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Quote of the Day: Christians Reject All Religious Myths But Their Own

neil robinson
  • Many Christians believe that God himself impregnated Mary and that her son, Jesus, was God Incarnate. Yet, they don’t accept that numerous others, including Perseus, Buddha and Vishnu, who were all fathered by gods, are in any way divine. Why not?
  • Evangelicals and other Christians believe that Jesus performed many miracles. However, they dismiss other miracle workers as frauds or mythical beings. As John Oakes puts it on the Evidence for Christianity website, ‘religious figures (such) as Osiris, Empedocles or Krishna almost certainly were not real people, making stories of supposed miracles they worked irrelevant’. Why?
  • Christians believe Jesus fed 5,000 people with 5 fish and 2 loaves. They don’t believe the Qur’an’s story that Muhammed did much the same thing. Why not?
  • Christians believe Jesus was visited by the long-dead Moses and Elijah. They believe Paul saw Jesus after he died. Yet they dismiss the Mormon claim that Joseph Smith saw Jesus and God himself. Why?
  • Christians believe Jesus came back to life a day and a half after he was killed. However, they regard the resurrection stories of Dionysus, Osiris and Attis as counterfeit. Why?
  • Christians believe Jesus rose into the sky to take up his place in heaven. Yet they think it preposterous that Muhammed went there on a flying horse. Why?

When it comes to their own stories Christians are adamant that they are reliable accounts of events that really happened. Jesus really was God’s son. He really did do magic; really did feed 5,000 people with a few scraps; really did rise from the dead, and really did beam up to heaven. Paul really met him on the road to Damascus.

….

If it’s constructed like a story, has all the components of a story, and reads like a story, then that’s exactly what it is. 

— Neil Robinson, Rejecting Jesus, Stories, November 4, 2020

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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Quote of the Day: The Violent Warrior Cop

warrior cop

Quotes from a “33-page slide show used to train cadets for the Kentucky State Police encouraged ethical and moral decision-making, selflessness, pride and honor.” ( The Washington Post)

“The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”

— Adolph Hitler

“A warrior must possess certain traits, protect certain things and have the courage to do both at all costs.”

— Unknown

“Private and public life are subject to the same rules; truth and manliness will carry you through the world much better than policy, or tact, or expediency, or any other word that was ever devised to conceal a deviation from a straight line.”

— Robert E. Lee

Be a loving father, spouse, and friend as well as the ruthless killer.

[The page also includes instructions on how to effectively use violence, recommending that cadets are] “able to meet violence with greater violence” [and have] “a mind-set void of emotion, where perception, analysis, and response merge into one process.”

— Kentucky State Police Lt. Curt Hall

“It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.”

— Adolph Hitler

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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IFB Pastor Todd Bell: The Preacher and the Plague by Colin Woodard

pastor todd bell
Pastor COVID-19 Super Spreader

Weeks ago, Colin Woodard, a nationally recognized reporter for the Portland Press Herald in Portland, Maine contacted me to ask me questions about the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. I found Woodward to be a thorough, thoughtful reporter, someone I am sure I would enjoy sharing a beer (or whisky) with on a Friday night at the corner pub. After the initial interview, Woodard sent me follow-up questions about certain words used in the IFB church movement that were not typical for him to hear in discussions about churches and sects. As I responded to Woodard, it dawned on me that the IFB churches, pastors, and colleges have their own language of sorts and that outsiders often find this language strange and confusing. I was delighted to interpret for Woodard — much like a charismatic interpreting someone’s speaking in tongues.

The focus of Woodard’s feature-length article is COVID-19 super spreader Todd Bell, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Sanford, Maine. When I initially read stories about the good pastor, I saw his as just another anti-government, anti-science IFB preacher with no regard for his congregation or the people of his community. I pictured Bell standing in the pulpit on Sundays with a defiant fist raised high, screaming FREEDOM! — as Mel Gibson did playing freedom fighter William Wallace in the movie Braveheart.

I intended to give Bell the Bruce Gerencser treatment, but before I could, Woodward contacted me, so I decided to pass on giving Bell the lambasting he so richly deserves. As readers may know, some of the biggest and most obnoxious voices among Trump supporters and anti-maskers are IFB preachers. I want to say thank you to Colin Woodard and the Press Herald for giving Bell the exposure he so richly deserves.

Woodard wrote:

The wedding he presided over Aug. 7 triggered a cascading series of COVID-19 outbreaks that sickened at least 178 Mainers and killed at least eight, shut public schools, locked down a jail and helped push an entire county into an elevated state of alert. Nine of his own congregants got sick too, including his 78-year-old father and a child attending his vacation Bible school.

But on the evening of Oct. 7, the Rev. Todd Bell stood at the pulpit of the Calvary Baptist Church in Sanford, preaching without a mask with a group of young children from his Bible school seated shoulder to shoulder below him, almost all of them also maskless. When he finished, a barefaced assistant took his place and began singing, exhaling an invisible plume of droplets from his lungs to be broadcast around the room.

