Many preachers are decent human beings; respectful, polite, and winsome. I may disagree with them about their theological and political beliefs, but I wouldn’t have a problem sharing a meal with them at a restaurant or a beer at a pub. I reject the notion posited by some anti-theists, that all preachers are evil.
And then there are other preachers — those who frequent social media or stand on street corners shouting at passersby, threatening them with judgment and Hell, or calling them names. I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, attended an IFB college, and pastored IFB churches. I attended numerous preacher’s conferences and meetings. Again, I knew preachers who were decent people, but I also knew way too many so-called men of God who were assholes for Jesus. These men loved to abuse people they disagreed with, both theologically and politically, with mockery and ridicule. Years ago, A group of men from our church and I were preaching outside the City Center in Columbus, Ohio. After an hour or so, a group of men from an area IFB church joined us. I didn’t know them, but one of the preachers I was with did. As we were getting ready to call it a day, several Mormon missionaries came by handing out literature. As they were walking away, several men from the other church started shouting at the Mormons: MORONS! MORONS! MORONS! Their behavior angered me, and I made sure that, in the future, our church had nothing to do with them.
I also remember attending a preacher’s conference at an IFB church outside of Columbus. One preacher spent forty-five minutes, not preaching the Bible, but attacking, mocking, and haranguing churches, Bible colleges, and preachers he disagreed with. (He later cut ties with me because he disagreed with me over a minor point of doctrine.) I wish I could say that this man was an outlier, but I saw more than a few preachers who thought preaching the Bible required them to attack, belittle, and disparage churches and preachers that didn’t align with their beliefs. When called out for their abusive preaching, these bullies for Jesus retort, “You don’t like hard preaching?” or “Did I step on your toes”? “Your problem is with God, brother, not me.”
Recently, I stumbled upon an article by a Fundamentalist preacher justifying mocking Christians and unbelievers he disagrees with. This man has a penchant for name-calling and attacking anyone and everyone who runs afoul of his Fundamentalist worldview. He’s not a person I would want to be around, and I can only imagine how he treats the people who call him pastor.
Evangelicals are big on Bible proof-texting. Proof texts are used to justify all sorts of beliefs and practices. The preacher who justified mocking Christians and unbelievers? He had a proof text he thinks covers his abusive behavior.
In 1 Kings 18, we find a story about the prophet Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal to a God duel. Each side would take a bullock and put it on a stack of wood, and then they would pray to their deity, asking him to send fire from Heaven and consume the bullock.
Baal’s prophets went first:
And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made.
And then it was Elijah’s turn, but before he prayed, he decided to mock Baal’s prophets:
And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
Elijah mocked Baal’s followers, saying, maybe he’s busy talking, taking a shit, on vacation, or sleeping, and that’s why he can’t hear you.
And there ya have it, justification for treating people you disagree with like shit.
Thus saith the Lord, right? 🙂 Just remember, Evangelical preachers can use the Bible to justify almost anything.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Francier Obando Pinillo, pastor of Tiempo de Poder Church (Power Time Church) in Pasco, Washington, stands accused of bilking almost $6 million from church members and other “investors” in a fake crypto investment scheme.
The former pastor of a Pasco church is accused of collecting $5.9 million from church members and others with guarantees of monthly returns as high as 40% from cryptocurrency investments.
But a new federal lawsuit says Francier Obando Pinillo never made the promised investments and trades in cryptocurrency on behalf of his customers, instead keeping the money for himself and his associates.
He was arrested in Miami on Dec. 5 after being indicted in U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington on 25 counts of wire fraud and one count of unlicensed money transmitting business.
In addition, the Commodity Future Trading Commission is suing Francier Obando Pinillo in U.S. District Court in Eastern Washington. The commission is an independent federal regulatory agency charged by Congress with the enforcement of commodity exchanges.
Pinillo was the owner and pastor of Tiempo de Poder Church in Pasco, with members who mostly spoke Spanish, from at least late 2021 to late 2023, according to a court document.
He continues to post videos to the church’s Facebook page, most recently from Florida. The church previously operated out of strip malls on Sylvester and Court streets in Pasco.
Pastor seeks investments in church
The lawsuit claims Pinillo targeted unsophisticated customers who had little or no experience in cryptocurrency transactions or the specific type of investment he said he would make, which involved commodity interest trading.
Court documents claim the alleged scheme involved parking or “staking” digital assets such as Bitcoin to collect rewards, which are typically more cryptocurrency, and then using liquidity to borrow for additional cryptocurrency to stake.
His solicitations for investments were almost entirely made in Spanish.
“As the pastor at his church in Pasco, Wash., and as a guest speaker at other churches, defendant (Pinillo) was able to reach a vast number of potential customers, who believed he was honest and trust-worthy,” according to the civil lawsuit.
At one mega-church in Florida he lectured the congregants on the importance of lifting themselves out of poverty and then pitched them on his investment scheme, saying they could earn as much as 34.9% a month on their investment, said the suit.
He also held seminars for potential investors, including at the Pasco Red Lion Hotel and Conference Center.
He said he was the chief executive of SolanoFi Entities, which operated an automated computer trading program, according the lawsuit.
The trading program did not exist, but investors he recruited were given access to fabricated, online account statements that showed balances increasing monthly, according to the suit.
One customer invested about $36,000 in March 2022 and her balance sheet showed that had grown to more than $1 million by February 2023, said the lawsuit. She was able to log onto a website until as late as summer 2023 to see her purported balance.
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Pinillo falsely told customers there was no risk to their investments and that they could withdraw their money in as short a time as three months, said the civil lawsuit.
His top guaranteed profit of 34.9% compounded monthly, if true, would have yielded profits on a 24-month basis exceeding 400,000%, “an impossibly high return on any investment,” according to a court document.
To attract additional assets from customers, he solicited investments in a purportedly “Christian-values” oriented token called the “ShekkelCoin.”
He told investors he would pay a 15% referral fee to those who referred additional customers.
He also asked for a $1,500 maintenance fee to access the SolanoFi website with account dashboards and another $1,500 fee to support purported legal efforts to recoup assets from a bankrupt crypto-exchange that Pinillo falsely claimed had held a large amount of customer assets, according to the civil lawsuit.
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SolanoFi or Solano Fi, Solano Capital Investments and Solano Partners LTD, all sole proprietorships operated by Pinillo, were not registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Pinillo also did not hold money transmitter license from the state of Washington, nor was Solano Fi registered federally as a money transmitting business, according to a court document.
Pinillo told customers to transfer cash to bank accounts he controlled or transfer cash or digital assets to digital wallets he also controlled to allow them to earn “interest” from staked digital assets, according to court documents.
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He transferred at least $4 million in digital assets to 23 private digital wallets in Colombia with no known connection to trading commodity interests, according to a court document.
Some money from Pinillo’s 1,516 investors from November 2021 through December 2023 may have been used for payments to earlier investors in the nature of a “Ponzi” scheme, according to the suit.
But Pinillo also is accused of coming up with reasons why he could not immediately pay out profits to investors.
In March 2022, he posted online that there were technical issues with the SolanoFi dashboard used to account balances, according to a court document. However, customers would continue to receive profits and interests on their investments, the notice said.
