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.
In 2023, Paul Coleman, pastor of Good Samaritan Outreach Ministries in Wichita Falls, Texas was indicted on one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child by sexual contact.
A pastor of a Wichita Falls church has been indicted on one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child by sexual contact.
The indictments alleged the sexual assault occurred on November 19, 2022, and the indecency on October 1, 2022.
Investigators said the 11-year-old victim’s family attended his church, Good Samaritan Outreach Ministries on East Carolina Street.
According to the arrest warrants, the girl made an outcry at the hospital and Patsy’s House Children’s Advocacy Center. She said Coleman began by kissing her at the church and in his home on Perrigo Street.
The victim said on November 19 she had gone to the bathroom at the church and came out to find Coleman with his pants down around his ankles and then he sexually assaulted her. She said he threatened to kill her if she told anyone what happened.
One of the girl’s siblings was also interviewed at Patsy’s House and said he saw his sister against a wall and heard her telling Coleman to get off her.
He said Coleman told him to get out and not tell anyone, or he would do something to him.
In 2024, additional sex crime charges were levied against Coleman.
Just over a year since he was released on a lower bond, a former Wichita Falls pastor is back in jail with new child sex crime charges and bonds.
Paul Andrew Coleman has bonds totaling $300,000 on new indictments alleging continuous sexual abuse of a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
The anonymous victim in the continuous abuse charge is different from the female victim listed in Coleman’s first indictments in March of last year.
With two new charges and being reindicted, Coleman now has four counts filed.
Coleman was first arrested in December 2022 with bonds of $300,000. They were lowered to $120,000 in March 2023, and he posted bonds the next month and was released with the stipulation he wear a GPS monitor at all times.
The first two offenses are alleged to have occurred November 19, 2022, and October 1, 2022. The additional offenses are alleged to have occurred June 1, 2022, and Nov. 30, 2022.
The first offense allegedly involved an 11-year-old girl who attended his church, Good Samaritan Outreach Ministries on East Carolina Street, with her family.
She said Coleman began kissing her at the church and in his home on Perigo Street and sexually assaulted her when she came out of the bathroom at the church.
She said he threatened to kill her if she told anyone what happened.
The girl’s brother told interviewers he witnessed the assault and was also threatened.
More than two years after a former Wichita Falls pastor was first accused of sex crimes against young girls in his congregation, a date has been set for his impending trial.
Paul Andrew Coleman, 68, of Wichita Falls, stands accused of one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child, two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, and one count of indecency with a child by sexual contact.
On March 4, 2025, an order was signed by 78th District Court Judge Meredith Kennedy, who specially set Coleman’s trial to begin on May 19, 2025.
Coleman, the founder and former pastor of Good Samaritan Outreach Ministries on East Carolina Street, has been held in the Wichita County Jail on bonds totaling $425,000 since May 17, 2024.
The charges against Coleman stem from between June 1, 2022, and November 30, 2022, when he was alleged to have sexually assaulted two girls who had attended his church and were both preteens at the time.
….
According to statements made by the victim’s family members and a forensic interviewer, the assaults of the two girls occurred at his residence and the church.
Other court documents alleged that Coleman had been sexually abusing the alleged child victims since September 2020.
The prosecution also accused Coleman of grooming one of the victims and her family by buying them things, dropping food and gifts off at their house, and buying a victim a phone. They also say Coleman would come to the victim’s home when adults were not home.
They also accuse Coleman of grooming the other alleged victim and her family by helping to “discipline” the victim and her siblings by getting isolated contact with them, giving them attention, playing games with them and kissing the victim.
According to the state’s notice, Coleman allegedly threatened to kill one of the victims if she told anyone how he was touching her. He’s also accused of threatening to “do something” to the victim’s brother if he told anyone what he saw.
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.
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo, and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities. On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.
I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.
I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.
While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns — based on racism and disinformation — to go unchecked. Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.
If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.
The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa holders, green card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.
Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my firstborn child.
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.
In 2024 when Donald Trump as a presidential candidate proposed piping water from British Columbia, Canada to California, his statement was largely dismissed as campaign rhetoric.
Once he was elected, Canadians started paying attention but the potential water grab was seen as logistically and politically problematic and unlikely to gain traction. And the issue received scant attention in the water-rich Great Lakes regions of the U.S. and Canada.