That’s when someone realized an internet livestream had been left open to the public and cut off the feed, drawing the curtains against the outside world.

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram examined Bell and the movement he belongs to in order to understand why he has so steadfastly opposed public health measures – even after contributing to multiple deaths and disruptions – and to probe who, if anyone, could influence him to comply. The newspaper’s effort reveals a man born and raised in a religious culture skeptical of science and the government, operating with nearly complete autonomy, supported by his followers and a network of allied institutions and individuals in the Appalachians, able to flout public health advice without formal repercussions.

Despite the fatalities and the pleas of town and state officials, Bell has continued to defy public health guidelines and a city ordinance meant to contain the spread of COVID-19. In late August, as the scale of the wedding-associated outbreak became clear and the first death had been reported, he told his congregation that “the world” wanted “us to shut down, go home, and let people get used to that just long enough until we can finally stop the advancing of the Gospel.” He touted the “liberty” to not wear a mask, falsely suggesting they were about as effective as trying to keep a mosquito at bay with a chain link fence. He later advised his followers that abstaining from singing in the choir was “acting foolishly” and that they were “invincible until God’s finished with us.”

In response to an interview request for this story, Bell said he would consult his attorney. Seventeen days later, he declined to answer questions because he said his attorney hadn’t responded.

The church did not fully cooperate with contact tracers from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which was unable to formally connect the outbreak to the wedding reception, even though Bell himself has said six families from the congregation attended it. “That made the epidemiological investigation more challenging,” the agency’s spokesman, Robert Long, said via email.

City and state officials appear unable to do anything to intervene. The Maine CDC can’t take enforcement actions, because churches are not subject to health inspections and licensing. Long said that in mid-September the Maine CDC “provided a summary of our interactions with Pastor Bell to the attorney general’s office to help that office make decisions on enforcement or legal actions.” But the attorney general’s office declined to comment when asked whether it is considering legal action and, if not, if it believes there are any avenues to enforce public health measures against a non-licensed entity.

“I really wish the state would do something,” says Sanford City Councilor Maura Herlihy, who has known Bell since he arrived in town and describes him as slick, self-assured and “over-the-top” charismatic. “Pushing this on municipalities isn’t going to work, because they’re in a far more difficult situation for managing this level of defiance.”

Rep. Anne-Marie Mastraccio, who represents Sanford in the Legislature and is running for mayor, says she is outraged at Bell’s behavior. “This community opened its arms to him, and the first time we literally ask anything of him – that you wear masks and not sing in church – he just wasn’t going to comply,” she says. “He has never admitted any culpability. He has never said he was sorry. He’s shown his true colors, and what I see is no minister – he’s someone who cares only for himself.”

Julie Ingersoll, a Bath native and professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, says many pastors share Bell’s thinking. “He’s definitely not some kind of one-off,” she says. “These are widely held views in conservative American Protestantism across the country.”

You can read the rest of the article here. I am quoted several times in the story, but you will have to read it to see what I said. (Unfortunately, the article has since been put behind a paywall.)

My quotes:

An independent fundamentalist Baptist – or IFB – church might be founded by its pastor spontaneously but more often it is “planted” by a missionary sent from an existing congregation. Typically the missionary pastor is directed by his congregation to spend months or years going to other churches to raise money from their parishioners, a process called deputation.

“You go from church to church, complete with a slideshow of all the evil that exists in the place where you are going and all the souls there that need to be saved and won’t be unless you go there,” says Bruce Gerencser, who was an IFB pastor for 25 years in Ohio, Michigan and Texas, and founded four churches before breaking with the movement in 2005. “Once you have enough money to do what you want to do, you head out into the field. But the relationship between the mother church and the new one is symbiotic, more advice and consent than ‘we are in charge of you.’”

….

IFB churches tend to take oppositional stances toward government authority, particularly when it intrudes on church business, Gerencser says. “There’s a sense of paranoia that government is trying to shut them down, and unfortunately COVID-19 plays right into their hands as far as those things are concerned,” he says. “They see themselves as patriots standing up against the evil, nefarious government. The guy in Maine, he’s not so special except for the effectiveness of what he’s done. I think he gets the prize for bad outcomes.”

….

New England, the least churched region in the country, has long been seen as a promising mission field by independent Baptists. Gerencser, who attended Midwestern Baptist College in the late 1970s, recalls pressure for young pastors to go start IFB churches in the region. “The Unitarians and the Congregationalists and the liberals had turned the whole eastern seaboard into this large block of land dominated by unbelievers!” Gerencser recalls. “The whole eastern seaboard of the U.S. was barren of Bible teaching.”

….

“The intermingling of personal finances and those of the church is easy to do, because very often in these very small churches the pastors are intimately involved in the church finances,” Gerencser says. “It’s very easy to justify moving money around, and it’s not necessarily nefarious, but it can sometimes get that way.”

