Susan-Anne White, a True Christian, So True She Can’t Find Any Church Pure Enough For Her
Susan-Anne White, a resident of Northern Ireland and a Fundamentalist Christian who believes homosexuality, adultery, divorce, abortion, and rock music should be outlawed, thinks I am a despicable, obnoxious, militant, hateful atheist. She’s taken to her blog to denounce me. Here’s what she had to say:
I have already mentioned the Ex-Pastor Bruce Gerencser in a previous post, and since then, I have continued to read some of the posts on his blog and posted comments when I felt it was necessary and, indeed, my duty to do so.
This man Gerencser, is one of the most despicable, obnoxious individuals I have ever encountered. He is militant, hateful atheism writ large.
He refers to himself at times as Bruce Almighty and when he does so, he adds blasphemy to his many sins. He has now made it impossible for me to post comments on his blog, so obviously, he could not handle the truth contained in my many comments. I also think it likely that I was influencing (for good) some of his regular readers and commenters so he had to silence me. He cannot silence me on our own blog however.
Before he banned me from commenting, I confronted him about his use of the designation “Ms” in reference to me, a designation I abhor. He admitted that he did this to annoy me! I asked him about his wife’s designation i.e is she referred to as “Mrs.” Gerencser or “Ms.” Gerencser. I had to force the issue to get an answer from him and what do you think he said? “Her name is Polly.”
So there we have it. That being the case, we must assume that on their wedding day, they were pronounced “Mr. and Polly Gerencser” and that, ever since, when they receive any official letters etc, they are addressed to “Mr. and Polly Gerencser.” I think not.
Methinks the EX-Pastor is telling a fib.
Please read all the comments I posted on his blog post (link below) because some of the things he says to me and about me are violent, shocking and slanderous.
By the way, White is not banned. Her comments are moderated. She is free to pontificate and excoriate, but I must approve each comment. As far as her blog post is concerned, I think it speaks for itself.
I have been commenting on the blog of a former Pastor turned atheist called Bruce Gerencser for a few days. He also has a Facebook page and he posted my Manifesto on it. You will notice that he made three points about my Manifesto and, taken in order, they are as follows,
1. I am a “fundamentalist crazy” 2. I live in England 3. I’m running for political office
He is WRONG on all three!
1. I am not crazy 2. I do not live in England (I live in Northern Ireland) 3. I’m not running for political office as the election took place last May.
He also posts a comment from someone calling himself Marc Ewt who states that Northern Ireland is his home country and then proceeds to utter nonsense about NI (some of his assertions are hilarious.)
Ex-Pastor Bruce Gerencser is gullible enough to believe that every word Marc Ewt utters is the truth and tells him that reading his comment about the state of things in Northern Ireland helps put people like “White” in context. (Note how the former Pastor refers to me as “White” not “Mrs.White” and I don’t like it.) Read the ex-Pastor’s facebook comment below, followed by the comment by Marc Ewt, followed by the ex-Pastor’s response to ignoramus Ewt…
White mentions her Manifesto. Here’s a copy of it:
…Susan Anne White, who caused a stir when she stood in last year’s council elections, is now aiming to become MP for West Tyrone.
The devout Christian says her campaign will focus on moral issues including society’s “dangerous” homosexual agenda.
She also wants to outlaw rock music, saying it fuels sexual anarchy and drug use.
Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Mrs White, who is standing as an Independent, denied that her views were extreme.
“I don’t consider myself extreme – not at all,” she said. “It is society that has moved. Not so far in the past, most people would have shared my views.
“My views only seem extreme because society has moved away from God’s principles.”
Mrs White, who is from Trillick in Co Tyrone, is one of nine candidates standing in West Tyrone on May 7.
The outgoing Sinn Fein MP, Pat Doherty, has a comfortable 10,000-plus majority. Last May, Mrs White stood for the new Fermanagh and Omagh Council, receiving just 67 first preference votes.
Mrs White said she opposes feminism “with all her might”, and says it is to blame for the recession.
“Feminism is responsible for many of the social ills we see all around us,” she added.
“They [feminists] are responsible for the economy – they destroyed the whole concept of a family wage with the father as the bread-winner and the stay-at-home mother. They make women feel they have to be out in the workforce.”
Mrs White is also “absolutely opposed to the homosexual agenda” in today’s society. If I had the power, I would certainly re-criminalise homosexuality, along with adultery,” she added.
She said anyone involved in homosexual or adulterous practices should be jailed.
“I would stop the funding of gay pride parades and other depraved art and cultural events,” she added.
Despite her strong views, Mrs White claims she is a “true friend” to the gay community.
“I tell them the truth,” she added. “The person who is not a friend, the person who is the enemy to the homosexual is the person who pats them on the back and says their lifestyle is perfectly normal and acceptable.”
While campaigning last year, Mrs White spoke out about rock music, saying acts like Iron Maiden and Kurt Cobain promoted anarchy in society. She said she remained opposed to these and other “vulgar acts”.
“A lot of rock music is dangerous for the hearing,” she added.
“That is not the only problem with it. There is an ideology which permeates rock music and it is sexual anarchy. It is also linked to drugs.” She said rock music had “a terrible effect” on young people.
Mrs White blames the EU for much of society’s “decadence”, saying she would withdraw from Europe “tomorrow”…
Here’s a video of White making inflammatory comments about homosexuals:
Here’s a wickedly wonderful bit of satire someone at the Waterford Whispers News wrote about White:
A MONSTER five-foot long rat has been found swimming in the Irish media for the past fortnight, and it’s looking for a good home.
The vermin, a Caucasian Christian bigot, was reported to be dwelling in West Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
It is believed to be the worst of its kind found in recent years.
Nicknamed ‘Susan’ by its minders, the rat is not believed to be physically dangerous but its spine-tingling screams have begun to upset locals.
“It just slithered out from underneath a rock somewhere,” constituent Gerry Kennedy told WWN today. “The vile yoke just sits there screaming nonsense all the time. I’ve called the local animal welfare group to see if we can get rid of it.
“Hopefully they can put it out of its misery.”
The animal is presumed to have escaped or been released by a a local Christian breeder.
Witnesses say the rodent is about the size of a dog, weighs in at 60kg, has a tartan coat and white mane and is thought to feed on those it doesn’t agree with.
Locals have called on anyone that comes in contact with the creature to just ignore it.
According to Wikipedia, Susan-Anne White is in her sixties. While it would be easy to dismiss White’s vitriol towards the human race as dementia, the fact is she is a perfect example of someone who has taken her Christian Fundamentalist beliefs to their logical conclusion. White, like the late Fred Phelps and his demented family, says in public what countless Evangelical and Independent Fundamentalist Baptist preachers and church members say in private. I’ll give her credit for being willing to display her homophobia and bigotry for all to see. I wish more of her ilk would do the same.
White’s two posts about me generated no traffic to this site. In another post, White stated her blog readership numbers were decreasing. I wonder why? Like Steven Anderson, the infamous pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona, Susan-Anne White has followers who think she is spot on. Not many, but a few. I hope she will continue to write and speak out about the evils of this fallen and depraved world. The more people such as her talk, the easier it is for atheists like me to make a case for the bankruptcy of Evangelical Christianity.
