The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser

My IFB Lineage

Bruce Gerencser August 8, 2022 Evangelicalism 2 Comments

Dear Lord,

I know that I am a sinner.

I know that you died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead three days later.

I am sorry for my sin.

Please forgive me of my sin and come into my heart to save me.

In Jesus’s name,

Amen

And so it began.

In 1962, the Gerencser family started attending Scott Memorial Baptist Church in El Cajon, California. My parents soon made public professions of faith, becoming born again. It was not long after that I also was saved. One Sunday, a junior church leader asked if there was anyone who wanted to ask Jesus into their heart. With my black and white saddle shoes tucked under my seat so no one could see I was wearing “girls” shoes, I timidly raised my hand. A worker came to where I was seated and shared the plan of salvation with me. After the worker was finished, she asked me if I wanted to get saved. I said “yes.” I prayed a prayer similar to the one above, and sixty seconds later, I went from a child of Satan to a child of God. I was five. Forty-five years later, I walked out of the doors of the Ney United Methodist Church for the last time, never to return to a Christian church for anything other than weddings and funerals. After several months of pondering what it was I had become, I publicly admitted I was an atheist.

It is not uncommon for Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) children to make several salvation decisions. At the age of fifteen, during a revival meeting at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio, the “Holy Spirit,” also known as Evangelist Al Lacy, brought conviction of sin and need of salvation into my heart, leading me to step out of my pew during the invitation and come forward to get saved. Ray Salisbury, a deacon, knelt with me at the altar, sharing with me the Romans Road. He asked me if I would like to ask Jesus to save me, and I said yes. And just like I did a decade before, I prayed a simple prayer, asking Jesus to forgive me, save me, and come into my life. From that moment forward, I knew I was a born-again Christian. Two weeks later, I went forward again and professed to the church that I believed God was calling me to preach. Four years later, I enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan to study for the ministry. While at Midwestern, I married an IFB pastor’s daughter. In 1979, we left Midwestern, moving to Bryan, Ohio, the place of my birth. Two weeks later, I started working for Montpelier Baptist Church, an IFB church affiliated with the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC).

I am a product of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. That said, there came a time when I left the IFB church movement. One of the biggest problems I have as a writer is with people pigeonholing me. They will read a few posts and then make sweeping judgments about my life. Recently, I had a mainline Christian dismiss something I said because of my IFB past. In his mind, once a Fundamentalist, always a Fundamentalist. I reminded him that my comment was Bruce speaking NOW, not Bruce from forty years ago. My thinking and understanding have greatly changed over the years, but some people refuse to see this, instead dismissing me with a wave of their hands, saying, “Once a Fundy, Always a Fundy.” Instead of granting me the space to grow and mature, they pick out a particular moment on my timeline and say, “whatever Bruce believed in _______ (put in a year), he still believes today.” This is patently untrue and reveals that my interlocutor has not invested the requisite time necessary to understand my story and evolving beliefs. There’s not much I can do about this. We live in a day of quick takes and sound bites. This, of course, leads to erroneous conclusions about my life. In this post, I want to talk about my IFB lineage and at what point in my life I stopped being an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist. My IFB beginning is easy to pin down: Scott Memorial Baptist Church and its pastor Tim LaHaye. However, pinning down when I was no longer IFB provides a greater challenge. At what point did I completely abandon IFB beliefs and practices? Or did I ever completely repudiate the IFB? Answering these questions requires more work than just pointing to a pin on my timeline.

As a child, I regularly attended IFB churches with my parents and siblings. Two of the churches we attended were Bible churches — IFB churches without the label. We also attended a Southern Baptist church plant, Eastland Baptist Church, in Bryan. There’s no material difference between an IFB church and an SBC church. In fact, many of the early leaders of the IFB church movement were Southern Baptist and American Baptist pastors who left their respective conventions because of perceived liberalism.

In the summer of 1970, we moved to Findlay, Ohio. I was thirteen. We started attending Calvary Baptist Church (a GARBC congregation), but after a couple of months, we moved toTrinity Baptist Church on Trenton Ave. Trinity was affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship (BBF), one of the many IFB fellowship groups. It was at Trinity that I immersed myself in all things IFB, especially after I got saved in the fall of 1972. My parents divorced in April 1972, leaving the church, never to return. I, on the other hand, embraced Trinity as my family. To their credit, they gave me the love and support my parents were unable or unwilling to provide.

In the spring of my tenth-grade year, my dad moved us to Tucson, Arizona. As I had been taught to do by my pastors, I quickly sought out a new church to attend, the Tucson Baptist Temple, pastored by Louis Johnson. Tucson Baptist was affiliated with the BBF.

Over the next three years, I moved back and forth between my dad’s home and my mom’s. Every time I moved, I found a new IFB church to attend. I was attending First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio in the fall of 1976 when I moved to Pontiac to attend Midwestern.

Midwestern was a small, but well-respected IFB college. Dr. Tom Malone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church (one of the largest churches in the country at the time) started Midwestern in 1954. The college advertised itself as a “character-building factory.” Midwestern was IFB through and through, so it should come as no surprise that when I left Midwestern in the spring of 1979, I was a hardcore, King James-only, Fundamentalist Baptist preacher.

