I am a ninth-grader at Central Junior High School in Findlay, Ohio.
I am a typical boy.
The need to prove I am “one of the guys” is important to me.
I want to fit in.
I want to be part of the club.
The “retards” have a classroom in our building.
You know who they are.
The freaks.
The morons.
The half-wits.
A wonderful opportunity to prove that I belong.
Fish Lips.
That’s what we called him.
He had big lips like Mr. Limpet.
Every day he wore a tin sheriff’s badge and carried a toy gun.
No post-nine-eleven worries in 1972.
Why do the retard’s parents send him to school like that?
Don’t they know boys like me lurk in the hallways looking for opportunities to mock and harass their son?
And so I did.
I mocked him and made life miserable for Fish Lips.
So did other boys, but I am the boy I remember.
I was part of the group now.
I hope Fish Lips didn’t mind being the price of admission.
It is 1989.
I am thirty-two years old now.
I have three children.
I am the pastor of a thriving Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church.
My wife is pregnant with our fourth child.
Our beautiful red-headed daughter was born on September 1st.
Our first girl.
We are so excited to finally have a girl.
It was not long before we realized something wasn’t quite right with our daughter.
The doctor sent us to University Hospital in Columbus.
A genetic test . . .
We didn’t need the results.
We already knew . . .
Our daughter had Down syndrome.
Her features were mild and the doctor missed all the signs.
We found out she had Down’s the same day our second daughter was born.
I had a developmentally disabled child.
All of a sudden I had a flashback to 1972.
Visions of a hateful boy persecuting the mentally handicapped, all because the boy wanted to belong.
I thought of what I would do to that boy today if he did today what he did then to my daughter.
I wept.
I couldn’t undo what I did.
But I could make sure I am never that boy again.
The least of these deserve my protection and care.
They deserve to be who they are without worrying about a boy with something to prove.
I am glad that boy died in 1989.
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.
Several years ago, I received an email from an Evangelical named Preacher Dog. Here’s an excerpt from his email:
1. In stating you are an agnostic, although you think it is highly improbable that there is a God/creator, is it logical to think that the creature can possibly exceed its Creator in terms of intelligence, wisdom or virtue? I mean, if you are actually leaving the door open to the potential that God might exist, then it’s fair to say that the clay cannot be superior to the potter, right? Think about it. When people shake their fists and [sic] God, scream at Him, curse Him, or question Him, etc., what they are really claiming is that they are superior to Him. They are charging God with having less love, or less righteousness, or with caring less, etc. Of course, this is a very silly premise, to say the least. So if you are leaving the door open to the possible existence of God, and God does indeed exist, then you must admit and concede to God’s superiority to yourself on all fronts. Do you see my point? You are a personal being, so can God be any less personal? If you are a loving being, is it reasonable to think God is some cold, heartless, unfeeling entity?
2. Okay, let’s assume God doesn’t exist. If such is the case, then where then does this leave you? Well, it leaves you stuck in the hopeless, senseless, futureless bog of mere naturalism. Yup, stuck in the mud, as the old saying goes. All of life is the product of mere time and chance. Everything is therefore “natural” ( including religion), and there’s no sense putting morality to anything, because authoritative morality doesn’t exist under such a naturalistic worldview. Hey, the only difference between man and all other creatures is conscience and a greater dose of intelligence, right? But as soon as chickens develop self awareness and start talking, then it will be a heinous, murderous act to sit down to a chicken finger dinner with coleslaw and a thick strawberry shake.
Bill, as I see it, abandoning a belief in God has left you greatly wanting. Throw God out of the equation of life and you will not be able to define your origin, meaning, purpose and destiny. Well, you can define it, but not properly, sensibly or logically.
Bill, you are not a glorified frog.
Think about it.
Preacher Dog later emailed me and apologized for calling me Bill. Bill, Bruce, it matters not. Let me attempt to answer his questions.
In admitting that I am agnostic on the God question, I am in no way suggesting that a God of some sort exists. Since I lack absolute knowledge, it is possible that some yet unknown deity created the universe. Unlikely, but within the realm of possibility. In determining whether a God exists, all any of us can do is weigh the available evidence and make a rational decision. Since all of life is based on probabilities, all I can do is look at the evidence and make a decision as to whether some sort of deity exists. Having done so, I have concluded that God does not exist. Let me put it this way. It is possible that if I step outside my back door at a certain time a falling piece of an aircraft engine could hit me in the head and kill me. It’s possible, but not likely. I can, with calm assurance, walk out my back door at a certain time without a glance to the skies to see if something is hurtling my way. So it is with God. I have no thoughts or worries about the existence of God because I see no evidence for his/her/its existence.
I suspect that Preacher Dog thinks that I am leaving the door open for believing once again in the Christian God. I am even more certain that the Christian God is a fiction conjured up in the minds of humans millennia ago. Since I can read and study the Bible, the odds are even less that the Christian God — in all his various iterations — exists (and is personally involved in our lives). Having spent fifty years in Evangelicalism and twenty-five years as a pastor, I think it is safe to say that I know the Bible inside out. I can’t remember the last time I discovered a new “truth” about Christianity. The Bible is not an inexhaustible book. It can be read and studied to such a degree that one can fully comprehend its construction, message, purpose, and teachings — along with the various sectarian interpretations of Christianity and the Bible. I do not doubt that the supernatural claims of the Bible are false. While I think there was a man named Jesus who lived and died in first-century Palestine, that Jesus bears little resemblance to the Jesus of the Bible. At best, Jesus was a Jewish prophet or teacher who lived and died 2,000 years ago. His miracles, resurrection, and ascension should be rejected by rational thinkers and viewed as no different from countless other mythical stories passed down through history.
People such as Preacher Dog are often clueless as to their own atheistic beliefs. While most Evangelicals reject all other religions but their own without studying them, some Evangelicals do study other religions before concluding that the Christian deity is the one true God. While I do have my doubts about whether someone can study world religions and still think that only one religion is right, I have had Evangelicals tell me that they had done their homework, so I am taking them at their word. Regardless of the path to Evangelicalism, once people embrace Christianity they are, in effect, saying that all other deities are false Gods. This makes them atheistic towards all Gods but their own.
