Ohio’s Republican Governor says Vote No on Issue 1. Every once in a while Mike DeWine does the right thing.
If a Republican wins the 2024 presidential election, he will pardon Donald Trump.
Brown shoes should never be worn with blue dress pants.
My wife, Polly, makes the best potato salad.
Most meat comes from factory farms. If Americans toured such farms, they would become vegetarians overnight.
Yogi Bear was a capitalist, taking that which belonged to someone else for his own.
Current inflation is primarily caused by excessive price increases and not rising labor costs.
If you’ve seen one Indiana Jones movie, you have seen them all.
Capital punishment is state-sanctioned murder.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a bigot, racist, and fascist.
Bonus: There should be a federal tax on bullets, much like the tax on cigarettes.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich an hour ago — Jiff creamy peanut butter, strawberry jam, on Aunt Millie’s buttermilk bread. Undoubtedly, the voyeur Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, will soon write a scathing blog post about Welch’s grape jelly being the only God-approved jelly. Tee is a lazy writer who often co-opts the work of others instead of writing original posts. Both Ben Berwick and I are his favorite targets. We really wish he would move on to other targets, but he won’t. In my case, he is bound and determined to let the world know that I am wrong, even if his “world” has ten inhabitants.
Tee writes about me several times every week. He refuses to use my name or link to this site. Both of these behaviors violate Internet/blogging norms, but he doesn’t care. Typically, I ignore his posts, but on occasion, I will respond to his nonsense (or his bigotry, homophobia, or support for child predators).
These are going to grow as unbelievers become bolder. Since we use the BG website we are using an example from that content here:
“This is the latest installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit 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 email me the name of the bit or a link to it.”
The latest installment is using some comedy routine by George Carlin. We are well aware of his views on religion and Christianity, etc., and have listened to many of them. A militant atheist we know had one of his comments in his signature on an archaeology discussion forum we participated in years ago.
The problem with Mr. Carlin’s point of view is that he looks at the world after sin and corruption entered. Then he blames God for the problems everyone faces or has faced since the beginning of time.
Like most unbelievers and former Christians, he blames God for the mess even though God had nothing to do with the mess. Also like unbelievers and former Christians, he doe snot take the time to find the real criminal who is responsible for the mess the world is in.
They also do not honestly look at what God DID do. They ignore that like they ignore evil and accuse God of things he did not do while the real criminal gets off scot-free and is able to continue to deceive people and either ruin their faith or keep people from accepting Christ as their savior.
Number one, that is not fair and number two, that point of view is not honest. As you can see by that quote, the owner of that website is looking for more material to attack or encourage the attacking of believers.
That is not right either. If BG does not want to be a Christian, that is his choice. He should remain silent and not encourage others to follow his path or attack Christians. Christians are only trying to help unbelievers escape sin and hell.
That is not anything that someone should rise up and attack Christians and extension God, Jesus, and the Bible. Stopping spiritual aid to those in spiritual need is equal to some dictators who stopped food shipments destined to help their starving people.
There are numerous problems with Tee’s post, including bad theology and a heretical understanding of the sovereignty of God, but I want to focus on the last three paragraphs:
Number one, that is not fair and number two, that point of view is not honest. As you can see by that quote, the owner of that website is looking for more material to attack or encourage the attacking of believers.
That is not right either. If BG does not want to be a Christian, that is his choice. He should remain silent and not encourage others to follow his path or attack Christians. Christians are only trying to help unbelievers escape sin and hell.
That is not anything that someone should rise up and attack Christians and extension God, Jesus, and the Bible. Stopping spiritual aid to those in spiritual need is equal to some dictators who stopped food shipments destined to help their starving people.
According to Tee, I am unfair and dishonest. In fact, I have been more than fair to an interlocutor who has done nothing but attack me, call me names, and lie about me. I offered to let him write a guest post. He declined. I offered to debate him. He declined. He is not banned from commenting on this site, but he refuses to do so. Instead, he removed comments from his blog so no one could respond to his writing. Tee is only interested in preaching, not dialog.
