This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Old Time Religion by Parker Millsap.
He’s got old time religion
Buries his cash in a coffee can
And he makes his decisions
Down on his knees yeah he’s a full grown man
And he had a vision
Of a fire it burned up all of the land
You could call it superstition
You could run just as fast as you can
He took a beating
His father screamed at the top of his lungs
An Old Testament reading
If you spare the rod you spoil the son
He’s got scars for his bleeding
Fear of God fills everyone
You can listen to Him pleading
Pleadings for the holy son (to)
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It’s good enough for me
He’s got a King James edition
With all of the words of Christ in red
And he reads the inscription
Every night when he goes to bed
And he goes fishing
For sinnin’ men like Jesus said
Got an old time conviction
Keeps the bodies in the shed
He had a woman
Took her to church every Sunday morn
He said submit to your husband
Submit to me thus, sayeth the Lord
Well he never saw it coming
When she tried to get away in his ‘34 Ford
Now a widower is strumming on a banjo with a missing cord
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It’s good enough for me
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
Give me that old time religion
It’s good enough
It’s good enough
It’s good enough for me
Feminists made up the rules and gullible women fell into the trap laid for them by Satan. Feminism is an occult movement and tied into witchcraft.
Women fell for the classic trap by going to school and worrying about a career rather than what women were made for: to be a helper (not slave) but a helper to the man. The more you help your husband be successful by supporting him when he comes home from work, taking care of the home, and the children, the more you work to take his stress away. Then the more he can focus on work to provide well for you and the children which is why men are designed to give their all to work, yet women often criticize the man for this. The more successful he becomes, the more it benefits you.
His success becomes your success, but women didn’t want that anymore and tried to change things. But they can’t change how God made humans, yet women thought and still think they can as they’re the ones that changed the dynamic between men and women because as usual women were “bored” and never satisfied.
….
The goddess feminism is an occult religion akin to sorcery or witchcraft that has been pushed onto the world and especially the US. It was part of their plans for revenge as they sought to destroy Christianity from the earth and as it once spread around the entire world and very few knew about the occult and other dark religions, they now sought to do the exact opposite, destroy Christianity from the earth and have the occult knowledge spread around the entire world.
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 2000, Donald Foose, a principal of a Christian school, was convicted of sexually molesting a teenage girl. He was sentenced to two years in prison. USA Today reports:
The court records from Foose’s criminal case, obtained by USA TODAY, detail the sexual abuse that led to his conviction and the loss of his teaching license. Foose’s accuser, who is now an adult, did not respond to interview requests for this story.
In 1999, according to the records, she told Pennsylvania state police that Foose had repeatedly fondled her breasts, often over her clothing and twice underneath them. She said he once told her he wanted to see “what you got,” before groping beneath her shirt. Foose had once rubbed his genitals against hers when they were both fully clothed, she also told the police. When he asked to see her breasts, she refused.
A state trooper documented Foose’s limited response: Whatever his accuser alleged was true, he said. “He advised that he did put his hand under her clothing touching her breast,” the trooper wrote.
Police charged Foose with corruption of minors and indecent assault, both misdemeanors. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in March 2000 to a maximum of two years in county prison and sex offender counseling. He served nine months and was released in December of that year on parole. He has no other known convictions.
In 2001, Foose and his wife began attending Oakwood Baptist Church in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. In 2006, the church’s pastor, Bob Conrad, asked Foose to join him in the ministry. USA Today reports:
Conrad, the head pastor whose father had preached at Oakwood for three decades before him, was initially unaware that Foose had been a longtime minister and a principal about 15 miles away at Harrisburg Christian School. When Conrad learned that he had a fellow preacher in his congregation, he wondered whether God had given Oakwood a gift. So in 2006, he asked Foose to join him in ministry.
Conrad, in an interview, said Foose paused at the suggestion.
“He said, ‘I have something in my past. I can’t pass a background check,’” Conrad recalled.
Foose told him that he had been falsely accused of molesting a teenage girl but decided he would not fight the charges to spare his family the pain of a trial, Conrad said.
In the letter he wrote after leaving Oakwood, Conrad said Foose’s secret had been shared under pastor-member confidentiality, so he did not tell the congregation before it voted to approve Foose’s move to leadership. The two men also had agreed, he said, that Foose would not become involved with Oakwood’s school.
….
Foose resigned from Oakwood in May 2018. Soon after, the beloved pastor who had left Oakwood months before, Bob Conrad, acknowledged in a five-page letter to his former church that he and other leaders had known Foose could not pass a background check. Foose claimed to have been falsely accused, Conrad wrote, and church leaders took him at his word, failing to prevent him from having access to children even as school employees complained about his overly familiar behavior with the students.
“I pray,” Conrad wrote, “that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me for my lack in leadership and judgment.”
….
On Foose’s final Sunday at Oakwood, he confessed to his congregation: He had been accused of abuse by a teenage girl, convicted and jailed. He told them he had touched her inappropriately above the waist, according to several people in attendance who added that they were left with the impression it had been a single incident.
After Conrad left the church, Foose became its pastor. Conrad, along with other leaders in the church knew about Foose’s past crime and conviction, but kept silent. Foose said he was innocent, so he must have been, right? As far as Conrad’s plea for forgiveness, I hope the folks at Oakwood Baptist will tell him to fuck off. I also hope the church has, by now, excommunicated every church leader who knew about Foose’s past and did nothing about it. Such cowardly behavior is inexcusable.
Days later, Conrad sent his letter to Oakwood’s board of deacons, unburdening himself with the same words: please forgive me, I need to ask for forgiveness, I pray that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me.
The letter’s contents were explosive. Staff at the school had complained about Foose, a red flag every few weeks during one period, Conrad wrote. Foose hugged the children during class time, especially the little girls, and let them climb on his lap; pushed them on the swings by their bottoms, not the metal chains or their backs; and lifted kids onto his knee so their legs straddled his.
Conrad wrote that he warned Foose to keep his distance but didn’t share the complaints with the board of deacons, thinking he could manage on his own.
He wrote that Foose had pushed two women – a cook, and the school’s director – out of jobs at the school after they complained about his behavior. The director had grown so concerned that she had Foose work in a classroom where she could keep an eye on him, according to Conrad.
….
Conrad mentioned a third woman who worked at the school as a classroom aide. Her parents complained to the church about Foose’s behavior with their daughter, who has an intellectual disability. Conrad wrote that it was a “common occurrence for (Foose) to hug her in the pastor office while no one else was there” and that Foose once hugged her from behind and rested his head on her shoulder.
Conrad wrote that he had also seen Foose hug her.
