I am aware of the fact that you who subscribe to the mailing list for this blog may be seeing formatting issues in the emails you receive. This has been going on for several weeks. I have contacted WordPress Jetpack support. I am awaiting their response. Please be patient as I work to resolve this issue.
I have been using the same blog theme for a decade. There are small problems affecting readers (and me) that I attribute to the theme. The only way to test this theory is to change the theme. Here’s my dilemma: tackling this project is more than I can physically handle, at this time — especially if I have to start from scratch. I could use help on this project. If you are a website designer with WordPress experience who would like to lend me a hand, I appreciate it. If you have a theme suggestion, please email me and I will take a look at it. There are different ways to get this done, so I am open to suggestions and constructive criticism.
Thank you for your support.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Christopher Willett, pastor of pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, was charged in March 2025 with statutory rape, sexual battery, unnatural intercourse, computer luring of a person, and child pornography, according to ByFaith magazine. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to thirty years in prison.
Christopher Willett, former pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, was charged in March 2025 with statutory rape, sexual battery, unnatural intercourse, computer luring of a person, and child pornography, according to reporting by ByFaith, the PCA Magazine.
Willett was initially arrested after a 19-year-old woman came to the Crystal Springs Police Department to report she had been molested by Willett beginning when she was 15 years old. The criminal activity took place between September 2020 and December 2021
The police began its investigation the morning after the victim came forward and executed search warrants on laptops, cell phones, automobiles, and Willett’s home.
Willett was arrested under the pretense of asking him to come to city hall to discuss other matters, Police Chief Robert Thomas told the Clarion Ledger, a technique used for safety because of Willett’s known possession of firearms in his home.
According to Thomas, Willett did not put up a struggle during his arrest, but refused to talk once he was in the interrogation room.
Thomas said after a lengthy interview with the victim on Monday, March 10, 2025, he felt the evidence against Willett was “pretty substantial,” but emphasized that Willett had not been found guilty.
Willett was ordained in 2016 and served at First Presbyterian Church in Crystal Springs starting in 2020.
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Earlier this month, on March 13, Willett entered a plea agreement with prosecutors in Copiah County, Miss., agreeing to charges of statutory rape, sexual battery, and incest. The maximum sentence if tried could have been life in prison. However, the plea agreement limited it to a maximum sentence of 30 years.
The judge sentenced Willett to the 30-year maximum with five years of supervised release. He will also be registered as a sex offender.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
David DeMenge, pastor of Dominion Church in Little Falls, Minnesota, stands accused of sexually assaulting a church minor.
A pastor, who had been serving at a church in northwestern Minnesota, is facing seven charges for allegedly sexually abusing a child under 13.
In new court documents, a McLeod County prosecutor says David DeMenge is accused of criminal sexual conduct and is being summoned to show up for his first court appearance on May 4, 2026.
DeMenge used to be a pastor at the Dominion Church in Little Falls, which is about 100 miles outside of Minneapolis, but the sign out front still bears his name.
KARE 11 Reporter Jennifer Hoff spoke to DeMenge on the phone Tuesday and he denied all the charges.
“They absolutely are severe and lucky for me, I’m innocent,” said DeMenge, who also says he’s no longer affiliated with the church. He then referred Hoff to his lawyer.
He and his wife came to Little Falls from Hutchinson to serve as a pastor in September of 2025. There are social media posts that show them being installed in the church when the two other longtime leaders retired. DeMenge didn’t say when he was last affiliated with the church.
McLeod County prosecutors say the alleged abuse started in 2013 and was being investigated by the Hutchinson Police Department. Those court documents say DeMenge watched the victim take a shower and “would touch her after.” The documents also allege DeMenge “started saying sexual jokes.”
The victim’s family was willing to share their story and KARE 11 agreed to keep the victim and the family anonymous to further protect everyone’s identity.
“She went from wanting to dance and hang out with friends and be in public spaces to just being so closed off,” said the victim’s family member.
The documents allege the abuse continued for five years until 2018.