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When the digital asset exchange FTX became insolvent in late 2022 and declared bankruptcy, Pinillo told customers that their assets were sent to FTX and were now frozen. That prevented him from returning money immediately, he said.
Pinillo had not used FTX for any of his customers’ investments and neither he nor his companies are listed as creditors in the FTX bankruptcy.
One customer met with Pinillo at the Pasco church in October 2022, and begged for the return of her money, said the suit.
Pinillo told her he didn’t have any money and that he was busy, according to a court document. The woman has yet to receive any of her money back, according to the lawsuit.
When another customer confronted him, Pinillo told him that he would never be arrested because investors did not physically hand him money but instead transferred it to accounts he designated, according to a court document.
One Tri-Cities area woman who asked to withdraw money from her accounts, received only $18 when Pinillo recorded her making a withdrawal so he could market his investment platform on social media, according to a court document.
Another woman who sometimes attended Pinillo’s Pasco church invested $10,762 in Solano Fi.
He refused to pay back the initial investment and profits she believed she had accrued, but told her if she found someone to buy out her account, he would give her the money, according to a court document.
She took him to small claims court and won a judgment of $10,000, which remains unpaid, according to the criminal complaint against Pinillo.
Pinillo continues to post short Spanish-language videos on his church and his personal Facebook pages with his prophesies.
In some of the recent videos, he said that God will create grand miracles for his followers, including future financial wealth. He also posts graphics with his own quotes about faith and God.
The 25 counts of wire fraud each carry punishments of up to 20 years imprisonment and fines of up to twice as much money as Pinillo is found to have diverted. The unlicensed money transmitting business charge is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Hunter Eubanks, a worship leader and former youth pastor at Morningside Church in Tallahassee, Florida, stands accused of sexual assault of a minor, cruelty toward a child, aggravated battery on a child, use of a computer to lure a child, obscene communication and travel to meet after using a computer to lure a child. The alleged victim is a 16-year-old churchgoer.
A former Tallahassee church employee turned himself into the Leon County Detention Facility Wednesday after he was charged with sexual assault on a minor, according to officials at the Leon County Sheriff’s Office and Morningside Church.
Hunter Eubanks, 30, is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old churchgoer multiple times on church grounds, according to a press release sent Thursday by LCSO spokesperson Shonda Knight.
Morningside Church officials confirmed to WCTV that Eubanks was a former employee there and that law enforcement believes the alleged crimes happened at their campus along Pedrick Road in Tallahassee while he worked there.
The assaults allegedly happened between June and October, and they were reported to police on October 9, the LCSO press release said.
Eubanks is facing charges of sexual assault on a minor, cruelty toward a child, aggravated battery on a child, obscene communication use of computer to lure a child and obscene communication travel to meet after use of computer to lure a child.
The sheriff’s office and Morningside told WCTV Thursday that Eubanks was employed by the church. A secretary there told WCTV over the phone that he was a ‘former employee,’ saying the 30-year-old played in the band and led musical performances.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
James McMillan, the former pastor of several Southern Baptist churches, stands accused of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16. McMillan previously pastored Slaughterville Baptist Church in Lexington, Oklahoma — renamed Cornerstone Baptist Church — and First Baptist Church in Konawa, Oklahoma.
Cleveland County deputies arrested a former pastor accused of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, and investigators say there could be more victims.
James McMillan was arrested Tuesday afternoon, and court documents show that there are multiple Department of Human Services and law enforcement cases where he is listed as a sexual abuse suspect dating back to 2003.
His former church members told KOCO 5 that it was about time he was arrested.
“Wasn’t surprised about this, but just sad that there were other victims,” said Lonnie Holland, a former team chairman, treasurer, and youth leader at Slaughterville Baptist Church.
The court documents state that McMillan was traveling with an underage victim on Highway 39 near 120th Avenue Southeast in Cleveland County when they got stuck in traffic. The victim claimed McMillan unzipped his pants and began touching himself in front of the victim.
The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office said McMillan was a former pastor at numerous churches but is not currently employed as one.
In 2014, KOCO 5 interviewed McMillan when he was the pastor at First Baptist Church of Konawa. At that time, he claimed his First Amendment rights were being violated for not being allowed to pray before a high school game.
“This man needs to be locked up in prison where he can’t have any more victims,” Holland said. “He needs to be held accountable for what he has done.”
Holland said he was at Slaughterville Baptist Church when McMillan became the lead pastor around 2018.
“None of the girls felt comfortable with him,” Holland said.
He told KOCO 5 that he heard of allegations against McMillan.
“I knew by what I was hearing that he wasn’t qualified to be a pastor in any way, shape or form,” Holland said, adding that he tried to get McMillan removed. “They voted to keep him. So, at that point, within a week I was gone.”
The Slaughterville church has since been renamed, and church officials told KOCO 5 that they are under new leadership.
Holland said he never contacted law enforcement because he didn’t have evidence of a previous crime. He told KOCO 5, though, that he brought his concerns to the Oklahoma Baptist Conference.
“Told him what I found and basically was told that we were going to get to the bottom of this,” Holland said. “Nothing came of that, as far as I know.”
The Oklahoma Baptist Conference did not return KOCO 5’s calls for comment.
McMillan was arrested again for allegedly sending a nude photo of himself to a 14-year-old girl.
James McMillan, the former pastor of Slaughterville Baptist Church and First Baptist Church of Konawa in Oklahoma, who was arrested last month after he was accused of lewd or indecent acts with a child younger than 16, was arrested again on Monday for allegedly sending a nude photo of himself to a 14-year-old girl.
McMillan’s most recent arrest stems from an incident that happened in March 2023, KFOR reported. He is no longer pastoring at any church.
Citing court documents, the 14-year-old’s father said his daughter told him about the photo McMillan sent her and he reported him to local police. It wasn’t until he reached out to an Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officer in October that he saw any action on the case.
“My daughter had come to me and let me know that she had received a nude picture from a grown man,” the victim’s father recalled.
He explained that his daughter and McMillan’s son had previously attended school together, and his daughter believes McMillan likely used his son’s Snapchat account to look up her name because of her security settings. She eventually accepted a friend request from McMillan.
According to court documents, a friend of the teenage victim alleged that McMillan was a pedophile when she learned of his friend request. The victim countered the allegation, saying that she would screenshot any communication that crossed the line and report it to police.
McMillan soon sent the victim an unsolicited photo of himself flexing in a mirror, to which she responded something to the effect of “trying to get them gains.”
The former pastor then allegedly asked if she might “want to see more” and sent her his nude photo before she could respond.
“He just sent the fully nude picture,” the victim’s father said. “There was no request or anything like that for it.”
When McMillan later learned she was 14, he blocked her on Snapchat, which erased their messaging history. The teenager had the screenshot, however.
“He’s clearly proven that he has a problem with this and won’t, you know, won’t stop,” the victim’s father said. “He’s somebody that’s truly a danger to our society.”
Court documents cited by KOCO News 5 show that the former pastor has been listed as a sexual abuse suspect in multiple Department of Human Services and law enforcement cases dating back to 2003.
In the charges leveled against him in late November, McMillan allegedly unzipped his pants and touched himself in front of an underage minor while driving down a Cleveland County highway. His bond after his arrest on Monday was set at $450,000.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Kurt Schenk, pastor of New Beginnings Church of the Cross (formerly Freemont United Methodist Church) in Christiana, Pennsylvania, stands accused of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman with autism and a learning disability. Schenk has been scrubbed from the church’s website.
