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.
Major Foster, pastor of Philadelphia Pentecostal Holiness Church (no web presence) in Ellendale, Delaware, stands accused of using Bible verses to pressure church women into having sex with him.
A pastor is accused of a “years-long pattern of abuse” by using religious scripture to pressure female churchgoers into having sex with him in Delaware, law enforcement officials say. Major Foster, of Lincoln, is facing additional charges after a grand jury indicted him for unlawful sexual contact in November. Officials are calling for any additional potential victims to come forward, according to the Delaware Department of Justice. The alleged abuse occurred between 2013 and 2020 while Foster was a pastor at the Philadelphia Pentecostal Holiness Church in Ellendale.
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He’s also accused of making inappropriate comments and instigating “prolonged hugs during which he made inappropriate sexual contact with his victims,” the release said. The November indictment provided to McClatchy News identified three women Foster is accused of having sexual contact with while “he knew the contact was offensive to the person or occurred without their consent,” it said.
A victim’s husband once confronted Foster, who then pushed him in response, according to prosecutors. He was charged with offensive touching. The church’s Facebook page identified Foster as a bishop and shared videos of him preaching in 2019. The page’s most recent post was in November 2020. “We have reason to believe that Foster’s alleged years-long pattern of abuse includes as yet unreported, additional instances,” state Attorney General Kathy Jennings said in a statement. “We ask that any additional victims or witnesses with information come forward. We will be there to support you.”
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.
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.
Charlie Hedrick, a Christian man who hails from Rowan County, North Carolina, stands accused of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl.
Charlie Jerry Hedrick was arrested on Wednesday in the 5100 block of Woodleaf Road, according to the report. Hedrick has been charged with first degree sexual offense involving a victim under the age of 13, and taking indecent liberties with children. Both are felony counts.
The investigation in February after Rowan County deputies received a report that Hedrick had sexually abused a 6-year-old girl during 2015. The victim, who was known to Hedrick and who is now 12 years old, was able to tell investigators that he would he would bring the girl to his home on Sundays after church, read scripture from the Bible to her and then molest her.
According to the report, the abuse occurred several times during that year, then stopped as the child became older.
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.
Evangelicals-turned-atheists are often accused by Christian zealots of being angry and/or bitter. The goal is to dismiss the intellectual reasons people deconvert, painting former Evangelicals as emotionally damaged goods. By doing this, Evangelicals are free to say things such as, you are just mad at God or my all-time favorite, someone hurt you. Of course, this argument works both ways. Few Christian converts convert solely for intellectual reasons. I have heard hundreds of salvation testimonies over the years, and every one of them had an emotional component. In fact, for some testifiers, that’s all their testimony had. I’ve even seen deader-than-dead Calvinists get a bit emotional when talking about the wonders of being chosen by God from before the foundation of the world.
Many Evangelicals-turned-atheists were devoted, on-fire, committed followers of Jesus Christ. They were, in every way, True Christians®. These former Evangelicals loved Jesus, often daily spending time praying, reading and studying the Bible, and sharing their faith. Thoroughly committed to God’s Kingdom, they liberally gave their time and money to their churches. Some of them went further still, answering the call of God to be pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and teachers. When critics question my devotion, I find myself thinking, would anyone live the way I lived if they didn’t really believe what they were selling? Of course not.
For many Evangelicals-turned-atheists, Jesus had seeped into every fiber of their being. The words that flowed from their mouths spoke often of Jesus and the wonders of his grace. Married to Jesus, they only had eyes for him. Satan and the world would sometimes cause them to stray, but these followers of Jesus were quick to seek forgiveness, knowing that sin marred their relationship with God. Their motto was only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. Better to burn out than rust out for Jesus, they cried.
And yet, these followers of Jesus no longer believe. Instead of attempting to understand their stories, critics focus on their emotions. I have had hundreds of Christians tell me that I am angry, bitter, jaded, or hurt. For a long time, I refused to admit that emotions played a part in my deconversion. I wanted my decision to leave Christianity to be judged on an intellectual basis, not an emotional one. Through counseling, I was able to see that it was okay for me to be angry and bitter. It was okay for me to feel hurt by the words and actions of those who once considered me their friend, pastor, or colleague in the ministry.
