This might be an unpopular opinion and could hurt some feelings. There are many conservative Christian women, who are influencers or leaders, that are selling themselves short and not being good role models by conforming to the world’s sexualization of women. If you are conservative and a Christian you know you don’t have to express yourself in sexual ways and you know you are attractive by dressing nice and feminine, and you can be beautiful and modest at the same time. Men will respect you more and think of you much more highly than just a sexual object for gratification. It’s also good to not tempt your Christian brothers and cause them to stumble. As conservative Christian women let us always be an example to girls and young women by displaying actions that our faith believes and not conform to the patterns of this fallen world. Be the light, don’t fall into the darkness.
— Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Twitter, February 22, 2024
CPAC is back! Weirder, shriller, fringier, more paranoid than ever, with many empty seats but God allegedly still on the side of the cranks and zealots. Cue vapid, vicious, fear-mongering goons who, now saying the ugly part aloud, bray about evil trans people, stampeding “aliens,” looming communists and pet-marrying while heralding Christian nationalism, “cool” dictators, the “Bible Uncancelled” and the glad “end of democracy.” A republic if you can keep it: Welcome to today’s forsaken, brutish GOP.
Of course CPAC 2024, in all its shabby lunacy, reflects the increasingly rabid party – Free J6! – from which it sprang. Once a marquee conservative event that drew top GOP lawmakers and presidential contenders, it’s become an “emptier, jankier, lower-rent” affair by a party lunging ever further into the wingnut galaxy, its hapless denizens endlessly spouting stupid, awful things. Klan Mom MTG: Judge Arthur Engeron should be “disrobed” for undervaluing Mar-A-Hellhole. Trump lackey: His overlord’s “Never Surrender High-Tops” will get him black votes because “Black America loves sneakers, especially in the inner city.” DeSantis: Their V.P. should be a white man because “we don’t want people representing 10 or 15% of the party to be in the driver’s seat.” Tommy Tuberville: “These socialists and Marxists (want) to control our children” like Hillary’s “it takes a village” because “she doesn’t like your home (and) she wants to indoctrinate your children”; also, the government “has become the father, they hate Christianity, they are going to come after you.”
The creepy avatar for this assemblage of “craven rodeo clowns” is House Speaker Mike Johnson, a smarmy, doe-eyed, coup-plotting, Christian fundamentalist who’s spent his career working for hate groups, arguing deviant” homosexuals will destroy democracy, same-sex marriage is like people marrying their pets, and abortion is the killing of both “unborn children” and potential “able-bodied workers in the economy.” Boasting the Bible is “my worldview,” he took his then-13-year-old daughter to a Purity Ball where she pledged to him and God her “purity of mind, body and soul,” he promotes a “Covenant Eyes” app that allows him and his 17-year-old son/ “accountability partner” to monitor each other’s porn habits – clean slates all around! – and before he became Speaker God began waking him at night to prepare him to serve as Moses leading the nation through a “Red Sea moment…The Lord impressed upon my heart something was going to occur.” And it was: The House was in such chaos they chose a backbench demagogue who thought governance meant saving America from heathens.
Evidently, it doesn’t. Teetering with a bare majority and boisterous hard-right clique, having lost another special election, seen its fake Biden impeachment implode and failed to address not just a looming shutdown but in fact anything at all, the bumbling House threw a dim-witted Hail Mary and decided to impeach Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas – a move widely derided as “ridiculous” – for failing to fix the border after they sabotaged a bi-partisan bill to fix the border. Then they holed up at a Miami resort to lick their wounds at a leadership retreat where, rather than giving them leadership, Johnson gave them a sermon complete with Biblical references about America’s ungodly moral decline, which made lawmakers worried about keeping their jobs grumble they were “not at church” and what the hell? Meanwhile, with the GOP’s SCOTUS-facilitated war on women, IVF, and even “recreational sex” in full swing, Johnson fudges on his past (and future?) efforts to go after contraception – “I really don’t remember any of those measures” – and lurches ahead crafting the patriarchal theocracy of his dreams.
In that he’s in step with The Big Orange Guy, who says once in power he’ll create a task force to fight imaginary “anti-Christian bias” by “Marxists and fascists” (FYI not the same); he’s also plotting with a right-wing think tank whose mission is to re-define America as “a nation under God,” with a mandate declaring, “Freedom is defined by God, not man.” In pursuit of Gilead – and because last month his PAC raised $8,508 as he spent $3.9 million, mostly on lawyers – he just spoke to a gathering of evangelical broadcasters while hawking gold IRAs “to protect your retirement from D.C.’s policies” and Ivermectin: “Make Care Great Again.” He decried Dems murdering babies, “taking away knocker fields from children” and creating “dirty roads, crime, graffiti, swastickers.” He also boasted “everybody on both sides” agrees Roe had to go, he’s beating Haley by 91 points, “Israel is the capital of Israel,” and “you’re going to say as you want (and) believe in God” through “the love of Christ and the voices of famed…evangell…lllical….people and…eee-vangelis.” Ok, so he can’t say evangelical, but sure he’s your guy.
