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Tag: Evangelical Apologetics

One Fundamentalist Preacher’s Hilarious Response to a Sarcastic Post on This Site

Bruce Gerencser 10 Comments
sarcasm
Cartoon by Hilary Price

Several days ago, I published a post titled How to be an Online Evangelical Christian Apologist by Tim Sledge. Here’s what Tim, a Southern-Baptist-preacher-turned-unbeliever, had to say about online Evangelical apologists:

  1. Above all else, remember this: You are right. They are wrong. You are coming from a superior position. You have God on your side. They don’t.
  2. Never, never think about the possibility that you might sound arrogant and condescending when you keep asserting that God has led you to the real truth.
  3. Accept uncritically and parrot the answers well-known Christian apologists give about challenges to belief. Never check these things out for yourself.
  4. Do not listen to ex-Christians when they tell you why they left and how life feels after leaving faith. Turn off all curiosity about an ex-believer’s life experiences. Listen only to what the Bible tells you about why people leave and how it feels to them when they leave. This enables you to know more about how their lives feel than they do.
  5. Always assume that individuals who never believed will be immediately convinced when you quote Bible verses as proof of your beliefs.
  6. Ignore the feedback of ex-believers when you are quoting Bible verses to convince them, and they tell you you’re quoting verses they memorized or quoted when they were believers.
  7. When someone surprises you by responding with a Bible passage that disagrees with your position, tell them they are not interpreting the passage correctly.
  8. If you find out that an ex-believer has studied the Bible more than you, confidently assert they were never a true believer and consequently all their study was in vain.
  9. If all your arguments fail, attack the character of the person who disagrees with you! Tell this individual that there’s no way his/her life can have meaning, and there’s no way s/he can live any kind of moral life. Top it off with the warning: “You’ll be sorry when you burn in hell!” And be sure to convey that you see that destiny as a just reward.
  10. Remember that you’re not just an apologist for Christianity, you’re also an apologist for your brand of Christianity. Confront Christians whose theology is different from yours with the same intensity that characterizes your confrontations with atheists.

Funny stuff; sarcastic; not meant to be taken literally; a tongue-in-cheek jab at online Evangelical apologists. One online apologist, Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Theissen, thought these ten points were spot on. Why, he said AMEN, Brother Sledge, all the way from a basement somewhere in the Philippines.

Here’s what Thiessen had to say:

Thiessen: There is nothing wrong with using the internet to further the kingdom of God but be careful as the rules of God still apply when you are a keyboard warrior In the following article, we are going to address 10 steps another believer has compiled to help other Christians be online warriors [that was not the unbelieving Sledge’s intention.].

Sledge: #1. Above all else, remember this: You are right. They are wrong. You are coming from a superior position. You have God on your side. They don’t.

Thiessen: This is true but with some caveats. You are right if you make sure you have the truth and do not assume you have it. Also, God is with us as long as you do not sin in your online work. Plus, Christians do not come from a superior position. We come from a humble one grateful that God has saved us and set us free from sin.

Sledge: #2. Never, never think about the possibility that you might sound arrogant and condescending when you keep asserting that God has led you to the real truth.

Thiessen: Sounding arrogant is not the same as being arrogant. What unbelievers do not understand is that once Christians have found the truth, they do not have to struggle or search for it. We have the truth and need to speak it in Biblical love. If it sounds arrogant or condescending to the unbeliever, that is because they come from a different viewpoint and they are deceived into thinking they are correct. [In other words, if I sound like a Christian asshole, that’s because unbelievers such as Bruce Gerencser are deceived.] However, some Christians are arrogant and condescending but that can be fixed with God’s help. This accusation is one where the unbeliever ignores the fact that they are arrogant and condescending when they trash the beliefs of Christians. It is a hypocritical complaint.

Sledge: #3. Accept uncritically and parrot the answers well-known Christian apologists give about challenges to belief. Never check these things out for yourself.

Thiessen: There is nothing wrong with this IF the well-known Christian apologist speaks the truth. We do not have to search for new information because the truth is the truth. You cannot expand on the truth. The only issue here is for those parroting Christians to make sure they have heard the truth. Just like the Bereans did in Acts. Once you confirm it as the truth, speak it all the time when it is appropriate to mention it. Just do not go into falsehood because the unbeliever will get upset. We are to speak the truth at all times.