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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Luke 16:19-31: The Rich Man and Lazarus

rich man and lazarus

There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. (Luke 16:19-31)

Anyone raised in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement has heard numerous sermons from Luke 16:19-31. Over the course of 25 years in the ministry, I preached from this passage many times.

The first question this passage raises is whether it is meant to be taken literally. Many Christians, increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of Hell and sinners being tortured by their God for eternity, say that this story is a parable. However, it is clear from the text itself that Jesus did not mean for this to be taken as a parable.

In all the other parables uttered by Jesus, he never mentions anyone by name. In this parable, the three main characters are:

  • A certain rich man (Dives?)
  • A certain beggar named Lazarus
  • Abraham

Jesus tells us the rich man was:

  • Clothed in purple and fine linen
  • Fared (ate) sumptuously every day

Lazarus, however, was:

  • A beggar
  • Crippled
  • Afflicted with sores that the dogs licked
  • Fed with crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table

Both Lazarus and the rich man died:

  • The rich man went to Hell and was tormented in the flames of Hell without a drop of water to drink
  • Lazarus was carried by angels to Abraham’s bosom and was comforted

Generally, Evangelical Christians believe Hell is in the bowels of the earth — a scientific absurdity, in and of itself. In this passage of scripture, Hell is a place separated from Abraham’s bosom by a fixed, impassable, great gulf. This gulf is not so great though that a person in one part cannot see the people on the other side of the gulf. The rich man was able to look across the great gulf and see Abraham.

This story details the concern the rich man had for his five brothers who were still alive. He wanted to make sure that they didn’t end up in Hell. He begged Abraham to send someone to warn his brothers about Hell. Abraham refused, and told the rich man his brothers had the Word of God (Moses and the Prophets). If they wouldn’t heed the Word of God they would perish. The rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to warn them, but Abraham told the rich man that if his brothers wouldn’t heed the Word of God they would not heed someone who rose from the dead.

I find it interesting that Abraham says the living brothers should heed Moses and the Prophets, yet the Old Testament says little to nothing about Hell or Heaven. I also find it interesting that Abraham told the rich man that his brothers would not be persuaded even if a resurrected dead man, Lazarus, came to warn them about Hell. Isn’t the linchpin of the Christian religion – the resurrection of a man named Jesus from the dead? What better way to authenticate the Christian religion than Jesus physically revealing himself to the world? Think how much better it would be for Christians if every 20 or so years Jesus could make a brief appearance to remind people that he is still alive and kicking and is still busy building them Trump mansions in the New Jerusalem. Instead, Jesus has been dead-as-a-doornail silent for 2,000 years.

We are told by Evangelicals that we must believe what the Bible says about the living, dead, now living Jesus, the son of God. As Luke 16 makes clear, the Abrahamic religions have always been text-based religions. The Bible says is not just the mantra of Evangelical Christianity, but also Liberal Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism cease to exist without their respective religious texts. Simply put, no Bible, no Christianity.

According to many Christian sects and pastors, when Jesus died, he descended into Hell. 1 Peter 3:18-20 says:

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:  By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Ephesians 4:7-10 says:

But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)

Many Christian sects and pastors also teach that Hell and Abraham’s bosom were in the bowels of the earth. These were temporary holding places for the just and unjust. When Jesus resurrected from the dead and ascended to Heaven he took the just with him. Those in Hell remained there.

The early church believed Jesus descended into Hell. The Apostles’ Creed says:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.  And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.  I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN.

A Third Century Syrian creed says:

“who (Jesus) was crucified under Pontius Pilate and departed in peace, in order to preach to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the saints concerning the end of the world and the resurrection of the dead.”

Luke 16:19-31 raises all kinds of sticky questions for Christians.

  • Why did the rich man end up in Hell? The text seems to imply it was because he was rich. The New Testament makes it clear that few rich people make it to heaven (Luke 18:24-25)
  • Why did Lazarus end up in Abraham’s bosom? The text seems to imply it was because he was poor and suffered. Jesus reinforces this belief in the Beatitudes.
  • Christian orthodoxy teaches that when a person dies their body goes to the grave to await the resurrection of the just and unjust and the final judgment. How then, could the rich man see and know Abraham and Lazarus and Abraham and Lazarus see the rich man?
  • If, as some Christians believe, it is the soul or spirit that goes to Heaven or Hell to await being united with a resurrected body, then, according to Luke 16:19-31, the soul has corporeal properties. Why then can we not see the souls of people when they die?
  • How was the rich man able to withstand the flames and torments of Hell without being burned up? This is a question many Christians run from since it suggests God specifically fits non-Christians with a soul/spirit and body that is especially suited for endless torment in the flames of Hell. (This is the point where the praise band begins to sing, Our God is an Awesome God.)
  • The Word of God, (Moses and the Prophets) teaches that salvation is through obedience to God’s law, and not by grace. If this is the case, what ultimately determined where Lazarus and the rich man ended up? If Jesus (God) is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why is salvation in the Old Testament and the gospels different from salvation in the post-gospel New Testament?

