This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series, which I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent toward religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Your God (God’s Dick) by Laura Jane Grace.
[Intro] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heaven’s keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me
[Chorus] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heaven’s keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me
[Verse 1] Does his D go deep So deep it puts an ass to sleep? Who’s the 6 to his 9 And what are his other kinks? If he grows all the trees Does he taste every peach? Is your god fucking you and fucking me? I know creation must get lonely After all he’s one and only And his son was so well hung I think the big man deserves one
[Chorus] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heaven’s keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me
[Verse 2] When he whips out his meat Does your world fall to its knees? Does he shoot wads of honey And cum twice on Easter Sunday? What’s his favourite position? Missionary? Magic bullet? We all give him no lover Just a hand and a mother Can he cum a shotgun blast And shoot salvation up your ass? Does he chew cunt like bubblegum And give blowjobs like a vacuum?
[Chorus] Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Are his balls filled with lightning? Do they dangle like heavens keys? Does your god have a big fat dick? Cause it feels like he’s fucking me Does your god have a big fat dick? CAUSE HE’S FUCKING YOU AND ME!
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.
I’m often asked if I had a personal relationship with Jesus — the Evangelical gold standard for what it means to be a Christian. Many Evangelicals think that I can’t have had a personal relationship with Jesus; that a true relationship with Jesus stays steady and sure until death. That I am now an atheist means I never had a super-duper personal relationship with the second part of the Godhead. If this claim is true, it means that I spent the first fifty years of my life as a deceived Christian. No matter what I point to in my life that suggests otherwise, Evangelicals say I was deceived. Imagine the sheer level of deception required for me to pull off such a feat. This should be enough for Evangelicals to see that their claim that I was (and still am) deceived is wrong, but their soteriology keeps them from doing so. You see, my story poses a big problem for Evangelicals who believe in once-saved- always-saved or eternal security. By necessity, they must conclude that either I never was a Christian or I am still a believer. Both claims are, on their face, irrational, contradictory, and absurd. As I have told such Evangelicals countless times before, “Just because you can’t square your peculiar theology with my story is your problem, not mine.” I know what I know. I once was saved, and now I am not.
Over the years, I have asked people who claim I never was a Christian for evidence for their claim. The only evidence forthcoming is proof texts from the Bible — as interpreted by my critics. However, doesn’t the Bible say that we judge a person by the fruit he produces; that good works are the measure of a man or a woman? Have you never noticed that judgmental, hateful Christians always want to focus on theology, not how they live out their beliefs? They know their behavior betrays their beliefs, so they focus on theological or philosophical arguments instead. However, the Bible is clear: the measure of a person is how he lives.
According to this standard, I measure up quite well. I spent most of my adult life loving and serving others, including the poor, the imprisoned, and the homeless. I invested myself in the lives of my parishioners, at times at the expense of my partner and children. I preached with or without pay. Why? Because I believed I had a higher calling to preach the gospel to the unsaved and teach the Bible to Christians. What mattered was the work of the ministry. I selflessly devoted myself to this calling for twenty-five years.
If I never was a Christian, how do my critics explain the aforementioned evidence to the contrary? I have repeatedly challenged my critics to find one person who knew me at the time I was a pastor who would say they knew I never was a Christian. I’m confident that no evidence will be forthcoming. I am not perfect, not now, nor when I was an Evangelical pastor. I “sinned” just like every other Christian, yet the bent of my life was towards holiness. At best, I was an imperfect, falible man who sincerely wanted to help others. And that, my friend, is what I still try to be today.
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.
I have been in a better place mentally and emotionally since I left my religious beliefs behind me. I’ve had more peace as well. I’m not saying that I don’t have problems, down days, or worry. It’s just that I have fewer worries, fewer down days, more effective methods of dealing with life’s problems, and a little more peace overall. Looking back at my life, I realize that I’ve gone through bouts of depression here and there, probably since I was a child. I grew up in an abusive home where I rarely felt safe. I never got any counseling or was put on any medication that might have helped deal with that stress. It just wasn’t something that was widely accepted back in the 70s. So, I developed whatever coping skills I could. I stayed busy with hobbies like reading, art, music, and martial arts. We considered ourselves Christians in my home, but we didn’t attend church regularly, read the Bible, or pray.
