The Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a two-minute video clip of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) megachurch pastor Jack Hyles telling an overtly racist joke in one of his sermons from the pulpit of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. (You may have to turn your device volume up to hear the video.)
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.
Lori Alexander, The Transformed Wife, didn’t actually say that divorced people who remarry will go to Hell when they die. Still, as I shall briefly show below, this is the logical conclusion of her beliefs about divorce and remarriage.
Jesus plainly taught that divorce only happens… “because of the hardness of your hearts” (Matthew 19:8).
No! Leave if you must, but divorce is wrong. Marriage is a lifetime covenant. I received the following e-mail from a woman who left her husband. In a subsequent e-mail she confirmed that she had divorced him…
“I saw your website. I have a question. I am divorced. My husband and I are both saved. I am saved 24 years. He got saved when he met me. He was also an elder in our old church. Anyway, he just kind of turned on me over the years. He was hitting me and the kids. He was also both verbally and emotionally abusive. It was a hard decision, but I had to leave. My ex-husband was destroying my children’ self-esteem and self-worth, not to mention mine. Is it really such a horrible thing that I did? I really don’t think I did the wrong thing. The kids are better now, and I feel safe. Okay, my brother in Christ, please get back to me.”
I’m going to answer this woman’s e-mail with a humble heart and an understanding mind. The Word of God provides the answer to all of life’s questions, but we’ve got to search the Scriptures to know the mind of God. The woman who sent me this e-mail brings up a good point. There are many things that ought to be taken into consideration.
Certainly, abuse is wrong, plain and simple. God created Eve from Adam’s rib, the nearest thing to his heart, to be loved and cherished. A person who is in an abusive relationship has a right to leave. There’s no question about that. Some people have attempted to twist my teachings on marriage and divorce out of context, accusing me of telling women to submit to continued physical and mental abuse. I DON’T teach that and never have. What I do teach is that there are no Biblical grounds for divorce. This is not to say that a wife should not leave an abusive husband; but rather, she should not divorce him.
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1st Corinthians 7:10, “And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.”
So, Biblically, if a wife does divorce, she is to REMAIN UNMARRIED. Matthew 5:32b teaches that it is adultery for a divorced woman to remarry…
“Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”
The focus of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:32 was not upon divorce as many think; but rather, upon remarriage. It is adultery to get remarried if you divorced your spouse for any reason.
The question is not if it is okay to divorce an abusive spouse; but rather, is it okay to divorce? If you permit exceptions for which to divorce, people will ALWAYS take a foot if you give them an inch; divorcing for every reason. Although divorce is a hotly debated subject, I just believe that God made two people for each other, to spend a lifetime together, for better or worse. If your spouse is sentenced to life in prison, I think you should be there for them, not move on in your self-righteousness. You’re just as much a sinner in God’s eyes. We all deserve to burn in the fires of Hell. You cannot run from responsibilities, tragedy, heartache, and burdens. If you do, it will haunt you until you die if you have any conscience at all.
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Just because your spouse goes to prison or becomes an invalid doesn’t give you a right to divorce and remarry so you can enjoy life. People have no loyalty anymore, neither to God nor their loved ones. This is what the Bible means in 2nd Timothy 3:1-5 when it speaks of people “without natural affection” in the last days. It is natural to love your spouse, family and close friends; but it will not be that way in the end times, and we are already in these times today. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that a man’s foes would be they of his own household.
Most people who file for divorce attempt to claim that Jesus allows for divorce in situations of adultery, but that is not what Jesus taught. What about all the other sins that one’s spouse may commit? Does that provide a grounds for divorce? No, not according to the Lord. Jesus taught in Matthew 18:22 to forgive, 70 times seven. Divorce is the sin of hate, unforgiveness, and hypocrisy.
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Do you realize that less than one-percent of the population divorced in 1900? Recently in southern California the divorce rate skyrocketed to 75.54 %!!! [This statistic is a lie. Please read this article for accurate information about California’s divorce rate.) Most of the divorces are filed by women. Why so much divorce today as compared to a hundred years ago? There are numerous reasons; but primarily, television, women’s liberation, feminism, greedy lawyers, and a Communist agenda to destroy America’s families by rigging the court system always in favor of divorce. Marriages don’t stand a chance plugged into mainstream society. The secret to a happy marriage is to stay as far away from American culture as possible. I’m dead serious. This hellhole society in which we live today is sick, insane, and perverted.
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Husbands are not allowed anymore in today’s heathen American society to Biblically “rule over” their own wives. Women in America have to a large extent become sassy, arrogant, and rebellious against masculine authority, particularly in the home. This is the Devil’s work of feminism. This is why divorce is so commonplace. This is why women have entered church pulpits all across America teaching false doctrines. This is why American society is saturated today with whorishly dressed women with imprudent character and lewd conduct.
The way most American women dress is a disgrace. Even professed Christian women dress and act shamefully. I recently visited a Baptist church in my area. Most of the women in the church were wearing pants, swinging their hips to the contemporary music while clapping their hands. It was a sad sight. And they call this “worship.” The woman in front of me was moving her hips forward and backward, and every time she went forward the slacks she was wearing revealed the outline of her buttocks. The woman next to her was wearing pants and kept swinging her hip from one side to the other while clapping. This is sinful worldliness in the church. I won’t go back. Do you know what the problem is? Apostate pastors who don’t teach their congregation holy living and are afraid to preach against the sin of immodestly dressed women. As with everything else in this sin-cursed world, the love of money is the root of all evil. You can’t even go to church anymore to escape the pollutions of the sinful world. The love of money is the reason why pulpits are silent today.
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Carefully notice that the woman in the e-mail being addressed failed to mention even one negative thing about herself. Oh, she must be an angel. It is sinful pride that causes all divorces. Divorce is a sin. America is a feminist nation, and women are twice as likely to file for divorce than men. Look at World Divorce Rates and see how the evils of feminism have destroyed America’s families.
Interestingly, and sadly, all we see on the internet and in society today is talk about domestic violence; but NEVER do we hear anything about statistics on wives who refuse to obey their husbands. It is evil. IN GOD’S EYES, it is just as sinful for a wife to frustrate her husband through insubordination and disobedience as are the sins of homosexuality and witchcraft.
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As a Christian, I don’t understand that mentality. I thought marriage was supposed to be about LOVE, between two people, forever. If Jesus was willing to suffer and endure the cross for our sins, then we should be willing to do the same for our own spouse. No matter what one’s spouse does, divorce should never be an option. We are living in an unforgiving, hateful, self-righteous society, which loves to sit at home in front of their TV judging everyone else as being a bigger sinner than themselves. You’d better be careful because one day you may be on TV.
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f you filed for divorce, then you have sinned. If you’ve remarried, then you have also commit adultery. If your spouse remarried, then you caused even more adultery. You may find idiots out there who will tell you it’s okay to divorce; but, I am not going to help make you feel better about something you refuse to admit is wrong. If you have divorced, then you need to confess it to God as a sin, make reconciliation with your spouse as much as possible, and then move on in the Lord. If at all possible, the best thing would be for you to return to your spouse rather than remarry another (1st Corinthians 7:11). Only you know your own unique situation, and what needs to be done. God will hold YOU accountable for what YOU have done, and do (Romans 14:12). I say this with a broken heart over the sin of divorce and with a genuine concern for others. I love you in the Lord whoever you may be. No sin is so deep that it cannot be forgiven and cleansed away by Jesus’ precious blood, but the first step is to acknowledge that one has sinned.
