the spirit do move you, then you will change your principle, and then you will sell your coat and buy a sword and fight for the kingdom of Christ.’

Answer:

As for this we say to you that Christ said to Peter, ‘Put up thy sword in his place’; though he had said before that he that had no sword might sell his coat and buy one (to the fulfilling of the scripture), yet after, when he had bid him put it up, he said, ‘He that taketh the sword shall perish with the sword.’ And further, Christ said to Peter, ‘Thinkest thou, that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?’ And this might satisfy Peter, after he had put up his sword, when he said to him that he took it, should perish by it, which satisfieth us. (Luke xxii,36; Matt. xxvi.51- 53). And in the Revelation it’s said, ‘He that kills with the sword shall perish with the sword: and here is the faith and the patience of the saints.’ (Rev. xiii.10). And so Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, therefore do not his servants fight, as he told Pilate, the magistrate who crucified him. And did they not look upon Christ as a raiser of sedition? And did not he say, ‘Forgive them’? But thus it is that we are numbered amongst fighters, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

That the spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ, which leads us into all Truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.

First:

Because the kingdom of Christ God will exalt, according to the promise, and cause it to grow and flourish in righteousness. ‘Not by might, nor by power [of outward sword], but by my spirit, said the Lord.’ (Zech.iv.6) SO those that use any weapon to fight for Christ, or for the establishing of his kingdom or government, both the spirit, principle and practice in that we deny.

Secondly:

And as for the kingdoms of this world, we cannot covet them, much less can we fight for them, but we do earnestly desire and wait, that by the Word of God’s power and its effectual operation in the hearts of men, the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of his Christ, that he may rule and reign in men by his spirit and truth, that thereby all people, out of all different judgements and professions may be brought into love and unity with God, and one with another, and that they may all come to witness the prophet’s words who said, ‘Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’ (Isa.ii.4; Mic.iv.3)

So, we whom the Lord hath called into the obedience of his Truth have denied wars and fightings and cannot again any more learn it. This is a certain testimony unto all the world of the truth of our hearts in this particular, that as God persuadeth every man’s heart to believe, so they may receive it. For we have not, as some others, gone about cunningly with devised fables, nor have we ever denied in practice what we have professed in principle, but in sincerity and truth and by the word of God have we laboured to be made manifest unto all men, that both we and our ways might be witnessed in the hearts of all people.

And whereas all manner of evil hath been falsely spoken of us, we hereby speak forth the plain truth of our hearts, to take away the occasion of that offence, that so we being innocent may not suffer for other men’s offences, nor be made a prey upon by the wills of men for that of which we were never guilty; but in the uprightness of our hearts we may, under the power ordained of God for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well, live a peaceable and godly life in all godliness and honesty. For although we have always suffered. and do now more abundantly suffer, yet we know that it’s for righteousness’ sake; ‘for all our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our consciences, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world’ (2 Cor.i.12), which for us is a witness for the convincing of our enemies. For this we can say to the whole world, we have wronged no man’s person or possessions, we have used no force nor violence against any man, we have been found in no plots, nor guilty of sedition. When we have been wronged, we have not sought to revenge ourselves, we have not made resistance against authority, but wherein we could not obey for conscience’ sake, we have suffered even the most of any people in the nation. We have been accounted as sheep for the slaughter, persecuted and despised, beaten, stoned, wounded, stocked, whipped, imprisoned, haled out of synagogues, cast into dungeons and noisome vaults where many have died in bonds, shut up from our friends, denied needful sustenance for many days together, with other like cruelties.

