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.
Rocky Goodwin, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, and CEO of Evangelistic International Ministries, both in Warren, Arkansas, stands accused of distributing, possessing, and viewing sexually explicit conduct involving a child. Goodwin has been scrubbed from the websites of Calvary Baptist and EIM. Currently, their Facebook profiles are inoperative.
A year-long child porn investigation led to charges filed against an 86-year-old pastor of an Arkansas church, authorities said. Rocky Goodwin, a pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Warren, was charged Sept. 16 with 10 counts of distributing, possessing, and viewing sexually explicit conduct involving a child, court records show.
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The investigation began in May 2023 when Microsoft informed officers that a suspected child porn image had been uploaded on a user’s computer into a reverse image search on Bing, according to an affidavit. Two similar images were uploaded months later, authorities said.
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Investigators learned all three reverse image searches contained child sexual abuse material, investigators said. Officers executed a search warrant at Goodwin’s home in May 2024, seizing his laptop, according to the complaint. Files on the computer included .zip files with sexual labels, including one labeled with the words “12 year old girl,” authorities said. The computer contained 71 child porn images, investigators said. “Mr. Goodwin denied any knowledge of the child sexual abuse material and denied operating the laptop in that illegal manner,” police said. “Mr. Goodwin stated he knew no other person that could have had access to that laptop.” When Goodwin was initially arrested in August, he said through his attorney that he “vehemently denies all charges and allegations.” “They are false,” lawyer David P. Price told the Magnolia Reporter. “We are looking forward to Mr. Goodwin’s day in court and are confident that he will be exonerated.”
A Magnolia attorney for a Warren man accused of several pornography-related offenses has issued a statement saying charges against his client are false.
Arkansas State Police Special Agents arrested Rocky Goodwin, 86, of Warren on Thursday, August 15, 2024.
“On August 17 and 18, several reports were published regarding the arrest of Rocky Goodwin of Warren, Arkansas, for the viewing, downloading and/or distribution of child pornography,” said lawyer David P. Price.
“Mr. Goodwin vehemently denies all charges and allegations. They are false. We are looking forward to Mr. Goodwin’s day in court, and are confident that he will be exonerated,” Price wrote.
According to Arkansas State Police, in May, agents with ASP’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) executed a search warrant at Goodwin’s residence in Warren after multiple cyber tips were reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
A laptop computer located at the home was seized and analyzed during the investigation. That analysis identified several known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) images along with an internet history related to CSAM material.
Goodwin is free on $150,000 bond.
Where oh where did the child porn images on Pastor Goodwin’s computer come from?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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.
At one time, Jordan Daniel “JD” Hall was a big name in Evangelical discernment ministry circles. Hall used his blog, Pulpit & Pen (now named Protestia), social media, and podcasts to maintain the Book of Life, “discerning who is in and who is out of God’s Kingdom.” Hall was fond of going after preachers he deemed heterodox or heretical. He was unafraid to name names. Now it is time for his name to be named. Hall has reaped what he sowed. While many Evangelicals considered Hall a defender of the faith, I always thought of him as a bully. I had several conversations with Hall over the years, but nothing substantial.
The founder of a controversial Christian website known for its criticism of evangelical leaders for being too liberal has resigned from his church for “serious sin.”
Montana pastor Jordan Daniel “J.D.” Hall is no longer listed as pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Sydney, Montana, and has been removed from the staff of Protestia, a website originally known as Pulpit&Pen.
While the church has not yet publicly acknowledged Hall’s departure, as of Sunday (June 26) the church’s leadership page can no longer be found. Also on Sunday, Protestia issued a statement saying Hall had resigned as pastor of Fellowship Baptist and is “disqualified from pastoral ministry.”
“Earlier this week, the team at Protestia received allegations of serious sin committed by our brother JD Hall,” the statement reads. “After correspondence with leadership at Fellowship Baptist Church, we learned that JD was determined by the church to have disqualified himself from pastoral ministry, had resigned from the pastorate, and submitted himself to a process of church discipline. Due to JD’s removal from pastoral ministry, we likewise have removed him from ministry with Protestia.”
Hall’s resignation is the latest bad news for the Montana pastor and blogger.
In February, Hall filed for bankruptcy after being sued for libel for a story the Montana Gazette, another of Hall’s publications, had run about Adrian Jawort, a Native American activist. Then in mid-May, he was arrested for driving under the influence and carrying a concealed weapon while intoxicated.
Hall later settled with Jawort, retracting the story that prompted the lawsuit and issuing an apology, saying he had fabricated the story. As part of the settlement, Jawort can make a $250,000 claim against Hall in bankruptcy court. Hall currently faces an additional lawsuit filed by the WhiteFish Credit Union, for stories published in the Montana Daily Gazette, according to the Sydney Herald.
In the past, Hall’s congregation—a self-described fundamentalist, independent Baptist Church—has stood by their pastor, despite his legal problems. The church issued a statement supporting Hall in February, saying he faced “trials and persecution” from liberal activists.
“We rejoice in our pastor’s persecution and suffering for the sake of our Lord, Christ. And we, as a congregation, we stand behind him 100%, as has already been established by the unanimous, united voice of our congregation,” the statement read.
After Hall’s arrest, the church also issued a statement of support, claiming Hall suffered from a vitamin deficiency that caused “poor coordination, slurred speech, word displacement.” The church also said at the time that Hall was overworked and would take several months off to rest. According to that statement, Hall could not return to work without his wife’s approval.
Hall has pled not guilty to the DUI and weapon charges. He also addressed the church following his arrest, according to the church’s statement in May.
“He cautioned us solemnly to be ready for what enemies of Christ would do with his situation and to brace themselves,” the statement read. “The congregation spoke openly to assure Pastor Hall he should not be ashamed, that we do not care what the world thinks, as we know the truth.”It is unclear whether Hall’s departure from the church is related to his previous arrest.
Hall is best known for his role as Pulpit&Pen founder, where he criticized what he saw as liberal and worldly influences affecting the evangelical church and especially the Southern Baptist Convention. Among the site’s regular targets were Bible teacher Beth Moore, former Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore (no relation), Religion News Service columnist Karen Swallow Prior, former SBC President J.D. Greear, and Tennessee preacher and Trump supporter Greg Locke.
After Facebook banned the Pulpit&Pen, the site was renamed “Protestia.” Hall also heads the Gideon Knox Group, which runs a church-based collection of media sites and other media ministries, including the Polemics Report, the Bible Thumping Wingnut podcast network, and an AM radio station.
Hall’s church echoed his political views. Along with listing the church’s views about the Bible, the Trinity, baptism and other Christian doctrines, the Fellowship Baptist statement of faith includes a “repudiation of the Social Justice Movement, Critical Theory, Liberation Theology, and Marxism in all of its various forms.”
A report from the Sidney Police Department cited by The Sidney Herald said Hall was arrested on May 11, 2022, at approximately 11 p.m. on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon and multiple traffic violations while driving under the influence.
An incident report shows that when police approached Hall, he spoke slowly, his eyes were watery, closed slowly and deliberately, and his speech was slurred and mumbled.
He also stumbled, displayed poor balance, and performed poorly on a field sobriety test. No alcohol was found in his system when a blood alcohol test was administered. He also had a Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 Shield handgun, which was found under his coat in an inside-the-waistband holster during his arrest, the report added.
Fellowship Baptist Church leaders say they were unaware of Hall’s addiction to Xanax when they defended him publicly and rejected his initial offer to resign.
As the scandal erupted, Hall was also accused of physically assaulting his wife, Mandy, and son, and embezzling $10,000 from his church.
It is now known that Hall was a Xanax addict. This, however, would not be Hall’s biggest problem. Earlier this month, Hall was convicted of felony embezzlement after he pleaded no contest. The judge ordered Hall to pay $15,000 restitution to Fellowship Baptist Church. That’s right, he stole money from the church. Not only that, but some people are alleging that Hall stole more than $100,000 from the church.
Jordan “J.D.” Hall, once a prominent religious and political figure in Montana right-wing circles, was ordered earlier this month to pay more than $15,000 to the Sidney church he once led after a Richland County District Court judge found him guilty of felony embezzlement.