But now, Great Lakes water and related agreements between the U.S. and Canada are clearly on President Trump’s radar according to a recent New York Times story.
The Times reported that Trump told Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February that he wanted to abandon various border agreements including those concerning water.
“He wanted to tear up the Great Lakes agreements and conventions between the two nations that lay out how they share and manage Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario,” according to the Times.
Executive director of the Traverse City non-profit FLOW, Liz Kirkwood said the scope of agreements include the Boundary Waters Treaty, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the Great Lakes Compact.
Kirkwood described the agreements as a “Great Lakes partnership between Canada and the U.S. and they are a global model to protect and steward 20% of the planet’s fresh surface water.”
Kirkwood said any attempt to break the agreements would be “bad for the health of our lakes and our communities and ultimately destructive of the U.S. relationship with a trusted neighbor.”
Given the magnitude of Trump’s statements, Great Lakes Now canvassed the region for reactions, seeking comments from select governors and the Premier of Ontario. Ontario borders four of the five Great Lakes and is Canada’s most populous province with 14 million people.
In addition to FLOW, Great Lakes Now sought comments from Illinois-based Alliance for the Great Lakes and Wisconsin-based Milwaukee Riverkeeper. Both were instrumental in promoting passage of the Great Lakes Compact that prevents large-scale diversions from the Great Lakes.
Alliance CEO Joel Brammeier said: “U.S. treaties and agreements with Canada, and similar agreements among the states and provinces, are the bedrock on which sustainable protection and restoration of our Great Lakes is built.”
“There is no space for the U.S. to step back from its shared obligation,”Brammeier said.
From Milwaukee, Riverkeeper Cheryl Nenn said: “we should not play politics with the Great Lakes.”
Nenn also noted that only 1% of the Great Lakes are replenished by rainfall and snowmelt.
“They are a one-time gift from the glaciers, and we need to protect them from abuse and over-consumption and that should supersede all politics,” Nenn said.
Great Lakes Now also sought comments from water policy experts who have held official governance positions.
Chicago’s Cameron Davis was a longtime Great Lakes advocate before moving to the U.S. EPA under President Obama where he advised the administrator on Great Lakes issues.
“Midwesterners see protecting the Great Lakes and its water as an act of patriotism,” Davis said. “And they’re smart enough to know Canada is our friend in that effort.”
Davis noted that support for the lakes has been bi-partisan and he expected that the Great Lakes states “will defend their relationship with Canada.”
The bi-partisan federal support over the last 20 years includes an executive order signed by President George W. Bush that declared the Great Lakes a “national treasure.” Bush’s order laid the groundwork for development of the Great Lakes restoration program.
President Obama jumped-started restoration by putting $475 million in his first budget and funding continues today. It was also Bush who signed the legislation that codified the Great Lakes Compact into federal law.
Canada’s Maude Barlow is a veteran author and water advocate who served as the senior adviser on water to the United Nations General Assembly.
Barlow pointed to the lack of detail in Trump’s comments but said if he is referring to abandoning the Great Lakes Compact, “that is worrying.”
“He could then just cancel the Compact on the American side and start diverting Great Lakes water around the country to service the manufacturing and technology resurgence he is planning. In this case there would be little Canada could do,” she said.
The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec have agreements that mirror the U.S. Compact but exist separately.
Barlow said Canadians value and protect their water heritage and will fight to defend it.
“And we know many Americans would take our side in such a struggle,” Barlow said.
Michigan’s Dave Dempsey served as a senior adviser on the staff of the International Joint Commission (IJC), the U.S.-Canada agency that advises the countries on transboundary issues.
“The IJC has a culture of joint fact-finding,” Dempsey said. “And the respectful resolution of boundary waters disagreements has served the two countries well. Abrogating the treaties would be a colossal mistake.”
An IJC spokesperson declined to comment on Trump’s water statements saying the agency “does not comment on political matters or issues of domestic policy. This is important in order to ensure our effectiveness as an impartial advisor to governments.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, both Democrats, did not respond to a request to comment on President Trump’s water statements.
Daniel Tierney, spokesperson for Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine declined to comment saying “I am not aware of a formal or final policy on which to comment.”
However, it’s important to note that Great Lakes governors have responsibility for the lakes via the Compact.
