This is the one hundred seventy-first 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.
Today’s Songs of Sacrilege is Heaven by Kane Brown.
his is perfect
Come kiss me one more time
I couldn’t dream this up
Even if I tried
You and me in this moment
Feels like magic, don’t it?
I’m right where I wanna be
Everybody’s talking about heaven like they just can’t wait to go
Saying how it’s gonna be so good, so beautiful
Lying next to you, in this bed with you, I ain’t convinced
Cause, I don’t know how, I don’t know how heaven, heaven
Could be better than this
I swear you’re an angel
Sent to this world
What did I do right to deserve you, girl?
I could stay here forever
I’d be fine if we never had to even leave this room
Everybody’s talking about heaven like they just can’t wait to go
Saying how it’s gonna be so good, so beautiful
Lying next to you, in this bed with you, I ain’t convinced
Cause, I don’t know how, I don’t know how heaven, heaven
Could be better than this
Could be better than this
Everybody’s talking about heaven like they just can’t wait to go
Saying how it’s gonna be so good, so beautiful
Lying next to you, in this bed with you, I ain’t convinced
Cause, I don’t know how, I don’t know how heaven, heaven
Could be better than this (heaven)
Could be better than this (heaven, heaven)
I swear this is perfect
Come kiss me one more time
This is the one hundred seventieth 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.
Love’s my religion
But he was my faith
Something so sacred
So hard to replace
Fallin’ for him was like fallin’ from grace
All wrapped in one
He was so many sins
Would have done anything
Everything for him
And if you ask me
I would do it again
No need to imagine
‘Cause I know it’s true
They say all good boys go to Heaven
But bad boys bring Heaven to you
It’s automatic
It’s just what they do
They say all good boys go to Heaven
But bad boys bring Heaven to you
You don’t realise the power they have
Until they leave you and you want them back
Nothing in this world prepares you for that
I’m not a sinner;
He wasn’t the one
Had no idea what we would become
There’s no regrets
I just thought it was fun
No need to imagine
‘Cause I know it’s true
They say all good boys go to Heaven
But bad boys bring Heaven to you
It’s automatic
It’s just what they do
They say all good boys go to Heaven
But bad boys bring Heaven to you
I still remember the moment we met
The touch that he planted
The garden he left
I guess the rain was just half that effect
No need to imagine
‘Cause I know it’s true
They say all good boys go to Heaven
But bad boys bring Heaven to you
It’s automatic
It’s just what they do
They say all good boys go to Heaven
But bad boys bring Heaven to you
Growing up in an Evangelical environment, I learned that we are supposed to assess everything through the lens of godliness. That means we should discern whether our thoughts, actions, movies or television shows we watch, songs we listen to, articles of clothing we wear, relationships we have, and articles or books we read glorify God or detract from godliness. This is a large task that requires a lot of attention.
Many Christians I knew at my Southern Baptist church or at my Evangelical school went through the motions of religious practice without taking it to extremes, but some people took it quite seriously. I always found it overwhelming to pay the necessary attention to every single aspect of life to determine whether it met the standards of godliness. My grandmother, who had her own library of Christian concordances, history books, and books by Christian apologists, as well as Christian novels, spent large amounts of time trying to live up to what she considered her God’s standards for godliness. Everything was intently scrutinized to determine whether each was godly enough.
Our family loved watching “The Sound of Music” when it was broadcast on TV each year. We could sing along with all the songs, and we all cheered when the naughty nuns stole car parts from the Nazis’ cars so they could not pursue the Von Trapp family as they fled through the mountains to neutral Switzerland. However, one year, my grandmother determined that one of the songs, “Something Good,” taught an ungodly doctrine. This song was sung by Maria and Captain von Trapp after they declared their love for each other. Here are the main lyrics:
“Something Good” by Richard Rodgers
Perhaps I had a wicked childhood Perhaps I had a miserable youth But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past There must have been a moment of truth For here you are, standing there, loving me Whether or not you should So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good Nothing comes from nothing Nothing ever could So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good
First, my grandmother said good things in our lives come through the grace and mercy of God, not through anything we do ourselves. Yes, our actions have consequences, but all good things come from Heaven above. The second issue she had with the song was with the line “nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.” In her mind, God created the heavens and earth and all therein from nothing, so therefore everything came from nothing and God made nothing into something. And technically there wasn’t “nothing” because there was God (yeah, I don’t get it either). I must admit, I thought she was nit-picking a fun, wholesome, uplifting movie, but I don’t think she watched it again until she started suffering from dementia.
