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 2017, Edwin Burgess, a bus driver for Central Christian Church in Covington, Tennessee, was accused of raping a ten-year-old girl in the church’s basement
A member of a small church in Covington, Tennessee, who was also reported to be the driver of the church’s bus, was arrested and charged with raping a 10-year-old girl inside the church’s basement.
In an affidavit cited by FOX 13, Covington Police allege that 55-year-old Central Christian Church driver Edwin Burgess performed a sexual act on the 10-year-old girl and forced her to touch him inappropriately.
A warrant was issued for Edwin Burgess’ arrest on Wednesday afternoon. Burgess, 55, lives in Covington and was a bus driver for the Central Christian Church.
Police say a mother called the police department after her 9-year-old daughter told her, “I need to tell you something.”
The 9-year-old girl, who was not physically assaulted, said Burgess’ alleged victim told her what happened.
Police who investigated the story said the 10-year-old told them Burgess asked her and another girl to go to the bathroom at Central Christian Church and tried to get them to play truth or dare.
Burgess dared the girls to urinate in front of him in a sink while he watched and also dared them to ride naked on the bus.
“No, because my mother would not like that,” the girl replied.
Burgess allegedly responded, “No one will tell, plus the bus windows are dark so no one will see.”
After the truth or dare, Burgess was allegedly alone in the church basement with a second 10-year-old victim who told police he started raping her around New Years 2017. She said the last time he raped her was about June 18 after church.
….
Jere Mason, Burgess’ attorney, insisted in a statement that his client is innocent and would be fighting the allegations “vigorously.”
“Edwin Burgess was extremely surprised and deeply saddened to learn of these charges being levied against him. He strongly maintains his innocence and plans to vigorously fight these charges in a court of law. Due to the type of charges levied against him it is hard for the public to remember that Edwin is innocent unless proven guilty,” Mason said.
“In today’s day and age with the advent of social media a person charged with these crimes is often convicted in the court of public opinion before all the facts of the case are brought to light. The attorneys of Gray Huffman Butler stand ready to seek justice for Edwin in this difficult time.”
In 2018, Burgess pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Edwin Burgess, 54, was arrested for rape of a child and sexual battery in June 2017 after investigators said he sexually abused two 9-year-old girls at Central Christian Church in Covington.
On March 22, Burgess pleaded no contest to one charge of rape of a child, seven counts of aggravated sexual battery, and one count of indecent exposure.
Burgess was not granted any chance for parole.
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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In 2017, Ulises Moreno, a bus driver for Decatur Assembly of God in Decatur, Arkansas, was accused of repeatedly raping a church girl.
THV-11 reported:
A man who works as a van driver for the Decatur Assembly of God has been accused of raping a young girl several times over the past two years, according to CBS affiliate KFSM.
On Wednesday, police arrested 30-year-old Ulises Moreno in connection to the rape charges.
The girl, who is younger than 15, told authorities that Moreno raped her so much “that she had lost count of all the instances.”
She said that the most recent attacks happened during March and April. During the alleged incident in April, Moreno was driving the van where he molested her while he was still driving. She said he stopped the van to rape her.
Moreno has denied touching the girl “inappropriately” and claimed he didn’t know why she would say that.
According to the affidavit, the church’s pastor, Kirk Anderson, said that Moreno drove one of the vans every week.
In 2018, Moreno pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a thirteen-year-old girl. Astoundingly, he was sentenced to ten years probation — no prison time.
Ulises Moreno, 31, of Decatur pleaded guilty July 31 in Benton County Circuit Court to second-degree sexual assault.
As part of his probation, Moreno is barred from any contact with the girl or other minors, excluding his children. He’ll also have to register as a sex offender and pay more than $1,000 fines and court fees.
Moreno faces up to 20 years in prison if he violates his probation.
He initially faced a rape charge, but pleaded guilty to the lesser felony of sexual assault — a resolution the family supported, according to Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecutor.
Moreno was arrested in November 2017 after the girl told police Moreno raped her several times in the spring.
The girl said Moreno molested her while he was a volunteer van driver for Decatur Assembly of God. She said he would molest her while he was driving and stop the van to rape her, according to court documents.
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.
In 2018, Melquisedec Chan, pastor of Vida Abundante Church in Alton, Texas, and a medical doctor in Mexico, was accused of sedating women and then sexually assaulting them. Chan is a surgeon in Mexico, but is not licensed to practice medicine in Texas. Chan was charged with “aggravated sexual assault and practicing medicine without a license.”
Chan has finally had his day in court. Chan admitted to charges he sexually assaulted two female parishioners.
The website for KURV AM Radio from Mission, Texas, reports:
A former church pastor in Alton has admitted to charges he sexually assaulted two female parishioners. 58-year-old Melquisedec Chan entered a plea of guilty shortly after a jury had been selected for his trial that was to have begun today.
Chan pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of practicing medicine without a license. The charges stem from 9-year-old accusations by two women that Chan had sedated them, then sexually assaulted them.
