Evangelicalism Archives

Dr. David Tee Deconstructs Deconstruction and Ends Up With a Theological Mess

January 12, 2024 Evangelicalism 8 Comments

dr david tee's library — Dr. David Tee’s Massive Library

Most Evangelicals believe humans are born sinners; that from the moment of conception, humans sin in thought, word, and deed; that humans don’t become sinners, they are sinners. Further, the Bible tells us humans are the enemies of God; haters of holiness and truth. Labeled, “natural (unsaved) men,” the Bible says unregenerate people CAN NOT understand the things of God

Salvation (deliverance) from sin requires the active work of God on behalf of people who are dead in trespasses and sin. Humans have no power to save themselves. Salvation requires regeneration and faith, both of which must be given to unsaved people for them to be saved.

Most Evangelicals are cradle Christians, meaning they were born into and came of age in Evangelical churches. Typically, Evangelical congregants come to faith between the ages of four and fourteen. Ninety-eight percent of Evangelicals come to faith in Christ by age thirty. Simply put, most Evangelicals are saved before developing mature, rational thinking skills. It is much harder for someone to be saved once they develop the skills necessary to distinguish truth from bullshit.

Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, was raised in an Evangelical Christian home. The only religion he knows is Evangelicalism. Thiessen believes the words “Evangelical” and “Christian” are interchangeable. In his mind, Evangelicalism — his peculiar version of it, anyway — is True Christianity. Thiessen has a Christian Missionary and Alliance background. The CMA sect is a garden-variety Evangelical denomination. Within the sect, you will find believers who believe once a person is saved, he can never, ever fall from grace, and other congregants who believe a Christian can lose their salvation. What Thiessen actually believes on this issue is unclear. He has espoused both views, and has, at times, promoted works-based salvation. His viewpoint is determined by the particular theological point he is trying to justify.

Recently, Dr. David Tee, who is neither a doctor nor a Tee, wrote a post titled We Are Against Deconstruction. Here’s an excerpt from we’s post: 🙂

The issue here is the word ‘skepticism’. This is where many believers go wrong. Their skepticism should have been done long before they made a decision to follow Christ. All doubts should have been dealt with prior to that same decision.

There is no need to be skeptical about Christ or the Christian faith once one has been redeemed by Christ. That experience alone should tell them that God is real and that the Bible is true. Having second thoughts after you have been living the Christian life is wrong.

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If one has doubts about a doctrine or practice of the church, they should search scripture to get the truth, like the Bereans did in Acts, and then follow the truth. No one should be deconstructing their faith as they did that before they became a Christian.

No one is born a Christian either so they should not live under a false assumption. Do your deconstructing before accepting Christ as your savior for then you still have a chance to be saved.

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Doubts and skepticism after you have become a Christian is evil doing spiritual warfare against you and you need to do spiritual warfare against those attacks. Deconstruction is throwing up the white flag and surrendering. That is just the wrong thing to do after you believe.

According to Thiessen, children are supposed to deconstruct their Christian beliefs BEFORE they become Christians. All doubts and skepticism should be dealt with before a person is saved. This, of course, is impossible. The unsaved person, according to the Bible, cannot understand the things of God. They are dead in trespasses and sins, alienated from God, without hope in this present world. Yet, unbelievers are supposed to have a comprehensive understanding of Christianity BEFORE they are saved. How is this even possible, knowing that most Evangelicals are saved when they are children?

Most Evangelicals are saved BEFORE they have a full understanding of all that Christianity teaches. I heard scores of evangelism experts say that when winning sinners to Christ, soulwinners should tell them just enough to get saved; that they should avoid questions and stick to the plan of salvation. There will be plenty of time for their questions after they are saved! Most Evangelicals become Christians without thoroughly investigating the central claims of Christianity, and, sadly, many saved Evangelicals never take a hard look at what they believe.

How can a six-year-old child, raised in Evangelicalism by Evangelical parents, possibly determine whether Christianity is true? They do not have the rational thinking skills to do so — in a comprehensive way. Children “believe” because their parents, family, and tribe “believe.” Rarely, does skepticism play a part in their decision to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. One can’t be skeptical if they have no understanding of the world’s religions. How can one choose if he or she is only given one choice? Deconstruction requires choices. How can anyone possibly deconstruct Evangelicalism until they have first been exposed to non-Evangelical religions, beliefs, and practices? Choice requires knowledge, but most Evangelical children are deliberately sheltered from any other religion but Evangelicalism. And when these sheltered believers are exposed to the “world,” what often happens? They start asking questions, beginning their travel on the path of deconstruction.

Deconstruction is not the enemy — simplistic, untested faith is. Thiessen thinks his site exists to promote Biblical Christianity; a place where doubters and questioners can find answers. The problem is that Thiessen only has one answer for every question: believe and practice what the Bible says. The B-i-b-l-e, yes that’s the book for me, I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-i-b-l-e. BIBLE!

Thiessen believes deconstruction leads to Hell:

Yes, deconstruction does lead to hell because Christians are following and listening to unbelievers over God and his word. Peter talks about leaving the faith and it is not pretty. There is only one truth, one true faith, and deconstruction does not lead you to either.

In other words, rationalism and skepticism lead to Hell, ignorance leads to Heaven. My, what an advertising slogan.

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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Evangelical Apologist Tim Barnett Says Deconstruction Leads to Hell

January 11, 2024 Evangelicalism 22 Comments

Tim Barnett, an apologist and speaker with Stand to Reason — an Evangelical apologetics ministry, recently wrote a post giving three reasons why he is against deconstruction:

While writing The Deconstruction of Christianity with Alisa Childers, we discovered some fundamental beliefs that undergird the deconstruction process. Moreover, these ideas are antithetical to the Christian worldview. This helps explain why so many who deconstruct their faith end up leaving the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Here are three reasons why I changed my mind about deconstruction.

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First, deconstruction has no correct destination.

A defining feature of deconstruction is that there’s no right way to do it and no right destination.

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Why isn’t there a right place to land in deconstruction? The answer is that deconstruction is a postmodern process. What I mean is, deconstruction isn’t about objective truth. It’s about personal happiness.

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Notice how deconstruction assumes there is no objective truth when it comes to religious beliefs. That’s why it doesn’t matter how you do it or where you end up as long as you’re happy.

I want you to notice two things. First, Jesus mentions two ways. There is a narrow way and a broad way, a right way and a wrong way. Second, Jesus mentions two destinations. The right way leads to a good destination: life. The wrong way leads to a bad destination: destruction. According to Jesus, there is absolutely a right place to land, and he tells us how to get there.

Second, the deconstruction process never ends.

Imagine you deconstruct your beliefs. Now what? Well, you construct new ones. However, once you construct new beliefs, you have to deconstruct those too. See how this works? There’s no finality to this process. Deconstruction requires a never-ending skepticism about your beliefs and the beliefs of others.

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Third, deconstruction has no biblical authority.

In deconstruction, there is no external authority to tell you what your faith should look like. You are the ultimate authority.

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Deconstruction isn’t about submitting to biblical authority; it’s about choosing to be your own authority.

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I changed my mind about deconstruction. After researching this topic, I’ve come to see that deconstruction isn’t merely asking questions or a synonym for doubt. Rather, it’s a process with no correct destination, no ending, and no biblical authority.

As you can easily see, Barnett is against deconstruction because it can and does lead to what he believes is a bad outcome — deconversion. Left unsaid is that Barnett is likely against deconversion because it leads to people leaving Evangelicalism for kinder, friendlier, more hospitable churches and faiths. In other words, since deconversion results in Evangelical churches hemorrhaging members — many of whom were committed followers of Jesus — the answer is to ignore WHY that is, informing restless, thoughtful Evangelicals, “God says, thou shalt not deconstruct.” And with proof texts uttered, deconstruction has been put to bed. Or so Barnett thinks, anyway.

