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Tag: Community Baptist Church Elmendorf Texas

Questions: Bruce, Have You Ever Seen Someone Who Was Demon-Possessed?

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questions

I recently asked readers to submit questions to me they would like me to answer. If you would like to submit a question, please follow the instructions listed here.

Geoff asked: Bruce, in your many years of pastoral ministry have you ever come across what you would consider demonic possession or any strange paranormal stuff? Have you ever heard of anything that you would consider legitimate?

I had no exposure to or experience with demonic possession until the mid-1990s. Before then, I didn’t put much stock in demon possession. I thought it was an excuse used to cover up bad or bizarre behavior. In 1994, I left Somerset Baptist Church in Mt. Perry, Ohio and moved to San Antonio, Texas to become the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church. Community’s other pastor, Pat Horner, was a big believer in demon possession. He even believed that Christians could be oppressed by demons. This openness to all-things-demonic caused congregants to believe all sort of outlandish things. One woman thought that every time she heard a coyote howl, it was her unsaved husband. Another woman believed in generational curses; that demonic possession and oppression could be passed down from generation to generation. What I learned during the short time I was at Community was that if a pastor believed in demonic possession, so would his people. I remember in the early 1990s when I embraced Calvinism, I thought I would have mutiny on my hands, but what I found was that church members changed their beliefs to fit mine (with a few notable exceptions). Most Evangelicals believe whatever their pastor believes. Their theology is borrowed from the men who teach them. This is not surprising since Evangelicals are taught to seek out like-minded churches. What’s fellowship? It is a bunch of fellows in a boat rowing in the same direction. Diversity of belief is discouraged or condemned.

I have attended a number of charismatic churches where the “gifts of the Spirit” were supposedly in full operation. These full-gospel churches had all sorts of demonic activity going on their midst; or so they said, anyway. Again, if you are looking for demons, you will find them. There’s a religious version of McCarthyism practiced by many Evangelical pastors and churches. Here a demon, there a demon, everywhere a demon.

As an atheist, not only do I reject the notion of the existence of the Christian God, I also reject the belief that there is a tangible, real Devil. People can’t be demon possessed because there are no demons to possess them. The behaviors that are called demonic possession are either fake, learned behaviors, or signs of mental illness.

I have never seen any sort of paranormal activity. I have experienced several things for which I have no explanation. When these things happened, I attributed them to God or Satan. Now? I am content with saying, I don’t know. I take the same approach with prayer. Almost all of my “answered” prayers came from human intervention. The few I can’t explain? I don’t know, but they are not enough to convince me that there is a God. Evangelicals see God in the unexplainable, but I all see a question without, so far, an answer.

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.

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Independent Baptist Songs: The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe

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julia ward howe

From time to time, I plan to post lyrics from the songs we sang in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches I grew up in and pastored. Unbelievers and non-Fundamentalists might find some of these lyrics quite interesting, and, at times, funny or disturbing. Enjoy!

Today’s Independent Baptist Song is The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe. I was able to find a video of this song being sung by Squire Parsons, David Phelps, and Bill Gaither’s Homecoming Friends.

In 1994, I was the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas. One night, the song director — a man who had been born and raised in Massachusetts — asked the congregation to stand and sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Unaware the war of Northern aggression was not over, the song leader thought everyone would joining in singing. Several quite angry congregants refused to stand or sing, letting it be known that they weren’t going to sing a Yankee song. Up until that point, I had never seen anyone protest the singing of a song. Touchy, Southerners!

The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on.”

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

Video Link

Wikipedia gives the history behind the song:

[George] Kimball’s battalion was dispatched to Murray, Kentucky early in the Civil War, and Julia Ward Howe heard this song [John Brown’s Body] during a public review of the troops outside Washington D.C. on Upton Hill, Virginia. Rufus R. Dawes, then in command of Company “K” of the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, stated in his memoirs that the man who started the singing was Sergeant John Ticknor of his company. Howe’s companion at the review, The Reverend James Freeman Clarke, suggested to Howe that she write new words for the fighting men’s song. Staying at the Willard Hotel in Washington on the night of November 18, 1861, Howe wrote the verses to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”  Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembered:

“I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, “I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.” So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was first published on the front page of The Atlantic Monthly of February 1862. The sixth verse written by Howe, which is less commonly sung, was not published at that time. The song was also published as a broadside in 1863 by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments in Philadelphia.

