It is common to hear devout Evangelical Christians talk about “true Christians” or “true believers.” Most Americans claim to believe in God; particularly the Christian God. They may not regularly attend church or read the Bible, but millions of Americans say they believe in the Christian deity when asked. More than a few Evangelicals fall into this category. They occasionally attend church, throwing a few bucks in the offering plate when they do. Their Bibles largely go unread outside of opening them at their pastor’s direction during his sermons. Prayers are occasionally uttered, especially in times of trouble, but they rarely “pray without ceasing.” These nominal Christians make up the majority of Evangelical church memberships. Are they “true Christians?”
Typically, it is Christian apologists who differentiate between true and nominal Christians. It is important to them to divide fake Christians from real Christians. However, when asked to define the term “true Christian,” apologists rarely agree with each other over how the term is defined. Is it right beliefs alone that determine whether a person is a “true Christian?” Or is how a person lives their life the standard by which professing believers are judged? Or, perhaps, a “true Christian” is someone who has prayed the sinner’s prayer, putting his faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation? Or maybe, just maybe, a true Christian believes the right things and lives the right way. Of course, what, exactly, are the right things that must be believed (orthodoxy) or practiced (orthopraxy) for one to be a “true Christian?” Who decides what beliefs must be believed to be a “true Christian?” What beliefs, if any, are optional? Who decides what constitutes the behavior of a “true Christian?”
I grew up in the Evangelical church, making a public profession of faith in Christ at age fifteen. For the next thirty-five years, I lived my life as one who was a committed follower of Jesus; one who followed the teachings of the Bible. I was, in every way, a “true Christian.” Those who knew me best believed I was a “true Christian,” yet, today, countless Evangelical apologists say otherwise; that I was a fraud, a deceiver, a follower of Satan; that I led thousands of people astray, damning their souls to a Christless eternity. Nothing in my lived life suggests that this narrative is true. Critics will search in vain to find people who knew me that would justify their opinions about my life. By all accounts, I was a devoted follower of Jesus. Sure, I sinned just like any other Christian, but the bent of my life was towards holiness. As one woman who knew me well said, “If Bruce is not a Christian, nobody is.”
Apologists use the “true Christian” label to differentiate themselves from the rest of Christians. Much like Calvinists who call themselves “elect” or “predestined,” “true Christians” want everyone to know that they are not like those fake Christians. Read their blogs and websites and you will find substantial verbiage devoted to rooting out from their midst those who are not “true Christians.” No two apologists say the same thing about who and what a “true Christian” really is. You would think God would deliver the same “true Christian” message to Evangelical pastors and churches, but he doesn’t. Christians can’t even agree on the basics: salvation, baptism, communion.
“True Christians” want to be viewed as special; people who believe the right things and live the right way. “True Christians” are God’s chosen ones, not like the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. However, while it is certainly true that unbelievers have different beliefs from “true Christians,” their lifestyles are often different from and superior to that of many “true Christians.” Revival Fires, John, James, Dr. David Tee, and others who claim to be “true Christians,” behave in ways that are contrary to the teachings of the Bible. While believing the right things is important to what makes one a “true Christian,” so is living by the teachings of Christ. In fact, I would argue that behavior is superior to belief. When Jesus summed up the law and the prophets, he said:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40)
Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it. Jesus said nothing about right beliefs. Love God, love your neighbor. During the end stage of my ministerial career, I often reminded church members that if we didn’t love our neighbors, we didn’t love God. Such thinking is uncommon in Evangelical churches. What matters to most Evangelicals is right beliefs, and right interpretations of the Bible. How else do we explain how vicious and hateful many Evangelicals are? Oh, they have the right beliefs — proudly so — but their behavior suggests that they don’t love their neighbors as themselves. And if they don’t love their neighbors as themselves? They don’t love God. I didn’t say this, God did. 🙂
Don’t tell me that you are a “true Christian,” show me. I know all I need to know about Christian beliefs. If you want to convince me that Christianity is true, I suggest you show me by how you live your life. Talk is cheap. It is unlikely that I will ever be convinced that Christianity is true. Still, I might come to admire and appreciate the followers of Jesus if they dared, you know, to actually practice the teachings of Christ, starting with those found in the Sermon on the Mount.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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The old man struggles as he puts on his olive green winter coat. A recent steroid injection and two weeks of high-dose Prednisone lessened the arthritic pain in his right shoulder, but pain and debility remain. Eventually, the old man wrestles his coat into compliance, puts on his matching fedora, and heads for the front door.
The old man stops at the door, ensuring Petey, the Ferret — a year-old cat — doesn’t dash towards it. Petey thinks freedom awaits if he can just get out the door, but the old man knows cars, injury, and death await instead.
No ornery cat today. No hollering at Petey as he tests his “freedom.” The old man starts the car with his key fob. A heated seat and steering wheel await him as he drags his right leg and then his left into the driver’s compartment. The old man stopped driving four years ago, but his partner’s knee replacement forced him back into service. Short drives, such as this one, are fine, but longer drives, say to Fort Wayne or Toledo, challenge the old man’s cognitive and physical abilities.
The old man backs out on the road, puts the car in gear, and heads for the local high school for a basketball game. The old man loves high school basketball and to a lesser degree football. The local school district gives residents sixty-five and older a free pass to school events, so the only cost today will be the money the old man spends at the concession stand.
The local high school, five miles away, sits on U.S. Hwy 127. Other area schools took advantage of cheap money from the state of Ohio to build new buildings over the past two decades, but not the old man’s school district. The area is dominated by white Republican farmers, and the local school district’s attempt to pass a new building levy failed several times. Eventually, a maintenance levy was passed, covering building and property renovations and improvements. The old man appreciates having the lowest real estate taxes in rural northwest Ohio; however, he can’t help but wonder how wise it was to spend millions of dollars fixing up buildings when that money could have been used to replace a sixty-year-old facility with a state-of-the-art school plant.
