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Update: Black Collar Crime: IFB Pastor David Walther Convicted of Possession of Child Pornography, Sentenced to Seventy Months in Prison

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pastor david walther

The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.

In 2022, David Walther, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, Texas, was accused of distribution, receipt, transportation, and possession of child pornography. Faith Baptist is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship.

The Austin American-Statesman reported:

David Lloyd Walther, 56, of Georgetown, was arrested on Thursday and charged with distribution, receipt, transportation and possession of child pornography, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Walther told an FBI agent that “he had a pornography addiction and would often go through cycles ofdownloading and viewing pornography depicting both adults and minors,” the complaint said.

He also said that he would download child pornography files, “but would often feel guilty and go through a ‘purging’ of files, i.e., deleting the images and associated files, because he knew it was wrong, and that he last purged files on November 08, 2022, the night before the search warrants were served,” according to the complaint.

Walther was a pastor at the Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock for the past 18 years, said David Clawson, a deacon at the church.

“We regret anything along these lines that has happened,” Clawson said on Friday about the charges against Walther. “The church will continue to move forward as God has led,” Clawson said. He declined further comment.

“The criminal complaint alleges that Walther downloaded and made available child pornography using BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing network,” the release said. It said this happened when Walther, who is a Georgetown resident, was still a pastor.

When authorities searched Walther’s home and vehicle on Thursday, they found two large computer hard drives that contained child pornography, the release said.

Walther told authorities that he didn’t know he was sharing child pornography through the BitTorrent network and also apologized “for his actions,” the complaint said.

He said when he viewed the child pornography the children in it were between 8 and 17 years old, according to the complaint.

Law and Crime added:

According to the affidavit, which Law&Crime is not sharing in this instance because of how detailed it is, the pastor had a “BDSM” folder containing an image of a nude boy with a collar on his neck and being sexually abused, a similar image of a female toddler, and images of nude young boys and girls being restrained by ropes and tools. A “Zoo” folder allegedly contained a bestiality video involving a dog and a female toddler “likely less than three years old.”

The feds allege that the defendant also downloaded several videos through BitTorrent showing young girls being sexually abused by adult men.

Walther has been scrubbed from his church’s website.

Last July, Walther pleaded guilty to an enhanced charge of possession of child sex abuse images.

NBC reported:

A Texas pastor pleaded guilty to an enhanced charge of possession of child sex abuse images after he admitted having downloaded some of the materials at his church, according to federal prosecutors and court documents.

David Lloyd Walther, 57, “knowingly searched for, downloaded, distributed and possessed” child sex abuse images, some of which depicted prepubescent minors, on a peer-to-peer file sharing network while he was the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, a city 18 miles north of Austin, the U.S. attorney’s office for Western Texas said Thursday.

Walther was arrested Nov. 9 after a search of his home and car turned up two large computer hard drives with more than 100,000 images and more than 5,000 videos of child sex abuse material, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

….

He pleaded guilty in federal court in Austin on June 27, court records show.

Walther could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

It was not immediately clear when he would be sentenced. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office said a sentencing date had not yet been scheduled.

In a statement, Worth Carroll, an attorney representing Walther, said: “David’s guilty plea is the next step in the healing process after he experienced horrendous childhood abuse where ‘trusted adults’ and the system repeatedly failed to protect him. Since his arrest, David and his family have courageously worked to confront his own abuse, address how he was neglected and abused, and begin making amends for the harm he has caused. I am proud of him, encouraged by the work he has done, and amazed by the love and compassion of his family.”

Last Wednesday, Walther was sentenced to seventy months in prison.

Breaking 911 reports:

A Georgetown man was sentenced in a federal court in Austin on Wednesday to 70 months in prison [5.8 years] and 10 years of supervised release for an enhanced charge of possession of child pornography.

According to court documents, David Lloyd Walther, 57, knowingly searched for, downloaded, distributed and possessed child sexual abuse material, including child pornography—some of which depicted prepubescent minors—using BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing network. During a search of Walther’s home and vehicle in November 2022, two large computer hard drives were located and found to contain more than 100,000 images and more than 5,000 videos of child sexual abuse material. At the time of his arrest, Walther was the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock.

In addition to the prison and supervised release terms, the judge also ordered Walther to pay restitution of $61,000.

“Many families in the Round Rock area placed their trust in this man when he served as a leader in faith for their community,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas. “I hope that those families can find comfort in knowing our law enforcement partners and justice system are committed to protecting them, ensuring that predators such as Walther cannot continue to pose a threat to innocent children.”

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The Official Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Rulebook

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The Official Independent Baptist Rulebook, Known in Some Churches as Church Standards

