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What Motivated Me to Work so Hard for Jesus

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working for jesus

Repost from 2015. Edited, updated, and corrected

It all started with my belief that the Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. I considered the Bible the road map for navigating through a Satan-dominated, sin-plagued world; a blueprint for everything from marriage to child-rearing to what clothing to wear. The Bible, along with the Holy Spirit who lived inside of me, was my God’s way of speaking to me and telling me what to do

According to how Evangelicals interpret the Protestant Bible, every person, from conception, is a vile, broken sinner under the just condemnation of God, deserving eternal punishment in Hell/Lake of Fire. Fortunately, God graciously provides a way for us to have our sins forgiven and avoid eternal punishment. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to be the final atonement for our sins. Jesus Christ was executed on a Roman cross, and three days later rose again from the dead, conquering death and the grave. Our salvation and eternal destiny rest squarely on the merit and work of Jesus. He, and he alone, is the way, truth, and life. Through the preaching of the Word (the Bible) and the work of the Holy Spirit, God calls out to sinners, saying, repent and believe the gospel. Those who hear his voice are gloriously saved and adopted into the family of God.

The Bible taught me that as a God-called, God-ordained minister of the gospel, I had the solemn obligation to preach the good news to everyone. Work for the night is coming. Leave everything for the sake of the gospel. Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. These clichés were not mere words to me. They were clarion calls to forsake all, including my family and economic security, and follow Jesus.

Every church I attended, every youth group I was a part of, and every summer youth camp I went to, reinforced the belief that God wanted (demanded) one hundred percent of me. All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give, says the old gospel song, I Surrender All. I went to an Evangelical Bible college to train for the ministry. Every class curriculum, every professor, every chapel speaker shouted out to students:

Souls for Jesus is our battle cry.
Souls for Jesus is our battle cry.
We never will give in while souls are lost in sin
Souls for Jesus is our battle cry.

My partner, Polly, went to college to get a Mrs. degree. She believed God wanted her to marry a preacher. Polly knew that she would have to make sacrifices for the sake of her husband’s call. She was taught that Jesus, the ministry, and the church came first. She was also taught that her husband was specially chosen by God to proclaim the good news of the gospel. She was encouraged to read biographies of great men and women of faith to learn how to deal with being married to a man of God. Polly and I entered marriage and the ministry knowing God had called us to a life of self-denial and devotion to the work of the ministry. Hand in hand, without complaint, we embraced the work we believed God had set before us.

I consider 1983-1994 to be the high point of my ministerial career. I pastored a growing, busy Evangelical church. Sinners were weekly being saved, baptized, and joining the church. Backsliders were being reclaimed. God was smiling on our work. Not only was this my observation, but it was the observation of my colleagues in the ministry. God was doing something special at Somerset Baptist Church.

During this time, I did a lot of preaching.  A typical week for me looked something like this:

  • Jail ministry on Tuesday
  • Nursing home ministry on Wednesday
  • Midweek service on Thursday
  • Street preaching 2-3 days a week
  • Teaching the adult Sunday school class
  • Preaching twice on Sunday

We also had a tuition-free Christian academy, open only to the children of church members. In addition to my busy church preaching schedule, I held revival services and preached at bible conferences and pastor’s fellowships. I was motivated by what I believed the Bible taught me about the work of the ministry. I looked at the life of the disciples and thought that they were a pattern to follow. Run the race, the Apostle Paul told me. I was totally committed to what I believed was God’s calling on my life.

Some Christians object and say “you are the one who worked yourself to death. Don’t blame the Church or God. OUR pastor doesn’t work this way. He takes time for his family. Blah. Blah Blah.” Even now, as an atheist, I find such objections lame. If the Bible is true, if what it says about God, sin, salvation, death, Hell, and Heaven is true, how dare any preacher, or any Christian for that matter, treat the gospel of Jesus Christ so carelessly?  How dare any preacher not burn himself out for the sake of those in need of salvation. No time for busywork. No time for golfing with your fellow preachers.

More than a few pastors are lazy hirelings who do just enough to keep from getting fired. They pastor a church for two or three years, wear out their welcome, and then move on down the road to another church. I have no respect for pastors who defend their laziness by stressing the importance of balance in their lives. Where do they find such a notion in the Bible they say they believe? Jesus doesn’t call them to balance. He calls them to forsake all and follow him.

One of the reasons I see Christianity as a bankrupt religion is the lackadaisical approach Christians and their spiritual leaders have toward matters that supposedly have eternal consequences. Most of what goes on in the average church is meaningless bullshit. Call a business meeting to decide on the color of the paint for the nursery walls and everyone shows up. Implore people to come out for church visitation and only the same three or four people show up, week after week.

Why should I take the Bible, God, Jesus, salvation, Heaven, or Hell seriously when most Christians and pastors live lives that suggest they don’t? It took me leaving the ministry in 2005 and Christianity in 2008 for me to realize that most of what I was chasing after was nothing more than a fool’s errand. Many of the ex-ministers who read this blog know what I am talking about. So much of life wasted, and for what? Too bad I had to be fifty years old before I realized what life is all about. Too bad I sacrificed my health on the altar of the eternal before I realized that there is no eternity, just the here and now.

From a psychological perspective, I understand that my type-A, workaholic personality made it easy for me to be the preacher I came to be. Whether it was pastoring churches or managing restaurants, I worked day and night, rarely taking time off for family or leisure. I still have the same tendencies, the difference now being that the list of things that matter to me is very small. Polly matters. Family matters. My neighbors matter. But matters of eternity, Heaven, and Hell? Nary a thought these days. If the Christian God exists, then I am screwed, and more than a few of the readers of this blog are too. However, I don’t think the Christian version of God exists, so I am investing all my time, money, and talent — how many times did you hear that phrase in a sermon? — on the only life I have — this one. I will leave it up to the gods and my family to do what they will with me after I am dead. Of course, depending on what happens to me after death, I could come back from the dead and write a book titled, “Heaven is for Real and Boy, Are the Atheists in Trouble.”

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.

Worldly Knowledge vs. Biblical Knowledge

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benjamin rush quote on knowledge

“I believe the Bible is the Word of God,” millions of Evangelicals say. “I believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible. I believe every word in the Bible is true. Whatever the Bible says, no matter how silly or irrational, I believe it is true. When worldly human knowledge contradicts the Bible, I am going to believe the Bible every time. When science contradicts the Bible, I am going to believe the Bible. When history, archeology, cosmology, biology, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, astronomy, and genetics contradict the Bible, I am doing to believe the Bible.”

According to one Evangelical who has no formal science training:

The unbelieving world is famous for demanding physical evidence for biblical content. They refuse to believe because of the ‘God did it’ factor or for other reasons. This is done regardless of the fact that there are scores of physical evidence from various scientific and other sources proving the validity of the biblical content.

….