When it comes to honesty, Tee defines dishonesty as any belief that is different from his. He has established himself as the final authority on the Bible, Christianity, archeology, biology, and sex positions. Okay, maybe not the last one. 🙂 Long-time readers have heard me say many times: certainty breeds arrogance. Tee, a Christian Missionary & Alliance trained Fundamentalist, is the epitome of this arrogance. I have been interacting with him for over two years. I have yet to see him change his mind one time. When you are right, you are right, right?
Is my goal to attack Christians? Of course not. Scores of Christians regularly read my writing. Unfortunately, Tee thinks his peculiar brand of Evangelicalism = True Christianity. The focus of my work is Evangelical Christianity. Sadly, Evangelicalism is rife with beliefs, practices, personal behaviors, and people that are worthy of ridicule and mockery. The idea that religion must not be made fun of is absurd. I refuse to grant religion that kind of authority in my life. I respect individual believers — or try to, anyway — but their beliefs and practices? I respect that which is worthy of my respect. If Evangelicals don’t like being ridiculed, I suggest they change their ways (and let me be clear, some atheists are worthy of ridicule too).
I want to rewrite one of Tee’s paragraphs. Tee said:That is not right either. If BG does not want to be a Christian, that is his choice. He should remain silent and not encourage others to follow his path or attack Christians. Christians are only trying to help unbelievers escape sin and hell.
That’s not right either. If Derrick Thiessen doesn’t want to be an atheist (or Catholic, Buddhist, or Hindu), that is his choice. He should remain silent and not encourage others to follow his path or attack atheists. Atheists are only trying to help Christians escape irrationality and ignorance; to encourage them to embrace the only life they will ever have.
Checkmate.
Let’s try the same thing with the next paragraph. Tee wrote: “That is not anything that someone should rise up and attack Christians and extension God, Jesus, and the Bible. Stopping spiritual aid to those in spiritual need is equal to some dictators who stopped food shipments destined to help their starving people.”
That is not anything that someone should rise up and attack atheism/humanism and by extension skepticism, reason, and rationality. Stopping aid to those in intellectual need is equal to some Evangelical preachers who refuse to let their parishioners read books and websites that might challenge their beliefs and worldview; information that is meant to help people starving from a lack of knowledge.
Checkmate.
What we have here is a clash of worldviews. I am more than willing to interact with Tee and any other Evangelical on our competing worldviews, but Tee isn’t interested in such things. And neither are most Evangelical preachers. They know what they know, but, unfortunately, they are unable to fathom being wrong. Tee’s favorite quote comes from the movie Matilda:
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Trinitarianism — the belief that God is three in one: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, co-equal — dominates Christianity across the world, even though the belief is not explicitly taught in the Bible. I John 5:7 is the only verse that explicitly mentions the Trinity:
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
Most modern Bible scholars think 1 John 5:7 was not part of the original text.
Using the writings of the early Church Fathers, the Greek and Latin manuscripts, and the testimony of the earliest extant manuscripts of the Bible, Newton claims to have demonstrated that the words “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one”, that support the Trinity doctrine, did not appear in the original Greek Scriptures. He then attempts to demonstrate that the purportedly spurious reading crept into the Latin versions, first as a marginal note, and later into the text itself. He noted that “the Æthiopic, Syriac, Greek, Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic versions, still in use in the several Eastern nations, Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Eastern European Armenia, Georgia, Muscovy, and some others, are strangers to this reading”. He argued that it was first taken into a Greek text in 1515 by Cardinal Ximenes. Finally, Newton considered the sense and context of the verse, concluding that removing the interpolation makes “the sense plain and natural, and the argument full and strong; but if you insert the testimony of ‘the Three in Heaven’ you interrupt and spoil it.” Today most versions of the Bible are from the Critical Text and omit this verse, or retain it as only a marginal reading.
