The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser

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  • Commenter says, “Bruce, You were No Good as a Pastor and You Hurt Our Family”


    Republished from 2017

    Some time ago, a man who says his name is Andrew Beltz left a troubling comment on the Why I Hate Jesus post. Beltz wrote:

    So Bruce admits he is a hater. O.K. He has legitimized hate.

    Now I can tell you Bruce that I hate you, you fat disgusting thing, because you were no good as a pastor and you hurt our family.

    Yes, Bruce, I remember.

    I immediately sent Beltz an email. Unfortunately, he used a fake email address, so my email to him bounced. Here’s what I wrote:

    Andrew,

    Before I post your comment, I would appreciate it if you would elaborate more on the claims made in your comment. I have no recollection of pastoring anyone with the last name Beltz. I see that you currently reside in the Goshen, Kentucky area. I have never lived in Kentucky. Perhaps you moved away from one of the areas I pastored. Which church were you a member of or at which church did you have a negative experience with me?

    Thank you for taking the time to respond.

    Bruce Gerencser

    Comments such as this always trouble me, and here’s why: I readily admit that my preaching, beliefs, and ministerial practices were harmful. When I have been able to talk with offended/hurt congregants privately, I have apologized to them for the harm I have caused. While I could justify myself by saying that I too was abused, and that I was simply a product of the religious environment I grew up in, I choose, instead, to own my behavior. I now know I hurt people. I didn’t at the time, but years of reflection have led me to conclude that I hurt my wife and children, along with the hundreds of people who once called me pastor or preacher. While I was a loving, helpful, kind, and compassionate pastor, I know that what I preached and what I modeled to congregants was psychologically harmful. And in some instances, patriarchal beliefs about child-rearing and family structure caused physical harm. That is what Fundamentalism does. It hurts the hurting, harms the harmless, and causes untold damage to people who sincerely buy into the lies. A lifetime of days is not enough for me to say I am sorry. There’s nothing I can do about the past other than speaking about it openly and honestly. In Beltz’s case, I will gladly talk with him if he wants to talk. I WANT to know about how I hurt people. I can’t make things right if I don’t know for sure what I did or who I hurt.

    Former congregants who have contacted me have been, so far, children who grew up in the churches I pastored. Now adults, they too are trying to come to terms with the past. In every instance, they accepted my apology and forgave me. They also told me that I was too hard on myself, that no one forced their parents to attend one of the churches I pastored. They willingly became members, believing as I did that God, the Holy Spirit, empowered my preaching. Many of them just wanted someone to tell them what to believe or how to live their lives, and, being a good Baptist pastor, I was quite willing to fill this need. After all, this is exactly what my pastors, churches, and college professors did for me, shaping me into a man who would then take their teachings and harm several more generations of people.

    While I find Beltz’s words hurtful, I bear them because I know how harmful my preaching, way of ministry, and demands for conformity were to people such as him. I don’t run or try to hide from my past. Anyone who wants to contact me can send me an email via the contact form. I respond to every email, though I can be somewhat slow in doing so. Health problems often keep me from being as timely as I would like to be, but I do answer every email sent to me.

    Now, Beltz may be just a troll. Several commenters over the years have said they knew me or were members of one of the churches I pastored, only to be exposed as liars. One man went so far as to say that my whole story was a lie, that he knew people who lived in several of the areas I pastored, and none of them knew who I was.  In Beltz’s case, I am, until I know otherwise, giving him the benefit of the doubt. I hope he will contact me using a valid email address. I sincerely want to, as much as lies within me, right past wrongs. I hope Andrew will give me a chance to do so.

    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.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Quote of the Day: The Socialists are Coming and the DNC is Freaking Out

    Note: I am a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. I do not agree with every policy position, but I generally support the DSA agenda.

    By Ross Barkan, The Nation, Here Comes the Inevitable Backlash to DSA’s Rise

    The Democratic Socialists of America have never been more relevant. And with this rise comes an inevitable backlash—not so much from the voters themselves as the Democratic elites wary of the insurgency and the media organs that, more often than not, reflect their blinkered conception of the world.