As I mentioned above, the first church I worked for was Montpelier Baptist Church. After seven months, we moved to Newark, Ohio, the home of Polly’s parents. For a while, we attended the Newark Baptist Temple, pastored by Polly’s uncle, James Dennis. (The Family Patriarch is Dead: My Life With James Dennis. In the early 1980s, Polly’s father, who was an assistant pastor at the Baptist Temple, decided to start a new IFB church in nearby Buckeye Lake. Never feeling at home at the Baptist Temple, Polly and I decided to help Dad with his new church. For the next two years, I was the assistant pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church (also called the “Bean Pot Church” because we met a former restaurant building called the Bean Pot).

In July 1983, I started a new IFB church in Somerset, Ohio. I pastored this church for eleven years. I was still quite IFB when I started Somerset Baptist Church, but by the time I resigned and moved to San Antonio, Texas to co-pastor Community Baptist Church I had stopped identifying as IFB. What happened?

Two things happened that forced me to reconsider my sincerely held IFB beliefs. First, there was the Jack Hyles scandal. (Please see The Legacy of IFB Pastor Jack Hyles.) Hyles was an IFB demigod who pastored the largest church in the United States, First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. In 1989, Hyles was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with his secretary:

Accusations of improper sexual behavior and financial and emotional abuse are elements of Hyles’ legacy. In 1989, the paper The Biblical Evangelist published a story “The Saddest Story We Ever Published,” accusing Hyles of sexual scandals, financial misappropriation and doctrinal errors. These charges were denied by Hyles who deemed them “lies.” He was accused of a decade long affair with his secretary, Jennie Nischik, who happened to be the wife of a church deacon, Victor Nischik.

It was during this time that rumors were circulating about the predatory behavior of David Hyles, Jack Hyles’ son. David Hyles was a youth pastor at First Baptist. During his tenure, he sexually preyed on teen girls. Jack Hyles covered up his son’s crimes and shipped him off to a church in Texas. While there, he had numerous affairs with church women. David Hyles’ immoral behavior has continued over the years, yet there are still IFB preachers who support him.

The Hyles scandals caused an uproar in the IFB community. Some people were Pro-Hyles, others were not. I was not. The blind loyalty and support for both Jack and David Hyles troubled me, causing me to question whether I still wanted to be associated with the IFB church movement.

The second thing that happened was the release of John MacArthur’s seminal book, The Gospel According to Jesus. This book fundamentally changed how I viewed the gospel. I concluded that I had been preaching a truncated, bastardized gospel, one that was little more than one-two-three-repeat-after-me easy believism (also called decisional regeneration). Coming to this conclusion forced me to radically change my beliefs and practices. I embraced Calvinism and started preaching expositionally. Some of my colleagues in the ministry deemed me a liberal and broke fellowship with me. I made new friends with men associated with Sovereign Grace and Reformed Baptists. Was this the moment I left the IFB?

Many of my new friends were former IFB and Southern Baptist pastors. Much like me, these men saw the bankruptcy of the IFB church movement and wanted nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, my new friends and I left the IFB, but its worldview was still very much with us. I knew a number of Sovereign Grace and Reformed Baptist pastors who were every bit as Fundamentalist as the IFB pastors/churches they despised.

It would not be until the early 2000s that I was finally free from the IFB church movement. While I was still Evangelical theologically, I was no longer KJV-only, I no longer stressed social Fundamentalism, and I was quite ecumenical in my approach to other Christians. I pastored Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio from 1995-2002. Started as Grace Baptist Church, I changed the church’s name to better reflect its moderation and ecumenism. My theological and political beliefs continued to move leftward. I voted Democrat in 2000, a sure sign of my increasing liberalism. I also started to question what it meant to be a Christian. I concluded that it was our works that determined whether we were Christians, not mental assent to a list of propositional facts.

In 2005, I pastored my last church, Victory Baptist Church in Clare, Michigan. Victory was affiliated with the SBC. One Sunday a theologically astute young man who was a member of Somerset Baptist Church in the early 1990s visited Victory to hear me preach. He told me that my preaching had changed; that I was preaching a “social gospel.” I am sure this alarmed him. The focus of my preaching had indeed changed. While I still affirmed the central claims of Christianity, my focus had changed. I came to see that the religion of Jesus was all about good works, not right beliefs; that our eternal destiny was determined by how we lived, not what we believed.

While I was still an Evangelical preacher, I had abandoned the beliefs and practices of the IFB church movement. In the eyes of some of my colleagues in the ministry, I was a liberal or an apostate. I will leave it to others to judge my life. All I know is that I loved Jesus to the end. My theology may have changed, but my love for my Savior never changed — until it did.

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.

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Evangelical Young Adult Pastor J.D. Rodgers Says Bruce Gerencser is Still a Christian!

Bruce Gerencser August 5, 2022 Evangelicalism 10 Comments

J.D. Rodgers is the young adult pastor (young adults associate director) at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. Recently, Rodgers delivered a sermon that categorically stated that once a person is saved (born from above) he can never, never lose his salvation. No matter what a person says, does, or believes, once he is married to Jesus, it’s forever.

