Over the past ten years, I have read countless Evangelical blogs and websites that say Donald Trump is a Christian. For the life of me, I don’t understand how Evangelicals think Trump is a follower of Jesus. What evidence of faith are they privy to that the rest of us are not? Trump doesn’t go to church, read the Bible, or live by the precepts, teachings, and commands of the Word of God. In fact, his life is a repudiation of the teachings of Christ. Name one thing he has said or done consistent with the Bible’s teachings. The past two months have been one long “fuck you” to the Good Book’s words about immigrants, poverty, and ministering to the least of these.
If Trump is a Christian, the word loses all sense of meaning. He is a pathological liar, a bigot, a racist, and a misogynist. I have yet to see anything in Trump’s life that remotely suggests he is a Christian. It’s not that a president needs to be a Christian. They don’t. Most Americans value competency over faith. Trump uses religion as a tool to keep Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons on his side. He doesn’t give a shit about Evangelicals themselves. The moment Evangelicals are no longer beneficial to his agenda, Trump will jettison them quicker than the sex he had with Stormy Daniels.
I wish Evangelicals would admit that the only reason they support Trump is that he supports their theocratic agenda. Instead of standing on moral and ethical principles, they have sold their souls for a bowl of pottage. If Jesus came back to earth today, I have no doubt he would rebuke Trump and the Evangelicals who support him. Of course, he’s not coming back, so it is left to those of us who have a clear-eyed view of the president to rebuke him and his Evangelical defenders.
Four decades ago, Evangelicals went nuts over a blow job, an intern, and a blue dress. Today, they have abandoned the teachings of Christ for the sake of political and cultural power. Such a Christianity is not only worthless, it’s harmful.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I’m almost sixty-eight years old, and there has never been a moment when you were not in my life.
Mom and Dad talked about you before I was born, deciding to have me baptized by an Episcopal priest. They wanted me to grow up with good morals and love you, so they decided putting water on my forehead and having a priest recite religious words over me was the way to ensure my moral Christian future.
A few weeks after my birth, Mom and Dad gathered with family members to have me baptized at the Episcopal Church in Bryan, Ohio. I was later told it was quite an affair, but I don’t remember anything about the day. Years later, I found my baptismal certificate. Signed by the priest, it declared I was a Christian.
Jesus, how could I have been a Christian at age four weeks? How did putting water on my head make me a follower of you? I don’t understand, but according to the certificate, I was now part of my tribe’s religion: Protestant Christianity.
I turned five in 1962. Mom and Dad decided to move 2,300 miles to San Diego, California, believing that success and prosperity awaited them.
After getting settled, Mom and Dad said we need to find a new church to attend. Their shopping took them to a growing Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation, Scott Memorial Baptist Church, pastored by Tim LaHaye. It was here that I learned that my tribe had a new religion: Fundamentalist Baptist Christianity.
I quickly learned that our previous religion worshiped a false God, and my baptism didn’t make me a Christian at all. If I wanted to be a True Christian®, I had to come forward to the front of the church, kneel at the altar, and pray a certain prayer. If I did these things, I would then be a Christian — forever. And so I did. This sure pleased Mom and Dad.
Later, I was baptized again, but the preacher didn’t sprinkle water on my forehead. That would not do, I was told. True Baptism® required me to be submerged in a tank of water. And so, one Sunday, I joined a line of people waiting to be baptized. I was excited, yet scared. Soon, it came time for me to be dunked. The preacher put his left hand behind my head and raised his right hand towards Heaven. He asked, “Bruce, do you confess before God and man that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior?” With a halting child’s voice, I replied, “Yes.” And with that, the preacher, with a hanky in his right hand, put his hand over my nose, dunked me in the water, and quickly lifted me up. I heard both the preacher and the congregation say, “Amen!”
Jesus, the Bible says that the angels in Heaven rejoice when a sinner gets saved. Do you remember the day I got saved? Do you remember hearing the angels in Heaven say, “Praise be to the Lamb that was slain! Bruce Gerencser is now a child of God. Glory be, another soul snatched from the hands of Satan?”
After a few years in California, Mom and Dad discovered that there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and our family was just as poor in the Golden State as they were in the dreary flat lands of rural northwest Ohio. And so we moved, a process that happened over and over to me throughout the next decade — eight different schools.
As I became more aware and observant of my environment, I noticed that Mom and Dad had changed. Mom, in particular, was quite animated and agitated over American social unrest caused by hippies, niggers (a word routinely used by my parents), and the war in Vietnam against the evil forces of communism. Mom and Dad took us to a new church, First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio — an IFB church pastored by Jack Bennett. We attended church twice on Sunday and Wednesday evening.
I attended Bryan schools for two years. Not long after I started fourth grade, Mom and Dad decided it was time to move yet again. This time, we moved to a brand-new tri-level home on Route 30 outside of Lima, Ohio. It was there that I started playing basketball and baseball — sports I would continue to play competitively for the next twenty or so years. It was also there that I began to see that something was very wrong with Mom. At the time, I didn’t understand what was going on with her. All I knew is that she could be “Mom” one day and a raging lunatic the next.
I was told by my pastors, Jesus, that you know and see everything. Just in case you were busy one day and missed what went on or were on vacation, let me share a few stories about what happened while we lived in Lima.