One thing that often bothered me growing up was the question: What am I supposed to do with my life? I got through college and worked a couple jobs that I really hated. I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the time, surrounded by Christians, many of whom were Bible college students. They seemed happy and excited about life, so eventually, I started attending a large church there. This church told me that God has a good plan for my life, and all I have to do is ask him what he wants me to do and follow his directions. For a rule follower like me, that sounded great!
I wound up going to Bible school and eventually in part-time ministry as an associate pastor and youth pastor and traveling minister. Things were great for a while. I had arrived at a place where I thought God wanted me to be. Eventually, I became unhappy and depressed. I went through the worst depression of my life during this time. I prayed, spoke in tongues, read the Bible constantly, and was prayed for in every way you can imagine. And nothing helped. I finally found a good psychiatrist who diagnosed me properly and got me on some medicine that helped. During this time, I started noticing things in the Bible that just didn’t line up. I started asking questions. Also, during this time, a friend of mine sent me a short booklet on how the brain works and how to get out of the rut of depressing thoughts all the time. Basically, I had to retrain my brain. Another friend recommended a book called Living Buddha, Living Christ. I was hooked! I started learning more about mindfulness and meditation. I studied secular Buddhism and Taoism. I started seeing more improvement in my life doing a few simple things than I ever did with all the prayer and Bible study. There is no more magic in any of these practices than there is in me eating healthier and exercising to lose weight.
Fast forward to where I had left my Christian beliefs behind. I’m still mostly a closeted agnostic/atheist; not even my wife knows the extent of my deconversion. She is still a very devout Christian. Maybe more so than ever. I have not attended church in years. So far, we’ve made it work. I used to hate the jobs I worked, thinking they were just temporary until I could go full-time in the ministry. Now that I no longer believe that I have some sort of divine calling on my life, I can focus on where I am now and how good I really have it. My job gets pretty stressful sometimes, but I’m good at it and mostly enjoy it. I used to be pretty uptight. Depending on my mental and emotional state, little things could easily stress me out. But now that I use the tools available to me, I’m much more chill. I try to apply Buddhist principles like the understanding that there is suffering in this life, but there are ways to not add to my suffering. I know that the only constant in this world is change. I still don’t like change, but I’m getting better. Less attachment. Seeing situations as not good or bad, just as they are (as much as I can). I still take medication that helps me, but without the guilt of “If I just had more faith” bullshit. These things help me so much, where religion left me high and dry, so to speak. I also have much less fear in my life. Religion is so full of fear! Life is not perfect, but it’s better without religion. My wife asked recently, “How do you stay so calm now?” I mentioned the practices that I wrote about above. She gets confused because these things are “ungodly” — basically meaning that god doesn’t seem to be in these practices. I get that. When I was full on drinking the Kool-Aid, I wouldn’t have understood how those things help someone either. Or, I would think that yes, they might help, but they still need Jesus on top of that.
Nope. Not anymore.
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 Christian man named Stanley left the following comment on the post Why I Hate Jesus. My response follows. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.
Have you ever wondered what life was like for those who worshiped God before the Bible existed? How did they live for Him and connect with Him in a time when there were no written scriptures? If you can relate to this and seek to connect with the same true God that Jesus Himself believed in, you will break free from the limitations of human knowledge and step into a higher realm of understanding.
Countless deities existed and were worshipped before the Jewish and, later, the Christian God. These deities existed before the Bible, even though they are mentioned numerous times in the Good Book. Contrary to what Christians would have us believe, their deity is a human construct — as all deities are. How did you pick out your version of God from all the other extant deities? How do you know that this deity is the “true God?” According to orthodox Christian teaching, Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) are God. Jesus didn’t believe in God, he was God.
What evidence do you have for your claim that there is a “higher realm of understanding,” higher than human knowledge? I know of no other realm of understanding than human knowledge. By all means, educate me, but unsupported claims and anecdotal stories will not suffice. You make all sorts of claims in your comment that cannot be supported by empirical evidence.
God is spirit, and those who believe in Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (pure heart). Spirituality was never meant to be pursued solely for intellectual knowledge but to be experienced. The deep mysteries of the Spirit, hidden within the Bible, cannot be uncovered by human reasoning alone( flesh and blood)—they must be revealed in real time by the Spirit Himself ( the holy spirt) to those who are truly seeking.
