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Category: Guest Posts

Is Pain God’s Instrument to Draw People to Himself?

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments
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Guest post by Neil Robinson who blogs at Rejecting Jesus

Does the Christian God use pain to draw people to himself? Assuming for a moment that such a God exists, does he use human suffering to make followers for himself?

There is no evidence in the Bible to suggest he does. To be sure, the Bible has a fair amount to say about pain. It claims that suffering is a means by which God either chastens Christians (Hebrews 12.7) or strengthens them (Romans 5.3-5), but this is exclusively for people who already believe. The Bible does not say non-believers are afflicted as a means of drawing them closer to God; the idea is unbiblical.

Let’s assume then that while this notion finds no support in the bible, Christians have learnt over the centuries, perhaps though extra-biblical revelation, that God does use pain in this way. What does this tell us about God? That he’s a being whose principal way of making human beings pay attention to him is by causing (or allowing) them to suffer frequently unbearable pain and anguish.

What sort of God is this? Not one who loves the world and cares for humans far more than he does mere sparrows (Matthew 6.26). He’s more an unpleasant, sadistic bully: the jock who backs you up against the wall, grips your balls and squeezes hard.

Maybe that’s how it is. The God who created the universe is just such a being; a moral monster, as Richard Dawkins described him. It’s easy to see how he might be: human beings suffer, yet there’s (supposedly) a God who loves them; therefore, pain and suffering must at the very least be sanctioned by God, or, more likely, delivered by him. This, after all, is the story of the Old Testament. The God so arrived at, though, is a thoroughly human creation, a means of minimising cognitive dissonance by reconciling human suffering and a God who supposedly cares.

One more assumption is needed. Let’s assume this time that despite the odds, this character really exists. Does his strategy work? Does inflicting pain and anguish on people make them, as Lewis suggests, cry out to the One doing (or allowing) the inflicting and compel them to love him? It seems unlikely; I can’t find any evidence online of anyone claiming that pain or anguish brought them to God. From a personal perspective, I can honestly say that in times of distress or suffering I have never, post-deconversion, called out to God or any supernatural entity for help. I’ve never interpreted my suffering as his calling me closer and have never, since escaping Christianity, succumbed to his malicious charms. (What I did do occasionally, following my deconversion, was to convince myself that my suffering was a punishment from God – for leaving him behind, being gay or something I’d done. These feelings disappeared when I embraced fully the fact that the Christian God isn’t real.)

Where does this leave the Christian with, as Lewis puts it, ‘the problem of pain’? How do they reconcile a loving God who allows or even causes human beings to suffer? They can’t. Instead, they spout empty platitudes that they think let their indifferent, imaginary God off the hook. Just look at the meaningless theo-babble religious leaders came up with in 2004 after a tsunami hit Indonesia, killing 227,898 people.

Leave God out of the equation, however, and there are far better explanations for why humans suffer. ‘Shit happens’ is far more convincing than anything the religious have to offer. Physical pain is the body’s reaction to damage. It is an imperfect system that frequently overreacts or fires up even after damage is repaired (I know this, having fibromyalgia). That’s what it is to have, to be, a physical body. Anguish comes from random acts of nature, the violence and cruelty we inflict on each other and the death of loved ones, much of which is beyond human control. ‘Thoughts and prayers’ are useless in ameliorating this kind of suffering. Measures to restrict people’s access to weapons undoubtedly helps, as it has in countries with politicians with sufficient strength and intelligence to enact gun-control legislation. Without it, as in Uvalde recently, more children will die, more parents will experience terrible anguish and another massacre is inevitable. God won’t stop it.

Suffering is not symbolic of something else; it is not ‘God’s megaphone’ or an opportunity for others to point those afflicted to Christ’s light (or any other bullshit that involves the supernatural.) Pain simply is. It is our lot as physical bodies to endure or alleviate it as best we can.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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After Roe v. Wade….Title IX?

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments
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A Guest Post by MJ Lisbeth

In a cruel irony, the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on 24 June 2022; one day after the 50th anniversary of Title IX becoming enshrined in American law.

Roe v Wade, which guaranteed the right to an abortion, and Title IX, which mandated equal funding for male and female students in educational institutions that receive Federal funding (just about all of them, including the priciest private universities) have long been linked in my mind. For one thing, a very different Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade only seven months after then-President Richard M. Nixon signed Title IX into law. But, even more importantly, one helped to make the other, if not possible, then at least practicable.

I am not a legal or constitutional scholar or even, for that matter, particularly knowledgeable about the history of women’s rights or equality. So, take what I am about to say for what it’s worth:  While Title IX opened opportunities for girls and women their mothers could only have imagined, Roe v Wade, if indirectly, made it possible for them to take advantage of—or, at least, not to lose—many of those new-found opportunities.

To be sure, there is still nothing like gender equality in most areas of American society.  Most educational institutions aren’t even in compliance with Title IX. Still, today’s young women can—at least, they have been able—to not only aspire to what their elder sisters, mothers, and aunts have achieved, but so much more. In the most visible manifestation of Title IX, ten times as many girls and women participate in school and college athletics as participated at the time the law passed. That, of course, has led to more women, pursuing careers, not only in sports, but also in other previously male-only or male-dominated fields: as a result of Title IX, medical, law, and other graduate schools, and undergraduate programs like engineering, could not continue their quotas or bans on female students—which were imposed with the rationale that women would “get married and drop out of the workforce” and the education and training were therefore “wasted.”

But many women would not have been able to take advantage of those new opportunities if they could not regulate when they became pregnant and gave birth—or, for that matter, choose whether they wanted to become mothers at all. Before Title IX, schools and colleges often dismissed students who became pregnant. Even after the law passed, many employers fired pregnant employees or shunted them to “mommy tracks.” While Title IX could not affect this practice, it probably led, if indirectly, to laws against it. And access to safe and legal abortions—a legacy of Roe v Wade—made it possible for many women, not only to stay in school and jobs, but also to determine the trajectory of their careers.