At a meeting of Great Lakes governors and premiers in Milwaukee, in 2019, Gov. Whitmer told Great Lakes Now that the lakes are “at the core of who Michigan is” and said, “absolutely, Michigan has to lead on Great Lakes issues.”
A spokesperson for Ontario Premier Doug Ford declined to comment saying:
“The issue is purely speculative at this point.”
Ford, a Progressive Conservative, has been aggressive in responding to Trump’s tariff threats.
The White House did not respond to a request to comment on Trump’s desire to put water agreements between the U.S. and Canada in play.
Please check out Circle of Blue for more articles on the Great Lakes.
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.
This series, titled Trump Dump, features outlandish, untrue quotes from Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, and Right Wing media. If you come across a quote for this series, please send it to me with a link to the news story that contains the relevant quote.
A lot of people forget that Gaza was once a place inhabited by both Jews and Palestinians until 2005 when Ariel Sharon decided to give it all away.
And the result we saw October the 7th. President Trump did something bold. He looked into the future and said kind of a what if. We don’t know exactly what might happen in Gaza, but here’s what could have happened in Gaza.
Gaza could have been Singapore. Instead, Hamas turned it into Haiti.
And I’m very optimistic that with his leadership, his bold and innovative thinking, he doesn’t think like the other politicians and diplomats have thought. I heard somebody say he’s thinking outside the box. That’s ridiculous. He’s not thinking outside the box. He throws the box away and says, let’s start with a blank slate and see where this could go. That’s leadership.
I will use this term, Maria. I think we will see something of biblical proportion happen with his leadership in the Middle East.
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.
This series, titled Trump Dump, features outlandish, untrue quotes from Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, and Right Wing media. If you come across a quote for this series, please send it to me with a link to the news story that contains the relevant quote.
The Democrats, basically, they don’t like our country anymore. They just want to tear it down … Every Democrat that we work with up here, they’re gonna take this guy’s side and they’re gonna try to drive this narrative that he’s doing the right thing.
“You know, we have two levels of education. We have K-12 and we have higher ed. We’ve gotta treat both of them different, but when it comes to protesters, we gotta make sure we treat all of ‘em the same: Send ’em to jail.
Free speech is great, but hateful, hate, free speech is not what we need in these universities, and they don’t need to be doing things that they’re preaching from Hamas, about antisemitism.
— Senator Tommy Tuberville
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.
This series, titled Trump Dump, features outlandish, untrue quotes from Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, and Right Wing media. If you come across a quote for this series, please send it to me with a link to the news story that contains the relevant quote.
Anybody think if there’s a Lake Michigan, maybe there should be a Lake Ohio around here? I’m feeling that. We’ll talk about that a little bit more as this campaign progresses.
— Vivek Ramaswamy, 2026 Republican Candidate for Ohio Governor, as reported by Cleveland.com
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 2025 Major League Baseball season started yesterday with the LA Dodgers playing the Chicago Cubs in Japan. This is sacrilegious. The first game of the year was traditionally played by the Cincinnati Reds. They are the oldest team in baseball. I’ve been to one opening day. No team and community does opening day better than Cincinnati. Hope springs eternal. While it’s doubtful the Reds will win the division, league, or World Series, they hopefully will field a competitive team and keep them competitive after football starts.
Trump allegedly won a golf tournament over the weekend. I say “allegedly” since Trump is a notorious cheat.
Over 400 Palestinians were killed, and 500 were wounded, in Israel’s latest genocidal attack on Gaza — with the support of the Trump Administration. There is no moral justification for Israel’s continued slaughter of innocent Palestinian men, women, and children.
U.S. Attorney General Barbie Doll Bondi wants to arrest people picketing Tesla dealerships, charging them with domestic terrorism. Evidently, Bondi doesn’t know anything about the Bill of Rights.
Will the rule of law survive Donald Trump and his minions? Maybe, but it increasingly looks like Trump plans to break the government, even if it means violating the law. What are people to do when a branch of government willingly breaks the law and ignores court rulings?
Trump wants new coal mines built — operations that will produce “clean coal.” There’s no such thing as clean coal, but the Trump Administration denies reality, so all things are possible when you are delusional.
Egg prices are coming down. Thanks to Trump? Nope. Those of us who live in farm country know that if you cull millions of hens due to bird flu infection, the supply chain will be disrupted and prices will go up until flocks are repopulated.
