I rarely mention money in my writing, so no complaints that I am turning into a money-grubbing Evangelical preacher. 🙂 Until I can pay CASH for a new Learjet, I am poor and need your donations. 🙂 I have always operated under the notion, Freely give, freely receive. That said, it does take money to operate this blog. Further, to quote the Bible, The laborer is worthy of his hire (1 Timothy 5:18, Luke 10:7). Any money you send my way is greatly appreciated.
Donations are always welcome. You may donate in one of three ways:
Snail mail (Bruce Gerencser, PO Box 183, Ney, Ohio 43549)
Patreon (This is best for making recurring donations.)
PayPal (This is best for single or recurring donations.)
Keep in mind I must pay taxes on every donation I receive. This reduces every donation by at least 20%.
Whether you can send money my way or not, you are always welcome on this blog. My goal has never been to make money off this site, but I do appreciate every donation, big or small. Over the years, I have received one-time donations as large as $1,000 and as small as a dollar. All of it spends, right? I spent much of my life listening to preachers beg for money, even when they didn’t need it. You will not see such behavior from me. I will shutter this site before I have to resort to panhandling for Satan. 🙂
My partner, Polly, and I are facing a short-term financial problem. First, we have not yet recovered financially from both of us having major surgery in 2024. Polly was off work for almost three months, and this led to increased credit use.
Second, Polly started receiving Social Security last year, while still working. This led to a $6,000 overpayment, which she now has to pay back. Under Biden, we only had to pay ten percent of her check amount until the overage was paid in full. Trump raised the repayment percentage to fifty percent! Now that hurts a bit. 🙁 Polly could apply for a reduced repayment percentage, but the government requires an intrusive amount of information about your finances, including account numbers. I told Polly, “We can’t trust the government with all this information,” so we will have to cut both our discretionary and non-discretionary spending. We can do it, as we have for most of our lives.
Thank you for your kindness and support.
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.
For many years, this blog was hosted by Flywheel (which was bought out by WP Engine). I later moved this site to Hostinger, which later proceeded to dramatically raise the rate I was paying for hosting. I decided to move back to Flywheel, paying $30 a month for hosting. I was notified by Flywheel last week that, unbeknownst to me, this blog’s traffic numbers had dramatically increased, and I would have to move to a more expensive package — as in $300 a month!
This forced me to find another host. Rocket is my new service provider, costing $60 a month. Hopefully, I won’t have to mess with this again. I know, I know, false hope. 🙂
Let me know if you have any problems reading or commenting on this site. I am hopeful that I can focus on writing instead of messing with technical stuff. I am beyond worn out. 🙁
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.
Brett Kitko, pastor of The Phoenix at Central Park Church in Kernersville, North Carolina, stands accused of indecent liberties with a child and statutory rape/sex offense with a child.
A Winston-Salem man is facing child sex crime charges, according to court records.
Brett Martin Kitko, 50, of Winston-Salem, is accused in the warrant of having sex with a child.
Kitko is being charged with indecent liberties with a child and statutory rape/sex offense with a child.
According to the warrant, the offenses took place in August 2001. Kitko was taken into custody on Aug. 19.
The Forsyth County District Attorney’s Office confirms Kitko’s employment as senior pastor at Phoenix Church.
Kitko was given a $300,000 unsecured bond and appeared in court on Monday.
Kitko’s attorney told FOX8 that he will be pleading not guilty.
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.
Jose Fierro, a youth pastor at Revival Youth Tucson in Tucson, Arizona, stands accused of aggravated luring of a minor for sexual exploitation.
A youth pastor in the Tucson area has been accused of luring a minor.
The Oro Valley Police Department said 25-year-old Jose Fierro was arrested on Tuesday.
The OVPD said Fierro, a maintenance worker at The Golf Villas at Oro Valley and a youth pastor at Revival Youth Tucson, is facing a charge of luring a minor for sexual exploitation.
During his initial court appearance Tuesday night, a judge set his bond at $25,000. It appears he was able to post the bond as he was not in the Pima County Adult Detention Complex as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.
His next court appearance was set for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 15.
The OVPD said Fierro goes by “Bebecito Fierro” on social media.
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 closer I get to death and meeting Jesus personally face to face and giving an account for my life and for the careless words that I’ve spoken — and how much more for intentional stares — the more sure I am of my resolve to never intentionally look at a TV show or a movie or a website or a magazine where I know I will see photos or films of nudity. Never. And the closer I get to death, the better I feel about that and the more committed I become.
Jesus died to purify me. He died to purify his people. It is an absolute travesty of the cross to treat it as though Jesus died only to forgive us for the sin of watching nudity and not to purify us for the power not to watch it.
