An Evangelical woman named Barb Webb sent me a short email today that said:
It so heartbreaking to me that you didn’t meet the real Jesus. He is still there.
Webb then left the following comment on the post Why I Hate Jesus:
Heartbreaking to read that you were introduced to an imposter not the real Jesus.
I have no idea how much, if any, of my autobiogpraphical material Webb read. I suspect, not much. Her email and comment reflect ignorance about my story and past beliefs. No one with knowledge and understanding about my Christian past would ever say that I didn’t meet the “real” Jesus.
Who is the real Jesus? I believed in, worshipped, and followed the Jesus of the Bible. I assume this is Webb’s Jesus too. Of course, my story is different from Webb’s, so instead of trying to understand my story, she dismisses it out of hand, saying that I never was a real Christian.
What evidence does Webb have for the claim that I was introducted to a “false” Jesus? Is she saying my parents, pastors, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, and college professors were all false Christians too; that everyone in my sphere of religious influence was deceived too?
I agree with one thing Webb said, “He [Jesus] is there.” 2,000 years ago, Jesus was executed by the Roman government. He was then buried in an unknown grave where he remains to this day. So, Webb is right, Jesus is still there, buried in an unknown grave somewhere in or near Jerusalem. He will remain there, never to be seen again. If Webb has evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it. (Quoting the Bible is a claim, not evidence.) She, of course, doesn’t, so all she has is a faith claim which I reject.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, I received the following email from an Evangelical Christian named Kelli Ritter. My response follows.
Hello Bruce, do you really believe that a God that created you a human has to reveal Himself to you to be real?
God didn’t create me, so there’s that. Just because Genesis 1-3 says God created everything doesn’t mean he did. That’s a claim. If you want me to accept and believe your claim, you must provide evidence to support your claim. That’s how the real world works. People make all sorts of claims — including people from my own tribe — that are not true. They are free to believe whatever they want — including religious beliefs such as yours that I consider irrational and lacking in empirical evidence.
Religion is best served when people recognize that religious beliefs are based on faith, and not science. Either someone has faith, or they don’t. In my case, I don’t. If God wants me to believe in him and embrace the central claims of Christianity, he must give me verifiable reasons to believe. So far, no reasons have been forthcoming. Instead, all I see is an ancient tribal religion — a blood cult. Currently, Israel and Palestine are at war over what verses in the Old Testament allegedly say about land given to the Jews thousands of years ago. Thousands of people have died, and for what? A myth. There’s no evidence for the existence of Abraham (or Moses), yet Jews and Palestinians alike are willing to die over words spoken by a mythical deity to a mythical tribal leader. My God, it’s 2023, yet people are dying over interpretations of the Bible.
If salvation is the end-all, it seems to me that God would be clear about the matter. He’s not. Christians can’t even agree on the basics: salvation, baptism, communion. Talk to a hundred Christians and you will find just as many beliefs about God, the Bible, and salvation. Who is right? You? The Catholics? The Baptists? Which Baptists? The Presbyterians? The Mormons? 2,000 years of nonsense and confusion. You would think God would want to settle this once and for all. Instead, according to you, he deliberately hides from us and obfuscates what should be clear to all of us.
God doesn’t require you to believe in Him for Him to be real.
While that certainly is true, I must believe in him to be saved and have life eternal. Religion can and does have value. Religion need not be true for people to benefit from it. Religion — including your flavor of Evangelical Christianity — has helped countless people, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Religion can and does have a placebo effect. If that’s what gets you through the night, so be it. I just don’t happen to need a mythical religion and God to have meaning and purpose in my life.
And He couldn’t anyways because God is so holy and perfect that seeing that kind of perfection would kill us instantly.
God could reveal himself by actually involving himself in the affairs of the human race and creation at large. As things now stand, there’s no evidence that God is involved in our lives at all. At best, he is a deity who created the universe and then said, “There ya go boys and girls, do with it what you will.”
The world looks exactly as it should without the existence of God. We are on our own.
He doesn’t hide himself to play games of believe or non belief. God hides Himself because in our fallen state we can not see His form and live. That’s why He sent His Son. So we would know everything He said from the beginning was true.
How do you know what the Bible says about Jesus is true? Again, you are making all sorts of claims — without evidence.
God’s hiddenness, in my opinion, is an insurmountable problem for Christian apologists. If God wants me to “know,” he knows where I am. He can call, text, or write me or stop by and invite me out to lunch. Instead, all I hear is silence. Well, that and the droning, preachy words of Christians like you.
God doesn’t want your religion and Christianity isn’t a religion although it’s classified that way. Christianity is a relationship with God.
Christianity is a religion, and you embarrass yourself by saying otherwise. While certainly there is a relationship aspect to Christianity, you can’t disconnect it from the fact that Christianity is a 2,000-year-old religion comprised of tens of thousands of sects with countless (and often contradictory) beliefs and practices. The Bible says there is “one Lord, one Faith, and Baptism,” yet history suggests this verse is untrue. If Christians can’t figure out what is “true,” how can they expect the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world to do so?
God saved us from Himself. God has saved us for Himself . And God has saved us by Himself through Jesus Christ. If Jesus really did do all the things the Bible says He did and He really did rise from the dead, then our quest for God stops with Him. If you’re searching for evidence you will never find evidence for God except in scripture.
Well, let’s talk about the Bible, then. You make all sorts of claims and assumptions about the Bible. I am confident I can show you that your claims are false; that the Bible is an error-filled, contradictory ancient religious text; and that its words are largely irrelevant. If you haven’t read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books about the history and nature of the Bible, I encourage you to do so. His books will disabuse you of the notion that the Bible is inerrant or infallible. I will gladly ship one of his books to you, without cost.
When you read the word daily it has a power in it and it starts to reveal things to you. Heavenly things. And it is an amazing feeling to be revealed things from heaven. I hope that you will consider my words and consider Jesus Christ more seriously your spirit depends on it. I will be praying for you. God bless.