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.
Backsliding is very much a part of the fabric of Evangelicalism. Every Evangelical church has three types of people:
Sold-out, on-fire Christians
Unsaved people
Backslidden Christians
Most Evangelical churches have a small percentage of sold-out, on-fire Christians and a smattering of unsaved people. Most Evangelicals, including pastors, are backslidden to some degree or the other.
What is a backslidden Christian? Backslidden Christians are people who have “spiritually” slid backward from where they once were in their Christian lives. They have left their first love (Jesus/Bible/Church) and have become carnal, lazy, lukewarm Christians. While they might attend church on Sundays, their day-to-day lives reflect that they are not as good a Christian as they once were. Since most Evangelicals believe that once a person is saved they can never lose their salvation, sects, churches, and pastors must come up with a word that best describes the majority of Evangelical church members; hence the word backslider.
Every year, churches hold special meetings or revivals meant to get church members all jacked up on Mountain Dew (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby reference for those culturally unaware). A special meeting or a revival is called for when the church is in need of spiritual “reviving.” In come special speakers and evangelists — specialists in breathing life into backslidden church members (even though these hired guns are often backslidden themselves). These specialists preach sermons meant to convict backsliders of their backsliddenness, and sure enough, the backsliders realize the error of their way and stream down to the altar and get right with God or make some other sort of confession that they have been a real bad boy or girl and they promise never, ever to be bad again.
In Baptist churches, revivals are often scheduled events. Every spring and/or fall, churches hold revivals, hoping that these high-intensity meetings will light a spiritual fire under those who are not sold-out, on-fire Christians. Church members dutifully attend each night of the revival, and one or more times during the week will likely make some sort of commitment to be a “better” Christian. Backsliders confess all the things that keep them from being committed Christians — just like on-fire Pastor Bob, who, unbeknownst to them, is secretly banging his secretary in his office or filled-with-the-Holy-Ghost Evangelist Bubba who visits strip clubs after returning to his motel room each night. Many of them have been doing this for years. Revivals are like taking a bath once or twice a year. The backslider gets all cleaned up, only to get dirty again a few days, weeks, or months later. Over the course of the fifty years I spent in the Chrisitan church, I saw scores of backsliders get right with God. I saw smokers confess the sin of smoking, only to backslide again before they got out of the church parking lot. I’ve seen countless Christians weep, wail, and sling snot over their backslidden condition, only to go home and resume their “sinning”.
Evangelical pastors spend a good bit of their time trying to get church members to live the Christian life. They challenge people to come to church every time the doors are open, to tithe, to study the Bible every day, to tithe, to pray without ceasing, to tithe, to witness to the lost, and to tithe. Little do church members realize that their pastors are not spiritually any better off than they are. They put on a good show in their pulpits, but behind closed doors these so-called men of God struggle with many of the same things church members do. (This is not meant as a criticism of preachers as much as it is an indictment of the lack of personal openness, honesty, and transparency among spiritual leaders.)
Why are there so many backslidden people in Evangelical churches? (I’m sure this is a problem in other sects, but my experience is with Evangelicalism.) Is it because most of them aren’t “really” Christians? Is it because they really don’t want to give up the pleasures of the world? At one time I thought so. I have now come to see that the difference between sold-out, on-fire Christians and backslidden Christians is a matter of personality or how much time a Christian has to devote to the things that would make them a poster child for a sold-out, on-fire Christian.
My wife was mother/teacher to six-children, keeper of the home, and on-call gopher for her God-called preacher husband. Like her husband, she was busy all the time — and I mean ALL the time. Polly always had good intentions. She intended to read the Bible more, pray more, and witness more, but she never really got around to it. There was a time when I feared for her soul. I wondered, doesn’t she love God’s Word? Doesn’t she want to be in constant communion with God? I now see that it wasn’t that she wasn’t willing as much as it was there were only so many hours in the day. After feeding six children and educating them and doing any number of tasks for her preacher husband, there was little time for spiritual disciplines. Polly spent years feeling guilty over not doing enough for Jesus or not following her husband’s call to be a sold-out, on-fire Christian.
I could read the Bible any time I wanted and pray without ceasing because I had the leisure time to do so. I was being paid to be a good Christian. Many of the people I pastored worked 8-12 hours a day, along with taking care of their families, and they didn’t have the leisure time that I had to devote to God. It took me many years to figure this out. Until I did, I would beat people over the head with the sin stick trying to shame them into being sold-out, on-fire Christians. And it worked — for a time. People would get right with God and for a time be fervent, zealous Christians. But, as the grind of day-to-day life wore them down, it was not long until they returned to their “backslidden” ways.
It should come as no surprise, then, that many Evangelicals are quite depressed over the state of their spiritual lives. The cycle of getting right with God, backsliding, getting right with God, over and over and over again keeps Evangelicals from finding rest in their lives. And just when they think they might have found a peaceful resting place, their preachers remind them of how much Jesus did for them and how little they really do for Jesus.
Is this some aberration, a corruption of Christianity? Of course not. Jesus said, let a man deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Jesus expected his followers to abandon their nets, family, and worldly pursuits, and follow him. You’ll search in vain to find a passage of Scripture that says being a lukewarm, backslidden Christian is in any way acceptable. Of the lukewarm Christian, the Bible says:
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I [Jesus] will spue thee out of my mouth.
Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write…Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Songs like Set My Soul Afire, Lord, remind the Christian of what it is that God expects of them:
Set my soul afire Lord, for Thy Holy Word, Burn it deep within me, let Thy voice be heard Millions grope in darkness in this day and hour, I will be a witness, fill me with Thy pow’r
Refrain: Set my soul afire Lord, set my soul afire. Make my life a witness of Thy saving pow’r. Millions grope in darkness, waiting for Thy Word. Set my soul afire, Lord, set my soul afire!
Set my soul afire, Lord, for the lost in sin, Give to me a passion as I seek to win; Help me not to falter never let me fail, Fill me with Thy Spirit, let Thy will prevail. (Refrain)
Set my soul afire, Lord, in my daily life. Far too long I’ve wandered in this day of strife; Nothing else will matter but to live for Thee, I will be a witness for Christ lives in me. (Refrain)
I Surrender All is another old standard that reminds every Christian of the devotion God expects from them:
All to Jesus I surrender; all to him I freely give; I will ever love and trust him, in his presence daily live.
Refrain: I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
All to Jesus I surrender; humbly at his feet I bow, worldly pleasures all forsaken; take me, Jesus, take me now. (Refrain)
All to Jesus I surrender; make me, Savior, wholly thine; fill me with thy love and power; truly know that thou art mine. (Refrain)
All to Jesus I surrender; Lord, I give myself to thee; fill me with thy love and power; let thy blessing fall on me. (Refrain)
All to Jesus I surrender; now I feel the sacred flame. O the joy of full salvation! Glory, glory, to his name! (Refrain)
Despite the preaching, the revival meetings, and the soul-stirring songs, most church members can’t sustain life as a sold-out, on-fire Christian. Too bad none of us sold out, on-fire pastors and evangelists told them the truth . . . neither could we.
