Menu Close

Tag: Evangelicalism

How Evangelicals Read and Interpret the Bible

1 Comment
want truth read bible-001

How do Evangelicals read and interpret the Bible? By Bible, I mean the sixty-six books of the Protestant Christian Bible. Before Evangelicals read one syllable of the Bible, they agree to the following presuppositions:

  • The Bible is the very words of God.
  • The Bible is inspired — breathed out by God.
  • The Bible is inerrant — without error.
  • The Bible is infallible — true in all that it says,
  • The Bible is meant, with few exceptions, to be read and interpreted literally.
  • The Holy Spirit teaches us what particular verses of the Bible mean.
  • The Bible has no errors, mistakes, or contractions.
  • The Bible is internally consistent (univocality).

All of the presuppositions above are faith claims. Either you believe them, or you don’t. Of course, these claims are little more than special pleading. Evangelicals don’t read any other text or book this way except the Bible. Imagine taking this same approach with an auto repair manual or a biology textbook.

Books are meant to provide us with knowledge. We read because we want to know. When Evangelicals read the Bible, they want knowledge too, but that knowledge is conditioned by the claims made above. As a result, this leads to wild, rationally indefensible interpretations of the Bible and demands for conformity of belief.

I have no doubt some of my Evangelical critics will object to this post, saying that the “natural man understands not the things of God” or unbelievers, lacking the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, cannot rightly read, interpret, or understand the Bible. In their minds, the moment I deconverted, God did a Men in Black-like mind wipe on me, and all the knowledge I had about the Biblical text was gone. This, of course, is absurd.

Anyone can understand the Bible if they are willing to read it and use widely available tools to interpret the text properly. Contrary to what Evangelicals say, the Bible is NOT so simple that a child can understand it. The Bible is a complex text written in several languages by numerous authors over many centuries. An inability to read the underlying Hebrew and Greek manuscripts hinders the ability to determine what the Bible actually says. There are tools that can be used to ameliorate this problem, but even here, Evangelical-produced tools can and do operate from the presuppositions above. Instead of letting the chips fall where they may, these tools dishonestly present the Bible as a unified text, consistent in all that it says. This is patently untrue, as any non-Evangelical Biblical scholar will tell you.

Every reading of the Bible should start with the data. Instead of letting the two creation accounts in Genesis 1-3 speak for themselves, Evangelicals try to make the conflicting accounts “fit.” This is called harmonization. There are lots of such contradictions in the Bible, yet Evangelicals will deny this, coming up with all sorts of novel explanations to turn away claims that the Bible is not infallible and inerrant. The Bible, in Evangelical minds, can’t be errant and fallible. If it is, that means their God, who wrote the Bible, is errant and fallible too.

Faith prevents Evangelicals from seeing the Bible for what it is: a fallible, errant text written by fallible, errant men. Does the Bible have value? Sure. Can the Bible provide wisdom and direction? Yes. Can the Bible lead people to God? Absolutely. These things can be true without the Bible being a supernatural text written by a supernatural God.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Questions: If You Could Travel Back in Time, What Would Sixty-Seven-Year-Old Bruce Tell Young Bruce?

3 Comments
questions

Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.

I look forward to reading and answering your questions.

Cubs Fans asks:

And if it were possible for you to time travel back to the 70’s and 80’s and talk to your younger self what would you say to him?

Years ago, I wrote a post titled, Advice for Young Pastors From an Ex-Evangelical Preacher. This post was well-received and has been mentioned several times in books written by Evangelicals. Here’s what I had to say:

1. Don’t confuse your self-identity with the church. Far too many pastors allow themselves to be swallowed up by the church, losing their self-identity in the process.

2. Don’t sacrifice your children or spouse for the sake of the church. Trust me, twenty-five years later, the church will have long since forgotten you and your sacrifice will mean little.

3. Choose which battles are worth fighting. Not every hill is worth dying on, and not every challenge to your authority or leadership is worthy of a fight. Remember, the church is not your church. You, along with people who likely have been there for many years, are simply caretakers of the church.

4. Be willing to say, I don’t know. I realize this puts you at great risk of being unemployed (since church members crave certainty) but speaking with certainty when you know there is none is lying and dishonest.

5. Be aware of the traps that can destroy your ministry, especially the big two – money and women (and men). Never touch the money and never allow yourself to be put in a position where moral compromise is possible.

