Three-Day Old Human Embryo. Why He Looks Just Like his Father.
According to anti-abortionists/forced birthers, life begins at conception. At the very moment the sperm and egg unite, a new life is created. Anti-abortionists are intractable when it comes to their position. Life begins at conception . . . end of debate.
Let me tell you a story . . .
This story takes place at the We Make Life Possible Fertility Clinic, owned by Dr. David Tee, a renowned gynecologist, fertility expert, and archeologist.
Sue gave birth to a beautiful baby girl through in vitro fertilization. Her baby girl is one month old. Sue stopped by the Fertility Clinic to show off her newborn to the clinic staff.
While Sue was there, a huge explosion rocked the place and the clinic was engulfed in flames. Later speculation on World Net Daily, Charisma, Protestia, and TheologyGynocology, suggested a supporter of Barack Obama/Joe Biden/Nancy Pelosi/Kamala Harris/AOC was behind the attack.
John, named after John the Baptist, a forced birth activist, happened to be passing by the clinic when the explosion took place. John went running into the clinic hoping to perhaps save someone from the fire.
John had been to the We Make Possible Life Fertility Clinic before. His wife Purity had problems conceiving, and not wanting to wait on God to open her womb, she went to the clinic for non-vaginal-sex fertilization. While the treatment was successful, Purity miscarried a few months into the pregnancy.
John knew the clinic stored hundreds of fertilized eggs (embryos) in a freezer. As he rushed into the clinic, John saw Sue huddled in a corner with her newborn daughter trying to get away from the fire. John thought, “Surely I should save these two.”
John thought for a moment, asking himself What Would Jesus Do? Suddenly, he realized the fire was going to destroy all the frozen embryos. John told Sue and her baby Sorry, maybe Jesus will come to rescue you, and he rushed to the freezer where the frozen embryos were stored. Through John’s heroic effort, hundreds of frozen embryos were saved. Sadly, Sue and her newborn daughter were burnt to death.
Who among us would fault John? After all, he acted according to the greater good. Who wouldn’t save two hundred lives at the expense of two lives?
The above story follows the logic of the life-begins-at-conception viewpoint to its illogical conclusion. There is no difference between two hundred embryos and Sue and her baby. Life is life. It makes perfect sense for John to save the frozen embryos and not Sue and her little one. Surely John would be praised for saving the two hundred embryos, right? If the clinic is unable to reopen, perhaps the frozen embryos can be put up for adoption. After all, EVERY embryo is a life.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Wiese says that unbelievers reject God due to either their refusal to turn from a sinful lifestyle or their ignorance of the Bible. To that I say “sigh.” (Please read Why I Use the Word “Sigh.”) I was part of the Evangelical church for fifty years. I was a pastor for twenty-five years. I have a Bible college education and spent over 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. I know the Bible inside and out. Where can I take an exam to test out on this idea that people who reject God do so because they are ignorant of the Bible? Wiese insults the intelligence of millions of former Evangelicals with his suggestion that they are ignorant of the Bible. We know the Bible. Doubt us? Ask!
Wiese also says that unbelievers reject God because they refuse to repent of and abandon a sinful lifestyle. Again, “sigh.” Can unbelievers do bad things? Sure. Humans do what humans do. But it is ludicrous and dishonest to suggest that unbelievers are worse than believers or that Evangelicals inhabit some higher moral plain.
I can confidently say that I am, on balance, a “good” person. Not perfect; not without fault, but I am generally a good person. And so are most of the unbelievers who frequent this site. I am sure I have readers who are bad people, but they are not the norm. Yet, Wiese says that self-proclaimed good people are:
guilty of lying, cheating, arrogance, envy of others, sexual immorality, disobedience to their parents, greed, unforgiveness, complaining, being unthankful, backbiting, gossip, cursing and evil thoughts. They don’t read the Bible or pray. They don’t assist the poor. They don’t even keep one of the Ten Commandments, and they support ungodly laws and leaders. The list goes on. When looking at this list, surely you must realize that none of us are good.
While all of us on any given day can check off a few things on Wiese’s list, I suspect most people are innocent of the charges Too-Holy-For-Me Wiese levels against unbelievers. In fact, instead of worrying about how unbelievers live their lives, I suggest Wiese focus on the lives of his fellow believers. Plenty of sin to go around in his backyard.
Wiese shares three things he wants unbelievers to know about Hell:
1. God is the one who has provided the only way to keep you out of hell. If you choose to reject Him, hell is exactly where you will be going.
2. The God you think of as cruel for making hell is the same one who suffered a horrible death on the cross. He died in your place for your sins in order to save you from hell.