We demand that the unbeliever produce verifiable and real physical evidence for each stage of their Big Bang Theory. If they can’t provide any or just offer excuses, then they need to be silent on the universe’s origins.

They cannot prove their theory so it is not true and not a viable option to the creation account. The existence of stars, planets, comets, etc., does not provide any evidence for the alleged processes unbelievers claim took place.

The existence of the universe and its contents does not exclude the biblical account of creation nor any other alternative to it.

….

The unbeliever needs to provide verifiable, real physical evidence proving the source of gravity as well as the development of this field.

With the Bible, we have the answers to these questions– God and his power. Yes, God did it and science cannot produce any physical evidence for any of the alternative theories it proposes.

….

All science can do is offer an alternative explanation for what they observe in the present. When science and scientists omit God, then they have no possible avenue to produce one shred of evidence to support their theories.

The so-called evidence they claim that proves their theories correct is not real evidence. Scientists have no hope of proving those alleged items are real evidence because they do not know if they played a role in the origin of the universe or life or not.

They are merely guessing and have no clue how the universe came to be. So-called background radiation is not evidence for anything except for the presence of background radiation.

Looking at something in the present means one has to guess at how it came to be if they have no written information proving it is evidence for origins. The only document that has written evidence for our origins is the Bible.

When scientists toss that then they are left with nothing. Nothing they claim in their theories leads them closer to the truth. The reason this is so is because they cannot produce one shred of physical evidence for every step of the Big Bang or life’s formation, etc.

Yes, they can say they have evidence, but upon closer scrutiny, their claims remain unproven and simple guesswork.

….

How do they know it was an ‘explosion’ and not God’s power that did it? They need to provide real verifiable physical evidence to prove it was an ‘explosion’ and not a supernatural act.

….

Where is the real verifiable physical evidence for this event? Saying it took place or saying ‘I believe…’ or ‘we believe…’ is not physical evidence. That is just propaganda.

There is just so much in the Big Bang Theory that lacks any supporting physical evidence. Under the unbelievers’ rules, it did not happen unless they can produce the real, verifiable physical evidence to prove that it did.

Everything that science says about origins must be taken by faith, something the unbeliever finds anathema to do when it comes to God and the Bible. Yet, we have more real verifiable physical evidence for God and the Bible than all the scientists in the world have for their origin theories.

….

No matter what scientists do, they cannot compete with or disprove the Bible or God.

This particular unaccredited Bible college-trained preacher’s beliefs are typical among Evangelical pastors, though better educated men and women know that the claims they make for the Bible are not true; that although the Bible might be faithful and reliable and sufficient, it is not inerrant, nor is it infallible. Inerrancy and infallibility cannot be rationally sustained, as any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books make clear. Countless books have been written by scholars to disabuse Evangelicals of the notion that the Bible is some sort of supernatural book written by a supernatural God, without error. Some Evangelicals, knowing their position on the Bible is absurd, appeal to inerrant originals. No, the English Bible is not inerrant, but the manuscripts from which the Bible was translated were, pious preachers say. Of course, said inerrant originals do not exist, so we have to take their word for it. Other Evangelical preachers go to the other extreme, saying that a particular translation of the English Bible — the King James Version (KJV) — is inerrant and infallible. Some even believe that the italicized helper words added by translators to aid with reading, and for which there is no correlation in the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, are inspired by God and without error. The aforementioned preacher believes the KJV, NKJV, NASB, and NIV are all inerrant and infallible, even though they differ in thousands of places.

Bruce, surely it shouldn’t be hard to convince Evangelicals that the Bible is not inerrant or infallible. Just show them evidence that contradicts their beliefs or get them to read a couple of books. Isn’t this enough to persuade them that their beliefs are false? I wish it were that simple, but since these sincere followers of Jesus weren’t argued into their beliefs, they won’t be argued out of them. Years of deep indoctrination and conditioning have made them impervious to evidence and facts (and the same can be said for all of us when it comes to beliefs we hold dear). That’s why I don’t argue with Evangelicals about Bible inerrancy and infallibility. I write articles challenging these beliefs, hoping that something I say might cause a chink in their Bible armor or I recommend books I hope will disabuse them of their irrational beliefs. I know, however, that until Evangelicals, at the very least, ponder that they could be wrong, they are unreachable. Certainty breeds arrogance, and arrogance precludes someone from gaining a better understanding of his or her beliefs. Humility leads us to consider that we could be wrong or that our beliefs are lacking or that our teachers, well-intentioned or not, might have been lacking in their own knowledge about the Bible. As long as “the Bible says” (or better put, “as I interpret the Bible”) is the final answer to every question, Evangelicals will continue to ignorantly believe sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible are without error and infallible in ALL that it teaches and says.

Suppose the Bible said 1+1=5. Mathematics tells us this is false; that 1+1=2. If the Bible is inerrant and infallible, the Evangelical is forced to say, with shouts of praise to the one true God, 1+1=5. Absurd? Sure, but no more so than believing that the universe is 6, 027 years old; that the earth was created in six twenty-four days; that snakes walked on two legs and spoke a language understood by humans, and that a donkey talked in the same voice with a man; that the entire earth was covered in flood water 4,000 or so years ago; that millions of Israelites spend forty years walking the 432 miles between Egypt and Canaan — a trip that should have taken roughly three weeks; that demonic angels of large size had sex with human women, leading to the birth of part angel, part human children; that the earth stopped its rotation for twenty-four hours … shall I go on?

If you believe that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, you must believe that all the above things are true. No evidence will be forthcoming outside of proof texts from the Bible. So if the Bible said 1+1=5, Evangelicals have no choice but to accept that what “God” said is true; that no matter what mathematicians say, they are wrong, and the Word of God is right.

Bruce, this is insane. Yep, but I believed this way for most of my life, as did many of the readers of this blog. The only hope I see for 1+1=5 believers is this: when they balance their checkbook and add up 1+1, do they write down a 5? Nope. They know empirically that 1+1=2. Believing otherwise would cause all sorts of problems in their lives. Suppose an Evangelical homeschooling family has a daughter who wants to be an engineer and a son who wants to be a physician. Their math instruction teaches them, as billions and billions of people know to be true, that 1+1=2. Should their parents teach them, instead, that 1+1=5; that what the Bible says is right and their math book is wrong? Of course not. The parents KNOW that 1+1=2 and that teaching their children otherwise would be disastrous for them when they go to college to train to be an engineer and a doctor. They would flunk out of college in their first semester, mocked and ridiculed for stupidly believing 1+1=5.

