This is the fourth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please leave the name the song in the comment section or send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is God Shuffled His Feet by Crash Test Dummies, folk rock/alternative rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
After seven days
He was quite tired so God said:
“Let there be a day
Just for picnics, with wine and bread”
He gathered up some people he had made
Created blankets and laid back in the shade
The people sipped their wine
And what with God there, they asked him questions
Like: do you have to eat
Or get your hair cut in heaven?
And if your eye got poked out in this life
Would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
So he said:”Once there was a boy
Who woke up with blue hair
To him it was a joy
Until he ran out into the warm air
He thought of how his friends would come to see;
And would they laugh, or had he got some strange disease?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
The people sat waiting
Out on their blankets in the garden
But God said nothing
So someone asked him: “I beg your pardon:
I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?”
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
As my fame continues to spread across the internet, people who used to know me are finding out that I am no longer a pastor, a Christian, a believer in God, etc. I suppose this is how it must be. If I am going to write publicly, use my real name, and talk about my life as a minister, I am going to be “found out.”
I know I am responsible for this. I choose to write what I write. I choose to be honest and direct. I choose to recount my past and present life as I understand it (and I say this because I realize others may see my life and the past differently).
I could have chosen to write anonymously. I could have made this blog (and the previous iterations of it) private. But, that’s not me. I have always been direct and open. Rarely have I heard someone say about me “I don’t know what you mean.” In my younger years, directness and openness were better described as blunt and abusive. As a minister-in-training, I was taught to speak the truth without regard to the feelings of others.
This way of speakingmy mind has served me well over the years, but it also has provided me many opportunities to apologize for the times when silence would have been the better course of action. I continue to be schooled in the fine art of shutting up, whether with the words I speak or the words I write.
Just recently, I had the opportunity to apologize to a former church member for running her family out of the church because she wore pants. Her husband asked me if I thought his wife wearing pants was a sin. In no uncertain terms I said YES! In every way this couple were fine church members, dedicated followers of Jesus. The husband drove one of our church buses. Yet, because I thought women wearing pants was a sin, the church lost a good family. How much better would things have turned out if I had said, Well that’s between you and God. But I couldn’t do so. I was God’s man and directness was the only way to speak God’s truth.
These days, I suspect my openness and directness threatens some people, especially those who have had an intimate relationship with me in the past. They would rather I leave things alone. They would rather I leave the past buried in the past. No need to talk about old times best forgotten. One former pastor friend told me that I shouldn’t talk about the past and my defection from the faith lest I cause others to lose their faith.
I can’t do that. While I don’t want to be a person who lives in the past, I realize that understanding the past is essential to my well-being in the future. If I learn nothing from the past, there can be no growth in my life in the present. The key is not to be shackled by the past. I must learn from it, embrace it, but I must not allow the past to keep me from moving forward in my life.
It seems my “outing” is working its way down my résumé and list of family and friends. I told my wife the other day that I thought most everyone now knows about my apostasy from the Christian faith. Well, maybe my first grade teacher doesn’t know.
In First Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul writes about it being commonly reported that there was incest going on in First Baptist Church of Corinth. Based on these common reports, Paul made a judgment about what was going on in the church. So it is with me. It is now commonly reported that Bruce Gerencser has apostatized. Sermons are even preached about me. (here, here, and here)
As many of you know. I co-pastored the Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas. I was excommunicated from the Church in 1994. Several years ago, a member of the church stumbled upon my deconversion story at John Loftus’s blog, Debunking Christianity. Here’s the comment left by her:
So the wolf has finally taken off his sheep’s clothes. Took a while.
When the Church officials excommunicated me in 1994, they declared that I was a publican and a heathen. The Bible says in Matthew 18:
Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
My apostasy makes perfect sense to the people in San Antonio. It is simply the full manifestation of what they declared I was in 1994, a publican and a heathen. I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing (John 10:12 and Matthew 7:15) , a satanic angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:13-15) , a false prophet (2 Peter 2).
But what does this say about them? They were certain it was the will of God for me to be their pastor. Evidently, they were not as discerning as they should have been. This lack of discernment has been a common problem for them. Prior to my excommunication, they had excommunicated 2 other pastors, and countless Church members.
I was not excommunicated for anything one might consider grounds for being booted out of a church. No stealing of church funds or screwing the church secretary. No trying to foment a church split (although I could have). No deep, dark, secret sins. No, my transgression was that I butted heads with the man who started the church. He was bull-headed, arrogant, opinionated, and temperamental and so was I. Like two little children, we both wanted our own way. Eventually, I decided I no longer wanted to play and I was excommunicated for my refusal to play.
