The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Trent Rogan, a youth pastor at Community Church at Hendersonville in Hendersonville (Gallatin), Tennessee, was recently convicted of raping a seventeen-year-old boy.
A once prominent community leader who was serving as a children’s pastor at a Hendersonville church when he was charged in 2022 with having sex with a 17-year-old male, was found guilty on Thursday of five counts of Statutory Rape by an Authority Figure and four other charges.
A jury convicted Trent Rogan, 31 of Gallatin of nine charges that included two counts of Especially Aggravated Exploitation of a Minor and two counts of Exploitation of a Minor by Electronic Means, after a three-day trial in Sumner County Criminal Court.
Assistant District Attorneys Nathan Nichols and David Vorhaus presented testimony from several witnesses, including the victim who is now 19.
Although the victim testified in open court and spoke openly with a reporter after the verdict, the Hendersonville Standard does not identify victims of sex crimes.
The victim testified that he met Rogan in the fall of 2021 after applying to and being accepted into the Leadership Sumner Youth Program, a leadership development program for high school juniors that is no longer in operation.
Shortly after the two met, Rogan, who was a chaperone and co-director of the program, initiated a sexual relationship with the victim, and often supplied him with drugs and alcohol, the victim testified. The sexual abuse occurred on five separate occasions – including twice in Rogan’s Gallatin home.
After the victim cut ties with Rogan and divulged the two’s encounters to a friend, the Gallatin Police Department and the Department of Children Services opened an investigation in April of 2022.
Rogan was arrested and charged with five counts of Statutory Rape by an Authority Figure and two counts of Exploitation of a Minor by Electronic Means on June 6, 2022. A grand jury returned a nine-count indictment in August of that year that included two counts of Especially Aggravated Exploitation of a Minor.
Rogan was working at the time as the Kids Pastor at Community Church of Hendersonville. He has since resigned. Before that, he was the NextGen Ministry-Children’s Director at Gallatin First United Methodist Church from Dec. 2017-Feb. 2020. Rogan also served on the boards of several non-profit organizations including Gallatin Cares and the Gallatin Chamber of Commerce where he was the board’s chairman-elect.
In his closing arguments to the jury, Nichols pointed out that the victim identified himself as a member of the LBGTQ community on his Leadership Sumner Youth application and that as one of the co-directors Rogan helped select the victim for the program.
The victim applied to the program to better himself while Rogan saw it as an opportunity to prey on him, Nichols added.
“He didn’t join [the program] to have sex with Trent Rogan but Trent Rogan saw that application and saw it as an opportunity to have sex with him,” he told jurors.
Rogan’s attorney Paul Walwyn acknowledged the two had sex and sent pictures to each other, but argued that Rogan was not an authority figure to the teen.
“This case is about whether or not he used his authority or power to control [the victim] – and the answer is no,” argued Walwyn. “There’s nothing except for a title. [The victim] never said he felt compelled or coerced or anything to be in a relationship with Mr. Rogan… There’s nothing about control in this case.”
Jurors disagreed, convicting Rogan on all nine counts.
Nichols said after the verdict that the case is “the very poster child for why these cases should be prosecuted vigorously and why General [Ray] Whitley and all the other prosecutors and myself are dedicated to prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.”
“This young man had his life altered in an extremely negative, terrible way because of Mr. Rogan’s actions and it set his life on a course that he never intended for it to go,” Nichols added.
Vorhaus said the case needed to be prosecuted not just for the victim but for the collateral damage Rogan did to the community.
“He did a lot of damage to the community,” agreed Nichols. “He did a lot of damage to his church, and to Leadership Sumner Youth, which doesn’t even exist because of him.”
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.
This is the latest installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Today’s video is titled Chick-fil-A Human Resources Department by John Crist.
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.
To the average Gen Z woman, oh how far you have fallen! The average modern Gen Z woman has, as far as anything of meaning or substance goes, absolutely nothing to offer a man. They have fallen for the scams of feminism and materialism which removes all but the slightest reminisce of value.
You can blame your parents; you can blame society, or you can blame social media, but the buck stops with you! You are a woman operating with extreme self-importance and delusion, a woman operating not even close to your intended purpose, and it will never, ever make you ultimately happy.
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Entitlement and Selfishness are the modern woman’s Modis Operandi, and boy is it serving them well. The modern Gen Z young woman, overall, when looking at the average’s, have the following attributes,
Independent
Materialistic
Self-value from Sexual objectification
Promiscuous
Immodest in their behaviour and Dress
Entitled
Selfish
The modern woman knows nothing of their role, their purpose, the reason they exist, or what indeed will lead to an enjoyable and content life. They have been fooled by the post-modern movement into thinking that experience, sexualization, materialism, money, and class is their ultimate path to happiness.
Gen Z’s live for the experience, no matter how unGodly or evil it might be. Living day to day with their minds consumed of nothing more than a hot dress and a cocktail party.
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Gone are the days where a woman reaches adulthood under her parents, finds a valuable man and begins to build a moral, valuable and purposeful life. Gen Z woman are now marrying much later in life, after going through a decade of adulthood single, and enjoying the pleasures of this world that ultimately have irreversible damage for their long term happiness, It is very hard to “unexperience” immoral experiences! When they do marry, their marriages have a foundation that is causing divorce/Separation at rates never seen in the history of humanity.
