They have experienced some hurt, trauma, or abuse at the hands of professing Christians, churches, and/or pastors.
They have spent too much time reading, listening, watching, and talking to people espousing weak theology, heresy, and the hiss of the serpent asking, “Did God really say?”
They have wittingly or unwittingly absorbed and adopted naturalistic, atheistic, and hedonistic assumptions and presuppositions and then critiqued the Bible in light of those. As a result they find the Bible objectionable, ludicrous, or repugnant.
They have tired of the scorn, ridicule, and pressure of the unbelieving world, and find it easier to abandon the faith to just get along.
They had deeply-felt expectations for life and what God would do, and when disappointed, could not bear the thought of worshiping the God they feel has let them down.
They have misunderstood and misinterpreted the Bible’s revelation about the character and actions of God, and have come to believe that they are more moral than God, and now stand in condemnation of God’s character and his actions in the pages of Scripture.
They grew up in legalistic churches and families where an abundance of man-made rules were added to the gospel and to God’s moral law. At some point they tired of these oppressive environments and could not separate true Christianity from the legalism, and so left the faith.
They fed on liberal social justice and incipient Marxism, and found the Bible’s acceptance of inequality because of the curse of sin and the Bible’s call to suffering wanting according to their new belief system that salvation is deliverance from inequality.
They simply no longer wished to be bound to the biblical ethic, most often related to the Bible’s clear restriction of sexual activity to one man and one woman in a monogamous covenant of marriage. They wanted to have sex and not feel guilty about it.
They were never true believers to begin with. They are apostates who posed as Christians, very convincingly and for a long time. 1 John 2:19–22 “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. [20] But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.” (ESV)
Let me translate. Evangelicals who deconstruct/deconvert:
They have been hurt
They spent too much time reading the wrong books and blogs and listening to the wrong podcasts (“wrong” means anything that doesn’t conform to Farnham’s peculiar Fundamentalist beliefs)
They have a worldly worldview
They are tired of being “persecuted” by the world
They feel let down by God
They misunderstand the Bible
They grew up in legalistic churches and could not separate legalism from True Christianity® (says a Fundamentalist with a straight face)
They embraced “liberal” political beliefs
They want to fuck anyone they want
They were never True Christians®
Absent from Farnham’s screed is any interaction with people who have actually deconstructed/deconverted. No need. Farnham “knows” why people walk/run away from Christianity. Instead of presenting a careful, thoughtful, nuanced look at why people leave the faith, Farnham chooses to build a “these people are weak, ignorant, shallow, selfish, lustful, never-were-Christians” strawman. Anything but accepting the stories of people at face value.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
Evangelical Christian apologist William Lane Craig writes, in response to a question about doubt (link no longer active);
Be on guard for Satan’s deceptions. Never lose sight of the fact that you are involved in a spiritual warfare and that there is an enemy of your soul who hates you intensely, whose goal is your destruction, and who will stop at nothing to destroy you. Which leads me to ask: why are you reading those infidel websites anyway, when you know how destructive they are to your faith? These sites are literally pornographic (evil writing) and so ought in general to be shunned. Sure, somebody has to read them and refute them; but why does it have to be you? Let somebody else, who can handle it, do it. Remember: Doubt is not just a matter of academic debate or disinterested intellectual discussion; it involves a battle for your very soul, and if Satan can use doubt to immobilize you or destroy you, then he will.
I firmly believe, and I think the Bizarro-testimonies of those who have lost their faith and apostatized bears out, that moral and spiritual lapses are the principal cause for failure to persevere rather than intellectual doubts. But intellectual doubts become a convenient and self-flattering excuse for spiritual failure because we thereby portray ourselves as such intelligent persons rather than as moral and spiritual failures. I think that the key to victorious Christian living is not to have all your questions answered — which is probably impossible in a finite lifetime — but to learn to live successfully with unanswered questions. The key is to prevent unanswered questions from becoming destructive doubts. I believe that can be done by keeping in mind the proper ground of our knowledge of Christianity’s truth and by cultivating the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
First, Craig describes infidel websites like mine as:
A tool of Satan used to destroy the souls of Christians
Pornographic (evil writing)
Something that, in general, should be shunned
Craig readily admits that websites like mine can cause Christians to doubt their faith. While I have no interest in converting any Christian to atheism, I do think the tenets of Christianity and the teachings of the Bible should be carefully and fully investigated. If my writing causes a Christian to question and have doubts . . . good!
If Christianity is worth believing it will withstand any questions or doubts a believer might have. If Christianity is what it claims to be, then websites like this one will do little to no harm. Of course, I think that Christianity is NOT what it claims to be, and that is one of the reasons people are leaving the faith in droves.
Second, Craig attempts to dismiss people like me by calling our testimony of loss of faith a Bizarro-testimony (not to be believed). Craig contends we lost our faith, not for intellectual reasons, but because of spiritual or moral failure. He believes former Christians use intellectual doubts as a cover for moral or spiritual failure. In doing this, Craig moves the focus from Christianity and the Bible to the individual. According to Craig, I am no longer a Christian because of some moral lapse or spiritual deficiency in my life.
I will leave it to Detectives for Jesus to ferret out my moral or spiritual failures. I doubt they will find much to hang me by, but I will readily admit that I, like every other Christian and pastor, had moral and spiritual failures. After all, since I STILL had a sin nature, moral and spiritual failure was sure to happen, right? That said, I have no affairs lurking in my closet, just in case someone thinks moral failure = screwing a church member.
Craig lives in a world of willing, deliberate delusion. He refuses to accept the fact that many of us, especially those of us who were once pastors, left the ministry and the Christian faith for intellectual reasons. I have written many times about this subject. The primary reason I left Christianity was that I no longer believed the Bible was the Word of God. I no longer believed the Bible was “truth.” I no longer believed that the central character of the Bible, Jesus, was who the Bible says he was (and I use the word “was” because I don’t believe Jesus “is”). (Please see the WHY page for information on why I left Christianity.)