My correspondence with deconstructing people suggests far different reasons for their deconstruction than postmodernism, or, Loki-forbid, the desire to think for themselves and be happy. Their emails suggest that Evangelical churches and preachers need to look in the mirror if they want to see why people are deconstructing (and deconverting). Many of the people deconverting have gotten a whiff of Evangelicalism’s rotting corpse and want nothing to do with it. They see the hatred of LGBTQ people and immigrants. They see the racism, bigotry, and misogyny. They see the extreme politics and social views — especially support of Donald Trump. They see the news stories about sex crimes committed by Evangelical preachers, yet never hear their pastors say a word about the abuse scandal. They see the fancy suits, designer clothes, and Rolex watches as their pastors preach about the humble Jesus who had no place to put his head. They hear the rumors and know what goes on in secret in the homes of their pastors and other church leaders. Worse, many of them are preacher’s kids. They have seen the hypocrisy firsthand.

Barnett is against skepticism when it comes to the claims of Christianity. I suspect he doesn’t take this same approach when it comes to non-Christian religions. In other words, be skeptical about all the other religions of the world, but when it comes to Christianity, just believe; read the Bible, pray, and trust that your pastor will tell you the truth. (Can you really trust anyone who hasn’t or won’t deconstruct their beliefs?)

Barnett is right in one regard; deconstruction can be driven by a desire for happiness –as if that is a bad thing. You bet. Once you leave Egypt and break the bonds of Evangelicalism you have a newfound freedom. That freedom can lead to increased happiness. Sounds like a pretty good selling point for skepticism and rationalism. 🙂

As Evangelical apologists are wont to do, Barnett reminds those considering deconstruction that HELL awaits those who follow this path. Only those who “question” their faith within the safe confines of the Evangelical box shall be saved! Deconstruction leads to Hell, just look at that Bruce Gerencser guy.

Checkmate. 🙂

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I’m “Broken” Jesus, Please “Fix” Me

January 9, 2024 Evangelicalism 5 Comments

Key to Evangelical soteriology is the belief that all humans are inherently broken — evil, vile, sinful, enemies of God. The only way that people can gain salvation and inherit eternal life is to admit that they are broken and in need of fixing. It is through Jesus alone — the great fixer – that sinners can be saved. Older readers might remember the days when every community had a one-stop fix-it shop. GE toaster stop working? Black and Decker drill power switch broken? Motorola radio tuner on the fritz? Take it to the local shop, and Bob will make it as good as new. So it is with Jesus. Is your life broken? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. The Bible SAYS your life is broken, end of discussion. You might be the kindest, most loving person in the world, you are still broken. According to Evangelicals, deep in your black heart of hearts lies sin and corruption. You might not be a drug addict, alcoholic, prostitute, homosexual, adulterer, fornicator, or New York Yankees fan, but you are still a sinner who is headed for eternal hellfire and damnation unless you admit your brokenness and let Jesus “fix” you.

No person can become a Christian, according to Evangelicals, unless they come clean to God about their brokenness. None of us is without sin, so, as the old hillbilly Baptist preacher said, “You might as well cough it up and admit it.” Of course, God already knows you are broken. He created you that way. I know, I know, crazy stuff, but it is in the Bible, so it’s true! God knows every sin you will ever commit — past, present, and future. All Jesus wants from you is for you to grovel before him and admit your brokenness. Just admit that you are a worthless piece of shit who deserves eternal torture in the Lake of Fire, and then, and only then, is it possible for Jesus, the Fix-it Man®, to apply the super glue of eternal salvation to your life.

And here’s the thing, even after Jesus fixes you and you become a full-fledged member of the One True Faith®, you are still broken. Bruce, I thought Jesus was the divine fix-it man? In what can only be described as a first-rate con job, Jesus doesn’t fix all of you when he repairs you. Sure, you have been regenerated and redeemed, but you still have what Evangelicals call a “sin nature.” Thought your sin nature would go away when Jesus wonderfully, gloriously saved you and washed you from head to toe in his Precious Moments® blood? Think again. In fact, as a newly minted Christian, you will find that the very same “sins” you struggled with before you became a Christian are still very much alive. That’s why Evangelicals “sin” just as often and to the same degree as the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. One need only read the posts in the Black Collar Crime Series, to see how true this is. The very “men of God” who stand in front of church congregations on Sundays preaching against sin, often commit the very same sins during the week. I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years. I preached thousands of sermons during that time. Before every sermon, I would silently pray, confessing my sins to Jesus, and asking him to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. That way, my “heart” was always right with God as I preached. Or so I told myself, anyway. How could I call out sins, name names, and step on toes if my own sin slate hadn’t been wiped clean? I preached three and four times a week, and without fail I prayed to Jesus, asking him to zero out my sin account. The late Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist John R. Rice believed in the frequent confession of sin, thereby, in his words, “keeping your sin list short.” I am not sure how “short” my sin list was compared to Rice’s, but I did what I could to keep my sinning down to what would fit on a yellow 8.5″x14″ legal pad. 🙂

Evangelicals, then, go through life broken, always in need of fixing. Not only that, but many Evangelicals practice a form of self-flagellation called “brokenness.” Spiritually aware Evangelicals beg God and plead with him to “break” them. Taught to see sin within every crevice of their mind and life, Evangelicals ask God to rip away their pride and self-worth, exposing their sinful behavior. The goal is to reduce believers to tears; to reduce them to piles of ashes; to leave them prostrate before the thrice Holy God. You see, according to Evangelicals, God doesn’t want or need you or anything you can do. His goal is to break you down and turn you into a needy, helpless child. It is only then that God can use you. Christians are mere vessels through which God, through the power and work of the Holy Spirit, does whatever he wants. Sounds like a SYFY show, does it not? Aliens inhabit human corpses and use them to take over the world.

According to the Bible, followers of Jesus are his slaves. In a 2007 sermon titled, Slaves for Christ, Evangelical megachurch pastor John MacArthur said:

Being a slave of Christ may be the best way to define a Christian. We are, as believers, slaves of Christ. You would never suspect that, however, from the language of Christianity. In contemporary Christianity, the language is anything but slave language. It is about freedom. It is about liberation. It is about health, wealth, prosperity, finding your own fulfillment, fulfilling your own dream, finding your own purpose. We often hear that God loves you unconditionally and wants you to be all you want to be. He wants to fulfill every ambition, every desire, every hope, every dream.

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Well, if you read the New Testament in its original text, you would come away stunned, really, by how different the original text is from any English version that you’ve ever read, whether King James, New King James, New American Standard, ESV, NIV and you can name all the rest. All of them, virtually, have found a way to mask something that is an absolutely critical element of truth. In fact, the word “slave” appears in the New Testament 130 times in the original text. You will find it once in the King James, once the Greek word “slave” is translated slave. You will find it translated “slave” a few other times in other texts, like the New King James text and even the New American Standard text. And it will be translated “slave” when, one, it refers to actual slavery, or two, it refers to some kind of bondage to an inanimate reality.

But whenever it is personalized, the translators seem unwilling to translate it “slave.” For example, in Matthew 6:24 Jesus said this, “No man can be a slave to two masters.” What does your Bible say? “No man can serve two masters.” The favorite word for slave is servant, favorite English word. Very often bondservant is used, which tends to move in the right direction but is not exactly slave. You have a word used 130 times in the New Testament. You have other uses of that word with a preposition, sundoulos, which means fellow slaves, used about a dozen times. You have the verb form used another approximately a dozen times. So you have at least 150-plus usages of just three of the words and there are others in the group with the root doul, D-O-U-L in English for doulos.