Thus, the homeschooling Evangelical parents live with cognitive dissonance — the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. There’s no way to square 1+1=5 with 1+1=2, so the parents are forced to have one set of beliefs at church and another at home. They are forced to affirm beliefs that they KNOW in the depths of their minds cannot be reconciled. And it is this cognitive dissonance that provides a path by which Evangelicals can be reached. Doubts, questions, and irreconcilable beliefs can and do lead to reconstruction — the rethinking and reevaluation of beliefs and practices. While this process does not necessarily or even usually lead to atheism or agnosticism, it can and does lead people to expressions of faith that put knowledge, facts, and evidence above the words of 2,000-4,000-year-old pre-science authors who had little to no understanding of how the world really works. They were products of their time, so I don’t fault them for what they wrote, but here we are in 2024 and we have millions and millions of Americans who still think the year is 4,000 BCE.

1+1=2, and no matter how many words will be expended saying that what I wrote in this post is wrong, the fact remains that the Bible is not inerrant or infallible. Whatever one might, by faith, believe the Bible is, all the extant evidence tells us that it is a manmade book, littered with errors, contradictions, and mistakes. Evangelicals are free to ‘splain away these inconvenient truths any way they can, but the fact remains that all a critic needs to show is one error, contradiction, or mistake in the Bible to bring inerrancy crashing to the ground.

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.

Praise and Worship Music: Making Love to Jesus on Sunday Morning

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praise and worship music

Repost from 2015. Edited, updated, and corrected. 

Warning! Snark ahead.

When I started attending Evangelical churches in the late 1950s, hymns, hymns, and only hymns were the songs of the church. In the 1960s, southern gospel music started to influence what was sung on Sunday mornings. From there came the Gaither era, the contemporary Christian music era (CCM), and finally the praise and worship era. Drums, guitars, praise teams, and worship leaders are standard fare in churches now. The Great Generation tends to not like it, millennials think it is boring, and baby boomers say, FINALLY, rock music in the church.

Over the last eight years I spent in the ministry, the churches I pastored used a blended worship approach. We’d sing hymns, but we also sang a lot of praise and worship songs. My three oldest sons played bass and guitar, so they became the church band. At the time, I thought it was wonderful, but now that I am years removed from singing love songs to Jesus, I have a far different opinion.

Just for fun, I clicked the Praise and Worship channel on Rdio — a now defunct music streaming service. I listened to many of the songs we sang years ago, mixed in with new praise and worship songs. As I listened to the instrumentation, I couldn’t help but notice how the songs stirred my emotions. It’s the instrumentation that gives the syrupy, Jesus-is-your-boyfriend lyrics their sexual appeal. I thought, these songs are love-making songs. And that is exactly why so many Christians love them. Hymns generally appeal to the intellect. Praise and worship music makes no pretense of appealing to the intellect. The music is meant to agitate emotions, putting listeners in a frame of mind that makes it easy for Jesus to “commune” with believers.

Many praise and worship songs are little more than aids for spiritual masturbation. Often, the lyrics are shallow and repetitive, focusing on self and not God. Some of the lyrics are so shallow that just by swapping a few words, you can change the song from a love song to Jesus to a love song to your boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, Take the song (Trading My Sorrows) Yes Lord by Matt Redman. The next time you are making love to your significant other, speak or sing these lyrics, changing the word Lord to the name of your partner:

We say yes lord yes lord yes yes lord
Yes lord yes lord yes yes lord
Yes lord yes lord yes yes lord amen

Make sure you sing it loudly so the neighbors will know it is your lucky night. 🙂

The draw of praise and worship music is its emotional appeal. Visit a local we are the hippest church in town and observe the effect the music has on parishioners. All around you will be people dreamily lost in the love of Jesus. Some will be so enthralled that they begin making love to Jesus, not caring a bit that they are participating in the equivalent of a YouPorn video. It’s emotional sex with your clothes on.

On one hand, the effect this music has on parishioners reflects the power of music to move our emotions. When Polly and I attended a Darius Rucker concert years ago, both of us noticed the emotional connection attendees made with the music. Both of us were stirred emotionally by Rucker’s songs. The problem with praise and worship music is that it is sold as a medium to get closer to God. Countless Evangelicals go to church on Sunday to get their emotional fix. Forget the sermon. They are there to wrap their arms around Jesus and do a slow dance with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is in this highly emotional state that parishioners are open to whatever their pastor is selling that day. While worship leaders will likely object and say that the music prepares believers to hear from the Lord, I am convinced the music is used, whether purposely or ignorantly, to weaken psychological defenses and make it easier for parishioners to “hear” what the pastor, uh I mean God, is trying to tell/sell them.

The music puts parishioners in an altered state. This is by design, and any pastor or worship leader who tells you differently is lying. Even with hymns, the songs can elicit a specific emotional response. The ebb and flow of the average worship service is a highly designed and scripted affair meant to achieve a certain goal. If this is not true, why don’t churches start their services with the sermon? Instead, the music is used to open the hearts (minds) of listeners to whatever their pastors are going to say. By manipulating emotions, pastors have a greater chance to get those under the sound of their voice to do what they want them to do. Again, if this is not so, why do most pastors and worship leaders choose songs that perfectly dovetail with the sermon? Why not take requests from the floor if what song is sung doesn’t matter?

But it does matter. And it is not just the music. Modern church services have turned into tightly scripted affairs. Sound, lighting, and program structure are used to set the mood; no different from me coming home and finding the lights dimmed, candles lit, rose petals on the floor, and the sweet voice of Karen Carpenter quietly wafting through the air. The former is meant to help the parishioner get lucky with Jesus. The latter is meant to remind Bruce that sometimes the ballgame doesn’t come first. 🙂

Even in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches — a sect known for hating contemporary music — certain songs are used to elicit emotional responses from the congregants. The goal is the same regardless of the style of music. Through emotional manipulation, the words of pastors are more easily received. In most cases, little harm is done. But, sometimes, by manipulating the hearers’ emotions, the songs lead congregants to make decisions or do things they wouldn’t have ordinarily done. Those slobbering IFB preachers were right about secular music. Certain “Satanic” songs can lower inhibitions and pave the way for a romp in the sack with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Such evil! But what they don’t tell you is that certain “godly” songs can lower inhibitions too, and pave the way for a romp in the sack with Jesus.

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 the Christian God a God of Second and Third Chances?

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second chances

Recently, an Evangelical woman named Kelly Benson left the following comment on the post titled, An Open Letter to Pastor Tom Hauser, Global River Church (written by my friend Suzanne). I have edited Benson’s comment due to her lack of proper spelling and punctuation use:

I’m a member of Global River church. I’m not going to blast you for putting this up. It’s how you feel and your experiences. I don’t know [the] full detail of what happened, but I can tell you it’s not like that now. I don’t know how it was then, I know, speaking from personal experience, I have been set [free] from [demonic] oppression by Global River Church. This is what [I’ll] say: that my God, your God, my Jesus, and your Jesus, are a God of second and third [or so] chances. They [God? The Church?] don’t give up on you, and maybe this experience [of yours] had to happen to you to make you see [that] he [Suzanne’s husband, Jim] needed a doctor. Maybe, I don’t know. I just know we are no longer [affiliated with] the Vineyard [denomination]. We have come a long way from [where?] we are now. [We] always have been God fearing and God loving, and whatever your experience, I hope you get to see God in his true light and majesty. [If you do,] you will never go back. It [God’s love] is the most amazing love there is. God bless you always, and I hope you’re in his love now.