Many Evangelicals-turned-atheists go through an angry phase. As these former servants of the Most High God reflect on their failed marriage to Jesus, they become angry over the time and money they spent chasing a lie. It is perfectly normal to feel this way. The same can be said for bitterness. As I reflect on the thirty-three years I spent preaching the gospel, I can’t help but be bitter as I think about the sacrifices made by my family and me for the sake of the “cause.” I gave up everything to follow Jesus, choosing poverty over wealth and deprivation over comfort. And now, I face the consequences of these choices.
The key, for me anyway, is to channel my emotions into my writing and helping people who are considering leaving Christianity or who have already left. If every blog post of mine was an angry rant against Christianity, atheists and Christians alike would soon tire of me and move on. If I spent all my time whining and complaining about how bad my life now is thanks to Christianity, why before long even my wife would stop reading.
My point is this: emotional responses to leaving Christianity are absolutely normal. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The key is what to do with those emotions. It’s not healthy to spend life angry and bitter. I met plenty of such people in the churches I pastored; bitter, angry, mean people who took out their “love” for Jesus on anyone who dared to cross them. Instead, let your emotions fuel your passion for a better tomorrow — one not dominated by ignorance and religious superstition. Start a blog, write a book. Do whatever YOU want to do. Now that you are freed from guilt-inducing Christianity, you are free to throw yourself into whatever floats your boat. Want to take your anger and channel it into being an atheist stripper named Darwina? Go ahead. The only person standing in your way is you!
And sometimes, just because you can, it is okay to tell overbearing, deaf, in-your-face Evangelicals to go fuck themselves. Then, kiss your significant other and say, Life is good!
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.
“Evangelicals believe that humans, Christian or not, are incapable of good works; that all goodness comes from the Christian God; that works apart from God that “seem” good are actually done for the wrong motivations and reasons.”
I don’t know what “Evangelicals” believe, but this is wrong according to the Word of God.
Prooftexting deleted.
What Chris mean is this: according to my personal interpretation of the Protestant Christian Bible, this is wrong. There’s no such thing as a “right” interpretation. Every sect, every pastor, every Christian thinks their beliefs are right. That’s why I believe everyone is right. There’s no wrong interpretation of the Bible. Every sect, pastor, and Christian defends their beliefs by appealing to the Bible. How, then, do we know who is right and who is wrong?
Christians have been arguing with each other for 2,000 years. Jesus was barely dead before Paul, Peter, and James got into arguments over what constituted salvation. Who’s right? How could we possibly know?
The Bible is a hopelessly contradictory and confusing collection of books. Countless books have been written over the centuries attempting to defend this or that theological belief. Yet, there are thousands of Christian sects, each believing they hold to the “faith once delivered to the saints.” Calvinists vs. Arminians. Charismatics vs. Oneness Pentecostals. Baptists vs. Church of Christ. Over the years, I have been told by countless Christians that I am saved, I am lost, I am saved, I am lost . . . Each Christian thinks they have it figured out. Me? I’m content to pop some popcorn, grab a comfy seat, and settle in to watch the bloody internecine wars Christians are fond of fighting. The world will know we are Christians by our love, the Bible says. How is that working out?
The point that much of Christianity get wrong is that they view “salvation” as a one off thing that happens at the declaration of faith, and run from works, calling it “works based salvation” or “legalism”. No, we are supposed to have works – we are supposed to do good. But we should do those works out of love, not because we believe the works themselves make us righteous. We are told to walk as Jesus walked – and Jesus did many works. Paul is also an example to us, and who worked harder than he?
Again, Chris says much of Christianity is “wrong.” What is the basis for his assertion? His personal interpretations of the Bible — his personal opinion. There’s no such thing as absolute truth, authoritative truth. Virtually every verse in the Bible can be interpreted, explained, twisted, or contorted to fit a peculiar theological belief.