In an interview, Conrad said Karlsen and Foose had by that time largely taken over leadership of the church, overruling him on his concerns. He said he argued that the congregation should be told about the parents’ complaint. Instead, he said, at a meeting with Conrad, Foose, Karlsen, and the woman’s father, the situation was explained as a misunderstanding and smoothed over.
Karlsen, in an email, denied that Foose ever hugged the woman. He said he spoke to the parents because Conrad “could not handle confrontation.”
Conrad wrote that by 2017, he had come to recognize that what was happening at Oakwood was wrong. But the other leaders, he said, took Foose’s side. Conrad said he was called a bully, forced to take a sabbatical from preaching and ordered to seek counseling. Matthew 18, the scripture that prescribes how to reconcile with someone who has wronged you, was pushed in his face. But he saw no path to making peace.
So Conrad left, only revealing the truth behind his decision in a letter months later.
“It was hard to write,” Conrad said, after sliding into the booth at a pizza shop near his new church in Harrisburg. “I was hoping that if I said, ‘These are things that I did wrong,’ other people would. But that never happened.”
Still think Donald Foose is an innocent man? I suspect there are still people at Oakwood Baptist who think Foose is just a good man wrongly accused (and convicted) of criminal and inappropriate behavior. These kinds of stories sicken me. Here’s a sex offender hiding in plain sight, but because he looks and acts like a “nice” Christian man who really, really, really loves Jesus, the church ignores not only his criminal past but also current allegations of inappropriate behavior.
After his resignation from Oakwood in 2018, Foose was a guest preacher at Carlisle Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Ed Roman, pastor. USA Today reports:
The same month that Higgins closed his investigation, Foose preached in front of the congregation at Carlisle Baptist Church, not 20 miles from Oakwood. Megan posted about her concerns on Facebook and heard from a mother at Carlisle who confirmed the congregation was unaware of Foose’s record before he took the pulpit.
The mother, Mary Weigel, said the senior pastor at Carlisle later told her that he had known about Foose’s conviction when he invited him to fill in that Sunday but did not think he posed a danger. Weigel has since left the church.
“I’m angry. I’m so angry,” Weigel said. “That puts my children in a position of trusting someone that could potentially groom them and hurt them. And I would have never guessed. I would have never known.”
Ed Roman, Carlisle Baptist Church’s senior pastor, said he let Foose preach because he believes in redemption. “But we also take seriously our responsibility to protect our children and our families,” he said. “So over the years Carlisle Baptist has been very diligent in implementing safeguards that protect families and children so they can worship safely.”
“I wish I would have handled things better,” Roman added. “I did not fully consider how it would affect other people. I didn’t.”
In September, Foose preached again, in Virginia, according to a video briefly posted on the Facebook page of Fredericksburg International Christian Church. The pastor there said he was unaware of Foose’s record when he invited him to the pulpit.
I love Pastor Roman’s statement that he and his church take the protection of families and children seriously. Yet, the good pastor allowed to Foose to preach for him? Why? Because Roman believes in “redemption.”
Worse yet, both the Oakwood and Carlisle churches are part of the same Southern Baptist Association. Its director, Larry Theisen, knew of Foose’s past sex crime conviction and the allegations of inappropriate behavior. Instead of protecting the members of the Oakwood and Carlisle churches, Theisen took the “neutral” route and remained silent. USA Today reports:
The fact that Foose preached at Carlisle Baptist was all the more stunning to the Benningers because the congregation is a member of the Keystone Baptist Association, a network of central Pennsylvania churches that includes Oakwood. Larry Theisen, then the association’s director of missions, knew that Foose’s secret had torn Oakwood apart because he had served as interim pastor after the last of Oakwood’s leaders resigned.
Theisen retired in December after 24 years in the job. Before leaving, he served on a national committee for SBC association leaders that drafted guidelines for preventing sexual abuse of minors in the church.
In an interview, Theisen said he tried to remain neutral at Oakwood but that it was a challenge because Foose is a friend.
Theisen said he learned of Foose’s conviction about 10 years ago from one of Oakwood’s pastors and did not ask for more details beyond what Foose later told him – that he had inappropriately touched a teen girl above the waist. Theisen said he has never been interested in reading through the court records to fully understand what had occurred.
“Everything that goes into our mind affects our mind. … I don’t like to fill my mind with things that are unnecessary,” Theisen said.
Theisen said it wasn’t his place to question Oakwood’s decision to make Foose pastor, because of the autonomy of Southern Baptist churches. He equated it to a congregation deciding whether to accept as pastor a man who had been divorced.
“I’ve had, oh, just about everything you can name over the 45 years of ministry I’ve had to deal with,” he said. “And so my question would simply be, is this a sin that’s basically a Scarlet Letter that they would never find redemption in?”
Foose and Theisen were “friends,” so Theisen kept his mouth shut. Theisen nauseatingly justifies Foose’s crime when he says, “And so my question would simply be, is this a sin that’s basically a Scarlet Letter that they would never find redemption in?” Sorry, Pastor Theisen, but people who molest children — and do you really think Foose was one and done? — should never, ever be given access to children. And they sure as hell shouldn’t be pastors or guest preachers. Come on, man, most of the atheists I know have better morals and ethics than the justifiers of Foose’s behavior.
Please take the time to read the entire USA Today story. Its description of Foose’s preaching is that of a man with something to hide.
Pastor Donald R. Foose was born in Harrisburg, PA. His hometown is Marysville, Perry County, Pennsylvania. He is the third oldest of eight children. He was greatly influenced by godly grandparents who lived in the house next door and was always seen travelling with and helping his grandfather. Pastor Don was made alive in Christ at the age of eight when God called him by grace and granted him repentance and faith while attending a summer church camp. God has been faithful in preparing and sustaining him for service in his Kingdom and Church since 1958. He was given a strong Christian foundation by his family and church.
By God’s grace, Pastor Don has been used in starting and leading Christian schools as well as serving as pastor in several churches in Ohio and Pennsylvania. His education includes a B. S. in Education from Shippensburg University, a Masters in Christian Education from Pensacola Christian College, and pastoral studies from Harrisburg School of the Bible.
Pastor Don has served in ministry for over 40 years. God has been gracious in counting him faithful to proclaim His marvelous grace. His passion is to preach and teach the word of God so that the church will grow in love, knowledge, and service of God, while at the same time grow in love for others. Pastor Don’s goal is to glorify God in all things at Oakwood Baptist Church. He shares preaching time with the other pastors/elders of Oakwood. He also teaches small group Bible studies in the homes of church members. Pastor Don is also active in training pastors and church leaders in Ecuador, the Philippines, and in sister churches in the Keystone Baptist Association. He is chairman of the elders/pastors of Oakwood Baptist Church. He has served as a pastor at Oakwood since 2006.
