An Evangelical woman named Candida left the following comment on the post titled Wasted Years, Oh How Foolish . . . (all spelling and grammar in the original):
It’s a pity you went through this Bruce. Quite sad. Abd you’re quite right about lots of people in church whose lives are as ‘wasted’ as that of those outside church. That’s a reality.
I must say though there are also countless people whose lives have been changed, transformed, made meaningful by their encounter with Jesus.
There’s a big difference between encountering Jesus and being in church. You can be in church singing about, hearing about, maybe also preaching about Jesus without really encountering or knowing Him. If you know Jesus, you have a relationship with him, like the one you have with a wife whom you love and cherish. It’s real.
Many confuse activities in church with relationship with Jesus. There’s no love like His. I pray you, and all others who have abandoned the faith experience this relationship and this love first hand.
The Lord bless you. And everyone. And us all too.
Candida read all of one post and concluded that I never had a relationship with Jesus. Boy, I’ve never heard that before! 🙂 How could Candida possibly know the depth and quality of my relationship with Jesus? She doesn’t know me. She was not a member of one of the churches I pastored. How could she possibly know that I had “churchianity,” and not Christianity? I could spend days telling Candida how deeply I loved Jesus; how I devoted my life to serving and following him; that I taught my children to do the same. Would it make a difference in how she views me? Of course not. All she sees is Bruce, the Evangelical pastor turned atheist. Since I am an atheist today, that means I never was a Real Christian®. The fifty years I spent in the Evangelical church and the twenty-five years I spent pastoring churches are dismissed with a wave of the hand. What Candida is saying, then, is that I am a liar; that what I say about myself and give testimony to is a lie. Why do Evangelicals find it so hard to take former Christians at face value? When Candida says, “I am a Christian,” I believe her. It’s her story to tell. I wish Evangelicals would grant me the same respect.
I have experienced the love of Jesus firsthand, as have thousands of readers of this blog. Much like marriages where couples fall out of love and divorce, we fell out of love with Jesus, finding that he was not the person we thought he was. And so we divorced him, seeking love in people and places we had long denied (because Jesus told us to do so): spouses, families, and self. We reconnected with humanity and nature, and in doing so we found love. Why would any of us want to return to a jealous, demanding lover?
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.
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Today, I received a comment from a Christian man named Keith that stated, in part:
Thus, since so much crock comes out of the pulpit (and always has), you have to read the Bible for yourself. And, pray for yourself and your family. I do both.
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My hope is that one day you’ll be able to separate the religious crap you were taught (and taught yourself), from the core truth of Jesus (you might have to vomit some, my guess), and find your way back to Jesus Himself.
What is the core truth of Jesus? Where can we find this truth? The Bible, right? All we have is the Bible, a collection of sixty-six books written thousands of years ago primarily by unknown men. All we know, then, about Jesus comes from a fallible, internally contradictory, religious text written by fallible men. Why should I give this text any weight or authority? What value is the Bible and its teachings to me or my family? If I never read the Bible will my life be less in any way?
In his comment, Keith mentioned his blog, The Myth Machines: Truth Unshackled. I perused his blog, reading a dozen or so posts, hoping to understand him better. The best I can tell is that Keith is a disaffected Evangelical, a Black man who is disgusted by much of what he sees in churches today. I suspect he thinks that as a pastor I was just like the clerics he has problems with. It’s too bad Keith didn’t bother to read my autobiographical writing. (Please see Why?) He would have quickly learned that I am not the straw man he has constructed in his head.
Keith says I need to read the Bible for myself. Uh, that is exactly what I did for most of my adult life. As a pastor, I spent over 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. What does Keith think I missed? He doesn’t say. My core beliefs were Evangelical and orthodox in every way.
There is no Jesus for me to come back to. I deconverted because the central claims of Christianity no longer made sense to me (please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense). First, I believe the Christian deity is a myth. Second, I don’t think Jesus was divine, born of a virgin, did any of the miracles attributed to him, or resurrected from the dead. Jesus lived and died, end of story. Third, I reject the notion that there is life after death. Just like Jesus, we live and die, end of story.
Jesus is a ship that has sailed on a one-way trip, never to return. No amount of Bible reading is going to change my mind. I know what I know. No one can say that I didn’t do due diligence when it came to the claims of Christianity. I have weighed them in the balances and found them wanting.
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.
Millions of Americans believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. This belief is the foundation of much of the nonsense spouted by Evangelical culture warriors and Republican politicians. In their minds, the Bible is written by God and is perfect in every way, including matters of science and history. Blinded by lifetimes of Fundamentalist indoctrination, they believe that no one has ever proved the Bible has mistakes, contradictions, or errors. The B-i-b-l-e, yes that’s the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, The B-i-b-l-e. BIBLE! Or so the popular Evangelical song goes anyway. No matter what other books say, if their words contradict the Bible, then they are wrong. God can never, ever be wrong, so that means the only book he ever wrote can’t be wrong either.
Those of us who are ex-Evangelicals turned atheists/agnostics/humanists/pagans/liberal Christians know how the belief that the Bible is inerrant negatively affects the ability to reason and think critically. What belief underpins creationism, flat-eartherism, hatred of LGBTQ people, and opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexuality, premarital sex, birth control, family planning, socialism, gambling, drug use, alcohol drinking, women working outside of the home, women wearing pants, long hair on men, rock music, and Game of Thrones — shall I go on? Without people believing the Bible is some sort of infallible religious text, most of these “beliefs” turn into personal opinions. It is only when the Bible is vested with inerrant divine authority that it becomes a dangerous weapon in the hands of preachers and congregants alike.
