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Dear Evangelicals, Bible Verses are Claims, Not Evidence

Bruce Gerencser 26 Comments
evidence

Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, continues to misuse and misattribute my content, writing several posts about me virtually every week, saying he is just using my copyrighted material to teach believers — all ten of them who read his blog, anyway. I have largely ignored Thiessen’s posts, but a recent one titled Do They [Unbelievers] Really Want a Discussion? deserves a response.

Thiessen wrote:

Over the years we have had discussions with a variety of unbelievers and people who claim to be Christian. They have not always gone well. We are not trying to evangelize these people but work hard to plant and water seeds in them.

….

They usually do not want an open-minded discussion. Their minds remain closed and they only want the believer to be open-minded to their views and points. if they want to have an open honest discussion, then the unbeliever cannot simply dismiss the points made by the believer.

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That specific unbeliever [Bruce Gerencser] already knows that science, archaeology, and other secular topics do not cover, fully support, or provide the information he is willing to listen to. That means he only hears what he wants to hear and can freely remain in his unbelief without guilt.

….

This is why we have stopped talking to many unbelievers. They just do not want to hear the truth and they want to shield themselves from what God has to say. A believer is not allowed to have an open and honest discussion because they are already forbidden to include what their belief is and where they came to that belief.

To be truly objective, the unbeliever has to be open to everything involved in the discussion and that includes quotes from the Bible. One cannot prove the Bible true without using bible verses as part of their examples and points.

….

Those Bible verses needed to present one’s point of view are backed up by both science and archaeology. Without that reference point, it is impossible to refute the arguments made by the unbeliever. One cannot appeal to both science and archaeology to prove a point if one cannot bring pertinent bible verses into the discussion.

….

BG [Bruce Gerencser] has our email address and if he has a list of questions he wants answered, then we would be happy to answer them for him. But we will not get involved in a discussion. He won’t like the answers but the truth is the truth and he does not have it anymore.

Thiessen wrongly thinks that I have doubts about the existence of God, Jesus, and Christianity. I don’t. I am fully persuaded that the Christian God is a myth, Jesus is a man who lived and died, and the central claims of Christianity are false. I have weighed these things in the balance and found them wanting. I don’t have questions that need answering, and even if I did, I would never, never go to a disgraced preacher who lacks understanding of basic Christianity — especially soteriology — for answers. If I want answers to religious questions, I seek out experts, not hateful, mean-spirited, argumentative Evangelical preachers.

Now to the focus of this post. Evangelicals, including Thiessen, think if they quote a Bible verse, they have provided evidence for their claim. This is not true. Bible verses are claims, not evidence. Evangelicals claim Jesus was born of a virgin, and give several Bible verses (which they grossly misinterpret) to justify their claim. However, these verses are not evidence of the virgin birth. They are claims, and if Evangelicals want me to believe that a teen girl named Mary was impregnated by God (the Holy Ghost) without consent and gave birth to a God-man named Jesus, they must provide more evidence than “the Bible says.” Of course, there is no evidence for the virgin birth apart from the Bible. The same can be said for many Evangelical beliefs.

When I ask for “evidence,” I am asking for more than proof texts. I am more than happy to talk about the Bible, but when Evangelicals appeal to the Bible as the sole source of evidence for their claims, I am going to call foul. First, there is no evidence that the Bible is anything other than a fallible, errant, contradictory ancient compilation of religious writings. Believing the Bible is God’s inerrant, infallible words is a faith claim, one for which Evangelicals can provide no evidence apart from saying “I believe it to be true.” Second, the central claims of Christianity rest on a foundation of faith — a faith I do not have. I refuse to ignore evidence and facts and just faith-it.

Ninety-nine percent of the emails and messages I receive from Evangelical preachers and apologists are filled with Bible verses and regurgitated arguments and claims. No new arguments, no new claims, just the same old shit, new day. I would love to hear a new argument, but none have been forthcoming for sixteen years. I am open to new evidence for the claims of Christianity, but I highly doubt any is coming. I spent 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. I preached over 4,000 sermons. I have read countless theological tomes. I am confident that I have a comprehensive understanding of Christianity. If the Thiessens of the Evangelical world have new evidence for their claims, I am more than willing to hear them out. However, regurgitating the same things over and over again is not helpful nor persuasive, and I wish the Evangelicals who contact me would realize this. Alas, they don’t, so I must endure email after email of quoted — often misused — Bible verses, appeals to Pascal’s Wager, heretical theological beliefs, threats of judgment and Hell, and questions asking me if I have ever read this or that book.