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Divorce causes emotional, physical, financial, legal, children and family and spiritual hardships. Divorce is commonplace in this evil generation. People criticize me a lot for defending abusive husbands, but that’s not my intent. I’m defending the institution of marriage. The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9 that the human heart is wicked, desperately evil and deceitful above all else. A lot of women file for divorce because someone coaches them into doing so. People should go to jail for meddling in other people’s marriages. It’s much too easy to divorce these days.
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You CANNOT show me even one Scripture in the Word of God that gives anyone permission to divorce because of abuse. And may I say, the Bible does not permit divorce for adultery either.
Here’s the problem with the no divorce/no remarriage position: everyone who divorces and remarries will go to Hell when they die. Every time they have sex, they are committing adultery. And the Bible is clear: no adulterer will inherit the Kingdom of God. There will be no divorced and remarried people in Heaven.
Some IFB churches and pastors believe there are no grounds for divorce; that the exceptions granted by Jesus and Paul were given due to the hardness of man’s heart; that God’s standard is “marriage until death do we part.” While allowance was made for women leaving their husbands if they regularly beat them, separating spouses were told that under no circumstances could they divorce and remarry. They were reminded that Jesus said: Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery. In other words, remarry and you are an adulterer.
IFB luminary John R. Rice was asked, “Should A Divorced Woman Remarry Her Husband, Who Wants Her Back, Or Marry The Other Man She Is In Love With?” He responded:
She should remarry her husband. You see, when she was married first, she took a solemn vow to love, honor and obey . . . until death do us part. And the Bible clearly teaches that divorce is wrong. Even if the husband mistreated the wife (and of course all husbands and wives are human and fail in some degree), still she was his wife, she had promised to be with him until death, and God wanted her to obey her husband and love him and be true to him.
I think that if a wife will set out to obey her husband, she will find that love will increase. She will have to confess to God her sin of loving another man, and if in her heart she will honestly turn from that in repentance, then God will help her to love her husband and help the husband to forgive and love her. If things are not always easy, still the only way to happiness is to do right and have God’s blessing.
Satan always has some very attractive ways in sin. Sin is always attractive at first, but it always ends bad. The Bible says, ‘The way of transgressors is hard’ (Prov. 13:15). And, again, the Bible says in Numbers 32:23, ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ And Romans 6:23 says, ‘The wages of sin is death.’
First Corinthians 7, verses 10-13, says, ‘And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife. But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.’”
Now the thing to do is to believe that God will restore happiness and that He will help straighten things out. So give Him a chance to do that.
Rice’s answer was typical of what I heard as a long-time member and pastor of IFB churches.
In 1994, I was between pastorates and Polly and our six children and I attended an IFB church pastored by my best friend. One night, I went with him on a visitation call to a church family who was having marital problems. They were seriously contemplating divorce. My preacher friend made it clear to them that God hated divorce and that there were no Biblical grounds for divorce. He said, “You have two choices. Either reconcile or separate and remain unmarried.” In his eyes, getting a divorce and then remarrying was a grievous sin and grounds for excommunication. He went on to say, “God says, if you remarry, both you and your new spouse are adulterers.”
Later, on our way home, I questioned him about his position on divorce. I asked, “if they remarry, what is it that makes them adulterers?” He replied, “the sex act.” I said, “So, every time they have sex, they are committing adultery?” My friend paused for a moment — thinking this was another one of Bruce’s famous theological traps — and then said, “Yes.” And sure enough, he walked into one of my traps. I replied, “So, no one who is divorced and remarried is a Christian? And anyone in your church who is divorced and remarried (I mentioned several couples by name) will spend eternity in Hell?” As he pondered my questions, I reminded him that the Bible said in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
“If, as the Bible says, adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God,” I said, “then doesn’t that mean that divorced-remarried people — whom you say are adulterers — will NOT inherit the kingdom of God?” After a seemingly long period of silence, my friend said, “well, maybe I need to rethink my position.” Ya think?
I wonder if Alexander and Stewart will rethink their position on divorce and remarriage? I doubt it. These two peas in a pod are not known for admitting they were wrong. How could they? Filled with certainty, which breeds arrogance, Alexander and Stewart believe their “words” are straight from the mouth of God.
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.
By Jake Johnson, a staff writer for Common Dreams. Used by Permission
Progressive lawmakers on Thursday voiced dismay that President Joe Biden is requesting a nearly $30 billion increase in U.S. military spending just months after the Pentagon failed its fifth consecutive audit, admitting it could not properly account for more than half of its trillions of dollars in assets.
Biden’s budget framework for fiscal year 2024 calls for $886 billion in overall military spending—up from the current level of $858 billion—with $842 billion going to the Pentagon. More than half of the $1.7 trillion of discretionary spending in Biden’s proposal is reserved for the military, which would get $170 billion for weapons procurement and $38 billion for nuke modernization.
Defense Newsreported that the president’s budget would boost spending on “new drones, combat jets, hypersonic missiles, and submarines.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement late Thursday that the president’s Pentagon blueprint requests “$26 billion more than Congress allocated in the previous budget—which itself was $63 billion more than the $773 billion the President requested for FY2023.”
“This is a never-ending cycle of increased funds without accountability,” said Jayapal. “There is simply no reason for taxpayers to continue to pay for outrageously high budgets rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. A recent CBO study confirmed that the Pentagon could cut $100 billion per year without compromising on national defense. This is long overdue. Progressives in Congress have been at the frontline of this fight for decades, and we will continue to push for sensible, targeted defense policy that prioritizes our national security over profit-hungry military contractors.”
Given that roughly half of the Pentagon’s annual budget has historically gone to military contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, the National Priorities Project (NPP) noted Thursday that around 25% of Biden’s total discretionary budget would likely wind up in the coffers of private companies.
“This military budget represents a shameful status quo that the country can no longer afford,” said Lindsay Koshgarian, NPP’s program director. “Families are struggling to afford basics like housing, food, and medicine, and our last pandemic-era protections are ending, all while Pentagon contractors pay their CEOs millions straight from the public treasury.”
Led by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), progressive lawmakers have been working for years to enact modest cuts to the Pentagon budget and redirect the savings toward healthcare, education, and other social investments.
But those efforts have repeatedly fallen short in the face of bipartisan opposition.
In 2022, Lee’s proposal to cut $100 billion off the military budget’s top line was defeated by an overwhelming vote of 78-350, with 141 House Democrats joining nearly every Republican in voting no. (NPP points out that $100 billion would be enough to send every U.S. household a $700 check or hire a million elementary school teachers.)
In a statement Thursday, Lee said she is “disappointed” that the president’s new budget “continues the regressive trend of increasing our bloated, wasteful defense budget year after year with little oversight.” Last month, Lee and Pocan reintroduced legislation that would reduce the U.S. military budget by $100 billion.
Top Republicans, meanwhile, signaled Thursday that they will try to pile more money on top of Biden’s historically large military budget request as they simultaneously pursue cuts to Medicaid and food benefits.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, lamented that Biden’s budget “proposes to increase non-defense spending at more than twice the rate of defense.”
