The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser

Bruce, Wouldn’t Your Life Be “Easier” if You Were Still a Christian?

Bruce Gerencser September 21, 2021 Evangelicalism 6 Comments

I recently participated in a Zoom discussion with a Mennonite discipleship class in Pennsylvania. At the end of my sermon/lecture/speech on why I am an atheist, I fielded questions from the men in attendance. (Please see Bruce, I Don’t Believe You Are an Atheist.) One man asked me, “do you think your life would be ‘easier’ if you were still a Christian?” I replied, “yes!” The man agreed with me; life was easier for me when all I had to do was read, trust, and obey.

As a Christian, I believed the Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I believed the Bible contained everything I needed for life and godliness; that the Bible was God’s blueprint for living. As all Christians are, I was a hypocrite, often ignoring or disobeying the teachings of the Bible. That said, the bent of my life was towards holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. I daily asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins (I John 1:9). I sought truth and guidance from the Bible, asking God, the Holy Spirit, to guide my thoughts, words, and deeds. As honest Christians will also admit, I failed at this endeavor. I kept trying, day in and day out, but I never felt I had “arrived” as a Christian.

Despite the existential struggles that came from being a follower of Jesus, life was simple. I didn’t have to think about morality or ethics. When questions would arise, the answer was always the same: THE BIBLE SAYS __________. Granted, in retrospect, I now know that the Bible required interpretation. Thus, I was the final arbiter of what I deemed moral and ethical — not God. Bruce Gerencser, not the Triune God, had the final say on everything.

In November 2008, I attended church for the last time. In 2009, I wrote a letter titled Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners, detailing my loss of faith. Losing that which had been the foundation of the first fifty years of my life was traumatic, to say the least. I desperately tried to hang on to God, the Bible, and the church, but I was unable to do so. If there was ever a time for God to make himself known to me, it was then. But my doubts and questions were met with silence. Eventually, I concluded that the reason for the silence was this: God was a myth; the God of the Christian Bible was a human construct. Once the Bible and its author (God) lost their authority and control over me, I began sliding down the proverbial slippery slope. Many of the readers of this site have experienced similar frightening slides. Some of you found natural resting places: liberal Christianity, Unitarian-Universalism, or some other religion. For me, my slide finished with a colossal thud at the bottom of the slope. I finally admitted I was an atheist.

Saying I was an atheist was just the beginning of my new life in accordance to science, reason, and skepticism. Gone were God, the church, and the Bible — now what? What do I believe? I had to rethink my morals and ethics. I no longer had at my disposal book, chapter, and verse. I had to ponder what it was I believed about behaviors the Bible called “sin.” I decided that “sin” was a religious construct used by clerics and churches to keep asses in the seats and Benjamins in the offering plates. Sin, Hell, Judgment, Fear . . . thus saith the Lord! Remove these things from the equation and Christianity would shrivel up and die.

I have spent the past thirteen years thinking about what I believe and how I want to live my life. This has been hard. There’s no Atheist Handbook, no rulebook by which to govern my life. Sure, humanism provides a general moral and ethical framework for me, but I still have to determine the moral and ethical beliefs I took for granted as an Evangelical Christian. It would be far easier for me to appeal to a “book” as my standard for living (and certainly Christianity influences my thinking on morality). However, I am committed to doing the hard work necessary to best live my life. My “sin” list now fits on the front of a 3×5 card. Most of the “sins” that perturbed me as a Bible preacher and teacher no longer matter to me. I don’t care about who fucks whom, when, where, why, or how. As long as it’s consensual, that’s the end of the discussion for me.

The longer I’m an atheist, the easier the journey becomes. I have settled many of the moral and ethical questions that perturbed me a decade ago. However, I still struggle with some things. As my politics continue to move leftward, I am forced to rethink what matters politically (and morally). I remain a work in progress.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Questions: Bruce, What Was Your View of “God”?

Bruce Gerencser September 20, 2021 Questions 2 Comments

I put out the call to readers, asking them for questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question, please leave it here or email me. All questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.

Evan asked:

My first question is, what is God to you? Also, when you were actively involved in the church, what, how, and where did you see God as? To give some examples, is God a bearded man in the sky watching us (as silly as that sounds)? Is he Invisible, Risen? Lively or Unlively? What about when praying to him (as in Jesus)? Do you think he was listening to your words?

Evan is not a Christian, so he asks these questions from the perspective of an unbeliever trying to understand how Christians view and understand God. There is no singular Christian view/understanding of God, so it is impossible to define God from a singular perspective. Put a hundred Christians in a room and have them answer Evan’s questions, and you will end up with dozens of answers. Much like Jesus, “God” is a product of human imagination and experience. Simply put, God is whoever/whatever you want him/her/it to be. What follows, then, is how I viewed God as an Evangelical Christian and pastor. My past view of God is normative within Evangelicalism, but certainly not the only view found within the Evangelical tent.

Evan’s first question is in the present tense, so let me briefly answer it before answering the “what is God to you” in the past tense. I am an atheist, so I don’t believe in the existence of deities. I am persuaded that God is a human construct, the byproduct of a pre-science world. Humans looked at the universe and tried to explain what they saw. Enter Gods. Science, of course, has now answered many of the questions that were once answered with “God.” As science continues to answer more and more questions about our universe, God becomes irrelevant. Of course, the concept of “God” is deeply ingrained in human thinking, so ridding our world of deities is not easy.