3. Hell was prepared for the devil, not for man. It is a horrible place because God withdrew His goodness from it.
All of these are standard Evangelical nonsense that has been challenged and debunked countless times. Exposed for all to see is the fact that Wiese holds aberrant theological beliefs; that he has no understanding of the sovereignty of God and his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. God, knowing the end from the beginning, knew who would be saved and who would end up in Heaven from before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4, Matthew 25:34, John 17:24, Hebrews 4:3, 1 Peter 1:20, Revelation 17:8)
Wiese says, instead,
Each person sends himself to hell by his own rejection of Jesus Christ. Yes, hell is horrible, but that should not be your focus. How to stay out of hell is what you should be concerned with. Jesus said in John 14:6 that He is the only way to heaven. You have the choice to believe Him or not. You decide. If you are willing to turn from your sin and put your trust solely in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you will escape hell. But if you choose to reject Him, you will suffer the consequences of your foolish decision.
While Wiese’s theology is, at best, heterodox, it is not uncommon, especially in Charismatic circles, to find preachers who believe that all humans have naked freewill; that we alone choose whether or not to be saved; that our eternal destiny rests solely on us. The Bible says, however, that “salvation is of the Lord.” Jesus himself said in John 6:44: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” Could Pharoah, Judas, or even the Jews come to Jesus for salvation? Not according to the Bible. God hardened their hearts, rendering them unable to be saved. The same can be said for apostates and reprobates such as myself. I can’t be saved. I have crossed the line of no return. (I wish Evangelical zealots would get the memo and leave me alone. I am not a prospect for Heaven.)
Of course, nothing I say will change Wiese’s mind. He’s been to Hell and back. The only hell I know is the one we humans have created on planet Earth. My goal is to lessen the hell for everyone and increase their happiness and well-being. Threatening people with eternal torture in a lake of fire — where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched — does neither.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Melissa Lord. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original:
I was raised in church, and I had no intentions, whatsoever, to becoming a Christian. However, when I was 25 years old, I did become a Christian and forward saved me. I totally understand you, because I have seen so much hypocrisy in my life, which is why the word of God tells us not to look to man, because who can no the heart because it is desperately wicked. I do not have confidence in men, because I’ve seen too much. However, I will have confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ until the day I die, because, while seeing so much hypocrisy, I have seen, and been friends with witnessed the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in so many lives.
I read your article regarding Gus Harter. I knew of him, and a People that liked him. I met him, and wasn’t crazy over him from the first time I saw him. I did not see him as a pervert, but I did not feel any godliness from him. Satan knows the bible. Many, so called, creatures also know the Bible, and will get behind a puppet and try to preach, but with no fervency behind it.
I do understand you, but if you know the scripture, you would know “not” to pit confidence in any man. That is where people fall. We are to keep iur eyes on the Lord.
I know you said you left the faith, so maybe you’re an apostate, I don’t know. I can only hope and pray that you come to know the Lord Jesus, for yourself, and for the sake of your family. I know when it comes your time to die, and you will, that you, surely don’t want your children to see you die without the Lord. If you don’t believe, now, you certainly will immediately after death.
I will pray for you, and your children, as I pray for mine.
I sent Lord a link to my response. Instead of commenting or emailing me, Lord messaged me on Facebook:
Message from the Lord #1
Message from the Lord #2
Message from the Lord #3
Message from Bruce Almighty #1
Message from the Lord #4
Message from Bruce Almighty #2
Message from the Lord #5
Lord, of course, wasn’t interested in engaging in conversation as equals. Oh no, God talks to her. She hears voices in her head and reads words written by God in a magic book called the Bible. When she was done preaching, God told her I was evil — a pig — and she was not to contact me further. And with that, Lord blocked me from messaging her. As I stated in my response, the only voice she was listening to was her own.
I have been dealing with the Lords of the world for seventeen years. Armed with certainty, they arrogantly think they are absolutely right. How do they know they are right? God told them. It is impossible to engage people who think like this. Lord doesn’t give a shit about me, my family, or my eternal destiny. I am a complete stranger to her. She knows little to nothing about me other than what she read in a post or two. Yet, she thinks she is more than qualified to render judgment on me as a person.
According to Lord, my two responses to her were “evil.” In what way? I challenged her ignorant, ill-informed belief that Christians don’t molest children. Sure, they do. They rape them, physically abuse them, sexually molest them, starve them, and even murder them. I have published over 1,000 stories in the Black Collar Crime Series. Every story is about a CHRISTIAN — mainly Evangelicals — who committed mostly sex crimes against children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults. Does Lord expect us to believe that none of these criminals was Christian? Child, please. Besides, the Bible records the criminal actions of a man after God’s own heart (David), a righteous man (Lot), and great “godly” leaders such as Moses and Abraham. Does Lord think David, Lot, Moses, and Abraham were unbelievers too?
Christian salvation is not a cure for bad behavior. Christians can, and do, do bad things — awful things. And, yes, Christians can do good things too. The same can also be said for evil pigs like me too. In fact, I suspect I live a better Christian life than most True Christians®. I know lots of “godly” atheists, agnostics, and atheists.
I directly challenged Lord’s belief that Jesus suffered horribly on our behalf. I hoped that she might think a bit about her claim. Did Jesus really suffer more than anyone — ever? Of course not. Sure, he suffered, but it was short-lived. Besides, we don’t know what happened after Jesus gave up the ghost on the cross and, according to Christian orthodoxy, descended into the bowels of the earth to preach and set captives free. Seems more than a party or church service than horrible suffering.
