Gauthier didn’t read my About page, nor did he read any of my autobiographical writing. Yet, Gauthier, who doesn’t personally know me and didn’t make any attempt to educate himself about the Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser, thought it important to email me and opine on my character. Perhaps Proverbs 18:13 is applicable here: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
Here’s what he had to say (all spelling and grammar in the original):
Interesting you don’t want to be contacted especially by Christians but leave a trail of breadcrumbs lol An apparent case of misery loves company. Don’t you think I’d be better to just die in pain silently without trying to take others down with you? I’ve never come across a bigger idiot looking for negative attention. Too bad you can’t give whatever support back to others that may have sacrificed to feed and support your last act as a “evangelical” That would be a life worth reading about!
If you would like to contact Bruce Gerencser, please use the following form. If your email warrants a response, someone will respond to you as soon as possible.
Due to persistent health problems, I cannot guarantee a timely response. Sometimes, I am a month or more behind on responding to emails. This delay doesn’t mean I don’t care. It does mean, however, that I can only do what I can do. I hope you understand.
To help remedy this delay in response, my editor, Carolyn, may respond to your email. Carolyn has been my editor for six years. She knows my writing inside and out, so you can rest assured that if your question concerns something I have written, Carolyn’s response will reflect my beliefs and opinions — albeit with fewer swear words.
I do not, under any circumstances, accept unsolicited guest posts. Think that I’m interested in letting you write a post with a link back to your site? I’m not.
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I am not interested in buying social media likes, speeding up my website, signing up for your Ad service, improving my SEO, or having you design a new blog theme for this site.
I will not send you money for your ministry, church, or orphanage. In fact, just don’t ask for money, period.
I know you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, but you are not a medical professional, so please do not send me unsolicited medical or psychological advice. I am not interested — ever.
If you are an Evangelical Christian, please read Dear Evangelical before sending me an email. If you have a pathological need to evangelize, spread the love of Jesus, or put a good word in for the man, the myth, the legend named Jesus, please don’t. The same goes for telling me your church/pastor/Jesus is awesome. I am also not interested in reading sermonettes, testimonials, Bible verses, or your deconstruction/psychological evaluation of my life. By all means, if you feel the need to set me straight, start your own blog.
If you email me anyway — and I know you will, since scores of Evangelicals have done just that, showing me no regard or respect — I reserve the right to make your message and name public. This blog is read by thousands of people every day, so keep that in mind when you email me whatever it is you think “God/Jesus/Holy Spirit” has laid upon your heart. Do you really want your ignorance put on display for thousands of people to see? Pause before hitting send. Ask yourself, “how will my email reflect on Jesus, Christianity, and my church?”
Outside of the exceptions mentioned above, I promise to treat all correspondence with you as confidential. I have spent the last fourteen years corresponding with people who have been psychologically harmed by Evangelical Christianity. I am more than happy to come alongside you and provide what help I can. I am not, however, a licensed counselor. I am just one man with fifty years of experience as a Christian and twenty-five years of experience as an Evangelical pastor. I am more than happy to lend you what help and support I can.
Thank you for taking the time to contact me.
Gauthier wrongly states that I don’t want emails from Christians. I receive emails from all kinds of Christians, including Evangelicals like Gauthier who email me regardless of whether I want to hear from them. Gauthier made no attempt to evangelize me or respond to a particular post. Instead, he did what countless Evangelicals before him have done; he attacked my character.
Is this what Jesus would have done? Of course not. Jesus had a lot to say about how his followers should treat their enemies; how they should behave. Evidently, these verses aren’t in Gauthier’s Bible. Either that, or he doesn’t give a shit about what God says about his behavior. Safe in front of his computer screen, Gauthier can say whatever he wants to say. And he can, but he might want to consider how his words harm the cause of Christ; how his words are yet another reminder that many Evangelical Christians are assholes. So much for the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Is it any wonder Evangelicalism is the most hated sect in America?
Gauthier also wrongly thinks that my goal is to take other Evangelicals down with me. That has never been my goal. I am just one man with a story to tell. Evangelicals are known for telling their stories. Shouldn’t a former Evangelical preacher do the same? Isn’t the world a better place when everyone has the freedom to share their experiences? Yet, Gauthier wants me to shut up and go away. That’s not going to happen.
I write, people read. Readers can love or hate my writing, and they do. That thousands of people love and appreciate my writing is not my fault. Gauthier might want to consider why my writing appeals to so many people. Just this past week, I received two emails from women trying to break free from the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Why did these women feel comfortable writing to me? I suspect one of the reasons is that story rings true to them; that they see me as someone who understands where they are coming from.
Regular readers of this blog have heard me say countless times: the focus of this blog is to help people who have questions or doubts about Christianity or who have recently left Christianity. I have no interest in evangelizing for atheism.
According to Gauthier, I am an idiot looking for attention; that I and the readers of this blog love “misery.” What is this misery, exactly, that we love? Freedom? Love? Kindness? Compassion? Intellectual integrity? Oh, such misery. 🙂
Gauthier wants me to die in pain silently — I wonder if he knows how much pain I am actually in? — and stop telling my story. Well, that ain’t going to happen. I don’t know how much longer I will be able to write. Somedays, I wonder if I can type another post. The very act of typing is painful. But, I continue plodding away (and taking extra narcotics). Why? I will let my counselor answer this question: “Bruce, your writing matters.” I am humbled when people say this to me. Five decades in Evangelicalism did a number on my self-worth. Spend enough time being told you are worthless without Jesus, and that anything of value you do is because of him, and you will lose all sense of self. It has taken years of therapy to regain a healthy sense of self. There was a time when the Brian Gauthiers of the world would cut me to the quick. Today? I feel sorry for them.
I am sixty-six years old. I can say that I have never, not one time, sought out a stranger and sent them an email detailing what I think of them. I don’t understand this kind of behavior. Why all the viciousness and nastiness? Gauthier could have chosen a different path. He could have asked questions. He could have challenged my writing. He could have tried to get to know me better. Instead, he spent less than ten minutes on this site and then sent me the aforementioned email. I will leave it to him to square his behavior with his professed Christian beliefs. There seems to be a gross disconnect between the two.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
Several years ago, a grammar and spelling-challenged Evangelical man calling himself Doug Rowland sent me the following email:
I don’t know you neither have I heard of you . I just stumbled on this web-site . I know and you know that I know you are doing this for attention . You probley can’t preach very well and had no choice but to find something else to do . God is real and you know that there are no such thing as atheist and you are no acception .
Ah yes, a drive-by judgment of me as a person, my past, and why I continue to operate this blog. As an atheist, I have never, ever left such a comment on a Christian site. I consider such behavior childish, shallow, inconsiderate, rude, boorish, and quite humorous — as if by writing this email Rowland thought it would change me in any way. Not going to happen. If God can’t change me, the Doug Rowlands of the world have no chance. I am, and will remain until death, an atheist. Siccing God/Jesus/Holy Ghost/Local Evangelical preacher on me doesn’t work. I am a reprobate, one who has gone too far to turn back now. Of course, Rowland only read a couple of posts, so he likely doesn’t know these things. If he had done his homework, he might have decided not to send me this email. Or, perhaps, sending the email is all about him; a form of Evangelical masturbation; a feel-good exercise — I sure told THAT atheist! Regardless of Rowland’s motives, let me take a few moments to dissect his email.
I don’t know you neither have I heard of you.
You don’t know me and neither have you heard of me, yet your email suggests familiarity about what kind of man I am or was back in my preaching days. Do you make a habit of picking up strangers and having sex with them? Because, that’s what you are doing here. You made no effort to understand my story, choosing instead to read a few posts and then render what I am sure you think is God-inspired judgment.
For the record, I am actually quite well-known in some Evangelical circles. It’s uncommon for men with fifty years in the Christian church, including twenty-five years pastoring Evangelical churches, to walk away from everything and deconvert. It happens, but not very often. I suspect that the rarity of my deconversion is why so many Evangelicals are so hostile and caustic towards me. Unable to understand my story or fit it in their theological system, these servants of Jesus, instead, choose to attack my person, my character and, at times, my wife, children, and grandchildren. Every time this happens, I am reminded of how glad I am to be free from religious bondage.
I just stumbled on this web-site [sic].
Oh my God, I caused someone to stumble. Turn the light on, Doug, turn the light on!
I know and you know that I know you are doing this for attention.
Ah yes, another Evangelical mind reader who thinks he knows my “real” motivations for blogging; that the only reason I write is so people will pay attention to me. As with all writers, I do want my writing to be widely read, and I am grateful for the thousands of people who take the time to read what I have to say. In many ways, this blog is my church. The good news is that I can sit in my underwear, sip wine, and listen to Theory of a Deadman while I “preach” my sermons. Beats having to get all dressed up on Sunday and deliver a sermon that most hearers will ignore or forget by nightfall.
So, Doug is right. I write for attention, as all writers do. Who doesn’t want more readers, right? And preachers are no different. Who doesn’t want more congregants? Better to preach to a full house than an empty one.
I suspect Doug’s real motivation here is to impugn my character; to show that I am some sort of attention whore, or that I have no greater meaning or purpose other than whipping my penis out for all to see. I have long since stopped trying to convince people such as Doug otherwise. Believe what you will. How ’bout them Cowboys . . .
This blog, above all else, is one man telling his story. That’s how I started over ten years ago, and telling my story is still a prominent feature of this site today. Over the years, I have branched out a bit: Black Collar Crime Series, Sacrilegious Humor, Songs of Sacrilege, to name a few, but my desire remains the same: that through the telling of my story and critique of Evangelical Christianity, I help those who have doubts about Christianity or who have already left the Christian faith. My target audience has never been Christian zealots, people who are thoroughly committed to their beliefs. That’s why I don’t argue with or debate committed Evangelicals. They are free to read, comment, and move on. (Please see Comment Policy.)
You probley [sic] can’t preach very well and had no choice but to find something else to do.
Ah yes, the “real” reason I am no longer a pastor is that I couldn’t preach very well. Actually, according to people who heard me preach countless sermons, I was a very good public speaker. I worked hard on crafting my sermons, often spending days studying and writing them. I had a lot of failures as a pastor, but my preaching wasn’t one of them. I was passionate and thoughtful, especially as I got older. My goal was to get people to hear what I have to say and then act on it.
I was a full-time pastor, but I also worked outside of the church. All of the churches I pastored, save one, were comprised of middle-to-lower-income to poor people. The most I ever made in one year pastoring a church was $26,000. I pastored one church in southeast Ohio for eleven years. The most money I ever made in a year at that church was $12,000. I definitely was not in the ministry for the money. To help make ends meet, I worked outside of the church: managed restaurants, worked as a grant writer and building code inspector, sold insurance, pumped gas, worked as an auto mechanic, delivered newspapers, and worked as a stripper. 🙂
Of course, I never got to have an opportunity to see how much money I could make after I left the ministry. By then, I had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, and I have spent the last two and a half decades dealing with a plethora of health problems — which started, by the way, while I was still in the ministry, just in case an Evangelical reader is inclined to suggest that my debility is either God punishing me or trying to get my attention. (I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in 1997, eight years before I left the ministry.)
God is real and you know that there are [sic] no such thing as atheist and you are no acception [sic].
