Bodily Autonomy: the right to make decisions about your body without coercion or violence. It’s a fundamental human right that allows people to make choices about their health, sexuality, and reproduction.
While no right is absolute, with few exceptions, each of us has the right to do what we want with our bodies. No government, religion, or individual has the right to force us to violate our bodily autonomy. There was a time when most Americans understood this principle. Even when another’s choice fundamentally runs against our personal beliefs or morals, we have no right to force people to act against their own self-interest. Of course, this principle has frequently been violated throughout our nation’s long history. In recent years, right-wing Republicans have used the power of the state to violate the bodily autonomy of both men and women. Republicans have even gotten between people and their doctors, forbidding medically necessary treatment, all because their moral or religious sensibilities are offended.
We see this most often in the culture war against reproductive rights. Republicans demand that women surrender their bodily autonomy to the dictates of an ancient religious text — the Bible, and their errant interpretations of the text. Abortion, in particular, is THE issue that drives the right’s immoral war against a woman’s right to choose. If Republicans had their way, there would be a federal abortion ban, without exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Further, many Republicans want to criminalize abortion. Sadly, there is little difference between the moral pronouncements of many Republicans and Muslim Sharia Law. If given an opportunity, Republicans will ban abortion, in vitro fertilization, and some forms of birth control. No matter how many state constitutional amendments are enacted protecting reproductive rights, Republicans intend to ignore the will of the people.
Women have a fundamental right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term. The choice is theirs alone. Not their husband’s; not the government’s; not God’s. Theirs alone, end of discussion. It is their body that is affected and changed by pregnancy. In what other scenario do we allow people to intervene in the medical care of others? As long as a person is mentally competent to make their own decisions, they have the right to do what they want with their body. My body, my choice, applies to all of us.
But what about the “baby,” Bruce? What about it? Eighty-eight percent of abortions take place during the first trimester, long before what’s growing in a woman’s womb is a baby. Even when it comes to third-trimester abortions, most terminations take place due to fetal abnormalities. At no point do women surrender their right to bodily autonomy.
Let’s suppose I need a kidney. Without a transplant, I will die. After testing, I find out that my brother is a match. I go to my brother and ask him to give me one of his kidneys so I can continue to live. My brother says “no.” Should my brother be forced to give me one of his kidneys? Even though I will die if he doesn’t do so, he has a fundamental right to say no. His body, his choice. The same goes for pregnant women. No woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Her body, her choice.
But, Bruce, God says . . . the Bible says . . . I think abortion is murder. What God, the Bible, or you say doesn’t matter. The woman’s body is her’s alone, and no one has the right to force her to do anything against her will. I know this is hard for conservative Christians to hear, but what you “believe” plays NO part in what a woman does or doesn’t do with her body. Think abortion is morally wrong? Fine, don’t get one. You would be rightly offended if non-Christians stuck their noses in your medical decisions; so it is when you stick your nose in the medical decisions of women.
For Evangelicals planning to post Bible verses in the comment section, don’t bother. Your proof texts are anything but. The Bible has little, if anything, to say about abortion. The notion that life begins at conception is not found in Scripture. Oh, you can massage and twist a few verses to justify your attacks on bodily autonomy, but careful exegesis suggests that your interpretations are wrong.
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.
Originally published in 2015. Edited and expanded.
As of today, there is NO religious persecution in the United States. Every citizen is free to worship any or no God. All citizens can worship when, where, and how they wish. I know of no law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. The United States, when it comes to religion, is the freest nation on the face of the earth. Yet, despite the evidence, many on the religious right think they are being persecuted, and if liberals have their way Sharia law will be instituted and Christianity will be outlawed. They think that If the socialist/communist/liberal/Democrat horde is not repelled by King Trump and his mighty army of Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons, Christians will be persecuted, incarcerated, and possibly killed — just as the Jews were in World War II.
Think I am kidding? What follows is an excerpt from an article written by American Family Association (AFA) author and CIO Jim Shempert titled America’s Future: Christian Persecution. (AFA has removed the article from their site.) What graphic did AFA and Jim Shempert choose for the article?
That’s right, Shempert and AFA think that Christians will soon be treated much like the Jews, gypsies, and mentally handicapped were treated by Hitler and the Nazis in World War II.
Here’s what Shempert had to say:
…This blog is intended for the Church. If you are not a Christian, and your only goal is to tear down Christianity, you can stop reading here.
Church, Christianity is under attack all across the globe. The persecutions of the Church are definitely not the same but they all have the same root. Imagine trying to be a Christian in Iraq/Syria/anywhere south of Turkey right now… Standing for your faith will be met with loss of property, threats, beatings, and death. These are common occurrences. If you don’t believe me, I encourage you to go to Google. Type in “Middle East Christian persecution” and hit “search.” In literally half a second, Google will return to you 1.1 million articles/pages on persecution of Christians in the Middle East. To focus on a different area, go back to Google and search for “Christian persecution in Africa.” In .6 seconds, you are greeted with 2.5 million articles/pages that deal with Christian persecution in Africa.
Now, the current resident of the White House believes that the atrocities committed by Muslim terrorist groups are not indicative of all Muslim people. Here’s a potential fire starter: I happen to agree with him there. Personally, I believe the Muslim faith to be incorrect in its focus. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no man cometh unto the Father but by Him. As those Muslims must surely think that I am wrong in my focus. However, I do not think that all Muslims are terrorists, or that they are all on jihad. I also don’t believe the line that these extremist groups are not focused around Islam. I know that the resident of the White House likes to continue his crusade against Christianity by reminding us that at one time, horrible atrocities were committed by those who claim the name of Christ. His problem, and all those who claim moral equivalency, is that he is unable to call EVIL what it is: EVIL. He is able to quickly tear apart Christianity, and say that America was never a Christian nation, but he is unable to say that Islamic terrorism is evil.
I’ve had a long conversation with a friend on this, and we came to the conclusion that if any group that claims Christianity starts cutting off people’s heads while singing “Just as I am,” the first people to respond will be Christians. We will police our own. The soldiers sent to stop them will probably be Christians, at least in some part. Rest assured, the current White House, will seek great joy in touting that it is CHRISTIANS doing this. “See…they are doing it too!” A 5 year old child has more intellect and intelligence.