As part of a deferred sentencing agreement filed Sept. 10, Hall, who was ousted from Fellowship Baptist Church in 2022 amid claims of drug abuse, domestic violence and embezzlement, must also report to a probation officer and abstain from drugs and alcohol. He also may not own any weapons or enter bars or casinos, among other restrictions. If Hall complies with the terms of his three-year sentence, he will not be considered a felon.
“It’s with my deepest regret and full admission of my own personal failures, and to be clear, sins, that I have deeply hurt the church I loved and formerly served for so long a time,” Hall wrote to his former church in a court-ordered apology. “I pray that resolution of this issue might bring healing and wholeness with your body. As I move forward to a different, better, and more quiet life, with these things behind me, I pray that you are able to move forward with your very important mission as well.”
According to court documents, Hall, who operated the now-defunct Montana Daily Gazette, routinely and improperly used the church’s funds for personal and political expenses. Documents filed by Richland County Attorney Charity McLarty alleged that Hall’s improper expenditures surpassed $100,000 over a five-year period.
These expenditures, according to court records, included payments on a gun safe, personal travel, cell phones for his family and payments to employees of Hall’s political blog. One witness, a former treasurer of the church, told Sidney police that when her husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2021, Hall took her copy of the church checkbook and said he would start paying the bills.
The treasurer “mentioned that she now suspected that Hall did this so she did not have the need to look at bank statements,” according to court documents.
The conclusion of the investigation into Hall’s embezzlement — allegations of which have floated since the firebrand pastor was forced from the church two years ago — was first reported by Montana 1st News, a right-wing blog operated by former Daily Gazette contributor Brenda Roskos. Hall could not be reached for comment through his attorney. A representative of the church did not return a request for comment.
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Hall courted frequent controversy as he built a profile but avoided any real blowback until 2022 when he settled a libel lawsuit brought the previous year by a trans woman lobbyist he’d accused of intimidating a lawmaker in a story he wrote and published in the Montana Daily Gazette. Facing sanctions and mounting legal fees, Hall declared bankruptcy and even posted an apology to the lobbyist — authored by her attorneys and published out of legal necessity, he was quick to note — in the Daily Gazette.
The church pulled its support for Hall when he was arrested on drug and firearms charges following a traffic stop later in the year. From that point, Hall’s world unraveled. Church leadership removed Hall as pastor, explaining that he had shown up to Sunday service while high on Xanax, and that many in the congregation had suspected Hall’s drug use but kept quiet for fear of stirring conflict. The church also said that Hall’s wife had come to them with allegations of domestic violence against her husband. The church filed two police reports, one related to the claims of violence and another alleging that Hall had embezzled funds from the church.
When Montana Free Press reported these allegations in 2022, the police reports were heavily redacted and the state had only brought charges against Hall for drug possession, driving under the influence and possession of a concealed weapon while under the influence. (Prosecutors ultimately dropped all but the second charge, and Hall was found guilty last year).
In July 2022, the church’s newly elected treasurer, Deedra Erickson, told Sidney police that she suspected Hall had stolen funds from the church, according to court records. The last suspicious use of church funds, she noted, was in June of that year — just before Hall left the church.
“When asked what brought this matter to the attention of the church and herself, Erickson stated Hall had begun to behave erratically. Erickson said they began looking into the first month of purchases and saw several suspicious transactions,” court records said.
It’s one thing for Hall to use his church debit card to cover travel, gas and other expenses related to his ministry, Erickson told police, but Hall seemed to be using church funds to cover all manner of other costs: trips to Helena, Great Falls and Mexico, and a buy-now-pay-later loan Hall obtained to purchase a gun safe. He was also using church funds to pay contributors to his various publications, she contended.
When a police lieutenant showed the church’s former treasurer, Joyce Nesper, an “excel printout of all Hall’s expenses all over the United States … she made the statement that those were political trips that should have not been paid for by the Church,” according to court documents.
Nesper told police that Hall had taken over responsibilities related to financial transparency, like reviewing bank statements and submitting financial reports to church leadership.
But the more than $100,000 in expenditures that Hall’s accusers questioned is not reflected in the relatively meager restitution Hall paid the church.
In a memo to the court, Hall contested the prosecution’s accounting of his expenditures. Had the case gone to trial, he argued, he would have shown that all but 55 of the 1,186 transactions the church presented to police as fraudulent or unauthorized were proper or made without his knowledge. He asserted these 55 charges amounted to $15,454.44, the amount the court ultimately ordered him to pay as part of his plea agreement.
Many of the travel expenses the church questioned, Hall argued, were legitimate. It was Hall’s duty as pastor, he said in court documents, to “proclaim the Gospel” through “personal evangelism” and “any other means,” including representing the church in “civic matters.” This often meant travel out of state or even the country.
And he said his schedule was public, his travel destinations known to his congregants and church leaders. He said that in 2010, for example, he attended a Tea Party event.
“He was given a warm reception and he continued to ‘proclaim the Gospel’ at many subsequent events,” Hall’s memo said. “His sermons were published on YouTube and elsewhere and the FBC congregation knew about them, watched them, encouraged them, and often met to send him off to the next one with prayer and hope those who listened would be persuaded to love God in the way the FBC did.”
He blamed several expenditures identified as improper on mistakes by church treasurers or his secretary. And to the extent that the church’s money was going to, for example, his podcast, it was in service of his evangelical aim, he argued in the memo.
“In these podcasts, Mr. Hall discussed his evangelical strategy: Instead of bringing politics to religion, he would bring religion to politics and invade political events with religion,” according to the memo.
Since his forced departure from Fellowship, Hall has almost entirely avoided the public eye. In October of 2023, he appeared in an interview for the Christian polemics website Protestia. In the interview, he claimed he became accidentally addicted to Xanax because of medical negligence.
Hall doesn’t seem repentant, grudgingly admitting some financial improprieties, but denying the rest or blaming the church treasurer or his secretary for improperly accounting for his expenditures. It remains to be seen what the future holds for Hall and his family.
Protestia claims that Hall is INNOCENT. They, too, are high on Xanax, if this is the conclusion David Morrill and his merry band of Pharisees have come to.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Kristie Noem, governor of South Dakota, shot her fourteenth-month-old dog Cricket for being a bad pheasant hunter and a good chicken hunter. Noem could have given Cricket to someone else or taken her to a shelter. Instead, Noem took Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her. Noem later shot her goat. His biggest offense was that he smelled and chased her children. Noem dragged the goat to the pit, tied him to a post, and shot him. Unfortunately, the goat moved, requiring Noem to fire again.
My partner, Polly’s late uncle was the pastor of the Newark Baptist Temple — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in Heath, Ohio. He was also an avid hunter. One day, while he and his dogs were out hunting, one of them took off after deer, returning hours later. His punishment for running off? Polly’s uncle shot him in the head. Again, the dog could have been given to someone else or taken to a shelter, but Polly’s uncle deemed the dog irredeemable and killed him.
One Baptist preacher told me that when he went hunting, he shot every cat he came upon. If he saw a cat along the berm of the road, he swerved at them, hoping to end their nine lives underneath the tire of his pickup truck. Why? Why such violent, indifferent behavior?
Years ago, we attended a Bible church in Butler, Indiana. One Sunday, a farmer told the adult Sunday school class about some kittens he had. He didn’t want them, so he killed each kitten by hitting them in the head with a hammer.
The one thing all of these animal killers have in common is that all of them are devout Christians. One of them is a conservative Roman Catholic, the other four are Evangelical Christians.
It has been said you can tell a lot about a person by how he or she treats animals. What do these stories tell us about these people?
Perhaps the bigger question is, why did these people indiscriminately kill innocent animals? They could have done differently, but they chose to use violence instead. Why?
Genesis 1:26 says:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
According to this verse, God gave humankind dominion (rule) over animals; domination over; control over. Many Evangelicals believe that God has given them the absolute right to do what they want with animals, be they wild or domestic. In their minds, if you have dominion over animals, their lives are in your hands. You have every right to kill them, eat them, or use them any way you want.
For many Evangelicals, animals are property, meant to be used in any way they wish. This leads to behavior that many people, believers and unbelievers alike, think is indifferent violence — killing because they can. When animals no longer provide value, they are often killed. Can’t have an old boar or heifer taking up space, right? If the boar can no longer impregnate sows or the heifer can no longer produce milk, it’s time to kill them.
