Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, shares with his readers how to reach sinners, unbelievers, and atheists for Jesus. What follows are quotes from his recent posts. These should give Christians and unbelievers alike a snapshot of how he interacts with and responds to unbelievers.
Maybe he’s not interested in evangelizing sinners as much as he is being right. This doesn’t surprise me. Christian Fundamentalists like to talk about winning souls for Christ, but it seems to me that what they really care about is being absolutely right.
Let me know you think in the comment section.
Dr. David Tee, In His Own Words
Unbelievers like taking common and legitimate aspects of writing and distorting them into something they are not.
BG at the end of his post gets upset that we have ‘impugned’ his character. Yet, he should not do it to God if he doesn’t want to have it done to him.
Another misunderstanding and misrepresentation of God and his actions.
Another wholesale misrepresentation and a personal attack thrown in.
Another misrepresentation and distortion. BG generalizes the commands to make his point, which undermines his credibility and ruins his honesty. He is not being honest even after being told the correct explanation about God’s commands.
The unbelieving moral standard is inferior and allows for sin and corruption to flourish.
The unbeliever is not in any position to judge God and His commands. Their idea of morality is worse than what they accuse God of being. Their definitions of the acts commanded are just as subjective and fluid as their moral code. The unbelievers’ moral code is not infallible nor omnipresent like God’s.
Not one of those accusations thrown against God is true.
At this point, we stop responding and addressing the falsehoods and misrepresentations written by BG. At the end he makes this claim that he has not murdered or raped so he must be a good man and we are impugning his character. Our response to that silly claim is HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
He does it to himself by purposefully lying, misrepresenting the facts, the Bible, God, etc., distorting the topics, and being dishonest in his points. We are not impugning his character but pointing out where he is wrong. Which we are allowed to do.
The only way to continue these types of discussions is if the unbeliever is honest, has an open mind, and will listen to your facts honestly and sincerely. Close-minded people like BG and MM only hear what they want to hear, then look for ways to misrepresent what was said.
Speaking of MM, he wrote a response to our mind your own business and his only point was– ‘I will write on any topic I want to’– such a stubborn, close-minded individual who does not get the fact that what he has to say means nothing because he is not qualified to speak on many topics.
They do not use all the facts, just the ones that support their deceptive point of view. They are not honest.
it is not the Christian who is ignorant, but the unbeliever who does not do very good research and only cherry picks the information they will use in their faulty attacks on God, the Bible and Christians.
When believers say things, it is often the case that unbelievers will ‘fact-check’ them. Then when the fact check turns up different information, they label Christians as liars.
This is another lie, as using corporal punishment is not beating a child or a student. But BG will not agree with that as he seeks to paint a false picture of us and what we believe. We could say that Bg does not care about innocent teachers or that teachers are being assaulted in the classrooms just by using his logic, but we won’t.
BG should know better than to lie about us, especially when he was not there nor knows anything about the topic he writes.
What a crock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. This discovery only says that despite their claims to be rational and logical, scientists are great fairy tale writers.. They spin a good yarn that deceives millions of people, and that is wrong.
The scientists are not getting to the truth at all, but making everything up as they go.
But unbelievers like to think they get to dictate who will do what and do it according to their views. They forget there are others in the world who have the same rights and do not want them infringed upon.
This is another headline we came across, and we know the author [Bruce Gerencser] likes to word his headlines in a way that distorts what is going on.
The unbelievers’ solutions have been to remove God, prayer, specific punishments, and other similar aspects of school life and replaced them with ideas that do not work.
This is another ridiculous thing to say, as the unbeliever takes them out of context and misapplies them to whatever troubling thought they have on their minds. The unbeliever writing those words has no concept of what human flourishing means as he wants sin and corruption to abound at the expense of those doing what is right and moral.
But the unbelieving writer [Bruce Gerencser] of those quoted words does not care if he writes the truth or not. He just wants to justify his departure from God. He also wants to misdirect people’s attention away from what the unbelieving world is doing.
Anything that the writer accuses God of doing, his side of the world is doing with less than holy and pure motives, and on a far grander scale. He and other unbelievers are in no position to accuse God of anything.
Unbelievers do not make distinctions between true and false preachers/teachers. They lump everyone into one category, then continue to make false accusations against all Christians.
Only in the minds of unbelievers and atheists is this done. They always need something to fuel their hatred of Christ, even by exploiting the nonsense spoken by false teachers.
Unbelievers and atheists will go to any length to justify their decision to reject the offer of salvation, even by extrapolating false claims made by false teachers to others not guilty of doing such a thing.
If they [unbelievers] were honest, they would separate the true from the false teachers and be more open-minded to the former while closed to the latter. But rarely are unbelievers and atheists honest when it comes to Christ, Christians, and those who pose as Christians.
These comments can be labelled as ‘they will never learn’, ‘they will never listen’, ‘they will complain no matter what’, and by they we mean unbelievers and atheists. We like to distinguish between the two even though they are all categorized under the unbelievers label.
Ignoring is the best option because unbelievers and atheists rarely accept the truth as the answer.
Unbelievers continue to deny God the right to punish people and animals for their disobedience, even though they do the same thing as parents or supervisors, etc. They will punish people for violating their rules or the rules of a company, which affects the loved ones and animals of those punished.
The unbeliever and atheist fail to see the entire side to these issues they complain about. They only want to have their desired results, even though it leaves sin and crime sin place. In their complaints, there is no option to punish those who disobey or commit crimes. The sinner is free to act as they will without fear of physically paying for their crimes.
Also, the unbeliever and atheist will attack and punish those who are living by the rules, making them nothing but toothless hypocrites. They will do exactly what they complain about and act the same as God acts. Only the target is different.
The unbelievers go after those who disagree with/disobey their views and rules and condemn themselves by the very complaints they make against God. Their complaints hold no water and do not lead anyone to a better way or paradise.
Leave it to unbelievers to get the opposition to trans ideology and practice wrong, and then twist it into something it is not. This is what MM [Ben Berwick] has done with his recent post.
No religious right individual or organization are attacking trans people. They are trying to relieve them of the delusions that enslaves the latter. There is no right for fake women to invade real women spaces. There is no right to call themselves women when they are not.
The only small minded bigots we find are trans people. You can see their bigotry any day of the week as it is recorded endlessly in the different news cycles as well as other media outlets.
He [Ben Berwick] deludes himself, as do many others, into thinking he is right when all he is doing is helping erase the lines of right and wrong, and what is defined as sin. He leads people to sin and that is wrong.
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.
Recently, Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, responded to my post Should Christians ALWAYS Obey God? I suspected one of my Fundamentalist critics would respond, and Thiessen was the first one to respond. What follows is my response. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original. Thiessen’s response is in bold font.
There are many factors that play into our not taking a break. Right now, we have had a rainstorm and are still waiting for a project to be sent our way. So we need something to do. The question in the title is not ours. It comes from BG’s website, and it reflects the attitude of MM and his question: would we kill him if God commanded us to?
Thiessen, as he is wont to do, drags my friend Ben Berwick into the debate. While Ben and I agree on this issue, I will leave it to him to defend himself. Is it fair to ask questions about whether an Evangelical Christian would kill someone if God commanded him to? Absolutely. It is, after all, in the Bible. God repeatedly commanded his chosen people, the Israelites, to commit violence and murder against individuals and people groups. If Thiessen has a problem with our observations and conclusions, his real problem is with God, not BG and MM (as he likes to call Ben and me).
Both are ridiculous questions because the answer to the title question is yes, and the answer to the annoying second question is that God does not give that command anymore.
Wait a minute, I thought the Bible says that Jesus (who is God) is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is a deity that doesn’t change his mind, though other passages of Scripture say he does. On what basis do we conclude that God doesn’t expect his followers to obey everything he commands them to do? Is Thiessen saying God changed his mind; that he figured out bloodshed, violence, and murder are not effective ways to get your point across — especially when innocent people get caught up in the carnage — including women, children, babies, and fetuses?
I asked in my post:
If God commands a Christian to do something, should he obey? How does a Christian determine that it is God commanding him to do something? What if God’s command runs contrary to the Christian’s personal moral code? Should the Christian obey, anyway?
The answer to the first question is, yes, he should, as the Bible teaches us that to obey is better than sacrifice. The second question is a bit more difficult to answer, as confirming God’s command takes several steps.
Thiessen’s position is that Christians should, without exception, obey God’s commands. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t practice this himself, He’s more of a “do as I say, not as I do follower of Jesus.
The first step is to confirm that the command is in line with God’s word
Thiessen believes the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. He believes every word of the Bible is straight from the mouth of God. Thus, in his mind, if God commands it, obey!