Pastor Don has been married to Terry Ann Foose since 1972 and has five grown children and ten grandchildren. He resides in Silver Spring Township. He is a serious baseball fan who has followed the New York Yankee since his childhood days of admiring Mickey Mantle. He is also an avid golfer who plays every week in the warm months of the year.
Recently, a woman wrote a letter to the editor of the West Bend News — a weekly publication. In the letter, the woman quotes Psalm 58:1-11 — implying that Democrats are wicked, evil liars and snakes — and then proceeds to rail against the Democrats for their slights against one President Donald J. Trump, also known as the Orange Menace.
Here’s the non-Bible part of her letter:
God has the last word, that’s why Donald Trump is in office. Put protection around the President. No weapons against the President Donald Trump will prosper. In Jesus’ name thank you Lord. Protect the security guards that lay their lives down for the President. A divided house won’t stand. You’re trying to get dirt on the president and wasting tax payers’ money (why) maybe you should look in your closet. If you’re without sin you can cast the first stone. Democrats are using the hatred act against our President Donald J. Trump. God’s still on the throne,“Avenges is mine,” said the Lord (not yours).
I am hesitant to say much about this letter due to the fact that its writer is almost 80 years old and a lifelong Republican. On the other hand, her letter is a perfect example of the Christian-Republican union that is prominent among older residents of rural northwest Ohio and northeast Indiana. In 2016, Donald Trump easily won the counties surrounding my home in Ney. Come November he will carry these counties again, likely by a higher margin than he did in 2016. The same will happen with the elections of local and state Republican candidates. Democratic candidates, if they run at all, will likely be thrashed, leaving them to wonder why they bothered running at all. When over seventy percent of locals vote Republican, it is impossible for Democrats to win elections. Locals of The Great Generation and Baby Boomers overwhelmingly vote Republican. While the future rests with younger residents, many of them are indifferent to politics, don’t vote, and those who are politically active find that local Democratic party officials are often clueless about the issues affecting younger Americans. I don’t know of one local active Democratic outreach to younger voters. Sadly, the people running local Democratic offices are generally in their 50s and up.
The aforementioned letter writer doesn’t say anything that I don’t hear locals say at ballgames, restaurants, or other public places, or write in letters to the editors of local papers or post on social media. I shoot upwards of a hundred local basketball/baseball/football games, volleyball matches, and track meets every year. I am retired, so I do this as a way to give back to our local school district and provide student-athletes and their families with quality photographs. Keeps me busy, allows me to meet new people, and takes my mind off the unrelenting chronic pain I battle each and every day. Doing so, however, exposes me to far more Trumpist Christian bullshit than I care to see or hear.
As I mentioned above, most locals vote Republican. Those I meet in public often “assume” that I am part of the Trump tribe. This is especially true on social media. I can count on two hands local Democrats I have met. And those who are as liberal as I am? One is the loneliest number, Three Dog Night sang in 1969, and I find that to be true when it comes to locals who line up with me politically. I’ve learned to accept that I am a vampire-like outlier. Even among Democrats, my view on abortion is a minority viewpoint. This is due, of course, to the pervasiveness of conservative Christianity. The overwhelming majority of the letters to the editors of the Defiance Crescent-News over the past decade advocating pro-choice positions were written by yours truly. I love living in rural Ohio, but politically I find it impossible to feel at home.
If locals want to read my pointed viewpoint on American politics, Donald Trump, the culture war, and Evangelical Christianity, they have to go to this blog, Twitter, or my Facebook page. On my personal Facebook wall, I am decidedly a-political and a-religious. Many of my Facebook friends are not so inclined, especially local Republicans I am “friends” with. Trump worship is common, and libtards and evil commie socialists — also known as Bruce “Santa Claus” Gerencser — are routinely savaged, abused, and slandered. I have no doubt that many of these people think the West Bend News letter writer is spot on with her God- and Bible-inspired attack of her Democratic neighbors and the Party in general (though I am sure many of them would wince at her atrocious grammar).
Later this week, I will plant in my front yard campaign signs for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. I am hoping one of the three will be the Democratic candidate for president. I hope one of the other two will be the chosen candidate’s vice president. In 2016, you may remember, I prominently displayed my support for Sanders. I only knew of a handful of other locals who were willing to show their support for Bernie. To do so is socially and economically risky. My sign “disappeared” before the election. It was, best to my knowledge, stolen by a Trump supporter who could no longer stand looking at my sign as he or she drove by my house. Here’s a screenshot of a discussion Trump supporters had about my Bernie sign in February 2016:
I decided not to file a theft report, but this time around, if my signs come up missing, I plan to file a police report. Or beat the shit out of the thief with my cane. 🙂
Such is life in rural northwest Ohio. There’s much I love about the place of my birth, home to my parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren. When we returned to this area and bought a home in 2007, we decided that there would be no more moves in our future. There are days, however, when I am so discouraged over the local and national political climate and the shenanigans of the most unfit man to ever sit in the Oval Office, that I want to move to a remote area and live off the grid. President Trump and his supporters have literally worn me out emotionally. The constant lies, distortions, and mixing of church and state makes me sick. Just today, Trump released his budget. More money for the military, Trump’s anti-Mexicans wall, and severe cuts to social programs and regulatory agencies. No surprises. Trump and the Republican Party will not rest until they destroy every vestige of FDR’s New Deal and the social progress the United States has made since the Great Depression. What’s a thoughtful liberal to do? Vote. What else can I do, but cast my votes for people who, at the very least, promise to stem the tide of the Republican/immoral capitalistic/theocratic Christian horde? I know my vote locally is little more than pissing in the face of a hurricane. There’s no chance for local Democratic candidates to win elections. I’m not being pessimistic or fatalistic. It’s just the facts of life here in northwest Ohio. I do, however, believe that on the state and federal level, my vote can make a difference. Will Democrats unseat President Pussy-Grabber in November? Maybe. My greater hope is for Democrats to retake the Senate and strengthen their hold on the House of Representatives. If Democrats fail on every front, I am headed to the wilderness with a bottle of whiskey in each hand and a backpack of weed. I feel as if liberal/progressive Democrats have one last opportunity to turn back and repair the social and economic damage done to our Republic by Trump, Republicans, and spineless, money-grubbing corporate Democrats. (And even if they succeed, the damage done to our judicial system by Trump will take decades to undo.)
In 2008, Barack Obama called for hope and change. In 2016, Bernie Sanders called for a revolution. What will be our rallying cry for 2020?
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Thoughts and Prayers by Drive-By Truckers.
