This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is The Wages of Sin by The Rainmakers.
I was praying last night when an angel broke the line She said “I’m gonna have to put you on hold for a time” I said “Hold like Hell, let me talk to the Boss” She said “Sorry sucker (sinner), it’s the Boss’s day off” And I realized then that the wages of sin Was two bucks an hour and working weekends
I was ignoring the thief who was lashed to the cross He cried “Help me get this son-of-a-bitch off” I said “I would if I could, I can’t so I won’t Well I wouldn’t want you messing your hair up, so don’t” And I realized then that the wages of sin Was all the lumber you can carry, all the nails you can bend
The wages of sin, the reward of fear Is worrying and fretting every second of the year If Heaven is guilt, no sex and no show Then I’m not sure if I really want to go, Oh
The wages of sin, the price that you pay Is worrying and fretting every second of the day The Church and the State, your God and Country kind One gets your body, the other gets your mind
Mary, Mary Magdalene, how ’bout a date? You’ve been wasting your time staying up so late Your boyfriend’s dead, the word is you’re a whore Just about then I heard a knock on the door And I realized then that the wages of sin Was a bad reputation and too many friends
The wages of sin (repeats)
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.
This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is If He Showed Up Now by Scott Cook.
If he showed up now, you wouldn’t know what to do He’d be flat broke as usual, filthy too And the worst thing about it when he comes to town Is the kind of people that he brings around But all of your life you have called him your friend And promised you’d stick by him right to the end So you’d say, do us the honour, have something to eat And he’d say, where were you when I was living on the street?
If he showed up now there’d be trouble, I bet He’d be talking revolution, or did you forget When you told him you’d follow him, he said, if you Were anything like me, they’d kill you too. You’d say, I’ve been calling you, haven’t you heard? I live by your name and I’d die for your word And I’d fight to defend it in every detail And he’d say, where were you when I was in jail?
If he showed up now, would you recognize him? If he came as a pauper when you expected a king Or as an illegal, scrounging for bills Or a defenceless child in the Syrian hills You’d say I’ve been fighting your cause all along I studied your pages and sang out your songs And it was in your name that I closed every prayer And he’d say, where were you when I was sick and couldn’t get care? You’d say, if I’d known it was you I’d have come I fought for your honour and all that I’ve done It was under your banner in the name of the Son And he’d say, where were you for the weakest ones? Where were you for the weakest ones?
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.
This is the latest installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege isby White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin.
I really like Christmas It’s sentimental, I know But I just really like it
I am hardly religious I’d rather break bread with Dawkins Than Desmond Tutu, to be honest
And yes, I have all of the usual objections To consumerism To the commercialization of an ancient religion To the westernization of a dead Palestinian Press-ganged into selling PlayStations and beer But I still really like it
I’m looking forward to Christmas Though I’m not expecting A visit from Jesus
I’ll be seeing my dad My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun I’ll be seeing my dad My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
I don’t go in for ancient wisdom I don’t believe just ’cause ideas are tenacious It means they’re worthy
I get freaked out by churches Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords But the lyrics are dodgy
And yes, I have all of the usual objections To the miseducation Of children who, in tax-exempt institutions Are taught to externalize blame And to feel ashamed And to judge things as plain right and wrong But I quite like the songs
I’m not expecting big presents The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolates Is just fine by me
Cause I’ll be seeing my dad My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun I’ll be seeing my dad My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun
And you, my baby girl My jetlagged infant daughter You’ll be handed round the room Like a puppy at a primary school And you won’t understand But you will learn someday That wherever you are and whatever you face These are the people who’ll make you feel safe In this world My sweet blue-eyed girl
And if my baby girl When you’re twenty-one or thirty-one And Christmas comes around And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home You’ll know what ever comes
Your brothers and sisters and me and your mum Will be waiting for you in the sun Whenever you come Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum We’ll be waiting for you in the sun Drinking white wine in the sun Darling, when Christmas comes We’ll be waiting for you in the sun Drinking white wine in the sun Waiting for you in the sun Waiting for you Waiting
I really like Christmas It’s sentimental, I know
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.
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.
Scott Asalone, a former priest at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Purcellville, Virginia, pleaded guilty to a single count of felony carnal knowledge of a minor in December 2022. Yesterday, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
A former Loudoun County priest has been sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually abusing a minor nearly 40 years ago.
On Tuesday, Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Scott Asalone, a former priest at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Purcellville, has been sentenced to prison on a charge of felony carnal knowledge of a minor.
