True wholeness, healing, and redemption from eating disorders and body dysmorphia are not found anywhere outside Christ…we were created to find our satisfaction in One who is far more glorious, beautiful, and perfect. So, look up from the mirror, or whatever pit you may find yourself in, and look to Christ.
I once lived in the mirror. No, there wasn’t a bedroom hidden in my bathroom mirror. But the mirror was where I found my worth, purpose, and identity. My body was the temple where I went to worship. Each and every day, my thoughts were consumed with calculating calories; my emotions were filled with anxiety over how much food I was going to eat; my plans revolved around getting in my precisely measured out meals and workouts; indeed, my entire life was wrapped up in what my body looked like on the outside.
I had constructed an image to worship, and that image was my body. I would check every mirror I walked by to make sure I hadn’t gained any fat in the last few hours. Every morning I would step up to the judgment seat of the scale to see if I would be found guilty or innocent that day. And when the scale did not move in the right direction, or when I saw or felt any hint of fat on my sides, I pronounced myself guilty.
….
But God redeemed my life from the pit, and crowned me with steadfast love and mercy (Psalm 103:4). And what did that redemption from the pit look like?
God showed me what my eating disorder and body dysmorphia truly was: sin committed against a holy God. By making myself the lawgiver and judge, I had attempted to stand in the place of the True Lawgiver and Judge of my life. By living in obedience to my food laws, I cultivated my own self-righteousness. I was therefore willfully rejecting the only righteousness that could justify me before the True Lawgiver and Judge: the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I had exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature (my body, food laws) rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). I was guilty, but not for breaking my food laws. I was guilty because I had committed cosmic treason against my Creator, and I needed rescue.
….
To my surprise, my struggle with eating disorders and body dysmorphia was ultimate, at the core, a spiritual issue. Like those in Galatia who were trying to justify themselves by the law, I was trying to justify myself by my food laws. Similar to those in Galatia who were submitting themselves to the yoke of the law, I was willfully submitting myself each and every day to the yoke of my food laws and my body. But in my struggle with eating disorders and body dysmorphia, where is freedom ultimately found? It is found in the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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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What follows is a list of the top 25 domain referrers for 2021 (excluding search engines).
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Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
What follows is a list of the top 25 commenters in 2021.
BJW
ObstacleChick
Yulya Sevelova
MJ Lisbeth
William
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Brian Vanderlip
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Dave
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Michael Mock
Thank you to everyone who comments on this site.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Compare this picture to the descriptions of the Christian God in the book of Revelation. Similar?
Atheists do not hate God. While Evangelical Christians will certainly suggest otherwise, I do not know of one atheist who “hates” God. Think about it for a moment. Do atheists believe in the existence of the Christian God, or any other god, for that matter? Of course not, so it makes no sense to say that atheists hate a non-existent, mythical being. Surely, even the densest of Christians can understand this. If I asked Evangelicals, Do you believe in the existence of Odin, the Norse God? how do you think they would respond? I have no doubt Evangelicals would laugh and say, Odin is a mythical being. It would be silly of us to hate a being that doesn’t exist. Bingo. Just like atheists and the Christian God.
Evangelicals often refuse to accept at face value what others say/believe about their God. When atheists deny the existence of the Christian God, Evangelicals say that atheists are suppressing their knowledge of this God. Supposedly, atheists KNOW that the Christian God exists, but they, having a hard heart and a seared conscience, deny his existence. Couldn’t the same be said of Christians who deny the existence of Odin? Christians KNOW that the Norse God exists, but they refuse to accept this, clinging to a God who is no God at all.
The fact is this: atheists do not hate God. Anyone who suggests otherwise is either deliberately ignorant of what atheists believe or are so blinded by their own beliefs that they cannot fathom any other belief but their own. Wait a minute, Bruce, Evangelicals say. If atheists do not hate God, then why do they spend so much time talking about God? Good question.
While atheists know that the Christian God is a myth, they also understand that much harm has been done in his name. It is not the Christian God that is the problem. God, divorced from his followers, is little more than an ancient explanation for human existence. Who cares, right? Myths, in and of themselves, have no power. The Harry Potter books tell a wonderful story of mystery and magic, but no one in his or her right mind thinks the stories are true. Imagine if a group of people believed that what was written in the Harry Potter books was some sort of divine message from God. Does the fact that this group of people believes the stories are true mean that they are? Of course not. So it is with Christianity. That people “believe” is not proof that something is true. Millions of people believe in the Mormon God, yet Evangelicals, for the most part, believe Mormonism is a false religion. I fail to see how Mormonism’s God is any different from Christianity’s God. Taken at face value, both myths are absurd.
The real issue for atheists is what Christians DO in the name of their God. It is Christians that are the problem, not their God. If Christianity was little more than a Kiwanis Club, I suspect that most atheist writers such as myself would put down their digital pens and turn their attention to other pursuits. However, because many Christians will not rest until the entire world worships their God and bows to their interpretation of an antiquated religious text, atheists, humanists, agnostics, and secularists are forced to do battle with Evangelical zealots. Believe me, I’d rather be writing about sports, photography, or train collecting, but as long as Evangelicals continue to clamor for a theocracy governed by Biblical law, I intend to raise my objection to their theocratic ambitions.
Bruce, if Christianity doesn’t matter, why do you bother with it?