Rodgers said:

If you can revoke your salvation, you are saying that the Holy Spirit can be unsealed, that the Holy Spirit won’t keep His promise to give you your inheritance. What is your inheritance? Glory. Eternal life. John 3:16 says that we will as Christians’ receive eternal life.’ If there’s something that you can do to take back the gift of eternal life, was it ever truly eternal?
He [ Jesus] lived on the earth 33 years. He then died a sinner’s death on a cross. He hung there. And on that cross, He took every sin that you committed against God that deserved death. He took it and He died in your place on the cross. And if you put your faith in that, what happens? You are justified. You are now a Christian because you’ve been justified by faith.
You were once opposed to God. Now, therefore, ‘because we have been justified by faith, we now have peace with God.’ Because of the death, burial and resurrection, Jesus went to the grave [for] three days. Three days later, He rose from the grave, conquering sin, conquering your shame, your guilt. So now, you don’t have to be afraid of death. You don’t have to be afraid of a penalty. You can stand free before God because of Jesus. You are justified.

Rodgers went on to say:

[Christians who say you] “can lose your salvation” [are saying they can] “change the definition of the gift of eternal life that you receive the moment you were saved. To say you can lose your salvation [is] to say that God is not trustworthy, that God will take back what He’s promised and God will take back the gift that He’s given to you. All three of those things are inconsistent with what the Bible says is the character of God. God is trustworthy. God has given the gift of His Son of eternal life freely. He’s not taking it back. No matter what you’ve done

So there ya have it, once saved, always saved. I was saved at the age of fifteen at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. Two weeks later, God called me to preach. Four years later I enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College to study for the ministry. I married a pastor’s daughter, and for twenty-five years I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. By all accounts, I was a devoted follower of Jesus. I loved the Lord, my God, with all my heart, soul, and might. Colleagues in the ministry and parishioners recognized that I was a man who loved Jesus; a man who devoted his life to preaching the gospel, winning souls, and ministering to the church. That’s the facts. Anyone who suggests otherwise has an agenda or wants to discredit me.

In November 2008, I walked out the doors of the Ney United Methodist Church for the last time. A few months later, I sent out a letter to family, friends, and former church members declaring that I was not a Christian. It was not long before I self-identified as an atheist.

According to Rodgers, I am still a Christian — a Christian atheist. 🙂

Recognizing that he has a theological conundrum on his hands, Rodgers, ends his sermon by completely contradicting what he said earlier. Realizing that there are people like me who “once proclaimed they were ‘in the faith’ left the faith to practice a different lifestyle or became an atheist,” Rodgers states:

“The problem with these two oppositions is they come with the assumption that these people were actually Christians to begin with.”
“1 John also actually says that, ‘if you walked with us, and you looked like us, and then you walked away, you were never one of us.’ 1 John 2:23-24, it says, ‘No one who denies the Son has the Father.’… So if there’s any point in your life where you say, ‘No, I don’t believe Jesus has done this for me,’ you do not have the Father. You never had the Father. That’s what the Bible would teach.”

So which is it? Am I still a Christian or was I never a Christian? Rodgers miserably fails to account for people like me. Either he must claim that I was never a Christian; that I was a false prophet; that I successfully deceived scores of Christians over the years, or I am still a bought-by-the-blood child of God.

Arminians, of course, will argue that I once was saved, and now I am lost; that I was a Christian who fell from grace. The problem with this position is all the Bible verses that suggest that once a person is saved, he can never lose his salvation. Who is right? Both appeal to the Bible to justify their positions. How can I possibly ever know whether I’m going to Heaven or Hell? 🙂 Not that I care. I’m an atheist. I will leave it to God’s chosen ones to debate and settle the eternal destiny of my non-existent soul. In the meantime, I’ll be cheering on the Reds and Bengals and having wild sex with my smoking hot heathen girlfriend. 🙂

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Bruce Almighty, the One True God of This Blog, Edits Dr. David Tee’s Post

Bruce Gerencser August 5, 2022 Evangelicalism 10 Comments

Today, Fake Dr. David Tee, whose real name on court documents is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, wrote yet another post attacking me. I have learned that one of the first things Theissen does every day is to read this site and write a post besmirching my character, insulting me, lying about me, and attacking the upstanding readers of this blog, especially LGBTQ commenters.

What follows are two paragraphs from Thiessen’s latest screed, Christian Counselors — 2. I have edited it for readability and truthfulness. The emboldened sentence is in the original. Enjoy! 🙂

On another note, we [I] knew that certain people [Bruce Gerencser] would respond to our [my] post. They [He] did and their [his] content is as bad as it always has been. We [I] are [am] not going to respond to their[Gerencser’s] false charges and content [– for which I will provide no evidence — ] as it is of no value to do so.

What we [I] will say is that God [I, Derrick Henry Thiessen,] is [am] always right and the unbelieving world [Gerencser, Ben Berwick, and other atheists] is [are] always wrong. We [I] were [was] also going to take some more examples from that article [the one I refuse to link to directly or mention that Bruce Gerencser is the author] we [I] linked to in yesterday’s post but we [I] will bypass that as well [bawk! 🙂 ]

All we [I] will say is the end result is due to the fact that the author [Gerencser] listened to the unbelieving world [evidence, reason, and common sense] over God [a deity that does not exist].

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How Evangelical Preachers Legally Avoid Paying Taxes

Bruce Gerencser August 5, 2022 Evangelicalism 8 Comments

Let me tell you a story . . .