At the end of the day, I feel sorry for Lord. Having once been an Evangelical Christian and pastor, I understand where she is coming from. Her mind is so sotted with Bible nonsense that she cannot fathom being wrong or being anything other than what she is. As a result, as her messages show, her life has become an endless string of Evangelical cliches. Until Lord ponders the fact that she could be wrong — and she is — there is no hope for her. I could press her on any number of theological issues, but to what end? Lord knows what she knows, and no atheist stranger is going to convince her otherwise.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
My partner, Polly, and I have six children, ages 44, 42, 39, 34, 32, and 30. Our oldest son was a “mistake,” the result of two naive, immature, ignorant young Christian adults lacking comprehensive sex education. Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) sex education is simple and direct: don’t do “it” until you are married, and then only in the missionary position for the purposes of procreation. We decided to go the spermicidal foam route, not knowing it had a high failure rate. Six weeks after we married, Polly informed me she was pregnant. Six weeks before our first anniversary, little Jason was born.
The rest of our children were planned. Polly was what you would call a fertile myrtle. I could look at her and she would get pregnant. Polly breastfed all six of our children, another, somewhat ineffective, birth control method. Our first three children were born over the span of five years. Better birth control methods kept Polly from getting pregnant again, so we thought that three children would be all for us.
Five years later, after immersing ourselves in Evangelical Calvinism and adopting an absolute position on the sovereignty of God, we decided to have more children — as many as God would give us. We believed that it was God who opened and closed the womb, and Polly would not become pregnant unless it was the will of God.
Over the space of the next five years, we had three more children. During the delivery of our youngest son, Polly’s obstetrician told her that she should stop having children; that further pregnancies could kill her. This left us with a dilemma: should we ignore the doctor and trust God, or should we abandon our belief in the sovereignty of God and follow the doctor’s advice? After pondering life as a widowed father with six young children, we decided to obey man, and not God. While we felt guilty for being hypocritical and not standing firm on our convictions, we knew that we made the right decision. God didn’t seem to care one way or the other. 🙂
One day in the mid-1990s, we went to the mall with our children — all eight of us. Our children behaved well in public. When we walked through stores, we walked in a single file line, always to the right, avoiding getting in the way of others. One day, I noticed a clerk out of the corner of my eye counting how many people were in our family. One little, two little, three little Gerencsers . . . I went over to her and said, “Eight. There are eight of us. 🙂
Another time, a loan officer at a finance company asked me how many people were in our family. I replied, “Eight,” to which she stupidly responded, “Don’t you guys know how to use birth control?” I retorted that we had all of our children on purpose, just as God intended.
I am occasionally asked if we had to do it all over again would we have a large family? While we love our children (and sixteen grandchildren) and thoroughly enjoy our relationships with them and their families, if we had to do it all over again we would have stopped after having two or three children. This doesn’t mean we didn’t want our younger children, but it does mean we recognize the financial difficulties we had raising such a large family on poverty wages. Sure, we survived and our children have turned into productive, educated adults, but life was harder than it needed to be not only for Polly and me, but also for our children.
Hopefully, we all live and learn. We make decisions based on what we know at the time. We truly thought that God would meet our needs; that he would never leave us nor forsake us; that he would never leave his children destitute, begging for bread. Instead, we found that God was nowhere to be found; that we were on our own. By then, we had six children, and to some degree have spent most of our lives digging out of a financial hole we dug for ourselves as young adults.
No regrets, just the realization that different choices might have had different outcomes. I say “might.” Who is to say what might have happened if we had chosen a path with two or three children instead of six. Do you have a large family? Why did you have so many children? If you had to do it all over again, would you still have a large family?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Today, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Melissa Lord. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the original.
I was raised in church, and I had no intentions, whatsoever, to becoming a Christian. However, when I was 25 years old, I did become a Christian and forward saved me. I totally understand you, because I have seen so much hypocrisy in my life, which is why the word of God tells us not to look to man, because who can no the heart because it is desperately wicked. I do not have confidence in men, because I’ve seen too much.
Lord says that she “totally understands me.” This is hyperbole, at best. How could Lord possibly “totally understand me?” She doesn’t know me, outside of reading one or more posts on this site. She is a passerby who thinks she understands me by reading a few of my posts. I can confidently say that she doesn’t, and that even my partner of almost forty-six years and my therapist don’t totally understand me. Sadly, we live in a day when people think they can know and understand someone in 2,000 words or less.
I don’t believe that I have ever said that “hypocrisy” was a primary motivator for my deconversion. It wasn’t. I wasn’t out of elementary school before I learned that people could be hypocrites. My parents, pastors, teachers, and other adult authority figures were hypocrites. As a fourteen-year-old boy, I watched my church’s assistant pastor beat the shit out of his son with a belt for getting bad grades. The same man stood in the pulpit on Sundays and preached up godly living. Hypocrisy abounds, and it played very little part in my deconversion.
And if anyone is wondering if I am a hypocrite, the answer is no. 🙂 I mean yes. I assume all of us can be hypocritical at one time or the other.