I didn’t have a moral or spiritual collapse that led to me leaving Christianity. Instead, I decided to investigate again the claims of Christianity and its divine Holy Book. Conclusion? I weighed Christianity and the Bible in the balance and found them wanting. (Daniel 5:27)
At the end of the day, it really is all about the Bible.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
TGC, as with many Evangelical parachurch organizations and talking heads, is alarmed over the attention being given to deconstruction and deconversion stories. What was once talked about with whispers is now front and center everywhere one looks. Keepers of the Evangelical flame could, at one time, ignore such stories, writing them off as the rumblings of discontented, disaffected, poorly taught people in love with the world more than with God. These explanations no longer work. Thanks to the Internet, those who are deconstructing, have deconstructed, or have deconverted have a very public place to share their stories. Google has become their friend, as more and more people seek out help for their questions and doubts about God, the Bible, Christianity, the church, and the modern culture wars (primarily being waged by Evangelicals). No longer satisfied with the non-answer answers given to them by their pastors, these Doubting Thomases look for non-threatening places where their concerns will be given a hearing. And this, it seems, has scared the shit out of the people behind TGC. How else do we explain their preoccupation, and that of other defenders of orthodoxy, with deconstruction and deconversion?
Here’s what Childers had to say:
In my book, Another Gospel: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity, which chronicles my own deconstruction journey, I define deconstruction this way:
“In the context of faith, deconstruction is the process of systematically dissecting and often rejecting the beliefs you grew up with. Sometimes the Christian will deconstruct all the way into atheism. Some remain there, but others experience a reconstruction. But the type of faith they end up embracing almost never resembles the Christianity they formerly knew.“
I would add that it rarely retains any vestiges of actual Christianity.
Over the past year or so, it has become common for Christian leaders to begin to refer to deconstruction as something potentially positive. I get it. When I first heard that take, I thought, “Hmmm. That could work. Just deconstruct the false beliefs and line up what you believe with Scripture.” I was operating from the foundational belief that objective truth exists and can be known. But as I continued to study the movement, this understanding of deconstruction became untenable.
That’s because the way the word is most often used in the deconstruction movement has little to do with objective truth, and everything to do with tearing down whatever doctrine someone believes is morally wrong. Take, for example, Melissa Stewart, a former Christian now agnostic/atheist with a TikTok following of over 200k. She describes how lonely and isolated she felt during her own deconstruction, and how discovering the #exvangelical hashtag opened up a whole new world of voices who related with what she was going through. Her TikTok platform now gives her the opportunity to create that type of space for others. In an interview on the Exvangelical Podcast, she commented on the deconstruction/exvangelical online space:
“My biggest experiences with it were people talking about what they went through—their stories—and it was very personal and it focused on the human beings who have come out of this, rather than on whether a certain kind of theology is right or wrong.“
In my experience studying this movement, I think she nails it on the head. Deconstruction is not about getting your theology right. It’s built upon a postmodern-ish embrace of moral relativism. For example, if your church says a woman can’t be a pastor, the virtuous thing to do would be to leave that church and deconstruct out of that toxic and oppressive doctrine. Deconstructionists do not regard Scripture as being the final authority for morality and theology—they appeal primarily to science, culture, psychology, sociology, and history.
….
Recent comments by Matt Chandler have made the rounds in which he characterized deconstruction as “the sexy thing to do,” hitting on the almost trendy type of cool factor the word now carries. Aside from giving the deconstructionists endless opportunities to make him the butt of their “Matt Chandler thinks I’m sexy!” jokes and memes, his comments (along with the recent comments by John Cooper of Skillet) have revealed that many Christians are using this one word in profoundly different ways. For example, Relevant magazine claims Chandler and Cooper have a “fundamental misunderstanding” of deconstruction. I disagree. I admit I’ve had a few quibbles with points Matt Chandler has made in recent years. But on this I think he understands something they don’t. He links deconstruction with the postmodernism of Derrida, and in a subsequent Instagram post, commented, “Deconstruction doesn’t mean doubt or theological wrestle or struggling through church hurt.” (All things he said he’s been through and has tons of mercy for.) I think he’s dead right.
We are Christians, and we should be deriving our vocabulary and categories from Scripture. I see nowhere in the Bible where anything like the current movement of deconstruction is promoted or condoned. I propose we leave it with Derrida and instead use biblical words and categories like doubt, reformation, discernment, and even sometimes, (gasp!) apostasy.
Let’s save deconstruction for what it presents itself to be. Here are some characteristics to look for if you think you might be deconstructing:
1. Some type of moral relativism is assumed, whether explicitly or implicitly. If Scripture is your authority, you are not deconstructing. That doesn’t mean you’re not struggling deeply with doubt, seeking healing from church abuse, or have profound confusion over what it means to be a Christian. 2. You are detaching from the body of Christ and seeking only the community of others who are also in deconstruction. If you are working through your doubts and questions in community with other believers, or at least have the intention of doing so, you are not deconstructing. Sometimes this will mean leaving an unbiblical church environment for a time, with the goal of finding a healthy one. 3. You are looking to non-Christian religious philosophies, history, or sociology—rather than Scripture— to determine authentic Christianity. Not that things like history and sociology are without merit, but if you are honestly seeking to derive your religious beliefs from Scripture, you are not deconstructing.
….
As Christians, we tend to protest when progressives and secularists take words and phrases like “love,” “tolerance,’ “biblical inspiration,” and “incarnation” and change the definitions to suit their preferences. Let’s not do the same with deconstruction.