Let me be clear, some Evangelicals are animal lovers, much like my partner and I. We value the life of all creatures. We find the aforementioned animal abuse stories to be morally offensive. None of these animals had to die, but because their owners were dominionists, they were killed.
Of course, God provided a good example to Christians in Genesis 1-3. After Adam and Even sinned, they made clothes for themselves to cover up their nakedness. That wasn’t good enough for God. God killed several animals to provide Adam and Eve with animal skin clothing. Why? (And please don’t read substitutionary atonement back into the text.)
God also provided an example to Christians in Genesis 6-9. God had Noah gather up two of every kind of animal on a big boat. Due to humanity’s wickedness, God flooded the entire earth, killing countless innocent animals who were unable to find protection on the Ark. Why did God do this? Because he could. So it is for many Evangelical Christians. They kill animals in their care because they can.
We also see God’s view of animals in the blood sacrifice system of the Old Testament. Animals of all sorts were killed to provide blood atonement for sin. God could have done otherwise, but he didn’t. Being the Bible believers that they are, is it surprising that so many Evangelicals are what many of us call animal abusers?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Warning! Slightly risqué language ahead. You have been warned.
Another day, and yet another Evangelical explaining the importance of women covering up their bodies lest they cause men to “sin.” Today’s member of the clothing police is Kara Barnette, wife of Tim, pastor of Heritage Hills Baptist Church in Conyers, Georgia. In a post titled Modesty Matters (no longer available), Barnette had this to say about modesty and the dangers of women spreading their “sin” to men:
It’s that beautiful yet dreadful time of year when summer clothes come-out. And it seems that every summer shorts get shorter, necklines plunge lower, styles get tighter, and fabrics are so thin that one could read a newspaper through them. Yet issues over modest clothing aren’t just significant to the Amish and crotchety old people who complain about “those ‘dang teenagers.”
When a glutton eats too much, no one else gets fat. And when a thief steals from a convenience store, only the thief goes to jail. But when a young lady dresses inappropriately, the effects of her sin are expansive.
Her sin spreads.
As she strolls down the beach in her immodest bathing suit or worships on a Sunday wearing a revealing dress, everyone who sees her is handed temptation. The men and boys around her must battle the sin of lust, while the women and girls around her must battle the sins of bitterness and jealousy and the temptation to show-off their bodies, too. Everyone is distracted by the young lady’s clothing and everyone struggles to think pure thoughts.
Sadly, today there is often little difference in the immodest clothing choices between girls who’ve never heard the name of Christ and those who come from Christian homes. Satan is winning the war of indiscrete clothing, and these are the weapons he’s using on parents:
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My daughter must dress in short/tight athletic-wear to play her sport. Newton’s Lesser-Known Fourth Law of Motion: A volley ball will travel at the same velocity and direction whether it’s served by a player dressed appropriately or by a player dressed inappropriately. (The law likewise holds true for golf, tennis, and soccer balls, as well as for the dynamics of jogging, cheerleading, and dance…) Joking aside, if a team uniform doesn’t meet God’s standards and an alternative is not allowed, then God doesn’t want my daughter playing that sport or participating in that activity. Her personal testimony is worth even more than an athletic scholarship to college.
I can’t find modest clothing for my daughter. Principals often hear this complaint from moms about school dress codes, and youth pastors similarly struggle to enforce clothing standards for youth groups and camps. God has plenty to say about ladies dressing modestly (1 Timothy 2:9, 1 Timothy 2:8-10, 2 Peter 3:1-4), and He doesn’t give commands that our daughters cannot follow. Shop a different store. Order on-line. Buy a sewing machine and make clothes yourself. Or have your daughter wear the same modest clothing over and over if that’s all she has. Parents must go to whatever lengths necessary to help our daughters protect their purity.
My daughter will hate me if I make her dress conservatively. Following the Lord’s commands should not be a chore, but a joy! Teaching a daughter to present her body as… ‘a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to the God, which is her spiritual service of worship’ (Romans 12:1) ought not be a knock-down fight in the dressing room at the mall; it should be a pleasant experience as she learns to embrace colors, fabrics, and styles that please God and accentuate her beauty. All rules given by the Lord are for our good and His glory, so helping girls learn to dress modestly can be a fun and creative challenge.
Modesty isn’t an important Scriptural issue. Tell that to the wife humiliated by her husband’s pornography addiction. To the congregation who lost their pastor because he had an affair. To the teenager who has to inform her parents she’s pregnant.
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My daughter needs to show some skin if she’s going to get a guy. Allow your daughter to dress provocatively so she can catch the attention of boys, and you’ll get your wish. But it won’t end well for her.
While you would never throw chum into the ocean water where your little girl was swimming, you’re doing something far more dangerous when you allow her to capture boys with her body. It’s a deadly proposition.
Just ask Bathsheba.
2 Samuel 11:2 simply states… and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance. David’s sinful lust of Bathsheba was provoked because of her revealing appearance. David didn’t fall for Bathsheba because she was a great conversationalist, or because he felt an emotional connection to her, or because she could cook a delicious rack of lamb.
He fell for her skin.
And while we will never fully understand Bathsheba’s culpability in the affair, we know that it sure caused her a lot of grief. Literally. Bathsheba would eventually grieve both the death of her faithful husband Uriah and the baby she conceived with David.
When we allow our daughter to show too much skin, we lead her into temptation. We deliver her into evil. And that evil is contagious: it not only harms her but will infect every person she contacts.
Modesty matters.
Once again, we have an Evangelical blaming “immodestly” dressed women for the inability of men to keep themselves from “lustful” thoughts. Pathetic men, they are, who can’t control their thoughts once their eyes focus on women showing too much of their bodies. In Barnette’s mind, dressing “immodestly” causes women to spread their sin and we all know that women spreading their sin leads to them spreading their legs.
Yes, we live in a culture where women publicly expose more skin than previous generations. My God, my wife wore a dress to a wedding that showed a bit of cleavage! What’s the world coming to? Doesn’t Polly know that she is spreading her sin by wearing a 38DD push-up bra? (Her first push-up bra, by the way — a sure sign of her atheistic depravity.)
Polly and Bruce Gerencser, March 2017. Several firsts….cleavage and a black fedora. (my cleavage is covered up)
Barnette’s problem is that she is immersed in a Fundamentalist religious culture that treats human sexuality as something that must tamped down and, at times — because the Bible commands it — denied. Women are viewed as Jezebels, temptresses out to bed every man who casts a gaze their way. These weak, pathetic, horn-dog men have little or no power to keep themselves from lusting (evidently God living inside of you is not even enough), so it is up to women to keep men from lusting by covering up their bodies and avoiding behaviors that might lead men to think they are “available” — Greek for “easy.”
Most Evangelicals are Republicans who supposedly believe in personal responsibility. One need only listen to Evangelical congressmen pontificate about welfare and the importance of holding assistance recipients accountable for their behavior to see this thinking at work. Yet, these haters of the poor attend churches that preach, when it comes to sexual matters, that heterosexual men are not accountable for what are deemed immoral behaviors; that women who tempt men to lust are also culpable for their “stiff prick having no conscience” (a line told to Midwestern Baptist College ministerial students by crusty IFB preacher Paul Vanaman).
Lust is a religious construct meant to elicit fear and guilt. Two thousand years of preachers lustily preaching about the dangers women present to unsuspecting men have led to the female sex being blamed for the inability of the males of the species to keep from wanting to bed women they find attractive. And therein lies the problem. Evangelicals live in denial of their biology — that men and women being physically attracted to one another is necessary for the propagation of the human race. Some Evangelicals will grudgingly admit the biological aspect of human existence, but will then say that our biology has been corrupted by the fall — Adam’s and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden.
Remember the story? God created Adam and Eve naked, put a mystical fruit tree in the middle of their subdivision, and told them he would kill them if they ate fruit from the tree. Adam and Eve ignored God’s threat and once they ate kumquats off the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they became knowledgeable of good and evil. Since that day, all humans have been cursed, born with a “sin” nature. According to Evangelicals, we don’t become sinners, we are by nature sinners — haters of God. This is why we need the salvation that was made possible through the sacrificial death of the God-man Jesus on the cross.