Just as Title IX has had secondary effects, so did Roe v Wade. You’ve probably seen the slogan, “Abortion is women’s health care.” It’s true in more ways than one. Of course, an abortion is sometimes necessary to save the life of the woman or to prevent disabling or destabilizing conditions from worsening. But not for nothing are Planned Parenthood centers the go-to places for other kinds of women’s health care. In some areas, it is the only provider of such services for several counties. More to the point, though, is a reason why PP centers perform procedures and treatments that are now routine for girls and women but were rarities or privileges, if they were available at all, to their mothers and grandmothers. 

While there is still much room for improvement in women’s health care, and it’s still nowhere near the standards of care for men, it can be argued that the availability—and, in some circles, acceptability—of abortion has led to vast improvements. Much of that has to do with an attitude engendered by the availability and acceptance of abortion.  Until the modern feminist movement, which sparked the fight that led to Roe v Wade, women’s bodies were seen mainly as incubators. In other words, a woman’s health was seen mainly in terms of her fitness for bearing and rearing children. (That meant, of course, that women’s mental health care was all but non-existent or women were actively pathologized.) In part because women could now choose when or whether they would become pregnant, they could exercise other choices—and insist that they were, as sentient individuals, as worthy of high-quality health care, for their own needs and their own quality of life, as men. As women could get better care and take better care of themselves, they were better able to pursue their dreams and goals. To me, this change was analogous to, and as revolutionary as, the Renaissance idea that the human body is beautiful and intrinsically worthy of aesthetic or scientific study.

Such an ethos is anathema to religious conservatives, who led the fight to seat the judges who voted to overturn Roe v Wade. So is the freedom to make choices, whether in one’s career or life. If the history of slavery has taught us anything, it’s that if laws or decrees limit people’s agency over their own bodies and their freedom of movement, it doesn’t matter whether or not they have any other rights. The Taliban have certainly learned that lesson well: They didn’t have to bar girls and women from school or jobs; they only had to mandate cumbersome clothing and forbid them from going any place they might want to go without the permission or accompaniment of a male relative in order to reverse the gains in education and work they made in the previous two decades. Likewise, passing similar laws in Saudi Arabia, and forbidding women from riding bicycles or driving cars, left that country’s females at the mercy of their fathers’, brothers’, and other male relatives’ caprices. Such restrictions also make it more difficult, if impossible, for women and girls to get the healthcare they need: Sometimes men think women don’t really need such care, or they are unwilling to bring their sisters and wives to male doctors, the absence of female doctors notwithstanding.

One particularly disturbing aspect of the reversal of Roe v Wade is that some states, if they haven’t done so, will ban abortions even in cases of incest and rape. Why do I, as a transgender woman (who will never become pregnant), care about that or, for that matter, about abortion law in general? I was sexually abused as a child, by a priest and a family friend. I can’t help but to wonder how my life might be different if the nine-year-old boy who experienced the abuse had been a thirteen-year-old girl. Imagine how that could have constricted her choices, and how it could have affected her life in other ways, if such an experience could shatter the reality—not to mention the career and family—of a thirty-year-old woman.

Because, as I said previously, I am not a legal or constitutional scholar, I can’t say whether overturning Roe v. Wade will lead to the evisceration or repeal of Title IX. But it’s hard not to imagine that the repeal of Roe v Wade could lead to many girls and young women not taking advantage of, and furthering, the opportunities Title IX afforded their mothers. White Evangelical Christians—who are to the Republican Party as African Americans have been to the Democratic Party —could hardly have hoped for more.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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Saying the Quiet Parts Out Loud

Bruce Gerencser 12 Comments
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Guest Post by ObstacleChick

Recently, my husband and I were taking a walk when we passed by a neighbor’s house. The neighbors are a couple who have kids close in age to our own kids. Sam* coached our kids in baseball and served a term on town council, and Deanna* volunteered at the elementary and middle school. Both are active in the town’s Catholic church as well as in the community. Sam and Deanna were outside as we were passing by, so they came over to talk with us. Their older son Dan* just finished his junior year of college, and the younger son Nate* is a senior in high school. Dan chose to go to a Catholic university located about an hour and a half away from home, and according to his parents, it was the right place for him. We discussed how our kids were doing and asked where Nate was planning to attend college in the fall. Sam and Deanna talked about the pros and cons of the different schools that Nate had visited. Nate was initially interested in a particular large university, but he thought it was located “in the middle of nowhere” and was not thrilled about being stuck on a campus without access to a wider community. While another school located in Boston had a fantastic business program that Nate wanted to attend, he thought there were “too many Asians” at the school. Another school in Boston was ranked highly and had a great location, but there were “too many Jewish students” at the school. Deanna said that Nate really wanted to go to a school “where most of the students look like him because he’s not used to being in the minority”. Deanna and Sam stated that Nate needed to attend school where he would feel comfortable, “you know what I mean?”

Holy f&*%, that was out loud. Outside. In public.

My husband and I were stunned. I was speechless, and being quicker on his feet than I am on mine, my husband talked about our daughter’s college. Just days before we had returned from attending her college graduation. While located in the South, her university reports that 39.5% of its students are white while the remainder of the student body is composed of a wide variety of students from other races and ethnicities. Our daughter’s friend group reflects the diversity of the school. She loved having friends from a wide array of backgrounds, leading to deep, meaningful discussions. We told Sam and Deanna that our daughter had benefited tremendously from her friendships with a diverse array of people, and that we believed that particular university was the right choice for her. Sam and Deanna nodded along, but I could feel their skepticism. We quickly and politely wrapped up our conversation and moved on our way.

As we walked away, we saw Sam and Deanna’s Asian neighbor kids outdoors playing. We hoped that the kids didn’t hear that conversation. I was second-guessing myself – should I have spoken out more forcefully, directly calling them out on their racism? Also, I was disturbed by the fact that they assumed that because we were white that we would **wink wink nudge nudge**agree that our kids should attend schools with students who look like them. My husband and I knew that this couple had been Trump supporters in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. For a couple of weeks, they had placed one of those juvenile “Let’s Go Brandon” signs in their yard, and currently they have a “thin blue line” sign. We knew that they were die-hard Republicans, but we did not have proof that they were racists. My son had said that he knew Dan and Nate were Trump supporters, lumping them in with the “football guys” who were either overt Trump supporters or “libertarians” who secretly supported Trump but wanted to pretend to straddle the fence. Now we know.