6. Insist that the church pays you well. Don’t be a full-time worker for part-time pay. It is okay to pastor churches that cannot pay you a living wage, but the church must understand that you have an obligation to your family and you must work a job outside the church to properly provide for them.

7. Make sure there is an annual pay review procedure in place. You should not have to beg for a raise. Make sure you have an employment contract where the job requirements, pay level, benefits, pay review period, and termination procedure are clearly laid out. If a church is unwilling to put all of this in writing, what does that tell you?

8. If at all possible, own your own home. Someday you will not be a pastor. Someday you will be old and retired. Then what? Where will you live? Churches can rent out the parsonage and provide you with a housing allowance. Remember, most of the church members are building equity in their homes and you should be able to do the same.

9. Insist that the church pays into a 401(k) that you own. Do not let anyone convince you to opt out of Social Security. It may sound okay now, but when you are old you will regret it. What happens if you are disabled and have not paid into Social Security? You are out of luck, and God isn’t going to pay your mortgage.

10. Make sure that all sacrifice is shared. Remember, it is not your church and it is not you alone who is responsible for saving the church from whatever crisis it faces.

11. Don’t use your wife and children as gophers and fill-ins every time something needs to be done at the church. Insist that church members take ownership of the church and do the work necessary to maintain the church and do what is required to keep the church functioning.

12. Don’t be in a hurry to find a church to pastor. A lot of churches that are looking for pastors don’t deserve one. They have chewed up and spit out the last five preachers before you and, trust me, they will do the same to you. Let them die.

13. If a community already has X number of churches, don’t delude yourself with thinking that if you started a new, exciting church it would be different from all the rest. It won’t. People are people, and churches are pretty much all the same. Don’t flatter yourself.

14. Focus on people that need help. Focus on the least of these. By all means, offer them Jesus, but do not neglect their physical needs. The greatest difference you can make in a person’s life is to help them when they are suffering. Above all, be their friend.

15. Visit regularly the homes of the people you pastor. Get to know them. Allow them to be honest with you and ask you whatever questions they want. Eat their food, take them out to eat, and pay the bill. Don’t smother them, but don’t neglect them either.

16. Don’t get sucked into buildings and programs that the church does not need. Rather than building a fancy new building, complete with a gymnasium, think about maximizing what you have so more money can be given to the poor. If church members want to play basketball or do Pilates, they can go to the Y.

17. Do everything you can to integrate the youth into the church. They should be stakeholders. After all, they are the future of the church. This does not mean that you must become one of them. There is nothing more embarrassing than a pastor who tries to act like a teenager. Grow up and be a good example.

18. Work hard and be honest. Don’t be the kind of preacher that gives all preachers a bad name. Just because you are the pastor of a church doesn’t mean you are entitled to special treatment. Don’t ask for discounts and don’t expect people to favor you just because you pastor X church on Main St.

19. Don’t tell anyone you are a preacher. Don’t self-promote. Don’t insist people call you Reverend or pastor. Be an authentic human being, complete with faults and frailties. Don’t be afraid to admit to the church that you are a failure, that you are no better than anyone else.

20. Don’t let people put you on a pedestal. Trust me, falls off the pedestal are nasty.

21. Above all, understand that life is more, far more, than the ministry. Stop and take time to enjoy life, to enjoy the world you say your God created.

I stand by these words today. If only someone had told me these things when I was a young, on-fire preacher, I would have avoided some of the costly mistakes I made over twenty-five years in the ministry.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Questions: Bruce, Could You Still Preach a Sermon Today?

4 Comments
questions

Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.

I look forward to reading and answering your questions.

Charles asked:

Could you still preach a sermon today?

As an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years, I preached lots of sermons — three to seven times a week, 4,000 sermons, in all. I am a seasoned public speaker, and according to the approbation of others, pretty good at it. Preaching never came hard for me. I was a consummate outliner, rarely saying anything I didn’t intend to say.

I am confident that I could still preach a sermon if asked to do so. Preaching is a learned skill, so I didn’t lose my ability to preach just because I deconverted. Evangelicals assert that preaching requires the filling of the Holy Spirit, but this is a faith claim, not one rooted in fact. Scores of Evangelical zealots have told me that I never was a Christian. If this is so, and effective preaching requires being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, why was I able to preach 4,000 sermons as an unsaved, apostate child of Satan? It seems to me, that effectual preaching requires skill, dedication, passion, and commitment, none of which requires the Holy Spirit.