Do better, Evangelicals, do better.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Black Collar Crime: Church Bus Driver Edwin Burgess Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Raping Girl in Church Basement

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments
edwin burgess

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

The Christian Post reported:

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.

Channel 5 reported:

A Tipton County judge sentenced a former Covington church employee to 25 years in prison for raping a child.

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, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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The Evangelical Cult of Personality

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments
church size matters
Cartoon by David Hayward, The Naked Pastor

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 is one 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.

size matters
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, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Annual PSA Concerning Halloween and its Satanic Origins

Bruce Gerencser 15 Comments
halloween

Please read last year’s PSA announcement, Halloween is a Satanic Holiday.

Listen up, readers. Halloween is pure Satanic evil. If you let your children participate in Halloween you are opening them up to demonic influence. What’s next, letting them use an Ouija board?

Ben Godwin, pastor of Goodsprings Full Gospel Church in Jasper, Alabama warns:

Darkness is used in Scripture as a metaphor for evil to represent all that is sinful and satanic.

In contrast, light is a biblical metaphor for good to represent truth and all that is of God.

The apostle Paul instructed, “Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth … And do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; instead, expose them” (Eph. 5:7-9, 11).

It’s a tricky balance for Christians to be in the world without conforming to it.

Jesus prayed, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15).

If we imitate the world, we lose our distinction; if we isolate from the world, we lose our influence. Christians need to engage the culture if we expect to make an impact.

It’s perfectly fine for a boat to be in the water, but if too much water gets in the boat, now that’s a problem. This brings up the question, “How should Christians treat Halloween?”

The origin of Halloween incorporated a mixture of Christian and pagan practices.

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Some of what happens on Halloween is harmless fun, but anyone with any spiritual discernment cannot deny that there is a sinister side.

“Abstain from all appearances of evil” (1 Thess. 5:22). Sin, like art, starts by drawing a line somewhere! It’s an odd contradiction for Christians to dress their kids up as creepy characters they try to teach them not emulate.

At this time of year there is a tsunami of horror movies flooding the airwaves featuring vampires, witches, zombies, monsters, cannibals and savage serial killers. Hollywood and viewers, it seems, have an obscene obsession with and an insatiable appetite for gory violence.

You can’t avoid being bombarded by the commercials even if you just watch news or sports. These shows glamorize evil and open the door to demonic influences. Some say it’s all just fantasy or harmless entertainment, but, if what people watch doesn’t affect behavior, then why do companies spend billions of dollars to advertise to them?

In Greek Mythology, Zeus gave Pandora a box and a key as a wedding gift with a note “Do Not Open.” Curiosity overcame her and she lifted the lid releasing all the forces of evil into the world.

The point is there are some doors you really don’t want to open.

“Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him]” (Eph. 4:27, AMP).

Don’t open the door to sin’s destructive influence. Slam the door shut in Satan’s face!

Halloween is a showcase for witchcraft which the Bible clearly condemns (Ex. 22:18; Lev. 19:31, 20:6, 27; Deut. 18:10-14; Gal. 5:19-21), calling it an “abomination”—morally disgusting, detestable, despicable and abhorrent.

Contrary to popular belief, books and movies, there is no such thing as a “good witch.” That is an oxymoron. How can someone controlled by evil forces be good?

Paul asked the Corinthians, “For what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion has light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14, MEV).

Christians have no business dabbling in any form of witchcraft: horoscopes, crystal balls, séances, Ouija boards, Dungeons & Dragons, pentagrams, tarot cards, palm reading, spells, fortune telling, mediums, channeling, divination, sorcery, black magic and so forth.

There are only two sources of supernatural power—God and Satan. If something is not of God, where does it originate?

If you are involved in any of these practices, I urge you to repent of it, renounce it and ask God to remove it from your life. Don’t gamble with your soul. Satan uses these and other ploys to deceive the masses.

