I recently received an email from a seventy-five-year-old attorney — a former atheist — who wanted me to know exactly what he thought about me and my deconversion from Christianity. Much of the letter was spent on the man telling me how smart he was and how he came to learn that materialistic atheism (his definition) is “the one ism I can say with near-certainty is flat-out false.” What does he believe?
I am content with a belief in a higher intelligence, a genuine meaning and purpose to human existence, and the continuation of consciousness after physical death – all because this is where I believe the best evidence firmly points.
Okay? And he felt the need to share this with me why, exactly? I have been an atheist for seventeen years. In all those years, I have never gone to someone’s blog or social media page unsolicited to attack their religious beliefs or deconstruct their story. I don’t understand the logic behind such behavior other than it makes the person passing judgment feel right or superior. Explain his motivation for saying things to me such as:
No need to respond, because I’m not really interested in you either!
I am somewhat older than you (75), highly educated, and have traveled a not-dissimilar path. However, my landing spot was entirely different and has left me, I hope, less bitter and consumed by anger than you seem to be.
The posts of yours that I have read strike as exemplifying the familiar figure of someone who once bought into beliefs that are patently silly, felt angry and betrayed when the silliness finally became apparent to him, and now harbors deep anger and bitterness beneath a not-very-convincing facade of “atheist liberation.”
I have to wonder to what extent your current position reflects an atheism that is more a knee-jerk embracing of beliefs that are the polar opposite of what you formerly believed (or at least pretended to believe) than a genuine commitment arrived at after a diligent exploration of the best evidence and arguments.
As much as I have enjoyed Bart Ehrman’s work, this was definitely his path as well – “If what I formerly believed isn’t 100% true, none of it is true.” This is a very lazy and short-sighted approach to the big questions.
To summarize, this man thinks:
I am bitter (stated twice)
I am consumed by anger (stated three times)
My deconversion was a knee-jerk reaction to Christianity
I took a lazy and short-sighted approach to the big questions of life
None of these claims is true, as I have made abundantly clear in numerous posts over the years. This means that this man has either not invested much, if any, time in reading what I actually wrote about my journey or he has constructed in his mind a straw man of the Evangelical-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser. I suspect both are likely true.
This man declared, “All I care about, or have ever cared about, is what is ultimately, ontologically True.” To that I reply, “Not me.” I care about a lot of things of life, but “what is ultimately, ontologically True” doesn’t make my top ten list of important things to care about in life. Sorry, but I am sixty-eight and in poor health. I am on the short side of life. Knowing this, I focus on that which matters the most to me: my partner of forty-seven years, our six adult children and their spouses, our sixteen grandchildren, and, yes, our cats — both the four inside cats, and ten or more outside cats (all of which are either stay or feral animals).
Christianity told me that the Bible had the answers to the big questions of life. I learned that this claim is false; that religion has no better (and sometimes worse) answers to these questions than secular worldviews. People are free to ponder their purpose, meaning, and whether there is life after death, but we are under no obligation to do so. For me personally, life is too short to spend much time pondering what life might be instead of living life every day to its fullest.
My reply to this man was direct:
Why did you write me? Your email is no different from those I receive from Fundamentalist Christians. Your false judgements reveal you haven’t read much of my autobiographical material.
Try harder, friend.
As of the writing of this post, I have not received no response from him.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Dr. David Tee, an Evangelical preachers whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, continues to churn out posts about me, most of which I ignore. This one was impossible for me to ignore. The post in question is titled Do Not Listen to Unbelievers. All spelling, grammar, punctuation, and irrationality in the original.
If he [Satan] can bring down a dedicated Christian like BG [Bruce Gerencser] through an unbeliever like Bart Ehrman, he can do it to anyone who is unwary and thinks unbelievers know more than Christians do.
….
BG [Bruce Gerencser] serves as an example of what happens when one listens to unbelievers over godly people and God’s word.
….
The first question every Christian should ask themselves is ‘Why would unbelievers know more about the bible than Christians or God do?‘ They do not believe, thus how would they have the truth about the bible?
Shouldn’t the first question asked by Christians be, “How can anyone empirically know that the Bible is the Word (s) of God, and is inerrant and infallible in all that it says?”
In other words, Thiessen, knows more than renowned scholar, Dr. Bart Ehrman. In fact, he knows more about anything compared to what unbelieving experts know. Imagine all the unbelieving experts Thiessen dismisses with a wave of the hand, all because they are either atheists or worship a different deity from the Christian God. Imagine how empty and ignorant life would be if we automatically dismissed every expert that didn’t hold to the same beliefs as ours. For example, most of my doctors are religious. My primary care physician is an Evangelical Christian. Outside of comments made that assume I am a Christian, I have never questioned the knowledge and skill of these doctors. All that matters to me is their competency. I couldn’t care less about where they sit their asses on Sundays.
Unbelievers deny clear evidence supporting the bible, so how would they be in a position to determine if the Bible is accurate or true or not?
Time to put up or shut up, what “clear” evidence supporting the Bible am I ignoring? I have challenged Thiessen several times to a written or public debate on these and other issues. Instead of justifying his claims, Thiessen’s dismisses all challengers by asserting that unbelievers don’t know anything about the Bible. This, of course, is empirically untrue. One can know the Bible inside and out without ever being a Christian. And when I deconverted, I didn’t magically lose all the Bible knowledge I gained from fifty years in the Evangelical church. I am sure it pisses Thiessen off when former Evangelical preachers, missionaries, and professors speak authoritatively on the Bible. He’s convinced himself that he is intellectually superior to these men and women, despite giving evidence for being anything but.
They do not, and they are not. It is the unbeliever who is deceived and blinded by evil, so how would they know the Bible is false?
I know the Bible is errant and fallible based on extant information available to us; a position held by almost ALL Bible scholars apart from those who are Evangelicals. I know that the claims Thiessen and other Fundamentalist Christians make for the Bible are false because the evidence at hand says so. For Thiessen, the issue is not evidence as much as it is fealty to certain Evangelical dogmas. Simply put, Thiessen’s circular logic leads him to believe that the Bible is inerrant and infallible because it (allegedly) says it is. No amount of evidence will change his mind. Why? Because the Bible says, Let God be true and every man a liar.
The Christian is the one who is free from deception and lies and knows the truth; thus, any Christian who takes an unbeliever’s word over God’s is asking for destruction and other trouble.