I want to invite, frankly, all Christians to join me in this pursuit of greater purity of heart and mind. In our day, when entertainment media is virtually the lingua franca of the world, this is an invitation to be an alien. And I believe with all my heart that what the world needs is radically bold, sacrificially loving, God-besotted freaks, aliens.
If we choose to endorse or embrace or enjoy impurity, we take a spear and ram it into Jesus’s side.
Seeing naked women causes men — and women seeing naked men — to sin with their minds and their desires and often with their bodies. If Jesus told us to guard our hearts by gouging out our eyes to prevent lust, how much more would he say, ‘Don’t watch it’?
These actresses are really naked in front of the camera, doing exactly what the director says to do with their legs and their hands, and their breasts. They’re standing there, and they’re naked in front of millions of people — for the world to see.
Men and women who want to be watched in their nudity are in the category with exhibitionists who pull down their pants at the top of escalators.
Letter sent to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News.
Dear Editor:
Our republic was saved from Donald Trump’s worst tendencies during his first administration by Republicans who understood what unchecked power could do in the hands of megalomaniac. Over the course of four years, they were replaced by feckless true-blue believers willing to bow to Trump’s delusional demands.
Today, the three branches of government are dominated by devotees to Trump and Project 2025. Loyal to the man, instead of the people, these servants tirelessly work to advance the whims of their leader. No regard is given to the U.S. Constitution or the rule of law. All that matters is obeisance to their savior Donald Trump. He alone, they say, can deliver us from communism, socialism, atheism, liberalism, and anything that paints White American Christians in a bad light.
In their minds, the United States is a Christian nation governed by the teachings of the Protestant Bible. Well, some teachings anyway. Trump-loving Christians ignore the verses that talk about how they should treat strangers and enemies; they ignore verses that explicitly condemn the Trump administration’s immoral treatment of undocumented workers and LGBTQ people. They worship what I call a Jesus of convenience; a Jesus that is used to advance political and social agendas instead of saving souls and transforming society.
It remains to be seen if our country will survive Donald Trump. Democrats fiddle while Rome burns, offering muted responses to Trump, if any at all, waiting until the time is “right.” If they can’t see the flames erupting through the roof, they aren’t paying attention. Protests and letters to the editor have their place — I’ve been writing letters for almost 50 years — but they alone cannot bring political and social change. The solution remains what it has always been: voting. As long as we are a democratic republic, voting remains the only means to effect change. If most Americans don’t vote, we can’t expect lasting change.
Trump plans to roll back progress to the Gilded Age of robber barons. The rich now control the reins of government more than ever before. One of their own now sits at the head of the table, acting like he’s a mob boss. All that matters to Trump is power and money; things Jesus expressly condemned. And if you stand in Trump’s way or dare to challenge his actions, he will bring the full force of the government down upon your head.
Bruce Gerencser Ney, Ohio
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Evidence for the Bible is everywhere, including outer space. We just have to be willing to look for it in a credible manner that brings glory to God. He does not lie, and the presence of water in Space shows us that God does not lie about biblical events. We know God did it because he told us he did it, and the evidence comes to shore up Christian faith when the time is right. As Christians, we do not need physical evidence. We just need to believe God because he does not lie.
And this is why having a discussion or debate with an Evangelical Christian is usually a waste of time. Discuss and debate if you must, but you won’t win. Why? When shown their beliefs and practices are false, what do Evangelicals do? Do they admit they are wrong? Do they admit you are right? Do they deconvert? Do they admit to having serious questions and doubts about their faith? Of course not, silly boy. When cornered, Evangelicals run to the safety of the house of faith and the inerrancy/infallibility of the Bible. Within the house of faith, all is ordered and well, and the Bible is true. Everything is right in this house. Of course, toking marijuana gives the same result — in my professional opinion. 🙂 It is only when Evangelicals venture outside the house of faith that change is possible. For it is in the world that they will find their beliefs and practices questioned, challenged, and overcome. Over the years, many devout Evangelicals and IFB Christians have stumbled upon this site, only to crawl away beaten and bruised, with more questions than answers.
Is my goal to evangelize for atheism? Nope. I don’t do it — ever. I am just one man with a story to tell. If my writing troubles someone or causes them to question or doubt, that’s on them. If they contact me, I will help them any way I can. I’m content to answer sincere questions and suggest books for people to read. Whatever they do with what they learn is up to them. Do some of them deconvert or move on to what I call “kinder, gentler Christianity?” You bet, and I am glad they did. Some sects of Christianity are more harmful than others. Evangelicalism, the IFB church movement, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Catholicism come to mind. These sects might be “right” about religion, but they sure cause a lot of harm, both physically and psychologically.
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.