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.
Let me conclude this post with one further observation about the “abortion is murder” position. If it is God who opens and closes the womb, and Jesus holds in his hand the keys to life and death, doesn’t this make the Christian God the greatest abortionist and murderer since Adam and Eve got off the Ark? Far more inseminated eggs/fetuses are miscarried than are aborted. Who is culpable for these miscarriages? Damn, theology is a bitch, isn’t it? God alone is to blame for miscarriages, thus he is the greatest abortionist of all time. And if this is true, shouldn’t God be arrested, charged with murder, and executed? Most Evangelical anti-abortionists are pro-death penalty. These immoral hypocrites believe serial killers, mass murderers, and abortion doctors should be executed. Fine, but shouldn’t God face the same punishment? Or are his “murders” somehow different from those committed by mere mortals? Perhaps it is time for God to be strapped to a gurney and given a lethal injection. If abortion is murder, how can Evangelicals arrive at any other conclusion but this one?
Note the line “If it is God who opens and closes the womb, and Jesus holds in his hand the keys to life and death, doesn’t this make the Christian God the greatest abortionist and murderer since Adam and Eve got off the Ark?” Regular readers of this blog know that I am a snarky curmudgeon who loves making humorous, and at times bawdy, statements — especially when drawing attention to outlandish Evangelical beliefs and practices. My writing reflects my personality, and that includes my snarkiness. Most readers enjoy my humor and those who don’t quickly exit stage right, never to be heard from again. The same goes for my occasional use of curse words. It seems words such as shit, fuck, or asshole are morally offensive, but covering up sexual abuse scandals and lying to children about an allegedly virgin-born, miracle-working, crucified, resurrected from the dead, missing for 2,000 years God-Man named Hay-Zeus is not. Saying hell, goddammit, or dick measuring contest (“Dr.” David Tee’s latest objection to my writing, jealous that my metaphorical dick is bigger than his) is so offensive that it warrants stoning, but a book that advocates, encourages, or commands all sorts of morally offensive behaviors is not.
Today, I received a comment on the aforementioned Abby Johnson post from Jared Brown. Brown read all of one post on this site before launching into a deep-throated attack on my character, accusing me of not being a “true” pastor, of not knowing the Bible, having t-r-e-m-e-n-d-o-u-s-l-y bad theology, and having a complete lack of basic Biblical literacy, even less than a three-year-old:
People please consider this. In the author’s bio below the story they say he was a pastor for 25 years. He casts stones at God calling him a murderer and questions, rhetorically, “isn’t theology a B?” All while not only having tremendously bad theology, but also a complete lack of basic Biblical literacy at all. Not only do you not have to be a pastor for 25 years, but I know three year olds who know better than to say that it was Adam and Eve who got off of the ark. Please consider the source. A man who claims to have been a pastor for 25 years who doesn’t know one of the most basic Bible stories that you can read within 20 minutes of opening the Bible. Not only would no Christian get that story wrong-certainly no true pastor would- I have never met a non Christian, secular person who did not know about Noah’s ark.
Of course, regular readers, along with anyone with common sense and critical thinking skills know that me saying ” since Adam and Eve got off the Ark ” is just the Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser being snarky (and hopefully funny). I have made countless similar statements over the years. Jared Brown is the first person to go all literal on me, unable to distinguish between me being a smart ass and me making a factual error. Instead of responding to the content of my article, Brown chose to attack me personally. Best I can tell, Brown is a young man from Texas. While I don’t know for certain what flavor of ice cream he eats, I suspect he is likely an Evangelical (or a conservative Catholic). I hope Brown will reflect on his comment, repent, and apologize. By all means, respond to my writing. Challenge my assumptions, interpretations, or conclusions. I encourage such interactions. However, suggesting that I wasn’t a “real” pastor or that I don’t know anything about the Bible is nothing more than an attempt to smear my character and dismiss out of hand what I have to say. Instead of interacting with the “message,” Brown went after the “messenger.” Instead of asking whether what I said is true, Brown spent his time attacking my choice of underwear.
Just in case Brown missed my biography: I spent fifty years in the Christian church. I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years, pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I attended an Evangelical college and married a Baptist pastor’s daughter. We homeschooled our six children, except for the five years we operated a private Christian school in Southeast Ohio. Over the course of the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry, I devoted thousands and thousands of hours to reading and studying the Bible, including reading countless theological tomes and listening to hundreds of sermons on cassette tape. All told, I preached over 4,000 sermons. I think readers can safely assume that I know the Bible inside and out, that I know where Adam and Eve and Noah and the Flood fit in the chronology of the Bible. If, after reading this post, Brown still thinks I am a “fake” pastor or have the Bible knowledge of a three-year-old (who can’t read and only knows what he is told), I propose we have a
I am confident that I will win this contest. I don’t know everything about the Bible, but I am satisfied that I have a sound working knowledge of the Biblical text, especially from an Evangelical perspective.
Well, enough. I have another post I need to work on– Noah receiving the Ten Commandments from Jesus on Mount Everest. 🙂
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.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Ron “Ronnie” Barron, a youth pastor at Loris First Presbyterian Church in Loris, South Carolina, and a volunteer baseball coach at the local high school, stands accused of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and sexual battery with a 17-year-old student from Loris High School.
A Loris High School coach was arrested on Monday morning after he was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student.
Ronnie Barron Jr. is charged with third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and sexual battery with a student.
Loris Police Chief Gary Buley says this whole investigation started after a parent found some disturbing images on their child’s phone and brought that phone to the police department.
“That’s how it all started,” said Buley. “The parent of the victim came in after observing the juvenile’s phone and noticing some activity that shouldn’t be going on.”
After an investigation, information was obtained and arrest warrants were issued for Barron.
Horry County Schools said the suspected relationship may have originated outside of school.
The school district added that Baroon was a volunteer baseball coach at Loris High School and has been a volunteer coach in the district since December 2020.
As of November 4, 2021, he is no longer affiliated with Horry County Schools, according to the district.
WMBF News also discovered that Barron was a youth director at the First Presbyterian Church in Loris. The church sent WMBF News a statement on Barron and the investigation:
“We have been made aware of the recent allegations of inappropriate conduct by our former youth director and have reported them to the appropriate authorities. The church leadership immediately accepted his resignation. We are cooperating in their investigation to the best of our ability. Given that this is an ongoing investigation, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further. We would welcome you to join us in prayer for all the involved individuals.”
“Nothing came out from the church,” said Buley. “It was definitely solo with the victim, that we’ve seen so far.”
After a month-long investigation, Loris Police arrested Ron Barron and charged him with third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, which carries up to ten years in jail.
He is also charged with sexual battery with a student.