Big Awful Guy’s implausible fervor was dutifully, garishly replicated atCPAC, held at the fantastically named Gaylord Convention Center outside D.C., where his and God’s faithful touted “the greatest nation in all the world,” except for, you know, the swastickers. Amidst red, white and blue everything and pounding bad music, the meager crowd drifted through a half-empty exhibit hall offering a Jan. 6-themed pinball game, a vibrating board to stand on to magically lose weight, an 18th-century-style booth likening Biden to King George lll, and a mountain of tawdry MAGA merch: “Woke Tears” water – “identifies as transparent” – rhinestone hats blaring “I Love Jesus” and “Fuck Biden,” Trump shirts, hammocks, bobbleheads, sparkly gun-shaped purses. Sponsors were fewer and tackier: Moms For America, many groups with the word “liberty,” Newsmax with ads shouting “you don’t need those woke streaming services,” and now they’re letting their fascist flag fly proudly, the previously banished John Birch Society. Streaming was by the insurrectionist-favored Rumble; links often didn’t work, but went to a donation page.
Attendance was much sparser than previously, down from around 13,000 to the hundreds; when photos emerged of speakers facing a sea of empty seats, a right-wing site wailed, “What an embarrassment.” Country singer Natasha Owens sang the national anthem in a huge black dress declaring“2nd Amendment Protects the First,” and a banner trumpeted the new theme, tweaked from the unfortunately DeSantis-themed “woke” shtick: “Where Globalism (WHO and the UN) Goes To Die.” Speakers were mostly not totalitarian BA-listers: The mayor of Riverton, Utah, an Oklahoma rep, the head of CPAC Australia, Peter Navarro who’s headed to jail, a “businessman” who like everyone railed against transgender health care: “Woke doctors should be in prison.” But there were several big shots: Stephen ‘Goebbels’ Miller, Mike ‘Pillow’ Lindell, Disgrace to All Brain Surgeons Ben Carson, the new authoritarian presidents of Argentina and El Salvador, and a ragged array of VP hopefuls – Noem, Vance, Scott, Stefanik, Gabbard, Ramaswamy – all of whom, in a relative universe, Big Guy has called “good” and “solid.”
Welcome speeches were by CPAC’s devout Queen and molesting King, Mercedes and Matt Schlapp. Greeted with limp applause – “Lemme hear you! Wake up!” – Mercedes declaimed, “Be not afraid!” before telling her 17 listeners, “We’re gonna take this country back (from the) leftist propaganda machine.” “You are instruments,” she said. “God has put you here at this time to do this great work that needs to be done…Communism pushes the culture of death, we push the culture of life. You are assembled here in front of God to be the front line in this battle.” Facing multi-million-dollar sexual assault – and now document-shredding – charges by several young men, Matt announced, “This is our time, this is our moment.” Pledging his support for the “unique American who is being persecuted, who is being tortured” by communist “lawfare,” he turned to his sorcerer in the sky: “Lord God, you said that if we trust in you we will mount up with wings like eagles. Well, God, we’re ready to soar.” Like many, Tik Toker Incrediberry is dubious in a country where, in an election between Jesus and Satan with an “R” by his name, “Jesus would lose in a landslide.”
Still, they gathered for workshops titled The Bible Uncancelled, No Woke Warriors, God’s Children Are Not For Sale, Bidenomics: Bad For America’s Health, Would Moses Go to Harvard?, Putting Our Heads in the Gas Stove, Ramaswamy Unplugged, Going Full Hungarian: Stopping Georgey (sic) Soros, From Gaza to Greenwich Village: A Guide to Fighting Contemporary Jew-Hatred, and What You Talkin’ Bout Fani Willis,presented by esteemed legal scholar and Black linguist Jim Jordan. He was also among a host of out-Trumping-Trump speakers – paranoid losers, zealots, liars, a “who’s who of who won’t accept the results of the election” with wildly unintelligible notions and short attention spans – to offer 20-minute rants about an amorphous, all-powerful “left” who control damn near everything, which is why they can’t have nice things. “The left controls big media, big tech, big corporations, big sports, academia, Hollywood, the Senate and White House,” he whined, before bravely adding, “But the left doesn’t control we the people.”
But we the people, it turns out, often make little sense. Lara Trump said Dems think “you can change your gender like you change your shoes, and that at night she and the other son lead their kids in saying their prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance. Elise Stefanik said Ivy League campuses are “dens of anti-Semitism” where “radical leftist rot (is) destroying the minds of the next generation.” The Daily Wire‘s Michael Knowles, quoting Humpty Dumpty – “the question is which is to be master?” – said trans people reveal the decline of religion and marriage, which is “nothing other than a sign of God’s love.” “Liberals think they’re God, but they can’t really turn a couple of men, or a couple of women, or three men and a billy goat for that matter into a marriage.” Former Trump something Monica Crowley warned patriots to beware an upcoming “CATFIGHT: Michelle v. Kamala” – it was a workshop – because “Democrats (are) communists, and communists always have a plan…The left has a host group of power brokers working with the deep state, which is real.”
Kristi Noem said right now “there are people who love America and there are those who hate America” and “Joe Biden is destroying America.” Stephen Miller said Trump’s legal cases “are proof big broad laws will be used to crush us.” Kurt Schlichter said “Joe Biden is the capo of a criminal organization.” The U.K.’s Liz Truss said “we need a bigger bazooka against the deep state” after Joe Biden helped destroy her 7-week reign; nobody knew who she was, but one guy thought her speech was “on the same parallel” as U.S. politics. El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, “the world’s coolest dictator,” who’s detained 80,000 people in his.war on gangs, said he welcomes the fight against “dark forces” in America. And conspiracist Jack Posobiec said when liberals “say democracy, they mean authoritarianism.” “Welcome to the end of democracy! We’re here to overthrow it completely,” he crowed. “We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we’ll endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” Going full clerical fascist, he clutched a cross. “Because all glory is not to government. All glory to God.”
