Recently, Matt Gaetz has said he wants a law to make prayer mandatory in schools. He’s just the latest in a long line of fundy lawmakers, pastors, and leaders to want the same, telling us it’s the only solution to every one of the USA’s problems.
I’m comparing that belief in school prayer as the antidote to all that is wrong with American society, to religion in UK schools.
Britain is now an almost secular society in spite of the fact that, since 1947, it’s been law here that there should be a daily act of Christian worship in schools and that religious education (RE) should be part of the core curriculum. The mandatory act of worship still stands, though the teaching of RE is subject to local education boards and faith schools can set their own curricula. I used to observe that the only parents who withdrew their children from Christian teaching were from ethnic minorities who practised another religion. I then saw white British-born parents beginning to exercise their right to withdraw their children because they just found the idea of religious indoctrination abhorrent or totally irrelevant to their lives.
I was told that becoming a teacher was God’s plan for me, and that it would be a great career for sharing my faith. Newly married, hubby and I did just that. We were huge fans of Larry Norman back in the early 1970s. We played his albums repeatedly. I remember that a chill went through us as we heard his line in a song, ‘It’s against the law to pray in schools.’ And we worried slightly, because here in the UK, hubby and I, as teachers, could unashamedly promote our evangelical faith. Perhaps Norman was being prophetic, we would soon be persecuted and have to go into hiding.
In one place I lived, Christian mums held a monthly prayer meeting for Christian teachers in the local schools. In another, our church put out a summer prayer list, where students could fill in the dates of each of their end-of-year exams so we could pray for them on those days. Maybe our church students would be ‘A Good Witness,’ by getting better grades than heathen students and be able to attribute it to the power of prayer for them in school.
For decades I had free range. I told bible stories to 5-7-year-olds, quietly ignoring genocidal bits of the OT. I took assemblies – many schools didn’t have a practising Christian on the staff so were relieved when one offered to do that. Then schools were told they should be part of ‘the wider community,’ and invite local clergy in for morning worship. We rubbed our hands with glee and contacted evangelical speakers, or evangelists visiting the area and got them in so they could promote our brand of Christianity. I took courses that led to me training schools on how to utilize the newest, trendy way to teach RE in their schools. A fundy organisation had managed to draw up an RE curriculum that was very Bible-based, yet acceptable to secular authorities, but it required training, so I did that gleefully too. Being sneaky-for-Jesus was just fine if it got our flavour of faith into schools.
So, I’m wondering how prayer in USA schools would affect society – because it certainly hasn’t in the UK.
Back to those praying mums who told me I was ‘sowing seeds’ with every story. Maybe not now, but even many years on, it might get my hearers to think about their eternal destiny. . . I seriously can’t think of having met anyone who got saved as an adult by recalling what they had to pray for in school or because of what they were taught in mandatory RE classes. I suggest that if you ask many Brits how they’d describe school assemblies, they’d say ‘boring.’ No one’s ever told me they got saved by recalling that teacher many years later, who’d pranced about on stage with sets of two toy fluffy animals boarding the Ark and explained God’s omnibenevolent character to them through his genocide. No one’s ever told me they found The True Meaning Of Christmas when they took part in those many Nativity plays I produced, much as those pretty little (blonde) girls loved those sparkly angel dresses, tinsel, and glitter.
Am I completely off track here, Am I completely misunderstanding USA Christian culture?
I’m just recalling my wasted decades of praying and evangelising openly in UK schools, and, like other evangelistic projects I took part in, they recorded a score of zero converts.
What effect do you think compulsory prayer will have on America’s children? Will it re-Christianise the country as God sends wondrous, miraculous answers to school prayers?
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.
Evangelical parents are repeatedly told by their pastors that God commands them to “train up a child in the way he should go.” Why? Because if they do so, “when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Religious indoctrination and conditioning are essential tools in ensuring the salvation of children. “Get them when they are young,” the thinking goes, “and you will have them for life.” Evangelical pastors and parachurch leaders know this, so they invest significant time and money in indoctrinating children in the “faith once delivered to the saints.” By the time an Evangelical child graduates from high school, he will have likely heard 2,000 or so sermons/lessons.
Evangelical children learn at an early age that the “church” is their family. Their lives are dominated by God/Jesus/Bible/Church. The goal, of course, is to stop young adults from leaving the church. Church leaders know that young adults are the future. If they leave, Evangelicalism dies.
