Most Evangelicals are polite, kind, decent people. Most Evangelicals are nothing like hate mongers Bryan Fischer, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, or the local street preacher. Most Evangelicals try to get along with others and do their best to integrate into society. When I go to the store to shop, buy groceries, get my car repaired, etc. I know that most of the people waiting on me are Christian. And here in God’s country, most of them are Evangelical.
But, here’s the thing. Behind the polite, kind, decent, loving faces are hateful, judgmental beliefs. As I stated several years ago, there is little difference between the beliefs of the late Fred Phelps and Baptist seminary president and preacher Al Mohler. The beliefs of the Phelps clan and Westboro Baptist Church are not much different from the beliefs of the Duggars. Some may smile and be polite and others might angrily scream, but both believe that every non-Christian who dies will go to Hell and be tortured by God for eternity. (Please see What Kind of Christian Are You?)
The fight over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act has pulled back the curtain on the Polite Right.
Beltway-centric but not moderate, these cautious spokesmen for civility do not practice your drunk uncle’s bigotry. They endorse a more soft-spoken and socially acceptable kind of prejudice. This prejudice comes clothed in talk of tolerance and piety, appeals to fairness and freedom.
They talk about faith and religious rights but what defenders of the pre-“fix” RFRA really wanted was the privilege of condoning bigotry without actually being associated with it. It’s more than a rhetorical sleight of hand to turn denial of service into an “infringement upon religious practice.” It’s Solomon sawing Lady Justice in half. Such an argument insists that theologically-condoned discrimination is somehow less hurtful than the normal, not-God-approved form. “You can still get married!” and “You can continue to deny service to those you see as morally unfit!” do not cancel each other out.
Indeed, many of those who supported Indiana’s original law recognized this—that denying service to gay couples is an impediment to their gaining full civil rights. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, for one. Fischer is a nationally-syndicated radio host, not simply a lone fruitcake, even though the next exit down from his particular brand of crazy is the Westboro Baptist Church: His Twitter feed is full of references to “the Churchof the RainbowJihad,” “same-sex cakes,” the “Gay Gestapo,” and several warnings that “Big Gay is not about ‘marriage equality’ but ‘homosexual supremacy.’”
It’s easy to mock the idea of “Big Gay” (what a size queen!), but Fischer’s logic is the perfect mirror to the argument of the law’s critics. All you have to do is scale down the hyperbole, and read “full civil rights” where Fischer fears “gay rule.” Indiana’s RFRA was intended to hamper the progress of “Big Gay and the Homosexual Supremacy” (my favorite Motown band). If the original RFRA had been implemented, the civil rights for LGTB individuals would have been diminished…
…The Polite Right wants nothing to do with Fischer. When I drew attention to his Twitter timeline, the proudly reasonable conservatives that populate the Acela Corridor were offended. They demanded that I acknowledge that Fischer is not representative of all conservatives, or even all defenders of the law—and that’s true, in the sense that Polite Right would never sully themselves with such obvious homophobia…
…But while it’s Bryan Fischer’s rhetoric that makes him so amusingly offensive, it’s his logic and his goals that demand an answer from those who are aligned with him as far as the RFRA goes. In other words: I believe my friends on the Polite Right when they say they don’t hate gay people; but when it comes to the RFRA, I am not convinced that emotional or theological context is less important than acts of discrimination itself.
Put another way: Two different Christian bakery owners both refuse to bake a cake for two different gay weddings. One bakery owner says that’s because he believes gay people are sinful sodomites that regularly recruit and molest children. The other says she loves and respects gay people but “just can’t participate in a ceremony that goes against my faith.” The Indiana RFRA was written to protect both bakers, not just the nice one.
Of course, both sides of the debate have their drunk uncles. On the left, it was a bunch of randy Yelpers and rageful Twitterers that embarrassed the more selectively outraged RFRA critics. The Memories Pizza owners turned out to be the nice, presentable sort of discriminators, and some of their online critics went overboard in expressing their upset…
…I’m proud to live in a society where being accused of bigotry is itself offensive. I like it that decent people don’t want to be associated with obvious homophobes. But the polite solution to an association with an obvious homophobe isn’t to simply deny the relationship—it’s to ask yourself what you have in common.
The problem is that Bryan Fischer and the Polite Right want the same thing, for the same reasons, even if they use very different language to make their case. They’re activist allies, joined at the hip whether they like it or not. You might even say they’re married.
Let’s not pretend that smiling, polite Evangelicals don’t have reprehensible beliefs. Behind their façade are beliefs that promote hate, bigotry, and discrimination. But Bruce I am an Evangelical and I support the gay community in their quest for equal protection under the law. I think global warming is real, Hell is a myth, and I hate how many of my fellow Evangelicals behave. Fine, let me ask you this: why do you remain in the Evangelical church? Why do you continue to support beliefs and practices you object to? Perhaps it is time for you to exit stage left and move on to religious settings where love, equality, and respect for all are the rule. Are we not judged by those we keep company with? Silence is consent. If you truly love others and desire equality for all, how can you remain silent or support sects, churches, and pastors who preach hate, bigotry, and discrimination?
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.
Here’s a comment from an Evangelical Christian I saw on Facebook:
My Church stresses inclusivity. All are welcome. By grace through faith anyone can enter the kingdom of God. We will find out at death, but right now it is above my pay grade. I only accept it.
I am in favor of equal treatment for all humans. I am not in favor of gay marriage. The Bible does define marriage as a man and a woman. I know at least one person from several gay couples. I have no problem. Their decision. God will separate the sheep from the goats. We are all going to be surprised who we find in Heaven or Hell. We may make a judgment, but God is the judge.
This Evangelical Christian thinks his church is inclusive, all are welcome. But is it? Can an LGBTQ person be a pastor, Sunday school teacher, nursery worker, or youth worker? Of course not. His or her wicked lifestyle precludes them from doing anything in the church but sitting in the pew. The goal is to convert LGBTQ people and rid them of their “Sodomite” lifestyle. Once delivered from their sin, then they can serve in the church.
This Evangelical, like many namby-pamby Christians, says it is up to God to judge LGBTQ people. Does he really believe this? Of course not. He doesn’t want to look like the bigot that he is, so he plays the God is the final judge card. However, since this person believes the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, he already knows God’s opinion on all non-heterosexual behaviors. Why is he afraid to say what God has said on the matter? Come on, tell the truth: All sexually active non-heterosexuals will go to Hell when they die and be tortured by God for all eternity.
He wants us to believe that there will a lot of surprises in Heaven. Really? Isn’t God’s Word clear? The Bible says in I Corinthians 6:9-11:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
and in Revelation 22:13-15:
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
Seems pretty clear to me . . . there will be NO LGBTQ people in Heaven.
This Evangelical Christian says he “supports equal treatment for all humans” and then turns right around and discredits what he said. He supports “equality” that is defined by the Bible. Since God defines marriage as one-man-one woman-for-life, same-sex marriage is a sin. He realizes this makes him look bad. After all, he is denying same-sex couples equal protection under the law and the same civil rights he enjoys, so he plays the HEY I KNOW A GAY COUPLE card. This is the same card played by racists.
He desperately wants to be seen as a nice guy. I know a lot of Christians like this. Good people, nice people. Great neighbors. But they have beliefs that are hateful and discriminatory. They want us to separate the belief from the person, love the person hate the sin. However, much like a skunk and his smell, you can’t separate a person from his beliefs. This Evangelical’s beliefs stink like a factory farm on a warm July day. Try as he might to spray perfume on his beliefs, they still stink.
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.
I’ve been blogging since 2007. I have received thousands of negative, hostile comments from people who disagree with something I said or object to my existence as a living, breathing human being. I’ve been called more names than I can remember, pilloried for daring to tell my story or for having an opinion. ‘Tis the nature of the beast, I suppose.