Of course, the Bible is not inerrant, nor is it infallible. Whether one believes the Bible is inspired is a matter of faith, not fact, so this aspect of belief is beyond empirical inquiry. Several years ago Dr. Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina, posted an article on whether the Bible has contradictions (behind paywall). Here are three of the four of contradictions Ehrman listed:
I start with one that may seem completely unimportant, but is, to me, a clear contradiction. In Mark 5:21-24 a man named Jairus approaches Jesus in distress. His daughter is “very ill.” He wants Jesus to come heal her so she doesn’t die. Jesus agrees to go, but before he can get to Jairus’s home, he is delayed by a woman who herself desperately needs to be healed (5:25-34). While Jesus is dealing with her – it takes a while – someone comes from Jairus’s house to tell him that it is too late, the girl has now died (5:35). Jesus comforts Jairus, goes, and raises her from the dead. Matthew also tells the story (Matthew 9:18-26). But in this case …Matthew also tells the story (Matthew 9:18-26). But in this case Jairus comes to Jesus to tell him that “My daughter has just now died” (9:18). He wants him to raise her from the dead. Jesus goes and do so.
So the contradiction: when Jairus comes to Jesus: does he want him to heal his sick daughter, who unfortunately dies before Jesus can get there? Or does Jairus come only after the girl is dead, wanting Jesus to raise her from the dead?
Of more importance, but a famous one. Matthew and Luke both give a genealogy of Jesus that is strictly patrilineal: father to son, going back for generations (Matthew 1:1-16 starting with Abraham and bringing the family line down to Joseph, Jesus’ alleged father; Luke 3:23-38 starting with Joseph and taking the family line the other direction, all the way past Abraham to Adam).
Question: Who was Joseph’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and so on –all the way back to King David? Was it Jacob, Mathan, and Eleazar … (Matthew 1:15-16)? Or was it Heli, Matthat, and Levi… (Luke 3:23-24).
In considering the question, note: both genealogies are *explicit* that this is the line of Joseph (not, for example, Mary; or the brother of Joseph; or someone else. Joseph). And note, these are not simply alternative names for the same people: most of the names are *completely* different from one another, all the way back to David. That’s because in Matthew Joseph is the descendant of David’s son Solomon; in Luke he is the descendant of a different son, Nathan. Moreover, the genealogies are patrilineal – not traced through mothers but explicitly through fathers to sons.
More complicated. In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth (Matthew 2:1-23), he is born in Bethlehem. Nothing indicates that his parents came from anywhere else to get there: there is no story here of a trip from Nazareth to register for a census only to find there was “no room in the inn.” They simply are in Bethlehem. When the wise men come to worship the child, the King of the Jews, Herod, learns of Jesus’ existence, and he sends the troops to kill him (2:16-18). Joseph is warned in a dream, and he takes Jesus and Mary and they travel, on foot, to Egypt, where they remain until Herod dies (2:13-15, 19-23). When they return home, though, they cannot return to Bethlehem (presumably their home, since there would be no other reason to ponder coming back there), and so relocate in Nazareth. In Luke’s account (Luke 2:1-39) Joseph and Mary are from Nazareth and they end up in Bethlehem because of a census in which “the entire world should be enrolled” (Luke 2:1). Mary is pregnant, full term, and happens to give birth while they are there. After Jesus is circumcised (2:21), and brought to the temple (2:22), they perform the sacrifice required for women who have given birth in order to return to ritual purity (2:24). This is to follow the law laid out in Leviticus 12:2-8; the sacrifice was to happen 33 days after the circumcision (so 40 days after birth). As soon as that is completed, they return straight to Nazareth (2:39).
There is no word in Luke about King Herod’s decision to have the child killed or of the flight of the holy family to Egypt. And so, the contradiction: if Luke is right that 40 days after Jesus’ birth, the family returned directly to Nazareth, how can Matthew be right that they instead went and stayed in Egypt until the death of Herod?
If you want to learn more about the text of the Bible and Christian church history, I encourage you to join Dr. Ehrman’s blog. The annual membership fee is $29.95, with all proceeds going to charity.
Remember, it only takes one error, contradiction, or mistake to bring the inerrancy house tumbling down. Most educated Evangelical pastors know that the Bible isn’t what they claim it is, yet Sunday after Sunday they stand before their congregations and say, THUS SAITH THE LORD! These liars for Jesus know they would be unemployed and the pews would be empty if congregants ever learned the truth about the Biblical text.
I have had a number of Evangelical preachers and laypeople come to this site, certain that their Bibles (and beliefs) were infallibly true. As I always do, I asked them to read several of Bart Ehrman’s books. There is no value is trying to engage zealots if they won’t, at least, look at the evidence for the claim that the Bible is NOT an inerrant, infallible text. Over the past fifteen years, I have only had one person read Dr. Ehrman’s books and still believe the Bible is inerrant. Everyone else was forced to admit that the Bible was not what Evangelicals claim it is. Sometimes, this resulted in loss of faith. Other times, people held on to their faith, but moved on to religious environments that valued intellectual inquiry and facts. Want to destroy the hold Christian Fundamentalism has on our country? Disabuse Evangelicals of the notion that the Bible is some sort of perfect text, different from all other books. Once Evangelicals see that the Bible is not what their preachers and teachers say it is, they will be forced to determine whether they can trust anything their leaders say.
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.
To me, there’s nothing that trumps my faith in Christ — not even an NFL career. Everything I have on this earth is borrowed. All that really matters is eternity. God has blessed me with a platform and with an opportunity to do something that I love to do. Out of my gratefulness, I give all that I have as if He’s the only One watching.
Evangelicals often tell atheists that the lives of unbelievers lack purpose, meaning, and direction. However, based on the quote above by Evangelical Christian James Laurinaitis, it is Christians who live empty lives. According to Laurinaitis, nothing in this life really matters. Everything we have on earth is borrowed (from God). Only eternity matters.
Of course, Laurinaitis doesn’t really believe this. He was a three-time All-American football player at Ohio State University. Laurinaitis went on to play for eight years in the NFL. Just today, Laurinaitis was hired as a graduate assistant for the Ohio State football program. Now thirty-five, Laurinaitis has had a full life. The sum of his experiences suggests his life BEFORE eternity matters. If it didn’t; if living in light of eternity is all that matters, then why did Laurinaitis play football? Why get married and have children? Should not the single focus of Laurinaitis be evangelizing the lost? Hell is hot. Death is certain. There are souls to save.
If Evangelicals really believe that eternity is all that really matters, they sure don’t live like it. By all accounts, apart from what they do on Sundays, Evangelicals live lives indistinguishable from the lives of atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Buddhists, and other people labeled Hell-bound sinners by Evangelicals. How about we agree that all humans have meaningful, purposeful lives — however each of us defines these terms? If Laurinaitis wants to spend his days on earth worshipping Jesus and slavishly devoting his life to him, that’s fine. However, just because atheists don’t want to do the same doesn’t mean their lives are lacking in any way.
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.
Most people who go to church grow up mainly hearing the Bible on Sundays, learning Bible stories in Sunday school, and hearing preaching from the pulpit. But then many of them go to schools where the education is purely secular and at least sometimes may be overtly hostile to the Bible. This leads to the impression that “religion” is subjective, emotional, and personal, while the “real world” belongs to the secularists.
One of the main battles of biblical creation is showing that this dichotomy is false—the Bible accurately speaks about the real world. Its events do not happen in Neverland but can be placed in time and space so accurately that archaeologists have been able to use it like a map of the ancient world. In fact, the Bible is inerrant—meaning that when something conflicts with the Bible, we can confidently say that it is never the Bible that is wrong.
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The Bible is, in fact, the most-studied and fact-checked book of history. And there is not one instance where the Bible has been proven wrong about a place, event, or people group it described. Of course, because the Bible is inerrant, we can be confident that it never will be shown to be wrong about anything.
While the Bible is a historically accurate book, it is more than a history book, and Christianity’s core claims about Christ’s identity as the Son of God and his resurrection from the dead are matters of faith. However, there is a solid basis for that faith; it is not subject to a personal emotional experience.
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.
Evangelicals believe that the Protestant Christian Bible is their God’s inspired, inerrant, and infallible words. “Inspired” is a faith claim for which there is no evidence. Either you believe the Bible is inspired by God or you don’t. “Inerrant” and “infallible” are claims, however, that can be investigated by Christians and non-Christians alike. Is the Bible actually without error? Is the Bible really infallible (incapable of error)?
As a student at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan in the 1970s, I was taught the transcription theory. Holy men of old, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote down, word for word in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, the words of God. Some professors believed that the inspired writers of the Bible fell into a trance as they put pen to paper, writing down the exact words of God. Other professors and chapel speakers were uncertain as to the actual transmission process. They just knew that the end product was the very words of God.
I was also taught at Midwestern that inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility applied to translations too. Well, actually one translation: the King James Version (either the 1611 edition or the 1769 revision). While there was some behind-the-scenes debate over whether the KJV was “inspired,” there was no debate over whether the KJV was inerrant and infallible.
Peruse the websites of churches pastored by Midwestern grads and you will typically find a sentence that says “_______ Baptist Church only uses the King James Version.” Some churches proudly advertise in their printed materials and on their signs their fealty to the KJV.
Some Midwestern pastors take a different approach. Take First Baptist Church in Milford, Ohio (pastored for many years by my best man, Bill Duttry). Their doctrinal statement states:
We believe in the authority of Scripture. We believe that the Bible is the plenarily and verbally inspired, inerrant, living Word of God. We believe that God has divinely and faithfully preserved His Word for all people today in the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek Textus Receptus. We use only the Authorized King James Bible for faith and practice in English.
According to this statement, what is inspired, inerrant, and infallible is the Masoretic text (Old Testament) and the Greek Textus Receptus (New Testament), not the King James Bible. Does that mean that First Baptist of Milford believes the KJV is errant and fallible? No. Note carefully the words “God has divinely and faithfully preserved his Word.” Many Evangelicals believe that God has somehow, some way, over the past 2,000 years preserved his Words in the thousands of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts and subsequent translations. Not all translations, of course, just those that were translated from certain manuscripts. Typically, such churches and pastors accept translations based on what is called the Received Text — a family of Greek manuscripts that were used to translate the King James Bible. They reject the Alexandrian (Wescott and Hort) line of manuscripts, believing translations that were translated from these manuscripts are inferior or even Satanic.
We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as verbally inspired of God, inerrant in the original writing and of supreme and final authority in faith and life. II Timothy 3:16-17.
We accept only the King James version for public instruction in the church.
First Baptist has an article on its site written by Pastor Michael Bates titled Why Do We Use the KJV?
The English translation issue has caused no small stir among conservatives and evangelicals today. It is not our desire to be contentious about this issue, but we do desire to preach and teach with clarity.
It is our conviction that the whole translation debate hinges on three basic questions that must be answered in the following order:
1. Has God preserved His inspired Word? In fact, has He even promised to do so? If God has not promised to preserve His words—and all of them, then all discussions regarding which Hebrew & Aramaic or Greek Text is superior and which translation is best is all academic, at best.
To this question we answer in the strongest affirmative possible.
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2. If it is preserved, where is it preserved? Is it preserved in any specific Text or in all the texts or in only the so-called “oldest and best manuscripts?” One should expect to locate God’s words if they are preserved.
We believe that those texts often referred to as the Traditional Text, known more commonly as the Ben Chayyim Masoretic text of the Old Testament and the Textus Receptusof the New Testament, hold those preserved words.
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3. Do the Lord’s churches in the English-speaking world have a faithful, accurate translationof that preserved Word that they can call reliable?
The last English translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts listed above was done in the seventeenth century by the translators of what has come to be called the King James Version of the Bible (known also as the Authorized Version), first published in 1611. Most, if not all, of the modern versions have been translated out of a different Greek text in the New Testament called the Eclectic Text or the Critical Text. We reject these texts as only containing the Word of God. Furthermore, the Hebrew text underlying these modern versions is different from that used by the KJV.
Therefore, a local church must make a decision guided by the Scripture as to which translation is in fact God’s words in their language based upon its underlying text. We recognize that God did not breathe out English words, but the inspired words He did breathe out have been accurately and correctly translated into our language in the King James Version.
Once you move beyond King James-only churches, you find Evangelical congregations and pastors who believe certain English translations are faithful and reliable, not inerrant and infallible. These churches and pastors believe that it was the original manuscripts that were inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Of course, the glaring problem with this position is the fact that these manuscripts do not exist. All we have are copies of copies of copies, some of which dates centuries after their recorded events.