The second step would be to confirm that God is sending that command.The Bible tells us to test the spirits, and we should test that command to make sure God is giving it.
How could someone possibly know it is God commanding him to do something? How does a Christian determine whether it is God, Satan, or self telling him to do something? As far as I am aware, there’s no empirical test that can be used to confirm it is God giving a believer a command. As far as I know, all that Evangelicals have to go on are their feelings. How do Evangelicals know God is speaking to them? They allegedly feel it in their heart of hearts.
Third, the nature of the command must be analyzed to make sure the Christian is not being commanded to violate God’s other commands, laws, and instructions. Murder and rape etc., are certainly not commands coming from God.
And here is the crux of the issue. The Bible does indeed make moral claims. However, the Bible also records not only God, but his followers, ignoring and violating these moral claims. What’s up with that? Surely Thiessen is aware that God commanded the Israelites to murder and rape those he determined were his enemies. If Thiessen wants to debate me on this issue, I’m game.
Fourth, one must be careful not to confuse the commands given in the OT as commands to be followed today. For example, God commanded certain activities to be done as punishment for the other people’s sins. Those commands are very people and era specific and are not in force today.
Does Thiessen really believe that every act of violence God commanded Israel to do is moral? What did the innocents murdered and raped by the Israelites — as commanded by God — do that deserved such punishment?
Thiessen wants us to believe that God went to anger management classes, and now he behaves differently. However, the book of Revelation reveals a God who is still very much a vicious monster. 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.
As far as we know, God does not command anyone to kill others as punishment for their sins in the modern age. Those types of commands come from evil, and we know they come from evil because they violate God’s laws, instructions, and so on.
If these commands “come from evil,” logically God and the Israelites committed evil acts. I conclude, then, that the God portrayed in the Bible is evil.
Thiessen has no evidence for this claim. We humans cannot know God’s mind, the Bible says, yet Thiessen thinks he can discern and know the mind of God.
Then, we have NT instructions to guide us in how we obey God. Galatians 5 tells us:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Thiessen might want to meditate on these verses and change his ways. My interactions with Thiessen suggest that he doesn’t think these verses apply to him.
We are also told in Romans to obey the laws of the land and murder, rape, pedophilia, etc., are against the law of the land and a Christian cannot disobey those laws. As you see by the quoted verse above, we are instructed to live according to the Spirit, which does not have any evil or evil doing in it.
Evil is evil, right? So if certain behaviors today are evil, those same actions were evil in the Old Testament too. Thiessen cannot have it both ways.
As for the question, if God commands something against a Christian’s personal moral code, would that person obey God? First, a Christian should not have a moral code that contradicts God’s or his instructions. etc.
But, every Christian does. No two Christians have the same moral code, and that incudes Evangelicals who claim that the Bible is their rulebook.
Second, it is better to obey than sacrifice, so the Christian must always obey God, as long as it is God giving the instructions. Disobedience is sin and wrong. Third, we do not go by the unbelieving world’s standards for commands or obedience . . .
Again, how can an Evangelical Christian infallibly know that it is God commanding them to do something? They can’t.
….
I wrote:
Does genocide, child sacrifice, and slavery promote the well-being of others and human flourishing? Of course not. Yet, when God commands such things, all of a sudden, Christians lose all sense of what’s best for themselves and others.
This is another ridiculous thing to say, as the unbeliever takes them out of context and misapplies them to whatever troubling thought they have on their minds. The unbeliever writing those words has no concept of what human flourishing means as he wants sin and corruption to abound at the expense of those doing what is right and moral.
Contrary to Thiessen’s assertion, I know exactly what human flourishing means and what we can do to make our world a better place to live. Again, I am more than happy to debate him on this issue.
I find it funny coming from a man with a sordid past that he says “sin and corruption to abound at the expense of those doing what is right and moral.”
I wrote:
The good news is that most Christians do not obey God. As cafeteria Christians, they pick and choose which commands to obey. That’s why they oppose genocide, child sacrifice, and slavery.
That is not good news but bad news. Christians are not free to pick and choose what they will obey. As Jesus said, ‘Why do you call me Lord yet do not do the things I say’. People need to look at what Jesus says honestly and implement his instructions correctly.
All Christians, including Thiessen, pick and choose the commands they want to obey. If someone obeyed every command, teaching, and precept in the Bible, you know what would happen? He would be arrested and thrown in prison.
At no time does Jesus teach to own slaves, commit genocide or do child sacrifice. Those activities are practiced by the unbelieving world as the sinful world aborts innocent children, keeps sex slaves, and kills people just because they do not like them.
Thiessen forgets the fact that Jesus is God. I have challenged him on this point before. I have concluded that he is heterodox on the nature of Jesus and the Trinity.
Everything that God commanded in the Old Testament, was also commanded by Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. Thus, Jesus commanded the Israelites to murder, rape, and commit genocide. To say otherwise is to deny the divinity and nature of Jesus.
We can point you to Hamas, Boko Haram, and other examples that show it is not the Christians that is doing this. Abortion is the biggest genocide taking place,e yet the unbelieving world practices it without guilt or shame.
The Christians are the ones trying to stop these things. But the unbelieving writer of those quoted words does not care if he writes the truth or not. He just wants to justify his departure from God. He also wants to misdirect people’s attention away from what the unbelieving world is doing.
Thiessen does what he always does: he attacks my motives and says I am a liar. I will leave it to readers to decide if I am a truth teller.
Anything that the writer accuses God of doing, his side of the world is doing with less than holy and pure motives, and on a far grander scale. He and other unbelievers are in no position to accuse God of anything.
It is best that he refrain from speaking, as his world is far worse than anything God has done.
Is this the best argument Thiessen can offer? God and his followers may have commited sinful, evil acts, but Bruce and his fellow atheists do worst things. Really? Whom have I murdered or raped? What immoral, evil acts have I committed. No, Thiessen objects to the fact that I speak my mind about Evangelical Christianity and people agree with me. His only response is to attack my character and lie — both of which, if the Bible is to be believed, means Thiessen is not a Christian.
What say ye readers? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
Recently, Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, said:
Growing up in a world where bible reading and prayer were in school, school life was a lot better for everyone. All the students and teachers knew there was a higher power than they, and they took the time to make sound decisions.
From what we have seen in today’s schools and experienced in the classroom ourselves, the school world would be better off if everyone acknowledged God and his presence. We did not see the school violence that we see today, and school was very enjoyable during those years.
One was not afraid to walk to school, attend class, or even play outside. if we had a say in what is going on in Ohio, we would support it wholeheartedly. The unbeliever does not know what it takes to make school life better. They have no solutions to the problems kids face today, thus, they should not be so quick to oppose these measures.
The unbelievers’ solutions have been to remove God, prayer, specific punishments, and other similar aspects of school life and replaced them with ideas that do not work. We were in South Korea when the Gyeonggi-do head of education removed corporal punishment from the schools.
The violence against teachers rose so much that he had to do an about-face and return corporal punishment to the schools. We know what happens when punishment is a slap on the wrist or less. Social workers do not help here, as they are incapable of providing real solutions for students today.
Knowing that God exists and that he punishes bad behavior and is incorruptible does stop a lot of bad behavior among students.
Thiessen, an Evangelical preacher who lives in the Philippines, blogs at TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God. Over the years, Thiessen has repeatedly said that if schools were allowed to beat students they would behave. In his minds, schools are out of control because prayer, Bible reading, and corporal punishment were banned. This claim is patently untrue, both statistically and anecdotally.
In the aforementioned post, Thiessen told a whopper when he stated:
We were in South Korea when the Gyeonggi-do head of education removed corporal punishment from the schools.
The violence against teachers rose so much that he had to do an about-face and return corporal punishment to the schools. We know what happens when punishment is a slap on the wrist or less. Social workers do not help here, as they are incapable of providing real solutions for students today.
When I first read this, I thought, is this true, Did South Korean schools really return to beating children? A quick Google search revealed that Thiessen’s claim is false, Not only did South Korea ban corporal punishment in schools, it also banned parents from beating their children in 2021.
The Republic of Korea has become the 62nd country to prohibit corporal punishment against children, and the fourth in the Asia Pacific region. With a child population of nine million, the Republic of Korea’s prohibition means 300 million children worldwide are now fully protected from violent punishment by law.
“Congratulations to the government of the Republic of Korea on its prohibition of corporal punishment against children – and to all of the organisations, institutions and partners who contributed to this important milestone for children,” said Dr Howard Taylor, the Executive Director of the End Violence Partnership. “In a world where more than two in three children experience violent discipline at the hands of their caregivers, this is not just a critically important step for children in Korea, it’s also a good example to other countries around the world who have yet to take this important step to protect children.”