The first thing God did after confronting Adam and Eve over their poor choice of a snack was to kill several animals and make the sinning couple one-of-a-kind fur outfits — covering up their nakedness. Implicit in this story is that nakedness is sinful. Christians, Muslims, and Jews have spent several millennia drilling this idea into the minds of primarily the fairer species. Why? Because it was Eve who first ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was Eve who gave a kumquat — I love that word — to Adam. Get the gist of the story? Adam may have been the head of Earth’s first family, but Eve is the one who plunged the entire human race into sin. A woman was to blame then, and women are to blame now.
Let me conclude this post with my view of human sexuality and personal accountability. I am an atheist, so Barnette’s Puritanical, anti-human views on sexuality play no part in my sexual ethic. I recognize that I am sexually attracted to some women. How women dress can get my attention sexually. As Polly will attest, my eyes have been drawn to the comely shape of women who are not my wife on more than a few occasions. And Polly will admit to the same. Several years ago, she told me over dinner, why are some gay men so damn attractive? I laughed, thinking of how, not so many years ago, such a discussion would have been impossible. I subscribe to the look but don’t touch school of thought. Everywhere I look I see attractive women. I saw them as a fifteen-year-old Baptist virgin and I see them fifty years later as a well-used atheist. What I have learned as a grown-ass man is that I am TOTALLY responsible for my sexual behavior. I am TOTALLY responsible for how I deal with my sexual desires. It is up to me, not women, to control my sexuality. If I behave inappropriately, the only person responsible for my behavior is yours truly. I am mature enough to be around women I might find attractive, and if I feel some sort of sexual stirring — down boy, down boy — it is up to me to control my physical response.
My wife and I are in a committed monogamous relationship forty-six years in the making. Now that we have been liberated from the sexual bondage of Christianity, we are free to embrace our sexuality, while, at the same time, living according to the commitment we made to each other forty-six years ago on a hot July day in Newark, Ohio. Both of us are TOTALLY responsible for how we behave sexually. Knowing that marriage is far more than sex, neither of us worries about the other being tempted to sin by a nice ass or an attention-seeking babe or hunk of a man. And yes, both of us are comfortable enough in our sexual skins to admit that there are times we have found someone of the same sex attractive, all without flying a rainbow flag on our porch.
Humanism and Buddhism teach me to treat others with respect, and while I may not be able to control what happens to or around me, I am responsible for how I respond to these outside influences. When a nurse puts an IV in my arm, I know it is going to hurt, and that it might take her several attempts to get the job done (thick skin, deep veins, genetic curse). I also know it is up to me to decide how I respond to the nurse. After making sure the nurse has sufficient experience to do the job (I am considered a difficult stick, so only the experienced need apply), I turn to humor to control the pain that is coming. I tell the nurse about my best and worst phlebotomist list, sharing stories about who is at the top of the list. Once the IV is in, I let the nurse know where she placed on my list. By doing this, I am choosing to be accountable for how I respond. I have heard more than one patient go into a profanity-laced tirade at a nurse who couldn’t magically make an IV insertion pain-free. It is not the nurse’s fault, and blaming her is misplaced. So it is with people who wrongly want to blame women for the moral failures of the human race. Barnette’s blaming of women for unapproved chubbies is misplaced. Men are, from start to finish, responsible for how they respond when sexually attracted to women. Instead of long lists of rules that have proved to not work, why not teach not only men, but women too, how to behave sexually? Surely Evangelical churches can teach men that the Billy Graham rule — never allow yourself to be alone with a woman who is not your wife, a rule even Jesus didn’t practice — is fear-mongering bullshit; that the former Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, should be able to have a private lunch with a woman without fearing that he will succumb to lust and try to fuck her. Surely the people who gave us purity rings made in China can instead teach men and women that it is not what you wear that matters — no ring has ever successfully kept young adults who want to have sex from doing so; that the choice of how to respond to sexual attraction rests solely with us, not others; that inappropriate sexual behavior by me is not anyone’s fault but mine.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Religious Fundamentalism is not alone the domain of Evangelicalism. Take David, a commenter on this blog and my Facebook page. Here’s how the conversation with David started:
David: Jesus is real. He is God. And, He is alive. To deny that, is to deny the Truth.
Bruce: sigh So glad you stopped by to let us know that your flavor of ice cream is the one true ice cream. Now take your ice cream truck and keep on moving down that narrow, straight road you mentioned on Facebook. Blessed be the God of reason, forever and ever, amen. [At this point I thought David was an Evangelical.]
David: Sir, you claim you are not evangelizing for atheism. However, by posting these reports of alleged christian molesters, you are in fact, evangelizing for atheism, otherwise, you would also post stories of molesters from other beliefs. I don’t see that you are publishing reports of any muslim molesters, or atheist molesters, or hindu molesters, or Democratic party molesters, or any molesters from any other groups. No, you focus only on professing christians, because you want to harm the Church of Jesus Christ and more particularly Him and cause others to abandon the faith or never become a believer to begin with. You know what you are doing. So, you see, you are in fact, a liar. And, that would make you the son of you know who…
Becky added several comments.
Bruce: Funny that you are more concerned with my posting the reports than you are the reports themselves. Evidently preachers molesting children doesn’t bother you as much as an atheist making the public aware of such vile things. This blog focuses on Evangelicalism–as I told you on Facebook. I can’t be all things to all men, so I don’t try. I focus on Evangelicalism because it is the dominant American religion and one that I am most familiar with. If, through my writing, someone leaves Evangelicalism, good for them. However, I do not evangelize. I don’t go to Christian blogs/Facebook pages and leave atheistic comments/sermons (unlike you). That you impugn my character says more about you than it does me. I’m quite proud of the fact that my writing causes hemorrhoidal inflammation for people such as you.
David: Looks like I struck a nerve with you Bruce. Truth has a way of doing that to antichrist agenda driven people like you.
Bruce: Davey, my man, I hate to disappoint you, but you are little more than buzzing gnats swarming around my head on a warm summer day. Smack, end of annoyance. I presume, by now, you have read the comment rules. Please act accordingly.
David: Bruce. I notice in your blogs you have one concerning a molesting Catholic Priest. So, I caught you in another false statement. You said you are only concerned with reaching evangelicals. But, then you undermine that assertion by your Roman Church priest blog. So, I am proven right again. You are on the warpath against Christianity, the Church and Jesus Christ. Why not tell the truth Bruce? Why maintain the facade of honesty when you are not being honest?
Bruce: The focus of my blog is Evangelicalism — like 99% of my posts. On occasion, I write about other things: sports, politics, family, technology, and yes priests who rape/molest children. That you would rather impugn my character than understand what should be easily understood by anyone with a fifth-grade education, reflects poorly on you and the Christ you say you serve. By all means, keep commenting. Your words are preaching a far louder sermon than any atheist could preach.
David: Bruce, the more you attack and deny, the more you prove my assertions. I wonder why you can’t see that. And, laughably you resort to the time dishonored atheist reaction of attacking the intellect of those with whom they disagree. Atheists cannot be gracious. They ALWAYS resort to personal attack of the intelligence of the Christians, alleging by implication that intelligence and intellect are a contradiction to belief in Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of all, Who is God.
Bruce: I’m not gracious to assholes, nor do I need to be. And I don’t need to let them fill the comment section with bullshit. Bye, bye Davey. All further comments will be deleted.
Bruce: I should make it clear to readers that you are a Fundamentalist Catholic, not an Evangelical, proving that Fundamentalism can be found in all religious sects.
Geoff, Justine, and Suzanne added comments.
On to Facebook. It is harder to recreate the conversation flow on Facebook because David DELETED all of his comments. Yep, deleted every last comment. What follows is, at best, a partial transcript of what transpired on Facebook. Fortunately, Suzanne captured many of David’s comments for her Jerks4Jesus page.