Deconstruction has taken on a life of its own, and now is the time to be extremely careful to define our words accurately. After all, if the word means everything, then it means nothing, yet it carries the potential to suck unsuspecting Christians into a very dangerous vortex of ideas from which they might not return.
According to Childers, those deconstructing are moral relativists.
Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others. It has often been associated with other claims about morality: notably, the thesis that different cultures often exhibit radically different moral values; the denial that there are universal moral values shared by every human society; and the insistence that we should refrain from passing moral judgments on beliefs and practices characteristic of cultures other than our own.
I could argue long and hard about morality, how all morality is inherently subjective — including that of Childers and her fellow Evangelicals. But, what I want to focus on instead is the clash of worldviews: one that believes the Bible is the ground for “objective” morality, and another worldview that is grounded in humanistic ideals. Childers, a Fundamentalist, believes the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. It is Big T Truth. As such, the Bible is the moral rulebook all humans are commanded by God to live by. Its moral pronouncements must never be doubted or questioned. God said it, end of discussion. Thus, abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexuality, premarital sex, masturbation, and a host of other things are crimes against the thrice-holy God of the Protestant Christian Bible. What ancient men 2,000-4,000 years ago wrote down in writings that were later made into a book must be obeyed at all times and in every circumstance. GOD HATH SPOKEN! No amendments, revisions, or memos are forthcoming. For Evangelicals, morality is set in stone, and anyone who suggests otherwise is _____________ (fill in the blank with whatever pejorative word Evangelicals use to describe those who refuse to play by their rules).
Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
The lifestance of Humanism—guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience—encourages us to live life well and fully. It evolved through the ages and continues to develop through the efforts of thoughtful people who recognize that values and ideals, however carefully wrought, are subject to change as our knowledge and understandings advance.
This document is part of an ongoing effort to manifest in clear and positive terms the conceptual boundaries of Humanism, not what we must believe but a consensus of what we do believe. It is in this sense that we affirm the following:
Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.
Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the lifestance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.
Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature’s resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.
Humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views. We work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature’s integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner.
Thus engaged in the flow of life, we aspire to this vision with the informed conviction that humanity has the ability to progress toward its highest ideals. The responsibility for our lives and the kind of world in which we live is ours and ours alone.
As you can see, the worldview espoused by Childers and her friends at TGC is the polar opposite of that which is espoused by humanists. Childers’ foundation rests on the Bible, whereas humanists value science, skepticism, and rationalism. Childers admits as much when she says that people undergoing deconstruction tend to value “science, culture, psychology, sociology, and history” over the B-i-b-l-e (as if this is a bad thing).
Of course, Childers is right. The Bible is no match for science, culture, psychology, sociology, and history. Gone are the days of passing off Genesis 1-3 as science or with a straight face saying that the earth was destroyed by a flood 4,000 or so years ago. Think about all the Bible stories that were passed off as the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God. Think about all the stories that were ignored or sanitized, you know the ones that paint God in a bad light. Richard Dawkins was right when he said:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
This is the God the doubters and questioners see in the Old Testament. And the New Testament is no better. We see a blood cult sacrifice in Jesus’s atonement, misogyny in the writings of Paul, and the wrathful, violent, vindictive God makes a final, glorious appearance in the book of Revelation as he violently slaughters the human race, save the Evangelicals who have been raptured away.
Childers and the TGC want to maintain the status quo. Content to “reform” around the edges, they want things to remain just the way they are. This will, of course, only hasten the death of Evangelicalism. One need only look at attendance numbers to see that Evangelicalism is in decline. I have no doubt that this decline will only continue in the years ahead. What will become of Evangelicalism remains to be seen. I doubt the TGC gang will prevail.
Childers thinks it is okay to have doubts and questions as long as you seek out answers in the right places: theologically sound Evangelical churches. Seeking answers outside of the box is not permitted. (Please see The Danger of Being in a Box and Why it Makes Sense When You Are In It and What I Found When I Left the Box.) Lurking outside of the box is are likes of Bruce Gerencser and other deconstruction commandos who only want to destroy your faith. This strawman, of course, is a figment of Childers’ and other protectors of the Evangelical realm’s imagination. I, for one, have never tried to deconvert anyone. Have people ended up walking away from Christianity (and the ministry) after reading my writing? Sure, but I don’t coerce people or try to evangelize. All I do is openly and honestly interact with people, something their pastors are unable or unwilling to do.
The smell of fear is in the air in Evangelical circles. Their house is crumbling, and instead of excavating the foundation, Evangelicals look for outside sources to blame for their demise. Deconversion is just the latest bogeyman underneath Evangelical beds.
I have one thing that Childers does not have: a story. A compelling story. A story that resonates with people who have doubts and questions. Surely, Childers knows the power of a good story. It seems, at least to me, that my story and that of other sevenfold children of Hell, is more compelling than the stories of the tired, less-than-believable stories told by Evangelical preachers Sunday after Sunday. My suggestion to TGC is that they come up with better stories. Better yet, write a better Bible. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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 answers to evangelical questions of identity, orthodoxy and politics have already been given by those on the margins, by those on the outside and those who maintain solidarity with them. It’s an open question whether or not the evangelicals who remain in their churches will listen to the prophets of the past or the present, who have challenged them on questions of theology, biblical interpretation, church relations, race, gender, sexuality, politics and more — and done so while standing on sound theological ground. But all signs indicate that evangelicalism will harden its heart once again.
A prime example of this is Christanity Today’s March 2022 cover story, which aims to make caricatures of those deconstructing because it is “trendy on Instagram” and both vilifies and baits those struggling with the consequences of evangelical politics, church practice and beliefs. It neglects to quote a single prominent public critic of evangelicalism — whether they use contemporary in-vogue terms like exvangelical and deconstruction or not — and again cuts itself off from dialogue. As a Midwesterner and an erstwhile evangelical, I understand the chip-on-one’s shoulder impulse to snub such things out of a sense of pride.
