Some Protestant Christian Bibles show the words of Jesus printed in red. Supposedly, these red-letter Bibles let readers know exactly the words uttered by Jesus during his three year ministry in first century Palestine. The problem, of course, is that this claim is not true.
The gospels were written by unknown authors decades after the death of Jesus. At best, the gospels reflect the oral traditions that were circulating in the first century. Are the words in red actually the words of Jesus? Not likely. At best, they could be an approximation of what Christ said. Jesus never wrote anything down, nor did anyone make written reports of his words. It would have been nice if someone had recorded or videotaped Jesus. That way we would know exactly what he said. Instead, all we have are third party accounts of what a Jewish apocalyptic preacher supposedly said during his public ministry.
As an Evangelical who believed in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, I thought that Jesus uttered every word printed in red. That said, I didn’t elevate the red words above other words in the Bible. My logic was simple: God wrote every word in the Bible. Jesus is God. Jesus authored (and spoke) every word, and not just the ones recorded in red.
Some Evangelicals call themselves “Red Letter Christians.” Uncomfortable with the increasing politicization of Evangelicalism, these well-meaning believers focus on Jesus’ words. While I understand their motivations, I find their approach to the Bible to be intellectually lacking.
Were you ever a Red Letter Christian? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I have long believed that Christians rue the day that they included the Old Testament in its canon of Scripture. By including the thirty-nine books of the old Testament in the canon, Christians ensured that they would spend the next 2,000 years defending its teachings — some of which are outright disgusting and immoral.
Increasingly sensitive Evangelicals try to distance themselves from the Old Testament — except, of course, for the Ten Commandments (or is it nine?), six day creation, universal flood, and the verses on tithing. Not wanting to be tarred with same brush as hardcore Christian Fundamentalists, these Evangelicals want to be well-liked and well thought of. One way they try to present their faith in a better light is by suggesting that there is an Old Testament God and a New Testament God, incompatible one with another. By doing away with the Old Testament deity, the violent tendencies of God disappear. What’s left is the loving, kind, compassionate God-Jesus of the New Testament. (And let me be clear, there is plenty of God-ordained violence in the New Testament. Many Evangelicals pretend they have reading disabilities when confronted with these verses.)
It is impossible to separate the God of the New Testament from the God of the Old Testament. If Jesus is God as Evangelicals allege, then he is the God of both the Old and New testaments. Everything attributed to “God” in the Bible must, by necessity, be attributed to Jesus too. Christians would have it a lot easier if the Old Testament God miraculously disappeared, but such a position cannot be rationally sustained.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Sophomore class, Midwestern Baptist College, Pontiac, Michigan 1977. Polly is in the first row, the first person on the left. Bruce is in the third row, the eighth person from the left
Last week, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor David Bulka stopped by to preach to me his peculiar version of the Christian gospel. Bulka left the following comment on the post titled Seven Reasons People Get Saved. He didn’t bother to engage my writing, choosing instead to preach and testify.
I am not sure what Bulka hoped to achieve. We both went to Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan at the same time in the late 1970s. I only knew him in passing since he didn’t live in the dorm. Bulka surely knows that I was a pastor for twenty-five years, so I am at a loss to understand what value his comment may have to me or the other readers of this blog.
SEE YOU LATER”. I am 69 years old.
Burba tells me “SEE YOU LATER” four times. See me later, where and why, exactly? Is he meeting me at the strip club?
I want to ask you these Questions. Did Jesus Christ Rise from the dead after he was crucified?
No. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is a myth.
Is He the son of God?
No.There is no God. No God, the Father, no, God, the Son, and no God, the Holy Spirit.
Is He the way the truth and the life as He said He was?. John 14:6.
No.
You will respond, either, yes , no or I am unsure.
You do know these are claims, and not evidence, right? If you want me to believe a Jewish apocalyptic preacher was executed and resurrected from the dead, you are going to have to provide evidence for your claim. Not the Bible, either. The Bible is a book of claims, and if you want to convince unbelievers of the veracity of your claims, you are going to have to do more than preach sermonettes and regurgitate prooftexts.
My personal experience, and Faith, say YES. and since Jesus Christ has changed my life to a better life and I have seen Him work miracles in my life and others. I have decided, What Jesus is, was and will be…. I will follow and encourage others to do like wise.
Surely you know — well, maybe not since you went to Midwestern, with its Sunday school-level classes — that personal and anecdotal stories aren’t evidence. Your testimony applies to you alone. I have no way of knowing whether it is true.
You said, “I have decided.” All well and good. Go with God, right? But, I have no intentions of following after a Christian pied piper. You want me to follow along? Please provide actual evidence for your claims.
My advise after studying the Bible for over 55 years. Is Doubt your Doubt, and have child like faith. I respect all people, but warn them not to risk being wrong, especially in believing HELL is real or not.
