One of the thorniest verses in the Bible for Evangelicals is John 14:12:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
Evangelicals believe that the fourteenth chapter of John is the very words of Jesus. This chapter tells Evangelicals not to have a troubled heart; that 2,000 years ago Jesus ascended back to heaven to prepare a room/mansion in Heaven for them. When they die or if the Rapture happens before they die, Evangelicals are promised the keys to a brand new home in the sky. This chapter also tells Evangelicals that Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life, proving to Evangelicals the exclusivity of their peculiar version of the Christian gospel.
In verse 14 Jesus says, If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. Ponder these words for a moment. Think about all the prayers Christians have uttered over the centuries, prayers asked in the name of Jesus with nary a response. Think about this verse in light of the current Coronavirus Pandemic. Evangelicals love to say that God answered this or that prayer, but pressed for evidence of their supernatural claims, they quickly retreat to the safe confines of faith. (Please see A Few Thoughts on a Lifetime of Praying to the Christian God.)
Let’s do some Bible math:
If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it + He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do = a church that should regularly see people raised from the dead and healed; a church that should be able to feed the hungry; a church whose leaders work miracles, including walking on water, turning water into Welch’s grape juice, and healing the deaf, blind, and dumb. Add to this, Jesus also said in Mark 16:15-18:
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
According to Jesus, those who believe in him will cast out devils, speak in unlearned new languages, handle venomous snakes, drink poison and not die, and lay their hands on the sick, miraculously causing them to recover from their illnesses.
Is it not then fair to ask where such Christians are today? Where can a non-believer go to see Christians doing greater works than Jesus? Why are hospital beds not empty, mental hospitals closed down, and world hunger eliminated? Surely if, as the Bible says, Christians are to do works greater than Jesus, we skeptics have the right to say show us.
Most Christian sects come up with elaborate schemes to explain away the normative meaning of these verses. The works of Jesus and the early church were sign gifts, many Evangelicals say, and once the canon of Scripture was completed these sign gifts were no longer necessary. I wonder if Christians who say this ever consider that what they are basically saying is that Jesus was lying in John 15/Mark 16 or that there should no longer be the expectation of verifiable miracles. (I use the word verifiable to turn away those who want to appeal to all sorts of subjective experiences that they say are evidence of God working m-i-r-a-c-l-e-s.)
In the delusional world inhabited by Pentecostals, snake-handling Baptists, and those who subscribe to CHARISMA magazine, greater works than Jesus’ are being performed regularly. When asked for verifiable evidence for their claims, appeals are made to faith, or Christians mutter, “I just KNOW that MY GOD is in the miracle-working business.” Funny business God is in . . . no advertising or place of business, yet non-Christians are expected to believe the business exists. I know there is a McDonald’s right here, says the Charismatic because a book I read tells me there is.
Here’s my challenge to Evangelicals. Please pray that God supernaturally heals me from my physical maladies, or that God stops the Coronavirus Pandemic in its tracks. If she does, I will believe and recant every word I’ve ever written about the Bible, God, Jesus, and Christianity. Wouldn’t it be a great testimony to the miraculous power of almighty God and the veracity of the Christian narrative if God healed an atheist such as me? Instead of praying for God to kill me, why not pray for God to heal me? Better yet, forget me. Heal my wife. I’m waiting . . .
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.
Originally posted in February 2015. Edited, updated, and expanded.
Jason, an Evangelical Christian, asked:
What would cause someone with your Biblical education and years of preaching the Word of God not just claiming to be a Christian but also living it one day decide to not believe and do a 180 and turn your back on it?
While I deal with this question at length in the From Evangelicalism to Atheism series, today I want to give a short, condensed answer to this question.
People like Jason are often perplexed by how it possible for someone with my background and training to one day walk away the ministry and Christianity. Most of the clergy who deconvert do so at a much younger age, often in their 20s and 30s. In my case, I spent fifty years in the Christian church and I pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years before I deconverted. When I started going to counseling, my counselor told me that it was quite rare for someone my age and with my experience to walk away from a lifetime of belief and work. It happens, just not very often.
Jason is not alone. A number of my ex-friends, former ministerial colleagues, family members, and former parishioners can’t understand how it is possible that the man they called Preacher or Pastor is now an atheist. Often they cannot or will not believe the reasons I give for my deconversion. Instead, they try to divine some other reason to explain why Bruce Gerencser, the man of God, the pastor, the preacher, their colleague in the ministry, is now an apostate, an enemy of God. “Is there some secret past I am hiding, some secret sin,” they ask themselves? They wonder if I have mental health problems, that I am “unstable.” They rack their brains trying to come up with a plausible explanation, anything but accepting the reasons I give for my deconversion.
Christian Fundamentalism taught me to stand firm on my beliefs and convictions. When I was a pastor, people appreciated and applauded my willingness to resolutely defend my beliefs and convictions. But now that I do the same with atheism, humanism, and liberal politics, they think there must be some other reason I drastically changed my mind and life. Let me be clear, I am the same man, someone who thinks that beliefs matter.
My mother taught me, from my youth up, that it was important to stand up for what you believe. Now, this doesn’t mean that I am not now tolerant of the beliefs of others, because I am. As I get older, I realize that tolerance is an important virtue. Stepping outside of the box in which I spent most of my life, I have found a rich, diverse, and contradictory world that continues to challenge me and force me to be more accepting and tolerant.
When I entered kindergarten I could already read. My book-loving mother taught me to read, and she developed in me an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, since I was raised in a Fundamentalist environment that is known for its ignorance. However, by becoming a proficient and avid reader, I had at my disposal countless opportunities to expand my knowledge. Sadly, my quest for knowledge became quite stunted as a pastor because I rarely read books that would conflict with my Evangelical beliefs. However, when I began to have doubts about Christianity and its teachings, my thirst for knowledge kicked into high gear and I began reading books that I once would have considered heretical.
I never made a lot of money pastoring churches. I never had church provided health insurance or a retirement plan. The only benefits I received were a check I got once a week IF the offerings were sufficient to pay me (all too often, they were not). Outside of the time I spent pastoring Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas, every other church I pastored paid a part-time or poverty-level wage for the full-time work I gave the church. I often worked outside of the church, as did Polly when I pastored Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio. I am not pointing a judgmental finger at the churches I pastored. Most of the churches were either small or in poverty-ridden areas. Over the years, I was privileged to pastor many gracious, giving poor people. They gave what they could.
