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.
Hunter Eubanks, a worship leader and former youth pastor at Morningside Church in Tallahassee, Florida, stands accused of sexual assault of a minor, cruelty toward a child, aggravated battery on a child, use of a computer to lure a child, obscene communication and travel to meet after using a computer to lure a child. The alleged victim is a 16-year-old churchgoer.
A former Tallahassee church employee turned himself into the Leon County Detention Facility Wednesday after he was charged with sexual assault on a minor, according to officials at the Leon County Sheriff’s Office and Morningside Church.
Hunter Eubanks, 30, is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old churchgoer multiple times on church grounds, according to a press release sent Thursday by LCSO spokesperson Shonda Knight.
Morningside Church officials confirmed to WCTV that Eubanks was a former employee there and that law enforcement believes the alleged crimes happened at their campus along Pedrick Road in Tallahassee while he worked there.
The assaults allegedly happened between June and October, and they were reported to police on October 9, the LCSO press release said.
Eubanks is facing charges of sexual assault on a minor, cruelty toward a child, aggravated battery on a child, obscene communication use of computer to lure a child and obscene communication travel to meet after use of computer to lure a child.
The sheriff’s office and Morningside told WCTV Thursday that Eubanks was employed by the church. A secretary there told WCTV over the phone that he was a ‘former employee,’ saying the 30-year-old played in the band and led musical performances.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
James McMillan, the former pastor of several Southern Baptist churches, stands accused of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16. McMillan previously pastored Slaughterville Baptist Church in Lexington, Oklahoma — renamed Cornerstone Baptist Church — and First Baptist Church in Konawa, Oklahoma.
Cleveland County deputies arrested a former pastor accused of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, and investigators say there could be more victims.
James McMillan was arrested Tuesday afternoon, and court documents show that there are multiple Department of Human Services and law enforcement cases where he is listed as a sexual abuse suspect dating back to 2003.
His former church members told KOCO 5 that it was about time he was arrested.
“Wasn’t surprised about this, but just sad that there were other victims,” said Lonnie Holland, a former team chairman, treasurer, and youth leader at Slaughterville Baptist Church.
The court documents state that McMillan was traveling with an underage victim on Highway 39 near 120th Avenue Southeast in Cleveland County when they got stuck in traffic. The victim claimed McMillan unzipped his pants and began touching himself in front of the victim.
The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office said McMillan was a former pastor at numerous churches but is not currently employed as one.
In 2014, KOCO 5 interviewed McMillan when he was the pastor at First Baptist Church of Konawa. At that time, he claimed his First Amendment rights were being violated for not being allowed to pray before a high school game.
“This man needs to be locked up in prison where he can’t have any more victims,” Holland said. “He needs to be held accountable for what he has done.”
Holland said he was at Slaughterville Baptist Church when McMillan became the lead pastor around 2018.
“None of the girls felt comfortable with him,” Holland said.
He told KOCO 5 that he heard of allegations against McMillan.
“I knew by what I was hearing that he wasn’t qualified to be a pastor in any way, shape or form,” Holland said, adding that he tried to get McMillan removed. “They voted to keep him. So, at that point, within a week I was gone.”
The Slaughterville church has since been renamed, and church officials told KOCO 5 that they are under new leadership.
Holland said he never contacted law enforcement because he didn’t have evidence of a previous crime. He told KOCO 5, though, that he brought his concerns to the Oklahoma Baptist Conference.
“Told him what I found and basically was told that we were going to get to the bottom of this,” Holland said. “Nothing came of that, as far as I know.”
The Oklahoma Baptist Conference did not return KOCO 5’s calls for comment.
McMillan was arrested again for allegedly sending a nude photo of himself to a 14-year-old girl.
James McMillan, the former pastor of Slaughterville Baptist Church and First Baptist Church of Konawa in Oklahoma, who was arrested last month after he was accused of lewd or indecent acts with a child younger than 16, was arrested again on Monday for allegedly sending a nude photo of himself to a 14-year-old girl.
McMillan’s most recent arrest stems from an incident that happened in March 2023, KFOR reported. He is no longer pastoring at any church.
Citing court documents, the 14-year-old’s father said his daughter told him about the photo McMillan sent her and he reported him to local police. It wasn’t until he reached out to an Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officer in October that he saw any action on the case.
“My daughter had come to me and let me know that she had received a nude picture from a grown man,” the victim’s father recalled.
He explained that his daughter and McMillan’s son had previously attended school together, and his daughter believes McMillan likely used his son’s Snapchat account to look up her name because of her security settings. She eventually accepted a friend request from McMillan.
According to court documents, a friend of the teenage victim alleged that McMillan was a pedophile when she learned of his friend request. The victim countered the allegation, saying that she would screenshot any communication that crossed the line and report it to police.
McMillan soon sent the victim an unsolicited photo of himself flexing in a mirror, to which she responded something to the effect of “trying to get them gains.”
The former pastor then allegedly asked if she might “want to see more” and sent her his nude photo before she could respond.
“He just sent the fully nude picture,” the victim’s father said. “There was no request or anything like that for it.”
When McMillan later learned she was 14, he blocked her on Snapchat, which erased their messaging history. The teenager had the screenshot, however.
“He’s clearly proven that he has a problem with this and won’t, you know, won’t stop,” the victim’s father said. “He’s somebody that’s truly a danger to our society.”
Court documents cited by KOCO News 5 show that the former pastor has been listed as a sexual abuse suspect in multiple Department of Human Services and law enforcement cases dating back to 2003.
In the charges leveled against him in late November, McMillan allegedly unzipped his pants and touched himself in front of an underage minor while driving down a Cleveland County highway. His bond after his arrest on Monday was set at $450,000.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Kurt Schenk, pastor of New Beginnings Church of the Cross (formerly Freemont United Methodist Church) in Christiana, Pennsylvania, stands accused of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman with autism and a learning disability. Schenk has been scrubbed from the church’s website.
A former Coatesville City Council member sexually assaulted a 21-year-old woman with autism and a learning disability in his home after months of having explicit conversations with her, Chester County prosecutors said Thursday.
Kurt Schenk, 63, told the woman, whom he is related to and got to know as pastor of New Beginnings Church of the Cross, “not to tell anyone [he] tried to touch [her], no matter what,” after the Oct. 21 assault was interrupted by her family, according to the woman’s testimony at Schenk’s preliminary hearing.
Schenk offered to give the woman a ride home but, instead, brought her to his house, where he forced her to the ground and assaulted her inside his garage, she said Thursday.
….
District Judge Nancy Gill held Schenk over on charges of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, and false imprisonment, sending the case to a county judge.
Schenk’s attorney, Dan Bush, cast doubts on the woman’s credibility during the hearing, pressing her on details in her testimony, particularly why she continued to speak with Schenk after he made her feel uncomfortable and hid their correspondence from her parents.
“We are looking forward to the truth coming out,” Bush said afterward. “Because what we heard in that courtroom was not remotely close to the truth.”
The woman, who said her learning disability affects her comprehension, testified that Schenk called her on Oct. 21 as she was out for her daily walk near her home in Parkesburg. He asked her where she was and, shortly after their call, pulled up to her in his pickup truck, she said.
The two had begun communicating privately when the woman turned 18, and their conversations were initially benign, usually discussing their days and New Beginnings, a Christian church in nearby Christiana, according to testimony Thursday.
But not long before her 21st birthday, she said, Schenk began to say “inappropriate things” to her. In phone calls, Schenk told her he wanted to “make love” to her and made sexually explicit comments about her body, according to the woman. He also asked her to send him pictures of her wearing a bathing suit, which she agreed to do, she said.
The woman testified that had she continued to talk with Schenk even after her parents told her not to because Schenk was kind to her about her disability and consoled her when she confided in him that friends of hers had abandoned her.
Those conversations, she said, were specifically timed to when Schenk’s wife was not home.
“It was disturbing and disgusting, and I’m so, so angry,” the woman said. “Shame on him.”
During their encounter on the day of the alleged assault, she said, she accepted Schenk’s offer to drive her home because it was warm out and she felt tired.
However, instead of dropping her off, Schenk drove past her home to his, about two miles away on Upper Valley Road in Atglen. The woman said she was afraid and confused by the unannounced detour but didn’t know what to do or say to Schenk.
At his home, Schenk asked her to get out of the vehicle on its driver’s side so no one could see her from the road, she said. He then grabbed her by her wrists and led her into his garage, closing the door behind them, she said.
Once inside, Schenk pushed her to the ground and sexually assaulted her, she said. She said she felt “frozen” and unable to move as Schenk attempted to pull her leggings off.
He stopped only when the woman’s sister began banging on the garage’s door and calling her name, she said. The woman’s sister had been tracking her through the Life360 app and had become worried when she saw she had traveled so far from home, the woman said.
Schenk got up and opened the door for the woman’s sister when he saw that police had also arrived.
The woman’s father said Thursday that Schenk targeted her while aware that she had a disability.
“Justice will be served in this life and when he stands before the Almighty God, the one he claims to serve,” the man said. “Proclaiming the cross, he is actually an enemy of it. He’s a phony. He knows it, we know it.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Luke Taylor is the pastor of Veneration Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Kalispell, Montana. Taylor, a culture warrior, recently preached a sermon series titled Culture Clash: A Biblical Look at Culture’s Hottest Topics. Spanning five sermons so far, Taylor preached oh-so-important sermons such as: A Battle for the Heart, Sexual Purity, Transgenderism, Homosexuality, and Abortion. The sermon videos had subtitles such as:
There has been a major clash between culture and biblical truth. Paul warns the church not to be deceived as the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God. A battle has been waged for the heart, and the only remedy is Jesus and a complete surrender to Him.
If sex is like a consuming fire, why has God commanded us to control the burn? We know His command for purity is all over the Bible, but what is the reason for this command? How is it for our best? How has the devil hijacked God’s plan for sex, and kept us from enjoying the most satisfying and fulfilling sex you can imagine? As we will see, God invented sex for our good and His glory, and His plan is the best and most satisfying by design. Nothing else can compare.
At the core of the LGBTQ community rests two common traits: a rebellion against God and a personal brokenness that leads to a search for identity. Transgenderism is the fruit of rebellion and brokenness. How does the Bible speak to these issues and how is the church to respond?
At the core of the LGBTQ+ community rests two common traits: a rebellion against God and His design and a personal brokenness that is in search of healing. What does the Bible say about homosexuality and same-sex marriage? Why are these against God’s design and how do we know? How do you wrestle with these issues in light of the Gospel and salvation? How is the church to respond?
Statistics would show that over 40% of women, both inside and outside the church, have been touched by the pain of abortion. For every woman that has walked this road, there is also a man. While the Bible has much to say about the sanctity of life, it also has much to say about the forgiveness the cross of Christ offers for any who have walked down this painful road. To think that any sin cannot be forgiven by the blood of Jesus is to cheapen the cross of Christ. God not only forgives, but He also restores and redeems.
Taylor didn’t announce his sermon titles in advance, fearing congregants would skip church if they knew he was preaching about their particular sin. The Sunday he planned to preach on abortion, this is what happened:
Taylor did not announce the sermon schedule because he didn’t want people to choose which sermons they might avoid. However, he accidentally mentioned when he would preach on abortion. “Driving home after church, I felt the Spirit of God telling me to switch the weekends for this topic because there might be women who would skip that sermon due to the grips of guilt and shame.”
Sure enough, Taylor heard that some women planned to miss that sermon. “If God was going to set them free, they needed to be there,” he said. So Taylor changed plans. The result was that “many women showed up the following weekend and were set free. God did God things in God ways,” Taylor said.
Taylor was recently interviewed by The Baptist Paper about his sermon series. Taylor assured readers that his sermons were not political; that if someone took issue with his sermons, their problem was with God, not him.
[The series was] “not about what we are standing against but about who we are standing for. [Drawing from biblical teachings, Taylor prayed for the sermons to be] presented in a way that if anyone had a problem with what I said it would be because they rebelled against God’s Word and not my opinion.
Nothing like a cocksure Baptist preacher, right? Certain that his personal interpretations of the Bible are straight from the mouth of God, Taylor viewed any objections to his sermons as rebellion against the inerrant, infallible Word of God.
I was an Evangelical preacher for twenty-five years. According to church members and colleagues in the ministry, my sermons were well crafted and used by God to bring conviction of sin and salvation. When asked about my sermons, my partner of forty-six years, Polly — who heard virtually every one of my 4,000+ sermons — always voiced approbation for my messages. Even when I missed the mark with a sermon, Polly always praised me for a good job. Awesome wife, right? 🙂 I learned not to trust her judgments of my sermons, knowing her love for me was greater than the quality of a particular sermon. Some church members did the same as they shook my hand after church, saying, “Preacher, that was a wonderful sermon.” The subject matter didn’t matter, my sermons were always supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The judgments of my sermons that did matter to me were the ones from my fellow preachers. By all accounts, my sermons were well received by them.
I took the craft of preaching seriously. I learned early on that sermons could be used to “motivate” people to behave in certain ways. Choose the right text, use timely heart-tugging illustrations, and deliver the sermon with passion and conviction, it was not hard to get people to make decisions for Christ. While I had sincere intentions, desiring, as Taylor does, to save sinners and bring conviction of sin to church members, I eventually recognized that what I was really doing was psychologically manipulating people. Eventually, I stopped giving altar calls and dialed back aspects of my preaching I felt were manipulative. Preaching expositional sermons instead of topical/textual sermons helped limit the kind of manipulation found in Taylor’s Culture Clash sermon series. My goal was to teach the Bible and let congregants do with it what they will.
I am not suggesting that Taylor is evil or a cult leader. Many preachers are unaware of how their sermons can be used to psychologically manipulate people, thinking that when people positively respond to their sermons by getting saved or confessing secret, long-held sin, it is the Holy Spirit moving instead of manipulation. For those of us raised in Baptist churches, we were indoctrinated and conditioned to respond to sermons in general, and certain content in particular, to make decisions for Christ. Sermon-induced guilt is labeled Holy Ghost conviction instead of what it is, psychological manipulation. I listened to several of Taylor’s sermons, particularly his sermon on Transgenderism. Taylor is well-spoken and knows how to use a well-turned phrase to elicit the desired response. His sermons conclude with a prayer, complete with background music. Then the church band starts playing. I assume this is Veneration Church’s version of an altar call. I have written previously about how Evangelical preachers use music to tug at the heartstrings (minds) of congregants, making it easier for them to get right with God. Whether it is the singing of Just As I Am or modern contemporary songs, the goal is to stir the passions of those in attendance.
Taylor’s certainly had the desired effect. Scores of church members confessed long-buried sins, including sexual sins. To give readers a good idea of what happened at Veneration Church, what follows is a video Taylor played for the congregation featuring his fellow pastor Tyler Wilschetz and his wife Alicia.
Guilt is common among Evangelicals. When the focus is on sin — as defined by the pastor’s personal interpretations of the Bible — and brokenness, it is not surprising that church members feel so guilty. Guilt, then, becomes the fertile ground preachers use to encourage people to repent of secret sins and get right with God. Taylor told congregants that “guilt and shame” were from the Devil, but I suggest that they are the fruit of Evangelical dogma and psychological manipulation.
The Baptist Paper story gave several examples of how Taylor’s sermons affected church members:
One of Taylor’s sermons focused on sexual purity especially within the context of biblical marriage, citing premarital cohabitation, premarital sex, extramarital sex, and viewing porn as among numerous biblical prohibitions regarding sensuality.
“But why does the Bible speak so much about sexual purity?” he asked. Because only within God’s design is found “our full satisfaction, our complete enjoyment, and our greatest pleasure.”
For those who sorrow over previous sexual sins, Taylor said, “Guilt and shame are from the devil. But conviction comes from the Holy Spirit.” The power of the gospel redeems and frees us from the prison of past failures regardless of what they were, he said.
Following the sermon, Taylor’s invitation calling all who wanted to repent of sin and to commit to a life of purity garnered about 90 men who walked the aisle and stood up front in public testimony of their commitment.
….
One woman found freedom from decades of abortion guilt. She believed that her daughter — who was born without a right hand and died in her early thirties — was God’s judgment. She assessed the untimely death of her husband similarly.
In a subsequent discipleship group the walls fell.
The group leader reported to Taylor: “The woman let go of 40 years of guilt and pain. We had an incredible time of prayer over her, where she was able to grieve her baby, give up to God the falsehoods Satan had over her, and start her restoration of moving forward without guilt.”
Sadly, many of the “sins” Evangelicals feel guilty about are normal human behaviors. Notice Taylor’s obsession over sexual “sin.” Want to elicit guilt from church members? Preach on sexual behaviors deemed sinful by the churches/pastors. Sex is a basic human need, right up there with eating and drinking. I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church movement. I heard countless sermons about heinous sins such as premarital sex, fornication, lust, masturbation, and pornography. Instead of being taught to own my sexuality and learning how to act responsibly around the opposite sex, I learned that normal, healthy sexual desire was sin; that God would harshly judge me if I didn’t keep my pants zipped up and my mind focused on the precious Word of God. Try as I might, and no matter how many prayers I prayed, sermons I listened to, and Bible verses I read, I still had raging hormones. While both Polly and I were virgins on our wedding day, this was not because we conquered our sexual desires. No, we feared God would get us if we rounded third and slid into home. Many of our fellow youth group members and college friends were not as holy as we were. When the Devil rang the proverbial doorbell they answered the door, and the result was years of guilt over not adhering to the church’s Puritannical moral code. Some of my fellow dorm dwellers who succumbed to “lust” went on to pastor Baptist churches. A funny thing happened on their way to the pulpit. They forgot that they had hit home runs while at Midwestern Baptist College. Sexual “sins” long since confessed and buried were forgotten as they stood in their pulpits and arranged another generation of young people about the evils of handholding, kissing, petting, mutual sexual stimulation, fornication, and masturbation.
Teenagers and young adults are going to engage in sexual activity regardless of what they hear from the pulpit. Instead of preaching guilt-inducing sermons and telling young people to “just say no,” it would be better if pastors taught their young charges personal accountability and responsibility. Perhaps it is time to chuck the Bible and encourage young and old alike healthy attitudes about sex and desire. If Taylor’s sermon series should have taught him anything, it is that sermons such as his don’t bring lasting change. The Bible is no match for sexual want, need, and desire — as adult church members would affirm if they ever shared their sexual secrets. Imagine a church testimony time where one adult after another shared stories about hot summer nights and youthful desires. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, sat down with Rolling Stone journalist, Lorena O’Neil, to discuss Louisiana’s law that mandates posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms:
“The Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization, and you’re telling me we can’t hang them in school?” he [Governor Jeff Landry] asked me.
When I [Lorena O’Neil] brought up people who don’t believe in God, Landry got impassioned. “They don’t have to look at the poster! They don’t believe in what? Do not kill?”
Landry, a Roman Catholic, thinks the Ten Commandments (the Exodus 20 version) are the fabric of civilization. Either Landry is ignorant about human history or he’s deliberately misleading his constituents. I suspect it’s the latter. It is also possible that Landry is using the word “civilization” in a narrow sense of the world, but regardless, human civilizations predate the Bible story that records God giving Moses the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. It is unlikely Moses was an actual person, and the Ten Commandments were written down over three millennia after the establishment of human civilization. Historians debate the dating of the Ten Commandments and the start of human civilization, but whatever dates you go with, human civilization predates the Ten Commandments. This means Landry’s claim that. the Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization is false.
THIS [Posting the Ten Commandments in Schools] MAY BE, IN FACT, THE FIRST MAJOR STEP IN THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION, WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED, IN OUR COUNTRY.
Donald Trump on Truth Social
Landry seems to think that Louisiana public schools are religious institutions that grudgingly allow non-Christians to enroll with the understanding that they will be exposed to the trappings of Christianity. “Don’t like the Ten Commandments posters?” Landry asks. “Don’t look at them.” Landry wrongly thinks that those who oppose the posting of the Ten Commandments lack moral grounding or a basis for morality. He doesn’t seem to understand that moral foundations can be built from various sources, including the Ten Commandments. And let’s be clear, the Ten Commandments are insufficient for building a broad, comprehensive moral foundation.
The first four commands are explicitly religious in nature. They have no relevance to non-Christians. Landry brings up the sixth command. He must think that this command is self-explanatory, but it’s not. What this command means is debated both within and without the Christian church. The same can be said of all ten commandments. Who, exactly, is going to interpret the commandments for students? What’s next, bringing in priests and preachers to provide the proper interpretation for students?
I support teaching the Ten Commandments in a high school World Religions class. Surely, one class session on the history of the Ten Commandments should suffice, right? Why must the Ten Commandments be posted on the walls of every classroom? Students will soon get used to seeing the poster and, before long, not pay attention to it. Posting the Ten Commandments will not make a bit of difference for public school students. All Landry has done is win a paper victory in the latest culture war.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
A year or so ago, Richard, an Evangelical Christian, sent me an email, to which I responded in the post Dear Richard, the Evangelical Christian. Richard did not respond to my post, either by commenting or sending me an email.
Today, Richard sent me another email, which is reproducedbelow. In round two, I will attempt to respond to Richard again. (All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.)
Bruce, I wrote you about fourteen months ago. I am glad that you are still alive, for where there is life, there is hope.
Richard, I find it troublesome that the only reason you’re glad I’m still alive is so I might yet get saved. 2024 was a difficult year for me physically. Four months ago, I had major surgery on my spine. I am still recovering from this procedure. I continue to have increasing problems with gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency — both of which have robbed me of the joy of eating. I’m on the short side of life, so I’m glad to be alive, not so I still have an opportunity to get washed in the blood of Jesus, but because I want to spend as much time as possible with my partner, children, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. I hope to live another day for them, knowing they will miss me when I’m gone. There’s no Heaven, Hell, or afterlife, so each day matters to me, knowing that the moment I draw my last breath, life will end for me. Most days, I think that sucks, but some days my pain is so severe that death seems preferable to living, Fortunately, such moments pass. Whether that will always be the case, I know not.
Hope, from my perspective, is the promise of tomorrow. Since death is the end of the road for all of us, my hope focuses on what life I have left; which may be an hour, a day, a month, or a year or two or three. I want to cram as much living into my life as possible. I have no interest in spending time on mythical beings or Bible verses that have no relevance or bearing on my life.
God has given His human creation and His angelic host free-will (i.e., the right to choose their destiny in life and death).
First, I’m an atheist, so I reject the notion that God created us.
Second, I reject the notion that we have libertarian free will. As a Christian, I didn’t believe in free will either. Surely you don’t believe sinners can get saved any time they want.
If you want to have a debate about free will, I’m game. I’m well versed in what the Bible says on the matter.
Your website states that you are both a humanist and an atheist, but that may not be altogether true. You did not start out that way. At some point in time, you made a conscious choice to move in that direction.
What do you mean by “that may not be altogether true”? I am a humanist and an atheist. Are you saying I’m lying or that I don’t know what I believe?
Yes, I chose to be an atheist and a humanist. I also chose to be a Christian and a pastor. I chose to marry Polly and have six children with her. I chose to spend twenty-five years pastoring churches, just as I chose to walk away from Christianity almost seventeen years ago.
Since you have free will and as long as you have life, you have the right to stay with your current position or adopt some other position in the future!
Sure, and I will become a Christian the moment I am provided persuasive evidence for the existence of God and the supernatural claims of the Bible. Do you have such evidence, Richard? If so, I would love to see it. Preaching at me will not work, and neither will quoting Bible verses.
The measure of true character is the actions we take when we are under enormous stress/pressure.
I agree, and that is why you should compliment me for being willing to be honest and deconvert, even though I was under tremendous pressure to remain a Christian, under threats of judgment and Hell.
The Garden of Gethsemane was thebest opportunity by Satan to subvert God’s plan of salvation for His human creation. If Jesus had died in the Garden and not on the cross, He would not have died an ignominious, humiliating death on a Roman cross, but He also would not have been able to completely fulfill all that was foretold about Him in the Scriptures. Jesus did not take the easy way out, but drank the full cup of suffering He was required to drink to satisfy the complete payment for our sins.
Richard, I have suffered far more than Jesus did. He had a really bad day hanging on the cross, but then he died and was resurrected 48-72 hours later. I have battled chronic illness and pain for over twenty years. No ascension to Heaven for me. Just painful suffering from the moment I awake until I fall asleep — that is, IF I sleep. Many nights, I sleep an hour or so at a time before pain in my spine, neck, legs, or shoulders wakes me up.
I hope you know your sermonizing means nothing to me. Jesus lived and died, end of story. You assume facts not in evidence; claims based on faith, not evidence.
Bruce, in a race, especially the race of life, the most important stage of the race is to finish strong and hopefully win.
That’s not how I live my life. Life is all about the journey and not the destination. Since we all die, none of us can “win.” Live long enough and you will face and experience diminished capacity and strength. I am a shell of the man I once was physically.
I live for the moment, Richard. If my life ends today, it will be with the knowledge that I have lived a good life; that I have been blessed to spend forty-six years with my best friend and lover; and that I have lived long enough to see some of my grandchildren graduate from high school and go off to college. I’ve had a good life, so what could your Jesus add to my life? Nothing that I can think of.
Jesus is the One I try to emulate. He claimed that His Word is truth and He also claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I believe Him. He spoke of Hell in very graphic terms and convinced me that Hell is somewhere I do not even want to visit, let alone spend eternity there.
So what? I don’t care what the Bible says. I don’t think the Bible is a supernatural text written by a supernatural God.
I do not fear Hell, because I am confident that no such place exists. The Evangelical Hell is used as a tool to elicit fear in non-Christians so they will get saved. Its ultimate use is to put asses in church pews and money in offering plates.
And even if I believed in the existence of a place called Hell — a place created by God to eternally punish non-Christians — I would not worship God. Any deity that punishes finite sins with eternal punishment is not a God worthy of worship. Such a God is a moral monster.
The other day, I listened to a video broadcast between two well-known and respected scientists who, at the start of their lives both knew hardly anything about God, but now are both committed Christians. One is a chemist and the other one is a physicist. The chemist grew up in a secular Jewish home, yet has a love relationship and a closeness with Jesus that I wish I had but do not yet have.
I am including a link below regarding that video I heard. Bruce, you might even enjoy it and it could rekindle something that died long ago.
No thanks. You seem to not understand why I deconverted. Please read or re-read the posts found on the Why? page. A YouTube video is not going to change my mind about the existence of the Christian deity. I was an Evangelical Christian for almost fifty years I have a Bible college education and pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. I spent 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. You really don’t understand my story if you think this video is going to “rekindle something that died long ago.” Give me credit for doing my homework, Richard. When I deconverted in 2008, I did so with eyes wide open, knowing that I was making the right decision.
And for the record, Dr. James Tour [one of the scientists on the video] is a dick. He is a terrible advertisement for Christianity.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, a reader sent me several thoughtful questions that I would like to answer in this post:
Dear Bruce,
I admire how you bravely stood up by writing that letter to make the points you made. Years later, after the firestorm, do you still think writing it was the best way to let everyone know about your deconversion? Any regrets over the firestorm?
Also, I wonder if any old friends who are evangelicals remained friends with you afterward?
I wonder all this because I am unsure about whether I should come out publicly or not. Our personalities are quite different, but I value your perspective.
My partner, Polly, and I, along with our three youngest children — then ages 18, 16, and 14 — attended church for the last time on the last Sunday in November 2008. We had been attending the Ney United Methodist Church on Sundays, though occasionally we would visit other churches. For months prior, Polly and I had been talking about our experiences as Evangelical Christians. Both of us had spent our entire lives in Evangelical churches. After marrying in 1978, we spent twenty-five years pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Our last pastorate (2003) was a Southern Baptist church in Clare, Michigan. We spent the next five years visiting over one hundred churches (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT!) in five states looking for a place to call home. Instead, we became increasingly disillusioned by what we saw, heard, and experienced, in both Evangelical and mainline churches.
During these five years, we spent countless hours talking about our experiences and beliefs. By the time we reached 2008, Polly and I had serious doubts about the Bible and the bedrock beliefs we held dear. Both of us feared where the path we were on would lead, but we couldn’t stop. Indeed, we were on the slippery slopes our pastors warned us about — the downward slope that led to unbelief.
I’m not sure that either of us thought our last Sunday at Ney United Methodist was the end of the road for us, but after we came home from church, with tears in my eyes, I said to Polly, “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” Polly replied, “I’m done too.” Discussions, of course, about the Bible, religion, and church, in general, continued for some time. We weren’t atheists, but we weren’t Christians either. Our identities were so wrapped up in the ministry as pastor and pastor’s wife, we were uncertain about what the future held for us — including whether God was going to punish us or strike us dead for walking away from Christianity.
Rumors had been swirling among Evangelical friends, colleagues in the ministry, and former church members for some time. To put an end to all the gossip, I decided to write an open letter, and send it out to family, friends, and former parishioners. Sent out to a hundred or so people, here’s what I wrote:
Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners,
I have come to a place in life where I can no longer put off writing this letter. I have dreaded this day because I know what is likely to follow after certain people receive it. I have decided I can’t control how others react to this letter, so it is far more important to clear the air and make sure everyone knows the facts about Bruce Gerencser.
I won’t bore you with a long, drawn-out history of my life. I am sure each of you has an opinion about how I have lived my life and the decisions I have made. I also have an opinion about how I have lived my life and the decisions I made. I am my own worst critic.
Religion, in particular Baptist, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist religion, has been the essence of my life from my youth up. My being is so intertwined with religion that the two are quite inseparable. My life has been shaped and molded by religion, and religion touches virtually every fiber of my being.
I spent most of my adult life pastoring churches, preaching, and being involved in religious work to some degree or another. I pastored thousands of people over the years, preached thousands of sermons, and participated in and led thousands of worship services.
To say that the church was my life would be an understatement. But, as I have come to see, the church was actually my mistress, and my adulterous affair with her was at the expense of my wife, children, and my own self-worth. (Please see It’s Time to Tell the Truth: I Had an Affair.)
Today, I am publicly announcing that the affair is over. My wife and children have known this for a long time, but now everyone will know.
The church robbed me of so much of my life, and I have no intention of allowing her to have one more moment of my time. Life is too short. I am dying. We all are. I don’t want to waste what is left of my life chasing after things I now think are vain and empty.
I have always been known as a reader, a student of the Bible. I have read thousands of books in my lifetime. The knowledge gained from my reading and studies has led me to some conclusions about religion, particularly the Fundamentalist, Evangelical religion that played such a prominent part in my life.
I can no longer wholeheartedly embrace the doctrines of Evangelical, Fundamentalist Christianity. Particularly, I do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, nor do I accept as true the common Evangelical belief of the inspiration of Scripture.
Coming to this conclusion has forced me to reevaluate many of the doctrines I have held as true over these many years. I have concluded that I have been misinformed, poorly taught, and sometimes lied to. As a result, I can no longer accept as true many of the doctrines I once believed.
I point the finger of blame at no one. I sincerely believed and taught the things that I did, and many of the men who taught me were honorable teachers. Likewise, I don’t blame those who have influenced me over the years, nor do I blame the authors of the many books I have read. Simply, it is what it is.
I have no time to invest in the blame game. I am where I am today for many reasons, and I must embrace where I am and move forward.
In moving forward, I have stopped attending church. I have not attended a church service since November of 2008. I have no interest or desire to attend any church regularly. This does not mean I will never attend a church service again, but it does mean, for NOW, I have no intention of attending church.
I pastored for the last time in 2003. Almost six years have passed by. I have no intentions of ever pastoring again. When people ask me about this, I tell them I am retired. With the health problems that I have, it is quite easy to make an excuse for not pastoring, but the fact is I don’t want to pastor.
People continue to ask me, “What do you believe?” Rather than inquiring about how my life is, the quality of that life, etc., they reduce my life to what I believe. Life becomes nothing more than a set of religious constructs. A good life becomes believing the right things.
I can tell you this . . . I believe God is . . . and that is the sum of my confession of faith.
A precursor to my religious views changing was a seismic shift in my political views. My political views were so entangled with my Fundamentalist beliefs that when my political views began to shift, my beliefs began to unravel.
I can better describe my political and social views than I can my religious ones. I am a committed progressive, liberal Democrat, with the emphasis being on the progressive and liberal. My evolving views on women, abortion, homosexuality, war, socialism, social justice, and the environment have led me to the progressive, liberal viewpoint.
I know some of you are sure to ask, what does your wife think of all of this? Quite surprisingly, she is in agreement with me on many of these things. Not all of them, but close enough that I can still see her standing here. Polly is no theologian. She is not trained in theology as I am. (She loves to read fiction.) Nevertheless, I was able to get her to read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and several others. She found the books to be quite an eye-opener.
Polly is free to be whomever and whatever she wishes. If she wants to start attending the local Fundamentalist Baptist church, she is free to do so and even has my blessing. But, for now, she doesn’t. She may never believe as I do, but in my new way of thinking, that is okay. I really don’t care what others think. Are you happy? Are you at peace? Are you living a good, productive life? Do you enjoy life? Answering in the affirmative to these questions is good enough for me.
I have six children, three of whom are out on their own. For many years, I was the spiritual patriarch of the family. Everyone looked to me for answers. I feel somewhat burdened over my children. I feel as if I have left them out on their own with no protection. But, I know they have good minds and can think and reason for themselves. Whatever they decide about God, religion, politics, or American League baseball is fine with me.
All I ask of my wife and children is that they allow me the freedom to be myself, that they allow me to journey on in peace and love. Of course, I still love a rousing discussion about religion, the Bible, politics, etc. I want my family to know that they can talk to me about these things, and anything else for that matter, any time they wish.
Opinions are welcome. Debate is good. All done? Let’s go to the tavern and have a round on me. Life is about the journey, not the destination, and I want my wife and children to be a part of my journey, and I want to be a part of theirs.
One of the reasons for writing this letter is to put an end to the rumors and gossip about me. Did you know Bruce is/or is not_____________? Did you know Bruce believes____________? Did you know Bruce is a universalist, agnostic, atheist, liberal ___________?
For you who have been friends or former parishioners, I apologize to you if my changing beliefs have unsettled you or has caused you to question your own faith. That was never my intent.
The question is this: what now?
Family and friends are not sure what to do with me.
I am still Bruce. I am still married. I am still your father, father-in-law, grandfather, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, and son-in-law. I would expect you to love me as I am and treat me with respect.
Here is what I don’t want from you:
Attempts to show me the error of my way. Fact is, I have studied the Bible and read far more books than many of you. So what do you really think you are going to show me that will be so powerful and unknown that it will cause me to return to the religion and politics of my past?
Constant reminders that you are praying for me. Please don’t think of me as unkind, but I don’t care that you are praying for me. I find no comfort, solace, or strength from your prayers. So be my friend if you can, pray if you must, but leave your prayers in the closet. As long as God gets your prayer message, that will be sufficient.
Please don’t send me books, tracts, or magazines. You are wasting your time and money.
Invitations to attend your church. The answer is NO. Please don’t ask. I used to attend church for the sake of family, but no longer. It is hypocritical for me to perform a religious act of worship just for the sake of family. I know how to find a church if I am so inclined: after all, I have visited more than 125 churches since 2002. (Please see But Our Church is DIFFERENT!)
Offers of a church to pastor. It is not the lack of a church to pastor that has led me to where I am. If I would lie about what I believe, I could be pastoring again in a matter of weeks. I am not interested in ever pastoring a church again.
Threats about judgment and Hell. I don’t believe in either, so your threats have no impact on me.
Phone calls. If you are my friend, you know I don’t like talking on the phone. I have no interest in having a phone discussion about my religious or political views.
Here is what I do want from you: I want you to unconditionally love me where I am and how I am.
That’s it.
Now I realize some (many) of you won’t be able to do that. My friendship or familial relationship with you is cemented with the glue of Evangelical orthodoxy. Remove the Bible, God, and fidelity to a certain set of beliefs, and there is no basis for a continued relationship.
I understand that. I want you to know I have appreciated and enjoyed our friendship over the years. I understand that you cannot be my friend anymore. I even understand you may have to denounce me publicly and warn others to stay away from me for fear of me contaminating them with my heresy. Do what you must. We had some wonderful times together, and I will always remember those good times.
You are free from me if that is your wish.
I shall continue to journey on. I can’t stop. I must not stop.
Thank you for reading my letter.
Bruce
— end of letter
After this letter was received, the response of Evangelical family members, fellow preachers, and former church members was immediate. Letters. Emails. Books. Personal visits. Worse, the gossip didn’t stop. Now people were wondering if I was under the influence and control of Satan or whether I was even a Christian. Several pastor friends said I was mentally ill or that I was destroying my family. Not one person tried to understand where I was coming from. All they seemed to care about was that I left the cult.
Now to the questions.
Years later, after the firestorm, do you still think writing it was the best way to let everyone know about your deconversion?
I still think that writing the letter above was the best way to let everyone know that I was no longer a Christian. I genuinely thought that if I was just honest and open with people about where I was in life, everyone would understand. I was, of course, naive. I grossly underestimated how people would respond to the letter. Former church members, in particular, had a hard time reconciling my unbelief with the sermons they heard me preach and the part I played in leading them to salvation. If I could lose my faith, what about them? Several members told me that they found my deconversion so troubling that they could no longer be friends with me or even talk to me. (Please see Dear Greg, A Letter to a Former Parishioner: Dear Wendy, Dear Terry — Part One, and Dear Terry — Part Two.) Former colleagues in the ministry were far more hostile towards me. Their words cut me to the quick. These were the same men I preached for, prayed with, counseled and supported when they were going through tough times, and fellowshipped with, yet now I was a pariah, a man worthy or ridicule and judgment. (Please see Dear Friend.)
Any regrets over the firestorm?
I regret the pain I caused people who couldn’t reconcile my deconversion with what they knew about me. They knew me as a devout, committed follower of Jesus; a man who gave his all to the work of the ministry. “How was it possible that I was no longer a Christian?” they wondered. Of course, over the years, as I have shared on this blog more and more about my life as a pastor, and the contradictions between my aspirations and reality, their high regard for me lessened. And that’s fine. As a pastor, I was a fallible, frail man, prone to the same struggles others had. As I spoke about my decades-long struggle with depression, people wondered if I was fit to be a pastor. It took me losing my faith for people to see me as I was. Do I regret this? No, but I do wish I had received love, kindness, and understanding instead of being treated like their enemy.
Are any old friends who are evangelicals remained friends with you afterward?
All of my former colleagues in the ministry distanced themselves from me. It’s been years since I heard from any of them. I suppose this was to be expected. The glue that held our relationships together was fidelity to the Bible and Evangelical doctrine.
Former church members largely went on with their lives. I will run into a few of them at the grocery or doctor’s office. We share pleasantries, talk about our children and grandchildren, and part with a handshake and a smile. Two former congregants remained friends with us, but one of them has since died from COVID, and the other, a man I have known for almost sixty years, and I are not as close as we used to be. He texted me recently about getting together for lunch. I’m not sure whether I want to do this.
The email writer wonders whether she should come out publicly about her loss of faith. She is wise to carefully ponder doing so. Once a person publicly declares their atheism or agnosticism, they can no longer control the narrative. And as I learned, you can set your world on fire by doing so.
The Bible gives some pretty good advice about counting the cost in Luke 14:28-30:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
Who starts a building project without first counting the cost? The key phrase here is counting the cost. Every choice we make has a consequence. I think a loose definition of Newton’s Third Law of Motion applies here: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Foolish is the person who does not consider the consequences of saying for the first time to family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, I AM AN ATHEIST.
When I left Christianity and the ministry in 2008, my wife came along with me. Polly was a few steps behind, but close enough that we could hold hands. We spent many hours reading books and having long discussions about the past, the Bible, and Christianity in general. Dr. Bart Ehrman was nightly pillow talk for many months. When we finally came to the place where we said to one another “We are no longer Christians,” we knew that telling our family, friends, and acquaintances would cause a huge uproar. What should we do?
Polly decided to take the quiet approach, keeping her thoughts to herself. When asked, she would answer and try to explain, but if people didn’t ask, she felt no obligation to out herself. She still operates by that principle. There are people she works with who likely think she still goes to church on Sunday and is a fine Christian woman. Several years ago, a woman Polly had worked with for 20 years asked her if she was going to church on Easter. Polly replied, no. Her co-worker then asked, So do you go to church? Polly replied, No. And that was that. I am sure the gossip grapevine was buzzing. Did you know Polly doesn’t go to church? Why, her husband was a pastor! And they don’t go to church? Never mind that the woman asking the questions hadn’t been to church in over a decade. She stays home, watches “Christian” TV, and sends money to the TV preachers she likes.
I took the nuclear approach. I wrote an open letter to my friends, family, and former parishioners.
….
If I had to do it all over again, would I do it the same way? Would I write THE letter? Probably. My experiences have given me knowledge that is helpful to people who contact me about their own doubts about Christianity. I am often asked, what should I do? Should I tell my spouse? Should I tell my family, friends, or coworkers?
My standard advice is this: Count the cost. Weigh carefully the consequences. Once you utter or write the words I AM AN ATHEIST, you are no longer in control of what happens next. Are you willing to lose your friends, destroy your marriage, or lose your job? Only you can decide what cost you are willing to pay.
I know there is this notion that “Dammit, I should be able to freely declare what I am,” and I agree with the sentiment. We should be able to freely be who and what we are. If we lived on a deserted island, I suppose we could do so. However, we are surrounded by people. People we love. People we want and need in our life. Because of this, it behooves (shout out to the KJV) us to tread carefully.
I hope some of you will find this post helpful. My deepest desire is to help you on your journey. I am hoping that my walking before you can be of help to you as you decide how best to deal with and embrace your loss of faith.
This blog is here to remind those struggling with leaving Christianity or who have already left Christianity, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Note: This is the last post about Dr. David Tee that will appear on this site. I have reached the end of the road with him. I know I have said this before, but I plan to keep my word this time.
Dr. David Tee, an Evangelical preacher whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, recently wrote a vitriolic post titled The Biggest Whiner We Have Ever Seen. The title is written in the singular tense, but, as you will see in the moment, it should be in the plural. Thiessen, for whatever reason, decided to write a long post excoriating my friend Ben Berwick and me, calling us the biggest whiners and crybabies of all time. Lost on Thiessen is that he wrote a whiny post complaining about others he deems whiners and crybabies. As readers know, Thiessen is pronoun-challenged, so it is unclear at certain places in his screed whether he is talking about Ben, Bruce Gerencser, or both of us. Since Thiessen refuses to use our names in his posts or link to our writing he regularly steals, I will have to guess who, exactly he is talking about.
— Begin post (All spelling, grammar, punctuation, and irrationality in the original.)
We are not going to link to the person’s crybaby rant because it serves no purpose.
If Ben’s writing serves no purpose, why did Thiessen use it as the basis for this post? I don’t have the time to count how many posts Thiessen has written about either of us this year, but I suspect the total exceeds fifty — more than one time per week.
But in the 12 years we have been writing this blog, he has risen to the top to be the biggest whiner and crybaby of all time. That isn’t much of an achievement as very few people who we have used content as examples have complained.
Thiessen uses our content more frequently than any other authors — overwhelmingly so. Others don’t complain or respond to Thiessen because they likely don’t know of his existence or don’t care.
Some have written rebuttals on their websites but nothing to the level this one person takes it to. The guy must have the brain of a 4-year-old who hasn’t learned life’s lessons yet and gets upset that his PUBLIC comments are being analyzed and criticized.
I can’t speak for Ben, but what is upsetting is Thiessen’s lies and distortions of my beliefs, and his refusal to thoughtfully engage in discussion. Instead, he calls names and says “You are wrong.” I have challenged Thiessen to a debate several times, but he refuses. I have even let him write a guest post on this site, only to have him refuse to engage the comments and critiques of readers afterward.
It is absurd to see his reactions after all he knows what happens when he places information in public. Not everyone will agree with him and will take him to task. They do it to us all the time. yet this one person thinks his words are not to be touched even though he is very wrong and uses erroneous thinking all the time.
It is just dumb for him to waste time ranting about someone’s criticism of his dreadfully wrong ideas and thoughts. it is time for him to grow up and learn how to take it but he may be one of those progressives who are triggered every time something doesn’t go their way.
He really shouldn’t be ranting about anyone’s content that disagrees with his own ideas. He has nothing to offer anyone. If he does not want to be analyzed or critiqued, maybe he should stop publishing content on religious, political, and controversial topics.
Sadly, Thiessen sees himself as some sort of authority on the Bible, Christianity, theology, history, archeology, and marriage. He expects the targets of his attack to “learn how to take it” without responding to him. That’s not how it works. Public critiques require public responses. The real issue is that Thiessen thinks his response is the final answer and that everyone should bow to his superior intellect. As I have repeatedly shown, Thiessen has a poor grasp of Evangelical theology, church history, and science. I have shown that it is likely that Thiessen doesn’t understand the Christian gospel. He refuses to engage me on these issues, choosing instead to call names and throw temper tantrums.
He is not the answer to the world nor does he have any answers except to rid the world of the only answer there is. We do not mention his name and only use initials because we ARE NOT making it personal like he and one other person do when they do not like something we have posted.
Thiessen is gaslighting everyone. If you have read any of his writing, you know that he has, indeed, made things personal. His refusal to use our names and properly link to our content is childish and disrespectful. I have schooled him several times, without success. Of late, he has taken to using our content without even using the MM and BG initials for our names. It’s clear, at least to me, that Thiessen isn’t interested in dialog.
They are the ones trying to push for a bad response, not us. We are merely pointing out certain things they write as examples or teaching points. This is why we rarely address their rants. They want to make it more than it is.
Whatever our motives, Theissen deliberately mispresents our beliefs. That he uses our writing as “examples or teaching points” shows how he views himself, not as a fellow interlocutor, but as some sort of exalted teacher or authority.
If he took stock of what we use from his website, he would realize we only address religious, political, and some controversial topics he posts. We do not touch his other content as it does not serve the purpose of this website.
He needs to be more mature and to stop acting like an immature child.
There are countless other writers Thiessen could use for his delusional teaching moments, yet almost all of his writing focuses on content found at Meerkat Musings and The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser. Why is that? I do know that Thiessen has been banned from commenting on numerous Christian blogs. I would block his access to writing if I could, but he uses a VPN or some other form of technology that keeps me from doing so.
By refusing to respond to him going forward, I hope he will move on to other people to belittle and harrass.
As far as acting like an immature child, I will leave it to readers to decide who is actually being immature. His post is nothing more than a personal attack. Had he not written it, there would be no response to him.
As for the other person we have been using content from, he needs to get over his hatred and grow up as well. His narcissism and victim playing as well as mentioning he was a preacher for over 25 years, preached 4000 sermons, etc., etc., has run its course.
Now Thiessen turns his attention to me. He doesn’t like my writing style, or my subject matter, so he whines, bitches, and complains. He could choose NOT to read my writing, but instead, he complains about the fact that I write about my story and dare to mention that I was a former Evangelical pastor. I have explained to him numerous times that I do so because I treat every post as if someone is reading it for the first time. I don’t assume that anyone knows my backstory, so that’s why I briefly mention my bona fides. He doesn’t do this, of course, because he has things to hide; a checkered past he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Thiessen hid behind several fake names until I exposed that he was a fraud. Unable to respond in kind, Thiessen tries to tear me down.
He needs to stop making everything about him and get a new focus on his writing. He is less credible than a fart as at least the fart knows it is stinking up the room and leaves. That guy doesn’t know and won’t leave.
The title of this blog is The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser: One Man’s Journey From Eternity to Here. Enough said. End of discussion.
One of his latest diatribes is against missionaries who make sacrifices to obey God and fulfill the Great COmmission. What was his point? That those who have the answer to life’s problems should not share the good news?
Many of our undergraduate friends went on to become missionaries and have spent their lives serving God. We should take offense at his insults towards them and other missionaries but there is no point in doing that.
All the guy does is show his ignorance and his desire that all people should remain in their sins. That is not a person one should ever listen to. We have also known many missionaries beyond our friends since childhood. They are far better people than that write could ever hope to be or ever was.
His attack on them was uncalled for. If he wants to live his life his way then he needs to let Christians live their lives their way. Sure missionaries make mistakes but those mistakes are minor compared to the one he made when he left his faith.
At least the missionaries are still running the race, did not listen to unbelievers, and did not quit on Jesus. They are trying to fulfill God’s desire that ALL MEN BE SAVED.. There is nothing wrong with their work.
However, that person thinks that all people need to remain practicing sinful activities and tries to deprive them of hope and an escape form their sins. That makes him a very bad person, not a knight in shining armor.
The missionary is the knight in shining armor as they face more difficulties than the average Christian will and for the most part, keep on working for Christ. I doubt that person who rants against missionaries could have survived not having their children in their home for months on end like missionaries have had to do.
These challenges tax missionaries and make it harder for them to focus on their work and have trust that God will take care of their children. That is not easy to do. So instead of attacking missionaries, they need to be praised, supported, and prayed for constantly as the attacks that blogger made only add to the challenges missionaries face.
I should note that Thiessen has, in the past, considered himself a missionary. As far as I can tell, he is not currently in the ministry.
In conclusion, the two people referred to in this blog article need to become more mature, forgiving, and adult about having their content analyzed. They do not have answers for anyone and should remain silent on all religious, political, and controversial issues.
Their comments only harm others not help them. Making their comments and responses personal only reflects badly on them and displays poor character and a lack of integrity.
They are nothing more than whiney 2-year-olds looking for attention and the only way they can get it is by falsely attacking Christians. Maybe they would be cited more on this website if they acted like honest and mature adults instead of the screaming spoiled children they are.
At this point, I am too tired to respond further to his name-calling and attacks. Thiessen responds the same way regardless of what we write, so he is disingenuous when he says “[they] would be cited more on this website if they acted like honest and mature adults instead of the screaming spoiled children they are.”
Rage away, Derrick. I, for one, refuse to play.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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I had been wondering about this question and since you touched on it in this blog I wanted to ask, and it is about your wife’s stand on Christianity in general and her standing today for herself.
You mention that she walked away from church when you did. So my questions are:
Has she turned towards atheism as well? If she did, was it at the same time as you or later on?
If she did turn away from Christianity, how much of an influence were you with her denying her faith in Christ?
If she has become an atheist, doesn’t it seem odd that two completely committed Christians in the same family like this would just walk away and become atheists? I can see one, but I think the odds of two would be very high. I’m thinking this only because of the depth of commitments people make to their Christian faith. Walk away from church? Yes. But both turn to atheism?
These questions are only being asked if she has become an atheist.
Also, where do your kids stand with Christianity at this point?
Typically, I don’t answer questions about what my partner and children believe about God/Jesus/Christianity/Atheism. This blog is simply one man with a story to tell — and that’s me. Where the lives of my family intersect with telling my story, I am comfortable writing about them. However, when it comes to what they specifically believe and how they live out those beliefs, I leave it to Polly and our children to tell their own stories. (The same applies to our older grandchildren.) And the same goes for me too when they are asked about or confronted over something I have said or written. My family has been accosted at work, college, and while shopping by Christian zealots demanding that they answer for something I have written on this blog or for the local newspaper. Typically, my family tells such people that they don’t answer for me, and the best way to get their questions answered is to contact me directly.
That said, I would like to answer Bob’s questions briefly.
Yes, Polly and I walked away from Christianity together. This should come as no surprise since Polly and I have been doing virtually everything together for the past forty-eight years. We not only love one another, we also really like each other, 98.9 percent of the time, anyway (inside joke).
We have been married for more than forty-six years. I can count on two hands the days we have been apart. While each of us has hobbies and the like that the other isn’t interested in, for the most part, we have shared interests. Polly is my best friend. Why would I want to spend time with anyone else? Our marriage certainly isn’t perfect. Stick around for a fight and you’ll think we really don’t like each other. 🙂 However, disagreements quickly come and go, and then we sit down, eat dinner, drink a glass of wine, and watch whatever TV show is our favorite. The Bible says to not let the sun go down on your wrath, and we have practiced this maxim for almost five decades.
Thus, when we began to seriously question the central claims of Christianity, we spent countless hours talking about our beliefs and the Bible. I would read passages from books and we would discuss what I had read. While I certainly read a lot more books than Polly did — which has, until recent years, always been the case — she did a good bit of reading herself.
Our discussions were honest, open, and forthright. No demands were made of the other. Neither of us, at first, knew exactly where we were headed. We knew we were done with organized Christianity, but the future remained volatile and uncertain.
A week or so after we left the Ney United Methodist Church, we gathered our children together to talk with them about where we were in life. Remember, our six children were raised in a devout Evangelical Christian home. Their father and mother had been in the ministry their entire lives. Their father was the only pastor they had ever known. When we told our children that we were leaving Christianity, they were aghast over what that meant. I had been the family patriarch. Our children never had the freedom to decide whether or not to go to church. It was expected. Now they were being told that there were no expectations; that they were free to go to church, not go to church, worship God, not worship God, etc. In other words, I cut my children loose from their ties to their patriarchal father (though our three oldest sons had already begun to move away from the control I had over their lives).
I must admit that those first few months after this meeting were difficult, as our children tried to imagine life for their parents post-Jesus. Seventeen years later, everyone has gone their own way spiritually, and there’s little contention over matters of religion or lack thereof.
I have come to a place in life where I can no longer put off writing this letter. I have dreaded this day because I know what is likely to follow after certain people receive it. I have decided I can’t control how others will react to this letter, so it is far more important to clear the air and make sure everyone knows the facts about Bruce Gerencser.
I won’t bore you with a long, drawn out history of my life. I am sure each of you has an opinion about how I have lived my life and the decisions I have made. I also have an opinion about how I have lived my life and decisions I made. I am my own worst critic.
Religion, in particular Baptist Evangelical and Fundamentalist religion, has been the essence of my life, from my youth up. My being is so intertwined with religion that the two are quite inseparable. My life has been shaped and molded by religion and religion touches virtually every fiber of my being.
I spent most of my adult life pastoring churches, preaching, and being involved in religious work to some degree or another. I pastored thousands of people over the years, preached thousands of sermons, and participated in, and led, thousands of worship services.
To say that the church was my life would be an understatement. As I have come to see, the Church was actually my mistress, and my adulterous affair with her was at the expense of my wife, children, and my own self-worth.
Today, I am publicly announcing that the affair is over. My wife and children have known this for a long time, but now everyone will know.
The church robbed me of so much of my life and I have no intention of allowing her to have one more moment of my time. Life is too short. I am dying. We all are. I don’t want to waste what is left of my life chasing after things I now see to be vain and empty.
I have always been known as a reader, a student of the Bible. I have read thousands of books in my lifetime and the knowledge gained from my reading and studies have led me to some conclusions about religion, particularly the Fundamentalist, Evangelical religion that played such a prominent part in my life.
I can no longer wholeheartedly embrace the doctrines of the Evangelical, Fundamentalist faith. Particularly, I do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture nor do I accept as fact the common Evangelical belief of the inspiration of Scripture.
Coming to this conclusion has forced me to reevaluate many of the doctrines I have held as true over these many years. I have concluded that I have been misinformed, poorly taught, and sometimes lied to. I can no longer accept as true many of the doctrines I once believed.
I point the finger of blame at no one. I sincerely believed and taught the things that I did and many of the men who taught me were honorable teachers. I don’t blame those who have influenced me over the years, nor do I blame the authors of the many books I have read. Simply, it is what it is.
I have no time to invest in the blame game. I am where I am today for any number of reasons and I must embrace where I am and move forward.
In moving forward, I have stopped attending church. I have not attended a church service since November of 2008. I have no interest of desire in attending any church on a regular basis. This does not mean I will never attend a church service again, but it does mean, for NOW, I have no intention of attending church services.
I pastored for the last time in 2003. Almost six years have passed by. I have no intentions of ever pastoring again. When people ask me about this I tell them I am retired. With the health problems that I have it is quite easy to make an excuse for not pastoring, but the fact is I don’t want to pastor.
People continue to ask me “what do you believe?” Rather than inquiring about how my life is, the quality of that life, etc., they reduce my life to what I believe. Life becomes nothing more than a set of religious constructs. A good life becomes believing the right things.
I can tell you this…I believe God is…and that is the sum of my confession of faith.
A precursor to my religious views changing was a seismic shift in my political views. My political views were so entangled with Fundamentalist beliefs that when my political views began to shift, my Fundamentalist beliefs began to unravel.
I can better describe my political and social views than I can my religious ones. I am a committed progressive, liberal Democrat, with the emphasis being on the progressive and liberal. My evolving views on women, abortion, homosexuality, war, socialism, social justice, and the environment have led me to the progressive, liberal viewpoint.
I know some of you are sure to ask, what does your wife think of all of this? Quite surprisingly, she is in agreement with me on many of these things. Not all of them, but close enough that I can still see her standing here. Polly is no theologian, She is not trained in theology as I am. She loves to read fiction. I was able to get her to read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and she found the book to be quite an eye opener.
Polly is free to be whomever and whatever she wishes. If she wants to start attending the local Fundamentalist Baptist church she is free to do so, and even has my blessing. For now, she doesn’t. She may never believe as I believe, but in my new way of thinking that is OK. I really don’t care what others think. Are you happy? Are you at peace? Are you living a good, productive life? Do you enjoy life? Yes, to these questions is good enough for me.
I have six children, three of whom are out on their own. For many years I was the spiritual patriarch of the family. Everyone looked to me for the answers. I feel somewhat burdened over my children. I feel as if I have left them out on their own with no protection. But, I know they have good minds and can think and reason for themselves. Whatever they decide about God, religion, politics, or American League baseball is fine with me.
All I ask of my wife and children is that they allow me the freedom to be myself, that they allow me to journey on in peace and love. Of course, I still love a rousing discussion about religion, the Bible, politics, etc. I want my family to know that they can talk to me about these things, and anything else for that matter, any time they wish.
Opinions are welcome. Debate is good. All done? Let’s go to the tavern and have a round on me. Life is about the journey, and I want my wife and children to be a part of my journey and I want to be a part of theirs.
One of the reasons for writing this letter is to put an end to the rumors and gossip about me. Did you know Bruce is/or is not_____________? Did you know Bruce believes____________? Did you know Bruce is a universalist, agnostic, atheist, liberal ___________?
For you who have been friends or former parishioners I apologize to you if my change has unsettled you, or has caused you to question your own faith. That was never my intent.
The question is, what now?
Family and friends are not sure what to do with me.
I am still Bruce. I am still married. I am still your father, father in-law, grandfather, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, and son-in-law. I would expect you to love me as I am and treat me with respect.
Here is what I don’t want from you:
Attempts to show me the error of my way. Fact is, I have studied the Bible and read far more books than many of you. What do you really think you are going to show me that will be so powerful and unknown that it will cause me to return to the religion and politics of my past?
Constant reminders that you are praying for me. Please don’t think of me as unkind, but I don’t care that you are praying for me. I find no comfort, solace, or strength from your prayers. Be my friend if you can, pray if you must, but leave the prayers in the closet. As long as God gets your prayer message, that will be sufficient.
Please don’t send me books, tracts, or magazines. You are wasting your time and money.
Invitations to attend your Church. The answer is NO. Please don’t ask. I used to attend Church for the sake of family, but no longer. It is hypocritical for me to perform a religious act of worship just for the sake of family. I know how to find a Church if I am so inclined, after all I have visited more than 125 churches since 2003.
Offers of a church to pastor. It is not the lack of a church to pastor that has led me to where I am. If I would lie about what I believe, I could be pastoring again in a matter of weeks. I am not interested in ever pastoring a church again.
Threats about judgment and Hell. I don’t believe in either, so your threats have no impact on me .
Phone calls. If you are my friend you know I don’t like talking on the phone. I have no interest in having a phone discussion about my religious or political views.
Here is what I do want from you:
I want you to unconditionally love me where I am and how I am.
That’s it.
Now I realize some (many) of you won’t be able to do that. My friendship, my familial relationship with you is cemented with the glue of Evangelical orthodoxy. Remove the Bible, God, and fidelity to a certain set of beliefs and there is no basis for a continued relationship.
I understand that. I want you to know I have appreciated and enjoyed our friendship over the years. I understand that you can not be my friend any more. I even understand you may have to publicly denounce me and warn others to stay away from me for fear of me contaminating them with my heresy. Do what you must. We had some wonderful times together and I will always remember those good times.
You are free from me if that is your wish.
I shall continue to journey on. I can’t stop. I must not stop.
Thank you for reading my letter.
Bruce
This letter, of course, caused a firestorm of epic proportions, one that is smoldering to this day. My life and career went up in smoke, with countless Evangelical friends, family members, and colleagues in the ministry, standing on the sidelines cheering as I burned. Polly’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) parents have both died since I first wrote this post, so the tensions with them no longer exist. What does remain is sadness over being unable to reconcile with them before they died. We were willing, but their Fundamentalist beliefs kept them from doing so. In the end, Jesus won.
As you can tell from the letter, I still believed in some sort of deity — a deistic God, perhaps? However, by the end of 2009, I was calling myself an atheist. Polly, on the other hand, embraced agnosticism. Her reasons for leaving Christianity are very different from mine, but that story is hers to tell.
I read in Bob’s question an accusation of sorts, one I have heard countless times: that Polly doesn’t think for herself; that she is an unbeliever today because I am. Out of all the things people have said about us over the past seventeen years, this by far is the most offensive (and perhaps Bob didn’t mean to be offensive, so I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt). For the record, Polly is a college-educated woman. She graduated second in her high school class. To suggest that she is a lemming following in my footsteps is absurd. Granted, Polly is quiet and reserved, and I am not. This fact might lead people to false conclusions. Here’s what I know: Polly knows exactly why she no longer believes in the Christian God. Her reasons for deconverting are somewhat different from mine, but she is far more hostile towards organized religion than I am. Again, perhaps she will share why this is so someday.
We have six children and sixteen grandchildren. One son attends the Catholic church with his family, and the rest of our children are largely indifferent towards religion. I suspect the NONE label best describes them. While none of our children has publicly said they are agnostics or atheists, they are certainly anti-Evangelical and generally adverse to the machinations of American Christianity. Politically, most of our children are progressives and liberals, with a smidge of conservatism and libertarianism stirred in. This is as specific as I can be without trampling on their right to control their own storyline. I respect the boundaries we have set, and if one of them ever decides to tell their story, I hope they will let me publish it here.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen believes a husband beating his wife is NOT grounds for divorce; that a wife must submit to her husband even if he beats her. It should be noted that Thiessen has been accused of spousal abuse in his previous marriage.
There is nothing to unpack [from the quote below]. Abuse is not the criteria for divorce. Are you greater than Jesus??
Male leadership has been God-approved from the beginning. . . The NT gave the leadership role of the church to men, not women.
Throughout the Bible, we see this consistency and order from God. Why would he change this way of leadership for marriage and confuse everyone? Even if abuse is a part of the marriage, God does not change the leadership structure.
As Peter wrote- “In the same way, you wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives, ( 1 Peter 3:1)
The Bible does not teach nor give permission for husbands or men to be abusive towards wives and other women. When men do that they are sinning and need to get right with God. But notice Peter’s words. They fall in line with Jesus’ words on divorce. Abuse is not grounds for divorce.
Nor is abuse grounds or permission for women to disobey God’s instructions given through the apostles. Wives are to remain true to God’s word, following it correctly so that Jesus can work in their husbands.
Those pastors and other well-meaning Christians who tell wives they can leave their husbands and divorce them in these situations are leading more women to sin and disobey Jesus.
It is difficult to leave women in those situations but it must be done.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
