My vision is increasingly blurred. Short distances, long distances, it matters not. I stopped wearing my glasses months ago. I’ve been to the eye doctor twice in the past month. She’s been my doctor for years. Yet, she doesn’t understand my health problems. This is the doctor who showed how clueless she was when she told me that the “cure” for fibromyalgia is removing my amalgam (mercury) fillings. Her source? Her aunt, who had fibromyalgia, was miraculously cured after having her amalgam fillings replaced with resin fillings.
On my first visit last month, I told her that I was recently diagnosed with gastroparesis — an incurable disease. She had the same level of understanding about this disease as she did fibromyalgia. No big deal. She not a medical doctor, a neurologist, or a gastroenterologist. It would be nice if she educated herself on gastroparesis and fibromyalgia, but she’s busy, and these diseases aren’t health problems she typically deals with. However, when attempting to explain why I’m having blurry vision and my prescription has dramatically changed, she suggested that these things could be caused by, you guessed it, the gastroparesis and fibromyalgia she knows nothing about.
What astounded me most was when she told me that she hoped I got better soon. I am used to such well-wishing by non-medical professionals. People feel the need to say “something,” so they send good thoughts my way or tell me they hope I will be better soon. However, when I’m paying doctors good money to provide me competent, educated care, I expect honesty, not meaningless well-wishing.
I’m sick, I’m tired, and I’m tired of being sick and tired.
I love Polly.
I love my six children and their spouses.
I love my thirteen grandchildren.
I love my friends.
I love watching the birds at our feeders.
I love watching wildlife stop by at night, eating whatever food scraps we have put out for them.
I love watching the feral cats frequent our yard, eating the food we put in the “cat” house for them.
I love writing for this blog.
I’ve even grown to love some of you.
Yet, no matter how much I love others and want to live another day for their sake, I’m increasingly tired. There’s no hope of better days — just better bad days. A good day is one when I don’t throw up.
Every day, and I mean EVERY day, is a struggle. The pain, nausea, and debility, never go away. There’s no “better” tomorrow for me. No miraculous healing forthcoming. I’m a pragmatist, a realist. I see things as they are, not as I wish them to be. Maybe I’ll live a year or two or even ten years. Maybe not. Maybe I will die of “natural” causes or maybe I will die by my own hand. Or maybe, I will trip over the damn cat and break my neck on the way to bathroom.
Love is what sustains me. Today, that is enough.
But, I’m tired . . .
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.
Erin Davis, a writer for the Lies Young Women Believe website, wrote one of the most astounding, delusional, and absurd blog posts I have ever read. Filled with assertions based on THE BIBLE SAYS, Davis’ post reflects how deeply and thoroughly Evangelicalism can negatively affect one’s ability to reason and think.
With giants (1 Sam. 17), strange creatures (Job 40:15), angels (Ps. 91:11), demons (Mark 5), and a God who is mysteriously three in one, sometimes the Bible reads like a children’s fairy tale or Hollywood screenplay. But it isn’t. It’s a history book of events that actually happened to real people. More than that, it’s a book about a very real God.
Every Word of God Proves True
Proverbs 30:5 makes this bold promise:
Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
An easy way to prove the truth found in Scripture is through the genealogies. Let me show you what I mean.
Isaiah 11:1 declares this promise, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.”
There isn’t a person on the planet that God doesn’t love and care about.
That promise wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans without the genealogy found in Matthew 1:1–17 and again in Luke 3:23–38. This list starts with Abraham and ends with the birth of Christ. Smack dab in the middle we find this gem:
And Jesse the father of David the king (Matt. 1:6).
The branch Isaiah wrote about was Jesus. His words were written 800 years before Christ was born! If we skipped this genealogy, we would miss the wonder of seeing this prophecy fulfilled.
God Cares About the Little People
Ever hear of Mahalalel, Hezron, or Abijah? Probably not, but God has. He made sure their names were listed among the genealogies found in Genesis 5 and Matthew 1. Every single human since Adam has three things in common:
We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).
We are loved by God (Jer. 31:3).
We were designed to be with God for eternity (Eccl. 3:11).
There isn’t a person on the planet that God doesn’t love and care about. The genealogies read like lists of His favorite people.
God Is Faithful.