I daily read the Bible for most of the first fifty years of my life. As a pastor for twenty-five years, I spent over 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. I can’t imagine there is much of anything left to learn. The Bible is no different from any other book. With so many new, interesting books to read, why spend your lifetime reading the Bible over and over and over again? That said, I have done my homework, and I am more than happy to discuss the Bible with you.
I found your words annoying, little more than a sermon. On my contact page, I ask people NOT to send me preachy emails like yours, yet you ignored my request and emailed me anyway. Why is that? Why do feel the need to seek out a complete stranger on the Internet and preach at them? What did you hope to accomplish? You didn’t say one thing that I haven’t heard countless times before. Thousands of Evangelicals have come before you, each thinking the Holy Spirit was leading them to email me. If God wants to “reach” me, I wish he would stop sending arrogant, preachy people like you (that’s sarcasm) and contact me directly.
I don’t have a “spirit.” I have a body that is broken, frail, and dying, but no soul, spirit, or other magical entity. Do you have any evidence for the existence of the “spirit?” That’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer is no. Your religion teaches you that you have a spirit or a soul (depending on whether you are bipartite or tripartite), but provides no evidence for their existence apart from a handful of Bible verses.
Thank you for taking the time to contact me. Let me know if you are interested in receiving one of Bart Ehrman’s books.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Over the weekend, I received an email from an Evangelical man named Richard Johnson. What follows is my response.
To be perfectly honest, I do not know exactly how I stumbled upon your webpage. I do not know you, nor do I desire to pick a fight with you.
You stumbled upon this site either through a web search or social media post. No one “stumbles” upon my writing by accident. Further, if, as Christian orthodoxy states, God is the creator of all things and the sovereign ruler of the universe, he is to blame for you reading my blog.
Not only do you not know me, your email reveals that you have no regard or respect for me as a person. I specifically asked you NOT to email me (please read the Contact page), yet you chose to do so anyway. Why is that? Did you seriously think that you were going to tell me something that I did not already know about God/Jesus/Bible/Christianity? Your email treats me as if I am clueless about what Evangelical Christians believe. I assure you that a have a working knowledge of all things Evangelical.
I am 71 years old, so that makes me around five years older than you. I am an evangelical Christian that has studied the Bible extensively for a number of years. Although I have never been trained in a seminary or been a pastor, the Jesus I know differs greatly from the Jesus you thought you knew at one time.
“Knowing” Jesus does not require studying the Bible “extensively” for a number of years.” Jesus never studied the Bible (as you are using the term), and neither did the apostles. The early church took hundreds of years to compile what you call the “Bible.” In fact, most Christians had limited reading and writing skills, and early gatherings consisted first, of worshiping in the Temple, and later gathering in homes to pray, fellowship, and listen to readings from the Old Testament and other religious texts. You may not know this, but early Christians did not own leather-bound Oxford King James Bibles. They relied on oral transmission of religious teachings.
Speaking of Peter and John — two of the men in Jesus’ inner circle, the Bible says in Acts 4:13: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” Unlearned and ignorant, Jesus’ two closest disciples were, yet their behavior demonstrated that they were followers of Jesus.
How do you KNOW your Jesus is the right one? How do you know I worshipped the wrong one, a false Jesus? Do you know anything about the lifelong trajectory of my theological, political, and social beliefs? Or, have you cobbled together in your mind a strawman of the beliefs of one Bruce Gerencser — an Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist? How much of my autobiographical material did you actually read before hitting “send?” I suspect a post or three before you felt “led” by the Holy Ghost to preach at me. To this, I say, “Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.” (Proverbs 18:13)
The Jesus I know is the epitome of grace.
Jesus is God, right? I assume you are Trinitarian, so you can’t divorce Jesus from the actions and words of his Father. Thus, Jesus, the epitome of grace, is directly responsible for drowning millions of innocent men, women, children, babies, and fetuses in Genesis 6-9.
Richard Dawkins had this to say about the Old Testament God: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
This God is Jesus. Surely you know this, right? Christians love the Jesus of the gospels, but that Jesus is one and the same as the God of the Old Testament and the God of the book of Revelation who will one day slaughter most of the human race and make earth uninhabitable.
The reason why He left heaven was because He regarded our helpless estate as human beings. We are His creation. Satan deceived Eve. Adam chose to willfully sin, and every human being thereafter was infected with a sinful nature. That was why Jusus told Nicodemus he needed to be born again. When someone is born again, that person has a new entity that lives inside him/her that contends with the old sinful nature. In order for the “born again” entity to prevail over the old sinful nature, the born again entity must be fed more than the old sinful nature. Amy Grant once sang a song called “Are You Living In An Old Man’s Rubble. You can find it on Youtube should you care to listen to it. If you choose to do so, please find the version with the lyrics.
Outside of the Bible, what evidence do you have for these claims? Just because the Bible says something doesn’t mean it’s true. The Bible is a book of claims. If you want me to believe what you are peddling, you are going to have to provide actual evidence for your claims, starting with the notion that we are broken sinners who need fixing.
The Jesus I know and serve is a Gentleman.
The Jesus you know is one you have concocted in your mind, just as millions and millions of other Christians have done. I find it amazing that the Jesus you know looks like you, thinks like you, and believes the same thing you do. How can unbelievers know which Jesus is the right one? Christians can’t even agree on the basics: salvation, baptism, and communion.
He died a painful and degrading death on a Roman cross to give us the choice to accept or reject Him and His offer of salvation.
Jesus was executed because he was considered a threat by the Roman government. Your statements about his death are claims for which you provide no evidence. Further, even when I consider your claims from an Evangelical perspective, it is evident you lack a comprehensive understanding of Christian orthodoxy.