There are about twenty established English translations of the New Testament, about twenty. Only one of them, only one of them always translates doulos slave, only one and it is a translation of the New Testament written by a formidable scholar in New Testament Greek who studied the original papyri, and things like that, by the name of E.J. Goodspeed. Have you ever heard of Goodspeed translation? Goodspeed is a well-known scholar. For fifteen years he was a pioneering professor of New Testament Greek at the University of Chicago. The Goodspeed translation always translates doulos as slave. And when you read it, it gives you an entire different sense of our relationship to Christ. You do have a personal relationship to Jesus Christ, you are His slave. That’s putting it as simply as I can put it.

There are six words, at least, for servant, doulos is not one of them. There is diakonos from which we get deacon; oiketēs related to oikos, house, a house servant; Pais, having to do with one who serves by instructing the young; hupēretēs, a low-level, third level, under servant, literally an under-rower, the third level on a galley slave, someone who pulled an oar down at the bottom of a great ship; leitourgos, another kind of service usually associated with religion; paidiskē and maybe misthios that can be translated minister.

There are plenty of words for servant. There’s only one word for slave, doulos and sundoulos. Yet, in the history of the evangelical translation of the Greek into the English, all the translators consistently have avoided the use of the word. Now you might suggest that, therefore, it’s disputed, that maybe doulos isn’t quite as clearly slave. But that’s not the case. But they avoid it nonetheless. Doulos is not at all an ambiguous term. They are trying to avoid something. It’s not about a lack of linguistic information, it might well be a lack of courage, conviction.

As I said, they will use slave if it literally refers to a slave, a physical slave. Or if it refers to bondage to an inanimate object, like being a slave of sin, or a slave of righteousness. But when it comes to being a personal relationship with God or Christ, they back away from the word slave inevitably and use some form of the word servant. This is a matter of preference in all cases to accommodate. And we ask; to accommodate what? Well I suppose to accommodate the stigmas attached to slavery.

You would understand that. When you give somebody the gospel, you are saying to them, “I would like to invite you to become a slave of Jesus Christ. I would like to invite you to give up your independence, give up your freedom, submit yourself to an alien will, abandon all your rights, be owned by, controlled by the Lord.” That’s really the gospel. We’re asking people to become slaves. I don’t hear a lot of that slave talk today, do you? We have, by playing fast and loose with the word doulos, managed to obscure this precise significance and substantial foundation for understanding biblical theology.

Think, for a moment, about all I have written in this post; how I’ve described how Jesus views humans before and after they become Christians. If the only worth someone has comes from Jesus, why would anyone want to become a Christian? The only reason I can think of is the fear of Hell. We humans wonder what, if anything, awaits us after death. Christianity seizes on this question and turns it into a way to control people, keep church coffers filled, and clerics employed. Evangelical preachers emphatically say — without knowledge — that there is a Heaven and a Hell, that all of us have eternal souls, and we will spend eternity in one place or the other. Want to spend eternity with Jesus, his angels, your dead loved ones, and Donald Trump? You have to bow before the invisible Jesus and admit you are a wretched, broken sinner. Refusing to do so will land you in Hell with the Devil, his angels, and Barack Obama. And after tapping out MMA-style to Jesus, the greatest fighter of all-time, you then must be willing to serve as his slave until you die. And here’s the kicker: even after you die and go to Heaven, you will still spend your time in worshipful servitude to God. That’s right, it was never about you in this life, nor will it be about you in the life to come. It’s all about J-e-s-u-s. Hard not to call Jesus a narcissist, isn’t it? What’s with needing people to continually fawn over you and praise your awesomeness? You’d think that having millions of angels singing your praises day and night would be enough.

I am sure this post will cause more than a few Evangelical zealots to reach for their Preparation H. How dare I paint Jesus/salvation/Christianity in such a negative light! Just remember, John MacArthur, a preacher many people believe is the best Bible expositor of our time, said that to be a Christian is to be a slave. Ask yourself, is that the kind of life you really want; one devoted day and night to slavish service of a thirty-three-year-old single man? No thanks.

Let me conclude this post with the lyrics and a video of the gospel song, Fix Me, Jesus:

Fix me Jesus, fix me
Oh fix me, oh fix me, oh fix me
Fix me Jesus, fix me
Fix me for my home on high
Fix me Jesus, fix me
Fix me for the by and by
Fix me Jesus, fix me
Fix me for my starry crown
Fix me Jesus, fix me
Fix me for a higher ground
Fix me Jesus, fix me
Oh fix me, oh fix me, oh fix me
Fix me Jesus, fix me
Fix me Jesus, fix me
(Fix me Jesus)
Oh fix me

Video Link

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Youth Pastor Corey White Pleads Guilty to Child Pornography Charges

January 8, 2024 Evangelicalism 1 Comment

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.

Last October, Corey White, a youth pastor at Redeemer Midland in Midland Texas, was arrested on child pornography charges.

Fox-West Texas reported:

Thirty-three-year-old Corey White, who according to members of the congregation was a youth minister at Redeemer Midland, has been charged with access with intent to view child pornographic materials.

According to court documents, the charges were stemmed from an investigation in Nassau County. New York. The Nassau County Police Department initiated an investigation after receiving 15 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) cybertips from 2018 to the present.

These tips involved the upload of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) videos and images via “Skype” from an IP address in Seaford, New York.

A search warrant was executed which resulted in the seizing of this material from electronic devices. Upon further investigation, a New York man had been communicating with numerous adults and minors using the video chat site “Omegle”. During these interactions, the New Yorker used a screen sharing program to transmit the CSAM videos in real time to participants, followed by screen recording the interactions.

In most cases, participants were observed engaging in various sexual acts while watching the CSAM, while sometimes engaging in lewd acts by the request of the New Yorker.

On March 16, 2022, a screen recording showed the New Yorker sharing various videos with an adult male in his early to mid-thirties. The man was seen masturbating on screen while the video is playing.

This male was identified as Corey White, and during the recording requests CSAM involving a mother and son. The New Yorker accommodates this request, to which White said he enjoyed.

Based on this, a Special Agent with Homeland Security Investigation obtained a search warrant for White’s electronic devices at his Midland home.

On Oct. 23, White was detained and transported to MPD for questioning. He told detectives he used Omegle for “sexual things” and to find people willing to show their genitalia. White said he had an interest in incestuous porn involving mothers having sexual contact with their sons.

Later, White told officers that he rarely sought out CSAM, however, said while browsing Omegle he would flip to another user who was showing it or offering to show it which he would accept. He said he wasn’t seeking it out, but it excited him. Having a ‘fetish’ for incest pom, White said he preferred when the ‘real thing’ was offered, claiming mainstream porn merely involved ‘actors’.

When asked when he most recently viewed this material, White said it was when his wife went on a work trip but didn’t know how long ago this was. Law enforcement confirmed this was between May 8 and May 11, 2023 in Midland, which White further estimated was the timeframe.

If convicted, White faces up to ten years in prison, up to life of supervised release, a $250,000 maximum fine and a $100 special assessment.

Last week, White pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly accessing images of child pornography with visual depictions of a minor.

Fox — West Texas reports:

A former Midland youth pastor pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of knowingly accessing images of child pornography with visual depictions of a minor.

Our sister station, NewsWest 9, had a reporter in the courtroom Wednesday afternoon for a status conference/re-arraignment of 33-year-old Corey White.

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In October 2023, NewsWest 9 reported the charges stemmed from an investigation in Nassau County. New York. The Nassau County Police Department initiated an investigation after receiving 15 National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) cybertips from 2018-2023.

The tips involved uploading child sexual abuse material (CSAM) videos and images via Skype from an IP address in Seaford, New York.