One night, Mom was upstairs, and I heard her screaming. I mean SCREAMING! She was having one of her “fits.” I decided to see if there was anything I could do to help her — that’s what the oldest child does. As I walked towards Mom’s bedroom, I saw her grabbing shoes and other things and violently throwing them down the hallway. This was the first time I remember being afraid . . .
One day, I got off the school bus and quickly ran down the gravel drive to our home. I always had to be the first one in the door. As I walked into the kitchen, I noticed that Mom was lying on the floor unconscious in a pool of blood. She had slit her wrists. I quickly ran to the next-door neighbor’s house and asked her to help. She summoned an ambulance, and Mom’s life was saved.
Mom would try again, and again to kill herself: slitting her wrists, overdosing on prescription medication, driving in front of a truck. At the age of fifty-four, she succeeded. One Sunday morning, Mom went into the bathroom, pointed a Ruger .357 at her heart, and pulled the trigger. She quickly slumped to the floor and was dead in minutes. Yet, she never stopped believing in you, Jesus. No matter what happened, Mom held on to her tribe’s God.
Halfway through my fifth-grade year, Mom and Dad moved to Farmer, Ohio. I attended Farmer Elementary School for the fifth and sixth grades. One day, I was home from school sick, and Mom’s brother-in-law stopped by. He didn’t know I was in my bedroom. After he left, Mom came to my room crying, saying, “I have been raped. I need you to call the police.” I was twelve. We didn’t have a phone, so I ran to the neighbor’s house to call the police, but my Christian neighbor wouldn’t let me use her phone.. There would be no call to the police on this day. Do you remember this day, Jesus? Where were you? I thought you were all-powerful? Why didn’t you do anything?
From Farmer, we moved to Deshler, Ohio for my seventh-grade year of school. Then Mom and Dad moved us to Findlay, Ohio. By then, my parent’s fifteen year marriage was in shambles. Dad never seemed to be home, and Mom continued to have wild, manic mood swings. Shortly before the end of ninth grade, Dad matter-of-factly informed me that they were getting a divorce. “We don’t love each other anymore,” Dad said. And with that, he turned and walked away, leaving me to wallow in my pain. That’s how Dad always treated me. I can’t remember a time when he embraced me or said, “I love you.” I would learn years later that “Dad” was not my biological father; that my real father was a truck driver Mom met at age seventeen while working at The Hub — a local truck stop. I wonder, Jesus, was this why he kept me at arm’s length emotionally?
After moving to Findlay, Mom and Dad joined Trinity Baptist Church — a fast-growing IFB congregation pastored by Gene Millioni. After Mom and Dad divorced, they stopped attending church. Both of them quickly remarried. Dad married a nineteen-year-old girl with a baby, and Mom married her first cousin — a recent Texas prison parolee. So much upheaval and turmoil, Jesus. Where were you when all of this was going on? I know, I know, you were there in spirit, but you had more important things to do than loving and caring for a vulnerable, hurting teenager.
Mom and Dad may have stopped going to church, but I didn’t. By then, I had a lot of friends and started dating, so there was no way I would miss church. Besides, attending church got me away from home, a place where Dad’s new and improved wife made it clear I wasn’t welcome.
One fall weeknight, I sat in church with my friends listening to Evangelist Al Lacy. I was fifteen. As is the custom in IFB churches, Lacy prayed at the end of his sermon, asking, “with every head bowed, and every eye closed, is there anyone here who is not saved and would like me to pray for them?” I had been feeling under “conviction” during the sermon. I thought, “maybe I’m not saved?” So, I raised my hand. Lacy prayed for those of us who had raised our hands and then had everyone stand. As the congregation sang Just as I am, Lacy said, “if you raised your hand, I want you to step out of your seat and come to the altar. Someone will meet you there and show you how you can know Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” Much to the surprise of my friends, I haltingly stepped out from my seat and walked to the front. I was met by Ray Salisbury — a church deacon. Ray had me kneel as he took me through a set of Bible verses called the Roman’s Road. After quizzing me on what I had read, Ray asked me if I wanted to be saved. I said, “yes,” and then Ray said, “pray this prayer after me: Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I know you died on the cross for my sins. Right now, I ask you to forgive me of my sins and come into my heart and save me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” After I prayed the prayer, Ray said, “AMEN!” “Did you really believe what you prayed?” I replied, “yes.” “Then you are now a child of God, a born-again Christian.”
The next Sunday, I was baptized, and the Sunday after that, I went forward again, letting the church know that you, Jesus, were calling me to preach. I was all in after that. For the next thirty-five years, Jesus, I lived and breathed you. You were my life, the sum of my existence.
At the age of nineteen, I enrolled in classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. It was here I received training to become a proper IFB pastor, and it was here I met the love of my life, a beautiful dark-haired preacher’s daughter named Polly. We married during the summer between our sophomore and junior years. We were so excited about our new life, thrilled to be preparing to work in God’s vineyard. We planned to graduate, go to a small community to start a new IFB church, buy a white two-story house with a white picket fence, and have two children: Jason and Bethany, and live happily ever after. However, Jesus, you had different plans for us. Do you remember what happened to us? Surely you do, right? Friends and teachers told us that you were testing us! Polly was six months pregnant by early spring, and I was laid off from my machine shop job. We were destitute, yet, the college dean told us, “Jesus wants you to trust him and stay in college.” No offer of financial help was forthcoming, and we finally had to move out of our apartment. With my tail between my legs, I packed up our meager belongings and returned to Bryan, Ohio. I had failed your test, Jesus. I still remember what one of my friends told me, “If you leave now, God will NEVER use you!”
