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Do School Shootings Happen Because the Evangelical God is Banned From Public Schools?

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god banned atheist pigEvangelicals often claim that the reason for school shootings is that the Christian God has been banned from public schools. According to Evangelicals, all sorts of maladies afflict our society due to the fact that prayer, Bible reading, and the Ten Commandments have been litigated out of public schools. If only people would see the importance of the Christian God (and only the Christian God) in educating children and return him to his rightful place, why all sorts of societal ills would disappear overnight. The same argument is made for banning abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and any of the other hot-button issues Evangelicals deem a threat to their God and way of life.

This argument, of course, is patently false. God isn’t banned from public schools. I attend several local high school girls’ basketball games each week in the winter month. Many of these games have prayer times by led by players before and after the games. Such student-led prayers are legal. I don’t care for the prayers, and I refuse to stand silently in the stands until the prayers are done. Not my God, so I am not going to give my approval to such bawdy displays of religiosity. That said, students are free to pray, read the Bible, and have a Ten Commandments book cover. Teachers are free to do the same during their breaks or other times when they are not teaching their students. What schools and teachers are not permitted to do is advance or evangelize for sectarian religious beliefs.

Most local schools have Christian student groups, including groups associated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (an Evangelical ministry whose goal is to “present to coaches and athletes, and all whom they influence, the challenge and adventure of receiving Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, serving Him in their relationships and in the fellowship of the church”). Youth for Christ has an active presence in many schools. Local churches are free to rent/use school facilities. Over the years, new church plants have used local school buildings as their meeting places. Local school boards are dominated by Christians, and I suspect most teachers profess some form of Christian faith. It seems, then, that the Christian God is alive and well in public schools.

What upsets Evangelicals is that they can no longer demand preferential treatment for their religious cult. If Satanist, atheist, or secular students want to start student-led clubs, they are free to go so. If Satanists on school sports teams want to offer a prayer up to Beelzebub before the start of the game, they are free to do so. Evangelicals want exclusivity and it irritates the heaven out of them that other sects and groups are given equal status.

What kind of God allows children to be murdered, all because his adult followers aren’t allowed to proselytize public school students? What a vindictive, petty God this is, akin to a man who burns down a house with his ex-wife and children in it, all because his ex wouldn’t let him in the door. Such a God is not worthy of worship. Worse yet, are Evangelicals of a Calvinistic bent who believe school shootings are all part of some sort of perverse cosmic plan. According to Calvinists, these children were murdered because God willed it to be done. It is God who ultimately fires the bullet that kills us all.

Such a God is an abomination, one unworthy of worship, love, and devotion. This is one of the things that makes it clear such a God does not exist. A moral, loving God would neither be an instrument of murder, nor would it stand by while children (and teachers) are killed by deranged gunmen. What the school shootings tell us is that the Christian God is either a work of fiction or he is too busy to be bothered with the pain and suffering of his creation. If God has the powers Evangelicals say he does, he could have stopped Nikolas Cruz from killing seventeen and wounding four of his fellow students (including several school staff members). That God did nothing is a sure sign that he doesn’t exist. Evangelicals love to tell us mere humans that we are sinners deserving judgment from their God and eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire. Yet, I suspect many of us sinners, if given the opportunity, would have done all we could to protect children from murder. Unlike God, we value life, especially that of those who are in the early years of this wonderful experience we call life. That it was humans, not God, who tried to protect children from slaughter is yet another reminder of the fact that God is, at best, an absentee father who has no interest in his children.

If the root cause of mass shootings is the Evangelical God being kicked out of our culture and schools, how then do Evangelicals explain the shooting at an Evangelical Baptist Church that claimed the lives of twenty-six God-fearing souls? How then do Evangelicals explain Dylan Roof’s murder of nine Christians while they were praying at church? Surely, the people killed in these shootings were devoted followers of Jesus, yet God, as he does in EVERY case, stood by and did nothing. In fact, based on demographics, it is likely that many of the students murdered in the school shootings over the past three decades were believers in the Christian God. What possible reason could be given for the Christian God — he who holds the keys of life and death — wiping these people off the face of the earth?

Well, you know Bruce, God’s ways are not our way.

No shit, Sherlock. And you wonder why atheism is growing?

