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, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I 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.
Earlier today, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Ronda Cray. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling and grammar in the original.
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.
On the Contact page, I say to Evangelicals (and Muslims, Mormons):
“If you have a pathological need to evangelize, spread the love of Jesus, or put a good word in for the man, the myth, the legend named Jesus, please don’t. The same goes for telling me your church/pastor/Jesus is awesome. I am also not interested in reading sermonettes, testimonials, Bible verses, or your deconstruction/psychological evaluation of my life. By all means, if you feel the need to set me straight, start your own blog.
If you email me anyway — and I know you will, since scores of Evangelicals have done just that, showing me no regard or respect — I reserve the right to make your message and name public. This blog is read by thousands of people every day, so keep that in mind when you email me whatever it is you think “God/Jesus/Holy Spirit” has laid upon your heart. Do you really want your ignorance put on display for thousands of people to see? Pause before hitting send. Ask yourself, “how will my email reflect on Jesus, Christianity, and my church?”
I even made a humorous form Evangelicals can use to contact me; one that gives them a checklist to use to show their reason (s) for contacting me:
Reason for Contacting Bruce Gerencser (Check all that apply)
_____To tell him he is wrong
_____To tell him I feel sorry for him
_____To preach at him
_____To quote Bible verses to him
_____To evangelize him
_____To tell him he doesn’t know anything about the Bible
_____To let him know God still loves him
_____To let him know I am praying for him
_____To tell him he never was a Christian
_____To tell him he is going to Hell
_____To tell him he is still saved and can never be un-saved
_____To tell him he was/is a false prophet
_____To tell him he was/is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
_____To tell him he is angry
_____To tell him he is bitter
_____To tell him his writing shows he has been hurt
_____To tell him he is fat
_____To tell him I hope he burns in Hell
_____To tell him that I am praying God will kill him
_____To tell him that he has a meaningless, empty life
_____To tell him he is going to die soon and then he will find out THE TRUTH!
_____To tell him that I know THE TRUTH about him!
Once you have completed the form, cut and paste it into your email or comment.
Despite these things, Cray decided to email me anyway. While I can’t know why she disrespected my wishes, I suspect she thinks “God” led her to contact me or that the Holy Spirit was guiding and directing her fingers as she typed her email to the Evangelical-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser. When you have “god” whispering stuff to you in your head . . . well, anything is possible.
I understand some of why you chose to leave Christianity, I almost did that myself.
Does Cray really understand why I left the ministry in 2005 and deconverted in 2008? I doubt it. That she too almost left Christianity has no connection to my story. She would have to give a fuller accounting of her so-called “almost deconversion” before any of us can see if there are similarities between my story and hers.
I remember putting my Bible in my closet and telling God that He was too hard of a Master.
I have never thought God was “too hard of a Master.” My reasons for deconverting were primarily intellectual. I concluded that the central claims of Christianity are not true. Whatever emotional context there might have been, the bottom line is this: Jesus was not divine; he was not born of a virgin; he was not a miracle worker; he did not resurrect from the dead. Jesus was a man who left a profound mark — good and bad — on the human race, but as all humans eventually do, he died — end of discussion.
But in time, I realized what Matthew 11:28-29 meant and I have never been the same since.
Matthew 11:28,29 says: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
I believed these words to be true too, until I didn’t. I came to the conclusion that there was no “rest” to be had from Jesus because he is dead. My mom died thirty-three years ago. I miss her, but I have no expectation that Mom is going to comfort me or give me rest. How could she . . . she’s dead.
Why Cray’s life has “never been the same since” is unknown. She doesn’t provide sufficient information for anyone to make a judgment about her Christianity. All we have from her is personal testimony. Evangelicals are fond of using testimony to prove and justify supernatural claims, but I find little value in their testimonials, other than as a tool by which to understand their past and present lives. Just because an Evangelical says something supernatural happened to them doesn’t mean it actually did. If Cray wants me to buy what she is selling, she must provide actual evidence; not anecdotes, testimonies, and Bible verses.
It was the goodness of God that led me back to Him and nothing else.