However, I will have confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ until the day I die, because, while seeing so much hypocrisy, I have seen, and been friends with witnessed the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in so many lives.
And I don’t, because of the reasons mentioned in the posts found on the WHY? page. I wonder if Lord read any of these posts?
I read your article regarding Gus Harter. I knew of him, and a People that liked him. I met him, and wasn’t crazy over him from the first time I saw him. I did not see him as a pervert, but I did not feel any godliness from him. Satan knows the bible. Many, so called, creatures also know the Bible, and will get behind a puppet and try to preach, but with no fervency behind it.
Welp, I was quite a fervent preacher and know the Bible quite well — likely better than you do. I was a godly man, a devoted follower of Jesus. Yet, I am now an atheist. Why is that? Further, how can you “feel” godliness from someone else — especially someone you met for the first time? I am sure you see yourself as “godly,” but how can any of us “feel” this? All that matters to me is behavior. Harter was a pervert because of what he did. I would ask that you judge me based on my behavior, my good works. I think if you carefully do so, you will find out that I am a good man; not perfect, but certainly as good as, if not better, than many card-carrying, Bible-believing Christians.
I do understand you, but if you know the scripture, you would know “not” to pit confidence in any man. That is where people fall. We are to keep iur eyes on the Lord.
As I stated above, you do not understand me. You can’t, because you don’t know anything about me. Please stop with the superficial judgments and conclusions. To quote Proverbs 18:13: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude. I really wish Evangelicals would try to understand my story before hitting “send.”
I am a humanist, so I have no choice but to put my confidence in my fellow human beings. When I go to the doctor, I put my confidence in the training and skills of my physician. I do this numerous times every day. I don’t put my eyes on the Lord for one simple reason — he’s dead. Jesus died 2,000 years ago and lies buried somewhere in an unknown grave. I’ve seen no evidence for anything other than Jesus being dead. This goes for all of us, by the way. None of us escapes death, as every cemetery in existence testifies.
I know you said you left the faith, so maybe you’re an apostate, I don’t know.
You don’t need to “know.” I told you I was Christian for most of my life; that I was saved, baptized, and called to preach at the age of fifteen; that I devotedly followed Jesus for thirty-five years. In 2008, I deconverted — leaving the faith, never to return. I am an apostate, a reprobate, or maybe I am still a Christian — once saved, always saved, right?
Please accept my story at face value, and I will do the same for you. When someone says they are a Christian, I believe them. All I ask is that Evangelicals do the same when I say once was a Christian, and now I am not.
I can only hope and pray that you come to know the Lord Jesus, for yourself, and for the sake of your family. I know when it comes your time to die, and you will, that you, surely don’t want your children to see you die without the Lord. If you don’t believe, now, you certainly will immediately after death.
Ah yes, what’s an email from an Evangelical without a passive-aggressive threat about death, judgment, and Hell? As if such threats have any impact on me. Thousands of threats later, I am still an unrepentant atheist.
Lord says she knows that when it comes my time to die, I won’t want my children to see me die without Jesus. My partner, most of our children, and most of our grandchildren are unbelievers too. I suspect they will lament my passing, but I doubt any of them will worry about me burning in Hell. The only people who will make any noise about my passing will be Evangelicals letting everyone know that “Bruce Gerencser knows the truth now!” I can only imagine the blog posts that will be written and sermons preached about my demise and residence in Hell. I hope my surviving blog readers will defend my honor. 🙂
Lord worries that I don’t believe her — I don’t, I have heard nonsense like hers countless times — but warns me that the moment I die and land in the flames of Hell that I will know she was right. No, I won’t. Why? Duh, I will be dead. 🙂
I will pray for you, and your children, as I pray for mine.
Sincerely,
Melissa Lord
Pray if you must, but keep it to yourself. You know, as Jesus commanded you to do. No need to let me know you are praying for me. If God answers your prayers, I will be the first to know.
My partner, children, and grandchildren do not need prayer. They are fine just as they are — even my demon-possessed four- and six-year-old grandsons are awesome just as they are. 🙂
Last week, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Ronda Cray:
Hi Mr. Bruce,
I read some of your writings today. I also read your warning about not writing you but you also said that you knew I would, Probably because you were a pastor for many years, which by the way, I still hear in your writings today. I understand some of why you chose to leave Christianity, I almost did that myself. I remember putting my Bible in my closet and telling God that He was too hard of a Master. But in time, I realized what Matthew 11:28-29 meant and I have never been the same since. It was the goodness of God that led me back to Him and nothing else. I know God is real and I hope you haven’t made your final decision in throwing the Baby out with the bathwater. You mentioned that you had some health issues and I prayed that you would feel better soon and have a long life.