About now you are thinking, what in the world are you talking about, Bruce? I thought this post was about WHY you stopped believing? It is, and what I have written above can be distilled down to these three important statements:
I was taught to stand firm on my convictions and beliefs
I was taught to read at an early age and I developed a thirst for knowledge
I never made much money in the ministry
Since I never made much money in the ministry, there was no economic reason for me to stay in the ministry. I always made more money working outside of the church, so when I decided to leave the ministry, which I did three years before I deconverted, I suffered no economic consequences. In fact, life has gotten much better economically post-Jesus.
I decided I would go back to the Bible, study it again, and determine what it was I REALLY believed. During this time, I began reading books by authors such as Robert Wright, Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman, These three authors, along with several others, attacked the foundation of my Evangelical beliefs: the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. Their assault on this foundation brought my Evangelical house tumbling down. I desperately tried to find some semblance of the Christianity I once believed, but I came to realize that my faith was gone.
I tried, for a time, to convince myself that I could find some sort of Christianity that would work for me. Polly and I visited numerous liberal or progressive Christian churches, but I found that these expressions of faith would not do for me. My faith was gone. Later, Polly would come to the same conclusion.
I read many authors and books besides the ones listed here. I say this to keep someone from saying, but you didn’t read so and so or you didn’t read _______. So, if I had to give one reason WHY I am no longer a Christian today it would be BOOKS. My thirst for knowledge, a thirst I still have today, even though it is greatly hindered by chronic illness and pain, is what drove me to re-investigate the claims of Christianity and the teachings of the Bible. This investigation led me to conclude that the claims of Christianity and the teachings of the Bible could not rationally and intellectually be sustained. Try as I might to hang on to some sort of Christian faith, the slippery slope I found myself on would not let me stand still. Eventually, I found myself saying, I no longer believe in the Christian God. For a time, I was an agnostic, but I got tired of explaining myself, so I took on the atheist moniker, and now no one misunderstands what I believe. (see Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners and Dear Friend)
The hardest decision I ever made in my life was that day in late November of 2008, when I finally admitted to myself, I am no longer a Christian, I no longer believe in the Christian God, I no longer believe the Bible is the Word of God. At that moment, everything I had spent my life believing and doing was gone. In a sense, I had an atheist version of a born-again experience. For the past sixteen years, I have continued to read, study, and write. I am still very much a work in progress. My understanding of religion and its cultural and sociological implications continues to grow. Now that I am free from the constraints of religion, I am free to wander the path of life wherever it may lead. Now that I am free to read what I want, I have focused my attention on history and science. While I continue to read books that are of a religious or atheist nature, I spend less and less time reading these kinds of books. I still read every new book Bart Ehrman publishes, along with the various Christian/atheist/humanist blogs and publications I read, and this is enough to keep me up-to-date with American Christianity and American atheism/humanism.
I hope this post adequately answers the question of WHY I stopped believing.
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.
Many Evangelical churches are independent congregations. I grew up in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. Each church chooses its pastor, using its own criteria for what it wants in a pastor. Some of the churches I pastored during my twenty-five years in the ministry were new plants, while others were established independent, Southern Baptist, and Christian Union congregations. All told, I worked for seven churches, started five, and went through the candidating process with four congregations.
Candidating is a process whereby a prospective pastor preaches at a church to show off his preaching abilities in the hope of becoming its next pastor. Typically, churches have a man and his family join them for a Sunday or weekend so they can interview him and hear him preach. The interview process is varied. Some prospective churches asked me very few questions, others wanted to metaphorically know if I was circumcised (and wanted me to prove it). 🙂 One church had two days of meetings where I met with church members who asked me all sorts of questions.
As a candidate, I made sure my family and I were well-dressed, and our children were well-behaved. It was important for us to give a good first impression. Of course, churches did the same, presenting themselves in the best light possible. I found that neither I nor the churches told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Perception was more important than reality. Quite frankly, had I asked two churches I pastored probing questions — especially when it came to their finances and governance — I never would have become their pastor. Churches typically asked me superficial questions. No background checks, no talking to previous churches I pastored. Not one of them questioned Polly or our teenage children. Want to know the true hew of a preacher? Ask his wife and children.
I called the candidating process a “dog and pony show.” Church and candidate alike were on their best behavior. I preached what are called candy stick sermons — sermons I had preached before and knew from heart. I wanted them to view my preaching skills in the best possible light. And by all accounts, I was a good preacher. My sermons were well received. However, judging a man on his sermon quality alone is a bad idea. Hitler gave great “sermons,” but he was a psychopath. There are lots of Hitler-like preachers, men who can preach up a storm but are dreadful human beings.
Are you a current or former pastor? Did you go through the candidating process? Are you a current or former church member who sat on a pastor search committee? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
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.
Virginity: the state of never having sexual intercourse
Virgin: a person who has never had sexual intercourse
Hymen: a small, thin piece of tissue at the opening of the vagina. It’s formed by fragments of tissue left over from fetal development. The size, shape, and thickness of the hymen are unique and can change over time.
The above definitions are incontrovertible. However, when it comes to defining the word “sex,” opinions vary. Planned Parenthood has this to say:
A virgin is someone who’s never had sex. But people define “sex” and “losing virginity” in many different ways.
A virgin is someone who’s never had sex — but it’s not quite as simple as it seems. That’s because sex means different things to different people, so virginity can mean different things, too.
A lot of people think that having penis-in-vagina sex for the first time is how you lose your virginity. But this leaves lots of people and other types of sex out of the picture.
Some people haven’t had penis-in-vagina sex, but they’ve had other kinds of sex (like oral sex or anal sex) — and they may or may not see themselves as virgins. And there are lesbian, gay, bisexual or pansexual people who may never have penis-in-vagina sex at all. But they probably don’t see themselves as lifelong virgins just because they haven’t had penis-in-vagina sex.