Doug believes there’s no such thing as an atheist; that deep down in their heart of hearts atheists KNOW there is a God; and not just any God, but the Evangelical God of the Protestant Christian Bible. When Christians take this tack with me, I often ask them to consider how they might feel if I belittled and denied their faith in Jesus. “Oh you are not a Christian. You know that there is no such thing as a Christian. You know in your heart of hearts that Allah is the one true God, and that all other Gods save him are false.” I suspect doing this would cause offense and anger, and rightly so.
When people tell me that they are Christian, I accept their statement at face value. In my world, it is good manners and respectful to accept people as they are; including how they self-identify. I just wish Christian zealots would grant atheists the same respect. When I say I believe, based on my studies and the extant evidence at hand, that there are no gods, there’s no reason whatsoever to not accept what I say at face value. It’s fine if you disagree with me or think I am headed for Hell. I have similar opinions about your beliefs. Getting along with each other requires we, at the very least, accept and understand the differences we have with others. This doesn’t mean we refrain from battling one another in the public square, but it does mean we allow each other to define our beliefs and label ourselves accordingly. Had Doug bothered to read more of my writing, he might have discovered that not only am I an atheist, I am also an agnostic, a humanist, and a democratic socialist. Unfortunately, many Evangelicals are lazy readers, choosing to render judgment after reading a few posts. Once they find out that I am an ex-preacher or an atheist, in their minds, that’s all they need to know. Judge Judy is ready to rule.
Doug, if you happen to stumble upon this post, I hope you will have learned a thing or two about the infamous ex-preacher-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser. If you still have your head stuck in the sand, I encourage you to read the ABOUT and WHY pages. These two pages will go a long way in curing your ignorance. Above all, I hope you will accept me as a fellow human being; godless to the core, but human nonetheless. I know your beliefs and worldview preclude you from believing atheists are real, but rest assured we are. Our numbers grow daily, and we are no longer willing to let Evangelicals define for us who and what we are. I hope, in the future, you will make an honest effort to understand people such as myself. In doing so, you might find we have a few things in common.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
Today, I received the following email from an Evangelical man named Alex. My response is indented and italicized and indented. All spelling and grammar in the original.
I’ve read a lot of your site over many months, it is certainly an interesting read, though to a Christian, very sad to hear.
As is my custom, I checked the server logs to see how many times Alex visited this site and what he read. According to the logs, Alex, who hails from England, visited the Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser fifty-three times. Not bad, considering the fact that most Evangelicals who leave preachy comments or send me preachy emails read one or two posts before sharing with me what the Lord laid upon their non-existent hearts.
I have written almost 5,000 posts since December 2014. I highly doubt that Alex has read “a lot” of my writing. Some, a handful, yes, but “a lot,” no. I do appreciate that Alex read what he did. I’ll give him a gold star for that. However, as readers shall see below, Alex “read” but he didn’t comprehend or understand. Despite investing time in reading my writing, he learned little to nothing about me; what I believe; how best to interact with me. Instead, Alex did what Evangelicals do: attack my person by calling me names, attacking my motives, and threatening me with Hell.
It reminds me greatly of Judas, who walked so closely with the Lord yet wanted out and you know the rest. Yet when he got what he thought he wanted, freedom! and a bit of money, He found that actually none of that mattered really. He gave up heaven for what? nothing.
Alex sees me as a Judas-like betrayer of Jesus. Ouch, right? Alex says Judas betrayed Jesus because he wanted freedom and money. In the end, Judas found out that these things didn’t matter. He gave up eternal life in Heaven, for what? Nothing.
First, Judas was preordained to betray Jesus. The Bible calls him the “son of perdition.” Judas had no say in the matter. Jesus was a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. God’s plan to redeem humanity was concocted in the mind of God before Judas, Adam, and Eve were created. I am somewhat surprised that Alex doesn’t know these things, especially since, based on a Google Search, he is a preacher.
Second, we really don’t know anything about Judas. All we have are stories written by unknown authors 30-90 years after they allegedly occurred. Remember, we have no writings from Judas, no evidence that he even existed. All we have are the words of men who, let’s face it, needed a scapegoat for what happened to Jesus. Thus, Judas has become a villain in the minds of twenty centuries of Christians; right up there with the man, the myth, the legend: Satan, aka the Devil, aka Lucifer, aka Beelzebub, aka Slewfoot. It is in this vein of thinking that Alex sees the Evangelical-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser.
Did I betray Jesus for freedom and money? Alex thinks so. Is it a betrayal to walk away from Christianity? Is it a betrayal when one realizes that Jesus is not who he claimed to be? Is it a betrayal to realize that the central claims of Christianity are untrue? Is it a betrayal to file for divorce from an abusive spouse? I think not. I devoted my life to following and serving Jesus. Yet, when I needed him the most; when I needed him to quell my doubts, questions, and fears, Jesus was AWOL, saying not a word to me. And so I started taking a close look at our marriage, finding out that I was married to deceiver, liar, and myth. If anybody is a “Judas” in this story, it’s Jesus.
Alex suggests that I left Christianity because I wanted freedom and money. On the former, he is right. I wanted the freedom to live my life as I pleased. I wanted the freedom to enjoy life to its fullest, free from the constraints of Evangelical rules, regulations, and standards. Of course, Alex will say, SEE! SEE! Bruce wanted to live a licentious life, so he divorced Jesus and ran headlong into the loving arms of hedonism. Of course, that’s not what happened. I have the freedom to do what I want, but, as a humanist, my life is governed by humanist ideals. I have moral and ethical values that matter to me. In fact, I am a far better Christian than many Evangelicals I know. Sure, I love to say fuck, enjoy good whiskey, watch R-rated movies on HBO, and have experienced making love in other than the missionary position for the purpose of procreation, but based on my good works, I am a pretty good Christian atheist. 🙂 All praise be to Loki!
On the latter — money — Alex is right too. We make more money today than we ever did in the ministry. However, contrary to what another Evangelical zealot recently told me on Facebook, we are not affluent. In fact, we are in the bottom quartile in income, especially when our exorbitant medical costs are taken to account. We don’t live in poverty, nor are we poor. However, if Polly lost her job or the U.S. government stopped paying social security recipients, we would be bankrupt in a month or two.
What is great about our post-Jesus financial position is this: we are free to spend our money any way we want. We no longer have to pay the Evangelical God taxes: tithes and offerings. We no longer have to cough up money every time our pastor — that was me — cooked up a fundraising scheme. We no longer have to “think of the missionaries” or support parachurch ministries. We are free to be as selfish or gracious as we want to be. We no longer feel “conviction” over spending money on ourselves. We now can enjoy a nice meal and a night out on the town without worrying about WWJD.
Alex seems to think that Christian bondage is a selling point. It’s not. I heard the call of secularism: “You are free, cheezy bread. You are free! Go! Go!” 🙂 Why in would I ever want to return to the bondage of Egypt? I have found the Promised Land, and I have no intention of returning to the intellectual equivalent of eating three meals a day of garlic and leeks.
Video Link And you, having walked so closely for so many years almost with the end in sight decide to betray the Lord.
Alex doesn’t seem to value intellectual integrity. People believe what they believe because they can’t do otherwise. Surely Alex knows that I left Christianity for intellectual reasons. I am an honest man. When I concluded in 2008 that the Bible was not inerrant or infallible; that the central claims of Christianity could not be rationally sustained, what did Alex want me to do? Fake it, until I make it? Faith it? What kind of person does Alex think I am? I am a man of principle and conviction. All Alex needs to do is provide sufficient evidence for the existence of the Evangelical God and the supernatural claims Christians make for Jesus and the Bible, and I will believe. Better yet, skip the evidence. All Jesus has to do is heal me, and I will believe. He allegedly healed people 2,000 years ago. Surely he can do it today! Is he not the same YESTERDAY, TODAY, and FOREVER? Think of how many people could be won to Jesus if God miraculously healed me and gloriously saved me? Yet, scores of Evangelicals have prayed for me, without success. Either God isn’t hearing their prayers, I’m more powerful than God, or he doesn’t exist. My money is on the latter.
I don’t know how many people put their faith in Jesus due to your preaching over many years, but it must be over 100 souls! Wow! Bruce, how many Christains could ever say that? Very few indeed! Imagine the blessings to be given to you in heaven ! yet you seem to want to throw it all away! I cant understand what for?
In one church alone, six hundred people made public professions of faith. Throw in a few hundred more over the course of twenty-five years in the ministry, and almost one thousand sinners have been saved through my preaching. Not bad, right? According to Alex, God would give me blessings (rewards) in Heaven after death if I would only come back to Jesus. I am throwing all these rewards away, and for what? In Alex’s Bible-sotted mind: nothing.
What, exactly, are the rewards I will receive? A new BMW? A yacht? A hundred-foot-long closet of color-matched clothing, complete with color-matched socks and shoes? No, according to the Bible, I will be rewarded with crowns. Woo Hoo, right? I guess I will be able to show off my crowns to all the Alexes in Heaven; those who didn’t win as many souls as I did? Nope. The Bible says that believers will cast their crowns at the feet of Jesus, giving him all the praise and glory for their good works. Jesus is like the boss at work who does none of the work but takes credit for yours.
You say when I die, thats it, the end. Yet how to you KNOW that? What are you basing this assumption on?
How do I know that when I die that will be the end of life for me? No Heaven, no Hell, no afterlife; just eternal darkness and nothingness. My view is not an assumption, it’s a fact. All the extant evidence available to me says that once people die, they stay dead. Five miles from my home lie my mother and grandmother in Fountain Grove Cemetery. Six miles to the south in the Sherwood Cemetery lie my dad’s parents, several aunts and uncles, and a cousin. These graves are an ever-present reminder to me that when people die, they stay dead.
If Alex has empirical evidence for his claim that there is life after death, he should provide it immediately. However, he has no such evidence. All he has are verses in an ancient religious text, faith, and feelings. That’s it. Does Alex expect me to believe in the existence of life after death, all because the Bible says so, or that he “feels” eternal life is a thing? Sorry, but that’s not how I roll. Want to convince me that Heaven, Hell, and the afterlife exist? All you have to do is provide me with sufficient empirical evidence that your claims are true.
You talk on and on about what you dont believe in, yet very little about what you now actually DO believe in.
Evidently, Alex hasn’t read any of the posts where I talk about my current beliefs; about my commitment to democratic socialism and the humanist ideal. That said, the focus of my writing is on telling my story, helping people who have questions and doubts about Christianity, and critiquing Evangelicalism. This has been my focus for the past fifteen years. I do, on occasion, write about politics, especially my progressive view of the world.
On the ABOUT page, I sum up my view of the world this way:
“You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.”
I believe in love and kindness. I believe in family, friends, and making the world a better place. I believe in enjoying what time I have left on earth, spending it with Polly, our children, our grandchildren, and people who matter to me. I believe in the Cincinnati Reds and the Cincinnati Bengals. I have great faith that one day the Reds or the Bengals will win a world championship.
Of course, all these things are secondary to Alex. What matters to him the most is life to come, and not the here and now. I am not willing to gamble the present away in the hope that I will receive some sort of divine payoff after death; a payoff no one has verifiably received.
Evoulution? then how did sex and reproduction start happening? how did life even start in the first place? It is impossible, no matter how much time you give it…..something cannot appear from nothing.
Alex is not a scientist and neither am I. I know enough to say that creationism is nonsense. Everything that science tells us about our biological world and the cosmos suggests that life and the universe did not come into existence in six literal twenty-four days; that Adam and Eve were not the first humans.