This prohibition came into effect with the amendment of Civil Act 1958 (Act. No 17095) and the repeal of Article 915, which gave adults “the right to take disciplinary action” against children. With this repeal and revision, there is no longer a legal provision that can authorize the use of corporal punishment.
“A ban on the corporal punishment of children by their parents is the most fundamental stipulation in preventing child abuse,” said the Government of the Republic of Korea while announcing the amendment of the Civil Act. “The passage of the legislative amendment through the National Assembly is expected to provide an opportunity to fundamentally improve the social awareness towards the corporal punishment of children and child abuse.”
This law reform was a result of a collaboration between the government and child rights partners. Save the Children Korea spearheaded a campaign to prohibit corporal punishment in May of 2019 – and in January of 2021, the government announced that a promotion campaign to raise awareness of violent discipline had been included in the country’s Complements of Child Abuse Preventative System.
“We warmly welcome the amendment of the Civil Act and the early measures taken by the Government to support the implementation of prohibition,” said Dr Sonia Vohito, Legal Policy Specialist at the End Violence Partnership. “Still, huge numbers of children around the world are waiting for the realisation of their basic human right to protection from violent punishment, and we call on all remaining governments to enact prohibition without delay.”
Learn more about this prohibition by exploring the Republic of Korea’s country report. A global look at our progress on prohibiting corporal punishment can also be found at our corporal punishment countdown.
It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Thiessen supports beating children. His beliefs on the matter are common among Fundamentalist Christians. As an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor, I taught parents that God required them to beat their children; that beatings were God’s chosen form of discipline. I provided Bible verses that justified and supported corporal punishment. God said it, end of discussion. I later repented of my promotion of violence against children, and I now oppose beating children, without exception. I deeply regret beating my children, having apologized to them several times.
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 are so many Evangelical preachers obsessed with sex, gender, and genitalia? Every day, I peruse blog posts by preachers preoccupied with who fucks whom, when, where, and how. These preachers prattle incessantly about what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms. While these so-called men of God would say that “sin is sin,” based on what they dwell on in their sermons and blog posts, it’s evident that they consider sexual sins more serious than others. Never mind the fact that most sexual “sins” are between consenting adults; “sins” that hurt no one.
These keepers of everyone’s chastity but their own are especially focused on what LGBTQ people do sexually. Worse, they have gone after transgender people with hatred and vengeance. What have LGBTQ people done to these preachers of God’s sex code? Nothing. Their mere existence is enough to stir Evangelical preachers into fits of rage.
One Evangelical preacher, Dr. David Tee (whose real name is Derrick Thomas Theissen), recently wrote:
By now, everyone has heard of the UK Supreme Court’s decision. It is good news for real women who have suffered more than enough these past few years with fake women invading their spaces.
….
Of course, no Christian needed a Court’s decision on the issue. The Bible has been declaring the separation of the two genders for thousands of years, and Judaism did it long before that. The Supreme Court is merely saying what all Christians already knew, and what unbelievers have been hiding from.
What we hope will happen is that all fake women will be denied access to these spaces, and real women can feel safer. While this ruling only applies to the UK, we hope to see similar rulings take place around the globe.
The madness must stop as trans- women are not real women and suffer from mental and spiritual problems that deceive them into thinking they are something they are not. The objection that this decision may cause more fake women to kill themselves is erroneous.
The source of the problem with fake men and women is their blind acceptance of the feelings that they were born in the wrong body. They hold tightly to those feelings as if they were a lifeline. This is deception at work.
Until the fake men and women see this, they will always be confused and have problems. The feelings are not real, but a trap from evil to destroy them. They have to see that those feelings are false and take the right steps to get help.
Encouraging their ‘transition’ is not the answer and does not protect the lives of these fake people. In fact, it puts them more in harm’s way as the majority of society finds their delusions disgusting and wrong.
It is even more wrong to allow them to enter women’s spaces and activities and claim they are real women. As the Bible and science have pointed out continuously, no one can change their gender, and participating in this folly only makes fools out of the fake people and their supporters.
….
God does not change just because the NT came into existence. God made two distinct genders at creation, which do not change at any time. Science cannot overcome what God did at creation.
If you want to protect fake men and women, then get them the help they need instead of parading them around in public where they will be rejected, ridiculed, and worse. Trying to make them a part of normal society is not the right thing to do.
The trans ideology is perversion at its finest, desecrating what God called good. Let’s hope that more courts see the light and make the same correct decision as the UK Supreme Court did.
It is time to protect our children, sisters, brothers, cousins, and everyone who is falling to this sinful thinking that does more harm than good. Get them the help they need before it is too late.
Thiessen would have his handful of readers believe that transgender people are a threat to the human race. Previously, he has called for transgender people to be arrested and put in internment camps — thus protecting the public from these “evil” people.
Rarely does a week go by without Thiessen writing a post condemning transgender people. He is obsessed with these folks, even though they haven’t done anything to him. Most transgender people just want to be left alone. They want to have the same equal protection under the law as the rest of us.
While Thiessen is free to twist the Bible to fit his perverse hatred of people who violate his Puritan code of human sexuality, it doesn’t follow that the United States government should give his beliefs the force of law. We live in a secular state, not a theocracy. Until the David Thiessens of the world clearly show that transgender people harm others, their protestations carry no weight.
I find it interesting that Thiessen and his merry band of genital inspectors show little to no interest in a real threat to people, especially children. Transgender people rarely make the news for committing sex crimes, yet rarely does a day go by when one or more preachers are arrested, indicted, or convicted for sexual abuse, rape, and other sex crimes. Thiessen, in particular, ignores these stories, and even goes so far as to defend these Jesus-loving perverts. What are we to make of his behavior?
The message to Evangelical preachers is this: Mind your own fucking business. Clean up your own backyard first. Do something about predatory preachers and clerics who take sexual advantage of vulnerable people. Focus your attention on church members, and not on people who don’t attend your churches — people whose beliefs and practices are different from yours.
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.
David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
Recently, Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, said the following in a post titled, We have Time Today. All grammar, punctuation, and nonsense in the original. My response follows.
Thiessen writes:
We quoted someone in our previous post and it got us thinking about an issue he and another person get so upset about. For some inane reason, our two antagonists have a problem with being called by initials.
The “someone” in this post is my British friend, Ben Berwick. The “another person” is Bruce Gerencser. You, of course, would never know this by reading Thiessen’s post. Evidently, readability and comprehension don’t matter to Thiessen.
I think I can speak for both of us when I say we don’t get “upset” by Derrick Thomas Thiessen’s refusal to use our proper names. It’s annoying and disrespectful, but “upsetting? Not a chance.
The reason why is only known to them and we wonder about it because starting from our freshmen year of college and going past our graduation day, our friends used our first initial to address us. We didn’t take offense at it and demanded they use our full name.
Thiessen spins a whopper when he says he doesn’t know why we don’t appreciate his use of initials in place of our given names. I have explained this to Thiessen several times, as has Ben. Besides, just because he doesn’t mind people calling him by initials, doesn’t mean we have to accept him doing the same with our names. Thiessen knows we want to be addressed by our proper names. He also knows we want him to provide proper attribution when he uses our writing. We can’t make him do either of these things, but his refusal to do so sure says a lot about him and how he treats other people.
In fact, we liked it. The initial was convenient, easy to say and as far as we know, we were the only ones addressed by that initial. Our two antagonists seem to take great offense at being called BG and MM of course, we could have used BB for the latter but we don’t think he would like to be named after children’s ammunition.
I don’t take great offense at Theissen calling me BG. I do, however, think he is being childish and petty. There’s no reason I can think of for not calling me by my proper name — especially after I asked him to do so.
Maybe their anger comes from the fact that it us who reduced their names to initials? We do not know but they seem to disagree with anything we say just because we say it. But why get upset over using a person’s initials?
This is done all the time and as far as we know very few people ever get upset about it. Some people also shorten Jesus Christ to JC and we have not decided if that is insulting or not. Maybe if the initials were used in a derogatory manner it would be considered wrong and insulting but that is another topic for another day.
No, it is NOT done all the time. Show me one website or blog that reduces the names of people mentioned to acronyms. By not using proper names when mentioning people on his blog, he leaves his readers perplexed and uninformed. Who is BG? Who is MM? Thiessen does not explain who these people are. And since he refuses to give proper attribution when he uses our writing, this means the ten people who read his blog can’t check his writing. It is proper and professional to provide attribution for every quotation. There’s no possible justification Thiessen can give for not using our proper names or providing attribution.
Or they may be upset because they suffer from extreme TDS and we do not attack or put down Mr. Trump. Who knows or who cares. Our intent was not to be mean, derogatory, or insulting and it is intent that matters not how people perceive something.