The Trinity is an inferred doctrine; one in which believers connect various Bible verses and come to a new doctrine. The Trinity is found nowhere in the Old Testament. Of course, you can make Bible verses say anything, but the Trinity is not supported by the Biblical text. Pastors and professors know this, so they either lie, manipulate the text to achieve a Trinitarian outcome, or say that God being three in one is a mystery beyond our comprehension.
Several verses suggest that God is not three in one. Let me briefly talk about two of them
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:3:
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three in one, what are we to make of “the head of Christ is God?” This verse seems to say that Jesus, the Son, is subordinate to God, the Father.
1 Corinthians 15:28 says:
And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
Again, what are we to make of “the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all?” This verse also suggests that Jesus is subordinate to his Father, which is contrary to Trinitarian doctrine.
Of course, Evangelicals will have all sorts of objections to what I have written here, but just remember their Trinitarian presuppositions force them to defend the indefensible. At best, the Bible teaches and doesn’t teach Trinitarianism. 🙂 That’s the nature of the Bible. It can be used to prove almost anything. Not all Christians believe God is triune. Within Evangelicalism, there are followers of Jesus who believe in modalism:
Modalism, also called Sabellianism, is the unorthodox [say Trinitarians] belief that God is one person who has revealed himself in three forms or modes in contrast to the Trinitarian doctrine where God is one being eternally existing in three persons. According to Modalism, during the incarnation, Jesus was simply God acting in one mode or role, and the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was God acting in a different mode. Thus, God does not exist as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the same time. Rather, He is one person and has merely manifested himself in these three modes at various times. Modalism thus denies the basic distinctiveness and coexistence of the three persons of the Trinity.
A discussion for another day is whether Jesus is eternal. Was he always the son of God, or did he become the son of God? Both positions find support in the Bible.
I have come to the conclusion that the Bible presents a number of Gods, especially in the Old Testament. Some Evangelicals might appeal to Genesis 1-3 as “proof” of a Trinitarian God, but I contend that the text can also be used to prove the existence of multiple deities.
Here’s my point, if the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, you would think its author would have been clear about who and what God is. That the text presents to readers multiple deities suggests that the Bible is a fallible text of human origin.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Evangelicals often tout their love for those who are different from them. I love everyone, Evangelicals say. I love unconditionally, just as Jesus does. I hate the sin, but love the sinner! On and on the cheap, worn-out cliches go, with nary a thought given to their truthfulness.
Evangelicals are universally panned as people of hate, people who loathe anyone who fucks in any way or manner other than that which has been approved by God. Much like their God, Evangelicals are obsessed with who does what with whom, where, why, and how, sexually. Violations of “Biblical” morality are met with cease-and-desist orders, and when that fails, people not practicing Evangelical-approved sex are threatened with God’s judgment and eternal punishment in the fire and brimstone of the Lake of Fire. Yet, Evangelicals will still, with a clueless straight face, profess to love everyone. Funny kind of love, I say, a love foreign to those of us who know what it is to love and be loved without strings attached.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, is unfit to be president.
Most Americans have no idea where their food comes from.
Wendell Berry was right when he said, “Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.”
Marijuana should be legalized and regulated just like alcohol.
It’s time for National ID cards, putting an end to the voter registration war.
The Bible is the most owned, least read book in the world.
The five best TV series of all time: The Wire, The Sopranos, Justified, True Blood, and Game of Thrones.
The western US’s water crisis is caused by overpopulation and over-development.
It’s time for a multi-party political system with ranked voting.
Bonus: Michigan is the pothole capital of the United States.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. government forced doctors to move from paper to electronic records. The result? Many doctors spend more time staring at a computer screen than they do interacting with their patients. The goal becomes inputting data, and not attempting to understand why the patient is there and what treatment plan is best for him.
This move to data-input medicine has led to doctors increasingly relying on numbers to measure patient health. I want to talk about some of these numbers, sharing my experiences and concerns.
