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Local IFB Pastor John MacFarlane’s Latest on “Reverse Racism” and “Miscegenation”

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trump im not a racist

John MacFarlane is the pastor of First Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in nearby Bryan, Ohio — the place of my birth. I attended First Baptist Church in the 1960s and 1970s. I was attending First Baptist when I left in August 1976 to study for the ministry at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan.

MacFarlane writes a public daily devotional on First Baptist’s website. I have featured his prose on this site several times. Last July, MacFarlane posted a devotional titled “Racism.” As you shall see, MacFarlane thinks race and ethnicity are one the same:

I am writing today’s devotional on June 10 while sitting in a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel room in Louisville, KY

…..

The culture of Kentucky is definitely different than the culture of Ohio.  I didn’t say wrong and I didn’t say worse.  I said different and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  But I want to share with you a very politically incorrect observation.  Bear with me as I set this up.

In the little dining area of the hotel, the television has the morning news running to provide those enjoying their breakfast with some indigestion.  News is never good, it seems.  The news today featured:  the millions of ransom dollars paid by a company to someone who had taken their computer systems hostage; issues on the border and a Vice-President who has yet to act as the border czar;  Presidential missteps and mistakes; millions of COVID vaccines rapidly reaching their expiration dates;  race riots, BLM, protests, white privilege, and apologizing for our race.  That’s where my observations come in.How much of this is made up, contrived by those who aren’t content unless they are fighting?!?  

How much of this is stirred up by people whose nickname should be Maytag – always agitating?

Oh, please don’t misunderstand.  I believe racism is out there.  There are places where it is practiced in some despicable ways.  But deal with it there.  Don’t bring it where I’m at and introduce it like another strain of the Wuhan plague.  I have yet to be in a place where I’ve felt that tension and I don’t want to be in that place.  Get rid of it THERE…deal with it THERE…and certainly don’t bring it around me!

Let me introduce you to Betty, Earl, Millie, and Carl.   Every one of them had a much darker tan than I have!  In fact, this was true throughout the facility.  The Hampton Inn & Suites of Louisville, KY was an ethnic melting pot.  So what?They were the kindest people.

….

The Asian housekeepers were courteous and polite, smiling and accommodating if you asked a question.

There were mutual niceties and respect.  I didn’t feel treated or looked at differently because of the color of my skin and I certainly didn’t treat or look at them differently because of the color of their skin.  Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?

….

I never once felt uncomfortable or threatened.  I saw blacks treating whites respectfully, openly talking with each other.  I saw whites treating blacks the same way.  Never did I see anything that made me think that I needed to hide in fear.  Doors were opened for one another.  Common courtesies and manners were demonstrated between ethnicities

…..

We cannot deny our history and pretend that there are not some very shameful events from the past.  But I’m not living there.  If the past continues to shade our present – if we allow it to do that – we will never move on and achieve the equity that is allegedly sought.  Yes, atrocities were done.  However, the people that deserve the strongest apology and acts of restitution have been in graves for many years.

Is it possible that some people aren’t happy unless they are stirring a pot, creating a fight, and spreading animosity and hatred?  Once again, please hear what I’m saying.  I know racism exists.  But creating a national narrative that teaches racism is everywhere and that if you’re white, you’re automatically a racist is nothing more than a vicious, vulgar lie and I personally resent and am angered by the accusation.

Genesis 1:27 tells us, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  From this original couple sprang every ethnicity there is.  There are not multiple races.  We are all of one race and that race is humanity.  Ethnicities are just the spices of life that the Lord has added to keep us from becoming dull and boring.

Celebrate the ethnicities.  Respect them.  Refuse to place one above another.  Make the playing field level.  That’s the way God does it.

….

The cure to the violence, hatred, and fighting in the world is NOT to give any ethnicity advantage over another.  We definitely don’t need sensitivity training.  It’s for EVERY ethnicity to be brought before the cross of Jesus and together, we humbly kneel in gratitude for the blood that covers our sins and the power of the resurrection that makes us alive.If it’s a fight people want, take them to the cross where the greatest fight ever was fought and won – by a JEW, nonetheless!  Praise the Lord!

You can read my pointed response here.

You would think that MacFarlane would recant his previous post and make amends for his overtly racist language. Alas, he is an IFB preacher, so no honest reflection is forthcoming.

Today, MacFarlane doubled down on his (deliberate) misunderstanding of race and ethnicity:

Where do I begin with Biblical application?!?  Let’s start by addressing the obvious – racism.  I know.  We are sick to death of hearing about this because of the media hype and the cancel culture.  But we have to acknowledge and admit that racism does exist.  There is a rapidly growing Antisemitic spirit in America.  Jews in large cities like NYC are targeted for violence.  There is racism against blacks.  And there is a reverse-racism against whites.

….

