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.
Last February, I reported the story of Joshua Clemons, youth pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Parker, Colorado, and his alleged sexual assault of a church teenager. In July, Clemons pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child. On Friday, Clemons was sentenced to four years in prison for his crime. After his release from prison, Clemons will have to serve ten years of intensive supervised probation.
Clemons also faces an October 19, 2018 sentencing in another case after he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault—strangulation and attempted sexual assault of a child.
Clemons pleaded guilty in July to one count of sexual exploitation of a child – video/20+ items and one count of attempted sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust – victim age 15-18 in the Douglas County case. Six other counts were dismissed in exchanged for the guilty plea.
Clemons, who worked as a pastor at the Parker church from 2006 through September 2015, had been accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl who had long been in his program.
The relationship carried on as the girl went to college at Colorado State University before ending toward the end of 2016, when the alleged victim said Clemons began to show up at her new church and she threatened to get a restraining order, according to police documents.
Clemons also pleaded guilty in late July to second-degree assault—strangulation and attempted sexual assault of a child in the Denver case. He is scheduled to be sentenced for that case on Oct. 19. The sentence is expected to run consecutively to his sentence from the Douglas County case, a spokesperson for the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said.
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.
David English, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Clinton, South, Carolina, was arrested today on charges of second-degree domestic violence and unlawful conduct toward a child. English’s wife, Jennifer, was arrested on kidnapping charges after she disappeared with a two-month-old baby she was babysitting. According to WYFF, Jennifer English is a drug addict, and her husband, on occasion, has taken her to buy drugs.
Laurens County Sheriff Don Reynolds had this to say about the good pastor and his wife:
This was a terrible incident but, luckily, we found the baby before this turned out to be much more tragic than it already is. Hopefully, this lady will stay behind bars where she can’t put any more children in danger. As for Mr. English, this guy is a preacher, as well as a teacher in another county. It is very disturbing to think that someone in his position, which makes him a role model to our youth, would assist his wife in purchasing illegal drugs or would assault a woman. We will continue to incarcerate these types of violent offenders and put it in the hands of the prosecution.
New Hope Baptist Church is a King James-only Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation. The church has no active web presence. Its Facebook page was disabled after the public became aware of what was going on behind closed doors with their pastor and his wife.
One reason some choose atheism is to deaden the sting of a corrupt nature. If we can convince ourselves that there is no God, then we think we will never have to give an account for our wickedness. However, it is not only the Atheist who has a corrupt nature; all of us do. The difference is; some acknowledge it, and ask God for forgiveness and help. The nature your nurture is the one that will dominate.
God also accuses the atheist of a lack of understanding. Atheists cannot be accused of lacking knowledge or education. Many have a high IQ, and are well educated. However, as someone said, “The bigger the belfry, the more room for the bats.” Observation and understand can be worlds apart. The atheist rejects the revelation of creation. Psalm 19:1-3. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.” As I understand this verse, the atheist will have to say, “I was just too dumb to see it.”
The atheist also rejects the revelation of conscience. Every atheist believes there is a moral law of right and wrong. Notice how Paul describes it. Romans 2:14-15. “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;).” God will use their on argument against them.
The atheist also rejects the revelation of Scripture. Any person can know beyond any doubt that the Scriptures are an accurate revelation of God, if he wishes. We give one challenge to the atheist on this matter. John 7:17. “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”
Finally, the atheist rejects the law of congruity. When you find the key that fits the lock, you have the right one. The only key that answers the question about creation, conscience, Scripture, where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going, is the acknowledgment of a wise, and an all-powerful God. Otherwise, we must continue to swim in a cosmic swamp of soup until science can pull us out. The key that fits is an understanding that there is a God.