The point is… American is no longer a Christian nation. Those are hard words to hear. They were even harder to type. That’s not to say that it never was. America was built around Christian principles, with Christian men and women leading it. Those who claim otherwise are just repeating a Goebbels lie: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” The nation that I grew up in, is no more. Being viewed as an evangelical Christian now, is to be seen as a leper. “Those close minded, bigoted, judging Christians.” “Why don’t you just love? That’s what Jesus did.” (That one usually comes from someone who hasn’t opened a Bible since grade school) “Judge not, that you be not judged.” That’s Matthew 7:1 for any of you that use it. You might want to continue down chapter 7 to verses 15-20. Might do you some eternal good…
…What’s the next step for those who only want their ears tickled? To silence those who don’t! Anyone who preaches the Light, will be resisted by the darkness. Offensive words will be created to describe them and shouted over and over and over until the masses begin to repeat them. They will be chastised in the media, lose their jobs, their businesses, their property, their ability to live their lives the way they choose. The assertion that they are ignorant will be constantly repeated. Their very freedom will be threatened. Oh wait, that’s already happened…
Martin Niemoller was a pastor in Germany during the Nazi regime and also a concentration camp survivor. He is remembered most for this quote:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Ronald Reagan is by far the greatest president of my lifetime. He said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Those words could never be truer than they are today. As Christians, we are at a crossroads in America. We can stand up, and let our voices be heard. We can fight at the ballot box for the rights that we were always guaranteed. Or, we can continue to allow our anti-Christian government to destroy the basic tenants of our faith. The choice is ours…
…What happens to those of us that resist? How long before we become “enemies of the State?” How long before we are sent to “camps” for re-education? Sound crazy? The German people in the ‘30’s would have said the same thing. In a few short years, millions would be imprisoned and executed for their faith…
…I live in relationship with Jesus Christ as my Savior. My life is forfeit. If it is His will that I must be sacrificed for my stand for His Name, then so be it. Even Jesus didn’t turn away from death when presented with it. He was obedient to the end.
American Christian, most of the rest of the world knows this already, from experience. But there is coming a day when to identify as a Christian in America will bring consequences…
I love it when groups like AFA use Martin Niemöller’s quote to suggest that what happened in Hitler’s Germany will soon happen here. Here’s the problem: no one has come for the socialist, trade unionist, or Jew. Yes, many on the political and religious right fight against socialism and trade unions, but no one would suggest that the religious right is persecuting socialists or union members — though that could change in Trump’s second term. They most certainly are not persecuting the Jews. The religious right loves Israel, well at least until Jesus comes back to earth at the end of the Great Tribulation and slaughters all the unbelieving Jews.
We live in a free society. While I think personal liberties are under attack by corporate, military-industrial complex, and surveillance-industrial complex interests, I have no fear of being persecuted or jailed if I oppose those interests. Much like Evangelical Christians, atheists are free to write about, attack, critique, and make fun of religion. I don’t fear the government breaking my door down and arresting me for something I have written.
Unfortunately, when one lives in a country where freedom of belief and practice are ensconced in its founding documents and law, the slightest denial of freedom or inconvenience can be viewed as an attack on freedom and personal rights. The religious right thinks legalizing same-sex marriage and justice and equal protection under the law for LGBTQ people is an infringement of their religious rights. However, allowing same-sex couples to marry in no way infringes on a person’s right to believe and worship as they see fit. Legalizing same-sex marriage changed nothing for Christians. Christians are still free to pray, read the Bible, evangelize, attend a house of worship, and — get this — forbid LGBTQ people from being members of their church. Nothing in federal or state law requires churches and or clerics to accept LGBTQ members or perform their wedding ceremonies.
No clergyperson will ever be required to marry a same-sex couple. Since marriage is a secular function of law, a pastor is free to choose whom he will or won’t marry. It is the marriage license, not the ceremony, that gives a marriage legal force. This is why public officials must issue marriage licenses to heterosexual and same-sex couples alike. They are acting on behalf of the state, a secular institution. If they cannot, according to their conscience, fulfill their legal obligation to issue a marriage license to all who request one, then they should resign. Their resignation is not persecution. All of us have beliefs and moral and ethical values that might, in some circumstances, preclude us from holding certain jobs. Not being able to hold those jobs is NOT persecution.
The American Family Association, and other right-wing religious groups like them, know that their followers must constantly be poked lest they become apathetic and stop sending donations. What better way to wake people up than to scream PERSECUTION! Until Christians realize groups like the AFA are manipulating them for political and financial gain, they will continue to be outraged every time they are told they need to be outraged. (The outrage machine One Million Moms is an arm of the AFA. Please see the 2015 report I wrote titled, Follow the Money: The American Family Association and their Support of the Gay Agenda) Until they are willing to actually think for themselves and thoroughly investigate the issues without checking in with Fox News first, there’s little hope of meaningful dialog.
“But Bruce, same-sex marriage and homosexuality are wrong!” Why? Without referencing the Bible, please defend your anti-LGBTQ position. I have yet to have someone successfully defend the prohibition of same-sex marriage and homosexuality without appealing to their religious beliefs and a sacred text such as the Christian Bible. Once religion is removed from the equation, there is no reasonable argument to be made for prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying or for permitting people to legally and freely engage in same-sex relationships.
That said, I still believe in the American political process. Christians are free to work towards a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. They have the same rights and privileges as I do. Let’s duke it out in the public square. Of course, the religious right doesn’t want to do this, knowing that they would likely never get enough states to approve a constitutional amendment. So, instead, they whine and complain about PERSECUTION!
The real issue here is that Christianity is losing its preferential place at the cultural table. For most of our country’s existence, the Christian religion has been seated at the head of the table. This is natural, of course, since most Americans self-identify as Christian. However, more and more Christians are moving to the left politically and religiously, especially young adults. More and more Americans no longer have any religion. Atheism, agnosticism, humanism, secularism, religious indifference, and “none of the above” continue to increase. Like it or not, right-wing Christians must recognize that they no longer have the political and social power and clout they once had. If they don’t like this, I suggest they get busy attracting new people to their cause. Good luck with that.
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.
President Joe Biden seems hellbent on stoking the flames of war, both in Ukraine/Russia and Palestine before he leaves office. It is hard not to conclude that Biden is a warmonger — one who urges or attempts to stir up war. Instead of trying to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia, Biden stokes the war by giving Ukraine increasingly sophisticated offensive weapons. U.S. armaments have slaughtered countless Russian soldiers — many of whom are conscripts. Recently, Biden permitted Ukraine to use U.S.-provided missiles in Russia. Russia’s response was to shoot a new kind of ICBM missile armed with a conventional warhead into Ukraine. These missiles could be armed with nuclear warheads.
Anti-personnel land mines are indiscriminate weapons that kill and maim civilians, and especially children, for generations after wars end. These weapons cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants as required by international humanitarian law.
Hichem Khadhraoui, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing important policy changes to U.S. Anti-Personnel Landmine policy. After conducting a comprehensive policy review, the United States is joining the vast majority of countries around the world in committing to limit the use of anti-personnel landmines (APL).These changes reflect the President’s belief that these weapons have disproportionate impact on civilians, including children, long after fighting has stopped, and that we need to curtail the use of APL worldwide. They also complement longstanding U.S. leadership in the clearance of landmines and other explosive remnants of war.