  • Thou shalt obey the pastor at all times
  • Thou shalt obey all adults at all times if you are a child or teenager
  • Thou shalt obey your husband at all times if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt obey your parents at all times
  • Thou shalt obey the police and government unless the pastor says it is a sin against God to do so
  • Thou shalt tithe
  • Thou shalt give an offering
  • Thou shalt give a faith promise missionary offering
  • Thou give an offering any time the pastor says God is saying to collect a special offering
  • Thou shalt attend church every time the doors are open
  • Thou shalt read the Bible every day
  • Thou shalt pray every day
  • Thou shalt pray without ceasing
  • Thou shalt pray for every meal, but ice cream at Dairy Queen after church requires no prayer
  • Thou shalt only use the King James Bible — 1611 edition which is really the 1769 revision
  • Thou shalt only use the Scofield King James Bible
  • Thou shalt not have long hair (over your ears, collar) if you are a man
  • Thou shalt not have a block cut hairstyle if you are a man
  • Thou shalt not have facial hair if you are a man, but if you are a woman you can have facial hair
  • Thou shalt not have tattoos unless you have prison tats from your life before Christ
  • Thou shalt not take the hem out of your Levi jeans or alter your clothing in any way so that you look worldly
  • Thou shalt not wear pants (britches) if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not wear shorts, but a woman can wear Baptist shorts — also known as culottes
  • Thou shalt not expose any flesh if you are a woman, especially your thighs, breasts, or back
  • Thou shalt only wear dresses with hemlines below the knees if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not have any physical contact with the opposite sex if you are unmarried
  • Thou shalt not masturbate
  • Thou shalt not have more than one hole in each ear if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not pierce any body part except your ear, and then only if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not watch TV, but if you are a carnal Christian and must watch TV thou shalt only watch Little House on the Prairie or Bonanza
  • Thou shalt not go to the movie theater, but using streaming services is okay
  • Thou shalt always have tracts in your shirt pocket or purse, ready to evangelize at a moment’s notice
  • Thou shalt drive a car with church advertising stickers, IFB cliches, or Bible verses attached to the bumper
  • Thou shalt park down the street when visiting the local strip club or whore house lest the pastor know you are there and stay away
  • Thou shalt not dance
  • Thou shalt not listen to secular music, especially rock music, which is from the pit of hell
  • Thou shalt not listen to contemporary Christian music (CCM)
  • Thou shalt not smoke tobacco
  • Thou shalt not drink fermented alcohol — after all, Jesus drank Welch’s grape juice
  • Thou shalt not dip snuff
  • Thou shalt not chew tobacco
  • Thou shalt not cuss, but saying darn, shoot, crap, freaking, and fudge are okay
  • Thou shalt not date non-Independent Baptist girls or boys
  • Thou shalt not have any non-Independent Baptist friends
  • Thou shalt home school your children or send them to a Christian school
  • Thou shalt only read pastor-approved Christian books
  • Thou shalt never speak in tongues
  • Thou shalt only believe what the pastor says you are to believe
  • Thou shalt go soulwinning every week
  • Thou shalt say you have victory over sin, even if you are lying
  • Thou shalt adhere to the perception is reality rule
  • Thou shalt send your kids to the same Christian college the pastor went to
  • Thou shalt leave the church if you commit adultery, get a divorce, or get pregnant outside of marriage
  • Thou shalt  believe everything the pastor says even when you are certain he is lying, speaking evangelistically, or embellishing his illustrations
  • Thou shalt wear a bra if you are a woman, and it can only be a white, underwire bra
  • Thou shalt not mix bathe (Baptist for swimming with the opposite sex)
  • Thou shalt not go to amusement parks unless the youth group is going
  • Thou shalt not go to the prom
  • Thou shalt not show emotion unless praising Jesus from 10:00 am to noon on Sunday or giving a testimony during Sunday evening service
  • Thou shalt say AMEN during at the appropriate time during the pastor’s sermon, especially when he shouts, pounds the pulpit, or performs gymnastics
  • Thou shalt not be angry even though the pastor is allowed to be angry, but that’s because his anger is righteous anger
  • Thou shalt be for what the pastor is for and against what the pastor is against, because if you don’t, a bear might come out of the woods and eat you
  • Thou shalt never use your brain
  • Thou shalt ignore any science that contradicts the Bible
  • Thou shalt never try to fix your own problems because the pastor is the official fixer of all problems
  • Thou shalt takes notes on the sermon even if the rabbit wanders five miles off the trail or the sermon is incoherent
  • Thou shalt always tell the pastor what a wonderful sermon he preached, even when you have no idea what he was talking about
  • Thou shalt always tell Sister Bertha what a wonderful job she did with her off-key rendition of What a Friend we Have in Jesus
  • Thou shalt not use canned (taped) music for music specials
  • Thou shall not play the guitar or drums

Please be advised that this rulebook is subject to change at the whim of the pastor. He is the man of God who speaks for God. He alone is allowed to change his mind. This means that God changed his mind, yes?

Of course not.

This is the Christianity of millions of North Americans.

Is it any wonder that we are fucked up?

Feel free to add your own additions to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Rule Book.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: U.S. Presidents Continue to Obfuscate the Truth About the Vietnam War

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vietnam war

By Norman Solomon, Salon, Joe Biden and Vietnam: American presidents can’t tell the truth about a tragic mistake

When Joe Biden flew out of Hanoi on Sept. 11, he was leaving a country where U.S. warfare caused roughly 3.8 million Vietnamese deaths. But like every other president since the Vietnam War, he gave no sign of remorse. In fact, Biden led up to his visit by presiding over a White House ceremony that glorified the war as a noble effort.

Presenting the Medal of Honor on Sept. 5 to former Army pilot Larry L. Taylor for bravery during combat, Biden praised the veteran with effusive accolades for risking his life in Vietnam to rescue fellow soldiers from “the enemy.” But that heroism was 55 years ago. Why present the medal on national television just days before traveling to Vietnam?

The timing reaffirmed the shameless pride in the U.S. war on Vietnam that one president after another has tried to render as history. You might think that — after killing such a vast number of people in a war of aggression based on continuous deceptions — some humility and even penance would be in order.