I don’t think Chris read any of my autobiographical material. Had he done so, he would have learned that my views of salvation and works evolved over the twenty-five years I was in the ministry. I was a Christian throughout, but I had various beliefs about salvation and the part good works played in the lives of believers. I can defend every position from the Bible. That’s why the Bible is such a wonderful book. You can easily make it say anything, and regardless of your beliefs, someone, somewhere is going to shout AMEN PREACHER! Keep preaching the Word!
The Bible talks against self righteousness – thinking that you’re a good person because you’ve done some good things. Your good works don’t cross out your evil – you don’t get to murder people because you’ve made charitable donations and fed homeless people.
Well, I am an atheist, so I don’t care what the Bible is for or against. Generally, I think humans are good people. I reject the Christian concept of “sin,” a tool used to cause fear and guilt so “sinners” will seek out a remedy for their “sin” through the church. Sin is the problem, salvation through Jesus is the solution, preachers say. I reject this construct out of hand.
Humans do good and bad things. As an atheist and a humanist, my goal is to be a good person: to love and help my wife, children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors, and fellow humans. Do I fail? Sure. I can be self-centered, self-indulgent, and self-righteous. When I recognize that I have failed, I try to make things right and, if possible, make restitution.
As far as I know, I have never knowingly (on purpose) been “evil.” I can look at my past life as an Evangelical pastor and conclude that some of my beliefs were evil, that they caused material harm to my family and the people I pastored. My only defense is that I did so ignorantly, that I was a product of tribal influences and indoctrination. I have spent the past fifteen years trying to atone for my ignorance. While it would be easy for me to say: Bruce, give yourself a break, you didn’t know any better, I think it is important for me to give an honest accounting of my life — past and present. My counselor told me today that I have great self-awareness, sometimes to a fault. My counselor before this one told me on several occasions, “Bruce, you are not as bad a person as you think you are.” I know he is right, but I look at what I preached and how I treated others, all in the name of God and according to the teachings of the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I see myself as a victim and victimizer.
Salvation by grace, through faith, takes away our need to work for salvation – as if there’s a minimum number of good things you have to do to get to heaven, or as if you have a balance sheet that needs to be in the positive at the point of death.
Again, I could easily use the Bible to refute everything Chris says. For example, Matthew 25 clearly teaches that entrance into the eternal Kingdom of God is conditioned on good works. James makes the same claim when he says that faith without works is dead, and John says that anyone who sins is of the Devil, implying that good works are essential to salvation. In fact, I argue that without good works no one is saved; that the Mennonites and the Amish are likely closer to what the Bible teaches about salvation and good works.
I agree with Chris that the Evangelical notion of decisional regeneration — that of agreeing to a set of theological propositions and praying a one-off prayer makes one a Christian — is ludicrous and contrary to the picture of Jesus and his teachings and the early church found in the Bible.
From my perspective, all that matters is how we live, how we treat others. The goal should be well-being and reducing/eliminating harm (not only for humans, but other animals, and our planet).
“Is it any wonder so many Evangelicals are downright discouraged and depressed? Being told over and over that one is a worthless piece of shit and that one’s life is n-o-t-h-i-n-g without Jesus is sure to ruin any thoughts of self-esteem. Pastors frequently remind congregants that the Bible commands them to deny self, to take up their crosses and follow Jesus.”
Sounds like you went to a terrible church, and that the pastors were shitty people who wanted a passive flock to rule over. God loves you and gives you peace.
Romans 14 (KJV) 17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years, so I was the “shitty” pastor, pastoring terrible churches. 🙂 Theological beliefs have consequences. What does the Bible say about humans? Is there anything in the Bible that remotely promotes self-worth? Of course not. The Bible says we are vile, evil sinners, haters of God. Salvation doesn’t turn us into good people. We have no righteousness of our own. We are righteous only because and through the person and work of Jesus. The Bible says we can’t do anything without Jesus, even breathe or move. So, according to the Bible, none of us are good people, even after we are saved.