Jesus died on the cross to atone for sin. Before the world began, God predetermined that Jesus would die at an appointed time for the sins of the elect. Jesus was a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Libertarian freewill is not taught in the Bible. Well, the Bible can be used to prove anything, but most Christians believe that salvation is of the Lord; and that no one is saved unless God regenerates, draws, calls, and redeems them. Jesus said in John 6:44: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”
As far as Jesus’ suffering is concerned. He suffered for all of 12 hours or so. Sure, his suffering was painful, but I know people who have been suffering horrible, debilitating pain for decades. Compared to their suffering, Jesus’ was just a minor inconvenience. Please see I Wish Christians Would Be Honest About Jesus’ Three Day Weekend.) Jesus knew deliverance awaited just around the corner. Not so for these people, many of whom who have spent years without success begging Jesus to heal and deliver them
In your listing of 16 reasons why you are not a Christian, reason number eight was simply not true. God sends no one to hell. People who reject God’s free gift of grace are the ones that send themselves to hell. God will honor the decision of anyone who chooses to accept or reject Him.
It is “simply not true” because you say so? Who created the universe? Who is the sovereign Lord over all? Who is the Kings of kings and Lord of lords? Who knows the end from the beginning? Who knows our every thought, word, and deed? Who created Adam and Eve? Satan?
Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation make it clear that it is God (Jesus) who will one day cast all non-Christians in the Lake of Fire. He alone determines who is saved and who is not. I can easily argue that God determined who would be saved before the world was created; that no one goes to Hell unless God sends him there (and the same can be said for Heaven/God’s eternal kingdom).
You want to believe in libertarian free will because it makes God (Jesus) look good and absolves him of all culpability for human behavior and the state of the world. You want to give him all the credit for the good in the world, but none of the bad. God=good, Satan=bad.
In the book of Job, it was Satan that did all the tormenting of Job. God showed the devil and anyone else who read the book of Job the true nature of Satan. The Bible says that Satan will one day spend eternity in hell.
Who created Satan? Could Satan have done anything without God’s permission? Of course not. You seem desperate to protect God’s “good name,” so much so that you are willing to go to great lengths to distort the words of the Bible. Go back and actually read the book of Job without reading your peculiar theology into the text. You will find a God is front and center in Job’s suffering, none of which would have happened without God’s permission.
Satan is responsible for all the pain and suffering in this sin-sick world of ours. He was the one who oversaw the torture, suffering, humiliation, and death of Jesus on the cross.
Again, you are making claims — without evidence. Satan, much like God, is a mythical being. He can’t be responsible for anything because he doesn’t exist. Humans alone are to blame for what happens in the world. It was the Roman government, at the behest of the Jews, that oversaw the “torture, suffering, humiliation, and death of Jesus on the cross.” Not Satan.
Jesus did not die in vain, but He overcame death and the grave. I serve a risen Saviour and His name is Jesus.
I know you “believe” this, but you can’t expect others to believe it without providing convincing evidence for your claims. Just because the Bible says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Coming to this site and preaching at me and my readers accomplished what, exactly? Your words are no different from those of thousands of Evangelicals who have come before you. Same old shit, new day. Instead of preaching — listen. Instead of preaching — show respect to people you differ with.
I am more than happy to answer whatever questions you might have. However, I have zero interest in sermons or Bible quotations. I know all I need to know about God/Jesus/Christianity. With eyes wide open, I reject the central claims of Christianity. I am not low-hanging fruit; someone who is a prospect for Heaven. I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
A Christian man named Andy Miller sent me a short, succinct email today. Here’s what Miller had to say:
If you have left all tenants [sic] of faith, why do you care, except to build up yourself?
I know, I know. Sigh. (Please see Why I Use the Word “Sigh.”)Child, please. Just another email from someone who has made no effort to understand my story. But, it’s a cold, rainy fall day in O-h-i-o. Why not give Miller the answer he so richly deserves? Evidence suggests Miller is affiliated with the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement.
Dear Andy,
The key to you understanding me is to actually read my writing. Based on what I can tell from this site’s server logs, you read all of one post before emailing me, The Scandalous Life of Jack Hyles and Why it Still Matters. You spent all of two minutes reading this article. You didn’t read the About page or any of my autobiographical material. No one, of course, is obligated to read anything before contacting me, but if you want to be taken as a thoughtful, honest interlocutor, it pays to do your homework.
I have not left all tenets of “faith.” What I have left is organized religion in general, and Christianity in particular. I have carefully weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. I am still a person of “faith.” By faith, I trust that science is the best tool for understanding our natural world. By faith, based on forty-five years of evidence and awesome rolls in the hay, I believe my partner, Polly, loves me. I live in a technologically advanced world; one which requires expertise beyond my abilities. By faith, I trust experts to tell me the truth about things I lack sufficient knowledge to understand. Son #3 is a certified mechanic. While I used to do ALL of my own repair work, I can no longer do so. My knowledge of automobile repair stopped growing in the early 2000s. When I have a car problem, I call my son. Why? He’s the expert, so I put my faith in him to tell me the truth.
Here’s my point, all of us are people of “faith,” to some degree or another. Most of us try to have what I call “reasoned faith.” None of us is a limitless dispenser of knowledge — though I try to convince my grandchildren that I am. 🙂 We rely on others, especially experts, to help us navigate our world.
While I no longer have the requisite faith necessary to believe the claims of Christianity are true, my ongoing objections have little to do with “faith.” If the Andy Millers of the world want to gather together on Sundays to worship a dead Jewish man with blood cult rituals, have at it. If they want to plaster their homes, yards, and autos with Christian signs, bumper stickers, creches, and Jesus Junk®, have at it. If they want to home-school their children or send them to private Christian schools, have at it. If they want to evangelize sinners on public sidewalks, have it. I have no problem with personal acts of piety. Each to their own, right?
However, when it comes to trying to overthrow the U.S. government, establish a theocracy, subvert the Constitution, take over public schools, indoctrinate children, or force others to live by your interpretations of an ancient religious text, I care — and I care a lot. Polly and I are parents to six adult children and grandparents to thirteen munchkins. I am sixty-six years old. I doubt I will make it to seventy. So, my focus is on what world I will leave behind for those that I love. I care a lot about their future. I care about what they are taught in school. I oppose any and all attempts to passive-aggressively force them to participate in release programs such as Lifewise Academy. I oppose any and all attempts to mandate school prayer, Bible reading, and posting the Ten Commandments. I want my grandchildren taught science, and not religion — creationism and intelligent design — masquerading as science. I want them taught the birds and the bees, and not here’s-an-aspirin-put-it-between-your-knees-and-just-say-no. I demand LGBTQ people receive equal protection under the law, receiving the same freedom, liberty, and justice as everyone else. I oppose book bans, music bans, play bans, beer bans, clothing bans, and countless other issues that seem to rile Evangelicals these days.