Thiessen defines Christian thusly: a person who is free from deception and lies and knows the truth.🤣 This definition is found nowhere in the Bible.
Thiessen assumes there is one truth [his]. Believe as he does and you will not be deceived. Now, he will object to me saying this, but did he not say that his intellect and knowledge is superior to that of ALL unbelieving Bible scholars and scientists?
Here’s a man with only a Fundamentalist Bible college education and (allegedly) a ThD (not a PhD)from an unaccredited Christian college he refuses to name, declaring himself smarter than thousands and thousands of non-Christian Bible scholars and scientists. Thiessen thinks his wooden, literalistic interpretations of the Bible are superior in every way to the intellectual giants of this and past generations — the unsaved ones, anyway.
Time and again all the sciences have proven the Bible true and have failed to find one error or contradiction.
Anyone with a modicum of understanding of the Bible and science knows that Thiessen is either delusional — the result of seven decades of Evangelical indoctrination and conditioning — he’s secretly an atheist trying (and succeeding) to make Christianity look bad, he suffered brain damage as a child and never recovered, or he is a liar.
Thiessen claims that no one — not one time — has ever found an error or contradiction in the Bible. This, of course, is patently false. I have pointed out a few of these errors and contradictions over the years, and there’s a plethora of blogs, videos, and podcasts that disabuse Evangelicals such as Thiessen of their beliefs about the Bible. Just remember, Google is God. Pray to it and it will answer your prayers.
Granted, Evangelicals have “explanations” for most Bible contradictions and errors — but not all, and many of these explanations are intellectually lacking, and, at times, fantastical. And we must always be aware of the answer to every question and challenge Evangelicals can’t answer: Faith. Faith is a discussion stopper because it is belief without evidence (as taught in Hebrews 11).
….
We have recorded in our books our words which state that . . . no archaeological discovery has been made that proves the Bible false.
Dr. Ehrman and other unbelievers are all part of that system of ideas, creating false tales about the bible, not out of facts but out of their unbelief and denials.
According to Thiessen, unbelieving Bible scholars create false tales about the Bible, not based on facts, but on their unbelief and denial of Biblical truth.
….
Why would Christians lie [about the Bible]? Every Christian knows that if they lie, they will lose souls, so what is the purpose of lying about God’s word? Plus, the Bible tells us in both the OT and the NT not to bear false witness or lie one to another, so why would Christians lie? They would be committing sin and ruining the work God wants them to do.
A “lie” is an untruth. People can and do lie without intending to do so. Christianity is a 2,000 year old lie; one passed on from generation to generation, with each generation interpreting the Bible differently from previous ones. Sunday after Sunday, preachers preach this lie as supernatural truth, and those sitting in the pews say AMEN with nary a thought about whether what they are hearing is true. This process of indoctrination and conditioning has been going on since the Bible was written.
Sometimes, Evangelicals deliberately lie. I have caught more than a few Christians telling lies on this site; making claims they knew were wrong. Preachers, in particular, can lie to keep their jobs, pacify their congregations, or make themselves look like “experts.” With fingers crossed behind their backs, these so-called men of God preach one thing from their pulpits and believe something different when in the privacy of their studies or when shooting the breeze with their colleagues in the ministry.
There is no point in lying to anyone about the Bible. If anyone is going to lie, it would be the unbelievers who have no objective moral code to live by.
Thiessen has a lack of imagination if he can’t think of any reasons preachers might lie about the Bible. Unbelievers are the liars, according to Thiessen, and we lie because we have “no objective moral code to live by.”
Thiessen thinks he lives according to an objective moral code; that code being his personal, and, at times, perverse interpretations of the Bible. However, like all of us, Thiessen has a subjective moral code. If Thiessen disagrees with me on this claim, I am more than happy to disabuse him of his moral claims.
This brings up the problem of young Christians who lose their faith because of what their unbelieving professors say in class.
The young Christians take the word of the unbelieving professors over God and their pastors because they have been taught wrong about science and scientists. They also did what BG [Bruce Gerencser] did, take the word of unbelievers over the Holy God of the Bible.
There’s an obvious problem with Thiessen’s claims. I was not a young Christian when I deconverted. I was a fifty-year-old man when I walked away from Christianity, after having spent twenty-five years preaching and teaching the Bible.
Unlike Thiessen. I value expertise wherever I find it, regardless of the religion of the expert. Of course, Thiessen grants the Bible supernatural power it does not have. The Bible is an ancient religious text written largely by unknown authors. There is no evidence for God’s authorship of the Bible, other than a handful of Bible verses that claim at least parts of the Bible are supernatural in origin.
How would unbelievers know if God lied? Science and scientists cannot see into the past and cannot tell anyone what did or did not take place. Dr. Craig Evans and many other Christian scholars have proven Ehrman to be wrong every time they discuss the latter’s points.
Thiessen can’t see into the past and cannot tell anyone what did or not take place either, but he believes he can when it comes to the creation of the universe and other Biblical claims.
If God wrote the Bible, as Thiessen claims, then God repeatedly lied about all sorts of things. Again, there is a plethora of evidence available that shows God saying one thing in one place in the Bible, and something completely different elsewhere.
As far as Dr. Ehrman is concerned, most of his scholarly critics — which doesn’t include Thiessen — agree with the data he presents, but disagree with his interpretations of said data. Is Ehrman wrong just because he is an agnostic atheist? Of course not. Instead of wallowing in the meta, Thiessen would better serve Christianity if he responded to Ehrman academically. If Ehrman is wrong, show it. Instead of focusing on inconsequential minutiae as Thiessen is wont to do, how about directly and comprehensively challenging and rebutting his claims? I doubt if Thiessen is up to the task. I know I am not. While I have extensive knowledge about Evangelicalism and its doctrines, I don’t know everything there is to know about Christianity. And this is why I rely on experts such as Ehrman to fill in the gaps in my understanding.
The unbelievers do not have the truth about the past or the Bible. It is only fools who stop listening to God and listen to those who do not believe. God is the only one who knows what took place in the past, and it is better to listen to him than those who have no knowledge of past events and reject the evidence supporting the Bible.