But no. As George Orwell put it, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” And a government that intends to continue its might-makes-right use of military power needs leaders who do their best to distort history with foggy rhetoric and purposeful omissions. Lies and evasions about past wars are prefigurative for future wars.

And so, at a press conference in Hanoi, the closest Biden came to acknowledging the slaughter and devastation inflicted on Vietnam by the U.S. military was this sentence: “I’m incredibly proud of how our nations and our people have built trust and understanding over the decades and worked to repair the painful legacy the war left on both our nations.”

In the process, Biden was pretending there was an equivalency of suffering and culpability for both countries, a popular pretense for commanders in chief ever since the first new one after the Vietnam War ended.

Two months into his presidency in early 1977, Jimmy Carter was asked at a news conference if he felt “any moral obligation to help rebuild that country.” Carter replied firmly: “Well, the destruction was mutual. You know, we went to Vietnam without any desire to capture territory or to impose American will on other people. We went there to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese. And I don’t feel that we ought to apologize or to castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability.”

Carter added, “I don’t feel that we owe a debt, nor that we should be forced to pay reparations at all.”

In other words, no matter how many lies it tells or how many people it kills, being the United States government means never having to say you’re sorry.

When George H.W. Bush celebrated the U.S. victory in the 1991 Gulf War, he proclaimed: “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.” Bush meant that the triumphant killing of Iraqi people — estimated at 100,000 in six weeks — had ushered in American euphoria about military action that promised to wipe away hesitation to launch future wars.

From Carter to Biden, presidents have never come anywhere near providing an honest account of the Vietnam War. None could imagine engaging in the kind of candor that Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg provided when he said: “It wasn’t that we were on the wrong side. We were the wrong side.”

….

Does such history really matter now? Absolutely. Efforts to portray the U.S. government’s military actions as well-meaning and virtuous are incessant. The pretenses that falsify the past are foreshadowing excuses for future warfare.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: Did Ken Ham and Ark Encounter Lie About Projected Attendance Numbers to Get Millions in Tax Breaks?

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ken ham

By William Trollinger, Righting America, Dear Williamstown: Sorry for Misleading You About Ark Encounter – My Bad! 

It has been exactly ten years since Williamstown, Kentucky, underwrote $62.5m worth of bonds that made possible the building of Ark Encounter. This anniversary seems the perfect opportunity for Ken Ham to (finally) apologize for the fact that his big unseaworthy boat has not come close to producing the attendance numbers and economic impact that Answers in Genesis (AiG) promised in seeking support from this little town.

….

Of course, Ken is a busy guy, fighting the atheists and secularists who, as he said on Facebook this past weekend, “are becoming increasingly intolerant of Christianity—in fact, trying to outlaw the Christian worldview in many places.”

….

Because he is so busy warring against the forces of evil, I wrote the following letter on his behalf. And Ken, there’s no need to thank me. Just sign your name and send it along to the Williamstown powers-that-be and enjoy the good feelings that come with a sincere (albeit ghost-written) confession!

Dear Williamstown City Council: 

Greetings from the gigantic fundamentalist tourist attraction on the other side of I-75! It has been a decade since you so generously underwrote the $62.5 [million] worth of junk bonds that made it possible to build Ark Encounter . . . and you not only underwrote the bonds, but you also agreed that 75% of what Ark Encounter would have paid in property taxes would instead go to paying off the loan. Yes, I know that I go on and on and on about how government is hostile to Christianity in America, but wow, this was a fabulous subsidy. Thank you, Williamstown!!

Of course, I know very well that you said yes to providing us with this wonderful windfall in good part because of what we said in the Ark Encounter feasibility report that we provided you. As I know you will recall, we told you that our attendance numbers would an “estimated average of 1.6 million visitors” in the first year. More than this, we told you that these attendance numbers would simply keep going up. And for July 2022- June 2023, our “scientific” formula projected an attendance of 2,177,737.

Oops!! We have never even made it to one million paid visitors in a year. Here’s a breakdown from this past year (and yes, that busybody Dan Phelps makes it his business to collect and publicize these numbers, instead of allowing us to come up with our own numbers, which I can tell you would look much better!): 

  • July 2022: 110,098
  • August 2022: 83,638
  • September 2022: 68,301
  • October 2022: 74,864
  • November 2022: 39,125
  • December 2022: 37,959
  • January 2023: 14,724
  • February 2023: 23,020
  • March 2023: 66,390
  • April 2023: 70,700
  • May 2023: 82,585
  • June 2023: 111,256
  • TOTAL: 782,660

Yes, yes, yes – I know. This total is only 36% of attendance we told you we would have this year. 

So that’s why I am writing. I am so sorry that we “misled” you so badly. Sure, some of this is on you. You should have conducted a closer analysis of the information we gave you. But I don’t want to play the game of blaming the victim (that is, you!) Instead, I want to own the fact that what we told you in our feasibility report was, well, false. Sorry about that!

Speaking of blaming the victim, I am also sorry for saying that the reason Williamstown has not enjoyed an economic boom is that Williamstown is on the wrong side of the interstate. Of course, your town was on the wrong side of the interstate when we were selling you on underwriting the bonds, which was NOT a point we brought up during our sales pitch. Oh well, that’s capitalism . . . but again, sorry about that!

All this said, I hope you keep in mind that we at AiG are soldiers in the Christian army saving America from the radical Marxists (not exactly sure what this means, but we know that these folks are bad!), from the hordes of LGBTQ militants storming the cultural gates, from the Critical Race Theorists (not exactly sure what this means either, but we know that these folks are bad too!), and from the vaccine-crazy climate cultists. 

That is to say, members of the Williamstown City Council, we are on your side (unless, of course, you belong to any of the aforementioned groups or are liberal)! So we are confident that you will forgive us for misleading you. And in turn, we will pray for you and your local economy.

Your brother in Christ –

Ken Ham

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Republican Attorney General Dave Yost Continues to Hinder Fair Ohio Elections

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Ant-Democratic Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost

By Marty Schladen, Ohio Capital Journal

One might think that a movement associated with a former state Supreme Court chief justice could draft a petition summary that passes legal muster. But twice already, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has rejected summaries of a petition to put an anti-gerrymandering amendment on Ohio’s November 2024 ballot.

So far, nobody’s explicitly accusing Yost of deliberately slow-walking approval of the anti-gerrymandering amendment, but frustration is growing — and one advocate of redistricting reform pointed out that further delays can become critical quickly.  

“The slower this goes, there are increasingly serious consequences,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, which supports the amendment.

Ohio’s legislative and congressional districts are highly gerrymandered. While Donald Trump carried the state by less than eight percentage points in 2020, Republicans control 68% of seats in the state House, 78% in the state Senate and 66% of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Ohio voters apparently didn’t want things to be this way. In 2015 and 2018, redistricting amendments to curb extreme partisan gerrymandering in the legislature and Congress both passed with more than 70% of the vote.

But since the 2020 Census, seven sets of maps passed by the Republican-dominated Redistricting Commission have been rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court. By effectively running out the clock, the districts rejected by the court are still in effect.

Former Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, voted with the court’s three Democrats to reject the GOP-drawn maps, until she was forced to retire because of her age in 2022. Now she’s working with the group Citizens Not Politicians to put another constitutional amendment on the ballot.

She says this one will close loopholes by creating a truly independent redistricting commission made of up of citizens that won’t place a partisan thumb on the scales. 

It would ban partisan gerrymanders and create a 15-member commission of Republicans, Democrats and independents to draw the lines. Current and former officeholders, lobbyists and large donors would be banned from sitting on it. 

Despite the claims made by GOP leaders during their August attempt to restrict citizen access to the process, voter-initiated amendments to the Ohio Constitution are anything but easy. 

First activists have to draft a proposed amendment and a summary of it, gather 1,000 signatures from registered voters and submit them to the attorney general. If the Ohio Attorney General approves the petition summary as accurate, then they have to gather more than 400,000 signatures from registered voters — with a percentage coming from each of 44 of the state’s 88 counties. 

And, because many signatures are typically disqualified, proponents try to gather hundreds of thousands more than the minimum. It’s an intensive, costly, time-sensitive process.

So far, Citizens Not Politicians has twice had its petition summaries rejected.

On Aug. 23, Attorney General Yost rejected the first summary, citing nine instances of “omissions and misstatements.” 

For example, the summary said that a bipartisan panel appointing commissioners would hire a professional search firm to “assist” it. But the proposed amendment says that the consulting firm would “solicit applications for commissioner, screen and provide information about applicants, check references, and otherwise facilitate the application review and applicant interview process.”

The summary was, well, too summary, Yost ruled.

“The summary thus diminishes the actual role of the search firm in the application process, by merely stating the search firm would ‘assist’ the panel,” the ruling said.

Then after listing specific shortcomings the attorney general found in the first summary, the letter made a statement that made it seem all but certain that a second attempt would fail as well.

“The above instances are just a few examples of the summary’s omissions and misstatements,” it said.

A spokeswoman for Yost didn’t respond when asked why the attorney general didn’t specify the other problems he found with the petition summary. She also didn’t respond to a question asking whether Yost, who is eyeing a run for governor, believes extreme partisan gerrymandering is a problem in the United States.

Citizens Not Politicians quickly gathered another 1,000 signatures and submitted a new summary. On Sept. 14, Yost rejected that as well, but this time he cited only one deficiency.

The summary didn’t explain that the proposed amendment lays out a specific method of determining the party affiliation of redistricting commission members, while the amendment would leave it to the GOP-controlled Ohio Ballot Board to determine the affiliations of members of the panel that would select those commissioners, Yost wrote.

“To be clear, a fair and truthful summary should articulate this distinction so that a signer can understand the Amendment’s true meaning and effect,” Yost’s letter said. “Otherwise, the summary misleads a signer into misbelieving that party affiliation is judged consistently and with the same objective criteria when it is not.”

Citizens Not Politicians submitted a third version of the summary language last Friday and Yost has until Oct. 2 to accept or reject it. The group was less than pleased with the latest ruling.

“We are disappointed and frustrated that the Attorney General has chosen to reject our petition summary for a second time,” its spokesman, Chris Davey, said in a statement. “We adjusted our summary language as the Attorney General requested on the first submission, and we know our summary language was accurate.”

Advocates of the gerrymandering amendment might seem like they have a long time to get their ducks in a row, but time can grow short quickly and delays can be disastrous for them.

It’s not perfectly analogous, but Yost played a role in another delay — one that helped kill an attempt to repeal the corruptly passed House Bill 6. That’s the bribery scheme in which Akron-based FirstEnergy paid more than $60 million and got a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout in return. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, is now serving a 20-year prison term for his role in the scandal, but somehow, HB 6 remains on the books. 

The law was so objectionable that as soon as it passed in 2019, a strong effort at a voter-initiated repeal was announced. 

Leaders of the attempted repeal had 90 days after the law’s enrollment to gather at least as many valid signatures as 6% of the number who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election — about 265,000 in 2019. But first, they had to submit a summary of the ballot language along with 1,000 valid signatures for review by the attorney general and the Ballot Board.

Yost rejected the first summary that was submitted and by the time a second was approved — along with another batch of 1,000 signatures — the repeal team had only 54 days left of the original 90 to submit more than a quarter-million valid signatures.

With 40% of the clock expired — and with FirstEnergy spending more than $30 million on a brutal, dishonest campaign to thwart the repeal — time ran out before circulators could gather enough signatures to get it on the ballot.

The timetable for the anti-gerrymandering isn’t nearly that compressed, but each passing week is crucial, Turcer, of Common Cause Ohio, said. 

“It could be that this is standard operating procedure,” she said of the two rejections so far. “But it could slow things down so much that they can’t collect signatures during early voting and Election Day.”

She was referring to Nov. 7, when a closely watched abortion rights amendment is expected to draw many Ohioians to the polls. In-person early voting starts Oct. 11 — just 22 days away.

Turcer explained that early voting and Election Day are important for petition circulators because that’s when registered voters — the group eligible to sign petitions — are gathered at county boards of election during early voting and at polling places on Election Day. 

Assuming Yost approves the summary language on Oct. 2, it still has to be approved by the Ballot Board and petition forms need to be printed.

“Citizen initiatives are incredibly challenging,” Turcer said. “But they’re much harder if you have a compressed time period.”

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce’s Ten Hot Takes for September 26, 2023

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hot takes

Republicans want to cut food, heating, and housing subsidies for poor children and families. This tells me everything I need to know about the Republican Party.

Senator Bob Menendez should be forced to resign from office by his fellow Democratic senators.

It looks like Trump not only inflated his dick size, he also grossly inflated the value of his real estate and business assets.

Some Democrats are calling for candidates to run against Joe Biden. I support this call in the primary. However, come November 2024, the only thing that matters is keeping Trump out of the White House.

Upwards of twenty-three raccoons frequented our backyard this spring and summer. And now that fall has arrived, the raccoons have disappeared, making occasional raids on the food we put out for feral/stray cats.

Chronic illness and pain affects every aspect of my life. Telling me to “put mind over matter” is never the right thing to say. When you say this, I say to myself, “Go fuck yourself.” Continue in your insensitive behavior, I might say this to your face.

“Looks like you are feeling better today,” well-wishers often say. They wrongly judge the quality and level of my suffering by what I do, failing to understand that looks can be deceiving. Just because I’m smiling, doesn’t mean I don’t want to cry. I often smile for others, hiding my pain from them.

Hey, Joe Namath. You had a lifetime 50% pass completion rate, worse than embattled New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson. STFU. Give the kid the break. Nobody wants to hear from ancient old ex-players. Different era, different game.

Travis Kelce, a Taylor Swift dating, Bud Light drinking promoter of COVID vaccines is upsetting right-wingers with his “woke” behavior. OMG, the meltdowns are fun to watch.

Kevin McCarthy says Biden is to blame for the threatened government shutdown. Sure, Kevin, sure. I bet the hemorrhoid in your arse you affectionately call Matt Gaetz is telling you to say this lest you lose your speakership.

Bonus: I’m increasingly disillusioned with what I see and hear in the larger atheist community. Maybe this is on me. I’ve moved on from the “angry atheist” phase of my life. I’m not that interested anymore in debates about the existence of God.

Breaking News: Scholar Reveals Why the Rapture Never Happens

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the rapture 3

By Dr. Bruce Gerencser, resident scholar, specializing in snarkiness and smartassery

Evangelical preachers have been preaching about the “rapture” — the sudden, imminent return of Jesus to the atmosphere of Earth to remove all living Christians and transport them to Heaven — my whole life. I am now sixty-six years old. I can’t remember a time when an Evangelical preacher wasn’t predicting that Jesus would soon return to Earth and snatch away born-again believers. Some preachers even give dates for the rapture. Dozens of dates have come and gone without the rapture taking place. Famed Southern Baptist evangelist Bob Harrington was fond of saying, “I am not looking for the undertaker, I’m looking for the uppertaker.” Harrington died in 2017. He may have not been looking for the undertaker, but the undertaker was looking for him. Jesus was nowhere to be found.

Hal Lindsay, Jack Van Impe, Harold Camping, Edgar Whisenant, and countless other preachers have set a date for the rapture. None of their predictions has come true What are we to make of their failed predictions? Does this mean that these men are false prophets? Should we stone them to death?

As a lifelong follower of rapture pronouncements, I have come up with a new explanation for why the rapture never happens — all straight from the Bible.

First, the earth is flat.

Second, an ice wall surrounds the earth.

Third, there is an atmospheric dome that covers the earth.

Fourth, when Jesus returns to earth, the angel Gabriel will play his trumpet, announcing the rapture is nigh.

Fifth, as believers are pulled naked out of their clothes as they rise to the heavens, all of a sudden they slam into the dome and fall back to earth! Physics, Jesus.

What’s strange is that there are no past news reports of millions of naked Christians exposing themselves in public. Weird, right? I suspect that Jesus — in Men in Black fashion — wipes from the minds of humanity any thoughts of recent events. Evidence? Think of how many times Evangelical preachers have predicted the rapture — without success. Believers never seem to remember past failed predictions. Remember all those preachers who predicted Donald Trump would win the 2020 presidential election? Nary a word about their false prophecies. Instead, they have moved on to predicting Trump will win in 2024 and take America back for God. So it is for these rapture preachers. They want you to forget past predictions, and focus, instead, on their latest pronouncement. “Jesus’ return is imminent! He could return today!” they say. “And while you are waiting for Jesus to show up, please send a donation to my ministry.”

I predict that Jesus will not rapture away the church. Until Elon Musk sends a spaceship to the upper atmosphere and cuts a hole so believers can escape when the trumpet sounds, Evangelicals will just have to wait patiently to be raptured.

What I have written here is every bit as true as a dead Jewish man miraculously coming back to life, ascending to Heaven, never to be seen or heard from again, only to one day have an angel blow a trumpet announcing his return to Earth so he can rapture away millions of Christians.

Prove me wrong! 🙂

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Short Stories: The Preacher and His TV

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dehann-quote

In the 1960s, my dad would drop my siblings and me off at the Bryan Theater so we could watch the 25-cent Saturday afternoon matinee. But somewhere in my primary school years, going to movies became unacceptable. I suspect that this was due to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preaching my parents were hearing and absorbing at the time. From that point forward, outside of attending a drive-in movie one time at age 18 and taking two different girls on movie dates (Jaws and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory),  I didn’t go to a movie theater again until I was in my late 30s. As a Christian, I believed that going to or renting movies was supporting Hollywood, an institution that I considered a den of iniquity.

In the late 1990s, having become more “liberal” in my thinking, I decided it was time for the Gerencser family to go to a movie. When I told Polly that we were all going to the drive-in to see a movie, she was appalled. She literally thought that God was going to strike us dead. Well, here we are, all these years later, still among the living. Evidently, God didn’t seem to give a shit about us going to the drive-in. By the way, the first hardcore, violent, nudity-laden movie we saw? George of the Jungle! The Second? Air Bud.

I grew up in a home that always had a television. My Mom told me one time that American Bandstand was my babysitter. The first memory I have about television is watching the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember my dad coming home with what I later in life called the “poor man’s color TV.” It was a colored, plastic sheet that Dad taped to the TV screen. The top of the sheet was blue and the bottom was green. Supposedly, the screen was meant to simulate sky and grass. Dad wasn’t impressed, and we quickly went back to watching black-and-white TV. The Gerencser family didn’t own a color television until sometime in the 1970s.

My wife and I married in 1978. One of our first purchases was a used tube console color TV that we bought from Marv Hartman TV in Bryan, Ohio. We paid $125. We continued to watch TV for a few years, until one day I decided, under the leadership and conviction of the Holy Spirit, that watching TV was a sin. This was in the mid-1980s. After swearing off watching TV, I decided that no one, if he or she were a good Christian anyway, should be watching television. One Sunday, as pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in Mt Perry, Ohio, I preached a 90-minute sermon — you read that right, 90 minutes — on the evils of watching television and going to the movies. I called on all True Christians® to immediately get rid of their TVs and follow their preacher into the pure Christian air of a Hollywood-free world.

To prove my point, I gathered the congregation out in front of the church for a physical demonstration of my commitment to following the TV-hating Jesus. I put our 13-inch black and white TV in the churchyard and hit it several times with a sledgehammer, breaking the TV into a pile of electronic rubble. Like the record burnings of the 1970s, my act was meant to show that I was willing to do whatever it took to be an on-fire, sold-out follower of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

calvin and hobbes tv

Just before I hit the TV with the sledgehammer, a church member by the name of Gary said to me, Hey preacher, if you don’t want that TV I’ll take it. How dare he ruin my sin-hating demonstration! I thought at the time. I gave Gary a scowling look and proceeded to knock the Devil right out of the TV. I am happy to report that not one church member followed in my TV-hating footsteps. What church members did was make sure that their televisions were OFF or covered with a towel when the man of God made an appearance at their home. That’s just how the game was and is played.

In the early 1990s, I would, from time to time, rent a television from a local rent-to-own business. Two times come to mind: the 1990 World Series and the 1991 Gulf War. Outside of that, our oldest three children grew up in a television-free home. They were teenagers: 18,16, and 13, before they watched TV (except for watching Saturday cartoons when they were little). Well, this isn’t entirely true. When they visited their grandparents, they were permitted to watch TV — even though I wasn’t happy about them doing so. Like Amish children, they were mesmerized by Disney movies and cartoons.

After our family attended their first movie, I decided I would buy a television, setting in motion seven years of what any competent psychologist would call bizarre, mentally imbalanced behavior. While what I am about to share will sound hilarious to those who never spent any time in Christian Fundamentalism, at the time; there was nothing humorous about my actions.

calvin and hobbes tv 2

From 1998 through 2005, I purchased and got rid of at least six television sets. I gave one TV to the local crisis pregnancy center. I also gave one set to my son. The rest I sold at a loss. Why all the televisions? you might ask. Simple. After watching TV for a time, like a moth to a flame, I was drawn towards watching shows that I promised God I would never watch. Dear Lord, I promise I will only watch G- or PG-rated programming, and if there is any nudity, cursing, or gore I will immediately turn off the TV. No matter how much I wanted to be holy and righteous, I found that I loved watching programs that contained things that I considered sin.

My “sinning’ would go on for a few weeks or months until the guilt would become so great that I would say to God, you are right, Lord. This is sin. I will get rid of the TV and I promise to never, ever watch it again. Out the TV would go, but months later I would get the hankering to watch TV again and I would, unbeknownst to Polly, go buy a television.

I so wanted to be right with God and live a life untainted by the world, yet I loved to watch TV. One time, after I came to the decision to get rid of yet another TV, Polly arrived home from work and found me sitting on the steps of the porch, crying and despondent. I hated myself. I hated that I was so easily led astray by Satan. I hated that I was such a bad testimony. Look at ALL that Jesus did for me! Couldn’t I, at the very least, go without watching TV for the sake of the kingdom of God? Evidently not.

I have written before about my perfectionist tendencies. I wanted to be the perfect Christian. God’s Word said to abstain from the very appearance of evil. Psalm 101:3 was a driving force in my life:

I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.

Television was a wicked thing, I told myself, yet I continued to battle with my desire to watch sports and other programs on TV. Needless to say, the advent of the Internet brought into our home a new way for me to be tempted to sin against the thrice-holy God I pledged to serve, even unto death. I’m sure that my children will remember me putting a sign above our computer that quoted Psalm 101:3. This was meant as a reminder that we should NEVER view inappropriate, sinful things on the Internet. Needless to say, I know exactly how long it takes to look at a pornographic photo while on a dial-up connection. Way too long, by the way. 🙂

My three oldest children, now in their late 30s and 40s, continue to rib me about my TV-crazed days. One of them will periodically ask if I am ready to get rid of our flat-screen TV. Their good-natured ribbing hails back to the day when their dad acted like a psycho, buying and selling televisions. At the time, I am sure they thought I was crazy, and I wouldn’t blame them if they did.

Where was my partner, Polly in all of this, you ask? She was the dutiful, submissive wife who believed her God-called, on-fire, sold-out Christian pastor of a husband knew best. Polly rarely watched TV, so having one didn’t matter to her. I was the one who “needed” to watch TV. As I now psychoanalyze this period of my life, I think watching TV was my way of being “normal.” Serving a sin-hating God and preaching to others a rigid, inflexible morality meant that I had to live a Christ-honoring, sin-free life. Again, in light of the atoning work of Jesus on my behalf, I thought that forsaking the pleasure of the “world” was but a small price to pay for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Yet, I wanted to be like everyone else, so I would come home after a long day of studying for my sermons, visiting church members, and doing the work of the ministry, and leave God sitting on the front porch. Watching TV was my way of unwinding after working days which were often long and demanding. While I still was selective about what I watched, my attempts to avoid “sinful” viewing rarely kept me from watching whatever I wanted to watch, especially after the children went to bed. Over time, my guilt levels would increase, ultimately leading to the behaviors outlined in this post.

In 2006, two years before I deconverted, I finally put an end to my battle with the television. I decided, God be damned, I was going to own a TV and watch whatever I wanted to watch. From that point forward, we have owned a television. While I have continued to buy televisions, my purchases are driven by resolution, refresh rate, and screen size, and not the thought that God was going to strike me dead for seeing a naked man or woman on TV.

Several years ago, as we were watching an episode of True Blood, I turned to Polly and said, who would have thought that we would be sitting here watching bloody, naked vampires having sex?  We laughed together, both grateful that the preacher had finally been delivered from the demon of TV.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce, I Want to Be Your Friend — Part One

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cant we be friends
Cartoon by Paco

Several times a month I receive emails from Evangelicals wanting to be “friends” with me. These emails invariably say that the writer is Evangelical, but not like the Evangelicals I focus on in my writing. Often, these writers attempt to “hook” me by saying that they “totally” understand why, based on reading about my past experiences, I would walk away from the ministry and Christianity. They too, I am told, would have done the same. Usually, these emails are filled with compliments about my transparency, openness, and honesty. These Evangelicals promise me that their motives are pure, and that they have no desire to try to win me back to Jesus. All they want is an opportunity to show me “true” Christian love and friendship.

I also get Facebook friend requests from Evangelicals who, again, promise that they have no ulterior motive for friending me. Years ago, one such person friended me on Facebook. He knew “everything” about me, having read my blog and talked to his sister who was, at one time, a member of one of the churches I pastored. So, I friended him, thinking that maybe, just maybe, he was different from other Evangelicals. And for a while he was, but one day he became inflamed with righteous indignation over something I had written about Christianity. Our discussion quickly spun out of control, and the man unfriended me. He warned his sister about me, saying that I was satanic and Christians should avoid me lest I influence them with my demonic words.

These days, I simply do not respond to Evangelical friendship requests, be they via email or on social media. Several years ago, the president of a Christian college attempted to goad me into having lunch with him by appealing to my desire for openness and understanding. This man told me that he just wanted to share a meal and hear my story. I told him, as I do anyone else who takes this approach, Look, I have written more than four thousand blog posts. I have written extensively about my past and present life. If you really want to know about my life, READ!  If, after reading my writing, you have questions, email them to me and I will either answer them in an email or a blog post. Of course, this is not what these “friendly” Evangelicals want. They want a face-to-face meeting with me so they can probe my life, hoping to find that wrong beliefs led to my deconversion. Never mind that I have written numerous posts about my past beliefs. Everything someone could ever want to know about my life and beliefs can be found on this blog.

Perhaps the question these Evangelicals should ask is this: why would I want to be friends with you? What would a friendship with you bring to my life that I don’t already have? It’s not like I don’t have any friends. I do, and I am quite happy with the number of friends I have, both in the flesh and through the digital world. Not only that, but my partner of forty-five years is my best friend, and I am close with my six children and their families. I have all I need when it comes to human interaction. Why, then, would I want to be friends with Evangelicals who, as sure as I am sitting here, want to evangelize me? Friendship Evangelism remains a tool churches and parachurch ministries use in their evangelistic efforts. Friendship becomes a pretext. The real goal is to see sinners saved. Promoters of “Friendship Evangelism” know that befriending people disarms them, making them more sensitive and receptive to whatever version of the Christian gospel they are promoting.

As long-time readers of this blog know, I am pretty good at stalking people on the internet and social media. I have learned that you can tell a lot about people just by looking at their Facebook wall, along with the groups they are a part of and the pages they like. Recently, a local man contacted me, offering to buy me dinner with no strings attached. What, no expectations of sex after the date? Consider me a doubter. I decided to check out the man’s Facebook profile. I found out that he voted for Donald Trump and supports most of the Evangelical hot-button issues. He opposes same-sex marriage and abortion. We have nothing in common socially or politically. Why, then, would I want to be friends with him?

Friendships are generally built around shared beliefs. I don’t have any interest in being friends with people who voted for Donald Trump or support political views I consider anti-human, racist, bigoted, and misogynistic. And I sure as hell don’t befriend people who root for Michigan. I have standards, you know? Seriously, most of us have friends who hold to beliefs similar to our own. We might have a handful of friends who differ from us, but we find ways to forge meaningful relationships with such people. I am friends with several Evangelicals, but the main reason I am is that our friendships date back to the days when we were walking the halls of Lincoln Elementary. We’ve agreed not to talk about religion or politics. We share many common connections that make such discussions unnecessary. I am sure they fear for my “soul” and pray that I would return to the fold, but these things are never voiced to me. If they did attempt to evangelize me, it would most certainly put an end to our friendship.

To the man, these friendly Evangelicals believe that my life is missing something — Jesus — and is empty, lacking meaning, purpose, and direction. In their minds, only Jesus can meet my needs. Without him, what is the point of living another day, right? In their minds, Jesus is the end-all. Why would I want to trade the life I now have for Jesus? What can Jesus — a dead man — possibly offer me? Well, Bruce, these Evangelicals say, Jesus offers you forgiveness of sins, escape from Hell, and eternal bliss in Heaven. Surely, you want to go to Heaven when you die? Actually, I am content with life in the present. Threats of Hell or promises of Heaven have no effect on me. Both are empty promises.

Why would I ever want to be friends with someone who believes that, unless I believe as they do, their God is going to torture me in a lake filled with fire and brimstone for eternity? This same God — knowing that my present body would, in hell, sizzle like a hog on a spit — lovingly plans to fit me with a special fireproof body that will be able to feel the pain of being roasted alive without being turned into a puddle of grease. What an awesome God! No thanks. I have no interest in being friends with anyone who thinks that this is what lies in the future for me. I can’t stop (nor do I want to) such people from reading my writing, but I sure as hell don’t want to “fellowship” with them over dinner at the local Applebee’s.

I would like to make one offer to Evangelicals who want to be friends with Atheist Bruce. Fine, let’s go to the strip club and have drinks, and let’s do it on All Male Revue Night. I’m not all that interested in seeing males strip, but I thought taking these Evangelicals to such a place would help them see how I feel when they view my life as lacking (naked) and in need of clothing (Jesus).

My life is what it is. True friends accept me as I am, no strings attached. Evangelicals, of course, have a tough time doing that. In their minds, Jesus is the end-all, the answer to all that ails the human race. Life is empty without the awesome threesome — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I spent fifty years in the Christian church. For half of those years, I was preaching the Evangelical gospel. I was, according to all who knew me, a devoted, zealous follower of Jesus. Whatever my faults may have been (and they were many), I loved Jesus with all my heart, soul, and mind. Deciding to walk away from the ministry and Christianity were the two hardest decisions I have ever made. Yet, my life, in virtually every way, is better today than it was when I was a Christian. Quite frankly, Christianity has nothing to offer me. I am content (well, as content as a perfectionist with OCPD can be, anyway) with life as it now is. Sure, life isn’t perfect, but all in all, I can say I am blessed. Yes, blessed. I am grateful for my partner, six children, and thirteen grandchildren. I am grateful that I can, with all the health problems I have, still enjoy their company. The advice I offer up to people on my ABOUT page sums up my view of life:

You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.

Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you’d best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.

For me, the game of life is late in the fourth quarter. Time is literally running out. I must focus my attention and energy on relationships that are mutually beneficial, relationships that offer love, kindness, and acceptance. No Evangelical worth his or her salt can offer me such a relationship. Lurking below the surface will be thoughts about how much better my life could be with Jesus and thoughts of what will happen to me if I die without repenting of my sins. Evangelicals who really believe what the Bible says can’t leave me alone. They dare not stand before God to give an account of their lives, only to be reminded that, when given the opportunity to evangelize the atheist ex-preacher Bruce Gerencser, they said and did nothing. And it is for these reasons that I cannot and will not befriend Evangelicals.

Read Part Two here.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.