Dr. David Tee — who is neither a Doctor or a Tee — mounted his Internet pulpit recently to opine on why people leave Christianity. Here’s an excerpt from his post:
People have all sorts of excuses and they have all sorts of motivating triggers that help them make a decision. One thing that bothers us about the reasons they give is that there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Yet, these people who have turned away from different religions, mostly those that claim to be Christian., have decided to toss all of their faith away instead of moving to a different church (non-cultic) that meets their needs and shows them what Christianity is all about.
We are not going to list the reasons here. . .
Your eternal destination is on your shoulders, it is your responsibility, not the other people in the church.
Yes, many people do not follow Jesus and act in a way that is consistent with biblical instructions or commands. But you get to rebuke them if they err. using other people’s behavior to leave the church, Christ, and other religious organizations is simply making an excuse for your decision and failing to take responsibility for that momentous occasion.
Most of the reasons read like excuses. They have little legitimacy and point the finger towards the idea ‘I do not like what you did so I will punish you by leaving the church.’ Not a very smart or common sense decision.
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But as we said, most are excuses and it looks like people did not want to be in the church anyway and were looking for a face-saving way to leave the church.
Evil is hard at work in destroying people so it is somewhat understandable why these illogical and non-common sense decisions were made. People seem to like doing knee-jerk reactions when it comes to church and religion overall.
What is ironic is the fact that you do not see people saying the same type of things about how non-believers or non-religious people treated them and their families. If they like to be treated well why then do they not leave unbelief when they or their families are treated in horrendous ways?
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However, leaving the church or your faith over those incidents is not a smart thing to do. Those decisions say a lot about the people making those excuses:
#1. They are not looking to God to meet their needs. They are looking at pastors, etc and when they do not get what they want they take it out on God and punish him.
#2. They are holding the pastors and churches to a standard they do not hold themselves to. Are those people who deserted the faith, etc., doing what they expect other religious people to do?
#3. They are selfish and only want a one-way street their way.
#4. Their own claims to be a believer were not based on a strong foundation and they were weak, toppled over the first situation that provided negative input. They were superficial believers and probably like the seeds that were scattered on rocky or hard soil according to the parable Jesus told.
#5. They do not give God much credit or really cared about him. They were turned off of God for very petty acts that could have been overcome with prayer and a change in churches. This does not say much about them and their commitment to God or their religions.
Tee’s real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, so I will use his legal name in the remainder of his post.
Thiessen’s post is a theological trainwreck. Thiessen supposedly has a Bible college education and was a pastor, but many of his posts reveal that his theology can be best described as paint-by-number; except for the fact that when a number corresponds to a particular color, Thiessen uses whatever color he wants; regardless of how doing so makes the painting look. Thanks to his literalist, inerrantist, “it means what it says” view of the Protestant Christian Bible, Thiessen has beliefs that are, at times heterodox, or even heretical. I have concluded that he doesn’t really understand the Christian gospel, as he vacillates from salvation by grace to salvation by works to salvation by right beliefs to an admixture of these beliefs. I don’t doubt that Thiessen is a Christian, but damn, I’m not certain that he understands the gospel or has an in-depth understanding of Christian — particularly Evangelical — soteriology. While it would be fun to shred Thiessen’s theological beliefs, I am more concerned about the lies he continues to spread about people who left Evangelical Christianity and embraced atheism, agnosticism, paganism, or non-Christian religions. I say “lies” because Thiessen has been reading my writing for several years. He has written uncounted posts about me personally, Ben Berwick, and the readers of this blog. His unhealthy, creepy obsession with me is well known. No matter how many times I tell Thiessen that I am NOT interested in hooking up with him, he continues to write about me, uttering lies and half-truths as effortlessly as does disgraced congressman George Santos.
I have repeatedly talked about the reasons why I deconverted. I have, time after time, responded to Evangelical apologists who, much like Thiessen, think they know the “real” reasons people walk away from Christianity; people who attack the character of the deconverted and malign their motives for doing so. These scurrilous attackers of former Evangelicals often pontificate on the whys of deconversion without meaningfully and extensively talking to those who have actually deconverted. God condemns such behavior in Proverbs 18:13: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
Thiessen says that people like me are excuse-makers; that we blame others for our loss of faith; that the church hurt us, so we left, with feelings hurt, never to return. Thiessen later says that those who leave Christianity are selfish, people who want their way, and when they don’t get it, they take it out on God and punish him (there’s some of that famous Thiessen theology). Thiessen suggests that people who deconvert are superficial Christians or even fake believers; that they never cared much for God or gave credit to him (for what, exactly, Thiessen doesn’t say).
