I can’t even count the number of times I’ve debated and reasoned with atheists who adamantly and passionately insists that atheism in not a religion. It’s not a religion, unless, of course, it appears to have benefits. The more and more I looked at atheism the more and more I see a handful of options made to order.
“Today I’ll have my morality include…stealing is wrong with a side of a problem of evil.”
It’s inconsistent. On the surface, these look and feel like solid arguments, worthy of building a worldview upon. But they are filled with contradiction. Tell me, atheist, when you chose that stealing should be immoral for you, did you also choose for me or, am I free to steal from you? I promise to do it under the cover of darkness so as to not be caught. Is that wrong? By what standard? Tell me, atheist, how is evil a problem if morality is subjective?
….
More inconsistencies! Every argument, every appeal, every aspect of atheism is a superficial argument. It’s covered in a wrapper labeled “worldview” but inside is emptiness, un-thoughtful, meaninglessness. Tell me, atheist, what do you make of the trees and the rocks and the seas? Do you have evidence of them erupting from the depths of nothingness or did you formulate an opinion based on what you know and choose the one you wanted, the one that felt right to you? Tell me, atheist, are you so whimsical that your worldview is mere happenstance? Does your worldview have such control that it chooses you and you have no choice in the matter at all? Tell me, atheist, what evidence to you have for a godless universe? Tell me, again, how you appeal to science—the study of order, repeatability, and structure—to draw the conclusion of evolution—random, non-repeated, mutations. Your worldview is hypocrisy.
The more and more I examine atheism, the more and more the inconsistencies surface, the more and more atheists continue to ‘have it their way’ is the more and more I foresee the demise of the worldview. Atheism is unhealthy, it has no substance, and it only offers the illusion of nourishment. How fitting, and somewhat ironic, that Burger King and atheists are ultimately selling flame-broiled products.
Perhaps it’s time, my atheist friends, we stop having it our way and start looking for nutrients that do not lead to death. Wide is the path to destruction, but narrow is the gate that leads to life. This imagery provided by Jesus implies that the narrow road is not one to stumble across but one to seek and find. It’s easy to run through the drive-through and pick up a whopper and some fries. It’s just as easy to pretend I don’t need God to live a life free of problems. The problem is, eventually, you need nutrients not just food. The problem is, eventually, you need Jesus and not just atheism.
— Roger Browning, A Clear Lens, Atheism is the Burger King of World Views, December 7, 2016
Tim Tebow was a guest on Harry Connick Jr.’s talk show this week, and recounted a really crazy experience involving the Bible verse John 3:16.
Fans of Tebow may remember when he wrote “John 3:16” on his face (in his eyeblack) during the national championship game when he played college football at Florida.
….
Three years later to the day, Tebow was playing quarterback for the Denver Broncos in a playoff game.
After the game—which they won in miraculous, last-second fashion—he was informed that he had thrown for exactly 316 yards, his yards per rush were 3.16, his yards per completion were 31.6, the TV ratings for the game were 31.6 and the Broncos’ time of possession was 31.6.
After that game, John 3:16 became Twitter’s No. 1 trending topic. Tebow said he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. He says he thinks it’s evidence of a “big God.”
It never ceases to amaze me the places I find my story being cussed, discussed, diagnosed, and deconstructed. The latest discussion is currently going on at the Baptist Board: A Christ Centered Community. The focus of the discussion is whether Bruce Gerencser will go to Heaven when he dies. Baptists, for the most part, believe that once a person is a saved, he is always saved. This doctrine is variously called once-saved, always-saved or eternal security. Calvinists call the doctrine the preservation or perseverance of the saints. The end is the same: a person who repents of his sin and puts his faith and trust in Jesus is eternally saved and Heaven will be his home after he dies. No matter what I do or how I live my life, be it as an adulterer or murderer, when I die angels will carry me into the Christian God’s Heaven.
Some Baptists, unwilling to allow such a miscreant as I into God’s Heaven, take another approach. He NEVER was saved, they say. This argument, by far, is the silliest I have heard over the years. What in my life as a Christian and a pastor points to some sort of fatal defect in my understanding of the gospel? Why shouldn’t my sincere testimony of faith be taken at face value? Can those who say I never was a Christian give any evidence for their claim? Of the thousands of people who heard me preach, called me pastor, or were colleagues of mine, who among them said at the time, Bruce Gerencser is not a Christian? Not one person. My life by any reasonable measurement was one of faith and devotion to Jesus Christ.
Presently, I am an atheist and a humanist. I am quite clear and forthright about how I view the past: I once was saved and now I am lost. Arminian Christians — those who believe a Christian can fall from grace and lose their salvation — have no problem squaring my storyline with their theology. They readily admit that I once was a committed follower of Jesus and now I am not. While on one hand this issue is of no importance — the Christian God is a work of fiction and of human origin — it does matter to me that people accept my story at face value. When Christians give testimony about the when, where, why, and how of God saving them, I believe them. While I certainly think there are psychological, sociological, and cultural reasons for such stories, I do accept at face value that Christians believe their stories to be true (as I did as a Christian for many years). All I ask is that Christians do the same, regardless of whether they can square my storyline with their peculiar theology. It’s my story, and who better to tell it than I?
