Here is a September 7, 1990 front-page newspaper photograph of me street preaching on the downtown streets of Zanesville, Ohio. A Zanesville Times-Recorder photographer named Jeff Cope shot this photo of me putting in a good word for Jesus on one of the hottest days of the year (in the 90s, I believe). For several years, I preached every Thursday— spring, summer, winter, and fall — on the streets of Zanesville. I also preached on the downtown streets of other local communities such as Newark, Crooksville, New Lexington, Lancaster, and New Straitsville.
Those were the days: ironed long-sleeve pinpoint cotton, button-down oxford shirt, pressed black dress slacks, black suspenders, snazzy tie, black wing-tip shoes, leather Oxford King James Bible, and red hair on top of my head. I was quite the celebrity. Evangelicals loved me for my boldness and zeal; non-Evangelicals hated my abrasiveness and pushy message. I often brought my family, Christian school students, and church members along with me. They would hold Bible verse signs and hand out tracts while I preached.
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.
People often wonder how all of the animals could have fit on the ark. Often, “bathtub arks” are loaded down with various species of animals, rather than the biblical kind, which is approximately at the family level of biological classification. Noah didn’t need to bring lions, leopards, and tigers onto the ark, just a single pair from the cat kind. We see so many illustrations of large creatures packed tightly into a little boat. But this image is inaccurate too. Noah’s ark was so much larger than it is usually depicted, and many of the animals were probably smaller than are shown in popular pictures.
But the biggest hurdle people have when they see any of our displays of the ark (or visit the Ark Encounter) is seeing dinosaurs depicted on the ark (or in stalls in the Ark Encounter). Due to evolutionary indoctrination, many people can’t picture man living alongside dinosaurs, or if they do, they think of the Jurassic Park/World movies and view all dinosaurs as wanting to trample or eat people. Even if they overcome or set aside this stumbling block, we still get questions of how dinosaurs could even fit on the ark, particularly when considering the massive dinosaurs, especially the sauropods. Other oft-cited “problems” with dinosaurs on the ark are feeding the herbivores the massive amounts of vegetation that the adults eat, feeding the carnivorous ones (and avoiding being eaten by them), and cleaning up after them.
It makes more sense to think that God would have sent to Noah juveniles (or sub-adults) or smaller varieties within the same kind. Consider the following advantages to bringing juveniles or smaller versions of a creature: they take up less space, they eat less, they create less waste, they are often more docile and easier to manage, they are generally less susceptible to injury, and they would have more time to reproduce after the flood. And considering this last point, wasn’t that the end goal of bringing them on board the ark: to keep them alive and to ensure that they would “be fruitful and multiply on the earth” (Genesis 8:17)? Bringing a full-sized dinosaur that only had a few years left and/or was past its reproductive prime seems illogical and wasteful. Neither of those is characteristic of God.
Regarding carnivorous activity, we know from the fossil record (most of which is a testimony of the worldwide, globe-covering flood) that some animals were carnivores in the post-fall/pre-flood world. But even if carnivory was prevalent in the late pre-flood world, it is still possible the animals that God sent did not eat meat or were omnivores that could have survived for one year without meat. There have been modern examples of animals normally considered to be carnivores that refused to eat meat, such as the lion known as Little Tyke. Additionally during times of war or natural disaster when meat was unobtainable, zoos and wildlife parks have utilized meat substitutes1 like nuts, peanut butter, coconuts, beans, soy, and other legumes as their protein-source feed for the animals.2
However, if some of the ark’s animals did eat meat, there are several methods of preserving or supplying their food. Meat can be preserved through drying, smoking, salting, or pickling. Certain fish can pack themselves in mud and survive for years without water—these could have been stored on the ark. Noah may have also brought mealworms and other insects onto the ark as food, and these can be bred for both carnivores and insectivores, providing even necessary amino acids, like taurine. Cricket or grasshopper flour could be baked into breads, as could the ground seeds of gourds. And plants like amaranth and quinoa yield high protein feed. Yeast paste and dried seaweed also contain high amounts of protein and taurine, so Noah quite likely had many options available to him. And occasionally in desperate times, like during the Nazi siege of Leningrad in 1941, even obligate carnivores (in this case, a tiger) have switched to vegetarian diets and survived for several years.