Over my lifetime, I have heard many phenomenal preachers; men gifted with the ability to passionately and effectively preach. I have also heard over the years, many preachers who couldn’t preach their way out of a wet paper bag. Men who lack basic preaching skills, these men of God have no business preaching. They might be good with people, but these preachers can’t preach sermons that challenge and move people. My father-in-law was one such preacher. His sermons were awful. Often, they are rabbit chasers who think “getting up there and winging it” is a sound strategy. It’s not, and just because people praise your sermon after the service doesn’t mean they aren’t lying. (I stopped shaking hands at the door after the service for this very reason.)

Could I still preach an effective, passionate, call to action? Absolutely. Now if I can only find a church that would let me put my words to the test. 🙂

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is Jesus Hope for the Hopeless and Rest for the Weary?

3 Comments
hopeless and helpless

I used to enthusiastically preach that Jesus was hope for the hopeless and rest for weary. Unfortunately, for many people, Jesus, or I should say Evangelical Christianity, made them weary and hopeless.

What should have been a source of hope and rest turned into something destructive — so destructive that some people have thoughts of committing suicide.

It shouldn’t be this way. I am convinced that Jesus — real or not — is not the problem. I find nothing in the words of Jesus that would cause me to lose hope or have thoughts of suicide.

No, it is what the church has done with Jesus over the past 2,000 years that is the problem. God, Jesus, and the Bible have become tools of manipulation, control, and destruction.

I wish I could share with you the emails I get from people who are former, or trying to be former, Evangelicals. I can’t share them because I respect the privacy of those who email me. For some, my email inbox has become their confessional. I can tell you this: there are a lot of people who are hopeless and weary as a result of their immersion in the Evangelical Christian religion.

They often have no place to turn. In many instances, their families or spouses are still in the church. They desperately need someone to talk to, but they have no place to turn. They can’t go to their pastor — he wouldn’t understand. If they live in a small town, they can’t even seek out a local counselor because everyone will know (you would have to live in a small town to understand this).

So they suffer in silence. In the night they toss and turn and wonder what has gone wrong. Where is God? There is no God. Where is the God of hope? There is no hope. Where is the God who gives rest? There seems to be no rest.

Their thoughts turn to suicide. No, I can’t do that, I’ll go to Hell. Wait, there is no God, who gives a shit?

I want you to know that I give a shit. I have been where you are and some days I am still where you are. There are a lot of readers of this blog who know your story. They have lived it. They are still living it. They know the struggle you are going through — the struggle of a life of faith that has turned into faithlessness, a life of believing that has turned into unbelief. Maybe you are like the man in the Bible who cried “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.”

I am not out to convert you to my cause or change you. It does not matter whom you worship, where you worship, what you believe, or what label you give yourself.

My desire for you is hope and rest.

For many of us, the Evangelical Christian faith has caused psychological harm. The wounds and scars run deep. All the attempts in the world to marginalize our feelings will come to naught. We know what we know.

It’s late . . .

I can hear the clock ticking.

Another night with no sleep.

I hear my lover snoring.

I think of our life together.

So much time wasted.

So much work invested in things that do not matter.

Years have passed us by.

God, we served you.

God, we loved you.

God, we worshiped you.

God, we left all to follow you.

Careers, ambitions, wealth, family . . .

All forsaken to follow you.

Only to find out it was all a dream, and a bad dream at that.

And so, in the still of the night, I reflect on the heap of my life.

What am I to make of all this?

Can I go on?

Will I go on?

I must go on.

God or not, there is a life to be lived.

God or not, I still must live as if I am dying.

Because I AM dying.

So much life yet to live.

So much life yet to experience and enjoy.

God is back on the shelf where he belongs.

Maybe I’ll dust him off again on my final day.

Probably not.

Until then, I will live morally and ethically.

Until then, I will love and hate.

Until then, I will walk the path called life the best way I know.

Without God, without the Bible, and most certainly without the church.

I still have hope.

My hope is no longer built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

My hope is built on the love and goodness of humankind.

These days, the only gods I see are my family, friends, and fellow humans.

I devote myself to these gods.

I worship them.

That’s enough for me.