A former Coatesville City Council member sexually assaulted a 21-year-old woman with autism and a learning disability in his home after months of having explicit conversations with her, Chester County prosecutors said Thursday.
Kurt Schenk, 63, told the woman, whom he is related to and got to know as pastor of New Beginnings Church of the Cross, “not to tell anyone [he] tried to touch [her], no matter what,” after the Oct. 21 assault was interrupted by her family, according to the woman’s testimony at Schenk’s preliminary hearing.
Schenk offered to give the woman a ride home but, instead, brought her to his house, where he forced her to the ground and assaulted her inside his garage, she said Thursday.
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District Judge Nancy Gill held Schenk over on charges of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, and false imprisonment, sending the case to a county judge.
Schenk’s attorney, Dan Bush, cast doubts on the woman’s credibility during the hearing, pressing her on details in her testimony, particularly why she continued to speak with Schenk after he made her feel uncomfortable and hid their correspondence from her parents.
“We are looking forward to the truth coming out,” Bush said afterward. “Because what we heard in that courtroom was not remotely close to the truth.”
The woman, who said her learning disability affects her comprehension, testified that Schenk called her on Oct. 21 as she was out for her daily walk near her home in Parkesburg. He asked her where she was and, shortly after their call, pulled up to her in his pickup truck, she said.
The two had begun communicating privately when the woman turned 18, and their conversations were initially benign, usually discussing their days and New Beginnings, a Christian church in nearby Christiana, according to testimony Thursday.
But not long before her 21st birthday, she said, Schenk began to say “inappropriate things” to her. In phone calls, Schenk told her he wanted to “make love” to her and made sexually explicit comments about her body, according to the woman. He also asked her to send him pictures of her wearing a bathing suit, which she agreed to do, she said.
The woman testified that had she continued to talk with Schenk even after her parents told her not to because Schenk was kind to her about her disability and consoled her when she confided in him that friends of hers had abandoned her.
Those conversations, she said, were specifically timed to when Schenk’s wife was not home.
“It was disturbing and disgusting, and I’m so, so angry,” the woman said. “Shame on him.”
During their encounter on the day of the alleged assault, she said, she accepted Schenk’s offer to drive her home because it was warm out and she felt tired.
However, instead of dropping her off, Schenk drove past her home to his, about two miles away on Upper Valley Road in Atglen. The woman said she was afraid and confused by the unannounced detour but didn’t know what to do or say to Schenk.
At his home, Schenk asked her to get out of the vehicle on its driver’s side so no one could see her from the road, she said. He then grabbed her by her wrists and led her into his garage, closing the door behind them, she said.
Once inside, Schenk pushed her to the ground and sexually assaulted her, she said. She said she felt “frozen” and unable to move as Schenk attempted to pull her leggings off.
He stopped only when the woman’s sister began banging on the garage’s door and calling her name, she said. The woman’s sister had been tracking her through the Life360 app and had become worried when she saw she had traveled so far from home, the woman said.
Schenk got up and opened the door for the woman’s sister when he saw that police had also arrived.
The woman’s father said Thursday that Schenk targeted her while aware that she had a disability.
“Justice will be served in this life and when he stands before the Almighty God, the one he claims to serve,” the man said. “Proclaiming the cross, he is actually an enemy of it. He’s a phony. He knows it, we know it.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Robert Jaynes Jr., pastor of Irvington Bible Baptist Church in Irvington, Indiana was sentenced last week to eleven and a half years in prison on charges ” related to the manufacture of more than 10 tons of synthetic drugs” The Indy Star reports:
Once, pastor Robert Jaynes Jr. was a man of many words, shown in videos giving thundering sermons to his small flock at the fundamentalist Irvington Bible Baptist Church.
But it was different last week in federal court, where Judge Rodney W. Sippel sentenced Jaynes on charges related to the manufacture of more than 10 tons of synthetic drugs.
“If there’s anything you’d like to say, now’s the time,” Sippel said.
Later, Jaynes did chime in to say it was hard to have the country he loves as a courtroom adversary: USA vs. Jaynes, a case in which he pleaded guilty to two charges.
Over three hours at the sentencing hearing, a much deeper portrait than previously known emerged of a pastor who made drugs at a volume the judge called “staggering” while luring several members of his church into the scheme, even putting his mother in jeopardy of arrest.
Jaynes was the first to be sentenced out of 23 people charged in a national conspiracy, an operation that included his wife, brother-in-law, two now-former sheriff’s deputies and an Indianapolis Public Schools teacher.
From April 2011 to October 2013, prosecutors said, Jaynes sold more than 500,000 packages of synthetic marijuana, or “spice,” in a form ready for retail sale. Over a period of nine months in 2013, Jaynes grossed $2.6 million in sales.
The total income, prosecutors said, was higher but couldn’t be quantified easily.
Judge Sippel stressed the impact Jaynes had on victims whose “lives were disrupted, destroyed, altered.”
While not directly linked to Jaynes, synthetic drug use caused a rise in emergency calls to the Indiana Poison Center. Officials at the center told IndyStar that reports involving synthetic cannabinoids spiked in 2011 and 2012, and two deaths in 2014 were attributed to such drugs.
“The quantity here is staggering,” the judge said of Jaynes’ operation, “so that means the number of people who could come tell us that story is incomprehensible.”
Spice, selling under brands such as Pirates’ Booty, is smoked like marijuana and meant to mimic its effects. Its production, however, isn’t usually precise, meaning the amount of the active ingredient in a package can vary wildly.
One of the charges to which Jaynes pleaded guilty involved mislabeling the drugs, typically sold at mom-and-pop gas stations, head shops and tobacco stores. The drugs are sometimes labeled as “potpourri” or as incense.
Jaynes started in the business by packaging synthetic drugs made by Doug Sloan, with whom Jaynes had worked in the mortgage business, and eventually moved into distributing the finished product to retail outlets.
Jaynes’ lawyer said he got involved with synthetic drugs after filing for bankruptcy and as his son was about to undergo open-heart surgery.
Public records show that Jaynes filed for bankruptcy in 2006. He claimed a monthly income that year of just $528 from his work as a pastor and self-employed courier. That was a dramatic drop from the $91,000 he claimed to have earned.
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Prosecutors portrayed Jaynes as a brazen criminal undeterred by the threat of prosecution, even after police shut down manufacturing facilities operated by Sloan and his brother, Greg Sloan, and others in the St. Louis area in 2012.
“At that point anybody would say, ‘What am I dealing with? What am I doing?’” prosecutor James Delworth said. “But instead he goes the opposite way and he becomes the largest supplier for Greg Sloan. You’ve got this continuation and growth even after law enforcement steps in.”
Prosecutors read text messages from 2012 recovered from Greg Sloan’s phone to emphasize just how aggressive Jaynes was.
“Hi Greg. This is Rob,” one text from Jaynes said. “Just wanted to check in and see if you guys needed me yet. I’m still ready to go. I’m broke and trying to find work. If you needed me to come over there and sell my crew to the guys you work with, I’d be glad to. I’d do whatever you thought necessary in order to get work for me and my guys.”