But evangelicalism cannot afford to be so myopic and self-serving any longer. Recently, through the Trump administration, evangelicals wrought long-term damage to the republic and to their own reputation; through their own reticence to change within their local churches, they stifle themselves and those under their care.
Wendell Berry once wrote that “there is an enormous number of people, and I am one of them, whose native religion, for better or worse, is Christianity. We were born to it; we began to learn about it before we became conscious; it is, whatever we think of it, an intimate belonging of our being; it informs our consciousness, our language, and our dreams. We can turn away from it or against it, but that will only bind us tightly to a reduced version of it. A better possibility is that this, our native religion, should survive and renew itself, so that it may become as largely and truly instructive as we need it to be.”
Those words were published in 1994, and little has changed. People who have tried to reform this thing they loved called “evangelicalism” were spurned and evangelicalism has shown that it does not want to be reformed. Yet in the nearly 30 years since Berry wrote those words, it has gotten “easier” to question and to leave our so-called native religion. We have the guiding lights of those who left before us, who asked hard questions of evangelical doctrine and evangelical leaders (and received harder answers) and blazed myriad trails for us to walk.
I do not hold out hope that evangelical elites will make the right choice and begin talking with instead of preaching to (or against, as John Cooper of Skillet recently did by declaring war on deconstruction) those who have left. The church will survive, but evangelical hegemony may not. It must not.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
It leaves us stunned that some seemingly mature Christian leaders eventually disown the faith. We wonder, “What did they see or learn that made them turn away? Will that happen to me as I learn more?” Christian writer and theologian, Michael Brown, has confronted this question. He admits that he had been confronted by the same questions and perplexities as others had, who had disowned the faith. However, these doubts had led him to seek deeper. As a result, his faith had been strengthened. However, this leads us to the question, “Why do two similar “believers” take opposite paths – one away from the Path and the other to a deeper embrace of the Path?” Brown correctly answered:
The Scriptures say repeatedly that God rewards those who diligently seek Him, who search for Him and His truth more than a miner searches for gold and silver (see, e.g., Deuteronomy 4:29; Jeremiah 29:13; Proverbs 3:13-18; Luke 18:1-8; Hebrews 11:6). We are to seek Him with heart and mind, spirit and intellect. However, there must be more to the answer than this. Is it primarily a matter of our effort and determination that we remain in the Faith? Wouldn’t this provide grounds for boasting and arrogance? Instead, it seems that our God is ultimately responsible for keeping us:
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3–5; Philippians 1:6)
Well, why didn’t our Lord keep others who had ministered the Gospel? This question is difficult to answer, or perhaps it isn’t difficult. Perhaps it is very simple, as Jesus had assured us:
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:28–29; Romans 8:38-39)
Perhaps instead, we feel uncomfortable with the answer. It suggests that salvation is a gift of God, and along with this gift, we are also given the gift to persevere in the Faith. The Apostle John needed to answer this very question, since many within the Church had turned their back on the Faith creating shock-waves among the faithful:
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)
John reassured them that this wouldn’t happen to them as they grew in their faith:
But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. (1 John 2:20)
Both sets of churchgoers had the Scriptures, but only those remained had the “anointing.” They had the Spirit, who illuminated the Scriptures for them. The other set never had the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:10-18).
But why not? Scripture claims that any who call upon God will be saved (Romans 10:12-13), right? Had those who departed never called upon God in truth? This sounds so harsh, even judgmental, but this seems to be the judgment of the Scriptures, perhaps even of those who had departed. Many of these had later admitted that they had never believed (or had “believed” in an unscriptural way). Perhaps we need to take them at their word.
Several things stand out to me in Mann’s explanation for why people deconvert. In the very first sentence of his post, Mann states: “It leaves us stunned that some seemingly mature Christian leaders eventually disown the faith.” Note his use of the word “seemingly” when referencing the spiritual maturity of those who lose their faith. These Christians-turned-unbelievers outwardly “seemed” mature in the faith once delivered to the saints. However, as Mann makes clear later in his post, they weren’t really “mature.” How does he know this? Why, if they were “mature” Christians they would never have deconverted. If only we had read more, studied more, and prayed more we would still be Christians.
Mann rightly recognizes this line of thinking is problematic, making salvation conditional on good works, not faith. After all, as Mann notes, isn’t salvation the provenance of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith? Doesn’t the Bible say we are saved by grace through faith and not of works lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8,9)? Not wanting to be guilty of preaching salvation by works, Mann goes in a different direction to “explain” the Bruce Gerencsers of the world.
According to Mann, Christians-turned-unbelievers never had the Spirit; never called on God in “truth” (whatever the hell that means). Mann provides no evidence for his claims other than he just thinks that how it is. Unable to square the lives of former Christians with his peculiar theology, Mann concludes that former believers were, in some way, spiritually defective. How could it be otherwise?
The answer to the question “how could it be otherwise?” is found in the stories of those who left Christianity. I have spent fourteen years answering the Why? question on this blog. Yet, no matter how many words I write explaining how and why I deconverted, countless Evangelicals refuse to accept what I say at face value. Unable to make my story “fit” in their theological and experiential box, they dismiss my explanations and manufacture — as in pulling them out of their asses — their own.
Mann concludes his post by saying: “many of these [Christians-turned-unbelievers] . . . later admitted that they had never believed (or had “believed” in an unscriptural way). Really? I don’t know of any Evangelicals-turned-atheists who say that they “never believed” or “believed in an unscriptural way” (whatever the hell that means). In fact, most of them speak of their love, commitment, and devotion to Jesus and the Church. They speak of their deep immersion in the teachings of Christ, following the lamb whithersoever he goeth (Revelation 14:4). In every way, these unbelievers were, at one time, True Christians®.