Here’s a question I love to ask Christians who are older than me:
“Tell me about that time God let you down.”
I’ve been asking that question for years, almost every chance I get to hang out with people with a gray hair or two. I’ve never met a single person with an answer. Instead they all gush about God’s faithfulness, telling me how time and time again He has shown up in their lives.
Evidently, Davis has not studied the history of the Christian Bible, nor has she read anything about the various textual contradictions and errors found in the Biblical text. I suspect that Davis grew up in and is still a part of a religious tradition that asserts the Bible is a God-given and God-written, inspired, inerrant, and infallible text. Whether the Bible is inspired is a metaphysical claim beyond the scope of rational inquiry, but assertions that the Bible is inerrant and infallible are evidentiary claims that can be investigated. Anyone who has honestly and openly looked at the text of the Bible cannot conclude it is an inerrant text.
Well, Bruce, I have studied this issue and I still believe the Bible is inerrant. To that I say, bullshit. If someone follows the evidence wherever it leads, he or she must conclude that inerrancy cannot be sustained on rational grounds. When people claim that the Bible is inerrant, I always ask them if they have read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books. Most often, the answer I receive is no. For the handful of people who say yes, my response is this: you are letting your presuppositions keep you from seeing things as they are. Biblical scholars of every stripe have concluded that the Bible has textual errors and contractions; that the Bible is internally inconsistent. It is impossible for someone to read Ehrman’s books and still hang on to the belief that the Bible is inerrant. And it is for this reason many Evangelical scholars and pastors say the Bible is inerrant in the original writings (which do not exist).
Davis believes the Bible is “true” because the Bible says it is. This is circular reasoning — a common problem in Evangelical Christianity. Countless people are Christians, all the while believing the Bible is fallible and errant. They recognize that the Bible is a human-written text that points the way to God, not a divine rulebook or blueprint for life. These Christians readily admit that some of what the Bible says is not true, is outdated, or inapplicable for today. While I have problems with how they come to these conclusions, I do find that this view is more intellectually honest than parroting that the Bible is inerrant.
The key to reaching Evangelicals is to get them to see that the Bible is not what they claim it is. Until Evangelicals are willing to consider that they might be wrong; that the Bible might contain errors and contradictions, there’s not much anyone can do to reach them.
Davis states that God cares about the little people. She bases this statement on the fact that numerous unknown people are mentioned in the Bible and, since God wrote the Bible, this is proof that God cares about everyone. Davis sincerely believes that God loves and cares for everyone. She believes this because the Bible says so. Again, eyes-wide-open honesty does not bear out Davis’ claim. Look around. What do you see? Do you see evidence for the belief that God loves and cares for everyone? Of course not. At best, we see a God who is indifferent to the plight of his creation. He steps in from time to time and helps Nana find her car keys, but when it comes to big-ticket issues such as war, violence, sexual assault, starvation, oppression, and Donald Trump, the Christian God is AWOL.
Davis desperately needs to believe that God loves and cares for her. I understand WHY she believes as she does. God loving and caring for Christians is the glue that holds Christianity together. No matter what happens in their lives, Evangelicals believe that God is looking out for them and that “all things work together for good.” This thinking directly conflicts with reality — shit happens, life can suck, and all credit and criticism belong to humans. God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is a fictitious middleman who keeps Evangelicals from seeing life as it is. That’s the beauty of religion. It gives people meaning and purpose, promising life after death. (Please see The Life-Changing Power of the Mythical Jesus and Never Underestimate the Power of Jesus) Believing such delusions allows Evangelicals to evade the harshness of human existence. Sadly, many people think that it is better to believe a lie if it gives them peace and happiness. I don’t fault people who follow this path as long as they keep it to themselves. However, when they drag such nonsense into the public square and de-legitimize the lives of everyone who believes differently, I’m going to challenge, on rational grounds, their beliefs.
Davis concludes her post by saying that God (not any God, only the Evangelical God) is ALWAYS faithful. When Evangelicals talk about the faithfulness of God they mean that God always does what he says he will. If God says he will do ______________ then he always does. Think of all the promises God supposedly made in the Bible. Has God infallibly kept every promise? Of course not. Any cursory examination of the lives of Christians reveals that God is NOT faithful, that he routinely fails to pay child support. When challenged on the God-is-Faithful claim, Evangelicals often respond that just because God hasn’t come through yet, doesn’t mean he won’t come through in the future. Ah yes, God will, someday, likely not today, come through. He’s God and he ALWAYS comes through.