Pain Chart
“On a scale of one to ten,” the nurse or doctor asks, “how bad is your pain?” Instead of talking to the patient about his pain, he is expected to diagnose his pain on a subjective scale. First, pain is subjective. My pain is very different from your pain. As a redhead, I have increased sensitivity to pain. All pain is relative. Remove a bandaid from my grandson’s leg and he will scream bloody murder, saying, “doctor, it’s a ten!” To my grandson, his pain is very real, but he has no real-world experience with actual pain. Grandpa has sixty-six years of experience with pain — horrible, debilitating pain. I have had tests that were painful; procedures that have left me in tears. Polly gave birth to six children. She understands pain. Three years ago, she had major abdominal surgery and spent twenty-one days in the hospital. Again, lots of pain.
I have had family and blog readers minimize my pain. They believe if I can walk or stand, I must not be in pain. Never mind the fact that walking and standing require psychological and physical contortions from me. One look at my face will tell you everything you need to know. But, people don’t make eye contact much these days. We no longer read body language. If they see me getting out of the car or walking in the store, they assume I must be fine. I’m not fine. And I am never, ever going to be “fine” again. Life for me is pain and endurance; of wondering whether I want to keep living,
Second, people with chronic pain quickly learn that if you tell a doctor nine or ten for your pain level, he will automatically think you are a drug addict looking to score some narcotics. Tell the doctor one, two, or three, he will wonder why you are there. So, I typically say five or six. Bullshit numbers; meaningless numbers, but there ya go doc, you have a number you can input in your digital records program.
Third, I can’t tell you the last time I had a doctor sit down with me and comprehensively talk to me about my pain. Where? How severe? What makes it worse? Do medications help? What physical activities are you able to do, not do? How does your pain affect your sleep; your sex life? Of course, doctors don’t have time to interact with patients this way, especially primary care physicians. They have patients scheduled every 15-20 minutes. No time for personal connection and investigation.
Weight and Body Mass Index (BMI)
I’m obese. The BMI number for me on the doctor’s digital screen is a blinking red number with an exclamation point. This tells the doctor that his patient is fat, as if his eyes couldn’t tell him that already. According to the BMI chart, my “healthy” weight is 140-170 pounds. I weighed 160 pounds at age eighteen; 180 pounds at age twenty-one; 225 pounds at age twenty-five. Was I obese at 225 pounds? Is that even a relevant question? At age twenty-five, I was physically fit. I played basketball and softball. I hunted, hiked, and fished. I cut wood in the fall. I was a physically strong man, yet according to the BMI chart, I was obese.
The BMI number says nothing about the fitness of a person. Most NFL players are obese. Are they unfit? Of course not. I have a big frame. I lost 100 pounds over the past three years, yet I look the “same.” Why? I don’t have a beer belly or ass. I’m built like a fireplug. Certainly, I knew I had lost weight. I dropped two shirt sizes and eight inches in my waist. Yet, to the casual observer or inattentive doctor, I look just like I always have — fat.
Squeeze My Hand
When doctors want to check my strength, they ask me to squeeze their hand. Without fail, they will tell me “Good. You are strong.” My complaints about weakness and debility are dismissed, all because I passed a subjective hand squeeze test.
How does this test tell doctors about the level of my strength? First, isn’t the doctor judging my strength based on his subjective measurement of strength? Second, shouldn’t the measurement of strength be based on how strong or weak I was in the past? Using that criterion, I have lost over half of my physical strength. Sure, I can still squeeze your hand, doc, but there was a day when I could have broken your fingers.
Temperature
“Normal” body temperature is 98.6 degrees, patients are told. That’s what mine was for the first thirty-four years of my life. And then, I contracted mononucleosis and almost died. Mono can be deadly for adults. Afterward, my “normal” body temperature dropped to 97.0 degrees. And thus began a never-ending fight with nurses and doctors about my body temperature. “Doc, I have a fever.” “Your temp is only 99.0. It’s normal.” But . . . he’s already stopped listening. I can’t have a fever, in his mind, because 98.6 is the standard. He doesn’t believe me when I explain mono changed my body temperature. Dare to object and his notes will say, “difficult patient.” And since every other doctor in the practice can see his note, soon the other doctors you see will deem you a “difficult patient.”