Barron’s church bio states:
We are pleased to have Mr. Ron Barron join the staff and congregation of Loris First Presbyterian Church. Ron comes to us from Epiphany Lutheran Church in Conyers, Georgia where he served as the Director of Youth and Family Ministry. During his time there, Ron sought to encourage a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through teaching Sunday School, hosting devotion times, and engaging the youth in service projects, fundraisers and team building events. He also involved himself in the community and coached baseball for Salem High School and the Conyers American Legion. Ron brings to Loris a passion and energy to serve and follow Jesus Christ through ministry to the youth of Loris First Presbyterian and the community. As Youth Director for LFPC, Ron will be involved in all aspects of youth ministry from kindergarten age through young adult. Ron’s view of ministry as relational will lead to many group projects and team events as he encourages young people to explore their role as disciples and future church leaders. This teaching for discipleship and leadership involves disciplined scripture study but also an active faith demonstrated in evangelism, missions, and random acts of kindness.
When he is not working, Ron can be found fishing or enjoying the great outdoors with his sons **** and *****, and daughter, *****.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Several years ago, Polly and I drove 50 or so miles northeast to Toledo to celebrate her birthday. We had a delightful evening and enjoyed a scrumptious meal at Mancy’s Steakhouse. On our way to the restaurant, we traveled on I-475 North and passed by Hope Baptist Church, one of the largest Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches in the area. (The church is pastored by Richard “Rick” Sowell, a graduate of Peter Ruckman’s school, Pensacola Bible Institute.) Hope Baptist has a snazzy and expensive church building as far as IFB church buildings go. Hoping to maximize their message, the church has a digital sign that can be read easily from the interstate. I wish we could have stopped along the road so I could photograph the sign, but traffic was heavy and we were pressed for time. I did, however, write down the message and text it to myself. Here’s what it said:
PITY THE ATHEIST WHO IS GRATEFUL
Over the years, I’ve had a few Evangelicals question my use of words like “blessing” and “grateful.” Some of them suggested that my use of these words proves I am still a Christian, as does the fact that I capitalize words such as Bible, God, etc. Evidently, no matter how much I try to suppress God, he oozes out of my life. Can’t argue with brilliance like this, right?
The argument goes something like this; the words “blessing” and “grateful” are words that can only be used by someone who has God as the focus of their worship. The Christian says, WHO is blessing you, Bruce? WHO are you thanking? They got me. I’m caught in an insurmountable problem. What should I do? Is it time for me to admit that it is the Christian God that blesses me? Is it time for the preacher-turned-atheist to admit that he is grateful for what blessings come into his life from the God from whom all blessings flow?
This line of argument reveals that many Evangelicals have no curiosity (please see Curiosity, A Missing Evangelical Trait) and are unable to think of any explanation but that which flows from and fits the narrow confines of their Fundamentalist theology. For Rick Sowell and the people of Hope Baptist Church, the locus of blessing, gratefulness, and thanksgiving can only be their peculiar version of the Christian God.
Well, let me disabuse Evangelicals of the notion that an atheist can’t use words like “blessing” and “grateful.” As an atheist and a humanist, I reject the notion that there is a God. As I have humorously said before, when the words Oh God are screamed out in our bedroom, we know exactly who God is. Too risqué? Consider this. Who is it that blesses your life? A fictitious God, a deity no one has ever seen? The Christian says yes, believing that ALL blessings flow from the hand of God Almighty, and any humans taking credit for these blessings are blaspheming God. However, as a man rooted in the here and now, in the earthy present, I choose to recognize that what blessings come my way come from one or more of my fellow human beings, nature, and the animals I share this world with.
When someone does something that is a blessing, I express to the person blessing me that I am grateful for what he or she has done. When I tell the doctor THANK YOU, I am directing my gratefulness to the person responsible for my medical care. When we stopped to pick up Bethany from my son and daughter-in-law’s home after our trip to Toledo, I thanked them for babysitting. Polly and I were grateful that they were willing to watch Bethany so we could have a nice time on the town. Should I shoot up a prayer to the ceiling, thanking the Big Man Upstairs for them being willing and able to babysit? Of course not. God didn’t do the babysitting, they did.
One of my all-time favorite movie prayers is Jimmy Stewart’s dinner prayer in the movie Shenandoah:
Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked Dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for this food were about to eat. Amen.
This prayer reveals the essence of the atheist and humanist view on expressing gratefulness. Who deserves our praise and expression of gratefulness? The person doing the work. When someone makes a financial donation supporting this site, I don’t send them an email letting them know that I thanked someone other than them for their donation. Simply put, we should give credit to whom credit is due. If religious people want to give their deity an honorable mention, that’s fine, but the praise and gratefulness should be directed to the person responsible for the blessing.
So, to Rick Sowell and Hope Baptist Church, I am GRATEFUL that you continue to provide me with blog fodder. Keep up the good work. As long as you and your fellow Evangelicals continue to deliberately distort how atheists and humanists view the world, I plan to send a bit of Bruce Gerencser Blessing® your way.
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.
This is a repost from 2015, edited and corrected. Susan-Ann White makes a “spectacular” appearance in the comment section. Please take the time to read the comments. Quite informative and entertaining. Ms. White is still alive and unwell. You can read her rage writing here.
Within Evangelicalism, especially on the far right of the Evangelical spectrum, women are considered subservient, second class, whoring Jezebels out to rob men and teenage boys of their virtue. Listen to enough sermons at the local Independent Fundamentalist Baptist IFB) church and you will likely conclude that seductive women are lurking in the shadows ready to expose a bit of leg and cleavage, bringing weak, helpless men to their knees and hopefully to their beds. After all, the Bible does have a story that warns of this very behavior:
…For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart.(She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.) So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him,I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. (Proverbs 7)
Evangelicals have concluded that the only way to save teenage boys and men from whoring Christian women is to demand that women cover up their flesh and wear clothing that mutes their feminine shape. They are implored to dress in a way that will not draw any attention from the male species. Often, women are told not to wear excessive makeup or jewelry. Again, it’s harlots who paint themselves up and wear bawdy, gaudy jewelry, so Christian women should avoid wearing anything that gives the appearance of being an easy sexual mark. Again, justification for this demand can be found in the Bible:
In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (1 Timothy 2)
While most Evangelical churches no longer make an issue of how women wear their hair, some on the far right of the Evangelical spectrum do, requiring women to wear their hair long and/or put it up in a beehive or bun. As always, the BIBLE says:
Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. (1 Corinthians 11)
Some Evangelical sects believe, based on the above text, that a woman wearing her hair long shows that she is in submission to her father if she is unmarried and to her husband if she is. Some sects even go so far as to require women to wear a head covering, a doily-like piece of fabric which says to all who dare gaze on her that she is in submission to God, the church, her father, and her husband.
All of these things are used to keep women in their place. What is that place, you ask? Married, submissive, keeper of the home, bearer of children, and on-demand sex-machine. Post-high school education is often discouraged, and if a woman is determined to get a college education, she is often shipped off to an Evangelical Christian college to train for her MRS degree (as my wife Polly was). The end game is always marriage and bearing children.
