The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser

Welcome

Just Remember, God Made You Sick So You Would Have a Testimony of Faith, Someday

Recently, I heard an Evangelical woman say on a podcast that God makes people sick so they will one day have a testimony of faith. Surely, you don’t want to miss out, in the midst of your suffering and affliction, on an opportunity to testify of your great faith in the triune God, right? What a disgusting way to look at suffering.

Worse, God is known for killing innocent people to get a believer’s attention. Who hasn’t heard an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher warn that, if necessary, God will maim or kill our loved ones to make sure Christians stay on the straight and narrow way? Imagine God giving your wife uterine cancer to get your attention. She dies a year later, and you are left with three children to raise. Does unnecessary suffering drive you closer to or farther away from God? Did you praise Jesus for your wife’s cancer? You better or God won’t be happy.

The longer I deal with in my own life chronic pain, suffering, and debility, the more often I come into contact with fellow sufferers. These are women and men who have been suffering for years, often praying and pleading for deliverance — without success. Why is God so silent towards pain and suffering? We are told he’s the Great Physician, but he never opens his black bag. Here we have an all-powerful God who could immediately cure ALL cancer, yet eight million people die worldwide of cancer every year — 625,000 deaths in the United States alone. I suspect that many of these cancer sufferers earnestly prayed for healing, or, at the very least, enough relief to sleep and enjoy life in their last days on Earth. Most cancer sufferers die painful deaths, often alone and without adequate pain relief. They find themselves tossing and turning while their pain-wracked bodies try to find a respite from never-ending suffering. It would be surprising if people didn’t cry out to God, the universe, a dead loved one, or the void. If I polled readers who have chronic pain, I suspect most of them, atheist and Christian alike, would admit that in the midst of Top Five pain day, they pleaded, “Please, help me.”

I have said this very thing in recent years as my health declines and I no longer find adequate pain control from narcotics and other medications. I’m confident there is no God. I know the Christian God doesn’t exist, so my plea is not to God as much as it is a psychological practice I use to keep from stabbing an ice pick through my left temple — I’m a liberal. 🙂 Other times, I will indeed get an answer. Not from God, but from a very real person named Polly. Long term sickies know how much their suffering affects their partner, children, and grandchildren. You don’t want it to be this way, but your body determines your path, not your personal wants and desires. Suffer long enough and you learn, despite TV advertisements that suggest otherwise, that your disease(s) dominate your life. And if it dominates your life, it can’t help but play an outsized influence on the lives of your family.

Have you ever been in pain and “prayed” please help me? If you are an atheist, how do you reconcile that with your unbelief? Is this just a carryover from your religious past, or is this a tool you use to control your suffering? Please share your experiences in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

February 4, 2026
My Prayer for Healing

Gallows humor ahead . . .

In a prolonged fit of pain and agony, I cried into the void, “Please help me.”

Jesus replied, after 3,666,669 prayers, “I’m here my son . . .”

Loki chimes in, “Silly boy. No one is available to take your call. At the sound of the tone die.”

Loki turns to his younger brother Jesus and says, “Another one healed in your glorious wonderful name, Jesus. Just remember death cures everything. Why heal Bruce when we just can wait for him to die?”

What an awesome God, right?

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

February 4, 2026
Bruce Picks Up a Stick, Takes Revival Fires to the Woodshed, and Gives Him a Theological Ass-Whipping

I finally found a picture of Revival Fires attending church 🙂

Revival Fire is a vile, disgusting Evangelical man who loves leaving nasty comments on this blog. Often, he is the first person to comment on a new post. Sometimes, I think he waits in front of his computer with his dick in hand, lustily waiting for my next post. I delete most of his filthy comments, but sometimes I use them to edify my congregation or show them the irrational thinking of Evangelical Christians.

I do want to respond to several of Revival Fires’ comments. As you will see, he may be a Christian, but his theology leaves a lot to be desired:

Tell me about your experience in the wilderness in the 40 year journey to Cannan? I’d love to hear about it. Unless you’re an Israelite Jew from 4,000 years ago that passage does not apply to you or anyone today.

There’s no evidence outside of the Bible for the alleged forty year journey of the Jews from Egypt to Canaan — the land of promise. And it is Canaan, and not Cannan.

According to Revival Fires, the Old Testament in general, and the first five books of the Bible in particular, no longer apply to Christians. Jesus would be surprised to hear this since he said:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.And he began to speak and taught them, saying:

….

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:1,17-20)

Jesus sure thought the law of God was valid and in force — until Heaven and Earth pass away. Evidently, Revival Fires disagrees with Jesus.