As an Evangelical Christian, I believed God was eternal and transcendent; that God was three persons in one (the Trinity): God, the father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. God was all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful. Simply put, God was everywhere. There was no place I could go to escape the presence of God.

God was a personal deity. Jesus died on a Roman cross for my sins (substitutionary atonement) and resurrected from the dead three days later. By putting my faith and trust in Jesus, I believed he forgave my past/present/future sins, and I would go to Heaven after I died. The moment I was “saved.” the Holy Spirit moved into my “heart” and became my teacher and guide.

I viewed God as a spiritual presence in my life and the world. Through the Bible and prayer, God “spoke” to me — not audibly per se. Feeling and knowing the presence of God is hard to explain. Religious indoctrination and conditioning led me to believe God was an ever-present reality in my life. There was no escaping God, even when I was sinning. When I prayed, I thought I was directly talking to God. At times. I had profound experiences when praying, reading the Bible, or preaching. Just as God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, I believe God walked with me too.

This is a dumbed-down (no offense to Evan) version of how I viewed and experienced God as an Evangelical Christian. I could have written a 10,000-word treatise on the Trinitarian God, complete with a plethora of Bible references. However, doing so would likely not give Evan the answers he is seeking.

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How My Christian Belief Ended

Bruce Gerencser September 20, 2021 Guest Posts 7 Comments

Guest post by Karuna Gal

I hung onto the Christian faith most of my life. Unlike me, my siblings lost their belief pretty early on, with no fuss or bother. They did baptise their children, and some of those kids made their First Communion and Confirmation. However, the kids are “Nones” – they don’t follow any religion.

So, why did I stay a Christian? I was very religious. I was thoroughly convinced that there was a God. Another reason was that I had no doubt that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. The first disciples were so sure about this that they died for their beliefs. Why would they lie about something that put them in such danger?

Although I explored other spiritual traditions, like Hinduism and Native American, I always kept the Christian faith as the touchstone of my religious belief. I had grown up as a Roman Catholic Christian and that conditioning was strong. It ran in my family. We had a priest and a Third Order Franciscan (a lay order) on my mom’s side.

When I was in college I finally rejected Catholicism because of its history and attitude toward women. Thus began a long process of looking for a church that would help me in my spiritual evolution. I wanted to work on my shortcomings and fears and become a better person. Oddly enough, though, the different churches I attended were hardly into this at all. Even the Quaker church I tried for a while was more evangelical than interested in “the still, small voice.”

Churches I attended had a lot of activities and events. There were prayer teams, Christmas pageants, and food pantries for the poor. They held potlucks and silent auctions. But when it came to the challenge of working on really improving yourself — well, forget it. I think someone has called churches social clubs with a religious veneer, and I have to agree with that statement. A lot of times I felt that I was a freak, wanting to deepen my spiritual life and improve myself, and no one around me, including the clergy, seemed to understand or care about this sort of thing at all. I didn’t see quite yet that Christianity was unable to give me what I wanted. So, I kept plugging away, keeping active in the church. I hoped and believed that if I continued to do my service to the church, Christ would grant me the grace of becoming a better person.

Things came to a head in my early fifties. I was a member of an Episcopal church for about ten years by then and was very involved in it. But I was slowly getting soured on it. I started to be bored by the bad sermons on Sunday mornings. Even if I felt a little inspiration after Sunday services it quickly dissipated by Sunday evening. The work I did for the church seemed to be good for the church (especially all that fundraising) but I didn’t see any improvement in myself. I was still the fearful, depressed, and flawed person I ever was.

Then something occurred that took my questioning to another level. A friend who was running a successful Sunday School program was treated most shamefully by clergy and some “pious” church members. I was an eyewitness to their uncharitable and hypocritical behavior towards her. My disgust and surprise over this were heightened because I was going through “The Change.” There was nothing like going through menopause to thoroughly test my assumptions and give me a much better bullshit meter.

And then, finally, came the total destruction of my belief in God and in Jesus’ resurrection. This happened because I read Reza Aslan’s book “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus.” While it was interesting to get a Muslim’s perspective on Jesus, Azlan mentioned another book that dealt the final blow to my belief. It is called “When Prophecy Fails,” written back in 1956. This book shows how people, when their millenarian or messianic belief fails to deliver, double down on their belief in spite of that. Along with discussing historical examples of this behavior the authors describe the folly of a modern American group who were waiting for spaceships to come and take them to another, more congenial, planet. The “Higher Beings” never arrived in those spaceships when they were supposed to. The people waiting for their deliverance from above were disappointed, of course. The group broke up, but a surprising number of them continue to believe the spaceships are still coming. The folks on this earth just got the dates wrong. The spaceships are still going to arrive, absolutely!

Sound familiar?

So, the first disciples of Jesus were sincere, but they were sincerely deluded. They doubled down on their belief in the resurrection of Jesus because it never happened. There was to be a Second Coming, too, absolutely! They were so convinced that this was the truth that they were actually willing to die to prove it. They just couldn’t face the sad fact that their supposed Messiah was dead as a doornail and would never return.

It seems incredible that people would risk death over a delusion they hold, but then we are seeing anti-vaxxers saying from their deathbeds that the COVID they are dying from doesn’t exist. I even read that one man, whose wife died from COVID though he recovered from it, is out protesting against mask-wearing!

I once read a quote from a modern German poet, which I remember as “A dead Christ shouts from the rooftop of the world that there is no God.” And that was how I finally realised, after all my years in Christianity, that there is no God, no resurrection.