On any given day I can go to Meijer or Walmart and I will see Evangelical families shopping. How do I know they are Evangelical Christians? One look at the mothers or the daughters is all I need. Their head-to-toe Evangelical burka or Little-House-on-the-Prairie garb make them stand out from the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines around them. I can even determine which particular sect they are a part based on the way the women wear certain items of clothing or how they wear their hair. For example, Apostolic or holiness women, forbidden to cut their hair, often put their hair up in buns or beehives.
But, here’s the thing, if the unmarried boys or the fathers are in the store without the fairer sex by their side, they blend in quite well. Some Mennonite/Amish sects wear a certain style of pants, belts, or suspenders, but outside of that, the men look like any other man in the store. Why is it that the men are free to dress as men typically do, but women are forced to dress in a manner that says to the world that they are part of a religion that treats them like seductresses and appendages, the servants of men?
I’m sure pious Evangelicals will suggest that women dress and behave this way because they choose to do so. Anyone who thinks like this is ignorant of the conditioning and indoctrination that goes on in many Evangelical sects and churches. From the cradle to the grave, women are told what their place is in God’s divine order. They are constantly reminded of the importance of covering up their bodies so they don’t cause men to lust. Many of the people who read this blog were raised in this kind of religious environment, and they will tell you that the puritanical moralizing becomes very much a part of a woman’s life. It’s all they’ve ever known, so how can it ever be said that they freely choose to live this way?
Here’s all the proof you need. Look at women who leave/flee Evangelical sects such as those mentioned above. What are some of the first things they do after they leave? Get a new hairstyle, paint their nails, stop wearing dresses/culottes, start wearing makeup and jewelry, start wearing shoes with heels, show a little leg or cleavage. Perhaps in the quiet confines of the bathroom or the bedroom they look at themselves in the mirror wearing their new style of clothes and they smile and say “nice!” And once the proverbial horse is out of the barn, there’s no hope of corralling it. I know of no woman who ever returned to these types of restrictions once they were free of them.
Were you once part of an Evangelical church/sect that restricted how women dressed, wore their hair, etc? How did things change for you after you left? Please share your story 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.
Every Evangelical-turned-atheist has had a Christian zealot pose to them the question, what if you are wrong? Over the past thirteen years, I’ve been asked this question numerous times. Devoted followers of Jesus genuinely fear for my soul and don’t want me to be tortured by their God in Hell for eternity, so they hope by asking this question they can get me to reconsider my decision to divorce Jesus.
This question is often followed by some form of Pascal’s Wager. Of course, those asking the question don’t realize the hypocrisy of their query. As practicing Christians, shouldn’t they be joining the Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, and every other religion that says there is some sort of life after death? Shouldn’t they make sure all their bases are covered? Christians want to hold me to a different standard from the one to which they hold themselves. They are certain the Christian God is the one and only true God, so they see no reason to ask of themselves, what if I am wrong? Even among Christians, there are countless Christianities, with widely differing beliefs and practices. Which Christianity is True Christianity®? The Baptists think their version of Christianity is True Christianity®, and the Church of Christ, Roman Catholicism, and Greek Orthodoxy do too. Two thousand years in the making and Christians can’t even agree on basic beliefs such as salvation, baptism, and communion. Yet, rarely does any of them contemplate that they could be w-r-o-n-g.
Could I be wrong about God, Jesus, Christianity, the Bible, and the plethora of other gods humans have created since they were able to walk upright and reason? Sure, and I could say the same about many of the things I consider factual or true. As one who values science and the scientific method, my belief in God or lack thereof is based on evidence and probabilities. While I self-identify as an atheist, I am agnostic on the God question. It is possible that a God of some sort could reveal itself to one or more humans at some future point in history. Possible, but not likely. As things now stand, I see no evidence that would lead me to conclude that a God of some sort exists. While science has not answered the first-cause question and may never do so, it has built an intellectually satisfying explanation of the world we live in. While this explanation frequently changes thanks to new evidence, I see no reason to retreat into the pages of an outdated, contradictory book written by unknown authors thousands of years ago. Just because science doesn’t have the answer to every question doesn’t mean that God is the answer. Scientists are willing to say, I don’t know, and then they go about trying to find out what they don’t know. When is the last time a Christian theologian, Catholic Pope, Muslim cleric, or Evangelical preacher has done the same? Certainty breeds arrogance and ignorance, both of which lead to people accepting as fact the most outlandish of ideas (i.e. virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, Hell in the center of the earth, Heaven in the sky, creationism, miracles, perfect religious texts).
When it comes to the Christian God, the Muslim God, the Jewish God, or any of the other extant Gods humans currently worship, I am quite confident that these gods are no gods at all. Is it possible that these gods exist? I suppose there is a minuscule chance, but the odds are so infinitesimal that it would be a waste of my time to even consider it. Life is too short to spend one moment of time considering the existence of Odin, Zeus, Lugh, Dagda, Haniyasu-hiko, Jesus, Kane, Pundjel, El Elyon, Shamayim, Guamansuri, Wakan-Tanka, Bochica, Lao-Tien-Yeh, Altjira, Loki, Atlas, Coyote, or any of the thousands of other gods humans have at one time or another conjured up (see God Checker: Your Guide to the Gods).
I live without fear of Hell or fear of being judged by a God. (I do, however, at times, fear God’s followers.) The hell and judgment that I see on this earth come from the hands of humans, not a deity. If there is a God, he is definitely AWOL. Someday, I will die and I think that will be the end of it for me. What if I am wrong? What if there is a God waiting to settle the score with me after I draw my last breath? I guess I will say, oops, my bad, and I hope she will look at my life and judge me accordingly. I hope she will judge me not by the things that I did or did not believe, but by how I lived my life.
Many Christians, especially those of the Evangelical persuasion, believe that salvation is secured by believing the right things. While they love to talk about love and grace, the true foundation of their faith is a commitment to certain beliefs and propositions derived from their understanding of the “infallible” Bible. Believe the wrong things and Hell will be your eternal resting place. Virtually every Evangelical who stops by my blog to spar with me tries to get me to believe the “right” beliefs. Rarely does any one of them say anything about how I live my life. BELIEVE THIS AND THOU SHALT LIVE, is their gospel.
If not believing Jesus is the virgin born, second person in the Trinity, who came to earth, lived a perfect life, worked miracles, died on the cross and resurrected from the dead, and ascended back to heaven, ends with my rendition to the Lake of Fire to be tortured day and night by the God who created me, so be it. I have no interest in such a religion, and I have no interest in such a God who is only interested in what I believed and not how I lived.
If, somewhere beyond my next breath, I keel over and die and I find myself in the presence of the Big Man of Upstairs, I hope he will judge my life by how I lived, and if he does, I am confident that everything will be just fine. If not, if what I believed is what really mattered, then I guess I will burn in Hell with a lot of other good people. Coming soon to a corner of Hell near you, The Hitch and Bruce Almighty Podcast.
Two of my favorite cartoons:
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.
Over the past thirteen years, I have received thousands of emails, social media messages, and blog comments from Evangelical Christians. Most of these interactions have been negative, argumentative, judgmental, mean-spirited, or hateful. Rare is the Evangelical who is kind, thoughtful, or self-aware.