Children, of course, love to explore, challenge, and test boundaries — especially teenagers. Pastors fear that if teens and young adults test boundaries and wander outside the Evangelical box, they could leave the church, never to return. Instead of engagement, preachers often use threats. (Please see The Danger of Being in a Box and Why it Makes Sense When You Are In It and What I Found When I Left the Box.)
Before children ever reach first grade, they have been repeatedly terrorized with threats of God’s judgment and Hell. They have been told that they are broken, the enemies of God, and in need of salvation. Children are told that if they disobey Mom or Dad, they are sinning against God; and that not doing their chores could land them in Hell. Is it any wonder that most Evangelical children get saved when they are young? Who wants to go to Hell, right?
The threats continue in their teen years. Sexually aware teens are threatened with God’s judgment if they engage in premarital sex, masturbation, or even think about sex. “Sex is reserved for married heterosexual couples” they are told, even though most of the people doing the “telling” engaged in premarital sex themselves. Further, if and when teens start thinking about getting married, they are told that they can only marry Christians; and not just any Christian, but one that is in agreement with their church’s/pastor’s beliefs. “Mixed” marriages are verboten, and sometimes the word “mixed” takes on racial connotations.
Pastors routinely lie to teens not only about sex, but also about alcohol use, drug use, and listening to secular music — to name a few. When I was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) teen in the early 1970s, my pastors warned me about all sorts of sinful behavior, often invoking the slippery slope argument. “No girl ever gets pregnant without holding the hand of a boy first.” “Pot is a gateway drug that leads to hard drug use.” “Masturbation leads to blindness.” “Listening to rock music will open you up to Satan’s influence and control.” The list of dangers and threats seemed endless to a full-of-life, rambunctious teen boy. Yet, I obeyed. Why? Because of the threats of judgment and Hell.
Evangelical pastors remind teens and young adults that they should respect and obey those God has called to rule over them. Going against God’s ordained authority structure brings chastisement, judgment, and, possibly, death. Pastors love to trot out the Bible story about a group of boys who mocked Elisha. Two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two boys. Lesson? Mock the man of God, question his authority, or do anything contrary to the teachings of the Bible, God could send a “bear” to kill you.
Is it any wonder that, by the time children reach the age of eighteen they flinch every time they come to church, fearing that God is going to judge them for this or that “sinful” behavior — behaviors that are often normal and healthy?
Counseling waiting rooms are filled with Evangelical adults who were terrorized by their parents, pastors, and other authority figures. Is it any wonder that many of these wounded souls leave Christianity, never to return?
When you are in the Evangelical bubble, this kind of behavior seems “normal.” Victims of long-term abuse often think that being abused was just a part of every day life; that they deserved to be threatened with judgment and Hell. However, once they exit the bubble, they quickly learn that there was nothing “normal” about their childhood; that God and the Bible were used as tools of ritualized abuse.
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.
Emmanuel Baptist Church, Buckeye Lake, Ohio, Bruce Gerencser’s ordination April 1983
I was raised in the Evangelical church. My parents were saved in the early 1960s at Scott Memorial Baptist Church (now Shadow Mountain Community Church) in El Cajon, California, pastored at the time by Tim LaHaye. From that time forward, the Gerencser family attended Evangelical churches — mostly Bible, Southern Baptist, or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregations.
In the spring of 1972, my parents divorced after 15 years of marriage. Both of my parents remarried several months later. While my parents and their new spouses, along with my brother and sister, immediately stopped attending church, I continued to attend Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. In the fall of 1972, a high-powered IFB evangelist named Al Lacy came to Trinity to hold a week-long revival meeting. One night, as I sat in the meeting with my friends, I felt deep conviction over my sins while the evangelist preached. I tried to push aside the Holy Spirit’s work in my heart, but when the evangelist gave the invitation, I knew that I needed to go forward. I knew that I was a wretched sinner in need of salvation. (Romans 3) I knew that I was headed for Hell and that Jesus, the resurrected son of God, was the only person who could save me from my sin. I knelt at the altar and asked Jesus to forgive me of my sin and save me. I put my faith and trust in Jesus; that he alone was my Lord and Savior. (That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Romans 10:9-11)
I got up from the altar a changed person. I had no doubt that I was a new creation, old things had passed away, and all things had become new. (Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The next Sunday, I was baptized, and several weeks later I stood before the church and declared that I believed God was calling me to preach. For the next thirty-five years, I lived a life committed to following Jesus and the teachings of the Bible.