Blood Pressure and Glucose Levels
While these numbers can be helpful in diagnosing and treating a patient, they are only a snapshot of a moment in time. Typically, my blood pressure and glucose levels are normal, even exceptional. I get a star by my name for 120/80 and 90 blood sugar level. But, do these numbers tell the whole story about my health? Of course not. I have landed in the ER twice with sky-high blood pressure for no known reason. I have had several instances where I woke up in the night, only to find my blood sugar level was 48 and 50 respectively. Not good. Again, no explanation for the low numbers.
I stopped checking my BP and glucose levels every day. I found the varying numbers too stressful. Occasionally, I will check my numbers, but I typically leave it to my body to tell me what’s up or down, especially my blood sugar levels.
Advice to Doctors
Stop typing. Look your patient in the eye and let him know you care. Ask lots of questions. Pay attention to what his body language is telling you. Use your gifted hands to touch and probe, interacting with the patient all the while. See him as a fellow human being. Never forget, you will be in his shoes one day.
Of course, doing these things takes time, and therein is your problem. Corporate medicine demands efficiency, treating patients like they are line entries on a spreadsheet. The bottom line is more important than the welfare of your patients. Surely, this is not why you got into medicine.
Several years ago, I wrote about a doctor named Bill Fiorini. He’s the kind of doctor I’m talking about. You can read this post here.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Electric vehicles, LED lighting, and recycling will do very little, if anything, to meaningfully combat global climate change.
Bonus: Americans will not do anything unless you make them.
Leave your hot thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
According to many Evangelicals, someday real, real, real soon the son of the Christian God, Jesus Christ, is going to return to the clouds of earth and rapture away all those who believe in him. Those raptured away have written-in-blood invitations to the marriage supper of the lamb. Revelation 19:6-9:
And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
The Church is the bride who has made herself ready for the groom Jesus. Charles Spurgeon, the great nineteenth-century English Baptist preacher, said the following in a sermon about the marriage supper of the lamb:
You noticed that I read parts of two chapters before I came to my text and I did it for this purpose. The false harlot-church is to be judged and then the true Church of Christ is to be acknowledged and honored with what is called a marriage supper. The false must be put away before the true can shine out in all its luster! Oh, that Christ would soon appear to drive falsehood from off the face of the earth! At present it seems to gather strength, and to spread till it darkens the sky and turns the sun into darkness, and the moon into blood. Oh, that the Lord would arise and sweep away the deadly errors which now pollute the very air! We long for the time when the powers of darkness shall be baffled and the pure everlasting light shall triumph over all! We do not know when it shall be —“But, come what may to stand in the way, That day the world shall see,” when the truth of God shall vanquish error and when the true Church shall be revealed in all her purity and beauty as the Bride of Christ—and the apostate church shall be put away once and for all and forever! Time rolls wearily along just now, apparently, and some hearts grow heavy and sad, but let us take courage. The morning comes as well as the night and there are good days, not so far off as we have sometimes fancied—and some of us may yet live to see times which shall make us cry, “Lord, now let Your servants depart in peace, for our eyes have seen Your salvation.” Whether we live till Christ comes again, or whether we fall asleep in Him, many of us know that we shall sit down at the great wedding feast in the end of the days, and we shall partake of the supper of the Lamb in the day of His joy and glory! We are looking across the blackness and darkness of the centuries into that promised millennial age wherein we shall rejoice with our Lord with joy unspeakable and full of glory!
A fair-minded reading of the New Testament suggests that first-century Christians believed Jesus would return to earth in their lifetime. Luke 9 states:
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
….