What “deep mysteries of the Bible” are hidden in the Scriptures? No need to list all of them, but list the top five “mysteries” that cannot be understood apart from Holy Spirit illumination.
What makes you a “true seeker” where others are not? What’s the special sauce on your ribs that others do not have? This claim of yours drips with arrogance.
I was a Christian for fifty years and a pastor for twenty-five of those years. I have firsthand knowledge and understanding of religious experiences. That said, my experiences were never separated from my knowledge — even though I ultimately learned that my knowledge was ill-informed. Humans have all sorts of experiences that run contrary to knowledge. How do we determine what is true? Not by our feelings and personal experiences. Just because you feel or experience your peculiar version of God doesn’t mean that said God is real. Countless Christians believe God talks to them and answers their prayers. When asked for evidence for fantastical claims, none is forthcoming.
Unfortunately,Years of studying scripture do not automatically grant access to these true spiritual experiences. It all depends on God’s will and our willingness to surrender human wisdom for a higher knowledge that is beyond this world. To truly walk this path, one must die to the old self and be reborn in the Spirit (death and resurrection). Mere belief is not enough—there are works of the Spirit that must be lived out in the physical realm, and only a few ever find this path and are willing to pay the prize because it will strip you of all of your human possessions— both physically and mentally.
Well, ain’t you special.
Previously, you said that this divine knowledge and experience you say you have comes through worshipping God in spirit and truth. Now, you say that this knowledge and experience are dependent on it aligning with God’s will. Which is it? How can you possibly know God’s will when his thoughts and ways are not yours? Are you blessed with some sort of inside, gnostic knowledge?
I know the Bible inside and out. Further, I also had countless, deep religious experiences. I likely felt and experienced some of the very things you have. Are you doubting my experiences? The difference between us is that I learned that my experiences did not comport with reality. Just because I passionately and fervently claimed that God heard my prayers and answered them doesn’t mean he did. Of course, I eventually learned my experiences were fueled by religious indoctrination and conditioning, as well as being born into a Christian family and living in a predominantly Christian culture.
If you desire to seek this higher knowledge in an experiential way rather than a theoretical one, begin with this: Fast and pray for three days if you are able. At bedtime, simply say, “Lord Jesus, reveal Yourself to me as the true Son of God.” Meditate on these words with an open heart, and prepare yourself for a true encounter with the spiritual realm—a reality far beyond anything you have known in this world.
Better than sex? I doubt it.
I eat very little most days due to gastroparesis and endocrine pancreatic insufficiency, so no fasting for me unless I want to die from malnutrition. You would think God would cure me of these diseases so I can properly seek and know him using the “Official Stanley Method of Seeking and Finding God.” I did, however, pray the OSMSFG prayer. God’s response? Silence. I prayed it again, same result. Utter silence. And even if God revealed himself to me, how could I possibly know that this experience was anything other than the result of taking narcotics and cannabis? How could I possibly tell the difference between being high and a “true encounter with the spiritual realm—a reality far beyond anything you have known in this world?”
Your comment is long on claims and personal experiences and woefully short on evidence. Why should I treat your claims differently from those made by anyone else?
I have many experiences, many that I cannot speak off because they are personal and others that are people related-I share with them as lead by the spirit of God.
I have had many experiences, too, in my sixty-eight years of life. Why should I treat your experiences differently from my own? The difference between you and me is that I am willing to share my experiences, especially when using them to justify my beliefs or decisions.
Man is spirit, and you do not need to die physically to experience the life in the Spirit that has been promised through Christ’s blood and resurrection. May God bless you as you continue seek to know him more than words . Salvation is personal. First you have to be saved before saving others . Again , Many would say – saved from what ? The answer is in the spirit not in this world
What evidence do you have for your claim that “man is spirit?” You want to claim knowledge apart from the Bible, yet you claim beliefs that are only found in the Scriptures. Which is it? As far as I know, there’s no empirical evidence for the claim that man is spirit. You claim that you have a superior life to mine, thanks to some sort of supernatural experience. However, you provide no evidence for your claim apart from “Stanley says so.” Did you really expect to reach me without providing evidence for your claims?