The New Testament that we read today in many different translations is not based on one single manuscript of the original Greek text. Why? There simply is no such thing as a complete text of the New Testament that we could date to the apostolic times, or even two or three centuries after the last of the apostles. Extant manuscripts containing the entire Christian Bible are the work of medieval monks. The modern scholarly editions of the original Greek text draw on readings from many different ancient manuscripts. As a result, the New Testament presented in any of our Bibles does not correspond to a single, authoritative ancient manuscript.
The oldest surviving examples of the New Testament come to us, instead, as fragments and scraps of papyrus excavated (mostly) in Egypt. How old are the oldest of these biblical fragments, and why does it matter whether they were written in the first or the fourth century?
At best, the extant manuscripts are errant, fallible approximations of the original manuscripts. If the manuscripts are errant and fallible, then the translations made from them are too.
Evangelicals preachers and professors who say the Bible is inerrant and infallible are either uneducated or deliberately misleading people. In my case, I was uneducated. I was thirty years old before I learned that the King James Bible was not inerrant. It would take many more years of study before I concluded that the Bible — both at the translation and manuscript level — contained errors, mistakes, and contradictions. While I still believed the Bible was the Word of God, I came to see and understand its human nature and fallibility.
Most educated Evangelical preachers know the Bible is not inerrant or infallible. Anyone who carefully studies the Bible, both in its original languages and in English — knows that there are textual problems that cannot be explained away. They also know that there are internal conflicts and contradictions that cannot be harmonized. Why, then, do Evangelical preachers not share these things with their flocks? Why do they hide the fallible human nature of the Bible?
Most Evangelical laypeople believe that the Bible they carry to church on Sundays and read during the week is without error. No one has ever told them the truth about the nature and history of the Biblical text. Evangelical preachers pride themselves on being truth-tellers. Why don’t they tell church members the truth about the Bible? One word: fear. They fear that if they did people would lose faith in God, the church, and the Bible. Imagine being called on to account for hiding the truth from their churches. People would leave, offerings would drop, and many preachers would end up looking for new employment. Not wanting turmoil and controversy, pastors, instead, try to maintain the status quo. This, of course, is getting harder to do thanks to the Internet. Evangelicals can easily find articles and books that challenge their beliefs about the Bible. Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books, in particular, have forced countless Evangelicals to rethink what they believe about the history and nature of the Bible. If you have not read any of Ehrman’s books, I encourage you to do so:
I am confident that if Evangelicals will openly and honestly read Ehrman’s books, they will be disabused of the notion that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Of course, there will always be Evangelicals who are so closed-minded that there is no hope of reaching them. Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, is a case in point. Thiessen recently wrote a blog post titled The Bible is Inerrant and Infallible:
If one wants to question the Bible, then they are questioning its author. There is no way to separate the two. Many unbelievers will say that science has disproven the Bible many times over. That has never been done.
What the people ignore or miss when making that statement is that there is no one or no thing in history that has appointed science to be an authority over the Bible and its content. Neither God nor Jesus has made that appointment or taught anywhere that the Bible is submissive to science, or any research field.
There are no other supernatural beings that can make that appointment either. Science is subject to the Bible and not its lord. No matter what scientific method you use, especially bible criticism, historical-critical thinking, and so on, these methods do not get to the truth nor are they superior to God and his word.
God does not make mistakes, he does not lie, he does not perform magic, he does not play games, and he does not mislead. What he has written in the Bible is without error and it is accurate and true.
In the book, Dr. Lindsell mentions that some of those who hold to the errancy and fallibility of the bible will also clarify their comments by adding that the Bible is inerrant and infallible when it comes to salvation but it is not when it comes to history and science.
But those people are trying to have their cake and eat it too. of course, they will say the parts about salvation are infallible, etc., because they want to go to heaven and not end up in hell. The Bible is either infallible and inerrant in all of its content or it is not.
There is no middle ground and all Christians have to make a choice here. That argument claiming only salvation is inerrant, etc., is like saying your wife is a little bit pregnant. Either she is or she isn’t. There is no middle ground.
You either believe God or you don’t.
Thiessen is a hardcore Fundamentalist — proudly so. He is certain that his beliefs are 100 percent right. His beliefs are every bit as inspired (by the Holy Spirit), inerrant, and infallible as the Bible itself. I have been reading Thiessen’s writing for several years now. I have yet to see him admit that he was wrong; that he made a mistake. Instead, he spends his time pointing out how wrong other people are — atheists and Christians alike.
There are lots of Thiessen-like preachers in the world; men who are either uneducated or who believe that it is more important to protect sectarian dogma than it is to tell people the truth. Thiessen began his post by mentioning Harold Lindsell’s 1976 book, The Battle for the Bible. Lindsell was an Evangelical author and scholar, one of the founders of Fuller Theological Seminary. Lindsell’s seminal book played an instrumental part in the battle for the soul of the Southern Baptist Convention. I read and re-read The Battle for the Bible several times in the late 1970s and 1980s, not because I doubted the Bible, but because I wanted to know how “liberals” viewed the Bible. At the time, I believed liberals were apostates or false Christians; tools of Satan who were destroying the faith of Evangelicals. I viewed these scholars as enemies of God. What I didn’t do is read their books. I had lots of books in my library that promoted and reinforced the Evangelical view on the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible. It would take decades of study — including reading the books of authors I had previously deemed false prophets — before I finally saw the light. The only way to reach Derrick Thiessen and countless other inerrantists is to get them to read books that challenge their sincerely held beliefs. I remember asking Thiessen if he had ever read any of Bart Ehrman’s books. Thiessen tried to intimate that he had “read” Ehrman, but when pressed on the issue, I found out he had read articles and blog posts about Ehrman’s books, not the actual books themselves. Thiessen is hardly alone in this matter. Evangelical preachers are notorious for their opposition to all sorts of things without ever actually doing their homework. They just regurgitate what one of their preacher friends or favorite authors have said in their books or on their blogs.