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 words, ‘the Bible is a product of the culture of its time’ are what these people keep teaching undergraduates, church members, and the unbeliever. They are also words we heard when we were in undergraduate school as well.
They have been passed down from generation to generation as if they are some long-held truth. Instead, those words nullify most of the biblical commands, instructions, and other teachings the biblical authors have put into the content via God’s instruction.
That simple declaration opens up an escape clause that allows modern believers to cherry-pick which of the biblical verses they will accept and believe and which ones they will discard.
To use a word we do not like, that sentence empowers ‘Christians’ to take charge of the Bible and fashion it into a religious book that they like. Removing the harder to follow scriptures and focus on the easier ones, even though the latter is often misunderstood and misapplied.
As Peter has told us, the biblical content is not from any human source or private interpretation. That means that those words in that sentence are wrong. God did not take wise sayings, words of wisdom, or other top-quality works from secular culture or the unbelieving world and ‘Christianized them.’
The culture that the biblical content came from is not one from this world nor trapped in a limited era of history, applicable to that era alone. The Bible and its content come from a holy culture, one that transcends earthly time and is applicable in all eras of history.
….
The Biblical content comes from God who has his own culture. It is holy, just, fair, and it applies to everyone no matter how little, how big, how young, or how old.
The Bible has no earthly source and is God telling us how we are to live in his culture. Once we become Christians, we enter that culture and leave the old one behind. Our home is not this world, as the song goes, we are just passing through but as we pass through we are still expected to live by God’s culture, not this world’s.
If I were to ask you what Independent Fundamentalist Baptists value most, many of you would say things such as: Jesus, the B-I-B-L-E, hard preaching, and potlucks. However, these four articles of the IFB faith pale in comparison to the one thing valued above all others: the virginity of teen girls and never-married women. Valued above Jesus? Yes, even above Jesus. Intact hymens are the holy grail of the IFB church movement. This fact is best illustrated by a dating couple who came to an IFB pastor and asked if they only had “butt sex” would that mean the woman was still a virgin? The pastor, of course, told them that anal sex was the same as vaginal sex. But why would this question even be asked? Why would anyone think that anal sex (or oral) was not “real” sex? Because in IFB churches, the only hole God made for sex is judiciously protected against the insertion of anything besides tampons. No penises, fingers, vegetables, or battery-operated devices are allowed. (And on the extreme end of the IFB church movement, some pastors believe that married couples should only engage in vaginal sex — missionary position — while thinking how wonderful it would be if Bro. Billy Bob’s sperm hooked up with Sister Mary Lou’s eggs.)
From their teen years forward, IFB girls hear repeated warnings about having premarital sex and losing their virginity. These girls are told that only whores have premarital sex and that those who let boys score with them are like dirty rags fit for the trash. I have heard countless sermons — and preached a few myself — that focused solely on causing teen girls and unmarried women fear, guilt, and shame. While the young horn dogs of IFB churches, along with their wandering-eyed fathers, hear purity sermons from time to time, most of such sermons are directed at what IFB churches believe is the weaker sex. Women are reminded that they are the gatekeepers. It is up to them to protect not only their own holy virginity, but that of the boys and men. This is why there are so many rules about how women dress. The goal is to destroy their visage and beauty, those things that cause teenage boys to have wandering thoughts about youth group girls instead of their pastor’s weekly Biblical tirade.
Despite the Baptist burkas, hot-and-heavy sermons, and puritanical rules governing dating and male/female interaction and physical contact (there are no gays in IFB churches), unmarrieds do have sex. And thanks to Just Say No sex education, some girls do become pregnant.
In IFB churches, there’s nothing worse than one of the church girls getting pregnant (especially the preacher’s daughter). Whether the girl is fourteen or twenty-three, it matters not. Becoming pregnant without the benefit of marriage is a deep black stain on the mother-to-be and the church, the girl’s parents, and her pastor. By spreading her legs before marriage and “allowing” Deacon Noah’s son to plant his seed, she has repudiated everything her church, parents, and pastor believe about the sanctity of sex.