For the plant-eating dinosaurs, the animals brought on board could have eaten compressed hay, other dried grasses, dried vegetables, seeds and grains, legumes, etc. Another factor that may have reduced food consumption for both vegetarian and carnivorous dinosaurs is that they went into a state of hibernation/brumation or torpor. Many reptiles today begin to eat less, reduce their metabolic rate drastically, and then “sleep” for long periods of time when the weather gets a little cooler, virtually eating nothing and waking up only for brief periods to drink before reentering brumation. Often the best conditions for this state are humidity, temperatures between 50° and 68° F (10° and 20° C), and low-light conditions. The outside weather at the time of the flood (rainy and thus likely cool) combined with the lower-light interior compartments of the ark would make ideal hibernation/brumation conditions on the ark. If any of the dinosaurs and other reptiles and amphibians went into brumation, then food requirements would have been severely reduced.
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.
I recently wrote a post detailing Evangelical Lori Alexander’s advice to women who want to be more attractive to their husbands. Alexander, a promoter, defender, and practitioner of patriarchal Christianity, believes wives should submit to their husbands in all things. She has been accused of defending male violence towards women. I can safely say that Alexander is anti-woman, a devoted follower of Jesus who pines for the days when women were barefoot and pregnant, uneducated, and slaves to their husbands’ sexual desires.
It’s 2021. Women burned their bras over fifty years ago. Feminism has won the day. Yet, scores of women — mostly white Evangelical women — don’t want freedom. They want what their grandparents, parents, and pastors have told them are “old-fashioned” complementarian marriages. These women yearn for “Biblical” marriages and families. They have been conditioned to believe that something is missing in their lives, in their relationships with their spouses and families. Thus, the Lori Alexanders of the world find scores of women who will willingly submit to their teachings.
This kind of behavior is not the domain of Evangelical women alone. Beginning in the 1980s, groups such as Promise Keepers began preaching the gospel of masculinity. Believing that Evangelical churches had become feminized, these groups called on “real” men to reassert their masculinity. Men were taught the importance of complementarian/patriarchal marriage and family structures. Want to have a marriage/family that is pleasing to God? preachers would say. Reassert your God-given authority and headship. In other words, put that woman of yours in her place.
But what is the appeal for Alexander’s fans? That’s what I could never figure out: Why cede control of your life and obey prefabricated rules? Responsibility and self-actualization are scary at first, but incredibly rewarding once you get over the fear.
Evangelicalism is what I call a “bubble.” Not singular, of course. There are numerous sub-bubbles within the larger Evangelical bubble. These sub-bubbles allow individual Evangelicals to organize around specific theological and social beliefs. Thus, within the Evangelical bubble, you find sub-bubbles for Christians who are Calvinists, Arminians, or believe the King James is the one and only Word of God, along with a plethora of other defining beliefs and practices. I have spent years trying to educate non-Evangelicals on the complex tribal influences found within Evangelicalism. One cannot understand Evangelicalism without understanding how Evangelicals define themselves and how they organize into these sub-bubbles.
Bubbles are self-contained units. Generally, Evangelicals find everything they need pertaining to life and godliness in their particular bubble (and sub-bubbles often overlap). Within a particular bubble, everything is theologically, socially, politically, and economically consistent. Simply put, everything makes sense.
The air within these sub-bubbles has a base element: the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible. Evangelicals breathe in this element every day of their lives, exhaling certainty that their beliefs and practices are the one true faith once delivered to the saints. Imagine breathing in this air every moment of your life. Imagine being convinced by your parents, pastors, and Sunday school teachers that your beliefs are one with the mind of God; that all other beliefs are wrong; that God specially chooses you; that unlike most of the human race, past, present, and future who will burn in Hell for eternity, God will reward you for believing the right things with eternal happiness and bliss. Is it shocking, then, that Evangelicals see or understand no other world but their own?