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It is no wonder then, when we look at how Gen Z’s have removed God and morals from marriage, combined with what they base their sentiments of marriage on, that they are failing at these astronomical rates.
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If you have read our article on Feminism, you will know that the data is in, and its conclusion is undeniable. The way women are choosing to live their lives in the modern world is not making them happy. Women’s happiness is in terminal decline in the modern world of equality.
A common theme that almost everyone in society held until the 1970’s was to find a valuable woman, that will be a good wife and a good mother for you and your family. Partner selection has always been critical for a happy and purposeful life! Men up until the waves of feminism used to seek, and find the following qualities in a potential woman for a wife,
Modestly Dressed
A chaste woman
Loyal, with eyes only for her husband.
A keeper of the home
A sober woman
Nonmaterialistic
High confidence / Self Esteem
Free from tattoos / Maladaptive Identity
Hard working “A woman who does not want a free ride”
Proverbs 31:27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
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.
Most Evangelicals believe humans are born sinners; that from the moment of conception, humans sin in thought, word, and deed; that humans don’t become sinners, they are sinners. Further, the Bible tells us humans are the enemies of God; haters of holiness and truth. Labeled, “natural (unsaved) men,” the Bible says unregenerate people CAN NOT understand the things of God
Salvation (deliverance) from sin requires the active work of God on behalf of people who are dead in trespasses and sin. Humans have no power to save themselves. Salvation requires regeneration and faith, both of which must be given to unsaved people for them to be saved.
Most Evangelicals are cradle Christians, meaning they were born into and came of age in Evangelical churches. Typically, Evangelical congregants come to faith between the ages of four and fourteen. Ninety-eight percent of Evangelicals come to faith in Christ by age thirty. Simply put, most Evangelicals are saved before developing mature, rational thinking skills. It is much harder for someone to be saved once they develop the skills necessary to distinguish truth from bullshit.
Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, was raised in an Evangelical Christian home. The only religion he knows is Evangelicalism. Thiessen believes the words “Evangelical” and “Christian” are interchangeable. In his mind, Evangelicalism — his peculiar version of it, anyway — is True Christianity. Thiessen has a Christian Missionary and Alliance background. The CMA sect is a garden-variety Evangelical denomination. Within the sect, you will find believers who believe once a person is saved, he can never, ever fall from grace, and other congregants who believe a Christian can lose their salvation. What Thiessen actually believes on this issue is unclear. He has espoused both views, and has, at times, promoted works-based salvation. His viewpoint is determined by the particular theological point he is trying to justify.
Recently, Dr. David Tee, who is neither a doctor nor a Tee, wrote a post titled We Are Against Deconstruction. Here’s an excerpt from we’s post: 🙂
The issue here is the word ‘skepticism’. This is where many believers go wrong. Their skepticism should have been done long before they made a decision to follow Christ. All doubts should have been dealt with prior to that same decision.
There is no need to be skeptical about Christ or the Christian faith once one has been redeemed by Christ. That experience alone should tell them that God is real and that the Bible is true. Having second thoughts after you have been living the Christian life is wrong.
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If one has doubts about a doctrine or practice of the church, they should search scripture to get the truth, like the Bereans did in Acts, and then follow the truth. No one should be deconstructing their faith as they did that before they became a Christian.
No one is born a Christian either so they should not live under a false assumption. Do your deconstructing before accepting Christ as your savior for then you still have a chance to be saved.
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Doubts and skepticism after you have become a Christian is evil doing spiritual warfare against you and you need to do spiritual warfare against those attacks. Deconstruction is throwing up the white flag and surrendering. That is just the wrong thing to do after you believe.
According to Thiessen, children are supposed to deconstruct their Christian beliefs BEFORE they become Christians. All doubts and skepticism should be dealt with before a person is saved. This, of course, is impossible. The unsaved person, according to the Bible, cannot understand the things of God. They are dead in trespasses and sins, alienated from God, without hope in this present world. Yet, unbelievers are supposed to have a comprehensive understanding of Christianity BEFORE they are saved. How is this even possible, knowing that most Evangelicals are saved when they are children?
Most Evangelicals are saved BEFORE they have a full understanding of all that Christianity teaches. I heard scores of evangelism experts say that when winning sinners to Christ, soulwinners should tell them just enough to get saved; that they should avoid questions and stick to the plan of salvation. There will be plenty of time for their questions after they are saved! Most Evangelicals become Christians without thoroughly investigating the central claims of Christianity, and, sadly, many saved Evangelicals never take a hard look at what they believe.
How can a six-year-old child, raised in Evangelicalism by Evangelical parents, possibly determine whether Christianity is true? They do not have the rational thinking skills to do so — in a comprehensive way. Children “believe” because their parents, family, and tribe “believe.” Rarely, does skepticism play a part in their decision to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. One can’t be skeptical if they have no understanding of the world’s religions. How can one choose if he or she is only given one choice? Deconstruction requires choices. How can anyone possibly deconstruct Evangelicalism until they have first been exposed to non-Evangelical religions, beliefs, and practices? Choice requires knowledge, but most Evangelical children are deliberately sheltered from any other religion but Evangelicalism. And when these sheltered believers are exposed to the “world,” what often happens? They start asking questions, beginning their travel on the path of deconstruction.