The easy (and lazy) answer to these questions is to say that Luke 16:19-31 is a parable and is only meant to be an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. However, I think it is intellectually dishonest to suggest that this story is a parable. When compared to the parables uttered by Jesus, it has little in common with them. The real issue, then, is that an increasing number of squeamish Evangelicals don’t like what the Bible says about their unsaved families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, so they invent ways to explain away THUS SAITH THE LORD.

Do you have a story to tell about a sermon on Luke 16:19-31? Was preaching on Hell a prominent part of your or your pastor’s preaching?  Please share your experiences 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.

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Hey Girls, What Jesus Gives You is Way Better Than What Your Crush Gives You

jesus-my-boyfriend
Jesus on his way to Paula Hendrick’s apartment to pick her up for a “date”

What follows is a short video by Paula Hendricks, a writer for the Lies Young Women Believe website. Hendricks asks: Have a mushy crush on a hot boy, girlfriend? Are you blown away by his attention and all the gifts he gives you to let you know he cares? Well, Jesus is way, way b-e-t-t-e-r.

Video Link

According to Hendricks, Jesus gives girls:

  • Life
  • Breath
  • Food
  • Water
  • Coffee
  • Himself
  • Forgiveness of sins
  • Peace
  • His perfect righteousness
  • Eternal, never-ending life
  • and more and more and more . . .

Hendricks asks, what are you looking to your crush to give you that Christ can’t give you?

In other words, girlfriend, Jesus is w-a-y better than any crush or boyfriend.

Except he’s not. Jesus is a fictional, feel-good crush that will do when one is between relationships, but Jesus is no match for a tender kiss, a warm embrace, or making love. Simply put, Jesus doesn’t have a penis. Hendricks, of course, is married, so she has plenty — I assume — of sexual satisfaction in her life. I find it interesting that many of these preachers of the no-sex-until-marriage purity gospel are, in fact, getting laid on a regular basis. I am not sure Hendricks is a person from whom a young horny unmarried Evangelical women should be taking advice.

Hendrick’s video is a reminder of the fact that Evangelical preachers and media hosts have an unhealthy obsession with the sex lives of others. Following Hendrick’s preaching leads to fear, guilt, frustration, and, often, sexual dysfunction later in life. My advice? Practice safe sex, girls, and e-n-j-o-y.

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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Dear Women: Jesus Should be Your Only Romantic Interest

fallen annie lobert

According to Annie Lobert, founder of the group Hookers for Jesus, women are putting their love, hope, desires, and needs in the wrong place. The only person who can give women all they could ever want from a relationship is Jesus.

In a Christian Post interview, Lobert had this to say:

What us women need to understand [is] if a man can’t do what you ideally think he should do, [it is because] God is the only one who can do that for you. Jesus Christ is the only one who can ultimately be your ultimate romantic interest and I’m not talking about sexually. I’m talking about that intimate love bond that we have that heals all wounds, that heals all insecurities, that heals all the things that we think our husbands should do and be…

My prince was Jesus Christ. I said that in the book, it was Jesus Christ that was my knight in shining armor and I didn’t know it.

We poor men don’t stand a chance.

On second thought, maybe we do. What kind of man was Jesus? Was he a man whom women would love to be in a relationship with? When Jesus walked into a bar or club, did everyone’s eyes turn towards him? Did women think, wonder what Jesus looks like under his tunic? Was Jesus THE man that every woman longed for?

Jesus was a single man born out of wedlock to a teen girl — who was allegedly impregnated by a deity. He grew up in a carpenter’s home in a squalid, non-descript village. As a 12-year-old, Jesus disrespected his parents and ran off, and later in life publicly disrespected his mother when she asked him to get some wine from the fridge. Jesus spent most of his life traveling with a group of men. All men. Dare we imagine how many fart jokes were told by Jesus, or how rarely he took a bath, shaved, or used Giorgio Armani cologne? While there were women who traveled with Jesus from time to time, we don’t know if he ever had sex with one of them. Perhaps, as some suggest, Jesus was gay. And what most men would love to know is this: did Jesus masturbate?

The Bible doesn’t tell us how the adult Jesus made a living. Did he work, or did he sponge off the people who traveled with him? He owned no property and had no house he called home. When a man expressed interest in traveling with Jesus but wanted to wait a couple of days so he could bury his father, Jesus told him to forget about the funeral and follow him. Not much an empathetic man, if you ask me.

And I could go on and on . . . the gospels paint a less than flattering picture of Jesus when you read them without theological bias. Once you strip away the supernatural fantasies from the story, what you are left with is a very ordinary man whom many women would not view as the ideal catch. Jesus was hardly the man above all men with whom every woman would want to have a relationship.

Lobert fails to realize that she actually makes life more complex for Christian women with her “Jesus Christ is the only one who can ultimately be your ultimate romantic interest” thinking. This fictitious, romanticized Jesus is the gold standard women are told they should measure their relationships by. When compared to the human Jesus, many men fare quite well. But, the fictitious, romantic, gives-me-an-orgasm-every-time-I-pray, Jesus? No man can measure up.