Many people believe rape and sexual assault aren’t sex — it’s only sex if both partners have consent. So if someone was forced or pressured the first time they had vaginal sex, oral sex, or anal sex, they may not see that as “losing their virginity.”
Bottom line: the definition of virginity is complicated, and it’s really up to you to decide what you believe. Some people don’t even care what “virginity” means or think it matters. Stressing about whether you’re a virgin is way less important than how you feel about your sexual experiences. Ask yourself: are you happy with the sexual experiences you’ve had or decided not to have?
As you can see, “sex” is complicated. Does sex only happen when a penis is inserted in a vagina? Does sex require ejaculation? Is it “sex” if it is oral or anal? Is masturbation sex? Is using a dildo or a vibrator sex?
According to Evangelicals, virginity is sacrosanct. Well, female virginity is sacrosanct, anyway. Most of the preaching I heard as a teenager focused on girls keeping their legs closed and their hymens intact. There was no greater sin than for a girl to have sex before marriage. I can’t remember a sermon that focused on boys maintaining their virginity. Of course, if masturbation is considered “sex,” I doubt any Baptist boy was a virgin on their wedding day. 🙂
Evangelicals tend to be hymen worshippers, revering a thin piece of tissue in front of the vagina. The hymen can be broken (euphemistically called popping a woman’s cherry) when a woman has sex for the first time. The problem, of course, is that a woman’s hymen can be broken in other ways too:
There’s a lot of confusion about hymens out there. Many people think the hymen totally covers the opening of your vagina until it’s stretched open, but that’s not usually the case. Most of the time, hymens naturally have a hole big enough for period blood to come out and for you to use tampons comfortably. Some people are born with so little hymenal tissue that it seems like they don’t have a hymen at all. In rare cases, people have hymens that cover the entire vaginal opening, or the hole in their hymen is very small — they may need to see a doctor for a minor procedure to remove the extra tissue. Just like other parts of our body, hymens are a little different for everyone.
Your hymen can be stretched open the first time you have vaginal sex, which might cause some pain or bleeding. But this doesn’t happen to everyone. And there are other ways that a hymen can be stretched open: riding a bike, doing sports, or putting something in your vagina (like a tampon, finger, or sex toy). Once your hymen is stretched open, it can’t grow back.
The Evangelical obsession with virginity causes untold harm, putting unwarranted pressure on teenagers. and women. Like it or not, more than thirty percent of high school students will have sex by the time they graduate. Most people have sex before marriage — including Evangelical Christians. Despite all the fearmongering by preachers over premarital sex and virginity, church teenagers and adults have sex. No amount of preaching can overcome raging hormones and desire. While I was a virgin on my wedding day, it was fear of God’s judgment that kept me on the straight and narrow. My partner would say the same thing. We wanted to have sex before marriage and even came precariously close a week before our wedding to rounding third and sliding into home, but we feared God was going to get us if we did.
If people want to remain virgins until their wedding day, fine. However, they shouldn’t be guilted into doing so. Instead of telling younger people to “just say no,” they are better served if they receive comprehensive, guilt-free sex education. Since most teenagers will have sex before marriage, it is vitally important that they are taught the ins and outs of sex, including the proper use of birth control.
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.
Dad’s Place is an Evangelical church in Bryan, Ohio pastored by Chris Avell. I am familiar with the church and its pastor, having had numerous conversations with Avell. I live five miles south of Bryan — my birthplace. I have a thorough understanding of the local political and religious scene.
Avell was recently criminally charged with violating the city of Bryan’s zoning laws. This conflict led to Avell hiring First Liberty Institute to represent him. First Liberty recently sued Bryan on Avell’s behalf. It will be interesting to see how this matter unfolds and is resolved.
This story has received national attention. Avell and First Liberty made the rounds speaking to various conservative news networks. Suggestions that Avell and Dad’s Place are being “persecuted” are absurd, but it seems, at least to me, that the city of Bryan is violating their constitutional rights — zoning issues notwithstanding. Bryan has stepped in it big time, and I suspect it is going to cost them a lot of money to get the proverbial shit off the bottom of their shoes. All the parties involved in this conflict claim to be Christians, so this is not secular government persecuting a church and its pastor. This is, at best, a Christian vs. Christian conflict.
Recently, Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, wrote a scathing post about Chris Avell and Dad’s Place. I disagree with most of what Mehta wrote, but I want to focus on one specific claim made in his post:
“Dad’s Place” isn’t really a church. It’s technically a video arcade called “Crane N Able’s Mini Claw Mania”—clever name!—which is why it was allowed to open up inside a business district. In 2020, Avell requested permission to set up a church inside the building and the city gave it to him with the understanding that he would abide by the city’s zoning laws.
Mehta’s statement is, to put it bluntly, is absurd. Of course, Dad’s Place is a church. It is a legally recognized church, one that meets all the IRS’ requirements for a group to be considered a church for tax purposes. The state of Ohio considers Dad’s Place a church too, as does the City of Bryan. I have never heard a local person say “Dad’s Place is not a ‘real’ Church.” Here’s the thing: the government goes out of its way to avoid defining the word “church.” The general rule is this: a church is a church if it says it is a church. How could it be otherwise? Religious belief and practice are so varied that it is impossible to come up with an exact definition of the word “church.” Regardless, Dad’s Place is a church.
Mehta would have his readers believe that Dad’s Place is really a video arcade. Mehta knows little to nothing about Dad’s Place and its pastor. I suspect he’s never been to Bryan, Ohio, nor physically viewed the building in which Dad’s Place meets. Had he done so, he would have learned that the video arcade is in a small space on the Main St front of the building. This space was previously used by a photography shop, and when I was a boy in the 1960s, it was a barbershop. What Mehta evidently didn’t know is that Dad’s Place meets in the back of the building — a large space that has its own entrance in the alley. This space has been used by other religious groups in the past. In the 1990s, the space was used by a group of Evangelicals for a youth center that featured contemporary Christian music (CCM) and rock.
Further, Mehta seems to lack a working knowledge of what the word “church” means to Evangelicals. The “church” is not a building, it’s the people, the congregation. Buildings are where the “church” meets, and the “church” is a “church” any time two or three people are gathered in the Lord’s name. I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I held church services outside, in bowling alleys, roller rinks, canoe liveries, gymnasiums, parking lots, and, yes, actual “church” buildings. Did we stop being the “church” when we met in other than Mehta-approved buildings? Of course not.