“Bob” pastors Frozen Chosen Baptist Tabernacle in Newark, Ohio. The church runs a hundred or so in attendance. Bob pastors Frozen Chosen full-time. Bob is a winsome man who has a bad habit: he likes to tell anyone who will listen that he is “poor.” To prove his point, Bob tells people that he “only” makes $12,000 a year. Having made such a wage on several occasions in my life, I can say that this is indeed a poverty-level salary. Unfortunately, Bob lies about how much he makes. Yes, he “only” paid a $12,000 salary. However, the church also provides Bob a parsonage rent-free, with all utilities paid. The church also pays all the maintenance costs for the parsonage. [Cue Ron Popeil] But wait, there’s more! The church also provides Bob with a car to drive, gives him a gas allowance, pays his medical insurance, life insurance, and auto insurance premiums, pays his cellphone bill, and provides him a book allowance. As you can see, the good pastor actually makes $46,000 a year. And when Bob files his income tax return, his taxable income is only $12,000, not the $46,000 he actually made. All of this is 100% legal.

Pastors are dual-status employees. They are considered employees for income tax purposes and self-employed for social security purposes. Typically, pastors receive a 1099 from their churches, not a W-2. Churches are not required to withhold taxes, so many pastors are required to make quarterly income tax payments.

Pastors can have their churches designate part of their salary as housing allowance. A housing allowance can include rent, mortgage, fair market value of the parsonage, utilities, insurance, and maintenance costs, to name a few. The housing allowance is not subject to income tax. It is, however, subject to Medicare and Social Security tax, though I will explain in a moment how pastors can avoid paying these taxes too.

Churches can provide all sorts of allowances to their pastors that are also tax exempt. A church can buy a new car for its pastor, provide him a gas allowance, and pay all the insurance, repair, and maintenance costs. As long as the car is used *wink, wink* only for church business, the pastor pays no income tax for its use. I drove church-provided cars for years. We also owned a second car. The church-provided car was used only for church business, but truth be told, it was used for personal business too. Of course, our second car was often used for church business, so the “use” balanced out.

Pastors are required to pay Medicare and Social Security taxes. Typically, pastors pay the self-employed rate. However, pastors can file for an exemption from these taxes if their churches are *wink, wink* morally opposed to government social insurance. Countless pastors file for exemption so they can pay into a private retirement account instead or boost their weekly pay. As a Baptist pastor, I filed for exemption at age twenty-three. For the next twenty years, I paid no Medicare or Social Security taxes on my ministerial income. I planned to use the money to fund a private retirement account. Of course, life got in the way and that never happened. In the early 2000s, I realized that I had made a horrible mistake. Getting older and having health problems will do that to you. I renounced my exemption and started paying Medicare and Social Security taxes again. Sadly, five years later, I was no longer able to work. Not paying into Social Security for so many years made me ineligible for disability. I retired three years ago and receive $800 a month. This payment is primarily based on my income and work quarters from secular work and self-employment income. If it had not been for me working outside of the church, I would have zero retirement income. Oh, the stupid decisions we make when we are young and healthy.

Some pastors and evangelists incorporate their ministries as non-profit businesses. Pastors who do this are employees of their corporations, not their churches. This provides pastors with additional tax benefits and can, in some circumstances, insulate pastors from legal liability.

Remember, the goal is to avoid paying taxes. Evangelicals, in particular, love putting the screws to the “evil” government. Through legal use of the tax code and having eight deductions, I didn’t pay income taxes on my ministerial income for almost two decades. Since I was also exempt from Medicare and Social Security taxes, most years I paid zero taxes. For many years, thanks to the Earned Income Credit (EIC), I actually got a substantial refund check. There were years when my housing allowance made up most of my ministerial income. Eligible pastors get larger EIC credits than non-clergy due to the fact that their housing allowance wasn’t counted as income. Fortunately, the IRS fixed this issue, and pastors are now required to claim their housing allowance as income for EIC purposes.

In closing, let me state that I am not a tax lawyer or an accountant. That said, I have dealt with several accountants over the years who knew very little about the issues mentioned in this post. I got into a heated argument with one accountant over the church I was pastoring at the time giving me a W-2 instead of a 1099. I tried to educate him on this issue, but he doubled down, playing the “authority” card. He later determined I was right and issued me a 1099. Of course, I knew I was right. I had actually taken classes on church and clergy taxation and benefits.

I am not in any way suggesting pastors are being dishonest — though some pastors most certainly are. Like all of us, pastors take what tax deductions and allowances the law allows. If you could take a deduction or allowance that reduced your income tax by 50-90%, you would do it. Few of us like paying taxes. The answer, of course, is to change the tax code. Personally, I would like to see the clergy housing allowance done away with. Pastors should pay the same taxes everyone else does. By allowing pastors to drastically reduce their taxable income through the housing allowance, all taxpayers are, in effect, subsiding churches. The same goes for permitting pastors to opt out of paying Medicare and Social Security taxes.

American taxpayers subsidize churches to the tune of billions of dollars a year by allowing churches and pastors a plethora of tax exemptions. I plan to write a post on this subject in the near future. Stay tuned.