In the couple of weeks since this interaction, we actively avoid walking past their house. A handful of families that we have known for years through our kids’ school and sports had supported Trump both times around. These are all seemingly respectable white families, active in the community, active in their Catholic church. They have coached my kids. They have volunteered at the school. They keep their lawns neat and are polite when we run into each other around town. Now I question how deeply they have absorbed the more extreme, nasty side of the GOP base. The racism, the misogyny, the anti-LGBTQ sentiment, the xenophobia, the Christian nationalism – how much of that is ingrained in their belief system now? They feel empowered to say it all out loud now, and we should listen. As Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. I believe them.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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The Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church Kept Us in the Same “Closet”

Bruce Gerencser 81 Comments
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Guest Post by MJ Lisbeth

A week and a half ago, Southern Baptist Convention leaders released a list of alleged sex-abuse offenders that had been kept secret. Perhaps it is not fair of me to say that I am not surprised, as I have never had any connection with the SBC. On the other hand, having experienced childhood sexual abuse while serving as an altar boy in the Roman Catholic Church—and hearing whispers about sexual harassment of women and teenaged girls in the Evangelical church of which I was later a part—I don’t think I was being cynical in saying to myself, “Well, what does anybody expect?” upon reading about the SBC report.

Perhaps even less surprising, to me, was the accompanying revelation: victims who alerted church authorities, at whatever level, were advised to “be quiet” or, worse, intimidated into silence. It sounded like an alternate-universe version, if you will, of my own story. Decades passed, and the priest who abused me died, before I spoke or wrote about my experience. For one thing, I had neither the language nor other cultural contexts for telling about what was done to me: there was no open discussion about such matters in the time and place in which I grew up, and priests and other church officials were seen as beyond reproach. In such an environment, even if I knew the names of the parts of my body that priest touched, I could not have told of my ordeal in a way that would have been more credible, in the eyes of my community, than anything that priest—or the priests to whom he reported—could have said. I can’t help but to think that if I could have described what the priest did to me—beyond that “it felt weird”—someone, whether a relative or a father in the church, would have told me to keep my story to myself.

That nobody had to tell me not to tell—at least at that time in my life—is a testament to, not only the esteem in which priests in the church were held in my community, but also the power the Church has wielded. It also says something about how powerless I was. Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned from carrying my sexual abuse, alone—and, years later, seeing children bearing their burdens without a champion or mentor—is that nothing is more damaging than inculcating, or allowing a child to grow up, with a sense that their reality—or, more importantly, what they have to say about it—is not to be trusted or believed.

For that matter, invalidation of the fear, anger or whatever else one might feel about having been violated—which, by definition, is done by someone with more power or, at least, credibility—serves only to further traumatize the victim. That is what SBC officials did when they told people to “be quiet.” That is what my parish, and larger Church officials, could just as well have done after I was abused by a priest. 

So, while the abuse I experienced as an altar boy in a Roman Catholic parish in Brooklyn, New York in the 1960s is different from what girls and women in the Southern Baptist Convention endured, we have this much in common: we suffered in silence for too long as a result of churches that were more interested in preserving their “institutional integrity” than in helping those of us who have been victimized. That silence—my “closet,” if you will—hindered my development in so many ways, not the least of which is that I didn’t affirm my identity as a woman until my mid-40s. I can only wish that those whom the SBC told to “keep quiet” didn’t lose as much—time, or anything else—by remaining in a “closet” I know all too well.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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Hannah’s Deconversion Story :From Cultural Judaism to Christianity to Unbelief

Bruce Gerencser 9 Comments
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Guest Post by Anonymous

I grew up Jewish in cultural identity, only never once stepping inside a synagogue for family services except to attend preschool, Purim parties, and my friends Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. I never had a Bat Mitzvah. The word “God” was never mentioned except in swear words. I knew, without my parents saying anything, that they did not believe in God.

The area in which I grew up was predominantly Jewish and Catholic. I had Jewish and Catholic friends and a few Protestants too. I also had a friend whose family was Christian Science. I noticed that her family was kind to one another. They had a framed saying in their house that said things about how to treat others that I wished my family had followed. They went around the dinner table talking about one good thing in their day. I wished my family had done that. My Protestant friends’ families were nice too. I wanted a nice family.

My entire childhood was fraught with physical and emotional abuse via the hands and mouth of my mother. She is not really my “mother” but just the person who birthed me into this world. Besides that, there was no mothering, just abuse and consequently, a lifetime of therapy.

It was from my Catholic friends that I heard about God, Heaven, and Hell. I would spend the night at their house and go to church with them the next day. I wondered what I was missing out on in life such as how to live, how to be kind, how to treat others. One day, I recall sitting in my friend’s church thinking, “When I grow up, I’m going to convert ‘cause I want to go to Heaven.”

I knew I would not be allowed to do that while still in my parents’ house since we were Jewish. My dad had a lot of pride in being Jewish. He also had animosity towards those who persecuted Jews. His own parents and siblings fled the Czar of Russia from Poland to come to the US. He was the last child and was born in the US. He was livid toward the Germans, and we were not allowed to buy anything German.

When I was 16, I got curious about Judaism and started going to a synagogue every Friday night. At 18, I moved out of the house and started “searching for the truth.” At 20, I became a Christian through my sister who also became a Christian. My parents disowned me. My dad didn’t speak to me again for the next six years — until two weeks before he died unexpectedly three days before my 26th birthday. I have hope that, had he continued to live, our relationship would have been restored.