David sent me the following message:
What is the point of these reports. Jesus said that wolves in sheeps clothing would infiltrate the Church. Paul wrote the same thing. So, no surpirse. And, anyone who does these things, has ceased being a follower of Jesus Christ at that point. Sinners can repent and be saved again. But, an apostate cannot. See Hebrews. Sir, you may feel smug at this point, thinking you are doing good in the humanist sense, but your real objective is to try to harm Christianity since you are no longer a believer, and have fallen away. My question is: were you ever a true believer, or was being a pastor merely a way to make a living? If you were a true believer, what caused you to fall away from the truth? Do you have some sinful behavior that you were not able to give up? Was it pride? Jesus is real, He is alive, and He is God. I know this for a fact. And, you probably do also, but you choose not to submit to Him.
I responded by telling David to read my blog.
Here’s some of the comments left by David that he has since deleted. Unfortunately, by deleting his comments, David also deleted some of my responding comments too.
David: Bruce, as you well know, the public is already well aware of the matter. The atheist media has had a field day and non stop reports and is reporting on how these non Christians posing as Christians have infiltrated the Church and committed these acts… But, you are fine with muslims and politicians doing the same. Interesting dichotomy. How do you intellectually justify that. And, by the way, they could not have been Christians when they committed those crimes. By definition, they ceased to be Christians or never were to have committed those acts. Read your Bible and you will see that it is impossible for a true follower of Jesus Christ to do such things. You must have bought into the once saved always saved lie when you were a pastor. Good night, pee wee. It must be way beyond your bedtime over there in never never land.
Bruce: They were Christians when they committed their crimes. Consensual adult sexual behavior is fine in my book. I don’t care one bit who fucks who, when, where and how. I do, however, despise men who use their places of authority to rape, sexually assault, and sexually manipulate children, teenagers, and adult congregants.
Bruce: No I’m not, but there are other sites that focus on Islam. Hey, here’s an idea….why don’t YOU start a blog and write about atheists and Muslims? Do something productive instead of trolling my page/blog.
David: Bruce, baby, you are one challenged individual. Do you ever tire of your childish antics?
David: Coward, you could not answer nor counter the truth of my assertions, so you blocked my posts on your blog page. That is so atheist of you. Another truth challenged professing atheist bites the dust. LOL
David then took to attacking Suzanne.
Realizing that I was quite snarky in our exchange, I thought I would make one, and only one, good faith effort to answer whatever questions David wanted me to answer.
Bruce: David Collins, second request, “So, here’s your chance. Give me your top five questions/challenges and I’ll answer them on my blog. No more bullshit from you, David. This is your one and only chance. Take it or go fornicate with yourself. “
And, in classic Fundamentalist fashion, David responded this way in an email to me:
Listen, Satan. I have already blown your assertions to smithereens on facebook. If you like, go get that dialogue and post it, including the ones you deleted like the coward you are. My facebook responses on your facebook page, to your assertions, taunts and lies, completely obliterated you and your false paradigm. You lost. Deal with it. I have no reason to repeat myself in your ludicrous blog. I have already exposed you for the liar and hypocrite you are. Deal with it.
What lesson have I learned from my “discussion” with David, the Fundamentalist Catholic? That it is almost always a waste of time to engage Fundamentalists. Their minds are shut off from anything that doesn’t fit their narrow, defined “Biblical” worldview. Their goal is to evangelize, not engage and learn. In David’s mind, I am an anti-Christ, a false prophet. I am worthy of death, punishment, and the Lake of Fire. I KNOW they think all these things about me, yet I still, at times, allow myself to be drawn into foolish, fruitless discussions.
David is a good example of why I have a one-and-done rule on comments from evangelizing Christians — particularly Evangelicals. In David’s case, he is an outlier — a Fundamentalist Catholic.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I received yet another email from an Evangelical man named Joseph. I mentioned him previously in the post titled, Email From the Peanut Gallery. His latest email said (all spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original):
Wow! You really believe this is truth, that the universe and the world always existed. Physics, without debate points to a beginning of time. The REAL QUESTION is, what existed before time began? And let me point out, if time had a beginning then it logically has an end. Maybe God, the creator, is the eternal one, as scripture tells us, and He is the one who was there before time began! I agree that it takes faith to believe this, but everything in creation points to a creator, a master designer. And, as you know, and so conviently avoid, is it possible that the evil and wickedness of mankind is the reason for all the wickedness in the world! If, as you say, there is no God ( and you seem to blame God for all the ills of the world), then how can you blame someone who doesn’t exist for all the ills of the world? I find this article intellectually dishonest and really a denial of reality. We, the people are responsible! And one day each of us will have to give an account of our time here on earth to the Creator of this universe, especially those who say they are christians! Those who misuse christianity and present a false christ to this world, will be held accountable on that day. And let me say, I also hate this false christ! But, as you know, God in His mercy and love expressed to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has made it possible to live a godly life of love for Him and others. I have found this to be true in my own life as He has given me true peace and hope and joy as I’ve learned to live a life of service to others and to God. All I see in your posts is someone who is bitter towards God, and I sense, is belittling to my faith. I find this to be hateful and discriminating and judgemental. But I am praying for you and your beautiful family. I think one of the purposes of your blog is to convince yourself of your own self-righteousness and serves as a boost to your pride. I may be wrong, and if I am I apologize. But this is how it seems to me. May the peace and love of God be with you.
Joseph’s comment was in response to Bertrand Russell’s dismantling of Christianity in his seminal tract Why I Am Not a Christian. Joseph fails to understand both Russell’s writing style and my own. I write from the perspective of someone who believes in the Christian God. I argue from that perspective so Christians will understand what I am talking about and know that I am conversant in their “language.” It’s not that I believe in the Christian God, I don’t. My objective is to show the irrationality and inconsistency of arguments used to defend Christianity. What better way to do so than to use the words of Christians and the words of the supposedly inspired, inerrant, infallible Protestant Christian Bible. I am not a fan of esoteric or never-ending philosophical arguments, so I choose, instead to use the Bible as my weapon of choice. It is that which is most familiar to me.
Joseph seems hell-bent on defending his God’s character from all attacks. God’s not to blame for the evil in the world, man is. Yet, at the same time, Joseph says that his God is the Creator, the first cause of everything. If that is so, then God, by necessity, is culpable for EVERYTHING that follows, including sin. Joseph, yet again, fails to understand my writing style and approach. It’s not that I actually believe God is responsible for sin, I don’t. What I am saying is this: if you believe God is the first cause, then he is totally responsible for everything that follows. That’s the rational, logical conclusion one comes to when believing the Christian God is the first cause. From my perspective, Christian apologists have miserably failed in their attempts to answer the problem of evil. Theodicy remains a noose around the neck of believers who attempt to explain how God is Creator, the first cause, and sovereign over all, yet he is not, in any way, culpable for the behavior (sin) of humans. If Ford manufactures an automobile and a customer buys it and the wheels later fall off the car, who’s to blame? The driver (human)? The salesman (pastor)? The dealership (the church)? No, Ford is responsible for the wheels falling off. As the company (God) who designed the auto, produced the parts, and assembled them, is not Ford (God) ultimately responsible for the wheels falling off the car? So it is with God. If the Christian God is the manufacturer of everything, then he, and not the church, its pastors, or humans, is responsible for any failures.
The problem for people such as Joseph is that they believe that Bible is a perfect book inspired by God, and it is their duty to square all the contractions found within its pages. These internal contradictions force Christians to defend conflicting beliefs. One need only sit in the stands and watch Calvinists and Arminians fight to the death to see how these contradictions have affected Christianity over the past two thousand years. Here it is 2024, and the various Christian sects can’t even agree on the basics: salvation, baptism, communion. Yet, the Josephs of the world would have us believe they have found ways to neatly fit the square peg in the round hole. Only by shaving off (explaining away) these contradictions do Evangelical apologists make everything “fit.”
Joseph seemingly forgets that I was part of the Christian church for fifty years. I spent twenty-five of those years pastoring Evangelical churches. I spent thousands and thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible. I KNOW the Bible inside and out. I can argue multiple theological positions. Why? Because the Bible is a hopelessly contradictory book, and it can be used to “prove” every theological system from Pelagianism to hyper-Calvinism. I remember hearing John Loftus say years ago that he had concluded that ALL the various and peculiar systems of belief were right. Each and every one of them goes to the Bible to find justification for their beliefs. I agree with John. The Bible is similar to a paint-by-number picture, with each sect deciding which number corresponds to which paint. Colorful, to be sure, but what viewers of the work of art are left with is a Jackson Pollock painting. Nice colors, but what the hell is it?
