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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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 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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Make no mistake about it: President Trump, Co-President Trump, and MAGA congresspeople are coming for your social security. Depending on where they fall on the Trump Insanity Spectrum, these anti-social security proponents either want to do away with Social Security altogether or privatize it. From laying off tens of thousands of Social Security Administration (SSA) employees, to doing away with the phone system people use to contact the SSA, to raising the retirement age, to doing away with cost of living adjustments, these haters of senior citizens want to throw millions of Americans into poverty.
We need a helluva lot more Rep. Larsons these days.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Bradrick Vail, Sr., pastor of Tree of Life Ministries in Mobile, Alabama, was recently convicted of seven counts of sexual misconduct. Originally charged with rape, the jury decided to convict him of misdemeanor sexual misconduct.
Mobile pastor Bradrick Vail, who was accused of raping two women in Prichard and Mobile, has been found guilty on seven counts of the lesser charge of sexual misconduct.
The jury deliberated over parts of two days before returning the verdict.
Investigators say he met both alleged victims through his church, Tree of Life Deliverance Ministries on Stanton Road.
The two women testified that he sexually assaulted them.
Vail had been charged with three counts of first-degree rape, one count of first-degree sodomy and three counts of first-degree sexual abuse. Those are all felonies.
But the jury opted to convict on misdemeanors charges, meaning the maximum punishment is one year in jail on each count.
Mobile County Circuit Judge Jill Phillips allowed Vail to remain free on bond until sentencing, which she set for April 7.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Terrance “Tony” Elliott, pastor of an unnamed Evangelical church, stands accused of 11 counts of wire fraud.
A Southern California church pastor was arrested for allegedly stealing over $230,000 through wire fraud schemes targeting friends.
Terrance Owens Elliott, 60, of Crestline, also known as “Tony Elliott,” was arrested Thursday and charged with 11 counts of wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Elliot is a pastor at a San Bernardino church and a one-time political candidate for the San Bernardino City Council. He is accused of committing several con jobs targeting long-time friends and a nonprofit tied to another church, officials said.
According to the indictment, Elliott reportedly told victims he worked in the San Bernardino city government and was involved with the San Bernardino Police Department.
His first victim was a friend, identified only as “M.C.” in court documents. Elliot allegedly convinced the woman to put her inheritance money into a trust that he would manage and administer. He falsely claimed she would lose her Medicare and Social Security benefits if she received the inheritance directly, prosecutors said.
He prepared a trust agreement and appointed himself as a co-trustee. He reportedly opened a bank account in the trust’s name and gave the bank a false copy of the agreement stating only he had the sole power to make payments from the account.
He then wrote checks and made online transfers to a church, identified as “Church A.” He also used the funds to buy postal money orders to pay the church’s rent. The rest of the money was allegedly used for personal expenses including buying Nike sneakers, a piano, clothing, vehicle repairs, and an extended warranty for a motorcycle, court documents said.
Elliott is accused of obtaining access to M.C.’s account at a different bank where he made around $27,164 in unauthorized transfers of her monthly Social Security payments to the church.
“When the victim’s family asked Elliott about the trust account or asked for bank statements, he lulled them into compliance by getting upset and telling them that everything was under control,” court documents said.
When M.C. died, prosecutors said Elliott targeted a second victim, identified as “W.H.”, into paying around $8,615 for M.C.’s funeral. He falsely claimed he needed authorization from a judge before money from the trust account could be released.
Through this scheme, Elliott defrauded four victims, including M.C. and W.H., out of at least $150,263, officials said.
In a separate scheme from June 2021 to February 2023, Elliott advised W.H. on selling a home. After W.H. sold the home, Elliott suggested the victim’s corporation loan M.C.’s trust $65,000, falsely claiming this would help W.H. avoid paying capital gains tax from the sale.
He prepared a loan contract and told W.H. he would transfer $65,000 from the corporation to the trust account and the trust would repay the loan with 10% annual interest. He also allegedly convinced W.H. to provide several signed blank checks from the corporation’s account.
Instead of honoring the contract, Elliott used a blank check to make a transfer to Church A. He never repaid any part of the $65,000 loan and instead, reportedly spent most of the money on personal expenses, prosecutors said.
From September 2018 to June 2021, Elliott used his relationships with the church’s board of directors to help manage litigation expenses and other costs involving a different church, “Church B,” and a nonprofit.
Elliott reportedly lied by claiming the nonprofit owed money to W.H.’s corporation for services provided involving the litigation against them. The nonprofit issued around 32 checks which Elliott deposited into an account he controlled, defrauding around $23,300.
In total, he is accused of swindling around $238,563 through these schemes, prosecutors said. He was charged with 11 counts of wire fraud. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison for each count.
