Evangelicalism Archives

Midwestern Baptist College: A Character-Building Factory— Part Three

January 18, 2023 Evangelicalism 1 Comment

midwestern baptist college freshman 1976 — Sophomore class, Midwestern Baptist College, Pontiac, Michigan 1977. Polly is in the first row, the first person on the left. Bruce is in the third row, the eighth person from the left

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Midwestern Baptist College, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) institution previously located in Pontiac, Michigan, was never a large school. At the height of its influence within the IFB church movement, approximately 400 students attended Midwestern. By the time my wife, Polly Shope Gerencser, and I enrolled for classes in the fall of 1976, enrollment was closer to 150. In the fall of 1977, sophomore class enrollment was forty-five — thirteen women and thirty-two men. (This count is based on the picture above. It is likely there was a handful of students who aren’t in the photo.) The dropout rate at Midwestern was quite high. By the time a group of freshmen reached their senior year, over fifty percent of them had dropped out. The 1978 Flame Yearbook pictures seventy-one freshmen, forty-five sophomores, twenty-seven juniors, and twenty-eight seniors. Four women and twenty-four men graduated in 1978. Only twelve of the graduates started their days at Midwestern as dorm students.

Most of the students who left before graduating did so due to the pressures of the Midwestern grind, financial struggles, or expulsion. Polly and I dropped out for two reasons: birth control failure and job loss. We had only been married six weeks when Polly informed me that she was pregnant. Severe morning sickness made it impossible for her to work part-time and still attend classes. Three months later, I was laid off from my machine operator job at Deco Grande in Detroit. Our already tenuous finances quickly unraveled. Polly and I talked to one college administrator, Levi Corey, about our struggles and our intention of dropping out for a semester. He insisted that it was God’s will for us to stay in college; that if we would just pray and have faith everything would work out. We pleaded with God to help us, but our prayers went unanswered. In February 1979, we packed up our meager belongings in a small U-Haul trailer attached to our white 1967 Chevy Impala and returned to the place of my birth, Bryan, Ohio (five miles from where we live today). I quickly found employment at General Tire, working in their milling department. I later took a job in the shipping and receiving department at Aro. Five months later, our first child, Jason, was born.

Never Quit! God Never Uses Quitters! These words were uttered countless times by Dr. Tom Malone, the chancellor of Midwestern, professors, and speakers at the daily chapel services students were required to attend. To drop out meant you were a failure; that God would never use you. If God led you to enroll at Midwestern, then he would provide the means for you to stay in college, students were told. What God orders, he pays for! This, of course, put a lot of pressure on students, causing fear and shame if they had to drop out.

Was there a cause and effect between staying in college and later serving the Lord in the ministry? Maybe. Many of the students who enrolled at Midwestern to study for the ministry and later dropped out never became pastors. However, many of the students who did graduate never became preachers either. There were too many variables to come to any sort of cause-and-effect conclusion. For example, some students worked for one of the local auto manufacturers while attending Midwestern. Great pay and benefits. Upon graduation, ready to enter God’s vineyard, these newly minted preachers started looking for churches to pastor. They quickly learned that the ministry was rewarding, but the pay was terrible. Unable to “trust” that God would meet their needs on seventy-five percent less income, with no benefits and insurance, these God-called preachers stayed in Pontiac to continue working their well-paying manufacturing jobs.

Many of the students who dropped out learned during their time at Midwestern that the ministry wasn’t for them. The work was hard and demanding, requiring long hours of work and putting God and the church above family. Unwilling to sacrifice their humanity and economic stability for the “sake of the call,” these students dropped out, often returning to their home churches and serving there in a lay capacity.

As I reflect on the rigors of being a Midwestern student, I have concluded that Dr. Malone and other people associated with the college deliberately made things hard for students. The goal was to cull from the herd those who were weak; those who couldn’t hack it. That’s why the attrition rate was so high. I was a full-time student. I typically attended classes Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to Noon. Afterward, I would eat lunch and change my clothes, before heading to my full-time employment at a factory, laundry, or grocery store. I typically arrived back to the dorm after curfew. I followed this routine five days a week. On Saturdays and Sundays, I attended two church services, taught Sunday school, drove a bus, visited a bus route, and preached at a drug rehab center in Detroit. I also had a social life. Polly and I dated for the two years we lived in the dorm. We went out on one or two dates every weekend, depending on whether I had any money. (Polly was destitute most of her time at Midwestern. Her work opportunities were severely limited by the draconian rules governing employment and travel for female dorm students. Her parents, who were barely holding their heads above water working at an IFB church in Newark, Ohio, sent her very little money.)

midwestern baptist college 1976-093 — Polly Shope Gerencser, first row, first person on the left

As you can see, I had very little time to even breathe or relax, and neither did Polly. While Polly was only allowed to work poor-paying part-time jobs, she too had church commitments. She also traveled with a college hand-bell group that performed at various IFB churches in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. For both of us, there was great pressure to obey and perform, instilling in us the idea that this way of life was the “will of God.”

Some dropouts defied the quitter label. I know Polly and I did. The day we were packing up our belongings, a dorm roommate and groomsman in our wedding named Wendell stopped by to beg us not to leave. He reminded us of what had been drilled into our heads in chapel: God never uses quitters. His passionate plea fell on deaf ears. In 1980, we returned to Pontiac and spent the weekend with him and his wife, taking time to reconsider leaving Midwestern. Wendell, once again, pleaded with us to return to college, reminding us that God never uses quitters. Alas, it was not to be. By then we were living in Newark, Ohio and I was a general manager for Arthur Treacher’s. Polly was teaching third grade at a local Christian school. Over the next five years, I helped my father-in-law start a new IFB church in Buckeye Lake and then I started a new church in Somerset — a congregation I pastored for eleven years.

By the mid-1980s, Somerset Baptist Church was booming, reaching a high attendance of 206. Somerset Baptist was the largest non-Catholic church in Perry County. By IFB standards, I was a success. One weeknight, I attended a conference at the Newark Baptist Temple, an IFB church pastored by Polly’s uncle, the late Jim Dennis. Jim was a 1960s graduate of Midwestern, a college trustee, and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the college. Dr. Malone was the featured speaker for the night.

Before beginning his sermon, Doc noticed that I was in attendance. He mentioned me by name, complimented me on my work, and then admitted, “if Bruce had stayed any longer at Midwestern, we probably would have ruined him.” I guess I wasn’t a quitter, after all.

My dorm roommate who pleaded with me not to quit? He graduated from Midwestern, returned home with his wife, and never pastored a church. Does this mean Wendell was a quitter, a failure? Of course not. By all accounts, he and his wife have built a wonderful life together. I have no doubt that he faithfully serves Jesus in his local church.

People “quit” for all sorts of reasons. Get divorced, leave jobs, drop out of college. Rarely does any of us do anything for a lifetime. We grow up, and we change, developing different wants, needs, and desires. This is the grand experience we call life. Midwestern caused great harm to its students when it promoted and amplified the false idea that if you say “God is calling me” you must fulfill that calling no matter what. I wonder how many former students still have feelings of guilt over not fulfilling their calling? No matter what they ultimately did with their lives, their failure to graduate or enter the ministry is a millstone around their neck.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

How to Become an IFB Pastor, Start a Church, and Other Sundry Thoughts

January 17, 2023 Evangelicalism 8 Comments

Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches are independent congregations. Each church is an entity unto itself. The IFB church movement is not a denomination per se, but churches do “fellowship” and join together around groups or institutions such as Bible colleges and missionary agencies. These voluntary associations are called “camps.”

In a post titled Let’s Go Camping: Understanding Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Camps I wrote:

To properly understand the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, you must first understand the IFB concept of camps. In the IFB, a camp is the tribe to which you belong. It is a membership group that is defined by such things as what Bible version is considered the “true” Word of God, what college the pastor attended, approval or disapproval of Calvinism, open or closed communion, or ecclesiastical, personal, and secondary separation. Many IFB camps will have multiple “positions” that define their group, and admission to the group is dependent on fidelity to these positions. Many pastors and churches belong to more than one camp.

As an IFB pastor, I swam in the waters of several camps: Sword of the Lord, Baptist Bible Fellowship, Midwestern Baptist Fellowship, and Buckeye Baptist Fellowship. While every camp has its own peculiar identity, the one thing they all had in common was their independence from ecclesiastical control.