“Today’s sentencing brings long, overdue justice to the brave victim who came forward and told their story. My office will continue to aggressively prosecute child offenders and I encourage anyone who has been a victim of clergy abuse to contact the Virginia State Police or local law enforcement,” said Miyares in a statement.
Asalone was convicted of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in 1985 when he was 29.
In 2020, when charges were first brought, D.C. Council member David Grosso came forward and identified himself as the victim in an interview with The Washington Post.
The victim in the case is former D.C. Council member David Grosso, who publicly identified himself as Asalone’s victim when the charges were filed in 2020.
Grosso previously said he wrote a letter in 1992 to Asalone, and the priest responded by admitting his misconduct. Grosso said the letter served as evidence to convict Asalone in a case that stretched back to 1985.
“I love the fact that justice never stops in Virginia,” Grosso said last December.
“Today’s sentencing brings long, overdue justice to the brave victim who came forward and told their story. My office will continue to aggressively prosecute child offenders and I encourage anyone who has been a victim of clergy abuse to contact the Virginia State Police or local law enforcement. I’d also like to commend the Virginia State Police and my Major Crimes and Emerging Threats Section for their outstanding work on this case,” said Attorney General Miyares in a statement Tuesday.
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.
We live on a small, insignificant rock, surrounded by countless galaxies, stars, and planets. We know very little about what lies beyond the Milky Way, and despite our progress, there is still much we don’t know about Earth and its inhabitants. Yes, we humans continue to push into the unknown, but despite our inquisitiveness, we remain insignificant creatures with itty-bitty brains living on what Carl Sagan famously called a “pale blue dot.”
It’s 2023. We supposedly live in the age of science and technological advancement. Yet, the majority of Americans believe God created the universe and the Bible is the Word of God. Young earth creationism flourishes and Evangelical Christianity dominates the political scene. How enlightened and advanced are we really if the majority of people worship as if their lives depended on a Jewish man named Jesus who died 2,000 years ago? Ponder for a moment Christian theology; the core beliefs that millions of people believe are true. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) Sunday after Sunday, church houses are filled with people singing praises to a dead man; promising to obey the teachings of a Bronze Age religious text. Pray tell, how enlightened are we really?
According to a 2017 Christianity Today story, there are almost 400,000 Christian churches in the United States. Many of these churches are Fundamentalist, falling broadly under the Evangelical tent. (Please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?) The farther to the right you move, the more shrill the Fundamentalists become. One group you will find on the extreme right of Evangelicalism is the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Numbering millions of congregants in thousands of churches, the IFB church movement is fiercely separatist, believing that they preach the One True Faith®, and all other sects are either heretical or heterodox. (Please see What is an IFB Church?)
I grew up in the IFB church movement. I attended an IFB Bible college in the 1970s, pastored several IFB churches, and was deeply invested in IFB doctrine and practice. In 1983, I started an IFB church in the southeast community of Somerset, Ohio. It wasn’t that Somerset needed another church — it didn’t. Somerset had five churches within its village limits, and countless more in surrounding communities. Somerset was, in every way, Christianized, yet Rev. Bruce Gerencser, IFB preacher extraordinaire, believed that Somerset needed one more church — a church that preached the One True Faith®. Ponder, for a moment, the arrogance it took to come to this conclusion. Every time I see a newspaper story about yet another Evangelical church coming to the county I live in, I shake my head and say, “just what we need, another fucking church.” All church planters think “God” is leading them to plant a new church, regardless of how many churches already exist. Church planters convince themselves that they are “special,” and that their churches will be different and unique. And as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, over time their churches become just like every other church in town.
Think of the arrogance and lack of awareness required for an IFB preacher — who takes up a square foot or two on this insignificant planet of ours — to think that his church is “right” and all other churches are wrong; to think that his church is a solitary beacon of light in a world he believes is filled with darkness; to think that virtually everyone outside of that particular church has wrong beliefs, worships the wrong God, and is headed for eternal damnation and Hell unless they see, know, and embrace the “truth.” Truth being, of course, the God-given beliefs of the One True Faith®.
