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Category: Evangelicalism

Bruce, Are Your Wife and Children Atheists?

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gerencser children 2023

Republished. Edited, corrected, and expanded.

Bob asks:

I had been wondering about this question and since you touched on it in this blog I wanted to ask, and it is about your wife’s stand on Christianity in general and her standing today for herself.

You mention that she walked away from church when you did. So my questions are:

Has she turned towards atheism as well? If she did, was it at the same time as you or later on?

If she did turn away from Christianity, how much of an influence were you with her denying her faith in Christ?

If she has become an atheist, doesn’t it seem odd that two completely committed Christians in the same family like this would just walk away and become atheists? I can see one, but I think the odds of two would be very high. I’m thinking this only because of the depth of commitments people make to their Christian faith. Walk away from church? Yes. But both turn to atheism?

These questions are only being asked if she has become an atheist.

Also, where do your kids stand with Christianity at this point?

Typically, I don’t answer questions about what my partner and children believe about God/Jesus/Christianity/Atheism. This blog is simply one man with a story to tell — and that’s me. Where the lives of my family intersect with telling my story, I am comfortable writing about them. However, when it comes to what they specifically believe and how they live out those beliefs, I leave it to Polly and our children to tell their own stories. (The same applies to our older grandchildren.) And the same goes for me too when they are asked about or confronted over something I have said or written. My family has been accosted at work, college, and while shopping by Christian zealots demanding that they answer for something I have written on this blog or for the local newspaper. Typically, my family tells such people that they don’t answer for me, and the best way to get their questions answered is to contact me directly.

That said, I would like to answer Bob’s questions briefly.

Yes, Polly and I walked away from Christianity together. This should come as no surprise since Polly and I have been doing virtually everything together for the past forty-eight years. We not only love one another, we also really like each other, 98.9 percent of the time, anyway (inside joke).

We have been married for more than forty-six years. I can count on two hands the days we have been apart. While each of us has hobbies and the like that the other isn’t interested in, for the most part, we have shared interests. Polly is my best friend. Why would I want to spend time with anyone else? Our marriage certainly isn’t perfect. Stick around for a fight and you’ll think we really don’t like each other. 🙂 However, disagreements quickly come and go, and then we sit down, eat dinner, drink a glass of wine, and watch whatever TV show is our favorite. The Bible says to not let the sun go down on your wrath, and we have practiced this maxim for almost five decades.

Thus, when we began to seriously question the central claims of Christianity, we spent countless hours talking about our beliefs and the Bible. I would read passages from books and we would discuss what I had read. While I certainly read a lot more books than Polly did — which has, until recent years, always been the case — she did a good bit of reading herself.

Our discussions were honest, open, and forthright. No demands were made of the other. Neither of us, at first, knew exactly where we were headed. We knew we were done with organized Christianity, but the future remained volatile and uncertain.

A week or so after we left the Ney United Methodist Church, we gathered our children together to talk with them about where we were in life. Remember, our six children were raised in a devout Evangelical Christian home. Their father and mother had been in the ministry their entire lives. Their father was the only pastor they had ever known. When we told our children that we were leaving Christianity, they were aghast over what that meant. I had been the family patriarch. Our children never had the freedom to decide whether or not to go to church. It was expected. Now they were being told that there were no expectations; that they were free to go to church, not go to church, worship God, not worship God, etc. In other words, I cut my children loose from their ties to their patriarchal father (though our three oldest sons had already begun to move away from the control I had over their lives).

I must admit that those first few months after this meeting were difficult, as our children tried to imagine life for their parents post-Jesus. Seventeen years later, everyone has gone their own way spiritually, and there’s little contention over matters of religion or lack thereof.

In early 2009, I sent out the widely circulated letter, Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners,

I have come to a place in life where I can no longer put off writing this letter. I have dreaded this day because I know what is likely to follow after certain people receive it. I have decided I can’t control how others will react to this letter, so it is far more important to clear the air and make sure everyone knows the facts about Bruce Gerencser.

I won’t bore you with a long, drawn out history of my life. I am sure each of you has an opinion about how I have lived my life and the decisions I have made. I also have an opinion about how I have lived my life and decisions I made. I am my own worst critic.

Religion, in particular Baptist Evangelical and Fundamentalist religion, has been the essence of my life, from my youth up. My being is so intertwined with religion that the two are quite inseparable. My life has been shaped and molded by religion and religion touches virtually every fiber of my being.

I spent most of my adult life pastoring churches, preaching, and being involved in religious work to some degree or another. I pastored thousands of people over the years, preached thousands of sermons, and participated in, and led, thousands of worship services.

To say that the church was my life would be an understatement.  As I have come to see, the Church was actually my mistress, and my adulterous affair with her was at the expense of my wife, children, and my own self-worth.

Today, I am publicly announcing that the affair is over. My wife and children have known this for a long time, but now everyone will know.