I pastored two denominational churches: a Southern Baptist congregation in Clare, Michigan, and a Christian Union church in Alvordton, Ohio. The churches I pastored in San Antonio, Texas and Montpelier, Buckeye Lake, Somerset, and West Unity, Ohio were all independent congregations. All but one of these churches were new church plants, three of which were planted by me.

While the Southern Baptist and Christian Union churches I pastored were denominational congregations, there were no rules governing who could or couldn’t be a pastor. I found that these churches were every bit as free to govern themselves as IFB congregations.

Most Evangelical churches in the United States are congregationally governed. The church membership has the final say on everything, including who will be their pastor. A small number of Evangelical churches are board-controlled. In these churches, congregants have very little control over the church. Most IFB churches are decidedly congregational, although pastors can exert substantial influence over church decisions. Some pastors are quite dictatorial. While their churches are congregational, the church membership is little more than a rubber stamp for whatever the pastor wants to do. This, of course, can lead to all sorts of problems, especially when a pastor has been at a church for a long time. Long-tenured pastors can become quite possessive, thinking that their church is some sort of personal possession.

How, then, does a man — no women allowed — become an IFB pastor? What are the requirements for becoming a pastor?

Many denominations require prospective pastors to meet certain guidelines. Some, however, do not. That was certainly the case for the Christian Union and Southern Baptist churches I pastored. The respective denominations had no requirements whatsoever for ministers. The Southern Baptist Convention and its churches, are no different from IFB churches in this regard. This became clear during the sect’s recent sexual abuse scandal when people realized that the Southern Baptist denomination has no power over individual churches. All that the SBC can do is kick a church out of the denomination. They have no control over the internal workings of affiliated churches. So what I write next about IFB congregations and pastors can also be said about SBC churches.

IFB churches require that a prospective pastor have a credible salvation testimony, be baptized by immersion, be a member in good standing of a local New Testament Baptist church, and demonstrate a calling from God to be a preacher. Three of these four qualifications can easily be verified, However, it is the fourth qualification that can be problematic. A “call from God” is a subjective experience. How does a church know that a man is called to preach? Because he says he is. In my case, I was called to preach as a fifteen-year-old boy, two weeks after I was saved. Within a month, I preached my first sermon. Not one person ever questioned my calling. How dare they, right? If God was calling me to full-time service, who were they to question God’s work in my heart?

Many IFB preachers enter the ministry without any formal education. All a man needs is a calling from God, the Holy Spirit, a King James Bible, and a Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. Many preachers-to-be go off to college to prepare for the ministry, typically attending the Baptist equivalent of finishing schools. Typically, these colleges are unaccredited or deceptively say they are accredited by organizations no one has heard of. While some IFB colleges have national accreditation, most do not. All one has to do to check an institution’s accreditation is ask whether it accepts Federal financial aid such as the Pell Grant. If the college says no, that means it is not accredited.

Sadly, many IFB colleges provide inferior educations for pastors-to-be. The goal isn’t knowledge as much as it is reinforcement of beliefs, continued conditioning, and indoctrination. I can’t emphasize this point enough. The goal of Midwestern Baptist College, the character-building factory I attended for three years in the 1970s, was not to teach me new things, challenge me, or expand my academic horizons. The goal was to train me to be a hardened soldier in the IFB army, a hellfire and brimstone preacher of the IFB gospel. Midwestern professors made it clear to students that there was an approved doctrinal script they were required to follow. Failure to do so would cost them their jobs. Certain theological subjects were not talked about: Charismaticism, Calvinism, and using non-KJV translations come to mind. Any professor or student found promoting these heresies was booted out the front door of the college. Thus, I left Midwestern in the spring of 1979 with zero knowledge about the Charismatic movement and Calvinism, other than I was a’gin it.

The quality of education varies from college to college. While I learned many practical things at Midwestern and met the love of my life, I receive an inferior, almost Sunday school-like, education from men who had received a similar education before me when they were students at Midwestern. While I struggled with some of my classes at Midwestern, it wasn’t due to academic rigor. My struggles came from working a full-time job and trying to perform and fulfill all the church and ministry requirements. I suspect many students had similar difficulties. There were only so many hours in a week.

Not one church I pastored ever questioned the quality of the education I received at Midwestern. Part of the reason for this is that I worked very hard over the course of twenty-five years in the ministry to plug the holes in my training. I was a voracious reader, a man who took seriously preaching the Bible. I spent upwards of twenty hours every week reading and studying the Bible and preparing my sermons. I was determined to become an educated IFB preacher. I largely achieved that goal, as my colleagues in the ministry can attest.

Once a man is ready to pastor his first church, he is typically ordained by his local church. I was ordained in 1983 by Emmanuel Baptist Church in Buckeye Lake, a church I started with my father-in-law. Two months later, I left Emmanuel and started a new IFB church in Somerset. Ordination is the stamp of approval the local church puts on a man whom they believe is called to preach . While ordination grants new pastors certain legal and financial benefits, the purpose is mainly to say “we approve.”

Scores of American IFB churches are pastored by men with substandard educations, with no other qualification other than a subjective calling and a local church’s approval. Once on the field, these newly minted pastors are free to do their own thing with no control or oversight. Remember, every church is independent.

If a man stays within the confines of the IFB church movement, he can have a productive ministry, However, it is when he leaves the movement problems arise. Let’s say he wants to change sects. He quickly finds that there are rules he must follow. He might need to be re-ordained or go back to school for more training. Some Evangelical sects have strict educational requirements (though they still can be quite limited in scope). Some IFB pastors want to leave the ministry altogether. They soon learn that their Bible college educations are worthless. Imagine spending four years getting a Bible college education, only to learn that your degree is of no value outside of the church. Just because you can teach at a Bible college or a Christian school doesn’t mean you can do the same in the “world.” While men with IFB educations can use their degrees as resume fodder — I did — HR departments, if they do their due diligence, will quickly learn that their prospective employees’ degrees are not worth the paper that they are written on. I found that my college education opened employment doors for me, especially if the person interviewing me was a Christian. What carried greater weight was my extensive ministerial experience. Prospective employers quickly learned that I had good people and problem-solving skills.

I have interacted with numerous IFB pastors who have left the ministry. Some deconverted, others were flat worn out from the incessant demands and pressures that come with pastoring IFB congregations. Make no mistake about it, pastoring an IFB church is hard work and not for the faint of heart. Some men leave the ministry because they want a “normal” life: better pay and benefits, more family time, and reasonable employment expectations.

The challenge, of course, for men who leave — regardless of the reasons — is what to do going forward. Most men have to reinvent themselves. I know I have. While I am still, in some sense, a “pastor,” I had to change virtually every aspect of my life after I left the ministry in 2005. While health problems put an end to my work career, I have found new things to do such as writing, collecting electric trains, and making up for all the time I lost with my family while I was a pastor. My sister owns a medical training school in Phoenix, Arizona. I do some tech work for her.

It took me years to come to terms with the new me. Until 2005, my whole adult life had revolved around the work of the ministry. Just ask my children. If their Dad was anything, he was committed to God and the church. Everything we did as a family was to that end.

Do you want to be an IFB pastor? You can become one today. Do you want to start an IFB church? You can do that today too. In 2016, I wrote a post titled You Can do It: How to Start an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church detailing how you can start an IFB church:

John “Jesus Lover” Baptiste recently graduated from an unaccredited Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) college. After three or four years of superficially studying the Bible, John received his degree in Jesus-Loving, Devil-Chasing, Sin-Hating Pastoral Ministry. Now what?

Graduates are encouraged to go into all the world — well mainly the United States — and win souls for Jesus. The best way to do this is to start a new church.

Here is what John “Jesus Lover” Baptiste needs to do to start a brand spanking new Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church.

First, find a town where there are churches on every corner and convince yourself that ALL of those churches are liberal, apostate, using the wrong Bible translation, or using worldly music.

Second, confuse your own desire and ambition with the Holy Spirit leading you and God calling you to start a new church.

Third, rent a meeting place or building. Make sure you get the building as cheaply as possible. If the building owner is a Christian, lay a spiritual guilt trip on him to get him to lower the rent and then invite him and his family to the first service.

Fourth, put a puff piece in the newspaper telling locals why you are starting a new church in their community. DON’T tell them that you think ALL the other churches in town are liberal, apostate, using the wrong Bible translation, or using worldly music. You want to be able to poach members from other churches later, so it is important no one knows what you really think of every other church in town.

Fifth, every day pray that God will bless your endeavor. Convince yourself that God put you in the community to win everyone to Jesus, and that without you they will all go to hell.