Mann says “perhaps we need to take [former believers] at their word.” Good advice. Unfortunately, Mann didn’t follow it, choosing instead to put words in the mouths of Christians-turned-unbelievers or dismiss their words out of hand and make up reasons for their loss of faith. Let me give Mann a bit of advice straight from the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude (Proverbs 18:13). James 1:19 says that Christians should be quick to hear and slow to speak. As Mann makes clear, he’s long on “speaking” about unbelievers, but slowing on “hearing” or deaf when it comes to why they no longer believe.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
It is not uncommon to hear Evangelicals claim that they were “atheists” before they became born-again Christians. Often, their goal is to connect with atheists, hoping to win them to Jesus. These atheists-turned-Christians think if they show that they “understand” atheism, that atheists will more likely accept their evangelistic appeals. Over the years, countless Evangelicals have tried this approach with me: Bruce I understand! I was once an atheist just like you! And then one day I realized I was a sinner in need of salvation and Jesus saved me! See! We are just the same. No. Really we aren’t.
I was a Christian BEFORE I became an atheist. I spent fifty years in the Christian church. I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I was raised, saved, baptized, and trained in the Evangelical church. I attended an Evangelical college. I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Michigan, and Texas. I, at one time, had a library that contained over 1,000 theology books, all of which I read and used in my sermon preparation. I also had Bible and language study programs on my computer. I spent most of my adult life thoroughly immersed in study of the Christian Bible and Christianity. When I deconverted, I did so because I intellectually concluded that the claims of Christianity were false. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) My unbelief was the result of my painstaking, agonizing deconstruction of Christianity.
Most Christians-turned-atheists, deconvert when they are younger. Rare is the person who is in his fifties before he decides to walk away from Christianity. That I was willing, regardless of the cost, to renounce all that I once believed, doesn’t mean that I am, in any way, unique. While many people embrace atheism in their 20s and 30s, I do know of people who were much older when they lost the ability to believe in the existence of gods. All that being older means is that I had a lot more to lose by publicly announcing my defection from Christianity. I had accumulated a lifetime of experiences and friendships, and losing these was painful. The moment I dropped Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners in the mail and posted it to my blog, I knew that my life, from that point forward, would never be the same.
While my wife came along with me as we walked out the doors of the church for the last time, it was not at all certain that Polly would come to the same conclusions I did. The same goes for my six adult children. I risked losing the love of my life and the six blessings we shared over the course of our marriage. While I can now say that things worked out better than I could ever have imagined, there were times when I wondered if I wasn’t an arsonist who torched his own house.
So, dear atheists-turned-Christians, in what way was your “godless” life like my current life as an atheist? Be honest. Isn’t saying you were an atheist BC (before Christ) really just a generic, meaningless shorthand for life before Jesus? Evangelicals love to claim that there really is no such thing as an atheist, yet, when it suits them they are willing to claim the atheist moniker. If, as Evangelicals claim, everyone knows there is a God and has his law written on their hearts (Romans 1,2), how then is it possible for Evangelicals to be atheists before they became Christians?
Very few people schooled in the nuances of atheism, agnosticism, and humanism ever embrace Evangelicalism. Some might embrace moderate or liberal forms of Christianity or some other religion, but atheism is a sure antidote for Christian Fundamentalism. When it comes to reaching knowledgeable atheists, Evangelicals are batting pretty close to zero.
Instead of saying they were atheists before Jesus, Evangelicals should say they were indifferent towards religion. Virtually all religious belief is the result of where and when a person is born, along with tribal, social, cultural, and environmental exposure. Very few Evangelicals are willing to investigate why they believe what they believe. Better to make up stories about being atheists before being supernaturally saved by Jesus, than to admit that the reasons for their beliefs are quite human and earthly. In working with people who are in the process of leaving Evangelicalism, I try to get them to look at their lives from a sociological and cultural perspective. Once they are able to see how they became a Christian, sans any claims of supernatural action by the triune God, they will then be able to examine the claims of Christianity without faith getting in the way. It is not enough for people to say, I BELIEVE! Such a faith claim lies beyond investigation. If Evangelicals want their religion to be taken seriously, then they must be willing to expose Christianity to intellectual examination. If they are unwilling to do so, then atheists are free to dismiss their claims out of hand.
If there is one thing Evangelicals love, it is a glorious, often bloody, violent, sex-filled salvation testimony. Years ago, a young adult Amish-Mennonite man confided in me that he was distressed over the fact that he was not a bad person like many people were before they were saved. This man grew up in the Amish-Mennonite church and never strayed far from its teachings. He told me that he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t a Christian. There was almost a yearning in his voice, a desire to live a little and experience the sins of the world. Then he would have a story to tell.
This young man, like many Evangelicals, likely heard countless testimonies from people who were (fill in the blank) before they became Christians. In the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church movement, larger-than-life testimonies of licentiousness and debauchery are quite common. I hate to reduce everything down to the penis size matters metaphor, but in the case of salvation testimonies, it often the case that Evangelicals want to “out–bad” each other. If Bro. Joe was a drunk, then Bro. Hank was a bigger drunk and a drug addict too. If Sister Sally lost her virginity to the preacher’s son, Sister Julie lost her virginity to the deacon’s son and had sex with the preacher’s son too. And on and on the dick-waving goes. Result? Fantastical stories of lives before Jesus that are legendary, often admixtures of embellished truths, lies, and fantasies.