After confessing to the church that God was calling me to preach, my youth director, Bruce Turner, took me aside and told me it was time for me to get busy preaching the Bible. Bruce took me under his wing and helped me craft my first sermon; one that I would deliver to the junior high youth department. My chosen text was 2 Corinthians 5:19-20:
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
My sermon was short, sweet, and to the point:
We are Christ’s ambassadors
He has committed unto us the word of reconciliation
We are to implore people to be reconciled to God
Over the next four years, I would preach occasionally at youth events and Word of Life preaching contests. I didn’t begin preaching in earnest until I left to train for the ministry at age nineteen at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. My father-in-law, a Midwestern grad, had been holding Sunday afternoon services at the SHAR (Self Help and Rehabilitation) House in Detroit. After his graduation, Dad asked if I would be interested in taking over his ministry at the drug rehab facility. I told him sure, so for the next two school years, I regularly preached at SHAR House. This gave me a lot of preaching experience by the time I left Midwestern in 1979.
I preached my last sermon in April 2005 at Hedgesville Baptist Church — a Southern Baptist congregation — in Hedgesville, West Virginia. All told, I preached 4,000 sermons — preaching three to six sermons a week, plus revivals, special meetings, Bible conferences, youth rallies, and nursing homes.
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.
At what age does God hold a person accountable for their sins? Evangelicals believe that all humans have a sin nature. This sin nature was inherited at conception from Adam, and humans have no say in the matter. From conception (or at birth) all humans become sinners. We don’t become sinners, we are sinners. Of course, babies and children don’t naturally understand this, so their parents and pastors must explain humankind’s inherent sinfulness. Children are taught early to understand the difference between right and wrong; that “wrong” is sin. Once these tender ones can parse the difference between right and wrong and know that their sin is an affront to God, they have reached the age of accountability.
Evangelical Calvinists tend to reject the notion of there being “an age of accountability.” No need, since God predestines certain people to be saved, with the rest of the unwashed masses predestined to Hell. There’s not one thing any of us can do to change God’s mind about our eternal destiny. Before the foundation of the world, God determined who was in and who was out. At what age children become accountable for their sin is irrelevant in Calvinistic soteriology.
Some Evangelicals believe that the age of twelve is when children become accountable before God for their sins. There’s no Scriptural foundation for this belief. Evangelicals who believe that twelve is the age of accountability don’t worry as much about their children’s sins. No need. God can’t judge them and send them to Hell until they are twelve.
I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. IFB churches and pastors take a very different approach to the age of accountability. They believe that children are accountable for their sins the moment they understand the difference between right and wrong; the moment they understand disobedience and rebellion, not only against God, but parents, pastors, and other authority figures.
Of course, children learn these things quickly in IFB homes. Sin, holiness, obedience, disobedience, and rebellion are often topics of discussion. The goal is to make children aware of their sinfulness so they can, at ages as young as four or five, understand God’s solution for sin — Jesus — and get saved. Children raised in zealous IFB homes typically get saved when they are young, and then as teenagers, they rededicate their lives to the Lord. While I was “saved” at the age of five, I use my rededication at age fifteen as my salvation date. Was I really saved at age five? I doubt it. I knew very little about the Bible or Christianity — just what I heard from my parents, pastors, and Sunday school teachers. While I certainly could have mouthed the IFB-approved plan of salvation, it wasn’t until I was fifteen that I truly understood what it meant to get saved (and later baptized, called to preach).
Why all this pressure to convert children as soon as possible? First, parents don’t want their progeny to suddenly die without being saved and go to Hell. Second, churches know that if children are not converted when they are young, it becomes increasingly unlikely they will be once they reach an age when they are developing rational, skeptical thinking skills. It’s easy to convince a five-year-old of an upright, walking talking snake. However, teens are not as gullible. Walking, talking snake, preacher? Sure. Early and frequent indoctrination and conditioning are key to keeping children in the church. Hook them when they are young and they will often stay (or move to a different cult that they think is less legalistic).
Churches have children’s church/junior church for two reasons. First, partitioning church services according to age allows children to be segregated from their parents. Kids have fun while being conditioned and indoctrinated with Evangelical beliefs, practices, and ways of life. Parents will not have to mess with their kids during worship services — ninety minutes of freedom from those demons God gave them. (For the record, I was not a fan of segregating children from their parents. Only one of the churches I pastored had a junior church.)
Second, splitting children away from their parents allows trained child and youth workers to use high-pressure methods to evangelize their charges. Scare the Hell out of children, and out of fear of judgment and death, they will pray the sinner’s prayer and get saved! For the record, I think such practices are child abuse.