How did I reconcile myself to my new understanding of the world? It took a while, a couple of years, and it was a very painful process. I left my church. Surprisingly few people from church followed up with me to ask why I left, even after all the time I had spent there. I was full of despair, feeling that I could never find a way to spiritually improve myself.

Then I started to accompany a friend to a Buddhist temple, more for fun than anything else. The monk there — who is now my teacher —- talked about how life is suffering; that there is a way out of suffering. And that is by ethical behavior and practicing meditation. So it’s all on your shoulders – no God, no Jesus, no priest or intermediary. Just you and your efforts to become a better human being. Buddhism works for me, and I am very happy. I wish that my theism and my own delusions about Christianity hadn’t lasted so long and held me back from pursuing my spiritual evolution. But better late than never.

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Black Collar Crime: Registered Sex Offender Preaches Revival at Eagles Rest Church in Sweetwater, Tennessee

Bruce Gerencser September 16, 2021 Black Collar Crime 9 Comments

Jerry Lee Anderson, a traveling evangelist, prophet, and a registered sex offender (his victim was seven years old), recently preached and “ministered” in song at Eagles Rest Church in Sweetwater, Tennessee.

Channel 10 reports:

A pastor ministering in Sweetwater has been arrested and charged with failing to register as a sex offender from another state.
Jerry Lee Anderson, 46, was arrested Tuesday by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Marshals’ Smoky Mountains Fugitive Task Force, according to John Sanchez of the Marshals Service.
Anderson has previously been convicted in Arkansas of sexual assault in the second degree.
According to the Kentucky State Sex Offender Registry, Anderson is required to register as a sex offender due to the Arkansas conviction, according to Sanchez.
Authorities arrested Anderson about 4 p.m. Tuesday after finding him sleeping in the Eagles Rest Church in Sweetwater, according to Sanchez.
He was being held at the Monroe County Jail pending a court appearance.
According to a release from the Marshals Service on Wednesday, a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office investigation found that “Anderson had been the headline minister at “The Prophetic Crusade” Christian revival held at the Eagles Rest Church in Sweetwater from September 1st to the 13th.”
He was living at or near the church. He’d failed to register as a sex offender with local authorities.

When “Dr.” Apostle Philip Spears, pastor of Eagles Rest, was asked about why he let a registered sex offender preach at his church, Spears stated (I kid you not):

It was too late unfortunately for me to do anything about it. In church, just like anything else entertainment, you get a lot of gossip and a lot of drama, so you don’t pay attention to some of the things that you hear.

You see, the good pastor KNEW Anderson was a registered sex offender, but let him preach and sing anyway. When the detective on the case said Spears KNEW Anderson was a sex offender, here’s what Spears had to say: (I kid you not):

The church is for everybody. I don’t feel comfortable turning someone away from a house of God.

In covering your ass fashion, this so-called man of God later said (I kid you not):

Whenever there’s a rumor, probably I’d check it a lot quicker. A lot quicker.

According to Anderson’s bio page:

In 1980, Jerry Lee Anderson began singing, along with his sister, Jennifer, and later, playing music in church, their first public performance at Providence General Baptist Church on the outskirts of rural Westmoreland, Tennessee. This was where the first recording was made by their uncle, Ray T. Anderson.
Jerry Lee’s father, William Leon Anderson, had taught him three chords on the guitar and he was expected to learn the rest by watching and doing. Named after hall of fame rock n roller, Jerry Lee Lewis, he took interest in the piano and, through the years, developed his own style of music, some of which is compared to that of Lewis.
Though some of his earliest childhood memories were of preaching the Gospel, Jerry Lee publicly and officially announced his call to the preaching ministry in 1987 at Carter’s Tabernacle Church of God of Prophecy in Adolphus, Kentucky.
In 1994, Rev. Jerry Lee launched the radio program entitled Faith Alive Broadcast and, the following year, the television program by the same name.
He has founded, co-founded, and served in leadership a number of organizations, churches, bible schools, etc.
Jerry Lee has prayed for hundreds of thousands around the world who have received healing and deliverance. By their own testimonies, doctors’ statements, and visible physical changes, thousands of these apparent miracles have been confirmed.
It is estimated that nearly 500 million people in some 90 nations have been touched by his message and his music over a span of three decades.
Jerry Lee is a family man, a loving husband and father of six children: Jerry Lee, II, Julia Lynn, Jonathon Leon, Joshua Lance, Hadlee Nicole, and William Lee-Gerrard. He is man of prayer, praying over an average of seven hundred prayer requests a day, which come through letters, emails, and phone calls. He is a devoted man, spending some 80 hours per week pursuing ministry.
Rev. Jerry Lee has been widely criticized for his break from religious traditions and denominational control. While he respects the heartfelt beliefs of all sincere people, he feels a mandate to preach Jesus Christ and His finished work at the cross, the personal privilege and responsibility of each individual to pursue God by revelation of the Word as the Spirit leads him/her, and the plan of God for the vindication of the true Church and the betterment of humanity.
In 1990, Rev. Jerry Lee began traveling across the nation in full-time ministry of music, song, and the Word. He received credentials in 1991 with The Church of God, the youngest licensed evangelist in the movement at that time.

Talk about a load of Grade-A bullshit.