According to Thiessen, only the God of the Bible knows what happened in the past. What he means is that only his peculiar God knows the past. This, or course, is untrue. Thanks to science, we can peer into the distant past and make observations about the universe. Now, if God wrote a book that detailed what took place millions of years ago, I would read it, but God (nor Jesus) has never written one word about anything. All we have is what humans say about God. God, himself, is silent. So the question that must be asked is WHY should we believe anything the authors of the Bible say?
If you want the truth, then you follow the Holy Spirit to it, leaving behind interpretation so you can see the truth clearly. The physical evidence does not support unbelievers’ alternatives. It only supports the Bible.
I thought the Bible was “truth,” and all we had to do is read it to get understanding? Thiessen is now saying that understanding the Bible requires the Holy Spirit (God) leading us to the proper interpretation of the Good Book. Don’t you have to have the Holy Spirit living inside of you to be a Christian? This means, then, that no unbeliever, according to Thiessen, can understand the Bible. This also means that the moment I deconverted, God wiped my mind of all knowledge of him and the book he allegedly wrote.
I am not sure what we do with someone that says, “The physical evidence . . . only supports the Bible.” This statement is not a matter of difference of opinion; it’s a delusion, one born out of a lifetime of Fundamentalist indoctrination and conditioning. No amount of contrary evidence will change Thiessen’s mind, so I no longer try to do so. The main reason for sharing his post on this site and replying to it is to give readers examples of the bad thinking that permeates Evangelical Christianity,
Why do you think there are over 150 ancient flood and creation myths and not one ancient evolutionary myth? Any ancient person mentioning a non-supernatural creation does so without any physical evidence and only uses personal denial and unbelief to make their claims.
The Bible is true and unbelievers should never be listened to as they do not have the truth about the Bible.
Is Thiessen really this stupid? Of course there is “not one ancient evolutionary myth.” Our understanding of evolution only dates back to the nineteenth century, so it’s impossible for there to be an evolutionary myth. Creation stories are based on pre-science myths, evolution is based on a progressive, scientific understanding of our biological world.
Note that Thiessen claims there is NO physical evidence for evolution, only young earth creationism — the universe was created 6,029 years ago in six literal twenty-four days. Science tells us these claims are false, but until Thiessen grants science its due, he will continue to believe one of many mythical creation stories.
Derrick, please say Hi to Fred and Wilma. 😜
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
From 1995-2002, I pastored Our Father’s House, a nondenominational church in West Unity, Ohio. One Sunday, the following discussion took place between an old woman in the church and one of my younger children.
Old Woman: So, how much candy did you get trick-or-treating?
Child gives Old Woman an embarrassed look.
Child: I didn’t go trick-or-treating.
Old Woman: Really? Why not?
Child: Our Dad doesn’t believe in Halloween.
Old Woman: Hmm, that’s interesting You mean you have never gone trick-or-treating?
Child: No.
Any of my six children could have answered the old woman’s questions. None of them was allowed to go trick-or-treating. Not one time. And they knew not to ask. Ever.
As a true-blue, bought by the blood, sanctified, sold-out, consecrated, committed follower of Jesus, I believed Halloween was a Satanic holiday, and Christians, if they were right with God, should never, ever practice Halloween. For a few years, I took the same approach with Christmas. We didn’t put up a tree or decorations, nor did we exchange gifts. We spent Christmas Day at a Columbus, Ohio rescue mission serving meals to the homeless. (We did go to Polly’s parents’ home for Christmas Eve.)
I firmly believed Halloween was a thoroughly pagan and Satanic holiday. I could not, in good conscience, allow my children to participate in a holiday I considered an act of Satan worship. One year, when my oldest son was in elementary school and before we started sending him to a Christian school, I kept him home from school because of the Halloween celebration his class was having.
Both Polly and I have many fond memories of trick-or-treating when we were children, but I thought our parents were ignorant of the real origin of Halloween, and this is why they let us go trick-or-treating. As I look back on it now, I suspect Polly thought I was crazy about Halloween. I recently asked her if she really believed like I did about Halloween. She said, uh, No. 🙂 Why, then, didn’t she say anything? Simple. She was a dutiful wife of an Evangelical pastor, a woman who was taught that her husband was the head of the home and had the final say on everything; and “everything” included Halloween and trick-or-treating.
My view on Halloween was similar to the view of Karl Payne who wrote the following at World Net Daily:
As a child growing up in a small town in Nebraska, Halloween was not viewed as a sinister day promoting demonism, spiritism, occultism, Satanism, hedonism, witches, zombies or an invitation to walk on the dark side with demons. It was a day to collect as much candy as possible. The routine was simple. I put on a clown suit that had been passed down through my brothers, grabbed an empty pillow case and filled it up with candy as quickly as possible as I systematically worked my way through the neighborhood. At a halfway mark, I stopped back at home, emptied my pillow case on the front room floor to be sorted later and headed back out to refill the bag a second time. The goal was to have more candy than any of my brothers by the end of the evening, and then see how much I could eat before my mom began rationing my daily consumption.
Times were innocent in the ’50s and early part of the ’60s. We never worried about razors in apples or poisoned pixie sticks. We walked for blocks without a fear or concern for our safety. Tricks, at the worst, were limited to throwing eggs or toilet paper and knocking over a pumpkin or two. And if that happened, it only occurred selectively because many of our parents knew each other, and getting caught could mean a scolding from your neighbor and then a spanking from your dad when you got home.
To make the observation that things have changed culturally in the 21st century from the post-war innocence experienced by many in this country is an understatement. Today we exist in the midst of the loss of innocence and the joy of age-appropriate discovery. Hedonism, in a context of amoral and ethical relativism, is celebrated and force fed from the womb to tomb through a media that more represents an ideological water cannon than a responsible public trust. The secularization of this once great country is complete. The only real question now is how far it will fall in its depravity before, if or when people in the public square turn their gaze up rather than in.
Today Halloween for many is a horror show providing an excuse for people to glorify the deviance and decadence they watch ad nauseam in movie theaters and on public and cable television screens seven days of the week. Everything is a game that can be reset and started over at the click of a mouse. It’s just harmless entertainment that can be enjoyed or ignored. If you don’t like it, don’t turn it on. Who are you to dictate what is right or wrong for others?
Why am I concerned about the way Halloween, the media and our current culture encourage the celebration and trivialization of spiritism, occultism, Satanism, hedonism, witches, zombies and walking on the dark side with demons? Because the supernatural world is real, and no one is immune to it regardless of their education or worldview. God is real. Angels are real. Satan is real. Demons are real. Real gladiators and real Christians died in the Colosseum and circus even though many Roman leaders and citizens just considered their destruction an evening of entertainment.