For the next 33 years, I was a full-fledged believer. I truly surrendered my life to Christ. I felt like I had the Holy Spirit in me guiding me. I married a believer, and we had 3 kids, all of whom we tried to brainwash as well. We attended church every week and on Wednesdays. I went to all the Ladies Bible studies, circles, groups, retreats, etc. I have to say a lot of it was helpful because I truly did not know what love was and learned a lot about how to treat one another. I can’t say I ever really truly felt God’s love. It was hard for me to accept, due to my mom’s abuse. I also never truly believed in Heaven and Hell as much as I wanted to and inasmuch as that was the driving force for me to convert. Whenever someone died and everyone would be “rejoicing that person is with the Lord” and “walking on the streets of gold in Heaven” I doubted and did an internal eye roll. However, besides that, I was a tried-and-true believer.

My descent into unbelief, or should I say, ascent, is as quick as switching a light switch. But I must give a little background into my 27-year marriage for it to make some sense. My marriage was also fraught with emotional abuse by my now ex. (A common occurrence if one grows up with an abusive parent is to marry an abuser). There were a lot of criticisms, not being able to do anything right, my cooking was no good, my hair, clothes, way I decorated the house, the groceries I bought, how I raised the kids, all not good enough. He also was not there for me during some major medical incidents. Left me miscarrying all by myself so he could go play ball with his friends. Left me while on bed rest with our two other small children when I thought we might lose our third child at 24 weeks of pregnancy. It was his birthday weekend and he was furious I got put on bed rest and “ruined” his birthday so he went out to have a good time. He’d work all week and on Saturdays and then be too tired to do anything with the family. He admitted later he was gone on purpose so he didn’t have to help me with the kids.

We went to numerous Christian counselors who pointed the blame at me since I “was the one who came from the screwed-up background.” I was told I was “emasculating” my spouse if I asked him to help me. I was told to “make sure you cook his favorite meal, keep the house clean, keep the kids quiet, be more submissive.” I tried to do all that and more and nothing worked.

Finally, I went to a counselor who told me I was being emotionally abused. I was like, “what???” I started reading about the subject and listening to podcasts. I couldn’t believe it. I could have written the books. I heard the term narcissist and narcissistic abuse. I scarfed down all the information I could get my hands on. Everything was making sense now. That is exactly what I had been living in for 25 years.

I knew I had to get out before this discovery, but I also had to go back to school for a way to support myself. I got my graduate degree in counseling and still tried to make the marriage work. It wasn’t until I discovered some texts on my spouse’s phone and learned that he had been sneaking around behind my back, that it was finally over. I asked him to leave. He, of course, blamed the affairs on me. He left after trying to bully me around.

The very next Sunday after asking him to leave, I went to church by myself. I went into the sanctuary where we were singing worship music. It was at that moment it hit me like a ton of bricks that God is a narcissist too. Here we are singing praises to some creature. We are all supposed to bow down and worship this being, and if we’re lucky, he may throw us a bone or crumb every so often after begging and praying a ton. I couldn’t stomach the singing. I stopped singing and just stood there with this enlightenment.

I went to Sunday School where they followed up on the sermon. I recalled the sermon made negative mention of homosexuality. I didn’t like that. In Sunday School, it was more of the same, the judgement. I didn’t want any part of that. I didn’t like the hate. When it came time for prayer requests, I saw how all these people who are supposedly trusting in Jesus, were very anxious, asking for God to make their life go a certain way. I had already come through all of that, praying for God to save my marriage. It didn’t work. What did work for me was accepting life as it was and doing what I could to make my life better.

You would think I would not have gone back to church, but I did the following week just to be sure. I went to worship, and, again, could not stand the worship music to this narcissistic being. We all have to “lose our lives” for this invisible being. I realized this is all insane. This narcissistic God does not exist. It was an instant switch flipping for me. That was the end. I went straight home, didn’t even go to Sunday School. I never went back to church since that day more than seven years ago.

It was a rough time in my life. I had just separated after 25 years of marriage. We had to sell our beautiful family home. I went through empty nest at the same time. I lost all my friends since they were all Christians. I had to try to build my private practice cause the ex was playing games financially. I do not care to repeat any of that time of my life.

Sundays were hard for a couple of years until I got used to it. I found local Freethinker and atheist groups and also groups on Facebook. I talked to one of my Christian friends and she told me she’s not a believer anymore either but hadn’t come out yet to anyone. That was refreshing having her. I read a lot of books as well as tons of podcasts from others who didn’t believe anymore along with books discussing errors in the Bible etc. I think that’ll be a lifelong journey.

When I look back on my beliefs now, I’ve done a 180 on all social issues. I shake my head in disbelief that I was so hoodwinked into that belief system. I still have Christian friends who make sure they tell me they are praying for me, or how God is helping them. Again, another internal eye roll. They have told me I am mad at God. I tell them I can’t be mad at something I don’t believe in. They tell me the reason I am suffering so much (during that horrible time of my life) is because I don’t believe in God. I told them I don’t need to make up a God to get through this. I need to face this pain head-on and live in reality.

It’s taking a lot of time to find a new community of nonbelievers, and I’m still working on it since I just moved recently. But, I’m glad I’m free from the ludicrousness.

In case anyone is wondering, two of my three kids did not fall for the Kool-Aid. The third is on the fence and hasn’t been to church since the pandemic. She uses her brain and got vaccinated and wears a mask, and we’re aligned on all social and racial issues. She could see how Trump was a narcissist and also couldn’t understand how Christians could fall for him. I’m relieved I didn’t totally screw her up.

So, that’s my conversion and deconversion story with bits of my life scattered in along the way. Hope it was helpful to someone 🙂

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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The Leak: A Spin of Bishop’s Roulette?

Bruce Gerencser 10 Comments
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— Guest Post by MJ Lisbeth

A few days ago, I wrote “Bishop’s Roulette.” Since then, the draft of Supreme Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion on striking down Roe v. Wade has been leaked. 

To many — actually, the majority — of us, the “leak” was like the first bomb dropped in an attack that “everybody knew” was coming. The particular blow surprised us simply because, like the first shot of a war, nobody can anticipate the moment it comes, even if its aftermath is what everyone expects.

As I am neither a political scientist nor reporter, I can’t add much to the analysis that the end of Roe v. Wade wouldn’t be the “will of the people.” More than one poll has shown that the overwhelming majority of people support the right to safe and legal abortion. That we now have a Supreme Court “packed” with Justices who seek to do the opposite of what most Americans want is a result of a political system that has allowed vocal, virulent, and often violent groups of people who claim to be motivated by faith to gain majorities in state legislatures and governorships — and may usher them into a Congressional majority later this year.