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Short Stories: Bruce and the Amish

Bruce Gerencser August 5, 2022 Evangelicalism 5 Comments

calvary bible fellowship mt perry ohio — Screenshot from Google Earth, Calvary Bible Fellowship, Mt. Perry, Ohio

In July of 1983, Polly and I, along with our two boys, ages two and four, held the first service for Somerset Baptist Church, Somerset, Ohio, in a downtown storefront building. We had sixteen people in attendance at our first service. Several months later, we moved to 2,000 square-foot facility, the upstairs portion of the Landmark building. We would remain in this building for two years, with attendance between 30 and 50. We bought a dilapidated church bus from Faith Memorial Church in Lancaster, Ohio, then pastored by John Maxwell.

We then bought an abandoned United Methodist church five miles east of town on Sego Hill. The church grew from 50 to 200, from one bus to four. By the late 1980s, for a variety of reasons not pertinent to this article, attendance declined to fifty people. In 1989, we sold off the buses, moved a ratty 12’x60′ mobile home next to the church to live in, and started a private, tuition-free Christian school for church children. Our enrollment was fifteen students from kindergarten through grade twelve. During this time, I embraced Calvinism and the Quiverfull movement. We had three more children, bringing our arrow number to six. Imagine living in a 12’x60′ trailer with eight people. Fun times, to be sure.

Near the church was Calvary Bible Fellowship on Amish Ridge Road. While locals considered its members Amish, they were actually Mennonite. They had split off from an Old Order Amish group over the doctrine of salvation. While many of their practices were Amish, they did drive white and black vehicles. One member, John Miller, owned a lumberyard directly across from our church. He was later forced to sell the business due to “worldliness” — or so the rumors went, anyway.

Somerset Baptist Church and Calvary Bible Fellowship had a number of similarities. We both believed salvation was good works. We both believed women should dress modestly. We both believed in avoiding “worldliness” and the appearance of evil. We both believed it was important to educate our children in a church school. These common beliefs led to numerous interactions between me and Calvary Bible Fellowship elders/members. I had countless discussions with them. I think they didn’t quite know what to do with me. Our similar beliefs and practices led them to conclude that I was likely a Christian, but other things I believed and did that didn’t conform to their narrow view of the world confounded them.

There were times when the church I pastored didn’t have Sunday night services. On those occasions, my family and I would visit other churches. Sometimes, I would take a few church members with me. On occasion, we would visit Calvary Bible Fellowship. Calvary would also have tent meetings on occasion, and I would stop by to visit. Men sat on one side, women on the other. The music, sung acapella, was wonderful — by far the best congregational singing I’ve ever heard. I found the preaching to be quite Biblical, but not as emotional or enthusiastic as that found in Independent Baptist churches. Afterward, I would hang out with the men of the church, talking about God and the Bible. I found these conversations to be quite enjoyable.

Sadly, the folks at Calvary Bible did not reciprocate. While they would stop by the church when I was working outside, they never attended one of our services or heard me preach. I suspect they saw me as someone who could be won over to their side. I wonder what they would think of the fact that I am an atheist today?

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Understanding 501c3 Status for Churches

Bruce Gerencser August 5, 2022 Evangelicalism 3 Comments

I listen to a lot of atheist podcasts and watch a lot of videos. I have noticed a disturbing trend among these content creators: when it comes to church taxation, tax exemption, non-profit status, and 501c3 status, many of them don’t know what the hell they are talking about. I used to politely and privately correct these content creators. Unfortunately, not one person responded to me, thanking me for correcting their mistake, so I stopped doing so. If we are going to critique Christianity, particularly Evangelicalism and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, then we have a duty to so honestly and factually.

ALL churches, by default, are granted 501(c)(3) status but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Churches don’t have to apply for this status, nor do they have to be non-profit. If a group of people gather together in a home somewhere, have a pastor/teacher/elder, and worship their God on a regular basis, the IRS, by default considers them a church. In the mind of the IRS, if it looks like a church, it is a church. The IRS goes out of its way to NOT define what a church is. Yes, the IRS publishes criteria for what constitutes a church, but they do NOT use this list in any meaningful way when determining 501(c)(3) status. Freedom of religion is all that matters to the IRS, so if a church says it’s a church, that’s good enough for them.

501(c)(3) status allows a church exemption from federal taxation. Its donations are tax-exempt, and donors can claim their donations on their tax returns. This does not mean the church’s pastor and/or staff is exempt from federal taxation. He still has to pay federal income tax, Medicare tax, and Social Security tax. Pastors are generally considered self-employed, though the law is complex on their status. Pastors should receive a 1099 from their churches, not a W-2 (generally speaking). I will show in another post how pastors can use special provisions in the law — exemptions and deductions only available to them — to drastically reduce their taxable income. (It’s a great gig if you can get it. Just start a church and all these perks can be yours!)

In many states, churches are exempt from sales tax and real estate tax. I lived in one area where the Catholic church owned thousands of acres and numerous houses — all exempt from real estate taxes. I bought several new cars through one church I pastored, saving hundreds of dollars in sales tax. When I went to file the title for one car, the person in charge refused to do it. She told me I had to pay taxes on the purchase. I told her I didn’t. The car was owned by the church and provided to me for my use. This went on for a couple of days. Finally, her boss in Columbus informed her that she had to title the car.

Churches are not necessarily non-profit. Here in Ohio, a church must apply for non-profit status. The churches I pastored were non-profit corporations (though none of them actually followed Ohio corporate law). Incorporating allows churches to shield their officers from personal liability for malfeasance. When churches are sued, it’s the corporation that is sued, and not its officers (pastors, deacons, board members). It might be surprising for readers to learn that, in incorporated churches, it’s their constitution and bylaws that determine how a church is governed and how claims are adjudicated, not the Bible. Churches learn this the hard way when they have conflict or when they are trying to fire a pastor.