What is TDS? Tiny Dick Syndrome? Typical Derrick Shit? Here’s a good example of what happens when you use acronyms instead of proper names (or nouns?). If you care about readers understanding your writing, there is a proper way to use acronyms. For example, before using the IFB acronym for the first time, I write Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB). That way readers know what I mean when I say IFB. The same goes for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) or the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC). The goal is to provide understanding so there’s no miscommunication on my part.
Thiessen wrongly thinks that “intent” is all that matters. He must have missed the lesson in Bible college that talked about the importance of perception. If Thiessen doesn’t want to be perceived as an asshole, then he should behave appropriately. I deeply care about how people perceive my writing or me as a person. I don’t want to leave readers in the position of having to figure out my intent.
Everything I have written in this post is already known to Thiessen. If he wants to be considered an Asshole for Jesus, it is on him, not me. I will continue to use Thiessen’s real name and provide proper attribution when I respond to one of the endless posts he writes about me or my favorite Meerkat.
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.
Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, recently sent me a guest post. While I initially agreed to publish his post, I regretted doing so after reading it. After a day of contemplation on the matter, I decided not to make his post available to the readers of this blog. His vitriol towards LGBTQ people in general, and specifically transgender people, was enough for me to pass on publishing his post. You can read the post on Thiessen’s blog, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God.
In his initial email to me, Thiessen demanded:
Hello,
I have attached the document to this email, The instructions are the same as before. Do not let your editor or anyone touch the content or make changes. The content has already been through two spell and grammar checks.
It is written the way I want it to read.
DDavidT
I’ve been blogging for seventeen years. Scores of people have sent me guest posts to publish. Not one person has made demands of me as Theissen does with his post. Most people appreciate a professional editor going over their writing. Contrary to what Theissen says, his submission had numerous grammar, punctuation, and word usage errors. And Thiessen knows this. He just published his post on his blog. I used comparison software to compare what Theissen sent me and what he published on his site. Numerous changes were made to the text. So much for the text he sent me not needing an editor.
Since he was unwilling to allow Carolyn, my editor, to edit his post to make sure it meets the publishing standard for this site, I decided not to publish it. Both the content and the quality of the post were sufficient for me to say “no thanks.”
While waiting for me to publish his post, Thiessen said the following on several blog posts:
On another note, BG is asking for people to write guest posts. We figure he is getting sicker and it is harder for him to maintain his writing schedule. We submitted one a few days ago and are still waiting to see if it will be published.
We told him not to let his editor touch the content as we wrote what we wanted in the post. we have checked for several days now to see if it will appear and if it doesn’t,. we will place it here.
BG has often claimed that we do not write like a doctor so we did a post leaning towards an academic style of writing to satisfy his complaint. So we shall see. If he does not want to post it, he should send us an email so we can post it here.
Anyways, if anyone wants to write a comment below, use our initials DT, we are not upset if anyone does.
BG has failed to post our guest post. We wrote it because he made the offer and opened it up to everyone and on any topic. We see that he has made his own posts since we submitted it, so it is not like there is a long line of authors trying to publish something on his website.
We will give it one more day, and if it doesn’t appear, we will post the content here. We do not care where it is posted as long as it gets published. He may not like the concluding remarks, as those do not bode well for him and his LGBTQ friends.
Our initial thought for his delay is that he got very afraid to publish it, but we do not know the real reason.
Author’s note– This is the guest post we sent to BG in response to his offer to publish a guest post by anyone on any topic. We simply got tired of waiting for him to post it. If he eventually does, we may take this one down so there is no duplication.
Thiessen thinks his post is so incendiary that I am “afraid” to publish it. Child, please. When I read this post to my partner and read the line from Theissen that said, “Our initial thought for his delay is that he got very afraid to publish it,” Polly started laughing hysterically — rightly so.
Frankly, I am tired of Theissen refusing to use my name when he mentions me on his site. Why should I post anything of his if he can’t even bother to call me or Ben Berwick by our given names? Instead, he uses the initials BG and MM. Further, he refuses to properly link to our content when he uses it. I always use his proper name and link to his content when mentioning him on this site. That’s what professional, respectful writers do– which Thiessen is neither.
Finally, reader interaction is welcome on this site. I read every comment and try my best to respond, if warranted. Thiessen doesn’t want to participate in this process on this site. Comment on a post of his on this blog, and instead of replying, he turns it into a blog post on his site. And if you try to leave a comment on his blog, Thiessen will likely give it a one-sentence answer or delete it. If a guest writer is unwilling to interact with the fine readers of this blog, why should I bother to publish his writing?
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.
Revival “I Lie for Jesus” Fires is an Evangelical Christian who regularly tries to comment on this site. Most of his comments are so vulgar, vile, and disgusting that I refuse to approve them. What follows is my response to his latest comment. (All grammar, spelling, and punctuation in the original.)
Ok buddy you want to talk about pastors and clergymen that fall into sexual sin,rape?prison rape,etc. It actually amazes me if you struggle with pain and bad health as much as you put out that you’re able to take the time to research this every time a LIKELY false Christian pastor falls into this trap.
I am glad you find my herculean research skills amazing, but the Black Collar Crime Series doesn’t take me as much time as you might think. I have developed research and writing skills that help me quickly turn out these posts.
You seem to suggest that I am lying about my struggles with chronic pain and pervasive health problems. Why would I lie about these things? What do I gain from misleading readers?
I find it interesting that you think preachers who rape children, molest teenagers, and take sexual advantage of vulnerable adults have fallen into a “trap.” It’s as if you think these preachers were just humbly walking the road of life, suddenly tripped, and “fell” into sexual sin. This, of course, is untrue. Most of the preachers featured in the Black Collar Crime Series are not first-time offenders. Many of them were predators for years before they were caught. Proving how easy it is to fake being a Christian, these men Sunday after Sunday stand before their congregations preaching the wonders of Christ all the while committing crimes.
Sadly most are likely just a false as you were in your heart.
You do know the Bible says that liars will end up in the Lake of Fire, right? You have no evidence for your claim that I was a false Christian. The same goes for these offending preachers. Based on your comments on this site, I may be an atheist, but I am a better Christian than you are. In fact, most of the atheists on this site are better Christians than you are. Your behavior suggests that you are Christian in name only.
As far as the preachers featured in the Black Collar Crime Series are concerned, I am sure some of them were Christians in name only. However, what these stories suggest is that one can be a Christian and still commit crimes; that Jesus, salvation, and the Bible are no antidote for sexual sins. The Bible says that when a person is saved, their old life passes away and their new life, in Christ, begins. While I have met scores of loving, kind followers of Jesus over the years, they are the exception to the rule. I have concluded that the so-called “new life in Christ” is largely a myth; regardless of whether a person is saved, they are who they are. The real issue, in my humble opinion, is why so many preachers commit sexual sins. I have written over 1,000 posts for the Black Collar Crimes Series, with hundreds of other stories I have not yet posted. The sheer volume of these stories suggests that Evangelicalism has a big problem with predator preachers. Instead of attacking me for publishing these stories, Evangelicals might want to ask why sexual sin, along with infidelity, is so common among preachers. Why do churches continue to cover up such things, fearing loss of testimony more than doing right by victims?
Also sad that every time this happens it gives God and the church a black eye and a fat lip.
Just like when David committed adultery with bathseheba. As Nathan states in 1 Samuel it gave the enemies God a reason to blaspheme.
Yes, these preachers give the church a black eye. What you cannot or will not see is that your own behavior, as witnessed on this site, also gives the church a black eye. Again, the question that should be asked is: why is such behavior so common among Evangelicals; that despite being bought by the blood and filled with the Holy Ghost, Christians can and do commit crimes and have affairs. Why is that? I see nothing in American Evangelicalism that remotely suggests that it is superior to all other religions and that it is a preferred way to live.
So is the point trying to be proved here that these sick men “Christian pastors” who are being charged with child sexual crimes 😡😡 beyond unthinkable!! Or have had an affair with the church secretary,etc are they never truly saved?(likely) Or is the point that the church is no different than the cesspool of a lost world? Obviously if it is either or Or both the main point is to discredit Jesus Christ and disprove existence of God.
The Black Collar Crime series is in its seventh year, having published more than one thousand reports of clergy and church leader criminal misconduct. Most of the reports are about Evangelical pastors, evangelists, youth directors, and other church leaders who committed sex crimes. Using Google Alerts, I receive an immediate notice any time a news story about clerical malfeasance is posted on the Internet. It is important that these stories receive wide circulation. Victims need to know that there are people standing with them as they bring to light what God’s servants have done in secret.