Today, I received an email from a Black woman named Amanda who is a student at the University of Missouri. I replied to her email, she returned the favor, I did the same . . . no further response from her.
What follows is our exchange (all spelling and grammar in the original):
Amanda:
To call yourself a Christian and think that the “curse” of Cain belongs to BLACK PEOPLE with all due respect because we are not Black then you have come as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The curse was the Albino. It is scientifically documented that ALL LIFE INCLUDING THE GAREN OF EDEN WAS LOCATED IN AFICA. PEOPLE WERE ALREADY BLACKS AS YOU SAY. The curse was the white of your skin because melanin protects you from the sun so as a dark-skinned person the sun would not ne punishment. But that is not even the case. The mark was placed upon Cain’s head. Stop inciting racism through Christianity. Trust me more people will go to hell than heaven and your written work proves just how tainted your spirit is. Ole colonizer.
Bruce:
Amanda,
Evidently, reading comprehension is not your strong suit. The article in question, https://brucegerencser.net/2019/01/the-curse-of-cain-why-blacks-have-dark-skin/ , was about my experiences at an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) college in the 1970s and as a pastor of IFB churches. You failed to see the context of this post.
I await your apology.
Thank you.
Bruce “Ole Colonizer” Gerencser, who is an atheist, by the way, a supporter of Black Lives Matter, a man who has numerous Black readers, a man who, as a liberal, socialist, and humanist, supports racial equity and ending systemic racism
Amanda:
You can’t even call Black People, people. Blacks is what you say. I read what you wrotewe all share one common ancestor. All of us. And just because you are pastor means nothing. I have known several pastors to misuse the information in the Bible, ole King James and his appetite for LUST. You state you left “the young racist thinking behind but you all still carry a piece of racism regardless if it is not directly. You come from a racist family obviously. You get no apology from me. The fact you say BLACKS is telling in itself.
Do better with your writing. We are Black PEOPLE
Bruce:
Amanda,
Evidently, reading comprehension is not your strong suit. I shared my PAST experiences, not what I presently believe. If you can’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you. BTW, I’m not a pastor.
As far as my use of the word Blacks, it is the word my Black readers prefer I use. Same way with using the word White. You see, I care about how I characterize people, that’s why I asked my Black readers how they preferred to be represented. I did the same with LGBTQ people, and, as a result, I stopped using the word homosexual.
You’ve backed yourself into a corner by hurling all sorts of insults at me. Now, instead of admitting you misread my post and misjudged me as a person, you double down on faulty assumptions. You do owe me an apology, but I know one will not be forthcoming.
I do plan to use your emails as fodder for a blog post. My readers will be excited when they learn I’m a racist.
I suggest you do some more study about the man you think is a racist:
As a young Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, I was taught that Genesis 4 clearly revealed to any racist who wanted to know why blacks had dark skin. Genesis 4:15 says:
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
Genesis 4 details the story of Cain murdering his brother Abel. One of God’s punishments of Cain was setting a “mark” upon him. More than a few Baptist preachers, especially Southern Baptist segregationists in the South, believed that this mark was God turning Cain’s oh-so-European white skin black. These Jesus-loving racists went to great lengths to trace the lineage of Cain down through history, showing — in their minds anyway — that Cain’s descendants had black skin. Of important note was the fact that Noah’s son Ham married a black descendant of Cain, thus continuing the curse down through human history. I knew of Baptist preachers who spent countless hours tracing the genealogy of Cain through the pages of the Bible. These preachers believed that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, and were best suited for manual labor. Slavery in the United States was justified by Christian pastors who believed the Bible taught that blacks were a cursed race in need redemption. Slavery, then, was an act of benevolence — white slave owners giving their black charges a far better life than they would have had in Africa. This wretched thinking continues to drive how the United States interacts with countries with populations that are primarily non-white — you know, Trump’s “shit-hole countries.” These poor, inferior, ill-bred, ignorant people need our benevolence and help, even if it is given to them through military force or coup.
By the time I left Midwestern Baptist College in the mid-1970s, I had cleansed my mind of the racist training of my youth. Sadly, Midwestern was rife with students and professors who believed that blacks were inferior/cursed. I don’t believe the founder of the college, Tom Malone, held these views. After all, the college had a handful of black students, far more than Bob Jones University had at the time. Malone, by the way, was a graduate of Bob Jones College and came of age in Alabama in the 1920s. If he was racist, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but I never saw anything from him that suggested he was. The same couldn’t be said for the man who was in charge of the bus ministry. Under his watch, he cancelled all the bus routes to and from Detroit. These routes normally ran in the afternoon, bringing riders to what was called “B Sunday School.” Since most of the riders from Detroit were black, students considered the afternoon “B Sunday School” to be “Black Sunday School.”
All freshman students were required to work on a bus route. After I returned to college for my sophomore year, I quit the bus ministry, choosing instead to preach on Sundays at a drug rehabilitation center in Detroit. The bus director cornered me one day as I was leaving school and chastised me for quitting my bus route. He told me I had a bad attitude — no shit, Sherlock! The bus director got more than he bargained for. I replied, “And you are a racist! I know why you cancelled “B Sunday School!” We parted company, never to speak to one another again.
In the late 1980s, I attended a Street Preacher’s Conference in Washington, DC. While there, I met a man who was a rabid follower of IFB preacher Peter Ruckman. As we were fanning out from the Washington Mall, the man told me that he didn’t bother witnessing to blacks. “They don’t have souls, you know, so there’s no reason for us to witness to them.” I couldn’t believe what this many was saying. He was condemning to Hell a vast portion of the human race, all because they had the wrong color of skin. I told him I didn’t believe such nonsense, and then I quickly walked away.
Racism is alive and well in the IFB church movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Evangelicalism as a whole. Thanks to our White-Supremacist-in-Chief, President Donald Trump, racists driven deep into the closets of Evangelicalism have now found the light of day and are quite willing to vocalize their racism and bigotry. That a Christian member of Congress can ponder out loud his wonderment over white supremacy being a “bad” thing, and Christian Fox News hosts can say that there’s no racism in the United States, tells me that we are far from living in a post-racial world. And if God is for racism and bigotry, who are we to argue with the white Jesus, right?
For the life of me, I cannot see how Amanda came to the conclusions she did based on reading this post. Either she lacks reading comprehension skills or she is so agenda-driven that she sees every White as her enemy.
I’ve been quite honest and open about my racist upbringing and my own racism as an Evangelical pastor. I have, however, worked very hard to change my thinking about race. Does racism lurk deep in the shadows of my life? Sure. Most of us can say the same. Undoing bigotry in our lives is a lifelong endeavor. I wonder if Amanda sees her own bigotry and racism?
Amanda made no effort to learn anything about me. She read all of one post on this site before emailing me. She read a thousand-word post in a few minutes, judged me according to the color of my skin, and decided I was a racist. I have no remedy for this kind of ignorant, bigoted thinking. I have provided Amanda with all the information she needs to properly understand me as a person, past and present. Will she see the error of her way? I doubt it.
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.
Recently, Evangelical pastor Greg Locke, pastor of Global Vision Bible Church in Juliet, Tennessee, was in the news for holding a book burning service. The Harry Potter books, Twilight books, other books, clothing, and things deemed Satanic were thrown on a pyre and burned.
In 2019, Locke burned the book “The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American” by Freedom From Religion Foundation attorney Andrew Seidel.
Those uninitiated in Evangelical thinking may view Locke’s behavior as extreme, cultic, or the actions of a man mentally sick. However, Locke’s actions have a firm grounding in the inspired, inerrant, infallible Words of God. Further, I had book burnings too back in my Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) days.