Being broke seemed a dubious claim, prosecutors said. Tax records from the previous two years showed that Tight 30 Entertainment — the company prosecutors said Jaynes used to launder money — had sales of more than $4.5 million. During that time, Jaynes reported personal taxable income of more than $850,000.
Greg Sloan, who has pleaded guilty, soon found even more work for Jaynes, selling to a man in Oklahoma City later in 2012. Jaynes texted Sloan: “That’s great. I’ll take as much as I can get. Maybe if I prove myself with these guys, your guys might decide to give me a shot, too. I’m ready to roll.”
Greg Sloan replied: “These are my guys. Robert Jaynes, I seriously thank you. You are one of the most gracious and kind men I’ve ever met.”
For protection, Jaynes turned to church members Jason and Teresa Woods, a married couple who at the time served as Hendricks County Sheriff’s deputies. A criminal investigator for the Internal Revenue Service testified that people in Jaynes’ organization knew Jason and Teresa Woods as “the fixers.”
“If anybody got in trouble, that’s who they were supposed to call, if they got stopped by law enforcement,” the IRS investigator said.
When Jaynes moved his operation from New Ross, Indiana, to a home in New Palestine, Jason Woods provided an escort.
“He was out of uniform, but showed up in his squad car,” the IRS investigator. “He met the truck down the street and followed it on two different occasions that day as an escort behind the vehicle to protect it, so nobody could, possibly, could pull the vehicle over during the transportation of all the synthetic drug products in the back of the vehicle.”
Jason and Teresa Woods were initially arrested in December 2014 on charges in Boone County stemming from an investigation into the spice ring. They were suspended from their law enforcement jobs and later fired.
You can read the Indy Star’s in-depth investigation of Jaynes and his drug empire here.
In 2024, President Joe Biden commuted Jaynes’s sentence.
President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of a former Indianapolis pastor who was sentenced to 11 1/2 years in prison for running a multimillion-dollar spice ring.
Robert Jaynes Jr. is one of nearly 1,500 people whose sentences were commuted last week as part of what the White House has described as the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
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Jaynes, a former pastor at the fundamentalist Irvington Bible Baptist Church, was charged for manufacturing more than 10 tons of synthetic marijuana, also known as “spice” or “K2.” Jaynes, who pleaded guilty in 2016, had lured several members of his church into the scheme to manufacture drugs at a volume that a federal judge called “staggering.”
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From April 2011 to October 2013, Jaynes sold more than 500,000 packages of spice, prosecutors said. He grossed $2.6 million in sales over a period of nine months in 2013.
Jaynes, who founded the Irvington Bible Baptist Church in 1998, remains in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons as of Monday. A spokesman said Jaynes was transferred on May 4, 2022, to community confinement overseen by the Detroit Residential Reentry Management office. This means Jaynes is either in a residential reentry center or in home confinement.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Luke Taylor is the pastor of Veneration Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Kalispell, Montana. Taylor, a culture warrior, recently preached a sermon series titled Culture Clash: A Biblical Look at Culture’s Hottest Topics. Spanning five sermons so far, Taylor preached oh-so-important sermons such as: A Battle for the Heart, Sexual Purity, Transgenderism, Homosexuality, and Abortion. The sermon videos had subtitles such as:
There has been a major clash between culture and biblical truth. Paul warns the church not to be deceived as the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God. A battle has been waged for the heart, and the only remedy is Jesus and a complete surrender to Him.
If sex is like a consuming fire, why has God commanded us to control the burn? We know His command for purity is all over the Bible, but what is the reason for this command? How is it for our best? How has the devil hijacked God’s plan for sex, and kept us from enjoying the most satisfying and fulfilling sex you can imagine? As we will see, God invented sex for our good and His glory, and His plan is the best and most satisfying by design. Nothing else can compare.
At the core of the LGBTQ community rests two common traits: a rebellion against God and a personal brokenness that leads to a search for identity. Transgenderism is the fruit of rebellion and brokenness. How does the Bible speak to these issues and how is the church to respond?
At the core of the LGBTQ+ community rests two common traits: a rebellion against God and His design and a personal brokenness that is in search of healing. What does the Bible say about homosexuality and same-sex marriage? Why are these against God’s design and how do we know? How do you wrestle with these issues in light of the Gospel and salvation? How is the church to respond?
Statistics would show that over 40% of women, both inside and outside the church, have been touched by the pain of abortion. For every woman that has walked this road, there is also a man. While the Bible has much to say about the sanctity of life, it also has much to say about the forgiveness the cross of Christ offers for any who have walked down this painful road. To think that any sin cannot be forgiven by the blood of Jesus is to cheapen the cross of Christ. God not only forgives, but He also restores and redeems.
Taylor didn’t announce his sermon titles in advance, fearing congregants would skip church if they knew he was preaching about their particular sin. The Sunday he planned to preach on abortion, this is what happened:
Taylor did not announce the sermon schedule because he didn’t want people to choose which sermons they might avoid. However, he accidentally mentioned when he would preach on abortion. “Driving home after church, I felt the Spirit of God telling me to switch the weekends for this topic because there might be women who would skip that sermon due to the grips of guilt and shame.”
Sure enough, Taylor heard that some women planned to miss that sermon. “If God was going to set them free, they needed to be there,” he said. So Taylor changed plans. The result was that “many women showed up the following weekend and were set free. God did God things in God ways,” Taylor said.
Taylor was recently interviewed by The Baptist Paper about his sermon series. Taylor assured readers that his sermons were not political; that if someone took issue with his sermons, their problem was with God, not him.
[The series was] “not about what we are standing against but about who we are standing for. [Drawing from biblical teachings, Taylor prayed for the sermons to be] presented in a way that if anyone had a problem with what I said it would be because they rebelled against God’s Word and not my opinion.
Nothing like a cocksure Baptist preacher, right? Certain that his personal interpretations of the Bible are straight from the mouth of God, Taylor viewed any objections to his sermons as rebellion against the inerrant, infallible Word of God.
I was an Evangelical preacher for twenty-five years. According to church members and colleagues in the ministry, my sermons were well crafted and used by God to bring conviction of sin and salvation. When asked about my sermons, my partner of forty-six years, Polly — who heard virtually every one of my 4,000+ sermons — always voiced approbation for my messages. Even when I missed the mark with a sermon, Polly always praised me for a good job. Awesome wife, right? 🙂 I learned not to trust her judgments of my sermons, knowing her love for me was greater than the quality of a particular sermon. Some church members did the same as they shook my hand after church, saying, “Preacher, that was a wonderful sermon.” The subject matter didn’t matter, my sermons were always supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The judgments of my sermons that did matter to me were the ones from my fellow preachers. By all accounts, my sermons were well received by them.
I took the craft of preaching seriously. I learned early on that sermons could be used to “motivate” people to behave in certain ways. Choose the right text, use timely heart-tugging illustrations, and deliver the sermon with passion and conviction, it was not hard to get people to make decisions for Christ. While I had sincere intentions, desiring, as Taylor does, to save sinners and bring conviction of sin to church members, I eventually recognized that what I was really doing was psychologically manipulating people. Eventually, I stopped giving altar calls and dialed back aspects of my preaching I felt were manipulative. Preaching expositional sermons instead of topical/textual sermons helped limit the kind of manipulation found in Taylor’s Culture Clash sermon series. My goal was to teach the Bible and let congregants do with it what they will.