In the grand scheme of things, we are little more than specks of dirt on a pale blue dot. We live and die, and before long are forgotten, a footnote in the history of humankind. What better way to drive away insignificance than to convince yourself that you are special; that God speaks to you and has a divine plan for your life? I planted five churches during my time as an Evangelical pastor. There’s nothing more thrilling than starting a new church. Every Sunday is filled with excitement and anticipation. Over time, you attract people who like you as a person or are drawn to your preaching or personality. As the church grows, you begin to think, “I’m special. God is really using me!” In 1986, the IFB church I was pastoring at the time became the largest non-Catholic church in the county. I proudly advertised, “Perry County’s Fastest Growing Church.” I just knew that I was right and every other church/pastor was wrong. My church was growing, and other nearby IFB churches were not, so I began to think that there was something wrong with them; that maybe there was some sort of defect in their beliefs and practices; that maybe they didn’t work as hard as I did. Isn’t that the American dream? Work hard, and good things will happen. Yet, when I resigned from Somerset Baptist Church in the spring of 1994, the glory days were long over. I had moved on from the IFB church movement, embracing Calvinism and starting a private Christian school. My credo was quality over quantity. Did leaving the IFB church movement make me more ecumenical? Not at first. You see, Calvinism is its own special club. Ironically, most of the Calvinistic Baptist — Reformed Baptist, Sovereign Grace Baptist — preachers I knew were former IFB pastors. Much as I did, these preachers had a Paul-like Damascus Road experience and converted to the One True Faith® — Evangelical Calvinism. What this merry band of predestinarians did was just move one more step to the right. Certain that they finally had found THE “truth,” these preachers of John Calvin’s gospel derided their previous beliefs, doubting that those still in IFB churches were really Christians.
The next time you drive by an IFB church or a Sovereign Grace/Reformed Baptist church, just remember that the pastor of the church and his congregation believe that their church is right and every other church is wrong. And remember most of all the insignificant part they play on planet earth. Oh, they believe otherwise, that God is doing a mighty work in and through them, but the fact remains that they are just another speck of dust on a pale blue dot.
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 grew up in a dysfunctional Evangelical home. We attended church every time the doors were open, read our Bibles, invited our friends and neighbors to church, and practiced the Christian art of praying. I want to focus on the art of praying in this post. I hope what I write will resonate with readers, and provoke their own thoughts about their past prayer experiences.
As a child, I was taught to pray every night before I went to bed. The first prayer I remember praying went like this:
Dear God,
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my Soul to keep, If I should die before I ‘wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
As I grew older, my prayers became more extemporaneous. I would confess my sins, thank God for saving me from my sin, thank God for my parents, family, pastor, church, pray for the missionaries and lost sinners, and finish off my prayers with a few personal requests. Still waiting for that new Schwinn 3-speed bike with a banana seat and sissy bar, Lord. As a teenager, my prayers became more elaborate, often taking minutes to recite. I wanted God to know I was serious about my faith; that I was serious about making my petitions and requests known to God. In my late teens, as I became more involved with girls, I would ask God to keep me morally pure. Two serious relationships, one at eighteen and the other with the woman who is now my wife, brought frequent prayers for moral strength. I was a virgin when I married, but I suspect that had Polly and I waited much longer, we would have rounded third and slid into home. I can remember to this day, kneeling before God, still sexually aroused, and thanking him for keeping me from fornication. I know now, of course, that what kept me from sexual sin was religious indoctrination, threats of judgment and Hell, and fear.
I was also taught the importance of praying before every meal. As a child, I prayed:
Dear God,
God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
On more than a few occasions growing up, I started eating before the prescribed prayer was uttered. This would usually elicit a stern warning from my mom:
Mom: Did you pray for your food?
Bruce: Uh — mouth filled with food — I forgot.
Mom: You better pray right now lest God chokes you.
Bruce: (Who had never seen a non-prayer choked by God) bows his head and silently mouths a prayer of thankfulness to God.
I had drilled into my head by my mom and pastors that God gave me food to eat, and that if I wanted to continue eating beans and wieners or chipped chopped ham/gravy over toast, I better thank God for meeting my sustenance needs. This training stuck with me, and I continued to pray over meals until I was almost fifty years old.
Several years ago, we visited Polly’s Fundamentalist Christian parents. (Both of them have died over the past three years.) Polly’s dad was a retired Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor. Mom was an excellent cake maker, and she had made a double-chocolate cake for us and my oldest son and his children, and my youngest son and his fiancée, who accompanied us. As we were preparing to eat the cake, my father-in-law said to my oldest son, “Are you going to pray for the cake?” We all sat there stunned, not knowing what to do. You see, desserts were never prayed over. Never made sense to me why we prayed for the pot roast, carrots, and potatoes, but never for dessert. My son quickly avoided the prayer question, and Dad decided to go ahead without it. Crisis averted. When Polly and I left Christianity, Dad would frequently ask me or one of my oldest two sons to pray for the food. Such requests were quietly and respectfully rebuffed with a “Why don’t you pray, Dad/Papaw?” Certainly, Polly and I don’t prevent anyone from praying at our table as long as they do it silently. God hears silent prayers, does he not? Yeah, I know, not really, but from an Evangelical perspective, he does. Want to pray for your food at atheist Nana and Grandpa’s table? Bow your head and silently shoot a prayer to Jesus. That’s all that matters right? If not, it would seem, at least to me, that meal prayers — especially in public settings — are meant to be statements instead of acts of piety and devotion.