Joseph fails to understand that I totally agree with him on who is culpable for human behavior. I am an atheist, a humanist, so I without question believe that each of us is responsible for what we do. Certainly, there can be mitigating factors — genetics, mental illness, drug addiction, poor upbringing, to name a few — but at the end of the day each of us bears the weight of our choices and actions. I can believe these things to be true without believing in the existence of God or accepting what the Bible says about human nature and sin. Orthodox Christian teachings on human sinfulness, redemption, and the forgiveness of sin actually make humans less culpable for their behavior. After all, according to the Bible, humans are broken and in need of fixing; sinners in need of salvation and the forgiveness of sins. This leads to dependency on God for right behavior. The Bible says of humans, without me (God), you can do nothing. The Bible also says that humans are so helpless that unless God gives them the breath to breathe and the muscle strength to walk, they would all be dead.
As far as Joseph’s attack on my character; that I am bitter, self-righteous, and only write to boost my pride, I have a standard reply to such caricatures: Go fornicate with yourself. I know the kind of man I am, as do those who know me well. Years ago, such judgments would drive me nuts. Not any longer. Christians are going to say whatever they want about me. I can’t stop them from doing so. All I can do is limit their access to this site and hopefully get them to STOP emailing me. Joseph seems to think that telling me that I have a beautiful family somehow ameliorates everything else he said. It doesn’t. The Josephs of the world want to shit on my doorstep while pointing out to me that there is a silver dollar buried in their offering. How about saving the shit for the outhouse, and stick to polite, reasoned comments? Leave my motivations for doing what I do to those who know and understand me. And Joseph is most certainly not part of that group.
Joseph says that he could be wrong , and if he is, he apologizes. If there is the possibility of being wrong in judgment about someone’s character and motivations, why say anything? Doesn’t the Bible command believers to defer such judgments until they know the whole story and have all the facts? Why does Joseph ignore what the Bible says about uninformed judgment? The reason is simple. Joseph doesn’t believe he is wrong, and no matter what I say, he will remain certain in his judgment of the Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser. And it is for this reason I no longer cast my fifty-millimeter pearls before swine.
Note
After writing this post, I received yet another email from Joseph. Here was my response:
Joseph,
You wrongly thing that I am the least bit interested in receiving emails/sermonettes from you. I am not. Please stop emailing me. I have no interest in hearing from you or corresponding with you. I turned your previous email into a post. It will be live later tonight after my editor goes over it. You will have one opportunity to respond to what I have written. Please use this one opportunity wisely. After you have said what you feel God has laid upon your heart, I will approve no further comments from you. That’s the commenting rules, which I am sure you have read.
Thank you.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Several years ago, I posted a short video clip of a worship service at Middle Tennessee Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Middle Tennessee Baptist is pastored by Tony Hutson, the son of the late Curtis Hutson, the one-time editor of the Sword of the Lord — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist newspaper and publishing house.
Afterward, a member of Middle Tennessee Baptist Church left the following comment on the original post about Middle Tennessee’s pastor, Tony Hutson:
There is bible for everhtbing [sic] that went on in the video. You have no right to get on here and go against Brother Tony Hutson and Middle Tennessee Baptist Church. Those girls are not brainwashed, they are bloodwashed. If you would repent and be saved by the grace of God, you wouldn’t mind the shouting and praising that you call yelling and screaming. If you didn’t like that…you will not like what happens in Heaven when we praise Jesus Christ our Lord.
I responded:
Tim,
Where, oh where, do I begin.
First, I have every right to go against “Brother Tony Hutson and Middle Tennessee Baptist Church.” It’s called freedom of speech. Personally, I think Tony Huston is a bully and a thug. In other words, he is a great example of an IFB preacher.
Second, I have already repented, and I have been gloriously saved by the grace of God. Surely, you believe in once saved, always saved? I’m a Christian, brother, according to your theology. Of course, I don’t claim to be a Christian. I am an atheist. But, I was a Christian for 50 years, so I know just a little bit about Christianity — especially your flavor of the one true faith.
Third, I know screaming and hollering when I see it. I also know culturally conditioned religious expression when I see it too. The behavior shown in the video is typical for southern Baptist churches. I have attended camp meetings in the south, and watched grown men act like drug addicts on meth. Such behavior is culturally learned. In the north, such behavior is rare. Why is that? And the northern churches that are more expressive? They have a pastor who was raised — drum roll, please — in the south.
Fourth, have you been to Heaven? If not, how can you possibly know what is or will be going on in Heaven? You don’t. All you are doing is projecting your personal religious experiences on to what the Bible says about Heaven (not that Heaven exists, it doesn’t). By all means, provide Biblical proof texts for your assertion that the culture in Heaven will be just like the one found at Middle Tennessee Baptist Church. I’ve read the Bible a time or two or fifty, and I don’t recall reading anything that remotely sounds like Sunday night church with Tony Hutson and Middle Tennessee Baptist Church.
Fifth, I do like the cliché, they are not brainwashed, they are bloodwashed. I might use that for a new blog post.
Have a good day. Thank you for commenting.
Bruce, a sinner saved by reason
The man then sent me the following email:
Bruce,
You said that I was using the Bible to express my beliefs about Heaven? That’s what a Christian is supposed to do. There are numerous verses about shouting with a loud voice unto the Lord. You were never saved by the way. If you can say that you received Christ and then say that you are an atheist…you are lost. It takes more faith to believe He does not exist. At the end of the day Brother Tony and Middle Tennessee Baptist Church are winners. I must add that I do attend the church and I am proud of it. We get to praise God and come to a place to worship and be cleaned and refreshed to serve God. If God is not real ( which He is of course), and you live your life the way you want that is all well and good. I’ll live mine the way I want by going to church all the time and worshipping Him. We both win in that situation. Yet, if He is real..and we live like I stated before, I win. You’ll spend eternity in hell and I’ll be in Heaven. Who really wins in the long run? You can make fun of my pastor and my church all you want to sir. You are just proving the Bible to be true that “the fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” God’s going to judge you and all of your little friends on your blog. Get a job and a life, and stop making fun of people who have one.
Tim
I want to conclude this post with my public response to this man’s email.
First, I did not say you were using the Bible to express your beliefs about Heaven. In fact, I said the opposite; that you will search the Bible far and wide for justification of the practices shown in the videos and come up empty; that what you consider “Biblical” worship is culturally driven religious expression, the result of generations of immersion in southern Baptist Fundamentalism.
Second, how can you possibly know if I was saved or not? Are you God? This is the point where I get into a Baptist version of a dick-measuring contest. Would you like to compare your present life with my past life? Would you like to compare sincerity, faith, or good works? Would you like to compare my devotion to preaching, evangelicalism, prayer, and Bible study to yours? I am confident that you will find that I had a John Holmes-sized Christian faith, and that critics such as yourself have what I would call a Donald Trump-sized faith.
I was part of the Christian church for fifty years. I pastored Evangelical churches — including IFB churches — for twenty-five years. I was, in every way, a sold-out, on-fire, devoted follower of Jesus Christ. You will search in vain to find a congregant or ministerial colleague who thought, at the time, that I was not a Christian. Everyone thought I was a committed believer. Either I deceived thousands of people or your judgment is wrong.
I realize that you cannot square my present unbelief with your IFB belief in the security of the believer — once saved, always saved. That’s not my problem. All I know is this: I once was saved, and now I am not. And I am not alone. Countless readers of this blog were once Holy Ghost-filled followers of Jesus Christ, and now they are atheists, agnostics, Pagans, and a plethora of other non-Evangelical beliefs. You can deny this all you want, but we exist, and we are not going away.
The argument you use to justify my belief in your God despite a lack of evidence for his existence is called Pascal’s Wager. Please do some study on its usage and why it is not the slam-dunk argument you think it is. I am sure Pastor Hutson teaches his church to use Pascal’s Wager when talking to unbelievers, but it is an ineffective argument, and it actually makes a mockery of Christian faith.