I have concluded both Anderson and Spears are lifelong con-artists. If you doubt this, please watch the following video, produced days ago (watch it now before it miraculously disappears):

Video Link

The scandal here — besides the fact Anderson is a child molester — is that no local news agency bothered to actually investigate Anderson’s or Spears’ backgrounds. I found Elmer Gantry everywhere I looked. Try harder, folks, try harder. Google is your friend. 🙁

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Christian Syrup for My Existential Pancakes

Bruce Gerencser September 16, 2021 Evangelicalism 13 Comments

Today, I received the following card from someone local to where I live:

I am not sure why the sender would feel “anxiety” over sending me an anonymous card. The “worst” that thing that could happen is that I would share the card on my blog, exposing the sender’s words to critique and, perhaps, ridicule.

The sender did list a street address (no city or zip code) on the envelope. A cursory Google search revealed two local locations for this address: Bryan and Bowling Green. This doesn’t mean, however, the sender lives in one of these communities. Local mail is processed through the Detroit, Michigan processing center. So, the sender may live somewhere farther away from my home. Or, she could have had layovers at the Detroit or Toledo airport and mailed the card from there. I say “she” because the handwriting seems to be that of a woman.

The sender calls me “Mr. Bruce.” This usage is somewhat odd: perhaps the person has never met me face to face, is an immigrant, from the South, or believes in using proper form. My grammar Nazi grandmother and I traded numerous letters when I was a child. Her letters to me were always addressed to “Master Bruce Gerencser,” and later in life to “Rev. Bruce Gerencser.” (Man, do I miss Grandma’s letters!)

The sender signs her name saying, “In Christ’s Love.” I assume from that that she is a Christian, and I will use that assumption for the rest of what I say about this card.

The sender believes her God has laid something on her heart that she wanted to share with me:

I pray for you
I pray for your heart
I pray that you may know you are a blessing
I pray that you may know that you are loved

I have been told thousands of times over the years by Christians that they are “praying” for me: praying that I will get saved, praying that I will come back to Jesus, praying I will get right with God, praying God will kill me, etc. Lots of praying, but as of the writing of this post, not one Christian prayer mentioning Bruce Gerencser has been answered — not one. Either God ain’t listening or doesn’t care, or there is no God, and all these prayers made it as far as the ceiling before bouncing back to earth.

The sender says she is praying for my “heart.” I assume she is using the word “heart” in a spiritual sense; that my “heart” is lacking or defective in some way. I reject the idea that humans have spiritual “hearts.” The same goes for us having “souls.” But, setting that aside for a moment, how could the sender possibly know the true condition of my “heart”? The Bible says that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the “heart.” (I Samuel 16:7) I assume the sender is judging my heart’s condition based on what she sees and knows about me outwardly: that she has concluded, based on her external observations, that I need a “heart” transplant.

I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. By all accounts, my “heart” was in the right place for most of my life. I slavishly and devotedly loved and followed Jesus, the eternal, virgin-born, miracle-working, crucified, resurrected, coming-again-in-power and-glory Son of the one true God. My “heart” yearned to be filled with the Holy Spirit. My “heart” ached for those dead in trespasses and sins. I diligently preached the Christian gospel and evangelized sinners, hoping that none should perish and that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). I wasn’t “perfect,” but tried to be, walking in humility, truth, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. And when my “heart” felt conviction over sin? I repented, applying 1 John 1:9 to my life.

Yet, at the age of fifty, I walked away from Christianity. I am now an atheist, one who opposes the religion he once believed and practiced. By Bible standards, I am a heretic, an apostate, a reprobate, an enemy of God; one who has spit in the face of Christ and done despite to the spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:29). What changed? Did Satan secretly in the night remove my Christian “heart” and replace it with an “atheist” heart? Of course not. What changed was my “mind.” I once believed, and now I don’t. The only thing wrong with my mind is that I don’t remember things as well as I used to. Other than that, I am the same Bruce post-Jesus. I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting. What once made perfect sense to me no longer does (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.)

The sender says that she is praying that I know I am a “blessing.” A blessing to whom, exactly? I am most certainly not a “blessing” to Evangelical Christians. Everything I write is in opposition to their beliefs and practices. Quite frankly, I am not sure what the sender means by this statement. I am the village atheist, well-known for my opposition to Christianity. More than a few Evangelical zealots wish I would stop being such a “blessing” to others. 🙂

Finally, the sender is praying that I will know that I am “loved.” This is where the proverbial pancake becomes slathered with syrupy Christianese. I suppose I should be glad she didn’t use the word “unconditional” to modify the word “love.” (Please see Does God Love Us Unconditionally?) Perhaps the bigger question is whether Christians should love me. After all, I am leading people astray, causing countless people to walk away from Christianity. I know the Bible says Christians should love their enemies, but what does the sender really mean when she says she’s praying that I will “know I am loved?” By God? By Jesus? By Christians?

God is a myth, Jesus is dead, and if I had to judge Christianity based on how I have been treated by the supposed followers of Christ over the past thirteen years, I would conclude that Christianity is a morally bankrupt religion. Mahatma Gandhi was right when he said: I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

To the sender I say this: I am fine just the way I am. There’s nothing wrong with my “heart.” I am loved by people who matter to me, and they know I love them in return. I am “blessed” by having them in my life. I don’t want, need, or desire to “loved” or “blessed” by Christians, especially anonymous senders of cards. (I do have several Christians in my life I deeply love.) If the sender truly wanted to connect with me, she would have let me know who she was. Instead, she sent me an anonymous cryptic message that God allegedly laid upon her heart. If she knows me at all and has read my writing, she surely knew how I would respond to her “message.”