    Why are Democrats panicking so much about DSA? Why has at least one Atlantic columnist labeled them a “parasite”? This is the price of victory—of becoming, at last, a threat. The socialist left, for almost a century, was nothing more than a footnote on the American political scene. A major force in the Eugene Debs era, with more than a thousand elected officials scattered across the country, the Socialist Party withered in the 1920s and ’30s, a victim of the first Red Scare and attacks from the major political parties. Franklin Roosevelt had weakened them as well, dragging the Democratic Party left and adopting many of the economic policies they had supported. As anti-communism took hold in America, there was no place for any prominent politician using the “s” word, and even when Michael Harrington founded DSA in the early 1980s—unlike the old Socialist Party, his DSA would compete in Democratic primaries—there was little hope that the organization, with just a few thousand members, could decide elections.

    The rise of Bernie Sanders changed all that, reinvigorating DSA. Membership boomed. Sanders himself wasn’t a DSA member, but he called himself a democratic socialist. Still, the Democratic establishment could worry only so much. Sanders was defeated twice. DSA members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did begin to win congressional primaries and a handful of socialists entered statehouses and city councils, but there were only so many of them. A centrist Democrat repeatedly denouncing DSA would have seemed a bit silly. Who really cares about DSA? When Donald Trump was defeated and Joe Biden returned to office, DSA maintained its small foothold but effectively stopped growing, and the Democratic establishment could exhale. The socialist fervor, it seemed, had passed.

    Zohran Mamdani changed all that. A socialist winning America’s largest city was a great shock to the establishment Democrats who believed the DSA moment had come and gone. The primaries last month proved that Mamdani’s victory wasn’t an anomaly, a political fad. Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez, Melat Kiros, and Chris Rabb are all heading to Congress. DSA is continuing to grow its presence in state legislatures. As in the 1960s, “when a graying Democratic establishment backed the Vietnam War while the youth revolted, many Democrats today clung far too close to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel and are paying the price. Pro-Palestine sentiment has reinvigorated the left. This success has driven some pundits and political leaders to declare that DSA members should be thrown out of the Democratic Party. Jamie Harrison, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said on X not long ago that socialists who “hate the Democratic Party” should not “run for our nomination.” “Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers,” he posted. “Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.” In his “parasite” Atlantic column, Jamie Kirchick argued that the Democrats should be “prohibiting DSA members from joining their party and throwing out the DSA members already honeycombed within it.”

    For an anti-socialist liberal, it’s a nice idea. Make the Democrats the party of Rahm Emanuel and Tom Suozzi and leave it there. The trouble for them is the American political system, one that is flawed but does permit quite a bit of grassroots democracy.

    ….

    “Harrison’s argument is especially absurd because there are few “resources” or “infrastructure” a centralized Democratic Party deploys for most races. It’s up to candidates themselves to raise money and recruit volunteers.

    ….

    They just understand, as Harrington did, that running in the Democratic Party primary is a much better way to make tangible change than forming a third party and losing more often than not. Ironically, many of the same political leaders and pundits who call for a DSA purge today would be equally livid if they formed a third party tomorrow, contested general elections, and potentially siphoned votes from Democrats.

  • Bruce, Are You Dead? No, But I’m Working on It

    Come on, what’s a little gallows humor in the midst of a dark, trying, and at times overwhelming, season of life. Sometimes, laughing in the face of suffering is all any of us can do. I know that’s the case for me, anyway. Not that I sit around laughing as I writhe in pain. No, in those moments I want to swallow a handful of pills and drift into sweet, peaceful nothingness. I want to think better days lie ahead for me, but my gut and seven decades of life suggest otherwise. I could be wrong, as I oft have been over these many years, but, at the very least, I’m on the short end of life. Instead of grand plans for the future, managing health struggles consume my daily life, often demanding I live by the hour instead the day.

    I won’t give you a long recitation on the current status of my health. Doctors remain perplexed, and while scans and blood tests reveal oddities here and there, nothing that screams: Eureka! We found the problem. You are still going to die, but at least you will know what killed you.

