I have the honor of speaking at the monthly meeting of the Atheists of Florida this Sunday, August 29, 2021, at 5:00 pm (EDT). This event is open to the public. After my speech, there will be a Q&A time.
If you are interested in attending, here’s the link for the Zoom meeting. The room will be open at 4:45 pm. I hope to see some of your smiling faces on Sunday. No eggs or tomatoes allowed. 🙂
My speech will be available afterward as a podcast and YouTube video. I will post those links when they are available.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I put out the call to readers, asking them for questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question, please leave it here or email me. All questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.
Troy asked:
#1 Do you think your parents passing away at a young age made it easier to announce your atheism and on the other side of thing Polly’s parents were both alive until recently do you think this made her less vocal about it? (And I know writing that letter announcing your departure from religion was not easy, but pleasing parents is something that is qualitatively different)
#2 You often speak of your ill health, while I hesitate to ask it because I love you as a friend, do you want to blog to continue after you die or would you like it to die with you?
I don’t think the physical state — alive or dead — of our parents played much of a part in how Polly and I announced our loss of faith in 2008. If anything, our personalities determined our response. A story from our days at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, might best explain this. Not long after I expressed my romantic interest in Polly, we walked to an elevated drainage cover situated in the field outside of the dormitory. Sitting down, exactly six inches apart, (Please see Thou Shalt Not Touch: The Six-Inch Rule.) we “talked.” Well, I should say I talked. Polly quickly learned that her new love interest loved to talk, and talk, and talk, and . . . I learned that the beautiful dark-haired girl who would become my wife two years later was bashful, rarely saying a word. I thought, “does this girl EVER talk”? 🙂 Our personalities are very different. While I have won Polly over to my talkative side — at least when she’s around me — she’s still shy around people she doesn’t know. She’s content to let me be the talker in the family, even when I wish she would speak up. After forty-three years of marriage, we accept that we are who we are, comfortable in our own skins. Dammit, Polly, will you PLEASE tell your mother ____________? 🙂
This aforementioned story best explains how each of us announced our defections from Christianity. I wrote Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners and started a blog. Polly? She said nothing, not then and not now. I suspect that people at her place of employment still think Polly is an Evangelical pastor’s wife. The people who work for her know that she is not a Christian, but outside of them, she has not shared her story with anyone. And she’s fine with that. And so am I.
Polly’s Fundamentalist Baptist parents (Dad died in 2020) know we left Christianity. They know we are agnostic atheists. However, we have NEVER had one conversation with them about our loss of faith. And we likely never will. That’s been the MO of our relationship with Polly’s parents from day one (which I will cover one day in a post).
Now to Troy’s second question. Troy is a good friend of mine. While we have never met face to face, we have become close over the years through this blog and Facebook. So I accept his question as coming from a heart of love and concern. If “Dr.” David Tee asked me this question, I would hear, “Hey godless motherfucker. What going to happen to your blog after God strikes you dead and you end up in Hell?”
Troy knows that I am in poor health. Tee does too, but he’s a heartless prick, so fuck him. 🙂 Troy knows my days are numbered, as do I. I hope to live for five or ten more years, but my body tells me that the hourglass of my life is running out. Knowing this, I have had thoughts about the future of this blog. Do I want it to live on after my death? Will Polly be able to maintain this site after my demise? One of my children? I don’t know.
I know I don’t want Polly to be saddled with the costs of maintaining this site — roughly $125 a month. I know that once I am gone, readership numbers will drop, as will donations. That’s just the facts of the matter. We live in a “what have you done for me lately” world. When Bruce Almighty is turned into ashes, I hope people will mourn my loss. However, I know that readers will move on. No new content, no reason to come to The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser blog.
My thoughts are this: I need to leave behind detailed instructions on how to move this to a cheaper (and slower) web hosting service. Or, if given time before I die, I will do this myself. This would reduce costs to less than $20 a month, leaving Polly to decide later if she wants to delete this site. Die! Die! My Darling! (Polly will understand this movie reference.)