I ask you, dear readers, do Thiessen’s reasons for why people leave Christianity reflect why you are no longer a Christian? Thiessen knows better. He knows exactly why people deconvert. I have explained this to him numerous times in my writing and email responses to him. It is evident, at least to me, that Thiessen is not an honest interlocuter; that his goal is to demean and defame, and not honestly and humbly understand.
What do you think about Thiessen’s post? Please share your erudite thoughts in the comment section. I am sure “Dr.” Tee will appreciate your responses. I would suggest that you comment on his blog, but he doesn’t allow comments.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
One of the reasons the people at ABR or Associates for Biblical Research do not like us is that we challenge so many of their conclusions. They have gone to the point of specifically telling us to leave them alone.
But we do that with many Christians as we feel they have strayed away from biblical guidelines and have accepted secular science’s guidelines. One is the key scientific process called peer review.
Here is what ABR said in a newsletter that we receive:
Many of you have asked about the peer-review article connected with ABR’s discovery of a curse-tablet from Mt. Ebal in Israel. ABR began the peer review process from the outset of the discovery by establishing a team of experts from the academic community.
That work culminated in an article that was submitted to a scientific journal for peer review and publication. We continue to await the final results of that review and the release of the article for publication.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed about this and have sent words of encouragement. As soon as news is available, and the article is released we will be in communication with the ABR family!
This may work for secular articles and conclusions but for Christian articles and content, the unbelieving world does not have the superior view. Nor do they have an objective view of the Christian content.
The bias against Christian content is very strong and the latter is easily recognized even though there are single and blind peer review processes. In other words,, and this will apply to secular science content as well, if a researcher has an opposing view of the content, it is not going to be reviewed objectively or fairly.
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For the Christian, how would they expect the unbelieving peer reviewers to have any knowledge of Christian content and be able to review it correctly? The Bible says that Christians are not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly.
So if the peer reviewers in this case are not Christian and they make the recommendation that changes be made to the content, the Christian cannot comply.
The Christian is supposed to produce the truth, not theory, predictions, etc. and most reviewers do not have the truth to help the Christian writer succeed in producing better quality content.
If Christians make a discovery, as is the case for ABR, how can the unbelieving process shed light on that discovery?
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What we are pointing out is that Christians should not use the peer review process because it is NOT biblical. It is a secular science construct that has no foundation in the truth nor has the goal of providing the truth.
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In their work, especially archaeological, scientific, anthropological, and so on, should be guided first by the Holy Spirit. They should be in obedience to the Biblical instructions that set us apart in all fields of research.
No Christian should be advertising their work as peer-reviewed approved. We do not seek the approval of other humans. We need the approval of God and know we have published the truth.
That is our goal as Jesus is called ‘the truth’ not the theory or explanation. We go for the truth as guided by the Spirit of Truth. There is no such thing as the spirit of theory or interpretation or explanation.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Bible is certainly more than 3 words. What that word ‘every’ is telling you is that from Genesis to Revelation every word of the Bible came from the mouth of God. It did not come from the human writers God used but from God himself.
That means that the believer is to live by Genesis 1 all the way to Revelation 22. Those are the words that God has spoken to us. Those are the words we are to live by not what unbelieving science or scientists say but by what God told us in his divine book.
This also removes the option of living by interpretation. As Peter has told us, the word of God is not by private interpretation. We are to find the truth of what God is saying and live by that truth.
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Private interpretation is not allowed with scriptures. That is one of the reasons why we have over 40,000 ‘Christian’ denominations.
They do not live by every word that comes from God’s mouth. Instead, they live by their own private interpretation or the words of unbelievers. It is time to change and get back to the truth of the Bible and get rid of all alternatives to what God has told us in the Bible.
We are to live by the words of God while we can still do science, archaeology, and study other fields of interest, those are mere tools and have no authority over God or his words. if you want to live for eternity with God, then live correctly by his words.
— Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory God, We Will Follow the Science, March 24, 2023
Thiessen believes that Christians should just believe the Bible as written, and never interpret its words and teachings. This is a common Evangelical belief. The Bible is considered different from all other written works. Its words are written by God, not men or women. While Evangelicals have a variety of explanations for how the Bible came to be, all of them believe the Biblical text is the words of God — inspired, inerrant, and infallible.
From 1995-2002, I pastored Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio. One Sunday night, several new families came to visit the church. After the service, I struck up a conversation with one of the men. He asked me what I believed about a theological issue (I can’t remember the exact subject). We chatted back and forth for a bit, and then I told him that I had a book that I would be glad to loan him on the subject. He replied, “No thanks. The Bible is all I need.” These families didn’t visit again. I suspect I was too liberal for them; you know, I read books.