I see no evidence for the claim that the Christian deity is “good.” Again, just because Cray claims God is good doesn’t mean her claim is true. All sorts of religions believe their deity is good. How could we possibly know these claims are true? We can’t. Either you believe God is good or you don’t. I don’t. If one believes the Bible is inspired/inerrant/infallible, I can point to numerous verses and stories that suggest that God is most certainly not good. Of course, for an atheist such as myself, arguments about the goodness of God are a waste of time. The only goodness I see in the world comes from human beings, not fictitious deities.
I know God is real and I hope you haven’t made your final decision in throwing the Baby out with the bathwater.
Cray cannot possibly “know” God is real. Knowing requires evidence and Cray has not provided any evidence for her claim that her peculiar deity is real. She believes the Christian God is real, but there’s a big difference between “knowing” and “believing.” Believing in this context requires to some degree faith. Knowing does not require faith. Either something is true or it is not.
I made my final decision sixteen years ago. While I am an agnostic atheist, open to the possibility (not probability) that a deity of some sort may yet reveal itself to us someday, I am convinced that the extant gods created by humans are no deities at all. I am confident that Christianity is built upon a plethora of untruths, and as such, I have no interest in following or worshipping Christianity’s God (or Gods, depending on how you interpret the Bible).
The baby and the bathwater? Cray assumes that there was a baby in the bathwater. What I found in the wash tub was cold, dirty water — no baby to be found.
You mentioned that you had some health issues and I prayed that you would feel better soon and have a long life. Psalm 139.
Had you comprehended what I wrote about my health problems, you would have learned that gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency are incurable diseases; that the pain in my spine, neck, shoulders, legs, hands, and feet is incurable; that none of these things is going away or getting better. I am slowly dying. No amount of prayer will change these physical facts. Now, if Cray’s God miraculously healed me — well, that would get my attention. 🙂
I will be sixty-seven on my birthday in June. I am a high-mile car that has been used, misused, and abused; missing hub caps, with dented fenders, rusty floorboards, and bald tires. I do not doubt that I am going to die sooner, and not later. Hopefully not today, tomorrow, or even a year or three from now, but I know my body, and it is telling me to “prepare to meet Loki.” 🙂
Psalm 139 talks about our inability to escape the presence of God. Shit, I would just be happy if I could escape the presence of the Crays of the world. Unfortunately, much like mosquitos on a wet summer day, there’s no escaping people who delusionally hear supernatural voices in their heads and feel led by “God” to share what those voices are saying.
I wonder if Cray read my About page? Had she done so, she would have found the following advice:
“You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.”
I continue to live by this advice to this day.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)
It is not uncommon for Evangelical zealots to tell atheists that their real father is the Devil, old Satan himself. What naturally flows from this line of thinking is that atheists live lustful, licentious, lives; that atheists are liars because there is no truth in them. No matter how atheists live; no matter how atheists treat others; no matter how kind, decent, thoughtful, and loving atheists might be; they are, without exception, the lying, deceitful children of Satan.
The only way atheists can change their family designation is to be adopted into the family of God through the merit and work of Jesus. No matter what atheists say or do, Evangelicals consider them enemies of God and the one true faith. If only atheists would admit the existence of the Christian God, pray the sinner’s prayer, and vote Republican, they would, with open arms, be welcomed into God’s blood-washed family. Because atheists refuse to bow to Jesus, they are forever condemned not only to the Lake of Fire, but also to being disparaged and lied about by so-called men of God.
All atheists can do is live according to the humanist ideal. Several years ago during the Pandemic, I bought groceries at the local Meijer. The store was jammed with panicked, irrational shoppers. The shelves were empty of items such as toilet paper, paper towels, bleach, hand sanitizer, Lysol, water, and, oddly, chicken. Yes, chicken. There wasn’t a piece of fresh chicken in the entire store. Checkout lines were backed up, and over the store intercom came messages asking shoppers to please be patient. The humorous part of me want to scream, “WHERE’S THE CHICKEN? I WANT SOME FUCKING CHICKEN RIGHT NOW!” I said nothing, thinking to myself about how irrational many people are when facing a crisis. I have seen this kind of panic numerous times over my sixty-sixty years of life on planet Earth. Seemed a little more intense this time.