The AV 1611 website warns:

While many deem Halloween as harmless fun and fantasy, Halloween subtlety disarms our (and especially our children) discernment of witches and the occult. Halloween’s magic potion of “fun and frolic” transformed witches, demons, devils and evil incarnate into “fine folks.” Over 1.2 million practicing and proud witches live in America. Witchcraft currently is the fastest growing religion in America. At some time, nearly every little girl becomes a witch on Halloween. Witch RavenWolf delights when a vulnerable little girl dresses as a witch on Halloween:

Today, just about every little girl in our society, at one time or another, has chosen to costume herself as a Witch. . . If you choose a Witch’s costume this Halloween . . . Hold your head up and wear your Witch’s garb proudly in their honor. (RavenWolf, Silver. Halloween: Customs, Recipes & Spells, p. 64)

Occult historian Jean Markale discloses Halloween bids more than childish dress-up. It is a pagan “initiatory journey” guided by someone [Satan] “hidden in the shadows,” and none “return from Halloween innocent”:

The passage into the world of Halloween is truly an initiatory journey. One does not return from it an innocent. But making the journey alone does not mean there was no guide, no initiator, someone who prompted the quest and who, sometimes hidden in the shadows, watches over the comings and goings of the neophyte through this labyrinth that is the Other World. (Markale, Jean. The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween, p. 127)

Dr. David Enoch, former senior consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and the University of Liverpool, states:

Halloween practices open the door to the occult and can introduce forces into people’s lives that they do not understand and often cannot combat. . . (Parker, Russ. Battling the Occult, p. 35)

Ex-witch Beth says she was repeatedly abused in Satanic rituals as a child:

Two years ago, as a brand new Christian, I came to the realization I had to let go of Halloween. As a non-Christian I absolutely loved Halloween. Obsessed really. I loved all things horror and gore, as a matter of fact. Zombies, witches, vampires, you name it. I was fascinated by all of it. We had quite the collection of Halloween decorations sitting in our garage that we had been working on for years. Costumes, skull lights, a severed head, tombstones, body parts, etc. All to make our yard look nice and festive for the Halloween season.

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Walking away from my old life meant leaving behind all of my associations with witchcraft and the occult. That meant my books on witchcraft, gods and goddesses, my Buddha statues, crystals, tarot cards, and much more. I knew that witchcraft was not something to trifle with, because it was dangerous. It was allowing darkness into my life and my home, and I was done with the darkness. Done. The darkness had done nothing good for me ever, but Jesus had given me life and hope.

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The next year on Halloween, I began to speak out about my testimony of how I broke free from witchcraft and that Halloween ia actually a pagan celebration. I was so passionate about sharing the truth with the world, because I didn’t want to see people getting sucked into the lies of the devil. So many people, Christians and non Christians alike, love Halloween. They get caught up in the season of Halloween, which is full of dressing up, parties, goodies, and other fun things. Little do they know that they are actually being a party to witchcraft in the process.

I remember last year speaking to a woman who was a satanic ritual abuse survivor and being so worried for her as she told me how difficult October is for her every year. I couldn’t quite understand why, but I knew that the increase of witchcraft activity must have a part to play in it. I learned more about the Satanic aspect of Halloween and the sacrificial murders that happen on this night. Yet it still seemed so far away from my own reality.

….

It was just about that time last year that I began to have my own memories of being abused and tortured in satanic rituals as a child. I was barely coming to terms with it even being real for me as the memories slowly came in every week. It has taken me an entire year to process and understand and come to grips with some pretty intense truths about myself and this world we live in. One of those being that Halloween is far more than just a pagan holiday where witchcraft is prevalent.

It was only recently that God took me into a memory of being in a satanic ritual on Halloween. I cannot even say how many Halloweens I was forced to be involved in rituals on Halloween, as I am taking my time going through as the Holy Spirit wills. What the Holy Spirit has shown me was being taken into a satanic ritual at the tender age of 3. I don’t think any person can truly fathom the reality and the evil of a satanic ritual, and I do not intend to ever go into great detail about them, but I am going to explain enough so that you can have a better understanding.

I wonder, if my grandkids give me some of their trick-or-treat candy, does that mean Halloween is okay? Damn right, Skippy. Bring on the candy, Satan be damned!