Any time we read something, we are interpreting the words of the text. Words have meanings, and we must make interpretations to determine what written texts mean. Individual interpretations will vary, sometimes wildly so. I have been writing for sixteen years — millions of words. While I do my best to write in a way so people will clearly understand what I am trying to say, it is not uncommon for people to “interpret” my words differently from the way I intended. Since I am a living author, these misunderstandings can be easily corrected by just asking me, “Bruce, what did you mean when you said ___________?” On occasion, I will write something, send it off to Carolyn to be edited, and she will return it with a note that says “is this what you meant to say?” Sometimes, I reply, “yes, that’s what I meant to say.” Other times, I correct the text so it means what I intended to say. Carolyn has been my editor for years. She has a good handle on how I think and how I use certain words.
We, of course, don’t have access to the authors of the sixty-six books of the Protestant Christian Bible. Even if I were to believe that “God” wrote the Bible, he’s inaccessible. Ask him what he meant to say in this or that verse and his reply is silence. For the past 2,000 years, believers and unbelievers alike have been interpreting the Bible. The moment we read a word, verse, text, or book, we are interpreting it.
Thiessen decries the fact that there are thousands of Christian sects, each with their own interpretations of the Bible, yet is this not what he does in his own life? I question whether Thiessen is a member of a local Christian congregation. If he is, he is part of a church/sect that interprets the Bible a certain way. Theissen demands that people accept that the Bible says this or that. Is he not saying that everyone must interpret the Bible as he does?
Of course, Theissen denies that he interprets the Bible; he just believes it. Such thinking is absurd. To believe is to interpret. Otherwise, one ends up believing that one’s beliefs perfectly align with what God (the Bible) says. This kind of teaching is dangerous, leading to all sorts of dangerous cultic beliefs. Evangelical misogyny, bigotry, racism, and hate rest on the notion that the words of God and the beliefs of God’s chosen ones are one and the same. This is why interpretation is essential to understanding what the Bible possibly says.
The Bible is a collection of ancient religious texts written thousands of years ago. The authors are dead, so we can’t quiz them about what they meant to say. All we can do is interpret their writings. We are blessed to have books, software, language tools, and commentaries to guide our understanding of the Bible. Thiessen uses these tools, so it is disingenuous for him to say he doesn’t interpret the Bible. All of us are influenced by the authors we read. None of us is a blank slate free from external influence. Every book we read, every video we watch, and every podcast we listen to influences our thinking and understanding. (Even if someone says he is following the direction of the Spirit, he is interpreting what he perceives to be the Spirit’s leadership.) All any of us can do is rationally and skeptically read and study the Bible, coming to reasoned, thoughtful conclusions about what the text says. Most important is humility. I may come to a conclusion about what a particular text says, but I am humble enough to know that I could be wrong.
“God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” thinking has called untold harm. The Bible can be a source of blessing, encouragement, and help, but far too often it is a tool of hurt and destruction.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Too many people are accepting and supporting the drag queen movement to the mainstream where it doe snot belong.
In fact, according to the Bible, drag queens do not belong anywhere in society and this behavior is very wrong. There are those Christians who dismiss the OT as if it does not exist. They only go by the NT which doe snot make as explicit comments as the OT does.
In Deut. 22:5 we have God command about this issue:
A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God. (NASB)
Their attitude is why we wrote the post The OT in the NT and click on those words to get to that article. We will challenge anyone to show in the NT where God changed his mind or what is an abomination to him.
We want them to properly exegete any passage they find that makes it okay to disobey this command in the OT.
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Men are to be men and women are to be women. That boundary is not to be crossed at any time. There are people out there who say women can wear men’s clothing but their reasoning is all wrong and they are ignoring God’s instructions.
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This topic may bring up the arguments of traditional clothing, i.e. kilts in Scotland.
All those situations do is tell everyone that somewhere in the deep history of a society, civilization, or nation, people began to ignore God and his feelings and dressed the way they wanted to. it just happens that those items of clothing made it to the 20th and 21st centuries.
Adding cultural practices to those changes in clothing styles does not make cross-dressing good or right. What is wrong in the beginning is also wrong centuries down the road. But that classification of wrong must go by God’s declaration, not someone’s personal preference.
This situation is not helped when famous fashion designers start to market women’s clothing to men. We are not going to be one of those people who say ‘what you do in your own home is up to you.’
If it violates God’s commands then it is wrong when done in public and wrong when you do it at home. But here is the clincher. Dressing in drag, male or female, is not the unpardonable sin. Drag queens can find forgiveness if they truly repent of ALL their sins and give up their desires to be drag queens.