As I was pulling out of my handicapped parking space, I noticed that a young woman had dropped a 24-pack of diet Coke and the cans were rolling everywhere in the parking lot. Several people drove by the frustrated woman. I put my Ford Edge in park, told Bethany I’d be just a minute, and got out and helped the woman retrieve her pop cans. She sheepishly said, “Thanks.” I replied, “No problem. Have a good night.” And with that, I got in my car and drove off to the gas station before heading home to Ney, nine miles away.
If, as an atheist, I am, to quote the song by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, bad to the bone, why didn’t I selfishly ignore this woman’s plight and drive away? Here’s why: I am a decent person. When I see someone in need of help and I can help them, I do so. I ALWAYS do so. Picking up pop cans in a store parking lot for someone is a trivial act of kindness, but what kind of person would I be if I didn’t at least try to help? I am often given opportunities to help and be kind to others. I want to go through life treating others as I would want to be treated, hoping that when it is Polly or my daughter trying to chase down pop cans, someone will stop and help. Small acts of kindness make all the difference in the world.
When Evangelicals try to tar me with the Satan brush and say that I am a vile, evil man, an enemy of God, a hater of all that is good, in my mind I just laugh and give them the finger. Sometimes, I even speak my mind. 🙂 I know the cut of my character. I know what kind of man, husband, father, and grandfather I am. I don’t care one whit what the Bible or Evangelical preachers say about me. Instead, to quote an Evangelical children’s church song:
This little (atheist) light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine,
Ev’ry day, ev’ry day,
Ev’ry day, ev’ry day,
Gonna let my little light shine.
I don’t need religion to be a good person, and you don’t either. In fact, I would suggest that Fundamentalism often turns people into arrogant, hateful, belligerent, self-centered assholes. Remember, the goal of Evangelicalism is to exclude; to separate the saved from the lost, the sheep from the goats, the sinners from the saints. How can such exclusion not lead to bad behavior? Humanism, on the other hand, says, “We are all in this together.” There’s no Heaven, no Hell, and no God coming to deliver us. It is up to each of us to do what we can to make the world a better place to live. And, may I humbly say, it begins one pop can at a time.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
It’s been almost sixteen years since I walked out the doors of the Ney United Methodist Church, never to return. Not long after, I sent out my infamous letter, Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners, to several hundred family members, friends, former church members, and colleagues in the ministry. For a time, I self-identified as an agnostic, but after months of “explaining” what I meant by the term, I decided to call myself an atheist. Strictly speaking, I am an agnostic atheist.
I naively believed that letter recipients would “understand” my deconversion; that they would appreciate hearing my story straight from my mouth, and not third and fourth hand as the Evangelical/IFB rumor mill raged. Boy, was I wrong. To the person, every one of them abandoned me, and many of them personally attacked me in letters, emails, and sermons. One former church member asked me to “explain,” but after I kindly and gently did so, she told me she could no longer be friends with me or talk to me. Another dear friend told me that he found my deconversion too unsettling to continue to be my friend. I saw nothing in their treatment of me that suggested they understood Jesus’ teachings on how to treat your “enemies” or how they should treat people in general. Their responses gave me a bird’s-eye view of how Evangelicals treat people who dare to leave their club. No kindness. No love. No compassion. No respect. Just judgment and condemnation.
Sixteen years later, I have only had one person walk back their words — a lifelong friend who said I was demon-possessed. That’s it. As for the rest of them, their words and behavior were un-Christian, to say the least. You would think that the Holy Spirit might have convinced them of their sins and called on them to apologize for their awful words. No apologies have been forthcoming. I concluded, then, that my former friends, family members, and parishioners believed that the teachings of Christ didn’t apply to them when it came to dealing with an Evangelical preacher-turned-atheist.
As a result, I lost my entire social network. Fifty years of relationships went up in smoke, and it is doubtful I will ever regain an atheist/agnostic/humanist version of what I lost. I paid a heavy price for daring to deconvert. I was penalized for being honest. Sixteen years on, Evangelicals continue to shit on my doorstep. I can’t remember the last time I received a polite, thoughtful, kind comment or email from an Evangelical Christian. Why is that?
I will never understand why people responded to me the way they did. I learned that my relationships were conditioned of me believing the right things. Even though we had lots of other things in common, all that mattered was shared religious beliefs. Once I said I no longer believed, I became their enemy. Yet, they treated me differently than they treated unsaved family, friends, and neighbors. I suspect they believe that I have committed the unpardonable sin or crossed the line of no return. How they could possibly know this is unknown. Evidently, I am no longer worthy of saving. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost just couldn’t resist jumping on board a new way to kill people – or the opportunity to be in front of television cameras.