How can a person forgive their worst enemies without divine enablement? Is this something we can do on our own, without supernatural love? Because we humans, as good as many are, would still balk at loving a person who killed their child, or loved one, or caused immense personal injury. And yet, there are many who have done just that.
I assume this reader is talking about the Christian (or other Abrahamic) religion. According to Christianity, believers are indwelt by the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. God lives inside of every believer, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He is their teacher and guide. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit teaches Christians EVERYTHING about life and godliness. Yet, we see no difference between how Christians and the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world live their lives.
This reader thinks that “forgiving their worst enemies” requires some sort of divine enablement; that, by implication, non-Christians, lacking divine enablement, are unable to do. Yet, countless Christians refuse to forgive others, and innumerable non-Christians selflessly forgive those who transgress against them. Forgiveness is a human thing; a learned character trait. Forgiveness is modeled (or not) to children by parents, grandparents, siblings, and other people close to them. A child who grows up in an unforgiving home will likely grow up to be an unforgiving adult. One can undo negative nurture in their lives, but it ain’t easy. Sometimes, it requires therapy to overcome negative character traits deeply embedded in a child’s psyche. Yes, parents, you can fuck up your kids. One need only look at President Donald Trump to see what bad parenting does to a person.
The reader’s comment reveals a false notion that is drilled into the heads of Christian children: you are required to forgive anyone who does you wrong. This idea is reinforced week after week through sermons and Sunday school lessons. Believers are taught to forgive everyone, just like God does. However, a cursory reading of the Bible clearly shows that God does not forgive everyone. He never has. Not in the Old Testament, and not in the New. Sure, we see God, at times, forgiving people, but we also see God not doing so many, many times
As an atheist, I reject the notion that I must always forgive anyone who offends me or causes me harm. I also reject the notion that we must love everyone unconditionally. (Please see Does God Love Us Unconditionally?) Is loving and forgiving others a good idea? Sure, but as with all “ideas,” there are nuances and exceptions that must be considered. Christians, however, must always, without exception, love and forgive. I contend that there are people who are not worthy of my love and forgiveness. My grandparents — who were fine, upstanding Christians who believed every word of the Bible — come to mind. (Dear Ann and Life with My Fundamentalist Baptist Grandparents, John and Ann Tieken.) Not only did I not love them, but when they died, I said, “Good riddance.” I said the same thing about my Christian uncle when he died; you know, the one who raped my mother. My grandparents caused untold harm to me and my mother. It was infuriating to hear people talk about how wonderful John and Ann were — awesome, Spirit-filled followers of Jesus — while knowing they were anything but. They had countless opportunities to practice Christianity in a meaningful way with our family, but they chose not to. And when they did deign to walk in Jesus’s steps, there were always strings attached to everything they did for you. Cross them, and as swift as getting your head cut off with a guillotine, they would cut off whatever help they were giving you. Critical and mean-spirited, they demanded, via Bible verse quotations, that people not treat them in kind. Simply put, they were fucking hypocrites.
All forgiveness and love are conditional. Christian or not, some lines can be crossed that are beyond love and forgiveness. And if you say otherwise, I don’t believe you. Stop with the syrupy claims that you love and forgive everyone. Can you not think of any circumstance where you wouldn’t love or forgive someone? I generally love and forgive others, but I can think of circumstances that are beyond my love and forgiveness. I refuse to pretend and love and forgive people, as I was commanded to do as a follower of Jesus; though even Jesus didn’t love and forgive everyone either.
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.
Millions of Evangelicals have read my writing since I first started blogging in 2007. Most of them never leave comments, but thousands of their fellow brethren have over the years. Sadly, many of their comments are judgmental, hateful, and argumentative. I have previously shared that some of these God-fearing, Jesus-loving, Holy Spirit-filled Christians turned to threatening me with violence. And yes, threatening someone with eternal torture in the Lake of Fire is a violent threat; one that countless Evangelicals have made towards me, my family, and the readers of this blog.
Sometimes, “nice” Christians stumble upon my writing. As they read through my responses to hateful Fundamentalist Christians, these “nice” Christians are appalled by what some of their born-again family members say to me. Often, “nice” Christians will say that nasty, hateful believers aren’t “real” Christians. Using the No Scotsman Fallacy, “nice” Christians excise from their religious family anyone who gives their tribe a bad name. Problem solved, right?
If that’s all “nice” Christians did, I would have no objection. If Christians want to fight amongst themselves about who is and isn’t a “true Christian,” have at it. I couldn’t care less. If Christians want to have a food fight with each other, put it on pay TV, buy some beer, and enjoy the bloodshed. The problem, however, is that “nice” Christians see the atrocious behavior by their crazy uncles and rabid brothers on this site, and they automatically assume that the reason I am an atheist is because I was, in some way, harmed by Christians. This is patently false, and no matter how many times I correct the record, they refuse to change the strawman of me they have built in their minds. In their minds, if I were only exposed to “nice” Christians, I would see the light and return to Jesus.