“The president’s incredibly misplaced priorities send all the wrong messages to our adversaries,” said Rogers. “On the House Armed Services Committee, we are focused on building an NDAA that provides our warfighters with the capability and lethality to deter and, if necessary, defeat the grave threats facing our nation.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) sent a similar message, calling Biden’s military budget request “woefully inadequate” and a “serious indication of President Biden’s failure to prioritize national security.”
But analysts argue that ballooning military spending does little to bolster U.S. national security. As William Hartung of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft wrote Thursday, “We can make America and its allies safer for far less money if we adopt a more realistic, restrained strategy and drive a harder bargain with weapons contractors that too often engage in price gouging and cost overruns while delivering dysfunctional systems that aren’t appropriate for addressing the biggest threats to our security.”
“The Congressional Budget Office has crafted three illustrative options that could ensure our security while spending $1 trillion less over the next decade,” Hartung noted. “A strategy that incorporates aspects of these plans and streamlines the Pentagon budget in other areas could be sustained at roughly $150 billion per year less than current levels.”
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 interact with Evangelical Christians of all stripes virtually every day; on Facebook, YouTube, via email, and responding to comments on this site. I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years. I attended an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Bible college in the mid-70s and spent twenty-five years pastoring IFB, Sovereign Grace, Christian Union, Southern Baptist, and non-denominational churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I know Evangelicalism inside and out.
One thing I have learned in my sixty-six years of life is this: Evangelicals seem to have a hard time adapting or changing their ways to reach and influence unbelievers. In the IFB church movement, in particular, churches and parachurch organizations are using the same techniques and methodologies that they were using in the 1970s and 1980s. Our culture has moved on, but Evangelicals continue to sing the old gospel song, I Shall Not be Moved.
Evangelicalism is dying on the vine. Evangelicals often object when I make this claim, saying look at all of the growing megachurches! What they don’t mention, however, is that the vast majority of church attendance growth comes from transfers — people moving their membership from one church to another. All around the country, smaller Evangelical churches, whose memberships have been pilfered by larger congregations, are closing their doors. New convert numbers are in decline, as are baptisms. There is also a huge statistical disconnect between the membership roll and actual church attendance. On any given Sunday, half of Southern Baptist church members are not in church. Evangelical church growth experts are alarmed over the attendance decline among young adults. The rise of the NONES — atheists, agnostics, and people who are indifferent towards religion — scares the shit out of them, as does the increasing number of people who are “dones” — people who are done with church.
Knowing all these things, what do Evangelicals do to stem declines in attendance, conversions, and baptisms? The same things they have always done. Evangelicals have been waging culture wars for a hundred years. They are seemingly clueless as to how their wars are perceived by unbelievers and non-Evangelical Christians. Either that or they don’t care. Today, Evangelicals are one of the most hated religious groups in America.
As I mentioned above, I interact with Evangelicals almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. As I pondered writing this post, I made a list of techniques Evangelicals attempt to use to win me to Jesus:
Love Bombing — pretending to “love” me, hoping that doing so will give them an in with me. Such people express deep love for me and often offer to buy me lunch/dinner or give me money.
Feigned Friendship — pretending to befriend me, hoping that becoming my friend will make me more willing to hear what they have to say. Evangelicals frequently send me friend requests on Facebook, even though we have absolutely nothing in common. Some of them will badger me about accepting their friendship. This approach usually results in me bluntly telling them why I do not want to be best buds with them. If all else fails, I tell them to go fuck themselves.
Threats of Judgment and Hell — telling me that I am under the judgment of God and headed for Hell when I die. How they think this approach will draw me to Jesus is beyond me.
Proof Texting — using Bible verses to show me I am wrong and why I need to repent of my sins and get saved. People seem to forget that I was a pastor for twenty-five years; that I likely know a lot more about what the Bible says and teaches than they do. Many Evangelicals are woefully ignorant about the Bible. Once beyond their proof texts, they flounder.
Philosophical Arguments — arguments used to prove the existence of God, God-given morality, or defend God from culpability for evil, pain, and suffering.
None of these approaches works with me. It’s not that I am a reprobate or an apostate — as many Evangelicals allege. Their claims don’t make sense to me. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) I find them to be irrational and illogical. I have been listening to Evangelicals for sixteen years. I can’t tell you the last time I have heard an original or novel argument from an Evangelical apologist. Take Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen. He has written thousands of words about me; countless posts that attack me or respond to something I have written. Thiessen’s position on anything and everything is this: the Bible is right, and you are wrong. End of discussion. Of course, “what the Bible says” actually means Thiessen’s personal interpretations of an ancient religious text. He is not special in this regard. Evangelicals are largely “God (Bible) said it, I believe it” Christians — that is until the Bible conflicts with how they want to live their lives. Then, what the Bible says is just a matter of personal opinion.
Here’s the thing: none of these things matters to the average unbeliever. What does matter is how supposedly born-again, sanctified, and filled-with-the-Holy-Ghost Bible believers live their daily lives. And quite frankly what unbelievers see (and experience) angers and disgusts them. God isn’t the problem, Evangelicals are. It is Evangelicals (and conservative Catholics and Mormons) who gave us Donald Trump. It is Evangelicals who were behind the 1/6 Insurrection. It is Evangelicals behind banning abortion, persecuting LGBTQ people, banning books, and restricting sex education. Worse, many Evangelicals are hell-bent on forcing the American people to obey, under the penalty of law, their interpretation of the Bible. In other words, they want to force their beliefs on secular, unbelieving, non-Evangelical Americans. Is it any surprise that many Americans hate Evangelicals? They want to return the United States to the good old days of the 1950s; a time when Christianity ruled supreme, LGBTQ people were deep in their proverbial closets, Blacks knew their place, and women were keepers of the home, busy with domestic work, cooking meals, bearing children, and fucking their husbands on demand.
If Evangelicals truly want to reach unbelievers, I suggest they stop talking and begin loving their neighbors as themselves. Instead of trying to evangelize people, how about loving them as they are; accepting them as they are; embracing them as fellow travelers on planet earth. Show your faith by how you treat others. Be a people who are known for how they treat people who are different from them; people who are known for their love, mercy, and compassion towards the “least of these.”
Will Evangelicals listen to a lowly, no-account Evangelical-preacher-turned-atheist? Probably not. The Titanic is sinking, and Evangelical are on the deck shouting, I’m right, I’m right, I’m right, as the ship turns over and drowns them in the sea.
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.
Who created evolution? [This has to be the dumbest question ever asked by a young earth creationist.] This is a fair question as many people ask, including children, ‘Who created God?’ When you type that question into a browser’s search box, you get a myriad of websites providing the right answer.
No one created God as he always existed. That may blow some people’s minds but that is how it is. It is hard to imagine since we are finite beings and trying to grasp the eternal is a bit out of our scope and ability.
However, you do not get the same results when you type in the words who created evolution. What you get is website after website either giving the scientific explanation of how science works or explanations of how evolution works.
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Yet, when you scour their works, not one person who promotes the evolutionary theory ever speaks about where evolution came from. They do not even bother to make it a separate entity and said that as soon as life began on this planet, evolution took over.
But where did evolution come from? Many unbelieving scientists want to put God in a test tube and study him but that is mere arrogance talking. No one talks about putting evolution in a test tube and studying it.
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They are content with studying the supposed results of this process. They have no desire to do to evolution what they have stated they want to do with God. They are content to believe in a non-existent theory and process whether they know where it came from or not.