In a church service akin to a scene from a Catholic Inquisition, I was in absentia found guilty and excommunicated, not only from Community Baptist Church, but from Christianity altogether. For a few years, I tried to resolve the conflict between me and the other pastor (Pat Horner). He rebuffed every attempt at reconciliation. I saw the conflict as a personal matter. He saw it as a matter between me and the Church and God. (Horner is no longer the pastor; Kyle White is.) In the eyes of Community Baptist Church, I am, and will always remain, a publican and a heathen. Unless I return on hands and knees to the church and repent of my sins, there is no salvation for me.
Well, that’s not going happen. I am having too much fun enjoying my life as a publican and heathen.
David Hyles, son of adulterer Jack Hyles, once an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor and a serial adulterer, has come out of the hole he crawled into (Hyles deleted his blog after it was publicized) over twenty years ago, and he telling all who will listen that he has been restored.
Restoration in the IFB movement is like a slum lord who remodels a house. The slum lord is only concerned about the rent money so he rehabs the house just enough to make it look acceptable and then he puts the FOR RENT sign in the window. Behind the paint and underneath the stained carpet is the same cockroach-infested house that existed before the slum lord rehabbed the house. So it is with restoration in the IFB church movement and in much of Evangelicalism.
David Hyles has found two preachers to help him rehab his life: Mike Johnston and David Baker. Johnston runs a ministry called Promise Ministries International Center for Biblical Studies (PMI) in Battle Creek, Michigan. PMI is a distance Bible and pastoral training ministry that focuses its efforts on people in prison.
What kind of church is Lighthouse Baptist? A screenshot from the church’s web page will tell us all we need to know:
Lighthouse Baptist Church, Columbia, Tennessee
David Hyles has found two pastors who hold to his dead father’s philosophies and beliefs to help him restore his life. Asking IFB pastors, especially those who hold to a perverted, truncated, cheap view of grace, to help you restore your life is like asking the town drunk to help you stop drinking.
I am all for people trying to turn their lives around. I am all for people trying to change their ways. However, I think to do so a person must own his past behavior, be honest about his actions, and not expect people to just forgive and forget.
David Hyles, by all accounts, was a serial adulterer. He had sex with numerous women in multiple churches. Some of them may have been underage. His sexual conquests are well documented. His father covered up his son’s perverse behavior and helped him get a fresh start at a new church. At the new church David Hyles repeated the same conduct that got him into trouble in the first place.
In 2007, the following expose of David Hyles appeared on The Conservative Babylon website (no longer active):
Claims to fame: Son of Jack Hyles; former Youth Minister, First Baptist Church of Hammond; ex-pastor, Miller Road Baptist Church (Garland, Texas); accused serial adulterer; divorcé; cohabitator; alleged child abuser; suspected child killer
Moral apex: As the story goes (we don’t know; we weren’t there), somebody at Hyles’s church discovered porn magazines containing ads for group sex which, they reportedly claimed, featured photos of Hyles having sex with church member Brenda Stevens (by some accounts, the daughter of a deacon). A story soon surfaced that Hyles had had extramarital sex with some 19 female members of the church.
Every one of these women was apparently stupid enough to think she was Brother Dave’s “one-and-only,” according to a voice on a taped phone conversation attributed to Dave’s wife Paula. And, as you can guess, it appears more than a few marriages where destroyed when the truth came out.
What happened next: It appears to outsiders that Miller Road Baptist threw him out, and his wife divorced him and took off with their two kids, and he started living with Stevens (out of — gasp! — wedlock) in Illinois.
Where it gets really tragic: Stevens had a small son, Brent. Dave Hyles was suspected of abusing the boy — who had suffered some eight or nine broken bones in his short life, which had never been treated. Brent was taken out of Hyles and Steven’s Illinois home and given to his biological father in Texas. Within a few months, for reasons beyond comprehension, Brent was returned to Stevens.
And then, in late 1985, 15-month-old Brent was found dead in his crib. Hyles, who had been alone with the child, claimed he found him not breathing, and called police. It has been suggested in a few online articles that Dave’s father Jack arrived before the cops did.
