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Category: Evangelicalism

Black Collar Crime: IFB Pastor Albert Wharton Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison for Child Sex Crimes

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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.

In 2023, Albert Wharton, former pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Warsaw, Virginia, was accused of 22 felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child under the age of 13 while in a custodial position and eight felony counts of aggravated sexual assault. Victory Baptist is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation.

ABC-8 reported:

A former pastor of an independent Baptist church in the town of Warsaw in Richmond County is facing 30 felony charges relating to multiple incidents the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office alleges occurred at the church between 1981 and 1997.

Albert Benjamin Wharton, 86, of South Carolina, was arrested in South Carolina at 8:42 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 8 by investigators from the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and South Carolina’s Pickens County Sheriff’s Department.

On the same day, Wharton was extradited to the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Richmond County.

Sheriff Steve Smith of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office said Wharton’s arrest was the culmination of a 15-month investigation into more than two dozen alleged incidents that occurred while he was a preacher at Berachah Academy between 1981 and 1997. The academy has since closed.

Wharton was charged with 22 felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child under the age of 13 while in a custodial position and eight felony counts of aggravated sexual assault.

“Wharton has lived and served seven churches in Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida over the past four decades,” Sheriff Smith said.

Today, Wharton was sentenced to eight years in prison for his crimes.

ABC-8 reports:

 A former Warsaw pastor at Victory Baptist Church in Richmond County will spend eight years behind bars for child sex crimes committed between 1981 and 1996.

Dozens gathered inside of a Richmond County courthouse in the afternoon of Monday, Sept. 8 in the small town of Warsaw. The anticipated hearing was set to determine the sentence for 88-year-old Albert Wharton, a former pastor at Victory Baptist Church.

In 2023, the Richmond County Sheriff’s Department arrested and charged Wharton with 22 felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child under the age of 13 while in a custodial position and eight felony counts of aggravated sexual assault. 

According to deputies, the crimes were committed at the church’s former school, Berachah Academy, where Wharton was a pastor.

….

In June, Wharton entered an Alford plea for eight of those charges. Meaning he is maintaining his innocence while recognizing the Commonwealth’s evidence could find him guilty if this case were sent to trial. The remaining charges were nolle prosequi — meaning officials are declining to prosecute.

….

Four victims shared impact statements during the sentencing hearing. Many were brought to tears as they recounted the sexual acts. Some shared that Wharton abused his role as a pastor and say they were beaten and touched inappropriately. Every victim shared the emotional and mental toll this has taken on their lives and said they wish Wharton would take accountability.

Four of Wharton’s family and friends also spoke out during the hearing to share who they know Wharton to be. Many stated that the actions he was charged with was unlike the character they knew. Instead, they described Wharton as a caring, loving, man of God. Wharton’s daughter was among those to speak in Wharton’s character. She described Wharton as her hero and a great example for her kids.

Wharton’s defense attorney shared during his argument to the judge that Wharton does not deserve to die in prison. He cited the 88-year-old’s health as a reason for the judge to suspend his sentence or give him a shortened or at home incarceration.

The Richmond County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Elizabeth Trible, argued that Wharton’s age should not be a factor.

“Mr. Wharton used the girls ages in order to commit these crimes against them and attempted today to use his own age to avoid responsibility for these crimes. I am pleased that the judge didn’t accept that argument,” Trible said.

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: IFB Pastor John MacFarlane Explains Why Unsaved People are Murderous Heathens

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first baptist church bryan ohio

Let me beat a soapbox for a moment.  I fully support the 2nd Amendment.  Guns are not the issue.  Lack of training isn’t even the issue.  As many have said, if guns kill people, then forks make us fat and pencils make mistakes.  The issue has always been with the person using the gun, fork, or pencil.  What makes the person do what they did?  If the gun was removed, they would just find some other way to enact the violence. [Note: Most school shootings are committed by Christians.]

There will be a host of people in the world who will claim “mental illness” is to blame.  I’m not denouncing the fact that mental illness is a real thing.  However, in many situations like this, it seems to be an internal rage that finally explodes.

Why are people so angry in our world?  Why does it seem that the rage is growing to the point where it cannot be contained? 

….