Note: As the picture above from 2020 shows, Dad’s Place originally used the front part of the building for its services.
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.
Certainly, I do not mean to relieve Christian cultists of their moral responsibility for their sometimes very bad behavior. It does bear mention, however, that those who are raised in this nonsense live in an environment where cult ethics are the norm — and the New Testament affirmatively does cultivate cult ethics (see Matthew 12:46-50 for a famous example). Such people are reared with an Us (People of God) vs. Them (the wicked, wicked, world) worldview. They are incapable of seeing themselves as skeptics see them, and very often do sincerely believe their bad behavior pleases an Invisible Friend.
Maybe Bruce could weigh-in and let us know what he taught on this subject when he was preaching?
I was raised in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. I made a public profession of faith and was baptized as a fifteen-year-old boy at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. Several weeks later, I announced to the church that God was calling me to preach. Two weeks later, I preached my first sermon from 2 Corinthians 5:20:
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
Four years later, I left Bryan, Ohio, and moved to Pontiac, Michigan to enroll in classes at Midwestern Baptist College. While there, I met and married the daughter of IFB preacher and Midwestern grad Lee Shope. In the spring of 1979, Polly and I left Midwestern and moved to Bryan, the home of my birth. A few weeks later, I was asked to be the assistant pastor of Montpelier Baptist Church — a fast-growing General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) congregation. Thus began my official entrance into the ministry. The next twenty-five years would take us to churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. While my theology and practice would evolve over the course of my ministerial career, how I viewed the “world” and its opposition to Evangelicalism remained constant. While it is certainly true that I was far more ecumenical at the end of my career than at the start, my opinion of the “world” remained the same.
From start to finish, I believed the Bible was the inspired Word of God. Yes, my view on Bible inerrancy and infallibility evolved over the years, but I always believed that the Bible was a supernatural book; a book different and above all other books. Thus, I took seriously the teachings of the Bible.
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
As a Bible-believing man of God, I found these verses clear: Christians were to separate themselves from the world and avoid contact with unbelievers. This Us vs.Them view of the world theme runs throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In the Old Testament, God picked Israelis (Jews) as his chosen people. They were commanded to separate themselves from the heathen nations of the world. God even commanded the Israelites to murder nearby worshippers of false Gods so that they wouldn’t influence and infect God’s chosen ones. Even in the book of Revelation, we find God winnowing the Us from the Them. Separation, then, from the world, has always been God’s standard of conduct for those who worship him. How this separation is practiced varies from sect to sect, church to church, and Christian to Christian.
I taught congregants that they were to separate themselves from the world as much as they could. It would be impossible to totally separate one’s self from the world, but interaction with the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world should be limited to necessary acts of commerce. And even here, Christians should seek to distance themselves from the taint of the world. I remember a time when I tried to find a grocery store that didn’t sell alcohol. I found one store, a Mennonite-owned store in Muskingum County. Things were horribly expensive, and the store carried a limited supply of goods. After a few weeks of shopping there, I gave up and went back to the “world.” Notice that I use the “I” pronoun, and not “we.” This was back in our patriarchal days. I was the head of the household. Deciding where we shopped was up to me, not Polly. How “separated” Polly wanted to be didn’t matter. She was going to be as separated from the world as I was — at least outwardly.
Separation from the world affected every aspect of our lives, from the clothes we wore to where we went for entertainment. It was not uncommon for me to ask, “What would Jesus say or think if we went here or did this or that?” WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) deeply influenced my thinking, decision-making, and preaching. “Would Jesus go here?” “Would Jesus associate with this person?” This kind of thinking fueled my Us vs. Them mentality. I frequently preached sermons on separation and holiness; how True Christians® separate themselves from the world and abstain from the very appearance of evil. Evil, of course, being any behavior deemed sinful by one Rev. Bruce D. Gerencser, certified man of God. Years ago, I attended a Buckeye Independent Baptist Fellowship Meeting for preachers in Columbus. Such meetings were times for likeminded preachers to get together and gossip, break bread, and listen to preaching. One preacher preached from Ephesians 4:27: “Neither give place to the Devil.” After reading his proof text, this man spent the next 40 or so minutes listing every behavior he deemed “giving place to the Devil.” He hit all the big sins, getting raucous AMENS from many of the preachers in attendance. In 2015, I wrote a post titled, An Independent Baptist Hate List. I listed some of the people and things IFB preachers hate:
Roman Catholics
Charismatics
Pentecostals
Arminians
Calvinists
Denominational Baptists
MTV
Television
HBO
Secular radio
Contemporary Christian music
Christian TV
Pagan holidays
Rock and Roll music
Long hair on men
Short skirts on women
Pants on women
Shorts on women
Smoking
Alcohol
Hollywood
Atheism
Secularism
Humanism
Pluralism
Socialism
Communism
Liberals
Progressives
Democrats
Bill Clinton
Liberal Christian colleges
Female preachers
Effeminate male preachers
Effeminate men
Hen-pecked men
Haughty women
Church members who disagree with the pastor
Premarital sex
Extramarital sex
Christmas
World Council of Churches
National Association of Evangelicals
Billy Graham
NIV
The Living Bible
Dancing
Card Playing
This list is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the people and things hated by Fundamentalist Christians. The goal of all this “hating” is to create a vast space between Us and Them; between the saved and the lost; between True Christians® and Christians in name only. While certainly many Fundamentalists just go along with the rules to fit in, many of them are true believers. I know I was. James 1:27 described “pure religion” this way:
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Want to have “pure religion” and be undefiled before God? Keep yourself unspotted from the world. Unspotted means unblemished, irreproachable, unsullied, free from vice. A sure way to accomplish this is to stay away from the “world.” 1 Peter 1:15-16 commands Christians to be holy in all manners of “conversation” (lifestyle). Why? Because as God is holy, we should be also. How many Christians do you know who keep themselves unspotted from the world; who are holy in all manners of conversation? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. The answer is NONE. No matter how hard Fundamentalists try to keep a clear, distinct difference between Us. and Them, they generally have the same wants, needs, and desires as unbelievers. Certainly, Christian Fundamentalists try their damnedest to be and stay “right with God,” but the fact remains that they sin, according to the Bible, in thought, word, and deed. No matter how hard they try to distance themselves from the “world,” the world and its wonders creep in.