Meanwhile, Orange Jesus keeps jabbering. On Friday, he told a Black Conservative Gala his criming makes him just like them: “I got indicted and a lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me.” At CPAC on Saturday, after a tinny national anthem by Jan. 6 rioters on a prison phone, he launched into a garbled, bilious, endless tirade, spewing apocalyptic visions of a fever-dream country and “Judgment Day” that will be “my ultimate and absolute revenge.” He said “millions of illegal aliens (are) stampeding across our border” from insane asylums like Hannibal Lecter and “they have languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of – it’s a very horrible thing.” He said “ruthless gangs will explode (into) the suburbs” and while “weaponized law enforcement hunts for conservatives and people of faith, Hamas and Antifa will terrorize our streets (with) their brutal iDEEEo-ology.” He said he’s “a proud political dissident,” Biden is “surrounded by some very bad fascists,” he flew into Iraq with “the best-looking human beings I’ve ever seen” and maybe a guy named “Raisin Cane,” and “they’ll say ‘he rambled'” but “it’s total genius.” Sweet Jesus. Be afraid.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I have some questions for those who believe that abortion is murder.
Does life begin at conception? How do you know it does? Is your view based on science or is it based on a religious belief?
If life begins at conception, why are you supporting an Ohio bill that makes it illegal to have an abortion once a heartbeat is detected? Does life begin at conception or at first heartbeat?
Do you support the use of emergency contraception (morning after) drugs? Why or why not?
Should a pro-life pharmacist have the right to not dispense emergency contraception drugs? Should I be allowed to opt out of anything that goes against my moral or ethical beliefs, regardless of their foundation?
Is abortion murder?
Do you believe murderers should be prosecuted?
Do you believe that driving the get-away car makes a person just as guilty as the person who robbed the bank?
Do you believe a woman who has an abortion should be prosecuted for murder? How about the doctor who performs the procedure? How about the nurse that assisted in the procedure? How about the person who drove the woman to the clinic? If you believe in the death penalty, do you support the execution of murderers?
Do you use birth control pills?
Should you be prosecuted for murder since birth control pills can, and do, cause spontaneous abortion?
Should abortion be allowed for reasons of rape, incest, or saving the life of the mother?
If you answered yes to question eleven, do you support murdering the fetus if it is the product of rape or incest?
Should a fetus be aborted if the mother’s life is at risk?
Do you support murdering the unborn if it saves the life of the mother?
Is your viewpoint on abortion a religious belief?
What passage in the Bible prohibits abortion? Does this passage define life beginning at conception?
Has God ever killed the unborn?
In Genesis, God destroyed every human save eight by drowning them in a flood. Were any of the women who drowned pregnant? Did God kill the fetuses they were carrying? (Kill the mother, kill the fetus.)
Do you support the death penalty? Do you support war? Should women who survive self-induced abortions be charged with attempted murder?
If you answered yes to question nineteen, why do you oppose the killing of the unborn but support the killing of those already born?
Why do you believe that killing the unborn is murder but consider an American bomb killing a baby 3 hours old a tragic result of war, collateral damage, but not murder?
Do you support birth control being readily available in every school? If your objective is to reduce or eliminate the need for an abortion, wouldn’t easily available, free access to birth control reduce the abortion rate?
Do you believe it is better for a severely deformed child to live for a day and die than for the fetus to be aborted? If so, explain why it is better for the child to suffer needlessly?
Do you believe that God is in control of everything? Does everything include children being born deformed or with serious defects that will result in a life of extreme suffering and pain?
Is someone a Christian if he or she supports abortion?
My view on abortion
Three Day Old Human Embryo.
I do not think that life begins at conception, nor do I think it begins at first heartbeat. That said, I do not support abortion on demand. Approximately 65% of abortions occur in the first eight weeks, and 88% of abortions occur in the first trimester. I do not support any law that restricts access to an abortion in the first trimester. Once fetus viability (the ability to live outside the womb) is established, I do not support the right to an abortion except when the life of the mother is at stake or there’s a severe fetal abnormality.
I support women having full access to reproductive services (including access to birth control), as well as school-aged girls and young women. For women who have at-risk pregnancies, I support government-sponsored access to genetic testing and amniocentesis that will reveal severe birth defects. Better to have an abortion earlier in a pregnancy than to have a child born without a brain who will die a few moments or days after birth.
I support comprehensive sex education for junior high and high school students, and health education for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Since girls often reach menses at ages as young as ten, waiting until they are sixteen to educate them about reproduction is irresponsible and leads to unintended pregnancies. I do not support “Just say No” programs that take the “aspirin between the knees” approach and ignore the reality that most teenagers will, at some point, be sexually active. Yes, teens should perhaps wait, but they don’t, and everyone should agree that teenagers having babies is not a good idea. If we agree that this is not a good idea, then making sure they can’t get pregnant should be a top priority.
I support radical changes to adoption laws in this country. The government should make it easy and affordable for people to adopt children (after being thoroughly vetted). By changing the law, it is more likely that women with unplanned pregnancies will carry their fetuses to term. This would also put out of business adoption agencies — many of them Christian — that charge extortion-level fees for adoptions.