I’m not sure how I feel about being memorialized after I kick the bucket. That said, I know my writing may help others after I go over the rainbow in the sky (I’m running out of synonyms for D-E-A-D). It will be left to Polly and my family to decide the future of my “ministry.” Maybe it would be nice if this blog outlived me for the sake of my grandchildren. DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN, BRUCE! 🙂 I want them to “know” my story, to read and understand my life. (Most of them were born after I left the ministry. They have no idea that Grandpa was once a Baptist preacher.) Of course, if I finished my damn book, I could autograph copies for my thirteen reasons to get up in the morning. Okay, nineteen reasons — though I can hardly even get off the couch these days when my six oh-so-awesome kids come to visit me to see how soon they will be collecting their inheritance. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I put out the call to readers, asking them for questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question, please leave it here or email me. All questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.
Samantha asked:
I just read your post about your relationship with your father. I must say that I admire your transparency in reflecting upon these painful memories. My question is: Do you think it is possible that your relationship with your earthly dad contributed to you ultimately abandoning the notion of a loving Heavenly Father?
After writing the post Questions: Bruce, How Was Your Relationship with Your Father? I told my wife, Polly, that someone would likely say that my bad relationship with my father led to me leaving Christianity; that my relationship with my father affected how I viewed the Christian God. Polly replied, “you’re kidding, right? Surely, no one would say THAT! She forgets that I am a prophet. 🙂 Actually, I recently listened to a Christian apologist asserting — without empirical evidence — that people who leave Christianity and embrace atheism have bad relationships with their fathers. In other words, Evangelicals-turned-atheists have “daddy problems.” This is exactly what Samantha is suggesting in her comment above.
When I first read her comment, I felt like giving it the Bruce Gerencser Treatment®, but I decided, instead, to calmly, patiently, and pointedly answer her question. Samantha may be a first-time reader, so I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Samantha’s language suggests she’s a Christian: earthly father, heavenly (big F) Father. So I will answer her question with that assumption in mind.
First, why are fathers to blame for our deconversions, and not our mothers? Christians see a direct connection between earthly father to heavenly Father. However, for me personally, my mother had a far bigger influence on me than my father. It was my mother who taught me to read. It was my mother who fueled my passion for God, Christianity, the Bible, politics, and writing. That’s why, when Mom killed herself at age 54, it broke my heart. Every year or so, I will go to her grave at Fountain Grove Cemetery in Bryan. I stand there and weep, wondering what might have been. Mom’s been gone 30 years, yet I still grieve over what’s been lost. Dad? I felt nothing when he died, and I don’t feel much differently today. I know my siblings feel differently, so I respect their grief, even if I can’t “feel” it.
Second, what is the direct connection between my non-existent relationship with my father and why I deconverted? I wonder if Samantha has read any of my autobiographical writing? (Please see WHY?) If she has, surely she knows WHY I deconverted. My relationship with Robert Gerencser had nothing to do with why I walked away from Christianity. And I mean NOTHING!
Third, countless Christian apologists and zealots have attempted to deconstruct and discredit my story. Fourteen years and thousands of emails, blog comments, and social media messages, yet not one person said that I had a faulty view of God, that my relationship with my father warped my view of the God of the Bible. Yet, the moment I write about my father for the first time, a Christian seizes on a perceived weakness or flaw in my story, suggesting that I would still be a Christian if I had had a “good” relationship with my father. Such people assume they know what a “good” parental relationship is — do tell. Further, they assume that there is one view of the Biblical God — do tell. And finally, they assume that past experiences determine our future — do tell.
Fourth, who, exactly, is this “heavenly Father” Samantha speaks of? Surely she knows that every Christian molds God in their own image, that our “God” eerily looks, thinks, and acts just like us. Yet, Samantha assumes that her “heavenly Father” is the one true God, and that if I had worshiped her deity, I might still be a Christian.
Fifth, my understanding of the nature of God was rooted in the words of the Bible, not my relationship with my father. Do our experiences affect how we view the world? Sure. Polly and I have been married for 43 years. No one knows me like she does. She knows, because she has been along for the ride, that I have wanderlust, that I bore easily, that I am always looking for new things to do. That’s why we lived in a lot of houses. That’s why I worked a lot of jobs — dozens and dozens of jobs. That’s why I pastored seven churches. Is my father to blame for my wanderlust? After all, my life as a child and teenager was one of constant movement. Surely, there’s a connection, right?
I have Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), along with depression. I have seen the same counselor for a decade. We have talked about my wanderlust many times, and will likely do so again next week as we discuss the post about my father.