The new commitment announced today will align U.S. APL policy outside of the Korean Peninsula with the key requirements of the Ottawa Convention – the international treaty prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of APL – which has more than 160 parties, including all of our NATO Allies. This means that the United States will:
Not develop, produce, or acquire APL;
Not export or transfer of APL, except when necessary for activities related to mine detection or removal, and for the purpose of destruction;
Not use APL outside of the Korean Peninsula;
Not assist, encourage, or induce anyone, outside of the context of the Korean Peninsula, to engage in any activity that would be prohibited by the Ottawa Convention; and
Undertake to destroy all APL stockpiles not required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.
Additionally, the United States will undertake diligent efforts to pursue materiel and operational solutions to assist in becoming compliant with and ultimately acceding to the Ottawa Convention, while ensuring our ability to respond to contingencies and meet our alliance commitments.
The new policy announced today represents a further step to advance the humanitarian aims of the Ottawa Convention, and to bring U.S. practice in closer alignment with a global humanitarian movement that has had a demonstrated positive impact in reducing civilian casualties from APL.
Even as the United States takes this further step, the unique circumstances on the Korean Peninsula and the U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea preclude the United States from changing anti-personnel landmine policy on the Korean Peninsula at this time. As the United States commits to continuing our diligent efforts to pursue material and operational alternatives to APL, the security of our ally the Republic of Korea will continue to be a paramount concern.
World Leader in Humanitarian Mine Action
The United States is the world’s single largest financial supporter of steps to mitigate the harmful consequences of landmines and explosive remnants of war around the world, including through land clearance and medical rehabilitation and vocational training for those injured by these weapons. Since the United States Humanitarian Mine Action Program was established in 1993, the United States has provided over $4.2 billion in aid in over 100 countries for conventional weapons destruction programs. Through this assistance, the United States has:
Helped 17 countries become free from the danger of landmines;
Provided assistive devices and other rehabilitation services to over 250,000 people in 35 countries through the U.S. Agency for International Development-managed Leahy War Victims Fund.
This vital U.S. assistance has helped post-conflict countries consolidate peace and set the stage for reconstruction and development. Clearance efforts and victim assistance programs return land and infrastructure to productive use and assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration into society of survivors of mine and explosive remnants of war incidents.
— end of statement
This statement is little more than the Biden Administration’s attempt to gaslight the American people; presenting the United States as being aligned with 160 other nations in banning anti-personnel mine use. Of course, the U.S. is NOT a signatory to the Ottawa Convention! Biden wants to tell the rest of the world what to do, but reserves the right to use anti-personnel mines.
Ukraine is a signatory of the Ottawa Convention. Explain to me, then, Biden casting aside what he said in 2022 and sending anti-personnel mines to Ukraine to use in their war against Russia. Explain to me, then, Ukraine’s use of these mines in direct contravention of the Convention they signed in 2022.
Human rights groups are fiercely criticizing President Joe Biden’s decision to give Ukraine anti-personnel land mines as it fights off a Russian invasion.
The decision reverses a pledge Biden made to limit the use of such land mines in 2022. It comes as Biden prepares to leave office and reflects mounting U.S. concerns over Russia’s battlefield gains in eastern Ukraine.
But although the type of land mine the Biden team is handing to Ukraine has certain safeguards, rights groups nonetheless warned that the weapons pose special and long-term dangers.
“Anti-personnel land mines are indiscriminate weapons that kill and maim civilians, and especially children, for generations after wars end,” said Hichem Khadhraoui, executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict advocacy group. “These weapons cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants as required by international humanitarian law.”
Ben Linden, a top official with Amnesty International USA, said, “It is devastating, and frankly shocking, that President Biden made such a consequential and dangerous decision just before his public service legacy is sealed for the history books.”
The Biden administration defended the move on multiple grounds. It noted that the types of mines it is providing are “non-persistent,” meaning they become inert after a time.
“They are electrically fused and require battery power to detonate. Once the battery runs out, they will not detonate,” said a U.S. official, who was granted anonymity to candidly explain the administration’s choice.
The Biden administration in July 2023 began to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions that had been held in large numbers in U.S. military stockpiles since the end of the Cold War, but which the United States had previously been barred from sending. But it held off on sending anti-personnel land mines, such as the ones it is sending now, which can be effective in stopping massed infantry assaults that Ukraine is likely to face from thousands of North Korean troops that have arrived in the Kursk region of Russia, but can be left on the battlefield for generations, potentially long after the conflict is over.
More than 50,000 square miles of Ukraine needs to be searched for land mines and explosives, according to Ukrainian government estimates, an area larger than England.
Biden in 2022 issued a new policy to bar the U.S. use or transfer of anti-personnel mines outside of the Korean peninsula. This came after then-President Donald Trump in 2020 undid Obama-era restrictions on U.S. land mine uses.
The latest decision underscores growing unease within the Biden administration over the desperate battlefield situation as Russia makes slow and costly but incremental gains against Kyiv’s forces in eastern Ukraine.
The land mine decision follows another Biden reversal: He recently agreed to let Ukraine use American-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia following months of pressure from Ukraine and its strongest supporters in the West.
In providing the mines, Biden said to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Hey Volod. How ya doing, buddy? Hunter says, Hi! Please don’t use these in Russia or Ukrainian civilian areas. Promise, pinky swear?” Zelenskyy replied, with fingers crossed behind his back, “I promise, Uncle Joe.”
Here’s what I know about war. Nations start with high ideals, promising to adhere to international law such as the Geneva Conventions and making appeals to just war theory. The longer wars go on and political and military leaders become more desperate for victory, international law falls by the wayside and warring nations use any and every means to win — including dropping atomic bombs on Japanese civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, firebombing citizens in Dresden and Tokyo, and dropping napalm on helpless Vietnamese.
The United States has a long, continuous history of military intervention, violence, and bloodshed. Biden’s actions are unsurprising. He is just another president in a long line of presidents who think war begets peace. This is a delusional lie; one that warmongers use to convince themselves that they are good people.
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.
For those of us who came of age in Evangelical churches in the late 1960s and 1970s, we remember countless sermons about the rapture, the second coming of Jesus, and the Great Tribulation. The classic Evangelical horror flick, A Thief in the Night, was released in 1972. Wikipedia explains the plot of A Thief in the Night this way:
A young woman named Patty Myer awakens one morning to a radio broadcast announcing the disappearance of millions around the world showing that the rapture has occurred. She finds that her family has disappeared and that she has been left behind. The United Nations sets up an emergency government system called the United Nations Imperium of Total Emergency (UNITE) and declare that those who do not receive The Mark of the Beast identifying them with UNITE will be arrested.