Sixth, tell your wife and children that you love them, but they are going to have to understand that Jesus comes first, and you will have to neglect them in order for a GREAT church to be built. Also, tell them that they will have to mow the churchyard, clean the church, play the piano, work in the nursery, teach Sunday School, and anything else you ask them to do. Try to explain to them that, yes God called YOU, but he expects you to bring luggage.

Seventh, much like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, knock on every door in town and witness to everyone who dares to answer. Lie to them by saying, I am not here to take you from your church home. All that is important is that you know Jesus as your Savior. Don’t let them know that if they get saved you will expect them to come to the church that cared enough to lead them to Jesus. And get baptized. And attend services every time the church doors are open. And tithe. And obey every edict uttered by you from the pulpit.

Eighth, run some ads in the local newspaper and put up flyers on every public bulletin board. Church-hopping members (please see The Fine Art of Church Hopping) from nearby IFB churches will notice the ads and see this as “God leading them” to leave their churches. This is the quickest way to start a new church. And just remember, when they leave your new church a few years later for a newer church, that you were willing to sacrifice your integrity for numerical gain. You are now ready for your first service. Remember one thing: most new church plants fail, especially IFB churches. Perhaps, it would be better if you join up with one of the other churches in town and help them. Silly me, you will never do that. You are a God-called, Holy-Spirit-powered, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist pastor, and such a calling deserves its own church, and a BIG sign that says, in BIG type, JOHN BAPTISTE, PASTOR.

The Bible says that the calling of God is irrevocable. Thus, I am still a Christian, a God-called preacher. I even have an ordination certificate to prove it. 🙂

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

My Response to Richard Boltin, an IFB Apologist

January 16, 2023 Evangelicalism 21 Comments

Over the weekend, I received an email from an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) man from Texas named Richard Boltin. Here’s what he had to say (all spelling and grammar in the original):

I was saved at the age of 12 and from that time God has placed a desire in my heart to tell others about my saviour. No one has ever forced or driven me so to speak to witness or preach the gospel it has just been a simple desire I have because of what my saviour did for me. I have not always faithfully followed Christ in fact there was a time in my life where I was disappointed by other people who were professed Christians and I was out of fellowship with the Lord over this for many years, please don’t get me wrong it was not their fault but rather my own. The Lord graciously turned my life around and gave me back that desire to serve Him. I am sorry but in my life I have not experienced any of the kind of frustrations or disappointments you related about the IBF. The gospel is simple and salvation is eternal but true salvation will render a desire to such a person as he will never escape. Simply put if that desire is not there then I question weather I was truly saved. I could give you scripture but it would seem to be a frustrated effort as you have already said you were a self proclaimed athiest. I will say tho when Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill and preached to the Athenians he said the time of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent speaking of their idolatries. All men are at some time in their life tangled in the scheme of this idolatry but God is gracious in that he winked at it at one time but now by the finished work of redemption of Christ on the cross offers to all salvation in Him. I hope and pray for you Bruce that he will challenge your heart and give you something that you can hold on to and believe because there is coming a day weather we believe it or not that every knee will bow to Jesus Christ. I attend to these same conversations with my son and I pray for him daily and will do the same for you.

After Richard emailed me, he left fourteen comments on this site. You can read all of Richard’s comments and my responses in one post, Breaking News: IFB Preacher Bob Gray, Sr. Admits to Driving Church Members. That’s right, Boltin read all of one post. I gave him links to other posts he should read, but he chose not to. He didn’t read my About page, nor did he read any of my extensive autobiographical material. Perhaps, Proverbs 18:13 best defines Boltin’s actions: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.

Boltin is a diehard Independent Fundamentalist Baptist. Proudly IFB, he is also a conspiracy theorist and an avid Trump supporter. Based on Boltin’s comments, he likely has spent decades in the IFB church movement — an authoritarian sect known for its religious and social extremism. When I read Boltin’s remarks, I hear a man John C. Holmes proud, a man who is certain he is right. Boltin didn’t come to this site to interact with me or the readers of this blog. He came to rebuke, correct, preach, and evangelize. Based on my interaction with him, he showed no awareness of the fact that he could be wrong.

Take, for example, his objection to me saying that the IFB church movement was in numerical decline.

Boltin wrote:

I have been to many IFB churches that run quite a few in church. I don’t know how you can say they are in serious decline you don’t attend therefore you don’t see I have known churches in the last 2 years that run as much as 2000 per Sunday the church you just mentioned Emmanuel Baptist in Longview is one they run 2000 per Sunday My brothers church in Tennessee Hairraman they run 1000 per Sunday several in Ft Worth run 3 – 5 thousand pretty good for todays standards and there is by the way no hatred for the LGBTQ crowd amongst these churches they just preach against the sin not the sinner. They try to win these souls to the Lord.

I replied:

Do better, Richard. Just because you can point to churches running in the thousands proves nothing. First, what did these churches run in the past? Attendance at Emmanuel is less than what it was when Gray Sr. pastored the church. Second, in 1980, most of the churches on the Top 100 churches list were IFB. Today? Only one remains, First Baptist in Hammond, and it runs 10,000 less in attendance than it did in the 80s. Third, scores of large IFB churches are now defunct. Emmanuel Baptist in Pontiac is a good example. When I attended Emmanuel in the 70s, it had days when 2,000-4,000 people were in attendance. Today, the church no longer exists. The church I attended in the early 70s ran over 1,000 in attendance. Today, it runs around 400. My wife’s uncle’s IFB church ran over 400 in the late 60s. Today it runs 150. Shall I go on? Fourth, smaller IFB churches either are static or in decline attendance-wise. These are facts, Richard. I hate to appeal to authority on this issue, but I’m an expert on the IFB. I grew up in the IFB. I attended an IFB college and married an IFB preacher’s daughter. I pastored IFB churches. Most of all, I have been closely following, monitoring, and studying the IFB church movement for over 45 years. I know what I’m talking about. So, pointing to a church here and there to prove your point tells me nothing. I heard there is an awesome K-Mart somewhere in Texas. Should we take this as a sign that K-Mart is flourishing, especially when the rest of the evidence suggests otherwise? Do a study, Richard. Call 100 older, established IFB churches and ask them if they run more in attendance now than they did 20, 30, or 40 years ago. I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of them will say no. It’s so bad that some IFB preachers are saying “quality over quantity” in an attempt to cover up the fact that their churches are numerically dying.

Boltin, not listening to anything I said, replied:

and the fact that you point out that churches run less in attendance means nothing in todays society that cares nothing about where they will spend eternity. You know a lot of what you just discussed about the brevity of life is recorded in the book of James. What is your life it is even a vapor that appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away. We are not to prepare our lives as if we are even guaranteed of a tomorrow but rather we are to live it to please our saviour. There I answered your questions about Abraham and about church attendance and many other things yet I still have yet to hear one shred of evidence that you don’t really believe the things you acclaim and I see your bitterness and your hatred and also that you hide behind a shield of humanism and atheism in an effort to comfort your heart about the true destiny of your soul

Did you notice that Boltin totally ignored the evidence I provided, choosing instead to preach and attack my character? Sadly, this is common IFB behavior.

Boltin says four things about me:

I don’t really believe the things I say I do
I am bitter
I am hateful
That I use humanism and atheism to hide the true destiny of my soul

I won’t bother to rebut Boltin’s claims. I have done so numerous times before. If Boltin wants to read my responses to people who say that I am bitter and hateful, he can do a search and find those posts. Boltin, of course, won’t do so. He, like many IFB zealots, is lazy and lacks curiosity. (Please see Curiosity, A Missing Evangelical Trait.)

I do want to address one issue that I mentioned in my comments to him. At the age of fifteen, I was saved at Trinity Baptist Church, a large IFB congregation in Findlay, Ohio. According to Boltin’s theology, once a person is saved, he can never, ever, for any reason lose his salvation. This is the core of the “once saved always saved” soteriology preached by many (not all) IFB churches, pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. It was most certainly the soteriology preached by Bob Gray, Sr., Jack Hyles, Tom Malone, Bob Gray of Jacksonville, David Hyles, Lee Roberson, Curtis Hutson, and countless other IFB luminaries. I heard it preached at Midwestern Baptist College in the 70s, and at numerous Sword of the Lord conferences and preacher’s meetings. I knew when I was in the movement, I preached up once saved always saved. (I abandoned once saved always saved in the late 1980s. I believed it was a truncated, bastardized perversion of the gospel.) I may be an avowed atheist today, but according to IFB doctrine, I am still a Christian. I may lose some rewards in Heaven, but I will still receive a mansion right next door to Boltin’s. And that, my friend, chaps his ass. That’s why he doubts I was ever saved.