I will leave eternity to another day.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Questions: Bruce, As an Evangelical Pastor, Did You Ever Interact with an Atheist?

3 Comments
questions

Every year or two, I ask readers to submit questions they want me to answer. That time has arrived once again. Any question. Any subject. Please leave your questions in the comment section or send them to me via email. I will try to answer them in the order received.

I look forward to reading and answering your questions.

Cubs Fan asked:

As an evangelical pastor did you ever engage an atheist?

This question will not take me long to answer. Outside of “meeting” a pair of atheists while knocking on doors in the 1970s as a student at Midwestern Baptist College, I never interacted with anyone who claimed to be an atheist.

In 2021, I wrote a post titled, Bruce, As an Evangelical, What Were You Taught About Atheism? Here’s what I had to say:

This could be the shortest post I have ever written. Not really. Remember, I was a preacher for twenty-five years. I always have something to say on a subject. That said, the short answer to this question is this: absolutely nothing. I have no recollection of my pastors or my professors at Midwestern Baptist College ever mentioning atheism or atheists. In the 1970s and 1980s, the enemies of Evangelicalism — particularly in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement — were: liberalism, the Southern Baptist Convention, modern Bible translations, situational ethics, and sexual immorality. The culture wars fueled by Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority were all the rage. I heard lots of sermons about abortion and prayer/Bible reading in schools, but not atheism proper. At times, atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s name would come up in sermons, but only in the context of the aforementioned culture war issues.

I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. I can’t recall preaching one sermon on atheism. I mentioned O’Hair on occasion, but not her atheism per se. In fact, I didn’t know any atheists. As far as I know, no atheist ever attended one of the churches I pastored. Were there atheists in the midst? Sure, just like there were LGBTQ people too. Such “abhorrent” beliefs and identities were, however, hidden — deeply buried in the proverbial Fundamentalist closet.

There is one atheist story I would like to share with readers, a humorous conclusion to this post. During my freshman year of college, a fellow dorm student and I were out knocking on doors one Saturday, hoping to find someone willing to let us share the gospel with them. Students were required to go soulwinning every week. Then we were required to report our evangelistic endeavors to the college. Many students, myself included, lied about how many doors they knocked on, how many people they led to the Lord. During the three years I attended Midwestern, I led a total of two people to Christ. I was, when it came to winning souls, a failure.

As my friend and I went from door to door in a Pontiac neighborhood, we had little to no success when it came to the “souls saved” department. What happened next, however, left an indelible impression on two virgin Baptist preachers-to-be. First, as we walked up the sidewalk to the next house, we noticed a number of squirrels in the yard. All of a sudden, one of the squirrels ran for my friend, jumped on his leg, and proceeded to scale his tall frame before jumping off his shoulder. Once we regained our composure, we walked up to the door and knocked. I should note before I tell the rest of this story, that locals were frequently harassed by Midwestern students. Imagine, being up late on Friday night, only to have a couple of Bible thumpers banging on your front door first thing in the morning. Many of us went soulwinning early on Saturdays so we could have the rest of the day to ourselves. It was the one day when I could spend significant time with my wife-to-be.

Then, as we knocked on the door, we heard people scuffling inside. Soon the door opened, and standing there stark naked were a man and a woman. My fellow dorm mate and I were speechless — I mean dumbstruck. Before either of us could start our soulwinning spiel, the man said, “we’re atheists, and we are not interested in what you have to say.” And with that and a laugh, the man shut the door.

This would be my first and last interaction with an atheist until I started reading books by atheist and agnostic authors in 2008. I still haven’t met many atheists in person. Most of my interaction with godless people has come through this blog and social media.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Why Do Evangelical Preachers Lie About Their Support of Israel?

1 Comment
israel flag

Evangelicals love the Jews, or so they would have you believe, anyway. Grossly misinterpreting what the Bible says about Abraham and Jehovah’s chosen people, the Jews, many Evangelicals believe the future of the United States rests squarely on the unconditional support of Israel and its genocidal war against the Palestinian people. God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who don’t, so the thinking does. What’s not stated outside the safety of Evangelical churches is what else they believe about Jews:

  • Jews are not chosen in a salvific sense of the word. Because Jews reject Jesus as their Messiah, they will go to Hell when they die.
  • After Jesus returns to earth and raptures away his chosen ones — born-again Christians — earth’s inhabitants will face seven years of violence, torture, bloodshed, and death at the hands of God and the AntiChrist.
  • Many Jews will eventually bow a knee to Jesus, but going to Heaven after they die requires them to be martyred for their faith. As the movie A Thief in a Night showed, many of these Jewish martyrs will be beheaded for their allegiance to Jesus.