The old man pulls into the school parking lot, seeing a handicapped parking spot next to the front door. “Awesome,” the old man says to himself. He has on more than one occasion had to park far from the front door, resulting in exhaustion by the time he enters the school. Walking short distances exhausts him too, but less exhaustion is always good, so the old man is hopeful that tonight is a “less pain” night.
The old man walks into the building, past the ticket taker (who knows he has a pass), 50/50 drawing, and athletic booster’s table, and into the gymnasium. He nods and smiles at fellow basketball fans, as he makes his way to half-court. The old man tries to always sit in the same place, two or three rows up from floor level. Navigating the stairs proves challenging, so the old man tries to sit as close to the hardcourt as possible.
As is his custom, the old man arrives at the game an hour before start time. Doing so allows him to take a deep breath and situate himself in the stands, making sure people aren’t sitting close enough to him to inflict pain. Arriving early is very much part of the old man’s DNA. Earlier this year, the varsity basketball coach, the old man’s neighbor, asked why he arrived so early to the games. The old man replied, “When my partner and I first married, we drove junk automobiles. Flat tires were common. So, when going somewhere, we always left early enough to change a tire if we had a flat. The habit stuck, so I tend to be early for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.”
Situated in his seat, the old man watches as the junior varsity game begins. An hour and a half later, he haltingly stands, removes his hat, and sings the Star Spangled Banner before the start of the varsity game.
The stands are packed. The old man took 20 mg of hydrocodone before he left home, and now he takes 20 mg more, hoping to lessen the pain he feels rising in his body from head to toe. Pain-free is never an option, but hopefully, narcotic pain meds will reduce the pain enough that the game becomes a pleasant distraction.
Not long after the start of the varsity game, the old man feels a sudden jolt to his whole body. His seat is on the aisle just in case he needs to suddenly use the bathroom or leave. Up and down the aisle run three elementary-aged children, jumping up on the seat above him, and then down to the aisle, causing the old man’s seat to bounce up and down, jolting his body with excruciating pain.
The old man doesn’t blame the kids. “Kids will be kids,” he tells himself. “If these were my grandchildren, they would be doing the same.” The old man, however, does blame parents. “Children should be taught not to jump/run in the stands; that the stands aren’t for play.”
By the time, the game ends in a three-point loss for the home team, the old man has been repeatedly abused by running, jumping, and laughing children. He haltingly stands, and once the aisle is clear, he makes his way to the floor. Leaving the gym, he retraces the steps back to his car. Ice had fallen since he arrived, covering the windshield. The old man starts the car turns on the defroster, and retrieves the ice scraper from the trunk. Once the windshield is ice-free, the old man returns home, stopping first at the post office to get the mail.
Coat off, shoes, off, hat off, clothes switched for sweat pants and a tee shirt, the old man walks to the living room and flops on the couch. His partner asks her typical questions: How was the game? Who won? How do you feel? Questions answered, the old man tells his partner about the running, jumping children, a story she has heard countless times before. She feels sorry for the love of her life, knowing that there is little she can do for him.
Several days later the old man recounts his week to his therapist, telling her, “Maybe I should have stayed home, but I am in pain whether I go to the game or not, so I might as well go. Pain is ever with me, and unless I want to be a recluse, I must force myself to get out of the house, knowing it is good for me.”
The old man knows he can’t keep people from killing him one step, one jump, and one bang at a time. No matter how carefully he manages his environment, those around him are unaware of his struggle with chronic, unrelenting pain. He looks like the typical grandpa, but unless those around him carefully read his face, they will never know how much pain he is in. This is his burden to bear, and if he wants to enjoy what life he has left, this is the price of admission he must pay.
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.
As President Donald Trump, Co-President Elon Musk, and MAGA Republicans run roughshod over the government, causing chaos, heartache, and harm, there’s little being done in opposition by those who are in positions of power to fight back. Instead, Democratic politicians, corporate CEOs, and others once known for progressive values have abandoned past diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) and other “woke” policies, revealing that they never really were committed to these things. All that matters to these turncoat politicians and executives is remaining in power, improving corporate profits, and increasing shareholder value. Who cares if people of color, working-class people and other marginalized people are hurt in the process. When my partner lost her job last year due to downsizing, I reminded her that, to the company, she was just a line entry on a spread sheet. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that most workers are just a means to an end; that when choosing between profits and what’s best for employees, companies will almost always choose the bottom line.
In the United States, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination based on identity or disability. These three notions (diversity, equity, and inclusion) together represent “three closely linked values” which organizations seek to institutionalize through DEI frameworks. The concepts predate this terminology and other variations sometimes include terms such as belonging, justice, and accessibility.
I, for the life of me, don’t understand why a politician or corporation wouldn’t, on principle, embrace DEI. Sure, much like you, I find some DEI policies to either be ineffective or nonsensical, but that doesn’t mean the core values represented by the DEI acronym should be done away with.
The same goes for the term “woke.” The MAGA proud-loud-and-stupid-as-a-brick-crowd are against all things “woke” even though most of them couldn’t define the word if their lives depended on it.
Elaine Richardson, a professor of literacy studies at Ohio State University, defines “woke” this way: “In simple terms, it just means being politically conscious and aware, like stay woke.” [The word woke] “comes out of the experience of Black people of knowing that you have to be conscious of the politics of race, class, gender, systemic racism, ways that society is stratified and not equal.”