The Bible says in Acts 19:11-20:
And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. In certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
In this passage of Scripture, we find the Apostle Paul coming to the city of Ephesus to preach the gospel and work miracles. All told, Paul spent two years in Ephesus. Some of the people who were saved, those who practiced the “curious arts.” Evangelical theologian Matthew Henry explains “curious arts” this way (from E-Sword):
[people who] traded in the study of magic and divination, in books of judicial astrology, casting nativities, telling fortunes, raising and laying spirits, interpreting dreams, predicting future events, and the like.
Those delivered from these practices gathered up their magic and divination books and burned them. The Bible puts the value of these books at 50,000 pieces of silver. At $20 value for each piece of silver, that’s $1 million in today’s money. Does anyone else think this valuation is embellished (Greek for a lie)?
These verses provide a Biblical foundation for Greg Locke’s book burnings, and the two book burnings performed by me in 1984 and 1987.
In 1983, I resigned from Emmanuel Baptist Church in Buckeye Lake, Ohio, moving 30 miles to the start to plant a new IFB church in the rural community of Somerset. I would go on to pastor Somerset Baptist Church for eleven years.
In 1984, convicted by the Holy Ghost over church members listening to secular rock music, I called for a book burning. I preached a scathing sermon about worldliness and the Satanic nature of modern rock music. I asked church members to go through their homes, remove any music that was dishonoring to God, and bring it to church that night so we could make a symbolic offering to God by burning them. A handful of congregants brought cassette tapes, 8-tracks, and LPs to church so they could be burned. We gathered in the side yard of the church, kindled a fire, and burned the offending items. God was pleased, and all his children said, AMEN!
Three years later, I became under increasing conviction (guilt) over “worldly” entertainment, including TV, videotapes, and music. After several Sundays of sermons, I called on church members to bring their sinful wares to church so they could be burned. Few members felt as convicted as I did. At the appointed time, we started a fire in the churchyard and gathered up the offending items so they could be burned. I wanted to make a big impression on congregants, so I planned to destroy our 13-inch television with a sledgehammer. (Please see The Preacher and His TV) Just before I hit the TV, one church member said to me (in front of everyone), “hey preacher, if you don’t want that TV, I’ll take it!” He, of course, missed the point of my recent sermons. I angrily told him NO! and then I slew our TV in the name of the thrice Holy God.
Did you ever participate in a book-burning service? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
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.
Here in Defiance County, I am considered the resident atheist. Every month or so, I write a letter to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News challenging the dominant Evangelicalism culture found in rural Northwest Ohio. My letters usually bring down the wrath of local Evangelicals on my head. Most responses are little more than sermonizing and Bible-quoting. Worse yet, I find it amazing how many of the responders have a faulty understanding of basic Christian theology and hermeneutics.
In recent years, several other atheists/agnostics have joined me in poking the Evangelical Christian bear. There was one, then two, and now three. Why that makes a godless Trinity. Who knows what the future may hold? Perhaps, we are in the early days of a godless revival.
While my letters to the editor cause much consternation among local Evangelicals and Tea Party members, they are not my intended target. Yeah, it’s fun watching them get all riled up, but that’s not the reason I write the letters.
In November of 2008, I walked out the doors of the Ney United Methodist Church and have not darkened the door of a Christian church since. This coming September, it will be 19 years since I pastored a church.
I started blogging in 2007, the same year we bought our home in Ney. This online exposure has allowed me to come in contact with local residents who are secretly atheists or agnostics. They fear loss of job, loss of financial stability, and social condemnation, so they stay in the closet. This blog and private email contact with me provide a safe haven for the godless who live near me.
They are the reason I write letters to the editor. The letters are my way of saying you are not alone. I hope that my letters give them strength and courage, and when the time is right, perhaps they too can join the small band of local, vocal atheists.
Not only do local Evangelical zealots respond to my letters, they also send me email, snail mail, and stop by my house. Ney, Ohio has a population of 353 people. Defiance County has an estimated 2012 population of 38,677. There has been zero population growth in the last 35 years. There is only one city in the County, Defiance, with an estimated 2012 population of 16,838. There are three villages in the County, Hicksville, population 3,581, Ney, population 354, and Sherwood, population 827. There are also 12 unincorporated communities. My point in citing the County demographics is to emphasize that Defiance County is rural, quite small, and everyone knows your business (and if they don’t they make it up). This is why it is easy for local Evangelicals to find out my address. Those of you who live in big cities can easily blend into the fabric of the metropolis, but I can’t do that. I knew the moment I said in public, I am an atheist, that the news would spread far and wide.
What adds to my fame is that I pastored a church in nearby West Unity for seven years. I was born five miles from where I now live. My grandparents owned a farm on the Defiance-Williams County line. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins, scattered here and there. My surname, Gerencser, is Hungarian and quite unique. If you run into someone in this area with the Gerencser name, we are related.
Being related can, at times, pose a problem for my wife and children. Polly and two of my sons work at the same place. It is a huge factory with around 2,000 employees. My other two sons and daughter work for local businesses that put them in frequent contact with the public. When one of my letters hits the editorial page, it is not uncommon for them to hear about it from someone they work with or a customer. I told all of them years ago that they do not have to defend me. In fact, they are free to disown me. So far, I am still their Dad.
More times than I can count, my children have had to answer the question, are you related to the guy who writes in the newspaper? Even at the local college, Northwest State Community College, where Polly and all of my children took classes, professors and students would ask if they were related to me. Usually, the inquisitor is an Evangelical or a Catholic who objects to something I wrote. Every once in a while, someone actually voices their approval or agreement with what I wrote. Such praise is rare, but I’ll take it.
One aspect of my Fundamentalist past has helped me in my current role as the resident atheist. As a fundamentalist preacher, I had an unflinching commitment to what I considered truth. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the Bible, I wouldn’t bend, bow, or move. So it is today. I don’t back down. Now, I am not spoiling for a fight, but if an Evangelical says put your dukes up, I am inclined to do so.
There have been a few occasions where one local zealot has deliberately lied about me in a letter to the editor. Others have cast doubt upon my claim of being a pastor for 25 years. In their mind, they can’t comprehend some like me walking away from Jesus. Since they refuse to accept my story at face value, they try to impugn my character, suggesting that there is some “secret” reason I left the ministry and left Christianity. Several have questioned my ethics and morality.
Ney Village Limit Sign, Slightly Altered.
The Defiance Crescent-News is a dying right-wing, libertarian-leaning newspaper. Letters to the Editor are supposed to be about the issues of the day. Slandering someone is usually not permitted. Evidently, if that “someone” is an atheist, it is okay if someone like Daniel Gray or Richard Mastin lies about me. I am not talking about a difference of opinion here. I am talking about slander and lies.
On July 7, 2013, Gray wrote:
Bruce Gerencser should use facts in his letters. His latest rant is so full of errors as to make his point completely obtuse. Here are a few examples…
…The fact that Gerencser can marry anyone is laughable. He received his claimed ministerial credentials by professing a faith in a deity and swearing to follow that religions teachings. So unless he does so, then his authority to marry anyone under the same is null and void. Anyone he marries could actually find that they are not and never have been married. And last, the only way to change our Constitution is by a constitutional amendment…
…History and facts yet again destroy the views of Gerencser. He should be used to that by now.
Here’s my response to Gray:
This letter is my brief response to Daniel Gray’s recent letter to the editor.
Gray continues to paint me as a liar, a deceiver, immoral, and an all-round bad person. Gray does not know me personally, so I am not sure how he comes to the conclusions he does about me. I have never made one of my letters personal, yet Daniel Gray and a few other letter writers think it is okay to attack my character and suggest that I am not a good person.
As a public figure, I know I must endure such attacks, but I wish my critics would focus on the issues rather than the person. If they would like to have a public discussion on these issues, I am quite willing to participate in any public forum they put together.