God is not going to fix the school shooting problem. It’s up to us, just as is everything else in life. Waiting for God to act is a fool’s errand, one that leads to countless heartaches. We are the Gods in this morality play, and it is time we exercise our divine powers and put an end to gun violence. It’s time to run the NRA and their Republican lackeys out of town. It’s time we recognize that guns are instruments of death, and a country without 300 million of them would be a better place to live. While a total gun ban will never be implemented in the United States, we can ban weapons capable of causing horrific bloodshed in short amounts of time.

Or we can put prayer and Bible reading back in the public schools….

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: ‘Me Too’ Designed to Distract From Hollywood’s Rampant Satanism and Pedophilia

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liz crokin

Let’s look at the whole ‘Me Too” movement and let’s look at the ‘Time’s Up’ movement. Who was kind of driving that campaign? It was CAA [Creative Artists Agency]. I’m sure you are familiar with CAA, that is the biggest talent agency in Hollywood, powerful, run by Illuminati scum.

You have CAA, this horrific, evil company that was driving this campaign. They are actually trying to distract from the bigger picture and the bigger picture is that these elites are involved in raping little kids, eating babies, drinking blood, sacrificing and that kind of stuff. So they are using the ‘Time’s Up’ and the ‘Me Too’ movement as a distraction.

Don’t tell me that all of a sudden CAA cares about sexual assault…They are just trying to distract from what’s deeper down the rabbit hole and what’s deeper down the rabbit hole is what they do to children, it’s the spirit cooking, it’s the sacrificing, it’s these sick, crazy, twisted rituals they do, it’s the witchcraft, it’s the occult, and that’s what they’re trying to distract from.

— Liz Crokin, Interview on The Richie Allen Show, February 12, 2018

Journalist Kurt Andersen Explains How Fundamentalist Christianity Has Made the United States Go Nuts

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kurt andersen

What follows is a short video of journalist Kurt Andersen explaining how Fundamentalist Christianity has made the United States (especially the Republican Party) lose its marbles.

Video Link

An Unlikely Feminist

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guest post

A guest post by ObstacleChick

My grandparents were members of what has been termed “the Greatest Generation”; that generation of people who came of age during World War II. My grandfather was a combat war veteran in the Pacific theater — drafted into the US Army/Air Corps as an 18 year-old. He was newly married to his 16-year-old sweetheart, and their baby was born while he was in boot camp. Because he assaulted his superior officer after his drunken father called saying his baby was going blind (untrue), grandpa was demoted from corporal to private. He was required to serve an extra tour of duty, and was sent overseas early with another unit. His previous unit’s ship was sunk by the Japanese when they were finally deployed, so his bad behavior saved his life.

After the war, grandpa took advantage of the GI Bill, studying electrical and refrigeration in night school. He had only completed 6th grade (he lied and told us all that he completed 8th grade but his Army records stated 6th). Army testing proved that he was intelligent, and he was put into the emerging signal corps with much more educated men. After the war, my grandparents and mother lived in government housing, and they eventually had another child, my uncle. They bought a house, then later bought a bigger house in the suburbs of Nashville.

My grandparents were Southern Baptists, with my grandfather serving as a deacon and my grandmother serving as a Sunday school teacher and Women’s Missionary Union leader. I was never sure how much my grandfather bought into all the religious stuff, though he did implore me to “get saved” when I was about 12 years old. He stated what I later learned as Pascal’s wager when questioned about the existence of heaven and hell. He prayed the blessing over meals and at church, but he never really talked about having a personal relationship with God, and I never saw him reading the Bible. He always found a way to be busy at church during Sunday School, so he rarely sat through a class, but he was generally present for most of the Sunday church service in his deacon capacity. My grandmother, on the other hand, was consumed with studying the Bible and Christianity. She had her own personal library of Bible concordances, study guides, commentaries, Bible history, Bible geography, and Bible archaeology, as well as books by authors like James Dobson, Hal Lindsey, Billy Graham and Christian biographies about Johnny Cash, Corrie Ten Boom, and many others. Living near Nashville, she would travel to the Baptist Book Store to pick up whatever books she needed. Every day, she devoted 2 hours in the afternoon to studying and making lesson plans for women’s Sunday school and Women’s Missionary Union classes. I suspect that her lessons were way beyond the understanding of many of the women she taught due to the thoroughness in her research and planning. I always thought she would have made a great university professor. Although she dropped out of high school in 10th grade due to severe anemia, she earned her GED as an adult (I asked her why she bothered, and she said it was because she wanted to earn her high school degree).