    I see a new endocrinologist next month. One doctor wonders if some of my symptoms might hormone related. More tests, looking for the proverbial needle in a pile of almost identical needles. I find myself thinking, “Can’t I be on the winning side of the odds just once before I die?” 🤣 A raspy, heavy voice from the dark laughed and said, “Surely, you jest. God is punishing you for saying God Dammit in 2005.” Well, God Dammit, Jesus, must you be so petty? It’s not like I ate a forbidden apple, picked up sticks on the Sabbath, or masturbated. Now, those are some “sins” that require severe punishment, right?

    Long term readers know my medical history, so I won’t recite it here. Everything remains the same on that front, albeit somewhat worse depending on the day. What is of more immediate concern is my profuse sweating (especially at night), unregulated feeling of hot/cold, and precipitous drops in blood glucose levels for no apparent reason. As you might imagine, these problems are far from ideal, 🤣 so that’s why I’m seeing another endocrinologist.

    Fatigue, chronic insomnia, and increasing immobility all make getting out of bed in the morning difficult, and some days impossible. Pleas from my life partner, “Bruce,You have got to get up,” followed by some sort of bribe hoped to draw me from my bed, no longer work. I know I’m at a bad place, but that’s where the car broke down with a blown motor, so here I remain. I try. What more can I do?

    In February, I was diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer on my neck. The cancer appeared suddenly and quickly grew. It was successfully removed. I have a nasty scar to prove it.

    Last month, I was diagnosed with basal cell cancer on my left hand and squamous cell cancer on the right side of my neck. I had both growths surgically removed. I also had a large cyst on my back removed at the same time.

    Well, enough of this. I’m not whining or complaining. Just talking to my friends; letting them know that I’m down, but not out. I haven’t quit blogging, and I still hope to write again. Maybe even today or tomorrow. Until then, I appreciate your love, kindness, and support.

    If you have written or texted me and I have not responded, please accept my apology for my negligence. I’ve had several people get irate with me because I haven’t responded to them. Sorry about that, but I’ve been forced to cut a lot of things out of my life, and that includes responding to emails, texts, social media messages, and voice mails. I hope to do better in the future, but I can’t make any promises. It’s interesting to note what’s not so important when death is stalking you. Life is quickly reduced to bare essentials; people and things that matter to you.I have thought about farming out contact form responses to someone who has read my writing for a long time and has an in depth knowledge of my political, social, and theological views. Someone answering for me would be speaking on my behalf, so it’s important they understand my beliefs. If this is something that might interest you, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Carolyn, my editor. As my longtime editor and friend, she knows what I need on this front.

    I appreciate your understanding.

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  • Ohio Public School Librarians Concerned Over Book Bans and Funding Cuts

    By Susan Tebben, Used with Permission from Ohio Capital Journal

    Public school librarians in Ohio are raising alarms about book bans and funding cuts.

    School librarians have been navigating challenges in their work as long as they’ve been among the stacks in their local districts.

    Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians as a mainstay in schools.

    “Right now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,” said Gayle Schmuhl, president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association. “I think a lot of school librarians (in Ohio) are just hoping to stay employed.”

    Schmuhl said many members of the association were wondering about the future of their jobs with cuts to public school funding in Ohio and debate over property taxes that go to education.

    Cuts to state public education has been talked about for decades, especially after multiple Ohio Supreme Court decisions that said the state was not paying its constitutional fair share.

    In 2022, a model called the Fair School Funding Plan came about with bipartisan sponsorship, and was passed in what some saw as a new era for Ohio. The plan was to fund schools based on actual need from school district to school district.

    The model almost made it through the six-year phase-in as planned, but Ohio Republican lawmakers abandoned it in the last operating budget.

    While the most recent state operating budget included a $226 million increase in school funding, the Fair School Funding Plan model needed at least triple that amount to maintain its initial calculations and keep up with inflation.

    Lawmakers, however, increased private school voucher funding into the billions.

    Courtney Johnson was a school librarian in Columbus for 10 years, and seeing funding plans decrease for public schools played a part in her move back to teaching English.