On July 21, 2013, I wrote another letter:
For the third time Gray suggests that I am not legally able to marry people and that anyone married by me is in danger of having their marriage invalidated. Gray seems to not understand the legal requirements for being licensed to marry people in Ohio. I meet all the statutory requirements and I am duly licensed to marry people in Ohio. Anyone can verify this by doing a ministerial license search on the Ohio Secretary of state’s website.
On August 25 , 2013, fellow shit stirrer Willy Pack, came to my defense:
…Our secular government guarantees all of its citizens freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Fundamentalists, however, have made many clumsy attempts aimed at silencing Mr. Gerencser through intimidation and denigration.
Can anyone doubt that if they had the power of past ages, they would summon him before the court of the Inquisition? They all seem to be vying for the position of head inquisitor. What would be his crime other than not sharing their beliefs and daring to say so publicly? Are they really that intolerant of others’ beliefs or just afraid their beliefs cannot stand up to a little scrutiny?
With all of the different religions, denominations and sects on this planet, one thing is for certain: We are all going to hell according to somebody’s religion.
Let me conclude this post with several other letters to the editor that offended Christians have written about me.
September 14, 2014, Gary Grant wrote:
This letter is a response to Bruce Gerencser. The first question is why he is so hateful toward Christians and their belief in the God of the Bible.
I first read his article in the Sunday, Sept. 7 opinion page. It really gets frustrating to read his responses to Christians. His arrogance toward the word of God is nothing short of sheer stupidity. He acts like he knows more about God than God Himself.
Is Gerencser an atheist? If God’s word is just a joke and only stupid idiots believe it, why is Gerencser so interested in destroying it? What is he afraid of? Indeed, he should be afraid because if he dies without Christ in his life, he is in for a major shock. Why is he taking such a huge gamble with his life? I’ve been a Christian for over 40 years and don’t regret one second of it.
As far as creationism in schools, what’s the problem? I let people see both sides. Did Gerencser evolve from a monkey? What does he believe? How did we get here? There has to be a divine creator, to believe otherwise is to empty your brain of any rational intelligence.
Gerencser should turn his life over to Him before it’s too late. He could be a modern-day Apostle Paul.
May 1 ,2013, Richard Mastin wrote:
I’s true I don’t know Bruce Gerencser. His own words explain as I never could. Bruce wrote that “I object to any attempt to codify the teachings and commands of the Bible into the laws of the United States.”
Doesn’t he know that our system of life, government, laws and three branches was designed based on the Bible?
He objects to Christians trying to make biblical morality the law of the land. It’s been unwritten and in some instances written law until atheists and liberals started outlawing God in the 1960s.
Separation of church and state didn’t exist until 1947 when the atheistic ACLU and a supreme court justice, with approval of our Democrat-controlled House, Senate and presidency forced it on us. We’re losing our foundation. Government-controlled medicine is forced today.
The rights of church and state were always flexible and tolerant of the other until liberal domination in recent years. Bruce isn’t for tolerance. He wants organizations like the Christian-backed Boy Scouts to be forced to lower their moral standards to accept homosexual leaders.
Bruce wants to put the fox in the henhouse. He cares for the rights of gay persons, but not of those whose moral values lie with biblical teaching. He would destroy thousands to attain this and be happy about it. It would destroy the Scout oath.
He wrote: “I live by the precept of not doing harm to others, but be respectful of them.” Facts prove homosexual behavior is destructive to families, especially youth, and yet Bruce wants laws placing homosexuals in the their midst, hurting and destroying many. Hypocrite and disrespect come to mind.
I don’t consider any person moral who attempts to destroy Boy Scout high moral values. Bruce calls the Bible antiquated and irrelevant. Being an ex-pastor he knows God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their immoral homosexuality. If you or he think God won’t bring judgment on us, you’re wrong. This is about destroying the Boy Scouts, not equal protection for gays. His immoral atheistic ideals will bring national suicide.
The further we drift from Christianity and moral values the closer national death comes. We must stand strong behind the Boy Scouts. If homosexual leaders are permitted, the Cub Scouts, Brownies, Girl Scouts, 4-H, Campus Life and all other youth organizations will be forced to accept this immoral lifestyle and America will die.
Death is knocking on America’s door. America is like a 100-year-old barely holding onto life. If Bruce’s immoral desires don’t kill us, government’s anti-God attitude and subsidized medicine will. We must return to God now; tomorrow will be too late.
March 3, 2013, Daniel Gray wrote:
I wonder what reality Bruce Gerencser is in as it obviously isn’t where the rest of us are.
First, no one can be called a “bigot” if they are against homosexuality. Every dictionary and encyclopedia classifies bigotry as as having a bias or hatred against a group or person because of their religion-race-creed or disability, it says nothing about homosexuality; as such it is a lifestyle.
You cannot be bigoted against a lifestyle no matter how much Gerencser wishes as there is no medical nor scientific proof that homosexuality is genetic or people were “born that way”. As such, it isn’t genetic by all available present scientific and medical standards; that leaves it to be a lifestyle. Thus Gerencser’s left-wing wishes are just childish schoolyard name calling. I expected better…
…Gerencser had better hope his wish does not come true as a person of the same religious denomination he claims to have received his pastoral license from could turn him into the ruling body and send clippings of his letters. That ruling body could very well vacate his pastoral license for not following the teachings of the denomination he claims to have been part of, thus making his ability to marry anyone void. There is precedent for this. He could then apply for a justice of the peace license, but I don’t think they give them out anymore.
So, in the future may I strongly suggest to Gerencser that he start checking his facts before going off on yet another repeated tirade, especially since he has been proved incorrect on every letter he has sent so far.
January 6, 2013, Kenny Barnes wrote:
I am responding to a Jan. 2 letter to ther editor provided by Mr. Bruce Gerencser.
I am amazed that any lucid person would present an argument concerning a person or an entity that doesn’t exist! How can anyone claim to be an atheist under those circumstances? One would have to consider himself a super-intellectual, disregarding his surroundings or be as Psalm 14:1 quotes, ” A fool says in his heart, there is no God.”
I can’t answer that question. It does seem quite hypocritical to me however, that Mr. Gerencser would mention the “proclamation of angels.” Who declared the birth of Jesus still applicable today? We Christians, (born-again ) consider that babe in the manger to be God come in the flesh.
Lastly, Mr. Gerencser alludes to premarital sex among Christians. He seems to have lost all regard to pre-marital sex among ethnic groups. Babies born out of wedlock reach an astounding 73 percent.
Yet Mr. Gerencser considers his personal morality and ethics to be judged by his spouse, his children, his grandchildren, friends and neighbors. I don’t question them at all. I would suggest that he take his family and friends on a one week trip to the beautiful city of San Francisco, eat at some of the city’s finest restaurants and explain how our country is maturing, when at the tables next to them, people are dining completely nude. That’s progress isn’t it?
December 19, 2012 Gary Luderman wrote:
I am responding to an article in the Dec. 12 issue of The Crescent-News by Mr. Bruce Gerencser titled, “GOP is now an ‘extremist party.'”
The title piqued my interest enough that I took time to read the entire article. I take no pleasure whatsoever in stating that I found the letter rather intellectually vacuous. (Wait a minute, saying that didn’t make me feel that badly at all.)
First of all, this was not really a letter against the GOP as it was against Christian morality. Anyway, it appears that Mr. Gerencser does not believe in any moral standards — at least not those of the Christian faith. Not only that, but I gather from the tone of his letter that he feels intellectually and morally superior to people that do. Well, then let me ask two questions:
1. If Gerencser doesn’t like God’s rules, then whose rules are we to use? His?
2. Doesn’t Gerencser have any rules or standards at all? Is there nothing that anyone can do that he would not approve of or try to stop? Think about it, if there is just one thing that he doesn’t approve (for example, Christian values), then he is just as bad as GOP Christians. If not, then who is he to set any rules or have any opinions at all? Again, if there is no God, then who makes up the rules?