Let’s add to this by talking about miscegenation.  The vast majority of you reading this are the product of miscegenation.  I am a product of miscegenation.  From what I understand, my grandmother was a full-blooded German.  She married a Scotsman who was part Irish.  They had my dad.  He married a woman who was part Irish, British Anglo-Saxon, and hillbilly!  That combination had me.

What is my “cultural identity?”  What is my heritage.  I really don’t have one.  I’m Heinz 57.  I’m a mutt.  I’m a mixed breed.  And my culture/heritage is mine.  It’s new.  Better yet, I’m saved!  That’s an entirely different culture/heritage that doesn’t fit with any that are in this world.

As I read Scripture, one heritage and cultural identity was to be protected and that was the Jew.  Amazingly, it has been preserved through the centuries so that during the Tribulation, 12,000 from each tribe will still have their heritage intact and will make up the 144,000.

As I noted in my previous post about MacFarlane’s views of race and ethnicity, the good pastor doesn’t believe racism exists in rural Northwest Ohio (please see Does Racism Exist in Rural Northwest Ohio?). Oh racism exists “somewhere,” just not here in white/Republican/Evangelical Northwest Ohio. Today, MacFarlane mentions for the first time “reverse racism” against whites. I thought, yet again, OMG, John, did you really say this out loud?” MacFarlane is an avid Trump supporter — the man who has done more to advance the intellectual bankrupt idea of “reverse racism” than David Duke.

MacFarlane defines “miscegenation” as people of different ethnicities marrying each other. I am beginning to wonder if MacFarlane has access to a dictionary. Had he bothered to look up the word miscegenation, he would have learned:

miscegenation

Wikipedia defines “miscegenation” this way:

Miscegenation is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races.The word is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere (to mix) and genus (race) from the Hellenic “γένος”. The word first appeared in “Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro,” a pretended anti-Abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 U.S. presidential election. The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws.

Interbreeding of different races John, not whites marrying whites. Surely MacFarlane knows this, so I assume his fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between race and ethnicity (and I understand “race” is a complex issue) is driven by his right-wing theological and political beliefs; that and the fact that he has spent most of his life living in white-as-a-KKK-sheet rural northwest Ohio.

Unfortunately, I will likely be the only local person to call into question MacFarlane’s harmful misunderstanding of race and miscegenation — along with many other political and social issues.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The “Jab”

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jesus wasnt vaccinated

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie . . . (2 Thessalonians 2:11)

This verse best describes the current state of affairs politically and socially in the United States. Thanks to Trumpists (including Christian Nationalists, White Supremacists, and Fundamentalist Christians) and their irrational anti-science, anti-vax, anti-mask beliefs, our nation is on the verge of civil war. Over what? Vaccines, masks, and fear of losing personal FREEDOM are driving otherwise decent, hardworking Americans to fall under the spell of false prophets. Believing the lies peddled by these charlatans, our friends, neighbors, and family members are embracing all sorts of nonsense. There was a time when we could ignore such people, pushing them to the fringes of our society. Unfortunately, the election of Donald Trump changed everything. Democrats thought that kicking Trump out of office would be the cure for what ails us. Uncle Joe will save us from ourselves, right? How is that working out for us?

Let me conclude this post with a quote from an article written by Alex Ruiz (aka Spaniard VIII):

A great deception is happening today, all over the world. The jab does a devastating thing to the human body. After a person takes the two jabs, it wipes out one’s antibodies—the immune system—and won’t be able to fight against other diseases. 

….

The jab is satanic, and its purpose is to kill off one’s immune system to become compromised for future diseases. It makes a lot of sense to me why they are so hammered in getting everyone jabbed. In the future, after everyone’s antibody is gone, they can release another plague to wipe out many people. That is what the elites, who are into the occult, have in mind. Why do you think we have abortion facilities to lower the human population.

Everyone who got deceived in taking the jab has put their lives in danger. Fear was the tool that Satan used to make people take the needle and kill their antibodies.

….

When a new virus is introduced to the population, all those who got jabbed will be defenseless. Many people will die from a plague, as stated in Revelation 6:8. The stage is being set for that day. Are we not to trust in the Lord, or should we put our trust in men?

….

The people in New York City are under assault. Below is a speech that the Governor of NY gave to believers that will shed light on Satan’s strategy.

NY Governor, Kathy Hochul said:

“We are not through this pandemic I wished we were, but I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what God did, answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers, He made them come up with a vac**** that is from God to us, and we must say thank you, God. Thank you, and I wear my vac***** necklace all the time to say I’m vac****ted. All of you, yes, I know you’re vac****ted. You’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there, who aren’t listening to God, and what God wants, you know this, you know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it, and say we owe this to each other, we love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another, and how do you show that love? But to care about each other enough to say, please get vac****ted because I love you.”