These days, I am with Jimmy Stewart when it comes to praying for our food:
What were your praying experiences as a child? Did you pray over your food? Always, or did you make exceptions? 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.
There is a staggering lack of Biblically-based knowledge and impact in America’s public square. Secularism, Christianity’s chief competitor, thrives solely in the absence of morality, and Christians have handed over the culture and its mountains of influence to those in rebellion against God. Any casual observer will recognize that secularism’s dominance of academia, newsrooms, sports, the Courts, big business, Hollywood, and medicine isa direct result of Christians ‘not doing politics’. It would seem that modern Christianity is ‘not doing education’ either, given that the secular worldview now is being spoon-fed to 85% of America’s youth. Until Christians step into the public square, reestablishing a Biblically-based culture, the ‘sexualization’ and secularization of youth, allied and abetted by Hollywood and media cliques, will continue to bring the nation to ruin.
Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons clamor for a Bible-based culture. In their minds, the Bible is the moral and ethical standard by which all of us should live. If only the United States were governed by the dictates of the Bible, all would be well. Several years ago, a local Fundamentalist Christian wrote a letter to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News (behind a paywall) extolling the wonderfulness of living in a country governed by the Bible. He went on to say that no one should fear Bible-based rule. “Christians,” he said, “only want what’s best for everyone.” Sadly, there are a lot of naive believers who think just like this man; Christians only want love, joy, peace, and ice cream for everyone. However, history tells us differently; that when church and state are one, blood is shed, people die, and freedoms are lost. And make no mistake about it, theocracy is the goal. Christian apologists might hide their theocratic beliefs with flowery words and philosophical verbiage, but the naked truth is that, in their minds, there is one Lord, lawgiver, ruler, king, and potentate, and his name is Jesus. There is one perfect and infallible law book — the Bible. Knowing they believe these things to be true, perhaps we should ponder what a Bible-based culture would look like.
One need only look at the frontal assault on abortion and Roe v. Wade. The latter having been effectively overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, what has happened since? Hundreds of new state anti-abortion laws severely restrict or outlaw abortion, often without exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. The goal? A federal ban on ALL abortion.
This will not be the end of the matter either. Emboldened by their win, Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons will demand that birth control be outlawed and public-school students be taught Bible-based abstinence-only sex education. These zealots will also tirelessly work to enact laws that give fertilized eggs constitutional rights — demanding personhood for zygotes. The culmination of their efforts will come when doctors, following the dictates of their conscience, are prosecuted for performing abortions, and mothers are arrested and imprisoned for “murdering” their unborn “children.”
Several years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. The same people who tirelessly worked to ban abortion are the same people who strived to criminalize homosexuality and deny LGBTQ people the same constitutional rights afforded to heterosexual Americans. Don’t think for a moment that these people are sitting at home licking their wounds as they watch lesbian porn. Convinced of the rightness of their beliefs and interpretations of the Bible, Evangelicals are plotting to force gays back into closets and recriminalize sodomy and other “perverse” sexual behaviors. Now that the makeup of the Supreme Court skews to the right, I have no doubt that these zealots will do their best to afford the Court another bite at the same-sex-marriage apple. Believing that the Bible condemns homosexuality, theocrats demand and work towards a Bible-based culture where the Good Book®, and not personal morality and preferences, determines who may fuck whom, when, where, and how. Failing to conjugate according to God’s Holy Word would lead to arrest and imprisonment. And if these theocrats are consistent, they will demand that “sodomites” be executed for their crimes against humanity. This, dear readers, is what a Bible-based culture looks like.