But there is a much larger issue. His philosophy not only affects you and yours, it is affecting and destroying the heart of our nation. If there are no rules or standards, then no one is free and no one is safe.
Is everybody and everything to be constantly changed and believed by the latest and largest lobby group that arises? Would you like to set up a committee to make moral decisions according to the latest polls?
Mr. Gerencser’s beliefs and thought processes have been around since almost the beginning of mankind. He presents nothing new, modern or enlightened. All he is doing is what mankind has always done — not liking God’s rules, therefore thinking that God is wrong and mankind is right. He takes the place of God and is hell-bent on making God into his own image. As a Republican, I will pray for him.
June 17, 2012, Maggie Spangler wrote:
Mr. Gerencser is trying to undermine the historical importance the Bible played in the building of our country’s government by villainizing it and by stating; “that the moral code of conduct of a particular religion has no business being codified into law within a secular state”.
What is the Bible? It’s a book, an inanimate object. Mr. Gerencser states that; “The Bible has been used in the past to justify all kinds of vile behavior.” The Bible itself is not responsible for any of the reprehensible acts that have been committed throughout history and have been justified by misquoting the Bible. It is the person behind the act that is responsible; not just for committing them but also for using the Bible in a lie to further their own agenda. No one will inherit the kingdom of God, if the Bible is to be taken literally…
…We the United States of America are not a secular state, but a constitutional republic. Our Founding Fathers created our government based upon the Constitution which was based upon three separate documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta and the Bible. Because of this our government is controlled by the Constitution. That is why it is called a, “living, breathing document”. We have been a Christian nation from the very beginning and many of us still are. Because our Constitution was based upon the Bible, that our government is based upon the Bible and the only way to change that is to change the Constitution. Hence, the fight we have been having over the last several decades.
Mr. Gerencser also stated that, “Our legal system should reflect what is best for the American people. How best to live as a pluralistic people in a secular state.”
Do you know what the second sentence in his quote means? Pluralism is the theory that a multitude of groups should govern the United States, not the people as a whole. These groups or organizations include trade unions, civil rights activists, environmentalists and business or financial lobbyists.
…A secular state remains neutral in matters of religion and treats all its citizens equal regardless of religion. Our Founding Fathers did not want our fledgling country to be sucked back into what they had just left where your religious stance could get you killed, and they wanted God to be the father of our nation. It all comes down to one thing: Do you believe in God?…
January 16, 2011, Larry Tonjes wrote:
In reply to Bruce Gerencser’s letter of Dec. 19 that this is a Christian nation, my belief as a “theocrat” is that no matter how determined any human wants to be, including Bruce Gerencser, to run away from God, it can’t be done.
The word “theocracy” is defined as “rule by divine authority.” Yes, America has had “war, torture, homophobia (not defined in the dictionary), amoral capitalism, economic collapse, the destruction of the working class and punitive political policies that punish and hurt the poor” as Gerencser mentions, but name me a nation that hasn’t had these problems.
According to the Bible and science, these problems are products of the human condition. In the insurance industry this used to be called “inherent vice,” meaning that everything in this world has an inherited flaw because it is of this world, a flawed world filled with flawed humans and flawed material to work with. The flawed problems mentioned have been endured through every type of government known to man, including Islam, communism, socialism, Judaism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, democracy. Bruce Gerencser is looking for a scapegoat because Christianity hasn’t solved all our nation’s problems, so he is looking to the current progressive movement for salvation…
August 25, 2010 Bob Palczewski wrote:
I cannot help but wonder what would make someone who has read the Bible (assuming the entire Bible from cover to cover), attended a Christian college (attending a Christian college does not make one a Christian) and been an evangelical pastor change his mind and become an agnostic humanist.
Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, contains a chapter entitled “The Poverty of Agnosticism.”
Dawkins is a renowned atheist, and you are probably wondering why I quote an atheist to make a point. In the said chapter he discusses many points concerning agnosticism but I would like to point out two items of interest. First he observes there is an “agnostic spectrum,” varying degrees of agnosticism, ranging from one — “I believe in God but have a lot of questions concerning his existence” — to seven — “I do not believe in God, period.”
Second, he also mentions two types of agnosticism — a temporary agnosticism in practice and a permanent agnosticism in principle. I wonder where Mr. Gerencser stands.
If he was once enlightened and has fallen as far as agnosticism, then there is still hope. The next step is apostasy on which the Bible is very clear. If he has sincerely studied the Scriptures then he knows what I am referring to (Hebrews 6). If not, then he should, perhaps, rethink his position. And, yes, I know his position on the inerrancy of scripture. However, the Bible is as relevant today as it was then.
August 17, 2010, R.L. Wellman wrote:
This is in reply to Bruce Gerencser’s letter on Aug. 8. There is only one thing he wrote that I can agree with — that is you only have 500 words or less to respond to a letter that is full of untruths and assumptions.
Not everyone believes in God or the Bible. This is where the problem arises. Every other religion in the world talks about how their God or ways are the only way that’s right. Agnostics, from the Greek word agnostos means, “to not know,” and agnostic is one who admits, “I don’t know.”
There is only one true God. This is the Being who made each and everyone of us in his likeness and gave us a mind and will of our own. This is the same God who inspired the prophets of old to write the Bible, His Word. The Bible may not be a supernatural book, but it is His Word. The last book was written 1,900 years ago and is still as relevant today as when it was written….
With a humanistic worldview that focuses on the here and now, you don’t have to be good. You can do anything you want, take anything you want, because when you die that’s it. Bruce assumes Christians have no life, no joy, not living and loving. He said they trudge through a wicked world in search of heaven or eternal reward. If this is what he did, no wonder he became agnostic.
God means different things to different people. No two Christians have all the same rules to follow. That’s one reason different views exist. I don’t know about you, but I would rather not live in a world that doesn’t believe in God. It would be everyone for themselves, anything goes. If it feels good, do it. You can look and see what is happening in the United States today and it doesn’t take long to figure out we are headed away from God and in the wrong direction….
August 17, 2010, Daniel Gray wrote:
…But my other question would be while Gerencser claims to have been a pastor for 25 years and since being an agnostic is one step above being an atheist, as both of them deny the existence of a deity according to every encyclopedia and dictionary out there, is Gerencser now freely admitting that he was living a lie and that his whole life before becoming agnostic was a fraud?
And, if he was a pastor, then what about all the people he was supposed to lead? Is he now admitting that he deceived them as well? And, why bother becoming a pastor in the first place if you were just going to turn your back on your chosen religion, especially one that he has never mentioned? Something about his claim just does not sound correct…
October 14, 2009,Daniel Gray wrote:
…Gerencser himself then states “it would be easy to dismiss the right-wing fringe as tinfoil hat-wearing poorly educated kooks.” Why ask for civil discourse and then insult the same people? He claims to be a pastor, then freely admits he is a socialist? You cannot be both as this is like oil and water — they don’t mix. I find it very disturbing that a pastor would play fast and loose with the truth just to try and score political points….