Late Model driver Butch Hartman, 1980s, Midway Speedway, Crooksville, Ohio
While I became more liberal and progressive in the latter years of my ministerial career, I don’t know that I ever shook Us vs.Them thinking. I did, in retrospect, conclude that I was quite the hypocrite. I would stand behind the pulpit on Sundays and preach against the world, calling on congregants to separate themselves from evil works of darkness. But on Saturday, I would load my family into our car and drive to a nearby dirt race track so we could watch the races. If there was ever place where the “world” and its vices were on full display, it was the race track. Yet, Pastor Bruce, his dress-wearing wife, and their children attended races at tracks such as RR Speedway, Midway Speedway, KC Speedway, and Skyline Speedway. Sometimes, we would attend races on Friday and Saturday night. One Saturday, we planned to attend a big S.T.A.R.S. race at Midway. All the big-name dirt track racers would be there. Unfortunately, it rained, and the race was postponed to the next day, Sunday. “What I am going to do?” I thought at the time. The “right” thing to do was to go to church just like we did EVERY Sunday night. But creative Bruce schemed a way to do both. Rather than preach Sunday night, I, instead, planned for us to have a “special” communion service after our afternoon church meal. By doing this, we were able to make it to the races on time. I battled guilt for a bit, but once I smelled wafts of racing fuel and heard the thundering noise of late model race cars, my mind quickly turned to racing. And boy, what a night of racing it was, as my older sons can attest.
I am sure by telling this story, and others I have told over the years, that my critics see evidence that I was never a True Christian®. However, on balance, I really tried to keep myself unspotted from the world. I really tried my best to avoid contact with unbelievers outside of commerce and evangelization. But try as I might, the world, the wild, wonderful world, sometimes called out to me, and more often than not, I gave in and indulged my so-called “fleshly” desires.
We left Christianity in 2008, which afforded my wife and me the freedom to live in the “world” without feeling sinful or guilty. We do what we want to, no regrets. While Us vs. Them can still affect my thinking, especially when it comes to politics, I try my best to be “worldly.” I missed out on a lot of life during the first fifty years of my life. No longer. It’s wonderful to have the freedom to do whatever I want, with no thought of what God (or others) might say. I only wish I had the young, healthy body that I had in my preaching days. Some race tracks have what are called “run what you brung” races. No rules, just race the car you pull off your trailer. That’s life for me these days. My life may be a banged-up street stock on its last leg, but I intend to race it as hard and as fast as I can until I reach the finish line.
How about you? Were you taught to view the “world” as Us vs. Them? Did your church or pastor preach against the world? What behaviors were considered “worldly?” Were you a hypocrite? Did you try to abstain from the appearance of evil, but fail to do so? Please share your stories in the comment section.
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.
David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
The following is my response to Dr. David Tee’s post titled Where is Their Evidence? Tee, who is neither a Tee nor a doctor, took issue with my post Understanding Religion from A Cost-Benefit Perspective. Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, refuses to mention me by name or properly link to this site, while, at the same time, using my copyrighted material as the main, and often only, source of material for his blog, Theology Archeology: A Site for the Glory of God. Quite frankly, without my writing, Thiessen would have little, if anything, to say. This boorish behavior has been going on for over three years.
It is tempting to ignore Theissen, writing him off as just another ill-bred Evangelical who is pathologically unable to play well with others — including Christians. Thiessen considers himself a “true Christian,” while evidencing behavior that suggests he is anything but. I choose to respond to him — as regular readers are well aware — because I don’t like people who piss in my corn flakes; people who misrepresent my views or attack me personally. Bullies such as Theissen must not be given a pass, though I try my best to only respond to him when a post of his is egregious or absurd. His latest post is both.
Now to my response:
Unbelievers make astounding statements about Christianity, God, Jesus, and the Bible. It is not their faith, yet they feel they have a right to criticize something they do not believe in or accept.
Thiessen seems to forget that I was a Christian for fifty years; that Evangelical Christianity made a very deep imprint on my life. I have as much right as anyone else to critique Evangelicalism. It was the religion of my tribe, one that I know well and continue to follow from a distance to this day.
Thiessen is a Fundamentalist; a cultist. His peculiar brand of religion causes harm, both psychologically and physically. Many ex-Evangelicals feel duty-bound to expose Fundamentalism for what it is — a pernicious cult. How could I possibly be silent while people are being harmed, knowing that telling my story and critiquing Evangelicalism might help them? Shall I stand by and do nothing while well-meaning, sincere people are drowning? Shall I say nothing while cultists such as Thiessen harm others? Sorry, but I cannot and will not be silent.
This criticism would not be so bad if they did not just want everyone else to take their word for it. That is all that it amounts to, their opposition to Christianity is just their rejection of the truth. If they had an argument, they could point to real, objective evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bible is in error.
I have written over 5,000 posts since 2014. Not one time have I ever told readers to “take my word for it.” Not-One-Time. Further, Thiessen knows that I have extensively explained why I am no longer a Christian. One need only read the posts on the Why page to know why I deconverted.
Thiessen believes the Bible (including translations) is inerrant and infallible. Every word is without error. Such a fantastical claim cannot be rationally sustained. It is absurd at face value. One need to only point to ONE error to bring the whole house of cards down. I could quote dozens and dozens of glaring errors, mistakes, and contradictions in the Bible, but doing so would be a waste of time. No amount of evidence will move Thiessen off his belief that the Bible is inerrant. As Evangelicals are wont to do, he will have an “explanation” — no matter how superficial and lame — for every error.
Typically, I ask people to read one or more of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books on the history and nature of the Bible. Don’t take my word for it. Read the words of an esteemed New Testament scholar. Thiessen, however, won’t do this. He has read articles and blog posts about Ehrman’s books, but I doubt he has actually read one of his books from cover to cover. No need, right? The Bible is inerrant and infallible, and Ehrman is an atheist. He has nothing to offer to this discussion. Never forget, you can’t argue with an inerrantist, presuppositionalist, or creationist — Thiessen is all three. Fundamentalist minds are shut off from anything that does not fit in their narrow worldview and beliefs.