They will need to let Jesus totally redeem them and make them new creatures. Repentance and redemption do not work if the sinner hangs onto their sins. This goes for homosexuals and transgenders as well as other members of the LGBTQ community.
You have to love Jesus more than your sins to receive repentance and redemption and all of this is done by the grace of God.If you want a new life, you have to totally get rid of the old (this does not mean getting a divorce or similar actions).
— Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God, The Rise of Drag Queens, March 21, 2023
Thiessen is a certified homophobe. He’s hardly unique, in this regard. Such people say they believe in salvation by grace, but when it comes to gay people, transgender people, drag queens, and the like, all of a sudden, salvation by grace is abandoned. Thiessen adds terms to the gospel, terms that are not found in the Bible. This reveals that what is really going on here is bigotry, not concern over the spiritual welfare of LGBTQ people and drag queens. Either Thiessen has latent homosexual desires he is rebelling against, or he finds LGBTQ people sickening and revolting. Unable to just let people live, he condemns them using a bigot turd covered in a golden patina of religious verbiage.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The truth is, you do not have to be a scientist to be qualified to speak on evolution. One reason is that evolution is not scientific. As we have stated in many of our articles exposing evolution as a false theory, there has not been one true scientific experiment that can be described as being evolutionary.
Every scientific experiment has been non-evolutionary. The second reason why non-scientists are qualified to speak about evolution is that it is false teaching. Every Christian who knows the truth can pick out the false elements of evolution and expose it for what it is. One does not need to be a scientist to do that.
They just need to know the truth and stick with that. The Bible has taught everyone about false teaching, false teachers, and false prophets, and how to spot them. There is no better teacher than Jesus or God.
— Dr. David Tee, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God, You Do Not Need to be a Scientist, March 22, 2023 (David Tee is not an actual Dr., but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. His real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen,)
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Who created evolution? [This has to be the dumbest question ever asked by a young earth creationist.] This is a fair question as many people ask, including children, ‘Who created God?’ When you type that question into a browser’s search box, you get a myriad of websites providing the right answer.
No one created God as he always existed. That may blow some people’s minds but that is how it is. It is hard to imagine since we are finite beings and trying to grasp the eternal is a bit out of our scope and ability.
However, you do not get the same results when you type in the words who created evolution. What you get is website after website either giving the scientific explanation of how science works or explanations of how evolution works.
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Yet, when you scour their works, not one person who promotes the evolutionary theory ever speaks about where evolution came from. They do not even bother to make it a separate entity and said that as soon as life began on this planet, evolution took over.
But where did evolution come from? Many unbelieving scientists want to put God in a test tube and study him but that is mere arrogance talking. No one talks about putting evolution in a test tube and studying it.
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They are content with studying the supposed results of this process. They have no desire to do to evolution what they have stated they want to do with God. They are content to believe in a non-existent theory and process whether they know where it came from or not.
It is no surprise that evolutionists do not know where the process came from or if it is a created process or not. They do not even know where life came from.
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Many people put their faith in science, yet, science is failing them as the members of that research field have no clue about the origin of life. They still do not know the original environment that supposedly spawned life.
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How can unbelieving scientists know the origin of evolution when they do not know anything about our beginnings? This is the difference between Christians and unbelievers. We do not need science to tell us our origins, we already know.
God has told us about it in the Bible. The reason the unbeliever doesn’t know is that they reject the truth of the Bible. We get answers and peace of mind, and the unbelievers get questions with no answers and a myriad of ‘mysteries’. They do not get peace of mind.
The evolutionist or evolution supporter may mock Christians and call them all sorts of names, etc., but all they are left with is a void that they struggle to fill with absurd theories they cannot come close to verifying.
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We Christians have a God that has spared us this trouble and effort. He has told us exactly what took place and how he did it so we do not have o waste any time or money seeking out the answer to our origins.
We can focus on our lives and go about God’s business knowing our heritage, and having no distractions because the mystery of our origins was solved a long time ago. Evolution has no creator because it has never existed, even in micro form.
It is better to know that we were wanted than to have to go through life thinking we are the spawn of something that does not care about us. God knows us as the Psalmist has said but evolution doesn’t even have a mind so it can never care or get to know us.
Why go with science when it can never produce an answer to the question who created evolution? Or why did it ‘evolve’ us?
— Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God, Who Created Evolution?, March 8, 2023
The Black Collar Crime series is in its seventh year, having published over 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 — less 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.
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[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.
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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.