What did your parents, churches, and pastors believe about the age of accountability? At what age were you saved? Did you get saved more than once? Did you fear as a child dying and going to Hell? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
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.
David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
Editor’s Note: Dr. David Tee is a fake name used by Derrick Thomas Thiessen, a Christian Missionary and Alliance preacher who fled the United States/Canada twenty years ago and now lives in the Philippines. Thiessen has spent the past two years ripping off my writing, hurling sermons at me, and attacking my character. He has written over one-hundred posts about me. And at times, I respond. (Search for Dr. David Tee and Derrick Thomas Thiessen.) This series will take a look at things Thiessen doesn’t want anyone to know about. Once this series is completed, Tee/Thiessen will no longer be mentioned by me in my writing. You have my word on this subject.
Guest Post by W.W. Jacobs
I want to open with this thought from Derrick’s recent blog post:
“You cannot be Christian and a Democrat.”
Not even the fact of him being Canadian would lend any credence to a claim of unfamiliarity with a Democrat named Jimmy Carter. He is far from the only example, but he is certainly the most prominent one.
On to today’s post. In reviewing some of the recent comments, I get the impression that there’s significant interest in his history of interpersonal relationships.
Today I open with 1 Timothy 5:8: “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
“To whom have you been married?”
“Her name was [redacted].”
“For what period of time were you married to (her)?”
“From 1988 to 1989.”
…
“Have you had any contact with (redacted) since 1989?”
“No.”
“Did you get divorced in (state)?”
“Yes.”
“What name were you using at the time of this divorce?”
“David Ford.”
…
“Was there ever filed in court any paperwork regarding any domestic violence whatsoever between you and (redacted)?”
“No.”
“At any time?”
“No.”
“Was there any domestic violence between you and (redacted) at any time?”
“Not in my opinion.”
“Tell me about what someone else might think.”
“Well, we fought like normal. That’s all.”
“Did you ever strike her at all?”
“She probably says I did.”
“Did you?”
“Not that I recall.”
[During a discussion about his employment history.]
“Canadian dollars are 50% of American dollars, and I’m going to have to be paying child support, it’s a 50% hit that I can’t afford, it’s better that I find work here that I can fully fund the child support.”
[Ed.: I am not sure if this is a genuine misunderstanding or deliberate obfuscation – I suspect the latter – but for most of the time period at issue, the exchange rate was around 1.50 USD to CAD. In other words, it would cost him $15.00 American to get $10.00 Canadian. However, in reverse, $10.00 Canadian could be exchanged for $15.00 US, meaning that in Canadian dollars, his monthly child-support obligation would be roughly the same as a monthly utility bill.]
“Have you made any child –“
“There’s no money to pay the child support.”
“So the answer is no?”
…
“It wouldn’t be effective to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, 50 percent, that would be almost impossible for me to pay child support.”
“Why?”
“The Canadian expenses are very outrageous. Not only is there a 52 percent income tax, but if you live in the wrong area where the jobs are, expenses are astronomical.”
“So I’ll ask you again. Your reason for not going back to Canada and getting a job is because of the exchange rate and expenses in Canada would not make it worth your while financially?”
“They would not benefit anyone financially.”
Derrick hails from Alberta originally. Above, I referenced information about what presumably would be one of his monthly bills. The site where I found this information has this to say about the cost of living in Alberta:
With Alberta having no provincial sales tax and relatively higher incomes than the rest of Canada, the province can be attractive to move to. Along with a fairly modest cost of living that is anchored by low rents province-wide, and cheap gas prices, Alberta can be a place to comfortably raise a family.
I will let the reader draw their own conclusions about the validity of his statement that he could not afford to return to his home province of Alberta, get a job, and fulfill his court-ordered obligations.
Also, simply because I don’t want the headache of transcribing it, here’s a basic outline of some of the other testimony about this child:
He was granted visitation and never availed himself of it
When asked why, he said, “it’s my right not to.”
Regarding additional questions about the child, he said “I don’t believe it’s mine.”
He claims that a few different women have tried to pin him as the father of their children “but when push came to shove, no child came forth.” Does anyone want to take bets that he skipped town before a paternity test could be done?
“I had a childhood disease, and I have been sterile for years.” He had never had a medical determination of this because “I never felt the need to.”
Several pages of this deposition are all about how he doesn’t feel it’s his child. I wonder if that’s how he convinced himself that he’s not violating 1 Timothy 5:8 all these years – if it’s not his child, he’s under no obligation to provide, right? Yet in my e-mail correspondence with him, from the jump, he kept referring to “my boy.” Dude, make up your mind.