Much of what Preacher Dog says in his first point doesn’t make sense to me. I think he is saying it is ludicrous for humans to say that they are morally superior to their Creator (assuming that their Creator is the Christian God). What reveals to us the existence of the Christian God? Not nature or conscience. Nature can, depending on how one views the universe, testify to the existence of some sort of deity or creating energy. However, there is zero evidence in the natural world that proves that this deity is the Christian God, namely Jesus. The same could be said for human conscience. At best, all we can say is that some sort of God exists. I have written numerous times on the lack of a bridge that connects the God of nature to the God of Christianity. The only way that people come to believe in the Christian God is through the teachings of the Bible.
Since the Bible reveals to us the Christian God, we can then determine the nature and morality of this God. Those who read the Bible without filtering it through the various Evangelicals interpretive filters will conclude that the God of the Bible is an immoral monster. He is a misogynistic, violent, capricious psychopath who uses suffering, pain, loss, and death to teach frail humans so-called life lessons. While this God gets something of a moral makeover in the New Testament, by the time we get to the book of Revelation, the nice New Testament Jesus-God has reverted to the moral monster of the Old Testament. Look at all the things God does to people during the Great Tribulation. Such violent behavior makes the Christian God a perfect candidate for an episode of the TV show Criminal Minds. There is nothing in the behavior of the Christian God that I find appealing — or moral. Where is this God of mercy, kindness, and love Evangelicals fondly talk about? When I compare the behaviors of Evangelicals with those of their God, I find that Christians (and atheists) are morally superior to the God of the Bible. And the world should be glad that this is the case. Imagine what would happen if Evangelicals started acting like their God. Why, there would be blood bridle-deep in the streets (Revelation 14).
In his second point, Preacher Dog regurgitates a well-worn Evangelical trope — that without God life would be senseless and meaningless. This notion is easily refuted by pointing to the fact that the overwhelming majority of world citizens are not Christians. And if the only True Christians® are Evangelicals, then 90% of people are living sinful, meaningless lives. Preacher Dog cannot intellectually or psychologically comprehend the idea of the existence of morality apart from the teachings of the Bible. If all Christians everywhere had the same moral beliefs, then Preacher Dog might be on to something. However, even among Evangelicals — people of THE Book — moral beliefs widely vary. Christians can’t even agree on the Ten Commandments. (Please see Letter to the Editor: Is the Bible the Objective Standard of Morality?)
Evangelicals believe that the only things keeping them from being murderers, rapists, and thieves, is God and the so-called objective Bible morality. For the uninitiated, this argument makes sense. However, for those of us well-schooled in all things Evangelical, we know that Evangelicals incessantly fight about what the Bible does or doesn’t say. Just stop by an Evangelical preacher’s forum and watch them go after each other about what is the “law” of God. God may have written his laws down on stone tablets, but modern Evangelicals, just as their Pharisaical forefathers, have developed lengthy codes of morality and conduct. It is laughable, then, to think that there is universal Christian morality. Christians can’t even agree on whether there are TEN commandments in the Decalogue. Some New Covenant Christians think the Ten Commandments are no longer binding. A careful examination of the internecine wars Christians fight over what the Bible says reveals that Evangelical beliefs are the works of men, not God. There is no such thing as objective or absolute morality. Morality has always changed with the times (or with new Biblical interpretations). Behaviors once considered moral are now considered immoral. As humans adapt and change, morality evolves. There was a time when it was moral for men to have child brides. Most countries now have laws prohibiting such marriages. We wisely recognize that it is not a good idea to allow grown men to marry 12-year-old girls.
It should be obvious to everyone that morality flows not from the Bible but from the minds of humans. We the people decide what is moral and lawful. Our objective should be to build a moral framework on the foundation of “do no harm to others.” Of course, this maxim is not absolute. When a nation-state attempts to assert its will over another, war often breaks out. Settling things often requires violence. People are injured or die as these nations settle their differences. This is regrettable, but it serves as a reminder that the maxim of “do no harm to others” can never be absolute. Let me explain this another way. Suppose a man is driving down the road with his eight-month pregnant wife. A car hits them head-on, severely injuring the wife. Her injuries are so severe that doctors tell the father that he must choose between the life of his wife or the fetus. No matter who he chooses to save, the other will die. The father can choose to “do no harm” to one of them, but not both.
Preacher Dog thinks that atheists are incapable of defining their “origin, meaning, purpose and destiny.” Again, another worn-out, shallow understanding of how atheists and other non-believers understand the world. While Preacher Dog will appeal to the Bible as “proof” of his origin, he is making a faith claim. Atheists do the same. We do not know what took place before the Big Bang. How life began is beyond our understanding — for now. Unlike those whose minds are chained to the pages of an ancient religious text, most atheists put their “faith” (confidence, trust) in the scientific method. It is the best vehicle, so far, for explaining the universe. We may never have all the answers, but we will continue to seek out as much knowledge as we can. Evangelicalism, on the other hand, leads to lazy thinking. Genesis 1-3 is given as proof of how the world came into existence. Science easily shows such claims are false, yet Evangelicals are content to say, God or the Bible says ___________ (fill in blank with statement of fact not in evidence).
As far as meaning or purpose is concerned, Evangelicals such as Preacher Dog have been duped into thinking that the Evangelical God alone gives their lives meaning and purpose. Again, billions of people live meaningful, purposeful lives without believing in the Christian God, so what does that say about Preacher Dog’s baseless assertion? I know P Dog can’t wrap his mind around what I am going to say next, but it is true nonetheless. I am a contented, happy person. Atheism and humanism have, in every way, improved my outlook on life. No longer facing the moral demands of a deity is a big relief. Not having to devote my waking hours to slavish worship of God allows me to have the time necessary to enjoy life. Being human and alive is enough for me. Having a wonderful wife, six children, and sixteen grandchildren is enough to give my life meaning and purpose. I challenge the Preacher Dogs of the world to examine my life and conclude otherwise. I suspect most atheists, agnostics, humanists, pagans, and non-Christians would say the same. Life is what you make it.