Grandma believed that God developed hierarchies for us to follow. She believed that wives were under their husbands’ authority; that children were under their parents’ authority; that everyone is under God’s authority. She ran the household this way too, but in a loving way. At one point, we were a four-generation household, with my great-grandmother, my grandparents, my mom, and me. Eventually, my mom married again and moved out, but Grandma adhered to her hierarchy. Grandpa was head of household, so he could do whatever he wanted and was to be catered to at all times. Grandma’s mother was next, as children are commanded to honor their parents, and my great-grandmother’s whims were catered to as well. Technically, I was lowest on the totem pole, but Grandma considered herself God’s servant and put herself in the lowest position, eventually to the detriment of her health.
The hierarchy was amusing with regard to television. My great-grandmother was barely mobile, so using her walker, she would go from her bedroom to the table for breakfast, then to her chair where she watched television all day. (My grandma served my great-grandmother’s meals at her chair on a TV tray.) In the morning was news; then “preaching shows” (typically Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker whom I thought looked like a clown with all the makeup); then “The Price is Right,” followed by noon news and an afternoon of her soap operas; then evening news and a full slate of prime time shows and/or a movie. My great-grandmother controlled what we watched. Grandpa bought another television so he could watch sports or movies in another room. Grandma didn’t approve of a lot of the programming on television, but because she considered herself submissive to Grandpa and to her mother, she rarely said anything. I loved being able to watch movies and shows with the word “damn” or “oh my god” (which Grandma considered blasphemous). Grandpa’s favorite movie was “Patton” with George C. Scott in the lead, and even the edited-for-TV version was unacceptable by Grandma’s standards. The only time Grandma intervened was one day on my great-grandmother’s soap opera there was a male stripper and my great-grandma got a little too excited about it. Grandma said, “That’s it, I’m not having that filth in my house anymore,” whereupon my great-grandmother had a tantrum, hauled herself out of her chair, and took five minutes to go twenty feet down the hall with her walker to her bedroom where she sequestered herself and sulked the rest of the day. About a week later she was allowed to watch television again. Grandma herself didn’t watch much television outside of the news and Billy Graham Crusades, and she only listened to Christian radio talk shows like “The Christian Jew Hour” or shows by pastors such as James Dobson.
Grandma did not believe we should play games with regular playing cards because they were a “tool of gambling.” She would play Rook because those were not playing cards. She did allow me to play solitaire with a deck of cards, but only because I was not playing with another player and gambling, and because her beloved father had enjoyed solitaire so much when he was alive. We weren’t allowed to play rummy in her house — I had to play it at my mom and stepdad’s house. Grandma wouldn’t allow me to play with dice either, because they were also tools of gambling — so games like Yahtzee and Monopoly were forbidden as well. Grandma never understood that literally ANYTHING could become a tool for gambling.
There were a couple of extremely pious girls who attended my church and school. They could, and often did, judge other people’s words and actions “in love,” “correcting” their peers in their testimony to others. During the 1980s, certain television shows such as “Magnum PI” and “The A-Team” were popular. Mr. T was known for saying, “I pity the fool….” A lot of us kids would quote Mr. T, and the word “fool” became a part of our vocabulary. Of course, one day on the school bus, I said “fool” and one of these lovely girls took it upon herself to let me know that it was ungodly to say “fool” because of this verse:
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:22)
What I didn’t consider at the time is that it may have been Wednesday. On Wednesdays, one of the pious girls was required by her family to fast at lunchtime and to give the money her lunch would have cost to charity. So she may have just been hungry.
The pious girls determined that the only music they would listen to included “Beach Boys” songs, classical music, and any music played at our church and school. They were suspicious about the music played on the Christian radio station. It was too “worldly” or “liberal” because drums and electrical instruments were used in some of the songs. Their exclamatory word of choice was “fudge.” My Grandma used to say “I’ll Swanee” as her exclamatory word until one day (who knows how) she determined that saying “I’ll Swanee” was ungodly, as it was a replacement swear word. Thereafter, she stifled any response other than “Oh.” Grandma allowed me to listen to classical music or to gospel music and anything by the Bill Gaither Trio, but all other music was considered ungodly. (Please read Christian Swear Words.)