The same folks who organized to elect lawmakers who enacted laws outlawing abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and deputized citizens to sue anyone who received, performed, or “enabled” a procedure also voted for Donald Trump, who promised exactly what’s come to pass, and may regain the Presidency in two years.

While some of those voters didn’t disguise the fact that their support of Trump and his political allies was borne from their hatred of liberals, gays, immigrants, and anyone else whom they don’t see as fitting into their notions of a White, Christian, and male-dominated nation, others couch their support in a system of faith that, they believe, tells them to love their neighbors as they love themselves. Some, mainly men, among them claim to “respect women” because they are mothers, nurturers, and partners.

If they actually “respect” women, how can they support a President, Supreme Court justices, governors, state legislators, and mayors who are doing everything they can to ensure that women (and girls) don’t get vital medical care at the exact moment they need it.

You see, in striking down Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court would leave abortion rights to the states.  Some had already all but outlawed abortion before Justice Alito wrote his opinion; others have enacted “trigger laws” that will do the same, or ban it outright, once Roe v. Wade is struck down.  It’s hard not to believe, as some legal and political analysts have pointed out, that such moves will also enable states to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act and enact their own rules on the availability of health care. 

Think about it:  If a state can tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies, can it also decide who does or doesn’t get health care, or what is or isn’t “appropriate” care for someone? Could it make such decisions on who is more “deserving” in a hierarchy that places people who are most likely to make “nuclear” families (i.e., straight cisgender) above, say, LGBTQ people? Or native-born citizens above immigrants, especially those who are here illegally? 

 I also can’t help but wonder whether striking down Roe v. Wade will give states more power to decide how health care and insurance are meted out. Given that concentrating power in fewer hands, especially if those hands are affluent White Christian cisgender males or their allies, all but inevitably leads to “privatization”— which often means nothing more than “getting government out of it” — it’s not hard to imagine more states in which people who need help are subject to a “Bishop’s Roulette.”

Now, even if you object to abortion on religious or other moral grounds, or simply think that the women who need them should have been “more careful,” here is something else to consider: prenatal care, and women’s healthcare in general, while far from perfect, have improved since Roe v. Wade. Some of that, of course, has come about because of medical and technological developments. Just as important, though, is the change in the way pregnancy and women’s bodies are seen. For one, doctors and other providers now better understand how pregnancy changes a woman’s body. Some of those changes, like high blood pressure, were previously linked to women’s pre-pregnancy lives and were not seen as consequences of pregnancy itself. Those conditions, and sometimes the pregnancy itself, can degrade the quality of, or even end, a woman’s life. 

Another reason, I believe, women’s health care has improved since Roe v. Wade is that as women gained more agency over their bodies and lives, they were seen — at least by some — as worthy of care for their own sake, and not simply to enhance their ability to bear and rear children. That development goes hand-in-hand with the separation of health care (and government) from religion, especially of the fundamentalist variety. 

In brief, Roe v. Wade did more to foster the respect for women than religious and other opponents of the decision claim to have.  Repealing it, as Justice Samuel Alito’s draft threatens, will do much to destroy that respect by degrading the quality of women’s health care and subjecting too many of us to some version of a “Bishop’s Roulette” to obtain it.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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Bishop’s Roulette

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments
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Guest Post by MJ Lisbeth

Today I am going to make a confession.  (How Catholic of me, right?)

As I’ve mentioned in earlier guest posts, I was raised a Roman Catholic and, in my late adolescence and early adulthood, “gave my life to Jesus” and became an Evangelical Christian. My belief was eroded, if you will, by a combination of reading, study, and experiences that included finally coming to terms with my gender identity, sexuality, and the sexual abuse I experienced from a priest. I didn’t have a moment when I blurted, “I am an atheist!” or even “I don’t believe.” Rather, I realized that, somewhere along the way, I’d lost whatever faith I had.

Even so, I made one final attempt to be part of a “faith community.” For about a year and a half, I attended services at a church that would have appalled both the Catholics among whom I grew up and the Evangelicals to whom I professed my devotion to “the Lord.” (When I say that, I think of all of those African-Americans and women I’ve heard referring to “The Man.”) At the suggestion of someone whom I esteemed, and still do, I attended the services and participated in the programs of an “accepting” congregation.

I worked with someone I’ll call “Jenna” in helping to feed un-housed people. She told me she was an atheist but got involved with the church for “social reasons.” One day, I asked her to explain. The church did charitable work in areas that were of particular interest to her, she said. That work included in LGBTQ equality and helping folks in places like the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia. Doing it under the auspices of the church “signaled” — she used that word — that she was “walking the walk.” Jenna’s family and friends didn’t take her work seriously — or believe she was doing it, especially the LGBTQ outreach — out of anything more than self-interest or money — never mind that she was a volunteer and used her own money to go to those places where she helped people, and to buy food, clothing and other items for the un-housed in our city — until she started working with the church. But she also admitted that being involved with the church spared her from having to explain her atheism to family members, co-workers, and others who wouldn’t have been sympathetic.

Likewise, that church legitimized, at least in the eyes of some people, the volunteer work I did in animal welfare, adult literacy, and LGBTQ equality. About the latter: I hadn’t yet come to affirm (or, in the parlance of the time, “change” or “transition”) my gender identity. But the church, which was among the first to hold funerals for victims of the HIV outbreak, gave me the “cover,” if you will, I wanted and needed in order to help people like me and to claim that it wasn’t about self-interest. Not only did my church involvement legitimize the work I was doing; but it also deflected the suspicions some people had about me. Hey, I didn’t even try to set some of my relatives and in-laws right (I almost said “straight” but the pun would have been too obvious!) when they expressed the hope that I would “meet somebody nice” and get married right on my second try.