Neither God, the Bible, papal decrees, nor religious rhetoric have sway over me. Showing me bloody pictures of dismembered late-term aborted fetuses also has no effect on me. I know that only 1.3% of abortions occur after the twenty-first week. In 2017, 862,000 abortions were performed in the United States. That means, roughly 11,000 abortions were performed from the 21st week to term. Why don’t pro-lifers wave around pictures of zygotes or other pictures from the chronological time period when most abortions take place? Simple: such pictures wouldn’t excite, inflame, and manipulate the passions of zygote worshipers like a bloody, gory picture of a dismembered fetus does.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Three-Day Old Human Embryo. Why He Looks Just Like his Father.
According to anti-abortionists/forced birthers, life begins at conception. At the very moment the sperm and egg unite, a new life is created. Anti-abortionists are intractable when it comes to their position. Life begins at conception . . . end of debate.
Let me tell you a story . . .
This story takes place at the We Make Life Possible Fertility Clinic, owned by Dr. David Tee, a renowned gynecologist, fertility expert, and archeologist.
Sue gave birth to a beautiful baby girl through in vitro fertilization. Her baby girl is one month old. Sue stopped by the Fertility Clinic to show off her newborn to the clinic staff.
While Sue was there, a huge explosion rocked the place and the clinic was engulfed in flames. Later speculation on World Net Daily, Charisma, Protestia, and TheologyGynocology, suggested a supporter of Barack Obama/Joe Biden/Nancy Pelosi/Kamala Harris/AOC was behind the attack.
John, named after John the Baptist, a forced birth activist, happened to be passing by the clinic when the explosion took place. John went running into the clinic hoping to perhaps save someone from the fire.
John had been to the We Make Possible Life Fertility Clinic before. His wife Purity had problems conceiving, and not wanting to wait on God to open her womb, she went to the clinic for non-vaginal-sex fertilization. While the treatment was successful, Purity miscarried a few months into the pregnancy.
John knew the clinic stored hundreds of fertilized eggs (embryos) in a freezer. As he rushed into the clinic, John saw Sue huddled in a corner with her newborn daughter trying to get away from the fire. John thought, “Surely I should save these two.”
John thought for a moment, asking himself What Would Jesus Do? Suddenly, he realized the fire was going to destroy all the frozen embryos. John told Sue and her baby Sorry, maybe Jesus will come to rescue you, and he rushed to the freezer where the frozen embryos were stored. Through John’s heroic effort, hundreds of frozen embryos were saved. Sadly, Sue and her newborn daughter were burnt to death.
Who among us would fault John? After all, he acted according to the greater good. Who wouldn’t save two hundred lives at the expense of two lives?
The above story follows the logic of the life-begins-at-conception viewpoint to its illogical conclusion. There is no difference between two hundred embryos and Sue and her baby. Life is life. It makes perfect sense for John to save the frozen embryos and not Sue and her little one. Surely John would be praised for saving the two hundred embryos, right? If the clinic is unable to reopen, perhaps the frozen embryos can be put up for adoption. After all, EVERY embryo is a life.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Wiese says that unbelievers reject God due to either their refusal to turn from a sinful lifestyle or their ignorance of the Bible. To that I say “sigh.” (Please read Why I Use the Word “Sigh.”) I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years. I was a pastor for twenty-five years. I have a Bible college education and spent over 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. I know the Bible inside and out. Where can I take an exam to test out on this idea that people who reject God do so because they are ignorant of the Bible? Wiese insults the intelligence of millions of former Evangelicals with his suggestion that they are ignorant of the Bible. We know the Bible. Doubt us? Ask!
Wiese also says that unbelievers reject God because they refuse to repent of and abandon a sinful lifestyle. Again, “sigh.” Can unbelievers do bad things? Sure. Humans do what humans do. But it is ludicrous and dishonest to suggest that unbelievers are worse than believers or that Evangelicals inhabit some higher moral plain.
I can confidently say that I am, on balance, a “good” person. Not perfect; not without fault, but I am generally a good person. And so are most of the unbelievers who frequent this site. I am sure I have readers who are bad people, but they are not the norm. Yet, Wiese says that self-proclaimed good people are:
guilty of lying, cheating, arrogance, envy of others, sexual immorality, disobedience to their parents, greed, unforgiveness, complaining, being unthankful, backbiting, gossip, cursing and evil thoughts. They don’t read the Bible or pray. They don’t assist the poor. They don’t even keep one of the Ten Commandments, and they support ungodly laws and leaders. The list goes on. When looking at this list, surely you must realize that none of us are good.
While all of us on any given day can check off a few things on Wiese’s list, I suspect most people are innocent of the charges Too-Holy-For-Me Wiese levels against unbelievers. In fact, instead of worrying about how unbelievers live their lives, I suggest Wiese focus on the lives of his fellow believers. Plenty of sin to go around in his backyard.
Wiese shares three things he wants unbelievers to know about Hell:
1. God is the one who has provided the only way to keep you out of hell. If you choose to reject Him, hell is exactly where you will be going.
2. The God you think of as cruel for making hell is the same one who suffered a horrible death on the cross. He died in your place for your sins in order to save you from hell.
3. Hell was prepared for the devil, not for man. It is a horrible place because God withdrew His goodness from it.
All of these are standard Evangelical nonsense that has been challenged and debunked countless times. Exposed for all to see is the fact that Wiese holds aberrant theological beliefs; that he has no understanding of the sovereignty of God and his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. God, knowing the end from the beginning, knew who would be saved and who would end up in Heaven from before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4, Matthew 25:34, John 17:24, Hebrews 4:3, 1 Peter 1:20, Revelation 17:8)
Wiese says, instead,
Each person sends himself to hell by his own rejection of Jesus Christ. Yes, hell is horrible, but that should not be your focus. How to stay out of hell is what you should be concerned with. Jesus said in John 14:6 that He is the only way to heaven. You have the choice to believe Him or not. You decide. If you are willing to turn from your sin and put your trust solely in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you will escape hell. But if you choose to reject Him, you will suffer the consequences of your foolish decision.