This level of discernment made me anxious and took up a lot of energy while growing up. Honestly, I couldn’t keep up with it all. A lot of it was confusing, and I longed to be free to enjoy life without worrying about every single word, action, or situation being godly enough. When I stayed at my mom and stepdad’s house, there was a lot more freedom of speech and action, but I would have to switch back into high-vigilance mode at my grandparents’ house and at school. It was a relief to let it all go as I moved further away from Evangelical Christianity. Interestingly, as my grandmother succumbed to dementia and no longer remembered all the religious strictures, she became a lot happier, childlike, and fun. There was a lot I missed about her intellectually, but as she became more forgetful, she enjoyed a lot of things again like movies and baseball (we never knew she was an Atlanta Braves fan until she suffered dementia, and I have no idea when or why baseball became ungodly). Don’t get me wrong, my grandmother was a very loving and caring person who did a lot of things to help others (as anonymously as possible), and I loved her dearly, but some of her standards were a lot to handle.
Did the home you grow up in have a code of godliness or what Baptists call “standards”? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
If you are a fan of NCAA college basketball — especially March Madness — you have likely heard of Loyola-Chicago’s biggest fan and cheerleader, Sister Jean. Today, Sister Jean — who is also Loyola-Chicago’s chaplain — made a bold prediction. When asked if she thought the Big Kahuna was on Loyola’s side, she replied, Right now, yes. It’s been awhile since Catholics have had a team to root for, so I suppose I should cut the ninety-eight-year-old Sister Jean a bit of slack. However, I have it on good authority that Michigan, not Loyola, is actually God’s team. In fact, the Holy Spirit let it be known that God, the Father picked the Wolverines to win it all. The Holy Spirit also told me that Jesus had all his money of number one seed University of Virginia. Well, we know how that all worked out. Virginia was thrashed by number sixteen seed, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County — a school no one ever heard of before the tournament. The Spirit said that the Jesus was so depressed after Virginia’s loss that he almost killed himself — again.
Sister Jean says that God’s put the fix in, and Loyola-Chicago is going beat Michigan. Yet, the third part of the Trinity says that God, the Father let it be known at Trump’s Heavenly Sport’s Bar® that Michigan is going to take home the title. What are mere mortals to make of this confusion? If Sister Jean is as plugged in with God as she says she is, surely she would be rooting for Michigan. Sister Jean should take a stand on the infallible basketball picks of God, even if it means suffering great persecution from Loyola fans and players. I am sure Sister Jean doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of history. I know it’s a Catholic thing to always be on the wrong side of monumental historical events – say, legalization of same-sex marriage — but one need to only to look at the relevant stats and game film to know that Michigan is the better team. And if there’s anything I learned as an Evangelical Christian it is this: God’s always on the side of winners. Montana, Houston, Texas A&M, and Florida State all learned that God wears maize and blue. I call on Sister Jean to repent and start rooting for the Team Up North®. If I, a lifelong Ohio State fan, can swallow my pride and root for God’s team, so can Sister Jean.
Of course, all jesting aside, Saturday’s game between Michigan and Loyola-Chicago will not be settled by the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. The game will be decided by the play on the court, not prayers or other frivolous religious antics. Suggesting a deity cares about and is interested in the outcomes of a game — any game — makes a mockery of religious faith. Think of all the things God could or should be doing — you know, stopping wars, putting an end to gun violence in schools, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and helping Kenneth Hagin get a new jet. Oh wait, God gave Hagin his new jet. Awesome job, God. Another world crisis solved. Now if you could do something about war and school gun violence, that would be great.
Sister Jean is certain that God is on her team’s side; that they are going to beat Michigan on Saturday. I wonder what she will say if her certainty is rubbed into the dirt of Big 10 physicality? Will God be blamed for the loss, or will the blame be placed on Loyola’s players and coaches? Surely, if God is the divine bracket designer, shouldn’t he be held accountable when the pronouncements of his followers fail to come to pass? Sister Jean, as with many Christians, says she knows the mind of God. If this is so, what are we to make of all the times clerics gave us a word straight from the mouth of God to our ears, and it proved to be wrong? Are these men and women of God mishearing what the divine puppet master is saying? Or, is it possible that the only voice that they are hearing is their own? That when they authoritatively say that they are one with God in some sort of Vulcan-like mind meld, that what they are really sensing or hearing is the machinations of their own mind and that “God” is, in fact, nowhere to be found?
There will indeed be a winner come Saturday night. The team that shoots, rebounds, and defends the best will win the game. I have watched Michigan play numerous times this year. My money is on the Wolverines, even if rooting for them causes Woody Hayes to roll over in his grave. I am an Ohio State fan first, and a Big Ten fan second. Once my team is eliminated, I root for whichever Big Ten team is still alive. I thought, at first, Michigan State would make it to the Final Four. After they lost, I turned my loyalty towards Purdue. A broken elbow sidelined Purdue’s center, Isaac Haas, and without him, Purdue had no chance to make it to the title game. After Purdue lost, Michigan was the last Big Ten team left standing. So, on Saturday night, I will hold my nose and cheer for Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, Jordan Poole, Mo Wagner and company as they thump the Catholics. May Sister Jean learn that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the mighty Wolverines. As Michigan coach Beilein said, If God be for us, who can be against us? Mark it down … Michigan, by twenty.
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.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Marcin Nurek, a recently ordained Catholic priest, was indicted on “criminal sexual contact and child endangerment charges.”
Press of Atlantic City reports:
A recently ordained Roman Catholic priest accused of groping a 13-year-old girl under her skirt last summer has been indicted on criminal sexual contact and child endangerment charges.
Morris County prosecutors say the Rev. Marcin Nurek touched the girl’s buttocks over her underwear and told her she was “sexy.” The indictment was recently handed up by a county grand jury.
The 37-year-old priest was put on administrative leave by the Diocese of Paterson following his Aug. 3 arrest. He is an emigrant from Poland and was ordained into the priesthood in July.
Nurek’s lawyer, William Ware, declined comment on the indictment on Monday.
A recently-ordained Catholic priest who is accused of fondling a 13-year-old girl’s buttocks under her skirt in Boonton rejected a plea offer of Pretrial Intervention, a special supervision program under which criminal charges are dismissed if all conditions are successfully met, the defense lawyer said Tuesday.
The Rev. Marcin A. Nurek – who was barred by the Diocese of Paterson from acting as a priest after he was arrested on Aug. 3 – appeared Tuesday with defense lawyer William Ware for a brief, pre-indictment conference before Superior Court Judge Stephen Taylor in Morristown.
Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Meg Rodriguez said the charges against Nurek — criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child — have been marked for presentation to a Morris County grand jury for possible indictment, the precursor to a criminal tria
….
Nurek was released from the Morris County jail within a few days of his arrest, by order of a Superior Court judge. He is living at the diocese-owned Bethlehem Heritage in Chester Township and both Ware and Rodriguez said that Nurek has not violated any conditions of pretrial release.
After the hearing, Ware said that the Prosecutor’s Office offered Nurek the opportunity to be admitted into Pretrial Intervention to resolve the charges but he declined.
“He’s innocent,” Ware said.
….
Nurek allegedly followed a group of girls down a street in the town of Boonton and then reached a hand under a 13-year-old’s skirt, and groped her buttocks over her underwear, stating either “You’re sexy,” or “Hey, sexy,” according to authorities.
Nurek was located shortly after the incident and, authorities said, made admissions to police. Police also secured surveillance camera images that allegedly show Nurek following the girls.
It concerns me that more than a few atheists dismiss religious beliefs as quaint, silly relics that pose no threat or concern to them. Unfortunately, ignorance and indifference about religious beliefs can and does have catastrophic consequences. One need only to look to the election of Donald Trump to see what happens when religious beliefs are ignored. More than eighty percent of voting white Evangelicals voted for our pussy-grabber-in-chief. Trump, ever the con-man, used Evangelical beliefs about social hot-button issues to his advantage. Trump is no more a Christian than I am, yet he and his handlers knew that exploiting Evangelicals religious beliefs would help them gain the White House. While some Evangelical voters have buyers regret, many of them continue to support Trump, regardless of how many prostitutes and porn stars come out of his closet. All that matters to them is that Trump supports their values and ideals. You see, beliefs matter.
As an atheist, I believe that Evangelical Christianity is built upon numerous lies; namely that the Christian God exists, Jesus is God, Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. These four lies in particular fundamentally and ruinously affect the lives of those who believe them, especially those who spend decades as Evangelical believers. These lies affect how Evangelicals think about the world and their place in it. These lies affect how Evangelicals view others, especially those who don’t believe as they do. And most importantly, these lies affect how Evangelicals vote and engage the political process.
I am well aware that Evangelicals are somewhat diverse in belief and practice. I also realize that a smattering of Evangelicals hold progressive/liberal values. However, in the main, Evangelicals are united when it comes to the four lies mentioned above. These lies, along with others, are what make them Evangelical. If a person professes to be an Evangelical, yet rejects one or more of the aforementioned lies, then it is fair to say that he or she is Evangelical in name only.
Of these four lies, two of them have the potential to cause the greatest harm. I want to conclude this post by briefly examining these two lies.
First, the lie that Jesus resurrected from the dead fundamentally affects how Evangelicals view life and death. Why aren’t most Evangelicals concerned with global climate change? Why do they show little interest in ending war, famine, and violence? In the resurrection of Jesus, Evangelicals see the power of the Almighty on display. Their God has power over life and death. Their God controls everything, and if Jesus is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, and he holds the world in the palm of his hand, why worry about the future? In their minds, God has an unalterable, unassailable plan for everyone. We live and die when God says we do. What happens between life and death is up to God. When you believe your God can do anything, well, anything and everything is possible. No need to worry, the one true God is always on the job.
Jesus, of course, did not rise from the dead. Jesus was human, just like the rest of us. When he died on a Roman cross, he stayed dead, never to rise again. Understanding this fact causes people to behave differently. If Jesus was a mere mortal who lived and died, then there is no hell to shun and heaven to gain. All we have is the here and now. What matters, then, is how we live in the present, knowing that what we do affects future generations, for good or ill. There’s no God coming to our rescue. There’s no God who is going to make our lives brand new. It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how different the thinking is between someone who believes the resurrection lie and someone who doesn’t.
Second, the lie that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God materially affects how Evangelicals live their day-to-day lives. People’s beliefs that the Bible is some sort of divine roadmap or blueprint for life affects the choices and decisions they make. The Sounds of Fundamentalism and Christians Say the Darnedest Things series aptly reflect what happens when people really, really, really believe that the Bible is a direct message to them from God. Why are Evangelicals endlessly up-in-arms over hot-button social issues? The Bible. Why do Evangelicals believe that the United States is a Christian nation and that the separation of church and state is harmful to their faith? The Bible. Why are Evangelicals anti-woman, anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-LGBT, anti-gun control, anti-same-sex marriage, and anti, anti, anti? The Bible. From invectives against how women dress to calls for Muslims/illegal immigrants to be sent back where they came from, the justification for such violence against people is found in the Bible.
If we want a better tomorrow, secularists and progressive people of faith must attack and destroy the lie that the Bible is in any way some sort of supernatural message sent to humans by a supernatural God. While the Bible certainly has teachings that have cultural and social value, in the main the Bible remains a Bronze Age religious text that has little relevance for today. In fact, the Bible is one of the most dangerous books ever written. When literally believed, it becomes a weapon with the power to kill and destroy. Religious Fundamentalism (and Evangelicalism is inherently Fundamentalist) harms everything it touches. We must not allow the lie about the nature of the Bible to go unchallenged. Ignoring the power the Bible holds over Evangelicals will only further our democracy’s demise. When people who believe the Bible is divine gain the power of the state, we shouldn’t be surprised when the United States becomes a theocracy. If we don’t want the Christian flag flying over the White House, we must muster every available tool in the secularist, rationalist toolbox to expose the lie that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God.