What evidence does Boltin have for saying I never was a Christian? Certainly not my life. Certainly not my devoted love and service to Jesus. Certainly not my preaching and soulwinning. Certainly not my commitment to holiness. No, Boltin thinks the fact that I am an atheist “proves” I never was a Christian. Wait a minute. I thought that all a person needs to do to be saved is to believe the gospel and sincerely pray the sinner’s prayer. I did that. On what basis does Boltin deny that I ever had faith in Christ? If my godlessness is the problem, then Boltin must answer whether he is preaching works salvation or that he believes that salvation is conditioned on believing the right things until the end. So which is it, Richard?

Let me return, in closing, to Boltin’s email. Every person who emails me is presented with the following text:

If you would like to contact Bruce Gerencser, please use the following form. If your email warrants a response, someone will respond to you as soon as possible.

Due to persistent health problems, I cannot guarantee a timely response. Sometimes, I am a month or more behind in responding to emails. This delay doesn’t mean I don’t care. It does mean, however, that I can only do what I can do. I hope you understand.

To help remedy this delay in response, my editor, Carolyn, may respond to your email. Carolyn has been my editor for six years. She knows my writing inside and out, so you can rest assured that if your question concerns something I have written, Carolyn’s response will reflect my beliefs and opinions — albeit with fewer swear words.

I do not, under any circumstances, accept unsolicited guest posts. Think that I’m interested in letting you write a post with a link back to your site, I’m not.

I am not interested in receiving commercial email from you.

I am not interested in buying social media likes, speeding up my website, signing up for your Ad service, improving my SEO, or having you design a new blog theme for this site.

I will not send you money for your ministry, church, or orphanage. In fact, just don’t ask for money, period.

I know you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, but you are not a medical professional, so please do not send me unsolicited medical or psychological advice. I am not interested — ever.

If you are an Evangelical Christian, please read Dear Evangelical before sending me an email. If you have a pathological need to evangelize, spread the love of Jesus, or put a good word in for the man, the myth, the legend named Jesus, please don’t. The same goes for telling me your church/pastor/Jesus is awesome. I am also not interested in reading sermonettes, testimonials, Bible verses, or your deconstruction/psychological evaluation of my life. By all means, if you feel the need to set me straight, start your own blog.

If you email me anyway — and I know you will, since scores of Evangelicals have done just that, showing me no regard or respect — I reserve the right to make your message and name public. This blog is read by thousands of people every day, so keep that in mind when you email me whatever it is you think “God/Jesus/Holy Spirit” has laid upon your heart. Do you really want your ignorance put on display for thousands of people to see? Pause before hitting send. Ask yourself, “how will my email reflect on Jesus, Christianity, and my church?”

Outside of the exceptions mentioned above, I promise to treat all correspondence with you as confidential. I have spent the last fourteen years corresponding with people who have been psychologically harmed by Evangelical Christianity. I am more than happy to come alongside you and provide what help I can. I am not, however, a licensed counselor. I am just one man with fifty years of experience as a Christian and twenty-five years of experience as an Evangelical pastor. I am more than happy to lend you what help and support I can.

Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

I assume Boltin read this and ignored it. He is a man on a mission from God.

IFB adherents are difficult to deal with. They are often arrogant, self-righteous, and disrespectful. Steeped in certainty, and believing the Holy Spirit is leading, guiding, and directing them, IFB Christians totally disregard my wishes, sending me emails that I have no interest in receiving. I don’t need to read more Bible verses — I’ve read the Bible from cover to cover numerous times — or hear any more sermons. I know all I need to know about the Bible and Christianity. Anyone who bothers to do their homework knows this about me. I am more than happy to answer questions or help people in any way I can. I take the time to correspond with numerous people every week. However, emails such as Boltin’s raise my ire because their only purpose is to attack, criticize, and denigrate. Boltin made no attempt to interact with me or understand my story. I tried to draw him into discussions about his beliefs and support of certain IFB preachers, but all he did was criticize, deflect, change the subject, or disregard what I said.

I don’t know why I bother. These sorts of “discussions” always end the same way. I remind myself that I once was just like Boltin; that I had similar beliefs and practices. I was a Baptist Fundamentalist through and through. (One difference, however, is that I never defended or supported men such as Jack Hyles, David Hyles, and Bob Gray, Sr.) I know that I was able to break free from the IFB cult. This will not happen for the Boltins of the world until they are willing to admit that they could be wrong; that it is possible that their foundational beliefs might be untrue (especially when it comes to the inerrancy and infallibility of the Protestant Christian 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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is God Sovereign and Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

January 13, 2023 Evangelicalism 9 Comments

The first verse in the first book of the Christian Bible says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The verses that follow go on to explain all that God created. His crowning achievement was the creation of Adam and Eve — humans created in the image of God. Adam and Eve would later eat fruit from a tree that God said was off-limits. Their love of fruit brought sin and death into the world. From this point forward, humans come forth from their mother’s wombs at variance with God. According to the Bible, newborns come into the world speaking lies. Humans are, by nature, enemies of God. Wanting to repair the fractured relationship between the Creator and his creation, God cooked up a scheme through which sins could be forgiven. In the Old Testament, the Bible says God required blood sacrifices for the expiation of sin. Animals were ritually slaughtered and their blood was placed upon altars to provide atonement for national and personal sins. In the New Testament, the Bible says that God sent himself to earth in the form of a God-man by the name of Jesus. This Jesus was one hundred percent man and one hundred percent God. After traveling through Palestine for three years, working miracles, and preaching sermons, this Jesus was accused of heresy by the Jews, arrested by the Roman government, and executed. Three days later, this Jesus miraculously came back to life, spent forty days appearing to his followers, after which he ascended to Heaven. According to Christians, for the past 2,000 years, Jesus has been hanging out in heaven doing God things: building rooms (mansions) for Christians to live in, helping Christians score touchdowns, helping grandmas find their car keys, and controlling presidential elections. While Jesus, at least according to those who speak on his behalf, is intimately involved in the minutest details of the lives of his followers, it seems he can’t be bothered with important issues such as war, starvation, global climate change, human trafficking, and the Cincinnati Reds winning the World Series. Why is it that Jesus never seems to be around when you really, really need him?

Most Christian sects can be plotted along the line between Arminianism and Calvinism. While these two systematic theologies are poles apart from one another, both agree that the Christian God is the absolute, authoritative ruler of the universe. While Arminians and Calvinists argue amongst themselves about free will and the order of salvation, both agree that God is sovereign, and that he has the whole world in the palm of his hands. This God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. The Bible says that none of us can escape the presence of this God. He is everywhere — the ultimate voyeur.

If everything is created by God, owned by God, known by God, and nothing escapes his ever-seeing eye, isn’t it logical to say that God is responsible for sin? Isn’t it logical to hold God responsible for everything that happens? If humans are not ultimately in control of their lives or their destiny, how then can they be held responsible? If God alone — either through predestination and election or prevenient grace — saves sinners and gives them keys to their Jesus-built mansions in the sky, how then can any of us be held accountable for not becoming Christians? If it is God, through the Holy Spirit, that gives life to dead sinners so they can believe, how then can any un-quickened sinners be held accountable for their depravity? Billions of people, past and present, live in places where Christianity has no influence. People can go through their entire lives without hearing the Christian gospel, yet when they die God will hold them accountable for not hearing that which they had no opportunity to hear. Does this sound just and fair?

Does any of this make sense to you? Wouldn’t it have been better for the Gods — Yahweh, Jesus, and Holy Spirit — to cut out all the bullshit and create a universe not tainted by sin and depravity? Surely it was in God’s power to create an Adam and Eve who were incapable of sinning. It’s a fair question, then, to ask why God did what he did. If God controls the universe and nothing escapes his sovereign grasp, why all the war, violence, rape, starvation, and terrible contemporary Christian music?

Start asking Christian pastors and laypeople these questions, and you’ll quickly conclude that they really don’t have any answers. Oh, they will spin some sort of elaborate theological answer that will leave you neck-deep in quicksand, but don’t expect them to give direct, succinct answers. Most often, apologists for the Christian God will give contradictory or incoherent answers, and when their nonsense is pointed out they will swiftly run to the house of faith, slamming the door while they scream, GOD’S WAYS ARE NOT OUR WAYS! GOD’S THOUGHTS ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS! HOW DARE YOU CHALLENGE THE CREATOR! HE CAN DO WHAT HE WANTS! This screaming is the equivalent of la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you, now fuck off.