So you see, Andy, I care because these things matter — at least to me, anyway. You seem to think that I no longer have a right to protest these egregious affronts to our democracy and social order; that once I left Christianity I no longer had a right to say anything. I may have left Christianity, but Christianity sure hasn’t left me. Frankly, I can’t get away from it. And as long as Evangelicalism is hellbent on damaging and controlling my life and that of my family and friends, I intend to publicly push back.
Andy, you made no effort to know the man, the myth, the legend, Bruce Almighty, yet you felt qualified to judge my motives; that the reason I write is to build myself up — whatever the hell that means. “Build up” implies gain. What, exactly, have I gained by telling my story and critiquing Evangelical Christianity over the past sixteen years? I make no money to speak of from my writing. I receive donations via Patreon and Paypal, but these pay costs, and may, if I have a good donation year, allow Polly and me to eat a meal at a fancy restaurant and spend the night in a hotel. By the time I pay taxes on my blog donations — yep, donations are taxable — most years are a wash.
While I have an ever-increasing readership and loyal support from a number of readers — both of which are metaphorical jolts of adrenaline for me — I also attract a lot of negative attention. Hate mail. Death threats. Attacks on my spouse and our family. I am routinely battered and abused by people who allege follow the Prince of Peace. I would shutter this blog today if it wasn’t for the fact that the things mentioned above matter to me.
The only thing I have built up since I deconverted is my credit card balances and the number of shoes, fedoras, and Charles Tyrwhitt shirts I wear. I am sure you meant something else by your attack on my character, but I will leave it to you to explain yourself.
Do better, Andy, do better.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Two years ago, an Evangelical man from California named Daniel Kluver began his stalker-like behavior by emailing me and commenting on this site. He would later contact my wife and children on Facebook. A year later, Kluver was permanently banned from commenting and blocked (and reported) on social media.
During this two-year period, I wrote about or responded to Kluver eight times:
It has been a while since Kluver contacted me. Evidently, he was perusing an atheist porn site, saw my sexy Santa photo, and fearing the arousal of his latent gay desires, decided to fire off an email to me instead (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original):
You never were a Christian or you would still be one.
Welp, I was a Christian, so according to Kluver’s present theology, I must still be one. He at one time believed I was still a Christian, but he no longer does so.
According to Kluver’s illogical logic, once you are __________, you are always ___________, no matter what you say or do. Thus, I am either still a Christian (which he rejects) or I never was one.
Kluver doesn’t apply his illogical logic to any other aspect of life. If a person gets married and then divorced, is he still married? Of course not. I could use countless things to illustrate this very point. Life if filled with us changing our minds about choices we have previously made. As far as Christianity is concerned, I came to believe that I had believed a lie; that my parents, pastors, and professors had sold me a false bill of goods. Further, extensive study and investigation of the central claims of Christianity led me to conclude that I had spent much of my life worshipping and serving a God that did not exist.
What should I have done? Keep believing? Faith it until I make it? Better to believe a lie just in case I’m wrong? I did what most thoughtful people do: I examined the evidence at hand and changed my mind accordingly. If Kluver wants to reach me for Jesus — and he doesn’t — he needs to provide me evidence that the claims of Christianity are true. Further, he needs to model behavior that remotely suggests he is a follower of Jesus. So far, all I see is a hateful troll whose goal is to harass me.
Stop lying about this and tell the truth that you probably have nephilim blood running in your life.
For readers not familiar with Kluver’s claims I have Nephilim blood, Genesis 6:1-4 says:
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim [giants] were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
The Nephilim are mysterious beings or people in the Hebrew Bible who are described as being large and strong. The Hebrew word Nephilim directly translates to “the fallen ones”. Their origins are disputed. Some view them as offspring of fallen angels and humans. Others view them as offspring of the descendants of Seth and Cain.
The main reference to them is in Genesis 6:1–4, but the passage is ambiguous and the identity of the Nephilim is disputed. According to the Book of Numbers 13:33, ten of the Twelve Spies report the existence of Nephilim in Canaan, prior to its conquest by the Israelites.
A similar or identical biblical Hebrew term, read as “Nephilim” by some scholars, or as the word “fallen” by others, appears in the Book of Ezekiel 32:27 and is also mentioned in the deuterocanonical books Judith 16:6, Sirach 16:7, Baruch 3:26–28, and Wisdom 14:6.
According to Kluver, I am the offspring of a human mother and a fallen angel. He, of course, has no evidence for his claim. He’s just making shit up. I will, however, gladly submit to blood and DNA tests to prove Kluver’s claim. Where does one go for a Nephilim test? 🙂 I’ll be sure to ask my doctor at my next visit.
I have never heard of a saved devil so I understand that you can’t help being a liar.
In classic Revival Fires, Derrick Thomas Thiessen, and Victor Justice fashion, Kluver accuses me of being a liar. Once again, he provides no evidence for his claim. Among outspoken former Evangelicals, I am known for being open and honest about not only my past life, but the present. While I have a few secrets which I shall never divulge, I am generally an open book. Have a question? Ask. It seems, then, that Kluver is lying about me being a liar. Why do so many Evangelicals have such a hard time telling the truth or being honest interlocutors? I am more than happy to have discussions with Evangelicals provided they are thoughtful and honest.
So do you want all your garbage to die when you die or do you still want to bring embarrassment to your self?
Garbage? Unable to accept my story at face value, Kluver has resorted to all sorts of derogatory name-calling — a common Evangelical trait. Today, I am “garbage.” What does Kluver hope to accomplish by this approach? Shitting on unbelievers is not an effective way to reach them for Jesus.