March 4, 2009, Deb Joseph wrote:
This is in response to Mr. Gerencser’s letter to the editor on abortion. Wow! Sir, you are way off the mark when it comes to pro-life. This is what is wrong with the direction of this country. You cannot compromise murder. The commandment is “Thou Shall Not Kill.” It’s quite straight forward. The Bible does not say “Thou shall not kill, unless it is in the first few weeks of a pregnancy”. If, sir, you are a true Christian, you believe that there is one God Almighty, Creator of All. You also agree that God is capable of anything. So you would have to conclude that if God intended a pregnancy to last in only the final 30 weeks, it would be so. The final weeks are only possible with the first few. This completes God’s cycle. This is how He has said it will be. This is how He has designed it. By no means am I being your judge…
… Mr. Gerencser, you can call yourself a Democrat or a Republican, but with views like yours on abortion, you are a far cry from a Christian…
As far as my credentials are concerned, I am thrice ordained and licensed to marry people by the state of Ohio:
Bruce Gerencser Ordination, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Buckeye Lake, Ohio April 2, 1983Bruce Gerencser, Ohio License to Marry, May 2,1983Bruce Gerencser, Universal Life Ordination, March 15, 2011Bruce Gerencser, Ohio License to Marry, March 22, 2011Bruce Gerencser Ordination, November 28, 2015
And here’s the final proof, straight from the Ohio Secretary of State’s Minister Licensing database:
Bruce Gerencser, Ohio Secretary of State Minister Licensing Database
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.
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I am disabled. I walk with a cane at all times, and I often have to use a wheelchair or motorized cart. This has been the case for me since 2009. For the longest time, I just walked with a cane, but over time, as my body and mobility slowly deteriorated, I started using a wheelchair if we were going to be out and about for any length of time. In February 2020, due to increasing physical and cognitive problems, I stopped driving automobiles. Later in 2020, I swallowed my enormous pride and used a motorized cart for the first time.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.
(1) to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities;
(2) to provide clear, strong, consistent, enforceable standards addressing discrimination against individuals with disabilities;
(3) to ensure that the Federal Government plays a central role in enforcing the standards established in this chapter on behalf of individuals with disabilities; and
(4) to invoke the sweep of congressional authority, including the power to enforce the fourteenth amendment and to regulate commerce, in order to address the major areas of discrimination faced day-to-day by people with disabilities.
For purposes of subsection (a) of this section, discrimination includes
(i) the imposition or application of eligibility criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability or any class of individuals with disabilities from fully and equally enjoying any goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations, unless such criteria can be shown to be necessary for the provision of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations being offered;
(ii) a failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, when such modifications are necessary to afford such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals with disabilities, unless the entity can demonstrate that making such modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations;
(iii) a failure to take such steps as may be necessary to ensure that no individual with a disability is excluded, denied services, segregated or otherwise treated differently than other individuals because of the absence of auxiliary aids and services, unless the entity can demonstrate that taking such steps would fundamentally alter the nature of the good, service, facility, privilege, advantage, or accommodation being offered or would result in an undue burden;
(iv) a failure to remove architectural barriers, and communication barriers that are structural in nature, in existing facilities, and transportation barriers in existing vehicles and rail passenger cars used by an establishment for transporting individuals (not including barriers that can only be removed through the retrofitting of vehicles or rail passenger cars by the installation of a hydraulic or other lift), where such removal is readily achievable; and
(v) where an entity can demonstrate that the removal of a barrier under clause (iv) is not readily achievable, a failure to make such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations available through alternative methods if such methods are readily achievable.
Enacted into law in 1990 and amended in 2009, the ADA dramatically changed access to shopping, services, employment, and education that were previously inaccessible to people with disabilities. The law is not perfect. The ADA is littered with exclusions that allow businesses and churches to ignore the requirements of the law. Small businesses, in particular, are exempt from many of the law’s requirements. This is why I find it almost impossible to shop at stores in downtown Bryan and Defiance. Many of these businesses owners have no regard for people with mobility problems. Narrow store aisles and inaccessible restrooms make it impossible for disabled people to navigate their stores. So I don’t, choosing to do an increasing amount of shopping online.
Every two or three weeks, Polly and I, along with Bethany, drive fifty miles to Toledo to shop for groceries at stores such as Costco, Whole Foods, Fresh Foods, Fresh Tyme, and Meijer. All of these stores are required to follow the ADA (and they do, for the most part). As I navigate these stores (and others), I have a seat-level view of how the world looks to people with mobility-related disabilities. Things appear very different from a wheelchair or a motorized cart from how they look when you are walking freely on two feet. Even when walking with a cane, the world is very different from that of those unencumbered by haltingly navigating the store with a cane. When you walk with a cane, your mind and eyes are often focused on hindrances to your mobility; those things that could cause you to trip, stumble, or fall.
I could spend hours sharing stories about negative experiences I’ve had while shopping using a cane, wheelchair, or motorized cart. Sometimes, I will point out these issues to store managers or service employees, asking them to do better. For example, we love to eat the Texas Roadhouse in Findlay, Ohio. Great food and service. However, the restaurant stored chairs in a main walkway that required me to use a different egress that had a steep incline/decline (for me, anyway). I mentioned this to the general manager, and she quickly said, “you are right. I will have those chairs removed immediately.” And they have stayed removed.
Sometimes, store employees simply don’t pay attention to disabled people. Stockers at Meijer are notorious for leaving their stock carts in the middle of the aisles. Sometimes, I will educate them, suggesting they move their carts to one side of the aisle or the other. Other times, I will just sit there, waiting for them to get my hint. Some never do. I have mentioned this problem to Meijer management, but no changes have been made (even though this is a violation of the ADA). Several weeks ago, we were shopping at Fresh Tyme in Toledo. I was using a motorized cart. I stopped by the meat counter to buy some steaks, shrimp, and fish. I was parked three feet or so away from the counter. When the employee asked who was next I said, “I am.” However, he ignored me. He couldn’t see me due to the fact that he was standing directly in front of the scale. I politely (but secretly irritated) said, “if you move over a bit you can see me.”
Here’s the question I want to answer: Should people with disabilities expect and demand the same rights and access everyone else has? Some disabled people say, YES! ABSOLUTELY YES! They are the people on Friday nights at 5:30 pm who are bound and determined to drive their motorized carts down crowded aisles, inconveniencing disabled and non-disabled people alike. They are the people who will horizontally park their cart, making everyone have to turn around and go the other way. Such people are inconsiderate, showing no regard for other people. I have had more than a few terse words with such people. I may be disabled too, but I pay attention to my surroundings and try to stay out of the way of other people. Granted, that same care is generally not shown to disabled people. I’ve had countless people walk in front of me, bump into me, and otherwise rudely and selfishly impede my path. Sometimes, I will say something, but most of the time I just curse loud enough under my breath that they hear me. One night years ago, we were leaving Great American Ballpark after a Reds baseball game. One of my sons was pushing my sorry ass back to the car. As we were crossing the crosswalk, a car sped up, trying to get by us before having to stop. They were unable to do so, so they stopped their car inches from my wheelchair. I showed my disapproval with a few choice swear words, and then, much to my son’s horror, I thumped their car with my cane. The driver wisely stayed in his car. I know, I know, not a good idea, but sometimes, I get tired of assholes showing no regard for me. I’m sure my sons, daughter, and Polly will have more than a few “Dad and His Wheelchair” stories to share at my funeral.
Unlike the aforementioned disabled people, I do not expect and demand the same rights and access everyone else has. I expect reasonable accommodations. I know the world will never be a level playing field for disabled people. Many things can be easily changed, and should be. Other changes might be prohibitively costly or impossible to do. During the summer, I attend dirt track races at Limaland Motorsports Park with my sons. We like to eat dinner before going to the races at Kewpee — a 50s-style hamburger joint. Their store on Allentown Road is not well-suited for disabled people. The seating is way too small, and it’s impossible to use the restrooms (unless you drop your pants outside of the door and back into the small closet-sized restroom). I don’t expect the owners of Kewpee to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to make their store ADA-compliant. Now, if and when they build a new store they will be required to follow ADA regulations. Moving to an ADA-compliant world will take decades. That doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t be challenged to do better, but lasting change takes time (and the ADA itself needs improvement).
More than a few readers of this blog are mobility challenged. What are your thoughts about what I have written? Do you have horror stories to share? If you are an able-bodied adult, how do you view the disabled people you come in contact with when shopping or in other places where the public gathers? Please share your pithy thoughts in the comment section.