Jews need to be aware that these teachings lurk behind all the “We Love and Support Israel” talk flowing from Evangelical mouths. The Jews are just a means to an end, and when all is said and done, they will burn in Hell.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Bruce, You Are Misrepresenting Evangelicals

3 Comments
whining evangelical

I am often accused by readers of misrepresenting Evangelicals in my writing; that my descriptions and criticisms of Evangelicalism don’t apply to a reader’s sect, their church, or to them personally. I have heard, more times than I can count, Evangelicals say: my church is different, my pastor is different, my denomination is different, my college is different, I’m DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT! While it is certainly true that not all Evangelicals are the same, often the alleged differences are little more than the differences between ice cream flavors. Same basic ingredients with different flavors and toppings. Evangelicals can whine, bitch, moan, and complain about my writing, but the fact remains that I was part of Evangelicalism for 50 years, an Evangelical pastor for 25 of those years, and have Evangelical family members — including pastors, evangelists, and missionaries — and closely follow the machinations of the Evangelical community. I am confident I have a good handle on Evangelical beliefs and practices.

Over the years, I have perused the doctrinal statements of numerous Evangelical sects, churches, and parachurch organizations. The agreement I find in these documents allows me to determine what Evangelicals believe. For twenty-five years, I pastored seven Evangelical churches, so I think I have a good handle on the “faith once delivered to the saints.”

But, Bruce, Evangelicals don’t agree with one another on a host of theological beliefs! I understand that, but such differences are tangential to the cardinal doctrines (almost) all Evangelicals profess to believe. Thus, Charismatics speak in tongues, Baptists don’t. Holiness Christians believe in entire sanctification, Baptists don’t. Some Evangelicals are Calvinists some are Arminians, and others are Calminians. Evangelicals are all over the place when it comes to eschatology and ecclesiology. Some believe baptism is required for salvation, others don’t. The list of differences is extensive. See, Bruce, you are proving my point! No, I am not. If you look underneath these peripheral differences — often called “distinctives” — you find unity of belief:

  • The inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of the Bible
  • The sinfulness, depravity of man
  • The deity of Christ
  • The virgin birth of Christ
  • The blood atonement of Christ for man’s sin (usually subscribing to the substitutionary atonement theory)
  • The resurrection of Jesus from the dead
  • The second coming of Christ
  • Separation from the world
  • Salvation from sin by and through Jesus alone
  • Personal responsibility to share the gospel with sinners
  • Heaven and Hell are literal places

Anyone who claims to be an Evangelical yet denies one or more of these cardinal doctrines is Evangelical in name only. The fringe of the Evangelical tent is littered with pastors, professors, and congregants who hold all sorts of liberal/progressive Christian beliefs, yet refuse to own what they are. And I get it. Towards the tail end of my ministerial career, some of my beliefs were definitely not Evangelical. Yet, Evangelicalism was home. It was all that I had ever known. I couldn’t bring myself to abandon my metaphorical family, even though I was liberal/progressive belief-wise. Even today, sixteen years removed from walking away from Christianity, I still, at times, miss my family. Not Jesus, not the ministry, but the social connection I had with many loving, wonderful people. 

Often, Evangelicals think I am misrepresenting them when I have the audacity to claim that Evangelicals are Fundamentalists. This argument alone has led to all sorts of objections from Evangelicals who scream from rooftops, I AM NOT A FUNDAMENTALIST! However, as I show in my post, Are Evangelical Fundamentalists?, Evangelicals are inherently Fundamentalists both theologically and socially. There’s simply no way to be a consistent Evangelical and not be a Fundamentalist.

Well, Bruce, I don’t care what you say, I am an Evangelical, and I am not a Fundamentalist! You can self-identify any way you want, but just because you do so doesn’t change the fact that your theological beliefs and social practices are Fundamentalist. If you walk, talk, and act like a Fundamentalist, you are one. 