Of course, I am being a smart ass. Halloween is a fun, harmless holiday. Enjoy, watch out for cars, and bring Grandpa lots and lots of candy.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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The Official Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Rulebook

Bruce Gerencser 48 Comments
rules

The Official Independent Baptist Rulebook, Known in Some Churches as Church Standards

  • Thou shalt obey the pastor at all times
  • Thou shalt obey all adults at all times if you are a child or teenager
  • Thou shalt obey your husband at all times if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt obey your parents at all times
  • Thou shalt obey the police and government unless the pastor says it is a sin against God to do so
  • Thou shalt tithe
  • Thou shalt give an offering
  • Thou shalt give a faith promise missionary offering
  • Thou give an offering any time the pastor says God is saying to collect a special offering
  • Thou shalt attend church every time the doors are open
  • Thou shalt read the Bible every day
  • Thou shalt pray every day
  • Thou shalt pray without ceasing
  • Thou shalt pray for every meal, but ice cream at Dairy Queen after church requires no prayer
  • Thou shalt only use the King James Bible — 1611 edition which is really the 1769 revision
  • Thou shalt only use the Scofield King James Bible
  • Thou shalt not have long hair (over your ears, collar) if you are a man
  • Thou shalt not have a block cut hairstyle if you are a man
  • Thou shalt not have facial hair if you are a man, but if you are a woman you can have facial hair
  • Thou shalt not have tattoos unless you have prison tats from your life before Christ
  • Thou shalt not take the hem out of your Levi jeans or alter your clothing in any way so that you look worldly
  • Thou shalt not wear pants (britches) if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not wear shorts, but a woman can wear Baptist shorts — also known as culottes
  • Thou shalt not expose any flesh if you are a woman, especially your thighs, breasts, or back
  • Thou shalt only wear dresses with hemlines below the knees if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not have any physical contact with the opposite sex if you are unmarried
  • Thou shalt not masturbate
  • Thou shalt not have more than one hole in each ear if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not pierce any body part except your ear, and then only if you are a woman
  • Thou shalt not watch TV, but if you are a carnal Christian and must watch TV thou shalt only watch Little House on the Prairie or Bonanza
  • Thou shalt not go to the movie theater, but using streaming services is okay
  • Thou shalt always have tracts in your shirt pocket or purse, ready to evangelize at a moment’s notice
  • Thou shalt drive a car with church advertising stickers, IFB cliches, or Bible verses attached to the bumper
  • Thou shalt park down the street when visiting the local strip club or whore house lest the pastor know you are there and stay away
  • Thou shalt not dance
  • Thou shalt not listen to secular music, especially rock music, which is from the pit of hell
  • Thou shalt not listen to contemporary Christian music (CCM)
  • Thou shalt not smoke tobacco
  • Thou shalt not drink fermented alcohol — after all, Jesus drank Welch’s grape juice
  • Thou shalt not dip snuff
  • Thou shalt not chew tobacco
  • Thou shalt not cuss, but saying darn, shoot, crap, freaking, and fudge are okay
  • Thou shalt not date non-Independent Baptist girls or boys
  • Thou shalt not have any non-Independent Baptist friends
  • Thou shalt home school your children or send them to a Christian school
  • Thou shalt only read pastor-approved Christian books
  • Thou shalt never speak in tongues
  • Thou shalt only believe what the pastor says you are to believe
  • Thou shalt go soulwinning every week
  • Thou shalt say you have victory over sin, even if you are lying
  • Thou shalt adhere to the perception is reality rule
  • Thou shalt send your kids to the same Christian college the pastor went to
  • Thou shalt leave the church if you commit adultery, get a divorce, or get pregnant outside of marriage
  • Thou shalt  believe everything the pastor says even when you are certain he is lying, speaking evangelistically, or embellishing his illustrations
  • Thou shalt wear a bra if you are a woman, and it can only be a white, underwire bra
  • Thou shalt not mix bathe (Baptist for swimming with the opposite sex)
  • Thou shalt not go to amusement parks unless the youth group is going
  • Thou shalt not go to the prom
  • Thou shalt not show emotion unless praising Jesus from 10:00 am to noon on Sunday or giving a testimony during Sunday evening service
  • Thou shalt say AMEN during at the appropriate time during the pastor’s sermon, especially when he shouts, pounds the pulpit, or performs gymnastics
  • Thou shalt not be angry even though the pastor is allowed to be angry, but that’s because his anger is righteous anger
  • Thou shalt be for what the pastor is for and against what the pastor is against, because if you don’t, a bear might come out of the woods and eat you
  • Thou shalt never use your brain
  • Thou shalt ignore any science that contradicts the Bible
  • Thou shalt never try to fix your own problems because the pastor is the official fixer of all problems
  • Thou shalt takes notes on the sermon even if the rabbit wanders five miles off the trail or the sermon is incoherent
  • Thou shalt always tell the pastor what a wonderful sermon he preached, even when you have no idea what he was talking about
  • Thou shalt always tell Sister Bertha what a wonderful job she did with her off-key rendition of What a Friend we Have in Jesus
  • Thou shalt not use canned (taped) music for music specials
  • Thou shall not play the guitar or drums