The good news for men is that Lobert’s Jesus is a fiction of her imagination. If women want a relationship with men, we’re here. Real men, with real penises.

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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The Doctrine of Santification: Progressive, Entire, or a Lie?

sanctification

Progressive Sanctification

Ask the average Christian to explain the doctrine of sanctification and you will likely get a deer-in-the-headlights stare. At best, a good Baptist might be able to tell you that sanctification means being set apart — that a Christian has been set apart by God for service and worship. The average Christian has a hard-enough time explaining salvation, so they usually leave doctrines like sanctification, regeneration, justification, etc.  to the experts. They know they’re saved and their ticket to Heaven has been punched. Now, what’s for dinner?

Every Christian sect would agree that all people are sanctified when God saves them. Baptists believe that after the initial act of sanctification, God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, progressively sanctifies saved people throughout their lives. In theory, the saved people should become more and more like Jesus the older they become. As God continues his sanctifying work, sins are revealed and the saved continually repent and seek forgiveness and mature spiritually. The sins that so easily swayed them when they were first saved are no longer an issue. They have “deeper” sins to deal with, the sins that no one but God knows about. Sanctification then, is a progressive work by God throughout the saved person’s life, a work that is designed to make them spiritually mature.

Nice theory, right? If progressive sanctification is how God sanctifies people, why are there so many people who have been Christians their entire lives who are still so sinful, carnal, and worldly? If one looks at the Baptist church, it would be easy to conclude that many Baptist congregants are actively resisting the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. No matter how often preachers threaten them with judgment and chastisement from God, they still continue to be infantile in their faith and worldly in their lifestyle.

Baptist preachers would likely say that their people are worldly and carnal because they are not listening to their preaching and applying it to their lives — missing the point that Baptist preachers are often just as worldly and carnal as the people they preach to/at. If the Holy Spirit actively, progressively sanctifies saved people, why do Baptist preachers spend so much time preaching on what I call the “first” works:

  • Attending church regularly
  • Tithing and giving offerings
  • Praying
  • Tithing and giving offerings
  • Reading and studying the Bible on a daily basis
  • Tithing and giving offerings
  • Witnessing
  • Tithing and giving offerings

It is not uncommon to find Baptist church members who have been saved for years still having problems doing these “first” works. In fact, only a very small percentage of the average Baptist congregation ever moves beyond these “first” works. Most church members go to the House of the Lord on Sunday, listen to the sermon, throw some cash in the offering plate, and go home — repeating the process again next week. They will “try” to read the Bible and pray during the week, but life often gets in the way, and before you know it, they need to go to Wednesday night prayer meeting — which is rarely a prayer meeting — to get their spiritual battery recharged. This is the typical life of a Baptist church member.

If the Holy Spirit lives inside of the Christian, why is the Christian able to easily thwart the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work? Surely the Holy Spirit — who is God — should be able to lead/force/demand the Christian to progress in sanctification? Why is it that so many Christians stubbornly refuse to cooperate in the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work?

Perhaps the real issue is that there is no Holy Spirit living inside of Christians and that Christians are human just like the rest of us unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. Christians behave like the humans they are. They work all day and come home tired. All they want to do is eat dinner and collapse in the recliner. Pray? Read and study the Bible? Yeah, they know they “need” to, but they are so damned tired that they don’t/can’t “commune” with God. The Holy Spirit has never been able to successfully overcome sleepiness. As we know from the Bible, the disciples fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane while Jesus was praying. If Peter, James, and John couldn’t stay awake, what hope is there for normal, run-of-the mill-Christians?

Perhaps the bigger problem is that preachers expect too much out of people. Preachers have the luxury of being paid for praying and reading the Bible. Preachers can schedule their lives in such a way that it makes it easy for them to pray, meditate, and study the Bible. That is, if they are not too busy playing golf or attending a pastors’ conferences. Towards the end of my ministerial career, I realized I was putting too much pressure on people to perform, to do the “first” works. I realized they had a life, and they had little time to devote to what I could spend hours and days doing. I quit nagging them, choosing instead to understand the machinations of their lives.

Entire Sanctification

Many Wesleyan, Holiness, and Pentecostal sects believe in entire sanctification. While they agree with the Baptist that every saved person is sanctified at the moment God saves them, they reject that post-salvation sanctifying life is progressive.

The proponents of entire sanctification believe in what is commonly called a second definite work of grace. Christians reach a certain place in their spiritual life where God does a mighty work in their lives and they are entirely sanctified. From this point forward, they no longer sin. Yes, that’s right, they no longer sin.

When people who have been entirely sanctified are confronted with behaviors that certainly “look” like sins, they will often say that their behaviors are mistakes, not sins. Entirely sanctified Christians think that they are so connected to God and his Spirit that perfect love flows in, through, and out of them, and they lose all desire to sin. Again, all one has to do to disprove this is to look at the lives of those who “say” they are entirely sanctified. Their lives betray the fact that indwelling, original sin remains. They may cover their sins with lofty, flowery religious garb, or redefine them as mistakes, but when the real person is exposed, that person is no different from the Baptists I mentioned above.