I get it. Evangelicalism is one of the most hated religious groups in the United States. Thoughtful, kind, generous Evangelicals hate what Donald Trump and his merry band of culture warriors have done to our country. However, is the answer to stay on the deck of the Titanic as it rolls into the sea? If you are truly not a Fundamentalist, then join up with sects and churches that reflect your progressive/liberal beliefs and practices. Stop enabling the Evangelical monster. Let it die the death it so richly deserves.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The Loneliness of Those Who Leave the Church

4 Comments
alone

Originally posted in 2015

From your earliest recollection, you remember the church.

You remember the preacher, the piano player, the deacons, and your Sunday School teacher.

You remember the youth group and all the fun activities.

You remember getting saved and baptized.

You remember being in church every time the doors were open.

You remember everything in your life revolving around the church.

You remember praying and reading your Bible.

You remember the missionaries and the stories they told about heathens on the other side of the world.

You remember revival meetings and getting right with God.

You remember . . .

Most of all you remember the people.

These were the people who loved you. You thought to yourself, my church family loves me almost as much as God does.

You remember hearing sermons about God’s love and the love Christians were supposed to have for one another.

Like your blood family, your church family loves you no matter what.

But then IT happened.

You know, IT.

You got older. You grew up. With adult eyes, you began to see the church, God, Jesus, and the Bible differently.

You had questions, questions that no one had answers for.

Perhaps you began to see that your church family wasn’t perfect.

Perhaps the things Mom and Dad whispered about in the bedroom became known to you.

Perhaps you found out that things were not as they seemed.

Uncertainty and doubt crept in.

Perhaps you decided to try the world for a while. Lots of church kids did, you told yourself.

Perhaps you came to the place where you no longer believed what you had believed your entire life.

And so you left.

You had an IT moment — that moment in time when things changed forever.

You thought, surely, Mom and Dad will still love me.

You thought, surely, Sissy and Bubby and Granny will still love me.

And above all, you thought your church family would love you no matter what.

But they didn’t.

For all their talk of love, their love was conditioned on you being one of them, believing the right things.

Once you left, the love stopped.

Now they are praying for you.

Now you are a sermon illustration trotted out as a warning to people who question and doubt.

Now they plead with you to return to Jesus.

Now they question if you were ever really saved.

They say they still love you, but deep down you know they don’t.

You know their love for you requires you to be like them.

You can’t be like them anymore. . .

Such loss.

Time marches on.

The church is still where it has always been.

The same families are there, loving Jesus and speaking of their great love for others.

But you are forgotten.

A sheep gone astray.

Every once in a while, someone asks your mom and dad how you are doing.

They sigh, perhaps tears well up in their eyes . . .

Oh, how they wish you would come home.

To be a family sitting together in the church again.

You can’t go back.

You no longer believe.

All that you really want now is their love.

You want them to love you just as you are.

Can they do this?

Will they do this?

Or is Jesus more important to them than you?

Does the church come first?

Is chapter and verse more important than flesh and blood?

You want to be told they love you.

You want to be held and told it is going to be all right.

But here you sit tonight . . .

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Southern Baptist Youth Pastor Christopher Codding Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Crimes

0 Comments
christopher codding

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.

Christopher Codding, a youth pastor at Cassville Baptist Church in Cartersville, Georgia, recently pleaded guilty to molesting two young church boys. According to prosecutors, there were other victims who likely will never see justice. According to Floyd County Assistant District Attorney Emily Johnson, Codding was “one of the most sophisticated predators I have encountered in my career so far.” Cassville Baptist is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

WRGA reports:

Despite the fact that a former Cartersville youth pastor pleaded guilty to molesting two young boys who attended his church, prosecutors said there were many more victims who may never see justice. 

Christopher Matthew Codding, 44, pleaded guilty to two counts of felony child molestation and one count of sodomy in Floyd County Superior Court on Thursday.

“He is one of the most sophisticated predators I have encountered in my career so far,” Floyd County Assistant District Attorney Emily Johnson said. 

As part of that plea, Codding will be sentenced to 60 years on probation and serve a sentence in prison of up to 19 years. The amount of serve time will be determined by a judge during a sentencing hearing on May 16. 

The case involves the anal penetration of two boys, both approximately 10-years-old at the time, who attended the church where Codding was a youth pastor between 2012 and 2017.

“Most of these kids had troubled home lives,” Johnson told the court. “He would basically step in as a father figure to these kids…Basically he set up his house as a man cave and would have boys over to his house.”

