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Gone but Not Forgotten: Years Later San Antonio Calvinists Still Preaching Against Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser 26 Comments
Jose Maldonado Bruce Gerencser Pat Horner
Pastors Joe Maldonado, Bruce Gerencser, and Pat Horner, Somerset Baptist Church, Fall of 1993

In March of 1994, I became the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas. I have written extensively about my time at Community in the series I am a Publican and a Heathen. My seven-month tenure at Community quickly turned into buyer’s remorse, and in late September, I resigned and returned to Ohio. Community is a Calvinistic (Sovereign Grace) Baptist church, started by Pat Horner — a former Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher. Horner ruled the church with a rod of iron, using church discipline to “deal” with all those who crossed him. Community’s disciplinary practices weren’t viewed as a tyrant’s attempt to silence those who refused to play by his rulebook. Instead, church disciplinary meetings were dressed up with Bible verses meant to give the illusion that the church (Horner) was following the Apostle Paul’s and Jesus’ teachings when errant, unrepentant church members were excommunicated. Numerous members were “disciplined” during my tenure at Community. People were excommunicated for everything from not regularly attending church to refusing to submit to pastoral authority. On the day that I resigned, Horner informed me that I could not resign without the church’s permission. Taking a “watch me” approach, I packed up my family and moved back to Ohio. As we were pulling out of the church’s compound, Horner was addressing the church about the “Bruce Gerencser problem.” I was excommunicated, and to this day, I am considered a publican and a heathen (Matthew 18:15-19).

Fifteen years later, I wrote the letter titled Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners. In this letter — which was sent to numerous ministerial colleagues, family members, and former church members — I detailed the reasons why I was no longer a Christian. Of course, the Calvinistic preachers in San Antonio — men such as Pat Horner, Tim Conway, and Jose Maldonado — saw my letter as “proof” that my ex-communication from Community Baptist Church was justified. See! See! See! Bruce Gerencser never was a “real” Christian! One would think, having thrown me out of the church, that would be the end of the story. However, what Horner and his fellow Calvinists didn’t count on is me publicly writing about my time in San Antonio. When Horner and the Church excommunicated me in 1994, they could control the storyline. Horner could lie about me, and there was little I could do about it (He told several people that the church I was pastoring in Ohio was filled with unsaved people). The Internet, of course, changed things dramatically, allowing me to tell my side of the story to thousands of people. Karma’s a bitch.

I check the search logs daily, and rarely a week goes by without someone searching Pastor Pat Horner, Pastor Jose Maldonado, Pastor Tim Conway, Grace Community Church San Antonio, Hillburn Drive Grace Baptist Church, or Community Baptist Church Elmendorf that brings them to this blog. To combat the influence I might have on people, the San Antonio Calvinists have taken to mentioning me in their sermons. Here are two examples:

In November 2015, Tim Conway, then pastor of Grace Community Church, San Antonio, preached a sermon titled The Futility of the Mind. In the sermon Conway said:

Futile, vain, empty, pointless, to no avail. And right here in Ephesians chapter 4, futility of mind is the characterization of the Gentiles. That’s how you are no longer to be. Christian, we are to put away futility. No longer. You must no longer. Futility of mind is a picture of people using their mind in ways that are just a waste of time. They are a waste of effort. You want some examples? Brethren, I know this about all of us. We all want to be happy. That is what mankind is striving after. Mankind wants to feel good, and mankind strives after that. You want an example of futility of mind? Futility of mind is man who is forever and always trying to figure out how to be happy while he is an enemy of God. That, folks, is futility. That is vain. That is worthless.

….

Or how about this: The futility that people walking around just spending their time; I was thinking about, some of you know about Bruce Gerencser, who was one of the co-elders down at Community Baptist Church when Ruby and I were down there, who apostatized and basically became an Atheist. What futility to spend your life trying to convince yourself there is no God. You see, these are the futile ways or futility that comes to nothing. Nothing at all.

Conway mentions me at the 25:48 mark.