Once a church has non-profit status, it can then file for OFFICAL 501(c)(3) status. This is different from the generic 501(c)(3) status granted to all churches. Official 501(c)(3) status requires churches to file documents with the IRS, proving that they are a charity worthy of tax exemption. Once a church is approved, it receives an official letter that states it has 501(c)(3) status. Denominations apply for 501(c)(3) status, and once approved, all churches under their umbrella are, by default, granted official 501(c)(3) status. Once approved, churches have greater access to grants and programs, along with special mailing privileges with the U.S. Post Office.

Hopefully, readers will find this helpful. I am not a tax lawyer nor accountant. I do, however, have extensive experience starting new churches. It was important to me at the time to know exactly what the law said about churches. While I haven’t started a new church in a few years, I am unaware of any meaningful changes in the law that would alter what I have written here. If you have any questions, I am more than happy to answer them.

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Dr. David Tee’s Apologetic Method: Accuse, Attack, Discredit

Bruce Gerencser August 5, 2022 Evangelicalism 7 Comments

Fake Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, continues to write about me on his blog, even though he refuses to mention me by name. Today, Thiessen wrote a post titled Christian Counselors. He used my 2019 article titled Beware of Christian Counselors as the foundation for his post. Instead of mentioning me by name or properly linking to my article, he instead linked to a counseling site that I gave permission to republish my article.

As I read Thiessen’s latest screed, it dawned on me that the post provided a good example of his apologetic method. The subject doesn’t matter. Thiessen has used the same apologetic method in every post he’s written about me: accuse, attack, discredit.

What follows are quotes from his latest post:

Never feel bad about graduating from a Christian counseling program or even taking a few classes. The secular world never accepts anything that is remotely connected to Christianity, especially Evangelicalism.
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How would pushing your faith and answers to the side help the persons needing counseling? It doesn’t. It is a technique used by unbelievers to hide from any truth and answers. They do not want God in the counseling room just like unbelieving scientists do not want God in the science lab.
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This is the core of the problem. It is that little word ‘objectively’ that causes a lot of problems for Christian counselors. The author certainly does not know what the term actually means or how it is applied.
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However, it must be noted that there is no such thing as true objectivity. Everyone is on a side. The unbeliever is on the side of evil and their perspectives are often skewed by their unbelief and the deception in their lives.
The Christian is on God’s side and often has the answers the people need. If the author wanted true objectivity, he would have to allow the fact that Christians have a perspective and that perspective is valid.
But he is not objective when it comes to Christian counselors. His bias against these people colors his perspective and leads him to trash people most of whom he will never meet or know. In his analysis and thesis of this topic, his bias is in plain sight.
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He is not being objective nor is he being honest. He only takes his experience and paints with a very broad brush. There are many good Christian counselors who know how to use their faith correctly when counseling others. They do not follow the demands of the unbelieving world and provide actual help to the afflicted.
Just because he could not do it, doesn’t mean others cannot. Just because he had no answers, doesn’t mean others do not have the right answers. His attack on Christian counselors, in general, is wrong and misleading. It also hurts innocent people.
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The Christian has the advantage as they know right from wrong and can effectively counsel the woman so that she sees that getting an abortion is not the right thing to do. The Christian, with God’s help, can easily counsel this woman and stop her from making a mistake.
The unbeliever can’t because they do not always accept the fact that the unborn child is truly human. They also do not accept what is truly right and truly wrong and replace God’s standards with their own. That is failing the client, not helping them. It is not great counseling either as it is done unobjectively.
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There is nothing wrong with this as the unbelieving way is not the right way to do counseling. The Christian has knowledge that the unbeliever does not have and they should be allowed to be employed where they want.
Also, the Christian has compassion and caring that unbelievers do not have Barring the Christian counselor from any job is discrimination and illegal but that does not stop the author from recommending that action.
When it comes to counseling, the Christian has far more answers and insight than the unbeliever has and if the unbeliever wants to be truly objective, they have to let the Christian and their perspective practice their counseling training and knowledge.
The unbeliever does not have all or any answers for hurting people.
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God knows the heart of men and women and who is better at arriving at an answer- the unbeliever who has their own personal preferences when it comes to counseling and doe snot know if the client is lying to them or not or where the truth lies? Or the Christian pastor who has God on his side showing him what is actually wrong with the person and providing the answer to the pastor?
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It is not up to the unbeliever to determine who can or cannot counsel and in what way that they counsel. Pastors are to obey God, not unbelievers. Spiritual answers are better than the many non-answers that unbelieving counselors give.
Plus, counselors are to provide the truth, not some theory or some false answer that keeps them coming back to the counselor for years of therapy.
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No, there are very few complex problems in this world. Most of them can be resolved if unbelievers accepted the fact that evil exists. But they don’t thus they are not good counselors, they are just people keeping others trapped in their problems.
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Pastors are not dangerous, it is the unbeliever that is dangerous as they try to hide the truth and the answers from people.
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This is not true and the bias of the author is clearly seen as he disqualifies people with the answers simply because they disagree with his religious viewpoint. He is not qualified to write this type of article because of his prejudice and bias against God, the Bible, and Christians.
There are a lot of personal statements made in that article that we will not deal with right now. Suffice it to say, that those topics came about for a specific reason or two. Maybe in the next parts, we will address those issues.
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This is the problem with going to unbelieving counselors. Their bias against Jesus, Christianity and the church has them robbing people of their faith. They are unqualified to handle spiritual problems or those issues that require faith building.
Everything the author said against Christian counselors applies to unbelieving ones as well. They are not qualified to handle spiritual problems. The unbelieving counselors make God, Christianity, the Bible, and its content the problem when in reality it is evil creating the problem.
The unbeliever cannot help the believer because they do not share the same beliefs or perspectives. One comes from sin, while the other has been freed from sin. When you open yourself up to unbelieving ideology and teaching, then your believing side suffers and you are separated from God eventually.
What the author failed to do in this article was be honest. He knew what the Bible says and he ignored it in his attempts to bash professional people who do not believe as he does. To do counseling correctly, one needs wisdom.