You claim that salvation is personal. This claim reveals that you are not well-versed in what the Bible says about salvation, particularly in the Old Testament.
As an atheist, I learned that I don’t need salvation; that there’s nothing I need to be saved from outside of my cats using me as a launching pad while I sit in the living room watching TV. Salvation is a religious construct, one meant to keep clerics employed, asses in pews, and money in offering plates. It’s a con that religions have been running for thousands of years.
If you plan on responding to this post, please note how many times I asked you for evidence for your claims. If you cannot or will not provide this evidence, then there’s no reason for you to respond. Your personal experiences and feelings are yours alone and carry no weight with me. If they have provided you peace, happiness, and purpose in your life, fine, go with God. However, I have peace, happiness, and purpose in my life — as do countless atheists on this site — without God, the Bible, Christianity, the church, or any of the other religious entrapments you deem important.
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.
In fact, this piece should not appear on your screen or any form of paper. It should not exist at all. If you believe that the words you are reading—and the person who wrote them—are real, you are suffering a delusion or actively denying reality. Perhaps you are drunk or high. Or, maybe, those illicit, uh, transformative, substances you took in your youth produce flashbacks for even longer than you ever imagined possible.
Whatever the case may be, you must disabuse yourself of the notion that what you are reading is real. It isn’t because its author isn’t.
That’s right. I do not exist.
Who made such a determination? Not the folks who investigate paranormal phenomena. Nor did the American Psychiatric Association or American Medical Association. Members of both august bodies, in fact, have confirmed my existence share your delusion.
Understandably, they would. After all, they don’t know what the highest authority in this land knows. He’s had more hands-on experience than all of them put together. So, who is more qualified to say whether or not I exist?
According to the FuhrerTan Fuhrer President of the United States, I—and people like me—don’t exist. Whatever a doctor decided I was on the day I was born, that’s what I am. Now, to be fair, that OB-GYN on a military base where my father was stationed late in the Eisenhower Administration had no other means but my external anatomical features for determining my sex. He would have had no way of knowing about the hormonal imbalances and other “problems” that would manifest themselves later, sometimes much later, on.
Of course, our Dear Leader, with his Bachelor of Science in Economics, and such respected advisers as Dr. Oz, knows more than that army doctor could have. (Oh, and he has more military training.) Moreover, he has seen more of those “immutable biological realities” of female anatomy being a woman than, well, most people.
So who better than a self-proclaimed king a duly elected leader to tell you what’s real and what isn’t.
That means, not only this article, but everything else I’ve ever written, is an illusion. So are all of the knowledge and skills my students acquired in my classrooms, or later when they applied them in the “real world.” Oh, and I never worked the other jobs I had before I became a college instructor: artist-in-residence, high school teacher, journalist, copywriter, publicist, tour leader, bicycle messenger (in New York City), bicycle mechanic, and sales clerk. And my service in the Army Reserves never happened. No, all of the work that got done and all of my interactions with students, colleagues, co-workers, editors, clients, and customers is as illusory as I am.
Of course, that means I never earned the degrees and diplomas or won the citations and awards that have my name on them. And that child my parents thought they were raising—well, I was as much an illusion then as I am now. That means they must have been just as delusional in believing that I was their child as you are for thinking that you are reading something that, because I don’t exist, can’t exist.
So, remember: You didn’t read this. Even if the previous sentence is self-contradictory.
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.
I am always interested in having people write guest posts for this site. If you are interested in writing a guest post, please use the contact form to email me or text me at 567-210-1145. You can choose any subject. If you are an Evangelical Christian, you can even write a post about how wrong I am about God, Christianity, and the Bible. No subject is off limits.
Have a story to tell about your life as a Christian and subsequent deconversion? Testimonies are always welcome. I have found that readers really appreciate and enjoy reading posts about the journey of others away from Evangelicalism. Perhaps you are someone who has left Evangelicalism, but still believes in the existence of a deity/energy/higher power. Your story is welcome too.
If you worried about grammar, punctuation, or spelling, don’t be. Carolyn, my ever-watchful friend, editor, and blog wife, edits every guest post before it is published. If she can turn my writing into coherent prose, trust me, she can do the same for yours.
Anonymous posts are okay, as are articles previously posted elsewhere. If you have written something for your own blog and would like to post it here, please send it to me.