What lies behind Preacher Dog’s statement is the need for some sort of divine payoff. Evangelicals are told that suffering and loss are the price they pay for admission into God’s gated community. Life is, in effect, offloaded to the afterlife — an afterlife, by the way, that no Evangelical knows for sure exists. Yes, the Bible says there is life beyond the grave, but based on evidence found in cemeteries and obituary pages, such a belief is little more than fanciful thinking. One thing is certain, dead people stay dead. To use a bit of reverse Pascal’s Wagers…are Evangelicals really willing to risk (and forego) the pleasures and joys of this life in the hope that there is life beyond the grave? What a waste if this life is all there is. Think of what could have been done with all the money donated to the church or the hours spent in church services. And please, don’t tell me that living life according to the Bible is a better way to live. It is not, and if it wasn’t for the promise of eternal bliss and happiness, most Christians would abandon their houses of worship for the prospect of sleeping in on Sunday, followed by a relaxing afternoon spent with family, friends, and NFL football.
I choose to embrace THIS life as it is. Yes, life brings pain, suffering, and loss. In June I will be sixty-seven, just a hop, skip, and a fall to seventy. I know a good bit about life, and here’s a nugget of wisdom I would like pass on to Preacher Dog and his fellow zealots:
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you’d best get to living it. Some day, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been (from the ABOUT page).
If I died today, I would die knowing that I had lived a good life — one filled with meaning, purpose, joy, and happiness. Preacher Dog’s religion has nothing to offer me. Like the Israelites of Moses’ day, I have shaken off the bondage of Egypt. Why would I ever want to leave the Promised Land for the squalor of Egypt? As the old gospel song goes, I have come too far to look back now. I may not know what lies ahead, but I do know what’s in my rearview mirror and I have no desire to turn around.
Let me finish this post with a story from my teenage years. When I was fifteen, my parents divorced and my Dad packed everything up and moved us to Arizona. I wept many a tear as we drove farther away from all that I had ever known. Somewhere in the Plains states, we drove on a straight road that seemed to go on forever. As I looked into the distance, I could see how the road went on for tens of miles. And then there was a slight grade and the road disappeared. This is how view my life. There’s a lot of history behind me. Plenty of good and bad experiences lie in the rubble of my past. However, in front of me all I see is a long road. Where will this road take me? What lies beyond the horizon? There are experiences to be had, joys to be experienced, and questions to be answered. It is these things that still, even at my age, excite me. Possibilities, to be sure, but I will never know unless I put the car in drive and move forward.
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.
Polly and Bruce Gerencser, Our Father’s House, West Unity, Ohio Circa 2000
I asked my partner, Polly, and our six adult children, to make a list of the maxims and sayings I have used and repeated over the years.
Enjoy!
I can’t never did anything
I work on information.
Not bad for a white guy.
You are a gentleman and a scholar.
Do it right the first time.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
Use the right tool for the job.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Who had it last?
You got it out, you put it away.
No blood, no foul.
Are you bleeding? Stop crying.
Pay attention.
Be aware of your surroundings.
Did you get the biggest possible screwdriver?
Hold the light! [when helping Dad work on cars]
What would Jesus do?
Jasnathjai-whatever your name is.
Go wait in the car. I’ll be right out. [two hours later]
I’ll be right back.
Outside. Now!
Keep your hands [or feet] to yourself.
This too shall pass.
Put the lime in the coconut.
Ask your mom.
Time to lean, time to clean.
When will dinner be ready?
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.
My partner, Polly, and I will celebrate our forty-sixth wedding anniversary in July. Not a match made in Heaven or Hell, our marriage is based on love, commitment, and devotion to Cincinnati Reds baseball. Before getting married, we talked extensively about having children. Both of us wanted children — one boy and one girl. We desired the perfect family: Bruce, Polly, and two children named Jason and Bethany. Jason will soon turn forty-five and Bethany will turn thirty-five in September. We didn’t, however, stop at two children. Driven by our sincere belief that God wanted us to have a big family — a quiverful of children — we had four more children: Nathan, Jaime, Laura, and Josiah. We planned to have even more children, but Polly’s obstetrician warned us after the birth of Josiah that any further pregnancies and births could lead to her death. Polly struggled with her last pregnancy and had difficulties giving birth. Her doctor said, “Polly’s too pooped to pop.” His dire assessment of our prospects for future children left us wondering whether we should listen to his advice or “trust God” — he alone who opens and closes wombs. We put our faith in the obstetrician’s advice, ending our plan to have as many children as God gave us. Were we weak, unable to trust God? Were we lacking in faith? Probably, but it seemed to us, at the time, that reason, wisdom, and common sense dictated we kill the proverbial rabbit. We returned to using birth control until Polly had a tubal ligation in the late 1990s.
Family matters to us. We live where we do today because our six children and sixteen grandchildren live nearby. If they didn’t, we would not live in rural northwest Ohio. This area’s political, religious, and social climate is not a good fit for us as liberal/progressive atheists. If we had our druthers, we would move to a rural fishing community on the eastern seaboard or a progressive community such as Austin, Texas. Australia, New Zealand, or Fiji would be nice too. 🙂 No moves are forthcoming, except the one to the oven at the local crematorium. Seventeen years ago, we purchased our home in Ney, knowing that this would be the end of the road for us.
Two years after Polly and I married, we decided to become foster parents. Our first foster child was a toddler named J.R. — the son of two drug addicts. J.R.’s dad was in prison at the time. Over the next decade, we welcomed into our home nine other children — some of whom were teenage court referrals. We also fostered a teen girl named Irene for a year who wasn’t an official placement. Her family attended our church and needed help, so we offered to let their daughter live with us.
We treated our foster children just as our own. They were a part of our family, and we treated them as such. Unfortunately, Polly’s mom took a different approach, making it clear that blood is what made us family, and since these children were not blood, she had no obligation to treat them as her “real” grandchildren. She would continue this behavior with our step-grandchildren, going so far as to not buy them gifts for their birthdays, or she would buy them different Christmas gifts from those she bought her real grandbabies. I suspect you can imagine how much heartache and disappointment her horrible behavior caused. We made it clear to her that we treated all our grandchildren the same way. We made no distinction between them based on DNA. If our grandchildren know anything about Nana and Grandpa it is this: we love them regardless of who provided the egg and sperm that brought them to life.
Polly and I have five step-grandchildren. There has never been a time when we treated them differently from our blood grandchildren. We know that blended families can be challenging, so we don’t want our step-grandchildren to feel anything other than welcomed and loved.