As I typically do for people I publicly respond to, I sent Cray a link to my response to her. She quickly responded to me, ignoring virtually everything I said. Here’s what she had to say:
Good morning Mr. Bruce,
Thank you for your quick response. I just want to let you know that I am praying that you receive your full healing. I only read a few of your writings so I didn’t know how bad your health issues were, but I have no doubt that after your healing is manifested, you will see for yourself that God is real and He is good. 🙂
I also subscribed to your blog today because I expect to see you fully recovered. Hebrews 13:8
Cray wants me to know that she is praying that I will receive “full healing.” Cray knows — because I told her — that gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency are incurable. I wish they weren’t. I wish I didn’t spend hours last night vomiting and shitting — but there’s nothing that can be done. Symptoms can — at times — be managed and even controlled, but there is no cure for these diseases. Further, I have degenerative spine disease. My spine and neck are literally falling apart — leaving me in excruciating pain and debility. No cure for this either. All doctors can do for me is manage my pain. Surgery is out of the question, according to two neurosurgeons. Yet, despite these medical facts, Cray is praying for my full healing. That means no gastroparesis, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, fibromyalgia, diabetes, high blood pressure, neuropathy, and herniated/deteriorated discs and joints. If only, right?
Cray says that she has “no doubt” that my healing will be manifested, and after it is, I will KNOW that God — Cray’s peculiar version of God, anyway — is real and good. Damn straight, girl! If Cray’s magical deity can totally heal me, I will IMMEDIATELY repent, abandon atheism, and embrace Christianity. I mean this. I will say to the world that J-E-S-U-S miraculously healed me. I will fall on my face and worship him from that day forward. My story will be published worldwide. I will even write a book about what God has done for me, hopefully selling millions of copies. Totally healing me would be right up there with Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection from the dead. Impossible events, yet they happened anyway, according to Cray. True miracles, right?
Cray subscribed to my posts because she expects to one day read a post from me that says her prayers have been answered; that the thrice holy God has totally, from head to toe, healed me. She is CERTAIN that this will happen!
Cray concludes her email with a Bible quotation: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Hebrews 13:8). I agree. Jesus never healed anyone yesterday, he won’t heal anyone today, and he won’t heal anyone tomorrow. I have no expectations of healing. All I hope for is pain relief and a reduction of my suffering. How can it be otherwise? This is my cross to bear, and I plan to carry it until it kills me. I don’t plan on spending one moment pondering what Jesus might do for me if I will but return to the fold. I first became sick seventeen years before I deconverted. I was a devoted follower of Jesus for most of my life. Yet, I have been struggling with serious health problems since I was thirty-four years old, and haven’t had a disease-free, pain-free day since. I suffered with God, and now I suffer without him. And I am fine with that. Suffering is part of human existence. I cannot escape my lot in life without pulling the proverbial plug. Not today . . .
Jesus, you know where I live. Heal me, and I am yours. If not, fuck off. 🙂
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I have listened to your sermons, read your blog posts, or perused your articles in Christianity Today or The Gospel Coalition about why so many Evangelical church members are “deconstructing.” I have carefully noted your excuses and justifications for why people are fleeing Evangelical churches in droves. I have snickered and rolled my eyes as you blame anyone and everyone except yourself and your church for the decline in attendance and income. It’s the culture, or Hollywood, or postmodernism, or LGBTQ rights, or socialism, or atheism, or countless other things you blame for why Evangelicalism is rotting on the vine. And if all of these “blames” ring hollow, you label those who deconstruct as “cultural” Christians; trotting out the No True Scotsman Fallacy. Those who deconstruct and ultimately leave Evangelicalism aren’t True Christians®. Never mind the fact that many of the people exiting stage left from Evangelical churches were committed followers of Jesus; people who faithfully attended church, supported the church financially, and lived according to the teachings of the Bible. Lots of former Evangelicals frequent this blog. Few of them were cultural or nominal believers. Instead, they served the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, and might. Yet, one day, or over many days, months, and years, they took a careful, painful look at Christianity and its attendant beliefs and practices. They decided they were no longer believers in the Evangelical sense of the word. Many of them became atheists, agnostics, pagans, or nones — people indifferent towards organized religion.
Instead of talking to these disaffected Evangelicals, Pastor __________, you marginalized them, ignoring their honest, open questions and concerns. You labeled them as worldly, carnal, backslidden, or some other pejorative label. And finally, you asserted, without evidence, that those who deconstructed lacked spiritual maturity and Bible knowledge. In other words, they just didn’t know any better. (Who taught them all those years, Pastor? Aren’t you to blame for their lack of knowledge?) Had they known better, they would have remained in the church. After all, doesn’t the Bible say, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” (I John 2:19) End of discussion, right?
If you really want to know why people are deconstructing (and deconverting), Pastor _________, let me suggest a few reasons that come to mind:
The politicization of the pulpit and the church. Evangelical churches have become the propaganda wing of the Republican Party.
Donald Trump. Eighty-two percent of voting white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump — twice. Trump is morally repugnant, and an evil man, yet Evangelical pastors and churches promote him as God’s candidate — even going so far as to say that he is a Christian.
Evangelical churches largely ignore environmental concerns, especially global warming, and catastrophic species decline. Why worry about the environment — Jesus is coming soon!
Evangelical churches generally demonize LGBTQ people — especially transgender men and women.