My mother was twice divorced and thrice married. She was a National Merit Semi-Finalist in high school, tied for second in her graduating class of over 300 (she and the other student were required to take a test to determine salutatorian, and because my mom was painfully shy and did not want to make a speech, she threw the test). Her high school counselor suggested she should apply to college. No one in our family had attended college, and she had no idea what to pursue as a career. She always figured she would be a wife and mother like her mother. But she applied to a local university, got a scholarship, and went to college like a good student who always did what was expected of her. Not knowing what she wanted to do, she majored in education. Most young women in 1961 majored in education or nursing — she cared for neither — but given a choice she thought education would be a better option. Without a passion for pursuing a career, she dropped out of college after the first semester of her junior year and got married. She was divorced a year later. Her excellent verbal skills helped her procure a job as a secretary. She married my father who ended up being a selfish and abusive man. When I was 3 years old, my mom left my dad because he threatened her, and we moved in with  my mom’s parents and my great-grandmother. My mom suffered from depression, anxiety, and loneliness for many years. When I was 11, she married my stepdad, and my brother was born a year later. I chose to live with my grandparents, but eventually my mom and stepdad built a house across the street, so I spent time in both houses. I considered my grandparents more like my parents, with my mom and stepdad more like older siblings.

My grandfather’s biggest regret in life was that he did not convince my mother to stay in college, earn her degree, and pursue a career. In his mind, if she had gotten her degree and pursued a career, she would not have ended up a single mom struggling financially. Even in her 3rd marriage, they struggled financially, especially after my stepdad became disabled and could no longer work. Despite his severe pain, though, that man worked hard doing most of the cooking, cleaning, home repair, and yard work. If he couldn’t stand, he would sit on a stool. He worked relentlessly until the day he died.

Because of my mother’s circumstances, my grandfather made it his mission to instill in me that pursuing education and preparing for a career was my number one priority in life. He told me, “Never be dependent on a man.” From the time I was 11 years old, I remember him saying repeatedly that my education came first and that NOTHING should come in the way of that. He did everything he could to facilitate my ability to obtain what he believed was a good education by paying for my private school tuition and piano lessons. While I might argue now that the fundamentalist evangelical Christian school might not have been the best choice, I was admitted to a top secular university despite my lack of knowledge on evolution (the school taught young earth creationism).

His teaching that I should never be dependent on a man was contrary to the teachings of his church. In the 1980s, our church started teaching complementarianism (see previous post: Biblical Manhood and Womanhood), offering courses to men and women in the church. My grandmother and mom took the married women’s course, and I took the single women’s course. My grandmother, ever striving to be the most obedient Christian — following her God’s dictates — took on the role of the submissive “helpmeet” wife. My grandfather had no interest in that. He valued my grandmother’s intellect and spirit. My grandmother struggled against what she considered her rebellious nature, but she tried as hard as she could to be a submissive wife. My mom took the course too, but when I asked her why she was not submissive, she said, “We all know that I am smarter than your stepdad so we agreed that I make the decisions.” And that was the end of that.

The concept of complementarianism was one of the major reasons I began my exit from evangelical fundamentalist Christianity. I have never taken well to the notion that women are somehow lesser. As I studied biology and psychology, I found that gender and sexuality are present on a spectrum, not strictly binary. We learn in grade school about XX and XY chromosomes, but in fact, there are X0, XXY, XXX, XYY possibilities as well.

My grandfather lived to see me graduate from college, but died a couple of months later. I think he would be proud of the fact that I married someone who is my partner, and as it so happened I am the primary bread-winner in the family (both of us work).

My grandfather wasn’t someone we would call a feminist by today’s standards, and he might roll over in his grave if he heard me call him a feminist. Indeed, his feminism was situational, based on personal experience. I never asked him if he thought ALL women should never be dependent on men. He still believed women should not serve in combat because (a) he didn’t think most were physically strong enough and (b) he was concerned that female combat troops could be captured by the enemy and raped by their captors. And he wasn’t too keen on homosexuality, but I’m not sure if it was because of his religion or if he just personally didn’t like it. I do know that my grandfather’s brother disowned his son (my grandfather’s nephew) for being gay, but my grandfather would invite his nephew to our house to visit and to provide a place for his sister-in-law to visit her son, as the nephew was not allowed in his parents’ house. But compared to most men of his religion and generation, he was more progressive than his peers. Therefore, oddly enough, I consider my grandfather instrumental in sending me on the path toward feminism.