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{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 was, 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 you and I will make your 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 and 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.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I haven’t mentioned Dr. David Tee (whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen) lately. He continues to write about me and steal my content, but I have chosen to ignore him. Thiessen is a defender of Christian rapists, child molesters, and clergy who misuse and abuse their positions of authority and power. I have yet to see him write a post like the ones I write for the Black Collar Crime Series. Instead, he has publicly attacked my work to publicize clergy sexual misconduct. He continues to defend men such as Bill Gothard, Ravi Zacharias, and Bill Cosby. According to Thiessen, all of these men are falsely accused; innocent of the accusations leveled against them. Thiessen, a Fundamentalist Christian, believes that any crime, no matter how vile, will be forgiven by God if the offender shoots up a 1 John 1:9 prayer to Heaven. And if God has forgiven them — how could Thiessen possibly know that he has done so? — so should everyone else.
Yesterday, Thiessen sent me a link to a news story about an elderly Florida man named Paul Zittel who had over 220,000 child porn images stored in his home. You can read the story here. Without providing any evidence for his claim, Thiessen said that Zittel’s crimes are an example of “atheist black collar crime.” There’s no mention in the news story that Zittel is an atheist. In fact, based on where Zittel lives and his age, it is actually more likely that he is a Christian. Of course, if I was covering this story, I would never say Zittel is an atheist or a Christian. I report facts, not opinions.
Thiessen’s email suggests that he thinks that anyone who is not a Christian is an atheist. This, of course, is absurd. Most people have some sort of religious belief. Atheists are a distinct minority in the world. Surely, Thiessen knows this, right?
Suppose Zittel really is an atheist, and while incarcerated he gets saved. According to Thiessen’s bankrupt theology, God has forgiven Zittel and so should everyone else, including his victims. Thiessen would expect and demand that the public and his victims move on. How dare they speak negatively about this new child of the living God. He’s a new creature in Christ, right?
Thiessen hates the Black Collar Crime Series. He has repeatedly impugned my motives for writing the series. He thinks that I shouldn’t write ANY of the Black Collar Crime posts. He prefers that the evil actions of preachers fade into the background noise of life. Nothing to see here, Thiessen says. Ain’t Hay-Zeus wonderful!
I have no intention of stopping my writing about clergy sexual misconduct. Evangelicalism is rife with scandal, every bit as bad, if not worse, than the sexual scandals that continue to plague the Roman Catholic Church. People deserve to know about these crimes and the great lengths churches go to cover them up.
I do appreciate Thiessen emailing me. He exposed his IP address when he did, and I blocked it. He will find new ways to read and steal my writing, but I don’t want to make it easy for him.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, took the Protestia site to task for their hateful, un-Christian behavior. Protestia, the one-time love child of disgraced Fundamentalist Baptist preacher J.D. Hall, is currently operated by David Morrill, Paul Brown, Brad Schoolfield, and Seth Dunn. Protestia is known for three things: their anti-abortion, forced birth views, their obsession with consenting LGBTQ people’s sex lives, and ferreting out perceived heresy within Evangelicalism and Christendom at large. In other words, Thiessen’s kind of “Christians.”
We have no problem with that, if they actually did do some honest refuting and challenging doctrinal errors. What our one line under our quote above was referring to was HOW they were going about this ministry. It had nothing to do with their ministry or purpose.
We think they misunderstood what we wrote and instead of asking for clarification, they go and jump to conclusions and make assumptions about what we said. Of course, right now it is very difficult to get a hold of us due to some unfortunate actions by certain people.
So here is the clarification. Our words were referring to the name calling, the insults, and other derogatory terms used by Protestia in their identification, challenges, and refuting of those people they have found to be false teachers.
We find their terminology and its use to be very unbiblical and unChristian. In the different ministries that Protestia participates in, they are not excluded from any biblical rules of conduct towards believers or unbelievers.
We will not bring anyone back to the church or to the faith by insulting them. On occasion, we have done the very same type of ministry throughout the years. Yet, we refer to people as Mr., Mrs., Miss, Dr., and so on except for those gender identity-confused people who are referred to by their birth pronouns.
We do not hurl names, insults, or even write them as that sets a bad example for our readers and disobeys the biblical instruction ‘ soft answer turneth away wrath’. We do not care how nasty those people we identify get as we are to return good for evil.
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There are a lot of false teachers running about saying things that are not biblical and just plain wrong. If you are going to challenge them, then challenge what they are saying instead of insulting them or ignoring what they have said because you have identified them as false teachers.
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Give credible and legitimate information not personal attacks or ad hoc statements that put a black mark against your claims of being Christian. Jesus may have insulted the Pharisees, etc., but that does not give us permission to ignore the rules of behavior Christ laid out for us.
None of us are on his level and we should be very careful not to copy him without fully understanding more of why he said what he said. We are not free to insult but we are free to identify and refute, as well as challenge those who pretend to be Christian, yet say and do unChristian things.