Sledge: #4. Do not listen to ex-Christians when they tell you why they left and how life feels after leaving the faith. Turn off all curiosity about an ex-believer’s life experiences. Listen only to what the Bible tells you about why people leave and how it feels to them when they leave. This enables you to know more about how their lives feel than they do.

Thiessen: Ex-Christians have left the truth and are very vulnerable to the work of evil.  As we have found over the years, the ex-Christians blame everyone else for their decisions except those most responsible for it– themselves and evil. While a few of them may have legitimate concerns, most are not. We have visited and read ex-pastor and ex-Christian websites and have seen them blame God and everyone else for their departure. Most of the time, they are at fault and not the church or Christians. The latter are just excuses for their decisions and the real problem is that the ex-Christian just does not want to follow God’s rules anymore.

….

Sledge: #5.  Always assume that individuals who never believed will be immediately convinced when you quote Bible verses as proof of your beliefs.

Thiessen: This is the first legitimate complaint on this list. Many Christians do have this attitude. They forget that you have to plant, then water, and then finally harvest. Evangelism is a process and it starts with the Christian being a Christian to all people.

….

Sledge: #6. Ignore the feedback of ex-believers when you are quoting Bible verses to convince them, and they tell you you’re quoting verses they memorized or quoted when they were believers.

Thiessen: Nothing wrong with doing that. The verses are still true and it doesn’t matter if the ex-believer memorized them before they left the faith or not. What is important is that the ex-believer did not listen to those verses or implemented them in their lives. Their feedback only tells you this and their feedback should be ignored. They do not have the truth of those scriptures anymore and they are using this knowledge as a defense against the truth. In reality, they are ignoring what you are saying by using this defensive tactic. But we need to be careful of quoting scripture to ex-believers as they will trod the truth and pearls under their feet. [And they will also scoop up our bullshit and feed it back to us, one spoon at a time.[

Sledge: #7. When someone surprises you by responding with a Bible passage that disagrees with your position, tell them they are not interpreting the passage correctly.

Thiessen: Many Christians are surprised but generally, the ex-believer or unbeliever does not understand the passage correctly. The Bible does not contradict itself and every verse works together. When the unbeliever or ex-believer makes these quotes, they do not understand the Bible or how it is applied. Usually, they are interpreting the bible according to their sinful and subjective viewpoint and not using God’s objective view to get the right message. The Spirit of Truth is not with those who do not believe even if they were once believers. They do not know the truth. You can by following the Spirit of Truth to the truth. Then do not depart from the truth because someone uses the Bible against you and your knowledge.

Sledge: #8. If you find out that an ex-believer has studied the Bible more than you, confidently assert they were never a true believer and consequently, all their study was in vain

Thiessen: Yes, if they are an ex-believer, all of their biblical studies were in vain. The reason for saying that is that with all the knowledge and experience with Jesus they had, they still quit on Jesus. There is no other way to put it. They will not get to heaven just because they studied and memorized the bible. They gave up their salvation when they left the faith and that action makes all their previous work in vain. Whether they were a true believer or not should be left up to God to decide. We have to deal with the issues that confront us and not make judgments on their spiritual lives prior to their leaving the faith. Also, just because they studied the Bible more than you did does not mean they know or understand the Bible better than you. They no longer have the truth even if they are quoting scriptures. They threw everything away when they left the faith. No unbeliever or ex-believer can tell you the truth of what God’s word says. Even if they have a doctorate in biblical studies. [He’s talking about Dr. Bart Ehrman. Thiessen thinks he knows more about the Bible than all the unsaved scholars in the world — past and present.]

Sledge: #9. If all your arguments fail, attack the character of the person who disagrees with you! Tell this individual that there’s no way his/her life can have meaning, and there’s no way s/he can live any kind of moral life. Top it off with the warning: “You’ll be sorry when you burn in hell!” And be sure to convey that you see that destiny as a just reward.