After an extensive investigation and seizure of electronic devices from his Midland home, White was indicted by a grand jury in November 2023 for sexual exploitation of children and possessing or accessing child pornography with visual depiction of an actual minor.

White is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge David Counts April 4 and faces up to 10 years in prison, as well as supervised release for life and up to a $250,000 fine.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor James Randolph Accused of Sexual Assault

January 8, 2024 Evangelicalism 0 Comments

James Randolph, a pastor at Living Word [International] Church in Midland, Michigan, stands accused of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a relationship, four counts of second-degree CSC, and one count of accosting children for immoral purposes. Living Word is operated by Mark Barclay Ministries. Randolph is Barclay’s son-in-law.

Our Midland reports:

Living Word International Church minister Rev. James Randolph was arrested and charged Tuesday with first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a relationship, four counts of second-degree CSC and one count of accosting children for immoral purposes for crimes allegedly occurring in 2011.

Randolph is charged with seven felony counts and is out of jail on a $500,000 cash bond. His second-degree CSC charges include one allegedly with a person under 13-years-old and two involving a relationship. Randolph was arraigned on the charges in Midland County District Court Tuesday afternoon and is set for a probable cause hearing at 1 p.m. Dec. 7.

Randolph is the son-in-law of Mark Barclay of Mark Barclay Ministries which operates Living Word Church. He has been placed on administrative leave from the church.

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Randolph is the second person associated with the church to face arrest this year. In July, church volunteer Brandon Saylor, 44, was charged with six counts of criminal sexual conduct and three counts of accosting children for immoral purposes for crimes allegedly occurring in 2010, according to court records. He is being held in the Gladwin County Jail on a $500,000 cash/surety bond.

Saylor’s charges include four counts of second-degree CSC with three victims under 13, two counts of CSC with relationship, and three counts of accosting children for immoral purposes.

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Can Christianity be Deinstitutionalized?

January 6, 2024 Evangelicalism 11 Comments

fake dax hughes — Jesse on the hit Evangelical show Preacher says NO. 🙂

Recently, Martin Thielen, a retired United Methodist minister, asked, “Can Christianity be deinstitutionalized?”

Thielen writes:

For a growing number of modern believers, the old familiar institutional dynamics are unraveling. The doctrines are no longer relevant. The creeds are no longer believable. The traditions are no longer meaningful. The liturgy is no longer helpful. The rigid structures are no longer palatable.

What’s a Christian to do when centuries-old institutionalism no longer holds? What happens to followers of Jesus when they, like Brooks, contemplate departing the institutionalized religion of their past and face a changing world without the familiar structures that used to ground them? It can be disorientating indeed.

I’m not suggesting it’s time to throw away all the vestiges of institutional Christianity. As already noted, for many people, the old wineskins still work. But a growing number of restless believers are looking for new wineskins of Christian expression. They want less institution and more flexibility. Less certainty and more ambiguity. Less arrogance and more humility. Less doctrine and more connection. Less exclusion and more inclusion. Less focus on creeds and more focus on compassion. Less time meeting in church buildings and more time serving in the community.

In short, a lot of 21st-century believers are seeking a post-institutionalized (or at least a less institutionalized) version of Christianity.

Outside of members of sects such as the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, who love to call themselves “old-fashioned” — meaning “we worship just like the first-century church did” — most Christians know that the Christianity of the twenty-first century bears little to no resemblance to that practiced in the first century. (Please see What Independent Baptists Mean When They Use the Phrase “Old-Fashioned.”) If Jesus and his disciples showed up for worship on a Sunday at your average Evangelical church, they likely wouldn’t recognize anything remotely similar to worship and practice in 50 CE.

Thielen continues:

In the first two centuries CE, we do not see anything resembling contemporary “Christianity” or, for that matter, “Christianity” as it was in the later ancient world, in the Middle Ages, or across human history. In the first two centuries, what we think of as “Christianity” did not exist.

For example, during the first 200 years after Jesus — and before institutional Christianity became the norm — there were:

➱No set doctrinal beliefs

➱No set structure or organization

➱No set order of church leadership

➱No set authoritative Christian writings

➱No set traditions, liturgies or sacraments

➱No set Christology

➱No set name for the movement

According to “After Jesus Before Christianity” [by Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott and Hal Taussig], the early Jesus movement was open-ended, fluid, noncentralized and diverse. It had no settled theological orthodoxy, no “New Testament,” no formal clergy and no established ecclesiastical structure. In short, it was not yet institutionalized.

Growth, change, and maturity are typical for human institutions. My partner and I have been married for almost forty-six years. Our relationship is very different today from what it was in 1978. The U.S. Supreme Court settles constitutional issues on behalf of the American people (at least some of them). There are two approaches to interpreting the Constitution. One approach reads and interprets the Constitution as it was originally written. The other approach reads and interprets the Constitution as a living, breathing, evolving document. Just today, the Court agreed to settle the issue of whether disgraced ex-president Donald Trump, can appear on the Colorado ballot. How the nine Court justices view the Constitution will certainly come into play and likely decide this issue.

Thielen thinks Christianity needs to return to its “original intent.” However, thanks to 2,000 years of complicated history, Christianity is far removed from its original intent. Christianity, much like the U.S. Constitution, is a “living, breathing, evolving” institution. I will be sixty-seven on my next birthday. Historically, I can see how much Christianity has changed and evolved over its twenty-one-century history. I can also see how Christianity has changed in my own lifetime. I spent fifty years in the Evangelical church. While some things remain the same as when I was coming of age in the 60s and 70s, other things have dramatically changed. Even IFB churches have changed, albeit much slower than the rest of Evangelicalism. Whatever Christian churches have become today, they look nothing like those planted by Paul and others in the early days of Christianity.

Can Christianity be deinstitutionalized? The short answer is no. I suspect Thielen knows this, and what he really desires is a less institutionalized church. However, I question if even this is possible. Once humans gather together in groups, institutionalism is sure to follow. In the 1980s, I started a youth fellowship in southeast Ohio. At its height, fifteen churches participated in the fellowship. The fellowship was organic, without officers and structure. However, over time, some pastors began clamoring for organization — complete with officers, offerings, and doctrinal/social standards. Things went south quickly when an argument broke out over Calvinism — mainly my Calvinism. It was not long after that the fellowship disintegrated and everyone went their separate ways. Why couldn’t some of these pastors leave well enough alone? In their minds, progress required organization. I, of course, disagreed.

In the 2000s, I became disenchanted with organized Christianity and started to rethink my approach to ministry. For a time, I was enamored with the house church movement. I thought, at the time, that house churches reflected the simple nature and practice of the first-century church — albeit imperfectly. However, as time went along, I noticed that the house church movement had its own institutional structures and controls. Supposedly, everyone was equal before the Lord, but it quickly became clear that some people — mainly men — were more important than others. The same cult of personality that I saw in institutional Christianity was present in a nascent form in the house church movement. (Please see The Evangelical Cult of Personality.)

I concluded that Christianity could not be rescued; that whatever first-century Christianity might have been, it no longer existed. In its place, we have countless Christianities, complete with Jesuses molded and shaped into our image. Take the average Evangelical megachurch — which is little more than a social club where likeminded people gather for entertainment from an AWESOME band and a dope, hip, designer clothes-wearing felt needs dispenser named Pastor Smooth. Do you see anything that remotely resembles the early church? Would Jesus put his stamp of approval on these multi-million-dollar monuments to “coolness” and corporate Christianity? I doubt it.

While Christianity can’t deinstitutionalize, it can try to trim the fat and excess and embrace the teachings of Jesus as found in the Sermon on the Mount. Imagine if churches committed to following the two great commands: loving God, loving your neighbor as yourself? (Please see What is TRUE Christianity?) Imagine if churches fired their pastors and told them to get real jobs, using the money spent on salaries and benefits to minister to the least of these? Imagine if churches took seriously Christ’s teachings about ministering to widows, orphans, and the poor? Imagine if church buildings became community centers, open to all? Imagine if leaders stopped writing books and traveling the conference speaking circuit, choosing to invest their time and money in laying treasure up in Heaven? The church can be better, so much so that even an atheist might look at it and say, “I see Jesus in you!” I have no confidence that this will happen any time soon — if ever. More likely, Christianity will continue to morph and change, moving farther and farther away from the early church.

Note: I am not suggesting that Christianity is “true.” As an atheist, I reject the central claims of Christianity. However, I am suggesting that as a social institution, modern Christianity is far removed from its roots, so much so that it is unrecognizable from the first century church. Christianity ain’t going away, but it sure as Hell can do better.

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.

Original intent constitution

Is Jesus the Only Reason Evangelical Christians Succeed in Life?

January 6, 2024 Evangelicalism 6 Comments

Evangelicals are taught that without Jesus, their lives are “nothing.” Jesus said to his followers in John 15:5: I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. The Apostle Paul testified in Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. The negative inference is this: as Christians, without the strength Jesus gives us, we can do nothing. Speaking to a group of unbelievers, Paul said this about the Christian God: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; (Acts 17:28)

Next week, Michigan plays Washington in the college football title game. Regardless of who wins, players and coaches will praise the Christian God for their victory; believing that without God, they could have never accomplished what they did on the field.

Several years ago, I read a blog post written by Kristen Welch titled, It’s Because of Jesus (link no longer active). Here’s what Welch had to say:

There’s only one reason we’re still together,” I told my husband quietly as we were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner one night.

He stopped loading the dishwasher and looked at me, “What?”

“There’s only one reason we are still married and our home is semi-functional,” I said louder, over our kids arguing about what to watch on TV.

“And happy?” He said sarcastically with a laugh. “Honey, what are you talking about?”

I reminded him of the week of bad news we’d heard in our circle of community. There were just too many announcements of friends our age divorcing, and destructive behavior from their defiant kids and one too many defeated leaders in the same kind of work as us, throwing in the towel.

“There’s nothing really different from us than from this family or that one. There’s only one reason it’s not us divorcing, dealing with wayward kids or dropping out of the non-profit world.”

I had his full attention.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. The answer made me want to weep right there in the kitchen.

“It’s Jesus. He’s the only reason,” I said softly and handed him another plate to load.

We were quiet for a moment–chewing on the truth hanging in the air between us. We have had plenty of reasons over the years to give up on each other; to call it quits on Biblical parenting, to find jobs that were easier. More than once, it would have been easier to just walk away than stay and fight.

But we didn’t survive those seasons because we made good choices or because we were good people. And it’s important to acknowledge that our sacrifices, self-denial and sad attempts to hold it all together–didn’t somehow work.

No, we are defying the odds because of Jesus. Simply. Profoundly. Because of Jesus. And we both knew it.

According to Welch, the ONLY reason for their successful marriage is Jesus. Not their good choices, just Jesus. Not their sacrifices, self-denial, or attempts to hold their marriage together, just Jesus.

Welch’s post is a good reminder of the effectiveness of Evangelical conditioning and indoctrination. Starting when Evangelicals are children, and continuing Sunday after Sunday through adulthood, they are reminded by their pastors and teachers of their worthlessness without Jesus. Worse yet, Evangelical preachers tell their congregants that Jesus is the only thing keeping them from a life of debauchery. Why, without Jesus, a life filled with booze, drugs, sexual immorality, divorce, and voting Democrat awaits them. According to Evangelicals, Jesus is a prophylactic against the “world.” He alone keeps Christians from contracting STDs — Secular Transmitted Diseases.

If there’s one Evangelical doctrine I despise, it is this one. My wife and I wallowed in this pit of helplessness most of our lives. Daily we pleaded for Jesus to give us strength and guidance. We prayed that every decision we made was according to his perfect plan and will. (Romans 12:1-2) When the pit turned into a shit-filled, overflowing septic tank, we blamed ourselves for ignoring the leadership and direction of the Holy Spirit. “Wait a minute, Bruce. I thought the Bible said that Christians couldn’t do anything without Jesus. Why are you to blame when things turn out bad?” Ah, Good question, Obi-Wan Kenobi. If God is the sovereign Lord over all and controls everything, how can anything happen that is not according to his purpose, plan, and will? If it is in Jesus that humans find strength, movement, and being, is he not culpable when things end up a disaster? Either God/Jesus is who Evangelicals say he is, or he’s not. God is either omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, or he’s not. Evangelicals say that God is the Creator of the universe and holds the earth in the palm of his hand. Yet, science and just paying attention tells us that these claims are false. Either God is a shitty project manager, has given his workers control over his projects, or he doesn’t exist. My money is on the latter.

I used to do a lot of sports photography. Right now, it’s basketball season. I typically attended three or four high school basketball games a week. I shot games at almost every school in rural northwest Ohio. I’ve seen good, bad, and average players and teams. Having played basketball myself into my early thirties, I have a good eye for spotting not only exceptional talent but also deficiencies — defensive, offensive, ball-handling, shooting. I am particularly interested in how players handle adversity; say, when their opposition puts on a full-court press or puts a pesky, physical defender on them the whole night. Anyone can make shots or free throws when shooting around before the game. It’s when the game is on the line that the mettle of a player is revealed.

When players succeed, is their success due to the most awesome three-point shooter ever, Jesus? I mean, can anyone slam dunk the basketball better than God? Ugh. Their success comes not from their faith in the triune God, but from a combination of genetics, drive, practice, and natural talent. Players who excel at a given sport do so because they work day and night to become the best players possible. A player need not have Welch’s Jesus to succeed. If a player wants to praise Jesus, fine. But, make no mistake about it, it’s their hard work and effort that made them into a successful athlete.

Welch, oh-so-humbly, believes that the only reason she and her husband are still married today is because of Jesus. I have no idea what kind of marriage the Welches have, but this I know: the success of their marriage rests on their shoulders, and theirs alone. Countless Evangelical couples who love and follow Jesus just as much as the Welches end up divorced. Why is that? Perhaps the truth about marriage is that it is a crap-shoot; perhaps successfully living with one person for years, having children together, and facing suffering and loss together is due, not to Jesus, but to luck. Yes, luck. How else do we explain two couples with similar marital resumes, one married for decades, another divorced?

Polly and I have been married for going on forty-six years. We started dating when we were seventeen and nineteen. Here we are, all these years later, still blissfully and happily married. We should write a book, right? Maybe we could title the book: Seven Steps to Keep from Murdering Your Spouse. That’s right. You see, Polly and I both know that we are lucky to still be married. Both of us can point to circumstances that could have destroyed our marriage. Was it Jesus that kept us from divorce? Of course not. If anything, we are fortunate we didn’t divorce because of Jesus. Polly would likely say that Jesus and I carried on an illicit affair for decades. It got so bad that Jesus even slept in our bed — a threesome. (Please see It’s Time to Tell the Truth: I Had an Affair)

The list of marital pressure points is endless, from health problems to children to loss of faith. Polly and I know we are lucky to still be married, and happily so. Sure, we took the vows we made seriously. We genuinely love and like one another. However, lots of “loving” couples end up divorced. Where Welch sees Jesus, I see a plethora of things that keep married couples together. I know of one couple who was married for over sixty years. Wow, they must have really loved one another, right? Nope. The husband was a violent, skirt-chasing rapist — whom the local IFB pastor preached into Heaven after he died. The wife endured because she planned on outliving her wretched husband so she would get all the money. She succeeded, by the way, only to end up in a nursing home with dementia. Too bad she will never remember how she outlasted that asshole husband of hers.