With such extreme thinking, wouldn’t it be best for all sexually aware IFB girls to be put on the pill? That way, the threat of embarrassment and scandal for IFB churches, pastors, and parents is eliminated. Makes sense, right? Why not take preventive measures, especially since any honest IFB preacher knows that more unmarrieds than not will eventually do the “dirty” deed. When I was asked this very question years ago, I told the questioner that allowing girls to use birth control was akin to saying that it was okay to have sex. This same logic was used for drinking alcohol, using drugs, and other behaviors deemed sins. JUST SAY NO was the only proper response to temptation and sin. It didn’t matter that most married adult IFB church members failed to just say no when they were single. (Ask your pastor or his wife if they were virgins on their wedding day.) All that mattered was maintaining the virginal illusion that when young IFB couples walked down the aisle, their lives were living testimonies to the rightness of IFB doctrine and practice.
I want to conclude this post with several anecdotal stories from my days as a student at Midwestern Baptist College and as a young IFB pastor.
As many of you know, the college I attended in the 1970s had (and still has) a strict no-contact-with-the-opposite-sex policy. If you are not familiar with this policy, please read Thou Shalt Not Touch: The Six Inch Rule. While an infinitesimally small number (I knew of four) of unmarried students kept the six-inch rule, the rest of us broke the rule with gusto. While some students could keep their virginity intact, other students scampered around the bases and slid into home. Those caught breaking the six-inch rule were usually campused (not permitted to leave campus) on a first offense. Further offenses, pregnancy, or whispers of sexual romps in cars, motel rooms, or the dormitory laundry room were harshly met with immediate expulsion. Not only were offenders shamed in front of their fellow students, many of whom were guilty of the very same sexual “crimes,” they were shipped home to their IFB churches, parents, and pastors to face further humiliation.
My first ministerial position post-college was as the assistant pastor of a General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) congregation in Montpelier, Ohio. During my seven-month stay at Montpelier Baptist Church, one of the girls in the church became pregnant. The pastor decreed that she and the father of the baby were to wed immediately. (My sister went through a similar circumstance, marrying at the age of fifteen.) Not only were they to promptly wed, but only immediate family could attend the wedding, and the girl would not be permitted to wear a white dress. The pastor told the pregnant girl that the color white was reserved for girls who were virgins on their wedding days. Her mistake was confessing her sin. Had she quickly and quietly run to the altar as other church women had done, she could have worn white and maintained the virginity illusion.
Years later, I attended a church service where a “loose” pregnant teen was brought before the church congregation and made to profess her wickedness publicly. Once she was sufficiently shamed, church members came to the weeping, shaking girl and embraced her, praising God for cleansing the girl from her sin. I do not doubt that many of these hugging super saints were guilty of the very same sin years ago. Sufficiently distanced from their own mortal sins, these holy saints of God likely felt no irony or guilt as they continued the shaming ritual.
Some IFB churches choose to make pregnant teens disappear. IFB parents who find out their daughters are pregnant will usually immediately (and frantically) contact their pastors to find out what they should do. Knowing that their daughters’ “sins” will sully their churches’ testimonies (and abortion is not an option), parents often choose to ship their pregnant teens to IFB group homes. These homes, which are frequently little more than prisons or reeducation camps, purportedly turned whores, sluts, and fornicators into blood-washed, white-as-the-driven-snow lovers of Jesus, the King James Bible, and the IFB way. Often, their babies are given up for adoption.
I hope readers raised in IFB churches will share their own experiences in the comment section. I have written here sounds out of this world to many people, but these stories and practices are repeated daily in countless IFB schools, colleges, churches, and homes. Since the IFB church movement prides itself on being the same today, yesterday, and forever (if it was good enough for Jesus and Paul, it’s good enough for me), the shaming rituals and abuse of years ago are often practiced today. As long as church teenagers keep having sex, there will be bastard children and women to ritually humiliate. Indeed, the IFB deity is an awesome God.
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.
Recently, a Christian man named Ricky New sent me several short emails. Here’s what he had to say:
You don’t have to respond, you do show the scriptures are true. He cannot deny himself, see you there.
and
You only have two choices, big bang, GOD, both take faith. No one on this planet was there. Here say is all they have. A GOD would better for to trust than the bang.