I have worked for over 30 years with men and women who have been demonized. I wrote a book entitled “Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization and Deliverance,” published by WND Books, addressing the subject as clearly as I was capable of doing. Why? Because real people and real families are being attacked by real demons, and their conditions are largely ignored, often because the subject has been redefined or trivialized, even within religious circles.
I have witnessed the reality of demonic bondage hundreds and hundreds of times. I have also witnessed individuals being set free through deliverance from demonic bondage hundreds and hundreds of times. Christian missionaries who live in the midst of this reality have thanked me many times for writing this book. Religious academics as well as atheistic secularists are more inclined to ridicule or ignore the subject. Curious.
Ultimately, bondage and deliverance both represent choices. In my book I have attempted to outline how a Christian can move from bondage to deliverance in a clear, step-by-step fashion. The New Testament addresses the subject forthrightly, so why should we run from it?
It should not come as a surprise that a secular culture would either ignore this subject or make a celebration out of it. 1 Corinthians 2:14 clearly states that spiritual truth and supernatural realities, be it God or the devil, represent nonsense to a natural man. But it should come as a disgraceful surprise that some professing Christians are so fearful of this subject that they would prefer to cast their lot on this subject with the naturalist or secularists rather than with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostles and the New Testament they study. Apparently, it is preferable to leave real human beings made in the image of God in bondage than face the possible ridicule of those whose ultimate loyalties are to time rather than eternity, to the creation rather than the Creator.
Naturalists redefining the subject do not change the reality of the subject. A holiday celebrating the subject, promoting it as nothing more than a day to collect candy, celebrate the dark side, or mock God, does not change the reality of the subject…
(Please see Jack Chick’s tract, The Devil’s Night to get a bird’s eye view of how some Christians view Halloween.)
Jack Chick Tract on Halloween
It was not until I left the ministry that I learned the REAL story behind Halloween and it’s pagan and religious roots. As with many things, I regret not allowing my children to go trick-or-treating. I regret not allowing them to enjoy the fun of Halloween or the wonder of a family Christmas. I know there is nothing I can do about the past. I now immensely enjoy watching my grandchildren practice the evil, wicked, pagan, Satanic holiday of Halloween. I encourage them to sin with gusto . . . and bring Grandpa some candy when they are done making a sacrifice to Satan. Besides, my grandchildren have nothing to fear from Satan. My oldest grandson is a super-hero. Or he was until he became a grown-up teenager.
Someone will be sure to ask if I did alternative Halloween activities like Fall Festival Day, Trunk-or-Treat, or other alternatives to Halloween. I did not. I never believed in the replacement theory: that if we took something away from our children we had to replace it with something better or spiritual (The Evangelical Replacement Doctrine and The Replacement Doctrine: How Evangelicals Attempt to Co-opt the “World”). I believed Christians were put on this earth to be a light in the darkness and we didn’t need replacements for things that were sinful.
How about you? Did you practice Halloween? Did your Fundamentalist parents allow you to go trick-or-treating? If they did, how did they deal with the origin of Halloween?
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I spent the first fifty years of my life in the Evangelical church. Twenty-five of those years were spent pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. I have met thousands of Christians in my lifetime. Even now, seventeen years removed from the last time I attended a Christian church, I continue to meet Christians and interact with them on this blog, through email, and on social media. My exposure to the personal lives of hundreds of Christians allows me to draw some conclusions about Christianity. I include myself and my family in the sample set. My conclusion is this: For all their talk about being Spirit-filled, it seems that Christians are anything but.
According to the Bible, all Christians have the Holy Spirit living inside of them. The Holy Spirit is their teacher and guide. He teaches them everything that pertains to life and godliness. Why is it then that most Christians live lives contrary to the basic, foundational teachings of the New Testament? WWJD, what would Jesus do, is rarely seen among Christians. Christians are commanded to follow the Lamb (Jesus) wherever he goes. How many times have Christians heard their pastor say we need to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, yet any casual observer can see that most Christians seem to walk wherever the hell they want. If Jesus wants to follow along, that’s okay, but if not, fine, because the mall has some great sales going on.
The passage at the top of this post says, “the fruit of the Spirit is.” The fruit of the Spirit is the evidence, the proof that a person is a Christian. Notice that it says IS. This is a very important word. According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and Greek Dictionary, the word IS in this verse is “third person singular present indicative.” Simply put, the fruit of the Spirit is not some lofty objective to hope for or aspire to; it is the proof, the evidence that a person is a Christian. Since the Holy Spirit lives inside every Christian, shouldn’t it be readily evident in the lives of EVERY Christian? The lives of Christians should evidence the fruit of the Spirit every moment of every day. With such a great power as the Christian God living inside them, surely this should not be a difficult way of life to maintain, right? After all, according to the Bible, he that is in the Christian (the Holy Spirit) is greater than he that is in the world (Satan).
However, when we critically look at how Christians live their lives, what do we find? We find that Christians are not much different from the uncircumcised, unwashed Philistines of the world whom they judge and condemn to Hell. It is chic these days for Christians to admit that they are just sinners saved by grace or that they are a work in progress. A popular bumper sticker says, Don’t judge me, God isn’t finished with me yet. However, such statements are directly contrary to what Galatians 5:22, 23 says.
The Bible is very clear…every Christian should evidence the following each and every day of his or her life:
love
joy
peace
long-suffering
gentleness
goodness
faith
meekness
temperance
A wonderful list of admirable character traits, to be sure. Every one of us would do well to strive to live lives that demonstrate these traits. However, we know, even on our best days, we fail miserably in demonstrating these character traits. We are, after all, human. We recognize that all of us have flaws and weaknesses that can and do affect the relationships we have with others. I don’t know of any non-Christians who think they are perfect or a beacon of morality and virtue. While many non-Christians certainly evidence the fruit of the Spirit, none would be so foolish to say that they perfectly do so.
Christians aren’t given the luxury of claiming they are human. Remember, the fruit of the spirit IS. There is no place in the Christian life for anything less than perfect obedience to the Christian God. After all, Christians have EVERYTHING they need to live a life of perfection. Surely God did not leave them lacking in any way, right?