The church robbed me of so much of my life and I have no intention of allowing her to have one more moment of my time. Life is too short. I am dying. We all are. I don’t want to waste what is left of my life chasing after things I now see to be vain and empty.

I have always been known as a reader, a student of the Bible. I have read thousands of books in my lifetime and the knowledge gained from my reading and studies have led me to some conclusions about religion, particularly the Fundamentalist, Evangelical religion that played such a prominent part in my life.

I can no longer wholeheartedly embrace the doctrines of the Evangelical, Fundamentalist faith. Particularly, I do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture nor do I accept as fact the common Evangelical belief of the inspiration of Scripture.

Coming to this conclusion has forced me to reevaluate many of the doctrines I have held as true over these many years. I have concluded that I have been misinformed, poorly taught, and sometimes lied to. I can no longer accept as true many of the doctrines I once believed.

I point the finger of blame at no one. I sincerely believed and taught the things that I did and many of the men who taught me were honorable teachers. I don’t blame those who have influenced me over the years, nor do I blame the authors of the many books I have read. Simply, it is what it is.

I have no time to invest in the blame game. I am where I am today for any number of reasons and I must embrace where I am and move forward.

In moving forward, I have stopped attending church. I have not attended a church service since November of 2008. I have no interest of desire in attending any church on a regular basis. This does not mean I will never attend a church service again, but it does mean, for NOW, I have no intention of attending church services.

I pastored for the last time in 2003. Almost six years have passed by. I have no intentions of ever pastoring again. When people ask me about this I tell them I am retired. With the health problems that I have it is quite easy to make an excuse for not pastoring, but the fact is I don’t want to pastor.

People continue to ask me “what do you believe?” Rather than inquiring about how my life is, the quality of that life, etc., they reduce my life to what I believe. Life becomes nothing more than a set of religious constructs. A good life becomes believing the right things.

I can tell you this…I believe God is…and that is the sum of my confession of faith.

A precursor to my religious views changing was a seismic shift in my political views. My political views were so entangled with Fundamentalist beliefs that when my political views began to shift, my Fundamentalist beliefs began to unravel.

I can better describe my political and social views than I can my religious ones. I am a committed progressive, liberal Democrat, with the emphasis being on the progressive and liberal. My evolving views on women, abortion, homosexuality, war, socialism, social justice, and the environment have led me to the progressive, liberal viewpoint.

I know some of you are sure to ask, what does your wife think of all of this? Quite surprisingly, she is in agreement with me on many of these things. Not all of them, but close enough that I can still see her standing here. Polly is no theologian, She is not trained in theology as I am. She loves to read fiction. I was able to get her to read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and she found the book to be quite an eye opener.

Polly is free to be whomever and whatever she wishes. If she wants to start attending the local Fundamentalist Baptist church she is free to do so, and even has my blessing. For now, she doesn’t.  She may never believe as I believe, but in my new way of thinking that is OK. I really don’t care what others think. Are you happy? Are you at peace? Are you living a good, productive life? Do you enjoy life? Yes, to these questions is good enough for me.

I have six children, three of whom are out on their own. For many years I was the spiritual patriarch of the family. Everyone looked to me for the answers. I feel somewhat burdened over my children. I feel as if I have left them out on their own with no protection. But, I know they have good minds and can think and reason for themselves. Whatever they decide about God, religion, politics, or American League baseball is fine with me.

All I ask of my wife and children is that they allow me the freedom to be myself, that they allow me to journey on in peace and love. Of course, I still love a rousing discussion about religion, the Bible, politics, etc. I want my family to know that they can talk to me about these things, and anything else for that matter, any time they wish.

Opinions are welcome. Debate is good. All done? Let’s go to the tavern and have a round on me. Life is about the journey, and I want my wife and children to be a part of my journey and I want to be a part of theirs.

One of the reasons for writing this letter is to put an end to the rumors and gossip about me. Did you know Bruce is/or is not_____________? Did you know Bruce believes____________? Did you know Bruce is a universalist, agnostic, atheist, liberal ___________?

For you who have been friends or former parishioners I apologize to you if my change has unsettled you, or has caused you to question your own faith. That was never my intent.

The question is, what now?

Family and friends are not sure what to do with me.

I am still Bruce. I am still married. I am still your father, father in-law, grandfather, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, and son-in-law. I would expect you to love me as I am and treat me with respect.

Here is what I don’t want from you:

Attempts to show me the error of my way. Fact is, I have studied the Bible and read far more books than many of you. What do you really think you are going to show me that will be so powerful and unknown that it will cause me to return to the religion and politics of my past?

Constant reminders that you are praying for me. Please don’t think of me as unkind, but I don’t care that you are praying for me. I find no comfort, solace, or strength from your prayers. Be my friend if you can, pray if you must, but leave the prayers in the closet. As long as God gets your prayer message, that will be sufficient.