Courtland Sykes Says to Women, Your Place is in the Kitchen Making Sure Dinner is Ready at 6:00 PM

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courtland sykes

Missouri GOP Senate candidate Courtland Sykes took to Facebook recently to let feminists and nontraditional women what he thought of them. Let me hit the highlights for you. Grammatical errors are in the original:

  • I want to come home to a home cooked dinner every night at six. One that she [Sykes is engaged to be married] fixes and one that I expect one day to have daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives.
  • I want my daughters to have their own intelligence, their own dignity, their own work space, and their own degrees; I want them to build home based enterprises and live in homes shared with good husbands and I don’t want them to grow up into career obsessed banshees who forgo home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the tops  of a thousand tall buildings they are think they could have leaped over in a single bound — had men not been “suppressing them.” It’s  just nuts. It always was.
  • I want to come home to a home cooked dinner at six every night, one that she fixes and one that I expect one day to have my daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives — think Norman Rockwell here,  and Gloria Steinhem be damned.

Here’s Sykes’ full statement.

courtland sykes view of women

Sykes’ Facebook page describes him this way:

Courtland Sykes, Missouri’s newest candidate for the U.S. Senate, has been called MAGA’s boldest warrior. He is no stranger to conflict and danger—he spent four tours of duty in the military and intelligence arena in Iraq, the Middle East, plus a tour in Central and South American missions operating from the U.S. Embassy in Panama.

A certain forthrightness—call it a certain boldness in spirit—comes from a background like that and he takes no prisoners in stating his positions outright about America and its future.

Sykes is pro-Trump, pro-MAGA, pro-gun, anti-abortion, pro-wall—some have said he is the most outright and boldest of all Senatorial candidates regarding President Trump’s America First Agenda.

In other words, Sykes is a Trumpian Asshole®.

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Franklin Graham Defends Donald Trump Against Allegations He Had an Affair

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franklin graham

President Trump I don’t think has admitted to having an affair with this person [porn actress Stormy Daniels]. And so this is just a news story, and I don’t even know if it’s accurate [Why does Graham believe pathological liar Donald Trump over Stormy Daniel?].

I believe at 70 years of age the president is a much different person today than he was four years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago [there’s no evidence for this being true]. He is not President Perfect [no shit Sherlock].

We certainly don’t hold him up as the pastor of this nation and he is not. But I appreciate the fact that the president does have a concern for Christian values, he does have a concern to protect Christians whether it’s here at home or around the world and I appreciate the fact that he protects religious liberty and freedom [gag me with a spoon].

Our country’s got a sin problem, and I believe if these politicians [Democrats and liberals] in Washington would recognize the moral failure of so many of their policies [hot button social issues] that maybe we could fix it [I thought only Jesus could fix our “sin” problem?].

— Franklin Graham, MSNBC News Report, January 20, 2018

Life in Rural Northwest Ohio: Committing Social Suicide

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jesus-flag
Local home flying the team flag. Go TEAM JESUS!

I have spent most of my sixty years of life living in rural Ohio. I was born in Bryan, Ohio — a small community in Northwest Ohio. My dad’s parents immigrated to the United States from Hungary in the 1920s and settled down on a hundred acre farm a few miles south of Bryan. Dad and his siblings attended schools in the very district my wife and I now call home. We live in a small spot along State Highway 15. Ney, population 345, has two bars/restaurants and a convenience store/fast station. Dad graduated from Ney High School in 1954. I attended elementary school for several years west of here in the flashing-light, spot-in-the-road town called Farmer. Dad frequently moved us from town to town, unable, for some inexplicable reason, to pay the rent. It wasn’t until junior high that I got a taste of “big” city life.  For three and a half years, we lived in Findlay, the home of Marathon Oil. This allowed me to attend the same school for three straight years. I actually had the same friends from one school year to the next!