Within Christianity we find many reactions to what I have written above:
Some Christians believe in perfection. They are entirely sanctified and cannot and do not sin.
Some Christians think there are two classes of Christians: ordinary everyday Christians and Spirit-filled Christians. Most Christians are the former and very few become the latter.
Some Christians think every Christian has two natures, the Spirit and the flesh, and these two natures continually battle against each other. Which nature you feed the most is the one who wins the battle. Christians are classified as either Spirit-filled or carnal/fleshly.
Some Christians think they are saved by grace and how they live doesn’t matter. While they certainly think a believer should evidence the fruit of the Spirit, if they don’t they are still Christian. Their ticket to Heaven is punched, their fire insurance is paid up, and a home in God’s Motel 6 awaits them no matter how they live their lives.
Some Christians think that God gives a special anointing of the Spirit to some people. All the TV preachers have this anointing (along with the ability to extract large sums of money from the bank accounts of gullible Christians) Some sects call this being baptized with the Holy Spirit, while others call it a second definite work of grace.
Some Christians believe in progressive sanctification. They believe that the Christian life is a long process where sin is progressively dealt with and forsaken. It is a wash, rinse, and repeat kind of process.
All of these reactions, except the first one, reject the clear teaching and meaning of Galatians 5:22,23. Again, the fruit of the spirit IS! Of course, the first reaction is ludicrous. There is no such thing as a Christian who doesn’t sin. The evidence of this is everywhere we look. Here’s a dirty little secret that many Christians don’t want non-Christians to know: for all their talk about God, Jesus, and Spirit-filled living, they live just like the rest of us. While they may be experts at putting on the good Christian act, underneath the façade, they are no different from Atheists, Humanists, Buddhists, Muslims, Mormons, Shintoists, Pagans, or Satanists. Try as they might, they still live lives that are an admixture of good and bad behavior.
All I am trying to do is knock Christians off their high horses and get them to see that they are not, in any way, different from the rest of us. I am trying to get them to see how offensive it is when they try to force their moral code on others when they themselves can’t even keep it. Even with God living inside of them, they “sin” just like everyone else. Christianity would be better served if Christians presented their moral code as one code among many, worth aspiring to and not as a “God says, Do this or else.” Not many atheists are going to disagree with Christians about the value of the character traits listed in Galatians 5:22,23. The world would be a far better place if we all tried to evidence these character traits (and others) in our lives.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, a young Evangelical pastor emailed me and asked me two questions:
What made you leave the faith?
Why [would] you would leave a faith that you defended for a long time?
I am frequently asked these or similar questions. Usually, I refer people to the WHY? page for answers to their questions, but there’s something about this pastor — maybe it is his age or proximity to where I live — that interests me, so I thought I would attempt to answer his questions.
I was raised in an Evangelical Christian home. From the time I was a child until I was fifty years old, I attended church every time the doors were open. Saved at the age of fifteen and called to preach two weeks later, I was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. Imperfect, to be sure, the bent of my life was towards holiness (without which no man shall see God).
At the age of nineteen, I moved to Pontiac, Michigan to enroll in classes at Midwestern Baptist College — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) institution. While at Midwestern, I met Polly, and two years later we married. Polly and I spent the next thirty years faithfully serving Jesus. Whether between churches or pastoring them, our lives revolved around the ministry (for good or ill). If I counted my entrance into the ministry from the first time I preached to when I deconverted, all told I preached for thirty-three years. (Unlike most of my fellow college students, I regularly preached all through school at a drug rehabilitation center in Detroit.)
After leaving Midwestern, I began a ministerial journey that took me to churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. While I entered the ministry as an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, my path later led to ministry opportunities at Southern Baptist, Christian Union, Sovereign Grace Baptist, and Non-denominational churches. Along the way, we were blessed with six children, including a daughter with Down syndrome.
Fast forward to 2004. I decided that I was done with the ministry. The reasons were many, but not the focus of this post. Suffice it to say, these reasons played an insignificant part in my loss of faith. Polly and I decided that we were at a place in life where we wanted to help a congregation without being its pastor. We spent the next four years visiting churches in Ohio, Arizona, California, Michigan, and Indiana. We cast a wide theological net, but after visiting over one hundred churches, — attending some of them for months — we concluded that the only difference between the churches was the name over their doors. After buying in home here in Ney in 2007, we primarily attended mainline churches — a sign of our increasingly liberal politics.
As my politics and theology evolved, I asked myself what it was I truly believed? What were the non-negotiables of my life? This led to me carefully and comprehensively reexamining my political and theological beliefs — a process that continues to this day. Polly and I spent countless hours talking about our beliefs. I read aloud to Polly passages from books written by men such as Dr. Bart Ehrman. We talked about what it was we really believed about the Bible. These discussions, and my continued investigation of core Christian doctrines, led me to conclude that the central claims of Christianity were false. Teachings that were once dear to me, no longer made sense. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) On the last Sunday in November, 2008, Polly and I attended church for the last time.
These days, I self-identify as an agnostic atheist. Polly is an agnostic, indifferent, and, at times hostile, to organized religion. Our life experiences were very different — even in the ministry — so it should come as no surprise that what motivated our deconversions might be different. Same zip code, to be sure, but different journeys. I am the intellectual of the family. I spent most of my life reading, studying, and preaching the Bible. My experiences are necessarily different from Polly’s, and that’s why our reasons for leaving Christianity vary.
Let me conclude with answering this pastor’s second question: Why [would] you would leave a faith that you defended for a long time?
I am sure this young preacher struggles to understand why I would leave something I dedicated my life to for so many years. Makes sense, right? Most men or women who leave the ministry do so when they are young or youngish. They enter the ministry and find out it is not what it is cracked up to be (and boy, it’s not!) or they had some sort of crisis of faith, and after a few years they decided the pastorate was not for them.
It is rare for men or women to leave the ministry in their 50s. It happens, but not very often. Why are older people hesitant to leave the ministry? Two things come to mind:
Commitment bias, also known as the escalation of commitment, is the tendency to remain loyal to a previous decision, behavior, or course of action, even when it leads to negative outcomes. This often occurs as a result of a desire for consistency with one’s past words and actions, especially when that commitment was made publicly.
Sunk Cost Fallacy, the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.