He was first arrested by Edinburg police after a woman reported that Chan allegedly sedated and sexually assaulted her while following up with her after a surgery.
She told police that Chan, who was the founder and a pastor at Vida Abundante Church in Alton, was also a family doctor. It’s not immediately clear whether Chan is still affiliated with the church.
A day after his arrest, a McAllen woman came forward and told investigators Chan provided “intravenous medication to (her) to help ease the pain of her illness,” following her 2012 diagnosis with a head tumor, according to a probable cause affidavit.
She had alleged that Chan first treated her at the church before “conducting regular house visits around July 2014,” during which he injected her with an unknown medication that made her fall asleep in a short amount of time.
She also alleged Chan groped her while she was sedated and assaulted her with his fingers, according to a probable cause affidavit. She confronted him in February 2015 and he “ceased all contact with her.”
On Monday, a prosecutor told the jury, which will sentence Chan, that he broke all of his oaths, his oaths to practice medicine, to take care of patients, his oath as a pastor and his oath to his wife.
“He used his power for his personal gain,” the prosecutor said. “He would sedate the victims and operated his clinic out of his church.”
The prosecutor said that after the women were sedated, they would wake up and feel strange.
“It started with greed, it ended with lust,” the prosecutor said.
Carlos A. Garcia, Chan’s defense attorney, said that he grew up in Mexico and that his dad was also a pastor.
Garcia said that following his arrest, Chan admitted what he had done wrong and would tell anyone who would listen, including his wife, his son and the police.
The defense also highlighted Chan’s charitable work, including the founding of an orphanage in Reynosa and feeding the homeless in Reynosa.
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.
Over the past sixteen years, I have received countless emails and social media messages from Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and everyday church members. These emails and messages are typically hateful, judgmental, mean-spirited, and unkind. Some IFB adherents have threatened me with physical harm, including murder. They have also threatened my partner, our daughter with Down syndrome, and our other children. With no decency, no respect, and no regard for how their words might be perceived, these so-called lovers of Jesus ignore their Savior’s commands about how to treat their enemies. The Sermon on the Mount is nowhere to be found in their Bibles.
This behavior is not new, nor is it atypical. Abused people tend to abuse others. When you spend your life being berated and judged — hard, foot-stomping, pulpit-pounding, hellfire and brimstone preaching, brother! — by their pastors, is it any wonder that when they get older, they repeat the same behavior? The late Jack Hyles turned out thousands of preachers just like him, men filled with certainty and arrogance who Sunday after Sunday abuse their congregants with the pure words of God straight from the King James Bible. The late Cecil Hodges, a notable IFB preacher, said one time at a conference I was attending, “We hit our people over the head with the sin stick so often that they duck when we begin to preach.” Boy, ain’t that the truth. When you are psychologically abused and assaulted this way year after year, you begin to think the abuse is “normal.”
Some IFB preachers are nice people with winsome, kind, helpful personalities. By all accounts, they are respected by people both inside and outside of the church. Recently, Republican Mike Johnson was chosen to be the speaker of the House. Johnson is an all-round nice guy. However, when you look at his Fundamentalist Baptist beliefs and practices, you find a very different kind of man — beliefs that are physically and psychologically harmful. Johnson is a true blue believer, as was I. By all accounts I was a winsome, kind, helpful preacher, but my beliefs were anything but.
Does this mean IFB Christians are bad people? Well, certainly some of them are. More than a few IFB preachers are sociopaths, and some are even psychopaths. Narcissism is common. The question is, why this is so?
Hodges’ email was respectful and polite, so I shall respond to it in like manner:
Hello there Mr. Gerencser,
My wife and I have been IFB missionaries in Honduras for 26 years now. I would hate to think that I left my home in the USA and all that is dear to proclaim a gospel that is a figment of someone’s imagination. It would be sad to waste my life in such a way. But of course we do believe it is real and many precious souls have come to experience God’s grace as well.
People commit themselves to all sorts of beliefs that are false, beliefs they are willing to die for. Hodges likely thinks Mormonism is a cult, but millions of people believe Mormonism is true. Mormon missionaries go two-by-two across the earth, preaching the gospel and evangelizing sinners. They are devoted to the teachings of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. If the level of devotion and commitment is evidence for the truthfulness of a belief system, then Mormonism is definitely true. Of course, Hodges thinks Mormonism is false.
How is the IFB church movement any different? Just because people are committed to a peculiar belief system doesn’t mean it’s true. People can and do commit themselves to all sorts of beliefs that are false. None of us is exempt from delusion. All any of us can do is rationally and skeptically examine our beliefs. Hodges believes his peculiar brand of faith is True Christianity®. How does he know his flavor of Christianity is true and all others are wrong? Forty percent of Hondurans are Roman Catholics — Christians in every sense of the word. I suspect that Hodges rejects the claim that Catholics are Christians. How do we determine who is right? Every sect appeals to the Bible as evidence for their beliefs, yet no two of them agree on what the Bible teaches, They can’t even agree on the basics: salvation, baptism, and communion. Why, then, is Hodges certain he is right?