It is no surprise that evolutionists do not know where the process came from or if it is a created process or not. They do not even know where life came from.
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Many people put their faith in science, yet, science is failing them as the members of that research field have no clue about the origin of life. They still do not know the original environment that supposedly spawned life.
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How can unbelieving scientists know the origin of evolution when they do not know anything about our beginnings? This is the difference between Christians and unbelievers. We do not need science to tell us our origins, we already know.
God has told us about it in the Bible. The reason the unbeliever doesn’t know is that they reject the truth of the Bible. We get answers and peace of mind, and the unbelievers get questions with no answers and a myriad of ‘mysteries’. They do not get peace of mind.
The evolutionist or evolution supporter may mock Christians and call them all sorts of names, etc., but all they are left with is a void that they struggle to fill with absurd theories they cannot come close to verifying.
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We Christians have a God that has spared us this trouble and effort. He has told us exactly what took place and how he did it so we do not have o waste any time or money seeking out the answer to our origins.
We can focus on our lives and go about God’s business knowing our heritage, and having no distractions because the mystery of our origins was solved a long time ago. Evolution has no creator because it has never existed, even in micro form.
It is better to know that we were wanted than to have to go through life thinking we are the spawn of something that does not care about us. God knows us as the Psalmist has said but evolution doesn’t even have a mind so it can never care or get to know us.
Why go with science when it can never produce an answer to the question who created evolution? Or why did it ‘evolve’ us?
— Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God, Who Created Evolution?, March 8, 2023
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In February 20222. Terry Compton, pastor of Faith Independent Missionary Baptist Church in Damascus, Virginia (no internet presence), was charged with 12 counts of taking indecent liberties with children; 12 counts of aggravated sexual battery; three counts of forcible sodomy, and three counts of object sexual penetration.
Terry Compton, 62, the current pastor of Faith Independent Missionary Baptist Church in Damascus, Virginia, was arrested and charged by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Compton is charged with 12 counts of taking indecent liberties with children; 12 counts of aggravated sexual battery; three counts of forcible sodomy and three counts of object sexual penetration.
The abuse allegedly started in 1995 and continued for 26 years.
Officials said that although the initial charges are based on assaults on three minors, multiple victims have come forward.
“The case is in, really, its infancy – he just got arrested last week,” Washington County Commonwealth Attorney Joshua Cumbow told WJHL-TV “This is a big case.”
Compton is being held at the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail without bond.
Compton later pleaded guilty to sodomy of a helpless victim (one count), sodomy of a child less than 13 years old (one count), object sexual penetration of a child less than 13 years old (two counts), and aggravated sexual battery of a child less than 13 years old (12 counts). No plea was offered to Compton.
Compton was sentenced to four life sentences — 240 years. He will spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
A former pastor from Southwest Virginia was sentenced to four life sentences after he pleaded guilty to multiple child sex crimes.
A release from the office of Washington County Commonwealth’s Attorney Josh Cumbow states that Terry Frank Compton was sentenced in Washington County Circuit Court. Compton was sentenced to 240 years in addition to the four life sentences. The release states that no time was suspended.
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Cumbow’s office reported that Compton was not offered a plea agreement.
Compton was arrested in February 2022 after a months-long investigation by the Washington County Virginia Sheriff’s Office (WCSO). In a release issued by the WCSO at the time, Compton was identified as the pastor at a baptist church in Damascus.
He was initially charged with 30 felony counts, all against juveniles. The WCSO reported at the time that multiple victims had come forward, and detectives had determined that Compton had been abusing children for about 26 years.
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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Two weeks ago, my interview with Tim Mills, The Harmonic Atheist, was published on YouTube. As of today, over 20,000 people have watched our interview.
With the interest in hearing my story have come scores of Evangelical Christians telling me that I am headed for Hell; that I never was a Christian; that I just needed to pray a simple prayer to Jesus and he would save me. Numerous zealots have weighed in on my story, certain that they know exactly what is “wrong” with me and what I must do to avoid being eternally tortured by their peculiar version of God. Several Calvinists weighed in, saying that it is evident I am a reprobate — one who is beyond the grace of God and cannot be saved. One man simply said, “Bruce is full of horseshit.”
Such is the nature of YouTube. Most content creators don’t moderate comments, so Evangelicals can and do bully and attack people who run afoul of their theology, beliefs, and practices. Tim did delete several comments that were over the top. I appreciate him doing so. On this site, I have strict commenting rules, which Evangelicals routinely ignore. If I had the same comment policy as YouTube, I would be overrun with abusive comments (as was the case years ago). There was a time when hateful comments really got under my skin and caused harm both to me and to the readers of this blog. Sometimes the hostile comments got so bad that I stopped blogging. Those days are long gone. I returned to blogging in December 2014. I made sure that I instituted strict policies governing Evangelicals. I also let Evangelicals know that if they sent me hateful emails I would publicly expose them for doing so. This has dramatically cut down the negative emails and comments I receive, but, as regular readers know, Evangelicals still feel led by the Holy Spirit to “share” with me what Hey-Zeus has laid upon their hearts.
I was raised in the Evangelical church, attended Bible college, and pastored churches for twenty-five years. I preached countless sermons about Hell. I fully understand what Evangelicals believe about Hell, the Lake of Fire, and eternal, everlasting punishment. And my critics KNOW that I know these things. Yet, over the past fifteen years, Evangelicals have told me I am headed for Hell more times than I can count. What do they hope to gain by telling me this? Or is the real issue that they find my story threatening; a reminder of the fact that if someone such as I can lose their faith anyone can? So they hurl hellfire and brimstone my way, hoping to quell their own questions and doubts. That’s why they rarely engage in meaningful discussions with me. Questions and pushback from someone who knows the Bible inside and out threatens their spiritual security, so they stand on the corner across the street from my house and chuck rocks.
Many Evangelicals try to discredit me by saying that I never was a Christian; that I was deceived; that I met a false Jesus. By doing this, they can, with a wave of their hand, ignore my story. The problem with this approach is that they have no evidence for their claim. Evangelicals cannot provide one church member or colleague of mine in the ministry who, at the time I was a pastor, believed I was a “false Christian.” Not one. They can, however, find numerous people who will tell them that I was a devoted follower of Jesus; that I took seriously God’s calling on my life. I wasn’t perfect, to be sure. I am sure my wife, Polly, and our six grown children could share plenty of stories about their husband and father being less than Christian. However, they would likely testify that the bent of my life was certainly toward holiness and love for God.
Many Evangelicals can’t square my story with their soteriology and interpretation of the Bible — especially Baptists — so they assuage their theological confusion by saying I never was a Christian. Instead of questioning their theology or trying to make my story fit their beliefs, they lazily decree that I was a false Christian.
I hate it when people say I never was a Christian. By doing this, Evangelicals discredit fifty of my six-six years of life on planet earth. They pretend that those years and how I lived my life don’t exist. When someone tells me their story I generally believe them. If I have doubt about some aspect of their story — say Evangelicals who say they were atheists before they got saved — I ask questions. I don’t automatically assume they are lying. When someone tells me they are a Christian, I believe them. It is their life, their story. Who I am to say that their experiences are invalid? I may think that some of their experiences won’t survive rational, skeptical examination, but unless they are directly interacting with me or trying to use their subjective experiences as evidence for the existence of God, I am inclined to accept their stories at face value. Life is too short for me to spend much time deconstructing the lives of others. I wish Evangelicals would take the same approach with me. Read my story, ask questions, and I will respond. Read my story and threaten me with Hell or discredit my life? I am likely to gut you like a fish.
