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.
Gregory Adams, pastor and prophet of Life Song Ministries in Citronelle, Alabama, stands charged with two counts of rape in the first degree, two counts of rape in the second degree, three counts of sodomy in the first degree, and two counts of sexual abuse.
A Citronelle pastor was indicted on nine charges of sex abuse, with some of the alleged victims being as young as 12 years old.
Gregory Renee Adams was indicted on five counts of rape, two counts of sodomy and two counts of sexual abuse by force. The sexual abuse spanned decades and state lines, according to court testimony.
Investigators with Mobile Police believed Adams used his position as a pastor to meet his victims and force them into sex. Investigators said Adams would frequently travel to churches in Citronelle, Ala. and Waynesboro, Miss. There, he would meet his victims, according to investigators.
Four people came forward claiming that Adams sexually assaulted them. Two of the victims said the abuse started when they were 12 years old.
The sexual abuse and assault would allegedly take place in his home as well as in the victim’s home.
Another one of his possible victims, who was also 12, said she was staying the night at Adams house before a missionary trip to Arkansas when the first sexual assault occurred.
A third possible victim alleges she was a parishioner at Adams church and met him during her adult years. She claims Adams is the father of her child and had unwanted sexual intercourse with him.
A fourth possible victim alleges she was friend’s with Adam’s children and was raped at his home.
The investigator testified that Adams used his power as a pastor to make his victims fear him.
According to testimony, Adams told one of his victims if she didn’t have sex with him, God would strike her down with lightning.
Adams allegedly told his victims he chooses who goes to heaven or hell.
Testimony alleged Adams used “holy oil” as lubricant to sexually assault some of his victims.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
This is the latest 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 Song of Sacrilege isSongs of Sacrilege: Hymn 43 by Jethro Tull.
Oh, father high in heaven Smile down upon your son Whose busy with his money games His women and his gun
Oh, Jesus, save me!
And the unsung Western hero He killed an Indian or three And then he made his name in Hollywood To set the white man free
Oh, Jesus, save me!
If Jesus saves, well, He’d better save Himself From the gory glory seekers who use His name in death
Oh, Jesus, save me!
If Jesus saves, well, He’d better save Himself From the gory glory seekers who use His name in death
Oh, Jesus, save me!
Well, I saw him in the city And on the mountains of the moon His cross was rather bloody He could hardly roll His stone
Oh, Jesus, save me!
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that free markets bring peace between countries. It comes from the notion that commerce drives humans to follow their mutual material interests rather than make destructive war due to passions.
This was the animating force behind the U.S. granting China its “most-favored-nation” trade status in 2000, which allows for free trade and economic cooperation. Republicans and Democrats alike assured the public that the deal would bring “constructive engagement” and expose communist China to America’s “ideals” of democracy. Where are we today? Beijing has moved closer to authoritarianism, economic competition is fiercer than ever, and American and Chinese diplomatic relations are near a crisis point, with both countries brandishing threats of war. Free trade has brought some peace, but it has not brought lasting friendship between the world’s two superpowers.
The same point could be made for Russia. Germans clearly thought that free trade for Russian oil would bind Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy to democratic Europe and lead it toward a more prosperous and open society. Instead, it weakened democratic Europe’s capacity to respond to Putin’s dictatorship and his bloody invasion of Ukraine.
Does this mean that the old idea of a “gentle commerce” of free markets, famously espoused in the French Enlightenment, is dead? Perhaps it never really existed. History shows that free markets can be a basis for friendship between powerful nations, but they are far less successful at securing peace and democracy than many have hoped. In fact, the noble talk of the free market was sometimes simply an excuse to engage in the kind of “great power” competition that too often leads to war and plunder.
….
When British free marketeers managed to liberalize their own markets with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, it heralded a laissez faire era in Britain but did not bring international peace. Richard Cobden, the famed free market leader of the Anti-Corn Law League, believed that free markets, pacifism, industrial know-how, Christianity and good work ethics would lead Britain to home-grown prosperity for the working man. Indeed, the very confidence and wealth that buoyed so many British to believe in the superiority of free markets was grounded in colonial ideals and wealth. The British colonial leader John Bowring used evangelical terms, claiming that imperial force and laissez faire economics could only bring good: “Jesus Christ is free trade,” he exclaimed, “and Free trade is Jesus Christ.” But the Pax Britannica of the Empire was based on gunboats, violent coercion and the pillaging of riches from colonialized nations. It is now estimated that Britain stole more than $40 trillion from India alone during the hundred-year rule of the Raj.