From here there was some discussion about Derrick’s family history, which I am skipping, notwithstanding an amusing exchange in which he couldn’t remember if his brother’s name is “Tom” or “Jerry” (not real names, although the real ones are equally dissimilar). To limit the scope of this post to his personal relationships, we now turn to a discussion of Derrick pleading guilty to a very minor – Class C – felony and put on probation.
“Did you, in fact, violate your probation?”
“Yes.”
“Did the probation officer file a petition to have your probation revoked?”
“I don’t know. That I don’t know.”
“Specifically were there allegations of new criminal activity?”
“No, not that I’m aware of.”
“Specifically allegation of assault by you on [former girlfriend]?”
“Okay. They reported that. I got sent back.”
“Tell me about that.”
“About what?”
“What was the assault on [former girlfriend]?”
“We just had a disagreement.”
“You assaulted her, is that correct?”
“Not really.”
“What do you mean by not really?”
“She’d call it assault. I wouldn’t.”
“But she did call it assault, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“She called the police, did she not?”
“Yes.”
“She got an injunction against you for domestic violence?”
“As far as I know she did.”
…
“Any domestic violence of any kind between you and [ex-wife]?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“Were there any arguments?”
“We fought like normal people.”
“Did you ever break anything?”
“I threw a phone away from her, not at her.”
“Phone break?”
“Yes.”
“You threw that in anger?”
“Yes.”
“Anger at [ex-wife]?”
“Anger at the situation.”
“What situation?”
“Just whatever was going on at the time.”
“What was going on at the time?”
“Just an unreasonable amount of dialogue that pertained to her wanting to leave.”
“She wanted to leave you?” “Yeah.”
“You didn’t want her to leave you?”
“Didn’t want her to, but I didn’t stop her.”
“Threw a portable phone across the room and smashed the phone, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have certain problems with people closing doors in your presence?”
“At the time when that happened it felt like she was cutting me off.”
“What, at the time what happened?”
“I just told her she did it she could open it.”
“The door?”
“Yeah.”
“When did this happen?”
“I never kicked it open.”
“When did this happen?”
“About the same time frame as when the phone was thrown.”
…
“So you agreed telling [ex-wife] not to close any doors behind her, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“You told her that on more than one occasion?”
“I could have.”
“And you told her that if she ever closed any doors on you, you would kick them down?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you tell her that?”
“Because I thought she was cutting me off, and I couldn’t handle that.”
“Why couldn’t you handle that?”
“She was my wife.”
“So your wife is not entitled to any privacy?”
“She got privacy.”
“How did she get privacy if she can’t close the door?”
“I never kicked one down either.”
“But you threatened to?”
“Yes.”
“On more than one occasion?”
“Could have been more than one.”
“Was it more than one?”
“I remember once.”
…
“[Ex-wife] got a protective order against you, did she not?”
“Yes.”
…
“And were the allegations made in that document accurate?”
“Yes.”
…
“You consider that domestic violence?”
“No.”
“Do you consider not allowing your wife to go into her room and close the door, threatening to kick the door down if she does, do you consider that domestic violence?”
“That’s not a question that would pertain … that would get the full truth out of that.” “I’m sorry?”
“That’s a question I couldn’t answer with the full truth. That would be stipulating that I set the limit that she couldn’t close any doors. That’s not true.”
“Do you consider threatening to kick a door down if your wife closes it to be domestic violence?”
“No.”
“What do you consider domestic violence?”
“Basically if I physically did something to her.”
“So threatening her doesn’t –“
“I didn’t threaten her. I threatened the door.”
“This isn’t the first time a protective order has been issued against you, is it?”
“I don’t know.”
[Ed. Spoiler alert: it’s not the first time.]
One of the reasons this is all being done in multiple parts is simply that I get a headache trying to follow along with his semantics.
For a different angle regarding his interpersonal relationships, we all know how Derrick feels about gay people.
I have been in contact with a man named Max, who was rather astounded to read some of Derrick’s blog posts on the subject. He and his late (male) partner gave Derrick food, clothing, shelter, and even money – more than once – during a period when Derrick was homeless and broke.
Max would like Derrick to know that if Derrick feels the humanity they showed him – to include their compassion and generosity toward him – is somehow tainted by their sexual orientation, he is willing to negotiate a repayment plan so Derrick need no longer be indebted to a homosexual.