A coroner’s inquest into Brent’s death (at which Hyles took exercised his Fifth Amendment rights — and which the baby’s mother doesn’t appear to have attended) was apparently thwarted because the little boy had been embalmed and buried (reportedly the very next day after his death), before a proper autopsy could be performed. (An empty bottle of Actifed — for which a prescription had been filled only the day before Brent’s death — was found at the scene.)
Without any physical evidence of wrongdoing, Hyles was not indicted. The case remains open.
If those who follow the Hyles story are correct (waving at the Fighting Fundamentalists!), n the mid-1990s Hyles went to work teaching Sunday school at a Pinellas Park Baptist Church in Florida — which reportedly expelled him on charges of adultery. It’s also been reported that he was thrown out of the next church he attended (Berean Baptist Church in Orange Park, Florida), for “sexual misconduct” with three different women.
(One of those women is assumed to be church secretary Joyce Phaneuf, who appears to have been arrested for prostitution in 2003. Assuming this is the same Joyce Phaneuf, her mug shot and arrest report — which notes the tattoo on her right-upper thigh, reading “David’s Girl” — are available at everybody’s favorite finger-wagging site, The Smoking Gun.)
Just when you think it can’t get any more tragic: Hyles, it’s said, finally married Stevens and they had their own child together, a boy named Jack David. In March, 1999, when the child was five years old, Stevens was reported to have run over him with her car, killing him. According to news reports, she claimed he must have fallen out of the vehicle, and she didn’t know it….
What does David Hyles say to reports like the one on The Conservative Babylon? He ignores it and refuses to directly confirm or reject the behaviors he is accused of. Instead, in a blog page titled, David Hyles: My Story (page no longer available), Hyles writes:
Others may be reading this book merely out of curiosity. You heard of me and read many of the horrible stories about me. Now you want to know what I am going to say in defense or in explanation. I trust you will not be too disappointed, but this is not a tell all book. I have no intention of defending myself nor do I plan on trying to separate the truth from the legion of lies. I do not believe it would bring honor to God for me to try and explain what is and is not true. Explanation often leads to excuse or blame and I desperately fear that. You do not need to read about my sins. You just need to know that whatever I did do when I was away from the Father, God in His rich mercy and grace has restored me to HIMSELF. This is a book about grace. I trust that God’s grace and not my sins will be glorified.
In other words, whatever Hyles did or didn’t do, he ain’t tellin’. God has forgiven him, it’s under the blood, time to move on. Time to move on meaning, I have written a book I want you to buy.
Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jim Krall, World’s Greatest Men
Hyles has some sharp words for his critics:
First you are hurting the lost. Several years ago I worked with a young man who knew I was a Christian. This young man was searching. He had dabbled into several religions in his search. He respected me and began to question me about Christ. God was working in his life and I felt he was very close to accepting Christ as his Savior. Someone, in an attempt to hurt my business began circulating an email through my workplace and he received it, anonymously, of course. He never again listened to me and eventually our paths parted. I pray every day for God to save him. It was not MY sins that turned him away. No, actually it was the evil spirit of those my accusers who claimed to be Christians. He wanted no part of that.
Secondly, you are hurting the fallen. Countless Christians have seen what you have done to me and to others who have fallen and decided to just disappear rather than being restored. I believe that there have been suicides and other tragedies that could have been prevented if a fallen brother or sister had felt there was hope. You diatribes on your filthy forums serve Satan’s purpose well.
Thirdly you are hurting those who I have hurt. Please hear me on this. Every fallen pastor or Christian leaves hurting people in their sinful wake. I did. I know that. It breaks my heart. David did too and his heart was broken. There is little we can do to repair the damage. Their deliverance must come from God and it will not come from revenge or retribution. It will come only from forgiveness. Please allow God to be God and to deal with his children as He will. Stay out of it and encourage those who have been hurt to find their peace from God not from your vigilante system of internet justice.
Allow me to elaborate on this just a bit more. People who are hurt by a sinner are destroyed by bitterness. No one’s sin can destroy your life. Our loving Father would not allow that. He stands ready as a loving Father to pick you up and mend your broken heart. Sinners (and that includes us all) do bad things that affect other’s lives. For all have sinned… However, if we get them to take their eyes off of the offender and place it on the Savior they can be healed. Closure does not come from our flawed idea of justice. It comes from letting God heal us even as He deals with the one who offended or hurt us.
Fourthly you are hurting you! The manure you are hurling fails to hit me but your hands sure do smell of the filth you have no business picking up. I am sorry for the pain that makes you feel that somehow you will gain some kind of satisfaction from trying to hurt me. I wish this book could give you the peace you are lacking but I sincerely doubt it will.