Well, there would be no second try for marriage. Later, I did get involved in a relationship with a woman — whom I didn’t meet at church — and we lived under the protections of that document people associated with gay couples — the domestic partnership agreement — for several years. One funny thing, in retrospect, about that partnership is that it, like my church involvement, gave me “cover,” even among my conservative relatives and in-laws, at least for a time.

After being an atheist for, probably, about 30 years — roughly half of my life — I have come to realize how much legitimacy is conferred on all sorts of things done in the context of a church or other faith community by someone who professes his or her belief but is denied to those who do the same work without the imprimatur of religion. Also, there are some ceremonies and passages that are legitimized, by societal standards and even the law, by a declaration of faith or the “witness” of the faithful. Have you ever seen anyone take an oath of office without placing his or her hand on a Bible and ending his or her pledge with “So help me God” or words to that effect? And, even though conservative religious folks howl when cities, states, or countries tell people they can marry whomever they want as long as they are of age, those couples-to-be, whether they are two of the traditionally-defined sexes or nonbinary, are as likely as not to exchange their vows in a place of worship. Why? Sometimes they are trying to make their unions more palatable to prospective in-laws. Or one or both members of the couple may have grown up in the church and it is, therefore, the one place where everyone whom they’d want at their ceremony can gather. Another reason is convenience: while one can be legally married by a county clerk or some other secular official, getting married in a church or synagogue or other worship sites “kills two birds with one stone”: it sanctifies the union in the eyes of some and, in most places, makes the marriage legal, as, typically, the minister, priest or other officiating clergy member signs, along with other two other witnesses, the marriage license certificate shortly after the ceremony ends.

Knowing what I’ve just described, I am especially worried that far-right Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, as well as conservative Catholics and their counterparts in other churches and religions, will try to make their churches — and, possibly, baptisms or professions of faith — the only way to give or receive charitable gifts or works. This is more or less the case already in Utah, where public benefits are among the lowest and most difficult to obtain in the US. As in most other states, caseworkers refer people who’ve been denied benefits to other organizations — including churches.

 In the Beehive State, most roads to such assistance lead to the Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons).  People in need are thus subject to “bishop’s roulette.” Some officials are generous with their help.  Others, however, are more rigid and judgmental, especially with LGBTQ people and single mothers, who are often assumed to be “sinners” who had their children out of wedlock. Or, if they are willing to help, it’s on the condition that the person in need reads aloud from texts, attends church, or even sets up a date to be baptized. 

When the intentions of churches and other religious institutions are assumed to be noble or pure, they lend legitimacy, in the eyes of many, to charitable work — or the denial of charity. Never mind that prelates and others in the church use their power to bully those same people they help, or choose not to help, or those who do the helping.  For now, I am living in a safely “blue” state where, while some religious groups have political influence, they don’t hold nearly as much power as the Mormons have in Utah—or religious conservatives, whether on the Supreme Court or in local school boards, want.  And for now, at least, most young people want little or no truck with religious institutions. Still, I worry that while the proportion of religious conservatives in the total population is shrinking, their influence is growing as they become more virulent and vicious.  I hope that one day I won’t have to proclaim faith I don’t have, join a church whose motives I can see all too clearly, or simply deny who I am, to get help I may need—or just to be allowed to rescue cats. And I hope those young people won’t have to be similarly duplicitous in order to get education, jobs, or housing because they ran into an admissions officer, HR Department, or loan provider who believes it is more important to “save souls” than to help. In short, I hope none of us become unwilling subjects in “bishop’s roulette.”

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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Christianity: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense

Bruce Gerencser 25 Comments
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A guest post by John, who blogs at Shifting Beliefs.

My journey towards deconversion started slowly around 2008. I had been discussing the teaching about tithing with a friend of mine. We had some disagreements about the subject so I went into a very in-depth study about tithing. Long story short, what I had been taught in various churches, and what I had taught as well, didn’t line up with what the Bible says and doesn’t say about tithing. Then I started wondering, what else does the Bible say and not say regarding different topics? The more I read the Bible without the church lenses and learned to think critically, the less and less it made sense. I would say my deconversion probably took about eight years total. In some ways, it’s still happening.

On this side of things, Christianity really doesn’t make much sense anymore. At least not to me. Starting right off the bat with the creation story. god creates everything, ending with man and woman as the last thing created. He puts them in a utopia, creates a tree that they are not supposed to eat from, and puts it right in the middle of the garden. Then a talking snake convinces Eve, who convinces Adam, to eat the fruit from it. Thus dooming mankind to sin and sickness and death and eviction from the garden. Surely, with God being all-knowing, he knew that’s what would happen, right? So why do it? Then there is the part about them “realizing” they were naked and god having to make clothes for them. Soon after, Eve gives birth to Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel, god gets pissed and sends him on his way to the land of Nod. There apparently are people here because Cain gets married and had kids. Where the hell did these people come from?

A while later, Genesis talks about the sons of god who started hooking up with human women. There is much speculation on who the sons of god were. But anyway, the women apparently gave birth to giants. Then god decided that all the humans were wicked to the bone and regretted making them. What? Again, did he not know this was going to happen? And so he decides to kill all the humans and animals on the earth, except Noah and his family, and just start over. Looking past the fact that he is committing genocide, let’s look at how he does it. He could have done a Thanos and snapped his finger and just wiped out the humans and the animals. Quick and painless. But, that’s not how he chooses to do it. He’s going to drown all the humans and animals. It’s not only a slow death, but a terrifying one as well. Can you imagine the panic and terror that all the humans and animals went through? That’s a sick mother fucker, right there! God is good, my ass!

Then there are all the people and animals that god had his people kill later on because they wouldn’t worship the right god.

Skipping ahead to the new testament: you can do a simple Google search to find all the inconsistencies in the gospels and throughout the rest of the new testament, so I won’t go into those. Do you remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts? The believers had decided to put a commune together and sell all their stuff and put it in a joint account. Ananias and Sapphira lied about how much they sold the land for and god killed them for it. God will kill someone for lying but he allows thousands of children to be molested by clergy around the world on a regular basis. What . . . the . . . fuck?! The god you read about in the bible versus the god of today’s real-life doesn’t line up at all. The Bible tells about Jesus and the apostles healing people all the time. The accounts of “healing” that I’ve run into, I’m skeptical. How about some folks with ALS getting healed or amputees’ limbs growing back? That would get me back to drinking the Kool-Aid again! All the stories and “accounts” through the Bible just don’t make sense to me anymore.