Divorce and Dad moving us to Arizona turned my happy world upside down. At age sixteen, I returned to Findlay for my eleventh-grade year. I then returned to Bryan to live with my mother. Lots of drama, including Mom being locked up in Toledo State Hospital, resulted in my siblings and me being uprooted and moved once again to Arizona. By then, I had dropped out of high school. In the fall of 1975, I moved back to Bryan and took a job working at a local grocery store. A year later, I left Bryan to attend classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. I returned to Bryan three years later, pregnant wife in tow.

Polly and I spent much of our married life living in small, rural communities. The churches I pastored were, for the most part, attended by white, working-class people. In 1995, we moved back to the flatland of rural Northwest Ohio. I pastored two nearby churches, moving away from the area to pastor a church in rural Michigan, along with a move to Yuma, Arizona. In the end, like the proverbial bad penny, I seem to always make my way back to Northwest Ohio. In 2007, we bought our house in Ney. Our six children and eleven grandchildren (soon to be twelve) all live within twenty minutes of our home.

There are times when Polly and I yearn for the big city; for the anonymity that living in such places provide. But, we love our family, and when we bought our home, we committed ourselves to living here until death do us part. This is the place and people we call home. We love the slowness of life, and when we need a big city fix, Fort Wayne and Toledo are but an hour away.

I write all this to say that my roots run deep into the soil of rural Ohio. No matter how often I fled the scene, looking for excitement and diversity, I always seemed to come right back to where life started for me. Polly was a city girl, but forty years of country living have turned her into a small-town girl who has embraced the rural way of life. Would we live where we do if it weren’t for our children and grandchildren? Probably not. And the reason for this is simple. While both of us feel quite at home in rural Ohio, our beliefs have changed greatly over the past two decades. This change of thinking puts us at odds with most of our neighbors — politically, religiously, and socially.

Rural northwest Ohio is the land of God, Guns, and the Republican Party. Hundreds of conservative churches dot the landscape, and virtually every public office is held by a Republican. In Defiance County where I live, the Democratic Party has fielded two winners in the last decade, neither of whom is currently in office. Living here means that I must accept  the monoculture of my surroundings, a society where it is assumed that everyone thinks and believes the same way. Someone like me, a socialist/pacifist/atheist, is a rare bird. While I have met more than a few people with similar views (particularly young adults), there are no liberal/humanist/atheist/secular groups or meet-ups in rural Northwest Ohio. People who don’t fit the rural Ohio political and religious mold exist, but few are vocal about their liberalness and unbelief. Why? Doing so would be socially suicidal.

One of my sons and I were talking about this tonight — about how being an out-of-the closet unbeliever or liberal leads to social suicide. While I am often lauded for my outspokenness about local politics and religion, my position has come at a high cost socially. I have in the past pondered whether, if I had it to do all over again, I would have been so vocal early on about my atheistic beliefs. I know that my outspokenness (and my age and disability) has made me unemployable. I own a photography business. When locals are given a choice between an Evangelical photographer and me, guess what? They usually choose the God-fearing one (regardless of the quality of work).

Over the past fifteen months, I have made a concerted effort to, outside of this blog, to tone down my public pronouncements. At times, I feel guilty for doing so; feeling as if I am a sell-out or a hypocrite. Everyone should be able to be who and what they are, right? Sure, but small-town life demands at least some modicum of outward conformity to tribal political, religious, and social beliefs. Disobey and you will pay the price. And for my family in particular, I don’t want them being socially and economically punished for who their father is. Some of my children may agree with me, but their futures depend on them not committing social suicide. Rarely does a week or two go by without one of my children telling me that someone at work — a boss, fellow employee, or customer — was inquiring about whether they were related to me. My children have become experts at fielding such interrogations, knowing that they are always free to say, Hmm, Bruce Gerencser? Don’t know the guy.

ney ohio village limits sign
Ney Village Limit Sign, Slightly Altered.

I plan to live the remaining days and years of my life in Ney, Ohio. As a committed liberal and atheist — who also wants to get along and be accepted by his neighbors — I have to find ways to be true to self while at the same time not being ostracized by locals. Everything, unfortunately, comes down to money. My wife and I need to earn money to live. Earning money requires acceptance by local employers/customers. While it would be wonderful to be a street-corner atheist (and some locals think I am way too outspoken, even at presently muted levels), I have to live here, and being one would be social suicide. The violations of separation of church and state are so common is this area that the Freedom From Religion Foundation could spend the next year or so filing lawsuits against local government agencies, schools, and businesses. Yes, I find these violations of the law egregious, and the street-corner atheist in me wants to call out and condemn their sins. But, I can’t, for in doing so I would cause great social harm not only to myself but to my wife, children, and grandchildren. If I made $40,000 a year blogging, things would be different, but as things now stand, I must swim in waters infested with Evangelical/right-wing Republican sharks, and being a lone fish is sure to turn me into a snack.