As I finished up this post, it dawned on me that this card could be from a Christian who is sending messages to random people; I was just one of her lucky targets. The fact that she said she had a “touch of anxiety” suggests that this person does, in fact, know me. She knows that I am an anxiety-causing kind of guy. 🙂

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(Updated) Black Collar Crime: Catholic Priest Frank Lenz Accused of Sexual Misconduct

Bruce Gerencser September 16, 2021 Black Collar Crime 3 Comments

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.

Frank Lenz, a retired Catholic priest, stands accused of sexual misconduct.

UpNorthLive reports:

A northern Michigan priest is on administrative leave after allegations of sexual misconduct.
According to the Diocese of Marquette, Father Frank M. Lenz, a senior (retired) priest with the Diocese is being accused of sexual misconduct with a minor dating back to the 1970s.
Records show Father Lenz has denied the allegation.
The Diocese said Father Lenz has been removed from all public priestly ministry and prohibited from presenting himself as a priest in accordance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The Diocese said this is not a final determination of guilt. Administrative leave is a precautionary measure while a credible allegation is being investigated.
“On behalf of the Catholic Church, I offer a sincere apology to all victims of clergy abuse,” said Bishop Doerfler. “There is no excuse for what happened to you. You are in my thoughts and prayers, and I am willing to journey with you to find Christ’s peace and healing.”
Bishop Doerfler encourages anyone who may have suffered sexual misconduct by clergy, a church worker or volunteer to come forward to receive pastoral care leading toward healing. [ Yes, right after you report your allegations to law enforcement.]
….

WNMU-FM adds:

The action against Father Frank Lenz was taken because of a recently-made credible allegation of misconduct with a minor in the 1970s. Lenz has denied the claim.
The allegation has been reported to law enforcement and the Marquette County Prosecutor’s Office. Lenz has been removed from all public priestly ministry and prohibited from presenting himself as a priest, in accordance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The diocese says administrative leave is a precautionary measure while a credible allegation is being investigated.
Lenz was ordained in June of 1969 and retired to Senior Priest status in 2007.
Diocese Bishop John Doerfler responded by saying, “On behalf of the Catholic Church, I offer a sincere apology to all victims of clergy abuse. There is no excuse for what happened to you. You are in my thoughts and prayers, and I am willing to journey with you to find Christ’s peace and healing.” [Sorry Bishop, but if you have been paying attention of late, offers of thoughts and prayers no longer suffice.]
….

Update:

In October 2020, TV-6 reported:

A Church tribunal has determined an accusation of sexual misconduct with a minor in the early 1970s against Father Frank M. Lenz is inconclusive. A canonical (Church law) process authorized by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) was unable to establish guilt or innocence to the standard of moral certainty in the case.
The accusation was received by the Diocese of Marquette in early 2018. At the time, Father Lenz, a senior (retired) priest of the diocese was put on administrative leave effective immediately. In accord with diocesan policy, the allegation was reported to the Marquette County Prosecutor.
Following review of the accusation by civil authorities, the case was forwarded to the CDF, which authorized the bishop of Marquette to establish a special tribunal to adjudicate the case. Canon lawyers from outside the diocese heard the case.
Father Lenz has continued to deny the allegation.
From the time of the accusation, Father Lenz was removed from all public ministry and prohibited from presenting himself as a priest in accordance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
In light of the tribunal’s decision, Father Lenz is returned to ministry with strict limitations in place by Bishop John Doerfler, which include prohibiting him from priestly ministry in parishes and schools.

(Updated) Black Collar Crime: Catholic Priest John Sweeney Accused of Forcing Child to Give Him a Blow Job

Bruce Gerencser September 16, 2021 Black Collar Crime 4 Comments

John Sweeney, a Roman Catholic priest, stands accused of forcing a ten-year-old boy to give him a blow job.

CT reports:

A now-retired Roman Catholic priest is accused of forcing a 10-year-old Pennsylvania boy to perform oral sex on him after counseling the 4th-grader about misbehaving on a school bus.
The state attorney general’s office said Monday that the Rev. John Thomas Sweeney committed felony involuntary deviate sexual intercourse against the boy at St. Margaret Mary Elementary School in Lower Burrell.
Prosecutors say the alleged assault occurred during the 1991-92 school year, and that the boy was given milk and cookies afterward.
The Greensburg Diocese says the 74-year-old Sweeney was removed as pastor of Holy Family Parish in West Newton in 2016 after church officials learned of the allegation.
Court and diocese officials were unable to identify a defense lawyer for Sweeney. Sweeney made no comment to reporters when he turned himself in.
Sweeney continued in ministry as a priest for approximately 16 years after abusing the victim and was in contact with children on a regular basis.
….

Action News-4 adds:

The alleged assault happened in a conference room next to Sweeney’s office after the fourth-grader was sent to Sweeney for discipline because he had been disruptive on a school bus, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said.
“After Sweeney finished sexually assaulting the 10-year-old boy, Sweeney’s parish secretary brought the boy milk and cookies,” Shapiro said.
The alleged victim now serves in the U.S. Coast Guard. Shapiro commended him for coming forward with his allegation.
“This courageous young man found his voice, and brought that voice before the grand jury. Now our job is to follow through,” Shapiro said.
Citing the ongoing investigation, the diocese declined to comment on Sweeney’s arrest.
In addition to Lower Burrell, Sweeney’s parish assignments between 1970 and 2008 included Holy Family in Latrobe, Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg, Saint Hedwig in Smock, Saint Mary in Freeport, Saint James in Apollo and Holy Family in West Newton.
His arrest is part of “a broader investigation into sexual abuse by priests,” said Shapiro, who asked the public for more help to identify alleged abusers and their victims.