The fact that there are at least 200 Christian denominations in the US and something like 40,000 worldwide doesn’t make sense. Surely if the Bible is the “word of god”, god could communicate the same truth to all Christians. Right?

And what about the idea of a literal hell. Even though god has quite a long history of killing people, the Bible states in many places that he is good and his mercy endures forever. Huh. That’s interesting. Supposedly, god is love and 1 Corinthians 13 describes what this love looks like. In case you are not familiar with these verses, they go something like this: Love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, it is not proud, does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It keeps no record of wrongs. Oh really? Adam and Eve, the genocide of the human race, the slaughter of multiple groups of people, and the doctrine of hell all say otherwise.

And if a person studies the history of the Bible, how it came to be, the historical and scientific accuracy of the Bible (or lack thereof), and so on . . . it doesn’t make sense!

This post only scratches the surface of what no longer makes sense to me about religion, specifically Christianity. I’m not 100% convinced that there is no deity/god of any kind. I don’t think that can be proven either way. But I am pretty damn sure that if there is one god, or many, it/he/she/they are not the god of the Bible or Christianity. Or of any other holy book that’s ever existed. I think part of the reason religions exist is that they are man’s way of trying to describe something that is indescribable.

I still really like this quote by Barry Taylor, a road manager for AC/DC, “God is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape.”

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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One Man’s Journey From Evangelicalism to Atheism

Bruce Gerencser 4 Comments
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A guest post by John

I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. My family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1972 and this is where I grew up. My parents were not very religious, just enough to not go to hell. We attended a Presbyterian church sporadically through my teenage years. When I was 12, I went to a YMCA summer camp. Most of the counselors were Bible college students. One night, around a fire with other campers, I heard the gospel for the first time that I remember. It included, of course, if I didn’t believe and pray the sinner’s prayer, I would go to hell. Well, what 12-year-old wants to go to hell? So I prayed the prayer, was given a Bible, and was told to read it every day. My Presbyterian parents were wary of my newfound zeal for God and the Bible. I was in and out of church through high school and college. Sometimes I would be zealous about my faith, and sometimes not.

After college, I got a job as an assistant manager at a restaurant in 1993. Most of the servers and several of the kitchen staff were Bible school students. This restaurant did not serve alcohol, so it attracted more Christians than other places. Most of these were from the charismatic/word of faith crowd. At first, I thought they were nuts! But they grew on me after a while. I started going to a large church of this flavor, because of a girl, of course. I played trumpet in the orchestra and was really enjoying it. Eventually, I married the girl that I followed to church and wound up going to a Bible school in the Tulsa area. After graduating, I went to work for the church/ministry that was associated with the Bible school. It wasn’t perfect, but I did enjoy my time there.

A few years later, in 1999, we moved to Memphis “at the leading of the Lord” and hooked up with a similar church here. I was also doing some teaching in churches around Memphis and the surrounding area. We wound up leaving that church and helping someone else start a church in the area. I was the associate pastor and youth pastor — volunteer, of course. Ugh. I also continued to be invited to other churches to speak and was really enjoying it. Until I wasn’t. We started seeing things in many churches that were troubling so we quit going to church for a while. We began meeting other Christians in homes and people would take turns teaching. This was around 2011. After one of these Bible studies, a couple asked me about tithing. We were taught that 10% of your income goes to the church. They had very little money at the time and were feeling bad that they couldn’t tithe. I asked them to study the topic and I did the same. So, I did an in-depth study on tithing. And guess what? What I’d been taught, with limited scripture often taken out of context, isn’t what the Bible says about tithing! I was like, well shit. If I’m wrong about that, what else am I wrong about? Around this time, I started getting interested in secular Buddhism, so my cover-to-cover Bible study was put off for a couple of years.

Around 2014, I started a 2-year, in-depth study of the Bible, the history of the Bible, and the history of the church. Probably my first big revelation was that I stopped believing in hell. Then I pretty much stopped believing in heaven. Then I stopped believing in creationism/Adam and Eve. And it all starts to crumble at that point. No Adam and Eve, no original sin, no need for a savior, etc. Then learning about how the Bible was put together, well shit, it was just a bunch of men who put it together. So much didn’t fit and didn’t make sense anymore. Like many have said, the Bible made me an atheist. Also, just looking at things like prayer and my rate of “answered” prayers. I could have prayed to my cat and gotten the same results! It was about 50/50. Except in one area where I was 100%. Everyone I’ve prayed for to live, who had a terminal, untreatable condition, all died of that condition or complications related to it. Every single one. As I got further away from religion, I started to realize how far away I had gotten from critical thinking. It’s sometimes hard to look back and realize that I believed in the creation story, Noah’s flood, talking animals, demons, angels, etc. But when a person is told that these things are true from a young age, by people they love and trust, you just believe them.

My wife is still a very devout Christian, maybe more so than ever, so that’s been interesting to navigate. She knows my beliefs have changed a lot, but not the full extent of my atheism. Only a couple of people do. All of my family and wife’s family are believers. Most of my friends are believers. I’m not ready yet to come out fully. I’m not sure that I will to everyone.

I’ve noticed some interesting things since leaving my faith. The first thing that comes to mind is that nothing happened. My cats didn’t die, my car didn’t break down, my life didn’t fall apart, etc. In fact, life has gotten better since I left my faith! I’m mentally and emotionally much healthier. I went through a long depression as a believer. I prayed, I read my Bible, I made confessions, I had others pray for me . . . and it just got worse. The group of Christians I had been around were very anti-medication for this kind of thing. It got bad enough I finally went to a good psychiatrist who put me on medication that worked wonderfully! I stopped praying and started learning about how the brain works, how thought patterns are formed, how my diet affects my moods. I started meditating. These things helped me SO much more than prayer and the Bible.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that I’m much less judgmental and definitely more open-minded. I’m just a better human. I don’t think I was ever a super judgmental asshole. But, religion certainly tainted my worldview. Everything from politics to atheism to the LGBTQ+ community to people of other faiths to music to what I read and watch on tv, and so on. I like who I am now! I never felt like I could like myself as a Christian because we are nothing without Jesus and all that shit.