In patients with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, preoccupation with order, perfectionism, and control of themselves and situations interferes with flexibility, effectiveness, and openness. Rigid and stubborn in their activities, these patients insist that everything be done in specific ways.
Polly says, “I know that person. And I still love him.” 🙂
OCPD and OCD are similar, but not the same. People who have OCPD tend to choose certain behaviors, seeing them as rational and best. The description above says people with OCPD have a “preoccupation with order, perfectionism, and control of themselves.” What does that sound like to you? Right beliefs. Right living. Do THIS, Believe THIS . . . Is this not the essence of Evangelical Christianity, particularly Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Christianity? Sure, my childhood played a part in the development of OCPD in my life. However, if I were to place the blame on anyone or anything, it would be the IFB churches I attended as a child and teenager, and the pastors, youth directors, and Sunday school teachers who indoctrinated me in the “one true faith.” Who made a deeper and lasting imprint on my life? A non-involved, disinterested father, or so-called men of God who took an aggressive interest in conforming me to their interpretations of the King James Bible? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.
I admit that my childhood made a deep, lasting mark on my life. How could it not? I can’t unsee my mother’s suicide attempts and mental illness. I can’t “unfeel” my father’s lack of love for me. My life is the sum of my experiences. However, I would argue that these experiences have made me a better man; that I am a loving, kind, and compassionate person, having long cared for the “least of these,” all because of the pain and suffering I have experienced in my life (and continue to experience).
Finally, until writing the aforementioned post, I hadn’t thought about my dad in years. Writing this post has proved to be painful, dredging up things long buried in the deep recesses of my mind. I told Polly last night that I regret answering Logan’s question. Now my mind is filled with numerous other stories I could have shared — few of which would paint my dad in a positive light. I suspect it will take therapy to return these memories to where they belong.
I shared my feelings about Logan’s question with Carolyn, my editor. She told me, “Bruce, you don’t have to answer every question.” Of course, she’s right. However . . . OCPD. I have to work the list, answer the questions in the order in which they are received. I can’t not answer Logan’s or Samantha’s or even “Dr.” I-Give-Christianity-a-Bad-Name David Tee’s (though he is now banned) questions. Sometimes, I just need to decline to answer, tell them their questions are intrusive/offensive, or maybe, just maybe, I need to tell such people to fuck off. Or, I could just blame dad. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I put out the call to readers, asking them for questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question, please leave it here or email me. All questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.
Davie from Glasgow asked:
I have a quick one that you surely will already have answered somewhere but I just can’t recall – It’s clear that you are a particularly singular fellow Bruce but in your time (maybe most likely through this blog) have you come across any other people that were also once evangelical/fundamentalist PREACHERS for any length of time before deconverting and becoming agnostics/atheists? Or are you as unique as you seem??
I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I left Christianity at the age of fifty. I am now an atheist and a humanist. According to my counselor — whom I have seen for a decade — I am a rare bird. While it is not uncommon for clergypersons to leave the ministry or deconvert, most do so when they are in their twenties or thirties. The longer a man (or woman) is in the ministry, the less likely he is to cash in his chips and walk away. By the time a man is in his forties or fifties, he has invested decades in pastoring churches. He may have a 401k. He likely has no viable work skills outside of the church. His entire life has been invested in the work of the ministry. He may have doubts, but he says to himself, “what else am I going to do?” The existence of The Clergy Project is a testament to the fact that more than a few churches are pastored by men who no longer believe.
I have interacted and corresponded with countless ex-pastors over the years — Evangelical and mainline clerics alike. I know several men who were in the ministry longer than me, but, for the most part, most ex-preachers I know spent far less time in the ministry than I did. Anecdotally, I think the number of men and women leaving church positions is increasing. COVID-19 only increased the number of clergypeople saying that they have had enough. Not all ex-pastors left due to a loss of faith. Some left because they were tired of endless church drama, board fights, and other soul-numbing dysfunction. A handful of ex-preachers I know left the ministry because they admitted to themselves and others that they were gay.