I grew up in IFB Christianity in the 70s and 80s.
Hodges was born into and grew up in the IFB church movement. The only religion he has experienced is IFB Christianity. Thanks to lifelong conditioning and indoctrination, Hodges is certain that IFB Christianity is right. I understand where Hodges is coming from, having spent the first forty years of my life in Fundamentalist Christianity. Even though I left the IFB church movement in the late 1980s, I continued to pastor churches that were Fundamentalist. It was only when I pondered whether I could be wrong that I began to reexamine my beliefs. I wonder if Hodges has ever taken a hard look at his beliefs? How many books outside of his IFB rut has Hodges read? (Assuming he reads books. Some IFB preachers don’t read anything except the Bible and the terms and conditions on porn sites.) 🙂 Best I can tell, Hodges is King James Only — an untenable position if there ever was one. I wonder if Hodges has ever read any of New Testament scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books on the nature and history of the Bible? Until I was willing to read authors who were not IFB/Evangelical, my beliefs remained safe and secure. However, once I started wandering outside of the Evangelical box, I found that many of my sincerely held beliefs were untenable. I tried to hang on to some sort of faith, but eventually came to the conclusion that the central claims of Christianity were false.
Most IFB church members are cradle believers. Born into the church, it is all they know. They have what is called a borrowed faith. While they can point to a time when they got saved, they can’t point to a time when they weren’t surrounded by IFB beliefs and practices. Unlike many mainline sects, IFB Christianity is all-encompassing: multiple church services each week, Sunday school, revivals, conferences, youth rallies, and the like daily reinforce the one true faith (IFB Christianity). When people ask me why it took me fifty years to deconvert, I point them to my childhood, the conditioning and indoctrination. How could I have become anything other than an IFB preacher? My path was paved with thousands of hours of preaching and teaching that reinforced my IFB beliefs. I had no reason to think I could be wrong. The Bible says . . . end of discussion, right?
That seemed to be the tail end of the big church growth movement of the Fundamental Baptists in America. I realize that not all of the pastors of that time were faithful but many of them were. Some people were embittered over bad experiences they had with a particular church or pastor.
The bigger question is why the IFB church growth movement died on the vine. Why did so many of these churches close their doors or become shells of what they once were? If these churches preached the faith once delivered to the saints, why are they in numeric decline? Hodges would have me think that some people were “embittered over bad experiences they had with a particular church or pastor.” Is he suggesting that I am bitter? Scores of people have left IFB churches. Did they all leave because they were bitter or because they had bad experiences? Maybe we should take a closer look at these “bad experiences.” If I could, I would love to share with Hodges the emails I have received from hurting IFB believers. They were misused and abused, and, at times, raped, assaulted, and sexually molested. Bullies abound in the IFB church movement.
Regardless, the IFB church movement is dying because of its unwillingness to adapt to the times. Their rigid beliefs keep them from adapting to the twenty-first century. Instead, they continue to operate using 1950s methodologies. Of course, they take great pride in being anti-cultural.
I would love to know who Hodges thinks were “faithful” pastors. I suspect he and I have different definitions of the word “faithful.”
While I am no longer a Christian, I pay close attention to the IFB church movement. We have family members who are IFB pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. I daily read IFB websites and blogs, and occasionally listen to IFB sermons. I am a member of my alma mater’s (Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan) Facebook group. As someone who is considered an expert on the IFB church movement, I believe it is important for me to keep in touch with the machinations of the movement. While there is a peripheral movement towards more progressive practices, the beliefs of the 1970s and 1980s are pretty much the same as those held by more “enlightened” IFB preachers today. Sure, some IFB churches use drums and guitars in worship now, women are permitted to wear pants, and men can have mustaches, beards, and longer hair, but the core beliefs and practices are still harmful.
In my case I happen to believe to this day that the position of the IFB churches was and is the right position to take although some perhaps executed those positions poorly. It’s sort of like former President Trump I guess. Great policies but many hated his attitude and demeanor.
I certainly take issue with disgraced former president Trump having “great policies.” Many of his policies are contrary to the teachings of Christ. Worse, he is a vile, disgusting human being. Yet, countless IFB Christians voted for him twice and will do so again if he is on the ballot in 2024. I will never understand how any Christian could vote for the man.
Anyway I’m not the smartest guy in the world and my IQ is not the highest.
I can make no judgment here because I don’t know Hodges.
But the whole Christianity thing makes perfect sense to me.
Has Hodges seriously examined and studied any other religion but his own? I doubt it. I would love to know how many religious books he has read that were NOT IFB or Evangelical. Since such reading is widely condemned or forbidden, I suspect Hodges doesn’t wander too far from his IFB roots. I would be glad to make some reading suggestions if Hodges is interested in challenging his beliefs. 🙂
If it’s not real I don’t know why we are here on earth. Not much to live or die for if there is no eternal life.