In a Bible-based culture, other sexual “sins” such as adultery and fornication would also be banned. In fact, in the Old Testament alone, there are 613 laws. Of course, no Christian has ever kept all of God’s laws. Most Christians, including those clamoring for a theocracy, regularly and with impunity ignore God-given laws. Can anyone say, HYPOCRITES?! That said, even limiting a Bible-based culture to the Ten Commandments is dangerous. In both versions of the Decalogue — yes there are two versions and they differ from one another — the Christian God demands total and absolute fealty and worship. According to numerous Bible stories, worshipping other gods was considered a capital crime punishable by death. I am quite sure that if Evangelicals ever gain the power of the state, the first people rounded up and sent to Franklin Graham Reeducation Camps will be atheists and Muslims. Fundamentalist Christians have a deep-seated hatred for the godless and worshippers of Allah. It chaps their bleached testicles that we roam free on the Internet and in public. Every time the Freedom From Religion Foundation successfully litigates a church-state issue, their email inbox is filled with vile hate mail from offended followers of Jesus. Imagine these same people having the power of the state at their disposal. In a Bible-based culture, there’s no freedom of/from religion. There’s one God — Jesus — one religion — Christianity — and one lawbook — the Bible.
The next time you hear the cacophony of Evangelicals and other conservative Christians demanding the United States adopt a Bible-based standard of behavior, ask them exactly what they mean. Peruse the list of Actions Prohibited by the Bible on RationalWiki, and then ask them if their Bible-based culture would include some or all of the listed prohibitions. I think you’ll find that few zealots really want to live by all of the laws found in the Bible. Damn, talk about a miserable life! No, most theocrats just want to legislate and criminalize the big stuff. What they want, most of all, is a return to the 1940s and 1950s — a time when women were submissive keepers of their homes, Blacks knew their place, LGBTQ people were not seen or heard, and the only fucking going on was that between monogamous heterosexual married couples. They want a culture where everyone goes to church, loves Jesus, and schoolchildren read the Bible and pray every day. In other words, Evangelicals want to roll back a hundred years of social progress. Never mind that their vision of a Mayberry-like world exists only in their Bible-sotted minds. Does anyone really believe Andy wasn’t fooling around with Helen and Gomer wasn’t smoking weed in the gas station bathroom?
Several years ago, I wrote a post detailing why Evangelicalism is dying. Let me be clear, Evangelicalism IS, most certainly, dying, but it has stage-one, not stage-four, cancer. One need only watch the machinations of Evangelical culture warriors to see that they have no intentions of going quietly into the night. There are times when I tip my cap to Christian Fundamentalists. They know what they are fighting for and are willing to metaphorically and, at times, literally, kill everyone who gets in the way of their goal of establishing God’s kingdom on earth. Far too often, liberals and progressives are way too nice and polite. We can learn something from the tactics of Christian zealots: that social progress will only be achieved by stomping the beliefs and demands of theocrats into the ground. Until we understand that we are in a battle for the soul and future of American secularism, we will continue to have our asses handed to us by those demanding King Jesus rule over us all. Way too many secularists, religious or not, sit on the sidelines shooting the breeze while Christian Fundamentalists, in White Walker fashion, wage war against our Republic.
If we don’t wage unholy war against theocrats, who will? Passivity is deadly, and if we refuse to fight, we have no one to blame but ourselves when President Billy-the-Baptist and a Christian Congress demand Americans everywhere bow and worship the one true lawgiver, Jesus.
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.
Listen to Evangelical preachers and, if you didn’t know any better, you would think White Republican Evangelicals were being executed in the town square. Claims of persecution are increasingly frequent from True Christians®, yet there is no evidence for such claims. What is happening, of course, is that Evangelicals — who are used to having a seat at the head of the cultural table and being the arbiters of what is and isn’t moral and ethical — are facing increasing challenges to their unwarranted, undeserved, preferential treatment. People who actually read and understand the history of the United States know that Christianity is a usurper, a ruler who has never been crowned king. Tired of religionists meddling in their lives and affairs of state, secularists are now demanding that Christians — Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and Mormons, in particular — pack up their theocratic sideshow and go home. Preach and believe what you want, Christians, but keep it on your side of the wall of separation of church and state, secularists say. Worship God to your heart’s content, but whom we consenting adults fuck where, when, and how is none of your business. The same goes for the hot-button culture war issues that excite Evangelical passions. Ron DeSantis, who promises to make the culture wars central to his 2024 presidential campaign, will most assuredly claim that good, White Christians are being persecuted for their beliefs.
While certainly there are individual instances of persecution, such unjust treatment is rare and certainly is not the result of some sort of systemic, organized assault against people of faith. People are free to worship their chosen deity as they wish. No one, I repeat NO ONE, is hindered one bit from worshiping whom, when, where, and how they want.