Good question.
On one hand, Christianity doesn’t matter. The Bible doesn’t matter. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, the Church — none of it matters.
If Christians want to worship their God, I have no objection. I subscribe to the “live and let live” school of thought. Each to his own. May Jesus be with you. May the force be with you. May nothing be with you. I don’t care.
However . . .
I do care about the influence Christianity has on our culture and government. I do care about the damage done in the name of the Christian God. I do care when people are hurt, maimed, and killed in the name of Jesus.
When Christians want to turn the United States into a theocracy . . . It matters.
When Christians want their religion to have preference over any and all others . . . It matters.
When Christians demand atheists and agnostics be treated as the spawn of Satan . . . It matters.
When Christians attempt to teach religious dogma as scientific fact in our public schools . . . It matters.
When Christians attempt to force their religious moral code on everyone . . . It matters.
When Christians attempt to stand in the way of my pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness . . . It matters.
When Christians abuse and molest children in the name of their God . . . It matters.
When Christians wage wars thousands of miles away in the name of their God . . . It matters.
When Christians mentally and emotionally abuse people . . . It matters.
When Christians expect preferential treatment because of who they worship . . . It matters.
As long as Christians continue to force themselves on others, and as long as they attack and demean anyone who is not a Christian . . . It matters.
As long as pastors and churches get preferential tax code treatment . . . It matters.
That said . . .
As to who you worship and where? It doesn’t matter.
As to what sacred text you use? It doesn’t matter.
I want all Christians to have the absolute freedom to worship their God.
And . . .
I want that same freedom to NOT worship any God or another God . . .
And as long as that courtesy is not extended to me and to every human being on earth . . .
It matters.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Dr. David Smock, the physician for Agape Boarding School in Stockton, Missouri, stands accused of sodomizing and molesting a fourteen-year-old boy. Other alleged sex crimes in other states are currently being investigated. Agape Boarding school is a “ministry” of Agape Baptist Church — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) institution. Agape Baptist is pastored by James Clemensen. (Please read the school’s Parent Handbook. Be prepared to weep.)
The Kansas City Star reports:
Longtime Agape Boarding School doctor David Smock groomed the young male student he is accused of sodomizing and molesting, buying him a cellphone, taking his family on trips and throwing him birthday parties, according to court records obtained by The Star. Those details, including child sex allegations against Smock from two other states that go back decades, are outlined in a probable cause statement The Star received Monday. The affidavit describes three felonies filed by Greene County prosecutors on Thursday, the same day a judge signed an arrest warrant for the 57-year-old doctor.
Authorities confirmed to The Star that Smock was still at large Monday afternoon. “For years, David E. Smock groomed Juvenile by inviting him over to his (Smock) home located in Jerico Springs where he could play video games, use the gym and basketball court, purchasing a cell phone for him, providing gifts, money, and promised cars once he turned 16 years of age,” the affidavit says.
Smock also “took Juvenile and his family on outings to arcades, trips to places such as Silver Dollar City and Incredible Pizza and hosted birthday parties for Juvenile,” the document says.
According to the affidavit, Smock provided medical treatment — including physicals — for the students. The boy and his mother began having contact with Smock in 2013-2014, it says. Her son first met Smock during a gym night. The investigation began on Oct. 7, 2020, when Heidi Fox, an investigator with the Missouri State Technical Assistance Team, received a request from an investigator with the Missouri Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division regarding a child molestation case reported to the Cedar County Sheriff. The case involved a 14-year-old male who disclosed to the Children’s Division in 2020 “that he was touched inappropriately when he was thirteen years of age by a fifty six year old white male identified as David E. Smock,” the affidavit says.
Cedar County Sheriff James “Jimbob” McCrary did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Agape leader Bryan Clemensen also has not responded to requests for comment. Smock began spending more time with the boy to be a “father figure” to him, according to the affidavit, and then began taking him to and from school. He threw birthday parties for the boy’s 12th, 13th and 14th birthdays and eventually convinced the boy’s mother to allow her son to move into Smock’s home. The boy lived with Smock, the affidavit says, from age 13 until just before his 15th birthday. When the boy was 13 and in Smock’s care, the doctor took him from Cedar County to Springfield to help clean a rental property Smock owned, the document says. “Juvenile disclosed while at this location, he was instructed by David E. Smock to pull his own pants down, when Juvenile did not, David E. Smock instructed him to pull his pants down two additional times,” according to the affidavit. “David E. Smock touched Juvenile’s penis with his hand and held Juvenile’s penis with his hand.” Smock was charged Thursday in Greene County Circuit Court with three felonies — one count of second-degree statutory sodomy regarding a child; third-degree molestation of a child younger than 14 years of age; and enticement or attempted enticement of a child younger than 15.
….
As a physician, Smock is required by law to report suspicions of child abuse and neglect. Smock came to Missouri from Arizona and in 2006 built an 11-bedroom mansion with an indoor pool and gymnasium in rural Cedar County between Stockton and Jerico Springs. That location at 6360 E. 1570 Road, which Smock uses as his home and business addresses, also houses Legacy Academy Adventures, a Christian boarding school for boys ages 9-15. Legacy is run by Brent Jackson, who has close ties to Smock and was an Agape staffer for 18 years, part of that time serving as its dean of students. Jackson left Agape in 2018. According to the probable cause statement obtained Monday, while interviewing people about the Missouri allegations, the state investigator said she received police reports about Smock from California and Arizona dating back to the late 1980s.