Years ago, I visited a Holiness church near the church I pastored in Somerset, Ohio. Holiness churches were quite common in the area, so I decided to attend a service to see for myself what they did. The church was holding a revival meeting, held by a Holiness pastor from another church.

Before the preacher started preaching, various church members stood up and gave testimonies. One lady was quite emotional, and as she wept, she told the congregation that at such and such a time she had finally gotten victory over sin and was entirely sanctified. The church voiced their approval. Another member had received the second blessing.

The evangelist began his sermon with an illustration. He told a story about buying a teapot. Inside the teapot was small tag that said: Wash twice before using. He thought this was a perfect illustration of entire sanctification. For a person to truly be used by God, they had to be washed twice, sanctified at the moment of salvation and entirely sanctified at a point later in life.

The evangelist’s wife stood off to the side as he preached. Every time he needed a verse from the Bible, he had his wife read it. It finally dawned on me halfway through his sermon that the evangelist couldn’t read. Lest you mock and ridicule such an uneducated man, many sects believe a lack of education is a plus. In their minds, it is better to be known as a man who has been with Jesus:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4;13)

An elderly man, who I assumed was a leader in the church, was quite vocal during the testimony time and the evangelist’s sermon on entire sanctification. At the close of the service, the evangelist had an altar call and a young man came forward to get saved. This church believed that a person had to keep praying — praying through — until God saved them. Numerous church members knelt around the young man encouraging him and helping him to pray through. The elderly man I mentioned? He went home. After watching the praying through spectacle for a few minutes, I decided to take my decidedly not-entirely-sanctified body home. I do not know if the young man successfully prayed though.

As I have mentioned before, I met secular university evangelist Jed Smock in the late 1980s. Jed was a big proponent of Charles Finney’s teaching of perfect love (entire sanctification). According to Jed, he and his wife Cindy hadn’t sinned in years. One could argue that Jed is deluded, since every time he opens his mouth to preach hate and judgment on a university campus, he sins. Jed is a hater, to be sure.

Jed was the first sinless Christian I met, but he wasn’t the last. In every instance, the sinless person called their “sins” mistakes. When they lost their temper it was a mistake, not a sin, even though the Bible calls anger a sin. I had one sinless man get so angry with me that he threw me out of his house. We were good friends and we had gotten into an argument about eternal security. He was an Arminian and I was a Calvinist. I thought we were going to get into a fistfight. At that moment, I was definitely not very sanctified and neither was my friend.

Conclusion

Sanctification allows Christians to hide their true nature. The believer in progressive sanctification says when they sin, “well God isn’t finished with me yet.” They see themselves as a work in progress. The believers in entire sanctification still sin like the Baptist does, they just find a way to explain away their sin. Both think that God, through the Holy Spirit, is working in, through, and out of them. Why then, do sanctified Christians behave, for the most part, just like everyone else? It’s not enough to aspire to spiritual greatness. Surely, if God lives inside a person, he should act and live like God would, right? Why is there such a disconnect with the doctrine professed and the life lived?

I think Greek dualism and Gnosticism have left a huge mark on American Christianity. As a result, many Christians have a warped view of their humanity, and this results in them living frustrated, contradictory lives. While all of us should desire to live a better life, we remain human, and as long as we are human, we will be prone to live like humans live. I have met a number of “sinless” Christians who were quite fat. Surely, an entirely sanctified person wouldn’t be overweight, especially since the Bible calls gluttony a sin.

I want to invite Christians back into the dirty water of humanity. We need you. We don’t need your sanctimony or your superior airs. We know who and what you are. You may be able to play the sanctified game while you are among your fellow Christians, but eventually, you must venture out into the world where the rest of us live. We see you at work, at the store, at the doctor’s office, and at the ballgame. We see your humanity and we smile. We know that you are just like the rest of us.

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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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Women are to Shut the Hell Up in Church

lori and ken alexander

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:33-37)

These are “commandments of the Lord” and they are for “all the churches of the saints.” Women are to be silent in the churches. These verses have nothing to do with women teaching/preaching in the churches specifically. They have to do with women being silent in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak and it is a shame for women to speak in the church. Are you silent in the church? Are you careful to not speak in the church? Of course, you can sing with the congregation. Singing is not speaking. I say this since some people will ask as if they don’t know that there is a difference.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression (1 Timothy 2:11-14)

In these verses, women are once again reminded to be in silence in the churches. We are also told that women are not to teach nor usurp authority over men in the churches. Then we told the reasons why. Adam was created first, therefore, this was God’s authority structure was from the beginning (Patriarchy), and Eve was deceived.