The strangest approach comes from Evangelicals who think that prayer is some sort of magic spell; that if I would just sincerely pray a prayer they prescribe (which often contains heretical theology), Jesus would hear my prayer, save me from my sin, and give me a home in Heaven when I die. Every time an Evangelical takes this approach with me, I stop what I am doing and pray their prescribed prayer. I have done this countless times, yet I remain an atheist. Either prayer doesn’t work the way they think it does, or God is a myth. My money is on the latter.
As many Evangelicals-turned-atheists/agnostics have done, when I began having doubts about Christianity and the Bible, I pleaded with God to show me the truth. I begged him to show me a way to remain a Christian. One former friend and a colleague in the ministry told me that I needed to stop asking questions and just faith-it. A former church member told me that I needed to stop reading books. “Just read the Bible, Bruce,” she told me. Of course, I couldn’t do that. I had always been a voracious reader who was willing to change my beliefs if warranted. As congregants and pastor friends, they admired my intellectualism, but now they wanted me to return to an ignorant, child-like faith. My best friend, at the time, took a different approach with me. He wrote me a blistering email that said I was under the influence of Satan, unstable in all my ways. He made no attempt to pull me back from the abyss. Instead, he castigated me for ruining my family. None of these people, and others like them, were willing or able to honestly, openly, and without reservation, interact with me. Would their intervention have made a difference? No. I knew that their answers were no match for my questions. I was reading non-Evangelical scholars and theologians. I was also reading books by prominent unbelievers. I had spent twenty-five years reading books by Evangelical authors, so there was no need to re-read their books. Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and that is especially true when it comes to Evangelical theology.
As my knowledge increased and the truth came into better focus, I once again asked God to step in and save me from myself. Alas, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was silent, and he has remained silent until this very moment. I have concluded, then, that either God doesn’t give a shit about me or he doesn’t exist. All the evidence suggests to me that he doesn’t exist.
There’s nothing I can do to stop Evangelicals from doing what Evangelicals do. All I am saying in this post to Evangelicals is this: you might want to try a different approach with me (and atheists, in general). Threats of Hell fall on deaf ears. Suggesting that I was never a Christian only brings laughs and incredulity. And finally, asking me to pray shallow, often heretical prayers is making you look bad. How you frame the gospel in your prescribed prayers suggest that you really don’t understand the Christian gospel at all. Instead of asking me to pray a prayer, you might actually want to read your Bible and seriously study Christian soteriology. Maybe you are the one who isn’t saved. 🙂
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.
You stopped by the Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser yesterday to share your “testimony,” to tell me how much you “love” me, to beg me to pray a prayer, and then to offer up a prayer of your own for the atheist Bruce Gerencser. In doing so, you disrespected me and showed no regard for me as a person. All you saw was a man in need of your brand of Christian salvation.
Suppose you went to your mother’s house and she told you, “Chad, please take your shoes off at the door and hang your coat in the closet.” Would you respect her wishes? Or would you leave your shoes on and throw your coat on the floor? I suspect, as a good son, you would do as she asked.
When you clicked on the link for the CONTACT page, you were presented with a page that told you what kind of emails I was interested in receiving. I specifically said to you, Chad:
If you are an Evangelical Christian, please read Dear Evangelical before sending me an email. If you have a pathological need to evangelize, spread the love of Jesus, or put a good word in for the man, the myth, the legend named Jesus, please don’t. The same goes for telling me your church/pastor/Jesus is awesome. I am also not interested in reading sermonettes, testimonials, Bible verses, or your deconstruction/psychological evaluation of my life. By all means, if you feel the need to set me straight, start your own blog.
You chose to ignore my requests. You came into my house, left your shoes on, and threw your coat on the floor, showing no regard for me as a person. I subscribe to the rule, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” I have bowed my head at countless meals as Christians prayed to their deity. Not one time have I ever made a fuss about them praying to mythical beings. Why? I know it would be disrespectful if I did so.
You began your letter by saying that my story moved you to tears. You then feign syrupy, shallow Christian love for me. You wrote:
I’m a Christian and read your story and was moved to tears. I’m not here to condemn you but share my story with you want to hear it. If you dont feel free not to read past this point. But one thing I have to tell you; I dont know you and yet feel such love for you. My heart aches to hear the pain you endured in life. I truly understand pain; I wish I didn’t.
You say you are a Christian, and I accept your testimony at face value. Why could you have not done the same for me? Did you read any of my autobiographical material before deeming yourself sufficiently informed to weigh in on my life? You admit that you don’t know me, yet you say you have “such love for me.” You go on to say that your “heart aches to hear the pain I [have] endured in life.” Imagine if a stranger came up to you at Starbucks and said, ” I feel your pain. I can sense that you have endured much in your life. I want you to know that I love you.” I suspect you would quickly take three steps back, mumble “thanks” and quickly get the hell away from this woman. Why? She knows nothing about you. How could she possibly “love” you and understand what you have been through? She can’t.
Let me educate you about what former Evangelicals think about zealots using shallow, superficial “love” to evangelize them. They see right through you. They know that expressing “love” is an evangelism tool used to “connect” with and “hook” unwary marks. The same goes for sharing testimonies. Former Evangelicals know that testimonies are used to make human connections with evangelization targets. “Love” and personal testimonies are ways to break down resistance to the gospel. “See, I am (or was) just like you.” Zealots hope by making a personal connection with sinners that they will be more receptive for a gospel sales pitch.
You see, Chad, former Evangelicals are experts at recognizing these sales techniques. In my case, I used them for years. I see that you are affiliated with CRU — Campus Crusade for Christ. Did they teach you these evangelism techniques? If yes, please write in your notes: “does not work with former Evangelicals, especially those who are now atheists and agnostics.” You might add another note: “these techniques piss former Evangelicals off and make them less likely to hear the gospel.” In other words, Chad. Don’t do it!
You shared your “testimony” without me asking you to so do. Here’s what you said:
My grandma was a native of Mexico; she was mentally ill and blew her head off. My dad was 12 at the time or around that age. He ran into the room after hearing the shot and as you can imagine was destroyed by what he saw. My dad too was an atheist/agnostic and worked as in engineer for Boeing for 40 something years. He is a brilliant man of science with his degree in Physics. Sadly he never worked through his childhood trauma and beat me and my sister who has borderline personality disorder. I grew to hate dad passionately. I lived in fear of him and began power lifting in high school and playing football. I eventually weighed 215 and the abuse stopped one day when I realized I could protect myself from him. We got in a fight one night and as usual he threatened to beat me. I got in his face and basically told him his time of terror was over and if he dared put a hand on me or my sister I would crush him. He must of believed me because he sat down and said nothing else. We said nothing to each other after that horrible fight for a year. I would have laughed if he died. I went on to be a huge problem at school and was almost expelled for almost fighting a teacher that mouthed off to me. I graduated and took a job as a male stripper in St. Louis, MO. It was a great life of girls, money, and late parties. My girlfriend was also a stripper. I worked for Chic Entertainment. I’m not sure but they may still be in operation.