“Pastors are supposed to be people you look up to, they’re supposed to be role models,” said the victim’s family member. “They’re not supposed to be people who hurt you.”
It’s unclear if there are other victims, but the impacted family in this case says DeMenge also worked at a charter school and as a hockey coach.
A Church of God pastor from Minnesota who has left the state faces seven felony charges for abusing a child over a five-year period.
David Kenneth DeMenge, 33, is formerly with Dominion Church in Little Falls, about 100 miles northwest of Minneapolis. He is also an evangelist with Ripples Revival Ministries International, a ministry based in Minnesota with work in Peru.
DeMenge, a licensed pilot, uses the moniker, Davis Domingez on social media sites for both his aviation and ministry postings.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Doug McDaris, pastor of New Beginnings Baptist Church in Six Mile, South Carolina, and former pastor of Oakview Baptist Church, stands accused of two counts of molestation of a juvenile.
A South Carolina pastor with past ties to Livingston Parish is being held without bond at the Livingston Parish Detention Center on two counts of molestation of a juvenile.
Doug McDaris, 74, was arrested in Pickens County, S.C., after the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office issued a warrant. He was extradited to Louisiana and booked March 27, according to the parish jail roster.
McDaris served as pastor at Oakview Baptist Church in Livingston Parish from May 2005 to May 2006, according to his LinkedIn profile. He later became pastor at New Beginnings Baptist Church in Six Mile, S.C., where he was serving at the time of his arrest.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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 first 10 seconds of this video, I Am Willing to Cause Division in the Church over This, show a ‘Christian’ leader denouncing Young Earth Creationists. We are not sure who the speaker is, but we have heard of him. [The video was produced by Ken Ham.]
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The man is dead wrong, of course, because anything but Young Earth Creation is wrong and telling everyone God lied not once but several times throughout the Bible. People may argue that God cannot change the biblical content, yet that is a mistaken idea.
God can change his word if it were wrong, and if you have noticed, God has not changed the Bible in over 2000 years. If YEC were wrong, do you not think that God would have raised up someone to make the corrections in time so that everyone had the truth?
But as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Silver Scrolls, and other ancient archaeological biblical discoveries have proven, God did not do that. YEC has remained in the Bible ever since God had man put his words to paper.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Imagine in Iran that instead of spending their wealth, billions of dollars, supporting terrorists or weapons, had spent that money helping the people of Iran, you’d have a much different country.
— Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as reported by Snopes
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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 started blogging in 2007 — almost twenty years ago. Since then, I have engaged countless Evangelicals in discussions, debates, arguments, and intellectual fist fights over their beliefs and my disagreements with them. On occasion, genuine progress is made, but more often than not, my interlocutors refuse to budge, regardless of my argumentation and evidence. This should not be surprising. No one is argued into faith or persuaded by evidence alone. Think of your own past salvation experience. Did you catch the operative word: experience? You see, religious conversions are fundamentally emotional experiences. People rarely, if ever, profess faith in Jesus because someone shared with them the five points of Calvinism or the transcendental arguments for the existence of God. I know it took years for me to admit that my deconversion had an emotional component. Not the primary motivator, but certainly a factor. I didn’t want the motivation for my loss of faith to be dismissed as nothing more than me being emotional. Eventually, I came to understand that our emotions are never far from our decision-making. That said, I desire to the best of my ability to use sound reasoning skills to make decisions about what to do or believe.
Instead of trying to argue people out of faith in Jesus, I try to challenge their sincerely held beliefs. I know if I can poke a hole in one of their cherished dogmas, they might be willing to ask themselves what else they are possibly wrong about. The first chink in my Evangelical armor came when I determined the Bible was not inerrant and infallible. I asked myself, “If I am wrong about the nature and history of the Bible,” what else I am wrong about?” As I learned, virtually every theological belief I had as an Evangelical pastor was intellectually lacking or not as theologically certain as my pastors and professors led me to believe. Did these men of God lie to me? Probably not. Like me, they were products of the religious environment and culture they grew up in. You can only teach and preach what you think you know, and that was likely the case for these men.