When people reject God and His Lordship, they must have something to worship because we are created as worshipping beings.  Without God, there must be another god that is worshipped.  Whether it be self, nature, or some inanimate statue, those gods are colossal failures, disappointing all who worship them.  Disappointment heaped upon disappointment causes people to lash out in anger.  Couple that with the fact that the Lord “gave them up” to feel the full brunt of their emptiness without God, and disaster is sure to happen.

Only God can temper the temper and contain the rage that builds in a person. 

— John McFarlane, pastor of First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio, The Rage of the Unredeeemed

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 is God Obsessed with Foreskin?

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circumcision

In Genesis 17, we find God making an everlasting covenant with Abraham and his ancestors:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you and will make you exceedingly numerous.

….

 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.

One sign of this covenant between God, Abraham, and future generations required all living males to have their foreskins — the retractable roll of skin covering the end of the penis — removed. Going forward, all male babies, including those of slaves, were to be circumcised on the eighth day. Anyone male not circumcised was cut off from “his people.”

cicumcision 2

I wonder if God, the Father, warned Jesus before sending him to earth to atone for human sin.

God, the Father: Jesus, after we impregnate your mom, Mary, and you are born, you will have to have your foreskin cut off, without anesthesia, with a sharp rock.

Jesus: What the fuck, Dad? Is that really necessary? That’s really going to hurt!

God: Yes, my Son, your circumcision will be a sign of the covenant between Me, Abraham, and the Jewish people.

Jesus: Dad, why can’t we just issue covenant certificates, signed by you, me, and Ghost?

God: Absolutely not! Certificates will end up lost, but cut off a man’s foreskin? He will never forget that. Every time he pees, has sex, or takes a shower, he will be reminded of the covenant. Awesome, right?

Jesus: Shakes his head, wondering if Dad has dementia.

For thousands of years, countless Jewish, Christian, and Muslim male children have had their foreskins ritually and painfully removed. Why? Because God allegedly said to do so. It is 2025. Circumcision — which is genital mutilation — has no medical purpose, yet millions of boys are circumcised anyway. According to Google, over eighty percent of American males are circumcised, whereas only ten percent of male Europeans are. Anecdotally, this suggests that the more religious a culture is, the more likely they are to practice circumcision. For example, take Africa’s devoutly religious population. Over ninety percent of males are circumcised. That said, I suspect the practice is so deeply rooted in some countries that parents have their male babies circumcised, not out of religious conviction as much as conforming to societal norms.

Let me be clear, mutilating the genitals of children is child abuse. The United States could end circumcision by banning the practice. Hospitals and doctors could stop performing unnecessary, elective surgery on male infants, and insurance companies could stop paying for the procedure. Overnight, parents would stop circumcising their boys. Bruce, but what if parents want to circumcise their son for religious reasons? Sorry, but that’s not a justification for having unnecessary elective surgery performed on your children. Female genital mutilation is often done for religious reasons, yet the practice is universally condemned. It is irrational, then, to support male genital mutilation, but condemn the same practice for females. Both practices need to come to an end immediately.

What I want to know is why God didn’t create males without foreskins to start with? If his creation is intelligently designed and finely tuned, why is it necessary for practitioners of the three Abrahamic religions to have their male babies’ foreskin removed?

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.

Reclaiming the Music of Our Missed Youth

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bruce and polly gerencser 1978
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, May 1978, two months before our wedding

For those of us raised in high-demand religious sects, we know how much we missed out on while we were busy worshipping Jesus every hour of every day, week in and week out. I spent the majority of my life deeply immersed in the teachings of the Bible and the machinations of the ministry. All told, I attended over 8,000 church services, revival meetings, youth rallies, and Bible conferences. At least three times a week for the first fifty years of my life, I could be found within the four walls of Bible-believing, Bible-preaching churches. I was a committed, devoted follower of Jesus, as was my partner, Polly. When we married in 1978, we made a commitment to follow Jesus all the days of our lives. Our children were born into and lived in a home where Evangelical Christianity permeated everything we did. This is not to say that Polly and I were perfect Christians. We were not. Both of us sinned, and, on occasion, grievously so. That said, the bent of our lives was towards holiness, without which, the Bible says, “no man shall see the Lord.”