A perfect illustration of this can be found in a post on the Faith-It website by Christine Suhan. Titled, Dear Christians, Stop Saying ‘Everything Happens for a Reason,’ Suhan shows how it is impossible for Christians to develop a coherent understanding of the world while at the same time trying to hold on to Evangelical beliefs. Here’s some of what she had to say:

Have you ever found yourself, in the midst of unimaginable grief, pain, heartache or despair, wondering how you are going to make it through another day? Wondering where your next breath is going to come from? Your world has crumbled beneath you and you are left feeling shattered, empty and hopeless.

And then a well meaning friend or family member comes along and drops the infamous “Everything happens for a reason” bomb. You smile kindly and nod—that’s all you can do to keep yourself from punching them in the face.

….

Sometimes bad things happen for no reason other than we are human beings having a human experience. Pain, heartache, grief, loss, disease and death are inevitable parts of the human experience.

We hear people say “Life dealt me a crappy hand” as if pain and hardships are not the norm. We assume that life is supposed to be easy and when things don’t go our way, we feel like we have been wronged. Human beings seem to have an innate sense of entitlement. We think that we are owed a pain-free existence.

But the truth is that human beings are not exempt from the human experience. And struggle is an innate part of the human experience. None of us are exceptions to this rule. We all struggle. We all suffer. We all experience pain, heartache and loss. And sometimes, there’s just no reason other than we are human and pain is a part of the process.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who was struggling to find peace with “God’s plan” for her life including the recent death of a loved one.

“How could this possibly be God’s will?” she asked.

Here’s what I’ve come to know about God’s will:

God’s will is not the path we walk, but rather how we walk the path.

God’s plan is never for someone to have cancer. God’s will is not for an innocent child to be brutally murdered. God’s will is not for a teenage girl to be raped. God’s will is not chronic pain, illness, disability or death.

God’s will is not an event that happens to us, it’s how we respond to what happens.

God’s will for us is to walk with Him through the cancer. Through the abuse. Through the death. Through the illness. God’s will is for us to draw close to him in the midst of pain. God’s will is for us to use our painful life events to carry his message of hope, grace, forgiveness and mercy.

God’s plan was never for pain to be part of the human experience. His plan was for us to live in peace and harmony with Him. The human experience became painful when sin entered the world. Our own free will weaved threads of tragedy, loss, heartache and pain into the human experience.

God is not responsible for our pain. We are not responsible for our pain. What happened in the Garden of Eden is responsible for the human condition. And the human condition is hard wired for pain and suffering. God is not causing us to hurt. He is hurting with us. What we do with our hurt is what matters. How we handle tragedy is what brings purpose into our pain.

There’s hardly ever a justifiable reason for the bad things that happen in life. Tragic loss is not laced with inherent specs of good. I used to get so mad when people would say, “You can find good in every situation.” That’s just not true. There was nothing good about being raped. There is no good in murder or abuse.

Suhan takes the shit happens approach. Thanks to Adam and Eve and their progeny’s sin nature, pain, suffering, and death are part of the human (Westworld) experience. According to Suhan, there is no reason or purpose for these things to happen. The problem, however, is that Suhan’s worldview runs contrary to orthodox Christian doctrine. This often happens when Christians try to thoughtfully ponder about human existence. How can rape or murder be good or have some sort of higher purpose? If God is the sovereign of the universe, why does he permit, either passively or by decree, such things to happen? Surely, an all-powerful God can keep people from being raped or murdered. Why does he idly stand by and do nothing?

According to Suhan, God does do s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g. When a teenage girl is being ritually raped by her pastor or an altar boy is being repeatedly sodomized by his priest, Jesus is right there holding the victim’s hand. That’s right, the God who could stop sexual assault does little more than send victims a BFF text that says, I am with you in spirit. Love, Jesus. Millions of people will go to bed tonight hungry, and the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and sends sunshine and rain for crops to grow will do nothing to feed them, choosing instead to smile and hold their empty plates. While the risk of nuclear war between the United States and Russia continues to increase, Jesus wants everyone to know that he will be right there with them if they are turned into an ash heap. Is this the best that God can do for us — hold our hand?

If God is the supreme ruler of the universe, the creator of all things, the giver of life and death, and he who sees and knows everything, it is impossible to absolve him of culpability for pain, suffering, violence, and death. God could intervene, but he does nothing. Try as they might, Christian apologists have no suitable answer for their sovereign God’s inaction. The best these defenders of the faith can come up with is that Adam and Eve ate an apple, pissed off God in the process, and for thousands of years now he is been standing by while Evangelical pastors rape church children, serial killers murder innocents, and warring nations rain death down on the heads of innocent civilians.

And if this isn’t bad enough, Christian pastors and theologians remind us that there is coming a day when God will end his hand-holding ways, resurrecting everyone from the dead so he can judge them and fit those who don’t measure up with some sort of supernatural body that will survive an eternity of torture in a lake filled with fire and brimstone. This God, who couldn’t be bothered with stopping Hitler’s horrendous slaughter of six million Jews, will definitely be hands-on when the time comes to make his “chosen” people pay for their rejection and execution of Jesus Christ. Billions of Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and wrong-flavor-of-ice-cream Christians will be awakened from their slumber, only to be cast into Hell with the Devil, his angels, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Anthony Fauci, Nancy Pelosi, and Bruce Gerencser.

Who in their right mind would want anything to do with Evangelical Christianity?

It is for these reasons (and others) that many people turn to agnosticism, atheism, universalism, and other non-theistic religions. The only way to understand what goes on in the world is to realize that we humans are responsible for what does and does not happen. It is up to humans, not fictional deities, to put an end to violence and suffering. We are the masters of our universe, and if we want things to be different, then it is up to us to change them. A humanistic view of the world requires us to acknowledge that randomness and luck often affect our lives. Sometimes, we are at the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time. Slight variations in decisions or movements can drastically change outcomes. It is highly unlikely that a jet flying overhead will crash into my home. It’s possible, but the probability of it happening is minuscule. And when that unlikely event happens to some unlucky individuals, we must accept it as just that – an unfortunate incident that took lives, but not an act of God. Instead of attempting to develop some elaborate and often contradictory religious explanation of the world that supposedly matches the dictates of ancient religious texts, it is far better for us to just live in the moment and do what we can to improve life for not only ourselves and our progeny, but also for animals and other humans. Interjecting God into the discussion just complicates things. We humanists hope that Suhan and her fellow Christians leave off holding hands with their fictional best friend, and instead join hands with us as we try to combat violence, pain, suffering, disease, climate change, starvation, inequality, and death. Surely God is not so jealous that he can’t put off the handholding until Christians make it to the other side.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

UPDATED: Black Collar Crime: Former Evangelical Pastor Ronnie Hyde Sentenced to Life in Prison for 1994 Murder

January 13, 2023 Black Collar Crime 1 Comment

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.

In 2017, Action News Jacksonville reported:

Ronnie Hyde, 60, was arrested Tuesday in the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Fred Laster and the FBI began searching his Jacksonville Beach home, as well as a property of his on Jacksonville’s Eastside.

….

For more than two decades, Laster was known as “John Doe” to investigators looking into his death. His dismembered body was recovered behind a dumpster on Highway 441 near Interstate 10 on June 5, 1994.

In a related story, Action News reported:

A Duval County judge denied bond on Wednesday for Ronnie Hyde, 60, who has been charged in the death and dismemberment of Nassau County teen Fred Laster.

Twenty-three years after the killing, the suspect in the case faced a judge for the first time.

Hyde was wearing a red jumpsuit which indicates a high risk inmate. He will likely hire an attorney of his own.

Andrew Sturm was at the hearing to support him. He said Hyde is his friend and counselor.

“We recommended him to my mom and my nephew who he sees and he’s done nothing but great in my life,” said Sturm.

Sturm said he met Hyde through Crosswater Community Church.

According to Sturm, Hyde counseled his 13-year-old nephew and while he doesn’t suspect Hyde harmed him, he said he still called the FBI after learning of his arrest.

“Per my nephew’s own words, no one put words in my nephew’s mouth, Ron never did anything at all inappropriate, Ron never touched him at all,” said Sturm.

In court, Hyde tried speaking with the judge but the judge stopped him saying it was not the time to speak about his case.