The case remains under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Authorities believe there may be additional victims who have yet to be identified.
A California pastor with a long history of financial scams is back in legal trouble after allegedly defrauding friends of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Terrance “Tony” Elliott, 60, was arrested Thursday after being indicted on 11 counts of wire fraud.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, the Crestline pastor targeted “long-time friends” and used his influence as a chaplain for the San Bernardino Police Department to convince them of his trustworthiness. In one alleged scheme, Elliott urged a friend to create a trust after he learned she was due to secure an inheritance, prosecutors say. Elliott told her “she would lose her Medicare and Social Security benefits if she directly received the inheritance,” the indictment reads.
Unbeknownst to her, Elliott allegedly opened the trust in his name only and began using it as his personal bank account. Over the course of several years, prosecutors say he spent more than $114,000 on things like truck repairs, Nike sneakers, a piano, and “an extended warranty for a motorcycle.” When the woman or her family members asked if they could see bank statements, Elliott “lulled them into compliance by getting upset and telling them that everything was under control,” prosecutors say.
Although the trust had money allocated for the woman’s funeral, when she died, prosecutors say Elliott “tricked” another victim into paying $8,600 in funeral expenses.
Investigators say Elliott stole $65,000 from another victim who trusted him with their financial information after Elliot allegedly said he knew of a way around the capital gains tax. Using his position as a pastor, Elliott also defrauded a nonprofit serving low-income seniors of $23,000 by having them issue dozens of checks to a bank account he controlled, the indictment reads. In total, federal prosecutors believe he tricked victims out of at least $238,000.
This is hardly Elliott’s first brush with the law. In 2022, while running for San Bernardino City Council, the San Bernardino Sun published an expose about his criminal record. According to the story, he was just 19 years old when he was charged with passing bad checks in 1983. He served a year of jail time, and was again arrested in 1994 for stealing from Good Samaritan Baptist Church in LA.
A decade later, parishioner Tina Satterwhite said she was close to losing her home when Elliott suggested she sell it and put the proceeds in a trust. Satterwhite said Elliott helped her set up the trust and stole $75,000 from it, leaving her destitute and homeless.
“He destroyed me,” Satterwhite told the Sun in 2022. “My spiritual belief in God has wavered. It’s been hell for a long time.”
Elliott lost his bid for city council. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not name the church where he is currently a pastor, though the Sun reported he once worked at the now-defunct Mt. Zion Baptist Church. A Facebook page for a church called the Ship has a photo of Elliott as its profile picture and says it “has been under the leadership of Dr. T. Elliott for over 20 years.” The Sun reported that although Elliott has claimed to have three doctorate degrees, it’s not clear that he actually does.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Stricjavvar Strickland, pastor of Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Mt. Olive, Mississippi, stands accused of embezzling church funds. Armond Barnes, a church deacon, was also accused of embezzlement.
A pastor and a church deacon in Mississippi have been charged with embezzling church funds.
Stricjavvar Strickland, the pastor of Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Mt. Olive, and Deacon Armond Barnes were both charged with one count of embezzlement of more than $500.
According to the Covington County Sheriff’s Office, Strickland and Barnes stole nearly $90,000 in church funds. Authorities said the investigation began in October 2024 after they were notified by the finance committee from the church about discrepancies in the books and bank account.
The men turned themselves in to authorities on Tuesday, March 4. Strickland’s bond was set at $150,000. Barnes received a $75,000 bond.
This is not Strickland’s first run-in with law enforcement. According to WJTV 12 News’ sister station, WOODTV, Strickland was sentenced to one year in Kalamazoo County Jail in 2023 for one count of knowingly offering to sell transportation services for the purpose of engaging in prostitution.
In 2020, Strickland was charged with 11 felony counts after a Michigan State Police investigation alleged he and his wife used their positions within their church and Kalamazoo Public Schools to coerce four teen boys into sex between 2015 and 2018.
In August 2022, Strickland entered into a plea deal, pleading guilty to a count of knowingly offering to sell transportation services for the purpose of engaging in prostitution.
Strickland’s wife was also charged in connection to the allegations, but the case against her was later dismissed.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Brian Herring, former pastor of Faith Assembly God (now called Harrison Faith Church) in Harrison, Arkansas, was recently sentenced to probation for stealing $500,000 from his church.
A former church pastor in Harrison, Arkansas, will serve probation for stealing money from his church.
Brian Herring pleaded guilty to theft and forgery charges on Monday. A judge sentenced him to 17 years probation for a theft plea and three years probation for a forgery plea. He must also complete 800 hours of community service.