Again, setting extremes such as “defund the police” aside, it seems, at least to me, that being woke is desirable in a progressive society; and that progress requires an alert, awake citizenry. While I certainly roll my eyes at some of the extremes found within DEI and woke groups, in the main I fully embrace the values expressed by these words. It is doubtful that one can be a humanist, socialist, and progressive without embracing DEI and woke values. I take that back. It is rationally impossible for someone to be a humanist, socialist, and progressive without, in general, embracing DEI and woke values. We can, must, and should argue, debate, and fight about specific DEI/woke positions, but abandoning a century of progress for the rabid libertarianism promoted by Trump and his fellow MAGA followers is not the path forward for the United States. Drunk on Christian nationalism, racism, jingoism, xenophobia, imperialism, militarism, and capitalism, Trump and his merry band of uber-rich libertarians will not rest until they bring on the collapse of federal/state governments and our society as a whole. The goal is to return the United States to a time before government regulations and progressive social programs. All that matters is unrestrained personal freedom for white Christians and record profits for American oligarchs. Once you buy into the lie that the United States is a white capitalistic Christian nation; a nation divinely chosen by the God of the Bible to rule and reign over all the earth (under Jesus, of course, though what Jesus wants and MAGA wants seems to be one and the same). Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics now control key positions within the Trump administration, and with an atheist president pretending to be Christian sitting in the White House, it’s clear that this true-to-life telling of George Orwell’s “1984” will continue unabated for at least the next two years. And here’s the thing: much of what Trump is doing is perfectly legal, the spoils of winning the 2024 presidential election. Democrats can scream all they want, but Trump won the election fair and square. We must now face the consequences of a woefully uneducated populous electing a man who is a pathological liar; a man who doesn’t care one bit about their lives; a contemptuous man who only cares about power and wealth. I can’t think of one thing Trump has done since 2015 that reflects compassion for others.
Trump’s recent comments about the Palestinian people reveals the kind of man he really is. Trump only sees a business opportunity, one that will make him look good at the expense of millions of Palestinian men, women, and children. In some ways, Trump is no different from other American presidents; men who used violence and bloodshed to advance personal and political agendas. Trump wants to use bulldozers to turn Gaza into a canvas upon which he and his fellow billionaires can paint a beautiful picture of real estate development — the Riviera of the Middle East. No thought is given to the Palestinian people; the poor, marginalized, and disadvantaged; people who have lost everything because of Israel’s genocidal war against them.
Here’s what Trump had to say at a White House news conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as reported in Al Jazeera::
Today I’m delighted to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back to the White House. It’s a wonderful feeling and a wonderful event. We had fantastic talks, and thank you very much, with your staff.
I want to say it’s an honour to have you with us. Over the past four years, the US and the Israeli alliance has been tested more than any time in history, but the bonds of friendship and affection between the American and Israeli people have endured for generations and they are absolutely unbreakable.
I’m confident that, under our leadership, the cherished alliance between our two countries will soon be stronger than ever. We had a great relationship. We had great victories together four years ago, not so many victories over the past four years, however. In my first term, prime minister and I forged a tremendously successful partnership that brought peace and stability to the Middle East like it hadn’t seen in decades.
Together, we defeated ISIS [ISIL], we ended the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, one of the worst deals ever made, and imposed the toughest ever sanctions on the Iranian regime. We starved Hamas and Iran’s other terrorist proxies, and we starved them like they had never seen before, resources and support disappeared for them.
I recognised Israel’s capital, opened the American embassy in Jerusalem and got it built. We got it built. It’s beautiful, all Jerusalem stone right from nearby and it was – it’s something that’s very special.
And recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, something that they talked about for 70 years and they weren’t able to get it. And I got it. And with the historic Abraham Accords, something that was really an achievement that was, I think, going to become more and more important because we achieved the most significant Middle East peace agreements in half a century.
And I really believe that many countries will soon be joining this amazing peace and economic development transaction. It really is a big economic development transaction. I think we’re going to have a lot of people signing up very quickly. Unfortunately, for four years, nobody signed up. Nobody did anything for four years except in the negative.
Unfortunately, the weakness and incompetence of those past four years, the grave damage around the globe that was done, including in the Middle East, grave damage all over the globe. The horrors of October 7th would never have happened if I were president, the Ukraine and Russia disaster would never have happened if I were president.
Over the past 16 months, Israel has endured a sustained aggressive and murderous assault on every front, but they fought back bravely. You see that and you know that. What we have witnessed is an all-out attack on the very existence of a Jewish state in the Jewish homeland. The Israelis have stood strong and united in the face of an enemy that has kidnapped, tortured, raped and slaughtered innocent men, women, children and even little babies.
I want to salute the Israeli people for meeting this trial with courage and determination and unflinching resolve. They have been strong. In our meetings today, the prime minister and I focused on the future, discussing how we can work together to ensure Hamas is eliminated and ultimately restore peace to a very troubled region.
It’s been troubled, but what has happened in the last four years has not been good.
I also strongly believe that the Gaza Strip, which has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it, and especially those who live there and frankly who’s been really very unlucky. It’s been very unlucky. It’s been an unlucky place for a long time.
Being in its presence just has not been good and it should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.
This can be paid for by neighbouring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, 12. It could be numerous sites, or it could be one large site. But the people will be able to live in comfort and peace and we’ll make sure something really spectacular is done.
They’re going to have peace. They’re not going to be shot at and killed and destroyed like this civilisation of wonderful people has had to endure. The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It’s right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down.
They’re living under fallen concrete that’s very dangerous and very precarious. They instead can occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony instead of having to go back and do it again.
The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area … do a real job, do something different.
Just can’t go back. If you go back, it’s going to end up the same way it has for 100 years. I’m hopeful that this ceasefire could be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all. With the same goal in mind, my administration has been moving quickly to restore trust in the alliance and rebuild American strength throughout the region and we’ve really done that.
I ended the last administration’s de facto arms embargo on over $1bn, in military assistance for Israel. And I’m also pleased to announce that this afternoon, the United States withdrew from the anti-Semitic UN Human Rights Council and ended all of the support for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which funnelled money to Hamas, and which was very disloyal to humanity.