Update:

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on December 21, 2018:

A Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to 11½ months to five years in prison Friday morning after pleading guilty in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the early 1990s.
The Rev. John T. Sweeney, a Roman Catholic priest with the Diocese of Greensburg, was given the maximum allowable sentence by Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio.
“You perpetrated a horrific act on a 10-year-old boy,” Judge Bilik-DeFazio told the priest at the sentencing.
….
Sweeney, 76, had admitted to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy during the 1991-92 school year. He was a pastor at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Lower Burrell at the time.
He pleaded guilty in August to indecent assault on a minor under 14 years old. The charge is a first-degree misdemeanor, which was pleaded down from a previous felony charge.
After sentencing, Sweeney was handcuffed behind his back and escorted out of the courtroom by officers for immediate incarceration.
Lower Burrell police started the investigation of Sweeney after receiving an anonymous report and then one from a U.S. marshal who identified himself as a relative of the victim. The police referred the case to a statewide grand jury.
According to the criminal complaint, the school principal sent the boy to see Sweeney due to misbehavior on a school bus. The priest forced the victim to give him oral sex, warning the boy that he would be in trouble if he didn’t comply, according to the criminal complaint.
Judge Bilik-DeFazio issued her sentence after hearing the victim’s brother give statements on his own and his brother’s behalf, describing the devastation of the assault.
….
The judge was unmoved by Sweeney’s own apology and plea for leniency, and by similar appeals by two longtime friends, including a retired judge who said Sweeney had otherwise been a “perfect priest.”
“It certainly sounds to me, Mr. Sweeney, that you have had a very positive impact on many lives,” the judge said. But that didn’t mitigate his devastating impact on another life, she said.
“You, sir, abused your authority” and “your position of trust,” she said. “A 10-year-old boy was punished for misbehaving in school in such a horrific way.”
“You have walked this earth the last 27 years in full liberty,” Judge Bilik-DeFazio said in bringing that freedom to an end for a while.
The fact that he got away with it for so long left the judge unmoved by Sweeney’s claims to be suffering from ailments of old age, including cataracts and digestive problems.

Black Collar Crime: Baptist Pastor Gary Eaches Sentenced to Prison for Sex Crimes

Bruce Gerencser September 16, 2021 Black Collar Crime 1 Comment

In May 2020, Gary Eaches, pastor of United Baptist Church (an American Baptist congregation) in Scranton, Pennsylvania was accused of plying a teenager with alcohol and marijuana and then sexually assaulting her.

WNEP-16 reported at the time:

According to court paperwork, Gary Eaches of Scranton gave a 16-year-old girl alcohol and marijuana and then improperly touched her.
Police say they later responded to Eaches home after he was found depressed and suicidal.
Police say Eaches admitted to the assault and told officers he recently lost his job at United Baptist Church in Scranton.
Gary Eaches is locked up on $50,000 bail and faces assault and other charges.

Eaches last posted on Twitter on May 3, 2020. Here’s what he tweeted:

Based on the aforementioned news report, Pastor Eaches Peaches is now known for sexually assaulting a teen girl. Too bad he wasn’t against such behavior.

Eaches’ name and bio has already been scrubbed from United Baptist’s website. Other Christian websites have also deleted Eaches’ sermon and music videos.

Eaches’ handle on YouTube is “Scandalous Christian.” Eaches mentions on social media that he suffers from addiction and mental illness. As someone who has battled depression most of his adult life, I do wonder whether Eaches should have been a pastor. Knowing the rigors of the ministry, was it really wise to put Eaches in a position where his mental health issues could be exacerbated, and, perhaps, lead to addiction problems? Or were these issues minimized, believing that Jesus was the cure for what ailed Pastor Eaches?

In February 2021, Eaches pleaded guilty to indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor. In July, Eaches was sentenced to 18 to 48 months in state prison.

The Times-Tribune reports:

A former church pastor who molested a teenage girl who passed out after he gave her alcohol was sentenced Tuesday in Lackawanna County Court to 18 to 48 months in state prison.
Gary Joe Eaches, 42, of Scranton, pleaded guilty in February to indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor for sexually assaulting the 16-year-old girl at a Scranton home on April 11, 2020.
….
According to an arrest affidavit, the girl went to a home with Eaches’s son. Eaches showed up and provided her alcohol, which caused her to pass out on a couch. She awoke to find Eaches molesting her. Eaches, who was a pastor at United Baptist Church in West Scranton, later sent her text messages apologizing for what he did.
At the sentencing hearing held via Zoom before Judge Michael Barrasse, Eaches’s attorney, Patrick Rogan, said Eaches was employed as a pastor for 10 years before the assault. Rogan sought leniency, noting Eaches suffers from physical and mental health issues and was hospitalized while the case was pending.
Eaches apologized to the victim, who did not testify at the hearing.
“I realize what I did was wrong,” he said. “I’m asking for the grace and mercy of the court. … If I had a chance to change things in the past, I would.”
Barrasse also ordered Eaches to serve six years probation upon his release. Eaches also must register as a sex offender for life.