Finally and most importantly, you are hurting the Father. I have news for you that is not going to please you, but here goes. GOD LOVES ME and I AM SAVED AND FORGIVEN! I fell but, you see, when a Christian falls we do not fall away from grace, we fall into it, hence the name of this book. I am in His grace and one day I will stand before Him clothed in the righteousness of His Son and not the sin of my own. Why would you dare try and hurt the heart of God? Is it because there is unconfessed sin in your life? Are you so far from Him that you have lost the sweetness of His mercy and grace in your own life? That is sad.
David Hyles, in the manner of countless abusers before him, refuses to own his past behavior and points the finger at those who attempt to hold him accountable for what he did. Hyles thinks he has a get out of jail free card. He thinks the blood of Jesus has cleansed him from all of his past actions, and if God has forgiven him so should everyone else.
David Hyles perpetrated acts against real flesh-and-blood people, and if he is serious about turning his life around he MUST deal with the men, women, and children he hurt. Putting his past actions under the blood, cast into the sea of God’s forgetfulness, might play well in IFB churches, but here in the real world where real hurt must be atoned for, David Hyles is expected to own his past behavior, make a complete confession, and, as much as is humanly possible, make restitution to those he hurt.
It is clear from David Hyles’ blog, Fallen In Grace, (which he deleted once it was publicized) that he is still a believer in IFB doctrine. No matter what “sins” he committed, no matter how perverse his life was, because of the IFB doctrine of “once saved, always saved,” Hyles was always a Christian. No matter how many people he hurt and abused, he was always God’s child. This turns the Christian gospel of grace on its head, and no matter what a person might have done, if he, at one time or the other, mouthed the right prayer, he is a Christian.
This is why David Hyles can reinvent himself and start fresh. As countless preachers before him, his God has hosed off the shit from his life, and he is a clean, fresh-smelling Christian. However, I suspect the people David Hyles hurt and abused can still smell the shit. Their lives were forever marred by the perverse actions of David Hyles.
I have no doubt David Hyles will convince a lot of people that he is truly a new man and that God has a wonderful, new, exciting ministry for him. Christians love a comeback story and Hyles is counting on their gullibility to make a new life for himself.
For those of us who lived through the David Hyles scandals and the Jack Hyles scandal, we are not easily fooled. When David Hyles demonstrates true acts of repentance and restitution, then people such as I might, in time, be willing to give him a twelfth chance. Based on what Hyles has written so far, he sees no need for repentance or restitution. He sees no need to make things right with those he victimized. God has forgiven him and THAT is all that matters. Because of this, I am inclined to think that David Hyles is just another disgraced IFB preacher trying to make a comeback because he needs some money.
Bob Gray’s version of Christianity leaves no one beyond the grace of God. It requires no repentance or restitution. It requires no accounting of crimes committed or people defrauded. All that matters is that a sinner prays the prayer and his or her ticket for heaven is punched. According to Gray, David Hyles has a fire insurance policy that can’t be revoked.
The publishing of this book is a reminder that David Hyles, like his father, is a narcissist. Imagine if Hyles wrote a book titled, I was Wrong: My Apology to Those I Hurt. Most people would appreciate his willingness to come clean about the past (though fessing up to what might have been murder might land him in the slammer). Instead, Hyles writes a book about his father. By doing so, Hyles reminds everyone that is paying attention that nothing has changed. Ain’t God good!
Notes
Let me be clear, I don’t think David Hyles is evil personified. He is a man with a wife and a family. He has sisters and a mother. I must never forget that is he a fellow human being. But, he also has a sordid past, a past he is unwilling to deal with. His unwillingness to do so casts a long shadow over his present life. Hyles thinks that the blood of Jesus is some sort of magic potion that makes the past disappear. While that might play well in places like the Longview Baptist Temple, there are a number of people, IFB pastors and church members included, who are outraged by Hyles’ narcissistic, unrepentant behavior. To these people, men like Bob Gray are enablers who encourage people to make light of their sin. Is there no sin that carries a societal and church death penalty? In Bob Gray’s world, evidently not. A decade from now, when convicted sex offender Jack Schaap is released from the federal penitentiary, I have no doubt he will find a home at the Longview Baptist Temple. Why, he might even become a worker in the youth group, sharing, like the Apostle Paul, stories from prison.