Please don’t send me books, tracts, or magazines. You are wasting your time and money.

Invitations to attend your Church. The answer is NO. Please don’t ask. I used to attend Church for the sake of family, but no longer. It is hypocritical for me to perform a religious act of worship just for the sake of family. I know how to find a Church if I am so inclined, after all I have visited more than 125 churches since 2003.

Offers of a church to pastor. It is not the lack of a church to pastor that has led me to where I am. If I would lie about what I believe, I could be pastoring again in a matter of weeks. I am not interested in ever pastoring a church again.

Threats about judgment and Hell. I don’t believe in either, so your threats have no impact on me .

Phone calls. If you are my friend you know I don’t like talking on the phone. I have no interest in having a phone discussion about my religious or political views.

Here is what I do want from you:

I want you to unconditionally love me where I am and how I am.

That’s it.

Now I realize some (many) of you won’t be able to do that. My friendship, my familial relationship with you is cemented with the glue of Evangelical orthodoxy. Remove the Bible, God, and fidelity to a certain set of beliefs and there is no basis for a continued relationship.

I understand that. I want you to know I have appreciated and enjoyed our friendship over the years. I understand that you can not be my friend any more. I even understand you may have to publicly denounce me and warn others to stay away from me for fear of me contaminating them with my heresy. Do what you must. We had some wonderful times together and I will always remember those good times.

You are free from me if that is your wish.

I shall continue to journey on. I can’t stop. I must not stop.

Thank you for reading my letter.

Bruce

This letter, of course, caused a firestorm of epic proportions, one that is smoldering to this day. My life and career went up in smoke, with countless Evangelical friends, family members, and colleagues in the ministry, standing on the sidelines cheering as I burned. Polly’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) parents have both died since I first wrote this post, so the tensions with them no longer exist. What does remain is sadness over being unable to reconcile with them before they died. We were willing, but their Fundamentalist beliefs kept them from doing so. In the end, Jesus won.

As you can tell from the letter, I still believed in some sort of deity — a deistic God, perhaps? However, by the end of 2009, I was calling myself an atheist. Polly, on the other hand, embraced agnosticism. Her reasons for leaving Christianity are very different from mine, but that story is hers to tell.

I read in Bob’s question an accusation of sorts, one I have heard countless times: that Polly doesn’t think for herself; that she is an unbeliever today because I am. Out of all the things people have said about us over the past seventeen years, this by far is the most offensive (and perhaps Bob didn’t mean to be offensive, so I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt). For the record, Polly is a college-educated woman. She graduated second in her high school class. To suggest that she is a lemming following in my footsteps is absurd. Granted, Polly is quiet and reserved, and I am not. This fact might lead people to false conclusions. Here’s what I know: Polly knows exactly why she no longer believes in the Christian God. Her reasons for deconverting are somewhat different from mine, but she is far more hostile towards organized religion than I am. Again, perhaps she will share why this is so someday.

We have six children and sixteen grandchildren. One son attends the Catholic church with his family, and the rest of our children are largely indifferent towards religion. I suspect the NONE label best describes them. While none of our children has publicly said they are agnostics or atheists, they are certainly anti-Evangelical and generally adverse to the machinations of American Christianity. Politically, most of our children are progressives and liberals, with a smidge of conservatism and libertarianism stirred in. This is as specific as I can be without trampling on their right to control their own storyline. I respect the boundaries we have set, and if one of them ever decides to tell their story, I hope they will let me publish it here.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: A Husband Beating His Wife Is Not Grounds For Divorce

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Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen believes a husband beating his wife is NOT grounds for divorce; that a wife must submit to her husband even if he beats her. It should be noted that Thiessen has been accused of spousal abuse in his previous marriage.

There is nothing to unpack [from the quote below]. Abuse is not the criteria for divorce. Are you greater than Jesus??

Dr. David Tee

Should Women Be Submissive to Their Husbands? By Dr. David Tee

Male leadership has been God-approved from the beginning. . . The NT gave the leadership role of the church to men, not women.

Throughout the Bible, we see this consistency and order from God. Why would he change this way of leadership for marriage and confuse everyone? Even if abuse is a part of the marriage, God does not change the leadership structure.

As Peter wrote-  “In the same way, you wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives, ( 1 Peter 3:1)

The Bible does not teach nor give permission for husbands or men to be abusive towards wives and other women. When men do that they are sinning and need to get right with God. But notice Peter’s words. They fall in line with Jesus’ words on divorce. Abuse is not grounds for divorce.

Nor is abuse grounds or permission for women to disobey God’s instructions given through the apostles. Wives are to remain true to God’s word, following it correctly so that Jesus can work in their husbands.

Those pastors and other well-meaning Christians who tell wives they can leave their husbands and divorce them in these situations are leading more women to sin and disobey Jesus.