    She worried that though the funding priorities for schools hadn’t been spelled out, the cuts might mean she’d be splitting her time as the librarian in multiple district buildings.

    “I’m a person who likes to have roots in a place and go to my ‘work home’ every day,” Johnson told the Capital Journal.

    Johnson said returning to the classroom also means following an entire class through their year-long experience, and still means helping kids with reading and writing, two things that are among the passions that brought her to the profession.

    “Every kid has a story, even if they don’t trust that they do at first, and I love making space for them to tell their stories,” Johnson said.

    As a librarian, she saw the importance of parents reading to their kids, students receiving the context of other subjects in school for “full background knowledge” to help them decode the words they’re reading, and encouraging the connection between kids and books.

    “We’ve known this, that when kids see themselves represented in books, they feel more connected to the books, they’re going to like reading better,” Johnson said. “Likewise, kids can see how other people live in books, and develop empathy that way.”

    Part of the job of the modern school librarian is discussing material with parents that they may find objectionable enough to demand it be taken off the shelves.

    Sharon Hawkes, a retired librarian who is also part of the group Right to Read Ohio, decided to survey school librarians, with the help of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association’s member list.

    Of those who participated in Hawkes’ study 56% “experienced censorship incidents” between 2021 and 2025.

    While she only received responses from 32 school librarians, about 10% of the total school librarians in the state, she said the experiences were still indicative of a challenge in Ohio.

    “We’re getting some clues about what’s going on,” Hawkes said, noting that because there’s no standard survey system in each state to study censorship in libraries, the count made by organizations like the American Library Association may be less than the actual amount happening across the country.

    The American Library Association reported 98 attempts to censor 355 books in Ohio from 2021 to 2024, and last year, there were seven attempts to censor 129 books, according to the ALA.

    Schmuhl agreed that the study was representative of the experience she’d heard of in the state.

    “I did see that school librarians in our areas were being proactive and trying to have good communication within their school districts (about attempts to ban books),” Schmuhl said.

    In Hawkes’ study, of the 16 censorship requests in Ohio between 2021 and 2024, eleven were “challenges without removals,” while eight resulted in a book ban of some kind, and three involved “relocations of books or other materials.”

    According to the researcher, librarians use “objective criteria” in decisions about what materials are age-appropriate and relevant for the school libraries. Their training qualifies them to decide on the inventory, and to deal with challenges from parents, where the majority of material challenges came from in the study.

    The majority of school librarians who responded to Hawkes’ survey had between 11 and 15 years of experience as the director or manager of their current library, and more than 62% had a Master’s degree in Library Science.

    “More than anything, I wanted people to understand that parents do have the right to guide what their children read and when they read it … they can approach their librarians about it,” Hawkes said. “What they can’t do is ban books for other people’s children.”

    For Johnson, moving back to English doesn’t mean she’ll avoid the topic of censorship.

    “I think I’m going to deal with that in public schools under what we have going on right now, no matter what my position is,” she said.

    The legislature approved one measure to compel public libraries to relocate “inappropriate” materials out of the sight of minors, but Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it as “not workable.”

    Another bill still in consideration by the legislature would order vendors of online educational resources that go to public libraries and schools to create protections to prevent “inappropriate” content from making it to kids’ eyes.

    Opponents of the materials have said the bill could have unintended consequences, removing materials that are educational as well.

    Johnson’s classroom goals include helping kids maintain reading to “get them ready for this really difficult world that we’re navigating,” and bring the parents in as part of it.

    “We need to work together as parents and school communities to make sure kids are achieving literacy, and we know that having access to books at home, and at school, at their fingertips, is just the beginning of it,” she said.

  • Did Dinosaurs Walk the Earth During Noah’s Time?

    Most Evangelicals are young earth creationists, though an increasing number of them are theistic evolutionists — God is the force, the mover behind evolution. Some Evangelicals are old earth creationists or day-age creationists. This allows them to distance themselves from crazy young earth creationists, even though their beliefs are just as nutty. Regardless of the belief, all of them believe the universe came into existence because “God did it.”