Several flashbacks occur to times in Patty’s life before the rapture has happened. The flashbacks also show her two friends and their different approaches to Christianity, one who considers Jesus Christ her Only Lord and Only Savior and the other, Diane, who does not take it seriously. Patty considers herself a Christian because she occasionally reads her Bible and goes to church regularly, where the pastor is really an unbeliever. She refuses to believe the warnings of her friends and family that she will go through The Great Tribulation if she does not accept Jesus Christ as her Only Lord and Only Savior. One morning, she awakens to find that her family and millions of others have suddenly disappeared.
Patty seems a strange breed of person who both refuses to trust Jesus Christ as her Only Lord and Only Savior and also refuses to take The Mark. Patty desperately tries to avoid the law and The Mark but is captured by UNITE. Patty escapes but, after a chase, is cornered by UNITE on a bridge and falls from the bridge to her death.
Patty then awakens, and the entire film’s plot is revealed to have been a dream. She is tremendously relieved; however, her relief is short-lived when the radio announces that millions of people have in fact disappeared. Horrified, Patty frantically searches for her family only to find them missing too. Traumatized and distraught, Patty realizes that The Rapture has indeed occurred, and she has been left behind. In the ensuing plot the questions are whether or not she will be caught, as she was in her dream, and whether or not she will choose to take The Mark to escape execution.
The 1970s featured prophecy-themed sermons from the books of Revelation and Daniel. In 1976, the Walking Bible, Evangelist Jack Van Impe came to Findlay to hold a city-wide crusade. Van Impe’s sermons were filled with warnings about the imminent return of Jesus and the Great Tribulation. I attended a Bob Harrington crusade (please see Evangelist Bob Harrington: It’s Fun Being Saved) that featured several sermons about the soon return of Jesus. The widely-read Sword of the Lord ran regular articles and sermons about the pretribulational rapture of the church and the horrors of the soon-coming Tribulation.
Much of the evangelistic frenzy in the 1970s was driven by the belief that Jesus was preparing to come back soon — maybe today! Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches, in particular, grew quickly, so much so that many of the largest churches in the United States were IFB congregations.
Of course, Jesus did not return in the 1970s. The 1980s saw Hal Lindsay’s book, The Late, Great Planet Earth, first published in 1970, which renewed Evangelical fervor with its prediction that the rapture would take place 40 years after the 1948 establishment of Israel as a nation. Lindsay’s book, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, continued to stoke the fires of Evangelical zeal. (By 1990, The Late, Great Planet Earth had sold 28 million copies.) In 1988, Edgar Whisenant released a publication titled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will be in 1988. (88 Reasons sold 4.5 million copies, and 300,000 free copies were mailed to pastors.) Whisenant predicted the rapture would occur between September 11 and 13, 1988. Jesus, of course, was a no-show in 1988 and has yet to make an appearance to this day.
By the time the 1990s arrived, rapture mania had pretty much died out. Oh, Evangelical pastors and evangelists still preached eschatologically themed sermons, but the fervor that drove churches previously was gone. While preachers still preach about the imminent return of Jesus, such sermons no longer motivate congregants to busily win souls before Jesus comes again and it is too late.
Officially, most Evangelicals believe in the pretribulational rapture of the church. However, if you let their works testify to what they really believe, it is evident that Evangelicals no longer believe that Gabriel is fixing to blow his trumpet and Jesus is returning in the clouds to catch away his chosen ones. TV preachers such as con artist Jim Bakker continue to preach up the could-be-tomorrow rapture, but tomorrow never comes and their bank accounts continue to grow.
Evangelicals have traded a soon-coming Lord for megachurches, fancy AV systems, praise bands, relational preaching and, most importantly, political power. Evangelicals seem far more concerned with expanding their kingdoms on Earth than they are with evangelizing the lost and building the Kingdom of Heaven. I don’t know of one Evangelical preacher, church leader, or congregant, for that matter, who lives as if Jesus could split the eastern sky today. I told Polly that Evangelicals sure do talk and sing a lot about Heaven, but none of them seem to be in much hurry to get there. The vast majority of Evangelicals not only are indifferent about their own souls, but they also couldn’t care less about the souls of their unsaved, heathen neighbors. Evangelicalism has become that which it stood against decades ago — institutionalized. It has become little more than a cultural religion. The only reason any of us should give a thought about Evangelicalism is that it continues to have a dangerous anti-human hold on the Republican Party. Unbelievers now outnumber Evangelicals in the United States, but we have nowhere near the political and cultural power Evangelicals have.
Evangelicals can continue to preach up the soon return of Jesus, but it’s evident to anyone who is paying attention that they no longer believe what they are preaching. In fact, I suspect many Evangelicals hope Jesus isn’t in any hurry to destroy the world with fire. Deep down, most Evangelicals wonder if they really want to trade the good life of the here and now for an eternity of prostrating themselves before a narcissistic God.
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.
2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump recently said that, if elected, he plans to turn conspiracy theorist and all-around nutjob Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. loose on the Federal government — specifically the FDA. What could possibly go wrong, right? What follows is an excerpt from an article on the Science-Based Medicine website by one of my favorite Internet doctors, David Gorski. If you are not familiar with the Science-Based Medicine site, please check it out. You will find long-form articles filled with important information/discussion about medicine and science.
Let’s look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claims. Basically, it’s a misrepresentation of what the FDA has done and, of course, the promise of all the things listed. Again, I will start by saying that the FDA has never engaged in suppression, much less “aggressive suppression” of exercise or sunlight that I am aware of. Moreover, as we’ve complained about before, the FDA, if anything, has been far too lax in regulating, for example, quackery involving unproven stem cell treatments for conditions ranging from autism (for which quack clinics have even set up unethical and scientifically dubious pay-to-play clinical trialsregistered with ClinicalTrials.gov to sell their quackery), to stroke, to cancer. There are even profitable companies marketing stem cell quackery without evidence that it works. Ditto chelation therapy, which has never been shown to work for anything except acute toxicity from heavy metal poisoning and has even been studied for cardiovascular disease in two very expensive and unnecessary (and negative) randomized clinical trials. Let’s also not forget that neither hydroxychloroquine nor ivermectin have been demonstrated to work against COVID-19—quite the contrary, in fact—nor ivermectin shown to be efficacious against cancer. As for raw milk, it has no health benefits greater than pasteurized milk, but it does have a much higher risk of food borne infections. (It is, however, “natural,” I guess.)
Of course, nutraceuticals (and vitamins and supplements) are already legal and weakly regulated (if you can call it regulated at all), thanks to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which we’ve written about here many, many times, most recently how it helped conspiracy theorist Alex Jones fund his media empire. Basically, as long as you are vague enough about the health claims for your supplement, nutraceutical, or vitamin concoction, you can sell it to treat almost anything, and the supplement industry has, through its powerful patrons, prevented any strengthening of the law to deal with all the quacks who claim without evidence that their supplements treat disease. On the rare occasions when the FDA does try to crack down on quacks selling unproven or even potentially harmful supplements, the health freedom movement inevitably portrays it as “fascist” or “jack-booted thugs” trying to “suppress” all those “natural” cures.