Yost, Ohio’s two-term Republican attorney general, on Tuesday announced his support for legislation to allow nitrogen hypoxia to be used in Ohio executions. The bill is sponsored by state Reps. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, and Phil Plummer, R-Dayton.
Yost said Ohio has “broke faith” with crime victims and jurors by not carrying out death sentences for the last five years while capital punishment remains law. Without mentioning Gov. Mike DeWine by name, Yost said not following the law is “an abdication of the sovereignty of the state of Ohio.”
The proposal, which has 13 cosponsors, would allow condemned inmates to choose between execution by lethal drugs or nitrogen hypoxia. However, nitrogen hypoxia would be used if lethal injection drugs are unavailable, which has been the case for the past five years.
Yost, who desperately wants to be Ohio’s next governor, is woefully misguided in pushing Ohio to follow suit with Alabama by adopting nitrogen hypoxia for capital punishment.
His push at this point is untimely, unseemly, and unnecessary. It is an exercise in personal and political vanity at a time when Ohioans are less interested in executions. Bipartisan legislation to end capital punishment is pending before the General Assembly.
Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith on Jan. 27, using nitrogen gas for the first time in U.S. history. Officials called it a “textbook” execution but media eyewitnesses described a quite different scene as Smith shook violently and thrashed on the gurney after the gas began flowing. He gasped for breath for several minutes and appeared to be dry-heaving into the mask covering his face.
The execution of Dennis McGuire on Jan. 16, 2014, was one of the last executions I witnessed as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. Like the execution of Smith, McGuire’s death by lethal injection was a nightmare. He gasped, choked, struggled, and writhed on the execution table for 12 minutes before, mercifully, it was over. It was by far the most gruesome of 21 executions I witnessed.
In the process used on Smith, nitrogen — and no oxygen — is pumped into an airtight mask worn by the condemned. The result is suffocation. It is so dangerous that a spiritual adviser in the execution chamber had to sign a waiver of liability in case the gas leaked.
Ohio hasn’t had an execution since 2018. Gov. DeWine, also a Republican, has repeatedly delayed scheduled executions, citing the lack of availability of lethal injection drugs. It is certain there will be no executions here until the end of his term in 2026.
So why is Yost weighing in at this point?
He tipped his hand last year when he used the Capital Crimes Report issued annually by the attorney general as a bully pulpit to express his desire to resume executions which he said have been stalled far too long. He waved the report at Tuesday’s press conference.
Now he’s in a head-to-head battle with Lt. Gov. Jon Husted as prime competitors for governor in two years. Husted has been rolling out press releases on a variety of topics. The common wisdom about the attorney general is the most dangerous place to be is between Yost and a television camera.
I have known Dave Yost, who for a while went by Davyd Yost, for more than 30 years. We were competitors at Columbus City Hall when I worked for the Columbus Dispatch and he reported for the Columbus Citizen-Journal, now defunct.
He was a good journalist, a fair to middling musician, and a fun guy to be around.
But then he got a law license, became a prosecutor, got MAGA-tized, and took a hard turn to the right.
He professes to be a Christian and opposes abortion.
This is where I cannot understand his thinking. If all life is sacred, as abortion opponents contend – and I agree – how can you favor taking the life of someone through execution? Either all life is sacred or it is not. There is no gray area.
Both Yost and Stewart danced around the sanctity of life question at the Statehouse press conference, seeking to contrast an “innocent life and a guilty life.”
Life is life. Imago dei. The image of Christ.
It would be wise (albeit unlikely) for Yost to heed the words of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackman, a Republican appointed by Richard Nixon.
In a famous dissent in a 1994 murder case before the Supreme Court, Blackman wrote:
“From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. I feel…obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies.”
It’s time to end, not extend the use of capital punishment in Ohio.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Have you noticed the varied reactions to the “He Gets Us” campaign?
I just wanted to add a few thoughts for consideration as the conversation continues.
As followers of Jesus, I think it is important to find out why so much money is spent on Super Bowl ads, who is spending that money, and their reasons for doing so. Especially when that money could be used to for so many other humanitarian needs and whether we like it or not, their actions shape our collective reputation as Christians.