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.
Recently, Evangelical pastor Greg Locke held a book burning service that led to consigning to flames of a metaphorical Hell the Harry Potter and Twilight books, along with other books deemed Satanic. School boards and public libraries are receiving increasing numbers of requests to remove “offensive” books from their institutions — especially books that present LGBTQ people, premarital sex, atheists, and socialism in a positive light. Most of the people objecting to these books are Evangelical Christians.
I agree with them. Any book that presents an alternate worldview besides Christianity should be removed from the shelves. The same goes for books that teach any other religion except Biblical Christianity. Since all humans are heterosexual and it’s a sin to engage in premarital sex, there’s no need to have books that educate teens about gay, transgender, and non-binary people. The Bible tells us we should shelter our children from the “world.” They mustn’t see or engage with people different from them. Public schools are government indoctrination centers. Children would be better off if they were homeschooled or sent to Christian schools that will teach them the “truth,” including the fact that the earth was created in six literal twenty-four-hour days, 6,024 years ago.
Recently, I was at the Defiance Public Library and I was astounded to find a book on the shelves filled with all sorts of vile behavior: homosexuality, incest, rape, fornication, adultery, murder, and genocide. This book called for the execution of people who were gay, worshiped false deities, or were disobedient to their parents. This book was loaded with bloody violence, including the story of a man who chopped up his daughter and sent her body parts all over the country. Worse yet, this book taught that women are second-class citizens, consigned to lives of dutiful marriage, bearing children, cooking Hamburger Helper, and obeying their husbands’ commands.
This book is available to children, teens, and adults alike. I am calling on the Defiance Library to immediately remove this book from its shelves. Our children must not be exposed to this book. It’s name, you ask? The Bible. Using the standard promoted by Evangelical pastors such as Greg Locke, it’s clear that the Bible, in all its versions, must be immediately removed from library shelves.
Of course, what I have written above is sarcasm. I encourage local school boards and librarians to reject all attempts to ban books.
Bruce Gerencser Ney, Ohio
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.
All over the country, well-meaning Americans are convinced that human trafficking—and specifically child sex trafficking—is happening right in their backyard, or at any rate no farther away than the nearest mall parking lot. A 2020 survey by the political scientists Joseph Uscinski and Adam Enders found that 35 percent of Americans think the number of children who are victims of trafficking each year is about 300,000 or higher; 24 percent think it is “much higher.” Online, people read that trafficking is a problem nobody else is willing to discuss: The city they live in is a “hot spot,” their state one of the worst in the country. Despite what the mainstream media are saying, this is “the real pandemic.”
Of course, child sex trafficking does happen, and it is horrible. The crime is a serious concern of human-rights organizations and of governments all over the world. Statistically, however, it is hard to get a handle on: The data are often misleading, when they exist at all. Whatever the incidence, sex trafficking does not involve Tom Hanks or hundreds of thousands of American children.
When today’s activists talk about the problem of trafficking, knowing exactly what they’re referring to can be difficult. They cite statistics that actually offer global estimates of all forms of labor trafficking. Or they mention outdated and hard-to-parse figures about the number of children who go “missing” in the United States every year—most of whom are never in any immediate danger—and then start talking about children who are abducted by strangers and sold into sex slavery.
While stereotypical kidnappings—what you picture when you hear the word—do occur, the annual number hovers around 100. Sex trafficking also occurs in the United States. The U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline has been operated by the anti-trafficking nonprofit Polaris Project and overseen and partially funded by the Department of Health and Human Services since 2007. In 2019, it recorded direct contacts with 14,597 likely victims of sex trafficking of all ages. (The average age at which these likely victims were first trafficked—“age of entry,” as the statistic is called—was 17.) The organization itself doesn’t regard its figure for direct contacts as one that should be used with too much confidence—it is probably low, but no more solid data exist.
There is a widely circulated number, and it’s even bigger than the one Laura Pamatian and her volunteer chapter publicized: 800,000 children go missing in the U.S. every year. The figure shows up on T-shirts and handmade posters, and in the captions of Instagram posts. But the number doesn’t mean what the people sharing it think it means. It comes from a study conducted in 1999 by the Justice Department, and it’s an estimate of the number of children who were reported missing over the period of a year for any reason and for any length of time. The majority were runaways, children caught up in custody disputes, or children who were temporarily not where their guardians expected them to be. The estimate for “nonfamily abductions” reported to authorities was 12,100, which includes stereotypical kidnappings, but came with the caveat that it was extrapolated from “an extremely small sample of cases” and, as a result, “its precision and confidence interval are unreliable.” Later in the report, the authors noted that “only a fraction of 1 percent of the children who were reported missing had not been recovered” by the time they were counted for the study. The authors also clarified that a survey sent to law-enforcement agencies found that “an estimated 115 of the nonfamily abducted children were victims of stereotypical kidnapping.” The Justice Department repeated the study in 2013 and found that reports of missing children had “significantly decreased.”
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.
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Compare this picture to the descriptions of the Christian God in the book of Revelation. Similar?
Atheists do not hate God. While Evangelical Christians will certainly suggest otherwise, I do not know of one atheist who “hates” God. Think about it for a moment. Do atheists believe in the existence of the Christian God, or any other god, for that matter? Of course not, so it makes no sense to say that atheists hate a non-existent, mythical being. Surely, even the densest of Christians can understand this. If I asked Evangelicals, Do you believe in the existence of Odin, the Norse God? how do you think they would respond? I have no doubt Evangelicals would laugh and say, Odin is a mythical being. It would be silly of us to hate a being that doesn’t exist. Bingo. Just like atheists and the Christian God.
Evangelicals often refuse to accept at face value what others say/believe about their God. When atheists deny the existence of the Christian God, Evangelicals say that atheists are suppressing their knowledge of this God. Supposedly, atheists KNOW that the Christian God exists, but they, having a hard heart and a seared conscience, deny his existence. Couldn’t the same be said of Christians who deny the existence of Odin? Christians KNOW that the Norse God exists, but they refuse to accept this, clinging to a God who is no God at all.
The fact is this: atheists do not hate God. Anyone who suggests otherwise is either deliberately ignorant of what atheists believe or are so blinded by their own beliefs that they cannot fathom any other belief but their own. Wait a minute, Bruce, Evangelicals say. If atheists do not hate God, then why do they spend so much time talking about God? Good question.
While atheists know that the Christian God is a myth, they also understand that much harm has been done in his name. It is not the Christian God that is the problem. God, divorced from his followers, is little more than an ancient explanation for human existence. Who cares, right? Myths, in and of themselves, have no power. The Harry Potter books tell a wonderful story of mystery and magic, but no one in his or her right mind thinks the stories are true. Imagine if a group of people believed that what was written in the Harry Potter books was some sort of divine message from God. Does the fact that this group of people believes the stories are true mean that they are? Of course not. So it is with Christianity. That people “believe” is not proof that something is true. Millions of people believe in the Mormon God, yet Evangelicals, for the most part, believe Mormonism is a false religion. I fail to see how Mormonism’s God is any different from Christianity’s God. Taken at face value, both myths are absurd.
The real issue for atheists is what Christians DO in the name of their God. It is Christians that are the problem, not their God. If Christianity was little more than a Kiwanis Club, I suspect that most atheist writers such as myself would put down their digital pens and turn their attention to other pursuits. However, because many Christians will not rest until the entire world worships their God and bows to their interpretation of an antiquated religious text, atheists, humanists, agnostics, and secularists are forced to do battle with Evangelical zealots. Believe me, I’d rather be writing about sports, photography, or train collecting, but as long as Evangelicals continue to clamor for a theocracy governed by Biblical law, I intend to raise my objection to their theocratic ambitions.