Much of Hyles’ Facebook wall is private, but his older status updates are public. Take a few minutes to read them. I suspect you will notice, as I did, that he loves to quote himself, proving that he is a chip off of his father’s block.
Several preachers are listed as friends on Hyles’ Google+ page including Bob Gray, retired pastor of Longview Baptist Temple, Bob Gray II, current pastor of Longview Baptist, and Joel Fugate, assistant pastor Clays Mill Road Baptist Church. (Jeff Fugate’s son)
Today United States Representative Jim Himes (CT-4) introduced U.S. House Resolution 67, also known as the Darwin Day Resolution, which would recognize Charles Darwin’s birthday, February 12, as a national day to celebrate science, education and humanity.
“Charles Darwin’s discoveries gave humankind a new, revolutionary way of thinking about the natural world and our place in it. His insatiable quest for knowledge and decades of meticulous observation and analysis opened new pathways for advancements in biology, medicine, genetics and ecology,” said Rep. Himes. “Without Darwin’s contributions to science, philosophy and reason, our understanding of the world’s complexity and grandeur would be significantly diminished.”
This is the fourth year that the Darwin Day Resolution has been introduced. For the past two years, it was introduced by former U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12) and was also introduced by former U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (CA-13) in 2011.
The American Humanist Association worked closely with Rep. Himes, his staff and other members of Congress to introduce this resolution. The resolution is co-sponsored by Representatives Matthew Alton Cartwright (PA-17), Stephen Cohen (TN-09), Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Bill Foster (IL-11), Mike Honda (CA-17), Zoe Lofgren (CA-19), Alan S. Lowenthal (CA-47), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Adam Schiff (CA-28), Louise Slaughter (NY-25), Adam Smith (WA-09), and Jackie Speier (CA-14).
“With climate change deniers and others with anti-science views threatening our planet, there is an urgent need for our politicians to openly voice their support for scientists and science education,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “We are grateful to Rep. Himes and the resolution’s co-sponsors for their recognition of Charles Darwin’s contributions to science and humanity.”
HOUSE RESOLUTION 67
Expressing support for designation of February 12, 2015, as ‘‘Darwin Day’’ and recognizing the importance of science in the betterment of humanity.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY 2, 2015
Mr. HIMES (for himself, Mr. SCHIFF, Mr. POCAN, Ms. DELAURO, Ms.SLAUGHTER, Mr. HONDA, Mr. COHEN, Mr. FOSTER, Ms. LOFGREN, Ms.NORTON, Mr. CARTWRIGHT, and Mr. SMITH of Washington) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
RESOLUTION
Expressing support for designation of February 12, 2015, as ‘‘Darwin Day’’ and recognizing the importance of science in the betterment of humanity.
Whereas Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by the mechanism of natural selection, together with the monumental amount of scientific evidence he compiled to support it, provides humanity with a logical and intellectually compelling explanation for the diversity of life on Earth;
Whereas the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is further strongly supported by the modern understanding of the science of genetics;
Whereas it has been the human curiosity and ingenuity exemplified by Darwin that has promoted new scientific discoveries that have helped humanity solve many problems and improve living conditions;
Whereas the advancement of science must be protected from those unconcerned with the adverse impacts of global warming and climate change;
Whereas the teaching of creationism in some public schools compromises the scientific and academic integrity of the United States education systems;
Whereas Charles Darwin is a worthy symbol of scientific advancement on which to focus and around which to build a global celebration of science and humanity intended to promote a common bond among all of Earth’s peoples;
and
Whereas February 12, 2015, is the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin in 1809 and would be an appropriate date to designate as ‘‘Darwin Day’’: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) supports the designation of ‘‘Darwin Day’’;
(2) recognizes Charles Darwin as a worthy symbol on which to celebrate the achievements of reason, science, and the advancement of human knowledge.
While this resolution stands no chance of passing, it is encouraging to know that there are Representatives that have a good understanding of the natural world and the importance of science.
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, February 1978 I am a size 30 waist and size 40 suit.
Rant ahead. Raw feelings revealed that might offend others. You have been warned!
I am quite open about my health and my battle with depression, chronic illness and pain. As most readers know, I recently had an endoscopic ultrasound to see if I had pancreatic cancer. I didn’t, which is good news, but the one thing that has irritated me through this whole process is the assumptions that people make about my lifestyle. If I would only do _______________, then all would be well, or so these I’m-not-a-doctor-but-I-stayed-at-the-Holiday-Inn people think.