….
So what would the FDA look like if Trump were to win next week and actually follow through with his appointment of RFK Jr. to a high-ranking health position? The answer illustrates a bit of the dilemma that the “health freedom” movement has, being, as it is, an uncomfortable alliance between crunchy “all natural” health freedom lovers and more hard core libertarians like Nick Gillespie, who believe that the “power of the free market” will “unleash innovation” if only the nasty old FDA were less strict about its standards for pharmaceutical companies. There is an inherent tension there between wanting to be more strict with the “bad” pharmaceutical companies, while approving modalities (or at least much more weakly regulating them) that alternative practitioners want.
On the one hand, MAHA would seem to want to muzzle the FDA with respect to all the quackery listed in RFK Jr.’s post, basically letting quacks do whatever they want with almost anything. Remember, a lot of what is in RFK Jr.’s list is not “natural.” Certainly extracting and isolating stem cells and injecting them into the bloodstream is not “natural,” nor are chelation therapy and hyperbaric oxygen—and especially ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, peptides, and psychedelics, all of which are manufactured drugs. Again, what “health freedom” really wants is the freedom for quacks to ply their grift without interference from the government.
What will be fascinating to watch is how tensions between the libertarians who believe that big pharma should be unleashed in order to produce “innovation” and cures and the “natural” crunchy crowd and its overwhelming suspicion of anything produced by big pharma will be resolved. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to see RFK Jr. in any sort of official capacity with power over federal health care policy, but, in the unfortunate event that Trump wins and he is appointed HHS Secretary (or, at least, keeps helping Trump pick leaders of the FDA, CDC, and NIH), in particular because his MAHA agenda conflicts with so much of Trump’s other agenda:
Being responsive to public opinion doesn’t necessarily make someone smart. It makes them pliable. And perhaps that’s why Kennedy and his followers are willing to take a chance on Trump. They see him as a person who—in his lust for adulation—can be changed or manipulated.
The challenging thing about being around RFK and his crowd is that while their ideas can be hard to take seriously, the underlying concerns they carry are basically unimpeachable: frighteningly high healthcare costs, the murky relationship between pharmaceutical companies and doctors who prescribe their pills, and a very real decline in overall health among the population.
But they are seeking solutions to real problems in the wrong places. Looking into the past won’t save us any more than forgoing your vaccine shots, drinking raw milk, or voting for Trump will.
That is precisely the issue. There are very real concerns about US health policy, but, as is the case with the nostrums RFK Jr. champions for disease and to demonize vaccines, he’s applying policy quackery to address these problems in a way that is inherently self-contradicting. After all, the “free market” contingent of the “health freedom” movement that wants to “unleash innovation” by neutering the FDA is good at manipulation too. I hope we never have to see which faction of the health freedom movement will triumph if there is a second Trump administration. I fear that federal health policy will end up being the worst of both worlds, with far less regulation on big pharma and much laxer standards for drug approval, plus a lot more freedom for quacks to peddle quackery like bogus stem cell therapies, chelation, and “repurposed” ivermectin for everything, while NIH is forced to waste even more money studying useless quackery.
As for a “corrupt system,” no one out-corrupts Donald Trump.
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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For most of my adult life, U.S. politics has ebbed and flowed at the local, state, and federal levels. Democrats come and go, as do Republicans. Prior to Donald Trump riding down the escalator in 2015, there was never a time when I feared what the Republicans or Democrats might do to our country. Trump changed everything. Overnight tens of millions of Americans became enamored with Trump’s bombastic rhetoric. Today, it is almost impossible to have civil discussions with MAGA supporters over policy differences. We now have a man running for president who is threatening to arrest (or deport), prosecute, and incarcerate anyone who disagrees with him, including people in the Republican Party. Trump has even threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of networks that fail to confess fealty to him and only report in ways that are unfavorable to him.
Sadly, it seems as if many Republicans, and even non-voting citizens, are unable to differentiate between facts and lies. What do we do when we no longer have a common knowledge and understanding of facts; politicians such as J.D. Vance even admit to making up lies to advance their political agenda — as in the case of Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
Twelve Facts About Donald Trump
☑ Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
☑ Donald Trump is not a Christian.
☑ Donald Trump is a misogynist.
☑ Donald Trump is a xenophobic racist.
☑ Donald Trump is not a self-made billionaire (if he actually is one).
☑ Donald Trump is a narcissist.
☑ Donald Trump is a failed businessman, having filed for bankruptcy six times and closed numerous business ventures.
☑ Donald Trump has sexually assaulted numerous women.
☑ Donald Trump will use anyone to get what he wants, discarding anyone who refuses to play along, as former cabinet members will attest.
☑ Donald Trump’s stated economic policies will raise the federal deficit, increase inflation, and fatten the bank accounts of the one percent.
☑ Donald Trump has early signs of dementia.
☑ Donald Trump’s promotion of strong-arm world leaders and dictators is not in the United States’ best interest, nor is his threat to withdraw the United States from NATO.
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 have always been involved in American politics. I grew up in a home where my mother was a political operative, campaigning for politicians such as Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace (twice). Mom veered off into the land of independent candidates, working for candidates such as Wallace, Ross Perot, and John Anderson. She even had positive things to say about 1984 Vice President candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
Mom was outspoken about her political beliefs, writing numerous letters to editors of local newspapers. She was a product of her age — racist and pro-military. Mom defended Lieutenant William Calley of My Lai massacre fame and thought the Kent State students murdered by Ohio National Guard soldiers got exactly what they deserved. Mom was never afraid to speak her mind. I suspect, to a large degree, I followed in her footsteps.
That said, Mom was widely read, a news junkie who spent hours every day watching cable news programs — including C-Span. Mom killed herself in 1991 at the age of fifty-four. (Please see Barbara.) She and I had numerous discussions about politics. Her views evolved and changed, but she remained a conservative Christian until the end.
I voted in my first presidential election in 1976. I voted for Jimmy Carter. He would be the only Democrat I voted for until I left the Republican Party in 2000 and voted for Al Gore. Since then, I have voted for Democratic presidential candidates, even though I am increasingly dissatisfied and disappointed with candidates such as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton. I didn’t vote for any of these candidates in the primaries, choosing to vote for Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama instead. Whether I continue to be a card-carrying Democrat remains to be seen. I have spent the past decade voting for the lesser of two evils. I am tired of doing so, but until the two-party system is dismantled and true alternatives come to the forefront (along with ranked voting), I suspect I am consigned to lesser-of-two-evils hell.