Having heard hundreds of salvation testimonies, I have concluded that most public declarations of life before Jesus are fabrications built around a kernel of truth. So, when Evangelicals say they were atheists before Jesus, I generally roll my eyes and silently say to myself, sure you were. Many Evangelicals sincerely believe their testimonies are true. They are unwilling or unable to see that their stories are the products of telling the same falsehoods over and over. It is easy for us to convince ourselves of things that have no basis in fact. Atheists are capable of self-deception too. When I read a story about an atheist who says he knew Christianity was false by the time he was five years old, I want to laugh. That five-year-olds can be indifferent towards religion is certainly true. But understanding atheism, and intellectually weighing Christianity in the balance by age five? Not a chance.
It is common for atheists and Christians alike to take present experiences and beliefs and read them backwards into their lives. In doing this, the truth becomes stretched, often to such a degree that it distorts reality. When I first deconverted, I wanted people to know that I abandoned Evangelicalism solely for intellectual reasons. While certainly the reasons for my deconversion are intellectual in nature, I am now willing to admit that my loss of faith also has an emotional component. I couldn’t admit this for a long time because Evangelicals used it against me, suggesting that I was angry at God, bitter, jaded, and cynical, and these were the REAL reasons why I am no longer a Christian.
While emotions and bad experiences certainly played a part in my deconversion, the most important factor was that I no longer believed that the claims of Christianity were true. Can the atheists-turned-Christians say the same? As our math teachers used to say, please show me your work. Show us the path that led you to atheism before finding Jesus. Few Evangelicals can show their work. Saying they were atheists before Jesus gives their testimony instant credibility within their houses of worship. Oooh, Bro. Jeremiah was an atheist before he got saved! Instantly, the stereotype which countless Evangelicals have of atheists is applied to the Bro. Jeremiahs of the church. What is that stereotype? That atheists are evil, followers of Satan, immoral, and eat babies for lunch. Rarely do Evangelicals ever bother to investigate whether pre-Jesus claims of godlessness are true.
When Evangelicals tell me they were once atheists, I usually ignore them, realizing that they likely have little to no understanding of atheism. When Evangelicals continue to say that they were once members of the Church of Atheism, I then press them for evidence for their claims. Point me to the atheist, secular, or humanist groups you were once a part of. Show me what atheist books you have read. Provide the articles, letters, and term papers you wrote in defense of atheism. Provide names of people who will attest to your claim of atheism. I have yet to have an atheist-turned-Christian provide such evidence.
What is ironic is that Evangelicals demand these very things from Christians-turned-atheists. I have spent fourteen years proving that I was a bona fide Evangelical Christian and pastor. I have written thousands of words in defense of my testimony. My claims can easily be checked and verified. I have, in every way, proved that I once was a preacher of the Evangelical gospel, a devoted, die-hard follower of Jesus Christ. Surely, I should be able to expect atheists-turned-Christians to give similar proof for their claims. While I am quite willing to accept that there are a handful of people who were once atheists and are now Evangelicals, I am unwilling to accept at face value testimonies that cannot be verified and vetted. And until these atheists-turned-Christians prove their claims, I hope they will forgive me for not believing a word they say.
Wikipedia has a page dedicated to notable people who were once nontheists and are now Christians. Most of the converts are now Roman Catholic, Anglican/Episcopalian, or liberal Protestants. While I have no interest in going through the list name by name, I think it is safe to assume that there are very few Evangelicals on the list. The most notable Evangelicals are Lee Strobel, William Murray (son of Madalyn Murray O’Hair), Jeffrey Dahmer, and Kirk Cameron. Boy, there’s a panoply of intellectual greatness. While there are others like Francis Collins, the renowned geneticist, who claim the Evangelical moniker, many Evangelicals doubt evolution-believing people such as Collins are true Christians. Perhaps it is time for Evangelicals to start a Wikipedia page listing the names of atheists who became Evangelical Christians. I hope that, in doing so, Evangelicals will provide verifiable evidence for claims of once being atheists. If Evangelicals want people like me to believe they were once atheists, then they are going to have to prove it. Just saying it doesn’t make it so. Just because Pastor John down at First Baptist has a whopper of a before-Jesus testimony doesn’t mean it is true. Preachers know the value of great story, and what better story than that of an atheist who found God. Such claims can open doors to wider ministry opportunities and increased income.
The more bizarre and unbelievable the story, the more likely it is that Evangelicals will believe it. After all, the Evangelical God is a miracle-working deity. If he can raise the dead, heal the sick, walk on water, and turn water into wine, surely he can take a gun-toting, crack-smoking, whoremongering, thieving, hitman for the Mafia and turn him into a Bible-thumping, Jesus-praising, hallelujah-shouting Baptist preacher. With God, all things are possible, right?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
Polly and Bruce Gerencser, Our Father’s House, West Unity, Ohio Circa 2000
Several years ago, Kenneth asked:
I am currently married to a Southern Baptist woman who is likely never going to change her mind about her beliefs. I deconverted late last year and am now an atheist. I’m curious as to how your wife ended up an atheist seemingly around the same time as you? I guess deep down I want her to see my views as an atheist but if anyone knows how hard it is to talk to a Christian as an atheist, it is you. My question is, can you tell us more about how Polly came to the same conclusions as you during the time of your deconversion? Maybe she can give us some input too. In a lot of scenarios, one spouse is still stuck as a believer while both the atheist and theist struggle with now being in a “mixed” marriage — I’m in one of them now. Thanks!