My freshman year in college some goofy girl and next door neighbor kept coming over to visit our dorm room, and she wouldn’t shut up about Jesus. She kept asking me to “receive” him whatever that meant. I told her I”m cool with JC, but I”m a stripper, and I’m not the Christian type. She told me I just the type Jesus wanted, and he would help me change. I thought….cool…whatever…..one night in the shower a week or so later I got on my knees and did the whole “pray to receive Jesus” thing. To my astonishment such a peace I’ve never known washed over me. I thought I had conjured it up because I wanted to believe this stuff. I couldn’t shake it either. I felt this presence around me that I could only describe as overwhelming love.
I began to wonder if this Jesus fellow might be true. I began studying religions and looking at historical evidence to see if I could make sense what happened to me. As I was doing this my personality changed dramatically. I went from being “tough guy” who told anyone I didn’t like to “F” off to suddenly feeling so much love for everyone. And that hate for my dad’s abuse just drained away. I literally felt no more hate for the guy. He noticed the change and asked what happened to you. I told him I didn’t know but told him I prayed to receive Jesus. He basically laughed in my face and told me not to give him all that God crap. He kept grilling me with hard questions, and as a new Christian I didn’t know the answers. I just kept telling him if you want to find out you need to pray to receive Christ and see what happens.
A very long story short my dad became a Christian, we both went to seminary, and both ended up in ministry. He is now one of my best friends and our family is so changed it’s unrecognizable. After 6 years in ministry I was praying in the woods before a mission trip to Africa to work with aids orphans. I was bitten by a tick and contracted numerous tick infections including: Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia. I lived in hell for the next 12 years. For 10 of those years I lived on the brink of death. I could barely eat, breathe, sleep, walk. I begged God for death. My suffering was a constant writhing in agony. I couldn’t sit and even watch TV because my pain was constant or nightmarish. I felt so utterly forsaken by God. Another long story short a new medicine was made available to me, and I’m nearly recovered.
I might normally have been sympathetic towards you had we gotten to know each other, become friends, and shared with each other the struggles we have faced in life. Instead, your unprompted “story” smacks of an evangelism technique; an attempt to hook a big fish and reel him in for Jesus.
Chad, you wrote:
Bruce, you cant shake the feeling of Jesus because he real and reaching out to you. Life is hell let’s face it. Christ never said it would be otherwise. Some of the greatest saints suffered the most. Please Bruce, with tears get on your knees each night or 5 second prayers here and there and say, “Jesus, I dont believe you but please if you are real and Im wrong help me…show me….make a way.” You’re saying to me right now….but i’ve already done this. Please keep trying Bruce…please.
You say, “Bruce, you cant shake the feeling of Jesus because he real and reaching out to you.” You seem to be quite arrogant, Chad. How could you possibly know these things? What makes you think I have the “feeling of Jesus?” I have no such thing. The only feeling I have as I write this letter to you is excruciating physical pain from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. The pain is so severe in my spine today that I want to die. Literally. I choose, however, to keep plodding through life. I bought a new recliner today, hoping it will lessen my pain. I went to lunch with my wife of forty-five years and our daughter with Down syndrome. We had a delightful afternoon, even though the food I ate caused me all sorts of problems; as food does EVERY TIME I eat. I make the most of what life I have, knowing that I am on the short side of life. If Jesus really cares for me, how about taking away my pain or nausea? How about doing something miraculous that would reveal to me that he is real? Instead, he sends you. He always sends people like you; Evangelicals who have no regard for me as a person and only see me as a target for evangelization; just another notch on their gospel guns.
Jesus isn’t “reaching out to me,” Chad. He’s dead. Besides, even if Jesus is alive as you believe, how do you know he’s trying to reach me at 666-666-6669? Maybe the line is off the hook or disconnected. Maybe I am an apostate; a reprobate. You do know what the Bible says about reprobates, right? I am confident (and happy) that I have crossed the proverbial line of no return. You are wasting your time trying to evangelize me.
Your life might be “hell,” but mine isn’t. Sure, I live a pain-filled life. I struggle to move, walk, and do “normal,” everyday things. But, as long as I have Polly, my wife, our six children, and our thirteen grandchildren, life isn’t “hell,” not even close. I see most of my children and grandchildren every week or two. I am blessed to have my family close by. Because this life is the only one I will ever have, I intend to make the most of every day. I give this advice on my ABOUT page:
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
You go on to ask me, “Bruce, with tears get on your knees each night or 5 second prayers here and there and say, “Jesus, I dont believe you but please if you are real and Im wrong help me…show me….make a way.” You’re saying to me right now….but i’ve already done this. Please keep trying Bruce…please.”
Do you have any idea how often Evangelicals have taken this approach with me over the past fifteen years? Hundreds of times. Here’s what your plea says to me: you want me to conjure up a dead man. This is not different from a Voodoo incantation. Besides, do you know how offensive it is to ask a crippled man who can’t walk without the aid of a wheelchair or cane to get on his knees?
Let me be clear, I have no interest in your God, Jesus, or religion. I have no interest in buying what you are peddling. I am not low-hanging fruit. I likely know the Bible better than you do. I know all I need to know about Christianity. I have weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. Besides, I have the revelation of conscience and creation (Romans 1,2). I have all that is necessary for me to “believe.” Yet, I remain unconvinced. Ponder that for awhile, Chad. “Think” instead of acting.
You conclude your email to me with an arrogant, self-righteous prayer, a common form of spiritual masturbation among Evangelical zealots.
You wrote:
Lord, I feel such love for Bruce. I’m asking in response to this prayer a series of miracles would get my brother’s attention. I pray you press into him with your love and presence so powerfully it would overwhelm him with delight in spite of himself. Give him the grace to again call on your name even in disbelief. …..and please Lord answer him with such power he cant deny the miracle. Jesus please let me walk on streets of gold with Bruce someday and may we spend eternity as dear friends. God love you Bruce! If you read this far thank you!!!!
I am not your “brother,” Chad. I don’t want to be your “brother” either. I also don’t want to walk on fictional streets of gold with you. Quite frankly, I am not that into you. What makes you think that I would want to spend eternity with the Chad Lawrences of the world? Give me Christopher Hitchens, Steven Hawking, and Steve Gupton in Hell every time. You may want to spend eternity in constant worship and fealty to a man who took a long weekend for you, but I don’t. That sounds like hell, to me.
You are telling me with your prayer that you think there is something fundamentally wrong with me. You know very little about me. In fact, you know so little about me that you couldn’t pass a ten-question exam about my life. Yet, you feel justified in rendering judgment on my life and telling me what I should do. To that, I say, fuck off.
If there is a God, he knows exactly where I am. He knows where I live. He knows my phone number and email address. He can contact me at any time. Better yet, he can show up on my doorstep and take me out to lunch. That said, I will tell you this: if I am miraculously healed of gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and degenerative spine disease, I will put my faith and trust in Jesus and return to church. You have thirty days to make this happen, Chad. Fast and pray without ceasing for Bruce Gerencser. Gather your spouse and CRU buddies together and pray for God to heal me. Let’s put your prayers to the test. With God, all things are possible, right? Nothing is too hard for God, the Bible says. So here, I am, Chad. To quote Captain Jean Luc Picard, “make it so, number one.”
I hope you have realized by now that contacting me in the manner that you did was a bad idea. We shall see if you learned anything.