I will leave it to Suzanne to respond to Benson’s statements about Global River Church. I want to focus on several claims Benson makes about God, Jesus, and second/third chances.

First, Benson assumes that her God and Suzanne’s God are one and the same; that her God is the one true and living God. However, as anyone who has studied Christianity in general and Evangelicalism in particular, I know Christians worship a plethora of deities. Ask a group of Evangelicals to define and describe “God” and you will end up with numerous answers. The Bible says that there is one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism, but a close examination of Evangelicalism reveals many Lords, many Faiths, and many Baptisms. Benson does what many Christians do. She assumes that her personal beliefs and experiences apply to everyone.

Benson claims that if you see God in his true light and majesty you will never go back. Yet, countless readers of this blog testify that they have seen God in his true light and majesty, yet they came to a place in their lives where they realized that the God whom they thought they saw and experienced was a myth. People can and do walk away from Christianity. Pastors, evangelists, deacons, missionaries, Sunday school teachers, Christian school teachers, Christian college professors, and other people whose lives were wholly committed to following Jesus are now unbelievers today. As studies continue to show, Evangelicalism is bleeding adherents left and right. Instead of spouting cheap cliches, Benson might want to focus on why so many devoted followers of Jesus are exiting the church stage left.

I want to focus in conclusion on Benson’s claim that God is a God of second and third chances. This is a claim often made by Christians, but is it true?

Benson presupposes the existence of her peculiar version of God, and that her God gives people second and third chances when they break his law or disobey him. There’s no possible way for her to know whether this claim of hers is true. By faith, she believes that it is, but it is impossible for her to know for sure.

If we go to the Biblical text, we can find numerous instances where God did not give people second or third chances. Take Judas. Did God give him a second chance? No. Or Uzzah — the man who steadied the Ark of the Covenant with his hand and God struck him dead for touching the Ark? Or Ananias and Sapphira? Both of them told a lie before the church about the sale of property, and God struck them dead on the spot. In Genesis 1-3, we find Adam and Eve breaking the law of God by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge. Did God give them (or the human race) a second chance? No. Did God give Lucifer and his fellow angels who rebelled against him and were cast out of Heaven a second chance? No.

I could go on and on with illustrations from the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, proving that Benson’s deity is as Richard Dawkins suggests:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

And if someone suggests that they worship Jesus or the God of the New Testament, may I remind them that Jesus is God, and that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever; that the book of Revelation records the violence, carnage, and bloodshed Jesus will one day pour out on billions of people — many of whom never had a first chance, let alone a second chance.

Benson and her fellow church members are likely decent people who grant others second and third chances. However, the God they worship is not.

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.

Are You Worshiping a False Jesus?

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blue eyed jesus

Evangelicals want everyone to believe that they worship Jesus; not just any Jesus, either. Their Jesus is the one and only Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Their Jesus is special and unique, unlike the Jesus worshiped by Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roman Catholics, or revered by Muslims and other non-Evangelical sects.

Take the Sovereign Grace Music song, Jesus, There’s No One Like You:

There is no song we could sing
To honor the weight of Your glory
There are no words we could speak
To capture the depth of Your beauty

CHORUS
Jesus, there’s no one like You
Jesus, we love You, ever adore You
There’s no one like You
Jesus, we love You, ever adore You, Lord

VERSE 2
There is no sinner beyond
The infinite stretch of Your mercy
How can we thank You enough
For how You have loved us completely?

BRIDGE
All we have
All we need
All we want is You

Video Link

It’s evident Sovereign Grace has a particular Jesus in mind. More on that below.

blue eyed jesus

Years ago, Evangelical musicians Bill and Gloria Gaither released a song titled, There’s Something About That Name:

There’s just something about the name of Jesus

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
There’s just something about that name
Master, Savior, Jesus
Like the fragrance after the rain

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
Let all Heaven and earth proclaim
Kings and kingdoms will all pass away
But there’s something about that name

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
There’s just something about that name
Master, Savior, Jesus
Like the fragrance after the rain

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
Let all Heaven and earth proclaim
Kings and kingdoms will all pass away
But there’s something about that name (that name)

Something about that name.

Video Link

Both songs reference Jesus, yet the Jesus of Sovereign Grace Music, and that of Bill and Gloria Gaither are very different from one another. Sovereign Grace is Calvinistic, whereas the Gaithers belong to an Arminian sect. The Jesus of the Calvinists and the Jesus of the Arminians are two very different Sons of God. Oh, outwardly they appear the same, but doctrinally they are very different. Mere semantics? I think not. Evangelical sects build complex systems of theology around their peculiar versions of Jesus. These beliefs can’t help but color how believers view the Savior of the world (to the Gaithers) or the Savior of the elect (to the Calvinists). And it’s not just Evangelicals who do this. Liberal/progressive Christians have a very different Jesus from that of Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB). Which Jesus is the right one? How could we possibly know who possesses the Jesus who alone can save us from our sins?

black jesus

Worse yet, individual churches, pastors, and congregants shape and mold Jesus into their own version of the Son of God. Instead of there being one Jesus for all, there are countless Jesuses, each eerily looking like their creators.

The next time you have a discussion with an Evangelical who is preaching “Jesus” to you, perhaps it would be interesting for you to ask them “which” Jesus? Ask them how their Jesus compares to the one found within the pages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Any cursory reading of the Bible reveals that whomever and whatever the Jesus of the gospels might have been, he bears little resemblance to the Jesuses of today. And that’s okay. Is that not the power of religion; its ability to adapt, change, and transform over time? All I want is for Evangelicals to admit, in particular, that Jesus is NOT the same yesterday, today, and forever; that he is a chameleon of sorts.