And while empire created a free trade zone for the British, it also sparked an almost constant series of colonial wars — from the more than 100 years of war with France in the eighteenth century, to another century of overseas wars with peoples and states in the Caribbean, China, India, Burma, New Zealand, Persia and Africa. Indeed, to gain free market agreements with Latin American countries, Turkey and China, the British relied on military threats. Free trade remained based on naval might. While some British free marketeers called for an end to the reliance on colonialism, confident that free trade agreements with other industrial powers brought peace and advantage to industrially superior Britain, Britain’s competitors began to see that if they wanted the free trade and imperial advantages enjoyed by Britain, they too would need to arm.
In 1905, the Cambridge critic of free market economics William Cunningham prophetically warned that the militarization of Japan, Russia and Germany was in direct response to Britain’s one-sided imperial free market and that it could lead to world wars. These countries could not compete with Britain, so from the 1870s to the 1890s, Russia, Italy, Germany, France and America were putting up tariffs against what they considered Britain’s domination of world commerce. Hungry for Britain’s empire and markets, Europe moved toward world war.
When World War I arrived, it could be seen as either a product of protectionism and trade war, or, as Cunningham said, a reaction to imperial free market Britain’s dominance. In any case, with rising nationalism and communism, hope for universal free trade faded. The most famous of the Austrian free market thinkers, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, formed their free market thought in response to rising socialism, but also in reaction to the Nazi regime which forced them to flee Austria to the United States. Both thought that the state was the ultimate danger to peace, but in the end, when World War II was over, the American state bankrolled the rebuilding of Britain, France, Germany and Japan, using the Marshall Plan to rebuild, but also to dictate democracy to, former foes, and, in doing so, to create the most successful economies of the modern age. Paradoxically, the United States provided well over $150 billion in today’s dollars to European countries, and more than $20 billion to Japan, as well as backing government intervention into these economies, to lay the groundwork for a future democratic free trade zone.
During the Cold War, America’s massive military kept the peace among its industrialized, democratic partners, while waging a cold and hot war against communism around the globe. U.S. government support, peace, prosperity and free trade were the dividends for America’s allies. But the global conflict with communism again meant that it took war and government support to establish democracy and, potentially, free markets through the GATT agreements that began in 1947 and expanded throughout the 20th century.
Even when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a real possibility for peace emerged with the normalization of relations between America, Russia, Europe, India and eventually China. During this period, free markets expanded — but even in peacetime, military budgets have exploded under presidents of both parties. And still, with much of the world embracing free trade, the United States again went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, spending trillions of dollars, and, one might argue, squandering its own free market peace dividend.
Now we arrive at a more perilous moment. Democracy is in retreat around the world. The global economy seems poised for a recession. And war has broken out in Europe, while tensions rise between the U.S. and China. Meanwhile, public skepticism about free trade is surging in this populist moment. Can free markets keep the peace? We must hope they can. However, history shows that free trade is often in the eye of the beholder, anyway. Ultimately, a military based pax or deeper common interest might be necessary to keep commerce and the world on gentle terms.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
This is the latest 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 Song of Sacrilege is I Hope I’m Stoned When Jesus Takes Me Home by Charlie Worsham.