I realize my words might seem harsh to some of my Evangelical readers. But, recent battles over gun control, abortion, LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, and immigration have taught me that this is not the time to live and let live. If truth is to prevail, then lies must be exposed. If truth really matters to Americans, then exposing Evangelical Christianity for what it is — a religious political party — is essential. All one needs to do is look at the Ohio legislature, Congress, and the Trump presidency to see what believing lies can do. Sitting idly on the sidelines watching Bart Ehrman debates on YouTube or reading the latest, greatest book on atheism is not the answer. Like it or not, non-Evangelicals must educate themselves about Evangelical beliefs and practices. In doing so, we are better equipped to wage war against the cultural genocide being waged in the name of God. One of the reasons I continue to slog through Evangelical blogs, websites, and social media is because I know it is important to do so; not so much for myself, but for my children and grandchildren. By exposing what it is Evangelicals say and do, I shine a light on their absurdities and lies. Just remember, Evangelicals really do believe the words they write and speak. That alone should scare all of us into action.
Remember, beliefs matter.
Note
Takeshi Kovacs is a character in books written by Richard K/ Morgan — Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. Altered Carbon was recently turned into a Netflix series starring Joel Kinnaman as Takeshi Kovacs. I watched the first season of Altered Carbon and found it to a delightful, yet complex futuristic drama. I heartily recommend it for your viewing.
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.
Ohio Republicans introduced a new bill yesterday that takes the phrase ‘abortion is murder’ to its logical conclusion. HB565 outlaws all abortions and makes performing or having one a capital offense. The bill also does away with exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. One of the bill’s sponsors is Craig Riedel, state representative for District 82. Riedel is my representative and lives in nearby Defiance, Ohio. Riedel, a Catholic, is stridently anti-abortion, so it comes as no surprise that he is one of the sponsors of HB565. Riedel was also instrumental in the recent passage of HB214, a law that criminalizes doctors performing abortions on women whose fetuses have Down Syndrome.
HB565 doesn’t surprise me in the least. The Ohio legislature is controlled by a super-majority of staunch, right-wing, anti-abortion Republicans. These Republicans make Governor John Kasich look like a liberal. The only way to repel their attacks on abortion rights is to run them out of office and replace them with men and women who put people before religion. Make no mistake about it, the assault on abortion is religiously driven, primarily by Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons. Only those with minds sotted with religious delusions would criminalize abortion and make it a capital crime. Only the Craig Riedels of the world put God and theological dogma before women’s health.
I hope my fellow Ohioans are paying attention to the anti-abortion spectacle currently on display in Columbus. Far too many of us wrongly think that the people who wave signs that say, God is pro-life and abortion is murder, are ignorant, harmless country bumpkins. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ohio is primarily a rural state, and people who live in small communities such as Ney, Bryan, Defiance, Hicksville, and countless other places, have been voting into office right-wing Republicans for decades. Senior Ohioans such as myself remember an Ohio that was considered a progressive state, one governed by officeholders who worked for the common good of the Buckeye state. That Ohio no longer exists. In its place is a state government where God and the Bible come first, especially when it comes to hot-button social issues.
It is unlikely that this bill will pass constitutional muster. But, maybe the real issue here is to get HB565 before the U.S. Supreme Court so the court can overturn Roe v. Wade. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of all anti-abortion laws at the state level? Outlaw abortion in the states and then make a full-bore frontal assault on Roe v. Wade. If attempts to criminalize abortion at the federal level are successful, this means the United States returns to the days when abortions were performed in backrooms and alleys. Ultimately, it means more unwanted children will be brought into the world and more women will die of complications from illegal, unsafe abortion procedures. We must not forget that the people who believe that abortion is murder often think that using birth control is a sin too. Imagine, if you dare, a country where women no longer have access to birth control and they once again must live in fear of unwanted pregnancy. Is this really what we want for Ohio and our country? If the answer is “no,” then the only answer is to elected leaders who put their duties and obligations to their constituents ahead of their fealty to God.