Video Link

In 2010, Jose Maldonado, pastor of Hillburn Drive Grace Baptist Church (link no longer active), preached a four-part sermon series about my apostasy.  Here’s a short audio clip from one of the sermons:

If you have the stomach for it, you can listen to the Apostasy and Its Awful Consequences! (also titled “why Bruce Gerencser Was NEVER, EVER a Christian!) series on Sermon Audio.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

If you would like to read the sermons and not listen to them, here are PDF transcriptions of the sermons.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Why are preachers such as Conway and Maldonado still preaching about me years later? What is it about my story they find so threatening? Perhaps they just want to use my story as a warning or a cautionary tale, as Ralph Wingate, Jr. did in a 2013 sermon at Calvary Baptist Church in Normal, Illinois:

Audio Link

Whatever the reasons, my story remains a burr in the saddle of those who once considered me their colleague or pastor. Numerous prayers have been uttered on my behalf, yet God has not seen fit to save or kill me. I remain a red-flashing-light reminder of the fact that pastors — men who once preached the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ — can and do apostatize. And if men of God can lose their faith, well, anyone can.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Black Collar Crime: Evangelical South African Church Covered Up Sexual Abuse for Decades Says Victims

Bruce Gerencser 1 Comment

george donald

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.

George Donald, a former youth leader at Hatfield Christian Church in Pretoria, South Africa was convicted recently and sentenced prison for sexually abusing several young girls. Now, one of his victims is accusing Hatfield Christian of covering up sexual abuse.

Zelda Venter, a reporter for IO, writes:

For decades, pastors at Hatfield Christian Church covered up the sexual abuse of several young girls by one of its youth leaders.

In the same week that the Constitutional Court deliberated on the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases, George Donald, 67, was sentenced in the Pretoria Regional Court to a total of 11 years’ imprisonment, of which he has to serve an effective six years.

This was for raping his biological daughter, Marijke Donald, now Mwathi, over several years in the 1980s, as well as his foster daughter – who does not want to be named – for months while she lived with the family in Pretoria.

The rape and sexual abuse of Marijke, 40, started around the time she was 3 and ended when she was about 12.

Her foster sister, who was about 10 at the time, eventually told Marijke’s mother, who does not want to be identified. The mother turned to the church authorities for guidance.

Both parents received counselling and the advice of the church elders at the time was that they should pray and talk to each other.

In an e-mail exchange with Hatfield Christian Church last year, Marijke accused the then church leaders of turning a blind eye to the serial abuse and protecting a rapist. She said they told her mother that it was “church policy” not to go to the police or to take a “Christian brother before a heathen judge”.

They also told her mother, Marijke said, that if she had been a better wife, Donald would not have abused the girls. But while the counselling with church elders continued, Donald continued to rape her, Marijke told the Pretoria News.

She now lives in Scotland, but returned to Pretoria last week, with her brother Jason Donald, author and award-winning filmmaker, who lives in Switzerland, to see their father go to jail.

“I don’t hate him, but I wanted to see him go to jail for what he had done to me,” she said.

Donald, who is wheelchair-bound, pleaded guilty to two charges of rape. Due to his advanced age and the fact that the crimes occurred in the 1980s, he was sentenced according to the law of the time.

If the rapes occurred after the new Sexual Offences Act came into effect, he could have faced life behind bars.

“The investigating officer asked whether I wanted to talk to him after he was sentenced,” said his daughter. “I faced him after all these years and told him I no longer hated him, but he had to go to jail.”

Donald, who lived in London, was extradited to South Africa to account for his crimes after about 30 years.

In a statement to court before sentencing, Marijke said: “As a child I lived in a home where our family portrait was that of God-loving people who served Christ through the church.

“We helped those in need, but behind this perfect family impression lay a sinister secret of a man who thrived on the ability to control, manipulate, lie and abuse many around him.”

Marijke said it was not only sexual abuse she had been subjected to, but also emotional abuse. “As a child growing up in that environment, I lived in fear, confusion and hypervigilance If only the church went to the police or removed him as youth leader.”