I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home Flying high through those clouds Knowing I don’t have to ever come down I’m rolling up a J Just in case today’s the day I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home
I believe he put it down here for all of us to use A little piece of heaven to take away your blues I know I’m far from perfect and I’ll call a sin a sin But I feel closer to the Lord every time I breathe it in
Hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home Flying high up through them clouds Knowing I don’t have to ever come down I’m rolling up a J Just in case today’s the day I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home
I can’t wait to talk to Moses ’bout the Red Sea and the plagues Bend Jonah’s ear to hear about livin’ in a whale three whole days Get ol’ St. Pete to show me the pearly gates and the golden streets Well, you can bet I’ll be good and ready to sit down at the feast
I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home Flying high up through them clouds Knowing I don’t have to ever come down I’m rolling up a J Just in case today’s the day I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home
I bet Bob Marley’s mansion has a garden in the back And he’s growin’ somethin’ special, some celestial homemade hash We’ll sit down on his porch, we’ll listen to the angel band ‘Til then, I’ll sing “I’ll Fly Away” with a fat one in my hand
I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home Flying high through those clouds Knowing I don’t have to ever come down I’m rolling up a J Just in case today’s the day I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home
Yeah, let’s roll ourselves a J Just in case today’s the day I hope I’m stoned when Jesus takes me home
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Thrice-divorced young earth creationist and convicted felon Kent Hovind and I attended the same Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) college in the 1970s. Students at Midwestern Baptist College were taught that once people are saved (born again), they can never lose their salvation (fall from grace). No matter what people do after getting saved, they can never, ever lose their salvation. Salvation is God’s to give, and once he gives you the gift of eternal life, he will never take it away. Think, for a moment, of all the evil humans can possibly commit. If they were saved when they committed their heinous acts, they are still saved. Nothing, according to Hovind, can separate them from the love of Christ. Of course, this theology works well for Hovind, a man with a sordid, criminal past. No matter what Dr. Dino does, he’s still saved and will go to Heaven after he dies.
If you are unfamiliar with Kent Hovind, please check out the following video by McKinnon Mitchell. I make a minor appearance in the documentary.
Hovind reiterates the same soteriological beliefs he and I were taught almost fifty years ago. In fact, outside of changing his eschatological beliefs, Hovind believes the same things today that he was taught at Midwestern decades ago. His young earth creationist/theological presentations reveal a man who knows what he knows — what he was taught at Midwestern — but hasn’t learned a damn thing since. In other words, he is intellectually stilted.
As I listened to Hovind’s videos on the once-saved always-saved doctrine, it was a reminder of the fact that preachers like him are forced to admit that the preacher-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser is still a Christian. There’s no question about my salvation; that I was gloriously saved at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio at the age of fifteen; that I spent the subsequent thirty-five years devotedly following Jesus: building churches, preaching the gospel, winning souls, and teaching church members the Word of God. There’s no question, in my mind and that of countless Christian family members, former parishioners, and colleagues in the ministry, that I was a Christian. Yet, today I am an unrepentant, outspoken atheist; an enemy of God; an apostate; a reprobate. I am, according to Hovind, a saved atheist. Al praise be to Loki!
Hovind does talk about in his videos how God chastises disobedient Christians. Of course, the alleged domestic abuser Hovind uses violent language to describe God’s chastisement: he’s lurking around the corner with a hammer, ready to beat you for your disobedience. Even here it could be argued that my health problems are Jesus, the Prince of Peace, hitting me with a hammer trying to get my attention and bring me to repentance. And if the hammer beatings fail? According to Hovind, God will kill me. As regular readers know, I am seriously ill. I am on the sort side of life. I don’t expect to die today, tomorrow, or next week. But, a reading of the tea leaves of my life reveals that the battery in the Big Ben clock by my bedside is slowly losing power. Someday, it will tick, tick, tick, and stop. When I eventually die, Evangelical apologists, zealots, and critics will point to my death as God settling the score with me.
According to Hovind, after I die I will face the judgment of God: a Jack Chick tract, This Was Your Life, accounting of my life. On that day, Jesus will say to me, ” Not bad, Bruce, not bad. Say three hail Christopher Hitchens and then enter into the joy of the Lord. And with that, I will move into the mansion next door to the shack Jesus built for Hovind.