While Wiese’s theology is, at best, heterodox, it is not uncommon, especially in Charismatic circles, to find preachers who believe that all humans have naked freewill; that we alone choose whether or not to be saved; that our eternal destiny rests solely on us. The Bible says, however, that “salvation is of the Lord.” Jesus himself said in John 6:44: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” Could Pharoah, Judas, or even the Jews come to Jesus for salvation? Not according to the Bible. God hardened their hearts, rendering them unable to be saved. The same can be said for apostates and reprobates such as myself. I can’t be saved. I have crossed the line of no return. (I wish Evangelical zealots would get the memo and leave me alone. I am not a prospect for Heaven.)
Of course, nothing I say will change Wiese’s mind. He’s been to Hell and back. The only hell I know is the one we humans have created on planet Earth. My goal is to lessen the hell for everyone and increase their happiness and well-being. Threatening people with eternal torture in a lake of fire — where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched — does neither.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Melissa Lord. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original:
I was raised in church, and I had no intentions, whatsoever, to becoming a Christian. However, when I was 25 years old, I did become a Christian and forward saved me. I totally understand you, because I have seen so much hypocrisy in my life, which is why the word of God tells us not to look to man, because who can no the heart because it is desperately wicked. I do not have confidence in men, because I’ve seen too much. However, I will have confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ until the day I die, because, while seeing so much hypocrisy, I have seen, and been friends with witnessed the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in so many lives.
I read your article regarding Gus Harter. I knew of him, and a People that liked him. I met him, and wasn’t crazy over him from the first time I saw him. I did not see him as a pervert, but I did not feel any godliness from him. Satan knows the bible. Many, so called, creatures also know the Bible, and will get behind a puppet and try to preach, but with no fervency behind it.
I do understand you, but if you know the scripture, you would know “not” to pit confidence in any man. That is where people fall. We are to keep iur eyes on the Lord.
I know you said you left the faith, so maybe you’re an apostate, I don’t know. I can only hope and pray that you come to know the Lord Jesus, for yourself, and for the sake of your family. I know when it comes your time to die, and you will, that you, surely don’t want your children to see you die without the Lord. If you don’t believe, now, you certainly will immediately after death.
I will pray for you, and your children, as I pray for mine.
I sent Lord a link to my response. Instead of commenting or emailing me, Lord messaged me on Facebook:
Message from the Lord #1
Message from the Lord #2
Message from the Lord #3
Message from Bruce Almighty #1
Message from the Lord #4
Message from Bruce Almighty #2
Message from the Lord #5
Lord, of course, wasn’t interested in engaging in conversation as equals. Oh no, God talks to her. She hears voices in her head and reads words written by God in a magic book called the Bible. When she was done preaching, God told her I was evil — a pig — and she was not to contact me further. And with that, Lord blocked me from messaging her. As I stated in my response, the only voice she was listening to was her own.
I have been dealing with the Lords of the world for seventeen years. Armed with certainty, they arrogantly think they are absolutely right. How do they know they are right? God told them. It is impossible to engage people who think like this. Lord doesn’t give a shit about me, my family, or my eternal destiny. I am a complete stranger to her. She knows little to nothing about me other than what she read in a post or two. Yet, she thinks she is more than qualified to render judgment on me as a person.
According to Lord, my two responses to her were “evil.” In what way? I challenged her ignorant, ill-informed belief that Christians don’t molest children. Sure, they do. They rape them, physically abuse them, sexually molest them, starve them, and even murder them. I have published over 1,000 stories in the Black Collar Crime Series. Every story is about a CHRISTIAN — mainly Evangelicals — who committed mostly sex crimes against children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults. Does Lord expect us to believe that none of these criminals was Christian? Child, please. Besides, the Bible records the criminal actions of a man after God’s own heart (David), a righteous man (Lot), and great “godly” leaders such as Moses and Abraham. Does Lord think David, Lot, Moses, and Abraham were unbelievers too?
Christian salvation is not a cure for bad behavior. Christians can, and do, do bad things — awful things. And, yes, Christians can do good things too. The same can also be said for evil pigs like me too. In fact, I suspect I live a better Christian life than most True Christians®. I know lots of “godly” atheists, agnostics, and atheists.
I directly challenged Lord’s belief that Jesus suffered horribly on our behalf. I hoped that she might think a bit about her claim. Did Jesus really suffer more than anyone — ever? Of course not. Sure, he suffered, but it was short-lived. Besides, we don’t know what happened after Jesus gave up the ghost on the cross and, according to Christian orthodoxy, descended into the bowels of the earth to preach and set captives free. Seems more than a party or church service than horrible suffering.
At the end of the day, I feel sorry for Lord. Having once been an Evangelical Christian and pastor, I understand where she is coming from. Her mind is so sotted with Bible nonsense that she cannot fathom being wrong or being anything other than what she is. As a result, as her messages show, her life has become an endless string of Evangelical cliches. Until Lord ponders the fact that she could be wrong — and she is — there is no hope for her. I could press her on any number of theological issues, but to what end? Lord knows what she knows, and no atheist stranger is going to convince her otherwise.