I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. And I wasn’t just any old Evangelical preacher. I was an outspoken, in-your-face, meddler in the private lives of others and in the daily machinations of government and public education. I was, in every way, a Grade-A pain in the ass. When my preaching, beliefs, and behavior were challenged, I thought I was being persecuted for my faith. Was that really the case? Let me give you several examples, and you decide if the responses I received were indeed persecution.
For a number of years, I was a street preacher. I would go to fairs, community events, and outdoor activities and preach AT people. This behavior, of course, irritated the hell out people who just wanted to have a good time without being reminded of their “wickedness” and need of Baptist “salvation.” Sometimes, this would bring me in direct conflict with law enforcement. I was threatened with arrest more times than I can count. Was I being “persecuted” for my faith?
Several times a week, I would travel to nearby communities with a group of church members and children from our Christian school and do what I called “street ministry.” The group would hold signs with Bible verses on them and hand out tracts to passers-by while I stood on a nearby corner and “preached.” I saw myself as a modern-day Paul or John the Baptist — one crying in the wilderness. My ministry to the lost Christians of Newark, Zanesville, Lancaster, and points in between, caused a lot of controversies. I was threatened with arrest, and several local educators told me that they were going to have me investigated for using school children as part of our group. Was I being “persecuted” for my faith?
One year, I got into a squabble with the Ohio EPA. After I started Somerset Baptist Academy, the EPA showed up, saying that now that the church had a school, its water was considered a public water supply, requiring quarterly testing. Thanks to a gracious financial gift from Polly’s parents, we had a new well drilled. The previous well was considered a surface well, less than 25 feet deep. I thought, surely a 225-foot well would satisfy EPA requirements. Unfortunately, the new well was too close to the property line. The EPA threatened to order us to drill another well, but I stood my ground against those evil, communistic socialists out to destroy a gospel-preaching church. In the end, they bowed to my threatenings. Was I being “persecuted” for my faith?
As pastor of Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio, I decided to fight attempts to legalize alcohol sales in the town. West Unity was one of the last dry communities in Ohio. Boy, oh boy, did I wage war against those pagans who wanted to turn our beloved little corner of Nirvana into a hell hole! I enlisted several church members and other churches in my holy fight against evil, and when the votes were counted, Satan was defeated. Never mind the fact that I had thoroughly trashed my image and reputation among the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. I cared not. All that mattered was showing everyone that my God and church were a power to be reckoned with. Several months later, I received a legal notice from the Ohio Attorney General saying that I was being investigated for allegedly breaking campaign regulations. Someone in West Unity had reported me for violating the law. I was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine. Was I being “persecuted” for my faith?
I could tell numerous other stories that illustrate what I believed was “persecution” by people who disagreed with my beliefs and actions. But, was I really being “persecuted?” Of course not. Yes, police officers were wrong — most of the time — to threaten me with arrest. I had a First Amendment right to be an asshole. Their response to me was out of ignorance of the law, not a desire to persecute me. Yes, I had countless people get in my face over my public street corner preaching. Were they persecuting me? Of course not. When you drag your theology into the public square and demand everyone worship your God and follow his laws under penalty of death and eternal damnation, people are going to get upset. While I had every right to preach my beliefs, my targets also had the right to respond in kind.
I learned long ago, that if you poke a bear, it’s going to respond. Sometimes, I poke the Christians bear with my anti-religion letters to the editor of the local newspaper. I know if I say certain things, the bears will be offended and respond. You can read their responses here. These Jesus-loving zealots have no problem with attacking my character and telling lies about me. Are they “persecuting” me? Nope. I don’t feel threatened, in the least.
A Ginger in the Pulpit, Somerset Baptist Church, 1987
Christian persecution in the United States, by and large, is a myth. The same can be said of atheist persecution. If anyone in our republic is being persecuted, it’s gingers. My God, have you read what people say about redheads!?
What was the most unbelievable, amazing magical power demonstrated in the Harry Potter movies? A ginger boy with two friends.
What’s the difference between a ginger and a snake? One is an evil, cold-blooded, venomous, slimy creature of Satan, and the other is a snake.
What’s the difference between a ginger and roadkill? There are skid marks in front of the roadkill.
What’s the difference between the Loch Ness monster and an attractive ginger? There are pictures of Nessie.
What’s red and white and peels? A ginger trying to tan.
How do you get a ginger to start an argument? Say something to him.
You have a gun with two bullets, and you find yourself in an elevator with a deadly viper, a serial killer, and a ginger. What should you do? Shoot the ginger twice.
What’s the difference with a ginger and a brick? At least a brick gets laid.
If Monday were a person, it would be a ginger.