One Evangelical group stands above all the rest: Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB). I can count on one hand the interactions I have had with IFB adherents that I would describe as kind, thoughtful, and self-aware. Why are IFB Christians the nastiest of believers, going so far as threatening to murder me or harm my family? I came of age in the IFB church movement, attended an IFB collage, married an IFB preacher’s daughter, and pastored several IFB churches in the late 1970s and 1980s. While I was a hardcore Fundamentalist, I never treated people as IFB Christians have treated me since I left Christianity in 2008. What is it in my writing that brings the worst out of these people? Is it because I dare to talk out of school, sharing behind-the-scenes secrets? Is it because I am willing to be open and honest about my experiences in the IFB church movement? Is it because I dare to continue to shine a bright light on the movement, refusing, despite their threats, to go away?
Here’s what I know for sure: this kind of behavior is modeled to IFB Christians by their pastors and the evangelists who visit their churches. Thinking that such behavior is “normal” or even Christian, IFB Christians attack and attempt to neutralize or destroy anyone they see as a threat to their beliefs, churches, or pastors. It should come as no surprise, then, that many, perhaps most, IFB Christians voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 and oppose COVID vaccinations and masks. Some IFB Christians were front and center when insurrectionists stormed the capitol on January 6, 2021. Stormtroopers in the modern culture war, IFB Christians are violently against abortion, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ people, atheists, Democrats, and perceived liberalism. Many Evangelical groups are counter-cultural. IFB groups are, instead, anti-cultural. IFB preachers rail against the “world,” calling on church members to withdraw from society. Thus, such people see me as a “threat” to their way of life, someone who must be silenced.
Over the weekend, I received several emails from a IFB man who lives in the South named Tom. He has emailed numerous times before, using different names and email addresses. Typically, after he emails me, he blocks my email address so I can’t respond. Either that or he deletes his email address altogether. That’s right, he goes through the effort of establishing a new email address so he can send me an email or two and then he deletes his account.
What follows is a transcript of our latest interaction:
Tom
Faggotry is disgusting and demonic!
Satan will have his way with anyone that supports this sickness
I thought Bruce passed away?
Bruce
Tom, You sound like a man who secretly wants to have anal sex with a man. Sorry, I’m not available; not that I would ever fuck an asshole like you.
I am very much alive. Your prayers have failed yet again.
Bruce
Carolyn
Bigotry is an illness worse than faggotry!! There is no Satan, so the only one around here with a sickness is you.
Bruce’s social media persona died a few months ago, but his real self is still hanging on, at least today.
Carolyn Patrick, editor for Bruce Gerencser
Tom
You had best watch who you are calling an asshole buddy. 😡
No I pray for homos to be saved out of the demonic trap they are in.
And you homo supporting baby killer you will not have a nice time in eternity
www.chick.com THIS WAS YOUR LIFE. that’s a tract that represents your future
Tom
Apologies for being harsh.
The evangelists that you tear down love you and don’t want you or anyone else on the blog to go to hell.
Have a blessed day and merry Christmas
Vile, nasty, hateful, and then an apology and Merry Christmas wish? What gives? While such schizophrenic behavior seems bizarre to people outside of the IFB church movement, I assure you that it is quite normal. I spent most of my sixty-four years of life attending or pastoring Fundamentalist churches. I heard countless preachers (including myself) scream and rail against sin and the world, calling names, stomping on toes, and reducing church members to tears of repentance. Realizing how violent their words (and bodily machinations: pulpit-pounding, foot-stomping, pacing the platform, pointing fingers, waving arms/hands, coming down to where people are sitting, shouting, screaming, hollering, spitting) may seem to church members cowering in fear before them, IFB preachers remind congregants that they “love” them and only want God’s best for them. Much like a man beating the Hell out of his wife while telling her how much he loves her, these preachers week-after-week abuse their flocks. Tom is just doing what has been modeled to him by IFB preachers over the years (and he may be a preacher himself). We know parents who were abused as children tend to abuse their own children, so it should come as no surprise that IFB Christians abused by pastors and evangelists would do the same to people they come in contact with.
Is there any hope for people such as Tom? Maybe. Many of the readers of this blog are former IFB Christians. Some of us are former IFB pastors, evangelists, missionaries, deacons, and Christian school teachers. We changed, so change is possible. However, such change requires deconstructing and dismantling every aspect of our lives. For many of us, this process required years of intense therapy. Coming to terms with our IFB pasts is a painful, exhausting process. That process begins with doubt. If Tom has any doubt, he has likely tamped it down and put a lid on it so he doesn’t have to deal with it.
My “prayer” is that something will poke a small hole in Tom’s bubble, allowing reason and skepticism to seep in. While Tom is most certainly a Christian Asshole®, I genuinely hope truth can somehow reach his shuttered, hardened mind. No matter how personal the attacks of the Toms of the world become for me, I must always remember that I was once like them. If I can escape, anyone can.
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.
Sometimes, I receive an email that defies an explanation. Today, I received the following email from someone in Nigeria:
Grace and peace to you in Jesus name. Our church mission is soul winning ‚”He that winneth souls is wise‚” ‚– If it were not for soul winners, the other four ministries (Eph. 4:11-16) couldn‚’t do their job. It takes a complete working of the body, controlled by the head, to bring sons to glory. One plows the ground, another plants the seed, another digs around it and water it, while yet another cuts the weeds down and digs out their roots ‚– but only God can do the increasing of it. I thank God for his beautiful plan of salvation.
We have ministered the gospel to Souls in the Villages, Schools, Hospitals and in different other places and I am so glad informing you that so many souls have been won and Souls who are worshipping Idols have surrendered their lives to Christ and together We can reach more Souls in villages here.
Please, We are in need of 23 Giant Print Bibles for old Men and Women. And Please help us with 2 Study Bibles as well. We are praying believing God that as you read you this Letter, you will help us purchase these Bibles and We will love the KJV Bibles. And Please pray for the Orphans in our Orphanage home. The safest means of sending bibles to us is via post office insured mail. Please help for this need and God will richly bless you.
I responded:
David,
You read my contact form, right? You know I’m an atheist, right? Why would I send you Bibles?
Bruce Gerencser
I received no response from Pastor David. 🙂
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.
Since my last post about “Dr. David Tee (David Thiessen, Theology Archeology, TEWSNBN), “Dr.” David Tee Continues to Obsess Over My Writing, the defender of Fundamentalist Christianity from a dank, poorly lit basement somewhere in the Phillipines has written six more posts that are either about me directly or mention me in passing.
Typically, I ignore Tee’s stalker-like obsession with me, but his next-to-last post about me (and atheists in general), Are Evangelicals Responsible for the Culture Wars? demands some sort of response from me. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling and grammar in the original.
The answer according to BG [ Tee is too lazy to type out my name] and other atheists seems to be a resounding ‘yes’. Just read his words as BG speaks for himself and other atheists:
“It seems that Donald can’t or won’t understand why atheists might want to challenge Evangelical beliefs, especially since those beliefs directly affect and harm unbelievers.”
This concept is held by atheists world wide. Instead of taking the blame for their own actions, it is easier and more convenient to blame someone else. The easiest target is the Evangelical or the RCC or some other protestant religion that goes against atheist ideals.
The history of the modern culture war is clear. One need only look at the history of the Moral Majority and other Evangelical groups who followed in their steps to see the people and beliefs behind the current iteration of the “culture war.” The same can be said of conservatives within Roman Catholicism and Mormonism. (Many other culture wars have been fought throughout America’s history — prohibition comes to mind, as does the pro-slavery movement. I am specifically talking about the post-Roe vs. Wade culture war.)
What behaviors, exactly, do atheists refuse to take responsibility for? Besides, there’s no such thing as “atheism” or the “religion of atheism.” Wikipedia defines atheism this way:
“Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.”
Atheists are individuals. There’s no sect or church atheists belong to. Each atheist simply denies the existence of deities. That’s it.
There’s also no such thing as “atheist ideals.” Aside from their common belief about the non-existence of deities, atheists have all sorts of political and social beliefs. Sure, many atheists are humanists, holding liberal/progressive ideas. Others, however, are card-carrying conservatives, many of whom voted for Donald Trump.
It should go without saying that I do NOT represent all atheists. The only person I represent is Bruce Gerencser. Do many of the readers of this blog generally agree with me? Sure. But, more than a few of my atheist readers wish I wouldn’t write about politics. To suggest that I am representative of a typical atheist is not only untrue, but dishonest.
BG repeats himself and makes his accusation even clearer: “Evangelicals are the primary force behind the culture war.”
Then he goes on to list the ‘crimes’ [I do not use the word “crimes” in my post.] being committed by Evangelicals that not only supposedly started this culture war but fuels [sic] it. Those are strong words to hurl against a group of people who look to help everyone in the nation in which they live.
“I spent significant time in my first response to Donald explaining to him why I do what I do. It seems that Donald can’t or won’t understand why atheists might want to challenge Evangelical beliefs, especially since those beliefs directly affect and harm unbelievers. My God, we need only to look at the January 6 insurrection or the election of Donald Trump to see how Evangelicals harm others. Evangelicals are the primary force behind the culture war. These warriors for Jesus want to criminalize abortion, outlaw same-sex marriage, marginalize LGBTQ people, and establish a Christian theocracy where the Bible is the law of the land. These things materially cause harm, so it would be irresponsible for me not to speak out on these (and other) issues. I suspect Donald wants the freedom to do the same. Again, I ask why does Donald want privileges for Evangelicals that he is unwilling to grant to atheists, agnostics, humanists, pagans, and other unbelievers?”
Tee asserts that Evangelicals “look to help everyone in the nation in which they live.” Really? I mean, REALLY? Everywhere I look, I see Evangelicals who want to cause harm to others: women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, atheists, and Muslims to name a few. What religious sect is behind the current war against masks and vaccinations? What religious sect was front and center during the January 6, 2021 insurrection? What religious sect is threatening violence toward people who refuse to bow to their theocratic demands? What religious sect has forsaken following after Jesus for fascism? (I am, of course, speaking generally. I am well aware of the fact that there are Evangelicals who take seriously the teachings of Christ and love their neighbors as themselves. They are, however, the exception to the rule.)
Evangelicals are an existential threat to our Republic. Left to their own devices, blood will be shed, people will die, and the Christian flag will stand proud and tall above the U.S. flag at the Capitol. In their minds, there is no king but Jesus and no law but the Bible.
But when you look at the crimes Evangelicals are supposed to be guilty of it really makes you wonder where the minds of atheists are at. How is it wrong to stop abortion and make that act of murder illegal?
How is making abortion illegal a far worse crime than killing innocent people? If a Christian stops a man from killing a woman on the street he is praised, yet when it comes to protecting unborn children from their parents somehow that act of sparing a life is worse than the atrocities committed by Stalin, Mao, and Hitler put together.
Abortion is not murder, need I say more? Eighty-eight percent of abortions take place in the first trimester — sixty-five percent in the first eight weeks. If Tee cannot or will not see the difference between a zygote and a child, I don’t know what to tell him.
Here are twenty-five questions I have for anti-abortionists, also known as forced-birthers:
Does life begin at conception? How do you know it does? Is your view based on science or is it based on a religious belief?
If life begins at conception, why are you supporting an Ohio bill that makes it illegal to have an abortion once a heartbeat is detected? Does life begin at conception or at first heartbeat?
Do you support the use of emergency contraception (morning after) drugs? Why or why not?
Should a pro-life pharmacist have the right to not dispense emergency contraception drugs? Should I be allowed to opt out of anything that goes against my moral or ethical beliefs, regardless of their foundation?
Is abortion murder?
Do you believe murderers should be prosecuted?
Do you believe that driving the get-away car makes a person just as guilty as the person who robbed the bank?
Do you believe a woman who has an abortion should be prosecuted for murder? How about the doctor who performs the procedure? How about the nurse that assisted in the procedure? How about the person who drove the woman to the clinic? If you believe in the death penalty, do you support the execution of murderers?
Do you use birth control pills?
Should you be prosecuted for murder since birth control pills can, and do, cause spontaneous abortion?
Should abortion be allowed for reasons of rape, incest, or saving the life of the mother?
If you answered yes to question eleven, do you support murdering the fetus if it is the product of rape or incest?
Should a fetus be aborted if the mother’s life is at risk?
Do you support murdering the unborn if it saves the life of the mother?
Is your viewpoint on abortion a religious belief?
What passage in the Bible prohibits abortion? Does this passage define life beginning at conception?
Has God ever killed the unborn?
In Genesis, God destroyed every human save eight by drowning them in a flood. Were any of the women who drowned pregnant? Did God kill the fetuses they were carrying? (Kill the mother, kill the fetus.)
Do you support the death penalty? Do you support war? Should women who survive self-induced abortions be charged with attempted murder?
If you answered yes to question nineteen, why do you oppose the killing of the unborn but support the killing of those already born?
Why do you believe that killing the unborn is murder but consider an American bomb killing a baby 3 hours old a tragic result of war, collateral damage, but not murder?
Do you support birth control being readily available in every school? If your objective is to reduce or eliminate the need for an abortion, wouldn’t easily available, free access to birth control reduce the abortion rate?
Do you believe it is better for a severely deformed child to live for a day and die than for the fetus to be aborted? If so, explain why it is better for the child to suffer needlessly?
Do you believe that God is in control of everything? Does everything include children being born deformed or with serious defects that will result in a life of extreme suffering and pain?
Is someone a Christian if he or she supports abortion?
I’m sure Tee will take these questions as some sort of test for him to answer. Can’t wait for that. (That’s sarcasm, by the way.)
Obviously, atheists have a warped sense of what is fueling these so-called culture wars. The same questions can be put to the support of same-sex marriage.
How is it wrong to stop people from being perverts, mocking traditional marriage, and wanting to preserve that rite of life for everyone? Why should an institution become a laughingstock simply because some people do not want to follow the rules of marriage that have been in place since the beginning of time?
Where is the crime in limiting the institution to only those who will follow the rules? There is no law stating that same-sex couples cannot love each other outside of marriage.