I am not suggesting that Taylor is evil or a cult leader. Many preachers are unaware of how their sermons can be used to psychologically manipulate people, thinking that when people positively respond to their sermons by getting saved or confessing secret, long-held sin, it is the Holy Spirit moving instead of manipulation. For those of us raised in Baptist churches, we were indoctrinated and conditioned to respond to sermons in general, and certain content in particular, to make decisions for Christ. Sermon-induced guilt is labeled Holy Ghost conviction instead of what it is, psychological manipulation. I listened to several of Taylor’s sermons, particularly his sermon on Transgenderism. Taylor is well-spoken and knows how to use a well-turned phrase to elicit the desired response. His sermons conclude with a prayer, complete with background music. Then the church band starts playing. I assume this is Veneration Church’s version of an altar call. I have written previously about how Evangelical preachers use music to tug at the heartstrings (minds) of congregants, making it easier for them to get right with God. Whether it is the singing of Just As I Am or modern contemporary songs, the goal is to stir the passions of those in attendance.
Taylor’s certainly had the desired effect. Scores of church members confessed long-buried sins, including sexual sins. To give readers a good idea of what happened at Veneration Church, what follows is a video Taylor played for the congregation featuring his fellow pastor Tyler Wilschetz and his wife Alicia.
Guilt is common among Evangelicals. When the focus is on sin — as defined by the pastor’s personal interpretations of the Bible — and brokenness, it is not surprising that church members feel so guilty. Guilt, then, becomes the fertile ground preachers use to encourage people to repent of secret sins and get right with God. Taylor told congregants that “guilt and shame” were from the Devil, but I suggest that they are the fruit of Evangelical dogma and psychological manipulation.
The Baptist Paper story gave several examples of how Taylor’s sermons affected church members:
One of Taylor’s sermons focused on sexual purity especially within the context of biblical marriage, citing premarital cohabitation, premarital sex, extramarital sex, and viewing porn as among numerous biblical prohibitions regarding sensuality.
“But why does the Bible speak so much about sexual purity?” he asked. Because only within God’s design is found “our full satisfaction, our complete enjoyment, and our greatest pleasure.”
For those who sorrow over previous sexual sins, Taylor said, “Guilt and shame are from the devil. But conviction comes from the Holy Spirit.” The power of the gospel redeems and frees us from the prison of past failures regardless of what they were, he said.
Following the sermon, Taylor’s invitation calling all who wanted to repent of sin and to commit to a life of purity garnered about 90 men who walked the aisle and stood up front in public testimony of their commitment.
….
One woman found freedom from decades of abortion guilt. She believed that her daughter — who was born without a right hand and died in her early thirties — was God’s judgment. She assessed the untimely death of her husband similarly.
In a subsequent discipleship group the walls fell.
The group leader reported to Taylor: “The woman let go of 40 years of guilt and pain. We had an incredible time of prayer over her, where she was able to grieve her baby, give up to God the falsehoods Satan had over her, and start her restoration of moving forward without guilt.”
Sadly, many of the “sins” Evangelicals feel guilty about are normal human behaviors. Notice Taylor’s obsession over sexual “sin.” Want to elicit guilt from church members? Preach on sexual behaviors deemed sinful by the churches/pastors. Sex is a basic human need, right up there with eating and drinking. I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church movement. I heard countless sermons about heinous sins such as premarital sex, fornication, lust, masturbation, and pornography. Instead of being taught to own my sexuality and learning how to act responsibly around the opposite sex, I learned that normal, healthy sexual desire was sin; that God would harshly judge me if I didn’t keep my pants zipped up and my mind focused on the precious Word of God. Try as I might, and no matter how many prayers I prayed, sermons I listened to, and Bible verses I read, I still had raging hormones. While both Polly and I were virgins on our wedding day, this was not because we conquered our sexual desires. No, we feared God would get us if we rounded third and slid into home. Many of our fellow youth group members and college friends were not as holy as we were. When the Devil rang the proverbial doorbell they answered the door, and the result was years of guilt over not adhering to the church’s Puritannical moral code. Some of my fellow dorm dwellers who succumbed to “lust” went on to pastor Baptist churches. A funny thing happened on their way to the pulpit. They forgot that they had hit home runs while at Midwestern Baptist College. Sexual “sins” long since confessed and buried were forgotten as they stood in their pulpits and arranged another generation of young people about the evils of handholding, kissing, petting, mutual sexual stimulation, fornication, and masturbation.
Teenagers and young adults are going to engage in sexual activity regardless of what they hear from the pulpit. Instead of preaching guilt-inducing sermons and telling young people to “just say no,” it would be better if pastors taught their young charges personal accountability and responsibility. Perhaps it is time to chuck the Bible and encourage young and old alike healthy attitudes about sex and desire. If Taylor’s sermon series should have taught him anything, it is that sermons such as his don’t bring lasting change. The Bible is no match for sexual want, need, and desire — as adult church members would affirm if they ever shared their sexual secrets. Imagine a church testimony time where one adult after another shared stories about hot summer nights and youthful desires. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, sat down with Rolling Stone journalist, Lorena O’Neil, to discuss Louisiana’s law that mandates posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms:
“The Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization, and you’re telling me we can’t hang them in school?” he [Governor Jeff Landry] asked me.
When I [Lorena O’Neil] brought up people who don’t believe in God, Landry got impassioned. “They don’t have to look at the poster! They don’t believe in what? Do not kill?”
Landry, a Roman Catholic, thinks the Ten Commandments (the Exodus 20 version) are the fabric of civilization. Either Landry is ignorant about human history or he’s deliberately misleading his constituents. I suspect it’s the latter. It is also possible that Landry is using the word “civilization” in a narrow sense of the world, but regardless, human civilizations predate the Bible story that records God giving Moses the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. It is unlikely Moses was an actual person, and the Ten Commandments were written down over three millennia after the establishment of human civilization. Historians debate the dating of the Ten Commandments and the start of human civilization, but whatever dates you go with, human civilization predates the Ten Commandments. This means Landry’s claim that. the Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization is false.
THIS [Posting the Ten Commandments in Schools] MAY BE, IN FACT, THE FIRST MAJOR STEP IN THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION, WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED, IN OUR COUNTRY.
Donald Trump on Truth Social
Landry seems to think that Louisiana public schools are religious institutions that grudgingly allow non-Christians to enroll with the understanding that they will be exposed to the trappings of Christianity. “Don’t like the Ten Commandments posters?” Landry asks. “Don’t look at them.” Landry wrongly thinks that those who oppose the posting of the Ten Commandments lack moral grounding or a basis for morality. He doesn’t seem to understand that moral foundations can be built from various sources, including the Ten Commandments. And let’s be clear, the Ten Commandments are insufficient for building a broad, comprehensive moral foundation.
The first four commands are explicitly religious in nature. They have no relevance to non-Christians. Landry brings up the sixth command. He must think that this command is self-explanatory, but it’s not. What this command means is debated both within and without the Christian church. The same can be said of all ten commandments. Who, exactly, is going to interpret the commandments for students? What’s next, bringing in priests and preachers to provide the proper interpretation for students?