While some Evangelicals escape their sub-bubbles, most do not. Sure, an increasing number of Evangelicals are exiting their churches stage left. Sure, ex-Evangelical preachers such as myself are exposing where the proverbial bodies are buried. These circumstances should not obscure the fact that most Evangelicals are resolutely ensconced in their respective sub-bubbles. Most Evangelical preachers will die with their boots on. When your life is totally invested in a system of beliefs and practices, the older you become, the harder it is to pop the bubble and escape. My counselor told me that it is rare for preachers my age — I was fifty when I deconverted — to walk away from Christianity and the ministry. Too much time and money invested to choose a new path. It happens, but not often.
Several months ago, I had a lifelong Evangelical bubble dweller contact me. After almost fourteen years and thousands of emails and comments from devoted Evangelical Christians — including former congregants and ministerial colleagues — I am no longer as willing to engage in discussions with such people. This time, however, I decided to interact with this follower of Jesus. Over the course of several weeks, we traded emails. I hoped to lead the man into a discussion about the nature and history of the Bible. I learned long ago that if you can disabuse Evangelicals of the notion that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, it is possible to reach them with truth. Otherwise, their minds are typically shut off from rational, skeptical thought.
I asked this man if he had read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books? He told me no. It took time, but I eventually got him to read one of Ehrman’s books. I know believing the Bible is inerrant and infallible will not survive an honest, open reading of Ehrman’s books. The information he presents is a fatal blow to the irrational belief that the Bible is without error.
While I wish I could report that this man left the Evangelical bubble, as far as I know, he has not. After reading Ehrman’s book, he sent me several questions, and I answered them. And then . . . silence. Such silence is not uncommon. What often happens to the Evangelicals who contact me is that they can’t make what they learned about Bible from Ehman’s book fit within their bubble. Faced with waves of cognitive dissonance, they withdraw from the source of their doubts and confusion. And that’s fine. My goal has never been to convert Evangelicals to atheism. While this does happen at times, I am content to see people move away from the inherent Fundamentalism in Evangelical Christianity. Any move away from Fundamentalism is a good one.
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.
After local events celebrating the National Day of Prayer were canceled or moved online last year due to fears surrounding the pandemic, the Montpelier Ministerial Association is planning an in-person event this year.
The House of Prayer, at 115 Empire St., Montpelier, will host the event at 9 a.m. on National Day of Prayer, Thursday, May 6.
And while the Williams County Health Department has pleaded with the community to continue wearing masks and social distancing amid a recent bump in COVID-19 cases, event organizers said attendees need not adhere to the experts’ advice.
“Certainly if someone wants to wear a mask they may, but we don’t stress it at all,” said GayLynn Harris, with the association’s Day of Prayer task force.
Fortunately, not all local ministers have disregard for their congregants and fellow residents. The Bryan Area Ministerial Association plans to have a Day of Prayer too, but theirs will be held outside at the Williams County Courthouse.
The Bryan Area Ministerial Association will be sponsoring a National Day of Prayer service taking place at the gazebo on the courthouse lawn in downtown Bryan, at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 6.
While I consider such events as little more than public displays of masturbation (in which I never participated during the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry), I do appreciate the fact that Bryan ministers show a modicum of care and respect for the people of Williams County — atheists and agnostics, included.
The Montpelier Ministerial Association could do otherwise, but they won’t. They could join with their brothers and sisters in Christ on the courthouse lawn, but they won’t. They could meet at the Montpelier Park, but they won’t. They could listen to the CDC and the Williams County Health Department (and obey Romans 13 in doing so), but they won’t. Why? COVID-19 doesn’t exist in Williams County.
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.
I overheard that pronouncement yesterday. Had I been inclined to butt into the conversation of the person who made it, I would have asked, “What, exactly, are you praying for?”
What Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd is murder. It can’t be called anything else. Though Floyd had been arrested and served jail (not prison) time before his fatal encounter with now-former officer Chauvin, he was not, as Candace Owens and others claimed, a “violent criminal.” Even if he’d fit Owens’ label, how would Chauvin have known as much unless he did a background check on him? And, even if he were as much a menace to society as Owens tried to paint him, it wouldn’t have warranted Chauvin planting his knee into Floyd’s neck. Former police department colleagues and supervisors said as much in their testimonies.