I am often asked why I stayed in the ministry for so many years. I was a true believer, a saved, sanctified, born-again follower of Jesus Christ, the virgin-born, sinless, crucified, resurrected eternal son of the one true God. I never meaningfully doubted or questioned my beliefs until I was in my late 40s. However, when I determined I no longer believed the central claims of Christianity were true, it was not difficult for me to walk away from the ministry. First, I was tired. Second, my health was deteriorating. Third, I never made much money pastoring churches ($26,000 was the most I made any one year). I always made more money working secular jobs. And fourth, I have never been a good liar. I knew I couldn’t be a “fake it until you make it” Christian, a hypocritical pastor. So, when it came time for me to leave the ministry and later Christianity itself, I did not quietly exit stage left. (Please see Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners.) With my face turned towards an unknown future, I walked away from the church, never to return. I don’t regret walking away. In retrospect, if I would have had some inkling about what my future held, I would have certainly prepared better for a post-Jesus, post-ministry life. But, it is what it is. All I know is to make the most of what life I have left. (Please see The Midwestern Baptist College Preacher Who Became an Atheist.)
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I put out the call to readers, asking them for questions they would like me to answer. If you have a question, please leave it here or email me. All questions will be answered in the order in which they are received.
Kel asked:
As part of a minority group in my home country, I feel that religion, in this case Christianity, provides me with a sense of belonging. It helps since a lot of people of my own ethnicity are Christians, too.
Even after I started questioning my Evangelical faith – though I won’t consider myself an atheist – I can still feel a surge of (“Christian”) zeal when confronted with Evangelicals’ “tribal enemies” or unfamiliar situations (people with different religions, etc.). Strangely, I am never bothered by online atheists though . Probably because they never threaten me with their version of Hell.
My question is: as a humanist, do you still experience this “tribal pull” when you see unfamiliar people with different customs or religions? Especially if they seem threatening.
Kel asks an interesting (and difficult) question: “as a humanist, do you still experience this ‘tribal pull’ when you see unfamiliar people with different customs or religions? Especially if they seem threatening.”
The short answer is no. Now let me explain. I grew up in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) home. I was saved, baptized, and called to preach at an IFB church in Findlay, Ohio. I attended an IFB college, married an IFB pastor’s daughter, and spent twenty-five years of my life pastoring IFB/Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan.
If the IFB church movement is anything, it is anti-culture, separatist, and White — very, very White. The communities I lived in and churches I pastored were very, very White too. And Christian. It was assumed by one and all that everyone was Christian, even if, as an IFB preacher, I tried to evangelize my neighbors for being the wrong type of Christian.
What I have described above is typical for the rural Midwest (even though Ohio is technically in the East). While I have lived in large racially diverse communities — San Diego, Tucson, San Antonio, Yuma, and Pontiac — the bulk of my life has been spent among people who look just like me. My Fundamentalist religious beliefs, then, fit well with my cultural identity.
Thirteen years ago, I walked away from Christianity, and in doing so, I abandoned my cultural identity. However, long before my deconversion, my politics began to change. I went from being a flag-waving, right-wing Christian nationalist to a Democratic socialist. I left the Republican Party in 2000, and even though I am still a registered Democrat (due to our broken two-party system), I am far too liberal and pacifistic for most Democrats. I voted for Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, not because I liked the candidates, but because I considered Donald Trump an existential threat to our Country. He still is.
I am an atheist, humanist, socialist, and pacifist in a part of the country where people who believe as I do are as rare as an ivory-billed woodpecker. Thus, I remain a separatist, at odds with most of the people around me. My neighbors, for the most part, have never been my tribe. Thanks to the Trumpism that has infected rural Ohio, it is my neighbors I fear, not “outsiders” — as if anyone “different” would willingly move to the White land of God, Guns, and the GOP. Truth be told, if it wasn’t for the fact that our six children and thirteen grandchildren live twenty minutes or less from us, Polly and I wouldn’t live here. We have few friends and often feel like we are black swans in a bank of white swans. We just don’t fit. Yet, we enjoy the slow pace of country life. We feel “safe” — that is until the Trumpists and militias take up arms against the government and seek to harm those who believe differently from them. Thanks to me being a public figure who is well-known locally, we won’t be hard to find when extremists come looking for commies, socialists, and atheists.