When the carnage was over you could hear the cellphones ringing
You could smell gunpowder in the air
On the bloody ground the LEDs were blinking
Deliver us from evil, thoughts and prayers
They’re lined up on the playground, their hands all in the air
See it on our newsfeed and we cry out in despair
They’re counting up the casualties, everyone’s choosing sides
There’s always someone to blame, never anywhere to hide
Thoughts and prayers
Thoughts and prayers
This white noise in my head, I think I need a filter
A pressure valve to keep from blowing up
And when the shit comes down I pray I can rise above it
Hold me closer when I’ve had enough
Thoughts and prayers
Thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
The Flat Earthist realized as he flew through the skies
The curve of the horizon as he fell
He saw the world was round just before he hit the ground
And gravity called out to close the deal
When my children’s eyes look at me and they ask me to explain
It hurts me that I have to look away
The powers that be are in for shame and comeuppance
When Generation Lockdown has their day
They’ll throw the bums all out and drain the swamp for real
Perp walk them down the Capitol steps and show them how it feels
Tramp the dirt down, Jesus, you can pray the rod they’ll spare
Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers
Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
Glory, hallelujah
You are in our thoughts and prayers
Surveys have indicated that there is a group of people known as “nones”. That is, when asked if they hold to a particular church, denomination, or religion, they answer with “none”. Atheists cheer the belief that their hellish horde is growing, but that’s not necessarily the case. People who are in-between churches but still believe all the basic tenets of Christianity could still answer “none” [this is about as likely as creationism is true] but not be irreligious or anti-theistic.
Your typical village atheopath spends an inordinate amount of time and energy attacking the God that he or she claims does not exist. It is amazing to this child that many seek their identities in attacking the God they deny. These sidewinders along with other anti-creationists do not show knowledge of the biblical creation science claims that they misrepresent because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18-23). Indeed, they do not even show knowledge of rudimentary logic. When encountering atheists on social media (they frequently attack Christians and creationists) or in their anti-theist campaigns, we can easily see that they are typically joyless and angry. Such devotion to hatred of God is done religiously.
In the United States, Super Bowl Sunday is a big deal. People who rarely watch American football during the regular season will gather together to watch the Super Bowl Championship game. Companies pay millions of dollars to buy advertisement time during the broadcast, and many of the ads are quite clever, funny, or touching. The halftime show typically features A-list performers with advanced choreography, lighting, and showmanship.
This year, the performers were Latina entertainers Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. Both are women over 40 who are superstars in their respective genres. In addition to her career as a singer-dancer-entertainer, J. Lo is also an actress and a judge on the show “World of Dance”. Shakira is known for her dual Lebanese and Colombian heritage, incorporating belly dancing into her performances, and she was a voice character in the animated movie “Zootopia”. Both performers have won multiple awards during their careers.
It did not take long for the Evangelical Christian world to lose their minds over the halftime show. J. Lo and Shakira, along with their backup dancers, put on a dance-heavy performance in which many appeared to be scantily clad, though in photos it’s obvious that J. Lo’s base layer was a long flesh-colored bodysuit, and Shakira’s costumes were no more scanty than the outfits of the cheerleaders on the field. However, Evangelical Christian sensibilities were ruffled by the fact that these two women, both over the age of 40, were dancing and wearing costumes that showed some of their skin or what appeared to be skin.
Common in Evangelical Christianity is the concept of purity culture. Purity culture revolves around the way that Evangelical Christians believe their deity designed men and women. They teach that men were designed to be predatory, dominant, aggressive, and aroused by visual stimuli. Women, conversely, are designed to be passive, nurturing, submissive, and aroused by tactile stimuli, and are therefore the designated gatekeepers of all sexual activity. The belief is that if a man sees something that arouses him, he will be unable to control his urge to dominate and possess what he sees. As women supposedly are not aroused until they are touched, they have the ability to thwart sexual activity by not drawing attention to themselves and by saying no. The idea is that if a woman draws attention to herself by wearing clothing that shows her physique, by any motions that draw attention to her physique (such as dancing or swaying of her hips), even by making direct eye contact with a male or “flirting,” that means she is signaling that she welcomes sexual activity. She is therefore at least partially culpable in any sexual activity. In Evangelical Christian purity culture, I learned that it was important to be as silent and as invisible as possible in order to prevent sexual advances from men.
When J. Lo and Shakira sang and danced on stage, purity culture adherents viewed their activity as openly welcoming sexual activity. The performers were tempting upstanding Christian men and boys to desire sexual activity with them. Additionally, J. Lo and Shakira were demonstrating to girls and women how to draw the attention of men. The performers repudiated purity culture’s directive to be as silent and as invisible as possible. These two mature, successful, talented performers dominated the stage and made their voices heard. (I won’t even address the references they made to children singing in cages, the nods to Shakira’s Middle Eastern heritage, J. Lo’s use of the Puerto Rican and US flags or her daughter’s singing of “Born in the USA”, but those were all important elements in the show as well.)
I grew up in the 1980s with purity culture, but fortunately I was too old for the more slickly marketed purity culture that exploded during the 1990s and 2000s. It affected me as well to the point that I hated and was ashamed of my body and wore oversized clothing for several years. In the Fundamentalist Christian school I attended, we had a strict dress code that included rules about skirt length, sleeve length, and cleavage-covering. Prior to our senior trip, girls had to model their swimsuits in front of three female faculty members for approval. The message was that we were to be “feminine” but also well-covered so as not to draw too much attention from our male classmates and teachers. My mom did not know the extent of purity culture that I was taught at church and school, and she did not understand the source of my body hatred. When I was in my early 20s, my mom bought me a two-piece bathing suit and a suede miniskirt and told me that I should wear these types of clothes while I still “could” before the inevitable obesity that plagues females in our family set in. Eventually, I became accustomed to wearing age-appropriate and body-appropriate clothing, but the body image issues have never completely gone away.
I no longer see my body as a temptation to men, something to be covered and hidden. Life experiences taught me that people are responsible for their own actions, and I am not responsible for someone violating my consent. As I have grown older, I am a lot more vocal about what I will and will not tolerate from other people. As someone who has become an athlete later in life, I have learned a lot about what my body can and cannot do and about the signals it gives me when it is hungry, tired, or in need of care. I can still find plenty of things “wrong” with how my body looks, but I will no longer cover up just because of someone else’s rules about “modesty,” nor will I cover up because of my own insecurities, which are probably mostly in my head anyway. I wish I had known at age 18 what I now know at age 50, but I believe I have been successful in passing along to my own daughter that she should use her voice, own her space, and demand that others respect consent.
I will no longer be as silent and as invisible as possible in order to ward off actions that are the responsibility of someone else. Purity culture and all it entails can go to hell.
Appearing on a radio show hosted by New York Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan last week, Barr tore into church-state separation once more, this time blaming “militant secularists” for a host of problems.