I struggled with these things too. I had spent my entire life in the church. I had spent most of my adult life pastoring churches. Polly, a Baptist preacher’s daughter, and I had committed ourselves to the work of the ministry, regardless of financial renumeration. Both of us, at one time or another, worked outside of the church to provide for our family. Not one time did we doubt that this was God’s will for us — until we did. How could we throw everything away? For what? Atheism?
Only those who have walked in our shoes can understand and appreciate our emotional struggles with leaving the ministry and our later deconversion. Many a tear was shed before we walked away. We asked ourselves, Are we sure? What if we are wrong? Do we really want to throw in the towel and walk away? Does this mean we wasted our lives in the ministry? Wouldn’t it be better for us to fake it — it’s not hard — for the sake of family and social connections? What would we do if we weren’t in the ministry?
While the struggles in the dark of night were painful and real, I eventually concluded that I had to be honest: I no longer believed the Bible was the Word of God. I no longer believed the central claims of Christianity. This meant I wasn’t a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word. (Some Baptists think I am just backslidden, and I am still a Christian. This is absurd.) Truth mattered more to me than the ministry and our Evangelical way of life. This was true when I was a Christian, and it is true today. I am open to having my beliefs challenged, albeit I haven’t heard a new or persuasive argument for Christianity (or any other religion) in years. Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun, and that is especially true when it comes to Christianity. I am confident that no new evidence will be forthcoming; so much so, that I am, when it comes to the Christian deity, an atheist. To paraphrase the book of Daniel, I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting.
Do I miss the ministry? You bet. I miss preaching, teaching, and ministering to others, but whatever yearning I may have, it cannot overcome my desire to know and live the truth. While there was certainly an emotional component — how could there not be? — to my deconversion, the primary reasons for my loss of faith were intellectual in nature. I desperately looked for a place to stop on the proverbial slippery slope, but I slid all the way to the bottom, and, in the end, I concluded I was no longer a Christian. And seventeen years later, I remain an unbeliever. Labeled an apostate, reprobate, or follower of Satan, I am routinely pilloried by God’s chosen ones, ever present reminders of Evangelicalism’s ugly underbelly. If I had any doubts about the veracity of Christianity, I no longer do, having experienced seventeen years of character assassination, threats of violence, and attacks on my family.
Please leave any questions you might have or email them to me. I will do my best to answer them.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The greatest moment in history for any brown or Black country is the moment that the White man’s ships arrive and n your shore. He brings the gospel of Jesus Christ, he catechizes you and your children, he brings exports, he brings hospitals, medicine, life expansion increases, GDP and resources increase, medicine increases, and most importantly, you get taught the gospel of Jesus Christ so that you can live longer on Earth and then go to Heaven instead of Hell.
And for those who are of non-European descent, but live in the Western world, you are exceedingly blessed. And the response shouldn’t be, ‘Let’s push back against wokeness and just say nobody talk about race.’ No, the response should be: Stop whining, stop throwing a fit, get it together. God has blessed you, and he blessed you in large part through White people. So stop doing it. And also, as for you and your house, do your part to change the FBI crime statistics and stop killing people.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
At least a dozen LifeWise Academy Ohio programs have taken public school students on field trips to the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter in Kentucky, which claims humans lived alongside dinosaurs and the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
LifeWise Academy is a controversial Hilliard-based religious instruction program for public school students on “religious release time,” that operates in 34 states and plans to enroll nearly 100,000 students this school year, according to its website.
LifeWise Academy programs in Adams County, Holgate Schools (Henry County), Continental Schools (Putnam County), Antwerp Schools (Paulding County), Wayne Trace Schools (Paulding County), Paulding Schools (Paulding County), Central Local (Defiance County), Van Wert (Van Wert County), and Tinora (part of Northeastern Schools in Defiance County) have all taken field trips to the Ark Encounter this year, in 2024 or 2023, according to Facebook posts from those LifeWise programs. [Central Local is our local school district and we have grandchildren who attend Northeastern Schools]
Pandora-Gilboa’s LifeWise Academy Program (Putnam County) has visited the Creation Museum every year from 2021-2025 and Upper Arlington’s LifeWise Program (Franklin County) visited the museum in 2023, according to Facebook posts from those LifeWise programs.
The Creation Museum promotes young Earth creationism, the belief that God created the universe and everything in it in six 24-hour days 6,000 years ago.
This comes from a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 where God created the universe.
The museum in Petersburg, Kentucky depicts humans and dinosaurs living together and characterizes the Earth as approximately 6,000 years old.
“LifeWise teaches Bible lessons, plain and simple,” Christine Czernejewski, a spokesperson for LifeWise, said in an email. “As such, kids are taught what Genesis 1 actually says — that God created all things and that He created them over the course of 6 different days.” [I bet that children aren’t taught about the divine council or the multiple deities mentioned in Genesis 1-3.]
Scientists have determined Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
“The science (at the Creation Museum), it’s just appalling,” said Daniel Phelps, a retired geologist based in Kentucky.
“They depict dinosaurs and humans as living together. They have many, multiple attacks on the standard view of science, especially things like geology and biology and paleontology. … They misinterpret a lot of the human fossil record, and the Art Park especially has a display that disputes climate science.” [Thanks for speaking the truth, Daniel.]
“We tend to teach the Bible kind of as it teaches,” said LifeWise Founder and CEO Joel Penton. “We do talk through the six days of creation as outlined in Genesis 1. However, developing a systematic theology of young Earth versus old Earth, we leave that to local churches.” [Most, and I mean MOST, Evangelicals are young earth creationists.]
It concerns Phelps that LifeWise programs are taking students to the museum and the ark.
“I would like to call this educational malpractice,” Phelps said. “It simply is not science, and the students are being misled. They’re basically learning to distrust science and follow an extremely fringe version of Christianity.” [Yep.]
A 2019 Gallup poll showed that 40% of U.S. adults believe in creationism, the belief that God created humans in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years. [actually it it almost 7 in 10 when you add theistic evolution to the equation]
“Most Christians don’t accept the fundamentalist version of creationism,” Phelps said. “… It’s also going to hurt kids that want to have a future studying science and are going to learn all these things that just simply are not true.”
The Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter are both operated by Answers in Genesis, a fundamentalist Christian apologetics organization that promotes young Earth creationism.
The Creation Museum opened in 2007 and the Ark Encounter, 510-foot wooden ship intended as a replica of the biblical Noah’s Ark, opened in 2016.