Trump plans to bend over and give Vladimir Putin what he wants as Ukraine helplessly stands by. Ukraine is a sovereign state. They, alone, should be negotiating with Russia. Trump wants the world to see him as a shrewd deal maker. I suspect Putin thinks Trump is a useful idiot.
Trump bombed Yemen yesterday, killing scores of civilians. Is it any wonder that hundreds of millions of people hate the United States? Every immoral bombing plants seeds for more terrorists. War and violence NEVER bring peace. After two world wars and countless other wars, it’s clear that many American politicians of both parties are warmongers.
Just because I oppose Israel’s immoral war against Palestine doesn’t mean I’m an antisemite. Supporters of Israel use the antisemite label to shut off criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza. I’ve heard several Democratic leaders say protesters are “antisemites.” Others think protesters are “terrorists.” This tells me that some Democrats need a dictionary.
Bonus: After watching The Atheist Experience, Talk Heathen, and other atheist programs for the past fifteen years, I’ve concluded that Christians do not have persuasive arguments for the existence of God — the worst of which is Pascal’s Wager.
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.
Having engaged in discussions and debates with Evangelical apologists over the years, I’ve found that many of their arguments are irrational, inconsistent, and contradictory. Take the “law of God.” According to Matthew 5:17-20:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5-7 records what is commonly called The Sermon on the Mount. Preached by Jesus himself, the Son of God told the gathered crowd that until heaven and earth pass, every letter and stroke of a letter of the law remains in force. Jesus was clear, the Law of God remains in force until heaven and earth pass away. Have heaven and earth passed away? No, so that means the Law of God is valid, binding, and in force. Disagree? Take it up with God. 🙂
The problem, of course, is that Evangelicals don’t agree with one another as to what, exactly, the Law of God is. When Jesus allegedly uttered these words, the Law of God was the Old Testament; the 613 laws of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). According to the aforementioned quote, are all of these laws in force today? Most Evangelicals say “no”; they are New Covenant (New Testament) Christians, so only the laws in the New Testament are binding today. When pushed on this matter, you will quickly find that most Evangelicals ignore the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, picking and choosing which laws apply to them today. Evidently, what Jesus said doesn’t matter.
Some Evangelicals think the Law of God is the Ten Commandments. There are several renderings of the Ten Commandments, none of which agrees with the others. Typically, Evangelicals consider the Exodus 20 rendering of the Law to be the official Law of God, ignoring the irreconcilable discrepancies between the versions.
Do Evangelicals really believe and practice the Ten Commandments? Of course not, silly boy. I have yet to meet an Evangelical that keeps all ten commandments. I am sure they exist, but I just don’t know any. Ask yourself, do you know of a Christian that keeps these commands?
Then God spoke all these words,
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
I don’t know of anyone who keeps all of these laws. I know, as an Evangelical Christian, I was moral and ethical, but I did not keep all ten commands. I suspect Christians who frequent this site will say the same.
Many Evangelicals believe the Ten Commandments are the law of God written on the hearts (consciences) of all humans; that all of us intuitively know to keep God’s laws. Why, then, are Evangelicals, who allegedly have God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, living inside of them as their teacher and guide, lawbreakers? Only ten commandments. How hard can it be, right? Evidently, too hard for Evangelicals to practice and obey.
Certainly, moral and ethical teachings can be found in the Bible, including the Ten Commandments. However, in this modern age of the printed page and the Internet, we have many sources of moral and ethical wisdom and teaching at our disposal. All of us pick and choose what laws apply to us. I don’t know one Evangelical who keeps the law to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” The “Sabbath” in Jesus’s day was a twenty-four-hour period of work cessation and worship. This is far different from what Evangelicals do today: two hours of church on Sunday mornings, and then off to Bob Evans to eat before going to work, shopping, or the ball game. If this law is written on the hearts of Evangelicals, why don’t they practice it?
I deconverted from Christianity almost seventeen years ago. One of the first things I had to do, and continue to do today, is determine the moral and ethical foundation for my life. The Bible was no longer a sufficient guide, and I had come to see that more than a few of God’s commands were immoral. Other commands were contrary to my values. The Bible spends a lot of time talking about sex; who can do it with whom, when, where, how, and why. Those of us raised in Evangelical churches heard a lot of preaching about sex. And I, as a pastor, preached a lot of sermons about the subject. Today, as a humanist, I reject what the Bible says about sex. Instead, values such as consent and bodily autonomy govern my views on human sexuality. What two (or more) consenting people do sexually in the privacy of their homes is their own business. Not mine, not yours, not the local preacher’s, and not God’s.