Here’s the problem with this kind of thinking: how I was treated by church members, colleagues in the ministry, and other Christians played little to no part in my deconversion. My partner and I spent countless hours talking about Christianity and our evolving loss of faith. There wasn’t one discussion about the “hurt” caused to us by Christians. That discussion did not happen until after we left the faith; one that continues to this day. You see, it was AFTER we left the Jesus Salvation Club that the ugliness, hatred, and judgmentalism came flowing from our Evangelical family, friends, and colleagues in the ministry as a broken sewer pipe spewing effluent in every direction; splattering a couple they once believed were examples of devoted followers of Jesus with smelly, putrid shit.
No matter how often I explain to “nice” Christians why I deconverted, they convince themselves that if Christians were just nice to me, I would return to Jesus. Years ago, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist took this approach to me, even though I warned him it would not work. We would chat back and forth; he even sent me $200. By all accounts, he was and is a nice guy. If we lived closer to one another, we would likely be close friends. As I continued to share with him why I wasn’t a Christian, a curious thing happened. This preacher of the KJV started listening to me; to my actual explanations for deconverting. One day, I got an email from him that said he was no longer a Christian. Did I jump up and down for joy? No, because I knew that he would pay a high price for walking away from the ministry and the true IFB faith. His kindness to me didn’t convert me, and neither did my kindness deconvert him. For both of us, our loss of faith came when we reinvestigated our beliefs, especially the central claims of Christianity. While how we were treated post-Jesus by Christians played no part in our deconversions, it certainly affects how we view some segments of Christianity today.
To “nice” Christians who come upon this blog, I give this advice: shut up and listen. Instead of analyzing my story, psychoanalyzing me, or combing through my story with a nit comb looking for the “real” reason I deconverted, how about letting me tell my own story, in my own words, on my own terms. Instead of making snap judgments, take time to read ALL of my story. And then, ask questions instead of rendering judgment
Millions of people have read my writing over the years, including countless Evangelicals-turned-atheists. For those of us raised in Evangelical churches before we deconverted, we are painfully aware of the practice of friendship evangelism or love bombing. Evangelicals are taught to shower unbelievers with fake love and friendship. Love bombing and friendship evangelism are fake because their goal is not friendship; it’s conversion; it’s increasing attendance and offerings.
Evangelicals-turned-atheists (and other former Evangelicals) develop skills that help them spot fakery or false motivations from a mile away. We understand the buzzwords and tactics used by “nice” Christians. Thus, when a “nice” Christian starts working their “magic,” unbelieving readers become irritated, often wishing I would send them packing. And I typically do, though sometimes it is good to be reminded of how “nice” Christians ply their wares.
To “nice” Christians who are offended by this post, I offer up a challenge: You may freely comment on this blog, but you cannot mention God, Jesus, the Bible, or your personal testimony. These things do not interest most of us. If your objective is to be a “nice” Christian, this should be easy for you to do. However, most followers of Jesus won’t accept this offer. Why? Because the real reason they comment on this site is to put a good word in for Jesus. And that’s okay. All I am asking is that “nice” Christians be honest about their motivations (as we all should).
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.
I pastored Somerset Baptist Church in Mt Perry, Ohio, for eleven years in the 1980s and 1990s. Located in the Appalachian foothills, the church was surrounded by beautiful scenery, dusty country roads, stripper oil wells, illegal pot growers, and farms.
One family had a large farm a few miles away from the church. The mom and her three children attended church, but the dad did not. I was a hunter at the time. The dad gave me an open invitation to hunt on their land.
One sunny fall day, I decided to go squirrel hunting by myself on the aforementioned land. I walked the rolling hills for what seemed forever before finding a place to sit in the woods. My gun of choice that day was a bolt-action Mossberg .410 shotgun — a gun I bought for myself when I was twelve.
I plopped myself on the leaf-littered ground and leaned up against a huge tree. I thought that this would be a great spot for spotting squirrels. Long days and short nights had their way with me, and before long, I fell sound asleep. A while later, I was stirred by chipmunks running over and around me. As I lifted my head and looked off into the distance, imagine my surprise to see two foxes intently watching me. What a beautiful sight — breathtaking. Eventually, the foxes ran off, as did the chipmunks.
No squirrels were killed on this day or any other thereafter. I became increasingly uncomfortable with hunting, especially killing animals for no other reason than that I could. I no longer had the bloodlust necessary to kill wild animals. Photography became my new weapon of choice, “shooting” animals without killing them.
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.