Saved by Reason,
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.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In 2019, Joseph “Jack” Baker, pastor of St. Perpetua Parish in Waterford, Michigan, was accused of sexually assaulting a child.
The Oakland Press reported at the time:
Father Joseph “Jack” Baker, 57, is on an electronic tether following his arraignment July 8 in 29th District Court, according to the Wayne County Jail website. Judge Laura Redmond Mack assigned a $500,000 personal bond at arraignment, which doesn’t require bail to be posted.
Baker, pastor of St. Perpetua Parish in Waterford since 2008, is one of six metro Detroit priests facing sexual abuse charges as part of an ongoing investigation by the state’s attorney general’s office. He was arrested July 8 in Wayne County and is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct – sexual penetration with a person under 13 years old, multiple variables. Court records list the offense date as Feb. 1, 2004.
Baker is also a former associate pastor at St. Hugo of the Hills Parish in Bloomfield Hills and Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn, and former pastor at St. Mary Parish in Wayne. He also was administrator at St. Benedict in Waterford in 2011, campus minister at Wayne State Medical School Campus Ministry and administrator at three churches in Inkster. He was ordained in 1993.
Attorney General Dana Nessel is calling the case “just the tip of the iceberg,” and said her office is reviewing “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and files” seized last fall from Michigan’s seven diocese.
In October 2022, Baker was convicted of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree with a child under the age of 13.
On March 1, 2023, Baker was sentenced to 3-15 years in prison. Afterward, he must register as a sex offender.
Joseph “Jack” Baker, 61, was convicted in October 2022 of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. This charge is used when the victim is under 13.
Baker will spend three to 15 years in prison and must register as a sex offender for life.
He had previously been a pastor at St. Perpetua Parish in Waterford since 2008. He also served as a pastor at St. Mary Parish in Wayne, as associate pastor at Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn and as an associate pastor at St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills.
At his sentencing hearing in Wayne County’s 3rd Judicial Circuit Court, Joseph “Father Jack” Baker was ordered to spend 3-15 years in prison, with jail credit of 140 days, for first-degree criminal sexual conduct-sexual penetration of a person less than 13 years old.
Baker was pastor at St. Mary Catholic School in Wayne and his victim was a second-grader there when he was raped in the church sacristy in 2004. Both the victim and Baker were among those who testified at the trial last October, with Baker denying the allegation.
The Oakland Press is not naming the victim due to the nature of the crime.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Bridget Hathaway veered from sentencing guidelines of a minimum 25 years in prison, calling Baker’s case “somewhat unique.”
Noting that the priest was convicted of “one of the most serious crimes in the state,” Hathaway cited several factors for the lighter sentence, including Baker having no other criminal allegations against him and no prior criminal history, compliance with bond conditions for more than three years while he awaited trial, and several dozen letters of support from parishioners and others who, she said, credited him with doing “a great deal of good for the community.”
….
Wednesday’s hearing, Kriger had asked the judge to sentence Baker to time served and “a period of probation or home confinement,” claiming he has a history of “dedication to service,” community involvement and helping others “in some of their darkest hours” — as evidenced by the letters written to the court on his behalf.
“This offense is 20 years old and is truly an aberration in Father Baker’s otherwise exemplary life…he has spent the last 20 years being the complete opposite of what he have seen in this case,” she said.
Russo Bennetts, however, argued that the “face (Baker) presented to the community and the face his victim saw” weren’t the same.
“This was not an aberration…he changed and destroyed (the victim’s) life,” Russo Bennetts said. “The people who wrote those letters weren’t sexually assaulted by Joseph Baker. The Joseph Baker in those letters in not the Joseph Baker (the victim) knows.”
Baker was given a lighter sentence because of all the “good” things he did as a pastor. Does anyone seriously think that this was the only time that Baker took advantage of a church minor? I mean, really? As has been shown in countless Black Collar Crime stories, judges often give offending clergy what I call the “preacher’s discount,” sentencing them to lighter sentences than non-clerics receive. Lost on judges is the fact that these men abused the trust their victims had in them, causing untold physical and psychological harm. They should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
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.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In 2022, Mark Rivera, a lay pastor at Christ Our Light Anglican in Big Rock, Illinois — an Anglican Church affiliated with the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest — was charged with two felony counts of criminal sexual assault.
A former lay pastor in a conservative Anglican denomination was charged Wednesday (Dec. 29) with two felony counts of criminal sexual assault in the Kane County, Illinois, circuit court. The charges come a year after Joanna Rudenborg reported Mark Rivera, her former neighbor, to Kane County police, accusing him of raping her in 2018 and again in 2020.
According to Pat Gengler, undersheriff at Kane County, bail was set at $50,000 and Rivera was released after a hearing. “He’s on home monitoring, so he does have a GPS bracelet which greatly restricts his movements,” said Gengler.
….
“I’m glad he was finally charged and the prosecution is happening,” said Rudenborg. “It’s certainly validating that the state looked at the evidence and said, this is a strong case worth pursuing. … I hope that my story being taken seriously by the authorities will help other people take other victims’ stories more seriously.”
….
Rivera is also being prosecuted on charges of felony sexual assault and predatory abuse of a victim under 13 years of age, and at least eight others have made allegations of abuse by Rivera, including child sexual abuse, grooming, rape and assault.
Rivera was a lay minister at Christ Our Light Anglican, an ACNA church plant in Big Rock, Illinois, from 2013 to 2019. He was also a volunteer leader at Church of the Resurrection — the headquarters of the Upper Midwest Diocese — in Wheaton, Illinois, from the mid-1990s until 2013.
On Aug. 28, ACNA announced the members of a Provincial Response Team that would oversee an investigation into the diocese’s handling of the allegations. The denomination was not able to respond to a request for comment by the time of publication, but according to an email sent from the Provincial Response Team to Rudenborg on Nov. 30 and shown to Religion News Service, the group was “ready to begin the initial vetting process to narrow down the list” of investigative firms. That list would then be voted on by both survivors and members of the Provincial Response Team. On Twitter, Rudenborg expressed frustration at the team’s lack of action.
“At this point, I’m safe from Mark, I’m not in any direct danger, so really what I want is for him to not be able to harm anyone else,” Rudenborg told RNS. “The only way we can be sure that that’s going to happen is if he goes back into custody. So it’s kind of still a waiting game.”
In December 2022, Rivera was found guilty of two counts of felony predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and three felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
Mark Rivera, 49, of Winfield was found guilty of two counts of felony predatory criminal sexual assault of a child and three felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on Feb. 10.
Rivera was a lay pastor at the Anglican Church of North America in Big Rock when he sexually assaulted a child under the age of 13 multiple times between June 2018 and May 2019, according to a news release from the Kane County state’s attorney’s office. The abuse was reported to authorities after the victim told her mother.
“Mr. Rivera is a predator who used his position of respectability and stature in a church and within the community to prey on this child with no consideration for the trauma he caused,” Kane County Assistant State’s Attorney Matthew Rodgers said. “The victim showed great courage in telling her mother about his criminal conduct, in preparing for this trial and in facing him in court.”
Rivera will have to register for life as a sexual offender, authorities said. He remains in custody at the Kane County jail on $500,000 bail.
After Rivera’s arrest, it came to light that he allegedly molested other children. A damning third-party report was revealed in October 2022, calling into question the Anglican denomination’s culpability in Rivera’s crimes.