It is difficult to leave women in those situations but it must be done.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: There’s No Such Thing as Millions of Years

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According to Discover magazine, “Charles Darwin, the naturalist best known for his theories of natural selection, described evolution “as ‘descent with modification.’” That means humans descended from common (and now extinct) ape ancestors that lived millions of years ago, a process also referred to as “common descent.” While we share our ancestry with these animals, along the way, over millions of years, we all changed. “[We] each adapted to our own environments or specific circumstances or niches,” says Cofran. It’s believed that this human divergence from the chimpanzee lineage of apes happened between 9.3 and 6.5 million years ago.”

There are so many errors and lies in that paragraph! [So says a man with a Bible College education] If the Bible is a correct record of history – and it most certainly IS – then there is no such thing as millions of years.  There is no such thing as ‘descent with modification’ because God made each species unique, and reproduction was always “after his kind.”

….

Now, we have an omniscient God.  Darwin’s beliefs didn’t surprise God.  So, why would God go ahead and create an animal with such similarities to man, knowing that man was going to create such a blasphemous, heretical doctrine that would lead millions astray through the years?

….

Man was presented with a choice:  Worship and serve God or worship and serve His creation.  Believe what the Bible says or believe the foolish inventions and imaginations of man.  We learn a lot about those who will follow the pseudo-science.  God says that they are fools with their foolish hearts darkened.  They are not wise.  They are fools.  And God gave them up because of this.

— John MacFarlane, Pastor of First Baptist Church, Bryan, Ohio, Let’s Go Ape, December 14, 2024

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

What Revelation 22:18-19 Really Says

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For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)

Most Evangelicals believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. The Bible is a supernatural book written by a supernatural God; without error and incapable of being wrong. While Evangelicals have a variety of ways to explain these beliefs, to the person they believe the Bible is the very words of God. God used human instrumentality to write the sixty-six books of the Bible, but the words are exactly what he wanted written down. According to Evangelicals, the Bible is different from other books. It is the book above all books, in that its supernatural author, God, revealed to humankind everything pertaining to life and godliness. The Bible covers everything from the creation of the universe and the first humans, Adam and Eve, to the history of the Jewish people. We learn from the Bible that humans are sinners needing redemption, and 2,000 years ago, God took on human flesh in the personage of Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life, and then provided himself as a blood sacrifice for sin. Jesus was resurrected from the dead three days later, victorious over death and the grave. Jesus ascended to Heaven forty days later and hasn’t been seen since. According to Evangelical theology, Jesus promised that after he ascended to Heaven he would send his followers the comforter, the Holy Spirit — the third person in the triune Godhead. The Holy Spirit lives inside every believer, teaching, guiding, and directing them, convicting Christians of sin, and revealing exactly what the Bible says and means.

Most Evangelicals are woefully ignorant about how the Bible came into being, who its human authors were, and how it came to have sixty-six books. The Bible is littered with mistakes, contradictions, and errors, yet Evangelicals believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Cognitive dissonance keeps Evangelicals from knowing and understanding the history and nature of the Bible they believe is the very words of God. Take Revelation 22:18-19. Many Evangelicals believe these verses teach that it is a mortal sin to add to or take away words from the Bible. Little do they know, that in its 4,000-year history, numerous verses and words have been added to and taken away from the Bible. There’s no such thing as a singular inerrant, infallible Bible. Yet, Evangelical preachers will preach sermons from Revelation 22:18-19, warning congregants of the penalty for tampering with the Word of God.

When the words of Revelation 22:18-19 were written, there wasn’t a Bible per se. The New Testament would not be collated for another 200-300 years, and the book of Revelation was not considered canonical by some early church fathers. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther said that the book of Revelation was “neither apostolic nor prophetic.”

A clear reading of Revelation 22:18-19 shows that the text is not talking about the Bible as a whole. How could it since the Bible as we know it today didn’t exist when Revelation was written? At best, the “words of the prophecy of this book” refer to Revelation as a whole or prophetic parts of the book. The judgments warned of in this passage of Scripture refer to adding to or taking away from the book of Revelation.

Revelation is one of the most interpreted and explained books in the Bible. You would think if God wrote the book of Revelation, Evangelicals would be of one mind on what it says, but that’s not the case. Pretribulational. Midtribulational. Posttribulational. Prewrath. Preterism. Premillennial. Postmillennial. Amillennial. The events recorded in Revelation are prophetic and have not yet happened. The events recorded in Revelation are not prophetic and have already happened. Added to these broad theological positions are countless interpretations of what the various events in Revelation mean and who the entities mentioned are. In other words, virtually every Evangelical preacher adds to or takes away from the book of Revelation. And those who do this will face God’s judgment and end up in the Lake of Fire. Or so says the Bible, anyway.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Assistant Pastor Arturo Alarcon Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

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Arturo Alarcon

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.

Arturo Alarcon, an assistant pastor at 121 Community Church in Grapevine, Texas, stands accused of child porn possession. Law enforcement found the pornography while investigating a report of invasive visual recording.