Let me state the obvious: I am obese. I’ve been overweight for 30 years. Thanks to recent health problems, I have lost 35 pounds. I weigh less than I did at any time in the past decade. I do not feel one bit better for having lost the weight. My feet are still invisible and I can assure you that losing weight does not make your penis longer.
Are you laughing? A pastor told me years ago that he read you gain an inch in penis length for every 30 pounds you lose. According to this dimwit’s advice, if I got down to my BMI chart weight, I would gain six inches. That would certainly be porn-worthy.
Ten or so years ago, I saw an orthopedic doctor about a problem I was having with my left knee. After taking less than two minutes to talk to me about my knee pain, he pronounced that I needed to lose weight. Duh, like I don’t know that? But here’s the thing about my knees. I have a torn meniscus in each knee. I have had these tears since 1981. A doctor wanted to do surgery 30 years ago, but I decided to cut back on the amount of basketball I was playing instead. When I injured my knees, I was quite fit. I played basketball three times a week in the winter and spring and played softball several times a week in the summer. My weight had NOTHING to do with my knee problem, but all the orthopedic doctor saw was an overweight man and he judged me without knowing the first thing about me. (My first sports related knee injury happened in 1973 when I was 16 years old.)
I am 57-year-old, fat man. Thanks to Fibromyalgia and a host of other problems not related to my weight, I can no longer physically do many of the things I used to do. (I must use a cane or wheelchair to get around.) People who haven’t walked one step in my shoes or lived one day with the pain I have are quick to offer unsolicited advice about everything from exercise to diet to the latest, greatest alternative medicine. These advice givers take a bare amount of information about me, make some assumptions, and conclude I need to do ______________.
My cancer scare has encouraged people to give me advice about how and what to eat. Everyone has a diet for me, sure to fix what ails me. But, here’s what’s wrong with their advice: they don’t know how or I what I eat to start with. If they did, they would refrain from giving me unsolicited advice I do not need.
What’s the underlying assumption here? If you are overweight, fat, obese, plump, a tall person in a short body, or whatever term is used to describe your largesse, the assumption is you don’t eat right. Over the past few weeks, more than a few people have told me I need to change my diet. Eat this, don’t eat that. Eat less of this, more of that.
Here’s the thing, my eating habits, 95% of the time are fine. I eat lots of veggies and have a varied diet. Most of time, I don’t overeat. I will consume eat a candy bar from time to time, along with a donut here and there, but I don’t drink pop. If we buy cereal, I will eat it and if we don’t I won’t. Most of my meat-eating is fish and chicken. Simply put, my diet is not the problem.
I am never going to be a vegan, vegetarian, or a raw food eater. It ain’t gonna happen. If that’s how you eat, fine, but I have no desire to eat as you do. I try to eat responsibly and healthily, but I have no desire to obsess about food and turn it into a religion. I read labels, count calories and carbs, and try to have a lot of fiber in my diet. I don’t need any more information about food and diet. I know all I need to know.
Here’s the real problem I have with those who preach the change your diet gospel to me. They take what works for them and they assume it will work for everyone. They practice bad science when they equate the health problems I have with diet. I know of no study that equates a bad diet with Fibromyalgia. I have MS-like neurological problems. I know of no study that equates a bad diet with Multiple Sclerosis.
Yes, I have high blood pressure, but even here, is my high blood pressure caused by my weight or diet? I doubt it. I took the time a few years ago to research my medical records all the way back to when I was six years old. I found an interesting thing; my blood pressure was marginally high way back when I was a teenager. I have an aunt on my Mom’s side, along with several other relatives, who have high blood pressure. But, here’s what’s interesting: none of them is overweight.
I have one health problem that is directly related to my weight and diet and that is diabetes. When people hear that a person is diabetic, they assume the person is on insulin. I am not on insulin. I take a small amount of medicine each day. My blood glucose levels are under control and my A1C level is on the high side of normal.
Let me sum up this post. Yes, I am fat but there is little I can do about it. I try to eat well and I don’t, most of the time, over feed. I’d love to run, play ball, and exercise, but I can’t. Those who have the kind of problems I do know this, and they, too, have had to deal with the judgements and comments of the exercise police. I do what I can. I am not a lazy person; if anything, I tend to overdo.
I know this is hard for the physically fit to understand. Through the lens of their personal experience, they judge fat people, concluding they are lazy and indulgent. This may be the case for some fat people, but I know one obese Hungarian for whom that is not the case.