The internet — so gingers can have friends too.
What’s the difference between a terrorist and a redhead? You can negotiate with a terrorist.
How do you get a redhead’s mood to change? Wait ten seconds.
What’s the difference between a redhead and a barracuda? Nail polish.
A ginger guy finds a magic lamp and when he rubs it a genie pops out. The genie is a bit fed up but says, “Okay, you can have one wish. What do you want?” The ginger says, “I want a huge mansion with a thousand rooms and a hundred floors, all made of pure gold.” The genie looks at him and says, “Don’t be an idiot! Do you have any idea how much gold that would take? That’s impossible. You’ll have to pick something else.” So the ginger says, “Okay, I want everyone to stop laughing at me because of my hair color.” The genie says “So this mansion… Do you want ensuite bathrooms?”
Awful stuff. I have no doubt that gingers will someday be rounded up and forced to either dye their hair black or be executed. Now, that’s persecution . . . 🙂
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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Several years ago, I watched the series The Path on Hulu. Starring Aaron Paul, Michelle Monaghan, and Hugh Dancy, The Path portrays the lives of people involved with a religion called Meyerism. While Meyerism is fictional, many of its core tenets and practices mirror those found in Evangelicalism. I found myself thinking, the only difference between Meyerism — a cult — and Evangelicalism is a matter of degree. This is especially true when Meyerism is compared to the extreme Fundamentalist corner of the Evangelical tent. I am not suggesting that Meyerism is the equivalent of Evangelicalism. It’s not. As Wikipedia makes clear, Meyerism combines aspects of:
New Age philosophy, shamanism, Scientology, Christian mysticism and Utopianism with a few elements from the Shakers, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism and Freemasonry ritual.
However, Meyeristic practices such as fidelity to a rigid set of commands and beliefs, obedience to leaders, progressive enlightenment, separation from the world, and the shunning of ex-Meyerists find expression in the practices of countless Evangelical churches.
Eddie Lane (Aaron Paul) and Sarah Lane (Michelle Monaghan) are devoted followers of Stephen Meyer, the founder of Meyerism. Born into a Meyerist family, Sarah is what you would call a “true believer.” Eddie, on the other hand, has questions and doubts about the religious aspects of Meyerism. While Eddie embraces Meyerism’s commitment to family, environmentalism, and helping the poor and suffering, he comes to believe the rest of Meyerism is, in his words, bullshit. He has come to see that what he once considered “truth” was a lie. Eventually, Eddie’s crisis of faith leads to conflict with his wife, family, and Cal Roberts (Hugh Dancy), the leader of Meyerist community in New York. Eddie is banished from the Meyerist community. Labeled a “denier,” Eddie tries to help his teenage son Hawk, who recently took Meyerist vows. In episode three of season two, Hawk tells Eddie that he can no longer see him. Eddie desperately tries to reason with his son, to no avail.
During his passionate plea to Hawk, Eddie tells his son, “it [Meyerism] only works if you believe.” Eddie goes on to explain that if you pull on that string, everything unravels and crumbles into nothing. I can’t think of a better illustration of what many of us have gone through as we walked away from Christianity. Christianity, and in particular Evangelical Christianity, only works IF you believe. Dare to pull the string, logically, rationally, and skeptically evaluating sincere beliefs and practice, and everything unravels and crumbles into nothing.
Evangelicalism requires the suspension of reason. No matter how vociferously apologists and zealots argue otherwise, Evangelical faith requires belief over truth and dogma over fact. Doubt and questioning the teachings of the Bible/church/pastor is viewed as a lack of faith, a sure sign that Satan is influencing someone’s thinking. Congregants are discouraged from reading books/blogs that will cause them to doubt. Dr. Bart Ehrman is pilloried as an “enemy of the faith,” and pastors routinely warn church members to stay away from his books. Claiming that they are only watching out for their souls, these men of God know that the educated conclusions found in Ehrman’s books are kryptonite to Evangelical faith. These gatekeepers know that the only way to keep asses in the pews and money in the offering plates is to wall congregants off from exposure to the “world.”
Few Evangelical leaders promote unfettered intellectual inquiry. They know that such inquiries always lead away from what Evangelicals believe is the “faith once delivered to the saints.” Pastors know that once devotees question the inerrancy of the Bible, creationism, the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and other cardinal beliefs, it is only a matter of time before they will lose their faith. While this loss of faith may not lead to atheism, it certainly leads to an exodus out the back doors of Evangelical churches. When truth — not religious dogma masquerading as truth — becomes the object of intellectual inquiry, it’s only a matter of time before the Evangelical house built on myth and supernatural nonsense comes tumbling down. Either science is right, or creationism is. Both can’t be right. Either virgins can have babies or they can’t. Either three-day-old dead people can come back to life and eat dinner at Taco Bell or they can’t. Take every supernatural claim in the Bible and measure it by what you know to be empirically and experientially true. Both can’t be true. Knowledge-informed thinking, and not cognitive dissonance, should always be the goal.