These verses are as clear as day for all who want to hear. Many don’t want to hear, and this is why there are so many female preachers/teachers in the churches and no one seems to care. Women are breaking God’s clear commands and “preaching” His Word in the churches. They are in sin. Do not be deceived by them and if you have a female on the elder or deacon board, I encourage you to find a new church.

When I was growing up, no women spoke in the churches that I attended. There weren’t female worship leaders who gave little mini-sermons and prayed in between the songs, essentially being in authority over the men. There weren’t even women giving announcements. It was all done by the men, and no one thought anything of it since most churches were this way.

We must live according to God’s principles no matter how out of date that they appear to be. They are good and perfect for us, women. Trust that His ways are best and obey Him. Find a church that obeys His Word without compromise.

— Lori Alexander, The Transformed Wife, God Commands Women Be Silent in the Churches, November 2, 2020

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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The Black Death of the Church

guest post

A guest post by MJ Lisbeth

It sickened and killed its first victims in China. Italy was the stage for its European arrival; from there, it spread to Spain, France, Germany, England, Scandinavia and the Balkans. Urban dwellers of means fled to their countryside manses. In the meantime, leaders insisted that things were normal, blamed their enemies and racial groups who were already experiencing suspicion and scorn, and, perhaps worst of all, recommended “treatments,” “cures” and other courses of action that, they claimed, had remedial powers but, in fact, had no empirical foundation.

So far, this sounds like an outline of the COVID-19 trajectory and the response to the pandemic, doesn’t it? Would that we were living in such interesting times, to paraphrase an ancient Chinese (!) curse. Instead, this recounting of a pandemic feels, if anything, more like the “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

The chronology I outlined in the first paragraph is, in fact, a rough sketch of the Black Death’s trajectory—with a slight variation. Nearly everyone who has studied the 14th Century spread of the plague agrees that it started, or at least was first noticed, in east-central Asia: somewhere in what is now Mongolia or, perhaps, westernmost China. Those same scholars say that it spread along the “Silk Road” and maritime trade routes while the current pandemic most likely spread in planes, trains, cars and buses.

What is all-too-depressingly-familiar, though, is the response of rulers—and said leaders’ relation to a “higher” authority. In late-medieval Europe, the church was all but inseparable from monarchies and the noble classes. Likewise, the heads of state in the United States, Russia, Brazil and other countries glean much of their support from vocal religious groups who, in many cases, deny the findings of scientists, ignore the recommendations of health care professionals and eschew intellectual inquiry. Thus are we advised that COVID-19 is “just a flu” that will “pass” with warm weather or the re-election of the leader making the claim. The US President bellows his prescription of injecting one’s self with cleaning products over the warnings of one of the world’s leading infectious disease experts, much as medieval authorities prescribed chopping up snakes and rubbing the pieces on one’s body (the snake, associated with Satan, was supposed to attract and draw away the “evil” of the disease) or drinking potions made from a unicorn’s horn. The President also insists that religious fundamentalists, vital to his re-election, can congregate, sing, dance, hug, kiss and share meals with hundreds of other fellow worshipers, just as the medieval Church continued to encourage mass gatherings, a source of its power.

That same symbiotic relationship between political and ecumenical authorities is a reason why the former can so easily blame people who are not part of the dominant culture or religion for the pestilence spreading across the land—or for any number of actual or imagined evils and tragedies. In a world where Jews were said to poison wells, kidnap and kill Christian children and perform all manner of evil rites, it wasn’t hard for the Church and Court to promulgate the belief that Jews caused the plague—and to justify murdering them. Likewise could, and did, the President marshal the xenophobic resentments of his supporters to call COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” or “Kung Flu,” just as leaders of other countries could, and did, blame the epidemic on religious and racial minorities or LGBTQ and other “deviant” people. The “Leader of the Free World” also fuels (or at least does nothing to tamp down) rumors that members of those same groups—or his political enemies—run pedophilia rings that—you guessed it—kidnap innocent white children and force them into unspeakable acts .

(In my admittedly-amateur reading of history, I’ve noticed this: When deranged minds and empty hearts fill clerical robes, gaudy uniforms or expensive suits, they use—or encourage others to use—the need to protect the supposed innocence of their children or purity of their women to rationalize all sorts of thuggery.)

If the parallels I’ve drawn, so far, are grim, I can offer a more hopeful comparison. While the Black Death brought the worst kinds of religious bigots out of the woodwork—as the COVID-19 pandemic is doing in the US—it also was, arguably, the first event to cause some people to question the authority of the church, and even the power of their god. It’s almost impossible for anyone in a secular Western country to imagine just how deeply monarchs and secular officials were in thrall to Church authority. (The closest analogues we have today are probably countries such as Saudi Arabia that are ruled by one interpretation or another of Sharia law.) While religious authorities held sway over secular ones at least until the Enlightenment, their influence lessened, however gradually, beginning with the Black Death.

