Over the weekend, Brian Gauthier, the owner of Right Price Real Estate in Lillian, Alabama, decided to send me an email detailing his strong dislike for me as a person. Gauthier visited this site one time, reading the following posts, in the order they were accessed: Another Evangelical Con Job, This Time by 7 Hills Church in Cincinnati, Ohio and Dear Evangelical, Here’s The Number One Reason We Can’t be Friends. After emailing me via the Contact page, Gauthier was served up the front page, but it doesn’t look as if he read any of the posts.
Gauthier didn’t read my About page, nor did he read any of my autobiographical writing. Yet, Gauthier, who doesn’t personally know me and didn’t make any attempt to educate himself about the Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser, thought it important to email me and opine on my character. Perhaps Proverbs 18:13 is applicable here: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
Here’s what he had to say (all spelling and grammar in the original):
Interesting you don’t want to be contacted especially by Christians but leave a trail of breadcrumbs lol An apparent case of misery loves company. Don’t you think I’d be better to just die in pain silently without trying to take others down with you? I’ve never come across a bigger idiot looking for negative attention. Too bad you can’t give whatever support back to others that may have sacrificed to feed and support your last act as a “evangelical”
That would be a life worth reading about!
My Contact page states:
If you would like to contact Bruce Gerencser, please use the following form. If your email warrants a response, someone will respond to you as soon as possible.
Due to persistent health problems, I cannot guarantee a timely response. Sometimes, I am a month or more behind on responding to emails. This delay doesn’t mean I don’t care. It does mean, however, that I can only do what I can do. I hope you understand.
To help remedy this delay in response, my editor, Carolyn, may respond to your email. Carolyn has been my editor for six years. She knows my writing inside and out, so you can rest assured that if your question concerns something I have written, Carolyn’s response will reflect my beliefs and opinions — albeit with fewer swear words.
I do not, under any circumstances, accept unsolicited guest posts. Think that I’m interested in letting you write a post with a link back to your site? I’m not.
I am not interested in receiving commercial email from you.
I am not interested in buying social media likes, speeding up my website, signing up for your Ad service, improving my SEO, or having you design a new blog theme for this site.
I will not send you money for your ministry, church, or orphanage. In fact, just don’t ask for money, period.
I know you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, but you are not a medical professional, so please do not send me unsolicited medical or psychological advice. I am not interested — ever.
If you are an Evangelical Christian, please read Dear Evangelical before sending me an email. If you have a pathological need to evangelize, spread the love of Jesus, or put a good word in for the man, the myth, the legend named Jesus, please don’t. The same goes for telling me your church/pastor/Jesus is awesome. I am also not interested in reading sermonettes, testimonials, Bible verses, or your deconstruction/psychological evaluation of my life. By all means, if you feel the need to set me straight, start your own blog.
If you email me anyway — and I know you will, since scores of Evangelicals have done just that, showing me no regard or respect — I reserve the right to make your message and name public. This blog is read by thousands of people every day, so keep that in mind when you email me whatever it is you think “God/Jesus/Holy Spirit” has laid upon your heart. Do you really want your ignorance put on display for thousands of people to see? Pause before hitting send. Ask yourself, “how will my email reflect on Jesus, Christianity, and my church?”
Outside of the exceptions mentioned above, I promise to treat all correspondence with you as confidential. I have spent the last fourteen years corresponding with people who have been psychologically harmed by Evangelical Christianity. I am more than happy to come alongside you and provide what help I can. I am not, however, a licensed counselor. I am just one man with fifty years of experience as a Christian and twenty-five years of experience as an Evangelical pastor. I am more than happy to lend you what help and support I can.
Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Gauthier wrongly states that I don’t want emails from Christians. I receive emails from all kinds of Christians, including Evangelicals like Gauthier who email me regardless of whether I want to hear from them. Gauthier made no attempt to evangelize me or respond to a particular post. Instead, he did what countless Evangelicals before him have done; he attacked my character.
Is this what Jesus would have done? Of course not. Jesus had a lot to say about how his followers should treat their enemies; how they should behave. Evidently, these verses aren’t in Gauthier’s Bible. Either that, or he doesn’t give a shit about what God says about his behavior. Safe in front of his computer screen, Gauthier can say whatever he wants to say. And he can, but he might want to consider how his words harm the cause of Christ; how his words are yet another reminder that many Evangelical Christians are assholes. So much for the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Is it any wonder Evangelicalism is the most hated sect in America?
Gauthier also wrongly thinks that my goal is to take other Evangelicals down with me. That has never been my goal. I am just one man with a story to tell. Evangelicals are known for telling their stories. Shouldn’t a former Evangelical preacher do the same? Isn’t the world a better place when everyone has the freedom to share their experiences? Yet, Gauthier wants me to shut up and go away. That’s not going to happen.
I write, people read. Readers can love or hate my writing, and they do. That thousands of people love and appreciate my writing is not my fault. Gauthier might want to consider why my writing appeals to so many people. Just this past week, I received two emails from women trying to break free from the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Why did these women feel comfortable writing to me? I suspect one of the reasons is that story rings true to them; that they see me as someone who understands where they are coming from.
Regular readers of this blog have heard me say countless times: the focus of this blog is to help people who have questions or doubts about Christianity or who have recently left Christianity. I have no interest in evangelizing for atheism.
According to Gauthier, I am an idiot looking for attention; that I and the readers of this blog love “misery.” What is this misery, exactly, that we love? Freedom? Love? Kindness? Compassion? Intellectual integrity? Oh, such misery. 🙂
Gauthier wants me to die in pain silently — I wonder if he knows how much pain I am actually in? — and stop telling my story. Well, that ain’t going to happen. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to write. Somedays, I wonder if I can type another post. The very act of typing is painful. But, I continue plodding away (and taking extra narcotics). Why? I will let my counselor answer this question: “Bruce, your writing matters.” I am humbled when people say this to me. Five decades in Evangelicalism did a number on my self-worth. Spend enough time being told you are worthless without Jesus, and that anything of value you do is because of him, and you will lose all sense of self. It has taken years of therapy to regain a healthy sense of self. There was a time when the Brian Gauthiers of the world would cut me to the quick. Today? I feel sorry for them.
I am sixty-six years old. I can say that I have never, not one time, sought out a stranger and sent them an email detailing what I think of them. I don’t understand this kind of behavior. Why all the viciousness and nastiness? Gauthier could have chosen a different path. He could have asked questions. He could have challenged my writing. He could have tried to get to know me better. Instead, he spent less than ten minutes on this site and then sent me the aforementioned email. I will leave it to him to square his behavior with his professed Christian beliefs. There seems to be a gross disconnect between the two.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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