Typically, I don’t answer such emails. The senders usually just want to hear themselves talk. I decided, however, to answer New’s first email. Here’s my reply:
Ricky,
Oh, but I will .
True about what, exactly?
Can’t deny who, exactly?
What evidence do you have for the existence of God?
Have you read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books on the nature and history of the Bible? The Bible is not what you claim it is. Bring it on, Ricky.
See you “there.” Where, exactly, is “there?” How do you know that “there” exists?
What, exactly, did you read on my site? Do you know anything about my story? Please see Why?
The ball is in your court. Typically, I tell people like you to fuck off. Today, I am in a generous mood.
A sinner saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser
New, of course, never responded to me. Once you have shot your load, there’s nothing left. (And yes, that’s a sexual reference. I consider such emails as the equivalent of masturbation.)
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.
Some time ago, a man who says his name is Andrew Beltz left a troubling comment on the Why I Hate Jesus post. Beltz wrote:
So Bruce admits he is a hater. O.K. He has legitimized hate.
Now I can tell you Bruce that I hate you, you fat disgusting thing, because you were no good as a pastor and you hurt our family.
Yes, Bruce, I remember.
I immediately sent Beltz an email. Unfortunately, he used a fake email address, so my email to him bounced. Here’s what I wrote:
Andrew,
Before I post your comment, I would appreciate it if you would elaborate more on the claims made in your comment. I have no recollection of pastoring anyone with the last name Beltz. I see that you currently reside in the Goshen, Kentucky area. I have never lived in Kentucky. Perhaps you moved away from one of the areas I pastored. Which church were you a member of or at which church did you have a negative experience with me?
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Bruce Gerencser
Comments such as this always trouble me, and here’s why: I readily admit that my preaching, beliefs, and ministerial practices were harmful. When I have been able to talk with offended/hurt congregants privately, I have apologized to them for the harm I have caused. While I could justify myself by saying that I too was abused, and that I was simply a product of the religious environment I grew up in, I choose, instead, to own my behavior. I now know I hurt people. I didn’t at the time, but years of reflection have led me to conclude that I hurt my wife and children, along with the hundreds of people who once called me pastor or preacher. While I was a loving, helpful, kind, and compassionate pastor, I know that what I preached and what I modeled to congregants was psychologically harmful. And in some instances, patriarchal beliefs about child-rearing and family structure caused physical harm. That is what Fundamentalism does. It hurts the hurting, harms the harmless, and causes untold damage to people who sincerely buy into the lies. A lifetime of days is not enough for me to say I am sorry. There’s nothing I can do about the past other than speaking about it openly and honestly. In Beltz’s case, I will gladly talk with him if he wants to talk. I WANT to know about how I hurt people. I can’t make things right if I don’t know for sure what I did or who I hurt.
Former congregants who have contacted me have been, so far, children who grew up in the churches I pastored. Now adults, they too are trying to come to terms with the past. In every instance, they accepted my apology and forgave me. They also told me that I was too hard on myself, that no one forced their parents to attend one of the churches I pastored. They willingly became members, believing as I did that God, the Holy Spirit, empowered my preaching. Many of them just wanted someone to tell them what to believe or how to live their lives, and, being a good Baptist pastor, I was quite willing to fill this need. After all, this is exactly what my pastors, churches, and college professors did for me, shaping me into a man who would then take their teachings and harm several more generations of people.
While I find Beltz’s words hurtful, I bear them because I know how harmful my preaching, way of ministry, and demands for conformity were to people such as him. I don’t run or try to hide from my past. Anyone who wants to contact me can send me an email via the contact form. I respond to every email, though I can be somewhat slow in doing so. Health problems often keep me from being as timely as I would like to be, but I do answer every email sent to me.
Now, Beltz may be just a troll. Several commenters over the years have said they knew me or were members of one of the churches I pastored, only to be exposed as liars. One man went so far as to say that my whole story was a lie, that he knew people who lived in several of the areas I pastored, and none of them knew who I was. In Beltz’s case, I am, until I know otherwise, giving him the benefit of the doubt. I hope he will contact me using a valid email address. I sincerely want to, as much as lies within me, right past wrongs. I hope Andrew will give me a chance to do so.