I support teaching the Ten Commandments in a high school World Religions class. Surely, one class session on the history of the Ten Commandments should suffice, right? Why must the Ten Commandments be posted on the walls of every classroom? Students will soon get used to seeing the poster and, before long, not pay attention to it. Posting the Ten Commandments will not make a bit of difference for public school students. All Landry has done is win a paper victory in the latest culture war.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
A year or so ago, Richard, an Evangelical Christian, sent me an email, to which I responded in the post Dear Richard, the Evangelical Christian. Richard did not respond to my post, either by commenting or sending me an email.
Today, Richard sent me another email, which is reproducedbelow. In round two, I will attempt to respond to Richard again. (All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.)
Bruce, I wrote you about fourteen months ago. I am glad that you are still alive, for where there is life, there is hope.
Richard, I find it troublesome that the only reason you’re glad I’m still alive is so I might yet get saved. 2024 was a difficult year for me physically. Four months ago, I had major surgery on my spine. I am still recovering from this procedure. I continue to have increasing problems with gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency — both of which have robbed me of the joy of eating. I’m on the short side of life, so I’m glad to be alive, not so I still have an opportunity to get washed in the blood of Jesus, but because I want to spend as much time as possible with my partner, children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. I hope to live another day for them, knowing they will miss me when I’m gone. There’s no Heaven, Hell, or afterlife, so each day matters to me, knowing that the moment I draw my last breath, life will end for me. Most days, I think that sucks, but some days my pain is so severe that death seems preferable to living, Fortunately, such moments pass. Whether that will always be the case, I know not.
Hope, from my perspective, is the promise of tomorrow. Since death is the end of the road for all of us, my hope focuses on what life I have left; which may be an hour, a day, a month, or a year or two or three. I want to cram as much living into my life as possible. I have no interest in spending time on mythical beings or Bible verses that have no relevance or bearing on my life.
God has given His human creation and His angelic host free-will (i.e., the right to choose their destiny in life and death).
First, I’m an atheist, so I reject the notion that God created us.
Second, I reject the notion that we have libertarian free will. As a Christian, I didn’t believe in free will either. Surely you don’t believe sinners can get saved any time they want.
If you want to have a debate about free will, I’m game. I’m well versed in what the Bible says on the matter.
Your website states that you are both a humanist and an atheist, but that may not be altogether true. You did not start out that way. At some point in time, you made a conscious choice to move in that direction.
What do you mean by “that may not be altogether true”? I am a humanist and an atheist. Are you saying I’m lying or that I don’t know what I believe?
Yes, I chose to be an atheist and a humanist. I also chose to be a Christian and a pastor. I chose to marry Polly and have six children with her. I chose to spend twenty-five years pastoring churches, just as I chose to walk away from Christianity almost seventeen years ago.
Since you have free will and as long as you have life, you have the right to stay with your current position or adopt some other position in the future!
Sure, and I will become a Christian the moment I am provided persuasive evidence for the existence of God and the supernatural claims of the Bible. Do you have such evidence, Richard? If so, I would love to see it. Preaching at me will not work, and neither will quoting Bible verses.
The measure of true character is the actions we take when we are under enormous stress/pressure.
I agree, and that is why you should compliment me for being willing to be honest and deconvert, even though I was under tremendous pressure to remain a Christian, under threats of judgment and Hell.
The Garden of Gethsemane was thebest opportunity by Satan to subvert God’s plan of salvation for His human creation. If Jesus had died in the Garden and not on the cross, He would not have died an ignominious, humiliating death on a Roman cross, but He also would not have been able to completely fulfill all that was foretold about Him in the Scriptures. Jesus did not take the easy way out, but drank the full cup of suffering He was required to drink to satisfy the complete payment for our sins.
Richard, I have suffered far more than Jesus did. He had a really bad day hanging on the cross, but then he died and was resurrected 48-72 hours later. I have battled chronic illness and pain for over twenty years. No ascension to Heaven for me. Just painful suffering from the moment I awake until I fall asleep — that is, IF I sleep. Many nights, I sleep an hour or so at a time before pain in my spine, neck, legs, or shoulders wakes me up.
I hope you know your sermonizing means nothing to me. Jesus lived and died, end of story. You assume facts not in evidence; claims based on faith, not evidence.
Bruce, in a race, especially the race of life, the most important stage of the race is to finish strong and hopefully win.
That’s not how I live my life. Life is all about the journey and not the destination. Since we all die, none of us can “win.” Live long enough and you will face and experience diminished capacity and strength. I am a shell of the man I once was physically.
I live for the moment, Richard. If my life ends today, it will be with the knowledge that I have lived a good life; that I have been blessed to spend forty-six years with my best friend and lover; and that I have lived long enough to see some of my grandchildren graduate from high school and go off to college. I’ve had a good life, so what could your Jesus add to my life? Nothing that I can think of.
Jesus is the One I try to emulate. He claimed that His Word is truth and He also claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I believe Him. He spoke of Hell in very graphic terms and convinced me that Hell is somewhere I do not even want to visit, let alone spend eternity there.
So what? I don’t care what the Bible says. I don’t think the Bible is a supernatural text written by a supernatural God.
I do not fear Hell, because I am confident that no such place exists. The Evangelical Hell is used as a tool to elicit fear in non-Christians so they will get saved. Its ultimate use is to put asses in church pews and money in offering plates.
And even if I believed in the existence of a place called Hell — a place created by God to eternally punish non-Christians — I would not worship God. Any deity that punishes finite sins with eternal punishment is not a God worthy of worship. Such a God is a moral monster.
The other day, I listened to a video broadcast between two well-known and respected scientists who, at the start of their lives both knew hardly anything about God, but now are both committed Christians. One is a chemist and the other one is a physicist. The chemist grew up in a secular Jewish home, yet has a love relationship and a closeness with Jesus that I wish I had but do not yet have.
I am including a link below regarding that video I heard. Bruce, you might even enjoy it and it could rekindle something that died long ago.
No thanks. You seem to not understand why I deconverted. Please read or re-read the posts found on the Why? page. A YouTube video is not going to change my mind about the existence of the Christian deity. I was an Evangelical Christian for almost fifty years I have a Bible college education and pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. I spent 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. You really don’t understand my story if you think this video is going to “rekindle something that died long ago.” Give me credit for doing my homework, Richard. When I deconverted in 2008, I did so with eyes wide open, knowing that I was making the right decision.
And for the record, Dr. James Tour [one of the scientists on the video] is a dick. He is a terrible advertisement for Christianity.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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 several thoughtful questions that I would like to answer in this post:
Dear Bruce,
I admire how you bravely stood up by writing that letter to make the points you made. Years later, after the firestorm, do you still think writing it was the best way to let everyone know about your deconversion? Any regrets over the firestorm?
Also, I wonder if any old friends who are evangelicals remained friends with you afterward?
I wonder all this because I am unsure about whether I should come out publicly or not. Our personalities are quite different, but I value your perspective.
My partner, Polly, and I, along with our three youngest children — then ages 18, 16, and 14 — attended church for the last time on the last Sunday in November 2008. We had been attending the Ney United Methodist Church on Sundays, though occasionally we would visit other churches. For months prior, Polly and I had been talking about our experiences as Evangelical Christians. Both of us had spent our entire lives in Evangelical churches. After marrying in 1978, we spent twenty-five years pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Our last pastorate (2003) was a Southern Baptist church in Clare, Michigan. We spent the next five years visiting over one hundred churches (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT!) in five states looking for a place to call home. Instead, we became increasingly disillusioned by what we saw, heard, and experienced, in both Evangelical and mainline churches.