Several church members reported missing money in 2021. Herring began serving at the Harrison Faith Church, which was then called the Faith Assembly of God Church, in 2006.
As part of the plea agreement, Herring must return $100,000 to the church. He must repay $500 per month.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
Nicholas Jackson, an elder at an unnamed church, was recently sentenced to 120 days in jail for a Level 5 felony charge of child solicitation and a Level 6 felony charge of dissemination of matter harmful to minors.
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office arrested a Bargersville man and “church elder” for child sex crimes after he allegedly spoke to a detective pretending to be a 14-year-old girl.
Nicholas P. Jackson, 39, was arrested on Dec. 15, 2023, at his place of employment, a church in New Whiteland near 560 E. Tracy Rd., on the following charges:
Child Solicitation, a Level 4 Felony;
Possession of Child Pornography, a Level 5 Felony;
Dissemination of Harmful Matter to Minor (Attempt), a Level 6 Felony.
According to court documents, on multiple occasions from Nov. 28, 2023, through Dec. 15, 2023, Jackson contacted an undercover agent that he believed was a 14-year-old white female. The agent identified their age as 14 multiple times.
Jackson was arrested in January 2024 following a Nov. 29, 2023, child solicitation roundup conducted by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Franklin Police, Edinburgh Police, and other agencies. He was not arrested on the day of the roundup because he did not fully go through with meeting the person he thought was a 14-year-old girl that day. He was arrested after deputies learned he had returned from a mission trip to Guatemala, they said in court Friday.
He met the undercover agent on an app, in a local chatroom called Bargersville Friends. The chatroom is known for multiple crimes, police said, including fraud, drugs, prostitution, porn and automatic firearm conversion kits.
Jackson introduced himself to the agent as “Nick from Bargersville, happily married, two children. Work at a local church, and a Seminary student!” At this time, Jackson inquired about her age, and the officer spoke about how she was “almost 15.” Jackson said, “You can be the little sister I never had… lol.”
He said, “…For some reason, I’m attracted to younger girls.” He later requested to see a photograph of the minor nude. Jackson also sent videos to the girl in the chatroom of himself performing sexual acts in church.
He also asked the girl, “How old is ur mom, I bet we are the same age! LOL. Age. That would be wild if her and I went to high school together! Lol.”
During the investigation, officers also learned Jackson was a substitute teacher.
The court documents also reference how Jackson went by the girl’s home. Surveillance corroborated what he said in the chatroom, as a video of a 2013 Toyota Prius registered to Jackson showed his parked car at the complex.
“I literally just drove by your apartment. There were first-floor apartments in second-story apartments with balconies and I parked by the pool. I got nervous and left I was there about 10 minutes ago.” Jackson said he was depositing money at a bank for the church mission when he stopped at the minor’s home.
Jackson turned himself into the Johnson County Jail on Tuesday. He was bonded out of jail with $10,000 surety/ $1,100 cash. His arrest was a continuation of child solicitation stings conducted by multiple local law enforcement agencies.
Earlier this month. Jackson was sentenced to 120 days in the county jail for his crimes. 120 days! Are you kidding me? Does anyone seriously think this was Jackson’s first offense? This guy was a missionary in Guatemala. Did anyone go to where he ministered and check to see if there were allegations there? The judge said he considered Jackson’s missionary work justification for giving him a light sentence. I call this the “preacher’s discount.”
A Bargersville man who is a former local church elder and substitute teacher was sentenced Friday for two child sex crimes.
Johnson Superior Court 3 Judge Douglas Cummins sentenced Nicholas P. Jackson, 40, to 120 days in the Johnson County jail to be followed by five years of probation. The sentence is for a Level 5 felony charge of child solicitation and a Level 6 felony charge of dissemination of matter harmful to minors.
Jackson was arrested in January 2024 following a Nov. 29, 2023, child solicitation roundup conducted by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Franklin Police, Edinburgh Police and other agencies. He was not arrested the day of the roundup because he did not fully go through with meeting the person he thought was a 14-year-old girl that day. He was arrested after deputies learned he had returned from a mission trip to Guatemala, they said in court Friday.
Detectives corresponded with Jackson via a local group within Telegram, an encrypted chatroom app. Detectives spoke with him over a series of three days, with the third day being when Jackson allegedly drove to Greenwood to meet the girl.
Jackson reportedly drove to the apartment complex where deputies were waiting for him the day of the sting, but did not go inside. Detectives say they witnessed him park at the complex, and they also have evidence he was in the area via license plate cameras and a bank deposit he made nearby.
Because Jackson did not fully go through with meeting the girl, the child solicitation charge was reduced to a Level 5 from the initial Level 4 felony in the open plea agreement. Russell Johnson, one of Jackson’s attorneys, said in court this is because the crime becomes a Level 4 if someone meets a child with an intention of sexual contact.