Sadly, many Evangelicals I interact with will not be moved off their Fundamentalist beliefs. They know in whom they have believed; they know what they know, end of discussion. Unfortunately, few of them seem to understand what they don’t know.
Have you ever had an Evangelical tell you, “We are just going to have to agree to disagree?” I have, more times than I can count. This is their way ending conversations; a dodge as they prepare to claim victory while actually suffering defeat.
Last week, a local Evangelical man in his thirties posted a meme that said, “Jesus is King” on a few Facebook groups I follow. I typically ignore religious voyeurism, but on this post, I decided to click the laughing emoji; my passive-aggressive way of saying your comment is bullshit.
As you might have guessed, I infuriated the poster. How dare I attack him and criticize his beliefs. He got all this from a laughing emoji? Amazing discernment, right? I took a few moments to explain the difference to him between respecting people and respecting beliefs. He ignored me. I generally respect people regardless of their religious and political beliefs. I do make exceptions for Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Franklin Graham, James Dobson, and others of their vile, disgusting ilk. Outside of these degenerates, I generally respect other people. I do not, however, respect their beliefs. If you drag your beliefs into the public square or try to evangelize me for your cause, I am going to push back.
I don’t let people off the hook with the “We are going to have to agree to disagree” cop-out. Beliefs matter. Beliefs have consequences. The beliefs of others can negatively affect my life and the lives of those I love. So, no, I am not going to treat your beliefs with undeserved respect. And when you tell me, “We are going to have to agree to disagree, ” I will take that as you admitting defeat. Running to the house of faith is what people do when they lack evidence and argumentation for their beliefs. I won’t follow them into their “safe space,” but I will be waiting for them when they return to the battlefield.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Most people would agree that they desire purpose, meaning, and happiness in their lives. While these terms can and are defined and used in various ways, I think it is safe to say that most of us want to live a good life while on this mortal coil.
Sadly, millions of Evangelicals believe that only Jesus gives them meaning, purpose, and happiness in their lives. Without Jesus, their lives have no value. Without Jesus, they are but brute sinners deserving eternal punishment and suffering in a lake filled with fire and brimstone. This is what they are told by Evangelical preachers, anyway. Congregants are reminded that their existence depends on Jesus — the second person in the Godhead. They are reminded that most humans are headed for a Christless Hell; that atheists, agnostics, humanists, Buddhists, Muslims, pagans, and others live aimless, helpless, hopeless lives on their slog towards eternity. Never mind the fact that how these people live their lives are repudiations of Evangelical lies about them. Evidence suggests that unbelievers can and do have happy, fulfilling lives without Jesus. Making their own purpose and meaning in life, non-Evangelicals live life on their own terms, often understanding that the journey is far more important than the destination. When gaining Heaven or avoiding Hell is no longer the grand objective, it’s amazing how much more satisfying life can become.
As a certified atheist and humanist, I struggle greatly every day of my life. There’s no escaping pain, suffering, and death, so while I am among the living, I intend to live life to its fullest, even if “fullest” means some days brushing my teeth, eating a bit, and resting. Every day I hope to write, but all the hope in the world doesn’t change the suffering that often keeps my pen in the proverbial inkwell. Thus, living life to its fullest, for me, is on any given day, is doing what I can. Anyone who struggles with chronic pain and suffering understands where I am coming from. To loosely quote the Bible, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Years ago, my Independent Fundamentalist Baptist mother-in-law would tell me that I just needed to put mind over matter. I would bristle when she said such nonsense. My partner eventually got her mother to understand that when I said things like “I can’t” or “I need to rest” or “my pain is off the charts today” or “I’m too nauseous to eat” I was stating the fact of the matter. When I can’t, I can’t. That should be enough for people, but sometimes the people closest to you think if they just cheer you up or encourage you to do more, that you will suddenly arise from near death and clear your to-do list. This, of course, is fanciful, and, at times, hurtful thinking.