What did he know? After moving, I quickly secured secular employment at ARO and began working at a local IFB church. For the next twenty-five years, I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Jesus, you were my constant companion, my lover, friend, and confidante. I sure loved you, and I believed you loved me too. We were BFFs, right? Sometimes, I wondered if you really loved me as much as I loved you. Our love affair was virtual in nature. We never met face-to-face, but I believed in my heart of hearts you were the very reason for my existence. When I doubted this, I attributed my doubts to Satan or me not praying hard enough or reading the Bible enough. I never thought for one moment, Jesus, that you might be a figment of my imagination, a lie taught to me by my parents and pastors. I was a true believer. That is, until I wasn’t.
At age fifty, I finally realized, Jesus, that you were a myth, the main character of a 2,000-year-old fictional story. I concluded that all those times when I wondered where you were, were in fact, true. I couldn’t find you because you were dead. You had died almost 2,000 years before. The Bible told me about your death, but I believed that you were resurrected from the dead. I feel so silly now. Dead people don’t come back to life. Your resurrection from the dead was just a campfire story, and I had foolishly believed it. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Everyone I knew believed the same story. All of us believed that the miracles attributed to you, Jesus, really happened; that you were a virgin-born God-man; that you ascended to Heaven to prepare a mansion for us to live in after we die.
It all seems so silly now, Jesus, but I really did believe in you. Fifty years, Jesus. The prime of my life, I gave to you, only to find out that you were a lie. Yet, here I am today, and you are still “with” me. My parents, pastors, and professors did a good job of indoctrinating me. You are very much “real” to me, even though you lie buried somewhere on a Judean hillside. Try as I might, I can’t get you out of my mind. I have come to accept that you will never leave me.
You should know, Jesus — well, you can’t know, you are dead — that I spend my days helping people get away from you. What did you say, Jesus? I can’t hear you. I can hear the voices of Christians condemning me as a heretic, blasphemer, tool of Satan, and hater of God. I can hear them praying for my death or threatening me with eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire. Their voices are loud and clear, but your voice, Jesus? Silence.
Always silent, Jesus. Why is that?
If you ever want to talk to me, you know where I live. Show up at my door, Jesus, and that will be a miracle I can believe in. Better yet, if you can help the Cincinnati Bengals win the Super Bowl, that would be awesome!
If you can’t help my football team win a few games, Jesus, what good are you? It’s not like I am asking you to feed the hungry, heal the sick, or put an end to violence and war. That would require you to give a shit, Jesus, and if there’s one thing I have learned over the past sixty-eight years, it is this: you don’t give a shit about what happens on earth. We, humans, are on our own, and that’s fine with me.
A Sinner 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 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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Geri Ungurean is an Evangelical Christian known for her fanatical support of Donald Trump, the nation of Israel, and Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people. Devout in her faith, I would never question whether she is a Christian. When it comes to professed beliefs, I generally take people at face value. If a person says they are a Christian, I believe them, and I expect the same treatment from Christians. Each of us has the right to control our own storyline. Who better to tell their story than the person who lived it?
Unfortunately, many Evangelicals refuse to let atheists and agnostics control how they self-identify. Supposedly, the Bible gives them the right to tell unbelievers what they “really’ believe or whether atheists are atheists at all.
Find a person who not only claims to be an Atheist, but obsesses on pushing their atheistic views on others so as to recruit them; and I guarantee that if truth be told, and this person opened up about their life, you would find an ANGRY person. You would find a person who blames the God whom they say does not exist, for something that happened in their life.
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There is a saying that goes like this: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” I believe this is true. A lifelong “atheist” will cry out “God help me” when faced with death.
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Do you have a person in your life who claims to be an atheist? I have many. But I came to the point when I realized that God must be the One who gets through to the “haters.” The more you push against them, the nastier they become. The more Scripture you give to them, the more they laugh.
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Love them and pray for them. There is a man on Twitter whose sole purpose for being on there is to tout his “atheism” in hopes of drawing others to his sad conclusions.
I watched this man for many days. I wanted to say something to him, but it was as if God was holding me back. I felt in my spirit to show Christian love to him and most importantly to Pray for him.
We are now friends on Twitter. We can write back and forth in private messages. This was during the medical scare I had recently. By the way – all tests came out benign (Thank You Jesus).
The Twitter atheist and I would talk to one another about things which were going on in our lives. He is very polite and compassionate. He knows that I am an Evangelical Christian who will not budge from my deep faith. I know that he claims to be an ardent atheist. So, with that out of the way, we speak as friends.
He has opened up to me that he went to seminary and that he was saved during college. He knows that my boys (grown) refer to themselves as atheists now. I feel that the Holy Spirit has led me in this friendship. I pray for this man every day – expecting God’s answer.
I am hoping and praying that the Lord will bring him back. I pray for God’s will to be done in “David’s” life.