We are here on earth because a woman and a man had sex, the woman became pregnant, and nine months later gave birth to all the Bruces, Sams, and Pollys of the world. I don’t need a deity to understand and comprehend why I exist. My existence is self-evident.
Does Hodges really believe there is “not much to live or die for if there is no eternal life”? Has he really thought about the implications of a meaningless life without Jesus/eternal life? I don’t know about Hodges, but my life is filled with meaning and purpose — all without God, Jesus, the Bible, or Christianity. Since this life is the only one I will ever have, I want to make the most of every moment of every day. Even in my sickest days, I still try to make the most of the day before me. I am in a tough spot physically with little to no hope in sight, but I still try to do what I can to make the most of my life. Does Hodges really believe life would be meaningless without eternal life; that the only reason he is a good person is that a religious book told him that a mythical deity promises him a home in Heaven IF he believes the right things? Is the promise of eternal life the only reason Hodges isn’t a rapist or a serial killer? If so, by all means, keep on believing. If Hodges needs religion to be a good person, fine. I just wish he’d realize that MOST humans do not need his brand of Christianity to live good and prosperous lives. In fact, I can make a compelling case for the fact that Fundamentalist Christian beliefs keep many believers from being good people; that their beliefs require them to hate, marginalize, and condemn anyone who thinks differently from them.
Polly and I have been married for forty-five years. We have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. We own our own home, drive a nice late-model car, and have two indoor and two outside cats. Our children and grandchildren all live within thirty minutes of our home. Are not these things (people) enough to make life worth living? If all I had was my family, it would be enough.
I hope Hodges will really rethink the notion that he has nothing to live for without the promise of eternal life. Is not this life enough, to live it fully and without reservation?
I give the following advice to readers on my About page:
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
This approach to life has served me well, as it has countless other unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines.
And just imagine if hell is real after all(and I believe it is) then all those who scoffed at that are in real trouble.
Sadly, Hodges ends his email with an appeal to Pascal’s Wager and a reminder that HELL is real. The good news is that as an IFB teenager, I was gloriously, wonderfully saved, so, according to once saved always saved, I am still headed for Heaven when I die. Nothing can separate me from the love of God, right? Hodges could argue that I never was a Christian, but I am confident he can’t provide any evidence to justify such a claim.
As far as Pascal’s Wager is concerned, I wonder if Hodges has applied it to all the other religions of the world. Shouldn’t I also become a Muslim just in case the Muslim version of Hell is true? Shouldn’t I cover all my bases just in case the true God of the universe is Allah or any other deities humans worship are God? Instead, Hodges applies Pascal’s Wager and the threat of eternal damnation only to the tenets of Christianity.
But everybody is going to believe like they want to. Thanks for taking my comments.
My beliefs, for the most part, are based on evidence. I will become a Christian the moment someone provides me with sufficient reasons to believe. I am open to believing in God, but so far the evidence that has been provided to me is lacking or false. Hodges seems to be asking me to believe regardless of what I know to be true. I can’t do that. If there is a God, he knows exactly what it would take for me to come to faith in Christ. Instead, God hides or sends people to evangelize me who seem capable of only spouting Evangelical talking points or cliches. I am more than willing to have honest, open discussions about Christianity, but Bible quotes, sermonettes, or cheap evangelism methods ain’t going to cut it.
Saved by Reason,
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.
If where you live is anything like northwest Ohio, new Evangelical churches are sprouting up like weeds in a gravel parking lot. You know — the weeds that keep returning no matter how much Roundup you spray on them. Here in Defiance County, they have spiffy new names, hiding the fact that they are generic, mostly Baptist or Charismatic churches. They present themselves as fresh, new, exciting places to worship God, complete with a relational pastor and the best damn worship band in town (props to the Ohio State marching band). One local new church called itself Fresh Life. Two years later, “Fresh Life” turned into the same old shit, different building, and the pastor felt called to go somewhere else.
Here in Defiance County, Ohio, there is zero need for new churches. We already have more than one hundred churches for 37,000 people. The population is aging and in decline, and almost everyone professes to be a Christian. God, guns, and Republican politics are on display everywhere one looks. Out-of-the-closet atheists are few, and even traditionally liberal churches tend to be conservative. Why, then, is there a plethora of new Evangelical churches?
I’ll give the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement credit for one thing: their churches are initially and primarily built on evangelism. Granted, they think everyone who doesn’t believe as they do is non-Christian and headed for Hell, but they do make a concerted effort to evangelize the “unchurched.”
I was taught in Bible college that the best way to start a church was to find the meanest, baddest man in town and win him to Jesus. If this man became a Christian and started living for Jesus, it would be the best possible advertisement for the church. Here in Defiance County, I am not the meanest, baddest man in town, but I am considered the resident atheist who hates God and Christianity. I would think that pastors would be lining up at my door trying to win the preacher-turned-atheist to Jesus. In the sixteen years my wife and I have lived in the shadow of five Evangelical churches, not one preacher has knocked on our door. Why is that?