Sturm said this is not the Hyde he knows.

“Ron is an extremely intelligent person, very much a loner he likes to play his guitar. He would play at county festivals and stuff like that,” said Sturm.

The Florida Times-Union added:

Authorities credited advancements in technology, increased exposure from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the assignment of a fresh detective to the cold case unit with the recent break in the case.

“All it takes is that one spark of information that can lead to an arrest,” Columbia County Sheriff Mark Hunter said.

Local FBI Special Agent in Charge Charles Spencer asked the public for help as the case continues, saying Hyde traveled abroad, was “a named subject in a previous child exploitation case” and had access to numerous children over the years.

Hyde, who lists his employment as a licensed mental health counselor at Crosswater Community Church in Nocatee, previously worked as a youth pastor at Strength for Living Church in Jacksonville where he first met Laster’s family.

Rev. Jack Millwood of Hyde’s current church issued a statement: “We are working and cooperating fully with the FBI in their investigation of Ron Hyde. I am personally not aware of any victims of Ron Hyde that involve anyone associated with Crosswater. If any person or persons has any information regarding potential victims of Ron Hyde, please contact the local FBI office.”

A neighbor watching the flurry of law enforcement activity at Hyde’s Jacksonville Beach home said there was something about the place always made her uneasy as did Hyde.

“It was always a house we skipped when we went trick-or-treating,” the neighbor said.

A similar search took place throughout the day at a second home on Thelma Street in Jacksonville. Spencer said agents will continue an extensive search of the homes, but would not disclose what exactly investigators are looking for.

“The search could take several days and no stone will be left unturned, I can assure you of that,” Spencer said, asking residents for patience during the process.

Hunter said investigators met with Laster’s family in November 2015 to collect his siblings’ DNA samples, building a profile that they could possibly match with the DNA taken from the torso found in 1994. Three months later, lab tests confirmed the remains and Laster’s family members were related.

A match still left the case unsolved. A second DNA profile recovered from a flannel shirt found near the torso in 1994 had no match in a law enforcement database. But last April, investigators sifted through trash cans outside Hyde’s home and retrieved nasal swabs containing DNA that was also matched to the flannel shirt.

“I am extremely proud of the detectives who worked on this extremely difficult case,” Hunter said. “… It has allowed the family to have some closure.”

The sheriff demurred when asked whether there was a sexual nature to the case. Still, court records show Laster’s sister told authorities she and her brother had spent the night at Hyde’s home a year before he went missing and that she woke up to find Hyde nude and trying to quietly wake her brother.

Laster’s siblings said they confronted Hyde numerous times over the years, and each time he seemed to provide a different version of events regarding Laster’s disappearance. In one breath Hyde told the siblings he had dropped Laster off near Pecan Park, in another breath he said it was in the Oceanway area and in another still he said he’d taken Laster to their grandmother’s house in Nassau County.

Eventually, Lasters’ siblings gave up trying to get answers from Hyde. They said they last spoke to him in 2003.

You can read February 28, 2018, Florida Times-Union report about Hyde’s case here.

In April 2022, Hyde was sentenced to life in prison.

The Florida Times-Union reports:

A Duval County jury took a little more than three hours to find former Jacksonville Beach youth pastor Ronnie Leon Hyde guilty of killing and dismembering a 16-year-old Yulee boy in 1994.

Following a tearful victim impact statement from Travis Laster, whose brother Fred Laster’s remains were found in Columbia County behind a gas station dumpster, Hyde was sentenced to life in prison.

Hyde, 65, stood motionless as Judge Tatiana Salvador read the sentence just after 3:30 p.m., his attorney Ann Finnell at his side. The verdict came after four days of witness and evidence presentations to the jury, wrapping with Hyde testifying in his own defense.

Standing at a courtroom podium, not looking at Hyde, Travis Laster said his entire family all lost someone who “was loved dearly.” And since no one knew the remains were his until a 2016 DNA test, his grandmother died never knowing what happened to her grandson, his brother said.

….

When Hyde addressed the court in his own defense Thursday and again when he was questioned by the prosecutor the next day, he denied having done anything to the boy who he knew and spent a lot of time with.

He said the teen was upset over a dispute with his sister when he last saw him and he had bailed out of Hyde’s car on U.S. 17 in Nassau County and disappeared.

…..

Laster’s torso was found on June 5, 1994, behind a Lake City dumpster and missing the head, legs and hands, police said. Evidence was collected but his identification wasn’t unknown for years.

In 2014 the case was advertised on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website and prompted Laster’s twin sister to contact staff saying it could be him. More DNA samples were obtained and submitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which compared results to the evidence found at the 1994 scene.

That led to his identification in 2016 and eventually to Hyde, believed to be the last person to see Laster whom he met in the mid-1980s and formed a relationship with the Laster family, according to the investigation.

A search warrant at Hyde’s Jacksonville Beach home uncovered more evidence and led to his arrest in 2017. He was charged with first-degree murder, plus 25 child-pornography possession counts that will be processed separately in court.

A motive was never clear.

On January 4, 2023, Hyde pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of child porn and was designated a sexual offender. Hyde was sentenced to seven years in prison, which will run concurrently with his murder sentence.

News 4 reports:

Ronnie Hyde, who was convicted last year of killing 16-year-old Fred Laster, pleaded guilty Wednesday in the possession of child pornography case against him, according to Duval County court records.

Court records show Hyde, 66, pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of child porn and was designated a sexual offender.

Hyde, a former youth pastor, was sentenced to seven years in prison, and that sentence will run concurrently with his life sentence for his conviction in the murder of Laster, whose dismembered remains were found in 1994 behind a Columbia County gas station.

Hyde’s attorney successfully lobbied for the child pornography charges to be tried separately. Hyde had originally been charged with 25 counts of possession of child porn.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Church Worker Joseph Abbott Accused of Sexual Misconduct with a Fourteen-Year-Old Girl

January 13, 2023 Black Collar Crime 0 Comments

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.

Joseph Abbot, a worker for First Apostolic Church and the Apostolic Christian Academy in Maryville, Tennessee, stands accused of sexual misconduct with a fourteen-year-old grill.

The Daily Times reports:

The Blount County Sheriff’s Office served a warrant on a North Carolina man Monday, Jan. 9, charging him with sexual battery by an authority figure. Joseph Kade Abbott, 26, was arrested in North Carolina after a BCSO investigation into allegations that he committed sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl. He was transported to the Blount County Correctional Facility, where he is being held in lieu of a $200,000 bond pending a 9 a.m. Jan. 18 hearing in Blount County General Sessions Court.

A $4.5 million lawsuit has been filed against Abbott, First Apostolic Church, and Apostolic Christian Academy, alleging that the church and school “exhibited an extreme degree of negligence” [when supervising staff and students, which endangered children there.]

Channel 10 reports:

A man who was arrested in North Carolina and taken to Blount County after being served with a warrant for sexual battery by an authority figure was sued for a total of $4.5 million, alongside the Maryville church the lawsuit says he worked for.

The lawsuit says Joseph Kade Abbott, 26, worked for the First Apostolic Church of Maryville when he sexually assaulted a minor on multiple occasions. The lawsuit said that the assaults happened in 2022. The Blount County Sheriff’s Office said they started investigating Abbott in June 2022 before arresting him in January 2023.

According to BCSO, he was accused of sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl.

The lawsuit claims that the First Apostolic Church of Maryville and the Apostolic Christian Academy “exhibited an extreme degree of negligence” when supervising staff and students, which endangered children there.

It asks the church and Abbott to pay the minor a total of $3 million and asks them to pay the parents a total of $1.5 million. The parents also demanded a jury for the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in August 2022. An attorney for First Apostolic Church released a statement about the lawsuit. It is below.

“Joseph Abbott is no longer employed by Apostolic Christian Academy. We cannot comment on matters involving pending litigation. Our prayers are with everyone involved.”

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is God in Control?

January 13, 2023 Guest Posts 2 Comments

A Guest Post by Merle Hertzler who blogs at The Mind Set Free

On September 11, 2001, millions of people watched in horror as the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Why did God allow it to happen? Many were praying for God to protect their loved ones. And yet they watched the dreadful destruction occur. Why did this happen? Did God not love those people in the towers and in the planes? Did God not have the power to stop it? Christians would certainly say he had the power to prevent it. But he did not.

What about the thousands that died that day? You might suggest that God had some mysterious purpose in letting them die. Perhaps their time on earth was done.