But I don’t for one minute believe that he is an atheist. I believe that something happened in his life which made him bitter towards God.
Brethren, I believe that many of us have these people in our lives. Sometimes, they are in our immediate families. Sometimes they are friends or co-workers. Show love to these people and do not argue with them. Most importantly, PRAY for them every single day!
The arm of God is not too short to reach anyone, and that includes those who are angry with Him!
Where oh where do I begin?
Ungurean denies the existence of atheists; that when push comes to shove, atheists will cry out to Jesus in their time of need. She has no evidence for this claim other than her own opinion. I’ve been an atheist for seventeen years. I know more than a few atheists who have died, including readers of this blog. Not one of them abandoned atheism. Not one of them embraced Christianity on their deathbed. Is it possible for an atheist to get “saved” at the end of life? Sure, it happens, especially among those deeply conditioned and indoctrinated in Fundamentalist Christianity. Fear of death, Hell, and judgment return, leading the dying person to return to the safety of their religious past. Of course, more than a few Christians have died wondering where the Heaven God is in their time of need.
So, to Ungurean and other atheist deniers, we exist, and we ain’t going away. I am confident that when it comes time for me to die, I will expire knowing that I was right about the existence of God and my eternal future. And if I do, per chance, struggle with these issues on my deathbed, it will be because of how Fundamentalist Christianity fucked up my mind for fifty years.
Ungurean thinks people become atheists because of anger, bitterness, or some sort of negative experience. I can’t speak for all atheists. Every atheist has a unique story to tell. For me personally, I came to a place where the central claims of Christianity no longer made any sense to me; that the claims critical to faith in Jesus are false. Have I, at times, been angry or bitter? Sure, but these feelings came after I deconverted. I was angry and bitter for a time because of how Evangelical Christians treated me post-Jesus. I’ve never been more abused and demeaned than by Evangelicals who savaged and belittled me for walking away from Christianity.
I find it hilarious that Ungurean chastises atheists for promoting atheism, yet she does the same for Christianity virtually every day — as do countless other Christians. Unlike Evangelicals, however, outspoken atheists rarely try to evangelize people. Sure, it happens, but, for the most part, atheists want to be left alone and only share their beliefs when asked or accosted by a zealot.
Ungurean asks her followers to pray for atheists and not try to debate with them. Why is that, I wonder? Is it the fact that most Evangelicals — including Ungurean — are ill-equipped to have a thoughtful, intelligent discussion with an atheist? Is it the fact that outside of giving a salvation testimony, most Evangelicals can’t defend the core doctrines of Christianity, including the existence of God? They wrongly think that quoting Bible verses will defeat any atheist, when, in fact, the Bible is a book of claims, and not evidence.
Let me note, in closing, several of Ungurean’s grown children are atheists. Why has she been unable to convince them to get “saved” or does she think they are still saved, based on childhood religious experiences? Her children, like the rest of us, own their own stories. She has no more right to tell their stories than she does those of atheists and other unbelievers. All that should matter is truth, and to Geri Ungurean, I say, stop psychoanalyzing atheists and engage them in debate; honest, open debate. If you can’t do that, you are just chucking rocks at atheists instead of defending the faith.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Jesus summed up God’s laws by commanding Christians to love God and love their neighbor. Jesus had much to say about how to treat others, especially the poor — whom the Bible calls “the least of these.” Allegedly, Republicans are God’s Only Party, and President Donald Trump is Christian in Chief. Evangelical Christians hold numerous cabinet-level positions, and others hold lesser positions in the Trump Administration. Yet, a cursory review of President Trump’s first month in office reveals a Republican administration disconnected from the teachings of Christ in the gospels.
Sadly, many Evangelicals think they will one day be judged based on having the right beliefs; that what’s important to God is certain doctrines and social beliefs. However, the gospels reveal that God will judge everyone based on how they live, not what they believe. Matthew 25 makes clear that God will judge people, not on their beliefs, but on how they treated poor, marginalized people.
While I am no longer a Christian, I was a follower of Jesus for fifty years. I pastored Evangelical churches in three states for twenty-five years. If there’s one thing I learned, it is that how we treat other people matters to God; and, more importantly, how we love, care, and minister to the least of these reveals what matters to us.
With these things in mind, what do we make of the Trump administration’s treatment of undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, non-Christians, people of color, transgender people, pregnant women, government employees, and poor people? Just today, Jesus-loving Republicans voted to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid, with cuts to Social Security and Medicaid to follow. Millions of Americans will lose medical insurance, child care, and food stamps. It is impossible to square these draconian, immoral cuts with the teachings of Jesus. Local Evangelicals send weekly letters to the editor preaching right doctrine and political affiliation. I have yet to read one letter in the Crescent News from Evangelicals preaching the importance of helping the least of these. I am grateful that a handful of local churches take seriously the teachings of Christ, providing food, utilities, rent, car repairs, and clothing to the poor. However, most churches are more concerned about political and theological fidelity than they are about a beaten, half-dead man along a dirt road. What we need are more Good Samaritans — Christian or not, Republican or Democrat — who love their neighbors as themselves.