Let me say thanks to Kent Hovind for encouraging me in my faith. 🙂 See you soon in Heaven, Kent! 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
While my deconversion from Christianity was a gradual process, I mark the last Sunday in November 2008, as the day when I finally admitted to myself and my wife Polly that I no longer was a Christian. On that day, Polly and I, along with our three youngest children, ages 19, 17, and 15, walked out of the doors of the Ney United Methodist Church never to return. Several months later, I sent a public letter to several hundred family members, friends, and former church members. Titled, Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners, this painfully raw letter sets forth some of the reasons why I deconverted. While I still left the door open for some sort of God belief — say a deistic deity — it was clear, at least to me at the time, that I was an agnostic. After several months of having to repeatedly explain the term “agnostic,” and gaining a better understanding of atheism in general, I decided to jettison the agnostic label and self-identify as “atheist.”
I quickly learned that the label “atheist” carries with it all sorts of meanings and implications. Many Evangelicals, for example, think I am a “hardcore” atheist, whereas some atheists doubt whether I am an atheist at all. I have found that some atheists can be every bit as Fundamentalist as Evangelical Christians. If I am not their kind of atheist, I am no atheist at all. Years ago, I tangled with the promoters of Atheism+. While I am, politically, a liberal/progressive/socialist, because I refused to buy into or accept all the social justice baggage attached to Atheism+, my atheism was called into question. I lost numerous readers as a result of my refusal to bow to the Atheism+ god. I also faced reader defections from the other side of the atheist spectrum: libertarian (often Trump-supporting) atheists. These readers loved my atheism but hated my politics.
Atheism, by definition, is the lack of belief in the existence of deities. Some atheists are anti-theists; a philosophical position that says all theism should be opposed. Christopher Hitchens was an anti-theist:
I’m not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.
Other atheists are misotheists; people who actively hate one or more deities. While I can, at times — depending on the deity and religion in question — be an anti-theist or misotheist, I best describe myself as an agnostic atheist.
Agnostic atheism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and are agnostic because they claim that the existence of a demiurgic entity or entities is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact.
Practically speaking, I don’t believe in the existence of deities, but I cannot know for certain whether some sort of deity may one day make itself known to us. Likely? No. Probable? No. Possible? Yes. I can say with great certainty that the God of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity does not exist. He is a mythical being created by humans centuries ago to explain their world and existence. I can say the same thing about the rest of the deities presently (or in the past) worshipped by humans. I see no sufficient evidence for their existence; thus I live my day-to-day life as an atheist.
While I have many other beliefs, none of them is contingent on atheism. I am a humanist, but humanism does not require atheism. The same can be said for my leftist political views. I have religious friends who are also humanists and socialists. I eat dinner with them once a month. We have friendly, spirited discussions, debates, and arguments about all sorts things, including religion and politics, and then we eat good food and drink beer. Granted, none of these men is an Evangelical. All of us share the same disgust and contempt for what Evangelicals (generally speaking) are doing to our country. Do we “hate” Evangelicals? Of course not. We hate their beliefs and behaviors, seeing and knowing firsthand the harm caused by their theology and politics. While I am the resident atheist, my friends and I share many commonalities and that’s why we enjoy one another’s company.
Yes, I am an atheist — proudly so — but I am much more than just someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of God. If you want to know what I believe about some other issue, ask.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Jesus because that’s our First Amendment right. It’s the right to worship Jesus Christ freely. It’s why we have a country. Don’t talk to me about separation of church and state. Church and state was written because the state has no business in our church. But we are the church. We are the church, and we run the state, and Georgia’s sovereign, and we’re running the state with Jesus Christ first.
— Kandiss Taylor, a Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate
I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years, primarily as an Independent Baptist and later as a non-denominational Christian. While my theology evolved and changed over the years, one belief stayed with me from childhood to today: the separation of church and state; that there is a wall between religion and government, a wall that must never, ever be breached. As a young preacher, my pastors and professors taught me the importance of this wall. I carried this belief into the ministry. I strongly believed that church and state were two separate spheres, both ordained by God. As a pastor, I stayed out of the government’s business, and I expected the government to do the same with the churches I pastored. When the government tried to stick its nose in our business, I forcefully pushed back. I thought it important to not only defend the wall of separation between church and state, but also to make sure it was maintained and, if need be, repaired. And here’s the thing, every one of my ministerial colleagues believed the same. We believed that societal transformation came from winning souls. Most preachers maintained a strict separation between their personal politics and their theology. While I would preach on social issues, I always did so from a theological perspective. While most of the people I pastored were Republicans (if they voted at all), some of them were Democrats or Independents (especially in churches with union members). Did I ever cross the line and politick from the pulpit? Yes, but as a rule, I kept my partisan politics out of my preaching. (I was a staunch Republican for twenty-five years. In 2000, I left the Republican Party, voting Democrat for the first time.)