As our children have married, divorced, and remarried, new grandchildren have come into our lives. Polly and I are proud to call all of them family. You see, it is not blood that determines family. Two years ago, I learned that my biological father was not the man who raised me. Did this suddenly mean that Dad was no longer my father? Of course not. My sperm donor played no part in my life, dying before I could meet him. He is an interesting side note to my story, but Robert Gerencser — good, bad, and indifferent — was my real father. Not one drop of his blood flows through my veins. Should this matter? Of course not. Family is what matters, regardless of our biology. Our grandchildren — all sixteen of them — can count on us to be there for them. We will NEVER give preferential treatment to them based on DNA.
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.
From your earliest recollection, you remember the church.
You remember the preacher, the piano player, the deacons, and your Sunday School teacher.
You remember the youth group and all the fun activities.
You remember getting saved and baptized.
You remember being in church every time the doors were open.
You remember everything in your life revolving around the church.
You remember praying and reading your Bible.
You remember the missionaries and the stories they told about heathens on the other side of the world.
You remember revival meetings and getting right with God.
You remember . . .
Most of all you remember the people.
These were the people who loved you. You thought to yourself, my church family loves me almost as much as God does.
You remember hearing sermons about God’s love and the love Christians were supposed to have for one another.
Like your blood family, your church family loves you no matter what.
But then IT happened.
You know, IT.
You got older. You grew up. With adult eyes, you began to see the church, God, Jesus, and the Bible differently.
You had questions, questions that no one had answers for.
Perhaps you began to see that your church family wasn’t perfect.
Perhaps the things Mom and Dad whispered about in the bedroom became known to you.
Perhaps you found out that things were not as they seemed.
Uncertainty and doubt crept in.
Perhaps you decided to try the world for a while. Lots of church kids did, you told yourself.
Perhaps you came to the place where you no longer believed what you had believed your entire life.
And so you left.
You had an IT moment — that moment in time when things changed forever.
You thought, surely, Mom and Dad will still love me.
You thought, surely, Sissy and Bubby and Granny will still love me.
And above all, you thought your church family would love you no matter what.
But they didn’t.
For all their talk of love, their love was conditioned on you being one of them, believing the right things.
Once you left, the love stopped.
Now they are praying for you.
Now you are a sermon illustration trotted out as a warning to people who question and doubt.
Now they plead with you to return to Jesus.
Now they question if you were ever really saved.
They say they still love you, but deep down you know they don’t.
You know their love for you requires you to be like them.
You can’t be like them anymore. . .
Such loss.
Time marches on.
The church is still where it has always been.
The same families are there, loving Jesus and speaking of their great love for others.
But you are forgotten.
A sheep gone astray.
Every once in a while, someone asks your mom and dad how you are doing.
They sigh, perhaps tears well up in their eyes . . .
Oh, how they wish you would come home.
To be a family sitting together in the church again.
You can’t go back.
You no longer believe.
All that you really want now is their love.
You want them to love you just as you are.
Can they do this?
Will they do this?
Or is Jesus more important to them than you?
Does the church come first?
Is chapter and verse more important than flesh and blood?
You want to be told they love you.
You want to be held and told it is going to be all right.
But here you sit tonight . . .
Alone . . .
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.
Several years ago, an Evangelical man by the name of Roger Smoak left the following comment on Why I Hate Jesus, the most widely read (and misunderstood) post on this site:
I would be interested in knowing what Really happened? Was it your fibromalga that wasn’t healed? Was it your oldest daughter with cystic fibrosis? Was it your dad dying at an early age or you mom who committed suicide? Was it depression you faced when you quit believing and/or your wife (pastor’s child) had to choose between you and her faith? Was it all the material wealth you experienced during your pastoring where you saw pastors who appeared to worship money instead of God? If the “Western Jesus” has destroyed your belief why can’t you believe in the Jesus of the New Testament? Every day you preached did you question is this was all a farce? What happened when you finally turned agnostic and publicly proclaimed this? Were you pastoring a church? I guess just as you judge others I would like to hear from yourself, church members, family, or someone who could shed some true light on what really happened to you.
When I receive comments such as this — and I have received hundreds of them over the past thirteen years — the first thing I do is look at the site logs to see exactly what the commenter has read.
That’s it. Right next to the Why I Hate Jesus page is a page titled WHY? On this page is a plethora of posts that curious readers can read, and in doing so, find most of their questions about my journey from Evangelicalism to atheism answered. Evidently, Roger didn’t see this page or couldn’t be bothered to look at its content.
Evangelicals tend not to be very curious, that is, unless they are surfing YouPorn. Then they are quite interested in every aspect of female and male bodies. But actually reading about and investigating the life of an Evangelical pastor turned atheist? Nah, how much information does one need to judge a man the Bible says is a fool, a follower of Satan.
Why is it that so many Evangelicals have no desire to be curious? Yes, I know many are, so don’t get your panties in a bunch if you are a curiouser-than-a-cat Evangelical, but many aren’t. I frequently get emails or blog comments from Evangelical Christians wanting to “help” me find my way to Jesus. Such people are certain that they possess the requisite knowledge and skill to win me to Jesus. They are sure that if they just befriend me, quote the right verses, soothe my hurts, or understand my pain, I will fall on my knees and fellate their God.
I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five of those years. I have a Bible college education. Surely they understand that I am not an atheist out of ignorance? Of course not, and here is where their lack of curiosity gets them in trouble. They often don’t know anything about me or this blog. Why? Because they did a Google/Bing/Yahoo search for _________________ and their search brought them to a single blog post of mine. (Or the past 90 days, 64,000+ first-time visitors have come to this site via a search engine — mostly Google.) These searchers read that one post and immediately conclude that I am a poor wayfaring waif in need of their peculiar flavor of Jesus.
When I get comments such as these, I go to the logs and see what pages they read. Usually, they have only read the pages their search brought them to. Their lack of curiosity (or laziness) is astounding, leading them to make wild judgments about me, and come to rash, ill-informed conclusions. If they would just read the About page and the WHY page they would be better informed about me and this blog. How hard can it be, right?