    According to Bishop James Ussher’s seventeenth century chronology, God created the universe in six twenty-hour days, 6,029 years ago. While other chronologies exist, Ussher’s seems to be the one that stuck with Evangelicals. Imprecise Evangelicals will say the universe is 6,000, 7,000, or 10,000 years old, but Ussher usually lurks in the shadows, even if few believers remember his name.

    I was a hardcore young earth creationist for most of my life. In the early 2000s, my beliefs bit by bit moved towards scientific consensus, and by the time I deconverted in 2008, I was no longer a creationist.

    As a young pastor, evolution was a favorite sermon target of mine, even though the only science training I had was general science and biology classes in high school, and a worthless biology class in college. I had no business talking about science in my sermons — much like preachers who pontificate about evolution today. “Evolution” is a buzzword used by Evangelical preachers to call the faithful to duty and commitment. “Them evil commies are coming for our kids with Satanic “evil-ution, ho-mo-sex-u-al-ity, rock and roll, Mary Jane, and premarital sex.” None of the church kids in youth group during the days when I heard such sermons became communists as adults. That other stuff? Most of us engage in them to some degree or the other, proof again that this sort of preaching never works (over the long term).

    One Sunday, I was preaching on the second coming of Jesus. He’s still late, decades later. During this fine piece of Baptist oratory, I brought up the hole in the ozone layer — a hot topic of discussion in the 1980s. I heartily laughed, as I thundered from the pulpit, “Who cares if there’s a hole in the ozone layer!” That’s just a bigger hole for Jesus to come through when he returns to earth.” Like that “deep” exegesis? 🤣 Yes, I’m embarrassed that I said dumb shit like that. I was in my 20s and 30s, lacking basic science training past middle school. My understanding of science wasn’t much different from that of my colleagues in the ministry, and most of the people I pastored had no science training beyond high school.

    In the 1970s forward, creationist “experts” traveled the land indoctrinating Evangelical church members in young earth creationism. (This is when Dr. Dino, Kent Hovind, got his start on the creationism circuit.) My first remembrance of a “creation conference” comes from 1979. At the time, I was the assistant pastor of Montpelier Baptist Church in rural northwest Ohio. Montpelier Baptist was a fast growing church, reaching 500 in attendance in October 1979. The church was filled with young adults excited to learn the truth about “science,” cults, and the end times. I still remember the buzz in the packed building when these subjects were addressed by Pastor Stuckey. We heard sermons on all the hot theological subjects and conspiracy theories. Good times? In the moment, yes. Think of being in the front row of a rock concert. Good time? In the moment, yes. However, morning follows night, and now you feel like you have been run over by a truck — twice. That’s how I feel about the 50 years I spent in Evangelicalism, especially the 25 years I devoted to the pastorate.

    The church brought in John Whitcomb to hold a creation conference. The building was filled with people as Whitcomb indoctrinated them in young earth creationism. Henry Morris’ and Whitcomb’s 1961 book, The Genesis Flood, was popular at the time. I owned the book, so I was familiar with his beliefs. I was excited to have an “expert” teach me the truth about science, creationism, Adam and Eve, and dinosaurs.

    These conferences turned ignorant preachers into science experts — in their own minds, anyway. If you have spent any time in Evangelical or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches, you likely have heard sermons about science, evolution, and creationism. Maybe you even attended a creation conference or two. Did you ever question the qualifications of these “experts?” Probably not. Evangelicals tend to give too much respect and deference to men behind pulpits and lecterns. Few people bother to ask if the person speaking is qualified to teach on these subjects. Sadly, way too many “experts” are anything but. Going to an Evangelical preacher for your science knowledge is akin to thinking that eating a Big Mac at McDonald’s is fine dining. No one in their right mind would confuse McDonald’s with Ruth’s Chris Steak House. So it is with trusting Evangelical preachers to teach scientifically correct science. These preachers were indoctrinated just as their congregants were by them. Ignorance is multigenerational in Evangelical churches. It is not surprising that most church members are young earth creationists, and those who aren’t typically keep their mouths shut lest they be outed as “liberals.”