Thiessen has a simplistic worldview: I am right and everyone else is wrong; Christianity is right, secularism is wrong; non-Christians, especially atheists, have nothing to offer the human race. Theissen has spent most of his life immersed in Fundamentalist thinking. As time goes on, Theissen becomes more certain that he is absolutely right. In his worldview, there is no place for nuance, shades of gray, doubt, or honest differences of opinion. In fact, in recent months, Theissen has intimated that he is just like Jesus, in thought and deed; that his words and God’s words are almost identical.

Thiessen will continue to write about me. He has a pathological need to do so. And as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, Thiessen will continue to accuse, attack, and discredit. He has been doing these for so long, that it’s just who he is.

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Did You Send Me an Email?

Bruce Gerencser August 5, 2022 Blog News 1 Comment

Yesterday, I worked through a backlog of sixty-three emails. As far as I know, at 11:57 pm on August 4, 2022, I have no outstanding emails to respond to. If you are awaiting some sort of response from me, please resend your email and I will promptly respond.

Thanks!

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The Various Ways Used by Evangelical Christians to Show the Bankruptcy of Their Faith

Bruce Gerencser August 3, 2022 Evangelicalism 2 Comments

I spent fifty years in the Evangelical church. During half of those years, I pastored Evangelical (mainly Baptist) churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I have pastored thousands of people over the years, many of whom were loving, kind, thoughtful followers of Jesus. I also pastored more than a few Christians who were nasty, vile, hateful people; men and women who viciously attacked me and lied about me after we had a falling out. I suspect my experiences with church members track with the experiences I have had with the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. In any tribe or group, you have some good people and others who are not.

The late 80s and early 90s brought us the advent of the Internet. Over the past thirty years, the Internet has become an integral part of our lives. I’ve met scores of people from all over the world thanks to the Internet. Social media allows me to meaningfully interact with family and friends, which never would have been possible before the Internet. Yet, thanks to my blog, social media, and YouTube, I have been exposed to countless Evangelicals who feel it is their duty to attack me and my family. Just today, there’s a Jesus-loving man, who after I blocked him on Facebook has taken to sending hateful, Bible verse-filled messages to my children. Another person signed up for a fake Instagram account in my name and is now sending messages to my followers. Over the past couple of days, I’ve been receiving unwanted emails from an Evangelical man. I can’t respond to him because he uses a plethora of fake email accounts. These things, and others, happen all the time. I find myself asking, have Evangelicals always been this way, or has the Internet pathologically changed them? Trumpism and QAnon are largely Evangelical groups. A large percentage of the January 6th insurrectionists were Evangelicals. Many of the members of militia groups such as the Proud Boys and III Percenters are Evangelicals. The culture war that currently engulfs the United States is largely driven by Evangelicals (along with Conservative Catholics and Mormons). Evangelicals are behind rolling back sixty years of social progress. Their goal is to return the United States to the 1950s.

There was a day when Evangelicalism was largely a revivalistic, pietistic sect; people who believed in the strict separation of church and state; people who believed that preaching the gospel and evangelization was the God-ordained way to foment social change. Today, Evangelicals have largely abandoned these things, selling their souls instead for political power. Evangelicals will not rest until they have taken America back for God, and enthroned the Bible as the law of the land. We see this happening, in particular, as Evangelicals try to take over our public schools.

Evangelicalism is now considered one of the most hated sects in America. The news is filled with stories about pastors committing sex crimes, having affairs, and generally living non-Christlike lives. Evangelical megachurches in particular have become temples of entertainment and excess, churches pastored by men who are multimillionaires, wear $1,500 tennis shoes, and live in mansions.

What the hell has happened to Evangelical Christianity? Or has it always been this way?

The Bible says in Matthew 7:16-20:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

The Bible says the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit — who allegedly lives inside of every Evangelical — is: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. I have had interactions with thousands of Evangelicals on my blog and social media over the past fifteen years — a large sample size. I have discovered that the fruit of the Spirit is nowhere to be found in the lives of most of these flag-waving, Jesus-loving, Bible-worshipping Evangelicals. There seem to be few Evangelicals who take seriously Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Why do so few Evangelicals care one whit about what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount?