So, I think it’s fair to say that, like anyone else who was murdered, George Floyd died unjustly. Therefore, I believe, justice is not possible, even if it were possible to return Floyd to his place among the living. (That, by the way, is one reason I have opposed capital punishment for as long as I’ve known what it is.) While Derek Chauvin will be punished, as I believe he should be, nothing that can be extracted from him—time, money, even his life itself—can compensate for what he took from George Floyd.
I would assume that anyone who would pray for Derek Chauvin, or anyone else, believes that the God to which they pray is at least just, and possibly merciful. Given what I’ve said before, I can’t understand how a just God would allow George Floyd to die as he did. Although I don’t think an unjust being can also be merciful, I imagine that some people who are praying might want mercy on Derek Chauvin. They’d trot out a seemingly all-purpose Bible verse like John 3:16 or, if they’ve actually read the Book, something like Matthew 5:7 or 7:12—or James 2:13. The problem is, of course, that it appealing to God for mercy on Chauvin turns him into the victim, or at least the person in need of succor.
This is the problem with the Christian notion of forgiveness–which, I would guess, some people would ask for Chauvin in their prayers. Some have had the audacity and arrogance to say that Floyd’s family should “forgive” Chauvin and “move on.” How anyone can see a murderer—especially one who has been entrusted by his community and country with the power of life and death over another human being and, more important, with the trust that he will use that power rarely, judiciously and with the utmost restraint—as a victim in need of “forgiveness” is beyond me. (I say that as a long-ago Army Reservist who, thankfully, never exercised lethal force, except against a rattlesnake.) And who has the right to tell Floyd’s family how they should deal with their loss? If they choose to “forgive” Chauvin, whatever that means to them, that should be their decision alone.
In brief, although I don’t know what someone might pray for when praying for Derek Chauvin, I can only conclude it most likely has to do with making it easier for him to bear his guilt, and not to ease the pain of George Floyd’s family and loved ones, let alone to afford his life the meaning it had and thus to truly acknowledge the tragedy and horror his death really is.
So why didn’t I butt into the conversation of that stranger who offered a prayer for Derek Chauvin? For one thing, I’m a New Yorker, and we have a reputation for minding our business, or at least pretending to. For another, asking what the stranger meant by that comment would have been pointless, really: If that person’s God were truly merciful and forgiving, Chauvin wouldn’t have murdered George Floyd, whether or not he was aware of Floyd’s mostly-petty crimes—which, of course negates the need to pray for mercy or forgiveness, or anything else. Oh, and I have long since stopped believing in that person’s God, or any other, especially one who allows such injustices as Derek Chauvin using the power entrusted to him to murder George Floyd.
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.
Jeffrey Forrest, a youth pastor, daycare worker, and camp worker at Abilene, Texas churches and camps, was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison after he was convicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. According to news reports, Forrest worked for Pioneer Drive Baptist Church from 1990 to 1998. According to the church, Forrest was an intern in the church’s Child Development Center, Pre-Teen and Recreational Ministries.
Jeffrey Winston Forrest, 43, is accused of molesting a boy while working with children in the 1990s. The specific case occurred in 1993.
Police say at least one other victim has come forward. They are asking other victims to come forward as well.
….
A spokesman for Pioneer Drive Baptist Church has said Forrest worked at that church from 1990 to 1998. Forrest was an intern in the church’s Child Development Center, Pre-Teen and Recreational Ministries.
The church spokesman recently said the church has had no affiliation with Forrest since then.
Forrest was arrested April 3 for having sex with a boy who attended the daycare where he worked in 1993.
Abilene police say at least three victims have come forward saying Forrest abused them.
KTXS-12 recently posted a timeline detailing Forrest’s crimes (1990s), indictment/arrest (2015), failure to appear for trial (2016), and subsequent arrest in Mexico in 2020.
The manhunt for a U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted fugitive ended Friday with the arrest in Mexico of Jeffrey Winston Forrest, 47, wanted by the Taylor County Sheriff’s Department in Abilene, Texas, for two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, bail jumping, and failure to appear.