As I ponder Kel’s question, I can only think of one instance where I felt a “tribal” pull when coming in contact with someone “different.” Shortly after 9-11, Polly and I went grocery shopping at Meijer in Defiance. I was pastoring a small Evangelical church in West Unity, at the time. As we turned the corner to walk down the next grocery aisle, we suddenly and frightfully stopped. Not far from us was a young Muslim couple (they could have been Indian). She was wearing a face covering, and he was wearing a turban. I thought, “Are these people terrorists? Are they suicide bombers”?
As a humanist, I accept that I will always be considered an outsider. I am the “different” person in Kel’s question. Perhaps I need to ask local right-wing Christians what they think and feel when they come in contact with me.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Last Friday, I did an interview with VICE News at our home. Afterward, I participated in a friendly discussion with two friends: a United Church of Christ pastor and a former Lutheran pastor who currently works as a journalist for the Defiance Crescent-News, at a local restaurant. The whole day was a wonderful experience, albeit I was quite tired and in lots of pain afterward.
The interviewer asked each of us if we had one Bible verse we wanted to share with Evangelicals. Both of my friends replied (and I paraphrase)
And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
….
And he [Jesus] answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. Luke 10:25,27)
My friends focused on the second of the two great commandments (which summarize all of the law of God): loving your neighbor as yourself.
I agree with Jim and Tim. To Evangelicals I say: if you don’t love your neighbors, don’t bother to tell me how much you love God. In fact, if you don’t love your neighbor, you don’t love God. (As an atheist, I admire any sect/church/pastor that values people above dogma.)
My verse (s) came from Matthew 25:31-46 (I wrongly said Matthew 24 in the interview, but my “exposition” was from Matthew 25):
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
I became quite animated when talking about this passage of Scripture. I fear I did a bit of preaching. 🙂 That said, the two great commandments and Matthew 25 were central to my preaching towards the end of my time in the ministry. I believed then, and still do, that the essence of Christianity is how we treat others, not right beliefs. Evangelicals have largely divorced behavior from belief. Sure, they talk about “sin,” but eternal life in Heaven is conditioned on believing certain theological propositions. The Evangelical gospel is this: BELIEVE THIS AND THOU SHALT LIVE. This belief is the exact opposite of what Jesus allegedly taught in Luke 10 and Matthew 25.
The interview should be available in a few weeks. I will post it when it does.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Christian Fundamentalist Lori Alexander, a promoter of religious extremism, complementarianism, and patriarchalism, is known for saying hateful, outlandish things about women (and men) who reject her beliefs. Today, Alexander said that women who dress “immodestly” and later get sexually assaulted or raped are asking for it; that if they don’t want to suffer violence at the hands of men, women should stop wearing “immodest” clothing.
Recently, I shared an experience I had when I was 15 years old and just turned 16. The summer that I was 15 years old, I went to the beach often with another guy my age. He was tall and handsome. I had a major crush on him.
My mom wouldn’t let me to date until I was 16 years old, so she was the one taking us to the beach. At the beach, I wore a tiny bikini. He saw me in what looked like a bra and underwear all summer long. I didn’t understand about men’s visual nature then. Well, I did kind of know, since I received a lot of attention in my bikini from guys. It’s a power trip to have men ogle us. Don’t let them tell you otherwise in order to put all of the blame on men.
When I turned 16, he picked me up in his parent’s big old station wagon. He drove me to the drive-in theatre. Once the movie began, he climbed on top of me, began kissing me, and trying to take my clothes off. I demanded he take me home then, and he did. We never spoke again after than even though we had a class together.
I was always told that guys just want one thing. I thought the same of him, BUT I was advertising to him my body all summer long in immodest clothing. I was advertising something I had no intention of giving to him, but he didn’t know that. Guys are turned on when they see scantily clad women. This is why whores dress the way they do. They are advertising something they want to give for money.
A few weeks ago was the first time I had realized what I had done to him. I did this with my other two boyfriends in high school too. I wore bikinis and short, tight clothing around them. Of course, this is going to make it hard on them to not have sex with me. I was absolutely responsible for dressing the way that I did. This is why God commands young women to be discreet and shamefaced. God knows how men’s minds work. He created them! For all of these female Bible teachers/preachers to say otherwise is a lie. They act like women can dress any way the [sic] want. If guys come on to them, it’s all the guys’ fault. Don’t advertise what you’re not willing to give!