I am not suggesting that religious people cannot hold office, but if they are unwilling to separate church from state, then they are not fit for office. Our governmental structures are, by design, secular, and politicians who ignore or refuse to understand this must be replaced by people who do. For far too long, voters have treated the religious beliefs of politicians as being beyond criticism and critique. Since we now know that religious beliefs have political and social consequences, those of us who consider the separation of church and state essential to the future of our secular state must expose and critique the religious beliefs of politicians. The same applies to atheistic, agnostic, and humanistic politicians – we must question their beliefs as well. What we believe matters, as HB565, HB214, and other anti-abortion bills show. If we want a country where secular, humanistic ideals drive the legislative process, then we must elect candidates who value these things. It really is that simple.
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.
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If there’s one topic that freaks Christians out the most, it’s masturbation.
When you tune into the discussion, it can get alarmingly serious.
There are believers who stand on either side of the fence on this topic, but overwhelmingly within the Church, masturbation is considered off-limits.
In a world of passionate forbiddance, I’d like to stand up and ask…
‘What If?’
What if masturbation could heal us?
What if there are people and situations being overlooked in the debate?
What if masturbation is more of a grey area that we ever anticipated?
…..
You’ve probably heard that porn is like a drug. It affects your brain in the same way heroin or cocaine can. Both behavior and substance can become addictive, and users may become dependent, requiring heavier doses to experience the chemical ‘rush’. With both sexual behaviors and drug use, withdrawals are a common struggle when beginning the recovery journey. The suffering associated with withdrawals often leads to relapse.
The solution for heroin or other opioid addicts is Methadone. It is a prescription drug which eases withdrawal symptoms to make the transition to sobriety possible in those first few weeks or months. It is a controlled and safer substance, but is still addictive in itself and carries risk. It has been used successfully to treat recovering addicts and is a method accepted within society.
The sex or porn addict on the other hand, is expected to make a full recovery by going ‘cold turkey’ overnight. Assuming they are unmarried, the addict is encouraged to remove every sexual outlet in their life. Why do we expect success if we know other addictions are so difficult to recover from without a pseudo-drug or at least a gradual weaning process?
What if instead of eliminating absolutely everything sexual, which like a starvation diet, encourages relapse or bingeing, the addict could work on individual struggles one at a time? Masturbation may be the final frontier to conquer. What if it helped them to truly find freedom?
Perhaps masturbation could be Methadone for the recovering sex addict.
….
If you’re burning with rage, or are already scheduling in a handy little marathon, hold up. This is not a free for all. Let’s talk accountability.
How would you feel about allowing masturbation in your life…under supervision? I don’t mean your accountability partner needs to watch you do the deed. But, in your ongoing accountability journey, take two simple steps. Firstly, determine your personal boundaries. Within a Christian worldview, perhaps masturbation could be helpful if it’s private, safe, not compulsive, not being used to withhold marital intimacy or bury emotion, is free from lustful thoughts or is part of a therapeutic program (I know, makes it difficult doesn’t it?). Next, commit to being open with your accountability partner about when you do masturbate, and why.
Whether you feel convicted to pursue a life with or without masturbation, accountability is key. Orgasms are powerful. Once you start experiencing them, you’ll think having sex with anything and everything is a great idea. Both lifestyles open themselves to bingeing or relapsing. You need someone to keep you on track.
What if allowing masturbation and removing the shame could actually break the cycle of addiction?
Warning snark and cursing ahead. You have been warned! Now ignore this warning and read away.
Today, renowned physicist and outspoken atheist Stephen Hawking died at the age of seventy-six. According to Fundamentalist Ken Ham, Stephen Hawking is now in Hell. While Ham doesn’t explicitly say this, his passive-aggressive statement, “a man passed into eternity without knowledge of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ,” makes it clear that Ham believes Hawking is now being tortured by God in the eternal flames of Hades. Ham mouthpiece Danny Faulkner says pretty much the same thing:
While the world mourns the loss of such a brilliant mind, there is even more to mourn today, as a man passed into eternity without knowledge of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ (although we don’t know what he was thinking concerning his mortality and afterlife in the final days of his life). We at Answers in Genesis mourn the fact that Hawking and many others have decided that science supposedly has proven that there is no God. However, we firmly believe that science, when properly understood, is consistent with the God revealed in the Bible.
