This is the one hundred sixtieth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here by Alice in Chains.
This is the one hundred and sixty-fourth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is an Anchored North video detailing a woman’s conversion from lesbianism. While the young woman in the video desperately wants to believe that the Evangelical God, by his oh-so-awesome grace, has delivered her from the “sin” of homosexuality, when in fact all that has happened is that she has allowed a few Bible verses to corrupt her thinking and scare her straight.
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. (Deuteronomy 22:5)
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I want to zero in on a massive blind spot for conservative Christians; feminist envy and rebellion. Specifically, feminists have worked tirelessly to remove the stigma from women dressing like men. Feminists have been so successful here that the very idea of a woman “dressing like a man” is foreign to our current thinking.
Deut 22:5 tells us that men dressing like women, and women dressing like men is an abomination to God.
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The problem is, for decades we have been taught that there is nothing shameful about a woman dressing like and acting like a man. This is so much the case that it is really difficult to conceive of what would be considered cross-dressing for a woman in our culture, including modern conservative Christian culture. Which of the following would cause a modern woman to be shamed for being a cross dresser?
Wearing jeans instead of dresses and skirts? Nope.
Wearing boxer shorts? Nope.
Joining the army and driving a tank, eating field rations, and wearing combat boots? Nope.
Dressing up like a lumberjack? Nope.
Wearing a man’s haircut? Nope.
A woman today who dresses like a man might be chided for her questionable fashion sense, but she wouldn’t seen as cross dressing. For a woman to be considered a cross dresser, she would have to go to the greatest extremes. Not only would she have to make herself look like a man in every way, she would have to actually claim to be a man for us to consider her a cross dresser.
Contrast this with a man who does any of the below. Is he seen as a cross dresser?
Wears women’s underwear? Yes.
Wears women’s dresses or skirts (excluding kilts)? Yes.
Wears women’s shoes? Yes.
We have in our culture two kinds of clothing/styles:
Clothing and styles everyone can wear.
Clothing and styles men must not wear.
From a practical perspective, it is all but impossible for a woman to cross dress in our culture. We have great difficulty even conceiving of the idea. Cross dressing in our culture is something that almost exclusively pertains to men, because a woman cross dressing is simply normal. From this perspective, we were already half way to accepting cross dressing as far back as the 1980s. We’ve lived for decades rejecting the idea that something God detests is even possible. Even worse, we have denied that our perspective on the issue has changed. We forgot it, and then we forgot that we forgot it.
— Dalrock (I’m a happily married man living with my sexy wife and our two wonderful kids in the Dallas/Forth Worth area), Cross Dressing Snuck Up in Our Blind Spot, November 29, 2017
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.
Andrea Baber, a teacher at Logos Christian Academy in Springfield,Oregon, was arrested and charged with “third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, unlawful delivery of marijuana to a minor, online sexual corruption of a child and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.”
An Oregon teacher has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a student.
Lt. Chris Merrifield of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that 29-year-old Andrea Baber was arrested after investigators obtained a warrant to search her Cottage Grove home.
Baber taught at Logos Christian Academy in Springfield.
Merrifield says the relationship began in 2016, when the male student was 15 years old. Merrifield says the relationship continued on a regular basis, with Baber also providing the boy with marijuana.
Baber is charged with third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, unlawful delivery of marijuana to a minor, online sexual corruption of a child and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.
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The sheriff’s office identified Baber as a former teacher, but she remains on the school’s online staff directory. The website says Baber teaches writing and literature, and is married.
“Andrea has always felt called to work with youth and is very excited that God opened the door for her to be part of the Logos team,” her biography says, according to KPIC.
The Register-Guard adds:
The victim’s father reported the sexual relationship Dec. 12 after he and his wife received an anonymous email asking if they knew about their 17-year-old son and Baber, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Douglas County Circuit Court on Monday.
Attached to the email were several photographs of Baber and the boy, together in Baber’s bed, according to the affidavit.
Authorities interviewed the teen, who told deputies that he and Baber had been in a relationship since 2016, when the boy was 15.
According to the affidavit, the boy told deputies that their relationship started with flirting at school, kissing at the movies and eventually progressed to sexual acts. He estimated having sex with his teacher once or twice a week at her residence on Territorial Highway, the affidavit states. He also told deputies that Baber occasionally gave him marijuana and alcohol.
During the investigation, authorities discovered that Baber’s husband recently made a report with Child Protective Services after he caught his wife and the teen in the Baber home, partially unclothed, according to the affidavit.
Baber’s husband told CPS that he also found topless photos of his wife that had been sent to the teen via text message, the affidavit states.
Evangelicals use all sorts of words to describe various aspects of their religion; words such as saved, faith, salvation, grace, redemption, and spirit, to name a few. When unbelievers use these words in other than Evangelical ways, Christians object, saying that these words are theirs; that they have specific meanings and no other meanings are permitted. Never mind what the dictionary says. These words must always be defined according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.