    In the early 80s, I attended a Bible conference at the Newark Baptist Temple in Heath, Ohio, pastored at the time by Polly’s uncle, James Dennis. I believe Jack Hyles was the headliner — uh I mean humble servant of God. 🤣 Afterward, I had a delightful discussion with the Glen West, the principal of the church’s Christian school. We jabbered back and forth before landing on dinosaurs. Both of us believed dinosaurs existed with humans on earth before Noah’s flood.

    Somewhere in the discussion, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb’s book came up. Both of us had read the book — two “intellectuals” discussing the finer points of science. I was pleased that Glen recognized my “scholarly” knowledge. It was nice to talk to someone on my level. Alas, this was little more than the blind leading the blind.

    I want to think Glen’s science knowledge increased over the past forty-five years, but he’s an Evangelical preacher, so I doubt it. Mine, on the other hand, has increased incrementally over years, though I will never be anything more than a rank novice.

    As a grandfather, I’m pleased to watch my older grandchildren choose STEM programs for their training at Ohio State University, Miami University, and Trine University respectively. Other grandkids coming behind them have STEM interests too.

    I can’t imagine — oh, I can, and I shudder to think — what kind of educations these kids would have received had our family remained Evangelicals and Grandpa was still a fire breathing Baptist preacher. Fortunately, the curse has been broken. Two of my granddaughters are taking college evolutionary biology this coming year. I relish the day when we can sit down at the pub and they can school Gramps on science. Maybe we can have a rousing discussion about endogenous retroviruses.🤣

  • Short Stories: The Bus — A Sign From God?

    Years ago, I pastored an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church in southeast Ohio. Nestled in the hills of the Appalachia mountain range, the church ministered primarily to the working poor. The eleven years I spent at Somerset Baptist were revelatory as I learned through on-the-job training to do the work of the ministry.

    I pastored all sorts of people. One such man was a transplant from a nearby IFB church. Greg was looking for a church that preached the perfect Word of God; a church that aggressively won souls for Christ. Recently married, Greg thought Somerset Baptist was a perfect fit for him and his new family.

    Greg died a couple of years ago. Prior to that, he and I had a back-and-forth interaction which culminated in me writing a post titled, Dear Greg.

    Greg and I spent a lot of time together, both socially and professionally. I genuinely enjoyed his company. We would play basketball outdoors and I would help him fix his car. A mechanic, Greg was not. One time, he accidentally drained the oil from his manual transmission, putting five extra quarts of oil in the motor. He then jumped in the car and drove to the church ten miles away to go soulwinning with me. Needless to say, his transmission and motor were smoking by the time he pulled into the church parking lot. Fortunately, Greg didn’t ruin the power train of his car. I helped him get the fluids where they belonged. We had a shared memory I never forgot. Funny, in retrospect, but a mistake that could have cost Greg thousands of dollars.

    Greg was one church member I could count on to show up for visitation or soulwinning. Greg also preached, taught Sunday School, and worked in the bus ministry. He and his family attended church every time the doors were open. (He eventually left because he found out I was a Calvinist — an unpardonable sin, in his mind.)

    While most people, including myself, thought Greg was eccentric, the real issue was undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). This resulted in Greg having deep, dark psychological struggles. We would talk about these struggles, but I was not much help. I tried to support Greg and be his friend, but I knew nothing about OCD. Years later, I would understand much better after I was diagnosed with OCPD.

    Greg struggled with his OCD, wondering if God was punishing him or Satan was tempting him. Such thinking was common in IFB churches. Blame must be assigned, and I suspect deep down Greg blamed himself. Isn’t that what we were taught?

    Greg had a lot of upheaval in his life, from moving to job changes. I always tried to be there for him (and his dear wife), but I’m sure I could have done more if I had known and recognized the signs of OCD and tried to get Greg into therapy. Instead, I was adamantly against going outside of the church for help. God, the Bible, and the church were all any of us needed, the thinking went. Boy, was I wrong, causing harm to congregants with mental health challenges. And causing harm to myself by spiritualizing my own psychological struggles.