Childlike faith has led many people to deconvert. A childlike faith is no match for rigorous arguments against Christianity. That may play well within the walls of the church, but here in the real world, lambs with “childlike faith” tend to get eaten alive by wolves like me.
It was created for the devil and his angels. John 8.
No Hell, either. According to your theology, most of the people in Hell aren’t devils or angels. Hell is filled with your friends, neighbors, and church members. It seems, then, that Hell was created for humans too.
I have enjoyed the Christian life.
And I enjoyed the Christian life too, but not as much as I enjoy my life as an agnostic atheist and humanist. Sleeping in on Sundays, watching NFL games, sex in positions other than the missionary position, watching nudity on TV and not feeling guilty, drinking a shot or three of whiskey, and making liberal use of curse words — ah, the wonders of a secular life.
The Kingdom life which gives peace, Joy, righteousness.
Okay? I have similar feelings, as do most atheists (and other religious practitioners). Do you really think these character traits are reserved for your brand of Christianity alone?
My faith in a Holy , loving God, the God of Abraham, Issac Jacob, Sarah…etc has worked for me.
Okay? Your anecdotal stories are unable to provide evidence for the truthfulness of your claims. That’s why you ultimately appeal to childlike faith.
…. SEE YOU LATER….when we stand before the JUDGE of ALL CREATION. If you do not believe, Then thats on you. SEE YOU LATER…If it is not true… At least I have enjoyed life basking in peace, Joy, righteousness loving and serving the LORD Jesus Christ. A Atheist might say, in their faith…”.you Christians were wrong.” We will have to wait and see. But I have enjoyed the Kingdom Life, no regrets. “SEE YOU LATER”
There is no afterlife; no final judgment either. One life, twill soon be past, and then you are dead. Are you a Muslim? Are you a Buddhist? Why not? You using Pascal’s Wager reveals a fatal flaw in your argument. You only want to apply this to your particular flavor of Christianity, when you must apply it all of man’s extant religions. Surely, you want to cover all of your bases. If not, why are you unwilling to do what you are asking me to do?
You seem to ignorantly think that there is no life (meaning and purpose) outside of faith in Jesus Christ. This is patently untrue. I live a good life. I have a wonderful partner. We’ve been married for forty-seven years. We are blessed to have six children and sixteen grandchildren. All of our children are gainfully employed and generally live good lives. Two of our grandchildren attend college, one at Miami University (Ohio) and the other at Ohio State University. Our four inside cats are fat and happy, and we do everything we can to give our outside feral/stray cats a similar life (Tonight we put lights in their crates (27 gallon plastic tubs with a cut a hole inn for the cats to enter, and then put straw in tubs to keep the cats warm).
David, you have been lied to about unbelievers. Either that, or you have constructed a straw man in your mind, one that bears no resemblance to non-Christians like me.
Let me be clear, I don’t need God, Jesus, the Bible, the church, or saving faith to live a good life. You seem to forget that I was a pastor for twenty-five years. I pastored scores of born-again Christians; that I had numerous ministerial colleagues. I know first hand that things within the church are not as you seem to think they are. I’ve concluded that there is little to no difference between the lived experiences of Christians (of all stripes, including IFB believers) and those of the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world.
I am more than happy to discuss or debate these issues with you, David. All I ask is that you provide actual evidence for your claims, and not anecdotal stories, sermons, and prooftexts.
Be well.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Over the past few months, an Evangelical woman named Terri has repeatedly emailed me and left comments on this site. I asked her to stop emailing me, which she largely ignored, thinking what she had to say was more important than respecting my wishes. You can read my last two responses to Terri here and here.
Terri’s latest email to me is reproduced below. My response follows.
You emailed me after banning me from emailing you.
I emailed you to send you a notification of my post that mentions you. I do this for EVERY person I mention in a post.
You were not banned from emailing me or commenting on this site. I asked you to voluntarily stop emailing me. You have never been banned from commenting, though I have deleted some of your comments due to duplication or volume. Less is always better, and when a new reader starts leaving a plethora of comments, I am inclined to not post some of their comments. Again, less is better.
I have just one thing left to say.
Now, that’s not true. You have never had “one thing left to say” and that is certainly not the case with this email.
To express my disappointment in the way you brush off extreme violations to human rights, is an understatement.
Please provide evidence for your claim that I “brush off extreme violations to human rights.” I am confident that no evidence will be forthcoming, and longtime readers know the same. No, the real issue is that you are butthurt that I didn’t take your anecdotal stories at face value. Further, I made a lengthy defense of my position on religious persecution. Let me be clear, I have never denied the existence of religious persecution. What I object to is how Evangelicals (and Catholics) glamorize martyrdom, teaching children and adults alike that they may suffer persecution for the cause of Christ. This has led to millions of believers thinking that inconvenience or prosecution for breaking the law are persecution. They are not, as I made clear in my post. Not only that, I provided quotes from the leading scholar on Christian persecution, Dr. Candida Moss.