During these five years, we spent countless hours talking about our experiences and beliefs. By the time we reached 2008, Polly and I had serious doubts about the Bible and the bedrock beliefs we held dear. Both of us feared where the path we were on would lead, but we couldn’t stop. Indeed, we were on the slippery slopes our pastors warned us about — the downward slope that led to unbelief.
I’m not sure that either of us thought our last Sunday at Ney United Methodist was the end of the road for us, but after we came home from church, with tears in my eyes, I said to Polly, “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” Polly replied, “I’m done too.” Discussions, of course, about the Bible, religion, and church, in general, continued for some time. We weren’t atheists, but we weren’t Christians either. Our identities were so wrapped up in the ministry as pastor and pastor’s wife, we were uncertain about what the future held for us — including whether God was going to punish us or strike us dead for walking away from Christianity.
Rumors had been swirling among Evangelical friends, colleagues in the ministry, and former church members for some time. To put an end to all the gossip, I decided to write an open letter, and send it out to family, friends, and former parishioners. Sent out to a hundred or so people, here’s what I wrote:
Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners,
I have come to a place in life where I can no longer put off writing this letter. I have dreaded this day because I know what is likely to follow after certain people receive it. I have decided I can’t control how others react to this letter, so it is far more important to clear the air and make sure everyone knows the facts about Bruce Gerencser.
I won’t bore you with a long, drawn-out history of my life. I am sure each of you has an opinion about how I have lived my life and the decisions I have made. I also have an opinion about how I have lived my life and the decisions I made. I am my own worst critic.
Religion, in particular Baptist, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist religion, has been the essence of my life from my youth up. My being is so intertwined with religion that the two are quite inseparable. My life has been shaped and molded by religion, and religion touches virtually every fiber of my being.
I spent most of my adult life pastoring churches, preaching, and being involved in religious work to some degree or another. I pastored thousands of people over the years, preached thousands of sermons, and participated in and led thousands of worship services.
To say that the church was my life would be an understatement. But, as I have come to see, the church was actually my mistress, and my adulterous affair with her was at the expense of my wife, children, and my own self-worth. (Please see It’s Time to Tell the Truth: I Had an Affair.)
Today, I am publicly announcing that the affair is over. My wife and children have known this for a long time, but now everyone will know.
The church robbed me of so much of my life, and I have no intention of allowing her to have one more moment of my time. Life is too short. I am dying. We all are. I don’t want to waste what is left of my life chasing after things I now think are vain and empty.
I have always been known as a reader, a student of the Bible. I have read thousands of books in my lifetime. The knowledge gained from my reading and studies has led me to some conclusions about religion, particularly the Fundamentalist, Evangelical religion that played such a prominent part in my life.
I can no longer wholeheartedly embrace the doctrines of Evangelical, Fundamentalist Christianity. Particularly, I do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, nor do I accept as true the common Evangelical belief of the inspiration of Scripture.
Coming to this conclusion has forced me to reevaluate many of the doctrines I have held as true over these many years. I have concluded that I have been misinformed, poorly taught, and sometimes lied to. As a result, I can no longer accept as true many of the doctrines I once believed.
I point the finger of blame at no one. I sincerely believed and taught the things that I did, and many of the men who taught me were honorable teachers. Likewise, I don’t blame those who have influenced me over the years, nor do I blame the authors of the many books I have read. Simply, it is what it is.
I have no time to invest in the blame game. I am where I am today for many reasons, and I must embrace where I am and move forward.
In moving forward, I have stopped attending church. I have not attended a church service since November of 2008. I have no interest or desire to attend any church regularly. This does not mean I will never attend a church service again, but it does mean, for NOW, I have no intention of attending church.
I pastored for the last time in 2003. Almost six years have passed by. I have no intentions of ever pastoring again. When people ask me about this, I tell them I am retired. With the health problems that I have, it is quite easy to make an excuse for not pastoring, but the fact is I don’t want to pastor.
People continue to ask me, “What do you believe?” Rather than inquiring about how my life is, the quality of that life, etc., they reduce my life to what I believe. Life becomes nothing more than a set of religious constructs. A good life becomes believing the right things.
I can tell you this . . . I believe God is . . . and that is the sum of my confession of faith.
A precursor to my religious views changing was a seismic shift in my political views. My political views were so entangled with my Fundamentalist beliefs that when my political views began to shift, my beliefs began to unravel.
I can better describe my political and social views than I can my religious ones. I am a committed progressive, liberal Democrat, with the emphasis being on the progressive and liberal. My evolving views on women, abortion, homosexuality, war, socialism, social justice, and the environment have led me to the progressive, liberal viewpoint.
I know some of you are sure to ask, what does your wife think of all of this? Quite surprisingly, she is in agreement with me on many of these things. Not all of them, but close enough that I can still see her standing here. Polly is no theologian. She is not trained in theology as I am. (She loves to read fiction.) Nevertheless, I was able to get her to read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and several others. She found the books to be quite an eye-opener.
Polly is free to be whomever and whatever she wishes. If she wants to start attending the local Fundamentalist Baptist church, she is free to do so and even has my blessing. But, for now, she doesn’t. She may never believe as I do, but in my new way of thinking, that is okay. I really don’t care what others think. Are you happy? Are you at peace? Are you living a good, productive life? Do you enjoy life? Answering in the affirmative to these questions is good enough for me.
I have six children, three of whom are out on their own. For many years, I was the spiritual patriarch of the family. Everyone looked to me for answers. I feel somewhat burdened over my children. I feel as if I have left them out on their own with no protection. But, I know they have good minds and can think and reason for themselves. Whatever they decide about God, religion, politics, or American League baseball is fine with me.
All I ask of my wife and children is that they allow me the freedom to be myself, that they allow me to journey on in peace and love. Of course, I still love a rousing discussion about religion, the Bible, politics, etc. I want my family to know that they can talk to me about these things, and anything else for that matter, any time they wish.
Opinions are welcome. Debate is good. All done? Let’s go to the tavern and have a round on me. Life is about the journey, not the destination, and I want my wife and children to be a part of my journey, and I want to be a part of theirs.
One of the reasons for writing this letter is to put an end to the rumors and gossip about me. Did you know Bruce is/or is not_____________? Did you know Bruce believes____________? Did you know Bruce is a universalist, agnostic, atheist, liberal ___________?
For you who have been friends or former parishioners, I apologize to you if my changing beliefs have unsettled you or has caused you to question your own faith. That was never my intent.
The question is this: what now?
Family and friends are not sure what to do with me.
I am still Bruce. I am still married. I am still your father, father-in-law, grandfather, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, and son-in-law. I would expect you to love me as I am and treat me with respect.
Here is what I don’t want from you:
Attempts to show me the error of my way. Fact is, I have studied the Bible and read far more books than many of you. So what do you really think you are going to show me that will be so powerful and unknown that it will cause me to return to the religion and politics of my past?