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(Updated) Black Collar Crime: Catholic Priest W. Thomas Faucher Back in Court on Child Porn Charges

Bruce Gerencser September 16, 2021 Religion 1 Comment

Last month, I posted a story about Catholic Priest W. Thomas Faucher and his arrest on child pornography charges. Faucher is back in court today, thanks to newly found porn on his computer (he had tried to delete it). The judge raised Faucher’s bond to $1 million, saying that the community was not safe as long as Faucher roamed free.

KTVB-7 reports:

A retired Boise priest was taken back into custody Tuesday morning after a judge quadrupled his bond, declaring that the brutally violent child pornography newly discovered on the suspect’s computer had convinced him the community was not safe as long as Father W. Thomas Faucher remained free.
Prosecutors leveled nine new charges against Faucher during the hearing – seven new counts of possession of child pornography, one new count of distribution of child pornography and one new count of LSD possession – bringing his total charges to more than 20.
Prosecutor Kassandra Slaven said the additional charges correspond to additional graphic files, images and videos found on the 72-year-old’s computer – some of which Faucher had attempted to delete, she said.
Those images and videos are “so concerning that the state feels that a $250,000 bond just simply does reflect the danger and risk the defendant poses to the community,” Slaven told the judge.
….
Forensic investigators have so far recovered more than 2,000 child pornography files from Faucher’s devices, the prosecutor said, including pictures and videos depicting the “extremely brutal rape and torture of children.”
“Quite frankly, your Honor, the content is some of the worst that the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force has seen,” Slaven said. “This involves very young children – many, many infant children.”
Online, Faucher fed his “sadistic and deviant” desires by chatting with people with similar interests, Slaven said, discussing fantasies that were alarming in their specificity: even outlining the gender, age and other details about children he would like to abuse.
“There are countless, countless, countless graphic chat conversations on his computer where he is very specific about how his sexual interests are evolving; he discusses in great detail the desires he has to sexually abuse and even kill children,” Slaven said.
….
Faucher’s attorney, Mark Manweiler, vigorously opposed the motion to increase bond.
Manweiler argued that the new charges were “quantitative” – more pornographic files discovered – but not a significant change in alleged conduct, meaning that Faucher is not any more likely to skip court.
“He’s 72 years old: Conviction of even a small number of these charges could likely result in a functional life sentence,” he said. “Whether he is charged with 500 counts or he’s charged with five, it makes no qualitative difference to his motivation or ability to appear at all his court appearances.”
The defense attorney also argued that Faucher has no prior criminal history, has complied with all GPS monitoring and other court conditions, and is not charged with any actual physical sexual contact with any children.
Although two people who say they were molested by the priest decades ago came forward after his arrest, Faucher has not been charged in those cases.
….

Update:

Channel 7 reported in October 2020:

A former priest who served at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Boise for decades before being arrested in a violent child pornography case that shook his parishioners and detectives alike is dead.
Father W. Thomas Faucher was 75. He was less than two years into a 25-year fixed prison sentence at the Idaho State Correctional Institution.
….
Faucher had already retired from his position as priest when police raided his diocese-owned home in northwest Boise in February of 2018, seizing thousands of violent and sexual images and videos, some of which showed victims as young as infants and toddlers being raped and tortured.
Prosecutors said later that the evidence collected in the case was among the most disturbing that members of the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children task force had ever encountered.
Detectives also recovered extensive online chat logs in which Faucher wrote about his desire to rape and murder a child, mused about sexually assaulting an altar boy at his church, and discussed traveling to South America to abduct and abuse a small boy before killing that child.
Faucher later told a judge he did not remember writing those messages, or sending an email containing photos of two children being sexually assaulted by adult men. He pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of child pornography, two counts of possession of child pornography and possession of LSD in September 2018, saying he wanted to “take responsibility” for what he had done.
Then-mayor Dave Bieter was among those to ask the judge for leniency at Faucher’s sentencing, writing in a letter that the priest had provided counsel and solace after the death of Bieter’s parents. The mayor later told KTVB that although he was “deeply disturbed and angry” about what Faucher had done, showing compassion and forgiveness are central tenets of his faith.
Although his defense attorney asked for probation, the sentence of 25 years without parole handed down by the judge all but guaranteed the retired priest would die behind bars.
Faucher was defrocked – officially removed from the position as clergy by the Vatican – after his conviction, and Idaho Court of Appeals upheld his 25-year sentence earlier this year.

Questions: Bruce, If You Had It to Do All Over Again, Would You Still Write Your Infamous Letter?

Bruce Gerencser September 15, 2021 Questions 6 Comments

Alisha asked:

I have read several times on your page about your writing a letter to friends and family after your deconversion. You chose to be very open with people about your change in belief. Your wife, you said, has chosen not to really talk much about her leaving Christianity. Now that several years have passed since you sent the letter, I wonder if you feel it was the correct thing to do or if you think taking your wife’s approach might have worked out better?

My wife and I left Christianity in 2008. In early 2009, I wrote a letter titled Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners detailing our loss of faith, and sent it to hundreds of family members, friends, colleagues in the ministry, and former church members. While Polly signed her name to the letter (and agreed with its content), it was generally perceived as coming from me. Others have always viewed Polly as not thinking for herself or under the spell of “Bruce.”