As followers of Jesus, I also think it is important not to use commercials about Jesus, which at face value do promote a good and needed message in and of themselves, and our possible skepticism about them to cause more public lashing out against each other in an already divided world. Our culture sees enough of that division within the church as it is already. It would be to disregard the message the commercial was trying to convey. A message we Christians in America need to hear more than anyone else.
With that said, after thinking about this for a long while, I just had some personal thoughts to share about why the reactions might be so varied and tenuous among Christians.
My heart is so weary of how we have commercialized Jesus, so often at the expense of embodying the way of Jesus ourselves.
As a millennial, I came of age in the world of religious tracts, street preachers, people holding signs that read “repent or burn” in heavily trafficked areas, paintings of Jesus with presidents, Christian t-shirts, music, and entire industries that attempted to advertise Jesus in every possible way, with a seemingly willful disregard for how it might impact our public witness as Christians.
I also worked food service throughout my entire academic journey. From 2001 to 2013, I worked at Dairy Queen, Smokey Mountain Pizza Co., Olive Garden, and then Starbucks. Looking back, this experience profoundly changed my perspective of “Christian evangelism.” I was studying to be a pastor then and got a front-row seat to how Christians interacted with food service workers.
There wasn’t a week that went by where I wouldn’t get several Christian tracts thrust in my face as I handed food through the drive-through, before the driver abruptly drove away.
There wasn’t a week that I wouldn’t get a religious tract disguised as a $100 bill left on the table with their check, often with no actual tip left. When I turned the tract over, it would say, “Disappointed? Well, you’ll never be disappointed with Jesus.” I was a student in desperate need of money, and this is how they chose to share “the gospel” with me.
There wasn’t a week that I wouldn’t hear my non-Christian coworkers complain about the “after church” crowd because of how poorly they would be treated and how low the tips would be.
There wasn’t a week that I wouldn’t be mistreated myself, yelled at over something silly like ranch dressing or a soda refill by people who had just prayed over their meal before they ate.
As a pastor in training, I couldn’t help but be really challenged by this and ask why this was happening?
Meanwhile, as I continued to study theology and ministry, I saw churches all over the nation try different methods to try to “attract” the younger generation. Being a millennial, at the time, I was considered the “younger generation.”
We saw the influx of new technology, smoke machines, well-polished music, and worship settings that appealed to modern fashion and style. And of course, the coffee bar. As much as I even enjoyed some of these things, I still felt “advertised” to.
Especially now with the advent of social media, we are advertised to more than ever. Is advertising and marketing really the most important and effective strategy for us Christians to undertake right now?
At the core of this are two elements for me.
First, so many in our culture are so tired of having Jesus advertised to them rather than people who claim to follow him imitating Jesus to them. People both inside and outside the church desperately want people who claim to follow Jesus to actually live out his teachings in the world around us.
Quite frankly, whether it is handing out religious tracts on the street as people pass by or making a million-dollar commercial, it is a really clever way of putting the responsibility to represent Jesus on something else, other than yourself. It is so deeply impersonal. You don’t even know the names of the people you are giving those tracts to or the lived experiences of those who are seeing your commercials, yet you are assuming their relationship with God and telling them “You obviously need this, sinner.” Like leaving it on the table for a pastor in training you don’t even know after you yelled at him about your ranch dressing.
It’s passive, drive-by evangelism. It feels deeply insincere and lazy, especially to the people it is being directed towards.
Secondly, this also plays into how we’ve reduced the gospel of Jesus to what people believe in their heads. I will often hear “If just one person had a change of mind because of that tract or commercial, it was worth it!” Why? Because we’ve made our religion all about getting to heaven and getting to heaven is simply about believing the right things, rather than imitating Jesus with our lives and working to embody God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven.” Again, this can easily lead to really callous situations where we don’t even care if our waitstaff has bills to pay or a family to care for. If stiffing them causes them to read about Jesus, even for just a moment, “it will be worth it.”
This kind of evangelism just seems so deeply out of touch with the actual world we live in.
When I think of all this, I hear James, the brother of Jesus, screaming in my ears:
“If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” James 2:16-17
Our world is crying out for faith in action, not faith advertised.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Repost from 2015. Extensively edited, rewritten, and corrected.