According to a Zapopan police release, Forrest was arrested Friday afternoon by members of the State Attorney’s Office, Zapopan Police Department, and the National Institute of Immigration (INM). He was located in a drive-through store in Zapopan, Jalisco, after his presence and identity were confirmed with the existing alert in the U.S.
Forrest was deported today and brought back to the Northern District of Texas, where he will answer the charges against him.
Forrest’s capture in Mexico is a direct result of information that was developed from a tip that was provided to “In Pursuit with John Walsh” on Investigation Discovery after the show profiled the case.
In 2015, charges were filed against Forrest when four victims came forward and accused him of sexually assaulting them. The victims stated Forrest repeatedly assaulted them from the ages of 8 to 15. Investigators believe he used his position as a youth minister at several different churches to gain access and groom his victims. On April 2, 2015, Forrest was arrested on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Following his arrest, Forrest was released on bond and a trial date was set for Aug. 29, 2016. Unfortunately, he failed to appear for his trial, and after an investigation into his disappearance, authorities determined he never intended to.
While investigators found credible evidence of his travel to Mexico, his trail had grown cold due to his use and knowledge of the dark web and communication software such as Tor to mask his digital footprint.
Let this story be a reminder of the fact that sexual predators often hide in plain sight, often wolves among sheep.
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.
Several years ago, I saw my primary care doctor for a two-month check-up. I have been seeing the same doctor for twenty-five. We’ve become friends, and my appointments are often just as much catching up as they are treating me. My doctor is an Evangelical Christian. While I am sure he has noticed that I don’t talk about God/Jesus/Church anymore, we have never had any sort of discussion about my current beliefs and way of life. We are Facebook friends, so he’s read that I self-describe as an atheist.
For this visit: scripts were written/called in, CT scan scheduled, blood tests ordered, bitching about how bad the Browns/Bengals are, time to go home. The nurse — also an Evangelical — came into the room with several reams of paper (or so it seems) detailing everything we talked about during my visit. My doctor said to his nurse, Bruce, is a retired pastor. Before I could say a word, the nurse said, Retired pastor? How does THAT happen? Again, before I could say anything, my doctor said, He’s a retired pastor. (This nurse was a fill-in. I have not seen her since.)
I outwardly smiled, and much like Trump changing the discussion from “pussy-grabbing” to Bill Clinton’s dalliances, I said, how many games do you think the Browns will win? My doctor shook his head and laughed, knowing that his Browns suck (and my Bengals weren’t much better).
For whatever reason, when it comes to my medical treatment, I wall myself off from my atheist and humanist beliefs. I don’t disown them, I just don’t talk about them. I do, from time to time, act like a devout, proselytizing Jehovah’s Witness, leaving copies of the Freedom From Religion Foundation or Americans United For Separation of Church and State newsletters in the waiting room. Even with this low-key act of godlessness, I make sure my name and address are blacked out before placing the newsletters among waiting room reading materials.
What did the nurse mean when she said, Retired Pastor? how does THAT happen? Evangelical thinking on this subject goes something like this:
God calls men to be pastors.
The work of the ministry is far above any other job. In fact, it is not a job, it’s a calling.
This calling is irrevocable. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)
Pastors should die in the pulpit while preaching the gospel. Going to Heaven with my boots on, old-time preachers used to say.
Thus, being a retired pastor does not compute. God saved and called me, so I should still be preaching. But wait a minute. I am no longer a Christian. I don’t believe in the existence of the God I at one time worshiped and served. My salvation and calling were the results of social conditioning, the consequence of spending fifty years in the Evangelical church. At age five I told my mother that I wanted to be a preacher someday. At age fifteen, I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Two weeks later, I went before the church and told them I believed God was calling me to be a preacher. The congregation praised God for his selection of the redheaded Gerencser boy, and a week later I preached my first sermon. Thirty-three years later I preached my last sermon.
Someday, my obituary will be published in the Bryan Times and Defiance Crescent-News. On that day, my doctor will know the “truth” about my life and loss of faith. Until then, I am content to talk about football, baseball, or family, leaving my godlessness for another day. While I don’t think the fact of my atheism would affect my medical care, I prefer not to complicate my professional relationship and friendship with my doctor. If I Iive longer than expected — which is increasingly doubtful — and my doctor retires before I die, perhaps then we will talk about my journey from Evangelicalism to atheism. Or maybe he’ll stumble upon my blog or read one of the articles I have written for other blogs. I don’t fear him knowing. I just know there’s not enough time in a fifteen-minute office visit for me to explain why I am no longer a Christian.