After we decided in 2005 we no longer wanted to be Pastor and Mrs. Bruce Gerencser, we spent a few years trying to find a church that took seriously the teaching of Jesus. Not finding such a church frustrated us and led us to conclude that the Christianity of Jesus no longer existed, and most churches were just different flavors of ice cream; same base ingredients with different added flavors. (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT!) The last church we attended was Ney United Methodist Church, four blocks from our home
For most of 2008, I had been doing quite a bit of reading about the history of Christianity and the Bible. From Bart Ehrman to Robert M. Price to Elaine Pagels, I read dozens of books that challenged and attacked my Christian beliefs. Polly and I spent many a night discussing what I had read. I often read large passages of this or that book to her and we would compare what we had been taught with what these books said. While Polly was never one to read nonfiction, she did read several of Bart Ehrman’s books. Over time, both of us came to the conclusion that what we had been taught wasn’t true. We also concluded that we were no longer, in any meaningful sense, Christian. The last Sunday in November 2008, we walked out of Ney United Methodist, never to return. Several months later, I wrote the infamous Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners, which I sent to hundreds of Evangelical family members, friends, and former church members.
For a time, both of us were content calling ourselves agnostics. I soon realized that the agnostic label required too much explanation, so I embraced the atheist label. While Polly is hesitant to use the atheist moniker, her beliefs about God, Christianity, and the Bible are similar to mine. She’s not one to engage in discussion or debate, content to go about her godless life without having to define herself. I often wish I could be like her.
When we left Christianity, I feared that Polly’s deconversion was a coattail deconversion; that she was following after me just like she was taught to do in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church. Some of my critics, unwilling to give Polly credit for doing her own thinking and decision-making, have suggested that Polly was/is being led astray by me. Fundamentalist family members have voiced their concern over Polly being drawn into my godlessness, rarely giving her credit for being able to think and reason for herself. Their insinuations only reinforce her belief that she made the right decision when she deconverted. Polly graduated second in her high school class and has a college degree. She is quite capable of thinking for herself. Granted, this ability was quashed for many years thanks to being taught that she should always defer to me as the head of the home. That I was also her pastor only made things worse. I can confidently say that Polly is her own person, and her unbelief is her own.
Where our stories diverge a bit is the reasons why we deconverted. While both of us would say we had intellectual reasons for abandoning God and Christianity, Polly’s deconversion had a larger emotional component than mine did. We’ve spent countless hours talking about the past, this or that church, and the experiences each of us had. Polly spent most of her married life under the shadow of her preacher husband. I’m amazed at how differently she views our shared past, now free to speak openly. While I was the center of attention, heaped with praise and love, she was in the shadows, the afterthought, the one who had to do all the jobs church members had no time for. It should come as no surprise that her view of the 25 years we spent in the ministry is much different from mine.
As I’m writing this post I am thinking to myself, Polly needs to be telling this story. I can’t tell her story. While I can give the gist of it, I think it is better if she tells her story, that is if she is willing to do. I do know that she has no desire to relive the “wonderful” ministry years. She’s quite content to be free of God, the church, and the Bible, free to just be Polly. Not Polly, the pastor’s daughter, not Polly, the preacher’s wife, just Polly. And I can say the same for myself. While I am noted for being a preacher-turned-atheist, an outspoken critic of Evangelicalism, I am content just to be Bruce. Most of our life was swallowed up by the ministry, so we are quite glad to be free and we enjoy the opportunity to live our lives on our own terms.
In many ways, our story is not typical. I’ve received scores of emails from people who deconverted and are now in mixed marriages. Like Kenneth, they want to share their unbelief with their spouses, but are unable to do so because of their spouse’s Christian beliefs or because they fear outing themselves will destroy their marriages. (Please see Count the Cost Before You Say I Am an Atheist.) Polly and I fully realize that if one of us had remained a Christian it could (would?) have ended our marriage. We are grateful that we’ve been able to walk this path together hand in hand. The farther away we get from the years we spent in the ministry, the more we realize how good we have it. Our deconversion could have destroyed our marriage and alienated us from our children, but it didn’t. Instead, we’ve been given a new lease on life; the opportunity for each of us to seek our own path. We deeply love one another, have six wonderful children and thirteen grandkids, and are, in every way, b-l-e-s-s-e-d.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I recently participated in a Zoom discussion with a Mennonite discipleship class in Pennsylvania. At the end of my sermon/lecture/speech on why I am an atheist, I fielded questions from the men in attendance. (Please see Bruce, I Don’t Believe You Are an Atheist.) One man asked me, “do you think your life would be ‘easier’ if you were still a Christian?” I replied, “yes!” The man agreed with me; life was easier for me when all I had to do was read, trust, and obey.
As a Christian, I believed the Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I believed the Bible contained everything I needed for life and godliness; that the Bible was God’s blueprint for living. As all Christians are, I was a hypocrite, often ignoring or disobeying the teachings of the Bible. That said, the bent of my life was towards holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. I daily asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins (I John 1:9). I sought truth and guidance from the Bible, asking God, the Holy Spirit, to guide my thoughts, words, and deeds. As honest Christians will also admit, I failed at this endeavor. I kept trying, day in and day out, but I never felt I had “arrived” as a Christian.
Despite the existential struggles that came from being a follower of Jesus, life was simple. I didn’t have to think about morality or ethics. When questions would arise, the answer was always the same: THE BIBLE SAYS __________. Granted, in retrospect, I now know that the Bible required interpretation. Thus, I was the final arbiter of what I deemed moral and ethical — not God. Bruce Gerencser, not the Triune God, had the final say on everything.
In November 2008, I attended church for the last time. In 2009, I wrote a letter titled Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners, detailing my loss of faith. Losing that which had been the foundation of the first fifty years of my life was traumatic, to say the least. I desperately tried to hang on to God, the Bible, and the church, but I was unable to do so. If there was ever a time for God to make himself known to me, it was then. But my doubts and questions were met with silence. Eventually, I concluded that the reason for the silence was this: God was a myth; the God of the Christian Bible was a human construct. Once the Bible and its author (God) lost their authority and control over me, I began sliding down the proverbial slippery slope. Many of the readers of this site have experienced similar frightening slides. Some of you found natural resting places: liberal Christianity, Unitarian-Universalism, or some other religion. For me, my slide finished with a colossal thud at the bottom of the slope. I finally admitted I was an atheist.