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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My partner, Polly, and I have six children, ages 44, 42, 39, 34, 32, and 30. Our oldest son was a “mistake,” the result of two naive, immature, ignorant young Christian adults lacking comprehensive sex education. Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) sex education is simple and direct: don’t do “it” until you are married, and then only in the missionary position for the purposes of procreation. We decided to go the spermicidal foam route, not knowing it had a high failure rate. Six weeks after we married, Polly informed me she was pregnant. Six weeks before our first anniversary, little Jason was born.
The rest of our children were planned. Polly was what you would call a fertile myrtle. I could look at her and she would get pregnant. Polly breastfed all six of our children, another, somewhat ineffective, birth control method. Our first three children were born over the span of five years. Better birth control methods kept Polly from getting pregnant again, so we thought that three children would be all for us.
Five years later, after immersing ourselves in Evangelical Calvinism and adopting an absolute position on the sovereignty of God, we decided to have more children — as many as God would give us. We believed that it was God who opened and closed the womb, and Polly would not become pregnant unless it was the will of God.
Over the space of the next five years, we had three more children. During the delivery of our youngest son, Polly’s obstetrician told her that she should stop having children; that further pregnancies could kill her. This left us with a dilemma: should we ignore the doctor and trust God, or should we abandon our belief in the sovereignty of God and follow the doctor’s advice? After pondering life as a widowed father with six young children, we decided to obey man, and not God. While we felt guilty for being hypocritical and not standing firm on our convictions, we knew that we made the right decision. God didn’t seem to care one way or the other. 🙂
One day in the mid-1990s, we went to the mall with our children — all eight of us. Our children behaved well in public. When we walked through stores, we walked in a single file line, always to the right, avoiding getting in the way of others. One day, I noticed a clerk out of the corner of my eye counting how many people were in our family. One little, two little, three little Gerencsers . . . I went over to her and said, “Eight. There are eight of us. 🙂
Another time, a loan officer at a finance company asked me how many people were in our family. I replied, “Eight,” to which she stupidly responded, “Don’t you guys know how to use birth control?” I retorted that we had all of our children on purpose, just as God intended.
I am occasionally asked if we had to do it all over again would we have a large family? While we love our children (and sixteen grandchildren) and thoroughly enjoy our relationships with them and their families, if we had to do it all over again we would have stopped after having two or three children. This doesn’t mean we didn’t want our younger children, but it does mean we recognize the financial difficulties we had raising such a large family on poverty wages. Sure, we survived and our children have turned into productive, educated adults, but life was harder than it needed to be not only for Polly and me, but also for our children.
Hopefully, we all live and learn. We make decisions based on what we know at the time. We truly thought that God would meet our needs; that he would never leave us nor forsake us; that he would never leave his children destitute, begging for bread. Instead, we found that God was nowhere to be found; that we were on our own. By then, we had six children, and to some degree have spent most of our lives digging out of a financial hole we dug for ourselves as young adults.
No regrets, just the realization that different choices might have had different outcomes. I say “might.” Who is to say what might have happened if we had chosen a path with two or three children instead of six. Do you have a large family? Why did you have so many children? If you had to do it all over again, would you still have a large family?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Today, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Melissa Lord. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.
I was raised in church, and I had no intentions, whatsoever, to becoming a Christian. However, when I was 25 years old, I did become a Christian and forward saved me. I totally understand you, because I have seen so much hypocrisy in my life, which is why the word of God tells us not to look to man, because who can no the heart because it is desperately wicked. I do not have confidence in men, because I’ve seen too much.
Lord says that she “totally understands me.” This is hyperbole, at best. How could Lord possibly “totally understand me?” She doesn’t know me, outside of reading one or more posts on this site. She is a passerby who thinks she understands me by reading a few of my posts. I can confidently say that she doesn’t, and that even my partner of almost forty-six years and my therapist don’t totally understand me. Sadly, we live in a day when people think they can know and understand someone in 2,000 words or less.
I don’t believe that I have ever said that “hypocrisy” was a primary motivator for my deconversion. It wasn’t. I wasn’t out of elementary school before I learned that people could be hypocrites. My parents, pastors, teachers, and other adult authority figures were hypocrites. As a fourteen-year-old boy, I watched my church’s assistant pastor beat the shit out of his son with a belt for getting bad grades. The same man stood in the pulpit on Sundays and preached up godly living. Hypocrisy abounds, and it played very little part in my deconversion.
And if anyone is wondering if I am a hypocrite, the answer is no. 🙂 I mean yes. I assume all of us can be hypocritical at one time or the other.
However, I will have confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ until the day I die, because, while seeing so much hypocrisy, I have seen, and been friends with witnessed the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in so many lives.
And I don’t, because of the reasons mentioned in the posts found on the WHY? page. I wonder if Lord read any of these posts?
I read your article regarding Gus Harter. I knew of him, and a People that liked him. I met him, and wasn’t crazy over him from the first time I saw him. I did not see him as a pervert, but I did not feel any godliness from him. Satan knows the bible. Many, so called, creatures also know the Bible, and will get behind a puppet and try to preach, but with no fervency behind it.
Welp, I was quite a fervent preacher and know the Bible quite well — likely better than you do. I was a godly man, a devoted follower of Jesus. Yet, I am now an atheist. Why is that? Further, how can you “feel” godliness from someone else — especially someone you met for the first time? I am sure you see yourself as “godly,” but how can any of us “feel” this? All that matters to me is behavior. Harter was a pervert because of what he did. I would ask that you judge me based on my behavior, my good works. I think if you carefully do so, you will find out that I am a good man; not perfect, but certainly as good as, if not better, than many card-carrying, Bible-believing Christians.