I responded to you dozens of times, including to your assertions about Christian persecution. I asked numerous questions, most of which you ignored. If you are unwilling to answer my questions or provide justification for your claims, forgive me for thinking you are a troll or an ignorant believer. I am not interested in your opinions or rationalizations. The same goes for your penchant for prooftexting. I am not expecting academic arguments from non-academics or uneducated believers, but I do expect Christians to answer the questions I ask them and interact with what I actually wrote.
I honestly had thought you were better than that. I was shocked and heartbroken 💔 at the glib cartoons you put up about “You are persecuting me!” after I mentioned something as serious as the wholesale slaughter of innocent people. Whether they be Christians, peaceful Muslims, or whatever, human rights are human rights.
Please see my comment above. The cartoon reflected how I view much of the persecution talk coming from American Christians. Want to change my mind? Engage my arguments. Better yet, buy Dr. Moss’ book, The Myth of Persecution, and give it a careful reading.
You are attempting to paint me in a bad light, all because I challenged some of your assertions. At no time did I say that religious persecution is not happening in the world.
But I guess your humanism only conveniently extends to those whose ideologies you agree with.
*Sigh* You know this isn’t true so I assume you are just expressing your butthurtedness.
That was the most tone-deaf response, to reduce it all to a cartoon flippantly depicting very petty “Christians” complaining of “persecution” for nothing.
It’s a fucking cartoon. The real issue is that you CHOSE not to respond to or engage my post — and this is not the first time you have done this.
You KNOW that was not at all what I was talking about. I honestly never thought you would respond in such a callous way.
No, I don’t, and that’s why I asked you questions.
You don’t really know me, so you have no idea how I will or won’t respond to particular readers. Go back and read my posts and emails and see how many times you ignored my questions.
That’s all I have to say.
I know that’s not true.
I wish you well.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Bible is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.
I want to believe that the Evangelical Christians I sit next to at high school football and basketball games are good people. I want to believe that they are nice, thoughtful people who care about their families and neighbors. I want to believe this . . . I really do, but it is coming increasingly evident that many of my Evangelical neighbors are assholes.
Many of my Evangelical neighbors routinely attack, savage, and denigrate gay people, transgender people, unbelievers, and those who support reproductive rights. And if they don’t explicitly adhere to it, they support churches, preachers, and politicians that do. These people say that they are followers of the Prince of Peace, all the while promoting and supporting I.C.E., law enforcement, and military violence. Let me be clear: what and who we support says a lot about what we really believe and value. What does the behavior of my Evangelical neighbors say about them?
Today, I followed several local discussions on Facebook about poverty and people losing their SNAP benefits. Most Evangelical commenters showed that they have no idea what Jesus (or the Bible as a whole) taught about these things. Their comments revealed ugly, selfish libertarian or MAGA political values. It’s hard not to conclude that my neighbors are Christians in name only; that their politics supersede and dominate their moral and ethical values. If behavior matters, the only conclusion I can come to is that many of my Evangelical neighbors are assholes. Want to change my mind? Do better, starting with feeding the poor, caring for immigrants, and putting an end to I.C.E.’s reign of terror. Until then, your Jesus has nothing to offering people like me.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Feral/stray cats in are in the news thanks to an Evangelical preacher who shot a cat three times and left it for dead in his church’s dumpster. Local discussions (and several comments on this site which I deleted) suggested killing the cats to get rid of them. Really? Is violence always the answer? Who is to blame for exploding outdoor cat populations? Not the cats. If people take in a pet of any kind, they are duty bound to care for the animal, and that includes not putting them outside to fend for themselves or killing them because they are an “inconvenience.”
Several stupid locals said that feral/stray cats are an existential threat to human survival. OMG, cats have diseases. Yes, they do, and so do humans. Should we euthanize humans if they are sick or have communicable diseases? Of course not. It is unfed, starving cats that tend to be sick. Solution? Feed them and provide shelter when it is cold. No, I fear humans far more than I do cats. Sure, cats can and do get sick, but euthanizing them should be the last resort.
How a person treats animals says a lot about them. Is it surprising that Revival Fires thinks it is okay to kill cats? Of course not. He’s a sociopath who says he loves Jesus. So it is for other people who relish offing cats for no other reason than they exist. They are not good people, and we should stop acting as if they are.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Preachers lie, sometimes intentionally. Other times, they lie out of ignorance, often repeating “facts” they heard as a child or in Bible college. One such lie is this: The Bible is the most read book of all time. Most of us likely heard this claim at one time or another, and believed it with nary a thought.