After writing this post, I found a comment that Kluver left in 2019:
Baptist’s suck that’s all I want to say about them.
Okay?
In 2021, Michael Mock had this to say about Kluver:
Kluver seems to have mistaken being full of himself for being full of the holy spirit. Probably thinks of himself as a “straight shooter” who’s just “telling it like it is,” which is one of the top five excuses I’ve heard assholes give for their behavior over the years. But hey, if he has the power — excuse me, gift — to get his prayers answered by the Almighty, then this should be easy for him. All he has to do is get the Lord to address us directly. Have Jesus stop by for a beer. Easy!
Amen.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Over the weekend, I received the following email from a Christian woman named Alicia. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original. My response follows. Alicia means well, so I do want to extend grace to her in my response.
Hi Bruce,
I just love you. I bet you were an awesome pastor. (And your wife looks absolutely lovely.) I am a believer and I love Tim Mill’s site and your site.
I am not sure what Alicia means by saying “I just love you.” I tend to bristle when Christians tell me that they love me, knowing how “love” is used to manipulate people or as an evangelism tool. Alicia doesn’t know me, so she is not in a position to “love” me. Maybe she used the word in a colloquial sense.
I will leave it to former parishioners to say whether I was an awesome pastor. I humbly tried my best to minister to other people. Whether that qualifies as “awesome” is for others to decide. I do know that there are former parishioners who don’t think I am “awesome.” If these people saw me in a crosswalk, they would probably speed up and try to run me over. ‘Tis the nature of the ministry. You can’t be all things to all people.
Several months ago, I was interviewed by Tim Mills. Over 82,000 people have viewed the interview.
I find it so interesting to see how real believer’s minds change. I kinda get the textual and philisophical reasons why folks deconvert. But what I don’t get is when you guys say that there is no such thing as sin. Well, I do get it. It’s because you guys never wallowed in it yourselves. You actually walked the walk so your consciences are clear and your souls aren’t dinged up from it. You just feel like you’ve been bamboozled by religion.
Sin is a religious construct used by clerics to induce guilt and fear. Properly abused by preaching and teaching on “sin,” congregants are then offered a “solution” for their sin — Jesus. Of course, Jesus is only found in churches that preach Biblical truth — or so preachers say, anyway. Offered forgiveness, once accepted, church members are expected to be faithful attendees and tithers. Preaching up sin is a way for preachers to maintain their hold on congregants, and, most of all, keep the money flowing.
As a humanist, I believe in good and bad behavior — not sin. Many normal, healthy human behaviors are considered “sins” by Christians. People go through life feeling fearful and guilty over just being human. This is particularly true when it comes to sexual behavior.
Trust me when I say that I have done a lot of “sinning” in my lifetime. My religion taught me that I daily sinned in thought, word, and deed, committing sins, according to my pastors, of commission and omission. This thinking led to a lot of fear and guilt. I was worried that the judgment of God was nigh, and that if I didn’t stop sinning God might kill me.
Today, I live a much simpler life. No more fear or guilt, no worries about chastisement or judgment. My goal on any given day is to be a good man, living according to the humanist ideal. (Humanist Manifesto) And when I fail, I do my best to apologize and make restitution.
Well,,Lemme tell you, as a prodigal. THERE IS SIN. I walked away from God and walked in sin and it traumatized me. (Don’t let a Dr. prescribe an antidepressant. They will fry your brain worse than a street drug.) Anyhow,… When I came back to God and read the Bible again…talk about feeling Bamboozled. What a B-Slap! Over and over that Book warns us not to sin so we don’t hurt ourselves and others.
I can’t speak to Alicia’s experiences, but I don’t view myself as a prodigal. I am a truth-seeker. Fifteen years ago, my studies and experiences showed me that the central claims of Christianity are false. Prodigals are people who return to that which they left behind. How could I possibly do so? If Christianity is untrue, what is there for me to go back to? That ship has sailed.
You”re in therapy cuz you were sinned against so horribly as a child. Your precious mother was sinned against and so traumatized. ( Lord only knows what you saw and dealt with as a Pastor.) And as i said…my own sins traumatized me.
I am in therapy for a lot of reasons — childhood trauma being one of them. However, it would be wrong to pin my deconversion on trauma alone. I’m not an atheist because my step-grandmother sexually molested me, nor am I an atheist because of countless other childhood traumas. Sure, these events shaped me psychologically and affected how I engage the world I live in, but my deconversion rests primarily on intellectual reasons, not emotional ones.
I hope you don’t regret too much your time as a pastor. I”m sure you hedged a lot of folks from pain.\
The only thing I regret is spending so much of my life believing a lie. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed being a pastor. There are certain aspects of the ministry I don’t miss, but loving and caring for people? Preaching and teaching? Ministering to the least of these? I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that I miss these things. Maybe I need to start an atheist church. 🙂
Forgive me if I seem like I”m talking church talk. I really am approaching it from a psychological standpoint.
The problem with approaching my story from a “psychological standpoint” is that Alicia is not qualified to do so, and neither are countless other Christians who take this approach with me.
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.
I make it clear that I am not interested in receiving medical or psychological advice — ever. I see a team of doctors on a regular basis. I see a psychologist weekly. I am well-cared for. That’s why I ask people to NOT send me medical or psychological advice. How hard can it be for people to respect my wishes?
Anyhow, please don’t feel the need to respond. I know you are a busy dude. And this topic is treading borderline for you.
Not treading, past the line. I know you mean well, so I am giving you a pass this round. In the future, when someone you don’t know says “These are my boundaries,” believe them.
I wanna say God Bless You, but I don’t want to offend.
So I”ll be more invasive and just say HUGE HUGS to you and your wife.
There is no God, so I am not concerned about his “blessing” in the least. I have much to be thankful and grateful for, but God plays no part in my life. I give credit to whom credit is due, and God ain’t done squat for me. How can he? He is a mythical being.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Over the weekend, an Evangelical man named Charles Pentland, Jr. sent me the following email:
Sad, you turned from the faith. You’re not the only one. It won’t be long & you will believe it.