Here’s what I want from family and friends. I want love and support. I don’t need fat shaming or subtle condemnation. I don’t need diet books, diet articles, or personal opinions about my eating habits and diet. I know all I need to know about food, diet, Fibromyalgia, chronic illness, and chronic pain. A lack of knowledge is not my problem.
Why is that people take it upon themselves to offer unsolicited advice about diet and food? The same goes for medical advice from people who have no medical training and don’t know the intricacies of my health problems. I have a good primary care doctor. I know how to read and I know how to properly and sufficiently investigate the various health problems that afflict me. Again, I am well cared for and educated.
Yes, I could stand to lose some weight. Yes, I could ALWAYS eat less of this and more of that. Yes, I could always make improvements in my diet. I am quite good at self-judgment and I know the difference between lazy and can’t. What I want from my family and friends is love and support, not unsolicited advice and judgment. When I want or need the advice of others, I will be sure to ask for it.
Now, let me get the ice cream out, put six scoops of rocky road in a bowl and cover it with hot fudge, whipped marshmallow, pineapple, nuts, and a cherry on top. Oh wait, there is no ice cream in the freezer. Damn! I need to get Polly to bring home some healthy ice cream.
What follows is a brief excerpt of a story about Jonathan Nichols. Jonathan grew up in the Newark Baptist Temple, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church (IFB) pastored, until recently, by my wife’s uncle, James Dennis. The Pastor (Jamie) Overton in this story is married to my wife’s cousin. He and his family are now missionaries. Polly’s parents have attended this church since the late 1970s. The Christian school in this story is the Licking County Christian Academy in Heath, Ohio. It is owned and operated by the Newark Baptist Temple.
The following story is excerpted from Part One and Part Two of Jonathan’s story:
My story is going to be slightly different than the others featured on this blog because I actually never attended Bob Jones University. However, before you stop reading, you should know that I would be finishing up my freshman year at BJU had I not been outed in high school, expelled, and ultimately forced to leave home. My parents are both BJU alumni, and the principal of my Christian school in Ohio was a BJU-pusher. In fact, while I was growing up, BJU was presented as the only viable choice of college by my family and a few teachers. Because of that, my story isn’t too different from the others here, I just went through the same things earlier, before I actually went to college.
I grew up in Newark, Ohio and attended an independent fundamental Baptist church since I was born. That church was more conservative than Bob Jones, and my parents were more conservative than the church. My mom, the church pianist and school music teacher, was forever busy taking the “sensual” triplets out of songs like “Some Trust in Chariots” and campaigning against songs like “As The Deer” and “Bow the Knee.” As you can probably deduce from that, practically no modern music was allowed in our household either. I grew up on classical music and only classical music and quickly learned that there was no such thing as likes and dislikes when it came to music. There was just good and bad. You are to listen to good music and not to listen to bad music. What music you “like” has nothing to do with anything.
That mentality was carried into every area of life.
I suppose being the music teacher’s son allowed me to be a little gay boy without thinking anything of it or being called out about it. I was totally into music and art and pretty things, and nothing was weird. I would play with scarves without feeling odd. Well, without feeling too odd. I knew that none of the other guys my age were playing with scarves. Fortunately, I didn’t think about it too much.
Ok, so I can’t really credit my discretion for keeping me in the closet for eighteen years… Like I said, I played with scarves and wasn’t careful about making it known that I was a musician and not like those “other” guys. The atmosphere was so anti-gay that no one even bothered to think that there could be a gay kid growing up there, regardless of how obvious I made it. Besides, I was still a kid. I didn’t even know what it meant to be gay. Heck, I didn’t even know that it meant anything besides “happy.” So in the minds of the church and my parents, there was no way I could have chosen to be gay yet. And since being gay is a choice, that meant that I was a good, straight little boy. Just like God intended. Right? Totally….