Thiessen lacks any sense of self-awareness. He seemingly has forgotten the countless articles he has written about me and Ben Berwick. He evidently has forgotten about his comments and emails too.
A year ago, Thiessen sent me the following mail:
Our assessment of BG. We are not going to post this publicly so do not worry about being humiliated or embarrassed.
We have analyzed BG’s behavior and words for some time now and we see a developing identity. He is a person who was a low-level obscure independent Baptist preacher who certainly gets jealous and envious of others.
His Christian work seems to have been motivated by these desires as he used his own will and not Jesus’ in his ministry as well as his being critical of those more successful, popular, and less obscure counterparts.
Instead of humbling himself and correctly following Jesus, he followed his character trait and quit. That is not a sign of a good servant of God. He likes to stand in judgment of others grading their level of spirituality with a subjective ruler judging that those observed were not practicing the faith properly.
What exact standard he used is not known, but it was his own making and not God’s. Then instead of being the example, he walks away and condemns every Christin and God for failing to meet his ideals.
Now he is just a narcissist who hopes he gains the fame and popularity that escaped him when he was a Christian. he wants to leave a negative legacy behind so that people will think he was a great preacher and now a great blogger.
In reality, he remains obscure, uninfluential, and wants to be the center of attention like he has found something new and wonderful for the world, when he is just another unbeliever in a line filled with billions of unbelievers saying the exact same thing as every other unbeliever has said or is saying.
He is a sad and pathetic figure who needs to broadcast his failure to follow Christ to the end of the world and instead of being great, he makes himself a laughingstock. Someone who could not cut it.
And yes we are still sad that you walked away from your faith.
DR. [capitalizing it doesn’t make it so] David Tee
Evidently, Thiessen’s “insults” are different from those uttered by the “fine” Christians at Protestia. Thiessen also states “that does not give us permission to ignore the rules of behavior Christ laid out for us.” I fell on the floor and laughed for twenty minutes after I read this line. Go to Theissen’s TheologyArcheology: A Site for the Glory of God blog and read the plethora of posts he has written about me. You will search in vain for any evidence of Thiessen following the commands of Christ or demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22,23). This so-called man of God shows no regard for the teachings of Christ on how you should treat your enemies:
Ye [Derrick Thiessen] have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.But I say unto you [Derrick Thiessen], Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)
The Message translation renders Matthew 5:48 this way: Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
Grow up, indeed.
Thiessen continues to refuse to mention me or Ben Berwick by our names. He also refuses to properly link to the content he uses from our sites. Thiessen lies about us and routinely distorts and misuses our words, so I find it unbelievable that he can say, with a straight face that he always treats people with respect. He doesn’t, and the readers of this blog know he doesn’t. But, what do we know, right? He and God, the royal “we,” know the truth.
For the record, Theissen has written at least twelve posts about me since December 31, 2022 — one post every two days.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Evangelicals believe that the Protestant Christian Bible is their God’s inspired, inerrant, and infallible words. “Inspired” is a faith claim for which there is no evidence. Either you believe the Bible is inspired by God or you don’t. “Inerrant” and “infallible” are claims, however, that can be investigated by Christians and non-Christians alike. Is the Bible actually without error? Is the Bible really infallible (incapable of error)?
As a student at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan in the 1970s, I was taught the transcription theory. Holy men of old, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote down, word for word in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, the words of God. Some professors believed that the inspired writers of the Bible fell into a trance as they put pen to paper, writing down the exact words of God. Other professors and chapel speakers were uncertain as to the actual transmission process. They just knew that the end product was the very words of God.
I was also taught at Midwestern that inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility applied to translations too. Well, actually one translation: the King James Version (either the 1611 edition or the 1769 revision). While there was some behind-the-scenes debate over whether the KJV was “inspired,” there was no debate over whether the KJV was inerrant and infallible.
Peruse the websites of churches pastored by Midwestern grads and you will typically find a sentence that says “_______ Baptist Church only uses the King James Version.” Some churches proudly advertise in their printed materials and on their signs their fealty to the KJV.
Some Midwestern pastors take a different approach. Take First Baptist Church in Milford, Ohio (pastored for many years by my best man, Bill Duttry). Their doctrinal statement states:
We believe in the authority of Scripture. We believe that the Bible is the plenarily and verbally inspired, inerrant, living Word of God. We believe that God has divinely and faithfully preserved His Word for all people today in the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek Textus Receptus. We use only the Authorized King James Bible for faith and practice in English.