Bruce Gerencser, 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.
Did you stop eating after ever vomiting from bad food? The answer is probably no, and you probably never will.
Actually, the answer for me is yes. You see, I have gastroparesis, an incurable stomach disease. I am sick all the time. There’s never a day when I want to eat. I have to force myself to eat, knowing that eating will cause me pain and may lead to violent fits of vomiting. And so it is with Evangelical Christianity. I have an incurable disease called reason, skepticism, and common sense. When “eating” Evangelical food, I want to vomit. Worse yet, when I see and experience bad behavior from Evangelicals, I want to run to the bathroom and hurl. There is nothing in Evangelicalism that makes me say, “yummy, this is tasty, nutritious food.” Instead, Evangelicalism is a case of food poisoning waiting to happen. No matter where I eat from the Evangelical buffet, I find under-cooked, slimy food. But hey, the price is right. FREE, according to Evangelical preachers; but later, when diarrhea and vomiting hit you, you learn the true cost of FREE.
Then you shouldn’t have stop believing because of some bad taste or behavior put in your mouth. A lot of the bad behaviors that i see that go on in the name of God will never separate or stop this BORN-AGAIN Believer from believing in God thru Jesus Christ!!
You commented on a Black Collar Crime post, a series devoted to exposing the crimes and misconduct of primarily Evangelical clerics. You seem dismissive of this behavior, thinking that it speaks nothing about the veracity, truthfulness, and morality of Evangelical Christianity. Much like the Roman Catholic Church with its pedophile problem, Evangelicalism has a huge problem with preachers who are sexual predators. Throw in preachers who have sexual affairs with church members, and it is easy to conclude that children and women are not safe within the four walls of Evangelical churches. This isn’t a matter of a few bad apples — as if that somehow justifies immoral and criminal behavior. The barrel is full of rot, littered with bad apples, and thanks to the Internet, the truth about what Evangelical preachers (and other church leaders) do behind closed doors is finally being exposed.
Come back to God, Bruce, you know He loves you.
There is no God for me to come back to. Do you have any actual evidence for the existence of your peculiar God; anything besides bald assertions and personal testimonies? Since there is no God, your claim that he loves me is false. And even if God does exist, how do you know he loves me? Perhaps I am an apostate, or I have committed the unpardonable sin. Maybe the Calvinists are correct, and I am not one of the elect. Or perhaps the Arminians are correct, and I have crossed the line of no return. So, it is arrogant for you to assume that God loves me.
You wrongly think that when I left Christianity, I suffered loss. I didn’t. Instead, I gained freedom. Real freedom. I would say to you, don’t you want real freedom, ZulaBula? No Heaven, no Hell, no sin, no wrathful, judgmental God, no dictates from the Bible. Just F-R-E-E-D-O-M.
I get the impression that you were a sincere and honest Pastor with lots of compassion.
And I am still a sincere, honest, compassionate man — no God, no religion needed. Do you really think it was God who made me sincere, honest, compassionate, and now that I am an atheist, my character has changed? What evidence do you have for this claim — especially since you don’t know me?
No man lives or dies to himself.
All of us live and die to ourselves, so I am not sure what point you are trying to make. That I need God? That I have a God-shaped hole that needs to be filled? That my life lacks meaning and purpose without Jesus? None of these claims is true. You believe they are because your religion and pastors have told you they are. Freedom awaits, ZulaBula, once you recognize that you have been sold a false bill of goods; that meaning and purpose can be yours without your peculiar brand of religion and God.
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.
C.T. Townsend is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor and evangelist located in North Augusta, South Carolina. In 2019, Townsend became the pastor of Victory Baptist Church in North Augusta.
In the eyes of some of Townsend’s followers, he is a demigod, a man of God who must be defended at all costs. As I showed in my previous posts, some of Townsend’s devotees are vitriolic and hateful. Townsend likely knows about my writing. My posts show up first page in Google Search. I suspect that this why my posts about him attract so much attention from loving, kind devotees of his. Townsend has made no effort to stop his attack dogs, so I assume he is okay with their defenses of his preacher virginity.
Over the weekend, I received the following email from yet another Townsend follower. I am starting to think that Townsend is a cult leader. Naw, just typical IFB behavior.