If you have previously written a guest post, I am more than happy to publish another one from you. Some readers have become regular contributors. It’s important for readers to hear from other writers from time to time. As a pastor, I knew people would tire from hearing me week after week, so I would schedule guest speakers to preach. Guest posts give readers an opportunity to hear new, different voices. Will that voice be yours?
Several readers have emailed me in the past about writing guest posts. I am w-a-i-t-i-n-g. 🙂 Seriously, if you have something you would like to say, I am more than happy to post it here. The ball is in your court.
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.
Commenting on Evangelical Pastor Robert Morris’s arrest on five counts of “lewd or indecent acts to a child,” a Christian counselor said:
It’s not the type of sin nor the amount of sin that’s the issue, but the *fact* of sin. God’s children commit 100 instances of sin daily whether they realize it or not. The problem is that in the minds of a lot of people, some sins are more respectable than others, and some are more deplorable than others, based not on how it offends a Holy God but how it negatively impacts other people … My daily sin is as offensive to God as Morris’s.
This counselor believes that, in God’s eyes, all sins are the same; that every sin is offensive to God. In other words, if you walk down the produce aisle of the local grocery store, stop at the grapes, and eat a handful without paying for them, you are stealing. In God’s eyes, and the eyes of many Evangelical Christians, you are just as sinful, just as guilty, as a pastor who sexually molested children.
The practice of viewing all sins the same way is called sin-leveling — a belief held in many Evangelical churches that is used to minimize serious “sins” such as sexually molesting children, sodomizing church boys, raping church teens, and sleeping with a parishoner. Christian Post reporter Jennifer Michelle Greenberg, aghast after reading the counselor’s comment, wrote:
Now, I have no idea how this counselor spends his time (and I’m not sure I want to know), but the idea that all sins are equally deplorable to God is a tenet of spiritual abuse.
On the one hand, the smallest, most mundane sin separates us from God. He is utterly and unimaginably holy. He is perfectly just and good. Jesus died for the sin of the child who stole candy from the grocery store, but that does not mean God considers the child to be as evil as a child predator.
You would think this would be common sense. Even unbelievers and complete pagans instinctively know that sin exists on a spectrum of severity.
A poor person who steals a loaf of bread does not deserve the same punishment as a bank robber. A person who cusses in traffic is not as deeply sunk into Hell as a serial killer.
And yet, this Christian counselor wants us to believe that on a daily basis, you and I commit sins just as repugnant to God as the sexual abuse of children.
Unfortunately, this tactic of sin-leveling — this false doctrine that all sins are equally heinous — is prevalent in abusive churches and theological circles. In order to shame victims into forgiving their abusers and not reporting crimes, they point out that the victim is just as evil as their abuser, and therefore the victim should not point fingers or accuse. In order to manipulate witnesses into keeping quiet, they remind them that they’re just as depraved as a sexual predator and claim that real Christians “extend grace” and “don’t gossip.”
According to the Bible, we all sin in thought, word, and deed. This counselor would have us believe that all sins are the same; that rape and murder are the same as petty theft and going fifteen miles over the speed limit in the eyes of God.
Have you ever wondered why preachers who commit serious crimes often end up back in the ministry a year or so after they are released from prison? Sin-leveling and unconditional love and forgiveness are the primary reasons criminal preachers end up restored to the ministry. Bro. Joe, the pastor of First Church of the Rightous Baptists, spends five years in prison for sexually molesting a church boy. After release from prison, Joe gets a hankering to preach again. He goes on a restoration tour, convincing his fellow preachers and churches alike that he is a changed man (with no thought given to the boy he raped); that he promises to never, ever molest children again. Good to go, right? For many people, the answer is HELL NO! This preacher has no business pastoring churches or being around children again. Yet, for Evangelicals who think all sins are the same, this preacher should be unconditionally loved and forgiven; that if God has forgiven him, so should everyone else. It’s what Jesus would have us do, right? As a result, scores of American churches are pastored by or have staff members who have been convicted of sex crimes. Sometimes, churches don’t know about their pastor’s criminal past. In other instances, churches know about their pastor’s past crimes, but, thinking they are offering a penitent sinner love, grace, and forgiveness, churches give rapists, child molesters, and abusers a new start in life. Who are they to stand in the way of what God is doing in the life of their pastor? Or so their thinking goes, anyway.