….
If you’re dressing sexually and guys are coming on to you, you are getting what you are advertising. Women at the beaches these days wear bathing suits that entice men. Most of their butts and breasts are showing. The bathing suits leave nothing to the imagination. It’s hard on men, women, when you dress like this. They were created to enjoy the female body! Stop denying this. Accept it, and do something about it!
Dress modestly as God commands. He wants us to dress modestly and shamefaced for a reason. Shamefaced means not wanting to draw attention to ourselves. Immodest clothing draws attention to ourselves. It’s for our protection and makes it easier for the men around us to dress modestly. Stop advertising what you don’t want to give. All of God’s commands to us are for our good.
Where oh where do I begin?
Alexander believes that men are inherently weak sexually; that if women don’t dress modestly, men (even those who have the Holy Spirit living inside of them like her husband Ken) won’t be able to control their sexual urges and might throw them down on a church pew and sexually assault them. Men are horn dogs who are sexually stimulated by what they see. Thus, according to Alexander, if women show too much cleavage or leg or dress in formfitting clothing, men won’t be able to control themselves sexually. In other words, women are surrounded by men who want to fuck them against their will.
Alexander, a Bible literalist, believes women are sexual gatekeepers. Since men can’t help themselves when it comes to their sexual desires, it’s up to women to keep big, bad wolves from blowing their houses down. They do this by dressing modestly, by following the teaching and commands of the Bible.
Alexander’s bikini story suggests that she thinks if a man sees a woman dressed “immodestly” one day, and then days later tries to fuck her or sexually assault her, it’s the woman’s fault. IT’S ALWAYS THE WOMAN’S FAULT! Astoundingly, Alexander calls her teen self a WHORE.
Last Saturday, my wife and I went grocery shopping in Toledo. We do this every two weeks, though rapidly increasing local COVID-19 infections will likely soon put an end to in-person shopping for us. Polly wore a top that showed a bit of cleavage. Coming from a religious world where Alexander’s beliefs were preached and practiced, Polly wearing such a top is a big deal — much like her wearing pants for the first time in 2004, at the age of 46 (ponder THAT for a moment). Why did Polly wear this top? Was she advertising to men that she wanted to have sex with them? Or did she wear this top because it was comfortable and she liked its colors? Or maybe she just wanted to look nice (for herself or her husband). Alexander believes my wife is a whore; that she was saying by showing cleavage she was available for sex (or advertising something she wasn’t willing to give). Of course, she was doing no such thing. ******************
I find it interesting that not only does Alexander blame women for men not being able to control their sexual thoughts, urges, and desires, she also blames God. Alexander wrote:
This is why God commands young women to be discreet and shamefaced [bashful, modest,respectful]. God knows how men’s minds work.
According to Alexnder, God knows “how men’s minds work.” Why? He created them that way. God created men to be the horn dogs they are. Why, then, is God not responsible for how men behave sexually? Is not the all-powerful Creator culpable for the behavior of the created? He could have created men to only want, need, and desire sex with their spouses, only in the missionary position, and only for procreation. Instead, he created men (and women) to want, need, and desire sex, not only in monogamous married relationships, but also when they are unmarried. God could have created men differently, but he didn’t. So, Alexander is right about one thing, God IS responsible for human sexual behavior.
Of course, there is no God, so we must look elsewhere to understand human sexuality, say BIOLOGY. We “are who we are” biologically, as any high school biology textbook will tell you. Further, according to modern social constructs, each of us is accountable for our sexual behavior. Just because a man sees an attractive woman in a bikini doesn’t mean the next time he sees her has the right to assault her sexually. It’s one thing to engage in a conversation with someone that might lead to consensual sex. ‘Tis human nature, right? It’s another thing, however, to try to take sexual advantage of someone, as Alexander says happened to her decades ago. It’s never right to force people to engage in sexual behavior against their will.
Alexander not only has a warped view of human sexuality in general, but also her own sexuality. She blames herself for what three boyfriends tried to do to her fifty years ago. Instead of calling these boys into account for their behavior, she blames herself for them attempting to assault her sexually. As someone who came of age in the 1970s, I understand Alexander’s view of her early sexual experiences. Such behavior was common. It’s 2021. Alexander has an opportunity to teach young Evangelical men and women about consent. Instead, she continues to promote warped justifications for men making unwanted sexual advances towards women or sexually assaulting them.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
John Piper, a notable Evangelical pastor and author, is known for his Calvinistic and complementarian beliefs. Piper believes married women should “submit” to their husbands in all things, even if they physically and/or verbally abuse them.