Yet, all they point to is either their unbelief or made-up evidence created by them or their fellow unbelievers. Case in point:
Many of my fellow atheists and agnostics have a hard time understanding why, exactly, people are religious. In particular, many godless people are befuddled by Evangelicals.
How can anyone believe the Bible is inspired and inerrant; believe the earth was created in six twenty-four-hour days; believe the universe is 6,027 years old; believe Adam and Eve were the first human beings; believe the story of Noah and the Ark really happened; believe that millions of Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years, and believe a Jewish man named Jesus was a God-man who worked miracles, was executed on a Roman cross, and resurrected from the dead three days later.
I could add numerous other mythical, fanciful, incredulous Bible stories to this list, all of which sound nonsensical to skeptical, rational people. (BG website)
The first paragraph is easy to refute, the Bible says that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who do not believe. Every Christian has experienced that attitude from unbelievers.
It remains foolishness to them because the unbeliever only experiences the here and now. Unfortunately, the unbeliever will reject any physical evidence presented to them. We have seen this done and experienced it ourselves. The best thing to do is to stop arguing with them and leave the unbeliever with the evidence we have.
The unbeliever wants physical evidence but will always find ways to reject the presented physical evidence. Some do as the late Phillip Davies did one time and just close their eyes and deny that the evidence proves anything.
Thiessen says unbelievers live for the here and now (how is this relevant to the discussion at hand?) and are averse to any evidence presented to them by Evangelicals. Thiessen uses his own subjective experiences with non-Christians as proof that unbelievers will reject any evidence shown to them by true Christians. He never bothers to consider that maybe, just maybe, the real issue is the quality of evidence being presented to unbelievers; that quoting Bible verses is not evidence. The Bible says — according to how Evangelicals interpret the Bible — that the universe was created in six literal twenty-four-hour days. This is a claim, as is the earth being 6,027 years old. Claims are not evidence, science is, and science overwhelmingly says that Thiessen’s claims are wrong. Thiessen, who fancies himself as an author, rejects much of what science has to say about the world (even though he has no substantive science training). He has the B-i-b-l-e, and that’s all he needs. In Thiessen’s world, whatever the Bible says is true, and if what it says conflicts with science, science is wrong.
In other words, a majority of unbelievers do not believe because they do not want to believe. No matter what evidence you present, it will never be good enough to convince them. The question really is not about unbelievers being amazed at why Christians believe in God and the Bible, the question is with all the supporting evidence, Christians are amazed at why unbelievers do not believe.
I am open to evidence for the central claims of Christianity. I am open to evidence that supports the claim that the Bible is inerrant. Unlike Thissen, I am willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads. But saying, “Bruce, you are wrong, the Bible says __________, is not evidence. Those are assertions, assertions for which Thiessen has yet to provide empirical evidence.
Thiessen seems unaware that only a small percentage of earthlings are “true Christians”; that the overwhelming majority of people are unbelievers, and that a minuscule number of people — mainly Evangelicals — believe the Bible is without error and infallible. Yet, Thiessen arrogantly thinks he is right and 7+ billion people are wrong. There’s not much you can say to a person who thinks like this. The first step to intellectual honesty is to admit that you could be wrong. It wasn’t until I gave space for the possibility of being wrong that I was able to consider whether the central claims of Christianity are true.
There is a wealth of physical evidence proving the Bible true. Noah’s flood alone has more evidence supporting it than any other biblical event. Just read Noah’s Flood Did Take Place to get a lot of that evidence.
Wealth of physical evidence? Really? Want to know about this so-called evidence? Read Thiessen’s 122-page “best-selling” book, Noah’s Flood Did Take Place. Theissen left off the rest of his title: An Examination of the Non-Scientific Evidence. Thiessen says there is a wealth of evidence proving young earth creationism is true, but his book says that this evidence is non-scientific.
Theissen says this about his book:
“Scientific evidence is not always the best field of research to use to know if an event, etc. took place in the past. This book goes outside of evidence to bring to the discussion all the evidence that is not talked about today and show that Noah’s Flood was real.”
As for creation, it is more rational to believe that God had the power and did create in 6- 24 hours days than it is to believe a theory that is statistically impossible to do. It is also more logical and rational to believe in a supernatural creation than it is to believe that the universe came from a small pinpoint and expanded to a size no telescope can see the edges.
Or be filled with different elements that were created by matter crashing into each other, especially when every attempt to crash things together destroys the two objects not combine them into a set of planets and stars that miraculously creates gravity, a force that even science cannot figure out how it operates.
It is also more rational and logical to believe in a super being that has the power to do all of this than some unknown entity no one can touch, feel, or experience. All that evolutionary scientists can do is study the supposed results of evolution. They cannot study the process itself nor can they put it in a test tube and examine it.
All they can do is make faulty predictions, which are not 100% correct, and ruin their theory anyway, and then declare ‘evolution did it and is true’ even though every one of their experiments is not exclusive. Any process can produce the same results.
Again, Christians scratch their heads and wonder how can unbelievers in Jesus believe such fairy tales and nonsense? There is no evidence for the alleged original conditions that started and developed life, there are no transitional life forms, and there is nothing to support the theory of evolution except some fallible human’s word.
Sigh. I will leave it to readers with science backgrounds to challenge Thiessen’s so-called “rational” assertions. I know what I know, and most importantly, I know what I don’t know.
In every case, the unbeliever presents no evidence to support their views of Christianity. Take these words for an example:
Here we are living in 2024 — an age driven by technology and science — yet millions of Evangelicals and other conservative Christians flock to Kentucky to tour Ken Ham’s monuments to ignorance: the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum…Why is it that Evangelicals continue to believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? (BG website, we left out his anti-Trump remark)
….
To answer the question posed in BG’s quote, we believe because Jesus and the Bible are both real and true. There is nothing the unbeliever can say or do to change that fact. We have eyewitness testimony, we have physical evidence and both come from the believing and unbelieving sides of the world.