In a June 6, 2007, document from Gonzales, California, police interviewed Smock regarding a child cruelty case. At that time, Smock told authorities that he and his six children — some of them adopted — slept in the same room but he slept in his bed alone. The report also indicated there was an empty second bedroom and that an adult female and her young children were staying in a third bedroom, the probable cause affidavit says. “The adult female had ended a relationship with David E. Smock previously due to David E. Smock’s ‘controlling behaviors,’” the affidavit says. “And at the time of this report (she) was an employee at his clinic. She reported being fearful of David E. Smock and that she may lose her job, as she was informed by David E. Smock if any of his employees speak to the police, he would terminate their employment. “One of the juveniles provided information to the police regarding the sleeping arrangements of the children, specifically David E. Smock sleeping in bed with one of the juvenile boys aged fifteen years old.” At the time of the police report in 2007, Smock was a licensed physician and surgeon in California.
The Gonzales, California, Police Department also discovered four more reports about Smock. Those reports were made to other law enforcement and state agencies regarding sexually inappropriate behavior with children under 16, the affidavit says. Gonzales officers discovered that a report was made to the San Diego Police Department in 1988 regarding David E. Smock being identified as a suspect in a child molestation investigation. Details of that case were not included in the Greene County affidavit obtained Monday. In another case discovered by California authorities, the Marine Family Advocacy in Yuma, Arizona, told Gonzales police about a 1997 report that two juvenile males alleged Smock walked around the house nude in front of them during a visit to his residence in 1994-1995. The report said Smock showered with the two juvenile boys in 1996. The Gonzales officer contacted Yuma, Arizona, Child Protective Services and was informed of a report made in 1998 alleging Smock altered the use of the hot water heater and stove in a home he owned that was being occupied by his estranged wife. “The report documents David E. Smock made comments regarding selling his daughters because he only wanted to keep the juvenile son,” according to the Greene County affidavit. “The male child was interviewed and stated he sleeps in a bed with David E. Smock.”
A 1996 case out of the police department in Yuma, said that two 12-year-old boys and their mother reported Smock for “sexually inappropriate behavior.” It said Smock was their neighbor and had purchased several expensive items for the boys and provided “vitamins” for them to take. “The two juvenile boys reported to the Police Department that while spending the night at David E. Smock’s residence, he informed them they can sleep naked and offered to give one of the juvenile boys a ‘physical,’” the Greene County affidavit says. “The mother of the two juveniles reported to the police that she observes several children at David E. Smock’s residence because he has a pool.” That mother said tarps had been placed over the fence tops surrounding Smock’s back yard in Arizona. “When David E. Smock was interviewed by the Police,” the affidavit says, “he is reported to have stated he tried to tell the mother of the boys ‘that he really loved children.’”
In September 2021, five workers at Agape Boarding School were accused of assault.
The Cedar County prosecutor filed charges against several workers of the Agape boarding school near Stockton after accusations of abuse.
In all, five faces charges. They include:
-Seth Duncan: 5 counts of third-degree assault
-Scott Dumar: 4 counts of third-degree assault
-Trent Hartman: 2 counts of third-degree assault
-Christopher McElroy: 1 count of third-degree assault
-Everett Graves: 1 count of third-degree assault
Former students accuse workers of the school of assault and other abuse. Former student Colton Schrag says he’s disheartened to see only five people charged in this investigation.
“The message should’ve been we hear you, we’re gonna try to protect you and help you get out of this situation and then we’re gonna shut it down,” Schrag says. “But the message we received was we’ll do the bare minimum to get you off our backs but we don’t actually really care about you guys.”
Operators advertise Agape as a national boarding school for at-risk or unmotivated boys. The campus is also home to Agape Baptist Church. When it comes to troubled teenage boys, Schrag says they’re often overlooked and people may not be as open to hearing their stories.
”If I was to speak out at that time like I did, ‘Hey they’re beating on us,’ it kind of just fell on deaf ears,” Schrag says. “You automatically think like what did that kid do. He’s there for a reason he’s not a good kid.”
Schrag spent three-and-a-half years at Agape. During his time there, Schrag says students endured physical, mental, and psychological abuse.
“From getting drug out of your bunk into the hallway with staff members elbowing you, hitting you, kneeing you, and slamming you onto the ground,” Schrag says. “Even also some of them withholding meals from you or putting you on a small portion so you can’t eat like the rest of the students.”
Boyd and Stephanie Householder face 100 criminal abuse charges as the owners of the Circle of Hope Ranch. Their daughter, Amanda Householder, says the couple worked at Agape before opening their school.
“My dad learned at Agape how to restrain the students, how to withhold their food, their water,” Householder says. “Basically, Agape is the blueprint for Circle of Hope.”
The Missouri Attorney General’s office identified 65 criminal counts against 22 co-defendants. Those charges included abuse of a child, failure to report child abuse, endangering the welfare of a child, tampering with a victim, and assault. However, the Cedar County prosecutor charged five defendants with multiple counts of assault.
“It’s not even a slap on the wrist for Agape,” Householder says. “It’s a slap in the face for the victims of Agape.”