Some marriages last because of children. I suspect we all know couples who stay married for the sake of their children. Why is it some couples divorce after twenty or twenty-five years of marriage? Often, they waited until the children were out of the house before they decided to call it quits.

What I am saying is this: the success or failure of a marriage rests on numerous factors. To suggest, as Welch does, that having a successful marriage and steering clear of divorce court is solely due to Jesus is, at the very least, lazy thinking. When asked to make a list of the reasons for their successful marriages, the Welches and other Evangelical couples write one big word: JESUS. I want to believe that Welch knows better; that deep down in her heart of hearts she knows that she is still married today because of hard work and a healthy dose of luck.

Sometimes, marriages fail. How many Christians do you know who are in miserable marriages, helplessly waiting for Jesus to come through for them? Instead of cutting bait and admitting that they married the wrong person or no longer love their spouse, Evangelicals will suffer in silence, believing that doing so is what Jesus, the Awesome One, wants of them. On my About page I answer the question, If you had one piece of advice to give me, what would it be? Here’s what I wrote:

You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.

Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Some day, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.

Forget who “Jesus” says matters or what the Bible says. The only ones who matter are those whom you and you alone think matter. Life is too short to spend it trying to shore up a house built on a rotting foundation. You are not a “nothing,” and any preacher or religion that tells you differently is out to cause you harm. My advice? Run. Seek out people and relationships who value you as a person; people who see your work and effort; and yes, people who see how lucky you are.

Were you taught that without Jesus you were “nothing?” How did this affect you as an adult? Your marriage? Your relationships with your children? If you have been married for many years, to what do you attribute the success of your marriage? Please share your wisdom in the comment section.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The Intractability of Christian Fundamentalists

January 5, 2024 Evangelicalism 38 Comments

Originally written in March 2015. Expanded and edited.

If you have not read Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists? please do so. This will help you understand my use of the word “Fundamentalist.”

Thanks to this blog, social media, and breathing air, I come in contact with Christian Fundamentalists every day. They comment on my blog, send me tweets, leave Facebook comments, and send me emails. I’m like a human shit pile on a hot summer day. Fundamentalist flies are drawn to me and there’s little I can do about it. As a former Evangelical, an out-of-the-closet atheist, and a writer, I know that dealing with Christian Fundamentalists is part of my job description.

I’ve been blogging for over fourteen years. I started and stopped several times, with every stoppage predicated by the behavior of Christian Fundamentalists and how their actions affected my health and mental wellbeing. Over the years, I’ve gotten mentally and emotionally stronger, my skin has thickened, and I am pretty much impervious to the petty, childish, boorish, ignorant behavior of Fundamentalists. When I am up to it, I might engage them a bit, but most of the time I let them piss on my doorstep and ignore them. When they don’t get the desired response from me, they usually head off to another fire hydrant they can whiz on. (Yes, I am full of metaphors today!)

Some Fundamentalists have upped their game and turned to electronic means of bullying. Readers may remember all the problems I had several years ago with spambots sent my way by a Fundamentalist zealot. At one time, I was receiving 1,500 spam comments a day. This was a concerted effort by someone to frustrate me and cause me grief. During this same time period, I had someone repeatedly try to access the blog log-in. Now, this happens routinely a dozen or so times a day, but this time was different. They attempted to log in thousands of times a day. The good news is they failed. My login remained secure and no spam made it to the live site.

Currently, I receive a hundred or so spam comments a day. Quite manageable. In most cases, it’s drive-by spammers wanting to either infect my computer with a virus or make my penis larger. In the case mentioned above, it was a directed attack. Someone deliberately wanted to cause me problems, perhaps even cause me to stop blogging. A great victory for Team God, yes? Yea God!

My Facebook friends may remember someone setting up a fake account in my name. They then gained access to my Friends list (my fault since I had it set to public) and sent them new friend requests. About twenty-five of my friends friended the fake Bruce Gerencser, and after they did, they got a private message from the fake account. The message? A Christian one, meant to witness to them. Fortunately, several dozen friends contacted me about the fake account, and in less than an hour Facebook shut it down. For future reference, I am the only Bruce Almighty Gerencser in the world. If we are already connected through social media, any other Bruce Almighty is a false one.

The one thing I have learned from this is that Christian Fundamentalists, for the most part, are intractable. Intractable is not a word used very often, so let me give you the dictionary definition:

This word perfectly describes most of the Fundamentalists I come in contact with through this blog and on social media. Certainty has turned them into nasty, arrogant, hateful individuals who have forgotten what their Bible says about the fruit of the spirit and how they are to treat others. Think Dr. David Tee — who is neither a doctor nor a Tee — Revival Fires, John, and others. Safe behind their digital shields, these petty cowards violently brandish their word swords, caring little about what damage they might cause. Worse yet, they fail to realize or don’t care that they are pushing people away from Christianity. Why would I ever want to be a part of a religion that allows and encourages the maltreatment of others?

As a pastor, I always taught church members that our actions spoke louder than our words. How we treated others determined how our beliefs would be judged. While I may have been a Fundamentalist for many years, I never treated people like I’ve seen Fundamentalists treat me and others. As I mentioned in the comment rules, they are people who haven’t learned to play well with others. They are the schoolyard bullies, demanding that all bow to their God and their interpretation of the Bible.

I know there is no use trying to shame Christian Fundamentalists into acting like they have graduated preschool. If fourteen years of blogging have taught me anything, it is that I can’t change how Fundamentalists think or act. But, Bruce, you were a Fundamentalist, as were many of the people who read this blog, and you changed! True enough, but I also know how hard it is to change.

The majority of Fundamentalists will believe what they believe until they die. Why? Because their entire life is wrapped up in their belief system. They are in a self-contained bubble where, in their minds, everything makes sense. If you have not read, The Danger of Being in a Box and Why it Makes Sense When You Are in It and What I Found When I Left the Box, please do so. I think you will find both posts helpful in explaining the Fundamentalist bubble. Until a person is willing to at least consider that there is life outside of the bubble, there is no hope for them.

I am convinced that inerrancy — the belief that the Bible is without error — keeps people chained to the Fundamentalist God. Armed with an inspired, inerrant, infallible Bible, given to them by the supernatural God who wrote and autographed it, they go into the “world” and wage war against all who disagree with their literalist interpretation of the Bible.

Those of us who were once Christian Fundamentalists understand Fundamentalist pathology. After all, we wuz one of them. We know how certain and arrogant we once were, full of God and, most certainly, full of shit. We would have remained this way had it not been for an event, life circumstance, book, website, or blog challenging our assumptions. When one of these things poked a tiny hole in our bubble, we tried our best to patch the hole. But, try as we might, none of the patches would stick, so our bubble deflated. In rushed the “world” with its knowledge. From that day forward, we knew we could no longer stay in the bubble that had been our home for as long as we could remember. Our Fundamentalist Christian friends and family, along with our pastors and colleagues, tried to patch and re-inflate the bubble; but it was too late. Much like a horse escaping its pen, we were free, and once free we were not coming back.

My purpose in life is NOT to debate, fight, or argue with Christian Fundamentalists. It is a waste of time to do so, and since I have so little time left on this earth, I don’t want to waste it casting my pearls before swine. I’d rather spend my time helping those who find themselves outside of the Fundamentalist bubble. Confused, hurt, looking for help and answers, they are looking for someone whom they can turn to for love and support. I want to be that someone. I also want to help and be friends with those who have already transitioned away from religion. They want to know what a post-God life looks like. Through my writing, I try to be a help. A small help, a temporary help; whatever they need from me, I try to provide. I am not a guru, nor do I have all the answers. At best, I am a bartender, willing to spin a yarn, tell my story, provide entertainment, and listen to the woes, cares, and concerns of others.