LifeWise said all field trips require parental permission.
“LifeWise programs have taken field trips to museums, local parks, sporting events and area churches,” Czernejewski said. [Nice dodge. the focus is on trips to an explicitly Evangelical business that promotes science illiteracy.]
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Lindsey Whiteside, a youth pastor at Getwell Church in Hernando, Mississippi, and high school basketball coach, was accused of having sex with a minor girl under her care.
Whiteside’s church bio states:
My deepest passion is for everyone to experience Jesus in the same way I have. Through student ministry, missions, or any other ministry, I am so thankful that the Lord has called me to Getwell Hernando where I can pursue that passion both inside and outside the walls of the church. It is an honor that the Lord calls us all to participate in His Kingdom, and I am grateful to be able to do it within and alongside the community of Hernando.
“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:26-28
A grand jury has returned an indictment charging a former DeSoto County youth minister with having sex with a child under her guardianship.
Court documents allege Lindsey Aldy Whiteside, 26, intentionally and knowingly had sex with an underage girl between May 14 and November 6, 2024.
An indictment was returned earlier this month, charging Whiteside with one count of felony sexual battery of a minor.
Prior to the indictment, Whiteside worked at Getwell Church Hernando as a student and outreach coordinator, and also previously served as an assistant basketball coach at DeSoto Central High School.
“We can confirm that the December Grand Jury of DeSoto County has indicted Lindsey Whiteside on the charge of sexual battery of a minor child by a person of trust or authority,” DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton said in a statement. “Prior to this indictment, Lindsey Whiteside served as a youth ministry leader and basketball coach—positions that carry a profound responsibility to protect and guide others.”
Whiteside served as the assistant girls’ basketball coach at DeSoto Central High until she was hired by Getwell Church Hernando in August 2022.
Church members claim she was terminated after the sexual battery allegations arose.
Getwell Church did not immediately answer Action News 5’s calls for comment.
Whiteside faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Recently, Whiteside pleaded guilty and was sentenced to house arrest. House arrest? She was facing thirty years in prison, yet the judge gave her a slap on the wrist, with NO PRISON TIME. Sadly, all to often judges give lesser sentences to women than they do men. I suspect that is the case here. The victim and others are rightly outraged by the light sentence. The district attorney stated: “This sentence is an absolute abomination of justice. It is not right; it is everything that’s wrong. This is why people actually question whether our institutions actually serve people.”
There will be no immediate jail time for a female youth pastor who admitted to the sexual battery of a teenager who attended her church.
Lindsey Whiteside’s case first came to light in November 2024. On Monday, the former youth pastor for Getwell Church in Hernando pleaded guilty to a single count of sexual battery, a charge that could mean up to 30 years in prison.
But Whiteside left the DeSoto County Courthouse sentenced to a decade of supervised release, beginning with three years of house arrest, virtually the complete opposite of the sentence sought by DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton.
“We, the State of Mississippi, and frankly, I am extremely disappointed,” Barton said. “The sentence ended up being three years of house arrest, followed by seven years of post-release supervision, for a total of ten years of supervision. This sentence is an absolute abomination of justice. It is not right; it is everything that’s wrong. This is why people actually question whether our institutions actually serve people.”
Whiteside’s victim was nearly 17-year-old at the time of the sexual battery, which by the former youth pastor’s own admission occurred multiple times, though she only faced a single count.
Those crimes occurred while the victim was being mentored and counseled by Whiteside, in her role of trust within the church the victim was attending.
The victim’s family was outraged Whiteside didn’t receive any prison time. Pam Pegram, a member of that family, spoke on behalf of the victim and her family following the sentencing.
“Let me be clear: no adult should ever engage in sexual contact with a child. In no way, shape, or form is the victim ever at fault,” Pegram said. “This adult could at any time have said, ‘Mom, help me; pastor, help me; friend, help me.’ She never did. She plotted and she planned, she deceived and she manipulated so that she could have her way.”
The district attorney said that, as shocking as the sentence was, so was the fact that educators and even a sitting school board member offered letters and even testimony in support for Whiteside, which he said is detrimental for the victim.
“It is true that when you support the abuser, you victimize the victim, and for that, that’s part of the reason that I was so disturbed by the amount of pedophile sympathizers that wrote into the court, and specifically Michelle Henley is an elected member of our school board,” Barton said. “Our victim at the time was a student at one of the schools that Michelle Henley is supposed to help govern. And yet she wrote a letter in support of the defendant; she testified on behalf of the defendant’s good character. Which I submit: there is no good character to someone that would sexually abuse a child.”
Just before handing down the sentence, the judge said no one was going to be happy with the decision. In addition to the ten years of supervised release, Whiteside will also have to register as a child sex offender for the rest of her life. She will face jail time if she violates any of the terms and conditions of her house arrest..
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Kevin Jones, pastor of Summit Church in Elkins, West Virginia, stands accused of soliciting a minor.
A nearly three-hour preliminary hearing Tuesday afternoon for the former pastor of the Summit Church resulted in probable cause being found for the felony charge of soliciting a minor via computer.
The charge will now proceed to the grand jury, after Tuesday’s ruling by Randolph County Magistrate Michael Dyer.
Kevin Curtis Jones, 33, appeared in an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit in Randolph County Magistrate Court Tuesday afternoon, represented by attorney James Hawkins Jr.
Jones is also charged with one felony count of distribution and exhibiting of material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit activity. A hearing on that charge has been continued to a later date.
Jones is currently being held at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on two separate $50,000 cash-only bonds set by Magistrates Benjamin Shepler and Dyer.
The courtroom was full with approximately 20 people for Tuesday’s hearing, including family members of the alleged victim and a witness. Assistant Randolph County Prosecutor Leckta Poling represented the state.
Hawkins brought forward two motions, asking for a reduction in Jones’ bond and for a dismissal of the charge. Dyer denied both of Hawkins’ motions.
Poling also made a motion regarding Jones’ bond, asking for additions such as, if Jones were able to make bond, he should not be permitted to have contact with anyone under the age of 18, and that there should be restrictions to Jones’ access to electronic devices. Dyer approved Poling’s motion.
Dyer found probable cause after more than two-and-a-half hours of testimony from a witness, the alleged victim and the investigating officer, Deputy and Task Force Officer D.A. Cale with the Barbour County Sheriff’s Office and the Mountain Region Drug And Violent Crime Task Force.