The Missouri Highway Patrol says it began its investigation into allegations of abuse and neglect at the facility in late February.
According to Householder, some of the people charged were former students at Agape.
“They were just doing what they were brainwashed to do from childhood,” Householder says. “They were students and then they turned staff. It’s very angering to me that the people who forced the people to act the way they’re acting are not being charged.”
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
At the age of fifty-four, my mother turned a .357 magnum Ruger revolver toward her chest and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore a hole in her heart and in a few moments she was dead. Mom had tried to kill herself many times before. This time she succeeded (please see the post Barbara).
When I was eleven, Dad had to call for an emergency squad because Mom had taken several bottles of prescription drugs. They rushed her to the hospital and pumped her stomach, and she survived to die another day. Later in the year, Mom and the neighbor lady were in a serious automobile accident in Lima. I say accident because it is possible that Mom pulled into the other lane of traffic, allowing the truck to hit them.
Mom made a third attempt on her life that same year. I came home from school and found Mom lying unconscious on the floor with blood pooling around her body. She had slit her wrists. Yet again, the emergency squad came, and her life was saved.
As best I can tell, Mom had mental problems her entire life. She was bright, witty, and well-read, but Mom could, in a split second, lapse into angry, incoherent tirades. Twice she was involuntarily committed to the Toledo State Mental Hospital, undergoing shock therapy numerous times. None of the treatments or drugs worked.
In the early 1960s, my parents found Jesus. Jesus, according to the Bible, healed the mentally ill, but, for whatever reason, he didn’t heal Mom. The mental health crises I have shared in this post, and others that I haven’t shared, all occurred after Mom put her faith and trust in the loving Jesus who supposedly had a wonderful plan for her life. Mom died believing Jesus was her Savior. To this day, I lament the fact that I didn’t do more to help her. Sadly, I saw her mental illness as an inconvenience and an embarrassment. If she just got right with God, I thought at the time, all would be well. If she would just kick her drug habit, I told her, God would be there to help her. What she really needed was for her eldest son to pick her up, hold her close, and love her. I will go to my grave wishing I had been a better son, that I had loved Mom and my family more than I loved Jesus and the church.
Mom, Bruce, and friend, Findlay, Ohio, summer 1971
Mom was quite talented. She played the piano and loved to do ceramics. Her real passion was reading, a habit she happily passed on to me. (Mom taught me to read.) She was active in politics. Mom was a member of the John Birch Society, and actively campaigned, first for Barry Goldwater, and later for George Wallace.
My parents divorced when I was fourteen. Not long after the divorce, Mom married her first cousin, a recent parolee from a Texas prison (he was serving time for armed robbery). He later died of a drug overdose. Mom would marry two more times before she died. She was quite passionate about anything she fixed her mind upon, a trait that I, for good or ill, share with her. In the early 1970s, Mom was an aide at Winebrenner Nursing Home in Findlay, Ohio. Winebrenner paid men more than they paid women for the same work. Mom, ever the crusader, sued Winebrenner under the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act. The Federal Court decided in her favor.
We moved quite often, and I have no doubt this contributed greatly to Mom’s mental illness. She never knew what it was to have a place to call home. Our family lived in one rental after another, never stopping long enough to buy a home. I lived in sixteen different houses by the time I left for college at the age of nineteen.
I have always wondered if my parents were ever happily married. Mom and Dad were married by an Indiana Justice of the Peace in November 1956. At the time of their marriage, Mom was eighteen and pregnant. I learned a year ago that Dad was not actually my biological father. Dad meant well, but the instability of their marriage, coupled with us moving all the time, caused my siblings and me great harm. Dad thought moving was a great experience. Little did he know that I hated him for moving us around. New schools (seven different school districts). New friends. Never having a place to call home. No child should have to live this way.
From the time I was five until I was fourteen, my parents were faithful members of a Baptist church in whatever community we lived in. The Gerencser family attended church every time the doors were open (I have attended over 8,000 church services in my lifetime). Mom would play the piano from time to time, though she found it quite stressful to do so. One time, much to my embarrassment, she had a mental meltdown in front of the whole church. She never played again. For a time, Dad was a deacon, but he stopped being one because he couldn’t kick his smoking habit. I suspect the real reason was that he was having an affair.
No matter where we lived or what church we went to, one thing was certain: Mom was mentally ill and everyone pretended her illness didn’t exist. Evangelical churches such as the ones we attended had plenty of members who suffered from various mental maladies. For the most part, those who were sick in the head were ignored, marginalized, or told to repent.
In 1994, I co-pastored a Sovereign Grace Baptist church in San Antonio, Texas. (See the I am a Publican and a Heathen series.) One day we were at a church fellowship and my wife came around the corner just in time to hear one of the esteemed ladies of the church say to her daughter, you stay away from that girl, she is mentally retarded. “That girl” was our then five-year-old daughter with Down syndrome. This outstanding church member’s words pretty well sum up how many churches treat those with mental handicaps or illness. STAY AWAY from them!
Many Christians think mental illness is a sign of demonic oppression or possession. No need for doctors, drugs, or hospitals. Just come to Jesus, the great physician, and he will heal you. After all, the Bible does say in 2 Timothy 1:7: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. If someone is mentally unsound, it’s the person’s fault, not God’s. Get right with God and all will be well.