I spent fifty years in the Evangelical church. Twenty-five of those years were spent pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. For many years, I was unafraid to mix religion and politics, going so far as to endorse and support political candidates from the pulpit. That said, I wasn’t a party hack. Former church members might remember my scathing 1998 sermon about Bill Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinsky and my 1991 sermon about George H.W. Bush’s murderous war in Iraq. George Bush would get similar public castigation for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Above political affiliation, I put morals and ethics first. I was unwilling to give politicians a pass just because we were members of the same party. I have long believed that war-mongering runs deep in our politics, and the 2024 Presidential Election is no different. The unwillingness of Harris, Biden, and other Democrats to take a stand against Israel’s genocidal violence in Palestine disgusts me. If there were a viable third-party candidate who took a clear position opposing war in the Middle East, I would vote for them. Alas, I refuse to throw my vote away to maintain naive political purity.
People who know of my right-wing political beliefs as a pastor wonder if Donald Trump was a Republican presidential candidate back in the day if I would have voted for him. The answer is no. It is unlikely that I would have voted for the Democratic candidate either. I might have voted third-party or abstained from voting, but there’s no way I would have voted for Trump. Morals and ethics matter to me, and Trump is the most immoral, unethical presidential candidate in my sixty-seven years of life. He is unfit to be president, a vile man who sexually assaulted numerous women and has ripped off countless small business owners. He is unfit to be a member of the human race, let alone the leader of the United States. I have no doubt I would have preached sermons about Trump, pointing out his lies and immoral behavior.
All politicians have skeletons in their closets. All politicians lie. Trump’s lies are legion, but Harris and Waz have told a few whoppers of their own too. I don’t expect politicians to live according to my moral and ethical values, but I do expect them to be decent, thoughtful human beings. Trump is neither, and I cannot imagine a scenario where I would vote for him.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
My partner-in-crime, Polly, and I live on a main highway, Route 15, that runs between Defiance and Bryan in Williams and Defiance counties. Our front yard is a high-visibility site, so it is a great place to place political yard signs. Over the years, our signs have been both well-received and hated. Some signs have been stolen or defaced. We have also had people throw empty beer cans in our yard and Ziploc bags filled with feces. Countless people have waved at us when we are outside, giving us a “polite” middle finger “fuck off” you God-hating commie, liberal, LGBTQ-loving socialist. Sadly, this is what passes for political discourse these days. If my detractors would just stop by for a friendly discussion, I would gladly sit down with them, share a beer, and talk politics/religion. Sadly, a handful of people have knocked on our door, but all they wanted to do was set me straight or save my soul from Hell.
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.
Suzanne, who blogs at Every Breaking Wave, had this to say about her experiences with home-based Evangelical Christian businesses (post no longer available):
One of the things that the ladies kept trying to pound in my head during those early days, besides telling me that I should use “To Train Up A Child” to discipline my very ill child, was that if I was going to be a good Christian submissive wife I was going to have to not work outside of the home. Which was foreign to me, I’d always had some sort of job outside of the home, even if it was part-time, and mostly tried to work at a time when Jim could take care of the kids so that they didn’t have to go to daycare.
This was the first time I’d heard of the family economy. I did this for a year or two, did the quilting, to make some money while I was incapacitated by the fibro. But eventually, I did go back to working outside of the home, to the disappointment and derision of the ladies of the church. I just kept telling myself that they didn’t know any better, none of them had college educations and it seemed like a waste of my own education to not work.
But like any good cult, eventually, the messages being replayed over and over again went into my head and I started seeking a way to do the home-based economy thing, find something I could do. When I started making flags it seemed like the perfect answer, most of what I made was either an air-brushed design or something like a 9 foot long half round lame flag with an inset of glittery chiffon or a specially shaped, painted, stoned, flag that was one of the kind. One of the most popular ones I sold was a half-round flag with a flaming sword appliqued into place and bejeweled and stoned with a hand-worked sword hilt on the flag handle.
What I’m trying to say is that the flags were one of a kind, hand made, designs I’d come up with, more like art work than anything mass-produced. I charged accordingly, because, none of those things I’m talking about are quick and easy. Sometimes I’d have close to sixty dollars in materials alone in the flags.
At first, I sold quite a few, and I’d get contacted frequently to make something special, or perhaps an entire set of flags just for a church. Did so well and had enough orders that I quit my job as a systems admin at an insurance company. Home-based economy, honoring God, etc…
…With the flags and large banners I ran into a snag after a few months, a snag I’ve seen played out again and again and again in the Christian home economies in many different divisions.
It would go something like this. I’d be at a teaching conference, or someone would see my now-defunct website and start asking questions about one of the items. Most of the time this was about the half round 9 foot long flags with a half-round center of glitter bedecked chiffon, not an easy item to make, but one that I’d managed to come up with a nearly foolproof method to make. I had my own pattern I’d made, and my own special technique for appliqueing in the center, while cutting away the solid lame in the center. It wasn’t easy, but it was my way to do it that worked every time.
The problem with this particular highly-coveted flag is that you needed a minimum of 5 yards of very expensive materials. It was usually about sixty dollars for fabric in that particular one. The ones that contacted me proclaiming what Good Christians™ they were also were the very ones that demanded either a) a big discount or b) to know exactly how I made that flag so they could make their own. Why? Because the $90 I was charging was thought to be too much for this item that took lots of expensive fabric and the expertise to make.
Many times I’d give in with a sigh, sketch out how to make one if I was at a conference, or explain via email. Usually what happened is that the person would get so far into the project, screw it up and then demand I fix their mess. For free. Most of the time when I looked at what they’d done I’d have to point out that they’d mangled the delicate fabric so badly that they’d have to start from scratch again. Would have been way cheaper just to buy from me in the first place.
Eventually, I’d sell the pattern, but people would still balk at spending ten bucks for a pattern and demand I explain for free.
And the people who were whining and demanding were also screaming out what Good Christians™ they were so I owed it to them because I was a Christian.
I got to see that Good Christian™ dynamic at work in just about every place, public secular business, or Christian business, people saying that since they were doing the work of the God they deserved a discount or freebie, who would not let up until they got their way. Vyckie Garrison and I have had discussions about the Good Christian discount whine.
To add insult to grievous injury every single freakin’ time I’d come up with a new design, something I’d sketched out, made the pattern for, and then made the sample and posted it on my website within a week I’d see a badly executed copy made from discount fabric of my original design up on Ebay for a cheaper price. To me, that is what separates true artists from the artisans. Artists do it because it’s inside of them, artisans are just looking to make a buck.
Even as sales were decent after awhile I got most burned out by the attitudes of entitlement, the begging, whining, demanding a discount, and the general intellectual thievery. I stopped making flags for anyone but myself, or when someone who’s seen one of mine and is willing to pay without whining. Just readied a big box of flags going on a missions trip to Cuba next month.
One thing I started to notice during my years at good old Creek Church, the tendency of the Creekers and other Good Christians™ to take advantage of people, press every advantage, and try to drum up business by means fair and foul. For example, just about everyone that sucked up to the Pastor’s wife bought Pampered Chef merchandise and many ladies at the church signed up to sell beneath her every single time she started putting the pressure to people over being Good Christians™ helping out each other.