She wears a necklace that says vaxed instead of the cross. She said that she prays to God. My question would be, which God? Not the God of the Bible. A Democrat, who supports the murders of infants, lawlessness, godlessness through socialism, sexual immorality— which is homosexuality, and making Americans take a deadly jab against their will or they will get punished. This lady is demonic, and she is making this vac**** her religion by saying it is from God, and she is sending out her apostles. Her gospel to Christians is, Jesus loves you and wants you to take the death shot. Would Jesus want you to take a jab that will destroy your immune system, which He put into your body to protect it from viruses? This woman tries to look like a lamb but speaks like a dragon.

Is Ruiz alone in his beliefs? Of course not. We live in a country where lunacy is now mainstream. Millions of Americans believe COVID-19/vaccines are tools used by Democrats, liberals, socialists, evolutionists, and atheists to destroy Christian America and usher in the Antichrist’s one-world government. No amount of science or rational argumentation will change their minds.

The Apostle Paul had this to say to a young preacher named Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:1: This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. Perilous times have indeed come, but no Jesus is coming as a thief in the night to rapture us away. We are on our own.

Note:

The quote from Governor Kathy Hochul is true. Ugh. The quote is from a speech given today by Hochul at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Life in Rural Northwest Ohio: Defiant Anti-Maskers

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freedom 2

Earlier today, my wife and I, along with our daughter, went to the medical clinic in Bryan to get our annual flu shots. In, out, done. We later got drinks at McDonald’s and sandwiches at Arbys and then took a short drive down the country roads where my Hungarian grandparents lived and died almost sixty years ago. Just beyond the farm runs Beaver Creek, swollen over its banks from several days of rain. A bit farther down the road, we saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree. We stopped, rolled down our windows, and watched bluejays, annoyed at the bald eagle’s presence, divebombing him. Nature — a wonderful distraction from a nation that seems to be on the precipice of lunacy, financial collapse, and civil war.

The bald eagle moved on, tired of the blue jays disrupting his afternoon siesta. Polly put the car in gear and pointed it towards home, five miles away. She drove slowly, allowing the both of us to survey what was new in our neighborhood. Not much. A pool closed for winter. A new roof here, new siding there. Flooded farm fields, with soybeans and corn ready to be harvested. Life moves slowly in the country. We like it this way.

Our conversation turned to our visit to the medical clinic — a place I have been going to for fifty-plus years. The clinic has a strict mask policy. No mask, no treatment. Polly told me of a new sign at the check-in counter, a list of behaviors that will NOT be tolerated. No doubt, this list resulted from anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers being outraged over Parkview’s mask mandate. Less than half of locals are vaccinated, and non-mask-wearers far outnumber people who care about their neighbors in places such as Walmart, Meijer, Menard’s, or Chief. Only local medical facilities require masks.

In the corner of the waiting room was a Trump supporter — a defiant anti-masker. He was wearing a red, white, and blue flag print mask with a statement about FREEDOM printed on the front. I say “wearing,” but only in the loosest sense of the word. His mask was pulled down, not only below his nose and mouth, but below his chin. Yep, he was a “patriotic” American who didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone or anything except his Trump-inspired FREEDOM. He knew he had his dick (and morality) hanging out for everyone to see. His face dared his mask-wearing neighbors to say anything. Hell, in rural northwest Ohio, this “patriot” may have been carrying a concealed weapon. I said nothing, but I wondered how long it would be before his FREEDOM delivered his aged, decrepit body to the front door of the ER across the street. Then this “patriot” will wish he had done differently.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce, I Love Your Atheism But Hate Your Politics

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freedom

I have recently posted three articles on COVID-19:

Only the first article was written by me. Before this week, I haven’t written anything meaningful about COVID-19 since November 2020. All told, I have published twenty-eight articles about the virus — a minuscule percentage of the articles posted since March 2020. Earlier this year, I had a comment problem with a reader who was anti-vax and anti-mask. After allowing her to say her piece, I banned her. She took to her blog to denounce me and several readers of this blog. She continues to beat the anti-vax, anti-mask drum to this day.

The aforementioned woman loved my atheism but hated my politics — even though wearing masks and getting vaccinated are science and social issues, not political. Some readers wish I would just stick to critiquing Evangelical Christianity or espousing atheism. They KNOW I am a Democrat, a liberal, a Democratic Socialist, and a pacifist, yet they get pissed off when I write about those things. They KNOW I am a skeptic and a rationalist, believing science is the best way to explain and understand the world we live in. Yet, when I critique one of their pet beliefs, they become offended or outraged. Such is the life of a writer.

After posting the most recent articles on COVID-19, my Facebook page follower numbers dropped by eighty-five. I can think of no other reason for the drop than people getting upset over the content of these posts. Welcome to 2021.

I have little tolerance for people who are anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers (or Trump supporters). I am done playing “nice.” No rational or moral case can be made for refusing to get vaccinated or wear a mask. I don’t buy the notion that unvaccinated people are “vaccine-hesitant.” There is now sufficient evidence for the efficacy and safety of vaccines. We know masks “work.” Most of the people now getting sick and dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated people. Due to their political beliefs or pigheadedness, unvaccinated people think it is their “right” to expose others to a deadly virus. FREEDOM is their watchword, and they refuse to accept that they have a moral responsibility to get vaccinated and wear masks. Many of these people are also professing Christians. Yet, their anti-vax/anti-mask behavior reveals that they aren’t followers of Christ at all. Jesus told his disciples that they were to love their neighbors. Don’t love your neighbor? Don’t say you love God. What better way to show you love your neighbor than getting vaccinated or wearing a mask?