I have suffered with depression for most of my adult life. I am on the mountaintop one moment and in the valley the next. Plagued with a Type A personality, and being a consummate workaholic, I am often driven to despair. Work, Work, Work. Go, Go, Go. Do, Do, Do. I have no doubt that the way I lived my life as a Christian contributed to the health problems that now plague me. While I was busy burning the candle at both ends for Jesus, my body was screaming STOP! But I didn’t listen. I had no time for family, rest, or pleasure. Work for the night is coming, the Bible says. Better to burn out for Jesus than rust out, I told myself. And now, thanks to living this way for much of my adult life, I am a rusting 1957 Chevrolet, sitting on blocks, awaiting the day when the junkyard comes to tow me away.
For many years, I hid my depression from the outside world. While Polly and my children witnessed depression’s effect on their husband and father, church members never had a clue. I have often wondered how parishioners might have responded had I told them the truth. I suspect some church members would have seen me as a fellow depressive, but others would likely have questioned whether I was “fit” to be a pastor.
In 2008, a few months before I deconverted, I told a pastor friend that I was really depressed. Instead of lending me a helping hand or encouraging me, he rebuked me for giving in to the attack of Satan. He told me I needed to confess my sin and get victory over it immediately. A lot of Christians think just like this (former) pastor friend of mine. (Please see Dear Friend.) Depression is a sign of weakness, and God only wants warriors and winners.
Barbara Gerencser, 1956
Going to see a counselor was the single most important thing I have done in the last ten years. It took me leaving the ministry and departing from Christianity before I was willing to find someone to talk to. Several times, while I was still a Christian, I made appointments with counselors only to cancel them at the last minute. I feared that someone would see me going into the counselor’s office or they would drive by and see my car in the parking lot. I thought, My God, I am a pastor. I am supposed to have my life together.
Indeed, it took me leaving the church, the pastorate, and God to find any semblance of mental peace. I have no doubt some readers will object to the connection I make between religion and mental wellness, but for me, there was indeed a direct correlation between the two.
I still battle with depression, but with regular counseling and a (forced) slower pace of life, I am confident that I can live a meaningful, somewhat peaceful life. As many of you know, I have chronic, unrelenting pain. I have not had a pain-free day in over twenty years (my days are counted as less pain, normal pain, more pain, and off the fucking charts pain). The constant pain and debility (I was diagnosed with gastroparesis, an incurable stomach disease, last year) certainly fuel my depression. My counselor says she would be surprised if I wasn’t depressed from time to time. Embracing my depression and coming to grips with the pain and debility is absolutely essential to my mental well-being. This is my life. I am who I am. I accept this, and I do what I can to be a loving, kind, and productive human being.
To my Christian readers I say this: sitting near you in church this coming Sunday will be people who are suffering with mental illness. Maybe they are depressed. They hide it because they think they have to. Jesus only wants winners, remember? Pay attention to other people. The signs are there. Listen to those who you claim are your brothers and sisters in the Lord. Embrace them in the midst of their weakness and psychosis. While I don’t think a mythical God is going to heal them, I do think that loving, understanding friends can be just the salvation the mentally ill need.
It is not easy being around those who are mentally ill. Let’s face it, depressed people are not fun to be with. We are not the life of the party. When I am in the midst of mental and emotional darkness, I am not the kind of person most people want to be around. I become withdrawn, cynical, and dark. These attributes, coupled with the physical pain I endure, can, at times, make me unbearable to be around. It is at these moments when I need the help of others. Sadly, most people, including my family and friends, tend to pull away from me when I need them the most. I understand why they do so, but the loneliest place on earth is sitting alone in the darkness of night wishing you were dead.
How do you respond to people who are mentally ill? How do you respond to those who are depressed? Perhaps you suffer from mental illness or depression. Do you hide it? How are you treated by others? If you are a Christian, how are you treated by your church and pastor? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Another day, another post written by “Dr.” David Tee (David Thiessen, Theologyarcheology, TEWSNBN) detailing his objections to something I have written or his continued hemorrhoidal inflammation over my writing style. If I responded to Tee every time he mentioned me on his blog, I wouldn’t write on anything else. So, I only respond to the fake doctor when his words are so egregious that I cannot ignore them.
One of the first things we are going to say is, if BG does not want to be disagreed with, he should stop putting his content out in public. He doesn’t like it when we use his words as teaching moments and trashes us every time that we do.
I don’t care one way or another if people disagree with me. What I do care about is when Fundamentalist Christians such as Tee lie about me, misrepresent my beliefs, or attack my character. Tee does these three things so often, it is safe for us to assume that doing so is just a part of who he is.
I am concerned that Tee has an unhealthy obsession with me. Even after I sent him scantily-clad pictures of me pole dancing at Santa’s Workshop, Tee continues to obsess over me. Maybe he wants an enlarged photo of me nekkid he can tape to the ceiling over his bed. (This is all sarcasm and snark, by the way. I charge big bucks for my stripper photos. No freebies, David.)
We wonder about him as he keeps mentioning the number of years he has spent in the ministry, the number of years he has believed in God, the Bible, and many other Christian activities.
I have explained “why” numerous times to Tee. The things mentioned by him are relevant to the work I do. Continuing to whine about it just makes Tee look jealous and petty.