Please be advised that this rulebook is subject to change at the whim of the pastor. He is the man of God who speaks for God. He alone is allowed to change his mind. This means that God changed his mind, yes?

Of course not.

This is the Christianity of millions of North Americans.

Is it any wonder that we are fucked up?

Feel free to add your own additions to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Rule Book.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Short Stories: The Preacher and His TV

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments
dehann-quote

In the 1960s, my dad would drop my siblings and me off at the Bryan Theater so we could watch the 25-cent Saturday afternoon matinee. But somewhere in my primary school years, going to movies became unacceptable. I suspect that this was due to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preaching my parents were hearing and absorbing at the time. From that point forward, outside of attending a drive-in movie one time at age 18 and taking two different girls on movie dates (Jaws and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory),  I didn’t go to a movie theater again until I was in my late 30s. As a Christian, I believed that going to or renting movies was supporting Hollywood, an institution that I considered a den of iniquity.

In the late 1990s, having become more “liberal” in my thinking, I decided it was time for the Gerencser family to go to a movie. When I told Polly that we were all going to the drive-in to see a movie, she was appalled. She literally thought that God was going to strike us dead. Well, here we are, all these years later, still among the living. Evidently, God didn’t seem to give a shit about us going to the drive-in. By the way, the first hardcore, violent, nudity-laden movie we saw? George of the Jungle! The Second? Air Bud.

I grew up in a home that always had a television. My Mom told me one time that American Bandstand was my babysitter. The first memory I have about television is watching the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember my dad coming home with what I later in life called the “poor man’s color TV.” It was a colored, plastic sheet that Dad taped to the TV screen. The top of the sheet was blue and the bottom was green. Supposedly, the screen was meant to simulate sky and grass. Dad wasn’t impressed, and we quickly went back to watching black-and-white TV. The Gerencser family didn’t own a color television until sometime in the 1970s.

My wife and I married in 1978. One of our first purchases was a used tube console color TV that we bought from Marv Hartman TV in Bryan, Ohio. We paid $125. We continued to watch TV for a few years, until one day I decided, under the leadership and conviction of the Holy Spirit, that watching TV was a sin. This was in the mid-1980s. After swearing off watching TV, I decided that no one, if he or she were a good Christian anyway, should be watching television. One Sunday, as pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in Mt Perry, Ohio, I preached a 90-minute sermon — you read that right, 90 minutes — on the evils of watching television and going to the movies. I called on all True Christians® to immediately get rid of their TVs and follow their preacher into the pure Christian air of a Hollywood-free world.

To prove my point, I gathered the congregation out in front of the church for a physical demonstration of my commitment to following the TV-hating Jesus. I put our 13-inch black and white TV in the churchyard and hit it several times with a sledgehammer, breaking the TV into a pile of electronic rubble. Like the record burnings of the 1970s, my act was meant to show that I was willing to do whatever it took to be an on-fire, sold-out follower of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

calvin and hobbes tv

Just before I hit the TV with the sledgehammer, a church member by the name of Gary said to me, Hey preacher, if you don’t want that TV I’ll take it. How dare he ruin my sin-hating demonstration! I thought at the time. I gave Gary a scowling look and proceeded to knock the Devil right out of the TV. I am happy to report that not one church member followed in my TV-hating footsteps. What church members did was make sure that their televisions were OFF or covered with a towel when the man of God made an appearance at their home. That’s just how the game was and is played.