I find it amusing when Evangelicals attempt to assert that their Jesus alone is the “right” Jesus, and that all other Jesuses are false. Take our Fundamentalist friend Spaniard VIII. In a post titled, Satan Is After You To Destroy You, Sp8 gives “examples of a false Jesus Christ that comes from the teachings of demons through false religions.”

middle eastern jesus

Sp8 believes that he worships the one true Jesus. He even gives a checklist for readers to follow to determine if they are worshiping a demonic Jesus, Do you believe that (my answers in parentheses):

  • Jesus is not God (yes)
  • Jesus didn’t die on the cross (no)
  • Jesus didn’t rise from the dead (yes)
  • Jesus wasn’t perfect (yes)
  • Jesus was not born from a virgin (yes)
  • Jesus was not the Son of God (yes)
  • Jesus is not the only way to Heaven (yes)
  • Jesus is another god apart from the Father (yes)
  • A denial of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all three being Yahweh (yes)

Oh my God! I just learned that I believe in a false Jesus! I have been deceived by Satanic forces out to send me to the Lake of Fire for eternity. Hey, I did answer the question “Jesus didn’t die on the cross” correctly. I am of the opinion that we have sufficient historical evidence for the execution of Jesus on a Roman cross (and, no, I don’t want to debate this issue). This claim makes rational sense to me. However, the rest of Sp8’s assertions are faith claims. Sp8 just wants us to take his word for it that he worships the right Jesus. Doubt this naked assertion of his? Burn in Hell!

socialist jesus

There’s no such thing as a monolithic Jesus. Two thousand years of Christian church history, along with the establishment and proliferation of thousands of contradictory Christian sects, have birthed countless Westworld-like Jesuses, each programmed to look, believe, and act like their creators.

Which Jesus, if any, do you worship?

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.

Teaching IFB Church Members About Every Cult But Theirs

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the-kingdom-of-the-cults

I grew up in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches in the 1960s and 1970s. I later attended an IFB college — Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. Next to evangelizing the lost, preaching against “sin,” and trumpeting the soon return of Jesus, IFB preachers love to talk about cults.

The IFB church movement generally believes themselves to be God’s true church. Some preachers — called Landmark Baptists or Baptists Briders — believed they could, much like Roman Catholics, trace their church’s lineage back to Jesus and the New Testament. While most IFB preachers will grudgingly admit that some other Christian sects include True Christians®, many non-IFB groups are labeled cults. Seventh Day Adventists? Roman Catholics? Mormons? Church of Christ? Charismatics? Pentecostals? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Calvinists? Cults, the lot of them.

As an IFB pastor, I thought it important to teach church members about the teachings of cults. Sunday School was a perfect place to introduce teaching about cults. Congregants loved learning about cults. After all, learning about the heretical beliefs of cults only reinforced the notion that their pastor and church had the “right” beliefs. What was never considered was the fact that Christianity itself is a cult, as is the IFB church movement.

My teaching presupposed that my interpretation and understanding of the Bible were equivalent to the faith once delivered to the saints. Thus, it was easy to “prove” that certain sects were cults. Just compare their beliefs to mine. See! There’s all the evidence you need to prove that baby-baptizing, Virgin-Mary-worshiping Catholicism is a cult. That’s why I could go to a town of 1,600 people that had two Catholic churches, a Methodist Church, a Lutheran Church, and a Church of Christ, and start a new church — a true New Testament Baptist congregation. I was convinced that I knew the truth, and I was duty-bound to deliver the residents of Somerset and Perry County of the hold cults had on their souls. Especially those fish-eaters.

People raised in IFB churches have likely read or heard of Walter Martin’s seminal work, The Kingdom of the Cults. This book takes a prominent place on the bookshelves of many IFB preachers. It was a necessary tool in the raging war against cults. Ironically, Martin did not believe the Seventh Day Adventist Church was a cult.

Two stories come to mind from my days as a cult-busting preacher. One year, I had been teaching on Mormonism. During the class, a visitor stood up and challenged what I was teaching. Unbeknownst to me, this man had gotten wind of my teaching and decided to visit our church so he could put in a good word for Mormonism. Needless to say, his attempt to set me straight didn’t go well. My retort was simple, THE BIBLE SAYS! That was always my answer when my preaching or teaching was challenged.

Later in my ministry, as pastor of Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio, a Seventh-Day Adventist man and wife attended our church. They were friends with a couple who periodically attended Our Father’s House. By this time, I was much more open-minded towards other sects. In fact, the front doors of our church building said, “The Church Where the Only Label that Matters is Christian.” I was friends with the local Church of Christ preacher, and a member of the local ministerial group — a cardinal sin back in my IFB days.

I believed, at the time, that this Seventh-Day Adventist couple genuinely wanted “Christian fellowship.” One Sunday evening, I learned differently. I don’t remember what I had preached on that night, but afterward, as was my custom at that time, I asked if there were any questions? The Seventh-Day Adventist man stood up and started condemning my preaching. I was shocked by his behavior. I told him that he was wrong to assume that we believed what we did out of ignorance. We went back and forth for a few moments, and then I put an end to our “discussion.” This couple never came back. I suspect that they were there to infiltrate and evangelize instead of to bond over food, fun, and fellowship. 

Both of these confrontations troubled me, not because I thought my beliefs were wrong, but because I never dreamed of visiting a different church so I could evangelize or set them straight. Back in the 1980s, I preached a series of messages about the Church of Christ, showing that they were a cult that preached a false gospel. On Mondays, I would make cassette copies of the sermons and mail them to Church of Christ preachers in a four-county area. This, of course, provoked all sorts of outrage. I received several cassette sermons in the mail from Church of Christ preachers. Their sermons were their attempt to expose the Baptists as a cult! How dare they! I was a member of True Church®. In the 1800s, the Baptists expelled Campbellites — Alexander Campbell and his father Thomas Campbell were the founders of the Church of Christ (along with Barton Stone) — from their midst for heresy. Cults, the lot of them.

What I never considered is that I too was a cultist; that Christianity, in general, was a cult. According to the TheSage Dictionary, a cult is a system of religious beliefs and rituals; cultists are followers of an exclusive system of religious beliefs and practices. Pretty well describes Christianity in general, and the IFB church movement in particular, does it not? I could see the “cult” in every sect but my own.

Want to enrage Evangelical/IFB preachers? Call them cultists. Out will come their Bibles, proof-texts, and evidence that “proves” that their brand of Christianity is that which was founded by Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Apostle Paul. Blinded by arrogance and hubris, they cannot see that their sects and churches are cults too.

To these True Christians® I say: by all means, continue to fight among yourselves. Keep waging internecine warfare against each other. Keep slinging words such as cult or heretic. You are doing good work, exposing the bankruptcy of your beliefs.

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.

Dear Pastor, Where Your Treasure Is, There Will be Your Heart Also

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preachers and money 2

How we spend our money says a lot about our values and what we consider important. As an Evangelical pastor, I took seriously the teachings of the Bible concerning money (mammon) and material possessions. Today, many preachers and churches put money before ministry; material possessions before ministering to the least of these. In Matthew 25, Jesus talked about the importance of helping the least of these; that doing so was a sign of true faith. Who are the least of these? People who are hungry, sick, thirsty, poor, widowed, orphaned, and in prison. Further, the Bible discusses ministering to strangers and foreigners (immigrants). Yet, it seems most churches and pastors either can’t find these verses in their Bibles or they KNOW what the Word of the Lord says but try to either reinterpret these verses or explain them away. What we end up with, then, are churches loaded with cash that are focused on making fat sheep fatter, showing no love, compassion, or regard for the strangers at their gates.