Detectives say Jackson masturbated via Telegram voice call, asked for nude pictures of the girl and sent a picture of his penis to her. When they arrested him at the New Whiteland church where he previously worked, detectives saw the same flooring and office chair that appears in the picture, meaning he sent it at the church, they said in court.
Jackson allegedly used his real name in the chatroom and presented himself as a “happily married” church employee and seminary student. Although he was not actively working as a substitute teacher at the time of the conversations, he had previously been at several local high schools, including Center Grove and Perry Meridian, Johnson County Sheriff Duane Burgess previously said.
Jackson was also initially charged with a Level 5 felony charge of possession of child pornography with an aggravating factor, but the charge was dropped because there was not definitive evidence Jackson had viewed the child sexual abuse images. Although a deputy testified three images were found in a forensic download of Jackson’s data from the Telegram app.
However, Jackson’s other attorney Kyle Johnson, poked holes in that evidence in court.
Kyle Johnson said the images within the download are all of the images in a pornography channel that Jackson accessed, and Jackson said he does not recall looking at those particular images. When asked in court, the deputy in charge of the download confirmed there is not specific proof he looked at the images in the Telegram metadata.
Since his release on bond, Jackson told the court he has been to weekly faith-based therapy to counter his self-professed porn addiction. He said he has his wife’s support in the matter and is committed to staying away from temptation for her and their children.
What he did was “a sin against God” that was “rooted in idolatry.” He took responsibility for falling victim to “temptation” and said he “grievously” failed God, his family and his brothers and sisters in Christ, he said in court.
Jackson got emotional on the stand when talking about his mission work in Guatemala, where he says he has been volunteering to help rebuild infrastructure in a remote Mayan village on and off since 2006. He was so devoted to this cause that he lived there for a time. He also met his wife, a native of the village, while working there. He said his greatest wish after the case is fully resolved is to return “home” to Guatemala to live with his family.
He said that he never intended to meet the girl, despite evidence from Telegram showing he asked multiple times to meet her.
“Meeting someone physically was never a reality to me,” he said in court.
Jackson’s support from family and friends was clear in court, as the court was packed with dozens of supporters. His attorneys say about 50 letters of support were written to Cummins on Jackson’s behalf. The letters spoke of Jackson’s character and faith, but some also questioned the prosecutor’s office for charging him and the sheriff’s office for conducting these types of sting operations, they said in court.
Deputy Prosecutor Bridget Foust urged Cummins not to be “fooled” by Jackson. She argued for a six-year sentence with two years to be executed in the Indiana Department of Corrections. The proof of his “double life” should be taken into account. Not only did he prey on this would-be victim, there are suggestions this is a pattern of behavior, she said.
Detectives found multiple images of his penis that were taken in his office. Detectives came across Jackson because he was cold-calling area young women on Telegram, including the detectives’ account. He reportedly had a “thing for younger women” and told investigators he had looked at nude images of children before this incident, they said in court.
There was no specific evidence presented in court that he did have sexual conversations with other teens, after detectives combed through digital evidence and spoke to people at the church. However, the sting operation is proof that he is capable of seducing a child, Foust said.
“The purpose of these sting operations is to expose them and put the community on notice,” she said. “If not for this, we would not have known what he was doing in that church office.”
Russell Johnson advocated for no jail time and said the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravators. Referring to Jackson’s mission work in Guatemala and other volunteer efforts with homeless communities and people in addiction recovery, he said Jackson is not like others who have appeared in the court.
He pointed to Jackson’s marked progress in recovery and commitment to put this in his past, and said going to jail would “serve no purpose.”
Cummins announced his verdict after a short recess for deliberation. He began by saying he supports the sting operations. Catching would-be predators this way prevents them from harming real children, he said.
He found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, but opted to weigh the sentence more toward probation than jail time. He gave a few reasons, including that Jackson may not “survive DOC,” his stated remorse, progress toward recovery, and history of giving back in the community and in Guatemala.
“I appreciate all of that and that’s why you’re staying out of the DOC,” Cummins said.
However, Cummins warned Jackson that he would likely be sentenced to DOC if he violates his probation.
“Have firmly planted in your mind what that would look like,” Cummins said, asking Jackson to picture being without his family in DOC.
Though the sentence is less than the prosecution requested, a sentence involving some jail time sends a message, said Lance Hamner, Johnson County prosecutor.
“I’m pleased that the judge ruled that the aggravating circumstances in this case were more significant than the mitigating circumstances,” Hamner said in a statement. “A person who prefers underage girls for his sexual gratification is a clear danger to children and he belongs in jail.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