Deconstruction is not the enemy — simplistic, untested faith is. Thiessen thinks his site exists to promote Biblical Christianity; a place where doubters and questioners can find answers. The problem is that Thiessen only has one answer for every question: believe and practice what the Bible says. The B-i-b-l-e, yes that’s the book for me, I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-i-b-l-e. BIBLE!
Thiessen believes deconstruction leads to Hell:
Yes, deconstruction does lead to hell because Christians are following and listening to unbelievers over God and his word. Peter talks about leaving the faith and it is not pretty. There is only one truth, one true faith, and deconstruction does not lead you to either.
In other words, rationalism and skepticism lead to Hell, ignorance leads to Heaven. My, what an advertising slogan.
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.
While writing The Deconstruction of Christianity with Alisa Childers, we discovered some fundamental beliefs that undergird the deconstruction process. Moreover, these ideas are antithetical to the Christian worldview. This helps explain why so many who deconstruct their faith end up leaving the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Here are three reasons why I changed my mind about deconstruction.
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First, deconstruction has no correct destination.
A defining feature of deconstruction is that there’s no right way to do it and no right destination.
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Why isn’t there a right place to land in deconstruction? The answer is that deconstruction is a postmodern process. What I mean is, deconstruction isn’t about objective truth. It’s about personal happiness.
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Notice how deconstruction assumes there is no objective truth when it comes to religious beliefs. That’s why it doesn’t matter how you do it or where you end up as long as you’re happy.
I want you to notice two things. First, Jesus mentions two ways. There is a narrow way and a broad way, a right way and a wrong way. Second, Jesus mentions two destinations. The right way leads to a good destination: life. The wrong way leads to a bad destination: destruction. According to Jesus, there is absolutely a right place to land, and he tells us how to get there.
Second, the deconstruction process never ends.
Imagine you deconstruct your beliefs. Now what? Well, you construct new ones. However, once you construct new beliefs, you have to deconstruct those too. See how this works? There’s no finality to this process. Deconstruction requires a never-ending skepticism about your beliefs and the beliefs of others.
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Third, deconstruction has no biblical authority.
In deconstruction, there is no external authority to tell you what your faith should look like. You are the ultimate authority.
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Deconstruction isn’t about submitting to biblical authority; it’s about choosing to be your own authority.
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I changed my mind about deconstruction. After researching this topic, I’ve come to see that deconstruction isn’t merely asking questions or a synonym for doubt. Rather, it’s a process with no correct destination, no ending, and no biblical authority.
As you can easily see, Barnett is against deconstruction because it can and does lead to what he believes is a bad outcome — deconversion. Left unsaid is that Barnett is likely against deconversion because it leads to people leaving Evangelicalism for kinder, friendlier, more hospitable churches and faiths. In other words, since deconversion results in Evangelical churches hemorrhaging members — many of whom were committed followers of Jesus — the answer is to ignore WHY that is, informing restless, thoughtful Evangelicals, “God says, thou shalt not deconstruct.” And with proof texts uttered, deconstruction has been put to bed. Or so Barnett thinks, anyway.
My correspondence with deconstructing people suggests far different reasons for their deconstruction than postmodernism, or, Loki-forbid, the desire to think for themselves and be happy. Their emails suggest that Evangelical churches and preachers need to look in the mirror if they want to see why people are deconstructing (and deconverting). Many of the people deconverting have gotten a whiff of Evangelicalism’s rotting corpse and want nothing to do with it. They see the hatred of LGBTQ people and immigrants. They see the racism, bigotry, and misogyny. They see the extreme politics and social views — especially support of Donald Trump. They see the news stories about sex crimes committed by Evangelical preachers, yet never hear their pastors say a word about the abuse scandal. They see the fancy suits, designer clothes, and Rolex watches as their pastors preach about the humble Jesus who had no place to put his head. They hear the rumors and know what goes on in secret in the homes of their pastors and other church leaders. Worse, many of them are preacher’s kids. They have seen the hypocrisy firsthand.
Barnett is against skepticism when it comes to the claims of Christianity. I suspect he doesn’t take this same approach when it comes to non-Christian religions. In other words, be skeptical about all the other religions of the world, but when it comes to Christianity, just believe; read the Bible, pray, and trust that your pastor will tell you the truth. (Can you really trust anyone who hasn’t or won’t deconstruct their beliefs?)
Barnett is right in one regard; deconstruction can be driven by a desire for happiness –as if that is a bad thing. You bet. Once you leave Egypt and break the bonds of Evangelicalism you have a newfound freedom. That freedom can lead to increased happiness. Sounds like a pretty good selling point for skepticism and rationalism. 🙂
As Evangelical apologists are wont to do, Barnett reminds those considering deconstruction that HELL awaits those who follow this path. Only those who “question” their faith within the safe confines of the Evangelical box shall be saved! Deconstruction leads to Hell, just look at that Bruce Gerencser guy.
Checkmate. 🙂
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.
By Dr. David Tee, Whose Name is RealDerrick Thomas Thiessen, We Already Know How, January 10, 2024
God has power that we do not have nor can comprehend. Yet we do understand that this power is greater than anything else in the universe. We do not need science to tell us what God did. God has already told us and our origins are not a mystery.