Oh, these churches and their pastors will object, saying, We LOVE people! We love them so much that we share the gospel with them. Instead of seeing people as they are, churches see them as sinners, broken, and in need of fixing. People are never seen as . . . people. Instead, they are viewed as targets of evangelization; prospective church members; and future tithers. With Evangelical churches, in particular, I have concluded that it is almost impossible for them to interact with the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world without having ulterior motives.

Recently, a commenter on Another Evangelical Con Job, This Time by 7 Hills Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, had this to say:

As a member of 7 Hills, I find this quite concerning that you are judging the actions of the church without coming to a service, speaking directly to a staff member or researching outside of one article. The church gives MILLIONS to the community all the ways you listed and also provides to several prison ministries and the men/women incarcerated there. We provide a mobile Women’s health bus that goes into the community to share the answer of life to those that are questioning decisions that could lead otherwise. I would challenge you to call the church and ask the questions you may have toward the ministries.

The article in question was about a megachurch’s annual egg drop for children. I wrote:

7 Hills Church, a congregation with locations in Florence, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, provides a good illustration of what I am talking about in this post. 7 Hills Church held multiple egg drops after services on Good Friday, Holy (huh?) Saturday, and Easter Sunday. 200,000 eggs were dropped for 3,000 children to put in their baskets and bags. According to Kyle Waid, an associate pastor at 7 Hills Church, “Every year, 7 Hills Church tries to make fun Easter memories for families. Over the years, we’ve dropped eggs out of hot air balloons, had professional skydivers, fireworks, and even shot people out of cannons.”

Waid knows Easter egg hunts are thoroughly, completely, and absolutely secular, yet justifies having one:

“[Paul said] To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. Our church carries that same mission. We have become all things to all people with the same goal as Paul: that someone would receive the message of Jesus. The egg hunt is an afterthought. The goal is to reach people.”

The goal, Waid stated, is to “reach [save, evangelize] people.” Not just doing something nice and fun for local children. The goal is what the goal always is for Evangelicals: saving sinners, adding members to the church, and increasing offerings.

Much like Evangelical rescue missions who require homeless people to sit through a sermon and an altar call before getting a meal or a bed for the night, 7 Hills Church required children and their families to attend church before the Easter egg drop.

Waid stated:

“Following every Easter service, we hand out admission tickets to the egg hunt. It’s our hope that through the 10 minutes of hunting eggs, families can create a fun memory together. It’s our prayer that through the hour and 15-minute service, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents, sisters, and brothers can find a forever friend in Jesus.”

According to Waid, almost five hundred people were “saved” during the Easter weekend churches. Waid added that 7 Hills pastor Marcus Mecum “has always invested heavily in the next generation, including making church for children fun and engaging.” Dropping plastic Easter eggs from the sky, a stunt that cost thousands of dollars, is “investing heavily in the next generation’? Really? Fun? Sure. But, I would love to know how much money 7 Hills has invested in the local community with no strings attached. My bet is on “not much.” How much money was spent on people outside of the church, on paying rent, utilities, car repairs, and providing food to the least of these? Again, based on their multi-million-dollar budget, I’d say “not much.

As you can see, the goal was to evangelize the lost. Participants were required to attend church before getting a ticket granting them admission to the egg drop. According to the church, this is one of the ways they invest heavily in the next generation. Really? I mean really? Does anyone think that dropping plastic eggs made in China from the sky has anything to do with investing in anything other than a slick publicity stunt meant to evangelize people and incorporate them into the church?

The commenter above protests, saying that 7 Hills does all sorts of things for the local community. What, exactly? I have challenged numerous Evangelicals over the years who object to my sharp criticism of their churches or pastors, saying that, as the commenter does, “our church gives MILLIONS to the community.” Really? Let’s see your budget. Not the annual summary budget churches often use to hide exactly how much money was taken in and how it was spent. Yes, I know all the tricks of the trade; how easy it is to hide certain expenditures behind generic line item entries in a superficial, misleading one-page summary budget.

I have been asking Evangelical churches and pastors for their budgets for almost twenty years. Not one church has coughed up a detailed budget. Why is that? I submit that they know doing so will show that the emperor has no clothes; that most church income is spent on buildings, utilities, staff, benefits, and felt-need programs meant to fatten up fat sheep. Very little is spent on helping the least of these; on ministering to those who can offer nothing in return or will never become asses in the seats.

The commenter said 7 Hills spends millions of dollars on helping people. I would love to see evidence for this claim. And, even if it is true, millions of dollars out of how much? Let’s say a church takes in $10 million a year. Over ten years, that’s $100 million. A proud-as-a-peacock member might say, “The church spent $5 million on helping people.” Significant to be sure, but compared to the $100 million pool, the church spent five percent of its income helping others. Where did the rest of the money go?

I will gladly eat my words if a church proves me wrong, but so far, no church has shown that its prime directive is to spend most of its money on those outside the gates. Churches are certainly free to spend their money as they wish, but if they attempt to pass themselves off as sacrificial benevolent organizations, I am going to ask them to show me the money. Evangelical pastors are notorious for lying about their churches’ income and expenditures. Shit, it is almost impossible to find out how much they are actually paid in salary and benefits or how much they make on side gigs like speaking fees and book royalties. Many Evangelical megachurch pastors, in particular, are multimillionaires, all the while encouraging people to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

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, Has Your Story Won Any Converts to Atheism?

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peanut gallery

Several years ago, a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor emailed me and asked:

You certainly are preaching your good news still, eh? Once a preacher, always a preacher I guess. I read some of your site and I find it intriguing, if a bit … missionary … in its atheistic zeal. I’m curious if your message about your personal journey has won any converts to the atheism cause. Or did most former Christians just come to your site because they already had one foot on the way out and saw you out here? Like you, I’m sick of the lies inside the churches. But its clear I don’t hate the same set of “lies” you do. Unlike many Christian pastors, I have no interest in converting anyone and never have. I write only because I went through this same journey (and its subsequent fallout) with a fellow pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist church, Ryan Bell, and I am gathering information as to why these journeys take place at all. So thanks for taking the time to write down why you left. It actually strengthens me in staying.

I have always been passionate about whatever I do in my life. So, what might be perceived as “missionary zeal” is actually just Bruce being Bruce. As a writer, I believe I have something to say that matters, so I put my whole being into my work. That said, my goal has never been to be an evangelist for atheism. My target audience remains the same today as it was seventeen years ago: those who have questions/doubts about Christianity and those who have left Christianity. I see myself as a facilitator. My goal is to help people distance themselves from Fundamentalist Christianity. (Please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?)

The letter writer asks if my story has won any converts to atheism. The short answer is yes. Numerous ex-Evangelical pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and laypeople say that my writing was instrumental in their deconversion. While this is not my goal, I am humbled by the fact that many people find my writing helpful. That thousands of people read this blog still blows my mind.