Surely if you preached for 25 or 30 years you would have some kind of understanding of what I’m talking about. All of the Bible is God’s Word. But it’s written to different people at different times. Where the church is today-Acts 2. And ends at Revelation 4. After that the body of Christ is NO LONGER ON EARTH! (Rapture).

This paragraph tells us a lot about what Revival Fires believes, though it might not be readily evident to people without a theology education. Revival Fires is hyper-dispensationalist. Only certain books of the Bible apply today; namely from Acts 2 to Revelation, especially the writings of Paul. This helps us understand Revival Fires’ cheap grace view of salvation. In other words, Revival Fires is a Pauline Christian, and not a Christ follower.

In other words, Revival Fires believes most of the Bible no longer applies to him today.

I never believed such nonsense. I believed all of the Bible was still applicable today; that the law of God — rightly interpreted — was binding and in force. I rejected the eschatology of my IFB years, embracing amillennialism and posttribulationalism. No rapture in my belief system. I suspect Revival Fires has an IFB background, so his beliefs do not surprise me.

So how was the journey in the wilderness 4 millennial [sic] ago?

How is this relevant to the discussion at hand. Revival Fires wasn’t there either, so stop with the goal post moving. All we have is the Bible, and that’s what upsets Revival Fires. I know the Bible better than he does, and that irritates the Christianity right out of him.

Remember, Evangelicals can’t win when you hold them to what the Bible actually says. And truth be told, many Evangelicals rarely read the Bible and know very little about what it teaches outside of what they hear in church on Sundays.

Furthermore no it wasn’t just about gathering sticks. It was about disobeying God.

If the man had not picked up the sticks, would he have been executed? Of course not. So contrary to Revival Fires, the STICKS were THE issue. Does Revival Fires really want to stand on the horrible hermeneutic he is advancing: that all disobedience to God deserves death? If that’s the case, Revival Fires would have been killed by God years ago, as would most, if not all, Christians. The Bible says that Christians sin in thought, word, and deed; sins of commission and omission. Maybe this is why so many Evangelicals are perpetually fearful. They fear God killing them over the slightest misdeed — you know like picking up sticks on the Sabbath. In fact, I argue that this is actually the norm for God, a petty, malicious deity who demands absolute fealty and devotion to him. I suspect I speak for a lot of Evangelicals when I say I understand fearing God out of fear of punishment for petty “sins.” You know, that feeling that God is waiting around the corner to beat you over your next “sin.”

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

January 29, 2026
Sounds of Fundamentalism: IFB Pastor Mike Keller Explains Why Blacks in the South Had it Good

The Sounds of Fundamentalism 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 Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher Mike Keller letting his racism hang out at Fairpark Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Keller is the father of Anna Duggar.

@deconstruction.zone
Pastor Mike Keller says the dumbest thing imaginable. #slavery #whitesaviorcomplex
♬ original sound – deconstruction.zone

Video Link

Yahoo reports:

Mike guest preached at Fairpark Baptist Church on June 25, 2023. His sermon was recorded and shared in a since-deleted YouTube video that went viral because of Mike’s shocking comments comparing slavery to the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol, according to Daily Beast.

….

“A hundred-fifty years ago, or 200 years ago when the Blacks were slaves, did they ever go to Washington, D.C., and have a rally 200 years ago to protest against slavery? No. What did they do?” he asked.

Mike proceeded to offer a baseless account of the way enslaved Black people were treated, claiming that “good people on the plantations” — possibly slave owners — built churches where they could “love” enslaved Black people and “[teach] them how to read so they can read the Bible.”

“Here’s what the Blacks did about 150 years ago,” Mike added. “They humbled themselves, they prayed. They sought God’s face and they turned from their wicked ways and God made slavery illegal through several white presidents. It worked, didn’t it? They didn’t protest.”

Though Fairpark Baptist Church has removed the video from their YouTube page, clips of the sermon circulated around TikTok and Twitter as viewers shared their disgust over the indirect racism in Mike’s comments.

“Indirect racism”? Give me a break. This preacher is a racist. He is not saying anything I haven’t heard in IFB churches and conferences over the years.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

January 28, 2026
Was it Just to Stone a Man for Picking Up Sticks on the Sabbath?

Imagine you lived in an arid climate where you had to daily gather sticks to cook and provide heat. Every day you dutifully collected sticks for your fire needs. There was a law that prohibited picking up sticks on Saturdays, but you ignored it. One Saturday, you were arrested for picking up sticks on Saturdays. On your court date, the judge, based on consultation with God, decided to sentence you to death. And with that you were dragged outside the city and stoned.