And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
The New Testament is replete with verses which intimate that the disciples and apostles believed they were living in the “last days.” They believed the end of the world was at hand. Perhaps this is why Paul told Christians it was better if they remain unmarried. The second coming of Jesus was at hand, so there was no need to become encumbered with wives and children. These early followers of Jesus were certain that their name would soon be called by Jesus, the bridegroom, and they would be seated for the marriage supper of the lamb.
It’s 2023, almost two thousand years removed from the days of Jesus and his Jewish followers. Despite their faith and messianic hope, Jesus did not return to earth. These first followers of Christ lived and died without seeing their Lord split the Eastern sky. And so has every generation of believers after them. Once it became evident that Jesus was not returning in the first century, Christians began reinterpreting what the Bible says about the last days to mean an unknown (by humans) period of time. According to many Evangelical preachers, the world has been living in the last days for two thousand years. According to them, Jesus is coming soon and it could be today!
I am sixty-six years old. I have lived through more than a few end-of-the-world/Jesus-is-coming scares. In the 1970s, Jack Van Impe, the walking Bible, predicted Jesus was coming before the decade’s end. In the 1980s, Hal Lindsey predicted Jesus’ return was nigh, and who can forget the end-time scare wrought by Edgar Whisenant’s88 Reasons the Rapture Will be in 1988. Even though I preached against Whisenant’s nonsense, I vividly remember the buzz his booklets caused. On the Sunday before Jesus’ supposed return, infrequent attendees returned to church only to hear Pastor Bruce tell them that Jesus was NOT returning any time soon. (At the time, I held a post-tribulational, amillennial eschatological viewpoint.) And sure enough, my sermon was spot on. Jesus did not return. Someone still needed to volunteer for nursery duty or to clean the church, and I still had sermons to preach and souls to save.
Since 1988, numerous Evangelical zealots have predicted the end of the world and the return of Jesus, with every prediction failing and becoming yet another example of Christian stupidity. I am sure some Evangelical readers are screaming at their computers or smartphones, JUST YOU WAIT, BRUCE. JESUS IS GOING TO PROVE YOU WRONG! How can he? I ask, Jesus is d-e-a-d. The reason the Christian Lord and Savior has not returned is that dead people don’t come back to life. Jesus remains right where his followers buried him two thousand years ago — in the grave. Dead people don’t resurrect from the dead, and neither do they ascend to the heavens so they can spend two millennia building condominiums (John 14).
Imagine me telling you that I wanted to take you out to eat real soon — I mean like tomorrow or early next week. I can’t tell you the exact date for our dinner engagement, but I will give you signs that will help you discern when to expect going out to eat with me. You are excited about the prospect of going to dinner with Bruce Almighty. Next week comes and goes without a call. You happen to run into a mutual friend who tells you, I heard Bruce mention that he was planning to take you out for dinner real soon. I am sure you would think that I would soon be calling to tell you when my limousine would arrive to pick you up. Yet your phone never rings. Our mutual friend keeps telling you, SOON, VERY SOON, BRUCE WILL CALL. Weeks turn into months, and months into years without me ever delivering on my promise. I suspect that you would eventually give up on me ever taking you to dinner.
So it is with the promised return of Jesus Christ. After two thousand years of promises, I think we can safely conclude that the marriage supper of the lamb is not going to happen; that Jesus and his followers are big talkers, promising that which they cannot deliver.
It is possible that we live in the “last days”, but these days are not those supposedly prophesied in the Bible. Reading the political tea leaves has led me to conclude that we live in dangerous times. Wars rage and threats of nuclear annihilation loom large. Such insanity would certainly be the end of the human race, but the world? It will live on, perhaps devoid of life, save for a few cockroaches and Republicans. And what might make such carnage possible is the fact that millions of Americans believe that some sort of Armageddon will bring about the destruction of the planet and then Jesus will return to make all things new. 2 Peter 3:10-13 states:
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
I have no fears about the second coming of Jesus, but I sure as hell fear Evangelicals, armed with materialistic interpretations of the Bible, who believe the end of the world is prophesied within Scripture’s pages. I most certainly fear people who think ridding the world of liberalism, false teachings, communism, evolution, and atheism is their divine calling — that Jesus has chosen them to be front-line soldiers at the Battle of Armageddon or some other event divined from the Bible. These pious Bible thumpers can’t wait to be seated at the marriage supper of the lamb, but before that happens God must cleanse the earth of all that offends and make all things new. I am not worried one bit about not being invited to dinner, but I sure am concerned about what happens to this planet of ours if Evangelicals get their way.