Do you have certain people you haven’t shared your deconversion with? Why do you keep this to yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
I am not one to write inflammatory, hyperbolic headlines, but for this post, it will be clear to readers that the chosen post title is not unfair nor does it misdescribe the subject matter. The following video features Sean Feucht, a, uh, a, well, I am not sure what to call him. Let’s go with Trump-supporting Fundamentalist Charismatic preacher and worship leader with deep ties to Bethel Church in Redding, California. (Please see Bethel Redding, a Dangerous Evangelical Cult and Do You Really Have to Ask if Bethel Redding is a Cult?) Feucht describes himself as a:
…. missionary, artist, speaker, author, activist, and the founder of multiple worldwide movements.
According to Feucht’s website, he currently operates three ministries:
Burn 24-7 — a global worship and prayer movement launched out of Sean’s dorm room in college, now spanning 6 continents and more than 250 cities.
Light A Candle — a global missions and compassion movement bringing light, hope, healing, and tangible love to the hardest, darkest, and some of the most isolated places of the earth.
Hold the Line — a political activist movement seeking to rally the global church to engage in their civic duty, to vote, and stand up for causes of righteousness and justice in the governmental arena.
Currently, Feucht is traveling the country holding “spontaneous” rallies. (The rallies are, in fact, quite organized.) Hundreds and thousands of primarily white Evangelical Christians flock to Feucht’s rallies. What follows is a video of Feucht’s latest rally in Little Rock, Arkansas. The video is six minutes long. PLEASE take the time to watch all of it. If you do so, you will understand why I chose the title I did for this post.
Here’s a link to a recent rally Feucht held in Springfield, Missouri.
Feucht is a rabid anti-masker, so it should come as no surprise that none of the rally attendees is wearing a mask. Every rally Feucht holds is a super spreader event, yet thanks to warped interpretations of the separation of church and state and the First Amendment, he and his merry band of minstrels are exempt from state health mandates. Truly, with God all things are possible.
What troubles me is the religious hysteria shown in the video. Using rock music and psychological manipulation, Feucht and other rally leaders whip the crowd into a frenzy. While some Evangelicals might suggest that the behavior of rally attendees is fueled by Charismatic beliefs and practice, not True “Biblical” Christianity, I have witnessed similar insanity during Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) conferences and camp meetings. The root issue is psychological and emotional manipulation. The very same techniques that Feucht uses were used to foment the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The people in the aforementioned video are not, for the most part, uneducated, ignorant hillbillies. These people are educated, working-class people, people who have good jobs, own their own homes, and drive nice automobiles. If the Insurrection taught us anything, it is this: smart, educated, financially secure people can behave in ways that look a lot like the scenes from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. When people gather together in like-minded tribes, it is easy for the Sean Feuchts of the world to manipulate them psychologically. I was a pastor for twenty-five years. I was, by all accounts, a well-spoken orator. I knew how to use the Bible, religious verbiage, and stories to deliver sermons that moved people to action. As I look back on the 4,000+ sermons I preached, it is hard not to conclude that I manipulated people to achieve a religious objective — be it salvation, getting right with God, winning the lost, fulfilling my agenda, or filling the church’s coffers. I may have thought, at the time, that I was doing God’s work, that my motives were holy and pure, but the fact remains that through my words (and behavior) I “led” people to do things they might not do otherwise.
What I found most disturbing in this video was clips of children being overcome with emotionalism. While Feucht and his defenders will claim that what is witnessed on the video is “God,” it is clear, at least to me, that these poor children were whipped into an emotional frenzy by an expert modern-day Elmer Gantry.
I should note, in passing, Feucht’s (and his crew’s) crass, manipulative appropriation of Native American (called First Nation People in the video) culture. I wanted to scream when I watched indigenous people wrapped in what are commonly called Indian blankets. Feucht is evidently unaware of the history Indigenous people have with Christianity, including blankets given to them infected with diseases such as smallpox.