Is this a just sentence? Most of us would say no; that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. An infinite punishment for a finite crime.

A similar story appears in Numbers 15:

When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation. They put him in custody because it was not clear what should be done to him.Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.”The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Again, is this a just sentence?

Most atheists, agnostics, humanists, and liberal Christians would say NO! However, many Evangelicals will call the first story unjust, but the second story — because God commanded Moses to execute the man — is just. When God does something, it is always right. His actions are always just. One nearby Evangelical church has emblazoned on the outside of their building, “God is Good All the Time.” This cheap, poorly thought-out cliche informs the thinking of most Evangelicals. Of course, God is good all the time. He is the sum of, the essence of goodness. Is this not what they have heard from the pulpit their entire lives? Even when tragedy strikes, Evangelicals refuse to move away from their indoctrination and conditioning. A tornado levels their town? “God is good all the time. Look Preacher Bob’s Bible survived the tornado unscathed. Ain’t God good?”

When we turn to the Bible, we find not only a good God, but an evil one. It is impossible to read the Bible and not conclude that God can be, at times, an evil son of a bitch. Admitting this, of course, is fatal to the Evangelical claim that God is good all the time. Enter apologetics, a tool used by Evangelicals to explain away clear readings of Scripture. The goal of apologetics is not to teach and instruct as much as it is to defend and protect. And when their defenses come up short, as they always do, what do they say? “God is good all the time.” And now the circle jerk is complete. When arguments for the goodness of God fail, Evangelicals typically offer up faith claims to justify their refusal to actually believe what the Bible says. “God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.” No shit, Sherlock. Most of us wouldn’t execute a man for picking up sticks on the wrong day.” We would have given him a slap in the wrist, a fine, and maybe some community service. Not God. He demands the man be killed. Talk about overkill.

No, God is not just, neither in this story nor countless others in the Bible. Evangelicals are forced to call evil good because of their adherence to divine command theory — moral values and duties are solely grounded in the commands of God. In other words, the goodness of an action is determined by whether it was commanded by God. This leads to all sorts of crazy thinking. I listen to a number of atheist call-in shows: Allegedly Ian, Dr. Blitz, The Deconstruction Zone, and various programs produced by The Line and the Atheist Community of Austin. It is not uncommon to have Evangelicals (and Muslims and Catholics) call in to defend God’s character, especially his goodness. It is quite easy to prove from the Bible that God is NOT good all the time. Yet, when confronted with overwhelming evidence for a not-good God, Evangelicals recoil, retreat, and scream, No! No! No! GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME! This forces Evangelicals to justify slaughter, murder, rape, and genocide. If God did or commanded an act, then it is, by default, good. These apologists call the killing of the unborn murder, yet when God kills fetuses, it is good.

Is it ever just to execute someone for picking up sticks? No. But, for Evangelicals, they must hang their heads in shame and say, Yes. God is good all the time. and because he is, whatever God does is just. It is impossible to combat such thinking until they are willing to admit that God is not as good as they were taught he was. The evidence is overwhelming, that is if Evangelicals are willing to accept a clear, unambiguous reading of the Bible — even if if means making God look bad.

Did you believe God was good all the time; that his actions were always just? How did you explain Bible stories that reveal that God is neither of these things? Please share your erudite thoughts in the comment section.

Note: This post should help you understand why some of your Evangelical family, friends, and neighbors justify the violent, murderous actions of ICE and other federal agencies in Minnesota. The Bible commands us to obey the laws of the land, and when you don’t this is what happens, the thinking goes, Of course, such people rarely use their shriveled brains to ask, what laws were broken? Isn’t protest and civil disobedience part of our civic DNA — a duty? If Evangelicals cannot honestly look at the evidence and conclude that the federal government murdered two non-violent, non-threatening protestors, they have lost their moral compass. This is disgusting thinking, to say the least.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

January 27, 2026
Is the Christian God Everywhere?

According to Christian orthodoxy, God is omnipresent. This means “God is everywhere.” Psalm 139:7-12 states:

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and night wraps itself around me,”even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

The heading for Psalm 139 says “The Inescapable God.” This Psalm of David lets readers know that God is everywhere. From the heights of Heaven to the depths of the sea, God is there. It is impossible to escape his presence. This God see, hears, and knows everything. Almost eight billion people on our planet, yet according to Christianity, God hears, sees, and knows everything we do. God is never not present.

God is a personal deity; one intimately involved in his creation, even though he leaves no signs of this involvement. God has countless moments every day where he could meaningfully help us and make the world a better place to live. Instead we see heartache, sickness, pain, disease, violence, starvation, and war everywhere.