I wonder if Alex knows that scientists (or atheists) don’t think something came out of nothing. Surely, he knows this, right? Surely, he has read the countless science articles on the Internet that explain the existence of the universe? Surely, he has read books by actual scientists; men and women who have spent their lifetimes trying to understand our world? Surely, he doesn’t think Genesis is a science textbook?
I suggest Alex start here:
Video Link Yet there is still time for you to come back to the Lord!
How can Alex know this? Does he know whether I am one of the elect? Many Evangelicals have told me that I am an apostate or a reprobate — people beyond the saving grace of God. How could Alex possibly know the state of my soul? Maybe I am still a Christian, as many Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB) allege; once-saved-always-saved, headed for Heaven regardless of Alex’s pronouncements about my eternal destiny. Imagine Alex having to spend eternity with me as his next-door neighbor. 🙂
Don’t you miss walking with Him? Talking to Him? Being blessed by Him?
NO, NO, and NO. I Corinthians 13:11 says: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
I grew up, putting away childish thoughts about a magic man in the sky pulling the strings of my life. Instead of praying to a deity that doesn’t exist, I talk to real people, including myself. 🙂
The Christian life as you know is a battle, and the dark side has deceived you, please turn back to the Lord while you still can. He loves you and is waiting to welcome you back.
The Christian life is a battle because Evangelicals believe the words of the Bible are true; they believe the words of preachers are true. If they would but weigh the words of the Bible and the words of preachers in the balance, they would find them wanting.
While Alex doesn’t threaten me with Hell, the threat is implied: “turn back to the Lord while you can.” If you don’t, God is going to torture you in the Lake of Fire for eternity. Such threats don’t work with me. All they do is remind me that the Alexes of the world believe in a monstrous deity; one unworthy of my time or worship.
Alex can’t possibly know if God loves me or desires to welcome me back to the club. It always amuses me when Evangelicals say Jesus is waiting on me; that he is powerless to save me; that it is up to me to excercise my will and return to the cult. Has Alex not read what the Bible has about the sovereignty of God, God’s decrees, and the inabiity of man to save himself? My salvation rests solely in the hands of God. He knows where I live. He knows my cellphone number and email address. If you are reading this, Jesus, let’s talk. Please stop having Alex and his merry band of cultists contact me. Have you read the things they say, Jesus? Why would I ever want to buy a new Kirby vacuum? 🙂
Alex suggests that I have gone over to the dark side. Only in Evangelical Christianity is intellectual light darkness. Only in Evangelical Christianity is freedom bondage. There’s nothing I can do for Alex other than to pointedly and honestly respond to him. He arrogantly believes he is right. That’s what certainty does, it breeds arrogance. Until Alex can consider the possibility that he could be wrong; that his beliefs are not as sure and steadfast as he thinks they are, there’s not much I can do other than recommend that he read one or two of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books on the history and nature of the Bible. Only then will there be a chink in his Evangelical armor; one through which a bit of knowledge and understanding will shine through.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
I am widely regarded as an expert on the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. I was raised in an IFB home, attended IFB churches as a youth, prepared for the ministry at an IFB college, married an IFB pastor’s daughter, pastored IFB churches, and have studied and followed the IFB church movement most of my adult life. Yet, it is not uncommon for an IFB zealot to read one or more of my posts on the IFB church movement and conclude that I don’t know anything about IFB churches, pastors, colleges, and parachurch ministries. Gary Richards, whose real name is Gary MacKay, is one such man.
What is obvious in the 1st paragraph is that you really know nothing of the IFB or IB churches. Their only claim is that they believe in the total Word of God & teach that from it. The term “old fashioned” is just that not from 2,000 years ago, be serious. What this means is from back in the day before the church was hijacked from liberal & progressive ideologies.
“Old Fashioned” is a term used by IFB churches and pastors to denote that their beliefs and practices predate the modern age; that their beliefs hail from better days in times past. Sometimes, the term is used to suggest that present beliefs are the same as those of Jesus, his disciples, and first-century followers of Jesus.
Many Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches advertise themselves as “old- fashioned” churches. Many IFB preachers call themselves old-fashioned preachers. What do they mean when they say they are an old-fashioned church or an old-fashioned preacher?
An old-fashioned church is one where members yearn for the past — usually the 1950s. In their mind, if society and Christianity would return to the 1950s all would be well. In the 1950s, Blacks knew their place, women were barefoot and pregnant, birth control was hard to come by, abortion was illegal, homosexuals and atheists were in the closet, and Joseph McCarthy terrorized Americans with attempts to root out communism. In the 1950s, we fought a war against communism, teachers still prayed and read the Bible in school, creationism was considered good science, and Christianity controlled the public space.
Then came the rebellious 1960s and 1970s, and everything changed. Sixty years later, Blacks no longer know their place, Whites are becoming a minority, couples no longer get married, women have access to birth control, homosexuals and atheists are out of the closet, a Kenyan-born Muslim socialist communist black man was president, abortion is legal, prayer and Bible reading in school are banned, creationism is considered religious dogma, same-sex marriage is legal, and Christianity is no longer given a preferential seat at the head of the cultural table.
From the fundamentalist Christian’s perspective, I readily understand why people yearn for the old-fashioned days of the 1950s. The fifties were a time when their brand of Christianity was the norm. Now they are fighting to be heard. Thousands of church members have left, seeking out the friendlier confines of generic, hip Evangelical churches. Instead of hard preaching against sin, Christians clamor for pastors who will “feed” them and minister to their felt needs. Most of all, they want to be entertained. Nones and atheists are increasing in number, and more and more people consider themselves spiritual or not religious. Pluralism and secularism are on the rise, and cultural Christianity is the norm and not the exception.
So what’s an old-fashioned Baptist church like? Their services are quite traditional; traditional meaning as it was in the 1950s. The focus is on “hard” preaching, often from the King James Version of the Bible. The goal is to convert sinners and strengthen church members so they can withstand the wiles of the devil and pressure from the “world.” Everything the old-fashioned Baptist church does is a throwback to yesteryear — an era when preachers preached hard, hymns were sung, altar calls were given, couples stayed married, women saved themselves for marriage and the kitchen, and the Christian church was the hub around which the community revolved.
Millions of Americans attend some sort of an old-fashioned church, even if the Baptist name is not over the front door. They love the respite their church gives them from the evil, sinful, atheistic world they live in. They love the certainty they hear in their pastor’s sermons. They are glad to be a part of a group that thinks just like they do. For those who desire to live in the 1950s, an old-fashioned church fits the bill. It heals their angst and gives them peace. It does not matter if their beliefs are true or whether their practice accurately reflects the 1950s. People seeking and finding value, hope, peace, and direction do not require truth. All they require is faith, and their belief that their “old-fashioned” version of Christianity is true. This is this power of myth.
Keeping the straight path of God’s Word bothers many since adoption and integration of evil & worldly vices, lifestyles and ideology ain’t happening. To suggest that it’s straight out of “one flew over the cuckoos nest just shows your true spirit. There are those & have been that were not drawn by God & grew up in the church & can’t wait to get out & talk smack about it, this is fleshly behavior, nothing new. There are preachers, pastors & teachers that were never called by God for this gift and promote a false gospel & distort God’s Word. There are ex- church attendees maybe even members that have left and claim to be now unbelievers. I would suggest they were never born again and never received God’s Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ sent. This is and always has been a problem since Jesus walked on this earth in the flesh.
Based on what Richards wrote above, it sure seems that there are a lot of unsaved people in the church he attends. All that old-fashioned preaching, yet people are still unsaved; “unsaved” meaning people who believe and behave differently from Richards. IFB zealots are known for their harsh, hateful judgments of people who dare to leave their cult. I have received thousands of emails, comments, and social media messages from Evangelical Christians. IFB Christians — a subset of Evangelicalism — stand at the top of the chart when it comes to people who hurl invectives, hatred, and even death threats. I can’t tell you the last time I have interacted with an IFB believer who was a thoughtful, respectful human being. When called out on their awful behavior, they make all sorts of excuses and justifications, but the fact remains that their ill-bred behavior does little, if anything, to advance the cause of Christ. I remain convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is missing from most IFB Bibles.
LOL – Old fashioned preaching. Preaching that doesn’t make people feel good but rather strokes their flesh is what worldly church attendees desire and it’s their sign they probably are not saved. Once the pastor of the flock preaches on a topic or subject that makes you uncomfortable is your sign. If it makes you butt hurt then go cry to the devil. Now, when it comes to feeling the Holy Ghost from certain type of preaching, you’re not qualified since you’ve never known the Holy Spirit.
Did you notice how Richards seems to be the arbiter of who is and isn’t saved? I thought God was the only one who knows whether someone was saved?
Richards wants me to know that I don’t know anything about the subjects at hand because I never was saved; that the Holy Spirit never lived inside of me. This claim, of course, is ludicrous. I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years. Saved at age fifteen, I spent thirty-five years loving, serving, and following Jesus; preaching the gospel, teaching the commands of Christ, winning souls, and starting churches. Richards tries to dismiss my life out of hand, but he can’t. The evidence suggests that I was once was a devoted follower of Christ. That Richards can’t square his theology with my story is his problem, not mine.
Richards cleans carpets for a living. By all accounts, he is good at what he does. Imagine if I went around the Internet leaving comments that said, “Gary Richards doesn’t know how to clean carpets. He can say whatever ever he wants, but I know he can’t clean carpets.” Why, Richards would rightly be outraged. Why? I am dismissing out of hand his carpet cleaning experience. No matter what Richards says, I know better. I am absolutely right. I wonder if Richards will get my sermon illustration?
I have been to Charasmatic churches where fakers abound, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where these type of churches came out of. As with all fakes you will naturally spin them into the Christian religion even though they are not. It’s just as ludicrous as to trying to convince true believers that a lesbian preacher in a gay church is Christian. I’ve been to quiet lukewarm boring churches that would put anyone to sleep where members go just to punch in their time card and get Sunday over with. Been to churches that have no gospel & a lot of strange wierd things going on like meeting in the basement for a variety of herbs and such. Then you get to a church where the preacher speaks louder which does keep your attention, preaches on the Word right out of the KJV with a non scripted message direct from the Holy Spirit that speaks to everyone, you know you’re in the right place. Worse to y’all no doubt is that message ties directly what you heard before you hot to church.
Again, Richards seems to know who is and isn’t a Christian. He is showing signs of having Elijah Syndrome.
Elijah saw himself as the one remaining true prophet in the land. God reminded him in First Kings 19:18 that there were actually 7,000 prophets who had not yet bowed a knee to Baal.
Every time I think of this story, I am reminded that many Evangelical preachers see themselves as some sort of modern-day Elijah. And like Elijah, each thinks he is the one remaining prophet in the community standing up for God, the Bible, and Evangelical morality. Such preachers delude themselves into thinking that they alone are standing true, that they alone are preaching the right message.
….
I remember thinking this of myself back when I pastored Somerset Baptist Church in Mount Perry, Ohio. Everywhere I looked I saw churches and pastors who were not winning souls and who were not waging war against Satan, sin, and godlessness. As the church began to grow, I convinced myself that people were attending the church because they wanted to hear a true man of God.
….
This “I alone remain true to God” way of thinking is what turns preachers into insufferable, arrogant, hypocritical pricks. Thinking that they have some sort of inside knowledge about God and the Bible, they are determined to share what they think they know with everyone, even if people don’t want to hear it.