I really don’t have much to say to Charles. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Evangelicals think threatening strangers on the Internet with Hell is an effective evangelization technique. Does anyone thusly threatened immediately fall on their knees, repent, and ask Jesus to save them? Of course not. Thus, I am left to conclude that such threats are all about people such as Charles, and not the people they threaten. They have a pathological need to be right, and what better way to show their rightness than by threatening unbelievers — especially atheists — with hellfire and damnation? Evangelicals feel vindicated, thinking, “I sure told that atheist.” Instead, all they do is remind me of why I left Christianity, and why the single best decision I made next to marrying Polly was the day I said to the world “I no longer believe.”
Charles feels “sad” over my loss of faith. Does he really? I doubt it. People change their minds about things all the time. People marry and later divorce. Jesus and I were married for many years — happily so. Yet, there came a day when I realized my marriage to Jesus was over. What did I do? I filed for divorce, and fifteen years later, I am still a happy divorcee. While I lost lifetime social connections when I deconverted, I have developed new relationships with people who accept me as I am, and not for what I believe. My life is better in every way — post-Jesus. Of course, Charles likely doesn’t believe me, thinking that no one can have a good life, a satisfying life, one filled with purpose and meaning, without J-e-s-u-s. All I know to do is to keep living my “sad” life all the way to the grave. Isn’t that all any of us can do?
Let me leave Charles with the advice I give to readers 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.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Over the weekend, I received several emails from an Evangelical women named Annelie. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.
Annelie:
Hello there.. I just read your story Blog. I have one question only… And it’s one word…. WHY. ?
Did you walk away from God. Help me understand you.
Thank you for your kindness.
Carolyn:
Annelie,
It’s funny that you should use the word WHY. There is a whole series of posts under the word WHY on Bruce’s home page. Here’s the link: https://brucegerencser.net/why/. Read those posts, then come back and ask questions if you wish more information. The short of it is that Bruce is a voracious reader, and the more he read, the more he realized that the bible was neither inerrant nor infallible. Once he discovered this, he realized that fundamentalist Christianity no longer made sense.
Happy reading,
Carolyn Patrick, editor for Bruce Gerencser
Bruce:
Annelie,
Thank you for taking the time to contact me. Your question is one that has been asked countless times. I actually have a page that lists articles I have written that hopefully answer the “Why?” question. I believe my editor sent you a link to this page: https://brucegerencser.net/why/
If you have any further questions, please let me know, and I will do my best to answer them.
Annelie:
Bruce
I think you answered your own question…..
When you said that you once believed that Christianity was true…
And I hate to tell you that it STILL is… whether you choose to believe it or not.
Eternity is a L-o-n-g Time without GOD.
My heart breaks for you.
Annelie:
Hello again…
Just to let you know that I will not give up on you !
I will not stop praying for YOU. !
A song that come to mind for you is…
“ Set my spirit free , that I may worship Thee,
Set my spirit free, that I may praise Thy Name,
Let all bondage go, and let deliverance flow,
Set my spirit free, to worship Thee.”
Some day when I get to heaven,
I want to see ….. BRUCE : the mighty man of God there,
Singing with all his might…
“ Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Greater than all my sin,
How can my tongue describe it ?
Where can my praise begin ?
Taking away my burden,
Setting my spirit free,
Oh the wonderful grace of Jesus,
Reaches me. !!! “
It is evident from Annelie’s emails that she spent very little time reading my autobiographical material, especially the articles found on the WHY? page. I have come to expect such behavior from Evangelicals. Rare is the Evangelical who actually tries to understand my story before emailing me. (Please see Curiosity, A Missing Evangelical Trait.)
Further, Annelie disregarded what is stated on the CONTACT page:
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?”
It seems to me that when you comment on a blog or email its owner, the very least you can do is respect their wishes. Sadly, Evangelicals are not a respectful lot. Putting a word in for Jesus, evangelizing the lost, or exposing heresy is more important to them than being decent, respectful human beings.
Annelie asked a question, one that was answered by both Carolyn and myself. Her response should have been, “Thank you. I will read the posts you mentioned, and if I have further questions I will let you know.” Instead, she went into preaching mode.
Annelie seems to think that assertions or claims are the same as “truth.” Saying Christianity is true whether I believe it or not is a claim, not a fact. I provided ample evidence for my claim that Christianity is not true, yet Annalie chose not to read those posts. Instead, as many Evangelicals do, Annalie stomped her feet and loudly proclaimed CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE! She provides no evidence for this claim. She expects me and other unbelievers to just believe her. Christianity, in her mind, is true, because she believes it is. End of discussion. Such thinking might work at countless Evangelical churches, but the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world such as myself require more than bald assertions and faith claims. If Annelie wants to discuss whether the central claims of Christianity are true — I’m game.
As Evangelicals often do, Annelie couldn’t help but threaten me with Hell. Oh, she didn’t come right out and use the word Hell, but it is implied when she said “Eternity is a L-o-n-g Time without GOD.” For Evangelicals, eternity is comprised of Heaven (the eternal kingdom of God) and Hell (Lake of Fire). Everyone goes to one of these places after they die. I have no doubt Annelie thinks I am headed for Hell.
What did Annelie hope to accomplish by emailing me? Surely she knows I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years; that I have an Evangelical Bible college education; that I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years; and that I have spent the past sixteen years writing about my journey from Evangelicalism to atheism. What did Annelie hope to achieve by quoting the lyrics to the song “Wonderful Grace of Jesus?” I know all I need to know about Christianity. With my mind wide open, I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting. Did Annelie really think that by quoting Christian song lyrics I would suddenly fall on my knees, repent, and get saved?
In her first email, Annelie said, “Help me understand you,” yet subsequent emails suggest she is more interested in preaching at me than understanding me. Understanding me requires reading my autobiographical material. I make it easy for Evangelicals to “understand” me, but many of them are so damn lazy that they can’t be bothered to do their homework.