If you ever attend an Evangelical church again, look at the so-called man of God who stands before you and ask yourself if you should trust him. What do you really know about him? What do you know about his past? Ask yourself the same questions about the church’s assistant pastor, youth pastor, Sunday school teachers, children’s church workers, nursery workers, and anyone else who has contact with you and your children.
Sadly, well-meaning church members think they “know” their pastors and staff members, when, in fact, they don’t. Pastors often present to congregants a well-manicured, scripted version of their lives. Past criminal behavior is “under the blood.” Jesus forgives past sins, and if he wipes the offender’s slate clean, how dare people still hold them accountable for their “sins.”
Love and forgiveness are laudable goals. However, blindly loving and forgiving people can and does lead to awful consequences. Common sense suggests that some sins are worse than others and often cause greater harm. Common sense tells us that we should protect children and vulnerable adults at all costs. Yet, because of a warped understanding of human nature, many Evangelicals are willing to give preachers who commit sex crimes a second chance. This is why I advise parents to never let their children out of their sight when attending church. Just because someone is a preacher or church staff member doesn’t mean they can be trusted with children.
Suppose Betty Jo, a Godly woman and member of Holier Than the Methodists Baptist Church for thirty years, is appointed treasurer of the church. Unbeknownst to the church, Betty Jo has a severe debt problem due to her husband gambling away their money. Over time, Betty Jo steals money from the church, paying her bills with the proceeds of her criminal behavior. Eventually, the church finds out about Betty Jo’s theft. The church has two choices: prosecute Betty Jo or forgive her for stealing from them. The church congregation decides to forgive Betty Jo. Three years later, the church needs a new treasurer, and Deacon Bob suggests hiring Betty Jo again. What? It’s one thing to forgive Betty Jo, but should she be given access to the church’s money again? Common sense says, absolutely not. Unfortunately, unconditional love and forgiveness often get in the way of common sense. Betty Jo should never be permitted to touch the church’s funds. She forfeited that right when she stole the church’s money. So it is with criminal preachers, especially those who commit sex crimes or have illicit sexual relationships with vulnerable church members.
Some “sins” disqualify men and women from the ministry. This used to be a commonly held belief, but no longer. It seems no sin is beyond the forgiveness of gullible churches. Remember this the next time you take or drop off your innocent children at the local Baptist church.
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.
When asked to describe what atheists believe and how they live, Evangelicals are notorious for giving straw man responses. This meme accurately shows how many Evangelicals view atheists — none of which (generally) is true.
What say ye? Does this meme describe you? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.
Yesterday, I received an email from an Evangelical woman who lives in South Africa. My response follows. (All grammar, spelling, and punctuation in the original.)
It is with much sadness that I read your blog. I can hear the hurt and disillusionment in every word, the pain of your youth and your mothers’ mental health struggles with little support from those who loved her and the church members.
Why should you feel sad reading my writing? I get that you might disagree with the path I’ve chosen in life, but there’s no reason for sadness on your part. You don’t know me, so I can’t imagine you feeling sorry for me.
I have written almost five thousand posts for this site. How many of them did you actually read? How many posts on the Why? page did you read? If all you read is a few autobiographical posts about my upbringing and my mother, I can see why you might feel “sad.” However, the vast majority of my writing should not cause people to feel sorry for me. I am a happily married man. We are blessed to have six grown children, three daughters-in-law, and sixteen grandchildren. Two of our grandchildren are currently in college at Ohio State University (pre-med) and Miami University (zoology), respectively. We own our home, drive a late model automobile, and have four cats. In every way, I am blessed. Yes, I have a lot of serious health problems. Yes, I am depressed over Trump’s attempt to destroy our republic. But these things aside, I have a good life. No need to feel sorry for me.
I suppose if you only judge people — and you ARE judging me, despite what protests you might raise — based on your theology, there’s reason to feel sorry for me. After all, I’m headed for Hell, right?
This life sure is interesting how we all have such different experiences. To be an evangelical pastor for 25 years and a Christian for so long and to have such a 180-degree turn of belief is truly fascinating.