I realize that Evangelicals hold to a variety of equally insane eschatological beliefs. I am taking a general swipe at Evangelical eschatology, and not attacking any specific system of belief. Regardless of what position one holds, unbelievers are still excoriated from earth and all things are made new so Jesus and his followers can have the resplendent home promised in the book of Revelation.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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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 Supertheory of Supereverything by Gogol Bordello.
First time I had read the Bible It had stroke me as unwitty I think it may started rumor That the Lord ain’t got no humor
Put me inside SSC Let’s test superstring theory Oh, yo, yo, yoi, accelerate the protons I stir it twice and then just add me, ’cause
I don’t read the Bible (Bible) I don’t trust disciple (disciple) Even if they’re made of marble Or Canal Street bling
I don’t read the Bible (Bible) I don’t trust disciple (disciple) Even if they’re made of marble Or Canal Street bling
From the maelstrom of the knowledge Into labyrinth of doubt Froze underground ocean Melting, nuking on my mind
Give me Everything Theory Without Nazi uniformity My brothers are protons (protons) My sisters are neurons (neurons) I stir it twice, it’s instant family
I don’t read the Bible (Bible) I don’t trust disciple (disciple) Even if they’re made of marble Or Canal Street bling
My brothers are protons (protons) My sisters are neurons (neurons) I stir it twice, dlja prekrastnih dam
Do you have sex maniacs Or schizophrenics Or astrophysicists in your family? Was my grandma anti, anti? Was my grandpa bounty, bounty? Ah-ah, ah, ah, ah They ask in embassy, boom!
I don’t read the Bible (Bible) I don’t trust disciple (disciple) Even if they’re made of marble Or Canal Street bling
And my grandma, she was anti And my grandpa, he was bounty! I stir it twice and Canal Street Bling, go!
Party, party, party, party Party, party, party, party Party, party, party, party Party, party, afterparty
Oh, yo, yo, yoi, accelerate the protons I stir it twice and then just add me
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Gary Keen, Bruce Gerencser, Mike Fox, Greg Wilson, Midwestern Baptist College, 1978
I have been accused of not having anything good to say about my alma mater, Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. It is certainly true that I have been a harsh critic of Midwestern’s doctrinal beliefs and practices; and of their cult-like control of student behavior. I make no apology for saying that Midwestern’s founder, professors, and administrators caused psychological harm with their Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) extremism. That said, I had a lot of fun times at Midwestern, as a nineteen- to twenty-one-year-old dormitory student.
Midwestern had four dormitory wings: the pit (basement), the spiritual wing, the party wing, and the women’s wing (the whole second story). I spent two years living in a shared room on the party wing. Every room had two to four students, including one room monitor. I lived in two rooms as a freshman and sophomore student. My first room assignment was not a good fit; Toby (strict and spiritual), Greg, and an older man named Dale. I wanted the “party” in party wing, so I asked to be moved to a different room. My new roommates were Wendell, Fred (a Black man), and Jack. Sadly, only Wendell had the party spirit I was looking for. Boy, did we have fun! Well as far as IFB fun goes, anyway.
I really enjoyed Sunday night devotions that were held in the dorm common room. After attending church three times, working in the bus ministry, teaching Sunday school, or some other ministry, and going out on a double date after evening church, most students were filled with energy by the time they gathered for devotions.