While it is true most American homes have at least one copy of the Bible, this does not mean that it is the most read book of all time. In fact, the Bible is is the least read book of all time. It is the one book everyone owns, but few people actually read it.
No, the truth is this: most Christians do NOT read the Bible from cover to cover. They might read Genesis, Psalms, Proverbs, the Gospels, and a few of Paul’s books, but most of the Bible’s books are never read outside of hearing their pastors read sermon texts on Sundays. Most Christians are nominal practitioners who rarely read the Bible, and their theology is that of the man who preaches to them on Sundays. Is it any wonder the average Christian can’t list, define, and explain the core doctrines of Christianity?
If the Bible is the most important book ever written, why do most Christians largely ignore the text, choosing to let their pastors to speak for God instead of hearing directly from him (I speak from an Evangelical perspective)? I listen to a lot of debates between Evangelicals and atheists. You would think that apologists would yearly read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, but they don’t. Some do, of course, but many don’t. They are more concerned with studying the passages that reinforce their arguments than they are nurturing their minds and studying the whole council of God.
The Bible is a bestseller, but few Christians read all of it. Don’t let them sell you on the notion that it is the most read book of all time. It’s not. Only ten percent of Americans read the Bible every day.
Do you read the Bible? How often? Are you a former Christian? As a believer, did you read the Bible every day? If not, how often did you read the Bible? Did you rely on devotional books, instead? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
We are cat people. Currently, we have four inside cats: Socks, Petey, Charley, and Lilith, and we care for around — depending on the day — ten feral/stray cats. It is our daughter Bethany’s job to feed the cats several times a day. Bethany has Down syndrome, and just turned thirty-six.
Every day, around 10:30 am, Bethany walks out our back door to feed the cats and put out the bird feeders. We have to put the feeders away each evening to keep the coons from eating everything. We have RING security door cameras on our front and back doors. When Bethany feeds the cats, the camera records what she is doing. So entertaining …
If I walk out the back door, the cats head for the hills. If I stand still long enough, several of them might come closer to me, but never so close that I can pet or hold them. Let Bethany come out the door, and the cats treat her like a long lost relative. They follow after her through the yard as she puts out the feeders, pours cat food in their bowls, and refills the water bowl. Sometimes, the cats even follow her into our shed. Much like St. Francis of Assisi, Bethany has a way with animals, including wild ones. Our yard is frequented by numerous raccoons and possums. It is not uncommon to look out the back door late at night and see a coon, a possum, and a handful of cats all eating the same scraps; all getting along with each other. One night I said to myself, “Too bad we humans can’t get along like these animals do.”
Bethany is definitely the Pied Piper of Cats. One reason for this is that she feeds them. Cats naturally become more friendly with the person who gives them food every day. But there is more to this than that. People with Down syndrome are innocent, friendly, and kind. Oh, Bethany can be a shit now and again — like loading our Netflix watch folder with more than a hundred vampire movies I have to remove one at a time– but she is usually a delight to be around. I suspect the cats sense that Bethany is a harmless soul, kind to a fault.
Yesterday, I listened to an infuriating debate about human value on an atheist YouTube channel. One of the participants claimed we should judge people based on their productivity; that people who don’t produce add little to no value to our society. This is a classic capitalist argument, though I was disappointed it was an atheist making this repulsive statement. This shouldn’t have surprised me. Atheists are not immune from bad claims and arguments.
All humans have intrinsic value, regardless of whether they add anything materially to our society. I don’t judge people based on the value-added. Instead, I judge them according to their behavior. Using this standard, you will see all sorts of wonderful people who may not add much to the bottom line, but they enrich our lives more than we could ever imagine. So it is with Bethany, the Pied Piper of Cats.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
My partner, Polly, and I are blessed to have sixteen grandchildren — three grandsons and thirteen granddaughters. Several weeks ago, we watched our two youngest grandsons for our daughter. We decided to take them out to eat and then to a movie.
We ate at the Paradise Buffett in Auburn, Indiana. The boys had never eaten at a buffet before, so it was quite entertaining to watch them navigate the food lines. “You mean, I can eat whatever I want?” “Yes, but remember, whatever you take, you have to eat.” Our one grandson has autism, and for a moment, the buffet experience overwhelmed him. He stood still, turning in a circle, surveying his surroundings. Eventually, I was able to get him to put food on his plate. The boys were even more surprised when I told them that they could get a clean plate for more food. “Really? We can get more food?” Ah the joys of watching children experience the finer things of life for the first time. 🙂
Afterward, we went to the theater to watch the new TRON movie. We arrived as the preview clips were showing. As we found our seats, a scene from a PG-13 action movie started playing. This definitely got our youngest grandson’s attention. He stood on his seat, and in his loudest outdoor voice he said, “OH MY GOD, DID YOU SEE THAT?” I turned to Polly, laughing, and said, “Silas, has found religion.” 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
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