And the cause of all this our sufferings is not for any evil, but for things relating to the worship of our God in obedience to his requirings of us. For which cause we shall freely give up our bodies a sacrifice, rather than disobey the Lord. For we know, as the Lord hath kept us innocent, so he will plead our cause, when there is none in the earth to plead it. So we, in obedience to his truth, do not love our lives unto the death, that we may do his will, and wrong no man in our generation, but seek the good and peace of all men. And he that hath commanded us that we shall not swear at all (Matt. v.34), hath also commanded us that we shall not kill (Matt. v.21), so that we can neither kill men, nor swear for or against them. And this is both our principle and practice, and hath been from the beginning, so that if we suffer, as suspected to take up arms or make war against any, it is without ground from us; for it neither is, nor ever was in our hearts, since we owned the truth of God; neither shall we ever do it, because it is contrary to the spirit of Christ, his doctrine, and the practice of his apostles, even contrary to him for whom we suffer all things, and endure all things.

And whereas men come against us with clubs, staves, drawn swords, pistols cocked, and do beat, cut, and abuse us, yet we never resisted them, but to them our hair, backs and cheeks have been ready. It is not an honour to manhood nor to nobility to run upon harmless people who lift not up a hand against them, with arms and weapons.

Therefore consider these things ye men of understanding; for plotters, raisers of insurrections, tumultuous ones, and fighters, running with swords, clubs, staves and pistols one against another, we say, these are of the world and hath its foundation from this unrighteous world, from the foundation of which the Lamb hath been slain, which Lamb hath redeemed us from the unrighteous world, and we are not of it, but are heirs of a world in which there is no end and of a kingdom where no corruptible thing enters. And our weapons are spiritual and not carnal, yet mighty through God to the plucking down of the strongholds of Satan, who is author of wars, fighting, murder, and plots. And our swords are broken until ploughshares and spears into pruning; hooks, as prophesied of in Micah iv. Therefore we cannot learn war any more, neither rise up against nation or kingdom with outward weapons, though you have numbered us among the transgressors and plotters. The Lord knows our innocency herein, and will plead our cause with all men and people upon earth at the day of their judgement, when all men shall have a reward according to their works …

O friends offend not the Lord and his little ones, neither afflict his people, but consider and be moderate, and do not run hastily into things, but mind and consider mercy, justice, and judgement; that is the way for you to prosper and get the favour of the Lord. Our meetings were stopped and broken up in the days of Oliver, in pretence of plotting against him; and in the days of the Parliament and Committee of Safety we were looked upon as plotters to bring in King Charles, and now we are called plotters against King Charles. Oh, that men should lose their reason and go contrary to their own conscience, knowing that we have suffered all things and have been accounted plotters all along, though we have declared against them both by word of mouth and printing, and are clear from any such things. We have suffered all along because we would not take up carnal weapons to fight withal against any, and are thus made a prey upon because we are the innocent lambs of Christ and cannot avenge ourselves. These things are left upon your hearts to consider, but we are out of all those things in the patience of the saints, and we know that as Christ said, ‘He that takes the sword, shall perish with the sword.’ (Matt. xxvi.52; Rev.xiii.10)

This is given forth from the people called Quakers to satisfy the King and his Council, and all those that have any jealousy concerning us, that all occasion of suspicion may be taken away and our innocency cleared.

Given forth under our names, and in behalf of the whole body of the Elect People of God who are called Quakers.

Postscript: Though we are numbered with plotters in this late Proclamation and put in the midst of them and numbered amongst transgressors and have been given up to all rude, merciless men, by which our meetings are broken up, in which we edified one another in our holy faith and prayed together to the Lord that lives for ever, yet he is our pleader for us in this day. The Lord saith, ‘They that feared his name spoke often together’, as in Malachi, which were as his jewels. And for this cause and no evil doing, are we cast into holes, dungeons, houses of correction, prisons, they sparing neither old nor young, men or women, and just sold to all nations and made a prey to all nations under pretence of being plotters, so that all rude people run upon us to take possession. For which we say, ‘The Lord forgive them that have thus done to us,’ who doth and will enable us to suffer. And never shall we lift up a hand against any man that doth thus use us, but that the Lord may have mercy upon them, that they may consider what they have done. For how is it hardly possible for them to require us for the wrong they have done to us, who to all nations have sounded us abroad as plotters? We who were never found plotters against any power or man upon the earth since we knew the life and power of Jesus Christ manifested in us, who hath redeemed us from the world, and all works of darkness, and plotters that be in it, by which we know our election before the world began. So we say the Lord have mercy upon our enemies and forgive them, for that they have done unto us.

Oh, do as you would be done by. And do unto all men as you would have them do unto you, for this is but the law and the prophets.

And all plots, insurrections, and riotous meetings we do deny, knowing them to be of the devil, the murderer, which we in Christ, which was before they were, triumph over. And all wars and fightings with carnal weapons we do deny, who have the sword and the spirit; and all that wrong us we leave them to the Lord. And this is to clear our innocency from that aspersion cast upon us, that we are plotters.

George Fox Gerald, Roberts Henry Fell, Richard Hubberthorn, John Boulton, John Hinde, John Stubbs, Leonard Fell, John Furley Jnr, Francis Howgill, Samuel Fisher, Thomas Moore

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Where Is The Garden of Eden?

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adam eve cast out of garden of eden

A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:10-14 NRSV)

What do we know about the Garden of Eden — a garden created by God, originally inhabited by Adam and Eve? Not much. According to Genesis 2:10-14, a river flowed out of Eden and divided into four tributaries: the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates. The latter two are well known today, the Pishon and Gihon, however, no longer exist, or never did exist. Travel the lengths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and one thing is certain: you will not find the Garden of Eden. Whether it existed in the past is unknown, but today the Garden of Eden is no longer found, no matter where you go. The only evidence for the existence of the Garden of Eden is what is recorded in the Bible. That’s it. You would think if God wanted to make himself known to humans, he would have turned the Garden into a theme park, charging people admission to see the angel with a flaming sword at the entrnce of the Garden, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the waterways in and around Eden. Imagine paddling a canoe down the river that runs through Eden. Cool, right? All one would have to do to find the Garden of Eden is to traverse the length of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Since these rivers flow out of Eden, it stands to reason we would find the Garden if we looked. Yet, humans did look, and no Garden was found.

Ask Evangelicals where you can find the Garden of Eden, and you will get a lot of explanations, none of which are satisfactory. It seems to me that the story about the Garden of Eden is just that — a story. We can search every inch of the area where the Garden of Eden supposedly lies and not find one shred of evidence for its existence. Just because a book tells us about the existence of the Garden of Eden does not mean it really exists. The Harry Potter books say Hogwarts is a real place, yet we know it is a myth. How is the Garden of Eden any different?

I heard one Christian “prove” the existence of Eden by saying that only Christians can “see” the Garden of Eden; that the Garden is invisible to unbelievers. His evidence for this claim? Nothing other than personal opinion.

Do you have evidence for the existence of Eden apart from Bible prooftexts? Please share it in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Does God Write His Law on Our Hearts?

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ten commandments

They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them. (Romans 2:15 NRSV)

This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds. (Hebrews 10:16 NRSV)

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

Evangelicals will tell you that God has written his law on the heart of every person. This means we all know what the law of God says. However, based on the verses above, it is questionable whether God has written his law on the heart of every person — past, present, and future. Did Adam and Eve have the law of God written on their hearts? Or do these verses only apply to New Testament or New Covenant Christians? This is problematic because Jeremiah 31:31-34 says that ALL of us are God’s children. If he is our God and we are his people by default, there’s no need for us to be saved.

How is the term “law of God” defined? Ask a hundred Christians to define “law of God” and you will get a plethora of answers, many of which contradict the others. The Bible says God has written his law on our hearts. Which law? All 613 laws? Just the Ten Commandments? Just the Nine Commandments? Just the commandments of Paul? Just the commandments of Jesus in the gospels? How can we possibly know what, if anything, is written on our hearts? That is, after we figure out exactly what the heart is and where it is located. Personally, I think that heart and mind are synonymous. I readily admit that there’s a debate to be had on this issue, especially when you throw conscience into the discussion.

For Christians who say it is the Ten Commandments that are written on our hearts, I ask, which version of the Ten Commandments? Is the command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy written on our hearts? If yes, why is it that MOST Christians do not keep the Sabbath?

I could go on and on with questions about the claim that the law of God is written on our hearts. The next time an Evangelical apologist tells you that the law of God is written on your heart, ask some of the questions I asked above. I suspect that most Evangelicals who make this claim haven’t thought about it. They regurgitate what they heard from church pulpits or read in apologetics books.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Jesus is Coming Soon!

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rapture

Recently, a woman who previously was proud to call me her pastor before she learned I was an atheist, posted the following on Facebook:

Coming soon!! You guys watching Israel? The Bible says the first time God destroyed the earth by water and he promised to never do that again. (The real meaning of the Rainbow) he went on to say I will destroy it by fire the second time. I won’t even pretend I understand all of the book of Revelation, but I do understand quite plainly that I do wish to spend eternity in Heaven. I have been hearing about the second coming of Christ and the events unfolding since I was a child. The “Mark of the Beast” Artificial Intelligence, microchips, no cash/digital currency, total government dependency/control. When we are raising a family, working long hours, some two jobs, lots of things go unnoticed or just get ignored. No one can comprehend how bad it will be, but we see it happening, bit by bit, on the news everyday. While the devil is preparing people for the Anti Christ, God is preparing people for the Rapture. I don’t know when the rapture will take place but I know that I’m not planning to be left behind when that trumpet sounds! I also believe right now that God is giving us a chance to turn our lives around and live according to His will. We need to get the Gospel message out! Until the good Lord calls me away from this world to go home, I want to make it clear that I believe in Jesus Christ as the one and only true Lord and Savior. Despite the fact that I am human, and I fail a lot, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

So if the Holy Spirit moves you and you’re not ashamed, just COPY and PASTE.

It has been almost 2,000 years since Jesus died and allegedly resurrected from the dead before later ascending to Heaven, never to be seen again. 2,000 years have gone by, and not one person has physically seen Jesus alive. How could they, right? Jesus is dead.

Despite evidence that suggests that Jesus is d-e-a-d, countless Christians over the past twenty-one centuries have claimed that Jesus will one day return to earth, perhaps today. Evangelicals, in particular, think the return of Jesus is imminent; that Jesus will return very soon. In the late 1970s. Andre Crouch wrote a song titled, Soon and Very Soon:

Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!

No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!

No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!

Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King,
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

Video Link

Also in the 70s, Bill and Gloria Gaither wrote a song titled, The King Is Coming:

The marketplace is empty
No more traffic in the streets
All the builders’ tools are silent
No more time to harvest wheat
Busy housewives cease their labors
In the courtroom no debate
Work on earth is all suspended
As the King comes thro’ the gate

O the King is coming
The King is coming
I just heard the trumpets sounding
And now His face I see
O the King is coming
The King is coming
Praise God, He’s coming for me

Happy faces line the hallways
Those whose lives have been redeemed
Broken homes that He has mended
Those from prison He has freed
Little children and the aged
Hand in hand stand all aglow
Who were crippled, broken, ruined
Clad in garments white as snow

O the King is coming
The King is coming
I just heard the trumpets sounding
And now His face I see
O the King is coming
The King is coming
Praise God, He’s coming for me

I can hear the chariots rumble
I can see the marching throng
The flurry of God’s trumpets
Spells the end of sin and wrong
Regal robes are now unfolding
Heaven’s grandstand’s all in place
Heaven’s choir now assembled
Start to sing “Amazing Grace”

O the King is coming
The King is coming
I just heard the trumpets sounding
And now His face I see
O the King is coming
The King is coming
Praise God, He’s coming for me

Video Link

Back in our duet days, Polly and I would lustily sing the song, Jesus is Coming Soon:

Troublesome times are here, filling men’s hearts with fear
Freedom we all hold dear, now is at stake
Humbling your heart to God saves from the chastening rod
Seek the way pilgrims trod, Christians awake!

Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky
Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!

Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forever more
When we meet on that shore, free from all care
Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye
Homeward we then will fly, glory to share

Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky
Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!

Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forever more
When we meet on that shore, free from all care
Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye
Homeward we then will fly, glory to share

Video Link

For 2,000 years, Christians have been singing songs and making prophetic announcements about the soon return of Jesus. Countless prophecy sermons have been preached and books written, yet Jesus remains AWOL. Evangelicals post memes and messages to social media, assuring their friends that, to quote a gospel song, their Redemption Draweth Nigh:

Years of time have come and gone
Since I first heard it told
Of how Jesus would come again someday
If back then it seems so real
Then I just can’t help but feel
How much closer His returning is today

Signs of the times are everywhere
There’s a brand new excitement in the air
Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky
Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh

Wars and strife on every hand
Violence fills all the land
Still some people doubt He’ll ever come again
But the Word of God is true
He’ll redeem His chosen few
Don’t lose hope soon Christ Jesus will descend

Signs of the times are everywhere
There’s a brand new excitement in the air
Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky
Lift up your head, lift up your head
Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh!

Video Link

This is another one of the songs Polly and I loved to sing for the church. If you are familiar with this song, you know that at the end of the song, the lyrics “Lift up your head, lift up your head,
Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh,” is sung at a higher key. I am pleased to say that I could hit every one of those notes fifty years ago (I have a tenor voice). I just tried to sing the song today, and I can report that I can no longer hit those high notes. Those days are gone, but damn if I don’t still try to sing them anyway — alone or in the car. Once in a blue moon, I can talk Polly into reprising a song with me. Polly plays the piano, but since we no longer own a piano, Polly has stopped playing. Her interest in playing disappeared about the same time God did. I always appreciated her playing more than she did. One church I pastored offered me two choices for a piano player: Polly, and a teen girl who played EVERYTHING in the key of C. As a pastor, I often HAD to choose the teenager, but I preferred Polly’s plunkety-plunk chording to her too-high or too-low playing.

Back to the return or second coming of Jesus. The God of the Universe promised his followers that he would come back during their lifetime. He didn’t, and they died hoping he would. Since then, preacher after preacher has said Jesus would soon return to earth — perhaps today! These false prophets cook up all sorts of explanations for Jesus NOT returning to earth, but one fact remains: Jesus is nowhere to be found. No one has seen him in 2,000 years, and I think it’s safe to assume that the dead Jew millions and millions of people worship ain’t coming back to life.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

What’s the Most Dangerous Thing An Evangelical Christian Can Do?

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not in the bible

Most Evangelicals claim to be “people of the book.” The first church I worked for in the late 70s had an advertising sign located at a member’s home on Route 15 that said, “The Blood, the Book, and the Blessed Hope.” Park in front of a local Catholic church or a mainline congregation and observe how few members carry their Bibles to church. Do the same at a local Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) and you will see that MOST members, including children, bring their (KJV) Bibles to church. Granted, after church, many of those Bibles will be returned to the front dash, back window, or underneath the seats of their automobiles. Some members “store” their Bibles in their car trunks — safe and secure, ready for the next Sunday.

What most members DON’T do is regularly read/study the Bible. In fact, most Evangelicals haven’t read the Bible through once, yet they are “people of the Book?” Sure, buddy, sure. Imagine if I said I was a follower and worshipper of Harry Potter, the greatest wizard of all time, yet when asked if I had read all seven books in the Harry Potter series, I reply, “I only read book one and book four.” How could I be a follower and worshipper of Harry Potter and not read all seven books? Yet, hundreds of millions of people claim to be Christians without ever reading the Bible from cover to cover. If the Bible is THE book above all other books, and different from them in every possible way as the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God, why do most Christians rarely read the Bible, and fewer still read from table of contents through concordance? The Bible commands Christians to judge others by their fruit (good works). Based on countless surveys and studies, Evangelicals may claim to be “people of the Book, but they are largely ignorant of what it says. And that includes more than a few preachers who do little, if any, Bible reading/study outside of preparation for their sermons. Worse, some preachers don’t read or study the Bible for their sermons either. Instead, they buy books of sermons or rip off sermons preached by big-name preachers. There’s no time for the Word of God when you have golf matches to play, hunting trips to take, and conferences and meetings to attend.

As a former Evangelical preacher, I worked my ass off ministering to church members and community residents. But, I never sacrificed my reading and study of the Bible, typically spending twenty hours a week preparing my sermons and reading devotionally. I was always troubled by colleagues in the ministry who were lazy, indifferent to the needs of others, and spent more time on entertainment and “family time” than they did on the actual, God-ordained work of the ministry.

Here’s the most dangerous thing Evangelicals can do: READ THE BIBLE FROM COVER TO COVER. Take every book of the Bible as written. The Bible is not a univocal text. Careful readers of the Bible will quickly learn that it contradicts itself, justifies immoral behavior, and is littered with mistakes and errors. BY all means, consult interlinears, concordances, and other text tools, but avoid books written by Evangelical authors. Their goal is to indoctrinate and condition, rather than impart knowledge and understanding.

If Evangelicals truly become “people of the book,” it is likely they will stop being Evangelicals after reading and studying ALL OF THE BIBLE. Many of the Evangelicals-turned-atheists I know deconverted after reading the Bible. I encourage every Evangelical to read the Bible. Every book, every chapter, every verse, and every word. Don’t listen to your pastor. Remember, he has a job and salary to protect. Don’t rely on Evangelical apologists or devotional books. Use your mind, pondering what the text actually says. You will find that many Evangelical preachers play loose with the Biblical text, using it as proof for peculiar beliefs and dogmas. Have you ever heard your pastor claim that there are numerous prophecies about Jesus (the Messiah)? Most church members give a shout-out to Jesus without ever investigating whether their pastor’s claims are true. They aren’t.

To my Evangelical readers, I say, please read the Bible. All of it. I guarantee you that if you will do this, your life will dramatically change. Granted, you may become an agnostic or an atheist, but you will, at the very least, have truth on your side. You will no longer govern your lives based on what is uttered from the pulpit. You will no longer have a “borrowed” theology. Most preachers enter the ministry with a borrowed theology, and unless they do the necessary hard work in the study, they will never mature intellectually. And if they won’t do what’s necessary to be an educated man of God, their parishioners will remain stupid and ignorant too.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Why Did God Use Men to Write the Bible Instead of Doing It Himself?

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read bible

According to Evangelicals, the Bible is God’s supernatural Word. Written by men divinely inspired by God, the Bible is a perfect book, free of mistakes, errors, and contradictions. Of course, this is nonsense. A cursory reading of the Bible reveals all sorts of errors. Sure, Evangelicals cook up plenty of explanations for these errors, but some of their explanations leave a lot to be desired, bordering on farcical.

God could have imparted his Word to humankind by writing it himself. A perfect God would write a perfect book, yes? So why in the Hell did God choose to impart his Word in such a way that has resulted in thousands of years of argument, debate, and fighting? Why choose fallible, frail, contradictory men to write the Bible instead of doing it yourself? There are thousands of Christian sects, each believing that their interpretation of the Bible is true and all other interpretations are false.

Imagine how much better it would be if God wrote the Bible himself. Not that he inspired the writers, but that he wrote every word, including punctuation and versification. If God had done this, any misunderstanding would be ours. As things now stand, Christians can’t even agree on basic beliefs such as salvation, baptism, and communion. The Bible says, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” but history reveals many lords, many faiths, many baptisms.

God could publish an updated version of the Bible, one that does away with the passages that make him look bad. No incest, no genocide, no slavery, no rape. Rewrite the Bible, put it on Amazon, and sell millions of copies. This sure would clear up a lot of problems. Instead, we are left with an ancient religious text that has little relevance today.

Come on, God, get your act together. It’s time for you to update the greatest book never read.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.