While a pastor deconverting at my age with the experience I have is rare, people walking away from Christianity is quite common (and increasing by the day).
My story is the reverse. I rejected God for very much the same reasons as you did for over 20 years, I also carry much hurt and trauma from my past and after my wonderfully talented cousin got diagnosed with schizophrenia and went on a rampage and brutally murdered and raped a woman that was it for me and God and I set out and lived my life.
Yet over 20 years later on a normal Thursday morning, while watering my garden, the presence of God descended on my garden in the arse end of Africa with wars raging in Ukraine.
It was the first supernatural encounter of my life. After over 17 years of intense Buddhist meditation, nothing could ever compare to this moment. In my spirit, I could hear the word “Child” being called. The atmosphere grew heavy and thick, and as those words resonated, it felt as if every grain of sand, every leaf, and every cell in my body was filled with the presence of the Lord. I was overwhelmed with a love so profound that I never knew existed, yet it felt like home. I could not stand; I had to drop to my knees and begin to weep. How could I have ignored this reality for so long? This world is not what it appears to be. It’s not just a sequence of events; it’s a carefully woven, deeply spiritual, divinely orchestrated journey.
What you provide here is an anecdotal story. Such stories are fine for testimony night at your church, but you can’t expect it to convince an Evangelical-preacher-turned-atheist like me. I am not a Christian because I no longer believe the central claims of Christianity are true. Unless you can empirically show me that I am wrong, I see no reason to return to Christianity.
I did not even own a Bible but at that moment I understood what was meant when God says He is the Alpha and Omega, that there is only one Living God. I was shown Jesus on the cross and the importance of the blood. I could understand the meaning of free will, that God is not a psycopath that controls everything, but in order to fully love he has to allow everything so that each thing can be.
Your email reflects exposure to Christianity before your experience, so you certainly were not a clean slate for God to write his story upon. The Bible is a book of claims, not evidence. Again, what empirical evidence do you have for your aforementioned claims?
If you want to have a discussion/debate about your claims, I am game. Just in the one paragraph above, there are several claims you make that I can easily refute from a Biblical/theological perspective (i.e. that there is only one God, that God is not sovereign, that humans have free will, that God is not omniscient, that God doesn’t have free will).
After this life changing encounter I went out and bought a Bible and not long after, I ran into the same challenges that I had before with Christianity, but I could not deny what happened and the glory of God. I asked God to help understand these issues and over time God revealed this to me.
How do you KNOW God revealed anything to you? People tell me God told them all sorts of things, yet they can provide no evidence to prove their claims.
I could understand why much of these things are sin.
What things, exactly? Personally, I don’t believe in “sin.” Sin is a religious construct used by clerics to invoke fear of God’s judgment. This keeps asses in pews and money in offering plates. People do good and bad things. When we do bad things, we need to own our behavior and, if necessary, make restitution. No need for God, judgment, condemnation, or Hell. Just do better the next time.
I also learned about spiritual warfare and how so many of us do not acknowledge the attacks of the enemy.
What enemy? Satan is a mythical being too. I have no worries about being attacked by the Devil. Attacked by humans? You bet. I have been repeatedly attacked by Evangelical Christians more times than I can count; people who show me no regard or respect.
I also learned about the power of suffering. Not from the human eye or man’s perspective. I learned that suffering in the world is far different than suffering which is God ordained. Suffering of the world is only to harm, where suffering of God is to refine us, to make us stronger, for this life, for its battles that we will inevitably incur as life is hard. There is no way around it.
You seemed to miss what suffering really teaches us; namely that there is no God, and if there is, he cares nothing for us, content to allow horrific suffering that he could stop in a blink of an eye. Let me give you a quote attributed to Epicurius:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
In a world without God, suffering is expected. Shit happens. However, in a world with a personal God who allegedly loves and cares for people, suffering is a blaring advertisement for the fact that said God either doesn’t exist, doesn’t care, or is on a millennia-long vacation.
Richard Dawkins had this to say about the Christian God:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
As I was deeply hurt by church as well, I couldnt hand my soul in a man’s words again and I asked God to help me. Its not that I dont want to be part of the body of Christ, its that I want to seek God and only God. I want the truth.