I suspect part of the reason Evangelicals are not, in general, known for their curiosity, is because they are one-hundred percent certain that they are absolutely right. In their minds, they worship the one, true God and this God lives inside of them. This God walks with them, talks with them, and tells them that they are his own. They have a supernatural book given to them by this supernatural God. This book contains all the answers about life they will ever need. Why should they read anything else?
When you are certain, there’s no need to think, reason, investigate, question, or doubt. When the triune God is on your team, no need to consider any other team. When your God/sect/church/pastor has declared that strawberry ice cream is the one true ice cream, no need to try Rocky Road, Mint Chocolate Chip, or any other flavor.
Simply put, Evangelicals feel no need to know anything else, when you already know all you need to know. God said it and that settled it. One true God, one true religious text, one way of salvation. The earth is 6,027 years old, created in six literal twenty-four-hour days. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible blueprint for Christ-honoring families, happy marriages, obedient children, and great sex. When the answer to every question is God, it’s not surprising to find that Evangelicals are not curious.
The good news is that more and more Evangelicals are discovering the curiosity that lies dormant beneath the surface of their lives. Once they make this discovery, they are on their way out of the closed-minded, senses-dulling prison of Evangelicalism. They will find that science can and does explain the world they live in. Science doesn’t have all the answers, but it is asking the right questions.
Still want/need to believe in a transcendent deity or some sort of spirituality? Once free of the heaven/hell, saved/lost, in/out, good/bad paradigm of Evangelicalism, people are free to wander at will. When the fear of hell and judgment are gone, they are free to experience those things that are meaningful to them. Once the question is no longer will you go to heaven when you die, the journey rather than the destination becomes what matters.
Curiosity may kill the cat, but trust me Evangelicals, it won’t kill you.
Now let me circle back around to Roger’s comment.
From the get-go, Roger says that he thinks I am lying or withholding information. He wants to know what REALLY happened to me. Well, shit, Roger, this blog is titled, The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser. This is a clue that says, HEY ROGER, THIS BLOG IS ABOUT THE LIFE OF EVANGELICAL PASTOR-TURNED-ATHEIST BRUCE GERENCSER!
Most readers would say that I am open, honest, and transparent about my past and present life. I have been willing to write about things that are painful and embarrassing to me. I have never wanted to paint a less-than-honest picture of my life. I watched too many preachers do just that back in my preaching days, and I see it going on still today. Sometimes, I want to scream to them, TELL THE FUCKING TRUTH! Alas, Evangelicalism is built on a foundation of truth avoidance; a culture that values name, reputation, and prestige more than honesty and truth.
Roger goes through a greatest hits list of reasons he thinks may be the reason I left the ministry and later left Christianity (grammar corrected for readability):
Was it your fibromyalgia that wasn’t healed?
Was it your oldest daughter with cystic fibrosis?
Was it your dad dying at an early age?
Was it your mom committing suicide?
Was it the depression you faced when you quit believing?
Was it your wife — pastor’s child — having to choose between you and her faith?
Was it your lack of material wealth you experienced during your pastoring, especially when you saw pastors who appeared to worship money instead of God?
Let me call Roger’s statements the Seven Was-Its.
Was-It Number One: Was it your fibromyalgia that wasn’t healed?
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 1996 — 12 years before I walked away from Christianity. During my career as a pastor, I battled chronic bronchitis, had bacterial pneumonia twice, had pleurisy several times, contracted mononucleosis — which almost killed me — and was treated for a plethora of joint and muscle problems. Not one time did I question God. I accepted being sick as God’s perfect plan for my life.
Was-It Number Two: Was it your oldest daughter with cystic fibrosis?
Actually, my oldest daughter has Down syndrome. When Bethany was born thirty-five years ago, my wife and I viewed her as a gift from God. We never questioned God blessing us with Bethany. Bethany having Down syndrome played no part in my deconversion.
Was-It Number Three: Was it your dad dying at an early age?
A curious reader would have found out that my dad and I weren’t close. We didn’t have an adversarial relationship, but we were definitely not close. I was outside the church raking leaves when Polly told me Dad was dead. We hugged, and I went back raking leaves. While I now miss my dad, his death played no part in my deconversion.
Two years ago, I had my DNA tested. I learned what I have long suspected — that Dad was not my biological father. I found that my father was a truck driver who lived in Chicago at the time. He likely met my seventeen-year-old mom while she was working at The Hub, a now-defunct truck stop in Bryan, Ohio. I have half-brothers and sisters in Michigan. Talk about messing up your ancestry tree.
Was-It Number Four: Was it your mom committing suicide?
Mom and I were close. Her suicide at age fifty-four deeply affected me. I so wish she were here today so she could play grandma to our grandchildren. (Please see Barbara.) That said, Mom’s death played no part in my loss of faith. My life with Mom certainly affected me in more ways than I can count, but not when it came to walking away from Christianity.
Was-It Number Five: Was it the depression you faced when you quit believing?
This one is almost funny. I have battled depression most of my adult life — from my early 20s. Thus, depression was the dark passenger of my life from the time I pastored my first church until today. The difference back then is that I buried my depression under a mountain of lies, prayers, and Bible verses. After I left Christianity, I sought out a secular psychologist to talk to. It was only then that I began to unwind the complexities and traumas of my life. I still battle depression today. It ain’t going away. My mental health goal is to keep from falling into the rabbit hole and having suicidal thoughts. Sometimes, I fail.
Was-It Number Six: Was it your wife — a pastor’s child — having to choose between you and her faith?
Now, this one is downright funny — and stupid. Yes, Polly is the daughter of a retired Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor. Her parents attended the Newark Baptist Temple in Heath, Ohio for over four decades. They both died in recent years. That said, Polly has never had to make a choice between her “faith” and her husband of forty-six years. I never sensed that she struggled with choosing between me and God. Sure, we left Christianity together, but that’s where the similarities end. Each of us has our own reasons for deconverting. One thing is certain, if I ever said I was planning to re-enter the ministry or start attending an Evangelical church again, Polly would likely divorce me or kill me with one of her Lodge cast iron pans. Trust me on this one, my wife has zero interest in Christianity. In many ways, her feelings about the past are much stronger than mine. The only difference is that Polly doesn’t write about her feelings on a blog that is read by thousands of people.