The Bible — my interpretation of it, anyway — was the foundation of our family. Thus, there were a lot of things we didn’t or couldn’t do because of our beliefs. This means we missed out on doing many of the things — good, bad, and indifferent — our peers did. Polly, in particular, lived a sheltered life, attending an Evangelical Christian high school. I was more worldly in the sense that I attended a large public high school and was more exposed to the world than she was. That said, Jesus, the Bible, and the church were the sum of our lives until we were in our late 40s.

Polly will turn sixty-seven in October, and I turned sixty-eight in June. Both of us are on the short side of life; I, in particular, with all the health problems I have. As we reflect on our pasts, we can’t help but regret missing out on so much of life. In recent years, we’ve decided to do some of the things we were forbidden from doing. Our only rule these days is this: we are free to do whatever we want to do. No God or Bible to consult. All that matters is whether we want to do something, and if we can afford it, off we go, experiencing and enjoying what little life we have left.

This is especially true when it comes to music. Over the past three years, we have attended numerous “secular” concerts, so much so that several workers at one venue know us by name. So far this year, we have heard (main acts):

  • Girl Named Tom
  • The Fray
  • Augustana
  • 1985 (a tribute band)
  • Fleetwood Mac Tribute Band
  • Buffalo Rose
  • Parmalee
  • Four Horsemen (Metallica Tribute Band)
  • Dorothy
  • Redferrin

In October, we plan to see Killer Queen (a tribute band) at The Clyde Theater in Fort Wayne and Seether, Daughtry, and POD at the Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre in Sterling Heights, Michigan. In November, a Blackstone Cherry concert is on the schedule, as is One Dark Night (a Halloween-themed concert, theatrical production). You might think that we are attending a lot of concerts — and we are — but consider how limited I am physically. I can walk short distances with a cane, but anything more than that requires a wheelchair. Fortunately, we have found three music venues that are ADA-friendly; places where we aren’t stuck in a back corner somewhere, out of sight, out of mind. Besides, we have eclectic music tastes. We love live music, so we are to be found at everything from country to heavy metal concerts.

Are you a former member of a high-demand religion that put onerous requirements on how you lived your life? How has your life changed? Have you experienced things now that you missed out on in your Christian days? 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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is God “Love”?

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god loves you so much

Virtually all Christians claim that God is “love.” Sadly, few believers bother to square this claim with the Bible. Liberal and progressive Christians tend to ignore anything in the Bible that doesn’t square with the “god is love” claim. Certainly, they can find Biblical justification for this claim, but doing so requires a helter-skelter hermeneutic. Evangelicals, on the other hand, typically have a two-faced deity: a God of love and a God of judgment. While both viewpoints find rationalization for their beliefs within the pages of the Bible, Evangelicals tend to have a more complete view of God, albeit one that they routinely distort and corrupt. Both sides are willing to reinterpret the Bible to justify their claims.

While it is certainly true that God is love, it is also true, as Richard Dawkins said, that:

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.

While Dawkins specifically mentions the God of the Old Testament, his observation applies to the God of the New Testament — Jesus. Most Christians are trinitarians. Trinitarianism is the belief that:

One God who exists eternally as three distinct, co-equal, and co-eternal persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. While God is one in essence or substance, these three persons are distinct but share the same divine nature, making God both one and three at the same time.

This means, of course, that the God of the Old Testament is the same deity revealed in the New Testament. When God drowned the entire human race save eight people, and killed countless animals, that deity was Jesus. And when God unleashes the horrific violence recorded in the book of Revelation, that deity, again, is Jesus. As God, Jesus is culpable for the violence and bloodshed attributed to God. You can’t be a trinitarian and deny this conclusion.

I have no doubt that many Christians wish that the early church had rejected the Old Testament as part of the canon of Scripture, but they didn’t, saddling Christians with a God they increasingly find distasteful and hard to defend. Liberals and progressives tend to focus on Bible verses that promote the idea that love is God’s primary attribute. However, it is hard to take the Bible at face value and come to this conclusion. Evangelicals typically embrace the sum of God as presented in Scripture, but this leaves them with having to defend all sorts of things, including rape, incest, genocide, and slavery. I have listened to numerous Evangelicals on atheist call-in shows try to defend God’s honor, without success. Why? Some of God’s behavior is without justification or excuse. He may be a God of love, but he is also a bloodthirsty deity; a God whose behavior is antithetical to the moral beliefs of both atheists and Christians alike.