Imagine the details that God would have had to control to assure that only those people whose time had come were killed. What if the planes had hit several stories higher or lower? What if the flights had been delayed 10 minutes? What if somebody in the towers had gotten stuck in traffic that morning? What if the planes had hit at a different angle? All these things would have altered the death toll. If God had planned for certain people to die that day, then he must have guided all these details. He must have guided the planes to hit the buildings exactly where they did. In other words, God would have had to have been in control of those airplanes, and the terrorists were merely doing what God directed. All of this is of course absurd. Such a God is a micro-manager. Such a God wanted those planes to hit the towers where they did.

And so, I conclude that the reason these people died had nothing to do with God having a purpose in them dying. It just happened. Random forces were at work. God was not in control.

Some would tell me he allowed it to happen to punish people. Did all those that died that day deserve to be punished? How did God control it so only those who deserved to die were killed?

Why does God allow suffering? Why do 3 million children starve every year? Why is there so much disease? Why does God not stop terrorists? These questions have been asked many times.

And it is good to ask such questions. A good God would expect us to ask questions.

Somehow, God is said to have a reason for it all. If a car misses us, that must have been God’s protection. If it hits us, somebody will say God is trying to teach us something. Everything must have a purpose. Otherwise, we are left with a God who refuses to help.

You and I would not respect a policeman who sees a rape about to take place and did nothing. It would be hard to respect someone who could help and refuses to do anything.

Where was God on 9/11? People cannot bear the thought that God might have just stood back and not cared. So, we are told that God must surely have had a purpose.

If God was in control of what happened to the people in those planes on September 11, and if he wanted them to die this way, then this event was not a tragedy. It was God’s will. But we all agree that it was a tragedy. So it, therefore, was not a good God’s will. Things happened that a good God would not have wanted. For whatever reason, God, if he exists, did not take control.

Now if God did not want it to be this way, and could have stopped it, how can you explain his actions? Many people have been blamed for that day. We have heard the pundits criticize the FBI and CIA. We have heard how airport and airline security was lax, and that airplane doors were not designed correctly. What about God? He apparently could have stopped it all, wanted to stop it, and did not stop it.

Likewise, disease has destroyed many lives throughout history. What did God think in the past when he looked down on children in polio wards? Did he look at the pain and suffering of innocent children, and think it was good? Did it have a purpose? No, I think not.

Many people were sure that this suffering was pointless. They thought that nature was acting by itself and causing this suffering. They wanted to stop it. They looked for a natural cause, and they found it. Then they looked for a way to overcome that natural cause, and they developed a vaccine. When the vaccine and other preventions became readily available, the illness was controlled. If God had a purpose for polio, were these people right to try to prevent it? Yes. They were very right. Polio was bad.

Did God cease to have a purpose for polio the moment prevention became readily available? Does God still have a purpose in allowing underprivileged children to suffer who do not have access to medicine? Isn’t it odd that the probability that God will have a purpose in a child being crippled by polio has a direct correlation with whether the child has access to modern medicine and sanitation?

Suppose that firemen arrive at a burning house with a child inside that they could rescue. Is it possible that God wants this child to suffer? If God wants the child to suffer, are they doing the child a disservice by rescuing her? Of course not. The firemen would not think that for a minute. They would do everything they could to rescue the child. They would assume that the suffering was bad.

Tomorrow, almost everyone will be doing something to prevent others from suffering. Nurses will care for the sick. Policemen will protect us. Road workers will fill in potholes. Researchers will look for cures for diseases. Truckers and sailors will bring us lots of cool stuff — all the way from China. We will go about our lives hoping to minimize the suffering of others. We all know suffering is bad. And so, we will try to stop it.

Which brings us to God. Suffering will happen tomorrow. God, if he exists, will not stop it. People will get sick. Accidents will happen. And where will God be? For whatever reason, he will not stop it. But people will know that it hurts. They will know it is bad, and they will try to stop it. Even if you tell us that suffering has a purpose, we will assume it is pointless, and will try to prevent it. But God will not stop it.

Do you think that he sometimes helps? Fine, but why is there all that suffering that he does not stop?

Some would argue that God is there comforting the suffering people. But how does that solve the problem? Would a fireman be excused for ignoring a fire if he later comforts the survivors? It is a good thing to comfort the suffering, but when it is completely within somebody’s power to stop suffering, and he does not do so, his comfort is small consolation to the victims. Has God been demoted from Supreme Ruler to Comforter-in-Chief?

It appears that God was not in control of the circumstances when those planes hit the towers. So why think that he is in control when somebody takes your parking space, a tree falls on your house, or a loved one has cancer? Why try to answer the agonizing question about why God did this? Is God trying to teach you patience? Is he trying to win people to himself? Is he punishing you, or teaching you to rely on him? No, it would seem to me that it just happens. And it seems that our minds can be much more at peace when we realize this.

I don’t think God has a purpose when bad things happen. I do not see a strong wind or a mighty movement of the earth when I need it. Random events cause random suffering. I accept that. God is not in control.

Or maybe God doesn’t even exist.

Some people might say that I should not be looking for God to intervene in might or power, but I should be listening instead for a still, small voice. I discuss that next.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Abraham and Isaac: God Has a Right to Command You to Kill Your Child and Faith Demands You Do It

January 13, 2023 Evangelicalism 13 Comments

Years ago, Petrus Klopper, a writer for the Isaiah 53:5 Project and Solid Rock Apologetics, attempted to answer the question, How could God command Abraham to kill his son? I say “attempted,” because Klopper miserably failed at his task, just as every other Christian apologist has failed when attempting to do the same. According to Klopper, God had every right to ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Notice that I used the word “sacrifice,” not “kill,” as Klopper did in his title. God, in no uncertain terms, asked Abraham to put his only son Isaac on an altar and sacrifice him. Someone is sure to ask, “don’t the words sacrifice and kill mean the same thing”? Yes and no, and I will demonstrate Klopper’s sleight of hand in a moment by using the word sacrifice.

For those not schooled in the mystical stories of the Christian Bible, here’s the text, Genesis 22:1-13, that tells the story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac:

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

According to seventeenth-century Baptist theologian John Gill, God commanded Abraham to:

… offer him (Isaac) there for a burnt offering; this was dreadful work he was called to, and must be exceeding trying to him as a man, and much more as a parent, and a professor of the true religion, to commit such an action; for by this order he was to cut the throat of his son, then to rip him up, and cut up his quarters, and then to lay every piece in order upon the wood, and then burn all to ashes; and this he was to do as a religious action, with deliberation, seriousness, and devotion… (John Gill Commentary, E-Sword)

According to eighteenth-century Anglican cleric John Wesley, God wanted Abraham to not only kill his son, but also offer him as a burnt sacrifice. Wesley wrote:

…offer him (Isaac) for a burnt offering – He must not only kill his son, but kill him as a sacrifice, with all that sedateness and composedness of mind, with which he used to offer his burnt – offering. (John Wesley Commentary, E-Sword)

Eighteenth-century theologian Matthew Henry, chiming in agreement with Gill and Wesley wrote:

…offer him (Isaac) for a burnt-offering. He must not only kill his son, but kill him as a sacrifice, kill him devoutly, kill him by rule, kill him with all that pomp and ceremony, with all that sedateness and composure of mind, with which he used to offer his burnt-offerings. (Matthew Henry Commentary, E-Sword)

Nineteenth-century Presbyterian theologian Albert Barnes called Abraham’s potential sacrifice of Isaac a “human sacrifice.” Recognizing the moral issue raised by human sacrifice, Barnes writes:

The only solution of this, is what the ease itself actually presents; namely, the divine command. It is evident that the absolute Creator has by right entire control over his creatures. He is no doubt bound by his eternal rectitude to do no wrong to his moral creatures. But the creature in the present case has forfeited the life that was given, by sin. And, moreover, we cannot deny that the Almighty may, for a fit moral purpose, direct the sacrifice of a holy being, who should eventually receive a due recompense for such a degree of voluntary obedience. (Albert Barnes Commentary, E-Sword)

Based on the aforementioned references, we can conclude that God, as a test, commanded Abraham to take his only son Isaac to Mount Moriah, and kill him so he could be offered as a human burnt sacrifice to God.

Klopper makes clear in his post that there are three things God is NOT doing in this story:

God was not tempting Abraham
God was not instituting or condoning child sacrifice
God was not telling Abraham to do wrong

Christian apologists like Klopper will go to great lengths to justify God’s command to sacrifice Isaac. Klopper used the word kill in the post title because he doesn’t want readers to confuse what God is asking Abraham to do with human sacrifice. However, it is clear from the text that the human sacrifice of Isaac is EXACTLY what God is asking Abraham to do.