I hope readers will stop by the Baptist Board and read their discussion. The comment that amused me the most was the one that said, “I think it would be very interesting to sit across the table from him, maybe a different doctrinal take would have yielded different fruit.” I would love to know exactly what “doctrinal take” would have led to a different outcome for me spiritually? Having spent the years from ages fifteen to fifty studying the Bible and reading countless theological tomes, I highly doubt that there is a theological system that I am unfamiliar with. Unlike some of the men on Baptist Board (I know several of them), my theology changed over the years. I began my life as a Christian and a pastor as an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB). I left the IFB church movement in the late 1980s, spending the next decade in Sovereign Grace and Reformed Baptist circles. In the late 1990s, my theological (and political and social) beliefs began to creep leftward, finally finding a home in Emergent/Emerging/Red-letter Christian circles. When I left the ministry in 2005, my theological views were such that I no longer considered myself an Evangelical. In the three years between leaving the ministry and walking away from Christianity, I committed myself to seeking out a Christianity that mattered. During this time, Polly and I, along with three of our children, attended over one hundred churches. You can see the list of churches we attended here. I concluded after three years that Christian churches are all pretty much the same — social clubs that exist for the benefit of their members. Regardless of their ecclesiology, soteriology, and liturgy, churches are pretty much like hamburger joints: McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Sonic, Carl’s Jr, or Five Guys. The way the hamburgers are cooked and with what condiments they are served with vary from chain to chain, but one thing remains the same: a hamburger is a hamburger. So it is with Christians and the churches they attend. No matter how special they think their church is, once the bun and condiments are removed, what’s left is a 1/4-1/3 pound round hamburger. Except for Wendy’s, that is. Perhaps they are the One True Hamburger Joint®.
I certainly wouldn’t mind there being life after death — that is, as long as it is not the Evangelical version of heavenly bliss. I have no interest in spending eternity praising and worshiping the Christian God. Now, if Heaven is a pain-free version of the present, beam me up Scotty, I’m ready to go. However, if Heaven is as Evangelicals say it is, count me out. This life is enough. Live for today, for tomorrow we die. And then? Nothing.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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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In keeping with the Evangelical spirit of ripping off the “world”, Michael Mock has re-purposed Ephesians 6:10-17, giving the passage a Captain America vibe:
Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full Captain America Costume of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the Red Skull, against Hydra, against the powers of Ultron and against the spiritual forces of evil in the Nine Realms. Therefore put on the full Captain America Costume of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of useful stuff buckled round your waist, with the reinforced Kevlar shirt of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted into snazzy boots with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the vibranium shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of Hawkeye or the evil one. Take the heroic mask of salvation and the plasma gun of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
This is the one hundred and thirty-ninth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Pentecostal R.W. Schambach healing the sick and disabled.
This is the one hundred and thirty-eighth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Pentecostal A.A. Allen healing a man of cancer.
This is the one hundred and thirty-seventh installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
If you haven’t heard of me I wouldn’t be surprised
I bet you know my relatives their names will never die
My mother is a saint and my brother is a God
But all I am is Jesus’ brother Bob
CHORUS
Jesus’ brother Bob, Jesus’ brother Bob
A nobody relative of the son of God
If only I’d been born just a little sooner
I’d be more than the brother of God junior
I have to pay the ferry to cross the Galilee
But not my brother, no not him, he walks across for free
I finally get to work ’bout a quarter after nine
Already he’s turning water into wine
CHORUS
One day when I was home I heard a mighty roar
There were a thousand people right outside the door
“Help us Jesus, help us” came the cheering from the mob
Then they got a look at me, “Oh nuts, it’s only Bob.”
CHORUS
He died upon the cross, I thought that I was free
Finally people would get to know me for me
This was my big chance to finally get ahead
The next thing you know he’s rising from the dead
This is the one hundred and thirty-seventh installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of con artist Jim Bakker and friends thanking Jesus for electing Donald Trump.
The sinner sees little cause for alarm and fails to apprehend his imperative need of promptly accepting Christ as his Saviour. He imagines himself secure. He goes on in his sin, and because judgment against an evil work is not executed speedily he increases in his boldness against God. But God’s ways are different to ours. There is no need for God to be in a hurry – all eternity is at His disposal. He is in no haste to execute judgment because He knows the sinner, cannot escape Him. It is impossible to flee out of His dominions! In due time every transgression and disobedience shall receive “a just recompense of reward.
Having a bit of extra time on my hands as I impatiently wait for Thanksgiving Day (family, food, and football) to arrive, I decided to comment on a recent blog post written by my friend Gary. You can read his post and my comments here. Into the discussion came a Fundamentalist Lutheran by the name of Jim Pierce. Pierce is a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). He swears he and his sect are most definitely NOT Fundamentalist. If you have some time, please read his comments on Gary’s blog. I’ll leave it to you to decide if Pierce is a Fundamentalist. For the purpose of this post, I want to share several of Jim’s comments that were directed my way. His comments are a fresh reminder that even if Evangelical Christianity’s narrative is true, I still wouldn’t become a Christian if it meant I had to go to church and heaven with the Jim Pierces of the world. No thanks. Give me hell every time. In fact, heaven for me would be the absence of such people. Dear Lord Jesus, PLEASE rapture your chosen ones ASAP.