“I feel today religion is being driven out of the marketplace of ideas, and there’s an organized, militant secular effort to drive religion out of our lives,” Barr said. “To me, the problem today is not that religious people are trying to impose their views on non-religious people. It’s the opposite. It’s that militant secularists are trying to impose their values on religious people, and they’re not accommodating the freedom of religion of people of faith.”
When you read something like this, you really can’t help but ask yourself a pertinent question: What planet does Barr live on?
For the past three years, the Trump administration has been laboring to turn religious freedom into an instrument of discrimination, a device to treat some people (LGBTQ folks, women, Muslims and other religious minorities, nonbelievers, etc.) as if they have second-class status.
This administration has repeatedly sought to deny people access to contraceptives because some bosses claim it offends their religious beliefs. It has backed religious discrimination in taxpayer-funded foster care and adoption programs. It has issued rules that put the most vulnerable members of our society – the poor, the homeless, those grappling with addictions – at risk by stripping away their protections in “faith-based” programs. It has traded in crude stereotypes against Muslims and undermined their right to travel to the U.S. It has argued that government has the right to display towering crosses, the central symbol of the Christian faith, on public property, and charge the taxpayer for it. It kicked transgender people out of the military because the Religious Right doesn’t like them. It supports immersing houses of worship in partisan politics. It has worked to end reproductive freedoms. It told the Supreme Court that taxpayers should be compelled to support religious groups and religious schools.
The administration did these things – yet we’re to believe that “militant secularists” are the problem? That “militant secularists” are the ones trying to force their views onto people?
Please.
Barr, like his boss Trump, is a master gaslighter. He repeatedly asserts that things are the opposite of the way they really are. In his strange world, up is down, black is white and you can’t believe the evidence of your own eyes.
Key to this is Barr’s use of words – and how he defines them. To Christian nationalists, “militant” is anyone who dares to stand up to them and expose their theocratic agenda for the freedom-crushing miasma that it is. And a “secularist” to Barr and his allies must be someone who hates religion.
Patti Williams, along with her husband Ron, founded Hephzibah House, an unlicensed Baptist girls group home in Winona Lake, Indiana. Williams died several years ago, but her husband still continues to operate Hephzibah House. Despite being investigated by the state numerous times, Hephzibah House remains in operation. Hephzibah House operates under the authority of Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana. (Please read Who’s to Blame For the Tragic Death of IFB Missionary Charles Wesco?)
Believer’s Baptist is pastored by Don Williams, the son of Ron and Patti Williams. Don assumed the pastorate of the church from his father — truly a family-owned and operated institution. Interestingly, Hephzibah House is not mentioned as a “ministry” on the church’s website. Girls at Hephzibah House are housed for a minimum of fifteen months, and during that time attend serviced at Believer’s Baptist three times a week. For the past thirty years, Dave Halyaman has served the assistant director of Hephzibah House and assistant pastor at Believers Baptist.
Three weeks ago, Dr. Phil featured Hephzibah House on his daily TV talk show. What follows are several video clips from the show.
After Dr. Phil’s exposé, Dave Halyaman publicly voiced his objections to the story. Here’s some of what he said:
When this thing aired, Wednesday morning guess who was at our door. CPS with Winona Lake’s police officer Joe Bumbaugh. I took them personally through every single room, downstairs, they wanted to see the storage area, the girls. Then they wanted to talk to the girls. I put Joe and the lady from CPS in a room and closed the door. They went through every single girl and talked to every single staff the day after it aired. And guess what??No problems whatsoever. The girls could have said anything. They could have said anything, they could have maligned us and bashed us, and all they did was praise us.
Sheriff Dukes has an open invitation anytime he wants, they don’t need a warrant, and same to Winona Lake police. If he [Ron Williams] was an abuser or a pedophile, I would know. I’ve known him for 30 years.
We’re helping parents get their kids back. Satan doesn’t want that. They’re [the accusations made on Dr. Phil] either blatant lies or complete distortions. Some of these very critics were there when I was here, and I counseled them. One of the critics who was on the Dr. Phil show, after she graduated and she left us, she invited all of us — the whole staff, months later — to her graduation party.
Would you want us to not do that [give pelvic exams] ? Would you want your girl to come and spend a year around other kids with STDs? It was done with written permission. It was discontinued because technology is so advanced, you can do blood work and figure out what’s going on. There was no way before. Wisdom says, maybe we should have just not done that.
I don’t hate anyone, because I know their influence is satan. The enemy here is not the critics of Ron Williams and Hephzibah House. I see it as an attack on Christianity.
Please take the time to read the Times Union article about Halyman’s response. Read carefully as he “explains” how Hephzibah House is operated and how the girls are and were treated. You can also read the FAQ for Hephzibah House here.
Years ago, Patti Williams wrote a pamphlet titled Schizophrenic Women. This pamphlet remains popular in some corners of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) world. What follows is an excerpt from the pamphlet:
Spelling and grammar corrected.
We Have A Problem
One of the hottest issues today among women is the pants issue and other areas of clothing. Just the way a woman reacts to the whole subject of pants, modesty and dress reveals to me the seriousness of the situation. There are many problems in the church today and I think women constitute one of the main problems.
A woman who is causing problems in the body of Christ is either not dressed properly or not under submission to her husband. In some cases she is neither dressed in a proper manner nor under her husband. A woman greatly influences and brings out the Godly qualities of her man by her actions and words.
Just as important are the fruits of her marriage: the children. Her dress and character will bear fruit in her children. I work with the Hephzibah House girls on Saturday evenings. As I listen to their questions, handle their problems and study the Word for answers, I see that the Bible holds us responsible as mothers for our part in helping or harming our children.
Mother, we are producing the ungodly generation. They are our fruits. We are the fruits of the last generation and this must stop! Stopping a curse can be accomplished by obeying God’s Word. We must repent of what we have done. Repentance means to turn around, change, be different. You may now be thinking or wondering what she is getting at? The Schizophrenic Woman, what has that to do with me? She must be crazy or something.
My Personal Experience
I am going to use myself as the prime example. Perhaps you will identify or relate to what I have to say.
I grew up in a typical American home. We had pants, shorts, bathing suits, immodest clothing, television, movies, dancing lessons, circuses etc. As a small child I desired to be a beautiful movie star and practiced the role by prancing and dancing all around the house. I have a clear memory that goes back to my preschool years. Even then I wanted to be beautiful. For what reason? Money? Other girls? My pets? Of course not it was for men!
The Inner Desire Of Women
I dressed for men, I desired to be beautiful for men. I wanted them to notice me and I learned how to please them, resulting in the character qualities of the Biblical strange woman in Proverbs. I knew what I was doing, I was not innocent. And I do not think any woman is innocent in this area.