The abuse only stopped when the family moved to Scotland in 1990 and her mother eventually divorced him.

“Once it was discovered that George was abusing me, it was me who was punished. No one went to the police or had him arrested and charged to keep me safe.

“Not the church, not the doctor who examined me and not my mother. He even remained as a youth leader.”

She said she decided a few years ago to report the rapes and sexual abuse to the authorities. “I decided to forgive him Not for him to be freed, but for me to release myself from him To live with what George has done to me is one thing, but I could not live with the knowledge that he has harmed others.”

Around the same time Marijke was raped, another young member of the church, Elizabeth van der Merwe, was also being abused.

She said that while the church service was going on, he would take her to a room elsewhere on the premises, ostensibly to prepare for the youth service.

She counted the steps to this room, where he abused her. She could still remember exactly how many there were, she said.

….

Hatfield Christian Church apologizes to George Donald’s victims.

Marijke Donald’s foster sister, Cordelia, has decided to publicly tell her story. Annie Brown, a reporter for The Mirror-UK, writes:

A rapist who abused his daughter from the age of four told her “it is better for a girl to be broken in by her father rather than a stranger.”

Devout Christian George Donald, 67, began abusing Cordelia Donald when she was two.

He raped her, sometimes twice a week, from the age of four until she was 10.

Now Cordelia, 40, has bravely spoken out about the horrific abuse which a church covered up, the Daily Record reports.

When Cordelia’s mother found out about the abuse and went to pastors in the church where Donald was a volunteer youth leader, she was told that it was against “church policy” to take a “Christian brother before a heathen judge” or the police.

Her mother was also told the abuse wouldn’t have happened if she had been a better wife.

….

This week Donald, from Dundee, who was living in South Africa at the time of the crimes, was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping Cordelia and a 10-year-old girl in the 1980s.

….

Cordelia has chosen to speak about her ordeal as she fears there are other victims of her father who have yet to come forward.

The family emigrated from Scotland to South Africa when Cordelia, who has three brothers, was 10 months old.

Donald began abusing her when she was two. He raped her, sometimes twice a week, from the age of four until she was 10.

The abuse only lessened when another female victim reported to Cordelia’s mother that she had been abused.

But when her mother reported the abuse to pastors at Hatfield Christian Church in Pretoria, she was shrugged off.

….

To the outside world, Donald, a supermarket manager, was the epitome of the perfect husband and father, a charismatic and upright Christian who worked tirelessly with children.

Cordelia said: “Behind this perfect family impression lay a sinister secret of a man who thrived on the ability to control, manipulate, lie and abuse many around him. I was victim to sexual, physical, psychological and emotional abuse.

“As a child growing up in this environment, I lived in fear, confusion and hyper vigilance. I would jump if I heard a car pull up or a lock turned. I was constantly scared.”

Cordelia was so traumatised that from the age of three, she pulled her hair out and bit her nails until her fingers bled.

She was so desperate not to be a girl and a target for her dad that she imitated being a boy, even trying to urinate standing up.

Her dad threatened to harm her mother and brothers or kill her family pets if she revealed their “secret”.

She said: “I felt that by saying nothing, I was protecting my family.”

Donald told her it was normal for dads to behave sexually with their little girls.

….

 

Taking Off the Sheep Clothes — the Musings of a Wolf

Bruce Gerencser 4 Comments

wolf sheeps clothing

As my fame continues to spread across the internet, people who used to know me are finding out that I am no longer a pastor, a Christian, a believer in God, etc.  I suppose this is how it must be. If I am going to write publicly, use my real name, and talk about my life as a minister, I am going to be “found out.”

I know I am responsible for this. I choose to write what I write. I choose to be honest and direct. I choose to recount my past and present life as I understand it (and I say this because I realize others may see my life and the past differently).