One reason the church lost some of its authority was attrition: Priests and bishops were no more immune than illiterate field laborers to the ravages of the bubonic plague; soon, there weren’t enough prelates to conduct masses or other rites. Nearly all religious institutions act from a premise they dare not articulate: It’s harder to keep people in the fold when you can’t gather them. That, I believe, is why some religious groups, particularly Evangelical Christian and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish congregations, are pressuring or even defying local officials who have banned or restricted large gatherings.

Oh, and in some places, there weren’t enough attendees to keep churches open—even though the Catholic church, like most Christian churches today, doesn’t have a requirement equivalent to that of the minyan. And, even though the social pressure to attend mass was much greater than it is today (save in some conservative homogenous communities), some people stayed away. Although they knew nothing about how the plague was transmitted, much less of epidemiology in general, they noticed that, most often, people got sick when they gathered in large groups. (That, of course, is the reason why affluent urbanites fled to more pastoral settings.)

There is also evidence that some might have stayed away from church—or simply waned in their commitment to it—because they wondered, if only to themselves, about a God who visited such suffering on people who did nothing to deserve it:

For God is deaf and deigneth us not to hear That girls (children) for their guilts (sins) he forgrint (destroys) them all.

William Langland embedded those lines in Piers Plowman, his epic poem that is an allegory of the narrator’s quest for a “true” Christian life—or, if you like, a thinly-veiled critique of a medieval Catholic church that, too often, exploited the Black Death to stoke smoldering hatred of Jews, gypsies and other “infidels.”

Similar developments are unfolding today. While the most extreme congregations of Christianity and Judaism have shown that they are willing to disregard the health and safety of others in the name of “religious freedom,” the pandemic seems to be accelerating a trend, particularly among the young, away from organized worship and religious institutions. They don’t expect prayer or other rituals to protect them from COVID-19 any more than they believe that it’s “God’s will” for them or anyone else to suffer and die from it. If the churches and synagogues never open again, Gen X-ers and Millennials probably won’t miss them. They—and their more educated and rational elders—are leaning in so they can listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci or Deborah Birx over the bellowing of self-appointed (or selected-by-the-Electoral College) messiahs.

During the past few months, all sorts of parallels have been drawn between the 14th Century Black Death and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Some should serve as warnings, but others—such as the erosion of faith in religious institutions—might offer some hope for the future, as long as we allow ourselves to get there.

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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Cult 101: Jack Hyles Teaches Parents How to Indoctrinate Their Babies

jack hyles praying
Jack Hyles Praying

If you are unfamiliar with the late Jack Hyles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, please read The Legacy of Jack Hyles.

Excerpt from How to Rear Infants:

Children should be taught that God has given to them a preacher. That preacher is God’s man to lead them, to teach them, to preach to them, and to guide and instruct them concerning their lives. It is important for a family to have a man of God just like it is important to have a family doctor, a family dentist, etc. For that matter, it is even more important! The parents should never criticize God’s man but should train their children to love and respect him.

This can be done in many ways. One of the most important ways is to lead the child to pray for the preacher many times a day. Every time he bows his head to say grace or to say his “Now I lay me” prayers, he should pray for his preacher. He should get an early impression that one of the most important persons in the world is God’s man, his pastor.

The nursery workers at First Baptist Church have little bibs made for the babies. On each bib is printed, “I love my Preacher.” This is very important.

The child should feel that he has a friend in the pulpit and that that friend loves him and is very wise. The time will probably come when the parents will need the pastor in the rearing of the child. It often is true that a time comes when the only hope of saving the child is the pastor. If the parents have been critical of him or have a negative attitude toward him, the children will develop such an attitude and will not come to the pastor when they need him in a period of crisis…

…When I was an infant my mother started a little ritual. Every night she would put me on her knee, hold her Bible in front of me and say, “Son, the Bible is the Word of God.” Then she would ask me to repeat after her those words. Three times she would do this. Then she would tell me that Jesus is the Son of God. I would have to repeat it after her. Again she would say it and again I would repeat it. A third time she would say it and a third time I would repeat it. She then told me that I should always believe those two great truths. Now I do not recall when she started it; I do know she started this practice long before I could comprehend what was going on, but as far back as I can remember I can see my mother teaching me that Jesus is God’s Son and that the Bible is God’s Word.

She would then mention some kind of sin and warn me concerning its evil. One night she would take a whiskey ad. She would hold it up before me and say, “Whiskey – bad, bad, bad, bad! Whiskey – bad, bad!” Then I was required to say, “Whiskey – bad, bad!” She would then get a frown on her face, tear up the ad, throw it on the floor and stomp on it. She would shout, “WHISKEY – NO, NO! WHISKEY – BAD, BAD!”

Mother was trying to associate bad words with whiskey. I do not know when she started this. I do know it was before I realized it, and the association between the words “whiskey” and “no” made a lasting impression on my mind and life…

This excerpt illustrates the fact that indoctrination in cultic authoritarian sects and churches begins as soon as children are born.

Jack Hyles was a pathological liar, known to exaggerate his pastoral feats. The stories told in this excerpt are likely exaggerations.

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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Bruce Gerencser