Nothing in this life is without error, and that includes the Bible. One can still believe in God and be a Christian without an inerrant Bible. Sixteen centuries of followers of Jesus didn’t have an inerrant, infallible Bible. Were they True Christians? Of course, they were. I double-dog dare you to argue that salvation requires the right beliefs about the Bible. Oh, please, make my day by claiming that someone can’t be born again unless they hold to a certain viewpoint about the Bible. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 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.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Adam Lewis, a youth pastor at Rock Mountain Lakes Baptist Church in McCalla, Alabama, a school teacher, and a wrestling coach, stands accused of possession of child pornography.
A Pelham middle school teacher and wrestling coach who also doubled as the youth director of a McCalla church was arrested and jailed Wednesday on child porn charge.
Adam Jeremy Lewis, an eighth grade teacher at Pelham Park Middle School and an assistant coach for the school’s wrestling team, was charged with possessing child pornography. He was released from the Shelby County Jail after posting $15,000 bond, jail records showed.
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Lewis was also youth director at Rock Mountain Lakes Baptist Church in McCalla.
The church said Lewis is no longer working there and that Lewis and his family “need our prayers in a major way.”
“This is a devastating moment for our church family, but I know God is working,” the church said in a message to parishioners on its Facebook page.
Rock Mountain Lakes Baptist released a statement yesterday, asking prayer for Lewis and his family. No mention was made of children portrayed in the alleged pornographic images.
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.
Several years ago, on a cold, wet Ohio winter day, a door-to-door hustler for Erie Construction knocked on our door, asking if we would be interested in receiving a vinyl siding estimate. I said, “sure.” I knew we either had to side or repaint our home, so I thought, here’s my opportunity to get our first estimate.
On the appointed day, two Erie Construction salesmen showed up at 1:20 p.m. for our 1:00 p.m. estimate. STRIKE ONE. Don’t be late. I have plenty of things to do on any given day, and if I set time aside to hear your sales pitch, BE ON TIME! Neither salesman apologized for being late. I gave them a pass, though it is not uncommon for me to tell tardy salesmen, “sorry, you missed your window of opportunity. Maybe later.” Of course, this usually pisses them off. And I care how much? Not at all. BE ON TIME!
Having spent most of my adult life selling Jesus, I am quite familiar with the techniques used by salesmen to get me to sign on the dotted line. The only difference between selling religion and siding/vacuüm cleaners/automobiles is the product. The goal is the same. Get the customer to buy your product, be it Jesus with an eternal warranty or Erie Construction premium siding with an original owner lifetime warranty.
The salesmen entered our home and sat down at our dining room table. One man carried the props, and the other, the alpha closer, carried a portfolio of “magic” papers with which he would later attempt to WOW us. The alpha closer did ninety-nine percent of the talking. He asked us questions about our backgrounds, family, and employment. It was Sales 101. Get to know the prospective mark. Attempt to befriend them. Use the information given to you to develop a bond. I used this very technique hundreds and hundreds of times as I traveled the highways and hedges of the communities in which I pastored, seeking to sell salvation to people I considered “lost.”
One humorous moment occurred when the salesman asked us what we did for a living. After Polly recited her résumé, the salesman turned to me and asked what I did for a living. I gave my typical answer: “I am retired and I own a photography business.” Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this answer satisfies salesmen and busybodies alike. Not this time. The salesman asked, “Bruce, what did you do before you retired?” Remember, the word “retired” in my vocabulary means “I left the ministry and Christianity.” The word covers up shit I don’t want to talk about to strangers. I paused for a moment, thinking how best to answer the man’s question. I was already irritated by their tardiness, so I thought, how about a bit of snark? I said, “I was a pastor for twenty-five years. I pastored churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan.” I then continued, saying, “don’t read anything into that. God and I had a falling out and we are not on speaking terms.”
When salesmen find out I was a pastor, it is common for them to change their behavior. Anything to make a sale, right? As I often do, I made sure I used several swear words during our discussion. This was me saying, “I ain’t one of THOSE preachers, God dammit!” Fortunately, no further questions were asked. Both salesmen asked if they could measure the outside of our home. I said, “sure.” Off they went, returning ten or so minutes later, measurements in hand, ready to present to us the best siding deal on planet earth.
The alpha salesman continued his pitch by telling us the benefits of doing business with a AAA company such as Erie Construction. Evidently, he never thought an old curmudgeon such as I would bother to fact-check his claims. After they were gone, I consulted GOD — the Internet — and found out that Erie Construction was NOT a AAA company. I am sure they have thousands of satisfied customers, but they also have customers who were not satisfied with their work due to missed job start/finish dates, shoddy workmanship, and poor warranty work.
As a seller of Jesus, I too shared with prospects the wonders of the Son of God. Evangelicalism was, in my mind at the time, a AAA company, offering the forgiveness of sin, eternal life after death, and peace, purpose, and direction in this life. Who wouldn’t want to buy what I was selling, right? Most of my evangelizing took place pre-Internet. I didn’t have to worry about negative reviews of Jesus, Evangelicalism, me personally, or the church I was pastoring at the time. I relied on people taking my word for it. Today? Thanks to the world wide web, Evangelicalism has been exposed for what it is: a psychologically harmful con job; a system of belief that robs people of their humanity and their money.
The alpha salesman breathlessly shared with us the wonders of Erie Construction’s premium grade one-hundred percent vinyl siding. He spent significant time dissing his competition and their inferior siding, even though he later admitted Erie sells “inferior” siding too. “Buy cheap siding and it only lasts five to eight years,” he told us. The salesman also discounted the value of repainting our home. Polly and I, along with our younger children, painted it ourselves over two summers — 2007, 2008. I told the salesman that we were thinking about hiring someone to paint our home. Eleven years had passed since we painted our home. The intervening years had been unkind to us physically, so Polly and I painting our home was out of the question.
The salesman sensed that we were weighing “siding versus paint,” so he quickly pulled out his “magic” papers and showed us why painting our home was not cost-effective. His statistics were grossly inflated for the area we lived in. I told him, “look, I am not in good health, so I am not going be around twenty years from now.” The salesman quickly rebuffed my mortality claim, saying, “oh you’ll be around for a long time!” STRIKE TWO. I replied, “no, really, I am on the short side of life.” The salesman wouldn’t hear of it, telling me that I had a long life ahead of me. At this point, I almost said, “Look dude. You need to listen to me. I am not long for this life. If I make it to seventy, I’ll be happy.” I said nothing, deciding that I wanted to get their price for siding our home.