Preachers such as Jack Hyles,Fred Phelps,James Dobson, JD Hall, and Greg Locke didn’t start out as pontificating bloviators. Over time, they convinced themselves that they had been chosen uniquely by God to speak on his behalf. Once convinced of this, their pronouncements became more shrill and severe. These Elijah-like prophets of God, thinking that most churches and pastors are Biblically and morally compromised, withdrew from the larger Christian body.
— end of quote —
Over the course of his comment, what has Richards done? He has narrowed his list of “who is a True Christian®” further and further until he reaches a point where only he and a few other believers are True Christians®.
Now, your KJV problem, obviously you haven’t researched that enough. If you study with the greek & Hebrew then you know it’s the closest available in English. The changes in translations like the NIV are crazy & even the creator of the NIV apologized for it before his death. Same with other translations. Sure, the KJV is a pain in the butt to those that don’t study God’s Word.
I don’t have a “KJV problem.” It is Richards who reveals that he is woefully ignorant about the King James Version and other English translations. He is also ignorant of the various manuscripts underlying the various translations; that KJV is based on a small number of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts; that other translations use a wealth of manuscripts for their text. No, the issue here is this: Richards believes the KJV is supernaturally inspired, inerrant, and infallible — an irrational, unsupportable belief. If Richards wants to spar with me on the KJV, I am more than happy to do so. I think he might find that I know a wee bit about the subject; especially since I attended a KJV-only college and read, studied, and preached from the KJV most of my ministerial career. I might even know something something about the Hebrew and Greek texts. 🙂
But……..for the life of me I don’t understand how a pastor of 25 years changes gears & goes into calvanism. I mean, to be a pastor you should be full of the Holy Spirit, called by God to preach and you know God’s Word. Then to walk away & become a humanist & athiest? It isn’t a great surprise because we have countless counterfeit ministries & fallen preachers that were never real. That is a problem & the Word tells us this as we draw closer to that time.
Now we get to Richards’ grand finale.
First, it’s CALVINISM not calvanism — a spelling error common among people who know nothing about Calvinism. I am more than happy to discuss why I embraced Evangelical Calvinism with Richards if he is up to the task. I suspect he is not. The basic IFB position on Calvinism is this: “we ‘agin it. It’s from the pit of Hell.” I doubt he has read John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion or any other book written by Calvinistic authors. Richards might want to check out my series Why I Became a Calvinist — Part One.
Richards is having trouble squaring my story with his IFB theology. HOW CAN THESE THINGS BE? Richards says. I don’t know what to tell him. I once was an Evangelical Christian and now I am an atheist and humanist. The inability of Richards and others like him to take the round peg of my life and put it in a square hole forces them to dismiss my story and deem me unsaved. Sadly, they never ponder whether the real problem is their theology or their understanding of the Bible.
Richards says I am a “fallen preacher” that never was real. I think deep down he knows better; that if I weren’t a Christian, neither is he.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
You stopped by the Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser yesterday to share your “testimony,” to tell me how much you “love” me, to beg me to pray a prayer, and then to offer up a prayer of your own for the atheist Bruce Gerencser. In doing so, you disrespected me and showed no regard for me as a person. All you saw was a man in need of your brand of Christian salvation.
Suppose you went to your mother’s house and she told you, “Chad, please take your shoes off at the door and hang your coat in the closet.” Would you respect her wishes? Or would you leave your shoes on and throw your coat on the floor? I suspect, as a good son, you would do as she asked.
When you clicked on the link for the CONTACT page, you were presented with a page that told you what kind of emails I was interested in receiving. I specifically said to you, Chad:
If you are an Evangelical Christian, please read Dear Evangelical before sending me an email. If you have a pathological need to evangelize, spread the love of Jesus, or put a good word in for the man, the myth, the legend named Jesus, please don’t. The same goes for telling me your church/pastor/Jesus is awesome. I am also not interested in reading sermonettes, testimonials, Bible verses, or your deconstruction/psychological evaluation of my life. By all means, if you feel the need to set me straight, start your own blog.
You chose to ignore my requests. You came into my house, left your shoes on, and threw your coat on the floor, showing no regard for me as a person. I subscribe to the rule, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” I have bowed my head at countless meals as Christians prayed to their deity. Not one time have I ever made a fuss about them praying to mythical beings. Why? I know it would be disrespectful if I did so.
You began your letter by saying that my story moved you to tears. You then feign syrupy, shallow Christian love for me. You wrote:
I’m a Christian and read your story and was moved to tears. I’m not here to condemn you but share my story with you want to hear it. If you dont feel free not to read past this point. But one thing I have to tell you; I dont know you and yet feel such love for you. My heart aches to hear the pain you endured in life. I truly understand pain; I wish I didn’t.
You say you are a Christian, and I accept your testimony at face value. Why could you have not done the same for me? Did you read any of my autobiographical material before deeming yourself sufficiently informed to weigh in on my life? You admit that you don’t know me, yet you say you have “such love for me.” You go on to say that your “heart aches to hear the pain I [have] endured in life.” Imagine if a stranger came up to you at Starbucks and said, ” I feel your pain. I can sense that you have endured much in your life. I want you to know that I love you.” I suspect you would quickly take three steps back, mumble “thanks” and quickly get the hell away from this woman. Why? She knows nothing about you. How could she possibly “love” you and understand what you have been through? She can’t.
Let me educate you about what former Evangelicals think about zealots using shallow, superficial “love” to evangelize them. They see right through you. They know that expressing “love” is an evangelism tool used to “connect” with and “hook” unwary marks. The same goes for sharing testimonies. Former Evangelicals know that testimonies are used to make human connections with evangelization targets. “Love” and personal testimonies are ways to break down resistance to the gospel. “See, I am (or was) just like you.” Zealots hope by making a personal connection with sinners that they will be more receptive for a gospel sales pitch.
You see, Chad, former Evangelicals are experts at recognizing these sales techniques. In my case, I used them for years. I see that you are affiliated with CRU — Campus Crusade for Christ. Did they teach you these evangelism techniques? If yes, please write in your notes: “does not work with former Evangelicals, especially those who are now atheists and agnostics.” You might add another note: “these techniques piss former Evangelicals off and make them less likely to hear the gospel.” In other words, Chad. Don’t do it!
You shared your “testimony” without me asking you to so do. Here’s what you said:
My grandma was a native of Mexico; she was mentally ill and blew her head off. My dad was 12 at the time or around that age. He ran into the room after hearing the shot and as you can imagine was destroyed by what he saw. My dad too was an atheist/agnostic and worked as in engineer for Boeing for 40 something years. He is a brilliant man of science with his degree in Physics. Sadly he never worked through his childhood trauma and beat me and my sister who has borderline personality disorder. I grew to hate dad passionately. I lived in fear of him and began power lifting in high school and playing football. I eventually weighed 215 and the abuse stopped one day when I realized I could protect myself from him. We got in a fight one night and as usual he threatened to beat me. I got in his face and basically told him his time of terror was over and if he dared put a hand on me or my sister I would crush him. He must of believed me because he sat down and said nothing else. We said nothing to each other after that horrible fight for a year. I would have laughed if he died. I went on to be a huge problem at school and was almost expelled for almost fighting a teacher that mouthed off to me. I graduated and took a job as a male stripper in St. Louis, MO. It was a great life of girls, money, and late parties. My girlfriend was also a stripper. I worked for Chic Entertainment. I’m not sure but they may still be in operation.
My freshman year in college some goofy girl and next door neighbor kept coming over to visit our dorm room, and she wouldn’t shut up about Jesus. She kept asking me to “receive” him whatever that meant. I told her I”m cool with JC, but I”m a stripper, and I’m not the Christian type. She told me I just the type Jesus wanted, and he would help me change. I thought….cool…whatever…..one night in the shower a week or so later I got on my knees and did the whole “pray to receive Jesus” thing. To my astonishment such a peace I’ve never known washed over me. I thought I had conjured it up because I wanted to believe this stuff. I couldn’t shake it either. I felt this presence around me that I could only describe as overwhelming love.
I began to wonder if this Jesus fellow might be true. I began studying religions and looking at historical evidence to see if I could make sense what happened to me. As I was doing this my personality changed dramatically. I went from being “tough guy” who told anyone I didn’t like to “F” off to suddenly feeling so much love for everyone. And that hate for my dad’s abuse just drained away. I literally felt no more hate for the guy. He noticed the change and asked what happened to you. I told him I didn’t know but told him I prayed to receive Jesus. He basically laughed in my face and told me not to give him all that God crap. He kept grilling me with hard questions, and as a new Christian I didn’t know the answers. I just kept telling him if you want to find out you need to pray to receive Christ and see what happens.
A very long story short my dad became a Christian, we both went to seminary, and both ended up in ministry. He is now one of my best friends and our family is so changed it’s unrecognizable. After 6 years in ministry I was praying in the woods before a mission trip to Africa to work with aids orphans. I was bitten by a tick and contracted numerous tick infections including: Lyme, Bartonella, and Babesia. I lived in hell for the next 12 years. For 10 of those years I lived on the brink of death. I could barely eat, breathe, sleep, walk. I begged God for death. My suffering was a constant writhing in agony. I couldn’t sit and even watch TV because my pain was constant or nightmarish. I felt so utterly forsaken by God. Another long story short a new medicine was made available to me, and I’m nearly recovered.
I might normally have been sympathetic towards you had we gotten to know each other, become friends, and shared with each other the struggles we have faced in life. Instead, your unprompted “story” smacks of an evangelism technique; an attempt to hook a big fish and reel him in for Jesus.
Chad, you wrote:
Bruce, you cant shake the feeling of Jesus because he real and reaching out to you. Life is hell let’s face it. Christ never said it would be otherwise. Some of the greatest saints suffered the most. Please Bruce, with tears get on your knees each night or 5 second prayers here and there and say, “Jesus, I dont believe you but please if you are real and Im wrong help me…show me….make a way.” You’re saying to me right now….but i’ve already done this. Please keep trying Bruce…please.
You say, “Bruce, you cant shake the feeling of Jesus because he real and reaching out to you.” You seem to be quite arrogant, Chad. How could you possibly know these things? What makes you think I have the “feeling of Jesus?” I have no such thing. The only feeling I have as I write this letter to you is excruciating physical pain from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. The pain is so severe in my spine today that I want to die. Literally. I choose, however, to keep plodding through life. I bought a new recliner today, hoping it will lessen my pain. I went to lunch with my wife of forty-five years and our daughter with Down syndrome. We had a delightful afternoon, even though the food I ate caused me all sorts of problems; as food does EVERY TIME I eat. I make the most of what life I have, knowing that I am on the short side of life. If Jesus really cares for me, how about taking away my pain or nausea? How about doing something miraculous that would reveal to me that he is real? Instead, he sends you. He always sends people like you; Evangelicals who have no regard for me as a person and only see me as a target for evangelization; just another notch on their gospel guns.
Jesus isn’t “reaching out to me,” Chad. He’s dead. Besides, even if Jesus is alive as you believe, how do you know he’s trying to reach me at 666-666-6669? Maybe the line is off the hook or disconnected. Maybe I am an apostate; a reprobate. You do know what the Bible says about reprobates, right? I am confident (and happy) that I have crossed the proverbial line of no return. You are wasting your time trying to evangelize me.