Two thousand years.
Two thousand years of Jesus.
Almost from the beginning, Christians put their oral traditions, teachings, and beliefs into writing. The Bibles used by twenty-first-century Christians all trace their authority back through history to Christian writings dating from around 50 CE forward. The original writings, the first edition writings do not exist and any claim of inspiration for the “original” writings is nothing more than wishful, fanciful thinking. Every claim ever made by the Christian church rests on the text of the Bible and how the church has interpreted that text. I am aware of the fact that the Christian church has been influenced by Gnosticism for most of its 2,000-year history, but for the most part, Christianity is a text-based religion that places the text of the Bible above personal experiences and revelations. Even when personal experiences and revelations are given greater weight and authority — as in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches — they are almost always expected to conform to what is found in the text of the Bible.
Most Christians believe the Bible is inspired by God. They believe the words of the Bible came from God or at least represent, in fallible human form, what God wants humankind to know about God, life, salvation, death, judgment, and the afterlife. Many Christians believe every word of the Bible is inspired by God, and some Christians even go so far as to say that a particular translation, the King James Version, is inspired by God. Christians who hold this extreme view believe that God has preserved his Word through time and that every word of the King James Bible is from the lips of God himself. And countless other Christians believe the text of the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Ponder that thought for a moment. Every word in a book thousands of years old is true, without error, and perfect in every way. To quote the Evangelical bumper sticker, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me.” Some Evangelicals say, “God said it, and that settles it for me. It doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not!”
Most Christians believe the Bible is truth. While they may not believe ALL the Bible is truth, every Christian, at some point or the other, says THIS is truth. A person who does not believe the Bible is truth is not a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word. There is a form of Christianity floating about these days that suggests a person can be a Christian and not believe the Bible. This kind of Christian says “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” He embraces Jesus as his Savior and guide, but often has no connection with organized Christianity. However, even the “spiritual but not religious” Christians must, sooner or later, appeal to the Bible. Without the Bible, they would have no knowledge of Jesus, the locus of their faith.
Other Christians are what I call cafeteria Christians. They pick and choose what they want to believe. Most cafeteria Christians believe in Jesus since they DO want their sins forgiven and they DO want to go to Heaven when they die, but when it comes to the hard sayings of the Bible, the teachings that get in the way of the American dream and living the way they want to live, cafeteria Christians dismiss such sayings and teachings as old, outdated relics of the past that have no value or application today. Simply put, they want a Jesus divorced from anything else the Bible says. Cafeteria Christians become quite adept at explaining away anything in the Bible with which they disagree.
This brings me to the point of this post. Who determines what the Bible says? Who decides what this verse or that verse says? Who is the arbiter of truth? Who is the final authority?
Some Christians say GOD is the final authority. The Bible is God’s Word . . . THUS SAITH THE LORD! These well-meaning Christians think that the teachings of the Bible are clear and understandable, needing no explanation or interpretation. Why, then, do they go to church on Sundays and listen to men tell them what they think the Bible says? Why do they read books and commentaries written by people telling them what they think the Bible says? If the Bible is a self-attesting, self-explanatory text, why all the middlemen?
Some Christians say the HOLY SPIRIT is the final authority. God gave New Testament Christians (Old Testament believers only got a part-time Holy Ghost who came and went at will) the Holy Spirit to be their teacher and guide. Supposedly, the Holy Spirit teaches them everything necessary for life and godliness. It is not hard to see the Gnostic influence in this kind of thinking. If there is ONE Holy Spirit who teaches and guides every Christian, why is there no consensus among believers on what Christians believe or how they are supposed to live? Why does the Holy Spirit give contradictory instructions or lessons? Why are there so many Christian sects? Surely, if the Holy Spirit is on his game, every sect would believe the same thing, and they would become ONE body with ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism.