A woman has an inner desire to attract men. Yet I was an ERA type woman to the core. No man would control my life! I would control his! I soon learned that I could control men with my eyes, voice, body movements and dress. This resulted in many personalities. I was a different personality for specific occasions and my dress fit the occasion. As I have worked with women and teens for years I see the same character in each female. I am not so sure any of us are really deceived deep down inside. We know how we are but we hide behind a spiritual mask and a civilized veneer.
I am very sorry to say I won my own husband by my dress and actions. This resulted In many years of heartache for our lives. I was proud and haughty at my catch but filled with doubts and suspicions afterwards. We were not saved until we were in our late twenties. Those early years of our marriage were a nightmare! The Lord has done a marvelous work in our lives. But you Christian mothers, why are you allowing your daughter to be a strange woman, a schizophrenic woman?
A Christian Mother Has A Heavy Responsibility
Perhaps you live a decent Chrlstian life, but why are you allowing your daughter to live like a strange woman? She will suffer all the rest of her life. The Lord will forgive and forget but her body and mind will bear nonerasable scars. Mother, you can avoid this by rearing her properly, or perhaps cleaning up your own life first and then cleaning hers up.
What can you say about my husband? Doesn’t he have some responsibility in all of this? Yes of course he does. But let us look at ourselves Mother. The Lord has shown me the role of the woman in the home. A mother is the primary Influence on her daughter. She will be the person you molded her to be and Dad will glow. Dad will burst his buttons with praise over a pure virgin daughter filled with Godly character if you do it God’s way.
How We Dress Affects How We Live
Dress definitely affects our personality. When I wear my housedresses, I feel like working on floors that need scrubbing, cooking and digging in the garden. I do not mind if I get dirty, which I surely do when I really dig into a project. For church and special occasions or a precious date with my honey, I wear my finest. I want to look special for the Lord and my husband. When I go shopping I try to take real care concerning my looks because it reflects on my husband. I do not want him to be embarrassed at how his wife looks but to be proud of me. I want to be different from the dress of the world. I want to please the Lord not man.
How We Dress Reveals Character
We can be dowdy and stand out in a ridiculous way or we can be sloppy which reveals a sloppy character or be so fancy we appear proud and haughty. The Bible tells us in I Timothy 2:9 that a woman is to dress in a modest way. Our clothes should draw attention to the whole being and not certain areas of our body especially areas that may arouse a man sexually. Some think that women do not really make sense. For example some women have hairdos with no makeup. The combination does not really go together. Or similarly lots of makeup and a bland or unkempt hair style is equally awkward. We ought to balance out what we wear.
I know this will step on toes literally, but these new sandals with three and four inch heels are not simple. They draw a lot of attention to the feet, ankles and leg. Besides being very hard on the back, difficult to walk in, and cold on the feet in the winter when there is snow and ice. We have allowed the world to dictate our styles. However, common sense is laid aside for the sake of style! How ridiculous. I really admire the dress of the Amish and Mennonite women who live relatively close to our mission. They are very beautiful to me and communicate a sense of purity. They wear balanced, simple and modest clothing.
Does it make sense for a Christian woman to cover her body with modest Godly clothing then take these clothes off to go in for mixed swimming? That is an absolute contradiction of standards and another aspect of a feminine schizophrenic personality. If a man’s eyes are filled with lust (Matthew 5:28 Proverbs 27:20), then how can we justify the wearing of swimming apparel in mixed swimming? You may say, “Well I am too old to make any difference. I have huge bulges, varicose veins, fat pockets. etc.” Dear lady, you are then gross in a bathing suit! If you still have retained your figure then you are attractive and you are defrauding men and you will stand in judgement before the Lord for causing a man to stumble (11 Corinthians 5:10). If you do not care then you are In severe rebellion and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (I Samuel 15:23).
What Does God Say?
Deuteronomy 22:5 says you are an abomination to God if you wear the clothing of a man. Well you say we are in different times, they wore different clothing and besides they both wore robes. I personally believe obedient saints have always maintained the sharp distinction between the sexes God ordered in this verse whether in New Testament Palestine or In the modern era.
…..
Our Thinking As Women Is Not Consistent
….
I tried something several years ago to see what would happen. The whole ministry was gone and I was alone in the house. So I dug out my pants and wore them for one entire day. I could not believe myself. Soon I felt bold, hard, haughty and unfeminine. I was very unsubmissive and I grew worse as the day progressed. As soon as I took them off I changed my personality inasmuch as I felt softer, meeker, feminine and gentle. I was conscious of how I walked and sat. That same year I tried something else. Those were the days of the ungodly provocative let’s-go-to-bed-look fashions. These fashions included the mini skirt.
I again pulled out one of my mini skirts and my shiny black boots and immediately I felt like a strange woman and I desired to dance and prance. Perhaps you have worn these and did not desire these things. That is wonderful but you were just as guilty because you caused a man to lust or to attempt control over his vision.
I also see this change in children. My daughter Naomi has never worn pants unless under a maxi and that is rare. She is so feminine. The girls call her a Holly Hobbie doll. Heather wore pants until she was five when we got saved. It is hard to imagine now but she was a real tomboy. Naomi is not a tomboy and I think it is because she has been in dresses and feminine styles from her birth. I put a dress on her within two hours after she was born over her stretch sleepers and she has had dresses on ever since. Our daughters are virtuous women because we have obeyed the Lord’s commands.
A woman is not submissive in a pair of pants. She becomes either bold or sloppy perhaps slobby. A woman is either attractive and causing a man to stumble or she is a slob and gross in appearance when she wears men’s clothes. Neither characteristic is a Godly one.
Perhaps you are wondering how you can have freedom of movement in a dress. Then you say women have been bound for thousands of years and they ought to be allowed more freedom. Perhaps we need to be bound up? ERA has definitely won a battle among Christian women. Our ungodly dress has resulted In our unsubmissive, bold, masculine spirits.
Anita Bryant is a prime example of what the Bible condemns. Many times I warned my husband about this woman and could not understand why Godly men across this nation followed her. The role she played was not and is not the role of a woman who is a keeper at home. Titus 2:5 says we are to be keepers at home. How can you be a keeper at home rearing your children loving your children, and your husband and at the same time leading a movement across the nation?
….
You Can Dress Feminine
Some say your job requires pants. If you are convicted and truly believe pants are a sin, then you are sinning against God by working at a job that requires you to compromise your convictions. I would suggest that you wear feminine culottes. These are easy to make or to have made. Have them made mid-length then wear long underwear or tights with boots if you are cold. We use a pattern that makes a culotte that looks exactly like a pleated skirt yet has plenty of room for movement. You can have them made for most jobs at which you work. Culottes can be worn for recreation.