I have much hope in the belief that things are slowly changing here in rural Northwest Ohio. Local millennials are not as religious as their parents, and they most certainly don’t hold to the moral and religious values of their grandparents. It is in these young adults that I see promise. It is unlikely that this area will ever be as liberal as the West or East coasts, but I am hoping that there is coming a day when it won’t be social suicide to say that I am a liberal, a socialist, and non-Christian.

For now, I must choose my battles carefully, hoping that I can safely navigate the dangerous waters of rural Ohio. I have seen progress on this front thanks to my high school basketball photography. I have talked to more locals in the past few months than in the last ten years combined. I want them to see me as a family man, as a decent, kind curmudgeon who also happens to take really good pictures. I know that Google is not my friend, but there nothing I can do about the stories she might tell if someone asks her about Bruce Gerencser. Just last week, one my children ran into several people their age who were once members of a local church I pastored. These young adults have heard the gossip about me and read up on me, thanks to the Internet, but they still can’t understand how it is possible that the man they once called pastor is now a heathen. What happened? they asked, desperately trying to figure out how I ended up where I am today. Lost on such people is the fact that I am, in many ways, the same man I was when I was their pastor. Sure, I am a political liberal and an atheist. But, personality-wise I am pretty much the same guy. I am still a down-home friendly man with a wry sense of humor. I am…Bruce. [My editor commented, Your closing raises some interesting questions. Are you the same guy? I think it is hard for you to claim that you are. Sure, you are still a decent, hard-working man, but you have done an about-face in regard to many of your core beliefs of your prior life.]

I would love to hear from readers who find it difficult to navigate the waters of their communities. Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.

Idaho State Representative Brandon Hixon Commits Suicide

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brandon hixon

Brandon Hixon, a former Idaho Republican state lawmaker, committed suicide this week. According to his ex-wife, Danielle Eirvin Hixon, Brandon was under investigation for sexually molesting two girls.  Hixon was a Christian. According to Ballotpedia, Hixon described his religious views this way:

I have always been a voice in the fight against abortion. I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and I do not support gay marriage. I support the freedom of religion, and recognize that we have many different faiths and beliefs around the state and district, however, this country was founded on Christian principles and that should never be forgotten.

CBS News reports:

The former wife of an Idaho Republican state lawmaker who shot and killed himself this week says he was under investigation for molesting two girls, including a young female relative who was abused for more than 10 years. Brandon Hixon died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at his home, the Canyon County Coroner’s office told CBS affiliate KBOI.

Former colleagues at the Idaho Statehouse have offered kind words about Hixon, but his ex-wife Danielle Eirvin Hixon said the suicide robbed her family’s hopes of finding justice and closure though the legal system.

She told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that she told police about the abuse and that her husband raped and inappropriately touched one of the alleged female victims for about 11 years.

“Brandon made people believe that he was a stand-up, morally correct person,” said Hixon, who was married to the former lawmaker for 10 years until their divorce in 2016. “But behind the house walls, he would cheat on me and molested children.”

Scott Graf, spokesman for Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, said Wasden’s office had no comment on the investigation.

Hixon – a three-term Republican from Caldwell – had resigned from the state legislature in October after news emerged that he was the subject of a criminal investigation involving possible sexual abuse, though no details were made public.

His ex-wife said she had been told by investigators not to disclose details about the case until charges were filed against her ex-husband, but that the reason to keep the information confidential ended with his suicide. She said she and two other people had been scheduled to testify before a grand jury on Wednesday.

….

“I had no idea it was happening,” Danielle Eirvin Hixon said of the alleged abuse, adding that the girl who told her “kept it quiet for so long.”

The second alleged victim was not related to the lawmaker, she said, adding that she learned about that girl from the girl’s mother.

….

Records also show that the former lawmaker was previously the focus of a separate police investigation in 2014 after he was accused of inappropriate touching. He denied the accusations and told police he was worried they would harm his political career. It’s unknown if the new investigation, ongoing since Oct. 5, was connected to the earlier case.