William, a Baptist preacher, had this to say (all spelling and grammar in the original):
I believe the Great White Throne judgement will be much worse for people like you. I am glad there is enough grace and mercy in GODs salvation plan for people like you. The BIBLE says YOU will be judged with the same judgement that you judged CT Townsend with. I have seen myself 100s of people accept CHRIST UNDER HIS GREAT HOLY GHOST PREACHING I don’t believe you have a clue what that is. You may be an atheist now but when you get to this judgement I promise you Will Not be an atheist. I wont be at this judgement but I would love to watch people of great intellect like Darwin and you bow before a 3 times HOLY GOD and CONFESS JESUS AS THE ONLY BEGOTTON SON OF GOD. How you can look at GODs beautiful creation and believe there is no creator is beyond me. The BIBLE says to TOUCH NOT mine anointed. Be careful brother you are walking on dangerous ground. You know nothing about CT Towsend. The life He lives and what He says proves what’s in His heart I don’t know you but THE BIBLE SAYS Out of the abundance of the Heart the mouth speakerth What you say about GODs man exposes who You Are ! It’s funny to me that a child of satan thinks he’s so smart that he can judge a Great Man of GOD like CT Townsend. I will leave you with this Bible verse The FOOL hath said in his heart There is no GOD. THE BIBLE IS NEVER WRONG. I wouldnt be in your shoes for all the world’s riches you may have years of experience but that means nothing when you’ve never been born again . I am a Baptist preacher and have been a lot of years and there is absolutely nothing you can teach me. But there is a Whole lot I could teach you. But you will learn soon enough you expect respect from Christian’s really ?? You can run down our savior our indewller and God himself and you want respect. Talk to other atheist maybe they will ! Lol !
Just another day in Bruce Gerencser’s inbox.
While I was working on this post, I received a comment from a follower of Townsend (who says she’s not a “follower” of Townsend, but commented on a post specifically about him) named Dedra McCoy:
Jesus Loves You even though You Don’t Believe in Him. My Prayer is that You find The Truth. I would rather take my Chance in believing in Heaven and hell. I definitely don’t want to take a chance going to hell. I’m Church of God, and I have experienced The Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Meaning of True Love. I Love You and Pray that You find God in Your life.
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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As a young boy, I was a big fan of actress Stefanie Powers. In particular, I loved her movie Die! Die! My Darling! Polly had not seen this movie before, so last year we watched it together. I’m still in love with Powers.
Yesterday, I received a short email from a Christian woman claiming her name was Cynthia Love. As I read Love’s comment, I thought about the movie Die! Die! My Darling! Based on the site server logs, Love only read one post on this site, Jesus Loves the Little Children, All the Children of the World, before sending me the following email. Afterward, Love was served up the front page. Whether she read any of the posts on the front page is uncertain.
What is certain is that something I wrote offended Love. Instead of walking in the fruit of the Spirit and emulating the life and teaching of Jesus, Love decided to show me some “Christian love”:
Spreading your blatant generalized hatered about people only makes you a worse person. I am glad you are sick, there are many people suffering needlessly. You deserve it.
Spreading blatant hatred? Where? Certainly not in the post Love read. Maybe she is one of those kinds of Christians offended by anything and everything critical of her precious Jesus and religion. Regardless, Love says my “hatred” has turned me into a “worse” person. What, exactly, is a “worse” person? Worse than a woman telling a sick, dying man that she’s glad he’s sick, and she hopes he suffers and dies? Worse than telling a man that he deserves the pain and suffering from gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and osteoarthritis he battles every day of his life? Worse than being so callous and indifferent towards the suffering of an alleged “hateful” atheist that you hope he gets sicker and dies (that’s the practical implication of her kind, thoughtful, loving words)?
To my fellow atheists and agnostics, can you imagine going into a cancer ward and telling sick, dying patients that you are glad they are sick; that they deserve being sick? Of course not. We have morals and ethics. We care about others, even if they believe differently from us. No, it is a special kind of Christianity that causes Cynthia Love to wish on me more pain and suffering. No doubt, in the Dark Ages, Love would have loved torturing heretics.
Is it any wonder that Evangelicals-turned-atheists don’t want anything to do with God/Jesus/Christianity?