Ken Ham’s lackeys also believe that Hawking is now bunking with Christopher Hitchens (Please read Christopher Hitchens is in Hell) in Satan’s Trump Hotel®. Here’s what some of them had to say:
Don’t buy for a moment the idea that maybe Hawking on his deathbed reached out and called on Jesus to save him. Evangelicals who say this feel guilty over saying someone is in Hell. They don’t want to be viewed as the judgmental assholes they are. There’s nothing in Hawking’s behavior or words that remotely suggests that Hawking had a change of heart about the existence of any God, let alone the God worshiped by Ham, Faulkner, and a cast of millions.
“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.”
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
“Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
“God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God.”
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.”
“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”
Hawking may have been an atheist, but that doesn’t mean he had no sense of wonder about the universe:
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”
Hawking was struck with ALS at the age of twenty-five, yet he thought it important to have a sense of humor. My favorite Hawking comedy bit comes from a discussion between him and “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver:
John Oliver: “You’ve stated that there could be an infinite number of parallel universes. Does that mean there’s a universe out there where I am smarter than you?”
Hawking: “Yes. And also a universe where you’re funny.”
Evangelicals will revel in the death of another enemy of God. We who value knowledge and science will lament the loss of one of the greatest minds of our generation. Hawking was not without fault — no human is, including Jesus. His fifty year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) was an inspiration to those of us who struggle with chronic illnesses, and his vocal atheism was a source of encouragement to those who continue to push back against those who wish to pull us back into the Dark Ages.
Evangelicals will continue to remind people that Hawking died without repenting of his sins, and is now Hell. Many will take the tack of Texas lawmaker Briscoe Cain:
Unlike Ham who will face no outrage about his comment because he deletes all such comments from his Facebook page, Cain faced the wrath of people outraged over his comment. (Read the comments below his tweet.) Evidently, it got too hot in Cain’s kitchen. Several hours after his “I’m an Asshole for Jesus” tweet, Cain issued a clarification:
Losing a loved one is never easy and I am sympathetic for his family’s loss. My prayers are with them. Stephen Hawking was brilliant, many even called him one of the greatest public intellectuals of the last century, but the fact remains that God exists. My tweet was to show the gravity of the Gospel and what happens when we pass, namely, that we all will one day meet our Creator face to face. Though Hawking has long been a vocal atheist who advocated against and openly mocked God, I hope nothing but the best for his family and pray that he came to know faith before he passed.
In other words, I’m not a heartless prick. I have sympathy for Hawking’s family. I even said a ceiling prayer for them. But, let me be clear, the Evangelical God is the one true God, and since Hawking did not acknowledge Jehovah’s existence, he is now being stretched on Jesus’ torture rack, screaming please, please, please I now believe. Took late, buddy. You made your bed, not lie in it. Ain’t Jesus wonderful!
You ran your race well, Mr. Hawking, now rest in peace. You will be missed, but your work and books live on. Thank you.
Postscript
I came across the following information after the original post was filed with my editor.
The oh-so-fine Fundamentalist Calvinists at Pulpit & Pen let it be known that Hawking is in Hell:
When Hawking passed away this morning, he discovered that he was not an advanced breed of monkey. He (re)discovered that his body had contained a soul, and that it was in a place of torment awaiting the final judgment of one who made him. There is no more question, for Hawking. There is no more doubt.
The good news is that Hawking, who suffered from ALS, will one day be raised from the dead in a body that cannot die. The bad news is that his body, reunited with his consciousness, will be cast into the Lake of Fire, the Outer Darkness, and a place where the vast void of the Black Holes he studied will pale in comparison to the dark chasm of his new home in the eternal abyss. And that body will not be paralyzed; it will feel every square inch of the pain to which it will be subjected. It is appointed a man once to die, and then the judgment. And the One judging Hawking now will not be of a peer-reviewed panel or congratulatory science-junkies opining on the cogs and wheels that God put into place when He made creation. It will be the One who has been appointed the judge of the quick and the dead.
Coach Dave Daubenmire gleefully rejoiced over Hawking’s demise. (The video will start at the twenty-one minute mark.)
If you are a fan of NCAA college basketball — especially March Madness — you have likely heard of Loyola-Chicago’s biggest fan and cheerleader, Sister Jean. Today, Sister Jean — who is also Loyola-Chicago’s chaplain — made a bold prediction. When asked if she thought the Big Kahuna was on Loyola’s side, she 