The readers of this blog are quite eclectic. While I am an agnostic atheist, many readers are not. Evangelicals and liberal Christians, along with atheists, agnostics, pagans, and other non-Christians read my writing. Many of them have both feet firmly planted in their religious traditions. Others do not. Questioners and doubters, along with people seriously considering leaving the fold, often find that my writing resonates with them. My words ring true.

Of course, I also attract Evangelical apologists and critics, along with Muslim and Catholic zealots. Countless Christians have sent me emails or left comments on a particular post, hoping to bring me back into the fold, deconstruct my life, or discredit my story. In my early blogging days, I thought that if I just openly and honestly shared my story, apologists, zealots, and critics would, at the very least, understand where I am coming from. Those days are long gone. Instead of engaging in endless debates, I give such people one opportunity to “share” whatever it is God has laid upon their hearts. If they play well with others, I might approve further comments from them. Unfortunately, most Evangelical commenters are terrible representatives of Christ on earth. (Please see Dear Evangelical.) Even if they could mount an effective defense of Christianity, why would I ever want to be around such nasty, arrogant, mean-spirited people?

As far as the “why” of my deconversion, here’s my stock answer:

I no longer believe that the central claims of Christianity are true. I came to a place in my life where these beliefs no longer made sense to me. (Please see The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) I reject all the miraculous claims made for Jesus, from his virgin birth to his resurrection from the dead. I do believe Jesus is was a real flesh and blood human being who lived on Palestine 2,000 years ago, However, as with all humans, he lived and died, end of story.

Over the years, I have corresponded with hundreds of clergy who are either no longer believers or have serious doubts about Christianity. Their numbers are increasing daily. Why is that?

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 it Okay for an Evangelical Christian to Marry an Unbeliever?

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unequally yoked together

Repost from 2015. Edited, updated, and corrected.

The Bible is clear on this subject. The inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God that millions of Evangelicals SAY they believe says:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. (2 Corinthians 6:14-17)

2 Corinthians 6:14-17 is not an ambiguous or hard-to-interpret passage of Scripture. It means exactly what it says. Believers (Christians, followers of Jesus) should not be unequally yoked (joined) together with unbelievers. The Bible describes marriage this way: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

One would think that bought-by-the-blood, Bible-believing Evangelicals would, because of their love for Jesus, obey what God has commanded. God calls on every single Christian to be just like Tim Tebow: a virgin until the day they marry a fellow believer of the OPPOSITE sex.

But, in another, all-too-typical, example of the fact that Evangelicals only believe the Bible when it fits their lifestyle and ignore it or explain it away when it doesn’t, the Christian Partner for Life website (website is no longer active) gives this advice:

Finding your husband or wife can be quite a process.  Often, whether through school or elsewhere, we meet people in our lives who are not committed Christians.  A common question that we receive is: “Is it OK to date someone who is not committed to Christianity?”  While many advisors and ministers that we encounter have said definitively “NO,” we think it is important to have a more secular view of the situation.  If you have a great connection with someone, and they would potentially want to explore raising your future family with predetermined beliefs, we see no reason to object . . .

We believe that marrying a non-Christian or a non-practicing Christian is not a definitive “no” answer, as is commonly taught.  Would you rather stay single or marry a loving and wonderful person who is agnostic of Christian beliefs?  If this future partner is devoted to you and has a great moral compass, we think the possibility of marriage should very much exist.  If a relationship is based upon love, trust and mutual respect, there is a good chance that a marriage will succeed, regardless of religion.

The caveat to this question becomes whether your future spouse is willing to raise a family the way that you would like to.  Would your future spouse be open to raising your children as committed Christians?  If so, we think that a relationship could work . . .

In other words, ignore the Bible.

The Bible says that nonbelievers are dead in trespasses and sin. Unbelievers are at variance with God, vain in their imaginations, and haters of God. Unbelievers are really bad people, After all, their father is the Devil himself.

Yet, John at Christian Partner for Life says: “If this future partner is devoted to you and has a great moral compass” then perhaps it would be okay to marry them. How can unbelievers have a great moral compass? According to the Bible, they can’t.

Here’s what I think . . . unbelievers are hotter . . . and baby, when it comes to chasing after hotness, let the Bible be damned darned.

All silliness aside, John’s post at Christian Partner for Life is just another reminder that Evangelicals, for all their bluster about the Bible being truth, really don’t believe it.

Now for MY marriage advice for unbelievers.

Actually, the Bible gives some pretty good advice here. In most circumstances, it would be unwise for an unbeliever to marry an Evangelical. Unless the believer is willing to live as an unbeliever, then it is probably not a good idea to marry someone who doesn’t believe in or worship God. I can hear the howling now. Evangelicals everywhere are screaming, HOW DARE YOU EXPECT A BELIEVER TO DENY THEIR FAITH AND LIVE AS AN UNBELIEVER!! I bet it seemed okay to most Evangelicals when John proposed the very same thing when he suggested making sure the unbeliever would be willing to raise future children as believers. Evangelicals seem to always expect OTHERS to compromise so they can be true to their beliefs, but they rarely seem to be able to compromise their beliefs for the sake of others. The message is clear: my beliefs matter, yours don’t.

Generally, it is a bad idea for an unbeliever to marry an Evangelical, especially if their prospective marriage partner’s family is Evangelical too. If you marry anyway, you are sure to have conflict over issues such as:

  • Baptizing or dedicating your children
  • Attending church
  • Tithing
  • Praying over meals
  • Having family devotions
  • Cursing
  • What entertainments to participate in
  • What movies to watch
  • Sex

You will also likely subject yourself to a life of “I am praying for you” and subtle attempts to win you to Jesus.

It is almost impossible for Evangelicals to NOT talk about their faith — nor should they be expected to. This is why the Bible actually gives sound advice about an unequal yoke.

Contrary to the aphorism opposites attract, successful marriages are usually built on the things that the husband and wife have in common. While my partner of almost forty-six years and I are very different people, we do have many things in common. We cultivate our common values and beliefs, and with things we differ on, we leave each other free to pursue those things alone.

Over time, the things a couple differs on can become something both like or agree upon. When Polly and I married she was a sports atheist. I was a jock. I mean, I was one of THOSE kinds of guys. I played sports year-round for the first ten years of our marriage. Age, knee problems, and a busy ministerial life finally ended my sports-playing career. Polly made a good faith effort to enter into my world. For a long time, her ignorance of sports was quite amusing, but bit by bit she became conversant in sports-talk. I did not reciprocate. I still do not know how to sew or put the toilet seat down.

We still have a lot of things that we do not hold in common, and that’s okay. But, the bedrock of our marriage of almost forty-six years is the values, beliefs, and likes we share. I believe it would be very hard for an Evangelical and an unbeliever to find common ground to build a successful marriage. It’s not impossible, but it is extremely hard.