Trump’s bulldozer approach to Gaza is a common tactic used by the United States. Remember when the first Europeans landed on the shores of what is now the eastern United States? Who met them there? Indigenous people. This was their land; their home. Did we respect their geographical boundaries and property rights? Of course not, silly boy. We are a nation divinely chosen by God; a brightly lit city on a hill. We used proverbial bulldozers and destroyed countless indigenous cultures and communities. From sea to shining sea, our forefathers claimed land for their own that belonged to others, killing anyone who got in their way. Learning nothing over the past 400 years, the United States continues to use threats of economic strangulation, violence, and death to force countries to do what they want them to do. Trump has been in office all of three weeks, yet he has already threatened to invade Panama, turn Canada into an American state, appropriate Greenland, and attack Mexican drug cartels. From tariffs to military threats, Trump intends to get his way even if it means destroying our economy and killing scores of people.
Elections have consequences. What do we do now? We either fight back or give up. We are quickly learning that many corporations who promoted DEI values only did so because it made them look good or benefitted their bottom line. Now that Trump is in office, many companies are doing away with their DEI programs, embracing Trump’s racist bigotry. Gone are courage and conviction. Where are CEOs and political leaders willing to stand up to Trump, even if it costs them financially or politically? Is no one willing to stand up to Trump and the MAGA horde? Have we given up, convincing ourselves that there’s no hope? And maybe there’s not. Maybe Trump 2024 is the gasping breath of a dying republic. Does this mean we give up? I know I can’t, even though I have been quite depressed over the past three weeks, and I suspect Trump still has a lot more harm he intends to inflict on the American people. Do we just give in? If we can’t beat them, join them?
To my progressive readers, what do we do going forward? Is our political system broken beyond repair? Voting doesn’t seem to matter much these days. We routinely elect people who say all the right things when running for office, but once elected these very same people develop amnesia, serving not their constituents, but corporate overlords. I used to disparage people who didn’t vote, but I’m beginning to understand why they don’t. Vote, don’t vote, money buys elections. Rare is the politician who has courage and conviction. This past election, I watched both Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and Representative Marcy Kaptur morph into quasi-Republican-sounding politicians hoping to win Republicans to their side. I found their mealy-mouth cowardice disgusting. Better to lose standing courageously on your convictions, than lying just to get elected.
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.
Think of all the people currently living on Earth—approximately eight billion people. Most of them subscribe to some sort of religion, worshipping any one or more of the deities humans have worshipped throughout history. I, too, was born into a devoutly religious family. From the time I was a preschooler to age fifty, I devoted my life to and worshipped the Evangelical God—especially from the age of fifteen forward. At fifteen, I had an experience that is common among Evangelicals. Most of the churches I attended/pastored were Baptist congregations. Making a personal decision to get “saved” was essential to becoming a Christian and church member. While Baptists raised in the church typically make salvation decisions as children, most have subsequent experiences during their teen years. I trace my Christian faith back to an Al Lacy revival meeting in 1972. My parents had divorced earlier that year, and while my parents/siblings stopped attending church, I immersed myself in the machinations of Trinity Baptist Church, attending services every time the doors were open. Trinity provided me with a loving home and a family, and amid my troubled life, the Holy Spirit came to the pew I was sitting on that fall night, convicted me of my sin, and brought me to saving faith in Jesus. From that moment forward, I was a born-again Christian — sins forgiven, Heaven bound, praise Jesus!
Two weeks later, I stood before the church and confessed that God was calling me to be a preacher. In the fall of 1976, four years after getting saved, I enrolled for classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan — a school known for training Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastors. While at Midwestern, I met the love of my life. Marriage and an unplanned pregnancy interrupted my college plans. After three years at Midwestern, my partner, Polly, and I packed our meager belongings into a small U-haul trailer and the backseat of a white 1969 Chevrolet Impala, and moved to Bryan, Ohio — the place of my birth, five miles from where we live today.
Several weeks after we moved to Bryan, I was asked by Jay Stuckey, pastor of Montpelier Baptist Church, to be his assistant — an unpaid position focused on improving/expanding the church’s bus ministry and evangelization efforts. We left Montpelier Baptist after seven months, moving to Newark, Ohio — the home of Polly’s parents. After spending two and a half years working with Polly’s father at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Buckeye Lake, I struck out on my own, starting a new Baptist church in Somerset. I would later pastor churches in San Antonio, Texas, Alvordton, Ohio, West Unity, Ohio, and Clare, Michigan. All told, I spent 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible, preaching over 4,000 sermons, and winning hundreds of people to Christ.
While I would never say that I know everything there is to know about the Bible, I am conversant in all things Bible — especially from a Protestant/Evangelical perspective. I find it amusing when Evangelicals assume that my “problem” is that I don’t understand the Bible; that if I just read certain Bible verses and books or listened to the sermons of this or that preacher, I would see the light and return to the one true faith. And when I say I have already done those things, I am oft accused of lying or being disingenuous. In other words “If you don’t agree with me, you are a liar.”
Evangelicals generally believe that understanding the Bible requires God, the Holy Spirit, living inside of you as your teacher and guide. Without the indwelling of the Spirit, you cannot understand the Bible. Thus, whatever knowledge I may have had as a college-trained Baptist preacher, I am now ignorant of what the Bible teaches; I’m every bit as ignorant as someone who has never, ever read or studied the Bible/Christianity. In no other setting except Evangelicalism does such thinking carry any weight. I know what I know. Just because I am no longer a Christian doesn’t mean I am ignorant about the Bible.
I frequently receive books, tracts, and other printed/recorded Evangelical material from people who are certain that if I just listened to or read what they sent me I would immediately fall on my knees, repent of my sins, and come to or return to (depending on their soteriological beliefs) saving faith. Yesterday, I received a tract in the mail from a local Southern Baptist. No church/individual name was printed on the tract, but the sender wrote “you are loved” with a smiley face on the back of the tract.
The tract was typical of such evangelistic tools. Published by the North American Mission Board (NAMB), the tract presented a shallow, superficial, truncated gospel that, according to the author of the tract, would save me from my sins and guarantee me a home in Heaven after I die. At the back of the tract was a form for me to sign if I prayed the sinner’s prayer, letting the person/church who sent me the tract know that they could put another notch on their gospel six shooters — another sinner “killed” by the Southern Baptist perversion of the Christian gospel.