Fox-4 reports:

A Grapevine pastor, volunteer, and substitute teacher is facing charges after allegedly being caught with hidden cameras and child pornography.

Grapevine police say 38-year-old Arturo Alarcon, who was an associate pastor at 121 Community Church, set up spy cameras inside a trailer neighboring mobile home park that the church uses as a temporary place to stay for visiting families.

“The person who planted those cameras knew what they were, and they were intentionally put there,” said Grapevine Police Spokesperson Amanda McNew. “He was the pastor who would bring families into that home. He had the codes to get into it.”

A missionary couple was staying in the home and discovered the cameras. 

According to an arrest warrant, the man noticed a clicking noise from an alarm clock and discovered it took a memory card. He then noticed the camera. The church contacted police soon after.

“Through that investigation, detectives uncovered a downloaded photo of child pornography,” McNew said.

The child porn found on Alarcon’s phone was unrelated to the spy cameras, according to an arrest warrant. It’s unclear if additional crimes are suspected, but police say there’s no evidence indicating so at this time.

“We’re going to keep looking, but we haven’t found anything else at all,” said McNew.

In a statement to FOX 4, 121 Community Church says it placed Alarcon on leave after it made its report to police. He was later fired when he was arrested.

“The Grapevine Police Department has stated that the investigation is ongoing and there is no evidence of additional crimes. We have been in contact with the Grapevine Police Department and continue to cooperate with the investigation,” the church said. “We currently have no indication from law enforcement or any other source that local children were involved with the alleged conduct.”

No one on Friday answered the door at Alarcon’s trailer just two streets away from the trailer where he allegedly installed spy cameras. 

Alarcon was known around the neighborhood for his work with the nearby church and with the Grapevine Community Outreach Center, an extension of the Grapevine Police Department.

Alarcon was also a substitute teacher within Grapevine-Colleyville ISD since March 2022.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Church IT Specialist Felix Sung Accused of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor

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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.

Felix Sung, an IT specialist at Church of the Good Shepherd in Durham, North Carolina, stands accused of 10 counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Good Shepherd is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).

WRAL reports:

A Durham church employee faces 10 counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor for incidents dating back to 2014.

According to a search warrant, on Oct. 31, officers with the Durham Police Department responded to the Church of the Good Shepherd, where the pastor reported numerous pornographic files of children were located on a computer managed by Felix Sung, a former IT specialist.

The pastor told officers Sung worked with the church for years, maintaining computers, the security camera system and the computer server from a locked office, according to the warrant.

According to the warrant, the pastor said Sung had a history of ongoing disagreements with office staff over administrative issues and resigned in late October, turning over his keys, church credit card and computer passwords.

On Oct. 30, new IT specialists began working at the church.

The new employees alerted the pastor to suspicious pornographic content on church computers, including “files labeled with names of female children who attended church” and “concerning photos” of girls, including one child’s face on “various nude female and male adult bodies,” the warrant states.

Some of the images were made from child pornography and others were computer-generated, the warrant states. 

According to church staff, Sung was the only person who had previously had access to the computer. The warrant states Sung was seen on security camera removing computers and hard drives on the day of his resignation.

Sung appeared in court for the charges on Nov. 13.  He was given a $250,000 bond and has since bonded out. His next court date is scheduled for Jan. 14, 2025.

WRAL News on Monday interviewed Norman Acker, a church elder and spokesperson.

Acker said the images were found on Oct. 30, and police were notified the following day.

“The police interviewed staff and looked at the photos, and the church was fully cooperative with police and turned over those photos to the police,” Acker said.

To be transparent, Acker said the congregation was immediately notified in a meeting following church services.

“We know that these kinds of allegations have happened in the past where churches have not been transparent and have tried to hide things, and we do not want to be in that category,” Acker said. “We want to be fully transparent.”

Acker said Sung did not work with the church youth group, either in a paid or volunteer position, but the warrant says “He was also involved with photography for the church and assisted with many programs within the church, including the youth ministry.”

The church offered to pay for professional counseling for people were affected and created a committee made up of a nurse, a mental health professional and church members — all female — to help in case hands-on abuse was reported.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Memo to Evangelical Missionaries: When in Rome, Do As the Romans Do

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American Evangelical missionaries believe God commands them to go to foreign countries to evangelize the lost; “lost” meaning anyone who is not an Evangelical Christian. Catholics? Lost. Hindus? Lost? Buddhists? Lost. Muslims? Lost. According to Wikipedia, there are about 600 million Evangelicals in the world. This means Evangelicals believe 8 billion people are lost and headed for Hell unless they repent of their sins and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Evangelicalism is comprised of hundreds of sects and countless non-denominational churches. Those within the Evangelical tent bicker and fight among themselves about who is and isn’t a True Evangelical®, so the actual number of Evangelicals is likely less depending on who is doing the counting. In the 1990s, I was the pastor of a Sovereign Grace Baptist church in San Antonio, Texas. Sovereign Grace churches are Evangelical and Calvinistic. Some members believed only Calvinists were saved; that Arminians were headed for Hell unless they repented of their heresy and embraced Calvinism. A tract floating around the church posited that the great Evangelical revivalist D.L. Moody was lost. Why? He wasn’t a Calvinist. Similar arguments take place in countless denominations and churches, judging Evangelicals with theology different from their own.