Through this interaction, I gain something too. Not another church member or notch on the handle of my gospel six-shooter. I have no church or club, I am just one man with a story to tell. But I do gain support and strength from those who make this blog part of their day-to-day routine. Sometimes this blog is a cheap form of therapy; other times it is a raucous Friday night at the bar with friends. As people ride along with me on the Bruce Gerencser Crazy Train®, they have gone from acquaintances and readers to friends. Perhaps, this has become another bubble for me, but if it is, I do know there is an entrance and exit that allows me the freedom to come and go as I please. Freedom — a word I never really understood until I saw God, the church, the ministry, and the Bible in the rearview mirror.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Why Can’t Ohio Republican Legislators and the DeWine Administration Leave LGBTQ People Alone?

January 5, 2024 Local 4 Comments

By David DeWitt, Ohio Capital Journal, Used by Permission

I’ve lived in Ohio for nearly four decades and for that entire time, LGBTQ+ lives have been treated by our politicians as little more than a convenient political punching bag. Every year I ask myself, why can’t they just leave us alone?

I turned 18 in late 2002, so my first non-local election as a voter was in 2004, when the George W. Bush campaign juiced his reelection prospects by putting same-sex marriage bans on the ballot and passing them in 11 states, including Ohio.

Welcome to politics, kid, you’re a second-class citizen. That’s the message Ohio welcomed me with as a voter.

It was easy in 2004 to scapegoat and victimize the entire LGBTQ+ community, not just segments of it as we largely see today. We were going to destroy traditional marriage. We were — by seeking the same legal benefits of marriage afforded to opposite-sex couples — going to destroy the entire country. Marriages to farm animals are coming next, they shrieked. “Fire and brimstone… Forty years of darkness… Dogs and cats living together — mass hysteria!”

It took 11 years for Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban to be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, a case originating out of Ohio.

The state of Ohio, under then-Attorney General Mike DeWine, cost taxpayers more than a million dollars working to keep myself and the rest of my LGBTQ+ family second-class citizens, undeserving of the same legal protections as everyone else.

But over those years, the tide had begun to turn. One of the most significant things I learned after 2004 was that many people changed their minds on the issue of LGBTQ+ rights when somebody close to them came out as LGBTQ+. Of course, plenty of others reject their LGBTQ+ family members: disowning us, kicking us out of our homes, or even doing violence to us. But as enough of us came out and showed that we are normal, everyday people with real humanity, the mood of the country slowly changed.

Ohio’s same-sex marriage ban of 2004 was passed by 61.7% of voters. A 2012 poll by the Washington Post showed 52% of Ohio residents saying that same-sex marriage should be legal. A 2016 Public Religion Research Institute poll showed a 56% majority in favor of same-sex marriage in Ohio. A 2022 survey by the same institute showed 70% of Ohio respondents supported same-sex marriage.

And yet, still, Ohio Revised Code Section 3101.01 states “Any marriage between persons of the same sex is against the strong public policy of this state. Any marriage between persons of the same sex shall have no legal force or effect in this state.”

So if the current right-wing U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn the Obergefell decision and return it to the states, LGBTQ+ Ohioans would once again be relegated to second-class citizenship against the wishes of 70% of the public.

In the last several years, because of this shift in public opinion, right-wing operatives have decided it’s more politically convenient and publicly palatable to shine their spotlight of hatred, lies, and intolerance not on the LGBTQ+ community broadly, but on our transgender brothers and sisters specifically.

Since 2015, the U.S. has seen a sharp increase in anti-trans legislation, with record-breaking numbers the last four years. In 2023, 550 anti-transgender bills were introduced across the U.S., more than in the past eight years combined.

Ohio’s unconstitutionally gerrymandered state legislature has gone full-bore into the play: introducing anti-trans athlete bills, anti-transgender health care bills, and even anti-drag and bathroom ban laws. They passed the youth athlete and gender-affirming care ban just before the end of the year. DeWine vetoed it, but the lege now looks to make their first order of business in 2024 attacking trans people next week with a possible override of DeWine’s veto.

DeWine said during his press conference last week that, “Parents looked me in the eye and they said, ‘My child would be dead if they had not received this care.” DeWine did his research, he listened to families and doctors, and he showed more honesty and compassion in a 30-minute presser than I saw out of Statehouse Republican lawmakers in all of 2023.

The fact that this is a matter of life and death is obvious to those of us who know and love and care about trans and other LGBTQ+ people in our lives. I’ve heard too many awful stories. My heart has been broken over and over knowing what those in my LGBTQ+ family have had to endure: the fear, the lack of safety, the horror stories of pain, violence, and rejection from a society that has historically not given a damn about us or our lives.

But our LGBTQ+ family is strong. We’ve created communities for ourselves. We’ve worked with medical professionals to create health care spaces for ourselves, when much of the rest of the world was dismissing us and laughing at us, even amid the AIDS epidemic. We created spaces for ourselves where we could live in peace, not fearing for our safety and security, but lifting each other up in acceptance and love.

So no matter what happens next week, I want to send a very clear message to my LGBTQ+ family and especially our trans sisters and brothers: You are loved. You are accepted. You are appreciated. You are wanted, needed, and valued in our communities and in our families. Your individuality is a gift, and your lives are precious. I will never abandon you and I will never stop fighting for all of our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

To our allies, thank you. Truly, thank you. Your strength and alliance carries far more weight than you might conceive.

And to the small-minded, closed-hearted bigots who seek to rob us of our inalienable rights, to scapegoat us, to ostracize us, to “other” us, to exclude us, to lie about us, to victimize us, to use our lives as a political cudgel whether out of cynicism or ignorance — perpetuating or being duped by propaganda: You’ve never cared about us, and we don’t need you, so honestly, why can’t you just leave us alone?

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.

Don’t Fall For This Evangelical Con: Welcoming, Not Affirming

January 4, 2024 Evangelicalism 26 Comments

Recently, The Christian Chronicle published an interview with Rubel Shelly, the author of “Male and Female God Created Them: A Biblical Review of LGBTQ+ Claims.” One question and answer stood out to me. Shelly is a Church of Christ preacher

B.T. Irwin asked:

Your book introduced me to a phrase I’ve never heard before in reference to Christian congregations, and that phrase is “welcoming, but not affirming.” Is that just a nicer way of saying hate the sin, love the sinner? How can congregations really be welcoming of people who identify as LGBTQ+ without affirming their behaviors?

Shelly replied:

I welcome my friends who are alcoholics. I welcome my friends who are drug addicts. I welcome my friends who have addictions of various sorts. In fact, a church that I served for 27 years here in Nashville at one point had 41 groups — accountability, reorientation sessions — going for people with all sorts of addictions, most of them around alcohol and drugs.

We welcomed every one of them, but not in a single case did we ever affirm the addiction, the alcoholism, the meth, gambling, whatever it was that was their addiction. We welcomed them because that’s what the church is — the church is a recovering community of sinners.

Here’s my point: If a church creates an atmosphere of redemption through the grace of God … we feel safe to admit, “Yes, I do need redemption, and I must throw myself on the grace of God for my gambling addiction, my alcohol addiction, my pathological lying, whatever it may be,” and that church welcomes them. Not to encourage them to continue the behavior, but they are welcomed into a penitent community where there is acceptance, accountability and nurture into spiritual health and recovery.

Let’s follow that through with sexual issues in particular. Let’s talk about the teenager who is caught up in what now has the name “gender dysphoria.”

Men have cooked and done needlework a long time. Women have been truck drivers and farmers.