Using the apologue of a frog not noticing that it’s boiling to death in water if the heat is slowly increased, Johnson said Codding would slowly manipulate the boys to do what he wanted.

She described how Codding, once the boys were at his home, would walk through the house naked or while on a trip tell them they could swim naked. That would graduate to viewing pornography with the children and then to molesting the children.

Despite the timeline of the charges in this case, prosecutors said there is evidence of prior incidents as well.  

According to court records, one of the associated cases prosecutors intended to use as evidence occurred sometime between 2002 and 2005. That incident occurred in New York where Codding, who watched pornography with a minor, also instructed the young boy to masturbate. Another incident concerned what may have been several boys trips, between 2014 and 2017 to Berry College where Codding would swim naked with the young boys.

Codding is not criminally charged in either of those incidents. 

At the time of his arrest in 2022, Codding was employed as a radiologic technician, often working in Baltimore, Maryland, and an instructor at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. He volunteered as a youth pastor at Cassville Baptist Church in Cartersville.

To add insult to injury, Codding taught child abuse prevention and youth protection classes at the church, Johnson said.

The case began when one of the victims learned that Codding was attempting to adopt two young boys, and stepped forward, Johnson said. Once the floodgates were opened, more and more victims came forward.

“Every time we turned around there was another individual who stepped forward,” Johnson said. 

In the hearing, Codding’s attorney Alicia Lanier sought to enter the plea as an Alford plea, essentially a legal formality in which a defendant acknowledges the evidence while still maintaining their innocence. 

“This case was a horrible situation and my client’s agreed to the plea as the evidence is overwhelmingly against him,” Lanier told the judge.

“I’m not going to go along with an Alford plea,” Floyd County Superior Court Judge John “Jack” Niedrach said. After a brief recess, Codding chose to enter the guilty plea.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Vernon Williamson Sentenced to Life in Prison for Sexual Battery

0 Comments
vernon williamson

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.

Vernon Williamson, a former associate pastor at Assembly of the Body of Christ (the church is defunct) in Jacksonville, Florida, was recently sentenced to life in prison on four counts of sexual battery. Williamson’s fellow pastors, Paul Dyal and Jerome Teschendorf were arrested on similar charges and await trial. These men are 87, 80, and 70, respectively. According to news reports, their alleged crimes date back to the 1970s.

The Florida Times-Union reports:

In the first of three sexual assault cases against a pastor and two associates charged with offenses that began in the 1970s at a Jacksonville church, Vernon Lavern Williamson was found guilty Thursday and sentenced to life in prison.

Williamson, now 87, was arrested in Oklahoma and charged with four counts of sexual battery in March 2022. It followed a raid at the Jacksonville Assembly of the Body of Christ on Old Kings Road, where the pastor, 80-year-old Paul Brady Dyal, was jailed and charged with capital sexual battery on a child 11 or younger, according to the Sheriff’s Office. 

In addition to Williamson, authorities also arrested Jerome Teschendorf, 70, on related capital sexual battery charges in Oklahoma. Both Dyal and Teschendorf are awaiting trial.

The ages of the children were redacted in arrest documents, but an information report cites they were younger than 12. Williamson’s arrest report says he was living on the church’s property at the time. One girl who came forward as an adult said her mother left her in his care when the sexual abuse occurred.

She reported it to the Sheriff’s Office in 2008 and told investigators she disclosed the incidents to the pastor, Dyal, in 2004. Williamson denied the allegations, and Dyal told investigators he didn’t believe the child at the time. 

The investigation was suspended, but in 2019 another woman was interviewed stating Williamson would take care of her and her brothers during the day while their father worked. She said the incidents started out as molestation when he would bathe and dress her. It progressed, and about a year later it became rape, according to the arrest report.

The time frame was not included in the report, but it states Williamson was about 61 to 63 years old during the incidents. A separate information report lists the years as 1996 to 1999.

The victim said she was scared and had urinary tract infections and would frequently urinate on herself. After noticing this at school, a woman asked her what was wrong and she told her what Williamson was doing, the report states.

The woman at the school told Dyal’s wife. Once it was made known to Dyal, the girl and her brothers were separated and sent to live with other families in the church, which is what the girl said she feared would happen if she disclosed the assaults. Williamson was allowed to stay at the church until the girl told another woman about him, and he was sent away, according to the report.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.