Why he does it we do not know because he is not the first to do it and he is not the only one to spend decades believing in Christ. We are coming up to our 57th year. So he is not special nor is his story unique.
Tee knows exactly why I do it. I have politely explained it to him several times. His continued obsession with this is baffling.
I don’t believe I have ever said I am “special.” That said, my story is most certainly “unique.” Most clerics who leave the ministry or deconvert do so when they are younger. Rare is the pastor who walks away from twenty-five years in the ministry. It happens, but it’s not common.
There have been many more people who have turned from the faith and they did it long before he did. His deconversion is not the first nor is it unique; nor is his story something worth hearing.
Here, I believe, is Tee’s motivation for his continued personal attacks — jealousy. Tee toils away day after day writing blog posts few people read. (In his mind, God reads them and that’s all that matters.) Yet, the Evangelical-preacher-turned-atheist has thousands and thousands of readers — 750,000 page views this year. I have attracted loyal readers, many of whom regularly leave comments. Tee? Most of the comments on his blog come from readers of this site. Try as he might, he’s been unable to build a following. No longer a pastor or involved in any meaningful ministry, Tee’s only way of preaching is his blog. Thus, it is hard not to conclude that Tee is envious, bitter, covetous, and resentful over my success. Why doesn’t God bless and use his writing? Why does God allow a vile atheist to attract a large following, yet he labors in obscurity?
The information is all the same. In his post that we will look at here or at least key parts, he says nothing of value, nothing new, and nothing unique. Why he thinks people need to hear his story is beyond us. He is no one of note but just one of the many fools God spoke about when they say he does not exist.
Did you notice Tee spent the first five paragraphs trying to discredit me and make me look insignificant?
I am not, by nature, a prideful man. All I try to do every day is be open, honest, and authentic. While I don’t share every minute detail of my life, I have tried to be an open book. I think it is important for me to be as transparent as possible. I am accessible. Anyone who wants to contact me can easily do so.
Let me see if I understand Tee’s thinking here. He thinks my story is uninteresting, not worth telling, yet he blogs about things that Christians have been “blogging” about for 2,000 years. SMH.
It is up to readers of this blog to decide whether my story is “interesting.” I have been blogging since 2007. My deconversion story quickly caught the attention of Evangelicals and atheists alike. Is it my fault that people find my writing engaging and helpful (much as church members did with my preaching)? Millions of people have read my writing, many of whom are Evangelical or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Christians. What Tee should be asking himself is why my story resonates with so many people –Christians and atheists alike.
“One of the hardest things for me to admit is that I, at one time, believed things that I now know to be untrue.”
We hear this a lot when we have discussions with atheists. They keep telling Christians that their God is not true, their Bible is a myth and their faith is based on nothing. However, not one atheist has provided any physical evidence to support their claims.
Not one. They just do not believe and then make these declarations like they are saying something that is powerful, unique, and wonderful. We have been told constantly by different atheists that the onus of proof is on us because we make extraordinary claims about God, Jesus, and the Bible.
I chose not to excerpt all of Tee’s word salad. I will say this: extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence. Tee believes ghosts rape teen girls, virgins have babies, and humans walk on water, teleport, turn water into wine, and heal blindness with spit and dirt. Tee also believes there’s a Heaven and Hell, the universe was created in six twenty-four-hour days, and the earth is 6,024 years old. And then there’s his belief that a dead human named Jesus resurrected from the dead and ascended to the International Space Station. All of these claims are extraordinary in nature; claims which Tee provides no evidence for outside of quoting an ancient, errant, fallible religious text.
Memo to “Dr.” Tee: I don’t believe because the claims of Christianity make no sense to me. Want me to believe? Provide better evidence. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) The ball is in your court.
If anyone is living a life of folly, it is the atheist as they have nothing to look forward to, nothing to rely on, and nothing to share with anyone else. In other words, they are the fools for they think they have something when they have nothing at all.
Again, I chose not to excerpt parts of Tee’s word salad. In the deleted paragraphs, he repeatedly calls atheists “fools.” Aww, he hurt our feelings. Isn’t this the first slur Evangelicals go to when they have no answer to the claims of atheists? Tee sure spends a lot of time reading and responding to a fool, in direct disobedience to the Word of God. The Bible says Christians are not to answer a fool according to his folly.
I would rather follow the Bible and all of its commands than live a life like that. As you have noticed, we are not taking apart BG’s article sentence by sentence. he is really saying nothing new so we do not have to.
At least Tee admits that his post is a personal attack, not a response to something I wrote. How could he possibly take apart my post? It was a personal list of beliefs I held as an Evangelical. That’s it. A short reflection on crazy beliefs I once held.
You can click on that link and read them for yourselves [sic]. The key point is, he says those things are not what they claim or do not exist. BG and other atheists are great at making these comments but they all have one thing in common.
When you read his article, you will notice that he does not even attempt to support his claims. Not one shred of evidence is given that can be verified and double-checked for accuracy.
Sigh. The post was a list of ten beliefs I once held — most of which Tee himself believes. All Tee needs to do is use the search function on this site to find the plethora of words I have spilt on these subjects. Tee is being disingenuous when he says ” he does not even attempt to support his claims. Not one shred of evidence is given that can be verified and double-checked for accuracy.”