Some Christians are what I call red-letter Christians. They give weight and authority to the “words” of Jesus in the gospels, the words that are in red in many modern translations. With great passion and commitment, they attempt to walk in the steps of Jesus (WWJD). Unfortunately, they rarely consider whether the words attributed to Jesus in the gospels are actually his words. Jesus didn’t write any of the books found in the Bible, which, in my opinion, is quite odd. Most Biblical scholars question who actually wrote the gospels, and mainstream scholars have serious reservations over Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John being the authors of the gospels that bear their names. Since the gospels are, at best, stories passed down by those alive at the time of Christ and not put in written form until decades after the death of Jesus, the best a modern-day Christian can say about the gospels is that they are words written by an unknown people who recorded what a third, fourth, fifth or twentieth party told the writer Jesus said.
Claims that the Bible is some sort of inspired text require faith. There’s no evidence for the claim that the Bible is inspired outside of the text itself. Either you believe the Bible is, to some degree or the other, supernatural truth or you don’t. I am an atheist today primarily because I no longer believe the Bible is truth. While it is certainly a book filled with entertaining and thought-provoking stories, it is not, in any way, a supernatural text. While it certainly contains maxims worthy of emulation, it also contains God-approved behaviors that we moderns now consider at odds with human and scientific progress.
Every Christian belief rests not on God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, but on the authority of a human being or a group of human beings. It is humans who decide what the Bible says. It is humans who decide what this or that verse means. Whether it is a denomination, the Pope, theologians, a pastor, or an individual Christian, it is a human who is the final authority. At best, the only thing a Christian can claim is THUS SAITH THE POPE, MY DENOMINATION, MY PASTOR, MY COLLEGE PROFESSORS, OR MYSELF! Any claim that it is God speaking or leading is a matter of faith, a matter that cannot be proved empirically. In other words, you are just going to have to take their word for it — or not.
Christians need to get off their Bible High-Horse and admit who the real final authority is. The fact that there are thousands of Christian sects shows very clearly that humans are the ones with the final say on what the Bible does and doesn’t say. It is humans who preach, write books, teach theology classes, blog, and debate. God may have said a particular something — and there is no way for us to know if he did — but it is humans who get the final say about what God actually said or what he meant to say. Every Christian statement of belief is an interpretation of the Bible. It is that person or group saying, this is what the Bible says. In other words, the person is saying I know what God said. (One of the purposes of this blog is to demonstrate that the Bible can be made to say almost anything.)
Can you name one Christian teaching that ALL Christians agree upon? Outside of the fact that Jesus was a real person, every other teaching of the so-called “faith once delivered to the saints” is disputed by some Christian sect or the other. If the Christian church were a married couple, they would have long since been divorced for irreconcilable differences. Oh wait, that is exactly what has happened. The Christian church is hopelessly splintered into thousands of sects, each competing with the other for the title of God’s Truth Holder. Children in Evangelical Sunday schools learn to sing the B-I-B-L-E song. In light of what I have written above, the lyrics of the song should be changed:
The B-I-B-L-E, yes that MIGHT be the Book for me, I SOMETIMES stand alone on the WORDS OF MEN, the B-I-B-L-E. B-I-B-L-E!!
Until God shows up in person and says yes, I wrote this convoluted, contradictory book that makes me out to be a hateful, vindictive sadist, I am not going to believe the Bible is God’s Word. If a benevolent, loving God really wrote the Bible, do you think he would have written what Christians say he did? If God had control of the writing process, do you think he would have included his unsavory, immoral side? If God was involved in putting the Bible together, don’t you think he would have proofread it to make sure there were no mistakes and that the text was internally consistent?
Instead, Christians spend countless hours trying to harmonize (make it all fit) the text of the Bible. They put forth laughable explanations for the glaring errors found in the Bible. Well, you know Bruce, Jesus cleansed the Temple at the start of his ministry AND the end of his ministry! Sure he did. I wonder if Christians know how foolish some of their harmonizing attempts sound to those on the outside of the church or to someone like myself, who has been on both sides of the fence? Of course, according to the Bible, the various harmonization schemes sound foolish because non-Christians don’t have the Holy Spirit inside of them teaching them how to make square pegs fit in round holes. And round and round the merry-go-round goes.
If Christians want to believe the Bible is some sort of truth, and worship God/Jesus/Holy Spirit based on what is written within its pages, I have no beef with them. If they want to believe the Bible and its teachings, who am I to say they can’t? However, when they insist everyone acquiesce to their beliefs about the Bible and God, and that their peculiar belief system is the one true religion, then I have a problem. When Christians insist that the Bible and its teachings be taught to public school children or demand that their interpretations of the moral and ethical code taught in the Bible applies to everyone, they should expect pushback from people such as myself. Since history gives us ample warning about what happens when any religion gains the power of the state, secularists like myself will continue to fight any attempt to enshrine Christianity as the official state religion.