Blessed, thankful, and grateful are three words that Evangelicals think belong only to them. However, I refuse to surrender these words to Fundamentalists. Every day, I am blessed, thankful, and grateful to be alive. I am blessed to be married to Polly, and I am double-blessed to have six wonderful children and eleven grandchildren. I am grateful my car started today, despite below-zero temperatures. I am thankful that I can still coherently and thoughtfully write for this blog. Every day I am above ground, I have much to be thankful for, all without the need of mentioning the name of the Christian God.
Therein lies the problem for Evangelicals. They cannot conceive a life of thankfulness and gratefulness without God. Why does the use of these words require a deity? Unlike the Alabama and Georgia football players last night who repeatedly gave God credit for their wins, I choose to express thankfulness and gratefulness to the people who actually do the work. When I sat down today to each a lunch of pork chops, roasted red potatoes, and Brussel sprouts, I didn’t bow my head and thank Jesus for the food. I thanked Polly, the person who labored in the kitchen to prepare this scrumptious meal. The car Polly takes to work wouldn’t start today, resulting in me doing a fair bit of cussing and complaining. Once I got that out of my system, Polly contacted our mechanic son and asked if he could get a battery and install it for us. He gladly said yes, even though at that moment he had four cars up on lifts at the shop and had been installing new batteries all day long. After working ten hours, our son came to our house and by flashlight installed a new battery. I am grateful that he had the skill and time to do it. Who did I thank for our son’s labor? The Christian God? Of course not. He’s never fixed a car for me — ever. I thanked Jaime for taking care of the old folks. He did the work and he alone deserves the praise.
When I use the word blessed, I don’t mean it the same way Evangelicals do. Christians wrongly think that all blessing comes from God. Countless Evangelicals grew up singing The Doxology:
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Told over and over that all blessings come from the God who supposedly has the whole world and itty, bitty babies in his hands, Evangelicals become confused when atheists such as myself tell them to have a blessed day or a blessed New Year. They often ask me blessed by whom. I reply that I used the word “blessed” to mean good or happy and that goodness and happiness do not require a God. Billions of good people walk the face of this earth who don’t know or worship the Evangelical God. Billions more live lives filled with love, joy, peace, and happiness, all without giving a tip of the cap to God.
Of course, Evangelicals turn to the Bible for proof that everything we have in life comes from the hands of the Christian God. Verse after verse tells them that it is God who gives the strength and ability to do what they do in life, and that without God they can do n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Of course, when a snarky atheist such as myself says, fine and asks does this mean that God is also responsible for all the bad that happens in the world? Evangelicals are quick to say, oh no, it is we humans who are totally responsible for bad behaviors — thus showing the inconsistency of their worldview.
We humans are responsible for most of what happens on planet earth. Good things and bad things alike flow from our minds and hands. Sure, there’s not much we can do about the weather, but outside of that we (or other humans) are pretty much in control of what happens in our lives. There’s no need for any of us to invoke the name of God. Give credit to whom credit is due, and do the same with blame. My children will tell you that one of the things I drilled into their heads was personal responsibility. YOU are responsible for your behavior. It is YOU who are in control of your actions. My grandchildren are now “blessed” to get this same instruction from their grandfather. When one of them says, I can’t find my shoe/sock/coat/barrette/toy, they know I am going to say, who had it last?
I hope you have been blessed by what I have written in this post. If you have, please express gratitude or thankfulness to whomever wrote it. If you think God typed this post, by all means, thank him. If, however, you are a person of reason and common sense, feel to thank the author and finisher of this awesome piece of prose — yours truly, the Pope of Ney, Ohio.
I hope each of you have a blessed day. Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I am grateful for your continued support. And just think, I wrote those three sentences sans God. I can’t think of one thing I have done today that required God. Blasphemy? Yep! My New Year’s resolution? Blaspheme more, giving all praise, honor, and glory to the gods of skepticism and reason.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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Strange…a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!
What children need at age one, five, six, fourteen, eighteen is simply amazing, and so is what those needs call forth from a woman’s creativity and heart and mind, personally for each one of these little ones that are coming along.
And, just being able to focus on the home where ministry can happen—not being enslaved by anybody’s clock—you can say, ‘I want to work my tail off for King Jesus, but I don’t want anybody to pay me for it. I’m going to do it right here in this neighborhood with my husband’s connections and my connections. We’re going to lavish grace on people’s lives.’
So, I’m calling for ministry full-time when I say ‘don’t work full-time if you have a family.’ Turn your family into ministry. Turn your family into a global dream for what this family might become, or what this man might be, or what we might be together as we are home.
She is to the home keeper, to take care of her husband, to provide for him and for the children, all that they need as they live in that home. Materially, she is to take the resources the husband brings home and translate them into a comfortable and blessed life for her children. She is to take the spiritual things that she knows and learns and to pass them on to her children. She is a keeper at home. God’s standard is for the wife and mother to work inside the home and not outside. For a mother to get a job outside the home in order to send her children even to a Christian school is to misunderstand her husband’s role as a provider, as well as her own duty to the family.