According to this statement, what is inspired, inerrant, and infallible is the Masoretic text (Old Testament) and the Greek Textus Receptus (New Testament), not the King James Bible. Does that mean that First Baptist of Milford believes the KJV is errant and fallible? No. Note carefully the words “God has divinely and faithfully preserved his Word.” Many Evangelicals believe that God has somehow, some way, over the past 2,000 years preserved his Words in the thousands of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and subsequent translations. Not all translations, of course, just those that were translated from certain manuscripts. Typically, such churches and pastors accept translations based on what is called the Received Text — a family of Greek manuscripts that were used to translate the King James Bible. They reject the Alexandrian (Wescott and Hort) line of manuscripts, believing translations that were translated from these manuscripts are inferior or even Satanic.
We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as verbally inspired of God, inerrant in the original writing and of supreme and final authority in faith and life. II Timothy 3:16-17.
We accept only the King James version for public instruction in the church.
First Baptist has an article on its site written by Pastor Michael Bates titled Why Do We Use the KJV?
The English translation issue has caused no small stir among conservatives and evangelicals today. It is not our desire to be contentious about this issue, but we do desire to preach and teach with clarity.
It is our conviction that the whole translation debate hinges on three basic questions that must be answered in the following order:
1. Has God preserved His inspired Word? In fact, has He even promised to do so? If God has not promised to preserve His words—and all of them, then all discussions regarding which Hebrew & Aramaic or Greek Text is superior and which translation is best is all academic, at best.
To this question we answer in the strongest affirmative possible.
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2. If it is preserved, where is it preserved? Is it preserved in any specific Text or in all the texts or in only the so-called “oldest and best manuscripts?” One should expect to locate God’s words if they are preserved.
We believe that those texts often referred to as the Traditional Text, known more commonly as the Ben Chayyim Masoretic text of the Old Testament and the Textus Receptusof the New Testament, hold those preserved words.
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3. Do the Lord’s churches in the English-speaking world have a faithful, accurate translationof that preserved Word that they can call reliable?
The last English translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts listed above was done in the seventeenth century by the translators of what has come to be called the King James Version of the Bible (known also as the Authorized Version), first published in 1611. Most, if not all, of the modern versions have been translated out of a different Greek text in the New Testament called the Eclectic Text or the Critical Text. We reject these texts as only containing the Word of God. Furthermore, the Hebrew text underlying these modern versions is different from that used by the KJV.
Therefore, a local church must make a decision guided by the Scripture as to which translation is in fact God’s words in their language based upon its underlying text. We recognize that God did not breathe out English words, but the inspired words He did breathe out have been accurately and correctly translated into our language in the King James Version.
Once you move beyond King James-only churches, you find Evangelical congregations and pastors who believe certain English translations are faithful and reliable, not inerrant and infallible. These churches and pastors believe that it was the original manuscripts that were inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Of course, the glaring problem with this position is the fact that these manuscripts do not exist. All we have are copies of copies of copies, some of which dates centuries after their recorded events.
The New Testament that we read today in many different translations is not based on one single manuscript of the original Greek text. Why? There simply is no such thing as a complete text of the New Testament that we could date to the apostolic times, or even two or three centuries after the last of the apostles. Extant manuscripts containing the entire Christian Bible are the work of medieval monks. The modern scholarly editions of the original Greek text draw on readings from many different ancient manuscripts. As a result, the New Testament presented in any of our Bibles does not correspond to a single, authoritative ancient manuscript.
The oldest surviving examples of the New Testament come to us, instead, as fragments and scraps of papyrus excavated (mostly) in Egypt. How old are the oldest of these biblical fragments, and why does it matter whether they were written in the first or the fourth century?
At best, the extant manuscripts are errant, fallible approximations of the original manuscripts. If the manuscripts are errant and fallible, then the translations made from them are too.
Evangelicals preachers and professors who say the Bible is inerrant and infallible are either uneducated or deliberately misleading people. In my case, I was uneducated. I was thirty years old before I learned that the King James Bible was not inerrant. It would take many more years of study before I concluded that the Bible — both at the translation and manuscript level — contained errors, mistakes, and contradictions. While I still believed the Bible was the Word of God, I came to see and understand its human nature and fallibility.
Most educated Evangelical preachers know the Bible is not inerrant or infallible. Anyone who carefully studies the Bible, both in its original languages and in English — knows that there are textual problems that cannot be explained away. They also know that there are internal conflicts and contradictions that cannot be harmonized. Why, then, do Evangelical preachers not share these things with their flocks? Why do they hide the fallible human nature of the Bible?