Thiessen: Never attack the other person. Address their arguments and show them the error in their thinking. BUT NEVER attack the other person. You will notice that the only people Jesus insulted or attacked were the religious leaders of his time. But those attacks were also meant to be a lesson and an example to us as to how NOT to be. It was never permission to attack anyone who disagrees with us. believe it or not, most unbelievers already know they are going to hell, you do not need to remind them of that fact. As for ‘meaning and morality’, the unbeliever thinks they can be moral or have meaning as their definition of those aspects of life is different from the Christian. Many unbelievers who became Christians have stated that they did not have meaning in their lives before becoming Christians. [You might want to practice what you preach, Derrick. Dare I republish the nasty, hateful emails you sent me?]

….

Sledge: #10 Remember that you’re not just an apologist for Christianity, you’re also an apologist for your brand of Christianity. Confront Christians whose theology is different from yours with the same intensity that characterizes your confrontations with atheists.

Thiessen: Always speak the truth. When you speak the truth it doesn’t matter if they are claiming ot be a Christian or an unbeliever, they cannot do anything against it. There is only one truth and only one true Christian faith [mine]. When you work for Christ on the internet or anywhere else, you are to bring the true Christian faith and the only truth. It does not matter if other denominations disagree with you, the truth [as interpreted by me] is the truth no matter what.

….

Thiessen: In conclusion, when you do your online Christian work, make sure to do it in a manner that is glorifying to God. Not just that you think it is glorifying to God but that it actually is accomplishing that objective.

Thiessen: All points quoted above came from the article How to be an Online Evangelical Christian Apologist by Tim Sledge on the website we no longer link to. [In other words, I steal content from Bruce Gerencser’s website without providing proper attribution.]

Thiessen: We saw that there was a response to our article yesterday and as usual our English nemesis fille dit with distortions, etc. it is not worth responding to as it seeks to deflect the truth.

I wonder who Thiessen was talking about in his post? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. If he is not talking about the Evangelical-preacher-turned- atheist Bruce Gerencser, he is talking about his other nemesis, Ben Berwick, AKA the English Meerkat. 🙂

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

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Just Remember, Evangelicals Have Answers for Every Objection to Their Beliefs

Bruce Gerencser 4 Comments
the bible rock of gibraltar

I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I believed that the Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God — no mistakes, no errors, no contradictions, every word, straight from the mouth of God. Whenever I encountered a contradiction in my studies, I would pray and ask God to show me the truth. Often, I would turn to Evangelical books that listed alleged contradictions and refuted them. Their explanations almost always quelled my doubts. When these books didn’t, I retreated to the house of faith, believing that my understanding and interpretation was wrong; that God would one day make things clear to me; and if he didn’t, I would still love, obey, and trust him. The Bible says, “God is not the author of confusion,” so I believed that my intellectual confusion was either a ploy of Satan or my lack of understanding. God/Bible was always right. How could a perfect God write an imperfect Bible? I thought at the time.

Most Evangelicals are presuppositionalists — even if they don’t know what it means. They “presuppose” that their peculiar version of God is the one, true God; that the Bible is without error; that morality comes from their God through supernatural revelation (conscience, creation, Scripture).

Most Evangelicals have been taught various ways to overcome objections and challenges to their beliefs. Often, Evangelicals will ignore these challenges, move the proverbial goalposts, and attack those who object to their theological claims. This approach was fully displayed in my recent discussion with a Fundamentalist preacher’s kid (PK). My questions repeatedly went unanswered. Instead, she went into preaching mode, challenging the basis of my morality and understanding of facts. It was evident, at least to me, that was just repeating what she had heard from the pulpit; shallow, ineffective, contradictory apologetical arguments. Rarely are Evangelical congregants taught to “give an answer to the hope that lies within them.” Instead, they use worthless apologetics techniques such as Pascal’s Wager. Has anyone ever changed their mind after being presented with Pascal’s Wager?

Over the years, I have interacted with countless Evangelicals who think they are the ones who will win me to Jesus; that their arguments will overcome my unbelief and lead to my repenting and putting my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Most of them quickly learn that I am not your average God-hating heathen. I am well-schooled in what the Bible says — especially from an Evangelical or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) viewpoint. Of course, just because I know more than most Evangelicals do about the Bible doesn’t mean my arguments make any headway with them. I often find that Evangelicals have answers for every objection I raise. Not good answers, but answers nonetheless; answers they have been taught by their pastors, Sunday school teachers, or read in popular Evangelical apologetics books written by men such as Josh McDowell, Norm Geisler, Frank Turek, Sean McDowell, Gary Habermas, and Lee Strobel, to name a few. Search the Internet for “answers to mistakes, errors, and contradictions in the Protestant Christian Bible,” and you will find a plethora of sites offering up answers to any question unbelievers might ask. Not good answers, or rational, honest answers, but answers nonetheless. When forced to choose between my objections and the “answers” they learned from preachers, teachers, books, videos, and podcasts, Evangelicals almost always choose the latter. To do otherwise would mean admitting that the Bible is not without error — a fatal sin in Evangelical circles.