Evangelicalism is numerically dying, but they have become a sick, rabid dog who will rip your throat out. While Evangelicalism will eventually self-destruct, it will likely cause much damage and harm before it does. I suspect that personal attacks on this site and social media will continue, becoming shriller and more hostile. While Christ-like Evangelicals certainly exist, their words and actions are drowned out by the vile, hateful, violent words and behavior of other believers. Why would anyone want to be an Evangelical Christian?

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A Transgender Reader Responds to Evangelical Andrew T. Walker, an “Expert” on Transgenderism

Bruce Gerencser August 3, 2022 Guest Posts 6 Comments

A guest post by Sage

I have been trying so hard to be more kind and not so confrontational. I try to be understanding and know Christians are told lies, led by ignorant leaders, and misguided by prejudice, fear, and hate. Don’t get me wrong, I still stand strongly against all bigotry against LGBTQIA+ people, but there are days where my righteous anger starts to rise . . .

Recently an article by Andrew T. Walker was posted on Bruce’s blog. You can see the full article here: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-transgender-fantasy. I suggest you go read this article. Unlike many Christians, I have enough confidence that I do not fear the writings of others.

Andrew is yet another religious person spewing bigotry and transphobia in the name of their particular god. Yet another Christian who claims to love, and supposedly wants to fix, trans people (who he thinks are broken due to mental illness), by helping them “flourish” through his belief system. His form of love means telling someone that he believes them to be wrong, then changing them so they fit his standards. This enables them to become the right kind of person who will properly live in the world, within the boundaries he sets.

And he is an expert because he has “written a book on transgenderism.” What can I — a poor, non-flourishing, mentally ill, non-existent, non-binary person who is caught up in “gender identity” and is “embracing the transgender worldview”– have to say against an associate professor, Fellow, Managing Editor, godly man? Obviously, his research is far more informed and intelligent than my lived experience as a non-binary person.

How can I say anything about such a wonderful, intelligent, god-fearing, real man? Surely I am just an “angry activist” who is trying to “suppress” or “coerce” him and others into accepting a godless worldview so I can spread my abhorrent agenda.

I know this because I read his post. It is the typical anti-trans contempt (expressed in love, of course) from a supposed Christian expert who bases his analysis on his sect’s particular form of biblical interpretation. He hit all the typical anti-trans bigotry and ignorance, and used his bible belief to support his prejudice.

These include, in order of use:

I did the research, I am an expert, and I wrote a book, so I know better than anyone else, especially trans people
Trans people are “unnatural.”
You are not supposed to talk about trans people because someone will be offended, and you will be canceled, but I won’t bow to their agenda.
The Bible only defines 2 sexes, nature only defines 2 sexes, and only foolish people argue against true nature and science and the Bible.
Focus on male to female trans people because Christian men seem to find this most abhorrent.
Everything must be defined by my biblical understanding. So that the other non-Christian 68% of the world must live and believe as I say, no other option.
Culture cannot define gender, only my Bible can define gender and provide the answer to life, the universe and, well, everything.
The transgender worldview defies nature, god, and male patriarchy, and trans people are foolish and delusional to believe otherwise.
Transgender people do not exist; once again, people who say they are trans are delusional.
Being trapped in the wrong body is fake, and my Bible says so to prove it.
Trans people are not really happy and cannot flourish because you can only be happy following my god and my rules.
Trans people think they are happy, but like drug addicts, they are caught up in their addiction and are only fooled.
Trans people will only be happy if they do what my Bible tells me to tell them to do.
The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and suicide in trans people is due to their denial of nature and god’s plan, and not because society, in particular Christianity, treats them like a scourge and tries to legislate and berate them into non-existence.
Some people detransition, which proves all trans people are wrong. Yes, the number is low but that’s because they are bullied and not allowed to speak without being canceled. There will literally be millions of people detransitioning — you just wait and see. Remember, I am an expert.
We must speak the truth in “love.” They will call us bigots, but if that’s what it takes to save them, then we will be bigots for god. We must persist to show them our hate is really love.
Some trans people are angry, but many are vulnerable and easy prey for Christian guilt and scare tactics. Just get them into conversion therapy and they will be broken . . . er . . . fixed.
If you take a stand against these evil trans people, you will be silenced, bullied, lose jobs, and suffer greatly. Christians are the true victimized group here.
Thank god we have bigots in leadership who are making laws to keep us safe from these sickos.

But, while I don’t exist or have dozens of titles that I wield to show my intelligence, I will just say this hateful man is full of bullshit. He doesn’t really care about trans people, he just wants to eliminate them. Trans and nonbinary people, hell, all of LGBTQIA+ are an abomination, are delusional, sick, dangerous, and must be fixed and made nonexistent.

As he says, “ From privacy issues, safety issues, and equality and fairness issues, the world may be slowly coming to grips with the truth that its commitment to transgender ideology has outpaced its commitment to reality, sound thinking, and true human flourishing.” This is simply horrid bigotry spoken in pretty words. Privacy issues just mean he wants to be able to discriminate based on his personal belief system. Safety issues are a nice way to say keep trans people in their proper place to protect women and children from their predatory, disgusting, perversion. Equality means he wants equality based on his standards, where straight white Christian males make the rules and all weak men, women, children, and non-Christians stay in their place. Then he says anyone who supports trans people are just disconnected from reality, are delusional or dumb, and are not really happy anyway.

That, by my understanding, is the heart of Christian hatred that is displayed against not only the trans community, but the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. What is it about us that makes Christians react in this way?

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The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser