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.
Gabriel Hardy, pastor of an Evangelical house church called Army of the Lord in Hazell, Washington, stands accused of beating a child with a belt while church members stood by and did nothing.
The pastor of a home church in Hazel Dell was arrested on Thursday after a woman who attended the church said the pastor had whipped her 6-year-old child, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
According to deputies, the mother reported on Monday that 42-year-old Gabriel Hardy of Vancouver had whipped her child with a belt, leaving bruises and welts across the child’s lower back, hips, and buttocks.
The mother said she had asked a friend to take her child to services on Feb. 16 at the church called “Army of the Lord – Ministry of Defense” when she had been unable to attend herself. She said she asked the friend to ask Hardy to speak with her child about “recent disrespectful behavior,” according to deputies.
The child came home with bruises and welts, and told their mother that Hardy had whipped them about 12 times.
Investigators determined that Hardy preached about corporal punishment of young children and said he was divinely ordained to chastise children. Hardy also allegedly told the child’s mother that he had whipped them with a belt to discipline them.
On Thursday, detectives served a search warrant at Hardy’s home. He was not home at the time, but deputies said they found and seized related evidence.
Later that day, detectives contacted Hardy and, according to deputies, he said he hit the child with a belt.
Hardy was taken into custody and booked into the Clark County Jail for third-degree assault of a child.
The pastor of an in-home church in Hazel Dell pleaded not guilty in court Wednesday after a woman who attended the church alleged that a pastor whipped her 6-year-old child, leaving him with welts and bruises on his body.
42-year-old pastor Gabriel Hardy pleaded not guilty to third-degree assault of a child with a weapon following his arrest in February. Hardy was arrested for allegedly beating a six-year-old boy with a belt at his home, which also is the location of his church called ‘Army of God Ministry of Defense.’
According to court documents, the mother of the boy asked Hardy to speak with her son about his bad behavior, and when he returned from church, the mother located several red raised welts on her son’s lower back and buttocks. Which disturbed those only doors from the church.
“It’s heartbreaking to think to do that to a kid in front of all those people who just sat there, and no one wanted to help him,” said neighbor Jennifer Alexander.
Hardy confirmed to police he used a belt on the child for disrespecting and cursing at his mother. The mother claims she knew children were disciplined at the church but had not seen a child disciplined physically and did not give the pastor consent to strike her child.
“If the story is true that the mother sent them there for disciplinary action, then that’s when you sit there, and you pray with the child or say what else could you have done. But you don’t sit them in front of a bunch of peers and beat them,” said Alexander.
According to court documents, Hardy said his chastisement of the young boy was to protect and defend children by the word of God.
However, not everyone is convinced that this is so, and many fear more could happen at the in-home church.
“I can’t imagine any pastor that I’ve ever met ever doing this, so what else am I to think could it be a cult? Could this neighborhood be filled with people that I don’t want near my kids?”
And now neighbors said they want the in-home church gone.
“Who do you trust if you cannot trust your church, you know I go to my church when I need help, when I need something, where do they go now? They don’t have that security anymore.”
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.
William Galbreath, pastor of Harvest Holiness Church in Salem, South Carolina, stands accused of a dozen counts of criminal sexual conduct, multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, and assault charges.
An Oconee County preacher is facing child sex crime charges. The Sheriff’s Office says 57-year-old William Franklin Galbreath of Salem was arrested today on a dozen counts of criminal sexual conduct, multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, and assault charges.
The Sheriff’s Office was tipped off by investigators from Tennessee who working a case in which Galbreath reportedly sexually assaulted a minor.
Galbreath allegedly started sexually assaulting a victim in 2019 while she was a child and did so in her teenage years from 2022 until this year.
Later, a 2nd victim, also a teenager, was discovered later. Galbreath is the Pastor of Harvest Holiness Church in Salem.
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.
In 2023, 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. In 2024, Richard sent me another email, Dear Richard, the Evangelical Christian — Round Two. In what is turning out to be an annual affair, Richard sent me another email, which follows. I will attempt to respond to Richard again. (All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.)
Bruce, it has been awhile since I last corresponded with you. I noticed that you provided a couple of updates on 3/5/2025 where you shared a bit more about your life growing up. At times, it sounded pretty tumultuous, like life can be. Jesus certainly did not have it easy either.
In what way did Jesus have it “hard”? Outside of the 48-72 hours detailing his arrest, crucifixion, and burial, I find nothing in Scripture that suggests Jesus had a hard life. He might have had such a life, but we have no evidence that justifies such a claim. Even when we consider his suffering, it didn’t last long and does not compare to those who suffer years on end. (Please see I Wish Christians Would Be Honest About Jesus’ Three Day Weekend.)
King Herod wanted to kill him, so Joseph was instructed to take the family to Egypt and he quickly did as he was told. There was a certain similarity between the one you thought was your Dad and Joseph.
Robert Gerencser was no Joseph. He was largely an absentee father who repeatedly moved his family across the country because he couldn’t pay the rent or properly care for his wife and children. Dad didn’t attend my school or sporting events, never sent my children gifts for Christmas after promising to do so year after year, and stole money and property that belonged to me. Imagine being sent to school without lunch money or having to shoplift to have clothes.
As far as Dad’s motivations, I suspect he wanted to be viewed by others as successful and financially well-off. Simply put, he lived beyond his means, and his family suffered. For years, I hated my dad for all the moving, and the fact that I attended ten schools in three states. This was no way to raise and care for children.
You found out considerably later in life that you undoubtedly had another Dad you had never met. Joseph had been advised by Gabriel that Jesus’ Dad was God the Father, although it sounds quite clear from the Bible that his parents never revealed his origin in life to Him. Fear of being at odds with the religious establishment of the day was probably why Jesus and his half-brothers were not told of His supernatural beginnings by His mother and step-father. I do not believe that their role in His life caused them to love Jesus any less than the other children they had.
I found out who my biological father was via a DNA test. You make a lot of claims about Jesus and his parentage but provide no evidence for these assertions. A DNA test for Jesus would be nice. I get it, by faith you believe the supernatural claims in the Bible. However, I am not a person of faith, so if you want me to believe your claims, I will need more evidence than personal opinions. You are free to believe what you want, but I suspect your emails are an attempt to persuade me of the truthfulness of your claims. So far, I am unpersuaded.
Growing up in life, I was always told that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. One of the major problems with the doctrine of eternal security is that human beings and angels both have free wills. Satan chose to rebel against God, along with a third of the angels in heaven, and, as a result, they were cast out of heaven for their attempted insurrection/rebellion. We, as human beings, can choose to follow Jesus or we can choose to walk away from Him.
There is so much wrong with this paragraph that I don’t know where to begin.
First, both Calvinism and Arminianism — in all their flavors — are taught in the Bible. I concluded long ago that the Bible can be used to prove almost anything; when determining which Christian sect is right, I decided all of them are. Each sect, church, pastor, and individual Christian appeals to the Bible as justification for their beliefs. Who is right, and who is wrong? How do we determine who is right?
I reject the notion that humans have libertarian free will. I didn’t believe this as an Evangelical, and I certainly don’t believe it now. A lifetime of Evangelical and rightwing indoctrination and conditioning largely determined what I would believe, both as a child and an adult. There was nothing “free” about this process. If you would like to have an in-depth discussion about free will, let me know, and I will write an in-depth post (or series of posts) on this subject.
Let me add that Satan is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament. Evangelicals make a lot of assumptions about Satan. For example, most Evangelicals believe that the snake in the Garden of Eden was Satan. However, there’s not a shred of evidence for this claim.
Judas Iscariot was given numerous opportunities by Jesus to avoid the path of destruction his life ofbetrayal charted for him, but the love of money was too strong a temptation for him to resist. It also did not help that he was a thief as well.Jesus was certainly willing to forgive him.
Not according to the Bible. Judas was the Son of Perdition, chosen by God to betray Jesus. Since Jesus was a lamb slain before the foundation of the world, every aspect of Jesus’s birth and death were predetermined. God is sovereign over all things, including Jesus’s life and death.
Where does the Bible say Jesus was willing to forgive Judas? No, Jesus, the God-man, knew exactly what would happen to him. He knew when, where, and how Judas would betray him.
Initially, when the two thieves were being crucified with Jesus, they both railed against Him and were as abusive as the others who were mocking Him. (Matthew 27:44). Yet, in Luke 23:39-43, we read that when one of the thieves asked Jesus in humility to remember him when He came into His kingdom, Jesus was quick to assure him that he would be with Him in paradise that very day. In this life, what counts is how we finish and not how we start out. The thief who had the best ending never even got baptized.
All of us are privileged to be alive at this time in human history. There is much deception and an inordinate amount of erroneous information. The Bible tells the good, the bad, and the ugly. It has nothing to hide. When Jesus was crucified, his disciples concluded that he would stay dead, yet he showed Himself to them on multiple occasions prior to ascending into heaven. From being totally dispirited and discouraged, they became transformed and turned the world upside down with the Good News that death was defeated and we could be reconciled to God because Jesus died in our place for our sins.
Where does the Bible say one of the thieves got baptized? Both died on the cross, and were either left on the cross to rot or were thrown in an unmarked grave for criminals. I suspect Jesus ended up in a similar grave. There’s nothing in the Biblical account that suggests either thief was baptized.
Did the disciples really turn the world upside down? What evidence do you have for this claim? Jesus, at the time of his death, was largely a failure. When his followers gathered in the Upper Room after his death, how many were there? About 120. Jesus was largely ignored by both Jews and Gentiles alike, and it would be hundreds of years, thanks to Constantine, before Christianity numerically grew. I am not saying the disciples didn’t spread the gospel, but most Evangelicals grossly overestimate the influence Christians had on society during the early years of Christianity.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks that Satan uses today are “Christians” who become his mouthpieces/servants by words they say and actions they take. You had your share of such people crossing your path over the years Bruce. Even Job had to contend with that. His wife and his three friends were not much of a comfort to him during his trials. Jesus does not behave that way.
Let me be clear, I deconverted because I no longer believed the central claims of Christianity were true; that the core teaching of the church no longer made sense to me. (Please read The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) I didn’t leave Christianity because I was hurt, bitter, angry, or any of the other false reasons ascribed to my deconversion story. Most of my negative experiences with Christians came AFTER I deconverted, not before. While I have certainly met some kind, thoughtful Christians post-Jesus, I have received countless emails, blog comments, social media messages, and snail mail letters from hateful, mean-spirited, nasty bullies-for-Jesus. I am talking about thousands of such interactions. The Bible says you can judge believers based on the fruit their lives produce. All I see is a rotting corpse.
Although in recent years, you have been working overtime to convince others there is no God, God in His mercy still very much loves you. He came into this world to save sinners. We are all sinners in need of a Saviour.
Speak for yourself; I am not a sinner.
You can’t possibly know if God loves me. I could be an apostate or a reprobate. I see no evidence for a God who “loves me, cares for me, and has a wonderful plan for my life.” All I see is an absentee God who doesn’t give a shit about me. Of course, I don’t think God exists, so my argument is with the Bible’s God — a divine being created by humans. Let me add in passing, do you know there are numerous deities in the Bible, beginning in Genesis 1? I encourage you to check out Dr. Dan McClellan’s work on this subject.
I spend very little time trying to convince people of anything, let alone atheism. I am just one man with a story to tell. If people find my story helpful, I am grateful. However, I DO NOT evangelize people for atheism. Sure, I critique Evangelical Christianity, but I do not attempt to bring people to the light. I am content to write, and let people do with my writing what they will. Unlike Richard and countless other Evangelicals, I have never gone to a Christian blog or website and tried to get people to deconvert.
You have a multitude of physical ailments Bruce but you are still alive. Where there is life, there is hope.
Hope for what? You seem to think that I am lacking in some way; that my life is missing something important. How can you possibly know this? Yes, I have serious health problems. Yes, I will likely die sooner, and not later. I know my days are numbered. Yet, you want me to waste my time worshipping a non-existent deity? No thanks. Been there, done that. I have weighed the claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting.
I do not believe God sends anyone to hell. He gives us a free will. We choose to live how we want to live. The actions we take are what decide our final/ultimate destination. Romans is a very good book which explains the difference between living for the flesh or walking in the Spirit. The flesh and its fleshly appetites bring death. The Spirit gives life. We all need to choose life!
If God is the sovereign creator of all things and the giver and taker of life, then our eternal destiny rests solely with him. Our salvation rests in God’s hands, not ours. According to the Bible, every word, thought, and deed is controlled by God. It seems in Richard’s theology, God is the only one who doesn’t have free will.
It is evident that Richard thinks my life is inferior and that what I need is what he has — Jesus. And if I would only read the book of Romans, I would understand this. First, I exegetically preached through the book of Romans twice. I know what the book says. Second, I am not interested in what the Bible says about anything. That’s why I ask people NOT to send me preachy emails. Richard ignored my request and has now sent me THREE preachy messages, as if he could possibly say something I haven’t heard countless times before.
Apart from chronic pain and chronic illness, I have a good life. I have been married to a wonderful woman for almost forty-seven years. We are blessed to have six adult children, three daughters-in-law, and sixteen awesome grandchildren. We own our home, drive a newer model automobile, and have four cats. I have, in every way, a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious life. Yes, death is stalking me, and, at times, I can feel its breath upon my neck. I try each and every day to live life to its fullest. I have no need for God, the church, or the Bible. Richard lives in a blinkered world where all that matters is Jesus. If that works for him — fine, but such a life does not interest me.
Saved by Reason,
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.
I’m almost sixty-eight years old, and there has never been a moment when you were not in my life.
Mom and Dad talked about you before I was born, deciding to have me baptized by an Episcopal priest. They wanted me to grow up with good morals and love you, so they decided putting water on my forehead and having a priest recite religious words over me was the way to ensure my moral Christian future.
A few weeks after my birth, Mom and Dad gathered with family members to have me baptized at the Episcopal Church in Bryan, Ohio. I was later told it was quite an affair, but I don’t remember anything about the day. Years later, I found my baptismal certificate. Signed by the priest, it declared I was a Christian.
Jesus, how could I have been a Christian at age four weeks? How did putting water on my head make me a follower of you? I don’t understand, but according to the certificate, I was now part of my tribe’s religion: Protestant Christianity.
I turned five in 1962. Mom and Dad decided to move 2,300 miles to San Diego, California, believing that success and prosperity awaited them.
After getting settled, Mom and Dad said we need to find a new church to attend. Their shopping took them to a growing Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation, Scott Memorial Baptist Church, pastored by Tim LaHaye. It was here that I learned that my tribe had a new religion: Fundamentalist Baptist Christianity.
I quickly learned that our previous religion worshiped a false God, and my baptism didn’t make me a Christian at all. If I wanted to be a True Christian®, I had to come forward to the front of the church, kneel at the altar, and pray a certain prayer. If I did these things, I would then be a Christian — forever. And so I did. This sure pleased Mom and Dad.
Later, I was baptized again, but the preacher didn’t sprinkle water on my forehead. That would not do, I was told. True Baptism® required me to be submerged in a tank of water. And so, one Sunday, I joined a line of people waiting to be baptized. I was excited, yet scared. Soon, it came time for me to be dunked. The preacher put his left hand behind my head and raised his right hand towards Heaven. He asked, “Bruce, do you confess before God and man that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior?” With a halting child’s voice, I replied, “Yes.” And with that, the preacher, with a hanky in his right hand, put his hand over my nose, dunked me in the water, and quickly lifted me up. I heard both the preacher and the congregation say, “Amen!”
Jesus, the Bible says that the angels in Heaven rejoice when a sinner gets saved. Do you remember the day I got saved? Do you remember hearing the angels in Heaven say, “Praise be to the Lamb that was slain! Bruce Gerencser is now a child of God. Glory be, another soul snatched from the hands of Satan?”
After a few years in California, Mom and Dad discovered that there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and our family was just as poor in the Golden State as they were in the dreary flat lands of rural northwest Ohio. And so we moved, a process that happened over and over to me throughout the next decade — eight different schools.
As I became more aware and observant of my environment, I noticed that Mom and Dad had changed. Mom, in particular, was quite animated and agitated over American social unrest caused by hippies, niggers (a word routinely used by my parents), and the war in Vietnam against the evil forces of communism. Mom and Dad took us to a new church, First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio — an IFB church pastored by Jack Bennett. We attended church twice on Sunday and Wednesday evening.
I attended Bryan schools for two years. Not long after I started fourth grade, Mom and Dad decided it was time to move yet again. This time, we moved to a brand-new tri-level home on Route 30 outside of Lima, Ohio. It was there that I started playing basketball and baseball — sports I would continue to play competitively for the next twenty or so years. It was also there that I began to see that something was very wrong with Mom. At the time, I didn’t understand what was going on with her. All I knew is that she could be “Mom” one day and a raging lunatic the next.
I was told by my pastors, Jesus, that you know and see everything. Just in case you were busy one day and missed what went on or were on vacation, let me share a few stories about what happened while we lived in Lima.