This alleged good God knows everything about us, yet he acts as if we don’t exist. He’s an absentee father who is long on promises and short on delivery. Christians tell us there is coming a day when God will make all things right. Fine and dandy. Why can’t God start making things right now? Look around. There’s plenty for God to do.

I’ve concluded that God is a Peeping Tom; a voyeur who gets off on watching us go through the machinations while doing nothing to help us. God knows our thoughts, needs, and desires. What does the Almighty do with this information? Nothing, outside of filing a report that will be used to judge us on judgment day.

The next time you are doing your daily business in the bathroom, just remember God is there. Next time you have sex, he is there. He is with you for every meal, and joins you when you take a shower. As I write this post, supposedly God is right here with me. When I go to bed later tonight, God will join me. He loves to snuggle, though I’m starting to think God is gay. “Keep your hands above the covers, God.”

As a child, I heard countless sermons about the God who is everywhere. The omnipresence of God was used to scare people into obedience. “Just remember, the next time you look at a porn magazine, God will see you.” This sort of thinking was used any time preachers wanted obedience to a certain standard or Bible verse.

Were you taught that God is everywhere? Was this used to demand and force obedience? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

January 20, 2026
Trump Dump: Trump Has no Idea About the Founding of the United States

Dear Ambassador,

“President Trump has asked that the following message, shared with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, be forwarded to your [named head of government/state]”

Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.

I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT

— President Donald Trump as reported by Anne Applebaum

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

January 20, 2026
My Evolving Understanding of Our Place in the Universe

I spent the first fifty years of my life in the Evangelical church. I was taught and later preached as a pastor young earth creationism. Parents, preachers, Sunday school teachers, and Bible college professors taught me the universe was 6,000 years old, created out of nothing by the triune God of the Bible in six literal 24 hour days. Most importantly, I was taught that the earth and its human inhabitants are the pinnacle of God’s creative work. In other words, we are s-p-e-c-i-a-l. Not the other animals on earth, just us. Further, I was taught that we humans had dominion and control of the earth.God is the owner of the earth and we are its caretakers.

Sadly tens of millions of Americans believe the creation myths — yes, plural — recorded in Genesis 1-3. The blame for this rests solely on the shoulders on Evangelicals. and now, through subversive programs such as Lifewise Academy, public school students are being taught young earth creationism, including trips to the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter — Ken Ham’s monuments of ignorance.

After I deconverted in 2008, it became clear to me that I didn’t know much of anything about science. My entire understanding of science was based on what I learned in high school biology and a college biology class without a lab or a qualified teacher. As a pastor, I believed that only science book I needed was the King James Bible. This led to me saying all sorts of absurd things about science — embarrassingly so. Fortunately, my congregant were as ignorant as I was about science, so we all shouted AMEN together when I mentioned the creative acts of God.

I have spent the last twenty years educating myself not only about science, but also about logic and philosophy. Over time, reason, skepticism, and common sense delivered me from some of my ignorance, but I will admit that I still have a lot to learn.

Science has taught me that the Evangelical worldview is false. The earth and its human dwellers are not the center of universe, nor are they unique. Special, we are not. We are itty-bitty people with itty-bitty brains on an itty-bitty planet in a vast, mostly unexplored universe. In other words, we are a planet of nobodies; people who will live and die, never to be remembered again. A harsh reality, to be sure — and why so many stay irrationally attached to religious faith — but knowing and understanding this can and does help us focus on the here and now. No Heaven. No Hell. No Purgatory. No afterlife. No second chances. This is it. What will we do with this life of ours? I, for one, want to live every day to its fullest. I suspect you do too. When I look at Voyager One’s pale blue dot, I am reminded of how lucky I am to be alive in this corner of the Milky Way.

Dr. Carl Sagan said at the time,

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives… Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. (Google)

I continue to be amazed as I observe the skies and biological world. What a wonderful, yet dangerous, world we live in. Beautiful, to be sure, but the universe will kill us if we aren’t careful. And even it we are careful, the universe will someday likely kill off the human race. Death and extinction await, not Heaven and the sweet-by-and-by. Again, a somber thought, but also a reminder that we only have one life and it will soon be past.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

January 18, 2026
Blog News

This site was down for over eighteen hours today. Thankfully, a friend and long time reader texted me to let me know it was down. I also received several emails alerting me to the problem. Thank you for taking the time to message and email me. Everything should be back to normal now that I paid the damn domain registration bill! I’ve been so sick over the last two months that I ignored emails that I shouldn’t have. My desk is piled with shit I haven’t felt up to dealing with. Lesson learned, but I’m too sick to care. To eliminate this problem going forward, I turned on the auto renewal function.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

January 18, 2026
How to Prove a Woman’s Virginity, According to God

Evangelicals are what I call hymen worshippers; people who are inordinately obsessed with female genitalia. An intact hymen is viewed as a sure sign of virginity. Evangelicals come by the belief honestly. The Bible has a lot to say about intact hymens and the importance of virginity (for women). In fact, intact hymens are so important to God, the voyeur of the universe, that he demands the death of any woman who has sex before marriage or fails to produce proof of her virginity.