Evangelical churches tend to promote complementarianism, encouraging treating women as “less than.” Misogyny is common.
Evangelical churches are anti-abortion (pro-life), while at the same time supporting capital punishment, killing immigrants, and war.
Evangelicals generally ignore what the Bible about caring for the least of these: the poor, marginalized, sick, hungry, widows, orphans, and people of color.
Pastors and churches over-emphasize certain “sins,” ignoring others. Sexual sins are given far more attention than other sins — especially icky homo sins.
Church scandals and sexual misconduct by pastors are legion, routinely ignored or swept under the rug.
Hypocrisy. People who deconstruct often say that they became weary of the “Do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy by church leaders.
While none of these reasons prove that Christianity is false, they do show that there is a huge disconnect between what pastors and True Christians® say they believe and how they actually live their lives. This often leads, as it did for me, to a reexamination of sincerely held beliefs. One need only read the emails, blog comments, and social media messages I receive from Evangelicals to see that Evangelicalism is a barrel of rotting apples. Sure, there are a few edible apples in the barrel, but not many.
Pastor __________, if you want to really know why people in your church are deconstructing, may I kindly suggest that you stop making excuses and justifications and look in the mirror. You are to blame for the sheep jumping over the fence, never to be seen again. You value political power and social control over meeting people where they are. You choose to point fingers instead of actually asking doubters and questioners why they are deconstructing. And after they left the church, you made sure to call them out and lambast them from the pulpit — even if you, wink, wink, didn’t mention them by name. You made sure that the sheep still in the pen knew these black sheep were sinful or deficient in some way, even going so far as to say that they were never, ever Christians.
If you really want to talk about deconstruction, I am game. Send me an email or have me on your podcast. There’s no reason for you to continue in ignorance one day longer. Or maybe you are not ignorant. You know why people are deconstructing, but you have an earthly kingdom to preserve, so you lie or misattribute motivations. The cure for your dishonesty is to actually talk to — not at — people who are deconverting or who have gone through the deconstruction process.
Earlier today, I received the following email from an Evangelical woman named Ronda Cray. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling and grammar in the original.
Hi Mr. Bruce,
I read some of your writings today. I also read your warning about not writing you but you also said that you knew I would, Probably because you were a pastor for many years, which by the way, I still hear in your writings today.
On the Contact page, I say to Evangelicals (and Muslims, Mormons):
“If you have a pathological need to evangelize, spread the love of Jesus, or put a good word in for the man, the myth, the legend named Jesus, please don’t. The same goes for telling me your church/pastor/Jesus is awesome. I am also not interested in reading sermonettes, testimonials, Bible verses, or your deconstruction/psychological evaluation of my life. By all means, if you feel the need to set me straight, start your own blog.
If you email me anyway — and I know you will, since scores of Evangelicals have done just that, showing me no regard or respect — I reserve the right to make your message and name public. This blog is read by thousands of people every day, so keep that in mind when you email me whatever it is you think “God/Jesus/Holy Spirit” has laid upon your heart. Do you really want your ignorance put on display for thousands of people to see? Pause before hitting send. Ask yourself, “how will my email reflect on Jesus, Christianity, and my church?”
I even made a humorous form Evangelicals can use to contact me; one that gives them a checklist to use to show their reason (s) for contacting me:
Reason for Contacting Bruce Gerencser (Check all that apply)
_____To tell him he is wrong
_____To tell him I feel sorry for him
_____To preach at him
_____To quote Bible verses to him
_____To evangelize him
_____To tell him he doesn’t know anything about the Bible
_____To let him know God still loves him
_____To let him know I am praying for him
_____To tell him he never was a Christian
_____To tell him he is going to Hell
_____To tell him he is still saved and can never be un-saved
_____To tell him he was/is a false prophet
_____To tell him he was/is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
_____To tell him he is angry
_____To tell him he is bitter
_____To tell him his writing shows he has been hurt
_____To tell him he is fat
_____To tell him I hope he burns in Hell
_____To tell him that I am praying God will kill him
_____To tell him that he has a meaningless, empty life
_____To tell him he is going to die soon and then he will find out THE TRUTH!
_____To tell him that I know THE TRUTH about him!
Once you have completed the form, cut and paste it into your email or comment.
Despite these things, Cray decided to email me anyway. While I can’t know why she disrespected my wishes, I suspect she thinks “God” led her to contact me or that the Holy Spirit was guiding and directing her fingers as she typed her email to the Evangelical-turned-atheist Bruce Gerencser. When you have “god” whispering stuff to you in your head . . . well, anything is possible.
I understand some of why you chose to leave Christianity, I almost did that myself.
Does Cray really understand why I left the ministry in 2005 and deconverted in 2008? I doubt it. That she too almost left Christianity has no connection to my story. She would have to give a fuller accounting of her so-called “almost deconversion” before any of us can see if there are similarities between my story and hers.
I remember putting my Bible in my closet and telling God that He was too hard of a Master.