Several months ago, I received a short book published by an Evangelical preacher named Peter C. English. English wanted to educate me about where I could find the inerrant, infallible Word of God; that there was one English language Bible that was direct from the mouth of God. I am sure some of you are thinking, “King James-only, right?” Yep, but not just KJVO alone. English believes a particular King James translation is THE Word of God — “the Pure Cambridge Version of the King James Bible.” According to the Pure Cambridge website, this Bible is:
By the term Pure Cambridge Text, I refer to a perfect King James Bible as it was printed between the end of WWI and until 1985, but is now being printed by Church Bible Publishers. If you were to look at the English Bible on a pulpit in heaven, it would match exactly. Every word, every letter, every punctuation mark, every verse marking, every italicization, and every subscript and title would be exactly what God the Father thinks of when he considers the English Bible.
I also had a member of First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio recently drop a tract on my doorstep. Titled “The Romans Road,” the tract presents yet another shallow, superficial, truncated gospel, one sure to save me if I would just “believe.” Here’s the thing, I used to attend First Baptist in the 1970s. I am well known to the church, so it is unlikely that the person leaving the tract didn’t know who I was. I watched the woman on our RING doorbell camera as she knocked on the door, and not getting an answer, tried to stick the tract in the space between the door and frame. Unable to do so, she huffed and sighed, dropping the track on the stoop in front of the door. Off she went, thinking her littering did its job — saving the notorious atheist Bruce Gerencser.
What do these evangelizers hope to accomplish with their books and tracts? Surely they can’t think that I will be won over to their side by reading second-grade religious material? Not going to happen. I know all I need to know about God/Bible/Christianity. I can’t imagine a theological or philosophical argument I would find persuasive. Maybe, but it’s been many years since I have heard an original, compelling argument for Christianity. All I seem to get from Evangelicals are the same worn-out arguments I have heard my entire life.
To Evangelicals, I say, please don’t waste your time sending me books, pamphlets and tracts. They are not helpful, and I see them as nothing more than reminders of how shallow Evangelical theology really is. You might think that the Holy Spirit will use the words on the printed page to prick my conscience, but, so far, the score is Bruce — 1,000,000 Holy Spirit– 0. You might want to think of more effective ways to evangelize Evangelical-preachers-turned-atheists.
How about you? When was the last time you heard a compelling argument for God from an Evangelical apologist? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, I received an email from an Evangelical preacher named Mike. What follows is my response to him.
I am so sorry you have lost your faith and pray that you can reconcile your unbelief with the truth of God’s word.
Why feel sorry for me? I left Christianity with my eyes wide open. All of us must come to terms with the notion of God and the teachings of the Bible (as interpreted by countless Christian sects). I have thoroughly and comprehensively weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting. Do you expect me to believe contrary to what I know is true? Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, the Bible says, and that’s what I have done. Do you have evidence that suggests that my conclusions about God, the Bible, and Christianity are wrong? If so, why didn’t you provide me with answers for the hope that lies within you, as the Bible commands you to do?
If you have empirical evidence for the existence of your peculiar deity, please provide it—not Bible verses, not personal testimony, but actual verifiable evidence. If not, all you have is your personal opinion, one rooted in faith and experience. While that may work for you, you can’t expect it to work for me. Personal revelation is, by nature, personal to the individual, so what Jesus has done for you is immaterial. Jesus allegedly does all sorts of things for believers that both of us would agree is either wrong or bat shit crazy. We shouldn’t take any believer’s word for “truth,” unless they can justify and prove their claims.
The scriptural truth is that God’s grace never leads to a “get out of jail(hell) free” license to sin. It is meant to bring about a desire to obey and live righteously out of love for Christ and what he has done for you. A desire to please the one who bought for YOU eternal life with the Father.
According to you. Scores of other Christians believe differently; that salvation is by grace through faith, and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. These believers certainly desire to live Godly, holy lives, but they still sin. Are they unsaved if they sin again? How many sins does it take for a Christian to lose their faith? Most Christians I know want to live God-honoring lives, but they are, after all, human.
And there are some Christians, antinomians, to be exact, who think that the more they sin the more the grace of God abounds. How can any of us know which way is right? You would think, on such an important matter, that God would have been clear. That he wasn’t suggests that God doesn’t care one way or the other or the Bible is a human book, and not the Word of God.
It doesn’t mean total sinless perfection in this life. We continue to battle the flesh as long as we are alive in these corruptible bodies. Sanctification means we should no longer be comfortable living in sin and have a desire to rid ourselves of the sins that have held us hostage in the past.
The Bible commands Christians to be sinless; to be perfect, even as their Father in Heaven is perfect. The battle you speak of is made up. I understand your theology, but I see no evidence for the notion that humans have souls/spirits. We are fleshly, material beings. The notion of “sin” is a religious construct, one used to elicit fear of judgment, death, and Hell. Isn’t it amazing that religion conjures up the idea of sin and then sells the fearful the antidote — salvation in Jesus Christ?
I am not a sinner. On any given day, I do good and bad things. Most of what I do is neither good or bad — it just is. I made spaghetti for dinner tonight. Pretty good stuff. There was no moral quality to my work. I cooked dinner because I told my partner I would do so. I enjoy cooking, so making dinner was not a burden — though washing dishes was no fun. When a behavior of mine rises to the occasion of being “bad” — that which causes harm to others — I do my best to admit culpability and make restitution. No God, no prayers, just making things right with the person I harmed. I find this preferable to the notion that when I act badly towards my partner, family, or neighbor, I am actually “sinning” against God. Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist John R. Rice once said that Christians should keep their sin lists short; that believers should confess their transgressions as soon as they are committed — pray without ceasing. And that’s exactly what I do — sans God. So far, today, I have not caused harm to someone else, so I have no “sins” to confess. Can you say the same for yourself, or do you continue to sin in thought, word, and deed — sins of commission and omission?
Are you suggesting that I am, in some way, in bondage to “sin?” Do tell. I am sure you are having a hard time understanding why people like me don’t need your God, Jesus, Bible, or Christianity. We are fine just the way we are. I have a good life, a wonderful life, in fact. Yes, I have a lot of health problems and live with debilitating chronic pain. I suffer every day. That said, life is still good. I have been married for forty-six years. We are blessed to have six children and their spouses, sixteen grandchildren, and four cats. We have a comfortable home and a nice car. Life has certainly been challenging for us, but, on balance, we are grateful to have the life we do. I can’t think of any way our life would be better with God outside of not burning in Hell after we die (a claim we don’t believe is true.)
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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God created everything. Jesus is the Great Physician. God answers prayer. If we pray to the Great Physician, he will heal us. Or so Christians say, anyway.
Yet, when sickness and disease come their way, what do Christians do? They seek out medical care from physicians, specialists, and hospitals. When someone has a heart attack, what does he or his family do? Does he call for the elders of the church to anoint him with oil and pray over him so he will be healed? Of course not. He either dials 9-1-1 or has a family member take them to the emergency room. No time for prayer. Death is knocking on the door and the only hope lies not in Jesus’ blood and righteousness, but in the skills of medical professionals.
An anonymous YouTube commenter said, No Christian has ever had a heart attack and said, “Quick, get me to the church.”
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In 2020, Tony Shaw, pastor of Ruby Valley Baptist Church in Sheridan, Montana, was accused of sexually assaulting a teen church girl. Ruby Valley is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation.
Authorities say a pastor at Ruby Valley Baptist Church in Sheridan had inappropriate contact with a 14-year-old girl in the basement of the church.
They arrested Tony Aaron Shaw, 55, on a felony complaint of sexual assault on Tuesday and he was taken to the Gallatin County jail, where he later posted $75,000 bond and was released.
Shaw, contacted by telephone, told The Montana Standard on Thursday that the allegation “had to do with how someone perceived something” and was false.
“It was nothing,” he said.
….
According to the complaint, someone performing work at the church witnessed Shaw having inappropriate contact with the girl in the basement of the church. Sheriff’s officials say they had received a prior sexual assault complaint involving Shaw.
On January 16, 2025, a jury found Shaw guilty of sexual assault.
A small-town Montana church pastor was convicted last week of sexually assaulting a child and has been accused of another. He used the self-defense “karate lessons” he taught to get close enough to abuse his victims, court documents say.
In small Rocky Mountain towns like Sheridan, Montana, neighbors notice things. They share stories. They share concerns.
That’s what happened at around 8:50 p.m. on a night in May 2020 when Madison County Sheriff’s Deputy Leah Cox was on patrol in the town.
According to court documents, she was approached by someone with a disturbing story. It involved a local pastor at Ruby Valley Baptist Church, and it was upsetting enough that this person insisted on remaining anonymous.
The anonymous source said a close family friend had witnessed what appeared to be a sexual assault at the church. The incident, according to this witness, allegedly took place in the church basement April 28, 2020.
The tip triggered an investigation and led to charges against Pastor Tony Aaron Shaw. Nearly four years later on Jan. 16 in Montana’s Fifth Judicial District Court in Virginia City, a jury found Shaw guilty of sexual assault against a female underage child.
Following his conviction, Shaw was ordered to have no unsupervised contact with minors.
He now awaits a second trial because in the course of the investigation, another alleged sexual assault case involving a minor came to light.
In both cases, Shaw allegedly used similar tactics so he could have physical contact with his victims.
According to court documents, Shaw would offer his victims lessons in self-defense as he proceeded to assault them.
After Cox received the tip from a concerned resident in Sheridan, she contacted the man who reportedly witnessed the assault in the Ruby Valley Baptist Church basement.
On April 28, 2020, Edward Bradshaw was working on a siding project for the church. He needed to use the restroom in the basement, and on his way there he witnessed something disturbing.
In court documents, Bradshaw recalled being startled and exclaiming, “Ah ha” at the sight of Pastor Shaw laying on top of a minor child on the basement floor.
Shaw was wearing sweatpants, and when he stood up as Bradshaw passed him on the way to the bathroom, it became clear to Bradshaw that Shaw was sexually aroused.
“The Defendant stood up and had a visible erection,” according to Bradshaw’s testimony to the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.
Asked if he was certain Shaw had an erection, Bradshaw stated, “There is no doubt about it. It sickened me to see what happened.”
Cox asked Bradshaw how the young victim reacted to the situation.
Cox later reported, “Bradshaw paused and said, ‘Helpless, helpless, I guess would be the word.’”
Bradshaw continued, stating Shaw and this person, “Are together all the time.”Bradshaw also recalled witnessing another incident when he saw the victim running down the middle of the southbound lane of U.S. Highway 287 with “a terrified look on her face” and “looking over her shoulder.”
The investigative report noted Bradshaw’s comment that victim “never smiles.”
Bradshaw further explained that Shaw makes the girl “walk behind him like a dog,” and that she wears the same clothes every day.
When asked if this could be an innocent misunderstanding, Bradshaw stated, “You don’t wrestle with (a child), men don’t do that shit. That ain’t right.’”
Bradshaw went on to describe Shaw as “a very manipulative person. Bradshaw explained how all of the defendant’s kids and the defendant’s wife are scared to death of him.
“Bradshaw stated that Shaw never lets the girls go anywhere by themselves except to Walter’s, a local grocery store located on Main Street in Sheridan, directly east of the Defendant’s residence, and then back home.”
Bradshaw added that, “I know what I saw. I know what I saw.”
Based on Bradshaw’s testimony, on May 12, 2020, Deputy Cox applied for and was granted an arrest warrant for Shaw. Soon thereafter, Deputy Cox notified Child Protective Services (CPS) about the case.
The next day around 11:30 a.m., several officers from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office arrested Shaw at his home.
When officers explained the situation, Shaw reportedly told the officers that this all must be because Shaw had disciplined the victim.