As a salesman for Jesus, I reminded prospects that my Jesus was the one true God, and that the salvation I was selling was the only one to promise true forgiveness of sin and eternal life after death. My “siding” was superior to that which other sects and churches were selling. I often told people, “has anyone else ever cared about you enough to knock on your door and share the Good News® with you?” Of course, I knew it was unlikely anyone but the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses had ever tried to evangelize them. Those sects were cults. I was representing the white American Jesus and Christianity. No one had a product like mine.
Finally, it came to time for the salesman to close the deal. He started using heavy-handed sales techniques, hoping that he could entice us into biting. His price? $25,000! Keep in mind, we already have new windows, doors, soffits, and gutters, so his estimate was just for the siding. His estimate, astoundingly, did not cover our small outbuilding. He asked us what we thought of the price, and I replied, “that’s a good bit more than we expected. I had thought the estimate would come in closer to $12,000-$15,000.” “Quality costs,” the salesman told us. He proceeded to use the fact that we drive a new car as a reason why we should have Erie side our home. “It’s evident you value quality in an automobile. Surely, you want the same for your home!” I thought, “yeah and your siding almost costs as much as our car!” (This summer we finally had our house painted. Cost? seventy-five percent less than Erie’s siding estimate.)
The alpha salesman attempted numerous times to get us to sign on the dotted line. Each time, I told him, we are not prepared to make a decision today. Evidently, he was hard of hearing, because no matter how often I said, “not today,” he came back at us with a slightly different angle, hoping we would say “yes.” Somewhere in this process, I said to myself, “STRIKE THREE!” I wasn’t going to do business with Erie regardless of their price. The salesman even tried to appeal to my vanity, saying I could take photos before and after and Erie would pay me to use them on their website. “What,” I thought, “$500?” I said nothing, and the salesman finally intuited that we weren’t going to buy siding from him. His demeanor was that of the air being let out of a balloon. And with that, he and his sidekick packed up their props and exited stage right.
As a seller of the Evangelical Gospel, I pressured people into praying the sinner’s prayer. I warned them of the dangers of delay. “No one knows what might happen tomorrow,” I said. “Do you really want to risk God’s judgment and eternity in Hell?” I would remind them that this might be the only time they had an opportunity to buy God’s miraculous covers-everything siding, uh I mean salvation. Whether from the pulpit or at their front door, I reminded sinners of the urgency of covering up their sinfulness with Jesus’ premium salvation, complete with an eternal warranty. Most people said, “no thanks,” but over the course of twenty-five years, hundreds and hundreds of people said, “yes!” Some of them found great value in what I was selling. Most converts, however, found out that the “siding” I was selling was not as good as I said it was. The storms of life came their way and often ripped their “siding” away, exposing the fact that Jesus was NOT the “friend who never will leave you” as I promised he was. What they found, instead, was a religion that demanded their fealty and money. Most of them, eventually, said, as we did to Erie Construction, “no, thanks!”
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.
I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years. Saved at the age of fifteen, baptized by immersion, and called to preach two weeks later, I set out on a path of loving and serving Jesus. At the age of nineteen, I enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan to prepare for the work of the ministry. After three years at Midwestern, now married to a beautiful preacher’s daughter, I moved to rural northwest Ohio, beginning a career spanning twenty-five years pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I pastored churches that were Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), Southern Baptist, Christian Union, Sovereign Grace Baptist, General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC), and nondenominational. In addition, I preached for Assembly of God, Reformed Baptist, Free Will Baptist, Baptist Bible Fellowship (BBF), Church of the Nazarene, and sundry other garden variety Evangelical congregations. From 2002-2008, my wife, Polly, and I visited more than one-hundred churches as we sought a church that took the teachings of Christ seriously. Many of these churches self-identified as Evangelical. (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT!)
I am almost sixty-six years old. Though I left Christianity fourteen years ago, I have continued to carefully follow the machinations of Evangelical Christianity — the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have been blogging since 2007. I was still a Christian — barely — when I started this blog, but it was not long before Jesus and I had an acrimonious divorce. As a former Evangelical, my goal as a writer has always been to tell my story and help those who have questions and doubts about Christianity. I have no interest in converting people to atheism. That said, I do provide pointed critiques of Evangelical beliefs and practices. While I don’t know everything there is to know about Evangelicalism, I am not an ill-informed, uneducated outsider. And my critics know this. My observations cannot be easily dismissed. So what do Evangelical apologists and zealots do instead? They attack my character, and in some cases, malign my wife, our six adult children, and our thirteen grandchildren. The most hateful people I have ever met are Evangelical Christians — especially Independent Fundamentalist Baptists. Preachers, in particular, are the worst of the worst. Why all the hate? Shit, I am just one man with a blog. Sure, thousands of people read my writing, but I am a nobody. Why not just give me over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh and move on?
I suspect zealots feel threatened or troubled by what I write. I have had several former congregants tell me that they could no longer be friends with me. Why? My writing upset them and made them feel “uneasy” in their skin of faith. Countless other Evangelicals choose a different tack. Unable to refute the message, they attack the messenger. Instead of contemplating the truthfulness of my writing, they attempt to marginalize and discredit me. Over the years, I have highlighted for readers some of the things Evangelicals have said about me. Awful stuff, things I would never, ever say to another human being.
If you are an Evangelical reading my writing for the first time, I said the things above so you would understand that I am not an outsider. I may be an atheist today, but I spent most of my life deeply immersed in the waters of Evangelical Christianity. While I am not a fan of appeals to authority, when it comes to Evangelicalism, I know what I am talking about. This is especially true when it comes to the IFB church movement. Why does my writing resonate with so many people — even Christians? I suspect the main reason is that my experiences match or are similar to theirs. Here I am, an insider, talking out of school, daring to share where the bodies are buried. How dare I, right?