    One time, Greg was looking for a new job. Previously, Greg had driven a bus for a local school district. He thought he would try his hand at driving again for a new school.

    On the appointed day, Greg went to the school bus lot for an interview. While getting on a bus, Greg glanced down and was shocked by what he saw. What did he see? The word “Carpenter.” Huh? Let me explain.

    Carpenter Body Works was a bus-building company in Mitchell, Indiana. They went out of business in 2001. You see, Greg’s last name was Carpenter, and his OCD brain was absolutely certain that this was a sign from God. How else could Greg explain the word “Carpenter” on the bus floor?

    This settled the matter for Greg, and he accepted a driving job. Greg loved driving bus, but with a wife and children to provide for, the bus-driving job didn’t pay the bills. Greg later took a factory job. No further mention was made of the “sign from God.”

    All these years later, I lament how my ignorance and lack of training hurt Greg. Unintentional, to be sure, but I wonder how much more peaceful his life might have been had I been more competent to help. That is, if Greg were willing to accept my help. Psychological problems were typically ignored or shoved under the proverbial church rug. I pastored scores of people with undiagnosed mental health problems. Sunday after Sunday they suffered as I told them Jesus and the Bible were all they needed to find love, peace, and happiness. This, of course, was a lie. It took me years to learn that the church was not the cure-all for what ailed us. By then countless hurting people came and went, going to the “world” to find people to help them. How could it be otherwise? Most Evangelical pastors are unqualified to counsel people about psychological problems. Greg certainly needed my friendship, but he needed a friend that understood his OCD, even if he refused to see and understand it for himself. Sadly IFB beliefs about sin and holiness only fueled Greg’s OCD. For him, minor, insignificant “sins” became full blown crises of faith, leading to extreme restlessness and suicidal thoughts. Greg deserved better than what Pastor Bruce and the church had to offer.

    How did your church and pastor handle the mental health struggles of church members (or their own)? 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.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • I Need Your Help

    help

    Someone filed a complaint about how this site handles cookies. I am required by federal/international law to give readers the option of opting out of cookies. This has never been a problem, until now. I suspect the person who filed the complaint has ill-intent; it doesn’t matter. I’m now on the clock with my service provider. If I’m not compliant, they are required by law to take down my site.

    I thought I had the problem fixed; they filed another complaint. I have one remaining issue with the JETPACK plugin. It loads its cookie before the approval choice, which is not allowed.

    I could set my site for US only. This would immediately cut off international readers from this site. This would fix the problem, but I’m not willing to do so. I have too many international readers to do that to them (and me).

    You may have noticed that you were served a cookie approval box when first coming to this site. Once a reader chooses to accept or reject some or all cookies that setting will be remembered for one year.

    I have spent days working to make this site compliant, and as of today, I think it is. Except for the JETPACK issue mentioned above. I can disable the plugin, but I really don’t want to do that, since doing so will affect reader experience in a negative way. What I need is for someone with WordPress expertise — especially the cookie process — to go through my site and make sure everything is compliant. I had to remove several plugins that improved the site for readers. I couldn’t find a way to make them compliant.

    If you have expertise in this area and would like to help me, please let me know.

    Otherwise, please make a burnt offering to your god for me; or a grain offering if your deity is vegan. If you don’t have a deity, I appreciate telepathic good vibes too. 🤣

    I’ve been running on near empty for a while now. This hassle has caused further energy loss, as I suspect the person who complained knows. I’m sure they are happy-happy-happy causing me pain. Otherwise, they would have sent me an email about the problem instead of contacting my hosting provider.

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  • Evangelical “Logic”

    Evangelicals are allegedly “people of the book,” even though most of them have not read the Bible from cover to cover one time. Supposedly, the Bible is THE book above all books, one written and compiled by God himself — another belief for which there is no evidence apart from words written in the Bible. Yet, at the same time, Evangelicals claim that their faith is a “logical” faith. Sure, little buddy, sure.