Bruce, don’t you think you should try to reach these people? Nope. The problem isn’t a lack of knowledge. I could write on COVID-19 every day for a month and not persuade one unvaccinated person. We have reached a place when federal and state governments MUST mandate vaccinations and mask-wearing. No, this doesn’t mean rounding up people and inoculating them against their will. However, it does mean that being vaccinated (or being tested weekly at your own expense) and wearing a mask are the entryway to commerce and employment.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Dying for Your Beliefs

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guest post

A Guest Post by ObstacleChick

I have started and discarded this post several times as it’s painful to write. The world has changed dramatically in the past few years, with some of those changes being long overdue while others are incredibly backward and damaging.  It has been difficult for me to process and accept that things in our country were not as I had believed them to be. The ascension of the Trump administration and the covid-19 pandemic have exposed the ugliness that had previously been covered with a sheer veneer of respectability. It’s an exposure of my privilege that I have been blind to so much that is reprehensible in our country. I feel that the United States is like the Pharisees whom Jesus admonished, calling them “whited sepulchres”:  “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:27 KJV) The ascension of the Trump administration allowed the people who are racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, authoritarian, bigoted, and patriarchal, to openly emerge into the light of day, loudly proclaiming their putrid rhetoric. Dog whistles have been replaced by blaring trumpets.

Sometimes it feels like our country is falling apart. I used to take for granted that women had the right to our bodily autonomy – was that not hashed out by our Supreme Court in 1973? I took for granted that black people had equal rights – was that not codified by amendments to our Constitution, and further reinforced by the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s? I took for granted that finally LGBTQ people could marry whom they loved – was that not declared by our Supreme Court in the 2010s? I took for granted that we were a nation of people who work hard, who are for the most part educated, who are becoming increasingly diverse, and who are part of a world-leading nation.

But I have come to see something quite different. I see large swaths of people who embrace anti-intellectualism, who believe conspiracy theories, who think the QAnon conspiracy theories are real, and that a Satan-worshiping cabal of Democrats, Hollywood elites, and name-your-favorite Bogeyman are baby-killing, blood-drinking pedophiles who are trying to take over the U.S. Government, and our Great White Hope is . . . Donald J. Trump, a former reality-TV “star” who runs his businesses like a mafia boss, steamrolling over anyone who gets in the way of his profit. I see white supremacists coming out of the woodwork, fighting to keep their Confederate statues that were erected during an era in which white people were afraid that black people might be able to exercise freedoms. I see people protesting over wearing a mask in order to prevent the spread of a disease that is much more fatal than the common seasonal flu. I see that people are actively working against their own self-interest to promote their distorted version of freedom: a freedom that allows them to carry hand-held killing machines in public without much restriction, that allows them to force their religious symbols and statements onto others, that allows them to prevent people from having access to basic healthcare, housing, child care, and other needs. (If you have an opportunity to read Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzl, I urge you to do so.) A political party has convinced nearly half of our country — many of whom profess to follow Jesus who urged that the greatest commandment is to love one’s neighbor as oneself — that leaving everyone to their own devices is the good and right thing to do.

How do we reach these people? I honestly do not know. They live in a different ecosystem from the one I do. They consume different sources of media from those I do. They wholeheartedly embrace untruths, believing them to be “true,” and they go around spreading their lies and their covid-19 infections to the innocent. The term “compassion fatigue” aptly describes how I feel right now. Part of me wants to leave them to their own devices — if they don’t want to protect themselves from covid-19, let them die. Yet, real people are being hurt.

One of the real people who was hurt was a colleague and friend of mine, a 38-year-old woman whose father is a retired police officer and an ardent Trump supporter. When the pandemic started, she was terrified that she would contract covid-19, and due to her chronic asthma and history of issues with bronchitis, pneumonia, and other pulmonary issues, she was very careful about where she went, wearing a mask, and washing her hands. Then things changed. Then Fox “News” and the Trump Administration promoted the notion that covid-19 wasn’t so bad and that people weren’t really dying from covid-19. Even after rolling out covid-19 vaccines through Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration foolishly did not capitalize on a marketing campaign that could have convinced thousands and thousands of their supporters to get vaccinated. Instead, they left it up to people to do whatever they felt like doing. And guess what? More lies abounded regarding the efficacy and safety of vaccines. 