On this issue, I am much more of a Bible believer than John at Christian Partner for Life. Granted, I see the principle taught in Scripture from an atheist perspective these days, but it still is good advice. When it comes to the foundational issues of life and the philosophies we live by, having a common mind is always best. Certainly, compromise is possible, but willingly chucking your beliefs (whatever they might be) for love will usually leave you disappointed, and it may land you in divorce court.

If you are in an unequally yoked marriage or relationship, how do you make it work? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Dear Evangelical Business Owners

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christian business

While I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years, I was bivocational for many of those years. That doesn’t mean I was a part-time pastor. As my partner of almost forty-six years will attest, I was a full-time pastor, while at the same time working forty hours a week for secular employers. In other words, I was a workaholic who was rarely home.

I worked all sorts of jobs, including management positions with four restaurant companies, a Christian bookstore, a direct medical equipment company, and the Village of Buckeye Lake, Ohio. My father was a small business owner, owning a hobby store in Findlay, Ohio, and a gun store in Sierra Vista, Arizona. As a teenager, working for my dad, I learned the ins and outs of running a business. While Dad and I didn’t have a relationship to speak of, I will always appreciate him teaching me the nuts and bolts of the business world.

One thing Dad taught me was this: The goal of any business is to make money. Such a novel thought, right? While people may start businesses because they are passionate about this or that — thinking that because they love to cook they can easily own and run a restaurant — the goal is always the same: to make as much money as possible.

The key to making money is attracting customers to your business. To grow a business, you need both regular and new customers. No company can survive without growing its customer base. I love watching shows such as Bar Rescue and Restaurant Impossible. These shows feature failing bars and restaurants, often operated by owners who have no real business experience. After all, how hard can it be to run a pub or a restaurant? As these ill-informed, uneducated owners learn, it is quite hard to run a successful business. In every instance, these businesses faced declining revenues because of reduced customer counts. Here’s the formula: fewer customers = less revenues. Granted, other factors play a part such as overhead costs, labor costs, food costs, etc, but generally, the more customers you have, the more you will make and the better off your business will be.

As a manager, I wanted to attract as many customers as possible. I didn’t care about their age, sex, gender, marital status, race, religion, political affiliation, or how they looked or dressed. All I wanted was their money. Capitalism 101, right? As a business owner or manager, my goal was to provide the best products and services possible for an affordable price. I went out of my way to make sure my stores were clean and provided customers with the best possible experience. Evidently, many Evangelical business owners think differently, using their businesses as tools to indoctrinate and evangelize their customers, choosing Jesus, the Bible, and religious dogma over making money.

I live in rural northwest Ohio — the land of God, Guns, and Trump. There are lots of Evangelical-owned businesses, everything from mom-and-pop stores to large manufacturing concerns. The owners of these businesses wrongly think that almost everyone who works for them or frequents their establishments is Christian. Sure, many locals claim membership at a local Christian church — even though they rarely, if ever, attend services — but a sizable percentage of residents are indifferent towards religion or are unbelievers. Thus, it is surprising to me — if making money is the goal — that Evangelical-owned businesses think everyone believes just like them; and likes what they like. How else do you explain business walls plastered with Jesus Junk®, ceiling speakers blaring Christian music, tract racks, and advertisements for the church the owner attends? As atheists, the last thing my partner and I want to be exposed to is Jesus, the Bible, or church advertisements. The other day, we ate at the China Dragon in Napoleon, Ohio. So-so food, but what annoyed the hell out of us was the music — WBCL, a local Evangelical radio station. Since when did contemporary Christian music (CCM) and Chinese stir fry go together? It was annoying, to say the least.

Evangelical business owners are free to do what they want, but they might want to pay attention to their service area’s demographics. If the goal is to make as much money as possible and attract new customers, then it stands to reason that aesthetics should be welcoming and neutral, and not advertisements for Christianity and the owner’s personal religious beliefs and practices. Take Samuel Mancino’s in Archbold, Ohio. We love eating at Mancino’s, but the Evangelical owner thinks Jesus and her church come before serving customers. Thus, the store is closed on Sundays (and Mondays) and closes early on Wednesdays so employees can go to church. The store is open four and a half days a week Evidently, locals don’t eat on Sundays, Mondays, after 2:30 pm on Wednesdays, or after 7:30 pm the rest of the week. Revenues lost, but, hey, everyone knows the owner is a Christian.

More than a few local businesses let potential customers know they are Christians by using religious symbols in their advertising — especially the cross and ichthys (fish) icons. These symbols are tribal affiliation markers, much like gang members wearing particular tattoos. These business owners want customers to know that they are frequenting a Christian-owned, Jesus-approved business. Because I’m unbeliever, these icons say to me that I am not welcome; that the business doesn’t want my money. Message received. You push Jesus, and I will spend my money elsewhere.

I am not anti-Christian. I know that most local businesses are owned and operated by people of faith. I don’t care what a business owner believes or doesn’t believe. What I want is hot food, and excellent service, at an affordable price. Sweetwater Chophouse in Defiance is one business that gets it, and that’s why I eat there with Polly and my friends several times a month. Many of the patrons around us are Christians. We know this because of their prayers before eating and their banter about Jesus, the Bible, and the church they attend. I am sure they can hear our ungodly, irreligious banter too. Such is the communal aspect of sharing meals in restaurants. Sweetwater’s goal is the same as it should be for every restaurant: to make as much money as possible while providing excellent food and service. If Sweetwater ever starts pushing religion, we will eat elsewhere. We want to give our hard-earned money to people who don’t view their businesses as advertisements for Christianity or tools to evangelize unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines. As an atheist business owner, I would never push my atheistic or humanist beliefs. I wouldn’t plaster the walls with Christoper Hitchens quotes or give 10% discounts to patrons who didn’t go to church. (Some businesses give church-attending customers a discount if they show the server a bulletin that proves they attended church.) Whosover will, let him come — and eat at my restaurant. 🙂 Christian money spends just like atheist money, and, as a business owner, I want as much money as possible, regardless of where it came from or how it was earned. Famed early 20th-century Fundamentalist evangelist Billy Sunday once was asked why he took money from bar owners. Sunday replied, “The Devil has had the money long enough.” Sunday didn’t care where the money came from, and neither should Evangelical business owners.

Years ago, I got into a heated discussion online with a local Evangelical business owner and avid Trump supporter. His storefront windows and walls were covered with Evangelical, pro-Trump, and anti-Obama/Clinton signs, pictures, and stickers. I told him that these things were driving away customers who believed differently from him. He told me that he didn’t care; that he didn’t want or need my money. Well, evidently he did. A few years later he went out of business. The reasons for his store’s closing were many, but one thing was certain: fewer customers = less income; less income = more financial pressures.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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