What do you think of this video? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
Suicide rates among youth ages 10 to 24 increased by 57% between 2007 and 2018, data released Thursday from the National Center for Health Statistics shows, rising from almost 7 per 100,000 population to nearly 11. Comparing three-year averages from 2007 to 2009 to the time period between 2016 and 2018 brought the increase down to 47%…The U.S. suicide rate among all age groups was 14 per 100,000 in 2018.
….
It does not seem that environmental factors are significant. This phenomenon is no respecter of the US States. Similar increases are found throughout the States. Instead, it seems to be associated with the growth of secularism, today’s reigning Western religion:
Diana Graines, in Rolling Stone, noted that prior to the 1960s, teenage suicide was virtually nonexistent among American youth. By 1980 almost four hundred thousand adolescents were attempting suicide every year. By 1987 suicide had become the second largest killer of teens, after automotive accidents. By the 1990s, suicide had slipped down to number three because young people were killing each other as often as they killed themselves.
Why point the accusing finger at secularism? Secularism destroys meaning and values. It claims that these do not have any independent existence. Instead, they are merely socially constructed for pragmatic reasons. However, our welfare depends upon believing that they are real and represent worthwhile pursuits. However, secularism provides no objective basis for meaning or purpose. How could it possibly do so when it acknowledges that our thinking and feeling are merely biochemical reactions!
However, mental health professionals recognize that living in accordance with our deeply believed moral convictions is an important factor for mental well-being. [In other words, the cure for suicide is Jesus, right?]
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.
I am increasingly convinced that Christian Fundamentalist Lori Alexander’s blog is actually operated by her patriarchal husband, Ken. “Lori” says stuff that no rational, thinking, self-aware woman would say. This fact makes me wonder if Ken is the person behind the scenes making the puppet’s mouth move. It is possible, of course, that Lori is so deeply indoctrinated in Christian patriarchal thinking that she has lost all sense of self; that all that matters to her is pleasing Ken (and Jesus).
While people are free to live any way they want, Lori attempts through her blog to convince women that her way of life is the way all female True Believers® should live. Want to be a Jesus-loving, husband-pleasing wife? Lori asks, practice what I preach!
Today, Lori wrote a post titled, Becoming Attractive to Your Husband. Consisting of thirty points, Lori’s sermon could easily have been titled “You Don’t Matter.” Here’s an excerpt from Lori’s post. Notice that the goal is to make yourself attractive to your husband so he will want you and pay attention to you:
4. Look up and smile at him when he enters the room.
5. Make his life more restful by not arguing with him and needing to have the last word.
6. Love God more than you love him.
7. Learn to disagree without being mean and having to be right.
8. Learn to be kind, gentle, and feminine.
9. Explore with him how to increase his sexual pleasure and yours.
10. Make sure your bedroom is not cluttered but an inviting place of rest and privacy.
11. Live wisely and contentedly within his income.
12. Keep your body in the best shape that you can.
13. Listen to him when he speaks and pay attention to his desires.
14. Don’t dress or look like a bum even around the house.
15. Give him a back and neck rub.
16. Hug him and kiss him like you’re his dream, and he’s your man.
17. Go on dates together if at all possible.
18.Learn self-discipline and have a servant’s heart.
19. Be submissive to his leadership.
20. Quit soap operas, junky TV shows, and literature porn.
21. Learn to be a good homemaker in all areas.
22. Be loyal to him always, especially with your words around your parents and girlfriends.
23. Take responsibility for your attitudes and behaviors.
24. Be caring and compassionate.
25. Say “thank you” often for all he does for you.
26. Make him believe he’s the best man for you, ever.
27. Turn off your phone, Facebook, and Instagram when he is around.
28. Wear your hair and clothes the way he likes.
29. Become the woman he WANTS to have sex with instead of the woman he HAS to have sex with.
30. Make it easy for your husband to obey this verse: Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. Proverbs 5:18,19
Lori, by the way, closed this post to comments. I wonder why?
Did you notice the points about physical attraction and sex? Sure sounds like a Fundamentalist man talking. 🙂
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.