Shaw was transported to the Gallatin County Detention Center in Bozeman.
Initial charges filed in Montana’s Fifth Judicial District Court, Madison County, included sexual abuse of children and endangering the welfare of children.
Three days after Shaw’s arrest, investigators interviewed the victim seen in the church basement with Shaw. She initially denied any sexual abuse, but did recall being forced by Shaw to watch videos featuring naked women. This allegedly happened in the pastor’s study at the church.
As court records later indicated, the victim revised her testimony with entries into her journal.
Journal entries included in court documents show the girl stating, “I’m sorry I haven’t been telling the truth about (what happened)! Tony has been touching me! I just didn’t want to be moved AGAIN, but now the more I think about it, I feel sick. I feel like a stupid dork. I haven’t told you. I’m so sorry.”
From there, many more details came to light through the girl’s testimony. She said the alleged abuse started when she was 12.
….
During the course of the investigation and trial, it came out that Shaw feigned teaching the victim self-defense as an excuse for him to have sexual contact with her. Shaw allegedly instructed her to hit him in the genitals.
“It’s weird,” the victim said in a pre-trial interview.
When the victim told Shaw to stop touching and kissing her, he reportedly told her, “I’m sorry, I can’t control it.”
Now, while he awaits sentencing, Shaw faces another charge. This one stems from alleged sexual assaults on a minor in 2015 and 2016, when Shaw said he wanted to teach a 13-year-old alleged victim karate, according to court documents.
While purportedly instructing her in self-defense, the alleged victim said Shaw, “Would touch her to demonstrate moves, but would grab her inappropriately when he did so.”
In one instance, when Shaw allegedly touched her vagina over her clothes while “showing her how to do a roundhouse kick,” this caused her to freeze, according to court documents.
Later, the alleged victim told a school counselor about Shaw’s inappropriate touching, and now Shaw faces a new trial in May.
As for where things stand with Shaw’s Jan. 16 sexual assault conviction, Madison County Attorney David Buchler said, “We are waiting for a presentence investigation report. Sentencing will be set once that has been completed.”
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I was wondering, Bruce, if you had still been an evangelical these past 10 horrible years, do you think you would have supported Trump?
Evangelicalism is somewhat of a big tent, encompassing people who are rigid Fundamentalists, such as those found in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, liberal/progressives, such as those found in the emerging/emergent/red letter movements, and everything in between. I was born into, raised, and educated in IFB churches. I was as right-wing as you could be. I maintained this worldview until I was thirty years old.
Every preacher enters the ministry with a borrowed theology and worldview — that of his parents, family, tribe, church, and college. This is normal. Sadly, many Evangelical preachers never move beyond this point, believing the same things at sixty as they did at age twenty-five. In fact, these preachers pride themselves in not changing their beliefs, thinking they got everything right from the start. In my case, my beliefs slowly, gradually, at times imperceptibly, changed, usually moving to the left towards more tolerant, inclusive, nuanced beliefs. To those on the right of me, I was becoming a liberal. For those on the left, I was still too Fundamentalist for them.
I was a flag-waving Republican through and through. Vote for a Democrat? Never. (Though I did vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976, believing him to be an Evangelical Christian.) For the next twenty years, I voted Republican. As my beliefs continued to evolve, I slowly embraced progressivism, liberalism, socialism, and pacifism — though I was still Evangelical theologically. The United States’ immoral wars in the Middle East and the incessant warmongering by Republicans (and to a large degree Democrats too) challenged my continued support of the Republican Party. I voted Democrat for the first time in 2000, as I have every general election thereafter.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton faced impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I preached several sermons about Clinton’s lack of moral and ethical values, saying, that I could never, ever vote for such an immoral man. While I knew that no politician was a pillar of virtue and morality, I had, in my mind, a line that couldn’t be crossed if a candidate wanted my vote. I concluded that it would be better not to vote than to lend my support to candidates lacking basic moral character.
Fast forward to 2016 and the messianic arrival of Republican Donald Trump. By then I was an atheist and a humanist. I saw no possible way that I could vote for Trump and still sleep at night. Had I still been an Evangelical preacher, I do not doubt that my viewpoint would have been the same. Donald Trump is a jingoistic, bigoted, misogynistic narcissist and bully; a man lacking any sort of moral and ethical foundation; a man who only cares about money, power, and influence. Trump doesn’t care one wit about me, my family, and our needs.
If I were still an Evangelical, I still wouldn’t have voted for Trump. I probably would have either voted third party or not cast a vote at all. Trump is unfit for office, an ugly, vicious, small-dicked little man who cares nothing for anyone but the uber-wealthy and his bottom line. I could not and would not, in any circumstance, vote for Trump, no more than I could have voted for Bill Clinton decades ago.
The 2024 election finally taught me that the American political system is irreparably broken; and that it is time for a total overhaul of how we do elections. The system cannot be fixed, it must be burnt to the ground. We have reached a point where it is evident, at least to me, that both political parties are rotten to the core — a fact that became crystal clear to me when, in 2016, the Democratic National Committee deliberately manipulated the primary process to keep Bernie Sanders from becoming the party’s general election candidate. While I remain a Democratic Party executive committee member for Defiance County, I am not certain how much longer I plan to be so. I see no signs of life among Democrats, just a lot of finger-pointing and blame as they try to explain how Trump won another election. Sometimes, the only answer is to start over.
Twenty-five-year-old Pastor Bruce likely would have voted for Trump, mainly due to his “pro-life” stance on abortion. Those days of being a single-issue voter are long gone. Trump isn’t actually pro-life. He knows he needs Evangelicals to vote for him if he expects to win. So he tells them what they want to hear, hitting all the red meat, hot-button culture war issues. As far as I can tell, Trump has no moral or ethical values, Yet, it seems Evangelicals no longer care about morality. All that matters is political power and advancing their theocratic agenda (as we are seeing with Project 2025).
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.
Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke truth to power during a sermon delivered at a prayer service attended by President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the Trump family.