In the 1970s, the Charismatics came to this area and began pillaging established churches. Overnight, churches lost membership and income. In the 1980s and 1990s, these new churches experienced meteoric membership and income growth. Today, these same churches are in decline as their members move on to the latest, greatest churches in town. You see, it’s not about Jesus, worship, or even doctrine. It’s all about getting the best show for the dollar. Entertainment-driven Evangelicals want to be pampered and have their “felt” needs met. Fail to do this and they will leave, complaining that they are not being fed or God is leading them elsewhere. If you want to study religiously-driven narcissism, just stop by one of these new Matt Chandler-Rick Warren-Joel Osteen-Ed Young-Andy Stanley-Perry Noble-Tim Keller-John Hagee-Rod Parsley-Steven Furtick-wanna-be churches. Services are consumer-driven buffets for fat Christians who are only interested in having their “felt” needs met.
Where do most of the members of these types of churches come from? Other local churches. Overwhelmingly, their growth is transfer growth. One new church in Defiance has multiple services filled with people who used to attend other local congregations. Church leaders think they are being blessed by God, but what they are really doing is cannibalizing other churches. I am sure there are a few new converts, but, for the most part, the growth is driven by people changing pews.
And here’s the thing . . . a decade or so from now, another new, glitzy, we-have-the-most-awesome-hip-preacher-in-town church will come to town and Christians will leave the old-new church for the new-new one. I have watched this happen time and again, like the rising and setting of the sun. Evangelicalism is driven not by devotion to God, concern for the lost, or care for the sick and hungry, but by a narcissistic need to be relevant. This is why they spend enormous amounts of money on buildings, staff, technology, and feed-lot fattening programs for Christians.
What’s really happening is that wandering Evangelicals are changing which club they belong to. And that’s fine as long as Evangelicals are willing to admit “why” they are doing so. However, they aren’t willing to acknowledge that their new hippity-hoppity church is just their old church with a bigger sound system, better drum player, more charismatic worship leader, better coffee, and a preacher who can really “speak” to them.
I watch from afar, amused at the self-absorbed attempts of churches to be churches in a culture that increasingly has no interest in what they are selling. Much the same as when a town becomes saturated with fast-food restaurants and they begin trying to steal each other’s customers, new Evangelical churches come to areas already saturated with Jesus and steal members from other churches. It’s fun to watch. May the best band win.
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.
An Evangelical woman named Barb Webb sent me a short email today that said:
It so heartbreaking to me that you didn’t meet the real Jesus. He is still there.
Webb then left the following comment on the post Why I Hate Jesus:
Heartbreaking to read that you were introduced to an imposter not the real Jesus.
I have no idea how much, if any, of my autobiogpraphical material Webb read. I suspect, not much. Her email and comment reflect ignorance about my story and past beliefs. No one with knowledge and understanding about my Christian past would ever say that I didn’t meet the “real” Jesus.
Who is the real Jesus? I believed in, worshipped, and followed the Jesus of the Bible. I assume this is Webb’s Jesus too. Of course, my story is different from Webb’s, so instead of trying to understand my story, she dismisses it out of hand, saying that I never was a real Christian.
What evidence does Webb have for the claim that I was introducted to a “false” Jesus? Is she saying my parents, pastors, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, and college professors were all false Christians too; that everyone in my sphere of religious influence was deceived too?
I agree with one thing Webb said, “He [Jesus] is there.” 2,000 years ago, Jesus was executed by the Roman government. He was then buried in an unknown grave where he remains to this day. So, Webb is right, Jesus is still there, buried in an unknown grave somewhere in or near Jerusalem. He will remain there, never to be seen again. If Webb has evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it. (Quoting the Bible is a claim, not evidence.) She, of course, doesn’t, so all she has is a faith claim which I reject.
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.
I grew up in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, attended an IFB college, married an IFB pastor’s daughter, and pastored IFB churches for a decade. In the late 1980s, thanks to the Jack Hyles scandal and my exposure to Calvinism, I left the IFB church movement. As a writer, I have made it my mission to inform readers about the inner workings of IFB churches and institutions. My wife’s late father was an IFB pastor, and her extended family includes IFB pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and their wives. (Please see The Family Patriarch is Dead: My Life With James Dennis.) My IFB roots run deep (our family attended Tim LaHaye’s church, Scott Memorial Baptist Church, in the 1960s), and just because I am no longer a believer doesn’t mean that I can no longer speak authoritatively about the movement. While the IFB church movement has evolved over the years, its core principles remain the same. The older generation of IFB preachers is dying off, but, unfortunately, their children and grandchildren are following in their footsteps. Polly’s IFB cousins are now in their forties and fifties. Their oldest children are now college-age. So far, the colleges of choice have been IFB institutions — offering up another innocent generation to be sacrificed for the “cause.”