Constant reminders that you are praying for me. Please don’t think of me as unkind, but I don’t care that you are praying for me. I find no comfort, solace, or strength from your prayers. So be my friend if you can, pray if you must, but leave your prayers in the closet. As long as God gets your prayer message, that will be sufficient.
Please don’t send me books, tracts, or magazines. You are wasting your time and money.
Invitations to attend your church. The answer is NO. Please don’t ask. I used to attend church for the sake of family, but no longer. It is hypocritical for me to perform a religious act of worship just for the sake of family. I know how to find a church if I am so inclined: after all, I have visited more than 125 churches since 2002. (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT!)
Offers of a church to pastor. It is not the lack of a church to pastor that has led me to where I am. If I would lie about what I believe, I could be pastoring again in a matter of weeks. I am not interested in ever pastoring a church again.
Threats about judgment and Hell. I don’t believe in either, so your threats have no impact on me.
Phone calls. If you are my friend, you know I don’t like talking on the phone. I have no interest in having a phone discussion about my religious or political views.
Here is what I do want from you: I want you to unconditionally love me where I am and how I am.
That’s it.
Now I realize some (many) of you won’t be able to do that. My friendship or familial relationship with you is cemented with the glue of Evangelical orthodoxy. Remove the Bible, God, and fidelity to a certain set of beliefs, and there is no basis for a continued relationship.
I understand that. I want you to know I have appreciated and enjoyed our friendship over the years. I understand that you cannot be my friend anymore. I even understand you may have to denounce me publicly and warn others to stay away from me for fear of me contaminating them with my heresy. Do what you must. We had some wonderful times together, and I will always remember those good times.
You are free from me if that is your wish.
I shall continue to journey on. I can’t stop. I must not stop.
Thank you for reading my letter.
Bruce
— end of letter
After this letter was received, the response of Evangelical family members, fellow preachers, and former church members was immediate. Letters. Emails. Books. Personal visits. Worse, the gossip didn’t stop. Now people were wondering if I was under the influence and control of Satan or whether I was even a Christian. Several pastor friends said I was mentally ill or that I was destroying my family. Not one person tried to understand where I was coming from. All they seemed to care about was that I left the cult.
Now to the questions.
Years later, after the firestorm, do you still think writing it was the best way to let everyone know about your deconversion?
I still think that writing the letter above was the best way to let everyone know that I was no longer a Christian. I genuinely thought that if I was just honest and open with people about where I was in life, everyone would understand. I was, of course, naive. I grossly underestimated how people would respond to the letter. Former church members, in particular, had a hard time reconciling my unbelief with the sermons they heard me preach and the part I played in leading them to salvation. If I could lose my faith, what about them? Several members told me that they found my deconversion so troubling that they could no longer be friends with me or even talk to me. (Please see Dear Greg, A Letter to a Former Parishioner: Dear Wendy, Dear Terry — Part One, and Dear Terry — Part Two.) Former colleagues in the ministry were far more hostile towards me. Their words cut me to the quick. These were the same men I preached for, prayed with, counseled and supported when they were going through tough times, and fellowshipped with, yet now I was a pariah, a man worthy or ridicule and judgment. (Please see Dear Friend.)
Any regrets over the firestorm?
I regret the pain I caused people who couldn’t reconcile my deconversion with what they knew about me. They knew me as a devout, committed follower of Jesus; a man who gave his all to the work of the ministry. “How was it possible that I was no longer a Christian?” they wondered. Of course, over the years, as I have shared on this blog more and more about my life as a pastor, and the contradictions between my aspirations and reality, their high regard for me lessened. And that’s fine. As a pastor, I was a fallible, frail man, prone to the same struggles others had. As I spoke about my decades-long struggle with depression, people wondered if I was fit to be a pastor. It took me losing my faith for people to see me as I was. Do I regret this? No, but I do wish I had received love, kindness, and understanding instead of being treated like their enemy.
Are any old friends who are evangelicals remained friends with you afterward?
All of my former colleagues in the ministry distanced themselves from me. It’s been years since I heard from any of them. I suppose this was to be expected. The glue that held our relationships together was fidelity to the Bible and Evangelical doctrine.
Former church members largely went on with their lives. I will run into a few of them at the grocery or doctor’s office. We share pleasantries, talk about our children and grandchildren, and part with a handshake and a smile. Two former congregants remained friends with us, but one of them has since died from COVID, and the other, a man I have known for almost sixty years, and I are not as close as we used to be. He texted me recently about getting together for lunch. I’m not sure whether I want to do this.
The email writer wonders whether she should come out publicly about her loss of faith. She is wise to carefully ponder doing so. Once a person publicly declares their atheism or agnosticism, they can no longer control the narrative. And as I learned, you can set your world on fire by doing so.
The Bible gives some pretty good advice about counting the cost in Luke 14:28-30:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
Who starts a building project without first counting the cost? The key phrase here is counting the cost. Every choice we make has a consequence. I think a loose definition of Newton’s Third Law of Motion applies here: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Foolish is the person who does not consider the consequences of saying for the first time to family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, I AM AN ATHEIST.
When I left Christianity and the ministry in 2008, my wife came along with me. Polly was a few steps behind, but close enough that we could hold hands. We spent many hours reading books and having long discussions about the past, the Bible, and Christianity in general. Dr. Bart Ehrman was nightly pillow talk for many months. When we finally came to the place where we said to one another “We are no longer Christians,” we knew that telling our family, friends, and acquaintances would cause a huge uproar. What should we do?
Polly decided to take the quiet approach, keeping her thoughts to herself. When asked, she would answer and try to explain, but if people didn’t ask, she felt no obligation to out herself. She still operates by that principle. There are people she works with who likely think she still goes to church on Sunday and is a fine Christian woman. Several years ago, a woman Polly had worked with for 20 years asked her if she was going to church on Easter. Polly replied, no. Her co-worker then asked, So do you go to church? Polly replied, No. And that was that. I am sure the gossip grapevine was buzzing. Did you know Polly doesn’t go to church? Why, her husband was a pastor! And they don’t go to church? Never mind that the woman asking the questions hadn’t been to church in over a decade. She stays home, watches “Christian” TV, and sends money to the TV preachers she likes.
I took the nuclear approach. I wrote an open letter to my friends, family, and former parishioners.
….
If I had to do it all over again, would I do it the same way? Would I write THE letter? Probably. My experiences have given me knowledge that is helpful to people who contact me about their own doubts about Christianity. I am often asked, what should I do? Should I tell my spouse? Should I tell my family, friends, or coworkers?
My standard advice is this: Count the cost. Weigh carefully the consequences. Once you utter or write the words I AM AN ATHEIST, you are no longer in control of what happens next. Are you willing to lose your friends, destroy your marriage, or lose your job? Only you can decide what cost you are willing to pay.
I know there is this notion that “Dammit, I should be able to freely declare what I am,” and I agree with the sentiment. We should be able to freely be who and what we are. If we lived on a deserted island, I suppose we could do so. However, we are surrounded by people. People we love. People we want and need in our life. Because of this, it behooves (shout out to the KJV) us to tread carefully.
I hope some of you will find this post helpful. My deepest desire is to help you on your journey. I am hoping that my walking before you can be of help to you as you decide how best to deal with and embrace your loss of faith.
This blog is here to remind those struggling with leaving Christianity or who have already left Christianity, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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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