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 “overwhelming evidence” for the Biblical Jesus. Or so says Etienne Van Heerden. My response is italicized and indented.
I have an extremely inquiring mind and questioned the religious teachings of my parents by wanting prove which i concluded after logical and scientific consideration of the following undeniable facts :
According to Van Heerden, what follows are undeniable facts for the Biblical Jesus. Van Heerden paints himself as one with an inquiring mind, one who came to these conclusions through logic and science. As readers shall see, Van Heerden skipped numerous shelves of books in his inquiries, coming to conclusions that are little more than apologetical talking points or fanciful thinking.
1) There must have been somebody like Jesus since his birth is still celebrated annually across the globe, by Billions of people.
Why? What actual evidence do you have for this claim? Billions of people worship all sorts of deities that Christians say are false gods. How do we determine your god claims are true, and all others false?
Do you believe Santa Claus is real? Every December 24th and 25th, people across the globe celebrate Christmas and pay homage to Santa. Using your logic, this means Santa is real. The same can be said for the Easter Bunny.
Personally, I believe there was in first-century Palestine a man by the name of Jesus. He lived and died, end of story. You are making claims that are not supported historically, as I shall show in just a minute.
2) He performed numerous well documented, teachings and miracles including curing the blind, feeding thousands of people with 5 loaves of bread and raising the dead including a partially decomposed Lazarus ( SOME EVENTS WITNESSED BY THOUSANDS) hence the reason for his huge following ,with no documented evidence to the contrary.
You are kidding, right? Well documented? Where, exactly? Please provide all this well-documented evidence for the claims you make for Jesus. All you have is the gospels — books written 30-90 years after the death of Jesus by unknown authors. None of the gospel accounts were written by eyewitnesses.
Further, there is little to no extrabiblical evidence for Christ’s existence, let alone the miracles you claim he performed. You would think that if a man had been performing these stupendous miracles in and around Jerusalem that a Jewish or Roman historian would have mentioned it. Yet, history is silent. Why is that? What logical conclusion should we come to?
Have you read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books? Ehrman is a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina. His books demolish virtually every claim you make in your email. If you haven’t read his books, I encourage you to do so. You have definitely NOT done your homework if you haven’t read Ehrman’s books. And frankly, I know you haven’t. Had you actually read his books, you would never have made the false claims you make in your email.
3) His cause of death (well documented by numerous historians) was definitely attributed to crucifixion ,prophesied 600 years prior to his birth.
Again, I would love to see this well-documented evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus from NUMEROUS historians. This, my friend, is untrue. You are either ill-informed or delusional. If Jesus was the miracle worker you say he is, was executed on a Roman cross, and rose from the dead three days later, why did contemporary Jewish and Roman historians not write one word about it?
4) He must have been resurrected as the pharisees who hated him and organized for the Roman guards would have left no stone left alone grave stone unturned , to find his body if it was stolen as some might suggest.I live on a farm in South Africa with a fair amount of tracking skills and can conclude that it would have been relitively easy to track the transportation of his body on the gravel roads as it would not be more than a few hours of his body discovered as missing.
You seem to think bald assertions are evidence. Jesus was a flesh and blood human. What do we KNOW about humans? They all eventually die. No exceptions. Jesus was executed because he committed crimes against the Roman state. Whatever the circumstances of his burial, Jesus remains dead to this day. Do you have any actual evidence to the contrary?
Unless you can provide any ancient scriptures or documents to the contrary, one then has to except he was the son of GOD / MIGHTY BEING with the power to perform such miracles.
The burden of proof is yours, not mine. You have provided none, except for boldly asserting the Bible and its second/third/fourth hand testimonials are true. Do you believe NASA landed a spacecraft on the Moon in 1969? Do you know that there are people who believe the moon landing is a hoax, and they have even written books about it? You claim to be a rational man. I suspect you believe the Moon landing really happened, just as described by countless eyewitnesses. Why, then, do you reject the claims of the hoax believers? Evidence, right? Why would you not apply this same methodology to the Biblical Jesus? There’s no verifiable firsthand, eye witness evidence for the claims made for Jesus in the Bible. Yet, you accept what the Bible says as fact. And that’s fine as long as you admit that you believe these things on faith, not scientific, historical evidence.
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.