Bruce Gerencser Ney, Ohio
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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It is common to hear devout Evangelical Christians talk about “true Christians” or “true believers.” Most Americans claim to believe in God; particularly the Christian God. They may not regularly attend church or read the Bible, but millions of Americans say they believe in the Christian deity when asked. More than a few Evangelicals fall into this category. They occasionally attend church, throwing a few bucks in the offering plate when they do. Their Bibles largely go unread outside of opening them at their pastor’s direction during his sermons. Prayers are occasionally uttered, especially in times of trouble, but they rarely “pray without ceasing.” These nominal Christians make up the majority of Evangelical church memberships. Are they “true Christians?”
Typically, it is Christian apologists who differentiate between true and nominal Christians. It is important to them to divide fake Christians from real Christians. However, when asked to define the term “true Christian,” apologists rarely agree with each other over how the term is defined. Is it right beliefs alone that determine whether a person is a “true Christian?” Or is how a person lives their life the standard by which professing believers are judged? Or, perhaps, a “true Christian” is someone who has prayed the sinner’s prayer, putting his faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation? Or maybe, just maybe, a true Christian believes the right things and lives the right way. Of course, what, exactly, are the right things that must be believed (orthodoxy) or practiced (orthopraxy) for one to be a “true Christian?” Who decides what beliefs must be believed to be a “true Christian?” What beliefs, if any, are optional? Who decides what constitutes the behavior of a “true Christian?”
I grew up in the Evangelical church, making a public profession of faith in Christ at age fifteen. For the next thirty-five years, I lived my life as one who was a committed follower of Jesus; one who followed the teachings of the Bible. I was, in every way, a “true Christian.” Those who knew me best believed I was a “true Christian,” yet, today, countless Evangelical apologists say otherwise; that I was a fraud, a deceiver, a follower of Satan; that I led thousands of people astray, damning their souls to a Christless eternity. Nothing in my lived life suggests that this narrative is true. Critics will search in vain to find people who knew me that would justify their opinions about my life. By all accounts, I was a devoted follower of Jesus. Sure, I sinned just like any other Christian, but the bent of my life was towards holiness. As one woman who knew me well said, “If Bruce is not a Christian, nobody is.”
Apologists use the “true Christian” label to differentiate themselves from the rest of Christians. Much like Calvinists who call themselves “elect” or “predestined,” “true Christians” want everyone to know that they are not like those fake Christians. Read their blogs and websites and you will find substantial verbiage devoted to rooting out from their midst those who are not “true Christians.” No two apologists say the same thing about who and what a “true Christian” really is. You would think God would deliver the same “true Christian” message to Evangelical pastors and churches, but he doesn’t. Christians can’t even agree on the basics: salvation, baptism, communion.
“True Christians” want to be viewed as special; people who believe the right things and live the right way. “True Christians” are God’s chosen ones, not like the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. However, while it is certainly true that unbelievers have different beliefs from “true Christians,” their lifestyles are often different from and superior to that of many “true Christians.” Revival Fires, John, James, Dr. David Tee, and others who claim to be “true Christians,” behave in ways that are contrary to the teachings of the Bible. While believing the right things is important to what makes one a “true Christian,” so is living by the teachings of Christ. In fact, I would argue that behavior is superior to belief. When Jesus summed up the law and the prophets, he said:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40)
Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it. Jesus said nothing about right beliefs. Love God, love your neighbor. During the end stage of my ministerial career, I often reminded church members that if we didn’t love our neighbors, we didn’t love God. Such thinking is uncommon in Evangelical churches. What matters to most Evangelicals is right beliefs, and right interpretations of the Bible. How else do we explain how vicious and hateful many Evangelicals are? Oh, they have the right beliefs — proudly so — but their behavior suggests that they don’t love their neighbors as themselves. And if they don’t love their neighbors as themselves? They don’t love God. I didn’t say this, God did. 🙂
Don’t tell me that you are a “true Christian,” show me. I know all I need to know about Christian beliefs. If you want to convince me that Christianity is true, I suggest you show me by how you live your life. Talk is cheap. It is unlikely that I will ever be convinced that Christianity is true. Still, I might come to admire and appreciate the followers of Jesus if they dared, you know, to actually practice the teachings of Christ, starting with those found in the Sermon on the Mount.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke truth to power during a sermon delivered at a prayer service attended by President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and the Trump family.
Let me make one final plea. Mr. President, millions have put their trust in you. And as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and work the night shifts in hospitals, they — they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.
I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people, the good of all people in this nation, and the world.
The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard-line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.