In the short video that follows, Piper is asked whether a married Christian woman should submit to physical and/or verbal abuse. Piper replied:
“If it’s [asking her to engage in group sex] not requiring her to sin, but simply hurting her, then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, she endures perhaps being smacked one night.”
What a mighty and wonderful God John Piper worships and serves.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Notorious child abuser and molester, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher Mack Ford died February 11, 2015. Ford, for many years, operated New Bethany Home for Girls in Louisiana, along with group homes for boys in other states. If you do not know anything about Ford, please read Sexual Abuse in the Name of God: New Bethany Home for Girls.
I have mixed feelings about the death of Ford. On one hand, I am glad the son of a bitch is dead. Others like him: Olen King, Ron Williams, and Jack Patterson, to name a few, are getting old, and death will soon come calling for them too. Lester Roloff, the man who taught these abusers everything they know about establishing and operating IFB re-education camps, died in a plane crash in 1982. Death will someday come for all of these abusers and the world will be better off without them.
I feel sorry for the dear friends of mine who were abused by Mack Ford and the staff at New Bethany. Like hound dogs on the trail of a rabbit, they did all they could do to bring Mack Ford to justice. Now, he is beyond their reach. Like Bob Gray, a lifelong child molester and pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, Ford died before he could know what it was like to be locked up with no hope of escape. I want my friends to know that I appreciate their doggedness, their willingness to continue to go after those who abuse and molest in the name of God.
There is still much work to do. As long as there are unregulated, unlicensed Christian group homes open for business, we must continue to expose their evil work. We MUST convince state and federal legislators and regulators that these types of homes are dangerous, and are a threat to the safety and welfare of anyone sent to them. While no one would suggest that licensing and regulation is a cure-all, it is the first step in cleansing the land of abusive group homes. We can do better, and we must!
Rebecca Catalanello of the Times Picayune had this to say:
The man who founded New Bethany Home for Girls, where some former students said they were victims of abuse, has died.
Mack Ford, 82, was found dead inside his home shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 11) by a relative, Bienville Parish Coroner Don Smith said.
Ford’s death appears to be from natural causes, but Smith said his office will be conducting an autopsy.
Ford, a high school dropout turned Independent Fundamentalist Baptist preacher, opened New Bethany in 1971 on a former penal farm turned convalescent home off Louisiana Highway 9 in Arcadia, La., about 50 miles east of Shreveport.
Over three decades until it closed its doors in 2001, New Bethany took in sometimes hundreds of girls a year, according to newspaper accounts and court documents. Ford marketed the school as a home for wayward youth — “a mission project to the incorrigible, unwanted rejects,” he told attorneys in 1997. “Destitute, lonely, prostitutes, drug addicts.”
But many of the former residents who found themselves behind the barbed wire gates of the compound have relayed — to police, media, social workers and others — stories of harsh, physical and mental abuse that included beatings, solitary confinement, and, more recently, sexual abuse…
…Simone Jones, 47, one of the women who said Ford molested her when she was a teenager, said that she learned of his death late Wednesday from Michael Epps, the Louisiana State Police investigator who spent a year looking into the sexual abuse allegations that he took to a grand jury.
“I’m angry,” Jones said. “No justice … There are hundreds of people who are never going to see any type of justice be done.”
Ford’s death comes four days after the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office began investigating whether there may be a connection between New Bethany and an unidentified woman who was found on Jan. 28, 1981, in a wooded area stabbed to death.
The woman, now known as “Bossier Doe,” was wearing shoes and socks not unlike those required of New Bethany residents at the time. A name, “D. Davies,” was written inside her shoes with marker, just as former residents say they had to do.
State officials attempted to close the school in 1980 after Ford refused state inspection. They later raided New Bethany in 1988 and again in 1996 following complaints of abuse at the home — efforts that Ford fought in court, maintaining the state was violating his civil rights because it opposed his fundamentalist Christian views.