During the witness’s testimony, a member of the courtroom’s audience stood up and began to shout at Jones and Hawkins. The audience member was then taken out of the room by courtroom security. The audience member could be heard continuing to yell and shout as they were escorted out of the Randolph County Magistrate Court building by court security and officers with the West Virginia State Police and Elkins City Police, who were also present for the hearing.
There was an unusual level of security present for the hearing, with two Randolph County Court Security officers stationed outside on the sidewalk questioning people who approached the magistrate court building. No one was allowed to bring a cell phone into the building during the hearing. No photographs, and no video or audio recordings of the hearing were allowed to be made by media representatives covering the hearing.
According to the first criminal complaint against Jones, filed by Cale, on Oct. 1, Cale assisted Cpl. C. Parks, also with the Barbour Sheriff’s Office, with a soliciting investigation involving Jones.
Parks told Cale he was “investigating Pastor Kevin Jones for soliciting a minor with a computer,” the complaint states. The alleged victim was an attending member of the Summit Church in Elkins. Cale applied for a search warrant in Randolph County to seize relevant cellular devices, flash drives, storage devices, computers, etc.
On that same day, Cale located Jones in an RV at the Smokey Bottom Camp Ground, off Route 33, the complaint states. A “large amount” of cellular devices and storage devices were seized. Cale also made contact with the alleged victim, who came out of the RV to speak with him.
The alleged victim stated that Jones was their pastor and that they recalled an event where they and other juveniles went to Jones’ house in Randolph County around Christmas of 2023, the complaint states. The alleged victim told Cale that Jones began communicating with them over the phone about being in a “clandestine relationship” with the alleged victim once they turned 18.
According to the complaint, Jones was the pastor of Summit Church “where the (alleged) victim attends, making (Jones) a person of trust over the victim.” Cale writes that he explained to the alleged victim what solicitation of a minor via computer was defined as under West Virginia State Code, and then asked the alleged victim if they thought Jones had solicited them. The alleged victim said, “Yes.”
“It is evident that Pastor Kevin Jones used a communication device to contact the victim to solicit, entice, seduce or lure (them) into a clandestine relationship while he remained married and was a person of trust,” Cale writes in the complaint.
According to the second criminal complaint, also filed by Cale, on Oct. 1, Cale issued a search warrant for digital evidence from Jones’ cellular devices.
Cale allegedly located several images of a juvenile on Jones’ cellphone, the complaint states. The images depicted the alleged victim “in (their) underwear with (their) arms shrugged.” Cale writes that, in each of the known images of the alleged victim, the alleged victim was wearing different color underwear. He writes that one of the photos has a text overlay depicting, “Does this Match?”
Though the alleged victim is no longer a juvenile, the timestamps on the images allegedly found on Jones’ cellphone show that the alleged victim was under 18 years old when the photos were taken, the complaint states.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Zachary “Zach” Radcliff, a youth director at Oakwood Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan, stands accused of dozens of sex crimes. Radcliff’s father is the pastor of Oakwood.
A 29-year-old Washtenaw County church employee was arraigned on several charges, including criminal sexual conduct and charges related to child sexually abusive material.
Michigan State Police began investigating Zachary Radcliff, a former music and youth director at Oakwood Church in Augusta Township, on Oct. 2, after they were notified that Radcliff had solicited child sexually abusive material from a minor. A search warrant was executed at his office and residence.
Police say they have identified multiple victims and that victims range in age from 12 to 17 years old. It’s alleged that the crimes have been occurring since 2011. MSP says church leadership has been cooperative during the investigation.
“The information that we received was shocking,” Oakwood Church said in a statement. “We were told that Zachary had been soliciting inappropriate photos and possibly videos from teens. We have also heard other stories. This information has ripped our hearts apart. The safety and protection of the individuals in our church is what is paramount to us. We are devoted to doing what we can for the care of the victims of these crimes.”
Radcliff, who is the son of Oakwood’s senior pastor, was first suspended with pay on Oct. 3 but eventually fired on Oct. 12.
“The State Police were notified by families that were involved and our church staff,” the church said. “We are not aware of the full extent of his crimes, and we are doing everything we can to cooperate with the ongoing police investigation.
“We have counseling that is being set up and provided for any youth or adults who have been impacted by this crime. What is being done will be provided to our church family in the next few days. Like you, our hearts are broken. We have a desire to serve our Master in this community, with the understanding that the church family should be one of the safest places we can be involved in. Part of that trust has been broken. Our commitment is to be completely transparent and do what we can to help with this investigation.”
Radcliff is charged with one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, two counts of aggravated child sexually abusive activity, two counts of child sexually abusive activity, five counts of using a computer or the internet to commit a crime and one count of using a computer to commit a crime.
A former Washtenaw County church youth group director will now stand trial on 60 charges connected to sexual abuse after a judge added 30 more counts following testimony Tuesday.
Zachary Radcliff, 29, appeared Tuesday in a courtroom for a preliminary examination, where several young men testified against Radcliff. Following testimony, 14A District Court Judge J. Cedric Simpson added nine counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and 21 counts of child sexually abusive activity. In all, Radcliff faces 60 charges related to first-degree criminal sexual conduct, child sexually abusive activity and using a computer to commit a crime.
“What I saw with them, they need to be believed, and they ought to be believed. Whether anyone does, that’s maybe for the future. But I believe them. I believe everything they told this court,” Simpson said.
“I don’t say this lightly at all. Not how I operate my life and certainly not how I operate as a judge. But in my 25-so-plus years, I’ve seen a lot. This ranks up with one of the most egregious predators that I have ever seen as it regards individuals.”
Radcliff is the former music and youth director at Oakwood Church in Augusta Township. Michigan State Police began investigating Radcliff on Oct. 2, 2024, after they were notified that he had solicited child sexually abusive material from a minor. Police executed a search warrant of Radcliff’s office and residence.
Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This cookie is set by X to identify and track the website visitor. Registers if a users is signed in the X platform and collects information about ad preferences.
2 years
personalization_id
Unique value with which users can be identified by X. Collected information is used to be personalize X services, including X trends, stories, ads and suggestions.
2 years
external_referer
Our Website uses X buttons to allow our visitors to follow our promotional X feeds, and sometimes embed feeds on our Website.