At whatever point I find myself in life, I try to live a meaningful life. I recognize and understand that I am on the short side of life. Death stalks me, reminding me that before I know it, I will be his. I long ago determined that I would not quietly go into the dark night. I will do what I can, write what I can, trying to be the best possible person I can possibly be. It matters how we die, so I want to die openly and honestly. cherishing every moment until that day comes. To suggest that my life has no meaning, purpose, or happiness is not only absurd, it’s offensive. I have never said such a thing to a person. If you need Jesus, religion, or the church to make it through life, fine. I don’t give a shit. Just leave me alone. I don’t need Jesus, your religion, and or your club. Why is it that Evangelicals rarely, if ever, grant me the same space to freely live my life? Instead, they feel obligated to tell me how worthless I am or how I will soon spend eternity being tortured by God.To what end, I ask? I know all I need to know about Evangelical Christianity. I know what the Bible says about me. I don’t need believers to remind me of these things. Few Evangelicals seem willing to live and let people live, content to let non-Christians live their lives on their own terms. Surely, this is not too much to ask.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
As an atheist, I believe in the afterlife. Yes sir, I sure do. Not in Christian sense of spending eternity in Heaven or Hell. That sort of thinking is nonsense. I have yet to have a Christian successfully defend their afterlife beliefs. There’s no scientific or empirical evidence for its existence. All Christians have is the Bible, with its contradictory pronouncements about the afterlife. Belief in the Christian afterlife requires faith; a faith I do not have. That said, I do believe in the afterlife, just not the Christian kind.
Someday soon, I will die. Maybe today, tomorrow, or two years from now, but there’s no question that I will someday soon cease to exist. So, then what? Nothing. When you are dead, you’re dead. I will one day go the way of all people.
What a minute, Bruce, I thought you said you believe in the afterlife. I do, but the afterlife is for the living. After-my-life-ends, my partner, children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren will live on. That’s the afterlife I speak of. The life that is lived by everyone but you after you die. That’s why it is important to leave behind good memories for family and friends to remember. Long after you are buried or cremated, those who matter to you will have pictures and memories to remember you by. I don’t know about you, but I want those I love and behind to have a good afterlife.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Evangelicalism is a somewhat broad tent, with sects ranging from hardcore Fundamentalists to liberals who are Evangelical in name only. It is that last group that often emails and messages me, complaining I am wrongly lumping all Evangelicals together. These are the folks who should be mainline or liberal church members, but for some reason they like being Evangelicals or they remain in the cult because of family, employment, or familiarity. I don’t care one way or another, but I am not inclined to modify the word Evangelical just to satisfy their need to differentiate between themselves and the rest of Evangelicalism. Regular readers know that I never mean “all Evangelicals.” In fact, I never mean “all” anything. There will always be exceptions to the rule.
That said, the core doctrines that bind Evangelicals together are generally held by one and all, with allowances made for soteriological, eschatological, and practice differences. The same can be said for differences regarding Calvinism, Arminianism, Oneness, and cessationism/noncessationism. Worship practices can be very different too, yet core doctrinal beliefs are what bind these disparate sects together.
The Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement is a subset of Evangelicalism. They too have a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices, yet most of them agree that there is a set of core doctrines that must be believed to be IFB. There are countless subsets within Evangelicalism, so it takes a good bit of effort and expertise to truly understand to understand the depth and breadth of Evangelicalism.
Within Evangelicalism, there are sects, pastors, and congregants working hard to reform the sect, but much like the Southern Baptist Convention, I am convinced that significant reform will not happen unless the structure is burnt to the ground. Sadly, Evangelical churches are content to start new programs, spice up their worship services, and hire pastors who are hip, cool, and sexy; men who dress in designer jeans with holes, $300 tennis shoes, and Rolex watches. Further, megachurches are the bane of Evangelicalism; churches that breed passive church members who attend one service a week, hoping their felt-needs are met.
Are there Evangelical churches out there truly following in the steps of Jesus? Sure, I am certain they exist. I just don’t know of any. The plot has been lost, and I see no way to get it back unless radical deconstruction takes place. This is unlikely since Evangelicals are known for certainty and arrogance. Deconstructing would require admitting you are wrong, and that is not how Evangelicals typically roll.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
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