I wrote the brief biography above in the hope of warding off IFB zealots who think I am too far removed from the movement to have anything of value to say. I will leave it to readers to decide if my words ring true. The IFB church movement tends to slowly evolve and change. This means that, while there have been peripheral changes since my IFB days, the core beliefs and practices remain the same. Don’t confuse these superficial changes with transformative change. The IFB church movement remains a dangerous, cultic group that causes untold heartache and psychological harm.
Now to the subject of this post: IFB evangelists.
I came of age at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. The church held several revivals, youth revivals, and conferences every year. Typically, the revivals started on a Sunday and went through Friday or started on a Monday and concluded on Sunday. High-powered evangelists were brought in to preach at these meetings. Their goal was always the same: evangelize the lost and revive the saved.
As an IFB pastor, I followed in the footsteps of my mentors. Typically, the churches I pastored had two revivals a year. For many years, Don Hardman would come to our church and hold what is called a protracted meeting. For fifteen days — including three Sundays — Hardman would preach to saint and sinner alike. Countless church members attended all eighteen services. Nearby IFB churches would bring busloads or carloads of people to hear Hardman’s often hour-plus-long sermons. Souls would be saved and scores of Christians would come forward during the invitations, kneel at the altar, and get right with God. Throw in nightly special music and fellowship dinners, and it should not come as a surprise that these meetings were the highlight of the church calendar. For his efforts, Hardman walked away with $1,000-$1,500 cash in a brown paper bag. I will leave it to you to decide if he claimed this income on his tax return.
Over the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry, numerous evangelists preached for me. Notice I said, “preached for me.” As pastor, I was the gatekeeper. I controlled who preached from the pulpit. Evangelists were hired guns, men who came to minister and stir up the church and then ride off into the night. Evangelists were, in effect, traveling preachers who went from church to church preaching canned sermons. Rare was the evangelist who preached new sermons at every church. These “men of God” had certain sermons that “worked,” and as long as these messages were effective, they continued to use them. Seasoned evangelists developed a pool of sermons to preach from. One evangelist, Phil Shuler — a frequent speaker at the Newark Baptist Temple, pastored at the time by Polly’s uncle — had recordings of his sermons. Each night, before the service, Shuler would refresh his memory by playing the tape of that night’s sermon. No need to study, just throw in a few relevant illustrations and regurgitate what had been said before. This practice is common on the IFB conference circuit too.
As hired guns, evangelists are expected to “help” the pastors they are preaching for. Sometimes, evangelists will sanctimoniously ask pastors, “Brother, is there anything I can pray for this week?” Such evangelists are trying to give the air of being directed by God in their preaching, but as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, those “prayer requests” would find their way into their sermons. Some evangelists just plain ask, “Brother, is there anything you need me to address this week?” Every pastor, myself included, had a list of grievances he would love to have addressed by an outside party. Evangelist after evangelist quizzed me about the state of the churches I pastored, and sometime during the week, my answers would show up in their sermons. Unwary congregants took such targeted preaching as a sign God was “speaking” to them. Little did they know that their pastor was the man pulling the strings behind the scenes.
The goal, of course, was to evangelize the lost and revive the church. Revivals were a way of energizing — for a time — complacent, lazy, indifferent church members. I watched hundreds and hundreds of congregants weep crocodile tears and sling snot as they got right with God. For a time, these lovers of Jesus would walk the straight and narrow, but, in the end, they usually reverted to the norm — as we all do. And just as they got settled in, it was time for another revival! Thus it went, spring after spring, fall after fall, year in and year out.
Let me be clear, many of the evangelists I knew were sincere, honest men of God. And let me also be clear, some of them were the IFB version of Elmer Gantry. I don’t doubt for a moment that these men believed that “God” was calling them to be evangelists. That said, it’s hard not to see the work of evangelists and revival meetings as manipulative tools used by pastors to gain certain objectives. What better way to stir up your church than to bring in a smooth-talking, high-powered evangelist to preach? Congregants get tired of listening to the same voice week after week. The evangelist is a new and different voice, so people are more likely to pay attention. Smart, and oh-so-godly, is the pastor who uses this to his advantage. The goal is to win the lost and revitalize the congregation. What’s the harm in a little manipulation, right?
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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For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:11,12)
According to the Bible, the church at Corinth had become factional, with various groups saying that they were a follower of Apollos, Cephas, Paul, or Christ. In First Corinthians 1:13, Paul asked:
Is Christ divided?
Two thousand years later, we can answer Paul’s question with an emphatic YES! The followers of Jesus Christ have spent the past 2,000 years fighting amongst themselves. Their internecine warfare has caused schisms, splits, and divisions, leading to the establishment of thousands of Christian denominations throughout the world (Wikipedia list of major Christian denominations).
Every Christian Bible has the following verses:
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133:1)
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. (John 13:35)
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (I Corinthians 12:13)
There isone body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)
These four verses alone stand as an indictment of modern Christianity. The various Christian sects can’t even agree on basic beliefs such as salvation, baptism, and communion. Jesus said, I am the way, truth, and life, and almost every Christian sect thinks it has the way, truth, and life market cornered. Pick the wrong sect and, according to many sects, you will miss Heaven and spend eternity in Hell being tortured by God.