….
There Are Problems We Must Face
A woman that wears pants is either rebellious or ignorant. Whichever is true, both will give an account to the Lord.
It is interesting to note that as far as I can tell, we have never had a girl or woman come into our program at Hephzibah House that did not wear pants. One of the greatest shocks our girls go through is to have their pants taken away! They do not know how to walk sit or act. We have noticed that after a few weeks their outward appearance changes. They are softer, sweeter and submissive. Yet inwardly they are not changed and would wear pants at the first opportunity. Just getting a girl out of pants changes their personality and they are not even aware of the change.
What effect do pants have on our children? Our children are being molded by our character whether we like it or not. They do an excellent job of imitating our bad qualities. A woman who wears pants or immodest dress will produce a daughter that will have either masculine character or rebellious character or the qualities of a strange woman. That daughter will reveal this in her marriage.
Lesbianism among teenagers is common and routine. Being bisexual is common. Because we are disobeying the Lord a mother who wears pants will produce a daughter that may not have a servant spirit to men or her husband unless she wants something special from him.
The effects of a pants-wearing mother is just as devastating on a boy. He does not know how to treat a woman. His role becomes more confusing with relation to a girl.
….
Change Is Difficult But Possible
Ladies it was and is hard for me to change. I had a lot to crucify in my life. It was not easy and I am still running the race striving to be like Jesus. Oh to be like Him! I genuinely desire to be like my precious Saviour. The position we have taken is hated not necessarily by the world as much as it is by fellow Christians. Our position does not win friends and influence people to love us. But the most important position in my life is to obey the Lord in all areas of my life and leave the results to Jesus.
….
Look At Our Responsibility
Mothers and single adult women, you are responsible for the molding of young girls and children. I have heard many mothers say they do not wear pants and do not believe in them but you know how it Is! Peer pressure forces us to allow our girls to wear them. No, I do not know how it is! If God tells me pants are sin (and He does) then my children are not wearing them whether they do at Christian Camp Youth Group Church or Christian School. Your children need to obey; you and your husband need to let these groups know where you stand on this issue. If he does not desire to speak out then do not speak out either but pray the Lord protect your child.
…..
My dear Sister in Christ, look around our daughters are no longer pure. Oh how I pray some will stand for Jesus! I pray that some will stand for His sake and not let the world control our dress and our lives. Do not be a schizophrenic woman but a virtuous woman! Be willing to resist the pressures of the world and disobedient Christians. You will stand alone but then so has every earnest Christian since the first century.
Schizophrenic Women should give you a good idea of how Hephzibah House was operated and how incarcerated girls were treated by the Williamses. That Hephzibah House remains open till this day is nothing short of scandalous. I hope after the Dr. Phil exposé that Indiana officials will finally bring to bear on Hephzibah House the full weight of Indiana law. The Williamses and their lackeys have engaged in criminal behavior for decades. While it is unlikely they will ever be arrested and prosecuted, surely Indiana law enforcement and child protective services can find ways to eradicate the stench coming from Hephzibah House. (Though after reading comments from local law enforcement, it’s evident that any action against Hephzibah House and the Williamses will NOT come from local authorities.)
This story has an eerily similar feel to those told by the girls that were incarcerated at Mack Ford’s New Bethany Home for Girls. For further information on their stories, please read the following posts:
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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What follows is a record of several emails I traded with Greg, a former church member at Somerset Baptist Church in Mt. Perry, Ohio, over the past three years. I was Greg’s pastor for several years. He was quite active in our church, teaching Sunday school, going out on visitation, and occasionally filling the pulpit. As you will note from the emails, Greg and I had some social interaction outside of the church. There is lots to this story, but for Greg’s sake and that of his wife and children, I will just stick to responding to his latest email to me.
Some spelling and grammar corrected.
In March 2017, Greg wrote:
Dear Bruce,
Yesterday I was reading some about Jack Hyles and saw an article (s) by you and have done some reading by you.
I hear you have had some bad health. Hope your health is improving and hope your family is doing well. I imagine if you and I went and played basketball, we better play half-court, and slow tempo. And with my arthritis, I don’t move too well.
Nowadays, my best game is chess, which I play on the internet, against people from all over the world.
I had to have colon cancer surgery back in June 2013. I am doing well now and take Essiac now that I know about it. It has healed many people of cancer.
Planning on going to Athens tomorrow to see some regional basketball games.
Well, It was good to hear from you.
Well in closing, take care and tell your family I say hello.
Your Friend,
Greg ******
In April 2017, I responded:
Good to hear from you. Boy, it has been a long time, hasn’t it? You have gotten old. ? I turn 60 in June. It’s been 23 years since I pastored the Somerset church, almost 34 years since we started the church. Time marches on.
Sorry to hear you had cancer, but I am glad you have recovered. Getting old is not what it is cracked up to be. My health struggles are many, but I try to live each day to its fullest. I know I will die sooner, and not later, so I need to do what I can while I am still among the living.
Our family is doing well. Polly and I will soon celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary. Our six children live within 20 minutes of our home. We have 11 grandchildren — 10 girls, one boy. Polly works for Sauder Woodworking. She is a manager there, as is Jason.
Nice to hear you are still going to tournament games. I attended several district and regional games this year. My oldest granddaughter plays on the Stryker High School JV team (volleyball too). I have a cousin who plays for nearby Swanton High School. I got to see a lot of girls’ basketball games this year. Several grandchildren are playing baseball/softball this summer, so I will be busy attending games.
Write when you can. I would love to hear more about how things are with you. If you are on Facebook, I would love to connect with you there. Just send me a friend request.
Have a great week.
Bruce
In August 2018, Greg wrote:
Dear Bruce,
How are you and Polly and the children doing? Fine, I hope.
How has your health been?
What are your children doing nowadays and do they live near you?
My wife ****** is doing ok, she has some trouble with diabetes, and has to put up with me. ( That’s a challenge)
My oldest daughter ****** is 27 now. She is living in Greenville Ohio, and working at the Whirlpool plant there. She makes decent money there and lives with some guy there, who is like 6’9″ or so. Man if I could have had that height when I use to play basketball.
Now my favorite sport to play is chess, on the internet.
My youngest daughter ***** is 25 and is still single, and living at Cambridge. She does home health care.
Back in February this year, after living going on eighteen years, near New Concord, ***** and I had to move because of our landlord selling the property.
We now live in a senior apartment in Cambridge, which we like. There are some benefits to being old.
I don’t know for sure if you cheer for any specific professional team, but I have seen you with Bengals apparel on. Have you or are you a Browns fan? With that new quarterback that WE have from Oklahoma, we are ready for great things NOW, AS IN NOW.
Bruce, you are, and will always be my friend. Yes nowadays there would be a lot of differences we would have, but you are still my friend and always will be. Even if you don’t like the Cowboys and Yankees.
In closing, I just have one church, not Bible question for you. Where can a man that is KJV, post-tribulational, amillennial, non-eternal torment believer, non-Calvinistic, who wants to preach, and is married to a lady who was married once before find a church that would let him preach, and where he would be in one accord?
And that man would be me. And in all of my searching, talking about trying to find a needle in a haystack, even if you could locate the haystack.
May you and your family have a wonderful rest of the year.
Your FRIEND,
Greg ****
In October 2018, I responded:
Hey Greg,
It was a delight to hear from you. Thank you for updating me on the coming and goings of you and your family.
Our six children all live within 20 minutes of our home. We have twelve grandchildren — ages three months to seventeen. We see them often. Now that the NFL season is in full swing, some of the boys are here almost every Sunday to watch the Bengals with me. Polly cooks a nice meal and we sit around and yell at the TV.
Browns fans, eternal sufferers to be sure. Nice to see them win a couple of games. I think Mayfield is the man for them going forward.
Health-wise, things remain the same for me. I am slowly losing functionality and strength. I do what I can, but I have resigned myself to the fact that I can no longer do many of the things I once did with ease. Fortunately, my children are quite helpful. Polly was in the hospital twice this year: once for a heart problem and once for a bleeding problem. We are getting old, falling apart. That said, we celebrated forty years of marriage this year, and next week we will celebrate Polly’s sixtieth birthday (I am two years older than she).
I hope you will keep in touch. If you have some family photos, I would love to see them.
Have a good weekend.
Bruce
Up to this point, you will likely have noticed that Greg considers me a friend, and that he, much like he did when I was his pastor, has exacting theological beliefs. You will also note that I did not respond to his theologically oriented questions. I am no longer his pastor, and neither am I a Christian. When contacted by people from my ministerial past, I make sure they understand that I am quite happy to correspond with them and even renew our friendship, but I am not interested in arguing with them about theology or atheism. Over the course of the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry, I had a handful of relationships that transcended the pastor-congregant connection. Greg was one such person. At the time, I considered him a friend, even though he left the church several times over a doctrinal differences with me. In particular, Greg objected to my Calvinism.
After my response to Greg in October 2018, I did not hear from him again until yesterday:
Dear Bruce, in the past after hearing about how you left the ministry, etc., I never responded with preaching or anything like that.
I just wrote to you as a friend, which I still am.
But after reading some more, let me talk some.
I don’t know if you will listen, seeing it seems like you want to talk, but maybe not listen to anything you don’t want to hear.
I guess you always win when you don’t let the other team have the ball.
Does that mean that you are the player and REFEREE?
It is easy to say that God loves Tim Tebow more than a Ethiopian when your a Calvinist or Robot (no difference).
Tell me, did John Calvin make you one of the non-elect. Or were you with Job, trying to give God advice during the creation?
Tell me, if you don’t believe that Jesus exists, why do you hate Him?
But The Lord Jesus does exist, and you will now your knee to Him.
WOW, just imagine if you are wrong?
AND YOU ARE!!
How shall we escape, if we neglect, so great salvation?
Dear Greg,
Having not heard from you for almost seventeen months, I was surprised to receive an email from you. I was even more surprised (and saddened) to see that you decided in this email to take an adversarial, preachy, judgmental approach to me. What changed? Couldn’t we just be friends, revel in our past experiences, and share the things we have in common — family, sports, and memories from southeast Ohio? Instead, you decided to be Greg, the Fundamentalist Baptist preacher. What did you hope to accomplish by taking this approach with me? You say you still consider me a friend, but I find little friendliness in your words.
You mention reading more of my blog, but as I looked at the site server logs, I found that you only read two posts: Why I Hate Jesus and Dear Evangelical. Let me suggest it might be helpful for your understanding of my journey to read the posts listed on the WHY? page. Instead of looking for and focusing on doctrinal deviancy, try to enter into my story, and hopefully this will help you understand why I am an atheist today. I don’t expect you to join the ranks of the godless, but at the very least I expect you to make a good faith effort to understand my past and present life (as I have understood yours through our conversations and counseling sessions).
I have been blogging for over twelve years now. On this iteration of my blog, I have written over 3,600 posts. If you are willing to do your homework, you will likely find most, if not all, of your questions answered somewhere in my writing. It’s not that I don’t want to hear what people have to say, but when it comes to Evangelicals (and I know you may object to me calling you an Evangelical) such as yourself, I have heard the same stuff over, and over, and over again. No new evidence; no new arguments; same shit, new day. And it is for this reason, I wrote the Dear Evangelical post. Ask yourself, did you say anything in your email to me that I likely haven’t heard countless times before? Why would I need to hear it yet again?
I originally responded to you because I hoped we could have some semblance of a friendship outside of our differences about God, Jesus, and the Bible. Silly me, to think that an Evangelical can set his dogma aside for the sake of maintaining or nurturing a friendship. For people such as yourself to be friends with me, they must be willing to let me go to Hell in peace. They must agree not to preach at me or attempt to sneak apologetical arguments into discussions. And I will do the same. I am quite happy to set aside my atheism and humanist beliefs and, instead, focus on the things we have in common. Sadly, I have yet to have a former congregant, friend, or colleague in the ministry do that. Eventually, they always bring things back around to the BLOOD, the BOOK, and the BLESSED HOPE.
As an atheist, Greg, I have no truck with arguments from the Bible. Threats, imprecations, passive-aggressive attacks — none of them are effective in reaching me. Consider me, from your theological perspective, an apostate or reprobate. I don’t think the Christian God exists, and that includes Jesus. I do believe that Jesus, the man, lived and died 2,000 years ago, but Jesus, the son of God, the miracle-worker, the savior of the world (or the elect)? That God-man does not exist. So telling me that I am WRONG and one day I WILL bow my knee to Jesus has no effect on me. Surely, you are aware of how much I know about Christianity and the Bible. Do you really think that bald assertions typed in caps will somehow magically change my mind? You know me better than that, Greg. Not going to happen . . .
If your intent is to continue to preach to me and attempt to evangelize me, please don’t. I am more than willing to continue to be friends with you, sans religion. If you can keep Jesus out of the relationship, I am confident we can find plenty of things to share and talk about. If not, let this be our last correspondence. Let’s bury our relationship here, letting the good times we spent together cover our gravestones.
Sincerely,
Bruce
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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Recently, a woman wrote a letter to the editor of the 