Should non-Christians believe Christianity is true just because there is a slim bettor’s chance that the Christian God exists? Should the motivation of non-believers converting to Christianity be the threat of Hell after death? And if people are to get saved “just in case,” shouldn’t they also become Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, and Buddhists or embrace any of the thousands of other religions concocted by human imagination? If the objective is for people to cover all their bases — and their asses — why have you not done the same with other religious sects? Surely, you don’t want to risk going to an Islamic or Hindi Hell, do you? Wouldn’t it be better to praise Allah AND Jesus, and not risk worshiping the wrong God? If you want me to do this, shouldn’t you do the same?
Who is the fool here, Tim? I have followed the path wherever it leads, and it has brought me to a place where I am confident that the Christian God does not exist. Have you thoroughly investigated the claims of Christianity? Have you read books by authors who are not Fundamentalists? Have you read any books about the nature of the Biblical text; that it is not an inspired, inerrant, infallible book? Do yourself a favor. Read up on this subject. Devour and digest a few books authored by New Testament scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman.
You need to understand that calling me a fool and threatening me with your God’s judgment and Hell have no effect on me. I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it wanting. (Please read Why?) I have read the Bible from cover to cover dozens of times and spent thousands of hours studying and preaching its words. My loss of faith stems from me taking the Bible seriously. I came to a place where I finally realized that the Christian narrative no longer made sense. (Please read The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense) I hope you will invest serious time in truly understanding the Bible.
Again, thank you for commenting.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Several years ago, I received an email from a Christian man by the name of Tim Clark. Here’s a screenshot of Tim’s email:
Tim could have found the answers to his “thoughtful” questions by exercising a bit of curiosity and reading the posts found on the WHy/ page. (Please see Curiosity, A Missing Evangelical Trait.) Unfortunately, Tim is not the curious sort, so after reading a couple of posts he decided to email me. Tim came to this site via an internet search. He landed on my post about a California pastor accused of sexual misconduct. I suspect Tim was looking for the latest dirt on this preacher, and, while reading my post, decided to email me about what he suspects is my own “immorality.”
Tim’s email subject line says, “Are you “free” now? He put the word free in scare quotes. I assume he did so because he believes that no one is truly free unless they have been saved; and that non-Christians such as myself are in bondage to sin and Satan. Telling Tim, YES, I AM FREE, THANK REASON, I AM FREE, will surely fall on deaf ears. For Tim and other zealots like him, the dictates of the Bible determine who is free and who is not. Christians are free, everyone else is not. No amount of discussion will change Tim’s view of me. I walked away from Jesus, and nobody does that without having some sort of secret desire to live sinfully, especially sexual sin. (It’s always sexual sin, right? Evangelicals are voyeurs, obsessed with sex — who is doing it, when, where, how, and with whom.)
My first thought after reading Tim’s email was to tell him to go fornicate with himself. I am more than a little tired of self-righteous Evangelicals who refuse to accept my story at face value. I am beyond tired when it comes to receiving emails and Facebook comments from Christians who are certain that there is some other reason than what I have stated for my loss of faith. But, tired as I may be, I will muster up a bit of strength so I can answer Tim’s questions. Or are they accusations? Either way, here are my answers.
Did I “turn from the faith” to “justify some sin in [my] life”? No, I did not. As the posts on the WHY? page make clear, the primary reason I deconverted was that I no longer believed the central claims of Christianity; I no longer believed the Bible was what Christians claimed it was; I no longer believed the Christian narrative could be intellectually and rationally sustained. Simply put, Christianity no longer made any sense to me. (Please read The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.)
What Tim really wants to know is whether I turned from the faith to justify “immorality” in my life. Why would I have left Evangelicalism to live an immoral life? As The Black Collar Crime series makes clear, Evangelical preachers can commit adultery, fornication, and even be sexual predators, all while preaching the gospel and condemning sinful behaviors. If I desired to have sexual affairs, chase after prostitutes, frequent gay bars, or get massages at the local massage parlor, I could have done so and remained an Evangelical pastor. When feeling guilt or conviction over my immorality, all I would have had to do was confess my sins (I John 1:9) and Jesus would cleanse me of my sin.
I can tell Tim this much, I have never had an affair. (Please see It’s Time to Tell the Truth: I Had an Affair.) Forty-six years ago, I stood at the altar of the Newark Baptist Temple and told my bride that I would be faithful to her unto death. I can humbly say that I have kept that vow. I am far from perfect, having done things that are sure to be on Tim’s sin list, but not adultery. Have I ever looked at porn, been to a strip club, walked through the door of an adult book store, or “lusted” after a woman who is not my wife? Yes. And a survey of Christian men would show that most of them have too. In fact, I am quite sure that Tim, if he is a normal, healthy, heterosexual male, has lusted after women too. Jesus said in Matthew 5:28:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
I do not doubt that most men, at one time or the other, have “looked on a woman to lust after her” and have “committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
Evangelical zealots looking to root out the real reasons for my loss of faith will continue to poke and prod, hoping that I will someday reveal the secret sins that lie buried in the depths of my sin-darkened heart. These Geraldo Riveras of Christianity will surely be disappointed. I have been quite transparent, open, and honest about my past and the reasons I am no longer a Christian. If the Tims of the world can’t accept what I say at face value, that’s their problem, not mine. Have I aired out every corner of my life for all to see? Of course not. As all writers do, I choose what I want to tell readers, leaving buried things that are too painful to talk about. Perhaps someday I will write about the secrets that remain, but for now, I have told all I need to tell to adequately relate my story. Readers can rest assured that there will be no women coming forward to tell about having adulterous liaisons with Bruce Gerencser.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Here is an email I received from a man calling himself Rick Sones.
Dear Rick,
First, I doubt you read as much of my site as you allege. Had you done so, you might have learned a few things about me, such as the fact that I did not remain a Fundamentalist Baptist; that I left the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement in the late 1980s; that I do not continually boast about my understanding of the Biblical text.
Second, my life as a Fundamentalist Baptist was, all in all, quite happy. Again, had you done a bit more reading you might have learned that I have many good memories of my days as a pastor.
Third, I am not angry with God. You do realize I am an atheist, right? Being “angry” with God would be akin to being angry with Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Since the Christian God does not exist, it would be a colossal waste of time for me to be angry with said God.
Fourth, please put on your big boy pants and share with me the voluminous misquotations and errant interpretations you have found in my writings. Let’s mano a mano enter into a public discussion about your claims. Let’s see who is the ignorant idiot. I’m game, are you? Or are you just bullshitting, Evangelical-style?
Fifth, threatening me with judgment from the Big Kahuna has no effect on me. Again, you do know I am an atheist, right? Threatening me with judgment from a nonexistent God is similar to threatening me with judgment from Thor. I am not going to lose any sleep over your threats.
Finally, if you knew that other people had already told me what you said in your email, why write me anyway? What was your objective? Surely it couldn’t have been to witness or put in a good word for Jesus. Calling someone an idiot is a sure discussion stopper.
Rick, let me thank you for providing me yet another example of why I am so glad that I divorced Jesus. With people like you in the family, I am quite happy to be considered an Ex.
Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Repost from 2018. Updated. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.
Rarely does a day go by that an Evangelical zealot doesn’t either send me an email or leave a comment on one or more posts. In 2018, Steve Ransom/Ransomovitch (a fake name, I believe) started leaving comments on a post about disgraced Evangelical pastor Bill Hybels. Ransom, a Brit, has been leaving comments and sending me emails for the better part of six years. I have banned him several times, but, like a bad penny, he keeps coming back. Here’s what he had to say this time:
Yeah yeah, I can just picture Bruce – saliva in his beard, gleefully chasing down the church pedos and sex gangsters, who exist everywhere in society, as if any of this adds any weight to his fatuous railings against our God. Bill Hybels and Bruce Gerenscer alike will stand before God to give account for their godlessness and BG particularly will be found wanting
I findl it interesting you are going after your Creator and using shock jorror sexual abuse in the church as your ‘weapon of mass distraction.’ Ooooh! What a shocking scoop. Your cultic followers will of course generously applaud your word salad on this subject. They always do. And you can all clap each other on the back and comfort one another that hete’s another ‘hateful christian’ who didn’t show Bwucie any luuuurve. What you forget you snake is that although there are so many people deserving grace and investment, you however are one of the vipers Jesus cursed, stating your father is the father of lies. But eulogise on Bruce, you WILL meet your Maker
nothing like a few home truths to brng dwn the drawbridge on freedom of speech. youre a fake and a fraud and a sad little man all rolled into one, ‘i’ll not approve any more comments from you.’ hahahaha oh dear what will your sycophant disciples think of that, hahahaha
haha about time your inactive site saw a flurry of activity. fancy that bruce, denying me a voice ( not that i care, i really don’t) but posting up some exchanges from 2015, i repeat, youre a sad old man with a legacy of depressive memories, ruing certain decisions youve made in your life and hiding away in the woods with only your internet for a friend, and posting only those godless posts that stroke you in all the right places, have another warm night bruce
You can read Ransom’s comments in context and my responses here.