While there might have been a time forty years ago that was true, I can confidently say that Polly thinks for herself, makes her own decisions, and generally does what she wants. While our relationship is quite “traditional,” the patriarchal form of our marriage died an ignoble death decades ago. We now have an egalitarian approach to marriage. Does patriarchal thinking still show up in our relationship from time to time? Sure. Religious indoctrination will do that to you. Several years ago, I told my counselor that I wished Polly would be more assertive, make more decisions. He reminded me that she was free to NOT make decisions too; that maybe she liked me being the main decision-maker in our family; that I needed to accept her as she is. Doc, of course, was right. The difference now is that I no longer make unilateral decisions that affect both of us. Years ago, I would go to work with one car and come home with another. I would NEVER do such a thing today. We have learned to make decisions together.

The aforementioned letter was our coming-out party. While I continue to be outspoken about my unbelief, spending the past thirteen years sharing my story and trying to help those with questions and doubts about Christianity, Polly, on the other hand, quickly receded into the background, rarely talking about her loss of faith. Personality-wise, Polly is quiet and reserved. In high school and college, she was a wallflower. She went on one date before starting to date me. I was, in every way, her one and only. I’m a talkative, opinionated extrovert. Polly is not. I remember being frustrated with her when we were dating over how little she talked (much like her father). People, including myself, mistook her shyness for her not having an opinion. Trust me, Polly Shope Gerencser has lots of opinions. You just need to learn how to extract them from her as I have over forty-three years of marriage. Do I wish she was more vocal? Sure. But Polly is not me, and it’s unfair for me to expect her to be a quarter-fed talk-a-machine like I am. 🙂

I said all of this to make this point: our personalities largely determined our individual response to loss of faith. I charged Hell with an empty squirt gun, screaming FREEDOM!, and Polly stood on the sidelines, quietly smiling, never saying a word. We each responded the way we did because it was our nature to do so. That is still true today.

When we deconverted, I stood on a corner, street preacher-style, and told the world that I was no longer a Christian. Polly, on the other hand, stood in the crowd, quietly saying, AMEN! Alisha wants to know, with thirteen years of unbelieving life in the rearview mirror, would we do it all over again the same way? On the one hand, I could say, “we are who we are, personality-wise.” Can any of us act differently? (And no, I am NOT interested in discussing free will.) I do know, however, that my letter had real-world consequences. We lost all of our friends save two. And I mean ALL OF THEM! We lost friendships twenty and thirty years in the making. One letter, one honest reflection, and BOOM! — fractured friendships. Some of our friends turned on me, sending me hateful, judgmental emails. (Polly was spared any of this ugliness from our friends.) One of my closest friends savaged me in several emails, suggesting I was mentally ill. Another friend said I was possessed by Satan. And yet another dear friend who had known me for twenty-five years — the wife of an evangelist who had preached for me numerous times — told me that it was evident I was unsaved, that I was a deceiver, that the Devil was using me. (Our youngest daughter is named after her.)

My ministerial colleagues immediately broke fellowship with me. Not one colleague tried to “understand” my story. Not one emailed me and asked if we could talk, have lunch, or tried to interact with me. My letter was a declaration of war — a war that I am fighting to this day.

Imagine losing all of your friends and professional connections in a matter of months. Fifty years in the Christian church, twenty-five years in the ministry, countless relationships, all burned to the ground. To say this response was devasting to Polly and me would be a gross understatement.

Polly took a quiet, measured approach, choosing to NOT talk about her loss of faith. It’s only been in recent years that she has shared with her co-workers that she is not a believer. One of her employees is also an unbeliever, so Polly has been more open to her, but even today, she is hesitant to talk about this part of life with others. (Polly has agreed to share her story on my podcast channel when and if I ever get the *&%$#* thing off the ground.)

We have made a few friends over the years, mainly through this blog and social media. The couple who remained friends of ours when we deconverted are the only people we do things with. I have lunch from time to time with a United Church of Christ pastor and a former mainline Lutheran pastor. Outside of these friendships, neither of us has people in our lives we can call up and have in-person relationships with. Sure, we have six children and thirteen grandchildren, but we want and need non-family relationships as well.

As far as family relationships go, we are estranged from much of Polly’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) family. We maintain a decent relationship with her mother, but we have yet to have a meaningful discussion with Mom about why we are no longer Christians. Mom and Dad (now deceased) got the letter I sent in 2009, and that’s been the extent of any discussion about why we left the ministry and later left Christianity. I suspect Mom has read my blog now and again, as many of Polly’s IFB family have, but our losses of faith remain the proverbial rainbow-colored elephant in the room. I suspect Mom still thinks that I am the patriarch of our home; that the only reason Polly is an unbeliever is me; that when I die, she will come running back to Jesus and Evangelical Christianity.

I could go on and on about the price we have paid for leaving Christianity. Would our lives be better today if I had never sent my infamous letter to family, friends, and former parishioners? Would our lives be better if I had never started blogging, never written letters to local newspapers’ editors, never given interviews detailing my story? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. We are who we are. Could I have NOT written my letter? I have pondered that question more times than I dare admit. I suspect Alisha wants to know if it is better to gently remove the bandaid or just get it over with and rip it off. I can’t tell her what to do in her own life. Am I happy with how our life has turned out post-Jesus? Sure (in general). Is Polly happy? Sure (in general). Neither of us is a woulda-coulda-shoulda kind of person. We tend to be realists, pessimists, and pragmatists. Would our lives have been different if I had stayed quiet about our unbelief? Maybe.

Perhaps some of the readers of this blog will chime in about their approaches to declaring (or not) their unbelief. This truly is one of those questions where there is no right answer.

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The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser