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Jesus Makes a Personal Appearance at Local Evangelical Church

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olive branch ministries

Two miles down the road from our home lies Olive Branch Ministries, pastored by Keith Adkins. One of a plethora of dying Christian churches around us, Olive Branch rebranded itself from Olive Branch [Pentecostal] Church of God, thinking that a fancy new name will magically rejuvenate the congregation and draw new blood to the church. This is a common practice these days by Evangelical churches, thinking if they paint their dying carcass with a patina of bright, shiny colors, Dr. Frankenstein will exclaim, He’s Alive! Granted, many sects are perceived in less than flattering light these days, so I understand why churches might want to trick the public into thinking that what goes on within the four walls of their sanctuaries is new and improved, just what the public is looking for. Southern Baptist congregations are notorious for their rebrands — dropping all public affiliation with the SBC. People uninitiated in the wily practices of area missionaries and church planters might think that a new non-denominational church has come to town, only to find out that the only thing that changed is the name.

I know very little about Olive Branch outside of driving by their building on Sundays and counting the cars in the parking lot. The church had a recent pastor change. Ned Speiser, a local realtor, was the pastor for years before Keith Adkins assumed the pulpit. I do know that Olive Branch is one of the older congregations in Defiance County. I couldn’t find any public information about the church or its pastor. The church has no social media presence. I find it inexplicable for a church in 2023 to not have a quality, informative website and social media presence. (I built my first church website with Microsoft FrontPage in the late 1990s.)

Christianity, by and large, is slowly dying in rural northwest Ohio, with younger adults saying “no thanks,” and boomers and their parents hanging on for dear life, hoping that Jesus is coming soon to rescue them from the horde of unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines amassed at their metaphorical gates. Of course, the Philistines aren’t at their gates. They simply don’t care and have better things to do on Sundays than listen to boring sermons and sing catchy, shallow praise and worship songs. I suspect that by 2050, a lot of local churches will either close their doors or merge with other congregations. When the money dies — think old people — it’s game over.

It is human nature to want to live at all costs. This is just as true for people as it is for businesses and churches. No church wants to close its door, admitting that it failed. So congregations look for ways to regain their glory years; a time when pews were filled with young and old, souls were saved, and offering plates were overflowing. Pastors and other church leaders go to conferences to learn new ways to transform their congregations. One popular method is for churches to change their music. Churches known for hymn singing scrap the old way and start singing praise and worship songs, led by a worship leader/praise team and band (or at least a grandfather with a guitar). Result? Awful music that disconnects parishoners from worship.

Country churches running under one hundred in attendance think they can mimic what they see happening in megachurches; large congregations led by paid professional singers and musicians, using equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. What megachurch wannabees fail to see is this: megachurch services are more about entertainment than worship. Small church pastors think that if they preach entertaining sermons like big-name megachurch preachers, people will flock to their churches. Lost on these pastors is that preaching is an art and that it is unwise to mimic other preachers. We attended a church years ago where the pastor was preaching Rick Warren’s sermons word for word. It took me a couple of weeks to catch on to what this mimic was doing, but once I figured out he was stealing Warren’s sermons, we stopped attending. The church closed its doors several years later.

Churches are free to do whatever they want. However, if their goal is growth, they might want to consider how they are viewed by non-attendees. They might want to survey attendees and ask them what they liked and didn’t like about the service they attended. I have thought about becoming a church consultant; someone who would turn a critical eye to their congregations, looking at every facet of their business — from the parking lot to the bathrooms. (I have also thought about being a restaurant consultant.)

Take Olive Branch. Recently, they planted the following sign in their yard. As you shall see, the sign is way too small to be seen by people speeding down the highway at fifty-five miles per hour. I had Polly turn around so I could actually read what the sign said and take a photograph.

come meet jesus

I suspect the church and its pastor believe that “where two or three are gathered [at 11:00 am on Sundays and 6:30 pm on Wednesdays] together in my [Jesus] name, I am in their midst.” I wonder if the church has ever asked themselves how they know they do anything in Jesus’ name, and how would they know that Jesus is in their midst? Hundreds of churches in the four-county area believe the same thing. Imagine being Jesus’ scheduler. Millions of Christian churches across the globe, yet he allegedly is sitting in the front pew of every one of them. Of course, Jesus doesn’t appear physically at these churches. Instead, he’s there in Spirit. How any church can KNOW Jesus is there in Spirit is never stated. I suspect that generation after generation after generation of church members say “Jesus is in our midst,” that everyone assumes this claim is true.

Pastor Adkins and his congregation believe that non-Christian or wrong-Christian passersby are in bondage to sin; lacking the freedom that only their peculiar version of Jesus can give. How do they know this? Bible verses will be quoted and personal testimonies uttered, but those in bondage to sin will just have to take their word for it. As someone who is a sin-loving heathen, I laugh when Evangelicals tell me I am in “bondage.” I reject their presuppositions out of hand, including the anti-human notion that every person who has ever lived on planet Earth was born a depraved sinner, headed for eternal damnation and Hell unless they repent of their sins and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

I left Christianity in 2008. I found that religion was bondage, not life; that I spent fifty years in servitude in Egypt, and once I escaped, I found the Promised Land — a land that flows with reason, common sense, and skepticism.

I wish that Jesus was making public appearances at Olive Branch Ministries at 11:00 am on Sundays. I have a lot of questions I would like to ask him. Alas, I know Jesus will not be appearing at any church this Sunday. He can’t. Jesus was buried two thousand years ago in an unknown Judean grave; all that remains is an idea, one that became hopelessly corrupted by organized religion. If Jesus does make a personal appearance at Olive Branch this Sunday, I suspect he would be a first-time visitor.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: Bob Jones University Employee Loses Her Job Because She Wouldn’t Let Her Employer Hit Her Child

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dennis the menance being spanked

By Camille Kaminski Lewis

When my oldest was born — I called him my “screamer,” since my daughter’s stillbirth two years prior had filled the delivery room with only an ominous silence — I wanted to care for him like God cared for me.

I was working at the infamous Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. I was in middle management, if you will — the head of the rhetoric and public address department. My husband and I had graduated with two degrees each from BJU, and we had both earned our terminal degrees at Indiana University. Mine was a Ph.D. in rhetorical studies with a minor in American studies.

….

When I sat in that first BJU graduation ceremony after my son was born, I read Isaiah 49 to myself while the event droned on: “Can a woman forget her nursing child? … Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.” That had been the first time I was away from my son for over three hours. My body could not “forget” my nursing child. But God says here that just like I couldn’t forget my child, He “will not forget you.”

A thought startled me: So, God loves his people like I love my son!? And wait — God loves my students like I love my son?!

That changed everything. I realized that God wasn’t transactional. I loved my son because he’s my son, not because he obeys.

Choosing to parent my son like God parented me — foregrounding love and care over transactions — brought me to the decision that I would never hit my son, no matter what the church instructed. I told myself that I would just keep this choice quiet until he was grown up and a wonderful young man, and no one from the community needed to know.

Things were fine in those early months of his life. The campus medical clinic (which our insurance benefits required we use) had instructed all of us mothers to look to fundamentalist parenting guru Gary Ezzo for our child-rearing. [Ezzo promotes ritual child abuse.] I knew his books well, but I chose differently. Ezzo said to “feed-wake-sleep” and to only feed every three hours for a minimum of 30 minutes. I used to joke that my son hadn’t read the books, so he would eat for an hour every two hours. His contrary “plan” was eat-wake-eat-wake-eat-eat-eat-sleep-eat-eat-wake. If Ezzo was wrong about feeding, I wondered, what else was he wrong about?

In defiance of Ezzo, I made a 67-cent ring sling to carry my son around the house while I vacuumed, cooked and folded laundry. That child was never happier. But I could not use this sling in public. That would get me labeled as Ezzo’s dreaded “marsupial mom.”

Then, one day, I had to. It was raining. A stroller didn’t make sense. If I wore my son, I could keep him close under my umbrella with me.

….

That innocent walk left me marked. I became the talk of the campus, especially among its day care staff. Still, I wasn’t too worried ― I was used to campus gossip and didn’t think it was a big deal.

Like with the university medical clinic, I was required to enroll my children in BJU’s cradle-to-baccalaureate educational programs, including its day care. The employee handbook stated that it would “expect” this of the faculty and staff.

….

One day while while I was waiting for my son outside of his classroom, I heard the “Big Room” teacher marching all the way down from the last classroom on my left. Clip-clop, clip-clop. When she appeared, a little boy around 3 or 4 was reluctantly but dreamily walking beside her. As she got closer, I could see that her jaw was clenched in frustration.

No more than 10 minutes later, the same teacher walked past me again, headed back to her classroom. The child was sobbing. I understood the whole story now. The teacher had taken him down to “Miss P,” the day care supervisor, for a spanking.

As she marched back with a whimpering child, I heard her repeat that ominous fundamentalist phrase: “Happy heart, Joshua! Happy heart!”

She just had taken a child to get hit by a complete stranger, and he wasn’t even allowed to own his own feelings.

….

When my oldest was 2 years and 8 months old, I could no longer shield him or keep my commitment silent. The campus day care sent me a memo giving them legal permission to hit my son, which they instructed me to sign and return. Just like Ligon and Jason, a virtual stranger would be causing my child pain outside of my purview, and then he would inevitably be told to repeat, “Happy heart!”

The memo was innocently tucked into a packet with innocuous forms and info like campus directories and calendars, all of which we received during our opening in-service meeting. I laid it on my knee and stared at it throughout the entire event.

I didn’t sign it. In fact, a social worker friend told me to write a letter that stated the opposite — that no one was allowed to hit my son.

….

That was the beginning of the end for me in fundamentalism. Within weeks, my academic dean called me in with my division chairman to inform my 38-year-old self that I was merely a “young mom” who didn’t have enough life experience to know biblical parenting. I thought that burying a baby, completing a Ph.D. and spending over 20 years under BJU preaching would count for something. It didn’t.

After countless meetings with many men higher on the org chart than I, the ultimatum came from the university president himself: “If you cannot hold your position without openly promoting it in spoken or written communication to colleagues, students, or others at a distance from the University, we would have to come to a parting of ways.”

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The Place I Will Never Go Again

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guest post

Guest Post by Steve

As an ex-Christian and a person living with a mental illness, I have thought quite a bit these past few years about how religion and mental illness intersect, and the positive and negative effects their interaction can have on one’s well-being (especially the mental and emotional aspects). And my inspiration to write this came from a revealing question I asked myself.

What place would I never set foot in again?

I have been to some very remote, rural places where the soil seems to grow far-right extremists. Of course, I was drawn there not by the people, but for the natural beauty found in many such places. I have lived in Wyoming and worked in some of the reddest counties in Florida. And perhaps if I went back to such places, one of those areas would be the place I would never want to visit again, now that the political discourse has become even more toxic than it was in 2016. 

But I went to this place in early 2015, just before (or shortly after) Trump announced his candidacy for President. There was no cult of Trump yet, and visible support for the man in this town was scant, if there was any at all.

But what I saw in Crescent City, Florida scared the shit out of me even more than Trump. What I saw there during my brief four-hour visit has existed in this country for decades longer than Trumpism. And it finds its most fertile soil in communities like these. What I saw there was an unadulterated display of Christian Nationalism that I have never seen the likes of since, even in the rural communities in which I have lived and worked.

I did not technically choose to be in Crescent City that night. I was only there because I was a volunteer for a community organization that served the area and my partner and I were tasked with setting up a booth there to promote it. We were working a community event taking place in the heart of their “downtown.”

The Crescent City Catfish Festival opened with a prayer (of the Evangelical variety), and the musical entertainment for the evening consisted entirely of worship music. Perhaps I am too much of a sheltered suburbanite, but such an overt display of religiosity at a nominally secular public event was not something I ever expected to see. But that is not the main reason I wouldn’t return there.

I can’t recall what the booth next to ours was sponsoring or selling, but the old man there gave me the creeps. I was already struggling with a depression that would eventually lead to my first suicide attempt and involuntary hospitalization, and I think my low mood must have been palpable, or perhaps the old man’s church taught him to spot the signs that a person might be open to a “word from the Lord.” Either way, what happened next was shocking, disgusting, and uncalled for.

Roughly two hours in, the old man walked up to me and looked at me. What came out of his mouth were not words of the good news of salvation through Jesus, but the exhortation to get right with God before we died and went to Hell, if we didn’t believe already. What made things even worse was the tone of the man, which I have since heard echoed in right-wing street protests by youth one-third his age. It was the tone of smug self-righteousness, mingled with sadistic glee, mixed with the emphasis on hellfire.

Vulnerable as I was, this only made me more anxious and eager to leave. When I told my colleague I was disturbed by what this man had done, he brushed it aside, leaving me to grapple with my anxieties and fears alone. Not knowing anything at all about my mental illness at the time, I began to think the old man was right. Maybe I needed to get right with a God I no longer believed in. Maybe God was punishing me for smoking weed, slacking off on my schoolwork and internship, et cetera. Maybe I had strayed off the path and needed chastisement to bring me back into the fold.

And while these doubts and worries did not end up bringing me back to the faith (nor have they in the times I’ve experienced them after that), they worsened my depression and my self-confidence greatly. Looking back, I now know what was happening. I was so overwhelmed I shut down completely. My internship and my classes, my roommates’ hostility towards me, my cluelessness as to what I would do after graduating college, and the feeling of alienation from my friends and family — they all weighed on me. 

And so too, did the “get right or fry” message from this old man. Instead of the supposed love and grace of Christ, all I can think about is the pain and punishment of Hell conveyed through the words of a mean and intrusive old man. I already hated myself so much at the time that this was just gasoline on an already growing fire. 

Seven years later, the public displays of religiosity in Crescent City are ever-present now at right-wing rallies, in the halls of government, and in the classrooms of children. And in most cases, the people most apt to publicly display their religion like this are the types who will go on to mentally scar others through interactions like the one I had with this old man. 

There is no love in the Christianity these people proclaim, only destruction and dominion. The sooner people realize this and realize that Crescent City and places like it are the communities these Christian zealots idealize, maybe we can beat back the rising tide of Christian Nationalism before we are all swept up in its clutches. 

I will never go back to Crescent City, but unless we do something about it, we may all be living in Crescent City sooner than we realize.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Update: Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Youth Pastor Jordan Huffman Pleads Guilty to Sexually Assaulting Several Church Boys

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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, Jordan Huffman, a former youth pastor at Woodlands Church in Plover, Wisconsin, was accused of sexually assaulting a church teenager. The sexual assaults began when the boy was twelve. Huffman also worked for Forest Lakes District Evangelical Free Church of America in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

The Stevens Point Journal reported:

Jordan Ross Huffman, 51, who is living in Satellite Beach, Florida, faces charges of first-degree sexual assault of a child, two counts of repeated sexual assault of a child, three counts of child enticement, one count of causing a child to view sexual activity and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a child.

The Portage County District Attorney’s Office filed the charges against Huffman on Aug. 5, and Portage County Circuit Judge Louis Molepske Jr. issued a warrant for him on Monday.

The Brevard County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office online records state officers arrested Huffman Tuesday. On Wednesday, Attorney Andrea Winder, of Madison, notified the court that she is Huffman’s lawyer. 

According to the criminal complaint, in 2017, a couple approached Huffman, who at the time was a pastor at Woodlands Church in Plover, and asked him to mentor their 12-year-old son. The boy had started drinking and getting into trouble.

The boy told police instead of helping him, Huffman did just the opposite, according to the complaint. Huffman gave the boy alcohol, marijuana and prescription pills, according to the complaint. The boy said Huffman would drive him to a remote location at the end of a dirt road, after the boy was drunk or under the influence of marijuana, and inappropriately touch the boy with his mouth or hands, according to the complaint.  

The boy said the encounters happened multiple times. He said nothing happened at Woodlands Church, other than Huffman telling the boy he had alcohol, marijuana or nicotine cartridges for him, according to the complaint. He said Huffman had sexual intercourse with him one time at Huffman’s home while his wife and children were gone. 

When Huffman left Woodlands Church and took a job with Forest Lakes District Evangelical Free Church of America in Stevens Point, several encounters occurred in Huffman’s office there, according to the complaint. 

The boy told police he let Huffman do these things because Huffman was his mentor and because he was drunk or high, according to the complaint. When the boy got older, he told Huffman he didn’t want to have sexual contact with him anymore, and Huffman respected the request. About six months later, Huffman told the boy he no longer wanted to hang out with him, according to the complaint. 

If convicted of the charges, Huffman faces a maximum of 221 years and 9 months in prison. 

Huffman is now facing new accusations of sexual assault.

The OshKosh Northwestern reports:

A former Plover pastor accused of sexually assaulting a boy from his church beginning in 2017 was arrested May 19 and charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy in Winnebago County.

Jordan Huffman, 52, of Oshkosh, faces charges of first-degree sexual assault of a child under age 13, child enticement for sexual contact, and three counts of felony bail jumping.

Shortly after 1 a.m. May 19, a 12-year-old boy called 911 and told Winnebago County dispatch he had been kidnapped from an address in Appleton, was in a vehicle and the man who took him was “coming back,” according to a criminal complaint.

Dispatchers tracked GPS location from the juvenile’s cellphone and sent officers to the Econo Lodge Hotel at 2000 Holly Road in Fox Crossing, according to police.

Police conducted a traffic stop on Huffman’s vehicle, and the boy ran out of the vehicle “screaming and crying,” according to the complaint. Police took Huffman into custody.

In an interview with investigators at the Fox Valley Child Advocacy Center, the boy said he received and accepted a Snapchat friend request sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight May 18. He engaged in conversation with the other Snapchat user, during which he informed the person he was 12 years old. The person sent a nude photo, and the boy said he sent one back that he found online.

The boy said the Snapchat user stopped sending messages for a bit, then asked if the boy wanted to talk on the phone. The boy said no, and within minutes, he received a message saying “I’m here,” according to the complaint. The man was in a vehicle outside the boy’s house.

The boy said he “was confused and didn’t know how the male knew where he lived,” then realized his Snapchat location settings were on, the complaint says. He told investigators he went into the man’s vehicle, thinking they were only going to talk, then the man began driving and told the boy they were going to a hotel.

When they arrived at the hotel, the man took the car keys and checked in, leaving the boy in the car. The boy said this was when he called the police.

When the man returned, the boy said, they went into the hotel and sexual contact occurred. The boy said he faked a phone call from his mother, and told the man his mom was calling to tell him to come home. He said he called police again, pretending it was his mom, according to the complaint.

The boy said the man was beginning to take the boy back to his house when the police arrived. The boy said Huffman asked if he had “set him up,” according to the complaint.

Huffman has an open case in Portage County for which he faces one count of first-degree sexual assault of a child under 13, two counts of repeated sexual assault of the same child, three counts of child enticement for sexual contact, one count of causing a child to view sexual activity and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a child.

In that case, Huffman is accused of engaging in sexual activity with an adolescent boy he met through church over the course of multiple years.

According to a criminal complaint for the Portage County case, in 2017 a couple approached Huffman, then a pastor at Woodlands Church in Plover, and asked him to mentor their 12-year-old son who had been drinking and getting in trouble. The boy told police Huffman did not help him, but instead gave him alcohol, marijuana and prescription pills, and engaged in sexual contact with the boy.

The boy told police that Huffman on multiple occasions gave him alcohol, marijuana or pills, and while the boy was under the influence, Huffman would drive him to a remote location and inappropriately touch him with his mouth or hands. In one instance, the boy said Huffman sexually assaulted him in Huffman’s house while his wife and children were gone.

The first incident occurred when the boy was 12, and continued for a couple years, the boy said. When the boy was 15, he said he told Huffman he no longer wanted to engage in sexual contact. He said he and Huffman continued to hang out for about six months before Huffman told the boy he no longer wanted to spend time with him, the complaint says.

The Portage County charges were filed in August, after the victim came forward with information.

On June 23, 2023, Huffman pleaded guilty to two felony counts of repeated sexual assault of the same child.

Yahoo News reports:

A former Plover youth minister pleaded guilty Friday morning in Portage County Circuit Court to two felony counts of repeated sexual assault of the same child.

Portage County Circuit Court Judge Michael Zell ordered a pre-sentence investigation for Jordan R. Huffman, 52, who currently is in the Winnebago County Jail on a $1 million bail for unrelated charges of first-degree sexual assault of a child, child enticement and three counts of felony bail jumping.

Zell scheduled a sentencing hearing for Oct. 3.

As part of a plea agreement in the Portage County case, a charge of first-degree sexual assault of a child under age 13 was dismissed. Three charges of child enticement, a charge of causing a child age 13 to 18 to view sexual activity and a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a child were dismissed but read into the record.

According to the criminal complaint, in 2017 a couple approached Huffman, who at the time was a pastor at Woodlands Church in Plover, and asked him to mentor their 12-year-old son. The boy had started drinking and getting into trouble.

The boy told police instead of helping him, Huffman did the opposite. Huffman gave the boy alcohol, marijuana and prescription pills, according to the complaint. The child said Huffman would drive him to a remote location at the end of a dirt road after the boy was drunk or under the influence of marijuana and inappropriately touched him with his mouth or hands.

The boy said the encounters happened multiple times but no incident happened at Woodlands Church, other than Huffman telling the child he had alcohol, marijuana or nicotine cartridges for him, according to the complaint. He said Huffman had sexual intercourse with him one time at Huffman’s home while his wife and children were gone.

When Huffman left Woodlands Church and took a job with Forest Lakes District Evangelical Free Church of America in Stevens Point, several encounters occurred in Huffman’s office there, according to the complaint. The assaults lasted about five years.

The boy told police he let Huffman do these things because the pastor was his mentor and because he was drunk or high. When the boy was 17, he told Huffman he didn’t want to have sexual contact with him anymore, and Huffman respected the request, according to the complaint. About six months later, Huffman told the boy he no longer wanted to hang out with him.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Robert Auxter Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Gross Sexual Imposition

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pastor robert auxter

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 November 2022, Robert Auxter, former pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Monroe, Michigan, was charged with two felony counts of gross sexual imposition. Grace Lutheran is affiliated with the Missouri Synod.

Yahoo News reported:

Robert Auxter, 75, of Monroe, who had been a pastor and a deacon at Monroe’s Grace Lutheran Church, is charged with two felony counts of gross sexual imposition by the Ottawa Common Pleas Court of Ottawa County in Port Clinton, Ohio.

Auxter was charged Nov. 21 and had an initial arraignment Nov. 28. According to court documents, he is charged with having sexual contact with a person younger than age 13 between March 1 and 31, 2022, in Ottawa County, Ohio. The second charge of gross sexual imposition is for sexual contact with a person less than age 13 between June 1 and Aug. 31, 2022, in Ottawa County.

Auxter’s pretrial hearings have been set for Dec. 28 and Jan. 18. A jury trial is set for Jan. 31.

According to Monroe News archives, Auxter was a deacon at the church in 2018. Most recently, he was identified as a pastor at Grace. He left church leadership a couple of months ago.

Auxter pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison.

WTVG-13 reports:

A former Monroe pastor was sentenced Monday after he was convicted of sex crimes.

Judge Bruce Winters of Ottawa County sentenced Robert Auxter to six years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of Gross Sexual Imposition, which are third-degree felonies, in April. Auxter is required to register as a tier 2 sex offender.

Court records show the charges stem from sexual contact with a person under the age of 13. Auxter was charged in November of 2022. He was serving as a pastor in Monroe until he resigned in October.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Danny Prenell, Jr. Shoots His Wife in the Presence of His Children

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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.

Danny Prenell, Jr., pastor of Bright Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Pineville, Mississippi, shot his wife in the presence of his children at a Hampton Hotel and then tried to kill himself.

The Enterprise-Journal reports:

A Louisiana pastor and his wife have been identified in a shooting that took place on the first floor of the Hampton Inn and Suites in McComb Wednesday afternoon.

According to WJTV, police identified the couple as 25-year-old Danny Prenell, Jr., and 27-year-old Gabrielle Prenell. Both are in a Jackson hospital with gunshot wounds.

A Jackson TV station quoted McComb police as saying Danny Prenell, who is the pastor of Bright Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Pineville, allegedly shot his wife two times and then shot himself around 3: 30 p.m

Both were airlifted from Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in McComb to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. Further information was not available.

After the shooting, McComb police blocked off the hallway on the first floor, where what looks like blood, towels, and a pillow could be seen on the floor by the elevators.

The couple’s children have been placed in state custody.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Update: Black Collar Crime: Jamie Flanery Sexually Assaults Church Teen, Says She Asked for It

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arrested

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.

Jamie Flanery, a member of an unnamed Christian church in Arkansas, stands accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old church girl.

K8 reports:

A Randolph County man was arrested after sheriff’s office investigators said he sexually assaulted a teen several years ago.

According to a probable cause affidavit, on February 28, 2023, the victim told the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office that when she was around 15-years-old, she was sexually assaulted and abused by Jamie Flanery.

A bench warrant said the incident happened around August 2012.

The victim stated that she and Flanery attended the same church and the abuse began with Flanery requesting sexually explicit photos of the victim.

The victim said several members of the church’s “youth group” were at Flanery’s house one night. When she went outside to get something, the victim said Flannery grabbed her and kissed her.

The victim then told deputies about another incident while she was leaving Flanery’s house late one night.

As she was driving, she said she received a text from Flanery asking her to pull over at a on Highway 62. The victim said after she pulled over, Flanery got into her car and began to sexually assault her.

The victim said she later texted Flanery’s wife and a Randolph County area pastor, Gary Moore, about the assault.

According to the affidavit, the sheriff’s office conducted an interview with Moore about the allegations.

Moore told investigators that Flanery initally had admitted to kissing the victim.

Moore said he later reached out to Flanery, again, telling him to “swear on the word of God” and asked him if he did what the victim accused him of doing.

According to the affidavit, Moore said Flanery then told him “yes I did, but I didn’t do anything to her that she didn’t ask or she wasn’t ok with.”

On June 6, a judge found probable cause to arrest Flanery.

He faces a felony charge of first-degree sexual assault.

What I want to know is whether Pastor Moore immediately called the police upon hearing about the alleged sexual assault. Further, this assault allegedly took place in 2012. Was Flanery active in one or more local churches since the assault? Lots of unanswered questions.

Update:

In 2004, Flanery’s father, Donald, was convicted of raping a child and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. Donald Flanery was an Evangelical pastor.

The Associated Press reported at the time:

A former pastor was sentenced to 35 years in prison for raping a young girl who said the man had told her that God approved of their sexual relationship.

A jury convicted Donald Lee Flanery, 46, on Friday, and recommended the sentence that Circuit Judge Harold Irwin imposed later that day in Randolph County, in northeastern Arkansas.

Prosecutors said Flanery, of Ravenden Springs, assaulted the Maynard girl nearly three dozen times, beginning when she was 11 and ending when she was 13.

At the time of the incidents, Flanery was the pastor of a non-denominational church known as The Family of Christ. Documents filed in the case said the assaults occurred at the church, his residence behind the church and at a new home he was building.

The girl told investigators that Flanery had told her that God approved of a man having more than one woman, despite her age.

“It was biblical,″ she said.

She also told police that Flanery was a religious man “who would go through bouts of apology,″ according to investigators.

Sheriff Brent Earley said members of Flanery’s church protested the verdict and pointed fingers at prosecution witnesses.

“They stood up and approached the witnesses and some said, `You’re going to pay for this,″ Earley said. Deputies were summoned to help with security.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Songs of Sacrilege: Forgiven by Alanis Morissette

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Alanis Morissette

This is the latest 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 send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Forgiven by Alanis Morissette.

Video Link

Lyrics

You know how us Catholic girls can be
We make up for so much time a little too late
I never forgot it, confusing as it was
No fun with no guilt feelings
The sinners, the saviors, the lover-less priests
I’ll see you next Sunday

We all had our reasons to be there
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did

I sang Alleluia in the choir
I confessed my darkest deeds to an envious man
My brothers they never went blind for what they did
But I may as well have
In the name of the Father, the Skeptic and the Son
I had one more stupid question

We all had our reasons to be there
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did

What I learned I rejected but I believe again
I will suffer the consequence of this inquisition
If I jump in this fountain, will I be forgiven

We all had our reasons to be there
We all had a thing or two to learn
We all needed something to cling to
So we did

We all had delusions in our head
We all had our minds made up for us
We had to believe in something
So we did

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

New Evangelical Term Used in the War Against Culture: A Canary in the Coal Mine

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canary in a coal mine

I celebrated my sixty-sixth birthday on Monday. I spent fifty years attending and pastoring Evangelical churches. While I began life as a hardcore Independent Fundamentalist Baptist — a sect that positions itself on the extreme right of the Evangelical tent — over the years I drifted slowly leftward, always Evangelical, but more and more liberal socially and politically. I am a perfect example of Evangelical evolution.

One constant during my time in the Evangelical bubble was the war against American culture. While some Evangelicals are counter-cultural, most are anti-cultural. Their goal is to burn the house to the ground and build a brand-spanking new one from scratch. The goal is nothing short of Christian theocracy — the establishment of Jesus as ruler and king and the Bible (as interpreted by Evangelicals) as the law of the land.

Evangelicals have spent the past five decades building what they perceive to be God’s kingdom on earth. Initially, they abandoned secular/cultural institutions and built Christian versions of these things, walling themselves off from the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines at the gate. Over time, Evangelicals became restless within the walls of their metaphorical celestial city. Tired of cheap Christian replacements for everything, Evangelicals flung open the gate, left their walled city, and, en masse, stormed the public square. Realizing waiting on the second coming of Jesus was a wasted effort, Evangelicals decided to use political power and sheer force to build Christ’s kingdom on earth. Abandoning piety, Evangelicals sold their souls to the Republican Party and a plethora of churches, pastors, and parachurch organizations that are determined to reclaim the United States for their peculiar version of God — by force, if necessary.

Today, Evangelical culture warriors are fighting battles on numerous fronts, everything from banning books, boycotting woke corporations, criminalizing abortion, violently pushing LGBTQ people back into the closet, to rolling back one hundred years of social progress. We are now seeing an alarming uptick in Evangelicals taking over school boards and other government institutions. And once they do, they make their agenda clear: establishing a theocracy.

Evangelicals played a big part in the January 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. They continue to support Donald Trump, and many QAnon and militia members are Evangelical theologically. While Evangelical churches are in numeric decline, as a political and social force they are more powerful today than they ever have been. Most of the most extreme right-wing members of the U.S. House and Senate are Evangelical Christians (or conservative Catholics). The same can be said at the state level too. While progressives and liberals were busy fiddling while Rome burned, Evangelicals have orchestrated a takeover of government at every level. I think I can safely say that if Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or Mike Pence is elected president in 2024, we could see the collapse of our liberal democracy.

I follow and read scores of Evangelical blogs and websites. I also listen to Evangelical podcasts and sermons. Here’s what I have noticed: an uptick in violent, extremist talk. Sermons and articles about the coming collapse of Western Civilization are common. Church members are encouraged and challenged to do everything they can to rip American culture away from the wicked hands of liberals, progressives, atheists, abortionists, evolutionists, and any other demographic deemed an affront to the thrice holy God of Evangelical Christianity.

One phrase I’ve seen increasingly used in Evangelical blog posts, “news” articles, and sermons is this: a canary in the coal mine.

Wiktionary describes the term this way:

An allusion to caged canaries (birds) that miners would carry down into the mine tunnels with them. If dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide collected in the mine, the gases would kill the canary before killing the miners, thus providing a warning to exit the tunnels immediately.

Something whose sensitivity to adverse conditions makes it a useful early indicator of such conditions; something which warns of the coming of greater danger or trouble by a deterioration in its health or welfare.

Evangelicals see American culture, government institutions, corporations, and Christian sects as coal mines, each with a canary monitoring the health of these underground mines. Everywhere Evangelicals look they see canaries struggling to breathe as the air of secularism, communism, socialism, humanism, and atheism choke the canaries to death. Never asked by Evangelicals is whether it is Evangelicalism, Trumpism, political extremism, or open warfare against public institutions that is the culprit. Lacking awareness, Evangelicals look for socialists, communists, secularists, and ho-mo-sex-u-als under every bed, sure that once these evil Satanic forces are eliminated, the kingdom of God will be established on earth. (Ironically, these beliefs diametrically oppose their eschatological beliefs around the rapture, the great tribulation, the millennial reign of Christ, and the eternal Kingdom of God.)

What are the canaries Evangelicals see in the proverbial coal mine?

  • Egalitarianism
  • Socialist government programs
  • Open southern border
  • Abortion (especially morning after drugs)
  • Certain forms of birth control
  • Euthanasia (physician-assisted suicide)
  • Marijuana legalization
  • LGBTQ-friendly books in libraries
  • Corporate friendliness toward LGBTQ people
  • The very existence of LBGTQ people
  • Hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery
  • Pride month
  • Pride parades
  • Drag queens
  • Drag shows
  • Atheism
  • Humanism
  • Gun control laws
  • Separation of church and state
  • Women serving as pastors

I have heard Evangelical preachers and talking heads mention every one of these canaries in recent months, using their sermons, blog posts, and podcasts as effective tools to whip up mass hysteria. And it’s working. Evangelicals think the United States is on a slippery slope, and if they don’t stop the slide, Christianity will be outlawed and its adherents hunted down and imprisoned. Evangelicals believe they are currently being persecuted for their beliefs. None of this, of course, is true. The slippery slope is actually a horizontal road called progress. What Evangelicals want to do is turn our culture around and push it back to the 1950s — a time when women were barefoot and pregnant and keepers of the home; a time when Blacks knew their place and LGBTQ people were buried deep in the closet; a time when abortion and birth control were illegal and homosexuality was a criminal offense; a time when Mexicans picked our tomatoes and then went home and drag was only seen on Disney cartoons; a time when people went to church and school children prayed and read the Bible in public school classrooms.

Evangelicals are a large minority, but they do not have the numbers necessary to advance their pernicious agenda IF people with progressive values register and vote. The “nones” are now a similar-sized demographic to Evangelicals. Sadly, many “nones” don’t vote. If and when millennials, gen-x, and gen-z realize the power they hold in their hands, the Evangelical reign of terror will end. Like it or not, the only way to affect change in the United States is to vote. Posting social media memes and writing blog posts have their place, but the only way to push back is by voting. The canary in the coal mine of American democracy is voter registration and turnout. Republican politicians, who are largely conservative Christians, know this, and that’s why they are doing their damnedest to keep people — especially people of color — from voting. The only way to turn back these anti-democratic attempts is for people of every political persuasion to vote.

Do we need better candidates? Absolutely. I am sick of voting for the lesser of two evils. I am no longer a Democrat. I vote Democrat, but I no longer support many of the policies of the party. I didn’t vote for Hilliary Clinton or Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries. But when it came time to vote in the general election — knowing the threat many Republican candidates are to American democracy — I held my nose and voted for Clinton and Biden. I am a pragmatist. I must never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The canary in the coal mine of our republic is wheezing and gasping for breath. Another Trump (or DeSantis) presidency will draw the last bit of oxygen out of the air and kill off our grand democratic experiment.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.