Why should we go to unbelieving, blind, deceived, and lost people to get our answers about our origins when God has already told us what he did in the Bible
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There is the truth and then there is false teaching. Biblical creation is the truth and you either accept it or you don’t. The other so-called option is a fantasy made up by those who rejected the truth yet needed something to fill the void left by that rejection.
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There is no need to debate this topic. You either preach the truth or you proclaim false teaching.
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The how is not only explained in Genesis 1 but it is also explained in other verses speaking on this topic throughout the Bible. God took only 6 days to create everything. If you cannot accept that, then you are left with false teaching.
There is no debate because there is only one truth and the Bible has the truth, not science. So there are no muddy waters to wade through and there are no old earth facts to worry about. That is because the facts support a young earth and the biblical account.
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We know how God created everything because he told us and God cannot lie.
Years ago, I had no email or comment guidelines for this site. This led to a wild, wild west feeling, of sorts, with Evangelical zealots daily sending me hateful, nasty emails and leaving comments with similar content. Over time, I established comment guidelines and asked readers NOT to contact me if they intended to preach, evangelize, or deconstruct my life.
If you would like to contact Bruce Gerencser, please use the following form. If your email warrants a response, someone will respond to you as soon as possible.
Due to persistent health problems, I cannot guarantee a timely response. Sometimes, I am a month or more behind on responding to emails. This delay doesn’t mean I don’t care. It does mean, however, that I can only do what I can do. I hope you understand.
To help remedy this delay in response, my editor, Carolyn, may respond to your email. Carolyn has been my editor for six years. She knows my writing inside and out, so you can rest assured that if your question concerns something I have written, Carolyn’s response will reflect my beliefs and opinions — albeit with fewer swear words.
I do not, under any circumstances, accept unsolicited guest posts. Think that I’m interested in letting you write a post with a link back to your site, I’m not.
I am not interested in receiving commercial email from you.
I am not interested in buying social media likes, speeding up my website, signing up for your Ad service, improving my SEO, or having you design a new blog theme for this site.
I will not send you money for your ministry, church, or orphanage. In fact, just don’t ask for money, period.
I know you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, but you are not a medical professional, so please do not send me unsolicited medical or psychological advice. I am not interested — ever.
If you are an Evangelical Christian, please read Dear Evangelical before sending me an email. 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?”
Outside of the exceptions mentioned above, I promise to treat all correspondence with you as confidential. I have spent the last fourteen years corresponding with people who have been psychologically harmed by Evangelical Christianity. I am more than happy to come alongside you and provide what help I can. I am not, however, a licensed counselor. I am just one man with fifty years of experience as a Christian and twenty-five years of experience as an Evangelical pastor. I am more than happy to lend you what help and support I can.
Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Adding this text to the Contact page greatly reduced the volume of my mail, though some readers ignore my requests and email me anyway. In their minds, all that matters is them putting in a word for Jesus or putting the Evangelical-preacher-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser in his place. Generally, I use such emails for blog fodder or ignore them altogether.
I also receive emails from people who are determined to give me unsolicited medical advice — even though I ask them NOT to do so. Let me share with you a brief email exchange that took place recently:
Shari:Have you ever looked into the carnivore or lion diet for help with all of your health issues? I have heard many amazing recovery stories from this kind of elimination diet. MeatRX.com Just thought I’d pass it on in case you are at your wits in with the medical establishment and taking more and more prescriptions. Don’t know why, maybe God lead me to your site.
Bruce:My contact page says: “I know you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, but you are not a medical professional, so please do not send me unsolicited medical or psychological advice. I am not interested — ever.”
Shari: My sincerest apologies. My heart just went out to you for all your medical issues and I thought, you are too young to be dealing with all you are dealing with medically and you have grandchildren to love! I did not read the whole contact page. I read some of your other pages and was on your bio. I didn’t read that you had lost 100 lbs until after I emailed you. I just saw you had some medical issues.
Do not worry, you will never EVER hear from me again sir! What a shock to read this reply to a genuine concern for your quality of life and a desire to help. I am truly sorry for whatever you have experienced to cause you to be so ungracious. “Thanks for your concern but no thank you” could have sufficed or just not reply at all!
You are right, I am not a medical professional but I have been misdiagnosed/damaged by them and am always looking for natural ways to improve my life! Yes, it was unsolicited advice but I thought maybe you have not seen the amazing stories I have seen.
I bet you are really a lot of fun at parties!
Bruce:It is not ungracious to expect people to respect your wishes. I have received hundreds of emails just like yours— from people who either can’t read or were never taught by their momma to respect the place and person of others. That you think it is okay to offer unsolicited medical advice to complete strangers is astounding.
I have serious health problems; incurable problems; problems that will likely kill me. Twenty-seven years ago, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia — a disease that causes widespread pain and debility. Three years I was diagnosed with gastroparesis, and last year I was told I have exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) — both of which affect my ability to eat, digest food, and absorb nutrients. I take a medicine that costs $3,000 a month to provide enzymes that help with food digestion and absorption. Since 2021, I have lost 100 pounds. Yes, I am still obese, but I have lost 25 percent of my body mass.
Thirty months ago, after extensive testing, including CT scans and MRIs, I was diagnosed with degenerative spine disease (Please see Health Update: I’m F**ked):
Disc herniation (T7,T8)
Disc herniation (T6,T7)
Central spinal canal stenosis (T9/T10, T10/T11)
Foraminal stenosis (T5,T6)
Disc degeneration/spondylosis (T1/T2 through T10/T11)
Facet Arthropathy throughout the spine, particularly at T2/T3, T3/T4, T5/T6, and T7/T8 through the T12/L1 levels.
Hypertrophic arthropathy at T9/T10
Look at a picture of the human spine, and using the joint numbers above, you will see that I have widespread damage to my spine and neck. A recent visit with a neurosurgeon left me with a diagnosis that said my spine damage could not be fixed surgically. I also have osteoarthritis throughout the joints of my body.
None of the aforementioned diseases is curable. My primary care doctor considers me to be one of his most challenging patients. There is little he can do for me except to lessen my pain and suffering. I know he’s frustrated and disappointed that he cannot do more for me.
No change of diet will “fix” any of these serious health problems. Shari suggested that I follow the carnivore (only meat, eggs, dairy) or lion (only beef) diet, which are nothing more than extreme versions of the Atkins diet. Of course, with my digestive problems, a meat-laden diet would kill me. According to Shari, if I follow her unsolicited medical advice, it will help ALL my health problems. What’s next, Reiki, homeopathy, or candida elimination? Changing my diet will not do one damn thing for the aforementioned health problems.
I also have high blood pressure and diabetes — both of which are controlled with medication. What I find odd (and offensive) is that people assume that there is something wrong with my diet to start with. How could they possibly know this? Outside of Polly, no one but me knows what I eat. These “health experts” assume that because I am sick or overweight, there must be something amiss with my diet. I hate to break it to you, Sister Geraldine, but I eat a balanced diet with lots of vegetables. Like all of us, I can eat more than I should, but generally, there is nothing wrong with my diet.
I am almost sixty-seven years old. I have never, ever, not one time, offered someone unsolicited medical advice. If asked, I will certainly offer what knowledge I have, but I do not seek out strangers on the Internet and offer them my ill-informed, ignorant diagnosis of their health problems. Such behavior is rude and disrespectful. But, Bruce, they mean well! Maybe, but I don’t care if they do. If I have a sign on my front door that says NO SOLICITATION, I expect people to respect my wishes. And if they don’t? They have no right to get butthurt as Shari did when I pointed out her boorish behavior. If I want medical advice from you, I will ask for it. Until then, mind your own fucking business. (This, by the way, is me being polite. If you knew how much emails from the Sharis of the world piss me off, you might compliment me on my reserve. 🙂 )
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.
Several years ago, Godfrey Migwi, pastor of House of Hope Church in Nairobi, Kenya, and a clinical psychologist, addressed the temptations pastors face from “skimpily dressed” women. Migwi stated:
At times we’re tempted by skimpily dressed women who come to church to make advances on us in the name of counselling. We are human beings and have feelings.
Migwi is admitting that pastors are human; that they can be “tempted” just like anyone else. Pastors aren’t immune from sexual want and desire. As if we needed him to tell us this, right? Those of us who spent years in Christian/Evangelical churches know that pastors, deacons, evangelists, missionaries, worship leaders, youth directors, and Sunday school teachers can, and do, not only commit sex crimes, but also engage in consensual sexual relations with congregants. It is also true, that there are women (and men) who develop sexual feelings for their pastors, and, at times, act on those feelings. I had several occasions over the course of twenty-five years in the ministry where it became crystal clear to me that a female congregant had an interest in me beyond my Bible knowledge. Counselors, doctors, and others who have close intimate relationships with people face similar problems.
It is also true that pastors can develop sexual feelings for one or more congregants. (Please see Is Clergy Sexual Infidelity Rare? and Stop with the “Few Bad Apples” Rationalization When Excusing Clergy Misconduct.) To admit this is stating the obvious: pastors and other church leaders are normal human beings, subject to the same wants, needs, and desires as their congregants. The difference, however, is that pastors have a moral and ethical obligation — let alone a commitment to their spouses — to refrain from acting on their desire to be sexually intimate with congregants. Migwi, as is common for Evangelicals to do, blames women for pastors being sexually tempted. If women would only dress “properly,” men of God wouldn’t be tempted to fuck congregants. We have heard this before, right? This is nothing more than an attempt on the part of clergy to evade personal responsibility for their sexuality. Pastors preach personal responsibility and accountability, yet when it comes to their own moral weaknesses and failures, they blame others.
Jeff Maples, of DISNTR fame, has a completely different take on this issue. Here’s what Maples had to say about Pastor Migwi’s statement about “skimpily dressed” women:
Of course, sexual immorality is rampant in Pentecostalism and the denomination is where the majority of clergy who fall to sexual immorality end up when they are “restored” to ministry.
It’s difficult to discern whether what this pastor says is actually true or not — in Africa, the climate is different. Perhaps, in Africa, pastors who preach the Word of God, stand on the authority of Scripture, and are devoted to making converts and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are typically sought out to be fawned over by underdressed women and seduced into one night stands.
Perhaps.
But, perhaps, these pastors — particularly the ones who preach the false Pentecostal Word of Faith gospel and lead people into the idolatry of money — are actually tempted because they are, well, largely false converts.
First, Maples states, “sexual immorality is rampant in Pentecostalism and the denomination is where the majority of clergy who fall to sexual immorality end up when they are “restored to ministry.” Maples would have readers believe that clergy sexual misconduct is a big problem in Pentecostal/Charismatic churches, and exposed sinning pastors usually are later “restored” to the ministry. Maples is largely right. However, he seems to be oblivious to the fact that his own corner of the Evangelical tent has the same problem; that clergy sexual misconduct is common wherever people gather to worship the Christian God. As the Black Collar Crimes series makes clear, Evangelical pastors can be and are sexual predators. Imagine if I started a series that focused on Evangelical pastors and their consensual affairs and sexual dalliances. Why, I wouldn’t have time to write about anything else. (Is Clergy Sexual Infidelity Rare?)
Second, Maples does what Christian Fundamentalists do when trying to distance themselves from “sinning” brethren: he says they aren’t True Christians®. Maples says, “perhaps, these pastors . . . are actually tempted because they are, well, largely false converts.” Migwi and his fellow Pentecostals/Charismatics are Evangelical theologically. Yes, lots of crazy shit goes on in Pentecostal/Charismatic churches. But the same can be said for Evangelical churches in general. What’s “crazy” is in the eye of the beholder.
If the sexual temptation Migwi speaks of is, as Maples says, due to the tempted pastors not being True Christians®, can we not then conclude that Maples is saying, that True Christian® pastors are not sexually tempted, nor do they commit sexual “sins”? Maples, and others of his ilk, believe Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible are talismans of sorts that ward off Jezebels who want to bed “godly” pastors. Jesus is a chastity belt for pastors, or so Maples would have us believe anyway. However, as anyone who is paying attention to what goes on in Evangelical circles knows, sexual scandal is not uncommon among God’s chosen ones. Evangelical salvation does not inoculate pastors from sexual desire and temptation. I just wish that Evangelicals would admit that they have the same wants, needs, and desires as the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world; that pastors can and do have sexual affairs. Wouldn’t it be refreshing for a “sinning” pastor to admit that he desired a woman who was not his wife, pursued her, and bedded her for no other reason than because he wanted to? Stop with all the excuses and misdirections, and just admit your humanity, fallibility, and frailty, oh “men of God.” Time to climb off your high horse and own your sexuality.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Key to Evangelical soteriology is the belief that all humans are inherently broken — evil, vile, sinful, enemies of God. The only way that people can gain salvation and inherit eternal life is to admit that they are broken and in need of fixing. It is through Jesus alone — the great fixer – that sinners can be saved. Older readers might remember the days when every community had a one-stop fix-it shop. GE toaster stop working? Black and Decker drill power switch broken? Motorola radio tuner on the fritz? Take it to the local shop, and Bob will make it as good as new. So it is with Jesus. Is your life broken? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. The Bible SAYS your life is broken, end of discussion. You might be the kindest, most loving person in the world, you are still broken. According to Evangelicals, deep in your black heart of hearts lies sin and corruption. You might not be a drug addict, alcoholic, prostitute, homosexual, adulterer, fornicator, or New York Yankees fan, but you are still a sinner who is headed for eternal hellfire and damnation unless you admit your brokenness and let Jesus “fix” you.
No person can become a Christian, according to Evangelicals, unless they come clean to God about their brokenness. None of us is without sin, so, as the old hillbilly Baptist preacher said, “You might as well cough it up and admit it.” Of course, God already knows you are broken. He created you that way. I know, I know, crazy stuff, but it is in the Bible, so it’s true! God knows every sin you will ever commit — past, present, and future. All Jesus wants from you is for you to grovel before him and admit your brokenness. Just admit that you are a worthless piece of shit who deserves eternal torture in the Lake of Fire, and then, and only then, is it possible for Jesus, the Fix-it Man®, to apply the super glue of eternal salvation to your life.
And here’s the thing, even after Jesus fixes you and you become a full-fledged member of the One True Faith®, you are still broken. Bruce, I thought Jesus was the divine fix-it man? In what can only be described as a first-rate con job, Jesus doesn’t fix all of you when he repairs you. Sure, you have been regenerated and redeemed, but you still have what Evangelicals call a “sin nature.” Thought your sin nature would go away when Jesus wonderfully, gloriously saved you and washed you from head to toe in his Precious Moments® blood? Think again. In fact, as a newly minted Christian, you will find that the very same “sins” you struggled with before you became a Christian are still very much alive. That’s why Evangelicals “sin” just as often and to the same degree as the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. One need only read the posts in the Black Collar Crime Series, to see how true this is. The very “men of God” who stand in front of church congregations on Sundays preaching against sin, often commit the very same sins during the week. I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. I preached thousands of sermons during that time. Before every sermon, I would silently pray, confessing my sins to Jesus, and asking him to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. That way, my “heart” was always right with God as I preached. Or so I told myself, anyway. How could I call out sins, name names, and step on toes if my own sin slate hadn’t been wiped clean? I preached three and four times a week, and without fail I prayed to Jesus, asking him to zero out my sin account. The late Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist John R. Rice believed in the frequent confession of sin, thereby, in his words, “keeping your sin list short.” I am not sure how “short” my sin list was compared to Rice’s, but I did what I could to keep my sinning down to what would fit on a yellow 8.5″x14″ legal pad. 🙂
Evangelicals, then, go through life broken, always in need of fixing. Not only that, but many Evangelicals practice a form of self-flagellation called “brokenness.” Spiritually aware Evangelicals beg God and plead with him to “break” them. Taught to see sin within every crevice of their mind and life, Evangelicals ask God to rip away their pride and self-worth, exposing their sinful behavior. The goal is to reduce believers to tears; to reduce them to piles of ashes; to leave them prostrate before the thrice Holy God. You see, according to Evangelicals, God doesn’t want or need you or anything you can do. His goal is to break you down and turn you into a needy, helpless child. It is only then that God can use you. Christians are mere vessels through which God, through the power and work of the Holy Spirit, does whatever he wants. Sounds like a SYFY show, does it not? Aliens inhabit human corpses and use them to take over the world.
According to the Bible, followers of Jesus are his slaves. In a 2007 sermon titled, Slaves for Christ, Evangelical megachurch pastor John MacArthur said:
Being a slave of Christ may be the best way to define a Christian. We are, as believers, slaves of Christ. You would never suspect that, however, from the language of Christianity. In contemporary Christianity, the language is anything but slave language. It is about freedom. It is about liberation. It is about health, wealth, prosperity, finding your own fulfillment, fulfilling your own dream, finding your own purpose. We often hear that God loves you unconditionally and wants you to be all you want to be. He wants to fulfill every ambition, every desire, every hope, every dream.
….
Well, if you read the New Testament in its original text, you would come away stunned, really, by how different the original text is from any English version that you’ve ever read, whether King James, New King James, New American Standard, ESV, NIV and you can name all the rest. All of them, virtually, have found a way to mask something that is an absolutely critical element of truth. In fact, the word “slave” appears in the New Testament 130 times in the original text. You will find it once in the King James, once the Greek word “slave” is translated slave. You will find it translated “slave” a few other times in other texts, like the New King James text and even the New American Standard text. And it will be translated “slave” when, one, it refers to actual slavery, or two, it refers to some kind of bondage to an inanimate reality.
But whenever it is personalized, the translators seem unwilling to translate it “slave.” For example, in Matthew 6:24 Jesus said this, “No man can be a slave to two masters.” What does your Bible say? “No man can serve two masters.” The favorite word for slave is servant, favorite English word. Very often bondservant is used, which tends to move in the right direction but is not exactly slave. You have a word used 130 times in the New Testament. You have other uses of that word with a preposition, sundoulos, which means fellow slaves, used about a dozen times. You have the verb form used another approximately a dozen times. So you have at least 150-plus usages of just three of the words and there are others in the group with the root doul, D-O-U-L in English for doulos.
There are about twenty established English translations of the New Testament, about twenty. Only one of them, only one of them always translates doulos slave, only one and it is a translation of the New Testament written by a formidable scholar in New Testament Greek who studied the original papyri, and things like that, by the name of E.J. Goodspeed. Have you ever heard of Goodspeed translation? Goodspeed is a well-known scholar. For fifteen years he was a pioneering professor of New Testament Greek at the University of Chicago. The Goodspeed translation always translates doulos as slave. And when you read it, it gives you an entire different sense of our relationship to Christ. You do have a personal relationship to Jesus Christ, you are His slave. That’s putting it as simply as I can put it.
There are six words, at least, for servant, doulos is not one of them. There is diakonos from which we get deacon; oiketēs related to oikos, house, a house servant; Pais, having to do with one who serves by instructing the young; hupēretēs, a low-level, third level, under servant, literally an under-rower, the third level on a galley slave, someone who pulled an oar down at the bottom of a great ship; leitourgos, another kind of service usually associated with religion; paidiskē and maybe misthios that can be translated minister.
There are plenty of words for servant. There’s only one word for slave, doulos and sundoulos. Yet, in the history of the evangelical translation of the Greek into the English, all the translators consistently have avoided the use of the word. Now you might suggest that, therefore, it’s disputed, that maybe doulos isn’t quite as clearly slave. But that’s not the case. But they avoid it nonetheless. Doulos is not at all an ambiguous term. They are trying to avoid something. It’s not about a lack of linguistic information, it might well be a lack of courage, conviction.
As I said, they will use slave if it literally refers to a slave, a physical slave. Or if it refers to bondage to an inanimate object, like being a slave of sin, or a slave of righteousness. But when it comes to being a personal relationship with God or Christ, they back away from the word slave inevitably and use some form of the word servant. This is a matter of preference in all cases to accommodate. And we ask; to accommodate what? Well I suppose to accommodate the stigmas attached to slavery.
You would understand that. When you give somebody the gospel, you are saying to them, “I would like to invite you to become a slave of Jesus Christ. I would like to invite you to give up your independence, give up your freedom, submit yourself to an alien will, abandon all your rights, be owned by, controlled by the Lord.” That’s really the gospel. We’re asking people to become slaves. I don’t hear a lot of that slave talk today, do you? We have, by playing fast and loose with the word doulos, managed to obscure this precise significance and substantial foundation for understanding biblical theology.
Think, for a moment, about all I have written in this post; how I’ve described how Jesus views humans before and after they become Christians. If the only worth someone has comes from Jesus, why would anyone want to become a Christian? The only reason I can think of is the fear of Hell. We humans wonder what, if anything, awaits us after death. Christianity seizes on this question and turns it into a way to control people, keep church coffers filled, and clerics employed. Evangelical preachers emphatically say — without knowledge — that there is a Heaven and a Hell, that all of us have eternal souls, and we will spend eternity in one place or the other. Want to spend eternity with Jesus, his angels, your dead loved ones, and Donald Trump? You have to bow before the invisible Jesus and admit you are a wretched, broken sinner. Refusing to do so will land you in Hell with the Devil, his angels, and Barack Obama. And after tapping out MMA-style to Jesus, the greatest fighter of all-time, you then must be willing to serve as his slave until you die. And here’s the kicker: even after you die and go to Heaven, you will still spend your time in worshipful servitude to God. That’s right, it was never about you in this life, nor will it be about you in the life to come. It’s all about J-e-s-u-s. Hard not to call Jesus a narcissist, isn’t it? What’s with needing people to continually fawn over you and praise your awesomeness? You’d think that having millions of angels singing your praises day and night would be enough.
I am sure this post will cause more than a few Evangelical zealots to reach for their Preparation H. How dare I paint Jesus/salvation/Christianity in such a negative light! Just remember, John MacArthur, a preacher many people believe is the best Bible expositor of our time, said that to be a Christian is to be a slave. Ask yourself, is that the kind of life you really want; one devoted day and night to slavish service of a thirty-three-year-old single man? No thanks.
Let me conclude this post with the lyrics and a video of the gospel song, Fix Me, Jesus:
Fix me Jesus, fix me Oh fix me, oh fix me, oh fix me Fix me Jesus, fix me Fix me for my home on high Fix me Jesus, fix me Fix me for the by and by Fix me Jesus, fix me Fix me for my starry crown Fix me Jesus, fix me Fix me for a higher ground Fix me Jesus, fix me Oh fix me, oh fix me, oh fix me Fix me Jesus, fix me Fix me Jesus, fix me (Fix me Jesus) Oh fix me
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Last October, Corey White, a youth pastor at Redeemer Midland in Midland Texas, was arrested on child pornography charges.
Thirty-three-year-old Corey White, who according to members of the congregation was a youth minister at Redeemer Midland, has been charged with access with intent to view child pornographic materials.
According to court documents, the charges were stemmed from an investigation in Nassau County. New York. The Nassau County Police Department initiated an investigation after receiving 15 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) cybertips from 2018 to the present.
These tips involved the upload of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) videos and images via “Skype” from an IP address in Seaford, New York.
A search warrant was executed which resulted in the seizing of this material from electronic devices. Upon further investigation, a New York man had been communicating with numerous adults and minors using the video chat site “Omegle”. During these interactions, the New Yorker used a screen sharing program to transmit the CSAM videos in real time to participants, followed by screen recording the interactions.
In most cases, participants were observed engaging in various sexual acts while watching the CSAM, while sometimes engaging in lewd acts by the request of the New Yorker.
On March 16, 2022, a screen recording showed the New Yorker sharing various videos with an adult male in his early to mid-thirties. The man was seen masturbating on screen while the video is playing.
This male was identified as Corey White, and during the recording requests CSAM involving a mother and son. The New Yorker accommodates this request, to which White said he enjoyed.
Based on this, a Special Agent with Homeland Security Investigation obtained a search warrant for White’s electronic devices at his Midland home.
On Oct. 23, White was detained and transported to MPD for questioning. He told detectives he used Omegle for “sexual things” and to find people willing to show their genitalia. White said he had an interest in incestuous porn involving mothers having sexual contact with their sons.
Later, White told officers that he rarely sought out CSAM, however, said while browsing Omegle he would flip to another user who was showing it or offering to show it which he would accept. He said he wasn’t seeking it out, but it excited him. Having a ‘fetish’ for incest pom, White said he preferred when the ‘real thing’ was offered, claiming mainstream porn merely involved ‘actors’.
When asked when he most recently viewed this material, White said it was when his wife went on a work trip but didn’t know how long ago this was. Law enforcement confirmed this was between May 8 and May 11, 2023 in Midland, which White further estimated was the timeframe.
If convicted, White faces up to ten years in prison, up to life of supervised release, a $250,000 maximum fine and a $100 special assessment.
Last week, White pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly accessing images of child pornography with visual depictions of a minor.
A former Midland youth pastor pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of knowingly accessing images of child pornography with visual depictions of a minor.
Our sister station, NewsWest 9, had a reporter in the courtroom Wednesday afternoon for a status conference/re-arraignment of 33-year-old Corey White.
….
In October 2023, NewsWest 9 reported the charges stemmed from an investigation in Nassau County. New York. The Nassau County Police Department initiated an investigation after receiving 15 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) cybertips from 2018-2023.
The tips involved uploading child sexual abuse material (CSAM) videos and images via Skype from an IP address in Seaford, New York.
After an extensive investigation and seizure of electronic devices from his Midland home, White was indicted by a grand jury in November 2023 for sexual exploitation of children and possessing or accessing child pornography with visual depiction of an actual minor.
White is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge David Counts April 4 and faces up to 10 years in prison, as well as supervised release for life and up to a $250,000 fine.
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.