She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. She’s the first woman to hold the position. She was given a great honor today, a chance to unify America around a Christian message at the dawn of a new administration. Instead, she disgraced herself with a lecture you’d hear on CNN or an episode of The View. What an embarrassment. (Charlie Kirk)
Liberal Protestant Pastor Mariann Edgar Budde blindsides Trump and Vance, weaponizing her sermon to attack them in front of their families by saying they should ‘have mercy’ on gay, lesbian, and transgender children. Unbelievable. (Catholic Voice)
[Budde’s sermon] is just the beginning of Democrats’ desperate attempts to race bait America back into the pernicious grips of DEI. The fact that President Trump demanded that God remain as the foundation of America should have received non-partisan praise from all of our nation’s clergy. We are addressing DEI and wokeness in our government and businesses and it’s time to address wokeness in churches as well. (Evangelical pastor Jack Brewer)
Ironically, the bishop used the pulpit and the service to not only lecture the president but to promote a secular worldview and her woke ideology. Unity can only be achieved through a commitment to biblical truth, not cultural assimilation. Her sermon was indicative of the heresy being taught by mainline denominations. Our nation was founded upon the truth that there is God, and he alone defines good and evil. (Evangelical pastor Rob Pacienza)
This Bishop asked Trump and his administration to have mercy on trans kids and immigrants. What I would like to know is why she didn’t ask for the previous administration to have mercy on these trans kids and immigrants? Where was she when it counted? We have children who are so young that they do not know the ways of this world and yet we are doing irreversible damage to their bodies — damage that many have since regretted. Where was she when Biden opened the borders and allowed millions of people who knew they were breaking the law to cross over. We knew a day of reckoning was coming. Yet where was her request for compassion back then. What the previous administration did was not compassion but ideological malpractice. They operated on children out of ideology. They allowed in people from other countries out of ideology. This was not compassion. Our compassion must be for our citizens first and foremost (Evangelical Corey Brooks)
This is what a religious pretender looks like. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde attacked Trump and told him to “have mercy” on gay, lesbian, and transgender children and illegal immigrants. President Trump rolled his eyes… (Evangelical Graham Allen)
NEW: Trump appears to roll his eyes as Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde begs him to “have mercy” on gay, lesbian and transgender children and illegal immigrants. These people are absolutely nuts. (Collin Rugg)
Woke pastor attacks Trump and Vance to their faces for scaring “LGBTQ kids” and illegals. (End Wokeness)
Are you kidding me? It’s people like this woman “pastor” who put this irrational fear into the heads of LGBT people. (Gays for Trump)
Who thought it was a good idea for this woman, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, to give such an outrageous sermon in front of President Trump at the National Prayer Service? First “protect the trans” and now this? This is NOT a church I would want to attend. (Gays for Trump)
When compassion divorces itself from truth, it becomes a counterfeit virtue—easily manipulated, shallow, and destructive. As Christ warned in John 8:44, the father of lies thrives where truth is discarded, twisting kind intentions into tools of hell. True compassion bows to the authority of law and justice-for his throne is established on Justice; without these, it is not compassion at all, but indulgence in sophistry that serves the enemy of God. (Evangelical pastor David Englehardt)
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. (Evangelical country music star John Rich)
I am an atheist, but let me shout out a hearty AMEN! to Bishop Budde for speaking truth to power. Her words will have no effect on Trump, Vance, or the president’s family, but maybe, just maybe, thoughtful, compassionate followers of Jesus will pause for a moment and weigh whether they want to continue to blindly support policies that are contrary to the teachings of not only the Bible, but Jesus himself. Evangelicals and other conservative Christians do not have a high moral ground on these issues. I suspect if Jesus were alive today, he would have plenty to say to President Trump about his treatment of “the least of these.” Trump’s response? He would have Jesus arrested and deported.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Throughout the history of the United States, federal, state, and local governments have singled out specific groups of people for persecution. Indigenous people. People of Asian descent. People of German descent. Blacks. Muslims. European immigrants. Gay people. And now transgender people. Over our nation’s almost 250-year history, political leaders have used the power of the state to condemn, marginalize, and persecute people deemed a threat to the United States. We have locked up such people in internment camps, reservations, and prisons, and when the persecuted pushed back against their persecutors, they faced state-sanctioned violence, including beatings, rapes, and murders.
Thanks to Donald Trump and his MAGA mob, along with millions of Evangelical, Mormon, and Roman Catholic Christians, transgender people — who make up less than one percent (3 million) of our population — are targeted for persecution. Some Christians think transgender people should be arrested and incarcerated in internment camps, reminiscent of the days when Japanese and German Americans were torn from their homes and incarcerated during World War II. The goal, of course, is to drive transgender people back into the closet — out of sight, out of mind, never to be seen again.
It is easy for people with privilege such as heterosexual whites to say to transgender people, “Stand up for your rights!” However, demographically, transgender people are such a small part of our population that it is unlikely that they have the political and cultural power to stand their ground (without risking physical harm or death). Transgender readers of this blog have repeatedly told me that all they want is to be left alone. They want to live without being singled out for who and what they are. They want the same rights and protections as their non-transgender neighbors.
Sadly, bad times lie ahead for transgender people. Donald Trump and his merry band of bigots fully intend to erase transgender people not only from the government, but society in general. They will not rest until we return to the days when people didn’t understand the difference between biological sex and gender; back to a day when LGBTQ people were labeled deviants and child molesters.
So what are transgender people to do? They have little to no political power. I fear many of them will withdraw from our society out of fear of what could happen to them if they publicly lived openly and authentically as transgender people (no different from what heterosexual people do). Their small numbers are no match for angry mobs of transphobes who want to destroy their lives. It is up to non-transgender Americans to join with them if there is any hope for transgender people to ever have the peaceable lives they desperately wish to have.