Over the weekend, my friend Clint Heacock posted on Facebook a post by Josiah Meyer about “reforming” Evangelical Christianity. Meyer was asked by a friend, “You seem to be giving up on (Evangelical) Christianity over a few problems. Why not try to reform it?” (I can hear many of you sighing now. 🙂 ) As you will see in a moment, Meyer is an insider; a man with decades of experience with Evangelical Christianity; including academic training in Christian Ministry. Meyer is someone who cannot easily be dismissed. He knows what he knows.
“Why not reform Evangelical Christianity”? Meyer’s friend asked. He replied:
I have tried. And simply, I am done trying. Now, I am speaking my truth and (when necessary) warning people that there are dangers there. Ways in which people can get hurt. Steer clear.
When I was studying for my Doctorate in Christian ministry (yes, I have a shitload of education on religion), one of the courses was on cults. The teacher told us of a phrase he had coined to describe Mormons: “Conservative shift.” ”Every generation,” he warned, “the terminology gets closer to (Evangelical) Christianity. However, the core doctrines do not change.” We learned that one of the characteristics of all sects and cults was deceptive terminology.
Oh, how we missed the opportunity to look in the mirror on that one!
Over the past twenty years or so, I have seen what I thought was a great softening, from the hardline Fundamentalism of the Baby Boomers and before, to a softer, more accepting Evangelicalism of Gen X and Millennials.
But is it better? Is it really?
20 years ago, many people believed in a young earth (everything was created only 6,000 years ago). Today, that number is still on the rise, and I was not able to get a job teaching in Evangelical Canada, in large part because I believed in science on this issue.
20 years ago, it was pretty common to hear that woman is the help-meet, she is created for man, and finds her true place in the home. I used to make a big distinction between “patriarchal” and “complementarian” teaching. But what is the difference? Evangelicals still believe that women are “equal in standing, but have different roles.” In other words, they are born to serve. Nothing has changed.
20 years ago, we didn’t hear much about LGBTQ. We did hear, however, that there was one way to be male, one way to be female. Homosexuality was a taboo and those who practiced it were going to Hell. Today, it is still not talked about, but when it is, it is said that, “practicing homosexuals” will be punished. Aka, it’s still a sin, you’re just not sinning if you stay celibate. In other words, no change.
20 years ago, it was pretty common for churches to be terrified about the end of the world, the “Mark of the Beast,” the rapture, and the antichrist. Things like cell phones and credit cards were identified as potentially being “the mark of the beast” while every political leader from Hitler down to Obama have been called the antichrist by somebody. Nowadays? Do I need to say it? Vaccines are the mark of the beast, and Fauci is (to some at least) the Antichrist. Good lord.
20 years ago, it was common to pull away from society, and educate kids in private Christian schools. The main reason was to “protect us from evolution and other sinful ideas.” Today, this has blossomed into a multi-million dollar homeschooling industry, where kids can be sheltered not only from contemporary science, but also from “woke” ideas like gender equality, racial reconciliation, environmentalism, and social justice.
A product of such an education, it was not until I was 38 that I really heard, really understood the concept of “consent.” One of many things somehow missed in my privileged education.
20 years ago, it was starting to get somewhat common for Christians to create a subculture of herbal remedies, favorite recipes, and cooking groups. It was cheerful, charming, yummy, and harmless. Then it became the MLM empires that burned through our social groups. And with Covid? Sigh. Many went off the deep end into Qanon conspiracy theories, or (laughably, but not funny) herbal remedies to cure Covid.
20 years ago, it was pretty common to be concerned about outlawing abortion. But this was before the Evangelical vote became (in my memory, at least) completely fused with the conservative/republican vote. These things have changed, but not for the better, with Christians voting for the likes of Trump, and staging riots and coup attempts at our capitals.
Try to change it? Good God, I have tried. And I have failed.
The problems were too big for me or maybe, they were never mine to carry at all. Will others take up the call? Will change happen? Is it possible?
Here’s another question. Has anything changed? Really changed?
Or has only the terminology changed; becoming more friendly; more diplomatic; deceitful; “seeker sensitive?”
This burden is, at any rate, no longer mine to carry.
Meyer hits the proverbial nail on the head. Has Evangelical Christianity “changed”? If you only look at the periphery of Evangelicalism, then, sure, they have changed. I am a Baby Boomer. The Evangelical church of my youth is very different from what I see today. However, it’s the window dressing, the facade that has changed, and not the core Evangelical beliefs and practices. And that’s Meyer’s point. Look beyond the worship teams, overhead projectors, and hip preachers. What do you find? The same dogma and extremism that’s always been central to Evangelical faith and practice. And as Meyer poignantly makes clear, these things have actually become more shrill and extreme. Evangelicals have largely embraced anti-culture ideology, viewing their unsaved, non-Republican neighbors as enemies. How else do we explain the fact that almost eighty percent of voting white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump — not once, but twice? How else do we explain the fact that many Evangelicals plan to vote for Trump again in 2024, and those who don’t plan to vote for Ron DeSantis — a man arguably more dangerous than the twice-impeached ex-president. How else do we explain the fact that Evangelicals were the dominant religious force behind the January 6th Insurrection? Evangelicals (and conservative Catholics) are behind the uptick in book bans and attempts to ban teaching critical race theory in public schools. These same people want to reintroduce teacher-led prayer and Bible reading in public schools, ban any support for LGBTQ students, and teach creationism in science classrooms. Politically, Evangelicals are anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage, anti-premarital sex, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-separation of church and state. Is it any wonder that Evangelical Christianity is one of the most hated sects in America?
I am sure some Evangelical readers are screaming at their computer or smartphone screens: NOT ME! MY CHURCH IS DIFFERENT! MY PASTOR IS DIFFERENT! It goes without saying that this post does not describe ALL Evangelicals. I am sure Meyer would say the same. Evangelicalism is a big tent, giving space to everyone from Evangelicals-in-name-only to hardcore Fundamentalists. That said, much like a man who always seems to date blondes, Evangelicalism has a type. The late Fred Phelps and Albert Mohler are Baptist preachers. The former was known for his vitriol and homophobia. The latter is a smooth-talking Southern Baptist; a well-spoken media darling. Yet, when you peel back their outward appearance, what you find is that both men have similar beliefs. The only difference between the two is style and presentation.