Personally, I prefer to live in a “God is love” world. I suspect most of you have similar sentiments. That said, the real world is dominated by religions with long histories of violence and bloodshed — especially the Abrahamic sects. While I find the “God is love” claim intellectually lacking, I know the world is better off when both believers and unbelievers alike practice love, mercy, kindness, and compassion.

Let me conclude this post with a short video by Justin, the man behind the Deconstruction Zone. In a few minutes, Justin Holmes, a former Evangelical preacher, dismantles the “God is love” claim. If you object to what I have shared in this post, please provide a theological argument for your objection. Better yet, refute Justin’s video (which I am confident you will not be able to do). And when I say “refute,” I mean show that Justin is errantly interpreting the Bible.

Video Link

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 Pastor Brett Kitko Accused of Taking Indecent Liberties with a Child

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arrested

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.

Brett Kitko, pastor of The Phoenix at Central Park Church in Kernersville, North Carolina, stands accused of indecent liberties with a child and statutory rape/sex offense with a child.

Yahoo News reports:

A Winston-Salem man is facing child sex crime charges, according to court records.

Brett Martin Kitko, 50, of Winston-Salem, is accused in the warrant of having sex with a child.

Kitko is being charged with indecent liberties with a child and statutory rape/sex offense with a child.

According to the warrant, the offenses took place in August 2001. Kitko was taken into custody on Aug. 19.

The Forsyth County District Attorney’s Office confirms Kitko’s employment as senior pastor at Phoenix Church.

Kitko was given a $300,000 unsecured bond and appeared in court on Monday.

Kitko’s attorney told FOX8 that he will be pleading not guilty.

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 Jose Fierro Accused of Luring a Minor for Sexual Exploitation

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arrested

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.

Jose Fierro, a youth pastor at Revival Youth Tucson in Tucson, Arizona, stands accused of aggravated luring of a minor for sexual exploitation.

Channel 13 reports:

A youth pastor in the Tucson area has been accused of luring a minor.

The Oro Valley Police Department said 25-year-old Jose Fierro was arrested on Tuesday.

The OVPD said Fierro, a maintenance worker at The Golf Villas at Oro Valley and a youth pastor at Revival Youth Tucson, is facing a charge of luring a minor for sexual exploitation.

During his initial court appearance Tuesday night, a judge set his bond at $25,000. It appears he was able to post the bond as he was not in the Pima County Adult Detention Complex as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.

His next court appearance was set for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 15.

The OVPD said Fierro goes by “Bebecito Fierro” on social media.

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: Poor John Piper, He’s Been Afraid of Female Breasts His Entire Life

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john piper
John Piper

The closer I get to death and meeting Jesus personally face to face and giving an account for my life and for the careless words that I’ve spoken — and how much more for intentional stares — the more sure I am of my resolve to never intentionally look at a TV show or a movie or a website or a magazine where I know I will see photos or films of nudity. Never. And the closer I get to death, the better I feel about that and the more committed I become.

Jesus died to purify me. He died to purify his people. It is an absolute travesty of the cross to treat it as though Jesus died only to forgive us for the sin of watching nudity and not to purify us for the power not to watch it.

I want to invite, frankly, all Christians to join me in this pursuit of greater purity of heart and mind. In our day, when entertainment media is virtually the lingua franca of the world, this is an invitation to be an alien. And I believe with all my heart that what the world needs is radically bold, sacrificially loving, God-besotted freaks, aliens.

If we choose to endorse or embrace or enjoy impurity, we take a spear and ram it into Jesus’s side.

Seeing naked women causes men — and women seeing naked men — to sin with their minds and their desires and often with their bodies. If Jesus told us to guard our hearts by gouging out our eyes to prevent lust, how much more would he say, ‘Don’t watch it’?

These actresses are really naked in front of the camera, doing exactly what the director says to do with their legs and their hands, and their breasts. They’re standing there, and they’re naked in front of millions of people — for the world to see.

Men and women who want to be watched in their nudity are in the category with exhibitionists who pull down their pants at the top of escalators.