Discouragement and depression are common among Christians. For all their talk about God loving them and God giving them peace (after all, the Holy Spirit), Christians have the same struggles as the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. The bottom line is this: Christians are human, no different from anyone else.
Don’t throw away God because the “Christian” religion is awful. You can have a personal relationship with God by His Word. I don’t go to church, and I don’t like “Christianity” – but Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
Chris wants to claim the Christian moniker, but doesn’t go to church and doesn’t like “Christianity” — meaning Christian belief systems other than his. Christianity and the Bible are inseparably linked. The church gave us the Bible. I can’t envision someone being a Christian in a meaningful sense without the church. The Bible says that Christians should not forsake assembling together. It is through the church that believers have community and instruction in the teachings of the Bible. I was fond of saying as a pastor, “there are no lone rangers in the Bible.” Christians are meant to congregate together (and, as an atheist, I miss the sense of community I had as a believer).
That said, I understand Chris’s frustration with Christianity at large. Many of the readers of this blog, myself included, were what I call disaffected Christians. Our paths away from Christianity began when we looked at the church (collectively) and said to ourselves that there’s something wrong here. For me, my journey didn’t end there. The reason that I am an atheist today is that I came to the conclusion that the central claims of Christianity are not true. If I were to blame someone or something for my deconversion, it wouldn’t be the church. All told, I was a happy pastor who pastored wonderful people. Polly and I had a good life in the ministry. The blame, then, rests solely on the Bible and the claims Christians make from its words. Why am I an atheist? The Bible. And my secret desire to live a debauched, licentious life. 🙂 Bring on the whores, booze, and coke. Praise Satan! 🙂
Saved by Reason,
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.
They have experienced some hurt, trauma, or abuse at the hands of professing Christians, churches, and/or pastors.
They have spent too much time reading, listening, watching, and talking to people espousing weak theology, heresy, and the hiss of the serpent asking, “Did God really say?”
They have wittingly or unwittingly absorbed and adopted naturalistic, atheistic, and hedonistic assumptions and presuppositions and then critiqued the Bible in light of those. As a result they find the Bible objectionable, ludicrous, or repugnant.
They have tired of the scorn, ridicule, and pressure of the unbelieving world, and find it easier to abandon the faith to just get along.
They had deeply-felt expectations for life and what God would do, and when disappointed, could not bear the thought of worshiping the God they feel has let them down.
They have misunderstood and misinterpreted the Bible’s revelation about the character and actions of God, and have come to believe that they are more moral than God, and now stand in condemnation of God’s character and his actions in the pages of Scripture.
They grew up in legalistic churches and families where an abundance of man-made rules were added to the gospel and to God’s moral law. At some point they tired of these oppressive environments and could not separate true Christianity from the legalism, and so left the faith.
They fed on liberal social justice and incipient Marxism, and found the Bible’s acceptance of inequality because of the curse of sin and the Bible’s call to suffering wanting according to their new belief system that salvation is deliverance from inequality.
They simply no longer wished to be bound to the biblical ethic, most often related to the Bible’s clear restriction of sexual activity to one man and one woman in a monogamous covenant of marriage. They wanted to have sex and not feel guilty about it.
They were never true believers to begin with. They are apostates who posed as Christians, very convincingly and for a long time. 1 John 2:19–22 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. [20] But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.” (ESV)
Let me translate. Evangelicals who deconstruct/deconvert:
They have been hurt
They spent too much time reading the wrong books and blogs and listening to the wrong podcasts (“wrong” means anything that doesn’t conform to Farnham’s peculiar Fundamentalist beliefs)
They have a worldly worldview
They are tired of being “persecuted” by the world
They feel let down by God
They misunderstand the Bible
They grew up in legalistic churches and could not separate legalism from True Christianity® (says a Fundamentalist with a straight face)
They embraced “liberal” political beliefs
They want to fuck anyone they want
They were never True Christians®
Absent from Farnham’s screed is any interaction with people who have actually deconstructed/deconverted. No need. Farnham “knows” why people walk/run away from Christianity. Instead of presenting a careful, thoughtful, nuanced look at why people leave the faith, Farnham chooses to build a “these people are weak, ignorant, shallow, selfish, lustful, never-were-Christians” strawman. Anything but accepting the stories of people at face value.