My friend believed stories that people were dying from the vaccine, that it was more dangerous than covid-19. She started going out in public more often, leaving her mask at home. She bragged at work that she only wore her mask at work because we mandated it, but that everywhere else she would not wear it. She and her husband started going to restaurants and clubs and hanging out with friends, many of whom were also resistant to getting the vaccine. Then one day, she came into work saying that her husband was sick and was getting tested for covid-19 — just in case. That afternoon, he texted her that his test was positive. We sent her home immediately with instructions not to return until both she and her husband were in the clear. She got a rapid test that came back negative. Several of our employees who had already experienced covid previously encouraged her to get tested again as it may take a few days for the viral load to build up enough to test positive. Sure enough, she tested positive a couple of days later.

While her husband started recovering, my friend got sicker and sicker. She joined in a few work calls, and she was coughing so much that we suggested that she focus on resting. It wasn’t long before she let us know that she was hospitalized. Unbeknownst to her, when her husband checked her into the hospital, the staff told him that they waited too late and there was little they could do. We kept texting and calling her, and she kept telling us that she was getting treatment but that it would be a long road. The night before she died, I was texting with her, and she just kept saying that she still didn’t feel well, but she never let on how bad it was. She passed away the following day, with her husband and parents by her side. I will leave out the awful details that her husband and parents told us; let’s just say that dying of covid-19 is not a good way to go.

I want someone to blame: the GOP, Trump, the science-deniers, people’s stubbornness, Fox “News” and other far-right outlets, American individualism, my friend’s parents & friends, my friend herself . . . Does it matter? It matters to my friend’s family (most of whom apparently went out and got vaccinated after her death), to her friends, to our company (her department is understaffed by 25% with her passing), to all she touched in her 38 years. Actions have consequences, and unfortunately, I do not see any magic deities coming in to save the day. If your doctor says that you are eligible, PLEASE get vaccinated.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Your Questions, Please

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i have a question

Greetings, earthlings and residents of other galaxies.

It’s been a while since I asked readers to submit questions for me to answer, so I thought I would, once again, open the call lines and ask readers to submit their questions, along with $66.66 donations to help me reach Evangelicals throughout the universe. Reason — praise be to Reason! — has called me to evangelize Evangelicals, and your donations will help me take the gospel of critical thinking and skepticism to infinity and beyond. Just kidding. While donations are always appreciated, what I really want are questions; your pithy, short, erudite questions. Please try to ask questions that you think I haven’t answered before.

If you have a question you would like me to answer, please ask it in the comment section of this post. I will answer questions in the order they are received; that is unless you are a bigly donor. Readers who shower me with cash, checks, gold bullion (ouch), Bitcoins, and restaurant gift cards just might be moved to the front of the line or be sent a 13×19 glossy photo of me pole dancing at the Big Bear Strip Club — “might” being the operative word. (Long-time readers who know and understand my humor, sarcasm, and snark know whether I am speaking factually. Everyone else? Keep on dreaming of Bruce Almighty swinging on a brass pole wearing only his shorts, suspenders, and wingtips.)

You can also email your questions to me via the contact form.

Please do not answer the questions. In the past, well-intentioned commenters have answered the questions, making my responses moot. Once I answer the questions, feel free to give your own answer.

Let the fun begin.

signature

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

OMG Pastor MacFarlane, Did You Really Say There’s No Racism in Rural Northwest Ohio?

16 Comments
trump im not a racist

John MacFarlane is the pastor of First Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in nearby Bryan, Ohio — the place of my birth. I attended First Baptist Church in the 1960s and 1970s. I was attending First Baptist when I left in August,1976 to study for the ministry at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. I attended First Baptist during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years. This would be the last time I regularly attended the church. After Polly and I married, left Midwestern, and moved to Bryan, we chose not to attend First Baptist. Instead, we joined Montpelier Baptist Church, upsetting many of the people at First Baptist. In their minds, First Baptist was the “family” church. Mom Daugherty, the mother of three of my uncles, told me in no uncertain terms that I belonged at First Baptist. Interestingly, the church’s pastor at the time, Jack Bennett (married to my uncles’ sister), made no effort to retain us as members. Due to my mother’s mental health problems and “sinful” lifestyles, Bennett always treated me like the ugly, redheaded stepchild. Given the opportunity to become the assistant pastor at Montpelier Baptist, I took it.

John MacFarlane was a nine-year-old boy when I went off to Midwestern in 1976. John grew up, felt the call of God, and enrolled in classes at Tennessee Temple, graduating in 1991. After pastoring Twining Baptist Church in Twining, Michigan for three years, John returned home to work as Jack Bennett’s assistant. After Bennett retired, John became the pastor of First Baptist, a position he has held ever since.

John is White. He grew up in a White family, attended a White church, and spent K-12 in a White school. John is a lifelong resident of Williams County, Ohio. According to the 2010 US Census, Williams County is 95.9% White. And this is progress compared to Williams County demographics in the 1950s-1970s, I didn’t know of one Black person who lived in the county. Bryan, Ohio is one of the most White cities in America. Rural Northwest Ohio is the epitome of whiteness and White privilege. This is the world John MacFarlane (and Bruce Gerencser) was born into, grew up in, and lives in today.