Many Evangelical churches are mission-minded, believing they have a duty to send missionaries to the ends of the Earth to evangelize sinners. An interesting observation is that many of the missionaries end up in countries where English is their first language. There are even Evangelical missionaries to the United States, the most religious nation in the world. Why? Remember, only Evangelicals are True Christians®. Think of all the lost Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, and liberal Christians there are in the United States. Lots of souls that need saving.

I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 years, pastoring Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), Sovereign Grace Baptist, Southern Baptist, Christian Union, and non-denominational churches. Every one of these churches financially supported foreign missionaries, and several of them sent out missionaries from their congregations. I planted five Evangelical churches, and several pastor friends treated me as a missionary, sending me monthly support while I was getting the new churches up and running. I had a heart for world missions. Countless missionaries visited the churches I pastored to present their work to congregants, asking for our prayers, and most importantly, our financial support. One church I pastored had a small one-room apartment called a prophet’s chamber. Missionaries would come and stay with us for several days so I could get to know them better. Unfortunately, some missionaries did not fare well when I paid closer attention to them. One man spent a week with us. He had no interest in helping me at the church. He spent his time with us driving to nearby towns to look at used cars. Needless to say, we didn’t support him.

Evangelical missionaries believe God divinely calls them to go to their chosen foreign field. Most missionaries work with mission agencies. These agencies send out the missionaries, provide material support, and handle the monthly donations sent to them on behalf of the missionaries. Some missionaries decide to have their home (sending) church handle these things instead. Regardless of how the missionaries are sent out, the goal is to win souls to Christ and establish new Evangelical churches. Some missionaries believe they are called to do other things for the Lord such as pastor established churches, do medical work, fly airplanes, translate/print Bibles, teach school, start radio/TV stations, or build new church buildings. Most missionaries are men. Female missionaries are typically only permitted to teach school, do medical work, teach children/women, or be a nanny for married missionaries. Some Evangelicals permit women to be full-fledged missionaries, though they are far and few in between.

Missionaries bring to their chosen foreign field American values and ideals, including capitalism and Evangelical moral/ethical beliefs. Instead of allowing indigenous people to worship Jesus in the context of their own culture’s beliefs and practices, they force them to adopt Westernized worldviews. I knew one missionary who was perplexed and upset over the fact that women in the African country he ministered to didn’t wear underwear, especially bras. He felt it was his duty to convince women after they got saved to wear proper undergarments. 🙂

Many missionaries believe that their calling, Western values, and the Bible supersede and are superior to other cultures. Worse, they often believe that the teachings of the Bible usurp the laws and customs of their chosen field. This often gets them in trouble with law enforcement or religious leaders. When arrested or attacked they scream “persecution,” when, in fact, what’s really to blame is their arrogance and smug American/Evangelical superiority.

Suppose a Muslim missionary came to the United States to reach sinners with the gospel of Islam. Believing he was called by Allah and walking in the footsteps of Muhammed, he entered an Evangelical church one Sunday, stood up, and started preaching from the Koran. What would happen? He would be asked to leave, and if he refused, he would be arrested for trespassing. Was he being persecuted? After all, he was doing the will of Allah.

Suppose this same missionary went to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (which is not public property) and started preaching to passersby, violating the law. Law enforcement was quickly called and the missionary was arrested, prosecuted, and thrown in jail. Again, was he being persecuted?

In both instances, no, This Muslim missionary violated U.S. law and was duly arrested and prosecuted. After serving his sentence, he was expelled and sent back to his native country. None of us would object to this. We rightly expect foreign nationals to obey our laws, regardless of their personal beliefs and practices, or what their holy book says. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right?

When American missionaries arrive in their chosen field, they often think that their personal beliefs and practices, along with their Western understanding of culture and law, can continue to be followed regardless of local customs and law. And when they are harassed or arrested for violating the law, what do they do? They scream persecution! Some countries forbid proselytization, preaching, or handing out religious literature, including tracts and Bibles. Shouldn’t missionaries obey these laws? Of course, they should, but believing God’s calling and the teachings of the Bible are above man’s laws, they break the law and end up in jail. Their supporting churches are called on to pray for “persecuted” missionaries. Calls are made to congressmen and the State Department, asking for help to get their “persecuted” missionaries out of jail. Far too often, lawbreaking missionaries spend years in jail for breaking the law. Sad, to be sure, but they broke a cardinal rule: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. A foreign country is not the United States. Western values and laws do not apply. Missionaries are visitors, and just as we expect visitors to follow our laws and customs while within our borders, other countries expect the same. Just because a country is Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or communist doesn’t mean a missionary has a right to disobey the law. If a missionary can’t work within the legal framework of their chosen field, then they shouldn’t be there. That includes, by the way, missionaries who fraudulently take jobs in foreign countries as teachers so they can secretly evangelize their students. If they are caught doing so, they are lawbreakers, and not persecuted Christians.