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.
My dear friend Zoe recently wrote the following for a blog post titled My Benediction:
Like all the years I studied to understand my former Christian belief system. At some point, I moved on from that, though I can engage, I often choose not to. Or, I limit my input. There comes a time when the sorrow attached to it all weighs heavily on the heart. The exercise has been beneficial for understanding me, mom, and a lot of humanity throughout history. I don’t have the energy anymore to go point by point to try and warn and or educate. My therapist shared something, with a caveat that at first this sounds terrible to say, but: Some people are just terminal.
Without going into more personal detail, this wasn’t about suicide or suicidal ideation. This was more about, if I understand it correctly, accepting that some people can’t be moved. And it’s more than a sense of them not wanting to move, they just can’t. They are in their own world and regardless of the reasons, some people can’t reason other than where they are at.
Over the years of recovery for me, I have read, I have studied, I have prayed my knees raw (in those years), I have listened, I have contemplated, I have educated myself and I have played devil’s advocate. If you’re going to try to educate others then you have to spend time studying the other side. Until of course, it’s time to stop. It doesn’t matter about their new tricks. There aren’t any new tricks. Actually, nothing has changed. I look at Christianity. What has really changed? Maybe that there are more denominations/sects now than when I joined up . . . but they’re still Christianity.
I met Zoe back in my emerging/emergent Christian days; my “barely” Christian days. She’s been around for the whole Bruce Gerencser Show — all five acts. Both of us have spent years interacting with abrasive, hostile Evangelical Christians with few satisfying outcomes. We have learned over time that some people are just terminal; that no amount of evidence or emotional capital is going to change their minds.
Since 2007, I have interacted with thousands of Evangelical zealots. Virtually every one of these interactions miserably failed. Why? Until a person can entertain the thought that they just might be wrong or that their beliefs might be untrue, there’s no hope for them. Most people who deconvert do so from the privacy of the shadows. One of the reasons I respond to hostile Evangelicals is to help the thousands of lurkers who frequent this site, but never comment or email me. Taking what they learn from my writing and the comments of readers, doubting believers think about their beliefs — whether they are rational and evidence-based. I love hearing from such people, learning that something I said made a meaningful difference in their lives.
Some days, I enjoy engaging Evangelical zealots for sport. I haven’t heard an original argument for the veracity of Christianity and the Bible in over a decade. When a know-it-all Evangelical thinks they can “educate” me, put me in my place, or “save” me, I lick my chops and say, “may I have BBQ sauce for the beef I’m about to shred?”
Other days, I am just content to sigh. (Please see Why I Use the Word “Sigh”.) I’m with Zoe when she says, “I don’t have the energy anymore to go point by point to try and warn and or educate.” Every day of my life is dominated by unrelenting pain, nausea, and bowel problems. Just getting out of bed is all I can do some days. Other days, I have a short window to do the things I want or need to do. Sunday, we went to Toledo to shop for groceries: Fresh Tyme Market, Costco, Monnette’s Market, and Meijer, finishing the night with dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Did I overdo it? Big time, as my counselor will remind me on Thursday. Two days later, I am still having a hard time moving. This afternoon, I had a steroid injection in my right hip. In two weeks, I will have an injection in my left hip. My orthopedic was brutally honest with me, saying that he was doubtful, based on the location of the pain, that the injections will be helpful. I am willing to give it a try, hoping to improve the quality of my life. Either that or maybe I’ll take up “praying.” 🙂 With these things and others as the backdrop of my life, I hope Evangelicals who want to grind on me like a stripper giving an IFB preacher a lapdance, understand if I don’t pay attention to them. For those I do, you are “special.” 🙂 Oh so “special” . . .