I have sketched MacFarlane’s history for readers to provide context for what follows. MacFarlane publishes a daily “devotional” for church members and others to read. I am one of those “others.” Remember, John is a lifelong Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB). He lives, breathes, and shits IFB beliefs and practices. John is a product of IFB indoctrination, as was I for many years.

Today, MacFarlane wrote a “devotional” titled Racism. As I read John’s post, I stopped and said, “OMG, John, Did you REALLY say this out loud?” I couldn’t believe he said what he did. As you shall see, his post is racist, bigoted, and ignorant. I am not shocked by what MacFarlane believes. Thousands and thousands of White rural Northwest Ohio residents believe as he does. I doubt that he will have one church member object to what he wrote. What I AM shocked by is that MacFarlane actually said what follows out loud on a public blog.

Here’s what MacFarlane had to say:

I am writing today’s devotional on June 10 while sitting in a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel room in Louisville, KY.

….

The culture of Kentucky is definitely different than the culture of Ohio.  I didn’t say wrong and I didn’t say worse.  I said different and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  But I want to share with you a very politically incorrect observation.  Bear with me as I set this up.

In the little dining area of the hotel, the television has the morning news running to provide those enjoying their breakfast with some indigestion.  News is never good, it seems.  The news today featured:  the millions of ransom dollars paid by a company to someone who had taken their computer systems hostage; issues on the border and a Vice-President who has yet to act as the border czar;  Presidential missteps and mistakes; millions of COVID vaccines rapidly reaching their expiration dates;  race riots, BLM, protests, white privilege, and apologizing for our race.  That’s where my observations come in.

How much of this is made up, contrived by those who aren’t content unless they are fighting?!?  How much of this is stirred up by people whose nickname should be Maytag – always agitating?

Oh, please don’t misunderstand.  I believe racism is out there.  There are places where it is practiced in some despicable ways.  But deal with it there.  Don’t bring it where I’m at and introduce it like another strain of the Wuhan plague.  I have yet to be in a place where I’ve felt that tension and I don’t want to be in that place.  Get rid of it THERE…deal with it THERE…and certainly don’t bring it around me!

Let me introduce you to Betty, Earl, Millie, and Carl.   Every one of them had a much darker tan than I have!  In fact, this was true throughout the facility.  The Hampton Inn & Suites of Louisville, KY was an ethnic melting pot.  So what?

They were the kindest people. 

….

The Asian housekeepers were courteous and polite, smiling and accommodating if you asked a question.

There were mutual niceties and respect.  I didn’t feel treated or looked at differently because of the color of my skin and I certainly didn’t treat or look at them differently because of the color of their skin.  Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?

….

I never once felt uncomfortable or threatened.  I saw blacks treating whites respectfully, openly talking with each other.  I saw whites treating blacks the same way.  Never did I see anything that made me think that I needed to hide in fear.  Doors were opened for one another.  Common courtesies and manners were demonstrated between ethnicities.

….

We cannot deny our history and pretend that there are not some very shameful events from the past.  But I’m not living there.  If the past continues to shade our present – if we allow it to do that – we will never move on and achieve the equity that is allegedly sought.  Yes, atrocities were done.  However, the people that deserve the strongest apology and acts of restitution have been in graves for many years.

Is it possible that some people aren’t happy unless they are stirring a pot, creating a fight, and spreading animosity and hatred?  Once again, please hear what I’m saying.  I know racism exists.  But creating a national narrative that teaches racism is everywhere and that if you’re white, you’re automatically a racist is nothing more than a vicious, vulgar lie and I personally resent and am angered by the accusation.

Genesis 1:27 tells us, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”  From this original couple sprang every ethnicity there is.  There are not multiple races.  We are all of one race and that race is humanity.  Ethnicities are just the spices of life that the Lord has added to keep us from becoming dull and boring.

Celebrate the ethnicities.  Respect them.  Refuse to place one above another.  Make the playing field level.  That’s the way God does it.

….

The cure to the violence, hatred, and fighting in the world is NOT to give any ethnicity advantage over another.  We definitely don’t need sensitivity training.  It’s for EVERY ethnicity to be brought before the cross of Jesus and together, we humbly kneel in gratitude for the blood that covers our sins and the power of the resurrection that makes us alive.

If it’s a fight people want, take them to the cross where the greatest fight ever was fought and won – by a JEW, nonetheless!  Praise the Lord!

Do you see why I said “OMG, John. Did you REALLY say this out loud?” He did, and what follows is my response.

First, there is a difference between ethnicity and race. Black and White are not ethnicities; they are races. John parrots young-earth creationist Ken Ham on race, and biologically, he’s right. However. MacFarlane wants to de-colorize our world. In his uber-White mind, we are all the same; that racial and ethnic diversity is harmful.