Was-It Number Seven: Was it your lack of material wealth you experienced during your pastoring, especially when you saw pastors who appeared to worship money instead of God?
Seven strikes and you are out, Roger. For most of my ministry, I believed that living in poverty was God’s chosen path for me and my family. A good case can be made from the Bible that materialism and wealth are contrary to the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. While I prayed for material blessing, I never questioned God’s provision. I worked my ass off, and let God take care of the details.
Roger goes on to ask, “if the ‘Western Jesus’ has destroyed your belief why can’t you believe in the Jesus of the New Testament?”
These are the kind of questions that make me want to scream. Roger evidently has never read a Christian history book. He thinks that his brand of Christianity is that of Jesus, the Apostles, and the first-century church, when it is, in fact, every bit as Westernized as mine was in my preaching days. In fact, I suspect if Roger had met me back in the day, he would have loved my preaching and teaching.
By not being curious, Roger misunderstands the chronology of my life. Roger writes:
Every day you preached did you question is this was all a farce? What happened when you finally turned agnostic and publicly proclaimed this? Were you pastoring a church?
I pastored my last church in 2003 and left the ministry in 2005 — three years before my deconversion in November 2008. I still did some preaching, but I no longer was interested in the dog-and-pony show called the ministry. In 2005 — as a last fling of sorts — I candidated at several Southern Baptist churches in West Virginia. It became clear to me that my heart was no longer in the ministry, and neither was Polly’s. We spent the next three years trying to find a church we could call home. (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT! for a list of the churches we visited.) In the end, we concluded, that despite the names above the doors, churches are all pretty much the same.
Roger concludes his comment by saying:
I guess just as you judge others, I would like to hear from yourself, church members, family, or someone who could shed some true light on what really happened to you.
This brings me around to the fact that Roger thinks I am lying about my past and present life. He wants to “judge” my life, and determine for himself the “real” reasons I left the ministry and later left Christianity. Roger would love to interrogate my wife and children or “someone” — whoever the hell that is — who would confirm the “real” reasons I am no longer an Evangelical pastor. Something tells me that Roger thinks he already knows the “truth” about my life. He just needs someone to authenticate and confirm his judgments.
I have decided to be brutally open and honest with Roger. I sincerely — in the name of Loki –want him to know the truth about me.
Roger, I never was a Christian. The joke is on the thousands of people I pastored. I was a deceiver, a false prophet, a destroyer of souls. I spent most of my adult life living a lie, pretending to be a follower of Jesus just so I could work 60-80 hours a week, earn $12,000 a year, live off of food stamps, drive $300 cars, and raise six children in a 12′ by 60′ foot mobile home. Instead of accepting secular employment that paid fabulously well, I chose the aforementioned lifestyle all because I wanted to be a wolf among sheep.
I know you really want to know about the sex stuff. You got me, Roger. I fathered several children with female congregants. I also had gay relationships with several deacons. Not only that, I also was a porn addict, frequented houses of prostitution, and attended all-male revues at the local strip club.
I spent five years teaching church children without pay at our Christian Academy. I taught them the Bible and the doctrines of historic Christianity. Why? I was a deceiver, an apostate.
Today, I am a crossdressing worshiper of Satan. Every Halloween, I sacrifice Christian infants to Lord Lucifer. I spend every waking hour trying to destroy God. I hate him, as I do all Christian churches and pastors.
This, I suspect, is more akin to Roger’s narrative of my life than reality. Why read, investigate, ask questions, and attempt to understand when you can read a couple of pages and render infallible, self-righteous judgment?
Let me leave Roger with a verse from the Bible he says he believes. Proverbs 18:13 says:
New International Version To answer before listening– that is folly and shame.
New Living Translation Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.
English Standard Version If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.
New American Standard Bible He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.
New King James Version He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.
King James Bible He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
Christian Standard Bible The one who gives an answer before he listens–this is foolishness and disgrace for him.
Contemporary English Version (my favorite) It’s stupid and embarrassing to give an answer before you listen.
Good News Translation Listen before you answer. If you don’t, you are being stupid and insulting.
Holman Christian Standard Bible The one who gives an answer before he listens– this is foolishness and disgrace for him.
New American Standard 1977 He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.
American Standard Version He that giveth answer before he heareth, It is folly and shame unto him.
Douay-Rheims Bible He that answereth before he heareth sheweth himself to be a fool, and worthy of confusion.
Thus saith the Lord.
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.
Almost 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. This is unconscionable.
If Donald Trump was not on the 2024 ballot, Joe Biden would not get my vote. His immoral inaction over Israel’s war against the Palestinian people is a bridge too far for me.
Biden plans to give Israel $18 billion more in weapons of mass destruction. Bernie Sanders is right, Israel should not receive a nickel more in U.S. aid as long as they are waging indiscriminate war against defenseless Palestinians and withholding/hindering humanitarian aid.
Studies show increased DNA tests reveal incest more prevalent than thought. Is anyone really surprised by this? I suspect the same can be said for an increase in people finding out that their biological father is not the man who says he is.
Hillary Clinton tells voters who are upset over Biden-Trump rematch to “get over yourself.” Sorry, Hillary I’m still pissed over your feckless 2016 presidential campaign. Taking pot shots at Democrats who want better candidates and principled policies is driving people away from the Party. You’ve been warned.
Major League Baseball ⚾️ has started. Hope springs eternal. Will this be the year my Cincinnati Reds make a deep playoff run? Please God . . . 🤣
Arizona Republicans said they wanted a total ban on abortion, and the Supreme Court gave them one. Now they are distancing themselves from the very thing they wanted. Why? They fear being voted out of office by angry women who are tired of men controlling their reproductive rights.
Don’t believe one word Trump says about abortion. He will literally say anything to get elected. I guarantee you, once elected he will give forced birthers exactly what they want.
Our kitten, Petey, the Ferret, is six months old. We are currently living through the cat equivalent of the terrible twos. Last night, Polly put leftover garlic bread in a bag and left it on the kitchen counter. Come morning, garlic bread was spread all over the kitchen/living room floor. The bag? Petey took it upstairs. Never a dull moment.
Wonder and awe for this atheist was seeing and experiencing the total eclipse on Monday. God is nothing compared to this.