In danger of repeating ourselves, we do not know why he and his wife took that sudden turn to unbelief. Maybe he was like us and was treated poorly by other Christians.
Tee is not in danger of “repeating” himself. He crossed that line long ago in this post and other posts on his site. Tee knows EXACTLY why Polly and I aren’t Christians. To feign confusion on this issue is dishonest, to say the least.
Further, I have repeatedly addressed the claim that we were “hurt” by other Christians. Hurt played little to no part in our deconversions. Tee knows this, yet he continues to misrepresent my story and that of my wife. Again, it is obvious that the purpose of his post was to belittle and discredit me. That he felt the need to drag my wife Polly into his attack is reprehensible, to say the least. (David, if you read this post, Polly wants you to know you are a fucking asshole. Her words, not mine. Good job!)
We cannot say for sure but his decision to do so makes us sad every time we read some of his content. How can one be happy when another believer gives up his salvation for lies.
It is impossible to be cheerful when one thinks about it. We wish he could change back and then we could be happier knowing he will make it to heaven. But he has made up his mind and we are not going to press him on this issue.
Tee is “sad” that I am an atheist. Okay . . . don’t read my writing if it makes you sad. Tee’s feigned compassion and concern have never rung true with me. He routinely trashes me, yet he wants me to believe he is a kind, caring person. Behavior matters. I”m not buying what he is selling.
If Tee’s goal is to reclaim me for Jesus, he might want to rethink his tactics. His words have produced great harm to the cause of Christ. Forget what I think. Just ask the atheists and agnostics who read this blog what they think. Better yet, ask Evangelical readers what they think. I doubt Tee will find one reader of this blog who agrees with his approach to me personally and my writing.
Here’s what I know about the afterlife, if there is one. I want to be as far away as possible from the David Tees of the world. Hell is being in the same room with David Tee.
BG and the other atheists are wrong, of course. The Christian life is not folly and the atheist does not have some secret knowledge letting them know that the Bible is not true or that God does not exist.
It is the Christian that has the truth because Jesus exists, he did die for us and he did rise again. We have hope, love, and guidance along with something better than what the atheist offers.
Atheists don’t claim to have secret knowledge. It is Tee who claims he has secret knowledge, that which can only be known by saved, baptized, circumcised, and caramelized Christians. He is the one that says he “knows” the mind of God; that he “knows” exactly what the Bible teaches (even though 2,000 years of church history suggests otherwise).
Atheists have all that Evangelicals have and more. We have freedom. And that, above all else, is why atheism is superior to Christianity.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Published on March 18, 1999. At the time, I was pastor of Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio. This is a good example of how I used to think about life, God, the Bible, sin, and culture. I encourage readers to read a letter to the editor I wrote on January 19, 2016, about the same the subject. You will quickly see that my viewpoint has changed a wee bit over the past 17 years.
Bryan Times:
I am writing in response to the recent editorial that suggested evolution is not being taught in public schools because teachers fear right-wing religious zealots. The zealots are portrayed as being anti-science and intellectually stunted. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Evolution is a theory. Even the writer of the editorial admits such. Yet, just a few paragraphs later, he advocates teaching the theory as fact. He then states that man cannot understand biology without evolution.
What arrogant presumption and distortion of truth. Evolution is a theory of “how” things came into existence. It is, at its root, a faith religion that suggests a random existence apart from a divine being. Evolution demands that there is no God, no creator, and that man is nothing more than the most evolved of creatures. Man becomes nothing more than an animal that has evolved to a more mature state than that of other animals.
Evolution is incompatible with Christianity. Christianity begins with the premise that God is, and whatever God says is true. The Bible is God’s revelation to man, and he reveals in the first three chapters of Genesis how this world came into existence. To deny the biblical record is to deny God and his revelation, and the result is eternal damnation. Christians fear being viewed as ignorant if they deny the teachings of evolution. They become just like the schoolteachers who fear the religious zealots. If God is who he says he is, and he meant what he said in the Scriptures, then let us not fear, but instead declare boldly “Thus saith the Lord.”
Bruce Gerencser, Pastor West Unity, Ohio
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Many Christian sects, and certainly every Evangelical sect, believe that pastors are called by God to preach the gospel. Pastors are ordained by the particular church or denomination of which they are a part. Through their ordination, the church or denomination is saying we recognize God’s calling in your life.
According to Evangelicals, the Bible is a supernatural book given to them by a supernatural God. God calls pastors to read and study God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Word so they will then be able to stand before their congregations and proclaim “thus saith the Lord.” These men of God are often viewed as people who have a direct line to God. When a church member is confused about what the Bible says, he or she most often seeks out the pastor for clarity. Like mythical oracles, pastors are expected to have ready answers for any question they might be asked.
Most Evangelicals believe in the priesthood of the believer. This means they believe that every Christian has direct access to God. However, as with many things in the church, the stated beliefs are often contradicted by what actually goes on in the church. Instead of directly accessing God, many Christians expect their pastor to be an intermediary between them and God. After all, the pastor is a mature Christian, a font of wisdom and Biblical knowledge, right? Or so many congregants think.