Transgender people aren’t asking for special rights or to be treated differently from others. All they want is to be left alone so they can live lives free of persecution, harassment, and violence. Is that not all any of us wants?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and a sense of attachment to a country or state. This attachment can be a combination of different feelings for things such as the language of one’s homeland, and its ethnic, cultural, political, or historical aspects. (Wikipedia)
Generally, patriotism is the love of country. I was born in the United States of America in 1957. I am grateful to have been born in the United States. That said, I don’t think the United States is #1, the best country above all others, or a nation that is uniquely blessed by God. We have a violent, bloody history, one marked by slavery, capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism, so much so that I understand why non-Americans have less than positive thoughts about us. Worse, we have the prominent form of American patriotism that is actually jingoism:
[a form of] nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country’s advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, jingoism is excessive bias in judging one’s own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism.
I love going to high school football and basketball games. One thing that happens at every game no matter where I go, is that attendees are asked to stand, remove their hats if men, put their hands over their hearts, and listen to or sing the Star Spangled Banner. Due to its unsingability, few people sing our national anthem. I still try to sing it but have long since lost the range to do so.
Before the anthem is sung, the announcer reads a statement reminding people that we live in a nation with freedoms like no others, and that men and women are fighting over “there” so we have freedoms over “here.” Neither statement is true, but plays well with our jingoistic notion of country and place.
Government meetings are typically opened with the Pledge of Allegiance, a pledge of fealty to God and country. I refrain from saying the pledge due its demands that I swear allegiance to the Christian deity and the United States. This, at times, causes me problems when people notice my (supposed) lack of patriotism, but one of the freedoms each of us has is the right to dissent. My refusal to utter the Pledge of Allegiance is my private, silent way to say, “I object,” that I don’t applaud or approve of the violence and bloodshed our flag represents.
The trappings of American jingoism are everywhere to be found: flags, military flyovers, militarized pre-game festivities at sporting events, patriotic clothing, bumper stickers, yard signs, and household goods, and multiple patriotic holidays. Speaking of basketball games, every official wears a shirt with an American flag on one arm, similar to what is worn by law enforcement officers and soldiers. One local school board voted to require high school athletes to wear a flag patch on their uniforms. Why? The school superintendent said he wanted students to be reminded of the greatness of America.
With Donald Trump set to become our jingoist-in-chief on January 20, 2025, we should expect increased tribalism and white Christian nationalism. Claiming to be patriots, they are anything but. True patriots care for the common good of their fellow citizens; embracing differences of beliefs and practices. True patriots don’t threaten their neighbors in other countries with violence, war, and economic destruction. Trump’s threat to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland with military force, invade Mexico, and turn Canada into a state is so far beyond the pale that surely no right-minded American agrees with him, right? Think again. Millions of Americans agree with Trump’s expansionist ideas. The same can be said for his nationalistic economic beliefs which will likely lead to inflation and increased unemployment. Trump is willing to destroy the U.S. economy to prove a point. He is more than willing to ruin the lives of millions of people who live in the United States, all because they are “illegals.”
A patriot, I am, but I reject the patriotism being peddled by Trump, the Republican Party, the MAGAs, and, sadly, many Democrats. You will never see me show my patriotism by saying the Pledge of Allegiance, wearing a flag pin, or flying a flag on our front porch. Such things are what I call patriotic masturbation; feel good behaviors that have little to do with real patriotism. I choose to show my patriotism by loving and caring for others and working for the common good. At the political level, patriotism demands I push back against colonialism, imperialism, and military interventionism that presents the United States to the world as a violent bully who only cares about her thirst for power and world dominance. People hate America not for her greatness, but because she only cares about what advances her interests. Countries with oil, minerals, and other things that fuel our materialistic lust interest us, but emaciated people of color without food, water, housing, or medical care? Who gives a shit about them? Oh, we throw a bit of foreign aid here and there to help with these problems, but most aid goes to prop up governments and expand U.S. military presence across the globe (and the very reasons Trump wants the Panama Canal and Greenland).
I know patriotism is a touchy subject. Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, Heidi left the following comment (slightly edited):
I love coming up with my own practical deconstructions, such as: Why does God care more about popular people? Every time there’s a prayer chain for someone, isn’t it just an admission that God is keeping a tally, and once the prayee is sufficiently supported by the numbers, then that person will be healed? I guess the person with few friends is out of luck where God is concerned.
For the uninitiated, a “prayer chain” is a group of Christian church members who agree to pray for a person or circumstance when the chain is activated either by the pastor or whoever is in charge of it. Typically, a church member calls the pastor with a prayer request, asking others to pray for him, or a member is made aware of a “need” someone has and passes that need along to the pastor or whoever is in charge of the prayer chain. The pastor then calls one or more people on the chain, who then call one or more people until everyone on the prayer chain knows about the need. Sometimes, one person handles the chain activation, calling everyone on the list. The goal, of course, is to get as many people as possible begging God to save/heal/deliver someone or meet some sort of need. The thinking is that the more people who bug God in prayer, the more likely it is that God will favorably grant the prayer request.
The Bible diverges in two directions when it comes to God answering prayers. On one hand, the Bible portrays God as an instantaneous prayer-answering deity. Ask and it shall be given to you, right? Most Christians learn early on that God rarely, if ever, answers prayers immediately. Believers are encouraged to have faith, pleading with God without ceasing to answer their prayers. These prayers rarely, if ever, get answered either. Christians love to trumpet to the world that their peculiar deity answers millions, billions, and gazillions of prayers every day, but when pressed for evidence for their claim, believers turn deaf and dumb.