Bonus: Polly started her new job last week at Sauder Manufacturing in Stryker, Ohio. She is working first shift in their sewing department. This was an inter-company move, so she kept all her benefits, albeit with a $160 a week play cut since she is no longer a manager. We survive, to live another day.
In July of 1983, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher Bruce Gerencser, his wife, Polly, and their two young boys, aged four and two, moved from Buckeye Lake, Ohio to Somerset to start a new IFB church. I would remain pastor of Somerset Baptist Church until we moved to San Antonio, Texas in March 1994 so I could become the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf.
Over the eleven years I spent pastoring Somerset Baptist, we owned all sorts of automobiles — most of them cheap beaters or cars given to us by congregants. Every one of these cars has a story to tell. (Please see I Did It For You Jesus — Crank Windows and Vinyl Floor Mats.) One such car is the green Ford station wagon in the picture above.
John Nelson, a congregant who lived down the hill from the church with his wife and four sons (who later would attend our Christian academy), was what you would call a “wheeler and dealer.” John has been running a perpetual yard sale for decades. His father owned a junkyard in nearby Saltillo. Over the years, I bought or traded for cars from John. One such car was the green station wagon. If I remember right, I traded John a Chevy Caprice I had purchased from another church family for the station wagon. Polly hated this car the most of the 50+ cars I/we have owned over the years. I mean really, really, really hated the car. My three oldest sons hated the car too. Let me explain.
The station wagon was a huge car — common of the “boats” manufactured in the 1970s. Personally, I loved big cars — the bigger the better. Polly, however, did not. Not that what she liked or disliked mattered. I was officially in charge of all things auto-related — from purchases to repairs to sales. Polly oh-so-fondly remembers days when I left the house with one car, only to return home later that day with a different one. She never, ever said a word, but I have to think that she more than once thought the Baptist equivalent of “what the fuck” when I drove up with a new rolling wreck.
As you can see from the photo, the station wagon had an ugly green paint job. The car had been repainted by hand by a previous owner. Its paint really made the car stand out in a parking lot, much to the embarrassment of my family.
Typically, I looked at potential automobiles from one of two perspectives: looks and mechanical soundness. This car looked awful, but it was mechanically sound. I drove it all over southeast Ohio (and West Virginia on road trips) until I got bored with the car and traded it for something different.
Polly hated taking the car anywhere. At the time, she thought that the station wagon was a rolling advertisement for our poverty; not the kind of car a preacher’s wife should be forced to drive. Ever the trooper, she said nothing.
While Polly disliked driving the car, it was our sons who couldn’t stand the sight of the station wagon. At the time, our two oldest sons were enrolled at Licking County Christian Academy in Heath, Ohio. A ministry of the Newark Baptist Temple — an IFB church pastored by the late Jim Dennis (Polly’s uncle) — LCCA was a non-accredited school populated primarily with children from middle-class and affluent Christian families. The Gerencser children were among the poorest students to attend the school.
LCCA was thirty miles from our home. A Bible church near our home, Maranatha Bible Church, then pastored by Bob Shaw, bussed children to LCCA every day, but my request to let our children ride their bus was denied. I suspected then, and still do today, that the church and its pastor didn’t want our poor munchkins intermingling with theirs. So, we dutifully drove 60 miles a day to Heath to drop off and pick up our children from school. Later, a girl in our church started attending LCCA. We would take the children to LCCA in the morning, and her father would pick them up after school on his way home from work. He, too, drove a junker.
My sons have told me that they were embarrassed to see me pull up in the school parking lot driving the green station wagon. Other parents drove new or late-model automobiles. Not their preacher dad. Character building? Perhaps. I know this much. Neither of them drives their children to and from school with autos that look anything like the station wagon. Not going to happen. And these days, we drive a 2020 Ford Edge. No clunkers to be found in our driveway. If I came home with such a car today, I suspect the top of my head would be sporting an indentation left from a Lodge cast iron skillet. Polly is definitely no longer passive when it comes to making car-buying decisions.
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.
It all started with my belief that the Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I considered the Bible the road map for navigating through a Satan-dominated, sin-plagued world; a blueprint for everything from marriage to child-rearing to what clothing to wear. The Bible, along with the Holy Spirit who lived inside of me, was my God’s way of speaking to me and telling me what to do
According to how Evangelicals interpret the Protestant Bible, every person, from conception, is a vile, broken sinner under the just condemnation of God, deserving eternal punishment in Hell/Lake of Fire. Fortunately, God graciously provides a way for us to have our sins forgiven and avoid eternal punishment. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to be the final atonement for our sins. Jesus Christ was executed on a Roman cross, and three days later rose again from the dead, conquering death and the grave. Our salvation and eternal destiny rest squarely on the merit and work of Jesus. He, and he alone, is the way, truth, and life. Through the preaching of the Word (the Bible) and the work of the Holy Spirit, God calls out to sinners, saying, repent and believe the gospel. Those who hear his voice are gloriously saved and adopted into the family of God.
The Bible taught me that as a God-called, God-ordained minister of the gospel, I had the solemn obligation to preach the good news to everyone. Work for the night is coming. Leave everything for the sake of the gospel. Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. These clichés were not mere words to me. They were clarion calls to forsake all, including my family and economic security, and follow Jesus.
Every church I attended, every youth group I was a part of, and every summer youth camp I went to, reinforced the belief that God wanted (demanded) one hundred percent of me. All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give, says the old gospel song, I Surrender All. I went to an Evangelical Bible college to train for the ministry. Every class curriculum, every professor, every chapel speaker shouted out to students:
Souls for Jesus is our battle cry. Souls for Jesus is our battle cry. We never will give in while souls are lost in sin Souls for Jesus is our battle cry.
My partner, Polly, went to college to get a Mrs. degree. She believed God wanted her to marry a preacher. Polly knew that she would have to make sacrifices for the sake of her husband’s call. She was taught that Jesus, the ministry, and the church came first. She was also taught that her husband was specially chosen by God to proclaim the good news of the gospel. She was encouraged to read biographies of great men and women of faith to learn how to deal with being married to a man of God. Polly and I entered marriage and the ministry knowing God had called us to a life of self-denial and devotion to the work of the ministry. Hand in hand, without complaint, we embraced the work we believed God had set before us.