Eddie is right: It only works if you believe. Once you stop believing and demand facts and evidence, it’s game over. Once you stop granting the Bible/churches/pastors authority over your life, you are on your way to true freedom. A letter writer asked me what was the biggest change in my life after deconverting. I told her that the biggest change was having the freedom to follow the path of life wherever it leads. Evangelicalism, with its teachings on Heaven/Hell, eternal punishment, sin, and judgment, leads to bondage. Pastors go to great lengths to convince congregants that this bondage is actually freedom; that is, if you believe the central tenets of the faith. Evangelicalism becomes a bubble of sorts where everything makes perfect sense as long as you are in the bubble. That’s why many of us were committed followers of Jesus for so many years. It all made sense to us; that is, until one day we dared to pull on the string, and then we realized that what we had really been believing was an elaborate construct of myths and lies. And at that moment, everything we believed crumbled away to nothing.
If you happen to be an Evangelical, let me encourage you to pull on the string. Dare to value truth over belief. Dare to question and doubt. Dare to seek, as the Bible says. I guarantee that if you will intellectually and passionately “seek,” you most certainly will “find.” Come join countless other freethinkers as they walk the path of life. Evangelicalism taught you that life is all about your destination: Heaven or Hell. I’m here to tell you that life is all about your journey, and not where you’ll end up after you die. Embrace every day as if it is your last and humbly walk the path that is before you. If you will do that, I promise that you will end up exactly where you need to be.
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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Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
One need only to study world religions to understand that religion is a powerful force in our world — for good and evil. Marx rightly compared religion to opium — a powerful narcotic used to relieve pain, both physically and psychologically. Religion, in all its forms, is used by humans to find purpose, meaning, peace, and happiness. Ultimately, people worship deities because doing so benefits them in some way or another. A good way to look at religion is from an economic perspective. Every religion has a cost attached to it. Sometimes those costs are clear: time, money, and commitment. Other times, religion extracts psychological or emotional costs. Some religions, such as Evangelical Christianity, Mormonism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, require an abandonment of self and total commitment to God and the church. I spent fifty years in the Evangelical church. Twenty-five of those years were spent pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I can’t even begin to calculate the cost of my devotion to the Evangelical Jesus. Much of my time and money was spent in devotion to a deity whom I believed was the one true God, the creator and ruler over all. I abandoned self as I “followed the Lamb of God.” I willingly sacrificed my marriage and family, living in poverty and doing without for my God’s sake. Why would anyone live as I did?
Serving Jesus was costly, but the benefits far outweighed the costs — or so I thought at the time, anyway. Through my religious beliefs, experiences, and practices, I found happiness, peace, and meaning. I had the privilege of preaching the gospel and teaching others the “truths” of the Christian Bible. I was loved and respected, and there never was a day when I didn’t feel God’s presence in my life. Oh, sometimes it seemed God was distant, but more often than not, the Christian deity was an ever-present reality.
It matters not whether Christianity is true; that its core beliefs are rational and reasonable. All that mattered, as a Christian, is that I thought these beliefs were true. Countless people believe all sorts of things that are untrue, but they believe them to be true, so in their minds, they are. While believing in the Christian God extracted from me a high cost, one I am paying to this day, for most of my life I believed the benefits of religious faith outweighed its costs.
Marx thought religion gave people false happiness. That said, he never underestimated its power, its ability to meet the deep needs of the human psyche. Atheists often wrongly believe that the solution to the ills of the world is for people to abandon their superstitions and embrace rationality rooted in reason, science, and intellectual inquiry. What atheists forget is that what humans want more than anything else is happiness. Until rationalists, freethinkers, and humanists show that their godless way of life leads to purpose, meaning, and happiness, we can’t expect religious people to buy what we are selling. We know that people don’t need to toke religious crack to feel happy and fulfilled, but we will never argue people into understanding this. Like it or not, feelings play a big part in the human experience. Life is short, and then we die. Religion offers a powerful drug that lessens the pain of that reality. We secularists must offer the same if we expect to neuter the effects of religion on our world.
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.