I realize that these reports are often dark and depressing, but the only way to dispel darkness is to turn on the lights. Clergy who prey on congregants — especially children — must be exposed, prosecuted, convicted, and sent to prison. By leveraging this blog’s readership numbers and publishing these reports, I am serving notice to law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges: we are paying attention, and if you fail to provide justice for victims, we will hold you accountable.
Sometimes, these seemingly untouchable predators are brought to justice, but not before the public puts pressure on law enforcement and prosecutors, forcing them to act. The sordid story of abuse at Restoration Youth Academy is case in point. Decades of abuse reports were filed with local law enforcement, yet nothing was done. Yes, they finally acted and the perpetrators are now in prison, but what do we say to the hundreds of children and teenagers who were ritually abused before prosecutors got around to doing their job?
I am sure that this series will bring criticism from Evangelical zealots, reminding me that accused/charged clerics are innocent until proven guilty. While they are correct, all I am doing is sharing that which is widely reported in the news. In the sixteen years I’ve been writing about clergy misconduct, I can count on one hand the number of pastors/priests/religious leaders who were falsely accused — fewer than five, out of hundreds and hundreds of cases. The reason for so few false accusations is that no person in his or her right mind would mendaciously accuse a pastor of sexual misconduct. The social and personal cost is simply too high for someone to falsely accuse a religious leader of criminal conduct.
Secondary reasons for this series have to do with exposing the lie that Evangelicalism is immune to scandal and criminal behavior. I remember when the Catholic sex scandal came to light. With great glee and satisfaction, Evangelical preachers railed against predator priests and the Catholic Church who covered up their crimes. Now, of course, we know — with the recent Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) and Southern Baptist sex scandals — that Evangelicalism is just as rotten, having its own problems with sexual abuse and subsequent cover-ups. Evangelicals love to take the high moral ground, giving the perception that their shit doesn’t stink. Well, now we know better. Not only does Evangelicalism have a sexual abuse problem, it also has a big problem with pastors who can’t keep their pants zipped up. (Please see Is Clergy Sexual Infidelity Rare?)
I receive threats from people defending their religious heroes. Threats of legal action are common, even though all I am doing is republishing stories publicly reported by news agencies. A pastor featured in one of my reports contacted me and said that reporters had it all wrong. As I do with everyone who asserts they are being falsely accused, I told this preacher that he could give his version of the facts, sign his name to it, and I would gladly add it to the post. Usually, this puts an end to any further protestations. Most often, the accused want to bully me into taking down my post. In this preacher’s case, he provided me his version of events and I gladly added it to my post. After adding the information, I decided to investigate this pastor further. I found more information about his past indiscretions and crimes. I dutifully added them to the post. I have not heard anything further from the good pastor.
I am not immune from making mistakes, so if you spot a factual error in one of the stories, please let me know and I will gladly correct it. If you come across a story that you would like me to add to this series, please use the contact form to email me. Please keep in mind that I need links to actual news reports in order to add them to this series.
I primarily use Google Alerts for Black Collar Crime reports. I also rely on readers to alert me to new stories or updates of previous reports. I am one man with a limited amount of time each day to slog through the brackish Evangelical swamp, so I don’t see every report or know the outcome of every case I’ve featured in the Black Collar Crime Series. Keep in mind that I require EVIDENCE for me to update a story. Not gossip or personal opinion. Actual evidence such as reputable news stories (with links). Just because a reader or drive-by commenter says something doesn’t make it so. I appreciate your understanding.
I realize that nothing I say in this post will change the minds of preachers such as Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen. Thiessen has a sketchy background. He has been accused of abandoning his family, including an infant child, failing to pay child support, and fleeing to South Korea/Philippines to avoid being held accountable for his behavior.
Thiessen has been a vocal critic of me personally and of the Black Collar Crimes Series. Thiessen is known for defending clerics who commit sex crimes. Just this week he wrote two more posts defending Ravi Zacharias. He has also defended men such as Bill Cosby and Bill Gothard. Thiessen goes to great lengths to defend his support of offending preachers, but I find his defenses lacking in every way. Thiessen repeatedly rejects the substantial work done by law enforcement in investigating, prosecuting, and convicting pastors who commit sex crimes. Why? This is the judgment of the “world,” not God. Of course, God is unavailable for comment. All we have are our legal processes; albeit imperfect, they are the best we have to hold clergy and churches accountable.
Thiessen frequently blames victims for what happened to them. Thiessen is not alone in this approach to women (sometimes men) and children who have been sexually violated and taken advantage of by so-called men of God. Again, Thiessen claims that victims are following the ways of the “world” instead of God. Of course, God’s ways in Thiessen’s mind are his peculiar interpretation of the Protestant Christian Bible.
He [Bruce Gerencser] is right in one thing, we do not like his black collar series but not for the reasons he thinks. We [Derrick Thiessen] do not like it for many reasons and two of them are, it is not being fair or just. That owner [Bruce Gerencser] ignores all the unbelievers and atheists who are caught, tried, and convicted for the same crimes.
….
[Speaking of being fair and just] Christians have to do both to be able to make an impact for Christ. But this is not the end of the hypocrisy and injustice carried out by the owners of the BG [The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser] and MM [Meerkat Musings] websites, as well as other unbelieving websites.
There have been other similar stories about drag shows in schools, and so on. Yet not one peep from either owner about how bad, immoral, or wrong these actions are. Instead, they would rather target Christians as that is the group of people, as well as Christ, that they hate.
This is another reason God told us to never follow in the counsel of the ungodly. They do not have fairness or just behavior in their thinking. Look at all the CRT, equity, BLM re-education going on today. None of those and anything similar is of God nor are they just and fair.
….
Another reason we do not like the black collar series over at that website [The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser] is that it is unneeded. It does nothing constructive for society nor does it help redeem those men who failed in their Christian lives, if they were Christians at all.
All it does, as we said earlier, is influence others to hate Christ, pastors, and the church, and turning people to hate is wrong. It is not fair to those men highlighted and the series does not have people being just or fair towards them. In fact, it helps stoke the misguided guilty-until-proven-innocent mentality that many unbelievers endorse.
It is also redundant as the local papers will carry the same stories and his series is just wasting everyone’s time. When the Christian sees those stories they need to ask God how to reach those men so that Christ can redeem them.
….
{we would link to the article we talked about but it is so filled with lies and eisegetical comments that it is nothing but trash [which I can’t rebut] }
I have explained my motivations for writing the Black Collar Crime Series several times. He knows exactly why I do what I do, so I can only conclude that Thiessen is a liar and his goal is to impugn my character and impair my coverage of clergy sex crimes.
Let’s suppose I operated a site whose mission was to cover the Cincinnati Reds. Every day I published news stories about the Reds and individual players on the team. One day, a man named Deirere TeeDee sent me an email, complaining about me not writing any posts about the NHL, particularly me not covering the Detroit Red Wings. Duh, I replied, I write about the Reds, and Major League Baseball, not the National Hockey League and the Detroit Red Wings. Your complaint has no merit.
Yet, this is exactly what Thiessen has done with his complaint about me not covering atheists and other unbelievers who commit sex crimes. He knows that this site focuses on four things:
Helping people who have questions and doubts about Christianity
Helping people who have left Christianity
Telling the story about my journey from Evangelical Christian to atheist
Critiquing Evangelical Christianity
I have been blogging since 2007 — sixteen years. I have stayed true to these four focus points, rarely veering off the path to talk about politics, sports, food, and travel. Why Thiessen cannot understand why I write the Black Collar Crime Series is beyond me. I know that all sorts of people commit sex crimes, but my focus is on Evangelical preachers who commit such crimes. This is NOT a sex crime blog. If it were, I would cover unbelievers and believers alike. And even if I did, it would still be true that the vast majority of people who commit sex crimes are Christian or religious. Why? Because most Americans are Christians.
I have repeatedly explained to Thiessen why the Black Collar Crime Series is needed. I assume, at this point, he is being obtuse. Most of the stories I write require numerous news stories to tell the complete story. They also require research on my part to find out what sect the offender was a part of and their background and beliefs. Sometimes, these reports take a lot of time to put together. Other times, a Google search quickly gives me everything I need to write the story.
These reports are based on news reports, court records, social media, and other verifiable sources. I rarely interject my personal opinion. My goal is to provide a one-stop website for people looking for information about a particular preacher/church and their crimes. Blog traffic numbers suggest that this is exactly what is happening.
It is not uncommon for news sites to either delete stories about clergy sex crimes or put them behind paywalls. That’s why it is important for me to make these stories available to the public free of charge. The public has a right to know what is going on in Evangelical churches. Surely it is important to cover criminal behavior by clerics. Surely it is important to say to victims that I hear them and I will make their story known far and wide. The bigger question, then, is this: why do Derrick Thiessen and other Christians of his ilk want to muzzle me and keep these stories from being known?