Second, John admits that racism exists out there, somewhere (cue Fox Mulder of the X-Files), but not in the lily-white enclave of rural Northwest Ohio. In 2020, I wrote a post titled, Does Racism Exist in Rural Northwest Ohio? Having spent most of my life in White rural Ohio, I can say with a high degree of certainty that racism not only exists in rural Northwest Ohio, but that White privilege and systemic racism are very much a part of our culture. Oh, we are nice country folks who will bake you an apple pie and help put a tire on your car, but underneath our niceness lurk racist ideas and beliefs. (Please see Typical Example of Racism in Rural Northwest, Ohio.)

I could share scores of stories that would illustrate my point: that racism and white privilege abound in rural Northwest Ohio. But, instead, let me share one story from my teen years at First Baptist:

In the mid-1970s, I attended First Baptist Church in Bryan. I can still remember the day that a woman who once attended the church and moved away, returned home with her new Black husband. Oh, the racist gossip that ran wild through the church: why, what was she thinking . . . marrying a Black man! Think of the children! It was not long before she and her husband moved on to another church.

In 2008, months before Polly and I deconverted from Christianity, we visited the Methodist Church in Farmer. We had been attending the Ney United Methodist Church — which would be the last church we attended before leaving Christianity; but since the Farmer and Ney churches were on the same charge, we thought we would visit the Farmer church.

As was our custom, we arrived at the church early, so much so that we caught the last ten or so minutes of the adult Sunday school class. Teaching the class was a matronly White woman. She was telling a story about her grandson who played football (at college, I believe). She complained that her White grandson was not getting much playing time. Why? The coach gave the “Black” players more playing time. The inference was clear: her grandson wasn’t playing as much because he was White (not because the Black players had better skills).

I am shocked that in his 50+ years in rural Northwest Ohio, MacFarlane hasn’t seen racism or White privilege. Evidently, if the KKK is not burning a cross on the Williams County Courthouse square, no racism exists. John is truly colorblind. The only color he sees is White.

Third, MacFarlane thinks that racism is in the past, that all those racists are dead. Time to move on. Unfortunately, our racist forefathers’ beliefs live on in the lives of White residents of rural Northwest Ohio. I was a racist for many years. I have worked hard to cleanse my mind of racist thinking. While I like to think I am no longer a racist, I am still a White man in a White community with little interaction with people of color (unless I go to Fort Wayne or Toledo). Unlike MacFarlane, I believe the United States has yet to come to terms with its racist past. I support Black Lives Matter (not necessarily the group, but the idea) because I believe many people of color continue to be oppressed and marginalized. I own the fact that my White privilege can and does cause harm to people of color.

Fourth, MacFarlane regales us with stories about the “nice” Blacks and Asians. Why, they were “courteous and polite, smiling and accommodating.” Why did the race (ethnicity, to use John’s word) of these people matter? Was it surprising to MacFarlane that Blacks and Asians were respectful and treated him well? JFC, John, it was their job. I worked in the service industry for years. I also pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. As a result, I became an expert at smiling at rude, nasty assholes, helping them with their needs. The Blacks and Asians who waited on and helped Pastor MacFarlane and his family were just doing their jobs. Their race had nothing to do with their treatment of the MacFarlanes.

Finally, MacFarlane posits a solution for racism (that doesn’t exist in rural Northwest Ohio):

The cure to the violence, hatred, and fighting in the world is NOT to give any ethnicity advantage over another. We definitely don’t need sensitivity training. It’s for EVERY ethnicity to be brought before the cross of Jesus and together, we humbly kneel in gratitude for the blood that covers our sins and the power of the resurrection that makes us alive.

MacFarlane posits that the answer for racism is Jesus and his substitutionary blood atonement for human sin. If everyone would just get saved, why, racism (and violence, hatred, and fighting) would simply and magically disappear. Racist White Christians wouldn’t need sensitivity training, and Blacks — thanks to J-E-S-U-S — would then be equal. No need for anti-discrimination laws. No need for marches and speeches. No need for an honest reckoning over our racist past. No economic or educational help for people of color who have been marginalized and harmed for four centuries. Jesus paid it ALL, time to move on to the 1950s.

MacFarlane forgets that most American Blacks are Christian, many of whom are Evangelical. If Jesus is the cure for racism and marginalization, why haven’t things changed for people of color (in general)? The White Jesus is not the answer for what ails us, we are. Until Whites own their racist past, White privilege, and the systemic racism that plagues our country, it is impossible for us to truly become a land ruled by justice, equality, and equity.

MacFarlane wants us to deal with racism and White privilege where it exists. I am, John, and I am looking right at you. You may sincerely believe what you have written here, but your words reveal a bigoted, racist “heart.”

Note: MacFarlane is a Trump supporter, thus the out-of-right-field mention of “Wuhan plague.” I don’t know if John is an anti-vaxxer.

Other posts about John MacFarlane and First Baptist Church:

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: Was Hitler a Christian?