Both “John Brown” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” were published in Father Kemp’s Old Folks Concert Tunes in 1874 and reprinted in 1889. Both songs had the same Chorus with an additional “Glory” in the second line: “Glory! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!”

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Calvinist David Leach Says I Am a Morally Bankrupt Reprobate Who Hates Jesus

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Jose Maldonado Bruce Gerencser Pat Horner 1994
Jose Maldonado. Bruce Gerencser, Pat Horner, Somerset Baptist Church

David Leach, a Fundamentalist Calvinist from Texas, recently left the following comment on a post titled Gone but Not Forgotten: 22 Years Later San Antonio Calvinists Still Preaching Against Bruce Gerencser:

That you consider me an “ill-informed judgmental ass” will not be keeping me up nights. The moral and spiritual assessments of reprobate, morally bankrupt, angry men never moves me much. You hate Christ, why would I expect better than abuse from you? In fact, I do not. The ugliness and darkness you hid as you feigned Christian faith is no longer concealed. You dropped your disguise when via some dark inner prompting, or preference you decided to quit pretending. So, you are free (for a season) to spew your absurd and putrid nonsense as pleases you.

You say ” I want the telling of my story to be a warning,” In a small, sad way your wish is granted. You do serve as a warning. Your departure is a grim reminder of the veracity of I John 2:19. You are a warning against spiritual smugness, pretentiousness and presumption. You are an object lesson of reprobation. I shall seize on your example, as God gives opportunity – of how deceived the human heart is capable of being. This is not gloating or some childish tit-for-tat – indeed, I am grieved for you, for your family, for the sin and destruction you leave in your unholy wake. Yours is a sad, tragic story. No matter how bitter, and mean-spirited and nasty you are – I am indeed sorry for you. How dreadful will eternity be for you.

….

Finally, you indicate you and your Jesus (whoever that “Jesus” might be) got a “divorce.” Well friend, it seems to me that you and the true Jesus were never married….no matter your complaint, objection and obfuscation to the contrary.

Now know I will not again reply. I will never again visit this creepy little anti-Christian, anti-God blog. Rail against me as pleases you. Mock me among your equally pathetic God-hating companions. It’s of no consequence.

….

The Lord have mercy on your blighted soul.

In 1994, I moved from Ohio to Texas to become the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church. You can read about my experiences at Community in the series titled I Am a Publican and a Heathen. Pat Horner, the founder of Community, was my fellow pastor. Joe Maldonado, a former member of Community, pastored nearby at Hillburn Drive Grace Baptist Church. Through Pat, I became friends with Joe. Tim Conway, a man who hailed from Michigan, was a fairly new member of Community. Tim, along with his fiancée Ruby, helped me start new churches in Floresville and Stockdale, Texas. I also encouraged Tim to start preaching. Tim is now the pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio.

tim conway
Tim Conway, preaching at a nursing home. Conway is now pastor of Grace Community Church in San Antonio.

David Leach is friends with the aforementioned pastors. Evidently, he is greatly offended by me daring to tell my story; daring to write about my experiences with Community Baptist Church, Pat Horner, Joe Maldonado, and Tim Conway. Leach also doesn’t like that I labeled him an “ill-informed judgmental ass.” I stand by my comment. Leach has made no effort to read my story or attempt to understand how someone such as myself might end up where I am today. Instead, Leach has taken the few facts he thinks “knows” about me and my time at Community and has judged me wanting. As Fundamentalists are wont to do, Leach takes his rigid theological dogma, adds what he has “heard” about me, sprinkles in a few posts on this site he has bothered to read, and out of the oven comes the bullshit pie comment above.

Posts that Mention Pat Horner, Jose Maldonado, or Tim Conway

I Am a Publican and a Heathen Series

Why I Became a Calvinist Series

Catch-All Bible Verses: I Will Set No Wicked Thing Before My Eyes

Gone but Not Forgotten: 22 Years Later San Antonio Calvinists Still Preaching Against Bruce Gerencser

Taking Off the Sheep Clothes — the Musings of a Wolf

Jose Maldonado Says I Never Was a Christian

Bruce, You Were Religious, but Lost

Taking Off the Sheep Clothes — the Musings of a Wolf

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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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