Ransom also sent me two emails:
Ouch im cut to the quick bruce, your pathetic approach is soo transparent Bye
please bruce, show the whole thread why dont you, let it be an advert for you. how you and your cohorts are so right about everything, youre a sad little man bruce
I have no idea what “thread” he is talking about. I have received two emails from Ransom, that’s it.
I am clueless regarding what Ransom hopes to achieve by leaving nasty comments about me and the readers of this blog. I should just cut him off for good, but I find that his comments advance a greater good; that of showing how some Evangelicals view people different from themselves. Ransom is also a reminder of the fact that Britain has its own virulent brand of Evangelicalism. I suggested to Ransom that he should get together fellow Evangelical zealot Susan-Anne White. They are, indeed, two peas in a pod; kindred spirits who “love” Jesus and despise anyone who doesn’t believe as they do — especially atheists, agnostics, and liberal Christians. Both of them also have an out-sized preoccupation and obsession with male anal sex.
If you are not familiar with Ms. White, check out the following posts:
Just started to read some stuff on your site. It’s sad, really, to see how you’ve abandoned the way of faith, especially when your reasons are so hackneyed. I don’t wish to debate with you since you seem to have a closed mind. However, I thought I’d let you know that to well-educated Christians who have been exposed to the acid of critical scholarship and yet have continued in the faith, your arguments seem quite childish. Suffice it to say that your website breaks no new ground and that all of your points have adequate answers in evangelical scholarship. You just don’t seem to want to hear them anymore because you have made a decision to reject Jesus. Beyond the intellectual excuses, I wonder what the real reasons are.
I responded:
*sigh* You read four posts before leaving this comment.
Believe what you will. I know the intellectual reasons why I left Christianity.
No amount of Evangelical turd polishing will change my mind. Evangelicals haven’t had an original thought/argument in decades. What argument could you possibly give that I haven’t heard before?
You are free to make whatever judgments you wish about my past and present life. That is the nature of blogging, I have to deal with people such as yourself. I limit exposure to such inane bullshit by limiting the number of comments zealots can leave . Generally, Evangelicals get one opportunity to share what God has laid on their heart. You had your opportunity, so I hope, bless your heart, you said everything you needed to say.
As for the “real” reasons for my deconversion, I wanted to be porn star, and live a debauched life. I wanted to live in sin. I’m sure that’s want you want to hear. Makes it easier to dismiss me that way.
Any Hoo, thanks for commenting and using your one opportunity to put in a good word for Jesus. I’m sure you’ve made him proud.
Schouten later sent me the following email:
Only four posts? It seemed like forty.
I’ve read this sort of stuff from lots of people over the years.
Seems like all newly-professing atheists are driven to seek to de-convert others.
All so predictable and tiresome.
All in the name of scholarship but without scholarly rigor or depth.
I guess you have to fill your days somehow now that you no longer have any transcendent purpose for your life.
Anyway, it’s way past your bedtime.
Schouten, who read four posts on this site, believes that the reasons I left Christianity lack academic and scholarly rigor. In other words, he has a theological boner and he knows that my flaccid reasons for rejecting the Christian narrative and the authority of the Protestant Christian Bible will never stand up to the critique of such an educated Evangelical porn star as himself. You see, Schouten is a “smart” Evangelical, and if I would just be “smart” like he is, my rejection of Christianity would melt away like butter on a warm summer day and Jesus would once again reign supreme in my life on my whole wheat toast.
Schouten says that my writing breaks no new ground; and that all he sees are predictable and tiresome posts. Since December 2014, I have written 2,713 posts (now 5,464). Schouten has read .00145 percent of my writing, yet he’s skimmed enough to come to the conclusions mentioned above. Perhaps the good pastor should consider Proverbs 18:13: Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish. (NLT)
He’s right about one thing: my critique of Christianity breaks no new ground. How could it since, to quote Solomon, there is nothing new under the sun. Evangelical pastors such as Schouten haven’t had an original thought or broken new ground. Same old skipping record droning on, and on, and on. They continue to preach Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever, forgetting the word SAME. As factory workers in this part of the country say, same shit, new day. Oh, these educated giants of the faith read lots of books, but rarely do they venture beyond the safe confines of the Evangelical box. These books, then, are echo chambers that reinforce their Evangelical presuppositions and beliefs. I had, at one time, over a thousand books in my library, most of them of a Calvinistic persuasion. I suspect Schouten, a Reformed Christian, and I have read many of the same theological tomes. Yet, he’s the smart one, and I am the uneducated one. Why? Because I refuse to believe his cult’s myth about a virgin-born deity who walked on water, raised the dead, walked through walls, and healed blindness with spit mixed with dirt? Or I refuse to believe that this deity is one God, yet three; that the third part of the three-n-one lives inside True Christians®; that the first part of the three-n-one killed the second part on a Roman cross, and magically the dead God resurrected three days later? Or I refuse to believe more fantastical claims; when Jesus came back to life, graves opened up and zombies roamed the streets? And then Jesus said “see ya later” and ascended into the clouds, never to be seen again? And he’s the smart one? Child, please!
Schouten fails to understand that this blog is not meant to be a defense of atheism nor is it a white-tower critique of Christianity. Evidently, Schouten didn’t read the name of this blog: The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser: One Man’s Journey From Eternity to Here. Fundamentally, this blog is me telling my story: an accounting of the fifty years I spent in the Christian church, the twenty-five years I spent as an Evangelical pastor, and my subsequent loss of faith. I am just one man with a story to tell. That thousands of people read my blog and find my writing helpful suggests that my story resonates with people. I could, if I wanted to, start up an academic blog, one where Evangelicals such as Schouten could come and ply their apologetical skills. There are plenty of such blogs for the Schoutens of the world to unzip their theological zipper and expose their Bible prowess for all to see. I have no interest in having such a blog. I have a good understanding of who my target audience is, and these are the people I write for. I give Evangelical zealots just enough rope to hang themselves, providing countless examples of reasons why many of the readers of this blog left Christianity, In Schouten’s case, his words smack of elitism; a common trait among Evangelical Calvinistic pastors. I have corresponded with numerous people who were psychologically harmed by preachers who looked down on them or treated them as if they were stupid. They likely see in Schouten’s arrogance and condescension a reminder of one of the reasons they deconverted. So, to Pastor Schouten I say this: Keep preaching the gospel, bro. Thousands of people will read your comments and emails. You indeed provide a glowing reminder of why many of us are so glad to be free of Christianity (especially your Fundamentalist version, anyway).
I love how Schouten dismisses my life with a wave of his pontifical hand: I guess you have to fill your days somehow now that you no longer have any transcendent purpose for your life. In other words, I have a meaningless, purposeless, empty life without Jesus, so I spend my days turning out atheist propaganda. Little does Schouten know (or care) that atheists can and do have lives of meaning and purpose; that, as humanists, we don’t need God, Christianity, Jesus, the church, or the antiquated, contradictory words of the Bible to make our lives worthwhile.
I am sixty-seven years old. I have been married to a beautiful dark-haired woman for forty-six years. I have six children who are gainfully employed and I have sixteen awesome grandchildren. Four cats too. I have rediscovered the joy of collecting O-gauge post-war Lionel trains. And yes, I write for this blog. You see, my life is filled with wonder, purpose, and meaning, and as long as I have the strength to do so, I plan on living life to its fullest. I don’t have a promise of a divine pay-off; a reserved room in God’s Golden Shower Trump Tower®. All I have is the here and now, the present. This is why I give the following advice on the ABOUT page:
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Some day, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
And with that, I bid these residents of the peanut gallery adieu.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