It was as if none of them thought hard work and conviction was enough, they had to press every advantage and try to game the system each and every time. Some of them still are, hence Mrs. 5 by 5 fleecing two different sets of the elderly she did the books for out of over 20K. Today I saw her with another new senior citizen that has a small business and I’m going to see if I can talk to her newest employer’s relatives before she steals from this woman…
… Here’s what I learned in the last twenty years plus years dealing with Fundigelicals and their businesses/home-based economies:
(1) If they can take some small advantage of you, then they will. If you call them on it they will claim it’s their right as Christians to be entitled to more or they outright deny they’ve done it.
(2) They believe if they can whine, beat you down, demand, threaten or haggle long enough you will give in to their sense of entitlement and give out something for free or deep discount. Why? Because Christian! Because Bible!
(3) If you happen to not totally agree with their flavor of True Believer then they might refuse to serve you and/or jack up the charges.
(4) They act like they have some sort of moral superiority over you all the while behaving badly.
Suzanne’s wonderful rant and roll got me thinking about my own experiences with Evangelical Christian home-based businesses/Christian businesses, and a church that considered establishing such businesses as a command from God. Let me share several stories with you.
First, let me say I don’t have a problem with people starting home-based businesses. It’s a great way to make money. But, when such businesses are wedded to religious ideology, that’s where I have a problem. While Polly and I were ardent homeschoolers for over twenty years and came into contact with many families who had home-based businesses, we never desired to have one. The money was a lot better in the “world.”
In 2005, while living in Newark, Ohio, we attended Faith Bible Church (now called Jersey Reformed Baptist Church) in Jersey (Pataskala), Ohio. Polly and I loved this church, and we thought maybe, just maybe, we had found a church to call home.
Faith Bible was a growing patriarchal Calvinistic, Reformed church filled with young families with lots of children. Everyone home-schooled, the women were keepers at home, and while all the men worked, home-based businesses were quite common. I suspect Faith Bible had a lot in common with the church Suzanne mentioned in her post.
One day after church, our family was fellowshipping with several families and the discussion turned towards our family. It was assumed that we were like they were; that Polly was a keeper at home; that I was in the world making money to support my family. When Polly let it be known that she cleaned offices for State Farm and that I was unable to work due to physical disability, the air was sucked out of the room and the friendly discussion abruptly ended. It was quite clear that the manner in which we were trying to keep our heads above water was disapproved of, perhaps even regarded as sinful. From that moment forward, everything changed for us. We felt a sense of distance from other church attendees, and it was not long before we decided to attend church elsewhere (we attended Faith for many months).
It was not uncommon for families at Faith Bible to have lots children. Polly and I have six children, and in most churches that would be an exceptionally large family. At Faith Bible, we were just one large family among many. With families being so large and women not being permitted to work outside of the home, home-based businesses became an easy way to supplement family income.
Churches such as Faith Bible have a distrust of the government. They are quite conservative, vote Republican, and think the government should stay out of their lives. The Terry Schiavo case was in the news while we were at Faith Bible, and I vividly remember a discussion that went on one night at a men’s meeting. Everyone, well everyone except me, was against allowing Schiavo’s husband to terminate life support. I found it ironic that the men felt the government should step in and stop Schiavo’s husband, yet, to the man, they thought the government should stay out of their lives. I did appreciate the respect the men afforded me, even though I voiced an opinion they considered immoral. I suspect I was quite the topic of discussion later.
What better way to stick it to the man, to get the government out of your life, than to operate a cash home-based business? There are few government rules or regulations that apply to home-based businesses. Often, such businesses fly under the radar. They often don’t have the proper licenses or permits, pay taxes, or file tax returns. This illegal behavior is justified as “not giving the immoral, godless government any more money than we have to.”
Suzanne mentioned what is commonly called “getting the Christian discount.” Years ago, my Fundamentalist Baptist (please see John and Dear Ann) grandfather operated an airplane engine repair shop, T&W Engine Service, at the Pontiac Airport (now Oakland County International Airport). Tom Malone, chancellor of Midwestern Baptist College — the college Polly and I attended in the 1970s — owned an airplane housed at Pontiac Airport. One day, Malone’s plane was having engine problems, and he asked my grandfather to take a look at it (he knew Grandpa was a Fundamentalist Baptist). Grandpa did, told Malone what was wrong, and how much it would cost to fix it. Malone asked for the “Christian discount.” After all, he was doing the Lord’s work. Shouldn’t a Christian businessman want to help out a pastor? Grandpa told Malone that there would be no discount. Malone was quite upset that Grandpa wouldn’t give him preferential treatment.
I pastored Evangelical churches for 25 years. I can’t tell you the times I had a business owner ask me if I wanted the “pastor’s/church discount.” In every instance, I said NO! Just because people are Christians or pastors doesn’t mean they deserve discounts. Yet, some Christians and pastors have no problem begging for Jesus. Like Tom Malone, they say they are doing the Lord’s work, and shouldn’t EVERY business owner want to give God’s special people a discount?
While businesses often grant Christian discount requests, it doesn’t mean they like it. They are pragmatists, fearful that if word gets out that they aren’t giving discounts, they will lose customers who are Christians. Pastors can ruin a business just by gossiping about it at “prayer” meeting or mentioning them in a sermon. Maybe they will, but in my view, it’s better to lose customers than to do business with those who try to extort you in the name of God. A political example of this was John McCain being stuck with Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. McCain hated Evangelicals, but fearing the loss of the Evangelical vote, he gave Republicans the “Christian discount” and made the IQ-challenged Palin his running mate. We know how that all turned out.
I, for one, do not frequent businesses that use the fish (ichthys) symbol or cross to advertise their companies. By using these symbols, they are saying that Christian business and Christian money have more value than mine. From time to time, I will run into Christians in store parking lots selling their wares. Often, they try to convince me to buy by giving me a guilt-laden speech about the money going to support their Christian family, their church, their youth group, orphans, or overseas missionaries. I NEVER buy from people who use Jesus to make a buck. In fact, I go out of my way NOT to buy from them (and mock and insult them if they try to pressure me into buying).
I pastored one church where I had to ban home-based sales marketing during church services. From Mary Kay and Avon to Pampered Chef and Tupperware to Girl Scout Cookies and Amway, church members tried to get other members to buy their wares or attend their parties. I began to think that the church was turning into the story in the Bible about the money changers in the Temple. I saw myself as Jesus cleansing the Temple. As I look back on this, I now realize that my preaching helped to promote such an environment. I was a complementarian — a traditional-family, women-not-working-outside-of-the-home preacher, so church women, for the most part, didn’t work. This created a huge problem because most of the families were quite poor and they NEEDED two incomes to make ends meet. Wanting to honor the commands of Bruce Almighty®, they turned to home-based businesses to supplement their incomes. Rarely did their home-based businesses generate as much income as they would have made in the evil, sin-filled, secular world.