Godly women are to be content at home, and to be content to love their children and love their husbands and serve their families in their homes and serve the Lord. One of the most wonderful things that the church has ever experienced is the ministry of women. All of the tests and the studies and surveys indicate that about 60 percent of all church life is cared for by women. Evangelical churches are populated by women. They say about 37 percent of evangelical churches are men. The church has always benefited by godly women who work in the home, and when they have time they minister on behalf of the church. And as women abandon the home for the world, they also abandon the church.
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.
Terry Millender, pastor of Victorious Life Church in Alexandria, Virginia, and his wife Brenda, were convicted Monday of a “$2 million fraud scheme that stole from members of their congregation and investors.”
A former pastor and his wife were convicted of a $2 million fraud scheme that stole from members of their congregation and investors.
Terry Wayne Millender, 53, and Brenda Millender, 57, were convicted by a federal jury Monday and could face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the United States Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Terry Millender is the former senior pastor of Victorious Life Church in Alexandria.
Prosecutors said the couple operated a company called Micro-Enterprise Management Group, a Virginia company that alleged to help poor people in developing countries by providing small, short-term loans by working with a network of established micro-finance institutions.They recruited investors by emphasizing its Christian mission while promising guaranteed returns.
However, the jury found the Millenders used the money to make risky trades on the foreign exchange currency market, options trading, and payments toward the purchase of a $1.75 million home and other personal expenses.
When investors sought their returns, the Millenders blamed delays in repayment, in part, on the 2008 financial crisis, according to the complaint.
After the first scheme failed, prosecutors said they created another company Kingdom Commodities Unlimited, which they alleged specialized in the brokering of Nigerian oil deals. They were able to get more than $600,000 from investors and used the money to pay for rent, golf trips, a birthday party and other personal expenses.
The two will be sentenced on March 30, 2018.
A co-conspirator, Grenetta Wells, 56, of Alexandria, who served as chief operating officer at MEMG, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and is scheduled for sentencing on Jan. 12, 2018.
Millender’s bio on the It’s Time to Produce website (no longer active) states:
Pastor Terry Wayne Millender has been involved in Christian ministry for more than 27 years. He currently serves as Senior Pastor of Victorious Life Church located in Alexandria, VA.
As a Nationally recognized leader, author, radio and television show host of Victorious Life Today, he is sought after to conduct major conferences, in addition to equipping individuals through Citywide Prayer School and “It’s Time To Produce” Personal Growth Summits. Additionally, his international Pastoral equipping sessions have taken him to many nations around the globe.
A graduate of the International Bible Institute and Seminary and Hope Bible College, Pastor Terry is the founder of the Washington,D.C., based Power Unleashed Worldwide, Inc., an international missions and training organization established to help believers unleash the power and potential within them through Jesus Christ. His blockbuster new book, “IT’S TIME TO PRODUCE — Unleashing the Winner Within” is changing lives around the globe.
Pastor Terry is also the Chairman and CEO of Kingdom Commodities Unlimited, LLC and Millender Media & Communications Corp, LLC both based in Alexandria, VA.
He is committed to his family and has been happily married for 29 years to his wife Brenda. They have five children and six grand children. They currently reside in Alexandria, VA.
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.
Owen Robertson, education minister at First Baptist Church in Easley, South Carolina, has been charged with “nine counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.”
Mike Ellis, a reporter for the Independent Mail, writes:
Owen Robertson, a former education minister at Easley First Baptist Church, has been charged with nine counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.
Warrants allege that the images investigators found show minors “engaging in sexual activity or appearing in a state of sexually explicit nudity” and the incidents occurred at the same address as the church. Robertson has not been on staff at the church since approximately March, when the church became aware of “issues,” said Nelson Ponder, a deacon who spoke on the church’s behalf.
Ponder said he could not detail what issues led to the separation, but he said the church became aware Friday that Robertson had been formally charged. Robertson had been at the church for several years, Ponder said.
He said church leaders will be listening to their congregation for any reports of Robertson’s conduct, but he has not heard from anyone as of Wednesday morning.
The warrants indicate that the alleged crimes happened on or about Feb. 10, and the warrants were signed on DeC. 14. The warrants say the images were in Robertson’s possession.
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According to Robertson’s bio on First Baptist’s website:
Dr. Owen Robertson grew up in Greenville, SC, where he attended Mauldin First Baptist. He graduated from Mars Hill College, Southwestern Seminary, and Southern Seminary. Owen loves acting, writing, reading, going to movies, and spending time with his family. He secretly dreams of one day owning a humongous television and a catamaran. Owen uses his gifts to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ in new and creative ways.
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. (Deuteronomy 22:5)
Evangelicals use all sorts of words to describe various aspects of their religion; words such as saved, faith, salvation, grace, redemption, and spirit, to name a few. When unbelievers use these words in other than Evangelical ways, Christians object, saying that these words are theirs; that they have specific meanings and no other meanings are permitted. Never mind what the dictionary says. These words must always be defined according to 