Danielle Eirvin Hixon said comments by lawmakers praising her ex-husband’s character prompted her to speak up about the abuse allegations. She said she wanted people to know her side of the story.

“I say he was a coward by taking the easy way out,” she said of his suicide.

….

Christian Hypocrite of the Year: Republican Representative Scott DesJarlais

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scott desjarlais

Scott DesJarlais, Republican Representative from Tennessee, was given a second term in office even after voters learned the divorced physician had sex with his patients while still married to his wife and encouraged them to have abortions. Here’s what comedian and political commentator Bill Maher had to say about Des Jarlais:

Video Link

DesJarlais, who happens to be one-hundred-percent anti-abortion and is endorsed by the National Right to Life, says that God has forgiven him for his past misdeeds — I made a very poor decision in my first marriage. I know God’s forgiven me. DesJarlais is quoted as saying, All life should be cherished and protected. Evidently, this doesn’t include the fetuses of the mistresses he impregnated.

According to the Daily Mail:

Republican Congressman Scott DesJarlais has largely managed to avoid scrutiny of his sexual conduct, although they conflict with his family-values platform. DesJarlais, 53, said he supported his first wife Susan Lohr’s decision to have two abortions while they were together. Before becoming a politician and while he was a doctor in Tennessee, still married to Susan, the Christian man admitted to sleeping with two patients. He said he prescribed the now-banned painkiller Darvocet to one of the women. The father took her to Las Vegas and bought her an $875 watch. When the second patient he was sleeping with, who was 24 at the time, thought she was pregnant, DesJarlais offered to take her to Atlanta to have an abortion. The politician said he slept with six women, including three co-workers and a drug company representative, during his three-year marriage to Susan. But now, the remarried DesJarlais proclaims that he is ‘pro-life and proud of it’, and that ‘God has forgiven me.’

We can safely say that many of the Christian Congressional Republicans are Grade A hypocrites who use their faith as little more than window dressing for their election campaigns. Of course, it is Evangelical church members and conservative Catholics who continue to elect them to office, all the while demanding that non-Christians obey the morality code found in the Bible: no sex before marriage, only sex with a spouse after marriage, LGBTQ people are an abomination to God, and same-sex marriage is an abominable violation of God’s divine order for the family. Never mind the fact that more than a few of these sanctimonious politicians ignore the Bible, committing the very “sins” they deplore in others. If Evangelical support of disgraced politician Roy Moore and serial adulterer Donald Trump told us anything, it told us that Evangelicals no longer believe what the Bible teaches about sex. They are far more concerned with political power and maintaining their sticky-handed hold on American society.

DesJarlais is up for election in 2018. He beat his Democratic opponent in 2016 by thirty points. It will be interesting to see if DesJarlais’ whoremongering past keeps him from getting elected. So far, it has been smooth sailing for Representative DesJarlais. Perhaps his past indiscretions will come forward and tell their stories. If so, we will see if Christian Tennesseans put Jesus and the Bible first, and not continued political power. My money is on DesJarlais getting reelected.

Strangely, DesJarlais and his wife are members of Epiphany Episcopal Church in Sherwood, Tennessee. Episcopal churches are known for their liberal beliefs and progressive social values. Either Epiphany Episcopal is an anomaly or the DesJarlais are ducks out of water. Or, perhaps the Episcopalians, too, are enthralled with political power, of having a congressman and his family as members.

I would love to hear a rational, dare I say Biblical, explanation for the continued support of men such as Moore, Trump, and DesJarlais. Back in my preaching days I was a hardcore right-wing Christian. But, I would never have supported a man such as DesJarlais. I would have either not voted or I would have wrote in the name of someone I could support. What seems clear to everyone with eyes to see, is that Evangelicals have traded God’s heavenly kingdom for an earthly one. In doing so, they have lost their voice of authority. Evangelicals gave us Donald Trump, and historians decades from now will write about this era being time when Evangelicalism sold their soul to the company store.

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.

Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.

Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.

Pastor Ben Godwin Blames the Free Love Generation for Spate of Sexual Harassment Claims

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free love generation

According to Ben Godwin, Baby Boomers — the free love generation — are to blame for rampant sexual immorality and sexual harassment. Evidently, by having sex before marriage in the 1960s and 1970s, we set into motion a societal revolution that has led to widespread fucking without the benefit of marriage. Worse yet, according to Godwin, Baby Boomers are to blame for — perish the thought — LGBTQ people having sex too.