Evangelicalism, an inherently Fundamentalist religious belief, (please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?) has a unique problem in that its churches are generally a blend of sectarian divisiveness, Madison Avenue advertising techniques, and movie-star devotion to pastors, evangelists, and other “successful” Evangelical leaders. This has led to a cult of personality, similar to that which Paul addressed in the church at Corinth 2,000 years ago.
Drive by many Evangelical churches these days and what do you see on the church sign? Sign after sign will have the pastor’s name prominently displayed. Why is this important? Why is it necessary to advertise the name of the pastor? If the church is one body worshiping the one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, why call attention to the identity of the pastor? Why don’t churches put the names of the poorest church members on their signs as James suggests in James 2:1-4:
My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
Isn’t giving the pastor top billing on the church sign showing the pastor undue respect? After all, the Apostle Peter said in Acts 10:34 that God is no respecter of persons. God may not be a respecter of persons, but his Evangelical followers sure are. Ask Evangelicals where they go to church, and they are just as likely to say, I go to Pastor So-and-So’s church as they are, I go to First Baptist Church.
In the average Evangelical church, the center of attention is not Jesus, the Word, or the sacraments. The focus is on the man standing behind the pulpit. He is the man of God, God’s messenger, the pastor. In some Evangelical churches, he is also the bishop, prophet, or apostle. He is the main cog in the machine, without which the machine won’t run. If you doubt this, watch what happens when one of these superstar Evangelicals leaves his church. The membership inevitably declines, often because church members don’t like the new guy. Evangelicals then feel “led” to join a different church so they can be “fed.” Rarely will they admit that the reason they changed churches was that they were spiritually and emotionally infatuated with the previous pastor.
Megachurch pastors, in particular, are getting rich off the ministry. It is scandalous how these “profits” of God rake in millions of dollars from the churches they pastor, the books they sell, and outside speaking engagements. Even an atheist can see that these kinds of pastors are not following in the steps of Jesus. Instead of following the WWJD mantra, they are following what would a Wall Street profiteer do?
Whenever I write about one of the Evangelical superstar pastors, people will surely come along and defend him. I have attacked their god, and it doesn’t matter what the Bible or common decency says, they are not going to stand for it. Little do they realize that their defense illustrates my contention that Evangelicalism is a cult of personality.
I would love to be able to say to readers of this blog that I was different when I was a pastor, but I wasn’t. My name was prominently displayed on the church sign. I was the center of attention, the hub around which everything turned. People came to the churches I pastored because they loved my preaching and liked me as a person. When I pastored a fast-growing church in southeast Ohio, people would drive 30-45 minutes to hear me preach. Our church was exciting and growing, and I — uh, I mean God — was the reason.
What drives the cult of personality? Here in the United States, we are enamored with success. We tend to give respect to people who appear to be winners. Even in the blogosphere, we often judge the value of writers by the number of people who read their blogs and follow them on Facebook, X, Pinterest, and Instagram. We forget that these numbers say NOTHING about the person. I have to constantly guard against this. I know my blog readership numbers, page views, and mailing list subscriber numbers are growing. Does this mean that I am “more” successful than I was years ago when a hundred people a day read my blog? Should people respect me more now that thousands of people read my writing? Of course not. Numerical success proves nothing.
For Evangelical pastors, size matters.
Within Evangelicalism, numerical success is everything. Success for a pastor is measured by the size of his penis — uh, I mean the size of his church. The criteria for calling a pastor/church a success is not much different from the criteria used to judge a successful CEO in the corporate world: growing the business and maximizing profits.
The sure sign that a pastor has arrived is when he writes a book telling everyone how he achieved his success. When I was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor, almost every big-name pastor wrote a book detailing how he achieved numerical success. The subtle message was this: God is blessing me and this is why. Do you want God’s blessing? Do what I am doing! Why is it that these successful pastors never write a book years later detailing the fact that “God’s blessing” didn’t last and their penis size shrank dramatically?
American Evangelicals love their conferences. Hundreds of Evangelical conferences are held each year. Who are the speakers? Those who have achieved “success.” These conferences always feature big-name pastors who pastor large, successful churches. When was the last time Evangelical conference promoters had a Bro. Joe, who pastors 20 people on the backside of some hill in West Virginia, come and speak at their conference? It never happens.
One of the reasons people leave Evangelicalism is that they become tired of everything being about the pastor or of the focus being on the methods of the latest hotshot, knows-everything, successful pastor. They sincerely thought that Christianity was all about Jesus. They found out that Jesus was just the window dressing for their pastor’s ambition. Most Evangelical churches, thanks to their leaders, have lost all sight of what it means to be Christian. They proclaim that the Bible is their standard of faith and practice and then ignore its teachings and examples. Christianity should be about Jesus and his kingdom. From my seat in the atheist pew, it seems to me that Evangelicalism is all about the pastor’s kingdom and not the kingdom of Jesus they say they follow.