In the early 1990s, I would, from time to time, rent a television from a local rent-to-own business. Two times come to mind: the 1990 World Series and the 1991 Gulf War. Outside of that, our oldest three children grew up in a television-free home. They were teenagers: 18,16, and 13, before they watched TV (except for watching Saturday cartoons when they were little). Well, this isn’t entirely true. When they visited their grandparents, they were permitted to watch TV — even though I wasn’t happy about them doing so. Like Amish children, they were mesmerized by Disney movies and cartoons.

After our family attended their first movie, I decided I would buy a television, setting in motion seven years of what any competent psychologist would call bizarre, mentally imbalanced behavior. While what I am about to share will sound hilarious to those who never spent any time in Christian Fundamentalism, at the time; there was nothing humorous about my actions.

calvin and hobbes tv 2

From 1998 through 2005, I purchased and got rid of at least six television sets. I gave one TV to the local crisis pregnancy center. I also gave one set to my son. The rest I sold at a loss. Why all the televisions? you might ask. Simple. After watching TV for a time, like a moth to a flame, I was drawn towards watching shows that I promised God I would never watch. Dear Lord, I promise I will only watch G- or PG-rated programming, and if there is any nudity, cursing, or gore I will immediately turn off the TV. No matter how much I wanted to be holy and righteous, I found that I loved watching programs that contained things that I considered sin.

My “sinning’ would go on for a few weeks or months until the guilt would become so great that I would say to God, you are right, Lord. This is sin. I will get rid of the TV and I promise to never, ever watch it again. Out the TV would go, but months later I would get the hankering to watch TV again and I would, unbeknownst to Polly, go buy a television.

I so wanted to be right with God and live a life untainted by the world, yet I loved to watch TV. One time, after I came to the decision to get rid of yet another TV, Polly arrived home from work and found me sitting on the steps of the porch, crying and despondent. I hated myself. I hated that I was so easily led astray by Satan. I hated that I was such a bad testimony. Look at ALL that Jesus did for me! Couldn’t I, at the very least, go without watching TV for the sake of the kingdom of God? Evidently not.

I have written before about my perfectionist tendencies. I wanted to be the perfect Christian. God’s Word said to abstain from the very appearance of evil. Psalm 101:3 was a driving force in my life:

I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.

Television was a wicked thing, I told myself, yet I continued to battle with my desire to watch sports and other programs on TV. Needless to say, the advent of the Internet brought into our home a new way for me to be tempted to sin against the thrice-holy God I pledged to serve, even unto death. I’m sure that my children will remember me putting a sign above our computer that quoted Psalm 101:3. This was meant as a reminder that we should NEVER view inappropriate, sinful things on the Internet. Needless to say, I know exactly how long it takes to look at a pornographic photo while on a dial-up connection. Way too long, by the way. 🙂

My three oldest children, now in their late 30s and 40s, continue to rib me about my TV-crazed days. One of them will periodically ask if I am ready to get rid of our flat-screen TV. Their good-natured ribbing hails back to the day when their dad acted like a psycho, buying and selling televisions. At the time, I am sure they thought I was crazy, and I wouldn’t blame them if they did.

Where was my partner, Polly in all of this, you ask? She was the dutiful, submissive wife who believed her God-called, on-fire, sold-out Christian pastor of a husband knew best. Polly rarely watched TV, so having one didn’t matter to her. I was the one who “needed” to watch TV. As I now psychoanalyze this period of my life, I think watching TV was my way of being “normal.” Serving a sin-hating God and preaching to others a rigid, inflexible morality meant that I had to live a Christ-honoring, sin-free life. Again, in light of the atoning work of Jesus on my behalf, I thought that forsaking the pleasure of the “world” was but a small price to pay for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Yet, I wanted to be like everyone else, so I would come home after a long day of studying for my sermons, visiting church members, and doing the work of the ministry, and leave God sitting on the front porch. Watching TV was my way of unwinding after working days which were often long and demanding. While I still was selective about what I watched, my attempts to avoid “sinful” viewing rarely kept me from watching whatever I wanted to watch, especially after the children went to bed. Over time, my guilt levels would increase, ultimately leading to the behaviors outlined in this post.