Thiessen provides no physical evidence for his claims, and quite frankly, none is needed. Thiessen’s claims are based on faith, not facts. Faith needs no evidence — just belief. I have argued with, debated, and talked with scores of Evangelicals over the past seven years. Without fail, “faith” is always the final answer. And once someone runs to the house of faith, no further discussion can be had. Facts do not need faith. Evidence does not need faith. Faith allows people to believe things that are not true.
Thiessen claims he has eyewitness testimony that proves that “Jesus and the Bible are both real and true.” Wikipedia says, “The majority of New Testament scholars also agree that the Gospels do not contain eyewitness accounts; but that they present the theologies of their communities rather than the testimony of eyewitnesses.”
The alleged eyewitness accounts in the Bible are claims, not evidence. If Thiessen wants to me to accept his claims, he must provide evidence that supports his claims. Just because a book says something doesn’t mean what it says is true. I will await Thiessen’s empirical evidence for his claims, especially his fanatical claim that the gospels are eyewitness testimonies. I have been studying theology for most of my sixty-six years on earth. I have yet to see any evidence that supports Thiessen’s Fundamentalist claims. If he has it, he needs to cough it up.
So here’s my offer to Thiessen: write a guest post that provides evidence for your claim that the Bible is eyewitness testimony, and I will post it unedited to this site. Actual evidence, Derrick, especially that “unbelieving” evidence you speak of (which is hilarious since you reject “unbelieving” evidence any time it challenges or contradicts your narrowminded Fundamentalist worldview). You have my email address, Derrick. I look forward to reading your scathing defense of eyewitness testimony in the Bible. Who knows, your post might convince me to reconsider the claims of Christianity.
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.
Evangelical response to news that American “nones”– atheists, agnostics, and people indifferent towards religion — now outnumber Evangelicals has been predictable. Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing who to blame for their decline, Evangelical talking heads blame attendance loss on their churches being emptied of “cultural Christians.” Their numbers are smaller these days, the thinking goes, but more congregants are “true Christians.”
Does Evangelicalism really have a “cultural Christian” problem, or is this just an excuse preachers and parachurch leaders use to obfuscate their culpability in the decline of Evangelicalism?
Former SBC President J.D. Greear thinks he knows exactly how to give the troops back their optimism: Insulting those who’ve left the denomination’s increasingly polarized and tribalistic ranks. He told Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN; archive):
Much of that [lack of interest in spirituality], the pastor said, is likely connected to the shrinking acceptance of Christian norms within American culture writ large.
“[A] lot of the decline in those numbers is cultural Christianity,” explained Greear. “But, if you look at the statistics in the amount of what I would consider true disciples, those numbers are actually encouraging.”
Insulting departing members by calling them cultural Christians is an old SBC strategy—it dates back to at least 2012, when another then-SBC leader, Ed Stetzer, began using it to explain away the SBC’s declining membership and baptisms. He went so hard on this talking point that I strongly suspect someone handed it to him with orders to use it everywhere.
You see, many in the USA who identify as Christian do so only superficially. These “cultural Christians” use the term “Christian” but do not practice the faith. [. . .]
Christian nominalism is nothing new. As soon as any belief system is broadly held in a culture, people are motivated to adopt it, even with a low level of connection. Yet, much of the change in our religious identification is in nominal Christians no longer using the term and, instead, not identifying with any religion.
So cultural Christians aren’t really super-dedicated to Jesus. Not like Ed Stetzer is. Not “true disciples,” like good little Christians should be. No, Christianity is just the culture these fakey-fake fake fakers grew up in and inconceivably consider their own. The moment the religious fat sizzles in the pan, these ickie fake Christians flee for more comfortable surroundings while the real Christians hunker down and Jesus harder.
Evangelicals still use this myth to cope with their decline, too!
….
In May 2015, Stetzer repeated these talking points in two separate places: Church Leadership (archive) and USA Today (archive). That year’s very important. It’s the year that Pew Research released their Religious Landscape Study, mentioned above. And it’s the year that evangelicals as a group finally became aware of their decline. They’d been able to ignore the signs for years—and I had the comment-box arguments to prove it. Finally, the Religious Landscape Study tore their veil of willful ignorance away. It forced them to face facts at last.
So that year, the accusation Stetzer insinuated in 2012 became explicit. On May 13, 2015, Stetzer’s post title and subtitle at USA Today said it all:
Survey fail – Christianity isn’t dying: Ed Stetzer Fakers who don’t go to church are just giving up the pretense.
Later in his post, Stetzer tells his readers that The Big Problem Here really is that less Jesusy denominations, meaning those ickie, grody mainline and progressive ones, were finally losing all their fakey-fake fakers. That’s all! Nothing to see here! The future was for sure evangelical!
….
And, of course, we’ve already seen J.D. Greear’s galaxy-brain take on the report. Over at CBN, he huffed pure copium as he further declared:
“What we’re after here is not demographic increase; what we’re after here are real followers of Jesus,” the pastor told CBN News, noting, “Unfortunately, a lot of [people] are not reached in the church by just doing great music, great guest services, and a relevant sermon.”
My, my. How sour are those grapes, J.D. Greear? They must be very sour indeed. You didn’t want them anyway, right?
Bear in mind that out of all evangelicals, the SBC was the least interested in making sure every one of their recruits was a true-blue, 100% all in, gung-ho “true disciple” or “real follower of Jesus.”
I do not remember ever hearing once about any SBC pastor kicking tithes-paying members out of a single church. Nor do I remember ever hearing about any purity tests administered to the flocks to ensure that only unsullied TRUE CHRISTIAN™ bottoms warmed those hallowed pews and donated money.
….
If evangelicals really had that huge a number of fakey-fake fake Christians floating around in their churches, they sure didn’t care at all about addressing that problem until their membership rolls began to shrink. And their method of dealing with it, so far, seems to be just to use it as an excuse for decline.
….
Since evangelicals have never figured out how to recruit and retain people who have no obligation to be part of their groups, all they can do is try to negate and vilify those who are leaving. In doing so, they’re sending a message to the flocks still warming church pews: If you leave too, this is what we’ll say about you.