….wanted so much to be able to be honest with someone that I was actually in contact with. I hinted to my closest friend that my friendship with Ryan wasn’t just a friendship. She was, naturally for someone in our atmosphere, worried for me. So, despite her promises that she would trust me to do what I felt was right, she went to my youth pastor for help. He promptly told the senior pastor, who is superintendent of the school. The next day, I was called into Pastor Dennis’s office for questioning. Pastor Overton was also in the room, sitting to my left with a legal pad and a pen, taking notes. Dennis tried to start off nice enough, but it was obvious that they found out. I decided that a clean breast of the issue would be best, and went into my research on the matter, hoping at least to get an opposing rebuttal and at best to convince them. How naive I was. . . I don’t remember much of that conversation, but one thing rings vividly in my mind. I mentioned that the Greek word malakoi in I Cor. 6:9 was never elsewhere, in the whole of Greek literary writings, translated “effeminate.” It carried a whole different connotation. His response? He turned around, pulled his Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance off the shelf, looked up the word, and pointed to the definition. He never for one second imagined that Dr. James Strong was not infallible and that his concordance was not holy writ. In those several hours, my pastor beat me down. Hard. I was totally conquered, save in one regard. I would not tell him who I was “dating.” I did not see that it was my place to get someone else, especially someone I loved, in trouble like this. Dennis found out anyways. He had me break up with Ryan. I cried all night…
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
This is the third installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please leave the name the song in the comment section or send me an email.
I know you smoke, I know you drink that brew
I just can’t abide a sinner like you
You know, God can’t either, that’s why I know it to be true
That Jesus loves me, but he can’t stand you
I’m goin’ straight to heaven, boys, when I die
‘Cause I’ve crossed every T and I’ve dotted every I
Why, my preacher tells me that I’m God’s kind of guy
That’s why Jesus loves me…..but you’re gonna fry
God loves all His children, by gum
That don’t mean He won’t incinerate some
Can’t you feel those hot flames lickin’ you?
Woo-ooo-ooo-oo
I’m raisin’ my kids in a righteous way
So don’t you be bringin’ your kids over to my house to play
Why, yours will grow up stoned, left-leaning, and gay
I know – Jesus told me on the phone today
Jesus loves me, this I know
And he told me where you’re gonna go
There’s lots of room for your kind – down below
Wo-wo-wo-o
Jesus loves me, he loves me real good
I know he does because he called me up on the phone today and told me how much he loves me
He said, “Son, I loooooove you”
He speaks English pretty well, considering it’s a second language for him
You can talk to him too, you know, I’ve got a 900-number in Tulsa that you can call him at – I do it all the time
He’ll be glad to hear from you, I talk to him every day
My middle son stops by to borrow my miter saw. I joke…if I die you can keep the saw.
My youngest daughter frowns. Will she ever understand my gallows humor?
Old pictures put on Facebook. Pictures of those who matter to me.
We watch The Equalizer, the one with Denzel Washington.
My sister calls. She loves me and tells me it won’t be cancer.
And then we watch the Mentalist. Will Jane marry Lisbon?
My brother tries to call but the phone dies. He texts and tells me he loves me and he hopes it isn’t cancer.
My last meal, a ham sandwich.
I put my wallet on the table, along with my cane and camera.
Prescription list.
Symptom list.
Current diagnoses.
Past surgeries.
Past diagnostic tests.
Durable power of attorney.
Living will.
Shower and shave.
It’s time for bed.
Polly looks at me and I look at her. Our looks tell the story.
I put on Passenger, in a few minutes Polly is asleep.
I can’t sleep, just like every other night, the pain, oh the pain.
I’m nervous, dare I show weakness and say I’m worried?
I pick up from the nightstand Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World.
I can’t seem to focus on the words.
I get up and put on my robe.
I sit down and write Polly a letter.
If something goes wrong and this is the last day of life for me, I want Polly to know that I love her and that the 38 years we’ve spent together have been wonderful.
I tell her if the doctor says I have cancer or something else is seriously wrong, we will face it together. I have much to live for, Polly, the kids and grandkids.
I lay out my clothes. Sweatpants, underwear, white socks, orange long sleeved thermal shirt, tennis shoes. And my orange Bengals hat. It matches my shirt.
I feel tired now, the hydrocodone, tramadol, flexeril, and temazapam are doing their job.
Passenger plays on.
I know what lies ahead.
Paper work.
Put on this gown.
Endless questions.
Time to put the IV in. How many times will they have to stick me?
Dr Sharma will come in to talk to me, as will the anesthesiologist.
It’s show time.
A kiss, a hug, and I love you.
Come nine hours from now, what will the doctor say?
I am ready, come what may, I am ready.
If it’s cancer, I’ve made my wishes known, no surgery.
If it’s not, then what?
Maybe it’s just my gallbladder but that doesn’t explain all my symptoms.
I remain my doctor’s enigma, his puzzling hard case.
No prayers.
No thoughts of heaven or hell.
My thoughts go no farther than my lover and friend lying next to me. Our shared experience is the sum of life for me.