The pastor’s supposed intimate connection with God plays a big part in how parishioners view his sermons. In their eyes, the sermon is a direct message from God. The pastor is just God’s mouthpiece. God could have used an ass to speak as he did in Numbers 22, but he used the pastor instead (that is, until the pastor upsets them, at which time he becomes an ass). When the pastor stands before the congregation the people have an expectation that they are going to hear from God. The pastor expects God to use his sermon to speak to the heart of every person. He desires God to use his sermon to reclaim backsliders and save the lost.
Preaching is not just an intellectual exercise. There is a huge emotional component in preaching, not only for the pastors, but also for those who are listening to sermons. Emotion is often ascribed to God moving, God working, or God calling. I have preached in numerous services where it seemed evident God was in our midst. Emotional levels were high. People were weeping. People were coming down the aisle to the altar to pray. It was evident to everyone that God was using my sermon to bring repentance, renewal, and revival.
Any cursory reading about the First and Second Great Awakenings will reveal that emotions played a huge part in the success of these campaigns. The Evangelical movement can trace its lineage, to some degree, back to revivalist machinations of the 18th and 19th centuries. Emotions have always played a monumental part in any significant move of God (as revivals, awakenings, and movements are called). This should not be surprising since we are, by nature, emotional beings.
What we have here is a perfect storm. A supernatural God, a supernatural book, a God-called, church-ordained pastor, and a congregation of emotional human beings. If the pastor is good at his craft, he knows how to use all of these things to his advantage. The pastor is not necessarily manipulating the emotions of the congregation on purpose. Most pastors grew up in the church. By the time they start preaching they have sat in countless church services and heard hundreds of sermons. Their understanding of how to preach is shaped by the church environment and religious culture they grew up in.
The longer a pastor is in the ministry the more he is keenly aware of what “works.” He becomes more discerning about what his congregation “needs.” What “works” is coupled with what the congregation “needs” and the result is often described by parishioners as God speaking to their hearts. The fundamental problem here is that it is impossible to know whether the “feeling” a person has is God. The deeply affected person believes it is God, but must accept such a claim by faith.
A commenter on a different post wrote:
I don’t believe in Jesus because of arguments for the trustworthiness of the Bible. I believe in Him because I have a relationship with Him-I have heard His voice and I feel His presence. And I am aware that sounds vague and illogical, but I also know that no one can invalidate my experience.
This comment goes to the heart of the difficulty in trying to present an alternative viewpoint to Christians. They know what they have experienced. They were there when Jesus saved them, and they know that their experiences are “real.” It is almost impossible to move people away from their subjective experiences. Rarely do objectivity and facts win a battle against religious subjectivity and faith.
As I look back on the 25 years I spent in the ministry, I have come to see that I used my sermons to manipulate people (and I am not necessarily using the word manipulate in a negative sense). Spend enough time with a group of people and you will learn their strengths and weaknesses. Eat meals with them, pray with them, visit in their homes, and educate their children, and you will certainly know a lot about the people you pastor. With this knowledge at hand, sermons can be crafted to help the congregation (sermons are never preached in a vacuüm). It should come as no surprise, then, that people think that the pastor is preaching right at/to them. This is not God speaking to the particular parishioner as much as it is a human being who has good discernment skills, skills finely tuned by interacting with thousands of people over the course of many years.
Do I think God used me to speak to people? At the time I did. However, I now know that what people were responding to was a well-crafted sermon preached by a sincere man who knew the needs of his congregation. I knew the power of emotions and used them to God’s my advantage. I heard preacher after preacher do the same thing. I was not an anomaly. I was a young man raised in an environment that put a premium on powerful, emotional preaching. I was encouraged to study the great preachers of the faith, men like Charles Spurgeon, DL Moody, Billy Sunday, John Wesley and Charles Finney. When I became a Calvinist, I studied the great Calvinist preachers, men like Jonathan Edwards, Martyn Lloyd Jones, George Whitefield, and Rolfe Barnard. The way I preached was a result of the environment I grew up in and the men I considered my role models.
Because of the power ascribed to sermons, there is a real danger of abuse. The sincere pastor can quickly turn into a huckster who desires to advance his own agenda. Even well-meaning pastors can do this. Have problems in the church? Have people upset with a decision you made? Preach on pastoral authority. Offerings down? Preach on tithing. Want a raise? Preach on the laborer being worthy of his hire or an elder being worthy of double the salary. Better yet, get an evangelist to come in and preach on these things. That way you can blame the evangelist if people are upset about the sermon subject matter.
Liberal or mainline pastors find discussions like this quite amusing. For the most part, they see the ministry as a profession, one used by God, but not in the way Evangelicals think it is. Most liberal/mainline pastors have far more education than their Evangelical counterparts. And their sermons often reflect it: dry, boring, meaningless exercises in intellectual nothingness. What happened to their passion, their emotions? Preaching without emotion and passion is not worth listening to. A preacher ought to give 100% of himself to the sermon. I can admire a pastor’s passion without necessarily agreeing with his message. I don’t believe God exists, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a well-crafted, passionately-delivered sermon.
From 2002 through 2008, my wife and I visited over a hundred churches. Most of the sermons we heard were forgettable, and sadly a lot of them were downright awful. We did hear a few pastors who took their calling seriously. It was evident that they worked very hard to deliver a good sermon. Regardless of what I believe about Christianity, I admire any person who works hard at his craft. I may despise the message, but I can still appreciate the way the messenger goes about his work.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