In 2006, two years before I deconverted, I finally put an end to my battle with the television. I decided, God be damned, I was going to own a TV and watch whatever I wanted to watch. From that point forward, we have owned a television. While I have continued to buy televisions, my purchases are driven by resolution, refresh rate, and screen size, and not the thought that God was going to strike me dead for seeing a naked man or woman on TV.

Several years ago, as we were watching an episode of True Blood, I turned to Polly and said, who would have thought that we would be sitting here watching bloody, naked vampires having sex?  We laughed together, both grateful that the preacher had finally been delivered from the demon of TV.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Can Religious Beliefs Have a Net Positive Effect Even if They Are Untrue?

Bruce Gerencser 12 Comments
guest post

Guest Post by Troy

Recently my girlfriend and I watched an episode of “48 Hours” (transcript) about a California bus kidnapping in July 1976. The crime was as heinous as it was short-sighted. It involved three young men making a plan to abduct a bus full of kids and their driver. The men then put the abductees in a vehicle that had been previously buried underground. The children were able to dig themselves out and facilitate their own rescue after twenty-eight hours. Suffice it to say the trauma of such an abduction would leave emotional scars. Many of the children turned to drugs and alcohol in an attempt to deal with the trauma. Interestingly (and the reason for the article) one of the children (Larry Park, after abusing drugs in his 20s and 30s) turned to religion. He eventually became a pastor and met with the men who had done the kidnapping. In this he found relief.

So the question for me (and now for you) is this: if religion can give someone such deliverance, could it be that religion (whether true or not) could be a net positive? If fostering a delusion has a benefit, does it matter that the basis of the delusion is a lie? If placebos make you feel better, why not take them? I’d be curious how others feel about this, because considering the circumstances, it seems maybe he picked the lesser of two evils . . . (and maybe not evil at all?)

What say ye?

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Quote of the Day: How Many Americans Have Left Christianity in the Last Twenty-Five Years?

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
quote of the day

More people have left the church in the last twenty-five years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham crusades combined.

— Jim Davis and Michael Graham with Ryan Burge, The Great Dechurching, 2023 (Word & Way)

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Quote of the Day: Is Evangelicalism a Solution to MAGA?

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
quote of the day

An excerpt from Paul A. Djupe’s article We Should Probably Stop Thinking Religion is a Solution to MAGA.

In his latest piece for the New York Times, he [David French] describes the “Rage and Joy of Donald Trump’s MAGA America.” It’s a neat argument, backed by his personal observations while immersed in the South, that MAGA supporters are not just angry about the state of the world and the leftist/globalist/whatevers they believe are wrongly in charge. They are actually pretty happy in the MAGA communities they’ve inhabited in the traveling circus following Trump around the country and in their local communities. The importance of that observation is this: they will need a replacement for that communal joy to encourage them to sever their connection to MAGA, not just steps that would defuse their anger.

That’s all fine with me in the sense that it’s worth studying more systematically to see if there’s something to it.

What I’m concerned with is his extension to religion and especially evangelicalism. The parallel he draws is this: “Evangelicals are a particularly illustrative case. About half of self-identified evangelicals now attend church monthly or less often. They have religious zeal, but they lack religious community. So they find their band of brothers and sisters in the Trump movement.” I’ve heard this sort of argument A LOT in the Trump years, trying to make the argument that church-involved people are the good, well-behaved ones who wouldn’t support Trump, while the non-attenders who still identify as religious/evangelical/whatever are the ones doing the objectionable thing in the news at the moment. The implication is that if those MAGA types could just get back to church (or in some other community), then the MAGA problem would be solved.

I’ve addressed this several times before in several different ways and I’m surely missing some posts, but let me say it again: church attendance is linked to Trump support.

….

What I think French and many others are missing is that church involvement is not the crucial dividing line here, but instead the kind of religious beliefs that the people hold are. This is a particular blindspot among some scholars of religion who think of American society as divided between church attenders versus those who are not. Of course there’s some of that, but if you really want to understand who is MAGA and who isn’t, you need to be thinking about apocalypticism. The people fixated on dividing the world into the forces of good and evil (demonic, embodied evil), see Christians facing rampant persecution, and foresee (yep, prophecy belief is a big part of this) a final battle ahead are on a different plane of existence from other people. And they certainly do feel warmly toward Donald Trump, anointed to be their savior.

….