“The bureaucrats don’t want us to teach them our faith,” he said in a 1988 sermon following the state’s removal of 28 residents from the home.
But neither he nor anyone else at the girls’ home was ever prosecuted for any of the reported abuse, despite numerous confirmed reports documented by state social workers.
In addition to the girls’ home, Ford opened several boys homes, including in Longstreet, La., and Waltersboro, SC. In both of those locations, abuse allegations resulted in criminal charges, though not against Ford.
In 1981, Longstreet school manager L.D. Rapier was arrested and charged with cruelty to children after four boys ran from the home and told authorities they’d been beaten. The charges were eventually dropped.
In 1983, South Carolina authorities closed the Waltersboro home after they found a 14-year-old sleeping in a windowless padlocked cell, where he had been for several days. Two employees there were charged with unlawful neglect of a child and kidnapping, and they eventually pleaded to a lesser charge of false imprisonment.
Ford continued to live at the former New Bethany compound, located at 120 Hiser Road, in Arcadia, until his death…
…Ford’s estranged son-in-law, former Louisiana College vice president Timothy Johnson, said that Ford’s wife, Thelma Ford, resides in a nursing home.
Thelma and Mack Ford would have been married 66 years this year, according to court documents. Together, they had seven daughters, and adopted two more children, a boy and a girl.
Johnson said that Ford’s family members are unlikely to speak publicly about Ford or his legacy largely because of the great backlash they may face by former New Bethany residents and other critics.
“To do so gets you written about as being complicit or protecting a rapist,” Johnson wrote in an email message…
…Teresa Frye, 47, a resident at the home in 1982, said she was still processing news of Ford’s death on Thursday morning.
For years, Frye has been involved in an ongoing effort to help reconnect former New Bethany students and to raise awareness about the conditions so many children faced in similar boarding homes.
“I’m numb,” Frye said. “But I’m starting to get angry.”
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
New Bethany Home for Girls in Arcadia, La., opened in the early 1970s as a religious reform school for, as its founder said, “the incorrigible, unwanted rejects” who “haven’t been loved and haven’t had a chance in life.”
Over the next three decades, law enforcement officials repeatedly investigated claims of physical and psychological child abuse at the school.
Joanna Wright was 16 years old when she first arrived at New Bethany in the 1970s. She says she had been sexually abused as a child and hoped the school would be a refuge. But she says when she got there, she was raped by the man in charge of the school.
“I thought something was really wrong with me, that I must be a really bad person because this keeps happening to me in life,” Joanna told Tara Cummings, who came to New Bethany when she was 12, in a StoryCorps interview. “I started to think, ‘How could I dismember my body and spread the pieces around so that God couldn’t find me and put me back together to punish me?’ “
The two spoke in 2016 at Joanna’s home in Cypress, Texas.
“I used to wish that I would come back as a cotton ball or a Coke can, completely inanimate so I could feel nothing,” Tara said.
The women attended the school at different times, but they crossed paths when women began speaking up about the abuse they say they endured at New Bethany.
Several women who attended the school have come forward in recent years alleging abuse — including sexual, physical and psychological — by the same man.
Joanna, now 58, and Tara, now 47, were part of a group of women who in 2014 testified in front of a grand jury that the man who ran the school abused them. In January 2015, the grand jury did not indict him, The Times-Picayune reported at the time. He died the following month. NPR is not naming him because he cannot respond to the accusations. While he was alive, he repeatedly denied any kind of abuse at the school.
The school closed in 2001. Over the years, Joanna told people of the abuse, the first being her father. He made her take a lie detector test, she says.
I always wondered, ‘What do people see in me that makes them think it’s OK to abuse me?’ And that was something that I carried even into adulthood,” Joanna said.
“It put a fear in me that I’ve never shaken. I don’t know that I ever will. You know, I always thought, ‘There has to be other girls, I can’t be the only one.’ And so I’ve always blabbed about it,” she says.
Tara, on the other hand, kept quiet about the abuse.
“I was a really good liar. Always being the preacher’s kid and putting on a perfect front. I think I was trying to move on. But to get out of the hiding was a game changer for me,” she said.
Tara says Joanna helped her learn how to stop hiding.
“I know you don’t believe in divine path,” she told Joanna, “but I was at a fork in the road. And knowing you has changed my life.”
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