Annelie says she’s not going to give up on me. What, exactly, does that even mean? Is she going to kidnap me and beat Jesus into me? I am not low-hanging fruit, someone who can be easily evangelized. Thousands of Evangelicals have tried to evangelize me, without success. Does Annelie believe, with song lyrics in hand, that she is going to accomplish what thousands before her have been unable to do? “With God all things are possible,” Annelie might say. Yelp, everyone who has tried to “save” me allegedly had God on their side too. Yet, I remain an outspoken, unrepentant atheist. It seems, at least to me, that not only are Evangelicals powerless to “save” me, but so is their God.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
None of us likes to apologize. Apologizing to a person or a group requires us to admit that we were wrong. Im not talking about fake apologies here: “I am sorry you feel that way” or “I am sorry you feel offended.” I am talking about apologies where we recognize we caused harm and want to make amends.
All of us are going to say or do things that offend or harm others. None of us is perfect. We can act out of selfishness, greed, offense, or anger, harming others in the process. In such times, it is proper, dare I say essential, for us to apologize. As a former Evangelical pastor, I said and did a lot of things that harmed my wife, children, and church congregants. While I can justify my bad behavior by saying I didn’t know any better or that I was a product of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) indoctrination and conditioning, the fact remains that I materially harmed people. To those people I owe, at the very least, an apology, and, if possible, the making of amends.
I left Christianity in 2008 — fifteen years ago. After deconverting, I sent out a letter explaining my decision to family, friends, and former parishioners. You can read this letter here. This letter elicited a number of judgmental, hostile, hateful responses. Overnight, I became a pariah, an enemy of God. People I had known for upwards of fifty years said some pretty awful things to me, accusing me of being demon-possessed, mentally ill, and a false Christian. My best friend said that I was mentally ill; that I was destroying my family. Another dear friend sent me a long letter that suggested I was under the influence of Satan. She was the only Christian during this period who later had second thoughts about what she said to me and apologized.
Over the years, I have received thousands of emails, blog comments, and social media messages from Evangelical Christians, including pastors, evangelists, missionaries, professors, and college friends. I have received very few emails, comments, or messages from Evangelicals (or conservative Catholics) that I would consider thoughtful or respectful; attempts to sincerely understand why I deconverted. The rest of them were openly hostile toward me, often saying and doing things that caused hurt and harm. I quickly learned that some Evangelicals will lie to prove a point; that others totally ignore what Jesus said about how to treat your enemies.
A handful of Evangelicals have later come back to me and apologized for the things they said to me and I happily forgave them. That said, I am not one who thinks an apology requires forgiveness in response. Shortly before Polly’s mom died, I had an IFB family member call me and say all sorts of vicious, vile, hurtful things, including threatening me twice with violence. I finally hung up on the man. At Mom’s funeral, this family member came up to me and said “I’m sorry for those things I said you.” I replied, “Thank you, and then turned away.” The man crossed a line of no return with me. Nothing he could say would fix the harm and hurt he caused, not only to me, but to Polly and our children. I suspect he felt guilty over his behavior and that was the motivation for his attempted apology. Religion will do that to you. Guilt is one thing, contrition and restoration are something else. Sadly, this man wasn’t too apologetic. When it came time for him to settle Mom’s financial accounts — Mom refused to let us do it because we are atheists and she didn’t “trust” us — he shorted Polly’s inheritance by at least $5,000. (Money, the one thing that will show the truth of one’s religious beliefs.)
I generally forgive people who sincerely, with no strings attached, apologize. I have only withheld my forgiveness from three people in sixty-six years: the aforementioned family member, my mom’s father, John, and his wife, Ann. (Please see Life with My Fundamentalist Baptist Grandparents, John and Ann Tieken.) My Mom’s dad is dead and his wife is in a nursing home. I haven’t spoken to either of them in over twenty years. I cut them out of my life and that of my children years ago. I have no regrets for doing so. They were bad people. As the living family member mentioned above, he might be able to buy my forgiveness by returning the $5,000 he stole from Polly (and the leftover money from the insurance and the jewelry that was supposed to go to Polly). 🙂 That’s never going to happen, so I have no intention of forgiving him.
Thinking about the thousands of Evangelicals I have interacted with over the years on this site, why is it so hard for them to admit and apologize for being uncharitable, meanspirited, or hateful? When their behavior is challenged straight from the Word of God, why do they ignore my rebuke or try to justify their awful behavior? Is what I say true, regardless of whether an atheist is saying it? Isn’t the message what matters, not the messenger?
I have tagged 212 posts with the Evangelical Email and Comments tag. I suspect there are a hundred or more posts from earlier years that I should have tagged but didn’t. Read their emails, comments, and messages to me. Where, oh where, is Jesus anywhere to be found?
When I give these followers of Jesus what loyal readers call “The Bruce Gerencser Treatment®,” I always notify them that I have responded to them. Some of them use fake names and email addresses — cowards for Jesus — so I can’t let them know that I have weighed their words in the balance and found them wanting. What I found interesting about the rest of them is that over ninety percent of them never acknowledge or respond to my response post. Why is that? Fear? Upset that they have been outed or made to look bad? Or perhaps they deep down know they shouldn’t have called me names, slandered me, attacked my character, disparaged my family, or ridiculed the readers of this blog. They are embarrassed by their assholery; that their ugly behavior is on public display for all to see. I warn Evangelicals on my comment page:
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?”
I suspect this warning wards off many Evangelicals from sharing the “good news” with me. Several hundred people access the contact page every month, but most never hit send. While I still get email these days, the volume is minuscule compared to what I received ten or so years ago. Either Evangelicals have given up on me — doubtful — or the various roadblocks I have set in their way frustrate them enough that they give up or refrain from hitting send out of fear of being publicly exposed. Either way, I get enough email to keep me (and Carolyn, my editor) busy and hopelessly behind.