How could a woman possibly prove she was a virgin? God devised a virginity test. Deuteronomy 22:13-21 says:

Suppose a man marries a woman but after going in to her dislikes her and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity.’ The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. The father of the young woman shall say to the elders: ‘I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her, and now he has made up charges against her, saying, “I did not find evidence of your daughter’s virginity.” But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ Then they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. The elders of that town shall take the man and punish him; they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young woman’s father) because he has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.“If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Newlyweds were to put a white sheet underneath them as they had sex for the first time. If the bride is a virgin, the thinking went, when her husband sexually penetrates her for the first time, breaking the hymen, she will bleed on the sheet. The bloody sheet is proof that she was not blemished before her wedding day. No blood? God commands, “Then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to death.”

Surely if God exists, he knows that four out of ten women don’t bleed when they have penetrative vaginal sex for the first time. Further, “broken’ hymens can and do heal. It seems to me that the virginity test reflects the medical knowledge and understanding of the time, but if GOD wrote the Bible as Evangelicals allege, surely he should have known that this was an inaccurate way of proving virginity; one that leads to the death of innocent women.

It’s 2026. Here’s what we know:

The biggest myth about the hymen is that it breaks when a woman first has intercourse, and that this results in bleeding that makes it clear whether she was a virgin. In the past, some cultures have made an issue or even a ritual of examining or displaying bloody sheets from a wedding bed to show that the young woman was a virgin. Of course the husband wasn’t expected to be a virgin or to prove his sexual purity.

In reality, many women do not experience tearing or bleeding of the hymen the first time they have sex. That’s because the hymen is stretchy, like the scrunchie.

One harmful result of this myth is that it makes some women worry about pain and bleeding the first time they have sex, which can make it harder to get turned on. When a woman is aroused, the muscles near the opening of the vagina can be relaxed, and the vagina creates natural lubrication so that sex is more comfortable—even if it’s the first time. Worrying about pain can lead to tightening of the muscles and less lubrication, which can lead to pain or bleeding. (The Bedsider, Five Myths About Virginity, Busted.)

Wikipedia adds:

The hymen can rip or tear during first penetrative intercourse, which usually results in pain and, sometimes, mild temporary bleeding or spotting. Minor injuries to the hymen may heal on their own, and not require surgical intervention. Historically, it was assumed that first penetration was necessarily traumatic, but now sources differ on how common tearing or bleeding are as a result of first intercourse. Therefore, the state of the hymen is not a reliable indicator of virginity, though “virginity testing” remains a common practice in some cultures, sometimes accompanied by hymen reconstruction surgery to give the appearance of virginity. International health organizations condemn virginity testing as harmful.

There is no way to infallibly know whether a woman is a virgin. By age 20, most young adults (75%) have sex before marriage. By age 30, that percentage rises to 90%. Christians have been preaching about premarital sex and the importance of virginity for 2,000 years, yet the overwhelming majority of congregants have had sex before marriage — including preachers. If modern churches practiced Deuteronomy 22, most of their young adults would have been executed by the age of 30.

It is clear that having penetrative sexual intercourse is a normal part of the human experience. Driven by evolution, the prime objective is sex is procreation. Now that we know a lot more about where babies come from and have access to a variety of forms of birth control, including abortion, virgins and non-virgins alike are free to have sex without fear of pregnancy.

My wife and I were virgins on our wedding night, yet Polly did not bleed when we had sex the first time. OMG! We failed the bloody sheet test. Under God’s law, I could have had Polly stoned to death, even though she was a virgin. All of us today — except the likes of Dr. David Tee, Revival Fires, and other Bible thumpers — would rightly consider such a penalty not only scientifically ignorant, but unjust.

Were you a virgin on your wedding day? For the women reading this post, did you bleed the first time you had sex? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section. For Evangelicals inclined to vehemently object, I ask you to defend the virginity test in Deuteronomy 22. Further, I would like you to explain why we should even listen to God. Who cares what God’s word says? What moral authority does the Bible have? Bonus question for Evangelicals” Were you a virgin on your wedding night? Don’t lie.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

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January 18, 2026