One answer to the questions above is that the Thiessens of the world don’t care about the victims of clergy sex crimes. I suspect many of them believe that the victimized women (and men) and children are not victims at all. Thus, they view sexual predators as the real victims; that the “world” is out to get them. Thiessen admits as much when he says “When the Christian sees those stories [about rape, sexual assault, child molestation, along with theft, fraud, and murder] they need to ask God how to reach those men so that Christ can redeem them.” Remember, Thiessen has called sex crimes “mistakes.” He has yet to write one positive post about the victims of clergy sexual misconduct. All that Thiessen cares about are the poor preachers who rape, assault, misuse, and abuse vulnerable people. In his mind, these preachers just made “mistakes.” If they will just shoot a 1 John 1:9 (If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness) to Heaven, Jesus will forgive them and cleanse them from all unrighteousness. With that, the offending preachers are forgiven and should get right back on the ministry horse. Thiessen seems oblivious to the fact that most pedophiles are incurable; that Jesus himself can’t fix them. He seems to be oblivious to the fact that preachers caught committing sex crimes, particularly child pornography, have likely been doing so for years. When a 60-something-year-old preacher is arrested for sexually assaulting a child, it is likely that he has committed this crime before. Most clergy sex crimes go unreported/unprosecuted (as is the case in the general population). What I cover with the Black Collar Crime Series is but a fraction of the crimes committed by Christian clergy. I read sites such as Ministry Watch, The Roys Report, Bishop Accountability, Baptist Accountability, and the Black Collar Crime listings published monthly for members by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I am astounded by how many stories about clergy sex crimes I actually miss.
It’s clear to all who are willing to see that Evangelicalism has a clergy sex crime problem of epic proportions. These reports are not a few bad apples. The sex scandal roiling through the Southern Baptist Convention certainly proves that the proverbial barrel is littered with rotten, stinking apples.
— end of quote
What it really does is show the extreme depravity of man.
No, what it shows is the extreme depravity of some born-again Christians. Why is this behavior so common? Why do so many preachers commit sex crimes, especially with children? Are you really saying that none of these offending preachers are saved; that they are still depraved?
Christ is Holy and Righteouss! God and man who died and rose again to pay the penalty for sin and purchase eternal life and change lives and hearts! Even the most depraved!
“Changes lives and hearts?” Surely, you jest. The Black Collar Crime Series is testimony to the fact that Jesus does not change lives and hearts. The real question is why do preachers commit sex crimes? It is evident that religion does not insulate them from such behavior. Why is that?
And any prison on the face of this earth will be a spa and beach compared to what awaits the unredeemed in hell.
There’s no evidence for the existence of Hell. The only hell is that which we cause and experience in this life. What I find interesting is that you never mention the victims. Why is that? You seem more concerned with justifying criminal behavior and defending Evangelicalism than you are speaking for the vulnerable. Why is that? Jesus said in Matthew 18:6: But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. This verse must be missing from your Bible.
You would think that every Evangelical would support the Black Collar Crime Series. If godliness and holiness are the goal, why would any Christian object to light being shined on evil works done in darkness, even if they are committed by so-called men of God?
Saved by Reason,
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.
This cartoon correctly shows how many Evangelicals perceive the transgender/bathroom issue. Their perceptions, however, are categorically wrong.
What should we make of Evangelical Christians who are obsessed with human biological sex, gender, genitals, and what people do with them? I peruse scores of Evangelical blogs and websites every day. Without fail, one or more of these defenders of the one true penis will write an article disparaging LGBTQ people. Rare is an article about the peccadilloes of heterosexual people, even though their sexual sins and crimes are far more common than those found among LGBTQ people.
Some Evangelicals are, in particular, obsessed with transgender people. Take Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen. Week after week, Thiessen churns out articles attacking, disparaging, and demeaning transgender people. Between Thiessen’s defense of preachers who commit sex crimes and his obsession with hating LGBTQ people, it makes me wonder what lies buried deeply in his proverbial closet. Regardless, Thiessen’s unhealthy obsession with transgender people is disturbing, to say the least. If a transgender woman was beaten and killed near where Thiessen lives and law enforcement found his hate-filled writing about transgender people, he would quickly become a person of interest.
Today, Thiessen wrote another article about transgender people titled, If You Still Think It is Fair. Thiessen said things like:
How humiliating was it when a fake [transgender] woman was sent to the Miss Universe pageant in 2018? Of all the women in Spain, a fake one was deemed to be the most attractive? and qualified for a female beauty pageant??
….
It is not normal behavior to reject one’s actual gender and pretend to be a gender one is not. There is nothing fair about this inclusion in any women’s event or activity. What makes it worse is the fact that a female [U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe] is opposing Trump’s Executive Order banning fake women in women’s sports and activities.
….
There is nothing right or fair about including transgender in women’s activities. You will find that there is no historical foundation for these inclusions. It may have taken place in Sodom and Gomorrah but God destroyed those cities so we will never know.
….
When female athletes do not stick up for their real female counterparts, then you know there is something really wrong with many people. Maybe the problem is that many men and women think that since they are not involved in those activities, it is not their problem.
However, many problems are solved by those who are not involved. They have the advantage of not having emotional conflicts, should see the situation clearly, and can suggest proper solutions. Those outsiders can still champion right over wrong as eventually, the sinful behavior will reach their activities soon enough.
As Christians, we need to continually speak out and hold our ground.
….
It is not normal, it is not right, and it is not moral. Christians can do something with God’s help. When they address this problem, they just need to remember that Transgenders are God’s creation also, and are under severe attacks from evil.
They need to be rescued from this sin and the people who are locking them inside this sin. This is a spiritual warfare battle and Christians need to go into it armed with sincere prayer, the right attitudes, and the right knowledge. Wisdom will help apply that knowledge correctly so that God wins the day.
This is not something we can do on our own. We need Go’d help in this and other spiritual warfare issues. We are just not equipped with the right tools to handle spiritual problems on our own.
As Christians pray and get prepared for this battle, they can still speak out telling the world that has lost sight of the difference between right and wrong, what is right and what is wrong. Without the Christian testimony and witness, those godly standards are lost as no one else has them.
Stop the unfairness and humiliation of women and show Christian love to the real women of the world.
In what way do transgender people materially affect the lives of Theissen and others like him? None that I can think of. No, Thiessen is transphobic, and he rails against transgender people because he finds them disgusting. Or perhaps he is sexually attracted to transgender people, and God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and the Bible can’t stop Thiessen from thinking lustful thoughts about what people have in their pants or under their skirts.
Less than one percent of Americans are transgender, yet according to Thiessen and other Evangelical zealots, they are an existential threat to the human race. In the past, Thiessen has said transgender people should be arrested and put in internment camps, much like the United States did with Japanese and German people during World War II. Bigotry is bigotry regardless of the clothing it wears.
Transgender people were disgustingly used as a political prop for Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians during the last election. Based on the ads, you would think transgender people are lurking in the shadows on every corner, hoping to find a defenseless child to rape or assault. Some ads focused on transgender women playing women’s high school and college sports. Keep in mind that few transgender people play organized sports. According to one news report, ten transgender women played college sports last year. Ten. A whopping ten transgender women out of thousands of female athletes. At the high school level, last year in the state of Ohio, only two transgender girls played sports, Yet, we are to believe that a total of twelve transgender women are destroying high school and college athletics. Child, please. This doesn’t mean that there are not issues to resolve when transgender people play sports. There are, and it is up to league administrators to determine what constitutes fair play. However, this is not a simple issue to solve. If it is just a matter of testing for testosterone levels, what will happen to heterosexual women who have high testosterone levels? As a former player of high school and college basketball, we used to joke about the jumping capabilities of White people; you know, “white people can’t jump.” Generally speaking, Black athletes run faster and jump higher than Whites. Should Black athletes be penalized for having genetic superiority? So it is with transgender women. If being trans gives them an unfair competitive advantage, then it may be necessary to adjust the rules — based on science and not because of bigotry. So few transgender students play sports that it is impossible to know whether they have a physical advantage, and, if they do, how much advantage they have. This is an issue that must be addressed by science, and not the shrill, hysterical rants of Evangelical preachers. (I should note that many transgender people want this issue addressed too.)
Rarely does Thiessen write a post for his site without mentioning BG and MM, also known as Bruce Gerencser and Ben Berwick (Meerkat Musings). His latest post disparaging transgender people mentions both of us. Here’s what “Hetero D” had to say:
We know that there will be those who disagree with us, for example, MM and BG, but their minds are confused and deceived so their opinions do not matter. This issue is a product of deception and confusion as the people allowing this humiliating act are just as deceived and confused about life and gender.
According to Theissen, our opinions on this issue don’t matter. Why? Our minds are confused and deceived by a mythical being, Satan himself. What, exactly, are we confused about? It is Thiessen who refuses to accept what consensus science tells about biological sex and gender. The Line, owned by Jimmy Snow, features a weekly call-in show hosted primarily by transgender people. If you want to understand the plethora of issues surrounding transgender people and the challenges they face living in a world increasingly hostile to them, I encourage you to tune in to their program.
Matt Dillahunty, whose significant other is transgender, also has several programs on The Line. Matt is a good source for those who want to understand transgender people. I will give you fair warning, Matt has zero tolerance for bigots like Thiessen. Honest, thoughtful discussions are welcome, but disparaging and attacking transgender people will bring upon you the wrath of Almighty Matt, and rightfully so. I should note, it is almost always Evangelicals who call into these programs to attack transgender people. They are not interested in learning about biological sex and gender or making good-faith efforts to understand transgender people. In their minds, as with Derrick Thomas Thiessen, transgender people are e-v-i-l. For you who regularly comment on this blog, you have read the comments of several transgender people. Do they seem “evil” to you? Of course not. If anyone seems evil, it is Theissen, but even with him, I don’t think he is actually evil. He has been conditioned and indoctrinated his whole life to hate LGBTQ people. In recent years, Thiessen’s hatred has focused on transgender people, though it is unlikely that he personally knows anyone who is transgender
I remember thinking just like Thiessen about LGBTQ people. My hatred and bigotry were driven by not only my Christian Fundamentalism but also the fact that I didn’t know any LGBTQ people. Oh, there were people I suspected were “gay,” but I wasn’t friends with any of them. It took actually meeting and befriending LGBTQ people for my views to change. Today, I have friends all across the sexual and gender spectrum. My life has been enriched in every way by knowing them.
For you who are former Evangelicals, how did you view and treat LGBTQ people? Were you a bigot like Thiessen? What caused you to change your mind about LGBTQ people? Do you know or are you friends with transgender people? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
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.
David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
I promised to ignore the Evangelical featured in this post, but sometimes he writes things so vile and so egregious that his words are impossible to ignore. Yes, I am talking about Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen.
Several days ago, Thiessen wrote a post titled, People Are Not Going to Like This. Like what, you ask? Blaming thirty teen boys for committing suicide after they were sexually blackmailed.
High school senior James Woods was obsessed with comics. He could quote every episode of “The Flash,” idolized the superhero Green Arrow, and often sported a Naruto-inspired headband he insisted helped him run faster in track meets. He looked forward all year to a trip his family and friends planned for the Dream Con comic book convention the following summer.
Three months into the school year, just before Thanksgiving, the 17-year-old died by suicide. His parents were shocked, grieving and baffled. James, who lived in Streetsboro, Ohio, had not struggled with mental health, they said.
When police looked through James’ phone, they discovered he had fallen victim to financial sextortion, a crime that occurs when a predator threatens to distribute private material or harm a victim if they don’t comply with the predator’s financial demands. The scam is the fastest-growing cybercrime targeting children in North America and most commonly exploits young men, particularly boys ages 13 to 17.
Sextortion has been connected to at least 30 deaths of teen boys by suicide since 2021, according to a tally of private cases and the latest FBI numbers from cybersecurity experts.
In more than a dozen interviews, male sextortion victims and the parents of teenage boys who died by suicide described how predators established a false sense of trust before blackmailing their victims. All of the parents USA TODAY spoke with said their teens died by suicide within 24 hours of being threatened − though the window was often shorter.
James’ predators falsely told him he would face jail time for sending nude photographs, that his parents would stop loving him, and that he would never be able to run track again or go to college. In the next 19 hours, they would send James more than 200 messages, a technique predators use to instill a sense of urgency and prevent giving the victim time to think or reach out for help.
“They eliminated his desire for a future,” says his mother, Tamia Woods. “I don’t think that James knew he was a victim.”
Most of us rightly grieve for the parents and families who lost a child due to sextortion. Seems to be a proper response, right? But not for David Theissen, a moral crusader who obsesses over what he deems sinful behavior in others while ignoring his own. As a young Bible college student, I was taught to practice what I preached. Evidently, Thiessen never had that lesson at the Christian Missionary & Alliance college he attended years ago.
Yes, the predators are guilty of committing a crime and some of them may even qualify legally to be charged with murder BUT there would be no crime if the boys had morals, obeyed the Bible, and had some courage.
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The predators cannot force anyone to take those nude shots or participate in sexually charged conversations. They can only set up the situation and hope that, like these boys, someone will take the bait and get themselves entwined in this criminal activity.
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That is part of the situation as well. Once the boys or any boys jumped at the opportunity to have a female friend like them, they made the fateful decision to make themselves vulnerable to criminals.
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It is the boys’ decision to disobey that instruction that helps get them in trouble. This is the key to this whole problem. The boys made their own independent decisions to act on the requests of fake females. They over-rode their parents and others’ instructions and gave into temptation.
Sadly, they came to a point where they saw no other way out but to kill themselves. The Bible verses these boys violated were ‘Children obey your parents’ ‘Resist temptation’, ‘Flee from evil’, Resist evil and it will flee from you’.
There are others and there were other options available to the boys, and even girls, caught in this problem. They could easily not decide to send those photos, take part in those conversations, or do anything that would compromise them on the internet.
The boys in that article contributed to their demise by making bad decisions after bad decisions until they made that fatal one that ended their lives. Life is all about decisions. If people were taught strong morals, right from wrong, etc., then we would see fewer suicides from sextortion and other internet crimes.
If they knew they could resist temptation and flee evil, then the same results would be achieved. To be honest, part of the blame lies at the boys’ feet because they let emotions, etc., over-rule common sense and what instructions their parents and others gave and went off to do immoral behavior.
The Bible verses these boys violated were ‘Children obey your parents’ ‘Resist temptation’, ‘Flee from evil’, Resist evil and it will flee from you’.
There are others and there were other options available to the boys, and even girls, caught in this problem. They could easily not decide to send those photos, take part in those conversations, or do anything that would compromise them on the internet.
The boys in that article contributed to their demise by making bad decisions after bad decisions until they made that fatal one that ended their lives. Life is all about decisions. If people were taught strong morals, right from wrong, etc., then we would see fewer suicides from sextortion and other internet crimes.
If they knew they could resist temptation and flee evil, then the same results would be achieved. To be honest, part of the blame lies at the boys’ feet because they let emotions, etc., over-rule common sense and what instructions their parents and others gave and went off to do immoral behavior.
People may hate the Bible but it is full of instructions that protect everyone from predators like the ones involved in the article. The key is to make the right decisions first, not afterward. Biblical instructions are signs that God does love everyone and has provided protection for them.
The people of this world just have to humble themselves and make the right decisions to obey God and the Bible if they do not want to be involved in these and other types of crimes. Of course, it takes courage to do so but God can give the courage to those who need it to overcome evil and resist temptation.
Speaking of one 15-year-old boy who killed himself, Thiessen said:
Sadly, he did it to himself by failing to follow Biblical and parental teachings.
Just follow the Bible, and all will be well? Really? The Black Collar Crime Series clearly shows that even preachers who “follow Biblical teachings” can and do commit crimes and other untoward behavior. Sexual misconduct is common among Evangelical preachers and church members alike. Thiessen, himself, has enough secrets in his life to suggest he doesn’t practice what he preaches. In fact, I would suggest that he writes stories such as this to cover up his past peccadilloes. What better way to make yourself look good than by either defending those accused of sexual misconduct or attacking those making allegations against so-called men of God?
Many readers of this blog faithfully attended Evangelical churches as teenagers. We know firsthand that the Bible is no match for sexual hormones; that God allegedly gave all of us sexual desire and made it its strongest during our teenage and young adult years. Teenagers are not adults, and that’s why they need to have mature, educated parents; parents who know that quoting Bible verses and taking their teens to church are not effective protections against sexual desire — especially in the digital age. Yes, parents need to be proactive, but that takes more than proof texts, sermons, and youth group meetings. Even if parents do everything possible to protect their children from sexual predators, predation still happens. When it does, children need love and support from their parents, not religious pronouncements. What children don’t need are parents and preachers who barrage them with words allegedly from God, complete with interpretations from preachers who, in many cases, broke God’s law themselves when they were teenagers.
What these boys’ families need most of all is love, kindness, and support, and not hateful judgments from a self-righteous Evangelical preacher who only sees the “sins” of others — never his own. Thiessen abandoned a child he fathered years ago, failing to pay court-ordered child support. Some believe he lives in the Philippines to avoid legal responsibility for paying support. Whether Thiessen has other children, I do not know. For those of us who have responsibly raised teenagers, we know the pressures teens face in life. Hopefully, we remember facing similar pressures when we were teens. And most of all, if our children are victims of extortion, we hope they will come to us for help. Unfortunately, Fundamentalist Christianity often keeps children from asking for help because they don’t want to be harshly punished for a sexually oriented text message or picture.
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.
Note: This is the last post about Dr. David Tee that will appear on this site. I have reached the end of the road with him. I know I have said this before, but I plan to keep my word this time.
Dr. David Tee, an Evangelical preacher whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, recently wrote a vitriolic post titled The Biggest Whiner We Have Ever Seen. The title is written in the singular tense, but, as you will see in the moment, it should be in the plural. Thiessen, for whatever reason, decided to write a long post excoriating my friend Ben Berwick and me, calling us the biggest whiners and crybabies of all time. Lost on Thiessen is that he wrote a whiny post complaining about others he deems whiners and crybabies. As readers know, Thiessen is pronoun-challenged, so it is unclear at certain places in his screed whether he is talking about Ben, Bruce Gerencser, or both of us. Since Thiessen refuses to use our names in his posts or link to our writing he regularly steals, I will have to guess who, exactly he is talking about.
— Begin post (All spelling, grammar, punctuation, and irrationality in the original.)
We are not going to link to the person’s crybaby rant because it serves no purpose.
If Ben’s writing serves no purpose, why did Thiessen use it as the basis for this post? I don’t have the time to count how many posts Thiessen has written about either of us this year, but I suspect the total exceeds fifty — more than one time per week.
But in the 12 years we have been writing this blog, he has risen to the top to be the biggest whiner and crybaby of all time. That isn’t much of an achievement as very few people who we have used content as examples have complained.
Thiessen uses our content more frequently than any other authors — overwhelmingly so. Others don’t complain or respond to Thiessen because they likely don’t know of his existence or don’t care.
Some have written rebuttals on their websites but nothing to the level this one person takes it to. The guy must have the brain of a 4-year-old who hasn’t learned life’s lessons yet and gets upset that his PUBLIC comments are being analyzed and criticized.
I can’t speak for Ben, but what is upsetting is Thiessen’s lies and distortions of my beliefs, and his refusal to thoughtfully engage in discussion. Instead, he calls names and says “You are wrong.” I have challenged Thiessen to a debate several times, but he refuses. I have even let him write a guest post on this site, only to have him refuse to engage the comments and critiques of readers afterward.
It is absurd to see his reactions after all he knows what happens when he places information in public. Not everyone will agree with him and will take him to task. They do it to us all the time. yet this one person thinks his words are not to be touched even though he is very wrong and uses erroneous thinking all the time.
It is just dumb for him to waste time ranting about someone’s criticism of his dreadfully wrong ideas and thoughts. it is time for him to grow up and learn how to take it but he may be one of those progressives who are triggered every time something doesn’t go their way.
He really shouldn’t be ranting about anyone’s content that disagrees with his own ideas. He has nothing to offer anyone. If he does not want to be analyzed or critiqued, maybe he should stop publishing content on religious, political, and controversial topics.
Sadly, Thiessen sees himself as some sort of authority on the Bible, Christianity, theology, history, archeology, and marriage. He expects the targets of his attack to “learn how to take it” without responding to him. That’s not how it works. Public critiques require public responses. The real issue is that Thiessen thinks his response is the final answer and that everyone should bow to his superior intellect. As I have repeatedly shown, Thiessen has a poor grasp of Evangelical theology, church history, and science. I have shown that it is likely that Thiessen doesn’t understand the Christian gospel. He refuses to engage me on these issues, choosing instead to call names and throw temper tantrums.
He is not the answer to the world nor does he have any answers except to rid the world of the only answer there is. We do not mention his name and only use initials because we ARE NOT making it personal like he and one other person do when they do not like something we have posted.
Thiessen is gaslighting everyone. If you have read any of his writing, you know that he has, indeed, made things personal. His refusal to use our names and properly link to our content is childish and disrespectful. I have schooled him several times, without success. Of late, he has taken to using our content without even using the MM and BG initials for our names. It’s clear, at least to me, that Thiessen isn’t interested in dialog.
They are the ones trying to push for a bad response, not us. We are merely pointing out certain things they write as examples or teaching points. This is why we rarely address their rants. They want to make it more than it is.
Whatever our motives, Theissen deliberately mispresents our beliefs. That he uses our writing as “examples or teaching points” shows how he views himself, not as a fellow interlocutor, but as some sort of exalted teacher or authority.
If he took stock of what we use from his website, he would realize we only address religious, political, and some controversial topics he posts. We do not touch his other content as it does not serve the purpose of this website.
He needs to be more mature and to stop acting like an immature child.
There are countless other writers Thiessen could use for his delusional teaching moments, yet almost all of his writing focuses on content found at Meerkat Musings and The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser. Why is that? I do know that Thiessen has been banned from commenting on numerous Christian blogs. I would block his access to writing if I could, but he uses a VPN or some other form of technology that keeps me from doing so.
By refusing to respond to him going forward, I hope he will move on to other people to belittle and harrass.
As far as acting like an immature child, I will leave it to readers to decide who is actually being immature. His post is nothing more than a personal attack. Had he not written it, there would be no response to him.
As for the other person we have been using content from, he needs to get over his hatred and grow up as well. His narcissism and victim playing as well as mentioning he was a preacher for over 25 years, preached 4000 sermons, etc., etc., has run its course.
Now Thiessen turns his attention to me. He doesn’t like my writing style, or my subject matter, so he whines, bitches, and complains. He could choose NOT to read my writing, but instead, he complains about the fact that I write about my story and dare to mention that I was a former Evangelical pastor. I have explained to him numerous times that I do so because I treat every post as if someone is reading it for the first time. I don’t assume that anyone knows my backstory, so that’s why I briefly mention my bona fides. He doesn’t do this, of course, because he has things to hide; a checkered past he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Thiessen hid behind several fake names until I exposed that he was a fraud. Unable to respond in kind, Thiessen tries to tear me down.
He needs to stop making everything about him and get a new focus on his writing. He is less credible than a fart as at least the fart knows it is stinking up the room and leaves. That guy doesn’t know and won’t leave.
The title of this blog is The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser: One Man’s Journey From Eternity to Here. Enough said. End of discussion.
One of his latest diatribes is against missionaries who make sacrifices to obey God and fulfill the Great COmmission. What was his point? That those who have the answer to life’s problems should not share the good news?
Many of our undergraduate friends went on to become missionaries and have spent their lives serving God. We should take offense at his insults towards them and other missionaries but there is no point in doing that.
All the guy does is show his ignorance and his desire that all people should remain in their sins. That is not a person one should ever listen to. We have also known many missionaries beyond our friends since childhood. They are far better people than that write could ever hope to be or ever was.
His attack on them was uncalled for. If he wants to live his life his way then he needs to let Christians live their lives their way. Sure missionaries make mistakes but those mistakes are minor compared to the one he made when he left his faith.
At least the missionaries are still running the race, did not listen to unbelievers, and did not quit on Jesus. They are trying to fulfill God’s desire that ALL MEN BE SAVED.. There is nothing wrong with their work.
However, that person thinks that all people need to remain practicing sinful activities and tries to deprive them of hope and an escape form their sins. That makes him a very bad person, not a knight in shining armor.
The missionary is the knight in shining armor as they face more difficulties than the average Christian will and for the most part, keep on working for Christ. I doubt that person who rants against missionaries could have survived not having their children in their home for months on end like missionaries have had to do.
These challenges tax missionaries and make it harder for them to focus on their work and have trust that God will take care of their children. That is not easy to do. So instead of attacking missionaries, they need to be praised, supported, and prayed for constantly as the attacks that blogger made only add to the challenges missionaries face.
I should note that Thiessen has, in the past, considered himself a missionary. As far as I can tell, he is not currently in the ministry.
In conclusion, the two people referred to in this blog article need to become more mature, forgiving, and adult about having their content analyzed. They do not have answers for anyone and should remain silent on all religious, political, and controversial issues.
Their comments only harm others not help them. Making their comments and responses personal only reflects badly on them and displays poor character and a lack of integrity.
They are nothing more than whiney 2-year-olds looking for attention and the only way they can get it is by falsely attacking Christians. Maybe they would be cited more on this website if they acted like honest and mature adults instead of the screaming spoiled children they are.
At this point, I am too tired to respond further to his name-calling and attacks. Thiessen responds the same way regardless of what we write, so he is disingenuous when he says “[they] would be cited more on this website if they acted like honest and mature adults instead of the screaming spoiled children they are.”
Rage away, Derrick. I, for one, refuse to play.
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.