I have never thought God was “too hard of a Master.” My reasons for deconverting were primarily intellectual. I concluded that the central claims of Christianity are not true. Whatever emotional context there might have been, the bottom line is this: Jesus was not divine; he was not born of a virgin; he was not a miracle worker; he did not resurrect from the dead. Jesus was a man who left a profound mark — good and bad — on the human race, but as all humans eventually do, he died — end of discussion.
But in time, I realized what Matthew 11:28-29 meant and I have never been the same since.
Matthew 11:28,29 says: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
I believed these words to be true too, until I didn’t. I came to the conclusion that there was no “rest” to be had from Jesus because he is dead. My mom died thirty-three years ago. I miss her, but I have no expectation that Mom is going to comfort me or give me rest. How could she . . . she’s dead.
Why Cray’s life has “never been the same since” is unknown. She doesn’t provide sufficient information for anyone to make a judgment about her Christianity. All we have from her is personal testimony. Evangelicals are fond of using testimony to prove and justify supernatural claims, but I find little value in their testimonials, other than as a tool by which to understand their past and present lives. Just because an Evangelical says something supernatural happened to them doesn’t mean it actually did. If Cray wants me to buy what she is selling, she must provide actual evidence; not anecdotes, testimonies, and Bible verses.
It was the goodness of God that led me back to Him and nothing else.
I see no evidence for the claim that the Christian deity is “good.” Again, just because Cray claims God is good doesn’t mean her claim is true. All sorts of religions believe their deity is good. How could we possibly know these claims are true? We can’t. Either you believe God is good or you don’t. I don’t. If one believes the Bible is inspired/inerrant/infallible, I can point to numerous verses and stories that suggest that God is most certainly not good. Of course, for an atheist such as myself, arguments about the goodness of God are a waste of time. The only goodness I see in the world comes from human beings, not fictitious deities.
I know God is real and I hope you haven’t made your final decision in throwing the Baby out with the bathwater.
Cray cannot possibly “know” God is real. Knowing requires evidence and Cray has not provided any evidence for her claim that her peculiar deity is real. She believes the Christian God is real, but there’s a big difference between “knowing” and “believing.” Believing in this context requires to some degree faith. Knowing does not require faith. Either something is true or it is not.
I made my final decision sixteen years ago. While I am an agnostic atheist, open to the possibility (not probability) that a deity of some sort may yet reveal itself to us someday, I am convinced that the extant gods created by humans are no deities at all. I am confident that Christianity is built upon a plethora of untruths, and as such, I have no interest in following or worshipping Christianity’s God (or Gods, depending on how you interpret the Bible).
The baby and the bathwater? Cray assumes that there was a baby in the bathwater. What I found in the wash tub was cold, dirty water — no baby to be found.
You mentioned that you had some health issues and I prayed that you would feel better soon and have a long life. Psalm 139.
Had you comprehended what I wrote about my health problems, you would have learned that gastroparesis and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency are incurable diseases; that the pain in my spine, neck, shoulders, legs, hands, and feet is incurable; that none of these things is going away or getting better. I am slowly dying. No amount of prayer will change these physical facts. Now, if Cray’s God miraculously healed me — well, that would get my attention. 🙂
I will be sixty-seven on my birthday in June. I am a high-mile car that has been used, misused, and abused; missing hub caps, with dented fenders, rusty floorboards, and bald tires. I do not doubt that I am going to die sooner, and not later. Hopefully not today, tomorrow, or even a year or three from now, but I know my body, and it is telling me to “prepare to meet Loki.” 🙂
Psalm 139 talks about our inability to escape the presence of God. Shit, I would just be happy if I could escape the presence of the Crays of the world. Unfortunately, much like mosquitos on a wet summer day, there’s no escaping people who delusionally hear supernatural voices in their heads and feel led by “God” to share what those voices are saying.
I wonder if Cray read my About page? Had she done so, she would have found the following advice:
“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. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.”
I continue to live by this advice to this day.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 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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Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)
It is not uncommon for Evangelical zealots to tell atheists that their real father is the Devil, old Satan himself. What naturally flows from this line of thinking is that atheists live lustful, licentious, lives; that atheists are liars because there is no truth in them. No matter how atheists live; no matter how atheists treat others; no matter how kind, decent, thoughtful, and loving atheists might be; they are, without exception, the lying, deceitful children of Satan.
The only way atheists can change their family designation is to be adopted into the family of God through the merit and work of Jesus. No matter what atheists say or do, Evangelicals consider them enemies of God and the one true faith. If only atheists would admit the existence of the Christian God, pray the sinner’s prayer, and vote Republican, they would, with open arms, be welcomed into God’s blood-washed family. Because atheists refuse to bow to Jesus, they are forever condemned not only to the Lake of Fire, but also to being disparaged and lied about by so-called men of God.