Gender dysphoria is one set of issues, but let’s suppose a teenager is dealing with what this culture is telling them: You may need to consider puberty blockers. You may need to consider dressing differently. You may need to consider surgery and changing your genitalia because you’re probably a woman trapped in the man’s body or vice versa.

Most teenagers — if they feel those things — don’t have a safe place to go to deal with it.

Back in the 1980s, there was this new disease that was called AIDS. I had people asking me, “Do you think it’s safe to drink from a water fountain at church?” A neighbor warned my wife against going to a laundromat with some of the big bedding that she was going to dry in one of the big dryers. People were terrified.

So what Dr. Roy Hamley and I did was set up an accountability group, not for alcoholics or drug users or people caught up with gambling or pornography, but for people who were HIV-infected. We didn’t know if anybody would show up, but we had established a community of grace and healing. And sure enough, probably four or five the first night we met showed up, and before long the group grew large enough that we had to divide it into two different groups.

We welcomed people who had AIDS. We welcomed people who were gay into the context of the call of Christ, to purity and repentance.

So this is not new territory for me. This is not abstract and academic. This is also pastoral for me. I think what people are looking for is not so much sex as intimacy, and by intimacy: safe people, safe places, acceptance, love.

Where love is defined in the Christian sense, it’s the self-giving interest in one another. And yet in this culture, we don’t know how to do intimacy apart from groping or viewing or having intercourse with a woman, a man or both or a group.

Intimacy doesn’t mean having sex. Intimacy means having a deep, meaningful connection within this male-female community that God has created to be the human race in his own image and likeness and, in that context, serving the kingdom of God. The point of life is not to have sex. The point of life is not romantic fulfillment. The point of life, if we are Christian, is the kingdom of God.

Our churches have to be welcoming, but not affirming, to people from all kinds of backgrounds, so that the church really is a Christ-focused place where acceptance with accountability — not simply acceptance to affirm, but acceptance with accountability to truth — can take place. We’re not centers to dispense judgment. We are centers to dispense grace within the context of the truth of the Gospel.

Shelly states: Our churches have to be welcoming, but not affirming. Many mainline Christian churches are welcome and affirming. Shelly will have none of that, saying that everyone is welcome, but they must conform to the church’s teachings to be truly accepted by the church. This is little more than a novel take on “loving the sinner, but hating the sin.” As readers of this site know, Evangelicals rarely hate sin without hating sinners too. Preachers are fond of saying that Christians should love what God loves and hate what God hates. God certainly hates sin, but the Bible says he hates sinners too. Thus, honesty demands that Evangelical preachers tell the truth to those whom they are “welcoming.”

LGBTQ people need to know before entering the doors of the church that they will be loved and welcomed, but an ulterior motive lies behind the kindness. LGBTQ people will be accepted for a time, but they will be expected to conform and change (by the grace of God, of course). These deviants will be permitted to attend services and fellowship with God’s chosen ones, but they will not be allowed to be members or serve in the church in any meaningful way. If LGBTQ attendees refuse to conform, pressure will be put on them to do so, and if they refuse to comply, they will be encouraged to move on. After all, you can’t paint LGBTQ people as perverts and pedophiles and be okay with them being around church children. Once word gets out that someone is gay, bisexual, or transgender, church members will not be comfortable having such people in their midst. LGBTQ people will be tolerated for a time, but only if they eventually repent of their sins, forsake their perversion, and live according to the teachings of the heterosexual Bible.

Churches are free to believe whatever they want regarding LGBTQ people. Churches are essentially membership clubs. They have every right to set membership rules. However, it is deceitful to feign love and kindness in the hope that the “mark” will repent of their sins and get saved. But, Bruce, we really do love LGBTQ people. We want what’s best for them. Sure, you do. Ask LGBTQ people if they feel your love, preacher. Maybe the LGBTQ people who read this blog will let you know what they think of your “welcoming, but not affirming” con.

Anthony Venn-Brown was right when he said:

Whilst some Christian leaders have preached hatred and the media given oxygen to the fringe lunatics of Christendom, many others hoped if they just closed their eyes or buried their head in the sand, eventually the issue would go away. I’ve often said that the problem is not so much homophobia but subjectaphobia; they would rather just not go into the volatile space of the faith and sexuality ‘debate’. It’s such a divisive issue.

But now churches are having to come to terms with the fact that in a growing number of western countries marriage equality has or is becoming a reality. This means that gay and lesbian couples may come into their churches who have a nationally or state recognised, legal marriage. Some will be parents. They are no longer gay, lesbians or “homosexuals” they are believers, committed church members and families.

The longer churches put this issue on the back burner the further behind they become. Considering the progress made in scientific research, changes in the law, acceptance of diversity in the corporate world and that since 1973 homosexuality has not been considered a mental disorder; some churches are 40 years out of date on the issue of homosexuality. Church, you must catch up and make this a priority. Every day delayed means that LGBT people are harmed and lives lost.

If churches continue to hold on to the outdated Christian belief that homosexuality is a sin then it makes them increasingly irrelevant to those who have gay and lesbian friends, family members and work colleagues. The previous Christian labels of unnatural, perverse, evil and even abomination not only do not fit, they are offensive to LGBT people and their friends and family.

My hope and prayer is that this will be an ongoing conversation that takes ALL churches to a place where LGBT people are treated with respect and equality. Not just welcoming churches, or accepting churches but truly affirming churches.

Welcoming = you’re welcome BUT…….

Accepting = we accept you BUT……..

Affirming = we love you FULL STOP.

It’s a journey we MUST go on if we profess to serve humanity with unconditional love.

People of colour were once told to go to the back of the bus. Women were once told their place was in the home. The paradigm shift in understanding that happened in the western world regarding people of colour and women’s equality, is now happening in regard to sexual orientation and gender identity.

It’s important to remind churches that having a conversation about us without us will usually be nothing more than a recycling of preconceived ideas and misconceptions. Imagine a group of male church leaders discussing the role of women in the church without females present? We would call that misogyny. Or church leadership discussing indigenous issues without consulting indigenous people themselves. How could they have any insight into what their life experience is really all about? We would call that white supremacy/racism/elitism. The church has done a great deal of talking about us but rarely has spoken with us. So when church leaders discuss LGBT people, relationships and the community without speaking with or spending time getting to know LGBT people it does beg the question why. What is there to fear? Why the exclusion? Is this further evidence of homophobia that is regularly denied?

It’s time for the church to invite LGBT people into the conversation. For some this is a conversation about their thoughts and beliefs but for us it is about who we are.

My therapist asked me today how my view of LGBTQ changed over the years. I recounted to her the story I shared in the post Bruce, What was Your View on Homosexuality When You Were a Pastor?

My view of LGBTQ people began to change in 1995. I was between pastorates, so I took a job with Charley’s Steakery as the general manager of their Zanesville, Ohio location. Located in Colony Square Mall, we offered mall employees free refills on their soft drinks. Several times a week, a gay man would come to the restaurant to get a free refill. The first time he handed me his cup, I panicked, thinking, I am going to get AIDS! For the first few times, after I refilled his cup, I would vigorously wash my hands after doing so. Had to wash off the cooties, I thought at the time. After a few weeks of this, I began being more comfortable around this man. He and I would chat about all sorts of things. I found out that he was quite “normal.” This, of course, messed with my view of the world.

While I am sure numerous LGBTQ people came through my life before I refilled this man’s drink cup, he was the first gay man I had really engaged in friendly, meaningful discussion. And it was at this point in my life that my view about homosexuality began to change. I didn’t stop being a homophobe overnight, but step by step over the next decade, I stumbled away from the homophobic rhetoric that had dominated my life for many years.

Accepting LGBTQ people as they are is the first step in changing our minds about them. They are not the problem, we are.

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Tag: Evangelicalism

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