My moral and ethical views continue to evolve to this day. My list of thou shalt’s and thou shalt not’s is quite small. I subscribe to the Humanist Manifesto:
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
The lifestance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance.
This document is part of an ongoing effort to manifest in clear and positive terms the conceptual boundaries of Humanism, not what we must believe but a consensus of what we do believe. It is in this sense that we affirm the following:
Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.
Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the lifestance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.
Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature’s resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.
Humanists are concerned for the well-being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.
Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.
As you can see, the Humanist Manifesto III conflicts with how Evangelicals interpret the Bible; that its moral and ethical teachings are different from what’s found in the Ten Commandments and other Biblical laws. Generally, I govern my life by four maxims: Don’t be an asshole, Do good to others, Lessen suffering for all living things, and love others (in thoughts, words, and deeds) as much as lies within me.
I don’t need the Bible or the Ten Commandments to know how to live and treat others. I spent fifty years in Evangelicalism, so even though I no longer believe in the existence of the Christian deity, what I learned at church and from the Bible still informs my morals and ethics. The difference now, of course, is that the Bible alone is no longer the foundation of my life; not that it ever was. All of us frame our moral and ethical structure based on a variety of experiences. That’s why none of us has the same moral and ethical foundation. Morality is inherently subjective, even if one is a Christian. The best we can do is to agree on a basic moral and ethical framework by which we govern our society.
How do you determine what is moral and ethical? Does the Bible and/or religion play a part? If you are no longer a Christian, have you found it difficult to determine your moral and ethical values? 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.
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.
Robert Morris, former pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, stands accused of five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child.
The founder of a Texas megachurch who resigned as senior pastor last year after he admitted “inappropriate sexual behavior” in the 1980s has been indicted on five criminal counts involving a child, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday.
Robert Morris, 63, who founded Gateway Church in Southlake, is charged with five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
The abuse began in December 1982 when Morris was visiting the Hominy, Oklahoma, home of the victim, the attorney general’s office alleged. He was 21 and she was 12 at the time.
It continued for four years, the office said.
It was not clear whether Morris had an attorney in the criminal case announced Wednesday.
Gateway Church in Southlake, which is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is the one of the largest megachurches in the United States.
In June, after Cindy Clemishire came forward to accuse Morris of sexually abusing her as a child, Morris said he engaged in “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying” in a statement to the evangelical news site The Christian Post.
“It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong,” he said.
Three days later, he resigned as senior pastor, and the church’s Board of Elders said it had not been aware of the girl’s age or the length of the alleged abuse.
“The elders’ prior understanding was that Morris’s extramarital relationship, which he had discussed many times throughout his ministry, was with ‘a young lady’ and not abuse of a 12-year-old child,” the board said at the time.
A voicemail left with the church’s administrative offices was not immediately returned after business hours Wednesday evening.
A multicounty grand jury returned the indictment against Morris, the attorney general’s office said.”There can be no tolerance for those who sexually prey on children,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in the statement.
“This case is all the more despicable because the alleged perpetrator was a pastor who exploited his position,” Drummond said. “The victim in this case has waited far too many years for justice to be done.”
The indictment, which refers to the girl only as C.C., alleges that Morris inappropriately touched the girl, beginning around Dec. 25, 1982, when she was 12, and again on other occasions when she was 13 to 14 years old, including once when he rubbed himself on her. He also on one occasion took off the girl’s clothes when she was 12, the indictment says.
Clemishire told NBC News last year that the abuse started when Morris, an evangelist, was staying at the family’s home on Christmas Day.
Clemishire said Morris told her: “Never tell anyone about this. It will ruin everything.”
In a written statement Wednesday, she said she was grateful to authorities for their work on the criminal case.
“After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me as a child. Now, it is time for the legal system to hold him accountable,” she said.
In 2007, Clemishire hired Drummond to represent her in seeking restitution from Morris to cover the cost of her counseling. The negotiations fell apart when Clemishire was not willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement, she has told NBC News.
Morris was a member of President Donald Trump’s spiritual advisory committee during his first term.
After the allegations were made public last year, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said Trump had not been aware of the allegations.