Here’s what I am saying to Christians. Take the Bible, go to your houses of worship, and believe and worship as you will. However, I expect you to keep your beliefs to yourself. If I don’t ask, you don’t tell. Stop all the theocratic, God-rule talk. Stop trying to turn the United States into a Christian nation. Stop demonizing everyone who disagrees with your beliefs. In other words, treat others with decency, love, and respect. Stop being a religious fanatic who thinks everyone should hear about your version of the Christian God and embrace your peculiar beliefs.
Do you think American Christians, especially conservative Catholics and Protestants, Mormons, and Evangelical Christians, can do what I mentioned above? Not a chance! They will continue to push, fight, and infiltrate until they have no more soldiers to fight with. They are like a disease that is only curable by death. The good news is that this brand of Christianity is slowly dying and, in time, long after you and I are dead, the American Jesus will have drawn its last breath. (Please see Why I Hate Jesus.)
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, the Kansas City Chiefs played the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl. Led by superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City won the game in overtime. Afterward, Mahomes said:
It (winning the game) means a ton. Just the adversity we dealt with this year and to come through. The guys never faltered. I give God the glory. He challenged us to make us better. I am proud of my guys. They did awesome. Legendary.
After beating the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game, Mahomes stated:
My Christian faith plays a role in everything that I do. I mean, I always ask God to lead me in the right direction and let me be who I am for His name.
I have no doubt that Mahomes is a sincere Christian; that he really believes that the Christian God (Jesus) is the power behind his winning ways. Such beliefs are common among professional athletes. However, if the Chiefs were 3-14 this year, would Mahomes say the same thing? If Mahomes had torn his ACL or Achilles tendon and was sidelined for a year, would he still praise God for his perfect ways? It seems that God only gets all the praise, honor, and glory when teams and players win. In defeat, blame is laid at the feet of players, coaches, team owners, or groundskeepers. God never gets praise, honor, and glory for defeats. Why is that?
If God was behind the Chiefs’ win, doesn’t it necessarily follow that he was also behind the 49ers’ defeat?
Think about all the violence, suffering, and death in the world. Think about the carnage in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Syria, and other countries roiled with military conflict. Think about global warming, dramatic species decline, and other existential threats. So many things Jesus could do something about, yet he does nothing. He hides himself from his prized creation — the human race — only to appear when Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs need to score and win a game. He is the God of the trivial, the insignificant. What an awesome, God, right?
Teams win games because of athletic prowess, roster construction, competent coaching, and luck — lots of the ball bouncing in the right direction at the right moment. Mahomes is certainly free to praise God for his superior physical skills and the coaching expertise of Andy Reid and his staff, but I hope he will forgive me when I roll my eyes and laugh when he does. Does anyone really believe Patrick Mahomes wouldn’t be a future Hall of Fame quarterback without his faith? Of course not.
I give credit to whom credit is due. God was nowhere to be found on Sunday. All I saw was grown-ass men beating the shit out of each other, hoping to win — in the grander scheme of things — a meaningless game, a fancy trophy, a sparkling ring, and their name written in football history. I love sports, but I haven’t lost sight of the fact that when measured according to the pressing, dire issues faced by all living things, sporting events are little more than brief distractions as we trudge along the road of life.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I grew up in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Children were encouraged (conditioned, indoctrinated, and cajoled) to get “saved” at an early age. Many IFB children get saved at least twice: first as a young child and then as a teenager. I professed faith in Jesus at age five, and then I really, really, really got saved at fifteen.
After having a born-again experience, young converts are encouraged to choose a “life verse”; Bible verses that would become lifelong governing principles.
My partner Polly’s life verse was Micah 6:8:
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Pretty good advice to live by: justice, mercy, and humility.
My life verse was Proverbs 3:5-6:
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
These words governed much of my Christian life: trust the Lord with all my heart. Don’t trust my own understanding. In all my ways, acknowledge God, and if I do so, he will direct my paths.
Did you have a life verse? Did your chosen verse affect how you lived your life? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