A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.
The probe into events in the Upper Midwest Diocese, conducted by the investigative firm Husch Blackwell, also found that an ACNA priest did not report abuse by a lay pastor to the Department of Child and Family Services, claiming a church lawyer told him he was exempt from mandatory reporting laws, and that Bishop Stewart Ruch III and others allowed a church volunteer to have contact with teenagers after he had lost his teaching job for inappropriate behavior with students.
As serious as the report’s findings are, the investigation went forward without hearing from at least five alleged survivors of abuse who refused to participate over concerns about transparency.
The Upper Midwest Diocese in the ACNA—a small denomination formed by a 2009 split with the Episcopal Church over its LGBTQ-affirming policies—has been roiled since 2019 by allegations that Mark Rivera, a former lay pastor in the diocese known for his charisma and physical affection, had sexually abused young people he had met through Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois, and Christ Our Light Anglican Church in Big Rock, Illinois.
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At least 10 individuals have made sexual abuse or sexual misconduct allegations against Rivera, who is now on trial in Kane County, Illinois, on charges of felony sexual assault and predatory abuse of a victim under 13 years of age. Rivera also faces charges for two felony counts of criminal sexual assault of a separate alleged adult victim.
Ruch is on leave after admitting he made serious mistakes in handling the abuse allegations against Rivera, including failing to initially tell members of the Upper Midwest Diocese about those allegations.
ACNA spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.
Four years earlier, in 2015, several leaders became aware that a lay leader at Christ Our Light Anglican, Chris Lapeyre, had been fired from a high school teaching position that year over concerns about a relationship with a female student, according to the report.
The Rev. Rand York, a priest at the church, told investigators he knew that Lapeyre had lost his job and why but allowed Lapeyre to stay in leadership, saying that he “was not concerned about Lapeyre interacting with young people at COLA because Lapeyre had three daughters of his own.”
Ruch, bishop of the diocese, reportedly told investigators that he also knew that Lapeyre had been fired over a “boundary crossing” issue but took no action. Lapeyre said his termination didn’t limit his leadership opportunities at either Christ Our Light Anglican or Church of the Resurrection, the diocesan headquarters in Wheaton.
The report states that Lapeyre, a friend of Rivera’s, told investigators he was aware of sexual misconduct by Rivera involving an adult woman in 2018 but did not tell anyone about it until 2020.
The report goes on to say that Ruch and York did not attempt to learn more about additional abuse allegations against Rivera made known to them in 2019, and Ruch did not consider reaching out to parents of at-risk teens who might have been vulnerable to abuse by Rivera.
Released online late Tuesday evening (Sept. 27), the report follows a monthslong investigation that was contentious from the start due to the objections from some of Rivera’s accusers.
“I have no reason to believe that anything about this investigation is independent,” said Cherin Marie when the investigation was announced in January. Cherin Marie, whose then-9-year-old daughter reported being sexually abused by Rivera in May 2019, has asked that her last name not be used to protect her family’s privacy.
Joanna Rudenborg, who says she was abused by Rivera, too, tweeted on Sept. 17 about her skepticism toward the anticipated report: “(T)he investigation has never been about justice or healing for survivors. It has been first and foremost about doing damage control.”
Survivors and advocates affiliated with ACNAtoo, an anti-abuse advocacy group, have publicly criticized the report on social media for including explicit details about a minor’s sexual abuse without the child’s consent.
“The minor is one of multiple survivors of Mark Rivera’s sexual assault that chose not to participate in the investigation because it was obvious that the investigation was not safe,” Abbi Nye, an ACNAtoo advocate, tweeted on Friday morning. “They were right.”
Members of ACNAtoo say that while many of them reached out to ACNA leaders days ago asking them to redact the minor’s details, the report remains online, unedited.
“The account of the young girl’s abuse in the report is all hearsay, from two leaders who are implicated in mishandling her abuse,” Nye told RNS.
Investigators were asked to gather information about how ACNA leaders handled abuse allegations—but were barred from recommending charges or punishments.
“We were charged with gathering evidence regarding such issues and reporting the information collected, but we were explicitly directed not to render any legal determinations, evaluate or opine about any governance structure issues, or seek to address whether any discipline is warranted,” the firm wrote in its report.
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The Rev. Gina Roes and Christen Price, an ordained deacon and attorney, respectively, told Religion News Service that the report is difficult to evaluate, given the severe limitations of its scope. Both women resigned in January from the Provincial Response Team originally charged with overseeing the investigations, claiming its process “never felt survivor-centered.”
“It sort of defeats the purpose of having an investigation if there are no conclusions that can be made from the report,” said Roes, pointing to the report’s lack of analysis. “It leaves it in the hands of the ACNA and the diocese to interpret and characterize those facts.”
When asked about next steps, Roes and Price said denominational leaders who were excluded from the report due to its diocesan scope should be investigated. “There needs to be an investigation of the province,” said Price, referring to ACNA.
In interviews with Husch Blackwell, Ruch admitted the diocese lacked protocols for responding to sexual misconduct allegations and left the matter largely for law enforcement to pursue.
But the report identifies another obstacle to reporting abuse: In notes and emails, church officials repeatedly expressed their belief in Rivera’s innocence.
“While I believe this entire accusation to be spurious (something has happened to this girl, but Mark is not the culprit), I fear however that this will spell the end of Christ Our Light,” York reportedly wrote in a May 20, 2019, email. “I believe Mark to be innocent. I would be stunned to find anything untoward with regard to his actions,” he wrote in another email days later.
Charles Philbrick, the church lawyer who reportedly advised York he wasn’t obligated to report the allegations, told Husch Blackwell he found the child’s allegations “hard to believe.” (The report says York was investigated by DCFS for failing to report, but nothing seems to have come from the investigation.) Philbrick said he gave Rivera a referral to a defense attorney, but only, he told investigators, out of his ethical obligation as an attorney, not in his capacity as chancellor, or church legal officer.
As you can see, what seemed important to denomination officials was protecting the “good” name of their sect and the churches in question. I suspect the “truth” has yet to be revealed as far as the extent of Rivera’s sexual misconduct is concerned. Heads should roll, but it is unlikely that they will. They will bury Rivera’s proverbial body, lament his fall from grace( he was such a nice guy), and move on. Left behind are Rivera’s victims. I hope the victims sue.
Yesterday, Rivera was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
A former lay pastor at a Big Rock church was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for molesting a 9-year-old member of the church.
Kane County Judge John Barsanti sentenced Mark Rivera to six years apiece on two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault and three years on a charge of criminal sexual abuse.
Barsanti convicted him in December.
Rivera will have to serve at least 11.7 years before being eligible for parole but will receive credit for the approximately three years he has spent in jail or on electronic home monitoring while he awaited trial and sentencing.
On multiple times from June 2018 to May 2019, Rivera assaulted the child he knew. At the time, Rivera was a lay pastor at the Christ Our Light Anglican Church in Big Rock. The victim’s family attended the church.
The abuse happened at Rivera’s home in Big Rock.
The victim’s family and Rivera had previously attended a church in Wheaton.
Rivera, who now lives in Winfield, must register for life as a sex offender.
Rivera was also charged, in 2021, with sexually assaulting an adult who was unable to give consent due to intoxication. That case is scheduled for a jury trial in May in Kane County.
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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