Blue is a graduate of Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, the same school I attended in the 1970s. Blue’s LinkedIn page “humbly” says:
PASTURED THREE CHURCHES, ONE I STARTED WITH “0” PEOPLE AND HAD A HIGH ATTENDANCE OF 1800. PURCHASED FIVE ACRES OF PRIME PROPERTY, AND BUILT TWO BUILDING WITH AN ESTIMATED VALUE OF SIX MILLION DOLLARS. ALL ARE PAID FOR. WE HAVE SENT DOZENS OF YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN INTO THE MINISTRY AND MISSION FIELD. DEVELOPED THE PAL MINISTRY, WHICH IS A FULL MANAGEMENT PROGRAM. ALL DONE BY GOD’S GRACE!
As I have often said, when it comes to IFB preachers, penis size matters.
In July, Dean Curry pastor of Life Center Assembly of God in Tacoma, Washington, was fired over sexual misconduct allegations. (You can read previous posts about Curry here and here.) Yesterday, the church board upheld the accusations against Curry.
The News Tribune reports:
They didn’t provide racy details, nor did they name accusers, but leaders of Tacoma’s Life Center church took a methodical procedural walk during a private meeting Thursday, explaining to a crowd of parishioners exactly why lead pastor Dean Curry was fired this summer after 14 years of service.
“The board is in unanimous agreement that Pastor Dean Curry’s removal as senior pastor was the correct decision,” said Nate Angelo, chairman of Life Center’s executive board. “He is disqualified from gospel ministry because of repeat violations of Life Center’s sexual harassment policies. He will not be returning as Life Center’s senior pastor.”
To the end, Curry denied the accusations against him, saying,
I stand by my denial and I stand by my comments about the Assembly of God — very disappointing. My disagreement has to do with mishandling of this process by the Assembly of God. It put Life Center and the board and me in a very awkward situation. I know they were forced into making a decision that was difficult for them. I appreciate their love and kindness to me. They have to make a decision and a statement that is best for Life Center. I totally understand why they want to cut ties.
Julee Dilley, a former church board member who left the church in 2016 over concerns about Curry’s conduct, filed complaints this summer with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the state Human Rights Commission regarding Curry’s behavior.
Dilley’s complaints levied the following allegations against Curry:
An ongoing relationship with a married church member that turned physical.
An incident involving another married church member being visited by Curry late at night, discovered by the woman’s husband.
A female administrative employee who spoke of uncomfortable conversations with Curry that included comments on her appearance and discussions of his intimate relations with his wife.
Inappropriate counseling sessions when Curry used vulgar terms when describing intimacy.
Talking to other women about intimate details of his marriage
Talking to women about their appearance, sometimes in crass terms.
Telling women, “You are the only one who gets me.”
Isolating women and spending time alone with them on multiple occasions, to their discomfort.
According to The News Tribune, DIlley took issue with the Life Center’s board’s characterization of Curry’s behavior as mere “sexual harassment.” Dilley called the board’s findings an understatement, saying:
Dean’s abuse was not consensual. This isn’t about bad language, lack of boundaries with women or flippant sexual comments. This was abuse, in my opinion. I do feel that there is a duty to warn the public about this type of predatory behavior to help protect from the potential of future victims.
It’s time to start the Dean Curry Resurrection® betting pool. How long will it be before the good pastor finds a church that buys his denials or is willing to give him a second chance? Forgive and forget, that is what Dean Curry is hoping for. And if there’s one thing I know about Evangelicals, they love a great comeback story. If Mark Driscoll, Ted Haggard, and Jimmy Swaggart can find forgiveness, why anyone can!
It comes as no surprise to read of an Evangelical pastor getting caught with his pants down. What’s surprising, at least to me, is how these revered cult leaders explain away their “sin.” Take Jason Webb, pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield Wisconsin. Webb resigned Wednesday, saying he had been “struggling with a serious addiction, which has led to many betrayals, including unfaithfulness to my wife, Heather.” In a letter to the Elmbrook congregation, Webb wrote:
It is with deep remorse that I write you this letter. As you are aware, over the last two years I have been on a journey towards emotional, spiritual and relational health.
While I have been open with you about much of the journey, there is one part that I have kept hidden. I have also been struggling with a serious addiction, which has led to many betrayals, including unfaithfulness to my wife, Heather.
Words cannot fully describe how sorry I am for my sin. The gravity of all of this is not lost on me. I have lied to Heather, my counselor, the men in my life, the elders, the staff and the church.
I am so very sorry. As I come to terms with this, I must take two difficult steps for myself, my wife and my children.
First, I will immediately seek intensive inpatient treatment for addiction over the next six weeks. Second, I am offering my resignation as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church.
Elmbrook will always be dear to me. I will continue to count it one of the greatest honors of my life to have served under the Elmbrook umbrella in various capacities for the last seventeen years, and as senior pastor these last four years. (PDF)
Just once, I wish one of these smooth talking preachers would be brutally honest and say, “I admit it. I fucked my secretary, and I loved it!” Instead, they talk of “sexual indiscretions” or in Webb’s case “addiction.” Addicted to what, exactly? Sex? If that’s the case, I know a hell of a lot of addicts. The issue for me, of course, is not the adultery; it’s the hypocrisy. Evangelical preachers and their congregations believe that they have a God ordained duty to inflict on everyone their version of Jesus and his morality code. And yet, these very same people don’t practice what they preach. Jason Webb, whose church believes atheists think they are smarter than God (we are, by the way), is one such hypocrite. Why should any of us listen to one word Evangelical preachers have to say about sex, when they themselves can’t keep their toadstools in their pants? I say to to these hypocrites, talk to the hand.
Webb has committed himself to six weeks of “intensive inpatient treatment for addiction.” While Webb cannot return to Elmbrook, I have no doubt that he will, much like Dean Curry, rise again and find a church that will let him be their pastor. If his wife forgives him, so should everyone else, right? What’s a little adultery among friends.
In February, Elmbrook’s executive pastor, Brodie Swanson, resigned after it was made known he was having an affair with another church staff member.
Socialism is a distortion, in a collectivist direction, of human beings’ natural need for familial connection with others. But socialism and the family are incompatible. The family requires independence from governmental interference in order to flourish, and parents know its needs better than government officials can. Meanwhile, the breakdown of the traditional family leads to greater need for state assistance. The ethos of self-gratification that weakens commitment to the family also leads to increased desire for services from the state. Hence it is no accident that, historically, advocacy of socialism has always tended to go hand in hand with hostility to the traditional family structure. Anyone opposed to socialism should defend the traditional family and anyone concerned to defend the traditional family should oppose socialism.
Two years ago, I believe that the prayers that God’s people made to ask God for his provision were heard. They were heard and granted and for two years, we have lived in an unparalleled golden time in the United States. We are living in an unparalleled golden time. We have a president who has made the most pro-life actions of any president ever. We have a president who has been the most pro-Israel president ever in the history of the United States of America. Our president has put the United States on a pathway of blessing … We have the most pro-religious liberty president in the history of the United States, ever! Do you see what a golden day that we have been given? On every possible level, America is killing it. We are doing great in every possible metric, and I believe that’s because God’s people utilized the tool that he gave us.
Most of the time when I check my social media accounts, I can be sure to find at least one post by fundamentalist evangelical Christians that either elicits an eye roll or a chuckle from me. Here are some good ones from this week, along with my comments.
“To pray ‘Thy Will be done’ I must be willing, if the answer requires it, that my will be undone.” – Elisabeth Elliot
OC: Bruce has written quite a few posts concerning Christians’ interpretation of the answers to prayer. If one prays for something that doesn’t happen, then the Christian says, “It wasn’t God’s Will.” If one prays for direction between option A and option B, the Christian usually just chooses what he or she wants to do. If it works out, then Yay! the Christian successfully understood God’s Will. If it doesn’t work out, then it was a “lesson from God”.
“Don’t worry. God’s never blind to your tears, never deaf to your prayers, and never silent to your pain. He sees, he hears, and he will deliver.”
OC: Yeah, that’s what makes him such a jerk – he sees and hears but he doesn’t actually deliver . . . just ask all the victims of every natural disaster EVER. Oh, yeah, the “God’s Will” thing again . . . it’s a mystery, isn’t it?
“Christ offends men because his gospel is intolerant of sin.” – Charles Spurgeon
OC: Judgmental blowhards like Charles Spurgeon and name-your-favorite-evangelical-pastor offend me with their incessant talk of sin, hell, and damnation for everyone whose interpretation of the gospel doesn’t match theirs. They offend me with their assumption that everyone is filthy and pure evil until they say the magic words and *poof!* Jesus makes it all better. They offend me by offering me a “choice” between saying the magic words to become a slave to Jesus but escaping the eternal flames of hell, or not saying the magic words and facing an eternity of torture – just for existing. They offend me with their insistence that I must vote a certain way, dress a certain way, act a certain way, give money a certain way – THEIR way.
“We are sent to bless the world, but we are never told to compromise with it.” – A. W. Tozer
OC: Because Jesus needs SOMEBODY to be judgmental and to fight the culture wars. Omnipotence only goes so far with the Trinity . . .
“Drunk Lot impregnated his daughter, who bore Moab, whence came Ruth, the great-grandmother of David. Christ’s own bloodline preaches his will to save even the most messed up of families.” – Chad Bird
OC: I’ll let you guys comment on this one . . .
“Parents who know how to repent in front of their kids give them a greater gift than a Harvard education.” – Scotty Smith
OC: I’d rather have the Harvard education instead of watching my parents pray to Jesus and consider themselves (and me) worms all the time. But that’s just me, and education is what led me down the road to atheism, so there is that.
“When you realize God’s purpose for your life isn’t just about you, He will use you in a mighty way.” – Dr. Tony Evans
OC: I like to be able to make my own choices, to choose my own purpose, to have autonomy as much as possible in my life. It’s worked out pretty well so far. I guess I could just sit here and let God repurpose me. Nah . . .
“Pray, then let it go. Don’t try and manipulate or force the outcome. Just trust God to open the right doors at the right time. Amen.”
OC: The principal of our local high school tells the students every day to CONTROL WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL. The point is to teach students to assess which aspects of a situation are in their control and which aspects are out of their control. Then students are encouraged to act on the aspects that are in their control. Sitting around and waiting for an invisible and silent deity to manage a situation is poor advice.
What Christian messages have you seen on social media this week? Please share with us in the comments!
Does God hate people? Liberal and progressive Christians say, ABSOLUTELY NOT! GOD LOVES EVERYONE! Much like their Evangelical brethren, they appeal to the Bible (and personal feelings) to prove their beliefs. In their minds, the essence of God is his love for his creation. Personally, I like this flavor of Christianity. Loving self and others is a good thing. The problem with it and all other peculiar interpretations of the Bible that it is come to by ignoring what other verses say. The Bible is a hopelessly contradictory book, and it can be used to prove almost anything. Take Tim Conway, pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas. I was Tim’s pastor for a time in the 1990s. He is a diehard, fire-breathing Fundamentalist Calvinist. Tim reads the same the Bible as liberals and progressives do and concludes that God not only hates sin, he hates those who do it. I will let Tim share with you his view on the matter. The video is short, so I hope you will take the time to watch it.
If you read the comments on this video, you will see that Christians are quite divided over Tim’s hate message. And that is the point of this post. The Bible is inexhaustible to the degree that it can be used as proof for countless competing beliefs. This alone is proof enough for the bankruptcy of Christianity. If Christians can’t even agree on the basics: salvation, baptism, communion, and can’t agree on whether God hates or loves sinners, why should unbelievers bother to give Christianity a moment’s notice? The Bible says that there is ONE Lord, ONE Faith, and ONE Baptism, yet thousands of Christian sects, each differing with the other, suggest otherwise.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 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.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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Evangelicals believe that it is God and the salvation they find in Jesus that give life meaning and value. I have had numerous Christians tell me that they would kill themselves if this life was all that there is. Paul echoed this thinking in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 when he said:
For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
For Evangelicals, life without Jesus is miserable, one not worth living. The sum of their existence is wrapped up in believing that God has a super-duper, awesome, wonderful plan for their lives and that there is coming a day when he will reward them for obediently sticking to the plan. Life is viewed as preparation to meet God after death. The goal is the divine payoff that awaits them in the sweet-by-and-by. Or so the official press release says, anyway.
Paying attention to how Evangelicals actually lives their lives tells a far different story. If life is all about God, you would think Evangelicals would spend their waking hours worshiping Jesus, praying, studying the Bible, and doing everything in their power to evangelize the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. If life is all about J-E-S-U-S, you would think Evangelical churches would have worship services every day of the week and twice on Sunday. If, as Evangelicals say, the second coming of Jesus is nigh, shouldn’t Evangelicals be about their Father’s business, working diligently, for their redemption draweth nigh?
What we find instead is that Evangelicals live lives no different from those of their non-Christian neighbors. I have been told countless times by Christian zealots that my life as an atheist has no meaning or purpose. I am just biding my time, living out a miserable existence until I die. However, when I carefully examine how Evangelicals live their lives, I quickly see that their wants, needs, and desires are no different from mine. I can’t help but notice that Evangelical homes have all the material trappings their unsaved neighbors have. It seems that Evangelicals have forgotten what the Bible says about loving the world and craving its goods and pleasures. Just yesterday, I perused the Facebook page of an Evangelical who loves posting Christian memes. And then, smack dab in the middle of his wall was a post about him looking forward to attending a KISS concert! Oh, the irony, but that’s Evangelicalism to its core. The followers of Jesus talk a good line, but when it comes down to practicing what they preach, well they are no different from atheists, humanists, agnostics and other heathens who supposedly have empty, meaningless lives.
How about we agree that all of us — saint and sinner — find meaning and value in the same things; that all of us seek love and social connection; that all us crave to feel wanted and needed; that all of us enjoy the pleasures this life has to offer; that all us desire peace, comfort, and prosperity. No God needed. The fact that we are alive — think about THAT for a moment — is enough to fuel our quest for purpose and meaning. One need not turn to religion to find these things. All any of us needs to do is take a deep breath and LIVE!
“I look around the world and see so many wonderful things that I love and enjoy and benefit from, whether it’s art or music or clothing or food and all the rest. And I’d like to add a little to that goodness.” — Daniel Dennett
“I thrive on maintaining a simple awe about the universe. No matter what struggles we are going through the miracles of existence continue on, forming and reforming patterns like an unstoppable kaleidoscope.” — Marlene Winell
“Math . . . music . . . starry nights . . . These are secular ways of achieving transcendence, of feeling lifted into a grand perspective. It’s a sense of being awed by existence that almost obliterates the self. Religious people think of it as an essentially religious experience but it’s not. It’s an essentially human experience.” — Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
“There is joy in the search for knowledge about the universe in all its manifestations.” — Janet Asimov
“Science and reason liberate us from the shackles of superstition by offering us a framework for understanding our shared humanity. Ultimately, we all have the capacity to treasure life and enrich the world in incalculable ways.” — Gad Saad
“If you trace back all those links in the chain that had to be in place for me to be here, the laws of probability maintain that my very existence is miraculous. But then after however many decades, less than a hundred years, they disburse and I cease to be. So while they’re all congregated and coordinated to make me, then—and I speak her on behalf of all those trillions of atoms—I should really make the most of things.” — Jim Al-Khalili
I know that I am in the waning years of life. My body is telling me that time is short, and it could be shorter yet if I have another fall like I did last week at my in-law’s home: full body slam, face first on a cement floor. The good news is that I saved my phone from getting broke! Talk about things that matter, right? I know that osteoarthritis continues to eat away at my spine. I was in college — a slim, trim, fit young whippersnapper — when I first consulted a doctor for my back. I have narrow disc spaces in my lower back, and age and arthritis continue to lessen that space, causing nerve compression. Several weeks ago, I saw my orthopedic doctor about a problem I was having with my right hip. I would stand up and start to move and then, all of a sudden my hip would give way and I would fall. After careful examination, my doctor told me my hip was fine; that it was my lower back that was causing the problem. Any one of these falls could do me in. I know that, and I do all I can to avoid hitting the deck. Try as I might to push back against the ravages of time and physical debility, I know, in the end, they will win. They ALWAYS win. Knowing this helps me focus on the things that really matter to me
“The way I find meaning is the way that most people find meaning, even religious ones, which is to get pleasure and significance from your job, from your loved ones, from your avocation, art, literature, music. People like me don’t worry about what it’s all about in a cosmic sense, because we know it isn’t about anything. It’s what we make of this transitory existence that matters.
“If you’re an atheist and an evolutionary biologist, what you think is, I’m lucky to have these 80-odd years: How can I make the most of my existence here? Being an atheist means coming to grips with reality. And the reality is twofold. We’re going to die as individuals, and the whole of humanity, unless we find a way to colonise other planets, is going to go extinct. So there’s lots of things that we have to deal with that we don’t like. We just come to grips with the reality. Life is the result of natural selection, and death is the result of natural selection. We are evolved in such a way that death is almost inevitable. So you just deal with it.
“It says in the Bible that, ‘When I was a child I played with childish things, and when I became a man I put away those childish things.’ And one of those childish things is the superstition that there’s a higher purpose. Christopher Hitchens said it’s time to move beyond the mewling childhood of our species and deal with reality as it is, and that’s what we have to do.” — Jerry Coyne
“Life is a series of experiences, and the journey, rather than the end game, is what I live for. I know where it ends; that’s inevitable, so why not just make it a fun journey? I am surrounded by friends and family, and having a positive effect on them makes me happy, while giving my kids the opportunity, skills, and empathy to enjoy their lives gives me an immediate sense of purpose on a daily basis. I can’t stop the inevitable so I’ll just enjoy what life I have got, while I’ve got it. I won’t, after all, be around to regret that it was all for nothing. ” — Simon Coldham
“It’s honestly never bothered me. I suppose that’s because my definitions of ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ are pretty thoroughly rooted in the world I know. I know what happiness is, and love, and fulfilment and all that; these things exist (intermittently) in my short earthly life, and it’s from these things I derive my ideas of what a meaningful, purposeful existence is.
“I am, like anyone, staggered when I consider my tininess in the multi-dimensional scheme of things, but – and I know this sounds a bit silly – I don’t really take it personally. Meaning has to be subjective; atheism actually makes it easier to live with this, as who is better placed than me to judge the meaningfulness of my work, or my relationship, or my piece of buttered toast?” — Richard Symth
“People ask how you can find any meaning in life when you know that one day you’ll be dead and in due course nothing of you will survive at all – not even people’s memories. This question has never made sense to me. When I’m reading a good book, or eating a good meal, or taking a scenic walk, or enjoying an evening with friends, or having sex, I don’t spend the whole time thinking, Oh no! This book won’t last forever; this food will be gone soon; my walk will stop; my evening will end! I enjoy the experiences. Although it’s stretched out over a (hopefully) much longer time, that’s the same way I think about life. We are here, we are alive. We can either choose to end that, or to embrace it and to live for as long as we can, as fully and richly as possible.”
“Obviously this means that we all have different meanings in our lives, things that give us pleasure and purpose. The most meaningful experiences in my life have been relationships with people – friends and family, colleagues and classmates. I love connecting with other people and finding out more about them. I enjoy the novels and histories that I read for the same reason and I like to feel connected to the people who have gone before us. I hope that the work I do in different areas of my life will make the world a better place for people now and in the future, and I feel connected to those future people too, all as part of a bigger human story.” — Adam Copson
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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