There have been a handful of times when Evangelicals who wanted to challenge my beliefs got far more from me than they expected; so much so that they had a crisis of faith. Several of them later deconverted, embracing atheism or agnosticism. I have found that Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books can be deadly to the faith of those who believe the Bible is without error. It is impossible to honestly and openly read Ehrman’s books and conclude that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. One might still hold on to his or her faith, but he or she cannot continue to believe that the Bible is without error. Such a belief, when confronted by the overwhelming evidence against it, cannot be rationally sustained.

That said, no amount of evidence can overcome faith. I have interacted with numerous Evangelicals who admitted that they couldn’t answer my objections to their claims. Yet, they still refused to change their minds. Instead, they ran to safety — the house of faith. In faith, Evangelicals find comfort and security. No argument can overcome faith and personal experience. When Evangelicals invoke “faith” or appeal to their testimonies, I know our discussions are over. When I throw in the towel, Evangelicals often think they won. No, they didn’t win. I have learned that no amount of evidence can overcome personal feelings and experiences. My white flag is just me saying, “I give up. You are impervious to facts. There’s no thoughtful discussion to be had as long as you appeal to your feelings.”

I have found that my most fruitful discussions have been when questioning their beliefs about the nature and history of the Bible. Inspiration is a faith claim, but asserting that the Bible is inerrant and infallible is a claim that can be rationally investigated. If Evangelicals are willing to follow the path wherever it leads, it’s impossible to maintain that the Bible is without error. The evidence against such claims is overwhelming. That said, on more than a few occasions, I have had Evangelicals come right to the point of admitting that the Bible is not inerrant and infallible, only to have them withdraw into faith. One former pastor friend of mine, upon me showing him that the King James Bible had errors in it, said to me, “I don’t care how many errors you show me, by faith I’m still going to believe the KJV is inerrant. Fast forward thirty years and this IFB pastor still believes the KJV is without error. He recently preached a series of messages that were meant to prove that the KJV — an English translation of Hebrew and Greek texts — is not only inspired, it is also inerrant and infallible. I have no doubt he will go to the grave believing the KJV is a supernatural text without one error, mistake, or contradiction. He cannot or will not entertain the idea that he could be wrong. To do so would show that he is lacking faith. And if he admits he lacks faith, his whole world would come tumbling down.

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

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: The Problem With Evangelical Apologetics

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments

As a field, apologetics bears quite a few problems. It’s actually not easy to say exactly which might be its worst. But I see this one as a big problem: apologists’ processes never actually land where apologists insist they do. Almost every apologetics argument can be negated right out of the gate through the identification of its logical fallacies, manipulation attempts, or basic cognitive biases. Of the few remaining, they don’t whisk us away to the Happy Realm of Jesus-is-Real. Instead, apologists land themselves in the Iffy Realm of SOMEONE-Might-Be-Real and then simply declare they’ve reached their destination.

In the past, I’ve called this the Unicorn Test: any given apologetics argument not knocked out of the running through illogical reasoning accidentally demonstrates the validity of not just Jesus, but also of Santa Claus, Zeus, Space Princess Cassidy, Thor, Wonder Woman, leprechauns, Harry Potter, the state of Wyoming, and Russell’s Teapot. Substituting other names for “Jesus” in their arguments reveals the truth.

Christians have a really tough time moving from the claim that gods are not, in the main, logically ridiculous to demonstrating that their particular god simply must exist–while simultaneously demonstrating that these thousands of other deities absolutely do not. Apologists take as a given that once they demonstrate that gods in general might exist, they’ve already conclusively demonstrated those other points–and thus clinched their sale.

— Captain Cassidy, Roll to Disbelieve, Christian Evangelists Keep Asking the Wrong Question, October 10, 2019