Several churches I pastored had Christian business owners who also home-schooled their children. In every case, the children became a free or poorly paid workforce. One such business was totally staffed and operated by children. What upset me the most was that the children would be running the business during the times they should have been home doing their school work. Their parents told me that their children did their schoolwork in the evening. They used A.C.E. (Accelerated Christian Education) materials, so very little parental involvement was needed. This family never properly registered with the state or local school officials, so they were pretty much free to do whatever they wanted. Still, I am surprised no one ever reported them. I suspect one reason they weren’t is that the children were quite engaging, a pleasure to be around. It was hard not to see them, though, as a rural Ohio version of a sweatshop.
Let me reiterate, I am not against home-based businesses. I am all for people making money and providing for their families. What I am against is the religiosity that is connected with many of these endeavors. Putting out a booklet that lists all the home-based or traditional Christian businesses in the area is a sure way to make sure they never get one dime from me. I expect the people I do business with to compete in the marketplace. I expect them to play by the rules, have the proper licenses and permits, and pay taxes.
Just in case some Evangelical is getting ready to whine and complain about my unfair characterizations of home-based businesses, I am not saying that all home-based Christian businesses are like those mentioned in this post. However, many of them are, as are businesses owned by Evangelical zealots.
Over the years, numerous Christians have called me up to schedule an appointment to share with me a wonderful, God-honoring way to make shit-loads of money — okay, they didn’t say shit-load. A.L. Williams, Amway, Excel, and more vitamin-weight-loss-better-health MLM programs than I can count. In every case, they are no longer in business. Evidently, God failed to bless their hustling for Jesus.
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, I mentioned on social media that former President Trump and Senator JD Vance are racists. I posted:
Trump and Vance are determined to come off as racists. This may appeal to Confederate Flag waving Whites, but this doesn’t play well in general.
VANCE: Donald Trump said something very simple, totally inoffensive, but frankly, obviously true to me, which is that Kamala Harris is a chameleon.
She’s a fake, and the American people have to look at her record if we actually want to know how she stands on the issues, because her words simply can’t be trusted.
REPORTER: How can you fake a race? If it’s both Indian and black, how can she fake a race?
VANCE: She fakes who she is depending on the audience that she’s in front of, and that’s who she is, and that’s who she’s always been.
A commenter replied:
No Bruce.. it’s called pandering… Somehow the left has been pandered to for so long by their politicians they not only accept it you’re now defending it and promoting it as something good! Don’t let them do that to you man.
My response:
** *, I have no idea 🤷♂️ what you mean. Are you saying Trump and Vance aren’t racists; that I shouldn’t take their words and actions at face value?
We went back and forth a bit. The commenter finally said:
The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser but you can’t objectively know they’re a racist when it’s clearly an opinion formed by edited media bites and talking head on certain TV channels and you do not consider other sources of information. You’re objectively not being objective. So it is you who are not being logical aren’t you? You are still using that old time religion epistemology and compartmentalizing your beliefs that you can’t possibly back up and protect them. Also the race card is trite and there is too much information and fact now that refutes most of the claims. When it’s used by the left it’s because they can’t think of anything else.
And:
The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser sigh back at you.. really Bruce? I’m not claiming to 100% know what media you consume but it’s clear from your posts and the echo chamber you created on your profile here that you’re captured by a leftist political ideology and that you’re probably a prime candidate for philosopher Peter Baghosian’s “substitutionary hypothesis”. No I don’t see any credible evidence that Trump is a racist in fact the video link I posted above is one of many pieces of evidence against that assertion. Did you watch it? The only people asserting a name calling “racists” call on him are people who do not look at the evidence. So logically you’re either only consuming false media claims or in the political cult. And it isn’t even controversial to claim the fact that Google is absolutely engaged in result changes on their site and are heavily biased towards the left of the political spectrum. That’s not a conspiracy theory. I hope your hatred for people who disagree with your assertions will go away and you will consider that maybe you can be wrong about politics.
What follows is an article by Abby Zimet. Used with permission from Common Dreams
Hopefully, horrifically, the Trump War Room’s “comically racist” new ad – juxtaposing two images of “your neighborhood under Trump” and “your neighborhood under Kamala” – can at last put to rest any ludicrous, lingering questions as to whether the flailing felon, rapist and GOP presidential candidate, whose decades-long history of bigotry is well-documented, is really racist. Screamingly, repulsively, truly-Holy-Mother-of-God-vile: YES.
A day after Trump’s Megalomaniac Fascist Fest with Elon Musk – more on that soon – comes the latest obscene proof there is no bottom here on race, or anything else. Shocked, we are not. This is the guy who, along with his Klan father, was sued by the Justice Department 50 years ago for refusing to rent apartments to Blacks; who made an ugly public name for himself by loudly insisting the Black, now-exonerated Central Park Five be executed and starting the Obama birther frenzy; who for years reportedly belittled and discriminated against Blacks, including using the N-word, during his crappy TV career; who boasted about all the (imaginary) things he’s done for “the Blacks,” compared himself to Lincoln, cited “Black jobs” and “shithole countries,” and just trashed both Kamala Harris – who “just became a Black person” – and “horrible” black female journalists for being uppity.
So, sure, bring on a campaign ad deemed “the most racist thing ever.” Tuesday’s post features two side-by-side images: One shows a suburban, flag-draped house captioned, “Your neighborhood under Trump”; juxtaposed with it is an image of a group of mostly Black people packed onto the street captioned, “Your neighborhood under Kamala.” The text above it reads, “Import the third world. Become the third world.” The people on the curb were reportedly African immigrants outside a shelter in New York City; they had come, like so many before them, seeking safety and equality from an America that boasts it will welcome “your tired, your poor/your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” but too often doesn’t, especially when run by racist clowns who know only how to fearmonger, hatemonger, “other” Black and Brown bodies and mindlessly rip the “shithole” countries they’ve fled in mortal danger.
People who’ve become sorrowfully inured to the outlandish evil of Trump still managed to be horrified by racism so explicit “there have been Klan rallies which employed more subtlety.” “This is one of the most racist posts I’ve ever seen. Wow,” wrote one, and, “The racism is off the charts.” “Don’t just take our word for it,” wrote the NAACP. “They are showing all of us just how racist they are. This is what’s on the ballot this November.” “This” – this abomination – is also what Nina Simone could have been summoning years ago with her song Sinnerman, an African-American spiritual inspired by the Book of Exodus about an unholy man running from God and begging for forgiveness on Judgment Day, in vain, from the rock, the sea, the devil: “Oh Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?/Hear me prayin’, Lord Lord/Hear me prayin’ Lord Lord/Sinnerman, you oughtta be prayin’/Up come power/Power, Lord.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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