I consider 1983-1994 to be the high point of my ministerial career. I pastored a growing, busy Evangelical church. Sinners were weekly being saved, baptized, and joining the church. Backsliders were being reclaimed. God was smiling on our work. Not only was this my observation, but it was the observation of my colleagues in the ministry. God was doing something special at Somerset Baptist Church.
During this time, I did a lot of preaching. A typical week for me looked something like this:
Jail ministry on Tuesday
Nursing home ministry on Wednesday
Midweek service on Thursday
Street preaching 2-3 days a week
Teaching the adult Sunday school class
Preaching twice on Sunday
We also had a tuition-free Christian academy, open only to the children of church members. In addition to my busy church preaching schedule, I held revival services and preached at bible conferences and pastor’s fellowships. I was motivated by what I believed the Bible taught me about the work of the ministry. I looked at the life of the disciples and thought that they were a pattern to follow. Run the race, the Apostle Paul told me. I was totally committed to what I believed was God’s calling on my life.
Some Christians object and say “you are the one who worked yourself to death. Don’t blame the Church or God. OUR pastor doesn’t work this way. He takes time for his family. Blah. Blah Blah.” Even now, as an atheist, I find such objections lame. If the Bible is true, if what it says about God, sin, salvation, death, Hell, and Heaven is true, how dare any preacher, or any Christian for that matter, treat the gospel of Jesus Christ so carelessly? How dare any preacher not burn himself out for the sake of those in need of salvation. No time for busywork. No time for golfing with your fellow preachers.
More than a few pastors are lazy hirelings who do just enough to keep from getting fired. They pastor a church for two or three years, wear out their welcome, and then move on down the road to another church. I have no respect for pastors who defend their laziness by stressing the importance of balance in their lives. Where do they find such a notion in the Bible they say they believe? Jesus doesn’t call them to balance. He calls them to forsake all and follow him.
One of the reasons I see Christianity as a bankrupt religion is the lackadaisical approach Christians and their spiritual leaders have toward matters that supposedly have eternal consequences. Most of what goes on in the average church is meaningless bullshit. Call a business meeting to decide on the color of the paint for the nursery walls and everyone shows up. Implore people to come out for church visitation and only the same three or four people show up, week after week.
Why should I take the Bible, God, Jesus, salvation, Heaven, or Hell seriously when most Christians and pastors live lives that suggest they don’t? It took me leaving the ministry in 2005 and Christianity in 2008 for me to realize that most of what I was chasing after was nothing more than a fool’s errand. Many of the ex-ministers who read this blog know what I am talking about. So much of life wasted, and for what? Too bad I had to be fifty years old before I realized what life is all about. Too bad I sacrificed my health on the altar of the eternal before I realized that there is no eternity, just the here and now.
From a psychological perspective, I understand that my type-A, workaholic personality made it easy for me to be the preacher I came to be. Whether it was pastoring churches or managing restaurants, I worked day and night, rarely taking time off for family or leisure. I still have the same tendencies, the difference now being that the list of things that matter to me is very small. Polly matters. Family matters. My neighbors matter. But matters of eternity, Heaven, and Hell? Nary a thought these days. If the Christian God exists, then I am screwed, and more than a few of the readers of this blog are too. However, I don’t think the Christian version of God exists, so I am investing all my time, money, and talent — how many times did you hear that phrase in a sermon? — on the only life I have — this one. I will leave it up to the gods and my family to do what they will with me after I am dead. Of course, depending on what happens to me after death, I could come back from the dead and write a book titled, “Heaven is for Real and Boy, Are the Atheists in Trouble.”
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.
Life is like a spinning plate. In normal circumstances, the plate as it spins is balanced and in control. Occasionally, the plate will become overloaded or unbalanced, but with time will balance itself out, and life will continue along with little to no spillage from the plate.
For people battling chronic illness and pain, their spinning plate is dissimilar to that of many people. Thanks to struggles with pervasive illnesses and unrelenting pain, their plates are already full, spinning wobbly, sending the contents of the plate every which way, and, sometimes, propelling the plate into the wall or floor. Daily, small things are added to the plate, causing further imbalance. The plate owner struggles to keep the plate spinning without crashing. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he doesn’t. And when he fails, he makes a mess for all to see, often leading to despair.
For me personally, it is the small things in life that often fuel my depression. I can handle big things, and big decisions. It is the small things that pile up on my plate, leading me to deep, dark — at times suicidal — times in my life; moments when I just want to die. Those are times when narcotic pain medications don’t work effectively or eating food of any type makes me sick or leads to vomiting. Last night, I spent the night into the morning hours in the bathroom — sixteen visits in all. Loose bowels and lack of sphincter muscle control . . . shitty bed, shitty clothes, shitty floors, shitty, shitty, shit everywhere. An accumulation of small things that left me in despair, not wanting to live another day. Fortunately, after dropping eight pounds in less than a day, things have returned to normal — whatever the hell “normal” means.
Every day, the small things change, but their effect on my life is the same, threatening to spin my life’s plate out of control. My therapist and I often talk about small things and how they affect my life. The goal, of course, is to lessen the number of small things in my life; to lessen the small things piling up on my plate. That’s easier said than done. When your bowels say shit, you shit. When your stomach says vomit, you vomit. When your legs and spine leave you writhing in pain, you writhe in pain. Contrary to what the positive mental attitude (PMA) prophets might say, some things are beyond our control. There’s little I can do to change how my body responds to food or nerve and joint pain. I can take medications or use mental techniques to redirect my pain, but there are times when nothing I do works. All I know to do is grit my teeth and hold on, hoping that my suffering will lessen. There’s no healing or deliverance on the horizon. All I can do is endure . . . until I no longer can do so.
I wish I had the luxury of sitting back and enjoying life, but when you have chronic health problems, you have no time to waste on the “good life.” I am at the place in life where I have tied a knot at the end of the rope, and I am hanging on for dear life. I love Polly; I love my children and their spouses; I love my grandchildren; I love my siblings. I live for them. I still have writing I want to do; and a book to finish. I still want to get my house in order, so that when the day comes that my plate comes crashing to the floor one last time, Polly won’t be left with a mess. As it stands now, if I died today, my demise would leave the love of my life in a difficult spot. She deserves better, and so do my children and grandchildren.
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.