Many Evangelicals distance themselves from the extremists within the sect, thinking that they can somehow rescue Evangelicalism from itself. However, when pressed about their beliefs, you will often find the same theology as that of ardent Fundamentalists. When someone tells me that they are not like the Evangelicals I critique, I typically ask them if they believe in the exclusivity of the Christian gospel; that all people are saved or lost; that unsaved people will go to Hell when they die? Their answers to these questions will tell me everything I need to know about their flavor of Evangelicalism. If believers don’t believe in the exclusivity of the gospel, the necessity of personal salvation, and the eternal punishment (and reward) of the lost, are they, in any meaningful way, Evangelical?
Those on the progressive end of the Evangelical spectrum often think that Evangelicalism can be reformed; that if Evangelicals will abandon their social Fundamentalist beliefs, reinterpret the Bible to fit modern sensibilities, and not be dicks Evangelicalism can be “saved.” However, it is fair to ask that once Christianity is made more palatable and friendly, is it still Evangelical? I think not. If someone like me ends up in Hell after death, the rest of your theology doesn’t matter. But, Bruce. I believe in annihilation. God will punish you for a time and then turn you into a pile of ashes. Surely, that’s better than eternal punishment!Ain’t God awesome? Uh, no.
Can Evangelical Christianity be “reformed”? The obvious answer is no. To paraphrase an old gospel song, “Evangelicals have gone too far to turn back now.” I see no path of reformation or redemption. Once Evangelicals traded their souls for a bowl of pottage; abandoning personal piety and salvation for raw political power, there’s no going back. Does anyone seriously believe that Evangelicals will return to the privacy of their houses of worship to await the second coming of Jesus? Not a chance.
Evangelicals will eventually destroy themselves from within. The problem, of course, is that they could take the rest of us with them. Have you been paying attention to what is going on in the House of Representatives or what Republican supermajorities are doing at the state level, including in my home state of Ohio? Scary stuff. What is the common connection between these extremists? Drum roll, please. Evangelical Christianity; men and women with theocratic objectives. We truly live in dangerous times.
Instead of talking about reforming Evangelical Christianity, the American people would be better served if we discuss ways to limit Evangelical control of the levers of power. Whether this can be accomplished remains to be seen. I live in rural Ohio. Evangelicals rule the roost, both at the state and local levels. There’s little non-Evangelicals can do to stop them. Seventy percent of locals vote Republican; Democrats have no chance of unseating Evangelical officeholders. I do what I can, but I often feel I am pissing into a hurricane.
Meyer encourages people to steer clear of Evangelicalism. I take it one step further. I say RUN! FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE! Evangelical beliefs and practices can and do cause psychological harm, and, at times, physical harm. Evangelical Christianity is not a benign religion, and it is time for the media and bloggers to say so. For people inclined to believe in God, I suggest you seek out kinder, gentler forms of Christianity.
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.
I follow and read more than 125 Evangelical blogs and websites. Using an RSS reader, I receive every new post or article these sites publish. While I don’t read every post, I do read the headlines, looking for things suited for this site. Every day, I am presented with posts filled with hostility and rage, not only against atheists, secularists, humanists, and liberals, but Christians themselves. It seems that Evangelicals are not only at war with the “world,” but they are at war with anyone that doesn’t hew to their peculiar interpretations of the Bible.
Posts about LGBTQ people, abortion, atheism, deconstruction, liberalism, Democrats, vaccines, COVID-19, critical race theory, racism, and pornography are common. The farther to the right you move within the Evangelical bubble, the more extreme the positions become. Posts on what people do in the privacy of their homes, what clothing they wear, and what they watch on TV are frequent flyers. No human behavior is out of bounds.
The Bible says that Christians believe in One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. Evidently, the writer of this never envisioned the Internet, with blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos. It is clear to anyone who is paying attention that Evangelicalism is hopelessly fractured; a sect where metaphorically bloody internecine warfare is the norm, not the exception to the rule.
Evangelicals also fight wars amongst themselves, questioning who is and isn’t a True Christian®. Doctrinal spats over minutiae are common. Of course, some Evangelical say that there’s no such thing as minutiae. Everything matters to God, so everything should matter to his followers. Back and forth the battles go, with each side striving for purity.
Imagine living in a world where everything matters; that being “right” is the grand objective; that every i must be dotted and every t crossed. From rising in the morning to going to bed at night, you devote every waking hour to being absolutely right, knowing that your eternal destiny rests on your rightness. Imagine parsing every thought, word, and deed according to the teachings of the Bible and a voice in your head you believe is God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit.
Having had first-hand experience living this way, I can tell you that doing so is wearisome and tiring. Everything is secondary to Jesus and the church. Evangelicals are familiar with the acronym J-O-Y: Jesus First, Others Second, Yourself Last. Truth be told, the Y stands for “you don’t matter.” The sum of Evangelical existence is J-E-S-U-S. This life of ours, according to Evangelicals, is preparation to meet God face to face. Nothing else matters.
Of course, most Evangelicals can’t live up to this impossible standard. Oh, they try, but fail miserably. And this failure brings depression, fear, and worry. Their pastors — who don’t live up to this impossible standard themselves — warn them that failure to conform and perform will bring chastisement from God. Remember, God disciplines those he loves! preacher’s say.
This is no way to live. Is it any wonder that Evangelical beliefs and practices cause psychological, and, at times, physical harm? Every day, countless ex-Evangelicals talk to therapists about the damage caused by their former religious beliefs. Undoing the harm often takes years. I know it has for me. I don’t know of one former Evangelical Christian who was in the sect for years that didn’t come away with some sort of psychological harm. This is especially true for people who were longtime Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church members.
Some forms of religion are benign, but that can’t be said for Evangelicalism. We are a nation of people who have been traumatized by a religious sect that has as one of its foundational principles the denial of “self”; the denial of our humanity. This is not, in any shape or form, healthy.
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.