Are you an atheist, agnostic, or non-Christian? Have you changed the way you interact with Evangelicals over the years? Please share your experiences 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.
Several years ago, I received an email from an Evangelical man who said that Lucifer and I have a lot in common. Of course, I have a leg up on Lucifer. Unlike the Devil, I actually exist. And that is why frustrated, angry, outraged Evangelicals continue to send me email.
This email writer, who goes by the name Duane, came to this site as a result of a Yahoo search that led him to the post Holy Spirit Tells Jeremiah Johnson That Donald Trump is the Trumpet of God. He also read Why I Hate Jesus. All told, Duane spent less than ten minutes reading my writing. I am always amazed at how quickly the Holy Spirit leads Evangelicals to pass judgment on my past and present life.
What follows is the text of Duane’s email. No commentary from me is needed. 🙂
Man you have a really big problem. You talk about Jesus as if he let you down. Only you can reconcile with Jesus, in your time before he calls you to the throne of his judgement seat. This is promised to you and everyone who has walked this earth.
You seem to forget one thing. The Paraclete is the only friend you have. The third part of the trinity of God. Oh of coarse you do have a choice to go with the other guy. You know, the guy in the Bible who was God’s favorite creation. The highest Angel that God created in the very beginning of the story.
Yes the story that you seem to mock in your philosophy and writings that I have briefly read. That’s right, the other guy, who wanted to be God. Lucifer, not too different than your self who is self proclaimed and looking to lead people down the wrong path, with the lies of the world.
You do have a destiny that is promised to you and everyone who lives and breathes the same air, that God breathed into Adam. Yes you too are not getting off this planet alive. And then you will meet the face of Jesus, who was and is and is to come. I know this all sounds familiar to you yet some where along the way you lost yourself and all that God has promised you.
I love you and pray for you and all your family. I love you and God loves and Jesus loves you. You know how I know this. Because His tomb is empty! Amen and Amen
Sincerely, Duane **********
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.
Recently, a reader sent me the following question:
Hello Bruce. Who do you think wrote the red-letter words allegedly spoken by Jesus in the bible and do you think he actually existed at all?
Thanks
I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I was a college-trained Evangelical pastor for twenty-five of those years. Saved at the age of fifteen and called to preach two weeks later, I believed the Protestant Christian Bible was the inspired (God-breathed), inerrant (without error), infallible (authoritative) Word of God. I believed every word from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 was the very words of God (through the instrumentation of men).
I entered the ministry in the 1970s believing in the preservation of the Bible. God, throughout history, preserved his Word, making sure that humans always had the very words of God. For English-speaking people, the preserved Word of God was the King James Bible — 1769 revision. All translations contained the Word of God, but the KJV was the pure words of God.
In the late 1990s, I started preaching from the English Standard Version (ESV), believing it was a faithful translation of the extant Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts. I used other translations in my studies. I also read The Message devotionally. According to my Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) colleagues, I had become a stinking, filthy liberal, when, in fact, I had simply adopted twentieth-century scholarship regarding the Bible. Instead of seeing one particular translation as THE Word of God, I came to see that ALL translations were the Word of God, faithful reflections of the truth God wanted to convey. In my mind, the most important thing was for people to actually READ the Bible, regardless of the translation. Sadly, most practicing Christians rarely, if ever, read the Bible. And those who actually study the Bible? A small percentage of church-going followers of Jesus ever carefully and thoroughly study the Biblical text. Most Christians get their fill of the Good Book on Sundays, toss their Bibles in the back windows of their cars, in their trunks, or stuff them under their seats until the next Lord’s Day.
Many Bible translations print in red the words attributed to Jesus found in the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). I believed for the first fifty years of my life, that the words printed in red were actually spoken by Jesus Christ himself. That said, as a pastor, I never elevated the red words to a higher, more important status than the black words. Why? Jesus, as the second part of the Trinity, was God, the author of the Bible. Jesus “spoke” all of the words found in the Bible, not just the red words.