Most Evangelical laypeople believe that the Bible they carry to church on Sundays and read during the week is without error. No one has ever told them the truth about the nature and history of the Biblical text. Evangelical preachers pride themselves on being truth-tellers. Why don’t they tell church members the truth about the Bible? One word: fear. They fear that if they did people would lose faith in God, the church, and the Bible. Imagine being called on to account for hiding the truth from their churches. People would leave, offerings would drop, and many preachers would end up looking for new employment. Not wanting turmoil and controversy, pastors, instead, try to maintain the status quo. This, of course, is getting harder to do thanks to the Internet. Evangelicals can easily find articles and books that challenge their beliefs about the Bible. Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books, in particular, have forced countless Evangelicals to rethink what they believe about the history and nature of the Bible. If you have not read any of Ehrman’s books, I encourage you to do so:
I am confident that if Evangelicals will openly and honestly read Ehrman’s books, they will be disabused of the notion that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Of course, there will always be Evangelicals who are so closed-minded that there is no hope of reaching them. Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, is a case in point. Thiessen recently wrote a blog post titled The Bible is Inerrant and Infallible:
If one wants to question the Bible, then they are questioning its author. There is no way to separate the two. Many unbelievers will say that science has disproven the Bible many times over. That has never been done.
What the people ignore or miss when making that statement is that there is no one or no thing in history that has appointed science to be an authority over the Bible and its content. Neither God nor Jesus has made that appointment or taught anywhere that the Bible is submissive to science, or any research field.
There are no other supernatural beings that can make that appointment either. Science is subject to the Bible and not its lord. No matter what scientific method you use, especially bible criticism, historical-critical thinking, and so on, these methods do not get to the truth nor are they superior to God and his word.
God does not make mistakes, he does not lie, he does not perform magic, he does not play games, and he does not mislead. What he has written in the Bible is without error and it is accurate and true.
In the book, Dr. Lindsell mentions that some of those who hold to the errancy and fallibility of the bible will also clarify their comments by adding that the Bible is inerrant and infallible when it comes to salvation but it is not when it comes to history and science.
But those people are trying to have their cake and eat it too. of course, they will say the parts about salvation are infallible, etc., because they want to go to heaven and not end up in hell. The Bible is either infallible and inerrant in all of its content or it is not.
There is no middle ground and all Christians have to make a choice here. That argument claiming only salvation is inerrant, etc., is like saying your wife is a little bit pregnant. Either she is or she isn’t. There is no middle ground.
You either believe God or you don’t.
Thiessen is a hardcore Fundamentalist — proudly so. He is certain that his beliefs are 100 percent right. His beliefs are every bit as inspired (by the Holy Spirit), inerrant, and infallible as the Bible itself. I have been reading Thiessen’s writing for several years now. I have yet to see him admit that he was wrong; that he made a mistake. Instead, he spends his time pointing out how wrong other people are — atheists and Christians alike.
There are lots of Thiessen-like preachers in the world; men who are either uneducated or who believe that it is more important to protect sectarian dogma than it is to tell people the truth. Thiessen began his post by mentioning Harold Lindsell’s 1976 book, The Battle for the Bible. Lindsell was an Evangelical author and scholar, one of the founders of Fuller Theological Seminary. Lindsell’s seminal book played an instrumental part in the battle for the soul of the Southern Baptist Convention. I read and re-read The Battle for the Bible several times in the late 1970s and 1980s, not because I doubted the Bible, but because I wanted to know how “liberals” viewed the Bible. At the time, I believed liberals were apostates or false Christians; tools of Satan who were destroying the faith of Evangelicals. I viewed these scholars as enemies of God. What I didn’t do is read their books. I had lots of books in my library that promoted and reinforced the Evangelical view on the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible. It would take decades of study — including reading the books of authors I had previously deemed false prophets — before I finally saw the light. The only way to reach Derrick Thiessen and countless other inerrantists is to get them to read books that challenge their sincerely held beliefs. I remember asking Thiessen if he had ever read any of Bart Ehrman’s books. Thiessen tried to intimate that he had “read” Ehrman, but when pressed on the issue, I found out he had read articles and blog posts about Ehrman’s books, not the actual books themselves. Thiessen is hardly alone in this matter. Evangelical preachers are notorious for their opposition to all sorts of things without ever actually doing their homework. They just regurgitate what one of their preacher friends or favorite authors have said in their books or on their blogs.
Nothing in this life is without error, and that includes the Bible. One can still believe in God and be a Christian without an inerrant Bible. Sixteen centuries of followers of Jesus didn’t have an inerrant, infallible Bible. Were they True Christians? Of course, they were. I double-dog dare you to argue that salvation requires the right beliefs about the Bible. Oh, please, make my day by claiming that someone can’t be born again unless they hold to a certain viewpoint about the Bible. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