Incidentally, I shared this with Derrick, and Max’s unhappiness about being labeled a reprobate. His response was “I never called Max a reprobate!” No, Derrick, you just said gay people are depraved and beyond all hope of salvation so long as they continue in “their lifestyle.” That’s <check notes> the dictionary definition of “reprobate” and you certainly never noted any exceptions, least of all your long-ago benefactor, to that statement. So … yeah, you did.
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.
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.
Gabriel Geringer, formerly a youth pastor at Fowler Christian Church in Fowler, Colorado, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact in an Alford plea, meaning he entered a plea of guilty while still asserting his innocence in the case. Geringer was originally charged with sexual assault on a child, a Class 4 felony, as well as a pattern of sexual assault on a child, a Class 3 felony.
After three previous jury trials went unresolved, a former youth group leader at a Fowler church pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor sexual offense.
Gabriel Geringer, 45, pleaded guilty Friday morning to unlawful sexual contact in an Alford plea, meaning he entered a plea of guilty while still asserting his innocence in the case. Geringer was originally charged with sexual assault on a child, a Class 4 felony, as well as a pattern of sexual assault on a child, a Class 3 felony.
He first stood trial in September 2021, then did so twice more in July 2022 and January 2023. The trials in 2021 and 2023 ended in hung juries, and the trial in 2022 ended in a mistrial after a witness stated in court that she was assaulted by Geringer in her youth, causing Geringer’s defense to motion for a mistrial on the basis that the statements would unfairly prejudice a jury in favor of Geringer’s accuser.
In court Friday, Geringer cited attrition, dwindling resources to continue with another trial, and the possibility of a life sentence if convicted of sexual assault on a child as reasons to accept the plea deal.
According to the terms of the plea agreement, both parties agreed that Geringer will not serve jail time and will receive probation. All felony charges against Geringer were dropped by 10th Judicial District Attorney Jeff Chostner.
Chostner told the Chieftain there were a number of factors that played into his office’s decision to offer the plea deal.
“This was a case with three prior mistrials,” Chostner said.
“There were problems with the case in that it was not resonating with the various juries, composed of different individuals. We had to gauge the likelihood of success at yet another trial and the ability to get a conviction in this case. We’ve clearly been willing to fight on this case based on the fact that we’ve done three trials, but we have to evaluate the likelihood of success and the impact on the victim of having her prepare for yet another trial.
“In the interest of our victim, judicial efficiency and justice, I thought this was the best way to resolve the matter.”
Chostner said the person names as the victim in the case was fully consulted and agreed to the terms of the deal.
“The victim certainly wished he was convicted at trial, but we made this plea and consulted her about it,” Chostner said. “In her conversations with me, she expressed relief that she would not have to come back and testify yet again. We would never enter into such a plea without victim knowledge, and in this case, victim concurrence.”
Judge Amiel Markensen remarked that while the court does not generally accept Alford pleas in sex offense cases, the special circumstances of the case — namely that three previous trials ended without resolution and that mediation occurred between the prosecution and defense to make the plea possible — allowed him to accept the plea.
While maintaining his innocence, Geringer will still be required to register as a sex offender and submit to “evaluation for treatment, evaluation for risk, procedures required for monitoring of behavior to protect victims and potential victims, and an identification developed pursuant to statute,” according to the plea agreement.
Chostner noted that Geringer’s being required to register as a sex offender was important to both the DA’s office and the person named as the victim.
No restitution is being sought, according to the plea agreement.
Geringer was accused of initiating a sexual relationship with the then-14-year-old female in 2010 that lasted for about three years, according to the prosecution’s case. Geringer met the teen while he was a youth leader in their Fowler church.
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.
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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.
Gary Arivett, pastor of Shiloh Apostolic Church in Henning, Illinois, stands accused of sexually molesting minor family members.
One woman is reflecting on a painful past. Now she hopes justice will be served for the Henning Pastor she says sexually abused her for years.
Last week Gary Arivett was arrested and is facing three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a family member under the age of 18. He has since been released after posting a $100,000 dollar bail.
The survivor says Arivett has been a pastor at Shiloh Apostolic Church in Henning for nearly 30 years. For her privacy, she does not want to be named, but says she and her sisters were abused for years.
“I would like him to not have access to children anymore in any capacity,” said the survivor.
She says the abuse first started for her at age 11, her younger sister was 6 years old.
“I just tried to move forward with my life and that point we hadn’t heard of anybody else having issues and so I kinda was hoping that deep down maybe he got over his sickness and maybe it was just us children, maybe it was us,” said the survivor.