However, there are certain rules in place that prohibit non-married partners from benefiting from certain aspects of life when a same-sex partner dies, is injured, and so on. To change those rules one does not have to destroy the institution of marriage but the LGBTQ community doesn’t care about that.
They are very selfish and only think of their own selves. It is not the Evangelical that fired the first shot in this battle and they have the right to defend the institution of marriage and keep it holy, sanctified, and pure.
After all, it is the sick and perverted that is invading the domain of marriage and they were not invited to join. In this case, the LGBTQ community is the one to blame for the war over marriage.
Tee says LGBTQ people are sick, selfish, and perverted. That should tell you all you need to know about the man. Thou doth protest too much, “Dr.” Tee.
Marriage is a state-sanctioned contract between two people. The state grants certain privileges to people who enter into such contracts. Tee can provide no rational reason outside of quoting the Bible to prohibit two people of the same sex from marrying. Their marriages do not affect Tee and his fellow moralizers in any way. What drives Tee’s outrage is his lifelong homophobia (and perhaps latent desire for gay sex). Tee covers up his homophobia with moral pronouncements and Bible verses, but make no mistake about it, underneath his facade is a homophobe (and I am using the word in a colloquial sense).
Then BG states the next crime to be marginalize LGBTQ people, yet how so? He does not go into detail here and in reality, homosexuals were never really marginalized. One of the codebreakers of the German enigma machines was a homosexual.
They got to help in the War and they got to work, live in homes, and so on. People draw the line when special rights are being granted. The selfish and greedy reach of the LGBTQ knows no boundaries.
….
Oh my, LGBTQ people get to serve in the military, have jobs, and own homes — rights Tee would deny to them if he and his fellow theocrats were in charge. LGBTQ people demand equal rights and protection under the law. Instead of thinking about anal sex all the time, I suggest Tee ponder why it is right to deny LGBTQ citizens the same rights heterosexual Americans have? What legal basis is there for denying LGBTQ people the same civil rights everyone else has? LGBTQ people want equal rights, not superior rights — unlike Evangelicals with their Christian nation beliefs.
But these crimes may only be the smoke screen for the most important ‘crime’ held against the evangelical- establish a Christian theocracy where the Bible is the law of the land.
What is being said here is that the atheist really wants to make their own rules and live by them. They do not want to humble themselves and say to God, ‘okay, we will obey you…’ They want to be masters of the world and live their own ways.
They do this regardless of how much harm and hurt their alternative lifestyles do to other people. It is not the Christian or Evangelical that is harming people, it is the atheist.
….
Well, at least Tee finally admits he is a Christian nationalist.
Everyone is being hurt by the atheist support of the LGBTQ agenda.
Who is being hurt and how? How does wanting equal rights and protection under the law for everyone cause harm to others? No answers will be forthcoming
Finally, the atheist and their fellow unbelievers have not created a great society to live in with their rules.
Crime is out of control, injustice is being done daily, people are being killed, shot, robbed far more now than when God’s rules were on the books. Also, criminals are not being punished for their crimes. How is this better than a God-centered nation?
Uh, the overwhelming majority of Americans are Christian. Christians control the levers of government and the U.S. Supreme Court. If crime is out of control (and it’s not) who is to blame? Most of the crime committed in this country is committed by people who believe in the existence of the Christian God, and who, to some degree or another, believe the Bible is the Word of God. Surely, Tee doesn’t think it’s atheists commiting most of the crimes in this country?
Tee lives in a dystopian Christian alternate reality, one where atheists roam the land murdering, raping, stealing, and burning churches to the ground. Much like many of his fellow Evangelicals, Tee has a persecution complex extraordinaire — detached from reality.
When you look closely at the facts, the atheist is merely blaming Christians for what they are actually doing.
Please provide those “facts” you are talking about, David. We would all love to look at them “closely.”
Oh, and the atheist says that those who make extraordinary claims need to produce the physical evidence to support those claims. Well. BG says God does not exist, there is no sin, and many other anti-biblical claims. He has yet to produce any real physical evidence to support his extraordinary claims.
I am an agnostic atheist, David. You know this. So, please quit misrepresenting my views. Sin? A religious construct used to induce fear, keeping asses in the pews and money in the offering plates. My real “evidence” can be found in the almost 4,000 posts on this site. Feel free to rage blog away, David. In fact, I encourage you to start a new blog with the express purpose of deconstructing my writing. Or, you can continue to whine and complain over my refusal to accept your irrational, unscientific, immoral, anti-human claims.
We challenge him to do so on his blog instead of declaring how many years he has been in ministry, how many sermons he has preached, or how he has trouble going to the bathroom (way too much information there).
The solution to your existential angst David is this: don’t read my blog. I have explained to you why I use autobiographical statements in my writing several times. Yet, you continue to whine about me doing so. I have come to the conclusion that you are jealous. You have come out on the losing end of a dick-measuring contest and don’t like it. You don’t like the fact that I have garnered a large following over the years. Instead of plowing your own fields, you stand along the fence row complaining about my farming techniques. You, my friend, are a petty man.
You are the only person who has ever complained about my use of autobiographical material or mentions of my health problems. Why is that, David? Let me state once again: you are a petty man.
Why are you so opposed to natural bodily functions such as sex and shitting? I assume you do both. If you don’t want to talk about your fucking and pooping, fine. However, I will continue to do so. Maybe I’ll even share photos. You can use them free of charge. 😂 Don’t like it? Don’t read my blog.
On a side note, BG has this to say:
“If Donald has not done so, I encourage him to read one or more of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books on the history and nature of the Biblical text.”
We know [a real Dr. unlike you] Bart Ehrman through his books, lectures, and debates. How could anyone think he has the truth about the Bible? He makes a lot of declarations but we are yet to see him produce any hard, verifiable, physical evidence that any of his declarations are true.
….
His books are the same way. It is all his point of view not facts from archaeology or history. All you get from Bart Ehrman is lies and misrepresentations.
sigh
Let’s see, “Dr.” David Tee’s books have sold how many copies, exactly? Surely Tee will provide his sales numbers for all to see? Something tells me his sales numbers will be 2,000,000 books less than Dr. Ehrman’s.
Tee thinks that by slanderously attacking Bart Ehrman he can get at me. After all, I’m a fanboy and I frequently suggest Evangelicals read Dr. Ehrman’s books.
Most Evangelicals believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Tee most certainly does, though I suspect he thinks his interpretations are superior to the original text. He is the pope of Evangelicalism. He’s never been wrong about a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.
You can’t honestly read Dr. Ehrman’s books and come away believing the Bible is without error. If facts and evidence matter, inerrancy (as typically defined by Evangelicals) has to go. Tee “says” he had read Ehrman’s books, yet never mentions them on his site. I suspect he is overstating his Ehrman prowess. Tee remains a staunch defender of inerrancy, so either he hasn’t read Ehrman’s books or his “faith” stands in the way of intellectual honesty. One can certainly remain, as many have, a Christian after reading Ehrman’s books, but inerrancy cannot be rationally sustained.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