Your life might be “hell,” but mine isn’t. Sure, I live a pain-filled life. I struggle to move, walk, and do “normal,” everyday things. But, as long as I have Polly, my wife, our six children, and our thirteen grandchildren, life isn’t “hell,” not even close. I see most of my children and grandchildren every week or two. I am blessed to have my family close by. Because this life is the only one I will ever have, I intend to make the most of every day. I give this advice on my ABOUT page:
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
You go on to ask me, “Bruce, with tears get on your knees each night or 5 second prayers here and there and say, “Jesus, I dont believe you but please if you are real and Im wrong help me…show me….make a way.” You’re saying to me right now….but i’ve already done this. Please keep trying Bruce…please.”
Do you have any idea how often Evangelicals have taken this approach with me over the past fifteen years? Hundreds of times. Here’s what your plea says to me: you want me to conjure up a dead man. This is not different from a Voodoo incantation. Besides, do you know how offensive it is to ask a crippled man who can’t walk without the aid of a wheelchair or cane to get on his knees?
Let me be clear, I have no interest in your God, Jesus, or religion. I have no interest in buying what you are peddling. I am not low-hanging fruit. I likely know the Bible better than you do. I know all I need to know about Christianity. I have weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. Besides, I have the revelation of conscience and creation (Romans 1,2). I have all that is necessary for me to “believe.” Yet, I remain unconvinced. Ponder that for awhile, Chad. “Think” instead of acting.
You conclude your email to me with an arrogant, self-righteous prayer, a common form of spiritual masturbation among Evangelical zealots.
You wrote:
Lord, I feel such love for Bruce. I’m asking in response to this prayer a series of miracles would get my brother’s attention. I pray you press into him with your love and presence so powerfully it would overwhelm him with delight in spite of himself. Give him the grace to again call on your name even in disbelief. …..and please Lord answer him with such power he cant deny the miracle. Jesus please let me walk on streets of gold with Bruce someday and may we spend eternity as dear friends. God love you Bruce! If you read this far thank you!!!!
I am not your “brother,” Chad. I don’t want to be your “brother” either. I also don’t want to walk on fictional streets of gold with you. Quite frankly, I am not that into you. What makes you think that I would want to spend eternity with the Chad Lawrences of the world? Give me Christopher Hitchens, Steven Hawking, and Steve Gupton in Hell every time. You may want to spend eternity in constant worship and fealty to a man who took a long weekend for you, but I don’t. That sounds like hell, to me.
You are telling me with your prayer that you think there is something fundamentally wrong with me. You know very little about me. In fact, you know so little about me that you couldn’t pass a ten-question exam about my life. Yet, you feel justified in rendering judgment on my life and telling me what I should do. To that, I say, fuck off.
If there is a God, he knows exactly where I am. He knows where I live. He knows my phone number and email address. He can contact me at any time. Better yet, he can show up on my doorstep and take me out to lunch. That said, I will tell you this: if I am miraculously healed of gastroparesis, fibromyalgia, and degenerative spine disease, I will put my faith and trust in Jesus and return to church. You have thirty days to make this happen, Chad. Fast and pray without ceasing for Bruce Gerencser. Gather your spouse and CRU buddies together and pray for God to heal me. Let’s put your prayers to the test. With God, all things are possible, right? Nothing is too hard for God, the Bible says. So here, I am, Chad. To quote Captain Jean Luc Picard, “make it so, number one.”
I hope you have realized by now that contacting me in the manner that you did was a bad idea. We shall see if you learned anything.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
I’ll weigh in! So I’m reading that the Bible nor God is your source of moral authority or any type of authority,for that matter, on anything. Got it! That’s entirely up to you!
Christianity is a text-based religion. Without the Bible, Christianity wouldn’t exist. Everything we know about God and Jesus comes from the Bible. Evangelical Christians believe that the Bible is supernaturally inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Thus, Evangelicals see the Bible as a divine moral code by which sinners and saints must govern their lives. Failing to do so puts people in danger of judgment and eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire.
Dilliard intimates that she derives her morality from God and a supernatural book allegedly written by him. Christians generally think everyone can know God through divine revelation: conscience, nature, and the Bible. Thus, atheists deliberately deny and reject what is clearly known to them. Atheists, according to the book of Romans “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
Atheists see the Bible as an errant, fallible ancient religious text written by fallible, frail (mostly unknown) men. Many atheists, myself included, find some value in reading the Bible — say the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Sermon on the Mount, and Matthew 25 — but treat it as any other book. Evangelicals, on the other hand, believe, in theory anyway, that every word of the Bible is true; that we are duty-bound to obey and practice the teaching of the Bible — as interpreted by each Christian, preacher, and theologian. In Evangelical Christianity, each Christian is a Pope — an infallible interpreter of the Bible.
In the real world, Evangelicals are buffet believers, picking and choosing what Bible commands, laws, and precepts they want to believe and practice. No Christian believes and practices all of the Bible. Their morality is just as subjective and conditional as that of the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world.
Dilliard needs a divine lawgiver outside of herself in order to be moral. Without this lawgiver, she wouldn’t be moral. The only thing keeping her from being a murderer, rapist, kidnapper, or thief is her peculiar version of God. Without God, she would do all sorts of heinous, evil things.
If this really is the case, then by all means she should keep believing in God and following the teachings of the Bible. For me, I don’t need a source outside of myself to be moral. I don’t need a deity telling me what is right and wrong for me to be a moral and ethical human being.
Dillard provides no evidence for the existence of God and the claims she makes for the Bible. I suspect she’s a presuppositionalist, presupposing that her deity exists and the teachings of the Bible are true. I am, for the most part, an evidentialist. I want to believe as many true things as possible. If someone wants me to believe something, she must provide sufficient evidence for her claim.
So let’s talk about where YOUR moral authority comes from , then. Do you believe there’s a right or wrong?
All morality is inherently subjective. There are a plethora of views on morality. As an atheist, I don’t think morality exists outside of self. Some atheists believe that there are moral absolutes, but I am of the opinion that morality is subjective. That said, we live in societies that benefit from commonly held moral beliefs. As with the U.S. Constitution, “we the people” decide the moral standards by which we will govern our societies. That’s why we have laws, rules, and regulations. As a member of a particular society, I consent to adhering to and obeying these things, knowing that if I don’t, I could be punished or imprisoned. Productive, happy societies depend on the consent of the governed. Christians and atheists agree that certain behaviors are wrong. If we don’t like certain laws, rules, and regulations we, through the ballot box, change them. We are seeing this played out with abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022. Now we are seeing moves in a number of states to enact laws and state constitutional amendments to reverse the damage done by the Court’s decision. That’s how it works in democratic societies. WE THE PEOPLE decide the laws, rules, and regulations we want to be governed by. If our elected leaders don’t do our bidding, we vote them out of office, replacing them with someone who will.
Dilliard seems to want an autocratic or authoritarian society; one where her God and interpretations of the Bible are the law; the determiner of what is moral. Instead of “we the people” deciding how we want to be governed and live, Dilliard believes a supernatural authority outside of us is the one and only authority on morality.
There are thousands of religions and deities, each believing they are right; that their god is the moral arbiter of the universe. How do we determine which religion/deity is right? How could we possibly know that Dilliard’s peculiar deity is the one true God; the moral arbiter of the universe? I know of no way to determine whether her God is the right one.
Thus, I believe that determining what is moral rests on the individual and the societies to which they belong. How can an individual or a society determine what is moral? The best way, in my humble opinion, is to determine what best promotes flourishing, happiness, prosperity, and peace.
If so, who told you lying is right or wrong? Who told you stealing is right or wrong? Who told you to teach your kids not to be selfish? Where did they learn to be selfish,( or not) did you teach them? Why is being selfish wrong or could it be right? Selfishness is a character flaw but how do we know that? How do we know? How do you know cheating on your wife is wrong?
As it has for all humans, including Dillard, my morality has evolved over my sixty-six years of life. Certainly, my parents, church, and the Bible played a big part in the formation of my moral beliefs. Over time, I have learned that my parents, church, and the Bible were wrong about some (many) things. When I deconverted in 2008, I was given a new opportunity to determine what, exactly, were my moral and ethical values. I reevaluated my moral beliefs, holding on to some of them and casting aside others. This, of course, is hard work. Christians don’t have to think about their moral beliefs. God said it, that settles it, Evangelicals say. That’s why we see such hateful behavior by Evangelicals towards LGBTQ people, liberals, atheists, and anyone else who is different from them. God has spoken, end of discussion. Human flourishing never enters the discussion. All that matters is what is written in ink on the pages of the Bible — as interpreted by individual Christians.
Could it be wrong for you but right for someone else? … On and on…. If you are your own moral authority ,or believe our government is your moral authority, how do you know you are right or the government is right and why should I believe you?
I have moral beliefs that conflict with the beliefs of others. For example, I am a pacifist. On principle, I oppose all war. I oppose the death penalty too. I believe it is immoral to kill people. Yet, I recognize that there are times when killing someone might be justified, say in defensive wars or defending one’s family. Each of us decides what we consider moral/immoral. How can it be otherwise? Interjecting God into the discussion changes nothing. Many of the wars humans have fought were initiated and prosecuted by people who believe in God; people who ignored the pacifistic teachings of Christ to win their objective.
I am a rationalist, a skeptic, and a humanist. I use these prisms to determine whether I am justified to believe things. I am humble enough to admit that I could be wrong. Unfortunately, Evangelicals are an arrogant lot. Armed with certainty, they lack nuance, seeing everything through a black-and-white lens. That’s why the culture war is raging in every corner of our republic.
How can you say Ray Boltz is right or wrong in his own belief system? Does the Universe tell you these things? Does the culture/civil society teach you these things but how do you know that if right, not wrong?
I make no judgment of Ray Boltz’s life. His sexuality is his business, not mine, or anyone else for that matter. What consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes is none of my business. Evangelicals, of course, want to criminalize any sex that is not married, heterosexual, and monogamous intercourse in the missionary position. Okay, maybe not that last one, but many Evangelicals think blow jobs, anal sex, or sexual aggression by a woman are sins. There are no cowboys to ride in Evangelicalism. 🙂 Worse, many Christians think using birth control is a sin; that the goal of all sex is procreation.
Or is there some hidden moral code/authority that only atheist’s are privy too? Inquiring minds want to know…
Dilliard is being disingenuous when she says “inquiring minds want to know.” I suspect she already “knows”; that there is nothing I can say that will change her morality and worldview.
As I made clear in this post, most atheists think the locus of morality is self, both individually and as a society. There is no Atheist Ten Commandments or Atheist Bible. As someone who has spent the past fifteen years swimming in atheist waters, I can tell you that atheists vigorously debate the subject of morality. There is no Atheist Morality. All I can say is what I believe on any given subject. I suspect most of the atheists who frequent this site will generally agree with me on the subject of morality, though I know there are some who don’t. And that’s okay. The only way we can come to a consensus is to debate these issues. “Iron sharpeneth iron” the Bible says, and I think that applies to discussions among atheists too. Sadly, the same can’t be said for discussions with Evangelicals. Most of them aren’t open to honest discussion and faith. They KNOW they are right, so their goal is to get people who disagree with them to tap out. Faith, presuppositionalism, and certainty make it nigh impossible to have meaningful discussions with Evangelicals on virtually anything, including morality.
Maybe Dillard is different. We shall see.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
A few days ago, I received an email from an eighty-one-year-old woman named Wanda Sims. Sims read all of two posts before sending me a message that God allegedly laid upon their heart. My brief response follows. All spelling and grammar in the original.
There is one Go ,in 3 persons Father, Son Holy Spirit.
Sims provides no evidence for her claim there is one God, uh I mean three Gods, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As most Christians do when they come to this site to deliver to me a message from their peculiar version of God, Sims makes all sorts of claims without providing any evidence for them. She presupposes that her God is the one true GO, and all others deities are false. Thus Sims is an atheist too.
God is love!!
I see no evidence in our world that this claim is true. In fact, what I do see is that God is anything but love. Look at all violence, pain, suffering, and death in the world. Where is God? Even in the Bible we see a God, as Richard Dawkins suggests:
“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.”
I would love Sims to take the events of Genesis 6-9 (Noah’s Flood) and justify her claim that God is love. Her God drowned millions of people, including children, infants, and fetuses. What an awesome God!
I pray you will have your eyes opened ,and the truth will guide you to see truth.
My eyes today are more open than they ever have been. If Sims wants me to see and know “truth,” I suggest that she share it with me. Let’s talk about “truth, Wanda. I’m game, are you?
You gave up on God, he still loves you. If you repent he is faithfull and just to forgive you.
I didn’t give up on God. I weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. Surely Sims would want me to follow the evidence and believe as many true things as possible.
How does Sims know God still loves me? According to countless Evangelical zealots, I am an apostate; a reprobate; a tool of Satan; an enemy of God. Based on the teachings of the Bible, God doesn’t love me. I have crossed a line of no return. I have been repeatedly told that I am a modern-day Judas, a son of perdition. Did Jesus savingly love Judas? Of course not.
I put Sims’ claims to the test. I just repented of all my sins, even the “secret” ones, and asked Jesus to save me from my sins. Did God forgive me? Is it really that easy? Nothing more is required of me but to repent and believe? Good to know. I am now s-a-v-e-d! 🙂 Yes, Wanda, this is me mocking you and your silly, bankrupt gospel.
I don’t want to be your BFF, but my heart hearts for you and those you have lead astray.
That’s good, because why would I want to be friends with someone who doesn’t respect me? Sims chose to deliberately ignore my requests on the Contact page. She sent me a preachy email, hoping that I would see the “light.” She paid no attention to my background, thinking that her rambling email would do anything to return me to the faith.
I’m not a Crack pot
I don’t know about that. What should I make of someone who seeks out strangers on the Internet and emails them? What should I make of someone who shows no regard for me; whose only goal is to put in a good word for Jesus? Jesus Fucking Christ, I am a fellow human being. How about treating me like one?
I spent fifty years in Evangelical Christianity. I pastored churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan for twenty-five years. I preached over 4,000 sermons, and spent 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. I am confident I know more about the Bible and Christianity than Sims goes. What possibly could she say to me that I don’t already know?
Of course, Sims read none of my autobiographical writing, so maybe she doesn’t know these things. If so, I would like to share with her what God says in Proverbs 18:13: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
just a 81 yr old woman that loves the Lord and have seen his love,beauty,miraculous works and mercy and love.
And I am just a sixty-five-year-old man who loves his wife of forty-five years, six grown adult children, thirteen grandchildren, and cats named Joe Meower and Socks. I have seen their love, beauty, mercy, and works. My family is the only God I need.
I pray you find your way back to this one true and loving God.
Well, as I mentioned above, I repented, so I am good to go. All praise be to Loki, the one true God of rural northwest Ohio.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
Today, I received an email from an Evangelical using a fake email address: godlovesyou@gmail.com. Coward. 🙂
What follows is my response to God Loves You. My response is indented. All spelling and grammar in the original.
Bruce, you know that God has been trying to reach you all your life. You can’t escape Him. He’s real whether you believe Him or not. He’s done so much for you.
I know no such thing. If my life tells me anything about God it is this: his phone line is disconnected. God’s is supposedly the creator of all things; the sovereign lord, ruler, and king. Yet, according to God Loves You (GLY), the Christian God has been trying to reach me. God has every tool and method at his disposal, yet the best he is able to do is send people such as GLY to pass me a note. If God wants to reach me, why not contact me directly? Send me an email, a text, or call me on the telephone (260-657-0019). Better yet, if I am so important to God, why not send Jesus to my doorstep and have him take me out to lunch? I guarantee you that if Jesus shows up and takes me out to eat, I am going to listen.
Instead, God keeps sending people such GLY; people who show me no respect; people who preach at me; people who insult me; people who attack me and my family and the readers of this blog; people who lack a basic understanding of what the Bible teaches.
I am here, God. Come and get me.
GLY claims God is real, yet he provided no evidence for his claim. This is a common ploy by Evangelical zealots. They are presuppositionalists. God is self-evident to them, so they think he should be self-evident to everyone. Not me. Convince me that the God of the Protestant Christian Bible exists and he is as the Bible portrays him, I might believe. I say “might” because, let’s face it, the God of the Bible is a violent, genocidal son of a bitch, so I doubt I would want to worship and obey such a malevolent deity.
GLY claims God has done so much for me. Really? What has God done for me? Virtually everything in my life can be traced back to material, biological means. The few unexplainable events in my life are not enough to convince that GLY’s God exists.
I’m sorry for any hurt that humans and the church have caused you. People will hurt you, this earth is ruled by Satan, but this is not our home forever. The teacher is always silent during the test. Whatever happened to you, whatever you’re going through, it’s just a test to see if you’re faithful.
I did not leave Christianity because of the hurt caused by humans and the church. If you really want to know why I deconverted, please read the posts on the WHY? page. Seek and ye shall find, GLY.
I am an atheist, so I don’t believe in the existence of deities, especially the God of the Bible. Since God created Satan, it stands to reason that I don’t believe in her either. Earth is ruled, controlled, and dominated by humans, other animals, and natural sources. I see no evidence for the claim that the earth is ruled by Satan. Again, I am open to being proved wrong. Just have Satan contact me and we can talk.
Evidently, whatever I have experienced in this life is a “test” from God. Of course, the giver of this test is, to quote GLY, “silent.” How, then, can I know it is God testing me? As an atheist, I live by the maxim, “shit happens.” I can explain my present trials, suffering, and adversity without invoking the name of God or Satan. MY health problems are easily explainable, albeit not easily treatable. I have accepted that my suffering, the unrelenting pain and debility, is my lot in life. I do what I can to ameliorate my symptoms, hoping to live as long as possible. What more can I do but get up each morning and try to do my best?
I find that this is a far better way to live than wondering whether God is, at any given moment, testing, trying, or punishing me.
Eventually youre going to die, which place will you choose?
There’s been countless of testimonies of those who died and have seen the afterlife (check YouTube!). Everyone who has died has said the same things and Jesus sent them back to tell their story.
Yes, I am, sooner, than later. I know that I am at the end of my life. When I die, I choose cremation and nothingness. I see no evidence for Heaven, Hell, or an afterlife. Those claiming to have died and gone to Heaven and Hell are delusional liars. The only evidence they provide for their claims are fanciful stories. I find it interesting that none of these stories agree with any of the others. Why is that? Humans have been making up “supernatural” stories for thousands of years. The Bible is one collection of these stories.
If GLY wants me to believe these stories are true, he is going to have to provide empirical evidence for them. I will not take his word for it.
There’s a lot of scientific and historical evidence that Jesus was real and many witnesses to that (Google and learn yourself!).
I wonder if GLY forgets or doesn’t know that I was a college-trained Evangelical pastor; that I pastored churches for twenty-five years; that I know the extant source material for the existence of Jesus inside and out. There is not, as GLY says, “a lot of scientific and historical evidence that Jesus was real and many witnesses to that.” There are the Gospels and a handful of disputed historical mentions of Jesus. That’s it. I know of no scientific evidence that proves ANYTHING about Jesus. All we can know is that a Jewish apocalyptic preacher named Jesus lived and died in Palestine two thousand years ago.
But what do I know? According to GLY, I need to “Google” and learn the “truth.” 🙂
I know you’ve been hurt, but in heaven, there will be no more suffering. I promise. Turn back to God.
GLY knows no such thing. He has read a couple of posts on this site and decided that is enough for him to deconstruct my life. He is lazy and lacks curiosity. Search Google, GLY, search Google. You will find thousands of blog posts I have written and podcast interviews I have given.
Life is suffering. Live long enough and you will suffer, sometimes horribly. I have an advanced degree in suffering. I don’t need the promise of salvation and Heaven to make it through life. I find meaning and purpose in my wife of forty-five years (my best friend and lover), our six children, our thirteen grandchildren, the Cincinnati Reds, Cincinnati Bengals, and this blog. Yes, I am in a lot of pain. Yes, sometimes I want to die. But, I remind myself that I have much to live for. I don’t need the promise of a room in God’s Trump Hotel to give my life meaning and purpose. I feel sorry for people who have no sense of meaning and purpose outside of the hope of eternal life. They have bought into the Apostle Paul’s lie: if we only have hope in this life we are miserable (1 Corinthians 15:9).
GLY implores me to turn back to God. Nope, not going to happen. I have weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. What is there about Christianity that I don’t know, GLY? By all means, educate me. 🙂
If you’re still alive, Hes still waiting to give you another chance. I will pray for your hardened heart to be softened, for you to come back and have a relationship with Him again. God is good but the world is not, Satan has deceived you.
What a pathetic God Jesus is, who is forced to wait on fallible, frail sinners. If God wants to save me, he knows where I am.
The only thing that “hardens” my heart toward Christianity is the endless emails and social media messages I receive from the GLYs of the world. Why would I ever want to worship their God? They bully, badger, threaten, and judge me, yet they want me to worship their God. No thanks. GLY and others like them are the worst possible advertisement for Jesus and his wonderful, matchless, awesome, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious grace.
If you want to spark your faith again, watch Isaiah Saldivar and Vlad Savchuk on YouTube. Learn about the deliverance ministry and casting out demons! We need to open our eyes to the supernatural, the spiritual realm. There’s so many testimonies out there now (YouTube – Delafe Testimonies), that show and prove the true existence of God!!
I have seen two demons in my life: my youngest grandsons. 🙂 Boy, are they “devilish.”
It is clear to me that GLY has a low evidentiary standard for believing things. If he sees it on the Internet, it must true. I have a much higher evidentiary standard than GLY and other Christians like him. YouTube ain’t going to cut it. Gawd, do I actually have to say this?
God did not create this world for us to suffer and have pain. The result of our sins and our ancestors sins have caused us much burden.
Sigh, Sigh, Sigh. Ugh. 🙂
If God is the creator of all things and controls EVERYTHING, he is culpable for pain, suffering, and death. Either God is all-powerful, or he is not. Either he is all-knowing, or he is not. Either he is everywhere, or he is not. Orthodox Christianity says God is all-everything. Based on the teachings of historic Christianity, GLY is preaching heresy. OMG, repent, GLY, lest you end up in Hell when you die! 🙂
I believe that you may be curious about the supernatural so I suggest looking into deliverance. As Jesus cast out demons and heal the sick, you too can be healed! Whatever sickness you’re going through, you will be healed in the name of Jesus! Seek deliverance, Seek Him! Dare God to reveal Himself to you! HE WILL!!!
No, I am not curious, in the least, about the supernatural. I am a materialist. I have no room in my worldview for supernatural mumbo-jumbo.
Let me put GLY’s claims to the test! Jesus, I believe you heal people. I double-dog dare you to reveal yourself to me. I triple-dog dare you to heal me of fibromyalgia, gastroparesis, and degenerative spine disease. Jesus, if you heal me of these things, I will abandon atheism and worship you as my Savior and my God. Okay, Jesus, the ball is in your court.