But when she heard Arivett was arrested she wanted to stand in solidarity with the other survivors.
“There’s no telling how many are out there, and there is no telling how many little children in the church right now that don’t know what he is doing is wrong,” said the survivor.
That’s why Erin Morris started digging into this case.
“I was protected here as a child by all of the people that I grew up with and I want to continue to do that,” said Morris.
Morris says she heard the news about Arivett on social media and wanted to know more about the situation.
“So I made a small Facebook post and people started reaching out to me then with their stories,” said Morris.
….
“The fact that he is a pastor in a leadership position with access to as many young children with very trusting parents who aren’t aware of the monster they are allowing near there children, it needed to be public, it needs to get out there, they need to know,” said the survivor.
We did reach out to Arivett for a comment. Over the phone he said:
“First of all, the charges are unfounded. I was not forced out of the pastors position, I left on my own.”
Former Shiloh Apostolic Church of Henning pastor Gary Arivett has been given a pre-trial date of September 18th, at 11 AM in Courtroom 4A of the Vermilion County Courthouse. During his appearance on Monday (Aug 14th), Arivett waived his right to the full reading of the indictment filed against him on August 4th, and a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf.
Arivett faces multiple counts of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse with a family member, after serving for nearly three decades as pastor at the Shiloh Apostolic Church in Henning, located northwest of Route 136 and Henning Road
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.
Have you ever wondered why many Evangelical churches have daycares? After I resigned in 1979 from Montpelier Baptist Church, we moved to Newark, Ohio to be near Polly’s parents. I took a job as a general manager for Arthur Treacher’s and Polly started working as a teacher at Temple Tots — a daycare “ministry” operated by the Newark Baptist Temple.
Temple Tots was an unlicensed facility. The state of Ohio exempted church daycares from regulation. What could go wrong, right? Eventually, after countless scandals, the state decided to require church daycares to follow the same laws as secular facilities. This led to a flurry of lawsuits, none of which succeeded. Eventually, the state demanded church daycares get a license, and those that didn’t were forced to close. Temple Tots was the last unlicensed church daycare in Ohio when it closed.
Church daycares typically provide services for single mothers and their children. One of the early goals was to reach needy families for Jesus. The daycares were just a means to an end. Daycares as an evangelistic tool were largely failures. Few mothers or children got saved or became church members. Over time, daycares became cash cows for churches — a means to pay mortgages, salaries, and utility bills. Today, church daycares often provide significant income to their churches. All pretense of “ministry” is gone. Church daycares often charge as much as secular facilities do. Employees are often told that they can’t be paid as much as secular daycare workers because they work in a “ministry.” Yet, parents are paying the full rate and churches are getting fat off the proceeds.
A mother will three children might be making $40,000 a year at a factory, but after daycare and travel costs are accounted for, she is making $20,000 — not a living wage. Imagine if churches put mothers and their children first or fathers and their children, for that matter. Imagine if their rates reflected their desire to help the least of these. Imagine charging the Mom of three $100-$150 a week instead of $450. Boy, that sure would make a difference, would it not?
Many local daycares are owned by churches. Sadly, families don’t have any other choice but to use these daycares. Daycare is an essential part of making life better for needy children and their parents. Surely, there’s a better way than pawning our future off to people who have ulterior motives: to “save” children, indoctrinate children, and make buckets of money while doing it.
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.
Last week, I mentioned in a post that Polly and I drove to Michigan to buy some cannabis to help with drug withdrawals. One man, Dr. David Tee (whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen) took issue with my lawbreaking, saying:
“I am, however, quite willing to break the law myself, and that’s exactly what I did on Thursday.” — Bruce Gerencser
It is this confession that destroys any credibility or authenticity BG thought he had. Anything he has published, is publishing, or will publish is now non-credible because he willfully admits to breaking the law.
Nothing he says can be taken even at face value because he thinks he is above the law. In our ethics and other theological classes, we discussed situational ethics and many people advocate for them.
However, situational ethics does not exist and the end does not justify the means. This type of behavior only opens up a can of worms that ruin society. Breaking the rules is not okay unless you are obeying God’s commandments.
Yes, I broke the law — a law that is a misdemeanor with a $150 fine if convicted.
According to Thiessen, my admitting I bought pot means that no one going forward can ever trust me again; that I lost all credibility and authenticity. Of course, no one but Thiessen has made this claim. As far as my authenticity is concerned, most readers appreciate my honesty. Deciding to tell the whole story was never in question. I can’t talk about not having pain meds for five days and why that happened, and not talk about how I fixed the problem — even if I broke Ohio law.