David French laid out a thoughtful approach to thinking about how to deradicalize MAGA folks, but he’s wrong in his assumptions about the role of religion here. Among some, church involvement as it shows through apocalyptic beliefs is an accelerant of MAGA, not a replacement for it. The dividing line is clear. Those with religious beliefs that draw sharp lines between good and evil and feature elites who are making the case that Trump is the anointed ruler of America (and whose indictments are demonic) are the most dangerous and powerful support structures of the MAGA movement. We need to stop thinking that religion is the antidote – particular forms of it, like the New Apostolic Reformation, may be the cause of the problem.

Professor Paul A. Djupe directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University, is an affiliated scholar with PRRI, the series editor of Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics (Temple), and co-creator of religioninpublic.blog.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Roy Moore’s Victims Are Just as Guilty as He is, says Evangelical Presbyterian Pastor Myron Mooney

Bruce Gerencser 19 Comments
myron mooney

Myron Mooney is the pastor of Trinity Free Presbyterian Church in Trinity, Alabama. Free Presbyterians are the Presbyterian version of Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB). Staunchly Evangelical, Calvinistic, and separatist, Free Presbyterians believe women should be silent in church and wear head coverings. In 2017, Mooney made the news with his unwavering support of Roy Moore. When asked about his name being on the letter of support for Moore, Mooney stated:

I’m proud to have my name on that letter.I don’t put any stock in (these accusations) because of the timing.

According to Mooney, his wife said the recent coverage and outrage over Moore’s scandalous behavior with underage girls is akin to being raped:

Here’s what my wife has to say about rape right now. My wife says the state of Alabama is being raped by Washington and being raped by the country with these allegations.

According to the Decatur Daily, Mooney believes that Moore’s opponents have been working for months to orchestrate an attack against Moore. Specifically, Mooney blames the Democrats. I am always amused when Evangelicals resort to wild conspiracy theories to explain reports of immoral or criminal behavior. Does Mooney really believe that there is some nefarious force behind nine women accusing Moore of creepy, criminal sexual misconduct? Imagine how many people it would take to pull off such a large-scale left-wing conspiracy. Occam’s razor applies here. The shortest answer is likely the truth; and the truth is that 30-year-old district attorney Moore had a perverse, stalker-like obsession with teenage girls; and that this obsession resulted in inappropriate sexual behavior.

According to Mooney, if the sexual misconduct claims are true, then the girls making them should be held accountable for not coming forward sooner. Ever the Fundamentalist, Mooney has a proof-text to justify his slut-shaming:

If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:23,24)

Mooney is quoted in the Decatur Daily as saying:

She is then as guilty as the person that is said to have done the molestation The guilt is shared.

Pause for a moment and let Mooney’s abhorrent viewpoint sink in. Are you angry? Sick to your stomach? I know, I am.

Deuteronomy 22:23,24 teaches that if a woman is walking down the street in a city and a man rapes her, and she doesn’t cry out for help — meaning she must have really “wanted” it, then she should be executed along with her rapist. In other words, God says the rape victim is just as guilty as her rapist. Why? Because she didn’t scream loudly enough for someone to hear and come and rescue her.

Deuteronomy 22 is the same chapter of God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Word that commands:

  • Women who fail a virgin test on their wedding night shall be labeled whores and executed (vs 13-21)
  • Women who wear “men’s” clothing are abominations (vs 5)
  • If a man has sex with a woman who is not engaged and they are found out, he must pay the woman’s father fifty silver shekels and marry her (with no possibility of divorce) (vs 28,29)

Mooney should roundly be condemned for what he said, but that’s not going to happen. He quoted the Bible, and dammit, God said it, and that settles it!  I wonder, as I conclude this post, if, in the picture above, the tie, shirt, underwear, and suit Mooney is wearing is made of “mixed” cloth. The Bible also says in Deuteronomy 22:

Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together. (vs 11)

How dare Pastor Mooney sin against the thrice holy God and wear mixed material clothing. Surely, his fellow Presbyterians will demand Mooney be defrocked for wearing clothing God condemns. After all, God said it, and that settles it, right? If Fundamentalists such as Mooney are going to use the Bible to justify their slut-shaming, the least they can do is obey all 635 laws in the Old Testament, and not just the ones that prop up, support, and provide cover for anti-woman views.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Bruce Gerencser