Let me make one final plea. Mr. President, millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals, they — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.
I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people, the good of all people in this nation, and the world.
The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard-line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.
She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She’s the first woman to hold the position. She was given a great honor today, a chance to unify America around a Christian message at the dawn of a new administration. Instead, she disgraced herself with a lecture you’d hear on CNN or an episode of The View. What an embarrassment. (Charlie Kirk)
Liberal Protestant Pastor Mariann Edgar Budde blindsides Trump and Vance, weaponizing her sermon to attack them in front of their families by saying they should ‘have mercy’ on gay, lesbian, and transgender children. Unbelievable. (Catholic Voice)
[Budde’s sermon] is just the beginning of Democrats’ desperate attempts to race bait America back into the pernicious grips of DEI. The fact that President Trump demanded that God remain as the foundation of America should have received non-partisan praise from all of our nation’s clergy. We are addressing DEI and wokeness in our government and businesses and it’s time to address wokeness in churches as well. (Evangelical pastor Jack Brewer)
Ironically, the bishop used the pulpit and the service to not only lecture the president but to promote a secular worldview and her woke ideology. Unity can only be achieved through a commitment to biblical truth, not cultural assimilation. Her sermon was indicative of the heresy being taught by mainline denominations. Our nation was founded upon the truth that there is God, and he alone defines good and evil. (Evangelical pastor Rob Pacienza)
This Bishop asked Trump and his administration to have mercy on trans kids and immigrants. What I would like to know is why she didn’t ask for the previous administration to have mercy on these trans kids and immigrants? Where was she when it counted? We have children who are so young that they do not know the ways of this world and yet we are doing irreversible damage to their bodies — damage that many have since regretted. Where was she when Biden opened the borders and allowed millions of people who knew they were breaking the law to cross over. We knew a day of reckoning was coming. Yet where was her request for compassion back then. What the previous administration did was not compassion but ideological malpractice. They operated on children out of ideology. They allowed in people from other countries out of ideology. This was not compassion. Our compassion must be for our citizens first and foremost (Evangelical Corey Brooks)
This is what a religious pretender looks like. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde attacked Trump and told him to “have mercy” on gay, lesbian, and transgender children and illegal immigrants. President Trump rolled his eyes… (Evangelical Graham Allen)
NEW: Trump appears to roll his eyes as Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde begs him to “have mercy” on gay, lesbian and transgender children and illegal immigrants. These people are absolutely nuts. (Collin Rugg)
Woke pastor attacks Trump and Vance to their faces for scaring “LGBTQ kids” and illegals. (End Wokeness)
Are you kidding me? It’s people like this woman “pastor” who put this irrational fear into the heads of LGBT people. (Gays for Trump)
Who thought it was a good idea for this woman, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, to give such an outrageous sermon in front of President Trump at the National Prayer Service? First “protect the trans” and now this? This is NOT a church I would want to attend. (Gays for Trump)
When compassion divorces itself from truth, it becomes a counterfeit virtue—easily manipulated, shallow, and destructive. As Christ warned in John 8:44, the father of lies thrives where truth is discarded, twisting kind intentions into tools of hell. True compassion bows to the authority of law and justice-for his throne is established on Justice; without these, it is not compassion at all, but indulgence in sophistry that serves the enemy of God. (Evangelical pastor David Englehardt)
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. (Evangelical country music star John Rich)
I am an atheist, but let me shout out a hearty AMEN! to Bishop Budde for speaking truth to power. Her words will have no effect on Trump, Vance, or the president’s family, but maybe, just maybe, thoughtful, compassionate followers of Jesus will pause for a moment and weigh whether they want to continue to blindly support policies that are contrary to the teachings of not only the Bible, but Jesus himself. Evangelicals and other conservative Christians do not have a high moral ground on these issues. I suspect if Jesus were alive today, he would have plenty to say to President Trump about his treatment of “the least of these.” Trump’s response? He would have Jesus arrested and deported.
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.
Jamie Dimon, the billionaire CEO of JP Morgan, thinks that Trump’s tariffs will be good for our national security. If the tariffs are inflationary — and they will be — Dimon says, “So be it.” To the working class and poor people who will be hurt the worst by tariff-driven inflation, Dimon smugly replied, “Get over it.” Nothing like a filthy rich man telling poor people to shut the hell up and get on with their lives. Easy to say when you have billions of dollars at your disposal. Things look much different when you don’t have enough money to live from week to week.
Dimon, with a net worth of at least $2.7 billion, told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos:
If it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it. National security trumps a little bit more inflation.
As someone who has spent his entire life bouncing between, abject poverty, poverty, and working-class poor classifications, it angers me when people of vast wealth tell me how my life will be affected by government policies that reduce the amount of money my family and I have to live on. “A little inflation” for the Jamie Dimons of the world is no big deal, but to people living from paycheck to paycheck, inflation-driven price increases on everything from the cost of housing, utilities, food, gasoline, medical care, and taxes can and does cause harm. Such people turn to government programs for help to keep their heads above water, but what do Trump and his administration want to do? Cut the social safety net that provides food, utilities, housing, and medical care for poor people. Why? To pay for trillion-dollar tax cuts for the rich — especially billionaires.
President Trump has opened wide the henhouse door to the foxes, and slaughter is sure to follow. Oligarchs — very rich business leaders with a great deal of political influence — now sit at the helm of the U.S. government and will do everything in their power to maximize profits and enrich their wealth, even if it means stomping poor, working-class people underfoot. And sadly, the people who will most be hurt by tariffs and anti-immigrant policies, voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. They literally voted against their own self-interest. We can only hope that when these MAGA voters feel financial pain as a result of their ignorant support of Trump, they will repent and vow to undo — if possible — the harm currently being done to our republic. Ha! Who am I kidding? It is just as likely we have crossed a line of no return, and, if unchecked, Trump and his fellow libertarians will destroy our once great nation.
And to Jamie Dimon, I say, “Go fuck yourself.”
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.