GLY promises that God WILL hear and answer my prayer. If he doesn’t, that mean GLY is a liar and a false prophet worthy of being stoned to death.
Jesus loves you. God loves you. I love you.
Jesus is dead, God doesn’t exist, and GLY doesn’t know me. None of them “love.” me. I am sick and tired of shallow, cheap, sentimental Christian “love.” Gag me with a spoon. I have all the love I need in life — no Jesus, God, or Christians needed.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
Recently, I received the following email from Pastor Simiyu:
Praise the Lord, I am pastor Simiyu in Kenya and I thank God to meet you here, I love your ministry so much and I welcome you to reach in Kenya.
I have seven Churches here in Kenya and I ask to join your ministry to work under your ministry.
I sent him the following reply:
Dear Brother in the Lord,
Thank you for taking the time to contact me. My team of prayer warriors and I prayed over your request today, and we came to one mind that God is directing us to come to Kenya and minister to the seven churches you mentioned in your email.
My ministry has been blessed materially by God. We will cover all of our travel expenses. All we ask is that you provide us with housing and one meal a day. If this is agreeable to you, please let me know what dates you have in mind.
Brother Simiyu, I believe God has great things in store for you and your churches. I hope I can play a small part in his blessing of your work.
All Praise to the Wonderful Name of Jesus,
Dr. Bruce Gerencser
Since I originally published this post, the good pastor and I have had a back-and-forth conversation. Enjoy! (All spelling and grammar in the original.)
Simiyu:
I love your ministry so much, and I will be working under your ministry, with oll of my seven Churches, I will be representing your ministry in Kenya.
Yes I will try to get a House for you, though our houses is not good and beautiful, but God will help us.
Welcome in Kenya, God has given you KENYA.
Simiyu:
Praise the Lord Pastor, how are you going on there?
Here in Kenya, I will my Pastors and churches are praying for you.
Simiyu:
Praise the Lord Pastor, How are you going on there?
Simiyu:
Hello pastor, praise the Lord, how are you going on there?
You are so silent?
Dr. Bruce Gerencser:
Bro. Joshua,
Thank you for contacting me.
My team and I have been fasting and praying about our upcoming meetings. We have felt the sweet presence of the Holy Ghost, believing that God is going to do great things — souls saved, reclaimed backsliders, and healings — during our meetings with you.
We plan to fly to your country on my Lear Jet. God put it on the heart of a wealthy supporter to purchase this jet. We have flown all over the world to preach the gospel. May Jesus’ name be praised.
I talked to him about ministering to your churches. He seemed genuinely excited about our plans. He later called me and said he would like to send you $5,000 US to help with your expenses. Isn’t God good?
Please send me your mailing address or bank account/routing number so I can get the money to you. We could also use PayPal.
I also need the address of your church and where we will be staying so I can put together the flight plan (I am the pilot).
Do the April dates still work for you?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
All praise be Jesus, our wonderful Lord and Savior.
Simiyu:
Praise the Lord, yes God is good, I am happy to hear from you, welcome in Kenya, this year on April, yes April is good and we are ready to have you in our Churches.
The Hotels where you will be staying is at BUNGOMA Town, and at SIRISIA Town.
Thank you also for your help and support, that God has touched your heart to help.
HERE IS MY BANK ACCOUNT.
1,MY full names are,
JOSHUA SIMIYU WEKESA.
2, Name of my Bank is,
DIAMOND TRUST BANK.
3, My Account Number is,
02155860XXXXX.
4, Bank Swift code is,
DTKEKENA.
5, Address is, 107 BUNGOMA.
jwekesaXXXX@gmail.com
6, Our Currency is, KENYA SHILLINGS.
7, My City is, NAIROBI.
Simiyu:
Praise the Lord Pastor, How are you going on there?
Dr. Bruce Gerencser:
Bro. Joshua,
Greetings in the matchless name of Jesus.
What is the name of your church? Does the church have a website?
Thanks.
Simiyu:
The name of my Church is PENTECOSTAL.
My Church have no website.
Dr. Bruce Gerencser:
Bro Joshua,
Thank You!
One more thing you need to know before I come to your church. I am gay. My husband, Duane, travels with me everywhere I go. I just want to make sure you or your church won’t have a problem with this.
Blessings on you and yours.
Simiyu:
Yes, we have no problem with that, I welcome you, so much in my Churches, also I with my Churches will be working under your ministry, will be part of your ministry, I will be representing your ministry in Kenya.
God Bless you and your family and Church.
Bruce Gerencser:
Dear Joshua,
A month ago, you, an operative from your “church,” or a bot came to my blog https://brucegerencser.net. You used my site’s comment form to send me the following email:
“Praise the Lord, I am pastor Simiyu in Kenya and I thank God to meet you here, I love your ministry so much and I welcome you to reach in Kenya.”
I have seven Churches here in Kenya and I ask to join your ministry to work under your ministry.”
Was your intent to try to scam me? How could you not know that I am an atheist; that I oppose Christianity, especially Evangelical Christianity? The evidence was there for you to see. You gave yourself away when you said you were okay with me being a married gay man. NO Evangelical would be okay with me being gay. (For the record, I am not gay. I have been married to the same woman for forty-five years.)
I suggest going forward that you try to scam your fellow Christians. Atheists are not likely to support” your ministry.
Be well.
Bruce Gerencser
Simiyu:
No, I was not trying to scam you, I told you the truth, that I was evangelical before, but it that message I was asking to join your ministry, because as you know your ministry have never reached in Kenya, so I was evangelical before.
But now I am asking to join your ministry, remember I said that I ask to join your ministry, so I am new in your ministry, and I want to join your ministry, so I was not to scam you, but I was now becoming the part of your ministry.
So I still ask, and welcome you to reach in Kenya, so that all my Churches will be working under your ministry, and I will be representing your ministry in Kenya.
Bruce Gerencser:
I AM AN ATHEIST! There is no God.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.
Over the weekend, I received the following email from an Evangelical man named Nathan Tucker. My response is indented and italicized. Tucker read two posts, Another Evangelical Con Job, This Time by 7 Hills Church in Cincinnati, Ohio and Dear Evangelical before contacting me. According to the server logs, he also looked at the front page, which contains ten full-text posts. I do not know what posts he actually read. Tucker read none of my autobiographical material (please see the WHY? page), yet, as you shall see below, he felt qualified to deconstruct my life. Perhaps Tucker missed this verse in his Bible: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude (Proverbs 18:13).
Now to Tucker’s verbose email:
Every single human being has ulterior motives behind all human behaviors. It has been said, and I believe it is true that, the greatest and most basic drive on earth is the human belly. Everything mankind does in the material world, he does so that he can eat and drink, so that he can continue eating and drinking; so he can continue living. Jesus recognizes this in a passage I am sure you are quite familiar with. In Matthew 4:4, Jesus indicates that, “man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (The New King James Version, 1979). Jesus, Who was acutely aware of the need to eat after having not eaten in forty days, implicitly states man must have bread to live. That is, man must live on the material things of this world. Yet man cannot live on those material things alone—there must be more to this life than eating and drinking. God tells us that to truly understand what it means to live, one must be “born again” (John 3:3-8).
Tucker claims that “every single human being has ulterior motives behind all human behaviors,” yet provides no evidence for his claim. It is never wise to claim to know something about every human being. Of course, this is a common Evangelical behavior. Everyone is a sinner. Everyone needs to be saved. Everyone will go to Heaven or Hell after they die. The problem with this sort of linear, black-and-white thinking is that billions of people reject it. I am an atheist. I don’t believe in the existence of deities, including the countless Gods Christians worship. I don’t believe the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. I reject the central claims of Christianity; that Jesus was divine, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, performed miracles, resurrected from the dead, and ascended into Heaven. Simply put, these things don’t make sense to me. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.)
Tucker claims, without evidence, that there is more to life than eating and drinking; that what everyone needs is Jesus, the bread of life. What I want to know is this: is Jesus white bread, cracked wheat, rye, or whole grain? If Tucker has evidence for there being anything other than the material world we live in, I would love to see it. So far, all Tucker has done is quote Bible verses and make unsubstantiated claims. If someone claims that there is a spiritual dimension, then they are going to have to cough up evidence to support their claim. Countless Evangelicals have emailed me and left comments on this blog that emphatically said that God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is real. When pressed for evidence for their claims they typically do three things: quote Bible verses, give some sort of subjective, anecdotal testimony of having a saving/personal relationship with Jesus, or flee to safety of the house of faith. Neither of these things can, nor ever will, be sufficient evidence for their claims.
Bruce: I am a wizard! I have the power to do all sorts of supernatural things!
Tucker: No, you are not.
Bruce: Yes, I am!
Tucker: Prove it.
Bruce: I have read all the Harry Potter books. I watched all the movies too. I believe Harry is the one true Grand Wizard. When I embraced Harry as the Grand Wizard, he came into my heart, giving me power to do mighty works in his name. I know, I know, there’s no doubt about it, Harry lives in my heart.
Tucker: I don’t believe you. Until you provide evidence for your claims, I refuse to believe you are a miracle-working wizard.
Until the Tuckers of the world can provide empirical evidence for their claims, I have no reason to believe what they say.
The problem is simply this: many professing American Christians and pastors are not truly born again. Well, how can I say this? Isn’t this a terribly judgmental statement? It is a judgmental statement, but it is a statement based upon the perfect Law of Liberty—Christ says, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-16, 20). Many times people hear this statement, and they immediately think of the fruits of the Spirit, and I guess that is acceptable. Yet, there is a more basic understanding regarding what it means to be born again, what it means to be a true Christian. Primarily, a true Christian is one who sincerely loves and fears the Triune God and is one who strives to keep God’s Law in thought, word, and deed (Isaiah 66:2; John 14:21; Matthew 22:36-40). Being a Christian means one loves God and loves his neighbor—love is the fulfillment of the Law of God (Romans 13:10).
I would have, as a pastor, agreed with everything Tucker wrote above. I loved and feared God. I strove to keep the law of God in thought, word, and deed. I kept the two great commandments: love God and love my neighbor. Tucker will search in vain for anyone who knew me who would say that I was not a committed Christian. So, I am not sure what point Tucker is trying to make.
Hypocrisy is real. Every single human being is a hypocrite; we only differ in degrees. I am a hypocrite. I know what is right and many times, I find myself doing what I know to be wrong, sometimes uncontrollably so. Many times, I feel like a failure as a Christian. Yet, I know that I am not alone because Paul had this same experience, and he describes it quite succinctly in Romans 7:13:25. Paul is describing the spiritual warfare that goes on within the heart of one who is born again. This warfare or struggle with sin is what characterizes and marks the life of a true Christian—the true Christian seeks to execute or put to death the rebellion towards God in his own heart and life (Colossians 3:5; Romans 8:13), and he seeks to aid others in that pursuit through loving admonition, encouragement, and sincerity of heart, by the power of the Holy Spirit, with the full knowledge that none of this striving can be accredited to man, but all to the grace of God in the sacrifice of Christ.
Hypocrisy is ugly, especially within the church. I hate it in myself, and I hate it in the church. I simply want to vomit when I hear a Baptist or Pentecostal preacher condemn one to hell for partaking in beer or alcoholic beverages, all the while knowing that same preacher is going to have fifteen plates of food from the buffet after the sermon. Equally, that same pastor will no doubt condemn adultery, but adultery and gluttony have at their core the same sin—lust.