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adolph hitler christian

Historian Tim O’Neill has published a comprehensive, enlightening article on whether Adolph Hitler was an atheist, Christian, or pagan. Evangelical apologists and atheists alike love to tar the other with claims that Hitler was an atheist or a Christian. As O’Neill makes clear, Hitler was neither. What follows is the conclusion of O’Neill’s article. I hope you will take the time to read the entire article.

Hitler was not an atheist. Exactly how he conceived of the God he believed in is unclear thanks to his often incoherent and contradictory statements on the subject, but he did believe in a God and rejected atheism. Hitler was not a pagan or an occultist. He held some strange ideas, but they tended to be more pseudo scientific than mystical and he was something of sceptic about such things and prided himself on his rationalism. Hitler was not a Christian. He clearly had a conception of Jesus that he admired, but it was based on dubious and often crackpot ideas of Jesus as a man and it was not based on any of the key doctrines of Christianity. Despite Richard Carrier’s tangled attempts, there is no coherent and reasonable way to define Hitler as a Christian in any sense.

The Nazi attitude to Christianity was complex and evolved over time. In the Party’s early years it could not afford to alienate the majority Christian population and so worked hard to make Nazism as compatible with Christianity as possible and to present Hitler as, if not a believer, then not an enemy of Christianity. Once in power this general approach was maintained, though some elements in the Nazi leadership became far more overtly anti-Christian. Himmler, Goebbels and, especially, Bormann were clearly anti-Christian but were restrained for the sake of morale during the War. Most historians agree that Hitler too was largely anti-church, though Steigmann-Gall believes this was a later development. A great deal of evidence indicates that the Nazi elite intended to suppress Christianity as a major threat to Nazi ideology and objectives in the long term

No-one wants Hitler on their team and many want him to belong to “the other side”. As it happens, Hitler’s beliefs on religion as on many things are not neatly categorised. But on the question of “atheist, pagan or Christian?” the only accurate answer is “none of the above.”

— Tim O’Neill, History for Atheists, Hitler: Atheist, Pagan, or Christian? July 14, 2021

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Just the Man for the Job

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guest post

Guest post by MJ Lisbeth

(Warning: Sarcasm follows!)

Rudy Giuliani’s law license has been suspended in New York. That means Donald Trump could be headed to prison . . . unless he faces a sympathetic judge and jury. In that case, he might be sentenced to community service.

Now, we all know that such a sentence works best when the person sentenced is given a job commensurate with his or her talents, skills, experience, and temperament. Now, I don’t know how many slots there are for guys who’ve destroyed everything in their path to build garish condominium towers and casinos — and stiffed everyone, from the ones who mixed the drinks to the banks who lent him the money. But I should think that there must be something out there for a reality TV host, spreader of alternative realities, and all-around huckster, I mean, communicator. And I can’t help but think there might even be a job for someone who, after James Alex Fields Jr drove his car into a crowd of people who were protesting the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville (and killed Heather Heyer in the process) declared:

I think there is blame on both sides. You look at, you look at, both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it…you had people who were very fine people on both sides.

“Very fine people on both sides.” Hmm . . . That shows us the man is capable of fairness and even-handedness. And how he was persecuted for it . . . by atheist transgender liberal Democrats—who live in places like New York and San Francisco, of course. The calls for his impeachment, which began practically the day he was elected, only grew louder because, you know, they just don’t understand how much he’s done for them.

Well, waddayano: A vacancy has just opened up — and Mr. Trump is just the one to fill it. The Right Reverend Monsignor Owen Keenan, late of the Merciful Redeemer Parish of Mississauga. (Is that Canada’s spelling bee equivalent of Mississippi?) Ontario has just tendered his resignation to Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto. Father Keenan will be a tough act to follow, especially given the circumstances that led to his resignation.

Recently, 215 bodies were unearthed at the Kamloops residential school run by the Catholic Church in British Columbia. Canadians, being liberal socialists who speak French, folks who try to right wrongs past or present, were outraged. In a survey that followed, two-thirds of respondents said churches that ran residential schools should bear responsibility for the abuses that happened in them. One couldn’t blame them for expecting Father Keenan, who claims reverence for the man (whether or not he ever existed) who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, to address their shock and grief. That he did, with this tidbit:

I presume that the same number would thank the church for the good that was done in those schools. But, of course, that question was never asked. And, in fact, we’re not allowed even to say that good was done in those schools. I await to see what comes to my inbox.

Now tell me, who can possibly follow up someone who says “good was done” in schools where native children were isolated from their families and cultures, and stripped of their customs, language and spiritual beliefs? Of course: someone who realizes there was “blame” and “very fine people” “on both sides.” Such a man no doubt understands that there is the “flip side” to every story: the technological innovations of Nazi Germany, the Mafia’s eradication from Havana under Castro, and the sudden drop in crime rates 20 years after Roe v Wade. Oh, wait, he can’t mention that last one in a Catholic parish, can he? But at least we can rest assured that good will be done under his leadership, whether or not we acknowledge it.

That is, as long as he stays out of jail.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.