So, yeah, I am enjoying life much more as an atheist. It’s so nice to not have set in stone, dogmatic beliefs. At first, it was really uncomfortable to not have those solid beliefs. But now I’m used to it and it’s very freeing. As a Christian, I always heard that we were free in Jesus. It is the “sinners” that are bound. Now I see that it is just the opposite. Religion binds you up, letting go of that shit is really what sets you free.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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The Question

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments
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Guest post by MJ Lisbeth

“Are you Jewish?”

I lied, sort of, depending on which rabbi you ask.

Almost all agree that Judaism is passed on through the female biological line. That sounds straightforward enough, but if your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was Jewish but nobody in any part of your family has practiced the religion or participated in any of its cultures….one rabbi might say, “You’re as Jewish as Theodor Herzl,” while another might tell you you’re as goyish as Pat or Debbie Boone.

I know: I have had exactly such an experience. As I was preparing to marry a Jewish woman of Latin American heritage, I consulted with rabbis and took classes. Since I no longer considered myself a part of the Roman Catholic church in which I’d grown up or with the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches in which I later affiliated myself, but I did not yet identify as atheist or non-religious, I was willing to participate in my wife-to-be’s religion and help raise the children we planned to have in it.

The Latin American Jewish community in which she was raised, mostly in the Miami area, was more conservative, politically and socially, than the non-Hasidic Ashkenazic Jews in whose proximity I was raised and have lived much of my life. When she went to college, she “fell away” from the religion but had returned to it, if in a more mystical and ritualistic iteration, by the time she met me. So, while she didn’t want to submit to the more severe sartorial and other regulations of some sects, she felt that prayer—in Hebrew—and other aspects of the religion were important to her life.

I would realize, much later, long after our marriage ended, that for her, her faith and “spirituality” was a way of keeping her inner torment– what some would call “demons” — at bay. She seemed to think that her faith and intense prayer were a way to deal with her extreme mood swings, some of which resulted in physical attacks on me she could not remember, or so she claimed, the following day. (Do you need more proof that prayer cannot substitute for medication and therapy?) Also, I came to understand –because I would come to the same knowledge about myself—that her religiosity was a defense (or, at least, she tried to use it as such) against desires that were not approved by her family and community.

In short, both of us were trying to deal with—or not deal with—the fact that we weren’t entirely heterosexual. Oh, and in my case, that I wasn’t the man I presented myself to be, or any kind of man at all. It would have been difficult enough for her family to approve of someone who wasn’t a mensch—which, to them, meant what some would condescendingly call a “nice Jewish boy.”

So, while I told her family and the rabbis that I am Jewish, I knew well that in the eyes of some, I wasn’t truly one of them, and never could be. And, interestingly, one of the rabbis we consulted tried to discourage me from living as a Jew. For one thing, he saw that I wanted to do so at least in part for the sake of marriage and the approval of her family. He pointed out the ostracism, persecution and worse Jewish people have faced throughout history and even warned me that no matter how fastidiously I followed the ways of his religion or how well I learned Hebrew, some “in the community” wouldn’t quite accept me.

I would later learn that he wasn’t the only rabbi who tried to dissuade people from converting to, or resuming, Judaism. So, when I heard the query, “Are you Jewish?” many years later from a young bearded man in front at a sidewalk table near Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, I was taken aback. Unlike Christianity, Judaism doesn’t have a tradition of evangelism. At least, they haven’t tried to bring non-Jews into the fold. But that young man was part of the only Jewish community that, to my knowledge, tries to spread its words and ways –and only to other, mainly secular, Jews: the Lubavitchers, who comprise much of the Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, Montreal, and a few other cities.

I can’t help but wonder whether that young man was more successful in his “evangelism” efforts than I was in mine as an Evangelical Christian. Some would argue that I didn’t really “have the Holy Spirit within” me because I—at least to the best of my knowledge—never “brought” anybody “to Jesus.” Likewise, I can imagine that young man chastised for his lack of faith or commitment or something for not bringing “lost” Jewish people “home.”

Of course, today, as an atheist, I don’t care whether someone thinks I am, or ever was, Jewish, Christian or of any other religion. I think my ex and her family realized that I was only “going through the motions” and would be no more Jewish than I was a man. I sometimes wonder, though, what sort of discussion or argument I could have had with that young man had I told him that I am Jewish, or had I immersed myself in the religion enough to help raise the children my ex and I planned but never had.

(In case you’re wondering: My ex remarried. Her husband was raised in a conservative Jewish community and, within five years, they would have four children whom they would raise in the religion and send to yeshivas. I also heard, from mutual friends, that they were considering a move to Israel. Oh, and I’ve gone through a long process of affirming my identity as a woman.)

Now, if anyone were to ask me whether I’m a Christian, Catholic, or Jewish, the answer to the first two would be an emphatic “no.” As for the question of my Jewishness, that would depend on how much time or energy I have for a discussion or argument. After all, someone I knew in my youth told me and the rabbi of the man she married that she was a “Jewish atheist.” The rabbi said that was entirely plausible and made no effort to convince her otherwise. I could tell that rabbi the same thing: I, like her, have Jewish heritage on my mother’s side of the family (though my relatives converted to Catholicism) but don’t believe in any “supreme” or “higher” “being.”

In the years since then, I’ve had co-workers, and have friends and friendly acquaintances, who are Muslims. Interestingly, though Islam is a proselytizing religion, none has tried to “witness” (if you’ll pardon a Christian term) to me, and most Islamic states don’t encourage proselytizing. Oh, and contrary to what some religious conservatives and grandstanding politicians would have their constituents believe, neither I nor any other atheist I know makes any effort to recruit (or, if you like, proselytize) others to our way of thinking. I guess in that sense, at least, I am as Jewish as I am an atheist!

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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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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.

Bruce Gerencser