Morris was not in custody Wednesday, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said. Charges will be entered Thursday in Osage County, and a judge will set an initial appearance and bond.
“The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office will work with Morris’ attorneys for him to surrender himself,” the attorney general’s office said.
The charge of lewd or indecent acts on a child is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, the office said.
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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My partner and I will celebrate forty-seven years of wedded bliss in July. We dated for two years before we married. This gave us a lot of time to talk about our “future.” Polly was nineteen and I was twenty-one when we married. Immature, naive, and inexperienced, we had grand plans for our lives. We planned to have two children, a boy named Jason and a girl named Bethany. We had no plans to have more than two children.
After having three boys in quick succession, we decided three children was enough. For almost five years, we were content to be a family of five. In the late 1980s, I discarded the theology of my Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) upbringing and embraced Evangelical Calvinism. As a Calvinist, I believed God was sovereign over all things and controlled who was born and who died. The Bible says:
Do I open the womb and not deliver the baby? Do I, the One who delivers babies, shut the womb? (Isaiah 66:9)
As a Calvinist, I believed God opened and closed the womb. No woman became pregnant unless God permitted it. We might call some pregnancies “unplanned,” but every pregnancy — even those that ended in a miscarriage or an abortion — was according to God’s purpose and plan. No woman became pregnant and had a baby apart from the sovereign will of God. In 1 Samuel 1, we find the story of Hannah. The Bible says Hannah was barren. God had closed her womb. Hannah spent years begging God to open her womb. Finally, God opened her womb, and Samuel was born. Hannah would later have more children. (1 Samuel 1,2) So it was for every woman.
As Polly and I immersed ourselves in Calvinistic theology, we stumbled upon the Quiverfull movement. Psalm 127:3-5:
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them [children]: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Quiverfull is a Christian theological position that sees large families as a blessing from God. It encourages procreation, abstaining from all forms of birth control, natural family planning, and sterilization reversal. The movement derives its name from Psalm 127:3–5, where many children are metaphorically referred to as the arrows in a full quiver. Some sources have referred to the Quiverfull position as providentialism,while other sources have simply referred to it as a manifestation of natalism.
As Calvinists, we believed God opened and closed Polly’s womb; that we would have exactly as many children as planned by God. Using birth control was a sin; an attempt to circumvent the will of God. Five years after Polly gave birth to our third son, Jaime, she became pregnant again, two months after we stopped using birth control. We put Polly’s fertility in the hands of God. We quickly learned that Polly was a “fertile myrtle.” Over the next four years, Polly had three more children, two redheaded girls (one with Down syndrome) and one boy.
Polly’s sixth pregnancy was difficult, so much so that the obstetrician told her that she shouldn’t have any more children. This, of course, was problematic for us. The risk to Polly’s health and life was real, but God opened and closed her womb. Shouldn’t we follow God’s will, we told ourselves, trusting God to protect Polly if she got pregnant again? Wouldn’t using birth control be a betrayal of God’s sovereignty? If everything was in God’s hands, how dare we circumvent his will for our lives, we fearfully said to ourselves.
Eventually, we decided to follow the doctor’s advice. No more unprotected intercourse. No more trusting God to open and close Polly’s womb. Reason and common sense told us that six children was enough, and with that, Polly had a tubal ligation, permanently killing the proverbial rabbit.
Afterward, we struggled with this decision, thinking that we had failed God by not implicitly trusting him to order the size of our family. If only we had more faith, we thought. Would God punish us for not obeying him? For the longest time, we wondered if we were doing the right thing. Finally, we decided — God’s will or not — that we didn’t want any more children. And with that, we collected all our quiverfull books and donated them to Goodwill.
I’m sure some of our Calvinistic friends saw us as failures. How dare we put our will above God’s? Some of our friends had eight to twelve children. I have no doubt that had we continued having unprotected sex, we would have had ten or more children; that is if Polly didn’t die in childbirth. The responsible thing for us to do was not have any more children, regardless of what we thought that voice in our heads was telling us.
Do we regret having six children? Absolutely not. That said, if we had it to do all over again, would we have six children? No. Life was hard, and trying to raise a large family on poverty wages was difficult, to say the least. We survived, but having a smaller family would have made things easier for us. Such is life. You can’t redo and relive the past. All any of us can do is learn from the past and try to do better.
Were you part of the Quiverfull Movement? Please share your experiences 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.