Godwin, pastor of Goodsprings Full Gospel Church in Jasper, Alabama, wrote:

Sadly, the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s is still producing rotten fruit. Generations with no moral compass or restraint have sown to the wind and now we are reaping the whirlwind (Hos. 8:7). Many who have sown their wild oats are praying for crop failure, but an inescapable law is set in motion—”Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:7-8). Hollywood is partly to blame for this tsunami of immorality. The entertainment industry vomits a steady stream of sexually graphic TV shows and movies that portray women as sex objects. Pornography flows like an open sewer on the internet, and we wonder why sexual assaults and date rape are rampant on college campuses and in society. What do we expect? We, as a nation, have rejected God’s Word, which provides proper boundaries for sexual conduct. We now live in an “anything goes” society.

The Bible is crystal-clear about sexual behavior—”Marriage is honorable among everyone, and the bed undefiled. But God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers” (Heb. 13:4). “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thess. 4:3). It is inappropriate to touch anyone in a sexual way except your legal spouse. Though our sick society says otherwise, adultery, fornication, incest, homosexuality, rape, prostitution, pornography and pedophilia are all still forbidden (Lev. 18:6-26, 19:29; Deut. 22:25; Matt. 5:27-28; Eph. 5:3). Sex, like a fireplace, is a wonderful benefit to enjoy in its proper setting, but if the flames get outside the hearth, they will burn your house down.

There’s an intriguing account of sexual harassment in Genesis, but it’s opposite of the usual way. Instead of a man pushing for sex, it was a woman. Potiphar’s sensual wife held all the cards in this scenario. (While men have taken most of the hits in the media lately, reports abound of male and female leaders alike who abuse their positions and seduce their subordinates.) After Potiphar promoted Joseph from a slave to the steward of his household, his wife “began to look at him lustfully. ‘Come and sleep with me,’ she demanded” (Gen. 39:7, NLT). Genesis 39:10 indicates that this was not a one-time occasion, but she tried to entice Joseph daily. When he repeatedly rebuffed her advances, she falsely accused him of rape and had him arrested. Later, God exonerated and exalted him from the prison to the palace due to his integrity. Joseph never compromised even in the face of torrid temptation; a lesson for us all.

Sexual harassment of women has been front page news in recent months, and Godwin blames Baby Boomers for that too. If we had just stuck to smoking marijuana, racing muscle cars, and listening to the White Album, why who knows how much better the good, old U.S. of A. would be. But no, Baby Boomers wouldn’t keep their bell-bottom jeans zipped up, nor could they keep from tossing their mini-skirts aside for late night sexual romps in the back seat of cars.

Here’s why the good pastor is full of shit. While it is certainly true that Baby Boomers did their fair share of screwing around, so did previous generations. As long as teens and young adults have raging hormones, sexual intercourse is going to be a normal part of their lives. Surely Godwin is not stupid enough to believe that before the 60s, unmarrieds — be they straight, bi, or gay — were not having premarital sex and were living according to the anti-human sexual dictates of the Christian Bible. The only difference between the 1940s and the 1970s is that birth control was widely available in the 1970s and the free love generation was more willing to talk about their sexual escapades.  And even among youth imprisoned in Fundamentalist churches, there was plenty of fooling around going on.

Typical of Evangelical preachers, Godwin is looking for someone to blame for the decline of American Christianity and Western Civilization.  Who better to blame than the first generation of young adults to openly and defiantly question their parents’ Christian worldview; the first generation to openly challenge pastors and their pronouncements about morality; the first generation to openly wonder whether the Christian God was real. So, from Godwin’s pew, it sure looks like I just proved his point; that Baby Boomers are to blame for what he perceives to be the moral decline of American society. However, what the rock-and-roll generation really did was make it okay to openly question beliefs, values, morality, and ethics. We were no longer willing to sit quietly by while our parents and grandparents told us what to believe. This has led to the increasing secularization of our society and progressive social values, and to perhaps the greatest gift Baby Boomers have given to their children and grandchildren. A new world lies ahead, that is if Baby Boomer Donald Trump doesn’t destroy the world with a nuclear war first.

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.

Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.

Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.