When my partner and I deconverted seventeen years ago, one of the first things we wrestled with was our past prayers. Both of us were praying people — morning, noon, night, before meals, at church, in the car, together, and alone. I suspect between the two of us, we uttered over 100,000 prayers for ourselves and other people. Yet, when we gave an honest accounting of our prayers, we concluded that only a handful of prayers couldn’t be explained naturally. Most of our prayers went unanswered, and those we thought were answered by God were actually answered by self, family, church members, or friends. Virtually every answered prayer was of human origin. And the few that weren’t were not enough to convince us that the God of the Bible exists, that he is personally involved in our lives, and that he answers our prayers. What we were left with was a few experiences we could not explain. Live long enough and you too will have similar experiences; things you can’t explain.
Heidi raises an excellent point about prayer chains. The same can be said for corporate prayer meetings. Evangelical churches often set aside one day a week for members to gather together and corporately pray. I grew up in an era when Baptist churches typically held prayer meetings on Wednesday or Thursday evenings. Some churches take praying seriously, spending an hour or more beseeching God, while others give lip service to the notion of a prayer meeting, taking requests from the congregation and then offering a single prayer, usually given by the pastor, for the people and needs mentioned. Sadly, most church prayer meeting nights are long on gossip and short on prayer.
The thinking goes, that the more people who pray for a person or need the more likely it is that God will answer their prayers. God is waiting and willing to answer prayer, but only if enough prayers come into Prayer Central. Picture God sitting in Heaven with a scorecard, putting a “I” on the card every time a Christian prays for Sister Bertha’s gallbladder or Brother Ernie’s hemorrhoids. Once the prescribed number of “I” are marked on the scorecard, God answers the prayer in the affirmative. As Heidi notes, pity the poor person who has few friends or isn’t well known. They never get healed because they don’t have enough people praying for them.
Why does God operate this way? Why doesn’t he help and heal people the moment they ask? Why does praying seem to be an exercise in futility; a practice that may comfort people, but rarely brings healing and deliverance? As with most things, Christians only count the “hits’ when deciding whether God answers prayers, ignoring the “misses” — which are statistically far more common than affirmatively answered prayers.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I recently watched a discussion between Alex O’Connor, an atheist, and Dr. Francis Collins, an Evangelical Christian and former Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on YouTube. You can watch the video here:
I have heard countless discussions, debates, arguments, and brawls over the existence of God. Eighteen years in, I’m no longer interested in the “God debate.” I have heard every possible defense of or “proof” for the existence of God. Many of these arguments try to establish the existence of a creator God, a generic deity of sorts that they posit is found in every culture and religion. Such discussions are largely philosophical masturbation, for which I have no interest. I will, at times, engage Evangelicals when they try to claim and prove that the generic deity I mentioned is actually the Christian God of the Bible. Such arguments miserably fail. Why? They rely on the Bible as proof for their claims. (I am using the words proof and prove in a colloquial sense. I know proof is a mathematical term, not a theological/philosophical one.) As a former pastor and theologian, I still enjoy discussing the Bible and theology, though I no longer have the stomach for WWE-style wrassling matches over minute points of dogma. That said, I have yet to have an Evangelical make a compelling argument for their peculiar God’s existence.
Even within the framework of the Bible, there are numerous gods, beginning with multiple deities in the book of Genesis to the insurmountable differences between the God of the Old Testament and the Son of God in the New Testament. There’s no such thing as a singular Christian deity. One could argue that there are more Christian gods than we can count, with each believer shaping his or her God in their own likeness. That’s why, when talking to Evangelicals about the existence of God, the first question to ask them is “How do you define God?” What are his qualities and attributes? Typically, no two Evangelicals will give you the same answer.
During O’Connor’s discussion with Dr. Collins, one idea came up several times; that the most important question any of us can ask is “Does God exist?” I suppose in atheist-Christian debating circles this might be true, but, for me personally, and I expect for many of you who read this blog, answering the question “Does God exist?” is not at the top of your list of important questions to answer. In fact, I suspect, for those of you who have always been atheists or deconverted years ago, the God question rarely crosses your mind, that is, unless a Christian zealot is in your face trying to get you to pay attention to his God and the importance of getting saved lest you die and end up in Hell.
The only time I even think about God is when I am writing an article for this site. Otherwise, God rarely crosses my mind unless I just stepped on a Lego left on the floor by one of my grandsons, leading to me uttering “God dammit” or “Jesus Christ.” I sure hope the Lord appreciates my worship. 🙂
Pondering deep philosophical questions is largely the domain of white, affluent westerners who have time and money to sit around pondering God’s existence and the meaning of life. For most people, their lives are focused on more pressing questions such as earning a living, providing for their family, renting/buying a home, putting food on the table, and making sure they have a running automobile or reliable transportation to get where they need to go. By the time working-class/middle-class people sit down at the end of the day, the last thing on their minds is the question, “Does God exist?
How about you? Is the “Does God exist?” question important to you? Or do you find such discussions boring, reminders of the endless chattering about theology during your days as a Christian? I wonder if I am alone with my indifference towards this question. I have reached a place in life where I simply no longer care. I have far more pressing issues that vex my soul, especially matters concerning my health, family, and economic well-being. Please share your pithy thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