My beliefs about the Bible, of course, were shaped by my IFB and Evangelical upbringing and training. Unfortunately, I was not told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the nature and history of the Biblical text. It was only after I left the ministry in 2005 that I began to carefully reexamine my beliefs about the Bible. I found books written by Dr. Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina, to be extremely enlightening and helpful (and no, Ehrman was not the only author I read). By 2008, I had concluded that the Bible was not inerrant or infallible. Thus began the collapse of my faith. I continued to reexamine the central claims of Christianity, concluding that they could not be rationally sustained. In November 2008, I walked out of the door of the Ney United Methodist Church, declaring that I was no longer a Christian. In early 2009, I embraced the agnostic atheist moniker.
I learned that the gospels were written by unknown authors decades after the death of Jesus. I learned that the authors of Matthew and Luke likely used Mark as the basis for their books. I concluded that it was impossible to believe that the words in red were actually spoken by Jesus himself. All we have are unknown authors saying Jesus said this or that. We have no written texts by Jesus himself. Any beliefs to the contrary are assertions, not facts. Is it possible that Jesus spoke the words in red? Sure. But it is also possible that the authors of the gospels were just writing down decades-old oral stories or writing out-and-out fiction. It’s impossible for us to know if Jesus did or didn’t say the red words.
The emailer asks if I believe Jesus existed. If the question is whether I believe the miracle-working, divine Jesus of the gospels is real, the answer is no. I do, however, think a man named Jesus lived and died in first-century Palestine; that he was likely a rabbi or apocalyptic preacher. I am not, in any way, a mythicist. I see in the gospels a historical figure lurking in the shadows of a work of fiction. Simply put, Jesus existed, but the miracles and supernatural events attributed to him are fiction.
Thanks for the questions!
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, I shared with readers an email discussion I had with Larry Beer, an Evangelical Christian. Based on Larry’s search history, it is likely he is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB).
Today, I received two more emails from Larry .
First Email
You can tell me to fuckoff or any word you chose, but I am still here in the presence of the God you believe does not exist and I love you as he loves all of us even though we do not believe it exists.
Love mean nothing when hate rules the mind and the heart you have found from others then you give back what they gave to you that you think is your love to expose hate?
You have the same unloving feelings of the Evangelists in your mind that you blame God changed them into yet you say God does not exist.
I am here any time you want to talk about why you do not like me even though I like you as my friend every minute of the day or night.
Second Email
Okay Bruce your totally right, there is no God or Satan to blame for our own desires and choices.
You gave the worldwide invitation on your own site; yes people gave you undeniable hate.
I do not see what you’re complaining about when you give back what you receive even to those who do not believe as you do you by you doing the same things you judge other for doing!
Yes you can tell me to fuckoff and ignore me that your own freewill choice, not mine;
When I was in a complete nervous breakdown and told I would end up in a wheelchair for the rest of my life guess what Bruce all that was healed by the same God you chosen to refuse to believe.
I know God is my judge for I know him by his love he gives to me and I tell you that is yours as well, what you do with that truth is your own freewill choice.
I will be here any time you can think Larry does love you because there is a God or why would I take the time to even go on your site.
No commentary from me. Larry’s words speak for themselves. He’s starting to sound like a stalker, someone who has a perverse understanding of “love” and “friendship.”
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.
Today, an Evangelical man named Tom Howard sent me the following email:
FAKE, fake, fake, faker. 25 yrs a fake. How many people did you fake out over those years? Imagine living as long as you have and concluding life as a fake so called atheistic demoncrat. Satan has faked you out and you haven’t a clue. The gall of you calling yourself an atheist yet fully espousing the Christian world view of morality, family, marriage, lawful living, what a faker! Your poor wife and kids must really hold you in high esteem, so just find a juniper tree and self abort and confirm your fake beliefs. This is all in the spirit of 1Tim5:20
1 Timothy 5:20 says
Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
“Good” Christians always find a Bible verse to justify their hate.
If Heaven is where the Tom Howards of the world will be, please book me a suite in Hell.
What is it about Evangelical Christianity that turns some believers into vile, hateful people?
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.