All atheists can do is live according to the humanist ideal. Several years ago during the Pandemic, I bought groceries at the local Meijer. The store was jammed with panicked, irrational shoppers. The shelves were empty of items such as toilet paper, paper towels, bleach, hand sanitizer, Lysol, water, and, oddly, chicken. Yes, chicken. There wasn’t a piece of fresh chicken in the entire store. Checkout lines were backed up, and over the store intercom came messages asking shoppers to please be patient. The humorous part of me want to scream, “WHERE’S THE CHICKEN? I WANT SOME FUCKING CHICKEN RIGHT NOW!” I said nothing, thinking to myself about how irrational many people are when facing a crisis. I have seen this kind of panic numerous times over my sixty-sixty years of life on planet Earth. Seemed a little more intense this time.
As I was pulling out of my handicapped parking space, I noticed that a young woman had dropped a 24-pack of diet Coke and the cans were rolling everywhere in the parking lot. Several people drove by the frustrated woman. I put my Ford Edge in park, told Bethany I’d be just a minute, and got out and helped the woman retrieve her pop cans. She sheepishly said, “Thanks.” I replied, “No problem. Have a good night.” And with that, I got in my car and drove off to the gas station before heading home to Ney, nine miles away.
If, as an atheist, I am, to quote the song by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, bad to the bone, why didn’t I selfishly ignore this woman’s plight and drive away? Here’s why: I am a decent person. When I see someone in need of help and I can help them, I do so. I ALWAYS do so. Picking up pop cans in a store parking lot for someone is a trivial act of kindness, but what kind of person would I be if I didn’t at least try to help? I am often given opportunities to help and be kind to others. I want to go through life treating others as I would want to be treated, hoping that when it is Polly or my daughter trying to chase down pop cans, someone will stop and help. Small acts of kindness make all the difference in the world.
When Evangelicals try to tar me with the Satan brush and say that I am a vile, evil man, an enemy of God, a hater of all that is good, in my mind I just laugh and give them the finger. Sometimes, I even speak my mind. 🙂 I know the cut of my character. I know what kind of man, husband, father, and grandfather I am. I don’t care one whit what the Bible or Evangelical preachers say about me. Instead, to quote an Evangelical children’s church song:
This little (atheist) light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine,
Ev’ry day, ev’ry day,
Ev’ry day, ev’ry day,
Gonna let my little light shine.
I don’t need religion to be a good person, and you don’t either. In fact, I would suggest that Fundamentalism often turns people into arrogant, hateful, belligerent, self-centered assholes. Remember, the goal of Evangelicalism is to exclude; to separate the saved from the lost, the sheep from the goats, the sinners from the saints. How can such exclusion not lead to bad behavior? Humanism, on the other hand, says, “We are all in this together.” There’s no Heaven, no Hell, and no God coming to deliver us. It is up to each of us to do what we can to make the world a better place to live. And, may I humbly say, it begins one pop can at a time.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
It’s been almost sixteen years since I walked out the doors of the Ney United Methodist Church, never to return. Not long after, I sent out my infamous letter, Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners, to several hundred family members, friends, former church members, and colleagues in the ministry. For a time, I self-identified as an agnostic, but after months of “explaining” what I meant by the term, I decided to call myself an atheist. Strictly speaking, I am an agnostic atheist.
I naively believed that letter recipients would “understand” my deconversion; that they would appreciate hearing my story straight from my mouth, and not third and fourth hand as the Evangelical/IFB rumor mill raged. Boy, was I wrong. To the person, every one of them abandoned me, and many of them personally attacked me in letters, emails, and sermons. One former church member asked me to “explain,” but after I kindly and gently did so, she told me she could no longer be friends with me or talk to me. Another dear friend told me that he found my deconversion too unsettling to continue to be my friend. I saw nothing in their treatment of me that suggested they understood Jesus’ teachings on how to treat your “enemies” or how they should treat people in general. Their responses gave me a bird’s-eye view of how Evangelicals treat people who dare to leave their club. No kindness. No love. No compassion. No respect. Just judgment and condemnation.
Sixteen years later, I have only had one person walk back their words — a lifelong friend who said I was demon-possessed. That’s it. As for the rest of them, their words and behavior were un-Christian, to say the least. You would think that the Holy Spirit might have convinced them of their sins and called on them to apologize for their awful words. No apologies have been forthcoming. I concluded, then, that my former friends, family members, and parishioners believed that the teachings of Christ didn’t apply to them when it came to dealing with an Evangelical preacher-turned-atheist.
As a result, I lost my entire social network. Fifty years of relationships went up in smoke, and it is doubtful I will ever regain an atheist/agnostic/humanist version of what I lost. I paid a heavy price for daring to deconvert. I was penalized for being honest. Sixteen years on, Evangelicals continue to shit on my doorstep. I can’t remember the last time I received a polite, thoughtful, kind comment or email from an Evangelical Christian. Why is that?
I will never understand why people responded to me the way they did. I learned that my relationships were conditioned of me believing the right things. Even though we had lots of other things in common, all that mattered was shared religious beliefs. Once I said I no longer believed, I became their enemy. Yet, they treated me differently than they treated unsaved family, friends, and neighbors. I suspect they believe that I have committed the unpardonable sin or crossed the line of no return. How they could possibly know this is unknown. Evidently, I am no longer worthy of saving. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