— Evangelical Pastor John Piper, The Christian Post, John Piper Says Christians Should Embrace ‘Radical Purity,’ Avoid Nudity in Media, August 26, 2025

Letter to the Editor: Donald Trump’s Grand Agenda

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letter to the editor

Letter sent to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News.

Dear Editor:

Our republic was saved from Donald Trump’s worst tendencies during his first administration by Republicans who understood what unchecked power could do in the hands of megalomaniac. Over the course of four years, they were replaced by feckless true-blue believers willing to bow to Trump’s delusional demands.

Today, the three branches of government are dominated by devotees to Trump and Project 2025. Loyal to the man, instead of the people, these servants tirelessly work to advance the whims of their leader. No regard is given to the U.S. Constitution or the rule of law. All that matters is obeisance to their savior Donald Trump. He alone, they say, can deliver us from communism, socialism, atheism, liberalism, and anything that paints White American Christians in a bad light.

In their minds, the United States is a Christian nation governed by the teachings of the Protestant Bible. Well, some teachings anyway. Trump-loving Christians ignore the verses that talk about how they should treat strangers and enemies; they ignore verses that explicitly condemn the Trump administration’s immoral treatment of undocumented workers and LGBTQ people. They worship what I call a Jesus of convenience; a Jesus that is used to advance political and social agendas instead of saving souls and transforming society.

It remains to be seen if our country will survive Donald Trump. Democrats fiddle while Rome burns, offering muted responses to Trump, if any at all, waiting until the time is “right.” If they can’t see the flames erupting through the roof, they aren’t paying attention. Protests and letters to the editor have their place — I’ve been writing letters for almost 50 years — but they alone cannot bring political and social change. The solution remains what it has always been: voting. As long as we are a democratic republic, voting remains the only means to effect change. If most Americans don’t vote, we can’t expect lasting change.

Trump plans to roll back progress to the Gilded Age of robber barons. The rich now control the reins of government more than ever before. One of their own now sits at the head of the table, acting like he’s a mob boss. All that matters to Trump is power and money; things Jesus expressly condemned. And if you stand in Trump’s way or dare to challenge his actions, he will bring the full force of the government down upon your head.

Bruce Gerencser
Ney, Ohio

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.

We Know God Did It Because He (The Bible) Says He Did

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god did it

An Evangelical preacher recently said:

Evidence for the Bible is everywhere, including outer space. We just have to be willing to look for it in a credible manner that brings glory to God. He does not lie, and the presence of water in Space shows us that God does not lie about biblical events. We know God did it because he told us he did it, and the evidence comes to shore up Christian faith when the time is right. As Christians, we do not need physical evidence. We just need to believe God because he does not lie.

And this is why having a discussion or debate with an Evangelical Christian is usually a waste of time. Discuss and debate if you must, but you won’t win. Why? When shown their beliefs and practices are false, what do Evangelicals do? Do they admit they are wrong? Do they admit you are right? Do they deconvert? Do they admit to having serious questions and doubts about their faith? Of course not, silly boy. When cornered, Evangelicals run to the safety of the house of faith and the inerrancy/infallibility of the Bible. Within the house of faith, all is ordered and well, and the Bible is true. Everything is right in this house. Of course, toking marijuana gives the same result — in my professional opinion. 🙂 It is only when Evangelicals venture outside the house of faith that change is possible. For it is in the world that they will find their beliefs and practices questioned, challenged, and overcome. Over the years, many devout Evangelicals and IFB Christians have stumbled upon this site, only to crawl away beaten and bruised, with more questions than answers.

Is my goal to evangelize for atheism? Nope. I don’t do it — ever. I am just one man with a story to tell. If my writing troubles someone or causes them to question or doubt, that’s on them. If they contact me, I will help them any way I can. I’m content to answer sincere questions and suggest books for people to read. Whatever they do with what they learn is up to them. Do some of them deconvert or move on to what I call “kinder, gentler Christianity?” You bet, and I am glad they did. Some sects of Christianity are more harmful than others. Evangelicalism, the IFB church movement, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Catholicism come to mind. These sects might be “right” about religion, but they sure cause a lot of harm, both physically and psychologically.

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.