Hypocrisy is real, hypocrisy is ugly, but hypocrisy is present everywhere, not just in the evangelical community. For instance, we want freedom of speech to exist in a culture fixated on cancelling the politically incorrect. We want to conserve energy and planetary resources, but we burn countless units of energy for sporting events, entertainment venues, and sometimes, for no purpose at all other than to make something pretty. We want to put an extreme and almost obsessive focus on health, but not help the truly sick and suffering because of the “evil of opioids” and potential drug addiction.
Okay? So what . . . I am an atheist, so all this verbiage has no relevant meaning to me, outside of the fact that we all can be, at times, hypocrites. I don’t need a relationship with Jesus to know I am a hypocrite, nor do I need the Holy Spirit to convict me of my hypocrisy. I am quite self-aware. Even my counselor agrees with this assessment. (In fact, she thinks I am too self-aware.) Thus, I am cognizant of when I am being hypocritical. The difference between myself and Evangelicals is that I am not morally hypocritical. I don’t get up in a pulpit on Sundays and preach about all sorts of “sins” and then go home and commit the very sins I preached against. I don’t wage war against society’s vices and sexual proclivities all the while practicing these very same sins in the privacy of my home or a motel room.
Additionally, Atheists and Humanists are not spared from hypocrisy. They lament the evils of the world such as hypocrisy, justifiably so, but due to the nature of their worldview, one that hinges on the idea that there are no moral absolutes, they cannot sincerely call hypocrisy evil. Hypocrisy is distasteful to be sure, but hypocrisy, murder, sexual impurity, and deceit cannot be called evil, not if the atheistic humanist is to remain true to his worldview, that is.
I love it when an Evangelical zealot tells me what it is I believe or what other atheists believe. Personally, I think morality is inherently subjective. Christians believe the same thing. If that weren’t so, then the followers of Jesus would all have the same moral beliefs. Since no two Christian believe the same things about morality, it is clear, at least to me, that morality is subjective for Christians too.
I am a humanist. It is humanism, not atheism, that provides a moral framework by which I live my life. Please read the Humanist Manifesto to learn more about how humanists view morality. As far as “evil” is concerned, evil is not a thing or an entity separate from human behavior. Evil does not exist apart from humans. Humans do evil things. I have no problem saying that certain behaviors are evil.
That is where this discussion comes full circle, Bruce. You claim to be an atheist and a humanist, yet you reject the evangelical community because of their failure to adhere to a standard of sincerity that your worldview cannot legitimately define and account for unless moral absolutes exist. If morality is relative and merely rooted in human consensus, societal convention, as the Humanist Manifestos claim, then why shouldn’t the evangelical community be hypocritical if that is what gives them fulfilment, meaning, and happiness? You might say it defies logic to believe one thing and act contrary to that belief, all the while seeking to bring in new acolytes to use and abuse. Again, by what standard is anything “logical” or “illogical” if there is not some absolute standard by which these human abstractions are to be measured?
I do not reject the Evangelical community. I am surrounded by Evangelicals. What I reject are Evangelical beliefs and practices. What I object to is the psychological, and, at times, physical harm caused by Evangelical preachers and churches. (Please see the Black Collar Crime Series — one thousand stories and counting.)
Instead of spending an inordinate amount of time and energy rebutting Tucker’s claims about atheists and morality, I will leave the task to atheist firebrand and expert debater Matt Dillahunty.
The truth of the matter, Bruce, is you, like me, have been injured by either a wolf in sheep’s clothing inside of the evangelical community, or you may have been injured by a sincere Christian caught up in sin, but the actions of others cannot give us an excuse to reject our Creator and Sustainer. You know God exists and you have spent the last two decades pointing at the hypocrisy of others so that you can explain away His existence.
This is the point in his screed where Tucker shifts into Christian Asshole® mode. Without bothering to read any of my autobiographical material, he is going to tell me why I am not a Christian and what it is I really believe.
Tucker tells me that I was either hurt by a preacher or the sinful actions of Christians. Over the past sixteen years, I have written over 6,000 posts. Not one time have I said that I left Christianity because of someone “hurt” me. Not once. Did Evangelical Christian behavior play a part in my deconversion? Sure, a small part, as did numerous other things. However, I have made it clear over, and over, and over again to the Nathan Tuckers who contact me that I left Christianity for intellectual reasons. Not because I am angry, hurt, or jaded, but because the central claims of Christianity are false. It is really that simple. I am more than happy to discuss these reasons with Evangelicals, but they typically choose to attack my character and motivations instead of meaningfully engaging me on the real reasons I no longer believe. The reason for this is simple. If they say that I divorced Jesus for emotional reasons, they can dismiss my story out of hand. “Oh, Bruce just got his feelings hurt and couldn’t cut it” (as Dr. David Tee frequently says). Evangelical zealots know that if they engage me on the intellectual reasons for my deconversion they are likely to end up looking bad. I know the Bible inside and out. I am an expert on Evangelical Christianity. I am quite fluent in what Evangelicals believe and how they think. How could I not be? I was born into, raised, and educated in Evangelicalism. I spent the first thirty years of my marriage swimming in the deep end of the Evangelical pool. Even today, I continue to stay connected to the Evangelical sect. If Tucker wants to engage me on Evangelical beliefs and practices, I am game. I am ALWAYS game. Sadly, no one wants to play. 🙂
All the while, your actions beg the following question: why does it matter whether people believe in God or are used and abused by the evangelical community or not? If this life is all that matters, why not let people enjoy it how they see fit? Because they are being lied to? By what standard is something a lie or the truth? What are you trying to save them from? What is your motivation?
Evidently, Tucker thinks I should be okay with preachers, churches, and parachurch organizations misusing and abusing people; that I should be okay with preachers raping and sexually molesting children; that I should be okay with Evangelical theocrats trying to take over our government; that I should be okay with Evangelicals trying to ban books and history in public schools; that I should be okay with Evangelical racism, bigotry, and homophobia.
It is because we only have one life that these things matter. I have a wife I have been married to for almost forty-five years. I have six adult children. I have thirteen grandchildren. I have at least twenty reasons to work as hard as I can to make this world a better place to live. Jesus, I am starting to think that Tucker hasn’t ever talked to an actual atheist. Most atheists seek meaning and purpose in their lives. We want a better tomorrow, not only for ourselves, but also for everyone.
As you can see, Tucker repeatedly claims that atheists aren’t moral; that they have no moral foundation. He’s convinced that we are immoral, godless heathens. No amount of challenge is going to change his mind. He knows what he knows. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
Tucker is only moral because of Jesus. If that is the only reason he doesn’t rape, murder, steal, or eat too much at Thanksgiving, by all means, Tucker, for the sake of all of us, stay saved. We don’t want you going on a crime rampage, all because you don’t have the Holy Spirit living in your mythical heart.
Now, you may ask, what is my motivation behind writing you? Sincerely, I do not know what my motivation is at this point. I was looking into this band called 7 Hills Worship and your website popped up. I know that I am not trying to save you; God alone can deal with the heart and conscience of human beings, and salvation is up to God, not man (Romans 9:10-24). I am not trying to fight because of some sense of pride. I am not trying get money or fame (I am convinced I will never have either; that is okay). Heck, I am not even trying to befriend you. I think what struck my conscience is your pain. I have experienced similar pain and I wanted to set my faith aside too.
No, Tucker hasn’t. He doesn’t personally know me, nor does he know anything about me. He was too lazy to invest any time in reading my autobiographical writing. Yet, he knows my “pain.” Fuck off with that nonsense. Yes, I have experienced a lot of trauma in my life, more than most people experience. Yes, I battle serious, unrelenting physical pain every day of my life. Tucker could have known these things had he shown a bit of curiosity, but unfortunately, curiosity is not a common Evangelical trait. (Please see Curiosity, A Missing Evangelical Trait.)
Tucker is being less than honest when he says he doesn’t know what his motivations are for writing me. I have heard from thousands of zealots over the years. Typically, they respond to me because they think God want them to do so or they “feel” the need to set me straight or they delusionally think that they will be the one who brings me back to the faith. Tucker read the Dear Evangelical post. In this post was all the information necessary to know who and what I am. I even give Evangelicals a Reason for Contact Check List they can use when emailing me:
Reason for Contacting Bruce Gerencser (Check all that apply)
_____To tell him he is wrong
_____To preach at him
_____To quote Bible verses to him
_____To evangelize him
_____To tell him he doesn’t know anything about the Bible
_____To let him know God still loves him
_____To let him know I am praying for him
_____To tell him he never was a Christian
_____To tell him he is going to Hell
_____To tell him he is still saved and can never be un-saved
_____To tell him he was/is a false prophet
_____To tell him he was/is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
_____To tell him he is angry
_____To tell him he is bitter
_____To tell him his writing shows he has been hurt
_____To tell him he is fat
_____To tell him I hope he burns in Hell
_____To tell him that I am praying God will kill him
_____To tell him that he has a meaningless, empty life
_____To tell him he is going to die soon and then he will find out THE TRUTH!
_____To tell him that I know THE TRUTH about him!
Once you have completed the form, cut and paste it into your email or comment.
Tucker could have saved himself a lot of time by using this checklist. Instead, he sent me a sermon. I will leave it readers to “discern” his motivations.
Yet, the hypocritical behavior of others cannot change the truth that nothing in this world makes sense apart from the Christian worldview, the Christian faith—not the Christians who hold that view, but the objective truth of Christianity itself. Biblical Christianity is true, despite the shortcomings of its practitioners. In fact, Jesus even warned us about these people, which brings even more veracity to His claims. The fact is that Christ is the only perfect man to ever live—He is the only human being that cannot be charged with hypocrisy; that is why He was murdered and that is why our trust must solely rest in Him, not His followers. Take care.
My worldview makes perfect sense, all without God, Jesus, Christianity, and the Protestant Christian Bible. Most people in the world believe the same thing. Yet, Tucker is convinced that his little band of true believers has cornered the market on truth; that their worldview is the only one that makes sense. We see similar thinking among Trumpists, QAnon supporters, anti-vaxxers, and conspiracy theorists. It is not surprising that many of these people are also Evangelicals. The dominant religion of those who tried to overthrow the U.S. Government on January 6, 2021? Evangelical Christianity.
Christianity does not equal objective truth. I am more than happy to school Tucker on the falsity of his claim. While we are at it, we can discuss why the Evangelical deity is immoral and why the Bible shouldn’t be used for anything other than a paperweight.
What is “Bible Christianity”? No two Evangelicals agree on its definition. The Bible isn’t inerrant or infallible, nor is it internally consistent. Contradictions abound. That said, if Evangelicals want to believe that the Bible is true, fine. Just keep your nose out of my business. I don’t care what the Bible says, nor do care what Evangelicals think about how I live my life. You do you and I will do me. And if my wife consents, we can do each other. 🙂
Jesus was a man. He lived and died, end of story. Just because a religious text says Jesus was _________ doesn’t make it so. I have no reason to believe that Jesus was anything other than a Jewish apocalyptic preacher who ran afoul of Jewish leadership and Roman law and got himself killed.
Tucker really needs to rethink why Jesus was executed. That’s some bad theology. Maybe if he decides to engage me we can talk about his claims about Jesus.
Saved by Reason and Polly’s Awesome Cooking,
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 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.