Is Isaac human? Yes. Does Abraham build an altar to be used for sacrifices? Yes? Did Abraham place Isaac on the altar, preparing to offer him as a human sacrifice to God? Yes. Does Abraham implicitly obey God’s command to sacrifice his son? Yes. Then, pray tell, how is what God commands Abraham to do NOT child sacrifice? Any fair and honest reading of the text shows that God clearly intended for Abraham to kill (murder) his son as a flesh and blood sacrifice.

Similar stories can be found in other tribal cultures, and Evangelicals are quick to label these stories as murderous and barbaric. Evidently, according to Evangelicals, there is some sort of difference between stories of human/child sacrifices to false deities, and the God/Abraham/Isaac story. Try as I might, I can’t find the difference.

Klopper, perhaps realizing that his this is not child sacrifice argument is intellectually vacuous and lame, goes on to say that God is not commanding Abraham to do wrong. Really? In what universe is child/human sacrifice not wrong? Every civilized society in the world condemns child/human sacrifice. Even atheists consider such murderous actions wrong. Yet, somehow, according to Klopper, God asking Abraham to slice, dice, and sauté his son is not, in any way, wrong.

Klopper makes one final argument which, according to his Fundamentalist-infused mind, should silence every critic. It is the one argument, next to faith, that Christians will turn to when no other argument will work: God is God and he has a right to do/command whatever he wants to. Klopper states his argument this way:

God has the right to take human life and could therefore authorize Abraham to do so in a particular case. Note that had Abraham decided of his own accord to sacrifice Isaac, he would have been wrong and his act would have been condemned by God (as were other human-initiated sacrifices).

According to Exodus 20, murder is a sin. Thou shalt not kill, right? But, according to Klopper, if God authorizes (commands) someone to commit murder (human sacrifice) then it is okay. Hmm, so then, Christians who have, in the past, said that God commanded them to kill their children or spouse, these murderous behaviors are okay, right? I’m sure that Klopper will object to my line of inquiry, but is this not exactly what he is saying? Or is he making a distinction between murderous stories in the Bible and those found on page one of the newspaper? Evidently, if a God-sanctioned murder is recorded by an unknown author in a so-called divine religious text, that makes the slaying moral. However, if a devout twenty-first-century Christian — a person we can see and talk to — says and does the same, it is not a God-approved murder. This makes “perfect” sense to me.

human sacrifice — Comic by Scott Maynard

Surely we can all agree that a God, ANY God, commanding someone to commit murder is wrong. It matters not whether it is Abraham or Victoria Soliz, a woman who tried to drown her 3-year-old son in a puddle because Jesus told her to do so. While Evangelicals will attempt to make a distinction between God speaking to Abraham and God speaking to someone like Soliz, there is no difference between the two. Both are hearing voices in their heads that are telling them to murder their child. And hearing voices in one’s head commanding immoral, unethical, or dangerous acts is always a sure sign of mental distress or illness. Despite knowing this, Klopper is determined to present Abraham as a great man of faith who was willing to do whatever God commanded him to do.

It is too bad that Klopper is boxed in by his belief that the Bible is an inspired, inerrant text. Such a belief requires Klopper to accept the Abraham/Isaac/human-sacrifice story as factual history. While Klopper does make numerous spiritual applications from the Genesis 22 text in his post, he is hamstrung by the requirement to accept the text as history. Jews, on the other hand, treat this text as an allegory or a metaphor. They understand, along with everyone else except Evangelicals, that no one in his or her right mind should accept Abraham sacrificing Isaac as literal truth.

And here’s the thing, IF Abraham had actually murdered Isaac, twenty-first-century Evangelical preachers would be preaching sermons about Abraham’s great faith and his willingness to explicitly obey God, even if it meant murdering his own son. Praise Jesus!! (And how is this any different from the Muslim who believes God is commanding him to kill in Allah’s name?)

Let me be clear, any deity who demands his followers to murder as a test of obedience is not a deity worthy of our worship.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Rafael Cuevas Sentenced to Twenty Years in Prison for Rape

January 12, 2023 Evangelicalism 2 Comments

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.

Rafael Cuevas, pastor of Casa De Oracion Y Adoracion, Inc. in Jacksonville, Florida was arrested in 2021 and charged with two counts of sexual battery and six counts of lewd and lascivious molestation against a victim under 12 years old.

The First Coast News reported at the time:

A Jacksonville pastor has been arrested on multiple counts of sexual misconduct.

Rafael Cuevas, 53, was arrested Wednesday and charged with two counts of sexual battery and six counts of lewd and lascivious molestation against a victim under 12 years old.

According to the arrest report, authorities received reports that Cuevas had been molesting a child for four years with the last incident being in June 2020 and the first being in 2017.

Investigators found that the victim was under 12-years-old during the four years of the alleged abuse. The child told detectives that Cuevas would molest her four to five times a week, the arrest report says.

The child also told authorities that the molestation occurred in multiple locations including the church where Cuevas was a pastor and inside of his truck, the arrest report says.

During the investigation, a second child spoke with detectives and reported that Cuevas also molested her on multiple occasions.

Investigators attempted to speak with Cuevas but he declined to be interviewed.

Cuevas is currently being held in jail with no bond.

Yesterday, Cuevas pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twenty years in prison.

First Coast News reports:

Rafael Cuevas will serve 20 years in Florida state prison and have to serve 10 years of probation after his release.

This was part of a negotiated plea deal, meaning the other charges against him will be dropped. He will also be designated as a sexual predator by the state.

According to the arrest report, authorities received reports that Cuevas had been molesting a child for four years with the last incident being in June 2020 and the first being in 2017.

Investigators found that the victim was under 12-years-old during the four years of the alleged abuse. The child told detectives that Cuevas would molest her four to five times a week, the arrest report says.

The child also told authorities that the molestation occurred in multiple locations including the church where Cuevas was a pastor and inside of his truck, the arrest report says.

During the investigation, a second child spoke with detectives and reported that Cuevas also molested her on multiple occasions.

For some unknown reason, none of the reporting news agencies named the church Cuevas pastored. An Internet sleuth by the name of Marshall Yancey tracked down the church’s name:

Shame on news agencies and law enforcement for not making the church’s name known. The public, along with past/present church members, deserves to know that they have a predator in their midst. Based on the church’s state filing, it looks like the church was likely a small church or house church. Just remember, ANYONE can start a church.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: IFB School Teacher Randy Boston Sentenced to Decades in Prison for Sexually Abusing a First-Grader

January 12, 2023 Evangelicalism 1 Comment

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.

Randy Boston, a former teacher at West Chester Christian School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was recently sentenced to twenty to forty years in prison for sexually molesting a first-grader in 2007-2008. West Chester Christian is a ministry of Bible Baptist Church — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation pastored by Dan Brabson. According to Boston’s LinkedIn page, he was a youth director at Bible Baptist and a junior high teacher at Immanuel Christian School in Hazelton, Pennsylvania for years. I was unable to independently verify these claims.

Patch.com reports:

A former teacher at West Chester Christian School was sentenced by Chester County Judge Patrick Carmody to 20 to 40 years in state prison for sexually assaulting a first-grader in 2007 to 2008.

Randy Boston, 65, of Shickshinny, was convicted by a jury in August of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, unlawful contact with a minor, corruption of minors, and related charges by a jury in August 2022.

West Chester Christian School is a small, private K-12 religious school.

“Randy Boston used his position of power and trust to abuse this child for his own depraved sexual gratification,” District Attorney Deb Ryan said. “He preyed upon an innocent and defenseless child, and as a result, deprived this victim of a normal childhood.”

….

Boston’s lawyer, Evan Kelly of West Chester, argued during the trial that the victim’s testimony was inconsistent.

My ChesCo added:

According to statements made in open court, in June 2021, West Goshen Township Police received information that a 21-year-old victim was sexually abused by the defendant when the victim was in the 1st grade at West Chester Christian School on Paoli Pike. The defendant was a teacher at the school from 1979 to 2008.

Investigators learned that the defendant ordered the victim to follow him to the basement before school one morning after witnessing the victim stick his tongue out at another student. The defendant took the victim to a room, where he shut the door and told him to remove his belt and pull his pants down. The defendant performed oral sex on the victim before telling the victim to perform oral sex on him.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Tag: Evangelicalism

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