Here we are fifty years later . . . many Evangelical preachers no longer believe in a strict separation of church and state. Some even say that there is no such thing as the separation of church and state; that Christians have a duty to reclaim America for Jesus and establish the Bible as the law of the land — a Christian form of sharia law. What changed?
Over time, Evangelicals learned that just saving souls wasn’t going to effect the moral and political changes they wanted. So they turned to raw political power to achieve their goals, and in doing they sold their souls for bowls of pottage. Starting with the Moral Majority in the 1980s and moving to the plethora of theocratic parachurch organizations today, Evangelicals are using the power of the state to force people to conform to their religious beliefs. Since 2015, Evangelicals have abandoned all pretense, sacrificing ethics and morality on the altar of political expediency and power. (Just look at their unapologetic support of pathological liars Donald Trump and Herschel Walker.) Left to their own devices, Evangelicals will use any means necessary, including violence and bloodshed, to establish their corrupt version of the Kingdom of God on earth. One needs to only look at the January 6, 2021 Insurrection to see this played out in real time. Numerically, Evangelicalism is dying, but they now control the Republican Party and the Supreme Court, and for this reason, we must see them as an existential threat to our democracy. Make a list of your top ten bat-shit crazy Republicans. What do they all have in common? All of them are Christians. Most are Evangelicals, and the rest are conservative Catholics. At every level of government, Evangelicals now have control. The wall of separation of church and state, in their minds, is a misunderstood relic from the eighteenth century; a relic that has no relevance today.
So what do we do? Is it too late? Have Democrats/liberals/progressives ceded ground that they cannot regain? Can we vote our way out of this mess? Is Civil War waiting in the wings? Are we watching the decline and destruction of American democracy?
I see the problem. I see how we got here. I am not sure, however, we can reclaim what has been lost. Has cancer been spreading for decades in our society, and now it is so far advanced that it is untreatable? Is there anything we can do to turn back the fascists at the gate? Or will none of this matter because Joe Biden and his fellow warmongers, Republican and Democrat alike, have brought war to our shores?
Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Regular readers know I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). More on that in the future. The coat I am wearing? I own six of them: heather, green, rust, blue, green, and black. 🙂 Awesome coats that can pass for a suit coat, if need be. I bought them on Amazon for $59 each. I then had them pressed at $17 each. You can never have too many coats, right? Or shirts. Or shoes . . . Or hats . . . or . . . 🙂
I am obsessed with wearing fashionable, color-matched clothing, suspenders, belts, and shirts. This means I have thirteen fedoras, twelve pairs of Perry suspenders, and eight pairs of shoes (all 4e and 5e). I can be quite a slob at home, wearing tee shirts and sweatpants, but when I go to town, I dress accordingly. My grandchildren proudly say that I am the most fashionable grandfather around. 🙂
The last person who signs off on what I wear is Polly. She says nothing about my clothing purchases besides a few smirks or rolled eyes — and that’s a two-way street. But when I am getting dressed, I always ask her “does this match”? Rarely do I need to change anything, but sometimes my color matcher is off, or Polly wants me to step out of my comfort zone and try something new — say wearing brown and blue together. Oh, the struggles I face. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
I get a lot of emails and social media messages from both strangers and regular readers of this blog. I genuinely want to respond to every email and message I receive. I try to answer blog/social media comments when I can, but I cannot keep up with the volume of comments I receive. I do read every one of them, but I am no longer able to answer every one of them.
As regular readers know, I have serious health problems: gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and degenerative spine disease. Every day is a struggle for me. There is no such thing as a good day. Those days are gone (and wishing them for me is not helpful). I have embraced my present reality, my new normal. All I ask is that people understand where I am in life — and most people do.