    Evangelicals claim univocality for the Bible, an absurd claim, to say the least. The Bible is often contradictory, littered with scientific, historical, and theological errors. Anyone who says the Bible is inerrant and infallible ain’t paying attention. Before the Internet, Evangelical ignorance about the nature and history of the Bible was understandable, but not today. Anyone with a modicum of curiosity can be quickly disabused of their supernatural beliefs about the Bible itself and its teachings.

    Besides, it’s a hoot to hear Evangelicals talk about “logic” while holding absurd, irrational beliefs. The same can be said for Mormonism and Islam too.

    Most Evangelicals believe in a 6,029 year old universe, talking snakes and animals, a virgin birth, and curing blindness with dirt and spit, to name a few fantastical beliefs; beliefs for which there is no evidence apart from words written in an ancient religious text. These beliefs fail rational inquiry, and Evangelicals are forced to appeal to supernaturalism and faith to “prove” their beliefs. An epic fail, to be sure.

    And let me be clear, I’m not using the word “logic” in a philosophical sense. I have no interest in philosophical arguments; none of which ever leads to the Evangelical God of the Bible. As a theologically educated atheist, all I’m interested in is what the Biblical text actually says. Surely, that should be desire of every follower of Jesus, yes?

    Did you think you had a “logical” faith as a Christian? How did you reconcile the errant, fallible nature of the Bible, if at all? I, for one, ran to the house of faith anytime I couldn’t make the pieces fit. Please share your thoughts 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.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Letter to the Editor: JD Vance, Calls for the Restoration of Christendom

    Dear Editor,

    JD Vance is out and about preaching up his version of Christianity. Vance, a Roman Catholic, calls for a restoration of Western Civilization; alleging that liberals, humanists, socialists, and atheists want to destroy America. This is patently untrue. The issue at stake is a radical difference between worldviews.

    Vance promotes not Christianity itself, but Christendom. Christendom vs. Christianity — the former all about restoring Western Civilization to what Vance considers its glory days.

    Christendom is about power, not piety. The goal is coercion, not salvation. Christendom gave us imperialism, colonialism, empire, and war. Millions have died as the result of the West’s lust for world domination. Trump, Vance, Rubio, and Hegseth all think that the Christian deity and the United States are best buds; that this God gave his approval for America’s immoral wars. Or so we’re told.

    Vance’s promotion of Christendom explains why he says there’s no such thing as the separation of church and state. In Vance’s view of the world, the United States is an explicitly Christian nation, divinely chosen and blessed by the triune Christian God, not just a nation of mainly people who self- identify as Christians.

    Various streams of Christian nationalism all want one thing: a Christian nation governed by the laws of the Bible. This is nothing more than the Christian version of Muslim Sharia Law. Calling pluralism and multiculturalism evil, Christian nationalists want religious purity; or at the very least a culture dominated by Christianity and a society where unbelievers are grudgingly tolerated as long as they know their place.

    I recently began my seventieth year of life. For the first time in my life, I no longer feel welcome in my own country. I’ve been told there’s no place for people like me: an unbelieving atheist, socialist, and pacifist. How dare I live according to my values and beliefs. Vance and his fellow Christians want a religious monoculture, one where everyone thinks, believes, and behaves the same way.

    Vance’s wife is a Hindu. You would think he would respect his wife’s religious beliefs, but he does not. Before converting to Catholicism, Vance was an Evangelical — and it shows. Vance has publicly called on his wife to convert to Christianity. This is a reminder that Vance’s goal is restore Western Christianity to its former greatness. How much blood he is willing to shed to advance his cause remains to be seen.

    Bruce Gerencser

    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.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Quote of the Day: Hunter Biden May be a Gun-Toting Drug Addict, But He’s Right About the Democratic Party

    I’m not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I’d take away from what happened in NY yesterday.

    1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.

    2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It’s a question mark.

    3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.

    4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.

    5. The middle is not a strategy. It’s an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.

    6. Don’t fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.

    7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn’t ask permission. He took the field.

    The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.

    — Hunter Biden, son of former president Joe Biden , as reported by Crooks and Liars