To quote the great preacher, Tony Baretta, Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Every nation has its own laws. Missionaries are expected to obey those laws. And if they don’t? They shouldn’t cry “persecution” when they end up in a dirty, dank prison. Maye this will be their opportunity to pray, as the Apostle Paul did, for God to unlock their cell door and set them free. Good luck with that.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The Deadly Nature of Evangelical Faith and How It Promotes Ignorance

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peanut gallery

Recently, a local Evangelical man messaged me on Facebook. He wanted to share God’s “truth” with me, not knowing that I was a former college-trained Evangelical pastor. I suspect he thought I would be receptive to his “preaching,” but he quickly found out I was not a good target for evangelization. Once I engaged the man, asking him for evidence for his claims — i.e. there’s 2,000 fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, the Bible is the “living Word of God, the gospel is all love, and we are under grace, not the law — he quickly retreated to the safe confines of faith.

Let me share a few comments illustrating what I want to discuss next. My comments are blue, his gray, though I suspect you will have figured that out without me telling you. 🙂

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This thirty-one-year-old man believes he is “called” to speak the good news to unbelievers. Now that he has done so, it’s up to the Holy Spirit to intercede. I can confidently say that his prayer failed and the Holy Ghost did not intercede. I’m still an unrepentant atheist. Evidently, these “called” evangelizers have a dial-up connection to Heaven, and the connection times out before God’s Telephone Company receives the call and connects it to J-e-s-u-s. Thousands of calls have been dialed over the years on my behalf, but no successful connections to Jesus have been made. One might conclude that the line has been cut, or it doesn’t exist.

What I want to focus on is this man’s refusal to engage anyone outside of his tribe. In his mind, anyone who disagrees with him is blind. Either that or he’s afraid of having his beliefs challenged or he’s afraid that he might be led down a path that his pastor told him leads to death and damnation.

In other comments I made, I tried to challenge his bald assertions, asking him for evidence for his claims or providing alternate interpretations for his pontifications — all without success.

As with most Evangelicals, this man believes the Bible is literally written by God, and is inerrant and infallible. These are faith claims for which there’s no evidence outside of the Bible itself. Sadly, what this shows is that faith robs believers of the ability to think skeptically and rationally. And as long as they stay within the safe confines of the house of faith, it is impossible to meaningfully interact them.

This man is a poster child for ignorant Evangelicals. Raised in Fundamentalist churches, taught to obey their pastors, and repeatedly told that whatever the Bible says is true, and whatever the “world” says is Satanic. Thoroughly indoctrinated and conditioned, by the time they reach adulthood, their path is set unless something happens that forces them to re-think their beliefs. Imagine a world where you only read books that reinforce your beliefs and are surrounded by people who agree with you. It’s a safe world, one where the wicked, evil world rarely, if ever, intrudes (unless their pastors are featured in the Black Collar Crimes Series). Believers can live their entire lives in such an environment, safe from questions, doubts, and intellectual challenges. This, in my opinion, is no way to live. And it for this reason I continue to share my story and critique Evangelical Christianity. I know from my own story that it is possible to escape the pernicious grip of Fundamentalism. And it all starts with niggling doubts and questions that go unanswered by the preachers of certainty. Will the man who messaged me one day break free from bondage? Maybe, but he could also end up forty years later just like Dr. David Tee and others like him — people whose minds have been ruined by decades of indoctrination and conditioning.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bodily Autonomy and the Place it Plays in Abortion Rights

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bodily autonomy

Bodily Autonomy: the right to make decisions about your body without coercion or violence. It’s a fundamental human right that allows people to make choices about their health, sexuality, and reproduction.

While no right is absolute, with few exceptions, each of us has the right to do what we want with our bodies. No government, religion, or individual has the right to force us to violate our bodily autonomy. There was a time when most Americans understood this principle. Even when another’s choice fundamentally runs against our personal beliefs or morals, we have no right to force people to act against their own self-interest. Of course, this principle has frequently been violated throughout our nation’s long history. In recent years, right-wing Republicans have used the power of the state to violate the bodily autonomy of both men and women. Republicans have even gotten between people and their doctors, forbidding medically necessary treatment, all because their moral or religious sensibilities are offended.

We see this most often in the culture war against reproductive rights. Republicans demand that women surrender their bodily autonomy to the dictates of an ancient religious text — the Bible, and their errant interpretations of the text. Abortion, in particular, is THE issue that drives the right’s immoral war against a woman’s right to choose. If Republicans had their way, there would be a federal abortion ban, without exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Further, many Republicans want to criminalize abortion. Sadly, there is little difference between the moral pronouncements of many Republicans and Muslim Sharia Law. If given an opportunity, Republicans will ban abortion, in vitro fertilization, and some forms of birth control. No matter how many state constitutional amendments are enacted protecting reproductive rights, Republicans intend to ignore the will of the people.

Women have a fundamental right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term. The choice is theirs alone. Not their husband’s; not the government’s; not God’s. Theirs alone, end of discussion. It is their body that is affected and changed by pregnancy. In what other scenario do we allow people to intervene in the medical care of others? As long as a person is mentally competent to make their own decisions, they have the right to do what they want with their body. My body, my choice, applies to all of us.

But what about the “baby,” Bruce? What about it? Eighty-eight percent of abortions take place during the first trimester, long before what’s growing in a woman’s womb is a baby. Even when it comes to third-trimester abortions, most terminations take place due to fetal abnormalities. At no point do women surrender their right to bodily autonomy.

Let’s suppose I need a kidney. Without a transplant, I will die. After testing, I find out that my brother is a match. I go to my brother and ask him to give me one of his kidneys so I can continue to live. My brother says “no.” Should my brother be forced to give me one of his kidneys? Even though I will die if he doesn’t do so, he has a fundamental right to say no. His body, his choice. The same goes for pregnant women. No woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Her body, her choice.

But, Bruce, God says . . . the Bible says . . . I think abortion is murder. What God, the Bible, or you say doesn’t matter. The woman’s body is her’s alone, and no one has the right to force her to do anything against her will. I know this is hard for conservative Christians to hear, but what you “believe” plays NO part in what a woman does or doesn’t do with her body. Think abortion is morally wrong? Fine, don’t get one. You would be rightly offended if non-Christians stuck their noses in your medical decisions; so it is when you stick your nose in the medical decisions of women.

For Evangelicals planning to post Bible verses in the comment section, don’t bother. Your proof texts are anything but. The Bible has little, if anything, to say about abortion. The notion that life begins at conception is not found in Scripture. Oh, you can massage and twist a few verses to justify your attacks on bodily autonomy, but careful exegesis suggests that your interpretations are wrong.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Dr. David Tee Exposes His Transphobia for All to See

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dr david tee

Dr. David Tee, an Evangelical preacher whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, despises LGBTQ people — especially transgender folks. He is the epitome of a transphobe. His bigotry is common among Evangelicals who, lacking imagination, can’t fathom anything other than a cisgender, heterosexual, no-sex-before-marriage world. Thiessen not only disparages transgender people at every turn, but he also believes that justice and equal protection under the law doesn’t apply to them. He thinks transgender people are mentally ill and are under the influence of Satan. I suspect if Thiessen had his way, LGBTQ people would be rounded up and sent to sex/gender education camps.

Today, Thiessen wrote an ugly, vicious article titled, Why Should Anyone Support Transgender Rights? Without further response, I give you the words of sex/gender expert Dr. David Tee (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original):

So far, there has not been one valid, legitimate, or even halfway good argument that presents any type of solid case for anyone to support transgender rights. There really isn’t one because if supporters were honest, they would realize that the concept of transgenderism is a mental and spiritual deception meant to harm unwary people.

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How can anyone seriously get behind the [transgender] movement when their supporters go to such extremes to bully others into silence or drop their opposition?

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Why should a minute minority be given such leeway when their American population is roughly under 1,000,000 people out of a population of 300,00,00+ people. On the world stage, the figures are just as bad.

Why should 8,000,000,000 +/- people have to give in to the demands of a people group barely making it to 5 million if that? We are not even talking about the issue of right and wrong here. We are just discussing how the rights of the vast majority are undermined and trampled in favor of those who are in desperate need of mental and spiritual counseling and therapy.

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The truth has to be told that transgender identification is wrong and cannot be given special rights. The people also need to be told that they need to go get mental and spiritual help if they want to be part of normal and real society.

There is nothing wrong with telling them the truth. What is wrong is supporting these delusions and allowing them to permeate society to the point that those who do what is right are punished. There was a time when this did not take place and almost all parts of society did tell the confused they needed help and offered to get them the help.

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People need to be rebuked about their sinful ways and corrected from them and transgenderism is sinful and all of its members and supporters need to be rebuked and corrected. Not the Christian.

There is no such thing as discrimination against what is wrong.

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When people cross moral boundaries, nothing immoral or sinful is out of line for them . . . They have no morals stopping them from harming those who disagree with them.

That condition tells you that there is nothing of God in transgenderism. it cannot be supported, given special rights, or normalized. It is a sin which needs to be repented of completely.

Fake men and women need to be treated, not the normal majority.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.