If Evangelicals are anything, they are certain they are right. Many of them, such as Dr. David Tee and others, believe that, as an atheist and a humanist, I don’t say anything worth hearing. In their minds, I am under the influence and control of Satan, so what could I possibly say that is relevant and true? This certainty, of course, breeds arrogance. Evangelicals can’t apologize because that would mean that they were wrong. Filled with the Holy Ghost and armed with an inspired, inerrant, infallible Bible, how could they possibly be wrong? Or so their thinking goes, anyway. So they run roughshod over atheists and anyone else they disagree with, thinking Jesus approves of their stand for truth and their war against atheism.
Think about your time in the Evangelical church. Do you remember a time when your pastor or another church leader stood before the congregation and admitted they were wrong? Do you ever remember your pastor or another church leader apologizing to you personally or to the church as a whole? Never? Once, maybe twice? I did, on occasion, but certainly not as often as I should have.
That’s why I have stopped expecting Christians to take seriously the teachings of Christ, especially the Sermon on the Mount. I have stopped expecting them to give behavioral evidence that they are followers of Jesus — especially the fruit of the Spirit. And because they have abandoned the teachings of the Bible they “say” they believe, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Evangelicals do the things they do.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, I responded to an email from a Christian woman named D.S. Mullis. You can read my response here. As is my custom, I sent her a link to my response. Today, Mullis sent me another email, which follows below, along with my response.
Dear Mr. Gerencser:
Thank you for replying to my one line comment.
I suspect that Mullis wants to point out that my voluminous response was to a one line sentence. It is what she implied, as she makes clear in this email, that mattered to me. Why would anyone seek out a complete stranger on the Internet, make no effort to get to know them, read a handful of posts, and then say to them “I truly feel sorry for you”? I am sixty-six years old. I have never behaved in such a manner. I do NOT seek out Christian strangers on the Internet and comment on their blogs, telling them that I feel sorry for them. This seems like boorish behavior to me. Certainly, I respond to people who respond to something I’ve written or who have decided to deconstruct my life, but I don’t roam the Internet looking for confrontation with followers of Jesus.
I must say I was a little taken aback at your comments.
Why? You came into my home and overstepped a boundary — one that should have been clear to you according to what is written on the contact page. Maybe you are not used to having strangers you criticize bite back. I’m known for biting back. If you didn’t know that, now you do
But, then again, as I continued to read your words it seemed you were defending your stance of atheism, which is truly your privilege.
My email was not a defense of atheism. That you missed the point of my response to you is astounding. My point is that you had no foundation for feeling sorry for me; that you made a moral judgment about me without knowing anything about me. My post should have led you to read more of my writing, especially my autobiographical material, but you chose not to. (Remember, the server logs of this site tell me exactly what posts you clicked on and how much time you spent reading them.)
This leads me to conclude that your mind is already made up.
My statement was not condemning…it was factual. I do feel sorry for you. I have sympathy, not empathy; for through all the trials and misfortunes, weaknesses and disappointments in my 70+ years, I’ve never found a place of denouncing the faith that was once delivered to the saints, and to my heart intentionally. So I can’t empathize with your reasoning for turning your back on God after having been in ministry for 25 years, nor for any other reasons you state as justification.
Nice attempt to escape accountability for your words. Surely you know that someone can be factual and condemning at the same time. You, however, weren’t being factual. You literally knew NOTHING about me when you sent me your first email. Any opinions you might have about my atheism or my humanism come AFTER I responded to you.
I won’t weary you with my words, as you have your mind made up to live this life without the One who loved you so, He gave His all that you might not only have a earthly life filled with wonder amidst the sorrows, but one day in the not so distant future you could spend eternity with Him and all those who have gone before.
You realize these words mean nothing to me; that I see no evidence of “the One” who loves me or gave “his all for me.” These are claims, not evidence for the existence of God. I don’t concern myself with eternity because I see no evidence for its existence. Just because the Bible says something doesn’t make it true. I am convinced we all have one life and then we die, end of story. I shan’t waste my time on heavenly promises for which there is no evidence except that preachers say so.
As an atheist, I understand both sorrow and wonder. I have had a lot of both in my life — no God needed. Your problem is that you lack imagination. You can’t imagine any worldview but your own. For my life, and that of my wife, children, and grandchildren to have meaning, purpose, and value, we must embrace and worship D.S. Mullis’ God.
As I read your biography of where you once walked, it was apparent that there was an element of animosity toward God, the church, religion, etc.
When did you read my autobiography? The server logs don’t show this activity from you, and they are infallible. 🙂 How about you admit that you really aren’t interested in my story; that all you wanted to do is make a snarky comment and move on?
Instead, you say there “was an element of animosity toward God, the church, religion, etc.” You just can’t help yourself, can you? What posts informed you in such a way that you felt justified in making this claim; a false claim, I might add. Ask long-time readers of this blog — some of them have been reading for sixteen years — if what you say rings true to them. I think you will find that most, of not all of them, will say no.
What I have possessed for over 50 years isn’t based on anything except the personal experience that was imparted to me in an altar of prayer. Then as I was taught to study God’s Word, learn it, apply it, and live by it, I found what Paul referred to in Colossians 1- “Christ in you, the hope of glory…”
So as the old song says, “I’ll tell the world that I’m a Christian”, by Baynard L. Fox, and never be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes it.
Okay? What’s your point? Are you justifying your first email to me; that you will tell the world you are a Christian by seeking out non-Christian strangers on the Internet and telling them you feel sorry for them? Proverbs 18:13 is clear: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude. Not my words, but God’s. Instead of admitting that you overplayed your hand and probably shouldn’t have emailed me, you double down and justify your behavior.
As Jack on the Titanic stated, “I figure life’s a gift, and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you—to make each day count.”
Yes, and isn’t that exactly what I explained to you in my first email; as an atheist, I only have one life to live, and I plan to take what comes my way and make each day count. Oh wait, that does not compute for you because you can’t fathom a life that matters without Jesus.
May you and your wife enjoy her upcoming retirement.
Respectfully,
D. S. Mullis
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