One night, Mom was upstairs, and I heard her screaming. I mean SCREAMING! She was having one of her “fits.” I decided to see if there was anything I could do to help her — that’s what the oldest child does. As I walked towards Mom’s bedroom, I saw her grabbing shoes and other things and violently throwing them down the hallway. This was the first time I remember being afraid . . .
One day, I got off the school bus and quickly ran down the gravel drive to our home. I always had to be the first one in the door. As I walked into the kitchen, I noticed that Mom was lying on the floor unconscious in a pool of blood. She had slit her wrists. I quickly ran to the next-door neighbor’s house and asked her to help. She summoned an ambulance, and Mom’s life was saved.
Mom would try again, and again to kill herself: slitting her wrists, overdosing on prescription medication, driving in front of a truck. At the age of fifty-four, she succeeded. One Sunday morning, Mom went into the bathroom, pointed a Ruger .357 at her heart, and pulled the trigger. She quickly slumped to the floor and was dead in minutes. Yet, she never stopped believing in you, Jesus. No matter what happened, Mom held on to her tribe’s God.
Halfway through my fifth-grade year, Mom and Dad moved to Farmer, Ohio. I attended Farmer Elementary School for the fifth and sixth grades. One day, I was home from school sick, and Mom’s brother-in-law stopped by. He didn’t know I was in my bedroom. After he left, Mom came to my room crying, saying, “I have been raped. I need you to call the police.” I was twelve. We didn’t have a phone, so I ran to the neighbor’s house to call the police, but my Christian neighbor wouldn’t let me use her phone.. There would be no call to the police on this day. Do you remember this day, Jesus? Where were you? I thought you were all-powerful? Why didn’t you do anything?
From Farmer, we moved to Deshler, Ohio for my seventh-grade year of school. Then Mom and Dad moved us to Findlay, Ohio. By then, my parent’s fifteen year marriage was in shambles. Dad never seemed to be home, and Mom continued to have wild, manic mood swings. Shortly before the end of ninth grade, Dad matter-of-factly informed me that they were getting a divorce. “We don’t love each other anymore,” Dad said. And with that, he turned and walked away, leaving me to wallow in my pain. That’s how Dad always treated me. I can’t remember a time when he embraced me or said, “I love you.” I would learn years later that “Dad” was not my biological father; that my real father was a truck driver Mom met at age seventeen while working at The Hub — a local truck stop. I wonder, Jesus, was this why he kept me at arm’s length emotionally?
After moving to Findlay, Mom and Dad joined Trinity Baptist Church — a fast-growing IFB congregation pastored by Gene Millioni. After Mom and Dad divorced, they stopped attending church. Both of them quickly remarried. Dad married a nineteen-year-old girl with a baby, and Mom married her first cousin — a recent Texas prison parolee. So much upheaval and turmoil, Jesus. Where were you when all of this was going on? I know, I know, you were there in spirit, but you had more important things to do than loving and caring for a vulnerable, hurting teenager.
Mom and Dad may have stopped going to church, but I didn’t. By then, I had a lot of friends and started dating, so there was no way I would miss church. Besides, attending church got me away from home, a place where Dad’s new and improved wife made it clear I wasn’t welcome.
One fall weeknight, I sat in church with my friends listening to Evangelist Al Lacy. I was fifteen. As is the custom in IFB churches, Lacy prayed at the end of his sermon, asking, “with every head bowed, and every eye closed, is there anyone here who is not saved and would like me to pray for them?” I had been feeling under “conviction” during the sermon. I thought, “maybe I’m not saved?” So, I raised my hand. Lacy prayed for those of us who had raised our hands and then had everyone stand. As the congregation sang Just as I am, Lacy said, “if you raised your hand, I want you to step out of your seat and come to the altar. Someone will meet you there and show you how you can know Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” Much to the surprise of my friends, I haltingly stepped out from my seat and walked to the front. I was met by Ray Salisbury — a church deacon. Ray had me kneel as he took me through a set of Bible verses called the Roman’s Road. After quizzing me on what I had read, Ray asked me if I wanted to be saved. I said, “yes,” and then Ray said, “pray this prayer after me: Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I know you died on the cross for my sins. Right now, I ask you to forgive me of my sins and come into my heart and save me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” After I prayed the prayer, Ray said, “AMEN!” “Did you really believe what you prayed?” I replied, “yes.” “Then you are now a child of God, a born-again Christian.”
The next Sunday, I was baptized, and the Sunday after that, I went forward again, letting the church know that you, Jesus, were calling me to preach. I was all in after that. For the next thirty-five years, Jesus, I lived and breathed you. You were my life, the sum of my existence.
At the age of nineteen, I enrolled in classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. It was here I received training to become a proper IFB pastor, and it was here I met the love of my life, a beautiful dark-haired preacher’s daughter named Polly. We married during the summer between our sophomore and junior years. We were so excited about our new life, thrilled to be preparing to work in God’s vineyard. We planned to graduate, go to a small community to start a new IFB church, buy a white two-story house with a white picket fence, and have two children: Jason and Bethany, and live happily ever after. However, Jesus, you had different plans for us. Do you remember what happened to us? Surely you do, right? Friends and teachers told us that you were testing us! Polly was six months pregnant by early spring, and I was laid off from my machine shop job. We were destitute, yet, the college dean told us, “Jesus wants you to trust him and stay in college.” No offer of financial help was forthcoming, and we finally had to move out of our apartment. With my tail between my legs, I packed up our meager belongings and returned to Bryan, Ohio. I had failed your test, Jesus. I still remember what one of my friends told me, “If you leave now, God will NEVER use you!”
What did he know? After moving, I quickly secured secular employment at ARO and began working at a local IFB church. For the next twenty-five years, I pastored Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Jesus, you were my constant companion, my lover, friend, and confidante. I sure loved you, and I believed you loved me too. We were BFFs, right? Sometimes, I wondered if you really loved me as much as I loved you. Our love affair was virtual in nature. We never met face-to-face, but I believed in my heart of hearts you were the very reason for my existence. When I doubted this, I attributed my doubts to Satan or me not praying hard enough or reading the Bible enough. I never thought for one moment, Jesus, that you might be a figment of my imagination, a lie taught to me by my parents and pastors. I was a true believer. That is, until I wasn’t.
At age fifty, I finally realized, Jesus, that you were a myth, the main character of a 2,000-year-old fictional story. I concluded that all those times when I wondered where you were, were in fact, true. I couldn’t find you because you were dead. You had died almost 2,000 years before. The Bible told me about your death, but I believed that you were resurrected from the dead. I feel so silly now. Dead people don’t come back to life. Your resurrection from the dead was just a campfire story, and I had foolishly believed it. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Everyone I knew believed the same story. All of us believed that the miracles attributed to you, Jesus, really happened; that you were a virgin-born God-man; that you ascended to Heaven to prepare a mansion for us to live in after we die.
It all seems so silly now, Jesus, but I really did believe in you. Fifty years, Jesus. The prime of my life, I gave to you, only to find out that you were a lie. Yet, here I am today, and you are still “with” me. My parents, pastors, and professors did a good job of indoctrinating me. You are very much “real” to me, even though you lie buried somewhere on a Judean hillside. Try as I might, I can’t get you out of my mind. I have come to accept that you will never leave me.
You should know, Jesus — well, you can’t know, you are dead — that I spend my days helping people get away from you. What did you say, Jesus? I can’t hear you. I can hear the voices of Christians condemning me as a heretic, blasphemer, tool of Satan, and hater of God. I can hear them praying for my death or threatening me with eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire. Their voices are loud and clear, but your voice, Jesus? Silence.
Always silent, Jesus. Why is that?
If you ever want to talk to me, you know where I live. Show up at my door, Jesus, and that will be a miracle I can believe in. Better yet, if you can help the Cincinnati Bengals win the Super Bowl, that would be awesome!
If you can’t help my football team win a few games, Jesus, what good are you? It’s not like I am asking you to feed the hungry, heal the sick, or put an end to violence and war. That would require you to give a shit, Jesus, and if there’s one thing I have learned over the past sixty-eight years, it is this: you don’t give a shit about what happens on earth. We, humans, are on our own, and that’s fine with me.
A Sinner Saved by Reason,
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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Scores of Evangelical Bible colleges and institutes dot the American landscape. Some are accredited, and many are not; some have thousands of students, and others have a handful. While Evangelical Bible colleges are Fundamentalist in theology and practice, how much so varies greatly. (Please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?) My partner and I attended an unaccredited Bible college in the 1970s. Academic quality varied from class to class, and teacher to teacher. Some classes were intellectually challenging, others were little more than over-glorified Sunday school classes.
What is the purpose of Evangelical Bible colleges? Most students come from Evangelical churches, so the goal is to reinforce the beliefs students were taught in their home churches. Colleges continue the indoctrination and conditioning that students experienced before college. The goal is reinforcement, not education. In fact, many students graduate from Bible colleges without ever learning doctrines and teachings contrary to those held by their home churches and colleges. For example, I was never taught anything about Calvinism, eschatological views other than dispensational premillennalism, Arminianism, or beliefs other than those held by Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. The objective, then, is for students to believe and do the right things.
Sadly, Evangelical Bible colleges turn out woefully uneducated or under-educated students. Worse, these students think they know more than liberal preachers who have masters and PhD. degrees. They have been taught over and over that the Holy Spirit lives inside of them as their teacher and guide and that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. What more does a preacher need? Here’s what I know: an Evangelical preacher with a two-year Bible institute or a three-year Bible college education is no match against a seminary-trained preacher.
Evangelical colleges often promote ignorance. By not teaching students all sides of an issue, they continue to indoctrinate and condition them. Students with different beliefs are marginalized or kicked out. Doctrinal purity is essential. Instead of teaching students how to think, they are taught what to think. I attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. Senior men were ordained by nearby Emmanuel Baptist Church. Ordination prospects were required to affirm certain doctrinal beliefs. If a student was unable to do so out of differences of belief, they were not ordained. Remember, the grand objective is to reinforce beliefs.
This system turns out grievously ignorant preachers. Education is the cure for this ignorance, but non-Evangelical colleges are routinely criticized and demonized, so preachers rarely attend such schools. I am not suggesting that there’s no value in a Bible college education, but I am saying, for a preacher, it is not enough. Preachers need multiple years of training in Hebrew and Greek, along with exposure to as wide a spectrum of theology as possible.
Many Evangelical churches believe calling is all that matters. Lots of Evangelical churches are pastored by men without any formal training. No need, the thinking goes. All a God-called, Holy Spirit-filled man needs is a Bible. This leads to sorely ignorant preachers and church members.
Let me be clear, some Evangelical preachers value education. Some of them have legitimate, accredited degrees. However, just because a preacher says he has a master’s or doctorate doesn’t mean he has a quality, comprehensive education. Diploma mills are common. Many Evangelical preachers sporting doctorates actually have degrees “earned” from mills or mail-order schools. There’s no comparison between a doctorate from Harvard Divinity School and Pensacola Christian College. (Please see IFB Doctorates: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor.)
Did you attend an Evangelical Bible college? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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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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.
Former Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) youth pastor Stephen Hutto stands accused of sexually assaulting a minor girl while he worked for Fountain Independent Baptist Church in Fountain, Colorado. An Internet search revealed Wayland Hutto, a relative of Stephen’s, pastors the church. At the time of his arrest, Hutto was working as a pastor at Highlands Baptist Church in Boone, Colorado.
The Fountain Police Department says they have arrested a former youth pastor for an alleged sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust.
Stephen Hutto, 45 was arrested on March 2, according to police. He was previously employed with the Fountain Independent Baptist Church from 2007- 2010. He is facing charges related to an alleged sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl.
The timeline of the alleged abuse is a little unclear. Based on an arrest affidavit obtained by News5, the incident was reported years prior, with Fountain PD Detective Tori Smith locating the original report made in 2023. That original report to law enforcement says that the reporting party found out about the incident three years prior to 2023 and that the actual incident occurred 15 years ago, meaning the alleged abuse took place around 2008.
Based on investigations, the arrest affidavit states that the original call to report the abuse in 2023 was, “never forwarded to the appropriate unit for investigation.”
In an initial interview with Detective Smith, Hutto was asked why the victim “would report a sexual relationship between the two of them,” to which he replied, ” (the victim not named in the affidavit) was jealous of his family because he had been blessed.”
At the time of his arrest, Hutto was working as a pastor at Highlands Baptist Church in Boone, Colorado. The Fountain Police Department is seeking any additional witnesses or victims who may have information about this case.
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Hutto was arrested March 2 and has since bonded out of the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center (CJC). He is facing a felony charge of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust. He will be in court again on March 13, 2025. Hutto is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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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Someone using the moniker Samoan Hotty sent me the following email. All spelling and grammar in the original. My response follows:
Dear Bruce,
Rain falls on all of us,every single one of us. To some it is a welcomed shower and a source of water, to others it is nothing but an annoying nuisance that is cursed at.
Okay, and this has what to do with me, exactly?
Praying for you, your wife, your kids and your sweet precious grandkids.
Sigh. One more Christian who is allegedly praying for me and my family. Instead of doing something meaningful for me — cash, checks, and credit cards are welcome — Samoan Hotty offers up a meaningless prayer to the ceiling God. Scores of Christians have said they would pray for me — without success. Either there is no God, God didn’t hear their prayers, or they lied and didn’t really pray for me. Regardless, their prayers have not led to the saving of my soul or the death of my body — for those praying imprecatory prayers.
I’m only 29 and got 2 kids of my own and knowing their souls rest in Lord Father God’s hands and not in Satan’s gives me so much joy and relief.
How do you KNOW God or Satan exists? How do you KNOW your kids have souls, let alone their souls are resting in the hand of God? God must have pretty big hands if the souls of every believer rests in his hands. Or maybe, just maybe this is a cliche Evangelicals bandy about when wanting to convince themselves and others that God really, really cares for them and has a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious plan for their lives. No evidence is provided for these claims other than faith. That’s fine, but atheists find faith claims unconvincing, so don’t expect us to come running to Jesus.
I pray for their sake your pride does not turn your family away from knowing Lord Father God and getting to spend eternity with him.
What makes you think I have a problem with pride? Do you usually seek out strangers on the Internet and psychoanalyze them? You don’t know anything about me, yet you think it is okay to judge me.
My partner and I have been married for almost forty-seven years. We are blessed to have six adult children, ages 45, 43, 40, 35, 33, and 31. We also have three adult grandchildren, two of whom are in college, one studying pre-med at Ohio State University. and the other studying zoology at Miami University. We have five more grandchildren in middle school/high school, and eight grandchildren in elementary school. What they believe about a god or a religion is up to them, not me or their heathen mother/nana. I don’t talk about God/religion with them unless it naturally comes up in discussion or they ask me a question. Currently, son number two attends the Catholic Church with his family. The rest of the family does not attend church, though they do have varied beliefs about God and the afterlife. The choice of what to believe is theirs. When Polly and I deconverted seventeen years ago, we let our children, then sixteen to twenty-eight, know that they were free to make their own decisions about belief in God. If they choose to be atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or Christians, that is on them. We will love and support them regardless of what path they take in life. Am I pleased that none of them wants anything to do with Evangelicalism? You bet.
Like the rich man said, had he known what it was gonna be like he would lived life differently.
You know that’s just a made-up story, right? The poor man in this story lived a miserable life, yet, in the end, he was given a bunk in paradise, safe from pain and suffering. Never asked about this story is why God let the poor man suffer his entire life without helping him?
I live my life as I please, with the clear understanding and knowledge that I will one day soon die. I have a lot of health problems that are working hard to kill me. One day, they will succeed. Until then, I plan to live each day to its fullest. What matters most to me is my family. I have no interest in God/church/Bible. My life is fine just the way it is. I know you have difficulty wrapping your mind around someone who does not want or need your God, but that’s your problem, not mine.
♡ I pray it’s not too late for you ♡ God Bless
Too late for what, exactly? Outside of better health, more money, and the Reds winning the World Series, I have everything I want and need in life. Well, a heated indoor swimming pool would be nice too, and a 1970 Nova SS.
Let me ask you, what did you hope to accomplish by contacting me? You knew I was an Evangelical Christian for fifty years. You knew I was a college-trained pastor for twenty-five years. I know the Bible inside and out — probably better than you. Did you really think you were going to say something I haven’t heard countless times before? Trust me, I haven’t heard an original argument for God/Christianity in years.
It is too late for me to return to Christianity. I no longer believe the central claims of Christianity are true. They no longer make any sense to me. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) To become a Christian again means repudiating everything I know to be true, and that ain’t going to happen.
If you have any questions, please let me know, and I will do my best to answer them.
Saved by Reason,
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.
Over the years, I have been threatened with Hell and eternal punishment by countless Evangelicals. Yesterday, a Christian reader named JT left the following comment. All spelling and grammar in the original.My response follows.
I don’t know if you been asked this, but when you die, what are you going to do if you end up in hell?
I have been asked this question numerous times. Threats of judgment and Hell are common from Evangelical readers.
I have no fear about ending up in Hell after I die. None whatsoever. Hell is a religious construct used by clerics to cause fear and elicit obedience. Remove fear of Hell from the equation, and churches would empty overnight. Without threats of Hell, offering plates would be empty and preachers unemployed. Can’t have that, so threats such as yours continue unabated.
I’ve seen no evidence for the existence of Hell. Further, the Hell JT speaks of is not taught in Scripture. A good book on this subject is Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife by Dr. Bart Ehrman. Ehrman’s book shows that what we were taught in Evangelical churches about the afterlife is untrue.
I know you don’t believe in it, it’s your free will to believe in whatever. But my question is, what IF you find out that hell was real?
I don’t believe in the existence of Hell. I have not seen one iota of evidence for its existence. If you want me to believe Hell is real, you are going to have to do more than quote proof texts or make bald assertions. Surely, you don’t believe without sufficient evidence. Just because a preacher reads a few Bible verses out of context about Hell and tells a few sermon illustrations about people who died and went to Hell doesn’t mean it exists. Preachers can and do lie, even if they do so unintentionally. I preached scores of sermons on Hell, yet I never looked at the original Hebrew and Greek behind the English words for Hell in the King James Version of the Bible. I never read any of the history behind the evolution of Hell. I took what the Bible said and what my pastors and professors said about Hell at face value. Surely they wouldn’t lie to me, right? Maybe, but they may have been products of the same indoctrination and conditioning as I was. Generation after generation is taught about the existence of Hell and the eternal damnation and suffering that awaits non-Christians after death. Not one pastor or professor, to quote Paul Harvey, told me the rest of the story. Their goal was the reinforcement of fundamentalist dogma, not knowledge about what the Bible teaches about Hell and the history surrounding the notion of eternal punishment and suffering for everyone who is not a Christian.
And I know what is gonna play in your head, all the people you got to turn from Christianity to Atheism… How do you think you will feel about that knowing you had everything when you were a preacher but only to find out you were wrong and you have led 100s if not 1000s of people away from something that indeed was true?
I am just one man with a story to tell. I am not an evangelist for atheism. I couldn’t care less whether someone deconverts. All I know to do is tell my story and provide an honest, thoughtful critique of Evangelical Christianity. If people deconvert after reading my writing, that’s on them, not me. I don’t pressure people to deconvert. No high-pressure soulwinning tactics. No altar calls.
Have people deconverted as a result of my writing? Sure. I have heard from scores of people who told me my work was instrumental in their loss of faith, including pastors, evangelists, youth workers, missionaries, and college professors. I am humbled that people find my writing helpful. If Christian apologists don’t like my writing, they are free to rebut and challenge me. Produce a podcast, start a blog, preach sermons, etc. I offer a standing invitation to Evangelicals (Muslims, Catholics, Mormons too) to write a guest post rebutting my writing. No editing, no strings attached. I’ve been blogging for seventeen years. I can count on one hand the Christians who have taken me up on this offer. Instead, most of my critics foam at the mouth and rage against me on social media, on their blogs/podcasts, and in their Sunday sermons. I have even offered to debate them publicly. No one has taken me up on the debate offer. Take Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiesen. Thiessen is a college-trained Evangelical preacher. He has written thousands of words attacking me personally or a particular subject I’ve written about on this site. I have challenged him to a public debate several times, without success. What is he so afraid of? I’ve even given him the opportunity to author guest posts for this site, which he did one time before bitching, moaning, and complaining about me changing his writing. I did no such thing, but ever the martyr, he thinks otherwise. Thiessen knows that he is free to respond to anything I have written on this site. Other critics know the same.
Just think about it. I’m not one of those judgemental Christians,
LOL! You threaten me with Hell, and then, with a straight face, you say you are NOT “one of those Christians.” Sure JT, sure.
I believe in God because of my death experience, the things that God has truly shown me… You could never change my mind about what I believe in and I’m sure that I can’t change you back to believing in Jesus.
How do you KNOW your peculiar God did anything for you? Outside of your feelings, what empirical evidence do you have for the existence of your God, and it was he alone who “showed” things to you? I am more than happy to have a discussion with you about the existence of the Christian God.
Unlike you. I am open to being persuaded that God exists. So far, no Christian has successfully persuaded me that their God exists and is personally involved in their lives. but I am not closed-minded. If you think you can prove to me the existence of your God, please do so. There are others on this site who would love to see your evidence for God, too. I’m an agnostic atheist, not an anti-theist. I’m open to persuasion, JT, so bring it on. Keep in mind, I have already heard virtually every defense of the one true faith, so you will need a new argument of some sort to persuade me.
God would have to make that happen..
Then my salvation is up to God, right? If I die and go to Hell, it’s God’s fault, right? God knows where I live. He knows my phone number and email address. He could even write a guest post for me. So far, God is silent. He’s not uttered one word to me outside of apologists who claim to speak for him. If God exists, the salvation of my soul is up to him, not me.
I think one day you may come back as God has not yet taken you out of this world yet… I think he has something up his sleeve that will pull you back to him.
What, exactly, does God have up his sleeve? He is all-powerful, so he could save me at any time. Yet, it’s been seventeen years since I deconverted, and God has not said one word to me or done anything that suggests to me he exists.
You make God sound like a magician — a deity that has a trick up his sleeve that will magically deliver me from atheism. I am confident that I will die sooner and not later, and when I die, it will be because of bad health or my partner crowning me with a Lodge cast iron skillet, and not because God killed me.
And if I was, per chance, drawn back to Christianity, it would not be Evangelicalism. That ship has sailed. I have seen and experienced the ugliness of Evangelicalism, and God himself couldn’t convince me to return to the fold.
Just know, satan hates me right now, because he has you at work, and I’m trying to disrupt that work.
My, oh my, you think highly of yourself; that Satan, the alleged God of this world hates you because you think you have interrupted his work in my life. Satan is no more real than God. You might want to do some reading on how the personage of Satan came into being. He is not who you think he is. You might find The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics by Dr. Elaine Pagels a good read on this subject.
All I can say is that I love you no matter what you believe in and I will be praying for you. Blessings,
I know you mean well, but you don’t know me, so you can’t possibly “love” me. I suspect you are used to the cheap love bandied about by Evangelicals. The same goes for “praying for me.” Are you really going to continually pray for me? I doubt it. Prayers come and go, and I suspect yours will do the same. I don’t say this to criticize you as much as to remind you that I was an Evangelical Christian for fifty years. I know how Evangelicals use the cheap cliche “I’m praying for you.” Besides, you threatened me with Hell, so I hope you will forgive me if I don’t think much of your love and prayers. Send me a couple of hundred-dollar bills along with your love and prayers, and I might think differently. 🙂
Saved by Reason,
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.
President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance embarrassed the United States on the world stage with a staged meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I appreciate Zelenskyy standing up to the Orange Bully and his butt plug.
More world leaders need to follow in Zelenskyy’s footsteps, standing up to a bully who only knows violence and power. Trump has likely gift wrapped Ukraine for Vladimir Putin, but if enough world leaders stand their ground, maybe Trump will put an end to demands that violate the national sovereignty of other states. Maybe, though it is just as likely he will drag us into World War lll.
It is astounding that most congressional Republicans refuse to stand up to Trump’s acquiescence to Putin and Russia. What happened to Russia being our mortal enemy? Something tells me Russia knows things about Trump he doesn’t want anyone else to know, so they blackmail Trump to get him to do their bidding. This was clear when Trump demanded Zelenskyy apologize for what he said about Putin — a man who has killed thousands of Ukrainians and destroyed their country’s homes, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure.
Stupid reporter of the day was the one from right wing media who asked Zelenskyy why he didn’t wear suits. The reporter went on to allege that this is a burning question on the minds of Americans. Really?
It is not at all certain that our republic will survive Trump’s presidency. Maybe, but I have my doubts. Trump is unilaterally making decisions that could destroy our economy and lead us into military conflict.
Where is the Democratic Party? I’m at a loss to figure out the party’s game plan, or even if they have one. Outside of a handful of outspoken Democrats, all I hear is deafening silence.
We now have a bathroom law in Ohio that protects us from roaming hordes of transgender people storming public bathrooms and attacking us. Of course, this is a non-issue. There is no bathroom problem outside of the cheap, single-ply toilet paper used in most public facilities.
Ohio can fix the bathroom issue by making all bathrooms co-ed with individual, private stalls. See how easy that was?
There’s a measles outbreak in Texas. Most of the infected are unvaccinated Mennonites. This is yet another example of how Fundamentalist Christianity can and does cause harm and kill people.
Connect the dots . . . between Fundamentalist Christianity, MAGA, and vaccine denial. They seem to be closely connected.
Bonus: The Southern Baptist Convention has no intention of building a database to list preachers who have committed sex crimes. Their excuses are legion, all the while preachers continue to prey on children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults. As I’ve asked about people still attending Catholic churches, why do people still attend Southern Baptist churches?
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.
Those of us raised in Evangelical churches were told that the God of the Bible gave us lives with meaning and purpose. Without God, our lives have no meaning and purpose. Want an awesome life? Get saved! Or so the story goes, anyway.
However, when asked to provide evidence for this claim, none is forthcoming. Does religion give countless people meaning and purpose? Sure, but Evangelicals argue that only their peculiar deity actually gives life meaning and purpose. This means that billions and billions of people go through life living meaningless, purposeless lives. This claim, of course, is absurd.
Babies come into the world as a blank slate. Outside of what DNA gives them, babies have no religious or political beliefs. Virtually all of us begin life with the political and religious beliefs of others — our parents, grandparents, tribe, and church. It is not shocking in the least to see how parental and tribal influences affect how a child grows up. It is not surprising at all that I grew up as an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Christian and a right-wing Republican. It would be many years before I shook the indoctrination and conditioning of my parents, family, and church. And I should add, it was also years before I cast off the borrowed theology of my pastors and professors.
Evangelical children’s ministries push the idea that it is important to reach people with the gospel when they are children. The older people become, the harder it is to evangelize them. That’s why Evangelical churches have children’s programs that aggressively proselytize children as young as five.
Both my partner and I were saved at age five. We later made professions of faith as teenagers — a common experience in IFB and Southern Baptist churches. Both of us became what our parents and churches made us into. It would be years before we saw our way clear to embrace our own beliefs. I suspect this rings true for many Evangelicals-turned-atheists.
The most important thing parents can teach their children is to think for themselves. Parents have the responsibility to nurture, care, and protect their children. Evangelicals tend to teach their children what to think instead of how to think. From the time I was born, my parents and other influences taught me what to believe. No instruction was given in philosophy or world religions, outside of other religions being heretics or cults. For the first twenty-five years of my life, the goal of my influencers was to reinforce Fundamentalist beliefs and practices. Day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, these well-intentioned people withheld the truth from me. Maybe they were as ignorant as I was, having indoctrinated themselves in the “one truth faith.” No ground was ever given to other beliefs or practices. The IFB, and later Evangelicalism, was the one true faith. One lord, one faith, one baptism — ours.
Once liberated of past indoctrination and conditioning, I was free to reinvestigate my beliefs. I learned that despite five decades of having religion determine the meaning and purpose of my life, there is no inherent meaning or purpose. Life, then, is the slates upon which we write the parameters of our lives. Atheists are told they live meaningless and purposeless lives, but this is patently untrue. Only people who think God is the end-all make such a stupid claim. Just because I believe differently from Evangelicals doesn’t mean I am lacking in any way. My life has all the purpose and meaning it needs. I have a good idea of what I need, want, and value in life.
While our lives have no inherent meaning and purpose, they do have meaning and purpose — that which we give them every day of our lives. We alone decide what matters in our lives. Truly, to each our own.
As an ex-Evangelical, how do you explain purpose and meaning of your life? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
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.