I could have chosen to write anonymously. I could have made this blog (and the previous iterations of it) private. But, that’s not me. I have always been direct and open.  Rarely have I heard someone say about me “I don’t know what you mean.” In my younger years, directness and openness were better described as blunt and abusive. As a minister-in-training, I was taught to speak the truth without regard to the feelings of others.

This way of speaking my mind has served me well over the years, but it also has provided me many opportunities to apologize for the times when silence would have been the better course of action. I continue to be schooled in the fine art of shutting up, whether with the words I speak or the words I write.

Just recently, I had the opportunity to apologize to a former church member for running her family out of the church because she wore pants. Her husband asked me if I thought his wife wearing pants was a sin. In no uncertain terms I said YES! In every way this couple were fine church members, dedicated followers of Jesus. The husband drove one of our church buses. Yet, because I thought women wearing pants was a sin, the church lost a good family. How much better would things have turned out if I had said, Well that’s between you and God. But I couldn’t do so. I was God’s man and directness was the only way to speak God’s truth.

These days, I suspect my openness and directness threatens some people, especially those who have had an intimate relationship with me in the past. They would rather I leave things alone. They would rather I leave the past buried in the past. No need to talk about old times best forgotten. One former pastor friend told me that I shouldn’t talk about the past and my defection from the faith lest I cause others to lose their faith.

I can’t do that. While I don’t want to be a person who lives in the past, I realize that understanding the past is essential to my well-being in the future. If I learn nothing from the past, there can be no growth in my life in the present.  The key is not to be shackled by the past. I must learn from it, embrace it, but I must not allow the past to keep me from moving forward in my life.

It seems my “outing” is working its way down my résumé and list of family and friends. I told my wife the other day that I thought most everyone now knows about my apostasy from the Christian faith. Well, maybe my first grade teacher doesn’t know.

In First Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul writes about it being commonly reported that there was incest going on in First Baptist Church of Corinth. Based on these common reports, Paul made a judgment about what was going on in the church. So it is with me. It is now commonly reported that Bruce Gerencser has apostatized. Sermons are even preached about me. (here, here, and here)

As many of you know. I co-pastored the Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas. I was excommunicated from the Church in 1994. Several years ago, a member of the church stumbled upon my deconversion story at John Loftus’s blog, Debunking Christianity.   Here’s the comment left by her:

So the wolf has finally taken off his sheep’s clothes. Took a while.

When the Church officials excommunicated me in 1994, they declared that I was a publican and a heathen. The Bible says in Matthew 18:

Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

My apostasy makes perfect sense to the people in San Antonio. It is simply the full manifestation of what they declared I was in 1994, a publican and a heathen. I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing (John 10:12 and Matthew 7:15) , a satanic angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:13-15) , a false prophet (2 Peter 2).

But what does this say about them? They were certain it was the will of God for me to be their pastor. Evidently, they were not as discerning as they should have been. This lack of discernment  has been a common problem for them. Prior to my excommunication, they had excommunicated 2 other pastors, and countless Church members.

I was not excommunicated for anything one might consider grounds for being booted out of a church. No stealing of church funds or screwing the church secretary. No trying to foment a church split (although I could have). No deep, dark, secret sins. No, my transgression was that I butted heads with the man who started the church. He was bull-headed, arrogant, opinionated, and temperamental and so was I. Like two little children, we both wanted our own way. Eventually, I decided I no longer wanted to play and I was excommunicated for my refusal to play.

In a church service akin to a scene from a Catholic Inquisition, I was in absentia found guilty and excommunicated, not only from Community Baptist Church, but from Christianity altogether. For a few years, I tried to resolve the conflict between me and the other pastor (Pat Horner). He rebuffed every attempt at reconciliation. I saw the conflict as a personal matter. He saw it as a matter between me and the Church and God. (Horner is no longer the pastor; Kyle White is.) In the eyes of Community Baptist Church, I am, and will always remain, a publican and a heathen. Unless I return on hands and knees to the church and repent of my sins, there is no salvation for me.

Well, that’s not going happen. I am having too much fun enjoying my life as a publican and heathen.

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