While Christians have done hurtful things to me over the years, they played little to no part in my deconversion. If you read the posts on the Why? page, you will find out that I left Christianity primarily for intellectual reasons. Most of the hurt from Christians came after I deconverted. Over the past seventeen years, I have received countless hateful, nasty, vulgar, mean-spirited, judgmental emails, social media messages, and blog comments from Evangelical Christians — some of whom have known me for decades. These emails, messages, and comments are a poignant reminder of the ugly underbelly of Evangelical Christianity.
The only way to get to that Truth is to build a personal relationship with the Trinity. To be led by the Holy Spirit, to learn from the life of Jesus who also suffered as an innocent, like so many today. This did not come easy as I had many questions and had many fights with God but it was never in rebellion to God. That ultimately this journey led me to surrender my life and to grow real faith in uncertainty, to let go of the world and its views and step into a new life with a new heart, new ears, new eyes, restored. To truly sacrifice my ego, my will and my dreams. From the outside it looks like one lets go of your freedom and identity, but in actual fact you gain so much more. Because our minds are limited and God takes us to the unlimited. He gives true peace, He empowers us to bring peace and healing to those we encounter on our journey. What I was, is nothing compared to who I am now and what I am able to do through Christ Jesus.
Again, you make lots of claims. You are free to believe what you want. However, you can’t expect me to return to Christianity based on an anecdotal story. If Christianity works for you, fine. However, I see nothing in your testimony that I haven’t heard countless times. Did you really think that your story would lead me to repent and embrace faith in Christ, given that I am a man who was a Christian for fifty years and a pastor for twenty-five years?
So my message to you is that God still loves you, He wants you back, nothing can seperate you from the love of Christ, do not be fooled by the enemy who operates greatly in churches.
You can’t possibly know if God loves me. You can’t know if God wants me back. Your statements directly contradict the teachings of the Bible. How do you KNOW Satan operates greatly in churches? How do you know it’s not your beliefs that are false? Maybe you are deceived by Satan, and your email to me is her attempt to lead me astray. Besides, even if there is a Devil, who created her? Isn’t God ultimately culpable for the works of Satan? If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why did he create Satan?
I pray that you are touched by the love of Christ once again, that His peace blows through your soul, His mercy restore you and that you must know that none of it was in vain. You matter greatly to God.
Sigh. Stop with the syrupy love bombing and cheap cliches. I don’t matter to God for one simple reason: he doesn’t exist. And even if he does exist, it’s clear that outside of helping Nana find her car keys or helping Sister Bertha get a good parking place at Costco, God doesn’t give a shit about people. I see nothing in my life that says I “matter greatly to God.”
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.
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Over the past ten years, I have read countless Evangelical blogs and websites that say Donald Trump is a Christian. For the life of me, I don’t understand how Evangelicals think Trump is a follower of Jesus. What evidence of faith are they privy to that the rest of us are not? Trump doesn’t go to church, read the Bible, or live by the precepts, teachings, and commands of the Word of God. In fact, his life is a repudiation of the teachings of Christ. Name one thing he has said or done consistent with the Bible’s teachings. The past two months have been one long “fuck you” to the Good Book’s words about immigrants, poverty, and ministering to the least of these.
If Trump is a Christian, the word loses all sense of meaning. He is a pathological liar, a bigot, a racist, and a misogynist. I have yet to see anything in Trump’s life that remotely suggests he is a Christian. It’s not that a president needs to be a Christian. They don’t. Most Americans value competency over faith. Trump uses religion as a tool to keep Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons on his side. He doesn’t give a shit about Evangelicals themselves. The moment Evangelicals are no longer beneficial to his agenda, Trump will jettison them quicker than the sex he had with Stormy Daniels.
I wish Evangelicals would admit that the only reason they support Trump is that he supports their theocratic agenda. Instead of standing on moral and ethical principles, they have sold their souls for a bowl of pottage. If Jesus came back to earth today, I have no doubt he would rebuke Trump and the Evangelicals who support him. Of course, he’s not coming back, so it is left to those of us who have a clear-eyed view of the president to rebuke him and his Evangelical defenders.
Four decades ago, Evangelicals went nuts over a blow job, an intern, and a blue dress. Today, they have abandoned the teachings of Christ for the sake of political and cultural power. Such a Christianity is not only worthless, it’s harmful.
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.