Thiessen, of course, is a hardcore Christian Fundamentalist. He is a consummate rules keeper, as most Fundamentalists are. Thiessen seems to forget or ignore the fact that I was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) for much of my life. I have a firsthand understanding of rule-keeping. I also know that for all my rule-keeping, I wasn’t perfect. I daily sinned in “thought, word, and deed” — or so I thought at the time. There are no perfect Christians — Thiessen included.
No one gets through life without breaking the law. I suspect thousands of readers of this blog have broken the law, and many of them break the law every day. My almost-perfect wife, Polly, breaks the law every day when she hops in our car, sets the cruise at 59 mph, and drives to work. During my driving career of forty-six years (I had to stop driving in 2020 due to my health) I broke the law thousands of times. I received numerous speeding tickets from 1974-1996, everything from ten miles over the speed limit to forty miles over the speed limit on M-59 east of Pontiac, Michigan, at age twenty. My driving was a “Need for Speed” game before such games were even thought of.
When I was a pastor, there were times people slipped me cash as a gift. Legally, I was supposed to claim that money on my income tax return. I broke the law, as did every preacher I knew. Early in our marriage, we were dirt poor. We drove, for a time, without automobile insurance. Again, I broke the law. Such is life. Contrary to Thiessen’s assertions, situational ethics do exist, and we all, at one time or another, make choices based on circumstances, and not what is written in man’s laws or the Bible.
I am generally a law keeper, but there were/are times when I found it necessary or fun (as in speeding) to break the law. As a born-again Christian, there were times when I felt guilty over breaking the law, but most of the time I gave “guilt” nary a thought.
According to Thiessen, it is never right to break the law unless the law is in conflict with the Bible. Then it is okay to break man’s laws. Funny how he doesn’t apply this standard to his own life. Thiessen cannot return to the United States without possibly facing arrest for crimes committed twenty years ago. The thrice-married Thiessen lives in the Philippines because he has to.
I am indeed an occasional lawbreaker. Circumstances will determine future law-breaking. If this is too “real” for you and you can no longer read my writing lest I lead you down a path of moral and ethical decay, I say “he that is without “speeding,” let him cast the first blog post.”
By all accounts, I am a good man. I doubt that cannabis gummies and four pre-rolled joints will change opinions about me one way or another. I did what was best for me at the moment. When Polly had an A-fib attack, I drove her to the emergency room, six miles away. The speed limit was 55. I drove 80-90 mph on dark, barren U.S. Hwy 15. Did I break the law? Sure. Given the choice of breaking the law or saving the life of the love of my life, I chose the latter. And I would do it again. In Thiessen’s world, it is always a sin to break man’s laws (unless they are contrary to the Bible).
Have you ever broken the law? Did you feel guilty about doing so? Do you drive over the speed limit or commit other non-serious, inconsequential laws? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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.
We’ve been watching For All Mankind — an alternate history of NASA. It saddens me that we no longer have a space program to speak of.
Retirement is not for the faint of heart. Navigating Medicare is a nightmare. Only politicians could cook up an unnecessarily complex insurance program such as Medicare.
Over the next few weeks, the hummingbirds and red headed woodpeckers that frequent our yard will begin migrating away to warmer climes. We will miss them, hoping they return next year.
Will increases to monthly rates for streaming services ever end? Of course not. There’s money to be made and share holders to pay. I vaguely remember being told “cutting the cord” would save us money. Maybe then, but not now.
Cannabis isn’t a miracle drug, but for people with chronic pain, it can be a lifesaver.
A God who can but won’t in the face of suffering is a deity unworthy of our love and worship.
We took a drive though the Michigan Amish community not from our home. Roadside vegetable stands had pumpkins for sale — yet another reminder that summer is fading.
Democrats keep telling us that we are not in an economic recession. That dog don’t hunt, manufacturing employees say. Increasing prices, stagnant wages, increased insurance costs suggest otherwise. When’s the last time we’ve had a president tell us the truth about the economy?
Toledo Edison (First Energy) doubled their electric rates. Our bill for July was the highest in our 45 years of marriage. We switched providers, but Toledo Edison has two months to make the switch.
I haven’t given up on the Cincinnati Reds. August play will determine my interest level. Once college and pro football arrive, it takes the Reds playing winning baseball for me to keep watching. I remain hopeful.
Bonus: I preached my first sermon fifty years ago. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20.
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.