The program was simple: prayer, singing, and a sermonette. The sermonette was often given by the dorm supervisor, Ralph Bitner. He and his wife, Sophie, lived on the same floor, adjacent to the common room, and across the hall from the snack room. Ralph was a dreadful speaker, as were many of the students asked to give a devotion. I sat there hoping the pain would soon subside, knowing that my favorite part of devotions, singing, was next.
Students lustily sang modern choruses and hymns — all a cappella. I loved to sing, using my tenor voice to praise and glorify God. One of my favorite songs was the HASH chorus — a mash-up of different songs.
After devotions, dating students would say their non-physical contact good night to their boyfriend or girlfriend. For me, devotions were the perfect end to a busy, stressful week.
I was quite temperamental. Quick to rise, quick to recede, people knew to steer clear of me when I was angry. One day, as I came into my dorm room, Greg was lying in wait for me with an oversized plastic bat. He planned on pummeling me with the bat. Fun times, to be sure, but when Greg swung the bat he hit me in the kidneys, knocking me to the floor, breathless and in pain. I quickly became enraged, planning to do harm to Greg when I got up off the floor. Greg sensed my anger, dropped the bat, and ran for the hills. He didn’t return until the next night. By then, I was cooled down, and all was right with the world. Greg loved to horse around, as did I, but he wisely retired from his career as a baseball player.
One evening, Wendell and I were horsing around in our room. Wendell was quite the jokester. You had to be on your toes when Wendell was around lest you fell prey to his wily devices. On this night, we were going back and forth when I decided to pick up a work boot and chuck it at Wendell. Unfortunately, I missed my target, and the boot hit the wall, going through the drywall. We briefly laughed, but knew we had to immediately fix the wall lest we end up in line for DC (disciplinary committee) on Monday. Fortunately, Wendell knew how to repair and paint drywall. We repaired the wall, and the dorm supervisor was none the wiser. Crisis averted.
One early morning, several of my friends and I came home from working at a factory that made bolts. We decided to play a joke on our sleeping roommates. We bumped up the alarm time on their clocks, changing 6 am wake times to 3 am. And then we waited. As the alarms went off, our roommates arose, stumbled to the bathroom, dressed, gathered their books, and headed off to classes, none the wiser that they were three hours early. One by one, as they walked up the drive between the dorm and the school, they realized that they had been punked and made their way back to the dorm. We, of course, met them with hilarity and laughter.
Jack was one of my roommates. He was a Pharisee, writing people up for minor infractions of Midwestern’s code of conduct. Once written up, you had to appear before the discipline committee to answer for your heinous crimes. One day, Jack wrote Polly and me up for breaking the “no borrowing rule.” Polly had loaned me her unisex parka. This crime against humanity landed us in hot water. I believe we got ten demerits.
Afterward, I decided to get even with Jack. No turning the other cheek. I knew he had been going to a local restaurant to visit with a waitress he was sweet on. This was a violation of Midwestern’s rules. One night, I had a friend of mine, Peggie, call Jack on the pay phone in the party wing hallway, pretending to be the waitress. I made sure Peggie called after curfew. Sure enough, Jack fell for the ruse, telling the “waitress” he would come to see her right away. Hormones raging, Jack didn’t have a car, so he had to borrow someone else’s automobile, breaking the no-borrowing rule. Off Jack went in a borrowed car after curfew to see the waitress. Of course, she was not working that night. Perplexed, Jack returned to the dorm, only to find the dorm supervisor waiting for him. Mission accomplished, another Baptist Pharisee humbled and chastised. Jack never wrote me up again after this experience.
I have many other fun times I could share: playing Rook and UNO in the snack room; bowling in the dorm hallway, playing basketball with Dr. Malone, hanging bras on Ralph and Sophie’s door, and spending several days stranded in the dorm without electricity during the Blizzard of ’78. While I cannot absolve Midwestern for the harm it caused, I must not forget all the good times I had while living at 825 Golf Drive in Pontiac, Michigan. While I eventually matured into a man better suited for the spiritual wing, I never lost my love for playing practical jokes and having fun times.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