I warn email senders on my contact page that it may take me a month or more to answer their emails. Currently, I am six weeks behind, working on emails from the end of August. Yet, I will have people send me multiple emails wondering when I am going to respond to them. They mean well, but their impatience is not helpful, and some days it is downright annoying, much like a toddler nagging you for a cookie.
Part of the problem is me. I over-promise and under-deliver. People want me to write on this or that subject, write about this or that criminal preacher, review their book, read their blog, listen to their podcast, etc. I tend to say I will try to do so, or even promise that I will. When I don’t follow through, people get upset with me. So, I apologize for giving you and others false hopes. Going forward, I will not do so. Starting today, I am clearing my “promise” list. I will do what I can, but I can no longer commit to covering certain subjects/people or doing things beyond my work for this site. I may in time get to things previously promised, but you shouldn’t expect me to do so. By all means, keep making suggestions, but I may not be able to meet your expectation.
My health continues to decline, ever so slowly. I am having increasing neurological problems with my hands (especially my dominant left hand). I fear I may someday have to stop typing. Not today, but typing has become difficult, at times painful. It’s just one more fucking thing for me to deal with. 🙂
I do want people to continue emailing me. I do want people to continue commenting on this blog and on my social media posts. I am just asking for your understanding if I don’t promptly respond to you. Please don’t take it personally. On my part, I will do better, not promising things I cannot deliver.
Thank you for your understanding.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Recently, a reader asked me two questions about the IFB church movement. My answers are below.
Would you say that the vast majority of the IFB church members, pastors, and the evangelists are nice and friendly people?
Generally, human beings are nice and friendly. My MAGA neighbors are decent people. When I see them in public, we politely speak to one another. We might even chit-chat for a bit at a basketball or football game or at the grocery store or a local restaurant. I am, by nature, winsome and polite, even towards people with whom I have political, theological, and philosophical disagreements. Humans are social beings, so it generally serves our best interests to get along with one another.
The problem, of course, comes in the public space where competing worldviews are vying for preeminence. The key, for me at least, is to challenge bad beliefs and practices while still having a modicum of respect for those I disagree with. This is not easy; sometimes, it is impossible.
The IFB church movement is a dangerous cult, one that caused untold heartache and harm. While there are certainly degrees of harm within the movement, the fact remains that IFB beliefs and practices cause psychological harm, and, at times, physical harm. Thus, it will be a good day when the IFB church movement draws its last breath and dies (the same can be said for all Fundamentalist religions).
As I mentioned in a previous post, there is something about IFB beliefs that breeds hatred, arrogance, and nastiness. I have received countless emails, social media messages, and blog comments from IFB adherents over the past fifteen years. Rare is the person who can play well with others. Rare is the person who treats me decently or shows me a modicum of respect. What should I make of this fact? There are too many such people for them to be outliers, so there must be something about IFB beliefs and practices that turn out people like this.
Throughout your time in the IFB church movement, is there anything positive you can say about the IFB movement?
Generally speaking, I enjoyed my time as an IFB pastor. I appreciated my commonality and closeness with fellow IFB church members and colleagues in the ministry. The vast majority of the people I pastored were good people, But, again, I also pastored a number of people who were narrow-minded bigots and haters of anyone and everything different. I was one such person, for a time. I pastored more than a few people who were narcissists and sociopaths; humans who were, in every way, bad people. The question I still have is, what part IFB beliefs and practices played in making these people into who they became? Are there IFB theological and social beliefs that drive aberrant behavior? Absolutely. Unfortunately, changing these behaviors requires abandoning fiercely held beliefs. And knowing the IFB church movement as I do, that ain’t going to happen.
Remember, the IFB church movement is a cult. I’ve interacted with many IFB adherents over the years; people who deeply love God, but viewed their churches in an increasingly negative light. I encourage such people to seek out gentler, kinder expressions of faith; places where their humanity will be affirmed and they will be genuinely loved. Sadly, the IFB church movement is hard to get away from, both physically and psychologically. The former requires will, and the latter often requires professional counseling. I applaud anyone who successfully breaks free.
As I answered these questions, I wondered if there were unstated statements/questions lurking behind them. Unfortunately, this person used a fake email address to contact me. Jesus, am I really that “scary”?
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