Saying I was an atheist was just the beginning of my new life in accordance to science, reason, and skepticism. Gone were God, the church, and the Bible — now what? What do I believe? I had to rethink my morals and ethics. I no longer had at my disposal book, chapter, and verse. I had to ponder what it was I believed about behaviors the Bible called “sin.” I decided that “sin” was a religious construct used by clerics and churches to keep asses in the seats and Benjamins in the offering plates. Sin, Hell, Judgment, Fear . . . thus saith the Lord! Remove these things from the equation and Christianity would shrivel up and die.
I have spent the past thirteen years thinking about what I believe and how I want to live my life. This has been hard. There’s no Atheist Handbook, no rulebook by which to govern my life. Sure, humanism provides a general moral and ethical framework for me, but I still have to determine the moral and ethical beliefs I took for granted as an Evangelical Christian. It would be far easier for me to appeal to a “book” as my standard for living (and certainly Christianity influences my thinking on morality). However, I am committed to doing the hard work necessary to best live my life. My “sin” list now fits on the front of a 3×5 card. Most of the “sins” that perturbed me as a Bible preacher and teacher no longer matter to me. I don’t care about who fucks whom, when, where, why, or how. As long as it’s consensual, that’s the end of the discussion for me.
The longer I’m an atheist, the easier the journey becomes. I have settled many of the moral and ethical questions that perturbed me a decade ago. However, I still struggle with some things. As my politics continue to move leftward, I am forced to rethink what matters politically (and morally). I remain a work in progress.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
Why is the belief of atheism so dangerous for the atheist? The reason it is so dangerous is that Satan blinds them and convinces them that God is not real, which keeps the person from pursuing spiritual truth, like the afterlife and the Creator of the universe. That type of persuasion keeps them in the dark.
When a person doesn’t believe that something is real, they won’t try to investigate it to see if it is true. If they presume to seek the Bible for evidence, they go about it with complete doubt making it useless and a waste of their time.
The devil persuades these people from even thinking about searching God through the Bible by luring them away through worldly lust of all kinds. The devil tells them, “if you become a Christian, you cannot enjoy your sinful desires that you live for and must give them up.” He will keep them from the truth, which will send them to hell because they won’t seek redemption from their state by asking Jesus Christ for salvation.
I could dismantle Spaniard VIII’s post line by line, but I am too weary to do so today. I do, however, want to address his false claim that atheists are ignorant of Christianity/God/Satan/the Bible. While I cannot speak for all atheists, I can say that most of the unbelievers I know are actually quite conversant in the teachings of the Bible. Many of them were committed followers of Jesus: pastors, evangelists, missionaries, deacons, Sunday school teachers, or Christian college professors. It can hardly be said of them that they are “ignorant” about Christianity and the Bible. With full knowledge and understanding of the faith once delivered to the saints, these atheists and agnostics with one voice say the Christian God is a myth.
Spaniard VIII knows my story. He knows I attended an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Bible college; that I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. He knows I spent thousands and thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible. In fact, I’m certain that I have far more Bible study hours under my belt than Spaniard VIII. All told, I preached over 4,000 sermons. Surely, based on my education, study, and experience, I know the Bible quite well. Yes, I am an atheist, but unless Spaniard VIII wants to claim that all my theological knowledge magically disappeared the moment I deconverted, I remain quite knowledgeable of Christianity and its divine religious text.
I will leave it to readers to address Spaniard VIII’s other claims. I just wish he would stop misrepresenting atheists.
As usual, Span shows that he is terrified of atheists. Our mere existence shows him that he is nothing special, and his version of Christianity is just like the other thousands of versions out there.
Poor Span, no satan either. No demons or devils, just sad humans who need to lie about others.
Unsurprisingly, humans have been looking for this god for quite a long time and have found nothing to show that it exists. Just like every other theist, Span tries to claim his god is the only real one, but he has no more evidence than the rest.
Since Christians can’t agree on what sin is, we only have Span declaring that what Span doesn’t like is sin. No god involved. And, alas for Span, sharks do exist. We have evidence.
We don’t have evidence for Span’s god. So his analogy fails again. All we have are scared little men like Span who try to pretend to be a hero when all he desperately wants is external validation for his delusions.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
Just when I think I’ve heard it all, a Christian comes up with a new argument to deconstruct, discredit, and minimalize my story. Yesterday, a man who considers himself the smartest man in the room told me that none of the churches I pastored were Evangelical; that, in fact, all of them were cults, and I was a cult leader. How this real man of genius came to this stupid conclusion is beyond me, but I thought I would make an attempt to respond to his baseless assertions.
First, let me list the churches I pastored and their denominational affiliations:
Every one of these churches and sects was Evangelical in doctrine and practice — without exception. No amount of deconstruction or gaslighting will change this fact.
Every church and denomination had an official statement of doctrine. I was required to embrace and preach the doctrines found in these statements. I did so without objection. Why? Because I believed these things, at the time, to be true.
Let me give Pastor Bruce Gerencser a test to determine if he really was a circumcised Evangelical:
Do you believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God? Yes
Do you believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Yes
Do you believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory? Yes
Do you believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential? Yes
Do you believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life? Yes
Do you believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation? Yes
Do you believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ? Yes
Anyone suggesting that I was never was an Evangelical is an agenda-driven liar out to obfuscate my past.
If this man still doubts my Evangelical creds, I offer him up unassailable proof: I have Jesus & Bruce 4ever tattooed on my back — my Evangelical tramp stamp.
So there . . . 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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.