Bruce, if Christianity doesn’t matter, why do you bother with it?
Good question.
On one hand, Christianity doesn’t matter. The Bible doesn’t matter. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, the Church — none of it matters.
If Christians want to worship their God, I have no objection. I subscribe to the “live and let live” school of thought. Each to his own. May Jesus be with you. May the force be with you. May nothing be with you. I don’t care.
However . . .
I do care about the influence Christianity has on our culture and government. I do care about the damage done in the name of the Christian God. I do care when people are hurt, maimed, and killed in the name of Jesus.
When Christians want to turn the United States into a theocracy . . . It matters.
When Christians want their religion to have preference over any and all others . . . It matters.
When Christians demand atheists and agnostics be treated as the spawn of Satan . . . It matters.
When Christians attempt to teach religious dogma as scientific fact in our public schools . . . It matters.
When Christians attempt to force their religious moral code on everyone . . . It matters.
When Christians attempt to stand in the way of my pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness . . . It matters.
When Christians abuse and molest children in the name of their God . . . It matters.
When Christians wage wars thousands of miles away in the name of their God . . . It matters.
When Christians mentally and emotionally abuse people . . . It matters.
When Christians expect preferential treatment because of who they worship . . . It matters.
As long as Christians continue to force themselves on others, and as long as they attack and demean anyone who is not a Christian . . . It matters.
As long as pastors and churches get preferential tax code treatment . . . It matters.
That said . . .
As to who you worship and where? It doesn’t matter.
As to what sacred text you use? It doesn’t matter.
I want all Christians to have the absolute freedom to worship their God.
And . . .
I want that same freedom to NOT worship any God or another God . . .
And as long as that courtesy is not extended to me and to every human being on earth . . .
It matters.
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.
The United States is a secular nation. We have a secular Constitution and Bill of Rights. While America is one of the most religious nations on the face of the 6,024-year-old earth :), we have freedom of and from religion. There is a wall of separation between church and state. Christians are free to practice their religion without government interference. This freedom, however, is not absolute. Churches are expected to follow building codes, fire laws, and health and safety mandates. Worshipping a deity doesn’t exempt them from their societal duties and obligations.
These things were universally understood by believers and unbelievers alike until the advent of the modern culture war. Today, millions of Evangelicals believe the United States is a Christian nation, that there is no separation of church and state, and the teachings of the Bible should be the law of the land.
Yesterday, Michael, a Christian (Evangelical?) blogger who spends his days raging against atheism, wrote a post titled What is Secular Privilege? Here Are Ten Everyday Examples. As you shall see, Michael whines and complains about his flavor of Christianity not being given preferential treatment.
Here are excerpts from seven of his examples of secular privilege:
Your Wages Aren’t Lower Because You are Religious
While I was unable to find any solid studies that compare the income of religious vs. secular people, this Pew Research survey found that atheists and agnostics have a higher household income than members of most religions. For example, while almost 60% of atheists have an income of more than $50,000 per year, only about 30% of Baptists do.
While the Pew data don’t measure religiosity itself, it is worth noting that the religious group with the highest household incomes also happens to be the least religious.
People Don’t Make Assumptions About Your Intelligence Because Of Your Religion
A common stereotype about religious people is that they are stupid.
You Don’t Feel Pressure To Represent Your Religion
Secular people never have to worry that if they make a mistake, people will assume they made it because secular people are less capable. On the other hand, if you belong to a religion, a mistake (intellectual or ethical) will be used as something that represents your religion. Being secular absolves you from this pressure to defy your religion’s stereotype so that your mistakes don’t hurt others of who share your religious faith.
Most Products Are Geared Toward You
A secular person can go into any corner convenience store to buy beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, or other secular goods and walk out with something that suits them. Religious people will not find religious items so readily available (like pocket Bibles or kosher food), reminding them that in the eyes of mainstream culture, they are invisible.
Most Media Is Geared Toward You
Secular people can feel fairly confident that they will see people like them represented on TV, in movies, in magazines, in books, and all over the Internet. The media is clearly secular, as one can easily watch Netflix all weekend and listen to the radio in their car all week, catch a movie on a Friday night, and read the newspaper every morning without being exposed to religious messages/themes/people.
Beauty Standards Aren’t Rigged Against You Because Of Your Faith
The rigid beauty standards depicted in the media harm all women, and that harm can be due to factors other than religion. But many religious women express their faith through modesty of dress. Some refuse to wear pants or makeup and others cover their heads. Yet the beauty standards of most women’s magazines, fashion designers, and the various ads found throughout the media portray women who are scantily dressed with lots of makeup. Secular women don’t usually feel the same pressure to uncover themselves and paint their faces.
A secular education for your child is free.
If you are a secular parent wanting your children to have a secular education, the government provides free schooling from ages 5-18. What’s more, these schools effectively have a zero-tolerance for any religious expression in the schools and the courts routinely enforce efforts to censor if a violation is uncovered. On the other hand, if you want your child to have an education that includes religious considerations and values, you will have to pay large sums of money. Assuming a modest tuition of $3000/year for K-8th grade, and $10,000/year for 9th-12th grade, religious parents can end up paying $67,000 for something that secular parents get for free. Of course, since many religious parents cannot afford such an education, they are forced to send their children to secular schools that promote secular values and outlooks.
It would seem to me that anyone who is honestly and seriously interested in social justice would pay attention to secular privilege and seek to check it. But alas, no one in the social justice movement is willing to acknowledge even the existence of secular privilege. Could it be because the social justice movement itself champions and defends secular privilege? After all, we know in the atheist community, there is a huge overlap among anti-religious activism and social justice activism. And could it thus be that their posturing about social justice itself is just self-serving deception?
I will leave it commenters to dissect and eviscerate Michael’s whine. I do, however, want to address his claims that most products and media are geared towards secularists. My first thought was “are you fucking kidding me?” Where does Michael live? In a deep, dark cave somewhere? Everywhere I look, I see Christian churches, Christian TV, Christian radio, Christian blogs, Christian podcasts, Christian books, Christian movies, Christian kitsch, etc. I live in rural northwest Ohio. There are hundreds of Christian churches, many of them Evangelical, within 30 minutes or so of my home. Everywhere I look, I see Jesus hanging out street corners like prostitutes selling their wares.
Countless business owners advertise the fact that the dead Jesus is their business partner. The fish sign and the cross are prominently displayed in advertising, letting local Christians know Jesus changes oil, cleans carpets, repairs cars, gives massages, and roofs/paints houses. These business owners deliberately cater to the dominant religious demographic. I’ve yet to see an ad geared towards secularists, atheists, agnostics, or other non-Christians. Why? Business is all about making money. Why limit your potential pool of customers? A smart business owner caters to everyone. Personally, I don’t support businesses that explicitly advertise themselves as Christian. I let one such business owner know I wouldn’t be frequenting his establishment. The owner let me know that he didn’t need any business from atheists and libtards. His store later went out of business. Would income from secular and atheist customers have saved his business? Probably not. The owner was an all-around asshole, so I suspect that’s the reason his business closed. That said, I did feel a sense of satisfaction when I saw his storefront empty.
Earlier this week, the Village of Ney (where I live) fielded a request for information about opening a medical marijuana facility in town (more on this in a future post). The mayor and council, all of whom are Christians, rejected the request out of hand. Why? Though left unstated, I am sure their Christian beliefs and personal moral standards led to them rejecting this request. Jesus doesn’t toke dope, right? End of discussion.
I see nothing in our secular society that limits the ability of Christians to make money, worship Jesus, or metaphorically masturbate to their heart’s content to the triune God of the Bible. Of course, Christians such as Michael want and demand more than religious freedom. They want preferential treatment. Most of all, they want every knee to bow to Jesus, the Bible, and Donald Trump. Theocracy is the goal.
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.