I do understand you, but if you know the scripture, you would know “not” to pit confidence in any man. That is where people fall. We are to keep iur eyes on the Lord.
As I stated above, you do not understand me. You can’t, because you don’t know anything about me. Please stop with the superficial judgments and conclusions. To quote Proverbs 18:13: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude. I really wish Evangelicals would try to understand my story before hitting “send.”
I am a humanist, so I have no choice but to put my confidence in my fellow human beings. When I go to the doctor, I put my confidence in the training and skills of my physician. I do this numerous times every day. I don’t put my eyes on the Lord for one simple reason — he’s dead. Jesus died 2,000 years ago and lies buried somewhere in an unknown grave. I’ve seen no evidence for anything other than Jesus being dead. This goes for all of us, by the way. None of us escapes death, as every cemetery in existence testifies.
I know you said you left the faith, so maybe you’re an apostate, I don’t know.
You don’t need to “know.” I told you I was Christian for most of my life; that I was saved, baptized, and called to preach at the age of fifteen; that I devotedly followed Jesus for thirty-five years. In 2008, I deconverted — leaving the faith, never to return. I am an apostate, a reprobate, or maybe I am still a Christian — once saved, always saved, right?
Please accept my story at face value, and I will do the same for you. When someone says they are a Christian, I believe them. All I ask is that Evangelicals do the same when I say once was a Christian, and now I am not.
I can only hope and pray that you come to know the Lord Jesus, for yourself, and for the sake of your family. I know when it comes your time to die, and you will, that you, surely don’t want your children to see you die without the Lord. If you don’t believe, now, you certainly will immediately after death.
Ah yes, what’s an email from an Evangelical without a passive-aggressive threat about death, judgment, and Hell? As if such threats have any impact on me. Thousands of threats later, I am still an unrepentant atheist.
Lord says she knows that when it comes my time to die, I won’t want my children to see me die without Jesus. My partner, most of our children, and most of our grandchildren are unbelievers too. I suspect they will lament my passing, but I doubt any of them will worry about me burning in Hell. The only people who will make any noise about my passing will be Evangelicals letting everyone know that “Bruce Gerencser knows the truth now!” I can only imagine the blog posts that will be written and sermons preached about my demise and residence in Hell. I hope my surviving blog readers will defend my honor. 🙂
Lord worries that I don’t believe her — I don’t, I have heard nonsense like hers countless times — but warns me that the moment I die and land in the flames of Hell that I will know she was right. No, I won’t. Why? Duh, I will be dead. 🙂
I will pray for you, and your children, as I pray for mine.
Sincerely,
Melissa Lord
Pray if you must, but keep it to yourself. You know, as Jesus commanded you to do. No need to let me know you are praying for me. If God answers your prayers, I will be the first to know.
My partner, children, and grandchildren do not need prayer. They are fine just as they are — even my demon-possessed four- and six-year-old grandsons are awesome just as they are. 🙂
Last week, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Ronda Cray:
Hi Mr. Bruce,
I read some of your writings today. I also read your warning about not writing you but you also said that you knew I would, Probably because you were a pastor for many years, which by the way, I still hear in your writings today. I understand some of why you chose to leave Christianity, I almost did that myself. I remember putting my Bible in my closet and telling God that He was too hard of a Master. But in time, I realized what Matthew 11:28-29 meant and I have never been the same since. It was the goodness of God that led me back to Him and nothing else. I know God is real and I hope you haven’t made your final decision in throwing the Baby out with the bathwater. You mentioned that you had some health issues and I prayed that you would feel better soon and have a long life.
As I typically do for people I publicly respond to, I sent Cray a link to my response to her. She quickly responded to me, ignoring virtually everything I said. Here’s what she had to say:
Good morning Mr. Bruce,
Thank you for your quick response. I just want to let you know that I am praying that you receive your full healing. I only read a few of your writings so I didn’t know how bad your health issues were, but I have no doubt that after your healing is manifested, you will see for yourself that God is real and He is good. 🙂
I also subscribed to your blog today because I expect to see you fully recovered. Hebrews 13:8
Cray wants me to know that she is praying that I will receive “full healing.” Cray knows — because I told her — that gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency are incurable. I wish they weren’t. I wish I didn’t spend hours last night vomiting and shitting — but there’s nothing that can be done. Symptoms can — at times — be managed and even controlled, but there is no cure for these diseases. Further, I have degenerative spine disease. My spine and neck are literally falling apart — leaving me in excruciating pain and debility. No cure for this either. All doctors can do for me is manage my pain. Surgery is out of the question, according to two neurosurgeons. Yet, despite these medical facts, Cray is praying for my full healing. That means no gastroparesis, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, fibromyalgia, diabetes, high blood pressure, neuropathy, and herniated/deteriorated discs and joints. If only, right?
Cray says that she has “no doubt” that my healing will be manifested, and after it is, I will KNOW that God — Cray’s peculiar version of God, anyway — is real and good. Damn straight, girl! If Cray’s magical deity can totally heal me, I will IMMEDIATELY repent, abandon atheism, and embrace Christianity. I mean this. I will say to the world that J-E-S-U-S miraculously healed me. I will fall on my face and worship him from that day forward. My story will be published worldwide. I will even write a book about what God has done for me, hopefully selling millions of copies. Totally healing me would be right up there with Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection from the dead. Impossible events, yet they happened anyway, according to Cray. True miracles, right?