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.
Polly had an appointment with her orthopedic doctor today. Major surgery is in the future for her — when is yet to be determined. Afterward, we drove to Archbold to eat lunch. We planned to eat at Samuel Mancinos, but the restaurant is closed on Mondays. Instead, we ate at a Mexican restaurant. I ordered a #18 — a taco, burrito, and rice and beans. I took three bites of the taco and some of the beans and rice before my ever-present nausea turned into feeling like I needed to vomit. I took some Zofran to lessen the need to vomit, sparing me the indignity of throwing up in a public restroom. Our server came to collect our plates. When she saw most of my food went uneaten, she asked, “You didn’t like the food?” I explained why I couldn’t eat my food. She genuinely felt sorry for me, taking my meal off our bill.
This is my life with gastroparesis — an incurable stomach disease. Every day, every week, with no respite in sight. In two weeks, I will have an endoscopy and colonoscopy. After that, I plan to have a gastric peroral endoscopic myotomy. This will hopefully reduce my symptoms. It is NOT a cure.
I have had numerous tests in recent weeks. A stool sample revealed I have an uncommon disease called exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. My pancreas — for an unknown reason — doesn’t make enough digestive enzymes. As a result, my body can’t properly digest food and absorb nutrients. This may be why I am anemic and have low B12, potassium, Vitamin D, and testosterone. I will likely have to go through pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy with expensive drugs.
Throw in fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and degenerative spine disease, and I am in a world of hurt. My life is dominated by managing my health and lessening symptoms. My life has been reduced to striving to live another day. Joys that I once took for granted are gone. Eating is one of those joys, and not being able to enjoy food is so depressing I wonder why I keep trying.
As you may have noticed, my writing production has dropped dramatically. My life has pretty much come to a standstill. I am trying, but readers should no longer expect me to generate as much content. I cannot do so, and it seems evident, at least to me, that this is my new normal. Readers should expect less content from me, and if you notice my writing pace has picked up, don’t assume I am “better.” I am not, and I fear my best day is today, with more suffering and pain in my future.
I am 90 days behind on answering emails and social media messages. There’s nothing I can do about this. I will answer them when I can, and, quite frankly, some of them will go unanswered. I have had thoughts about hanging up my blogging spurs, but I enjoy writing, so I can’t bring myself to throw in the towel. All I know to do is manage my symptoms, rest, and do what I can.
Please don’t offer me medical advice. I am seeing competent doctors, to whom I trust my life. They are the experts, and unless given reason to believe otherwise, I trust them. I appreciate your friendship and support, but sending me links to articles and blog posts or questioning my diet, is not helpful. I appreciate your understanding.
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.
“Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbors it is called an antisemite.” Wikipedia
I have no hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. Not one scintilla. I have never uttered one word that could be considered antisemitic, yet in recent weeks I have been accused of hatred for the Jewish people. Evidently, unless you blindly and without reservation support the military, political, and religious objectives of Israel, you are guilty of antisemitism.
Defenders of Israel love to use the “antisemite” label to cut off all discussion about Israel’s eight-decade-long apartheid practices. During the United States’ immoral wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, President George W. Bush famously tried to cut off all discussion and debate by saying “You are either for us or against us.” Who wants to be considered un-American during a time of war, right? This is exactly what is happening now with Israel’s war against Palestine. Either you are on Israel’s side or you are an enemy of the Jewish people.
I am against all war. As a pacifist, I see war as a failure of human imagination; an inability to solve conflicts without violence. While I grudgingly admit that self-defense is, on rare occasions necessary, few wars are prosecuted for self-defense reasons. When nation-states wage indiscriminate war, the result is always failure. There are other ways to settle conflicts, but we humans tend to take the easy way out by using violence, bloodshed, and carnage to settle our disagreements. That’s what Hamas did, and that is what Israel is currently doing.
Peace in the Middle East is possible, but until the West sees Israel as part of the problem, peace is impossible. Israel must be held accountable for their crimes (as must Hamas), and as long as they are given a pass, blood will continue to flow in the streets. Driven by Bible verses, Israel will not stop until they take ALL the land God promised to Israel in the Old Testament. There’s no room for a two-state solution, and as long as that is true, Palestinians will continue to push back against Israel’s apartheid practices.
As long as dead children keep piling up in Gaza, I will not turn a blind eye to Israel’s murderous behavior. Further, I hold the United States and President Joe Biden responsible for the war. As long as Israel has the U.S. standing with them and funding their military, they will continue to do what they are doing. Cut off the money and tell Israel that we will NOT defend them if they expand this war to Lebanon and Iran. As long as their bully big brother stands behind them in support, the bloodshed will continue and could lead to the deaths of American soldiers.
Call me an antisemite all you want, but I will continue to care about the deaths of children and other innocents far more than I care about being labeled a Jew-hater.
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.