Cray subscribed to my posts because she expects to one day read a post from me that says her prayers have been answered; that the thrice holy God has totally, from head to toe, healed me. She is CERTAIN that this will happen!
Cray concludes her email with a Bible quotation: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Hebrews 13:8). I agree. Jesus never healed anyone yesterday, he won’t heal anyone today, and he won’t heal anyone tomorrow. I have no expectations of healing. All I hope for is pain relief and a reduction of my suffering. How can it be otherwise? This is my cross to bear, and I plan to carry it until it kills me. I don’t plan on spending one moment pondering what Jesus might do for me if I will but return to the fold. I first became sick seventeen years before I deconverted. I was a devoted follower of Jesus for most of my life. Yet, I have been struggling with serious health problems since I was thirty-four years old, and haven’t had a disease-free, pain-free day since. I suffered with God, and now I suffer without him. And I am fine with that. Suffering is part of human existence. I cannot escape my lot in life without pulling the proverbial plug. Not today . . .
Jesus, you know where I live. Heal me, and I am yours. If not, fuck off. 🙂
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I have listened to your sermons, read your blog posts, or perused your articles in Christianity Today or The Gospel Coalition about why so many Evangelical church members are “deconstructing.” I have carefully noted your excuses and justifications for why people are fleeing Evangelical churches in droves. I have snickered and rolled my eyes as you blame anyone and everyone except yourself and your church for the decline in attendance and income. It’s the culture, or Hollywood, or postmodernism, or LGBTQ rights, or socialism, or atheism, or countless other things you blame for why Evangelicalism is rotting on the vine. And if all of these “blames” ring hollow, you label those who deconstruct as “cultural” Christians; trotting out the No True Scotsman Fallacy. Those who deconstruct and ultimately leave Evangelicalism aren’t True Christians®. Never mind the fact that many of the people exiting stage left from Evangelical churches were committed followers of Jesus; people who faithfully attended church, supported the church financially, and lived according to the teachings of the Bible. Lots of former Evangelicals frequent this blog. Few of them were cultural or nominal believers. Instead, they served the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and might. Yet, one day, or over many days, months, and years, they took a careful, painful look at Christianity and its attendant beliefs and practices. They decided they were no longer believers in the Evangelical sense of the word. Many of them became atheists, agnostics, pagans, or nones — people indifferent towards organized religion.
Instead of talking to these disaffected Evangelicals, Pastor __________, you marginalized them, ignoring their honest, open questions and concerns. You labeled them as worldly, carnal, backslidden, or some other pejorative label. And finally, you asserted, without evidence, that those who deconstructed lacked spiritual maturity and Bible knowledge. In other words, they just didn’t know any better. (Who taught them all those years, Pastor? Aren’t you to blame for their lack of knowledge?) Had they known better, they would have remained in the church. After all, doesn’t the Bible say, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (I John 2:19) End of discussion, right?
If you really want to know why people are deconstructing (and deconverting), Pastor _________, let me suggest a few reasons that come to mind:
The politicization of the pulpit and the church. Evangelical churches have become the propaganda wing of the Republican Party.
Donald Trump. Eighty-two percent of voting white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump — twice. Trump is morally repugnant, and an evil man, yet Evangelical pastors and churches promote him as God’s candidate — even going so far as to say that he is a Christian.
Evangelical churches largely ignore environmental concerns, especially global warming, and catastrophic species decline. Why worry about the environment — Jesus is coming soon!
Evangelical churches generally demonize LGBTQ people — especially transgender men and women.
Evangelical churches tend to promote complementarianism, encouraging treating women as “less than.” Misogyny is common.
Evangelical churches are anti-abortion (pro-life), while at the same time supporting capital punishment, killing immigrants, and war.
Evangelicals generally ignore what the Bible about caring for the least of these: the poor, marginalized, sick, hungry, widows, orphans, and people of color.
Pastors and churches over-emphasize certain “sins,” ignoring others. Sexual sins are given far more attention than other sins — especially icky homo sins.
Church scandals and sexual misconduct by pastors are legion, routinely ignored or swept under the rug.
Hypocrisy. People who deconstruct often say that they became weary of the “Do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy by church leaders.
While none of these reasons prove that Christianity is false, they do show that there is a huge disconnect between what pastors and True Christians® say they believe and how they actually live their lives. This often leads, as it did for me, to a reexamination of sincerely held beliefs. One need only read the emails, blog comments, and social media messages I receive from Evangelicals to see that Evangelicalism is a barrel of rotting apples. Sure, there are a few edible apples in the barrel, but not many.
Pastor __________, if you want to really know why people in your church are deconstructing, may I kindly suggest that you stop making excuses and justifications and look in the mirror. You are to blame for the sheep jumping over the fence, never to be seen again. You value political power and social control over meeting people where they are. You choose to point fingers instead of actually asking doubters and questioners why they are deconstructing. And after they left the church, you made sure to call them out and lambast them from the pulpit — even if you, wink, wink, didn’t mention them by name. You made sure that the sheep still in the pen knew these black sheep were sinful or deficient in some way, even going so far as to say that they were never, ever Christians.
If you really want to talk about deconstruction, I am game. Send me an email or have me on your podcast. There’s no reason for you to continue in ignorance one day longer. Or maybe you are not ignorant. You know why people are deconstructing, but you have an earthly kingdom to preserve, so you lie or misattribute motivations. The cure for your dishonesty is to actually talk to — not at — people who are deconverting or who have gone through the deconstruction process.