Years ago, I ran into a former church member at the local McDonald’s. He and his family moved on to a Bible church pastored by a Bob Jones graduate. He piously shared with me the difference between the people I pastored and his church: We are focused on quality, not quantity.
His church only wanted “true Christians.” The problem with this thinking, of course, is that if Evangelical churches relied on all those “quality” Christians to fund their work, they would go out of business overnight. Greear, Steltzer, and other megachurch leaders know that without the money “quantity” Christians give, their churches would go bankrupt.
I predict that Evangelicalism will continue to hemorrhage members, and as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, “true Christians” will blame everyone but themselves for the decline.
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.
Many of my fellow atheists and agnostics have a hard time understanding why, exactly, people are religious. In particular, many godless people are befuddled by Evangelicals. How can anyone believe the Bible is inspired and inerrant; believe the earth was created in six twenty-four-hour days; believe the universe is 6,027 years old; believe Adam and Eve were the first human beings; believe the story of Noah and Ark really happened; believe that millions of Israelites wandered in desert for forty years, and believe a Jewish man named Jesus was a God-man who worked miracles, was executed on a Roman cross, and resurrected from the dead three days later. I could add numerous other mythical, fanciful, incredulous Bible stories to this list; all of which sound nonsensical to skeptical, rational people. Here we are living in 2024 — an age driven by technology and science — yet millions of Evangelicals and other conservative Christians flock to Kentucky to tour Ken Ham’s monuments to ignorance: the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum. These same people helped to elect Donald Trump, the vilest, most unqualified man to ever sit in the Oval Office. Why is it that Evangelicals continue to believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?
From a rational perspective, none of this makes any sense. Most Evangelicals have at least a high school education, and some of them have college degrees. Many of them are successful business owners, with more than a few of them amassing wealth most unbelievers covet. Many atheists and agnostics wrongly believe that the typical Evangelical is a poorly educated white hillbilly from Kentucky or Mississippi. Pan the crowds gathered at countless American Evangelical megachurches and you will find all the markings of well-off, educated people. Why, then, do Evangelicals believe the nonsense mentioned previously?
The best way to understand Evangelicalism is to view it from an economic cost-benefit perspective. Think of Evangelicalism as a club. To join the club, certain things are required. Every prospective club member must agree with the club’s stated principles and beliefs and pay annual dues to their local club. Once a prospective member publicly affirms the club’s stated principles and beliefs, undergoes a rite of initiation (baptism), and pays his annual dues, the prospect is granted entrance to the club. Membership in the club comes with several benefits:
Weekly instruction in the club’s principles and beliefs
Answers to life’s pressing questions
Classes for every age group, from infants to senior citizens
Opportunities for entertainment, often called fun, food, and fellowship
Access to counseling services
Wedding and funeral services
Support for conservative Christian social and political views
Bumper stickers, shirts, and other swag that advertise your membership in the club
Promises of forgiveness, happiness, and life after death
As long as these benefits outweigh the costs, people will continue to embrace Evangelical beliefs. Rationalists think that truth is all that should matter, and when it comes to truth, atheists/agnostics/humanists/skeptics/freethinkers have it, and Evangelicals don’t. True, but what do we offer besides truth? I’m waiting . . . Therein lies our problem. Yes, truth is on our side, but we lack appealing social structures (clubs), and, to many questioning/doubting Evangelicals, the cost of saying, “I am an atheist/agnostic” far outweighs the benefits. (Please see Count the Cost Before You Say I am an Atheist.) If we want to attract people to truth, to our cause, we must find ways to change the cost-benefit dynamic. “Dammit, Bruce, truth should be enough!” Yep, and I agree with you. Unfortunately, you and I are not like most people. “What’s in it for me?” many people ask. “What are the benefits of joining your club?” Fuss and fume all you want about this, but the fact remains that most people want to belong to things that benefit them; that give them something tangible.
As a pastor, I learned that people look for perceived value. Our church would sponsor a free concert with a contemporary Christian artist and fifty people would show up. Charge $5 admission for the same concert and hundreds of people would attend. Same artist, just a different perceived value. As long as Evangelicals think that the benefits of club membership outweigh the costs, they will continue to be members. Our goal should be to make rationalism and progressive politics appealing. We must develop social structures that advance the humanist ideal. And then, we must become the public face of our club, a face that says, “you are welcome here!” Constantly fighting with Evangelicals on social media does what exactly? Sure, it feels good to drown Evangelicals in seas of truth, but what have we gained? Engaging in shit-throwing contests on Twitter with Evangelical trolls might make for good entertainment and provide a brief dopamine rush, but what is really accomplished by doing so? In 2012, tens of thousands of atheists, agnostics, humanists, and freethinkers gathered on the National Mall for the Reason Rally. What an awesome moment, a coming-out party, of sorts. Twelve years have passed since this rally. What progress have we made towards coalescing into a credible, appealing club for likeminded people? If we truly want to give Evangelicalism the eternal death it so richly deserves, we must offer people a better way. We must offer them benefits that outweigh the costs of publicly saying “I’m an unbeliever” in a country that is still dominated and controlled by Christianity. We may laud recent upticks in polls for our kind, but this growth pales when compared to the sheer numbers of religious people. Yes, as a block, we now outnumber Evangelicals, but make no mistake about it, they still hold political and cultural power.
After the 2012 Reason Rally, I told readers that it was time for rationalists, skeptics, and freethinkers to move beyond skirmishes with Evangelicals. I still believe that today. That doesn’t mean we stop exposing Evangelical beliefs and practices for the nonsense they are. But we must find ways to build social connections; ways to build clubs that are appealing to, particularly, younger Americans. Trying to reach Evangelical Baby Boomers and the Great Generation is unlikely to succeed. It is with young people that the future of, not only the United States, but the world, rests. We oldsters have a lot of wisdom to offer, but as long as we sit silently in our homes, that wisdom goes to waste. Imagine how different our country might be if every county had a local humanist/skeptics club; a place where young and old alike meet to plan ways to Make America Rational Again; a place where atheists, agnostics, and unbelievers can gather and feel at home. Until we figure this out, people are going to continue to gather at local Evangelical clubs to worship the dead Jesus.
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.
Originally posted April 2015. Edited, updated, and expanded.
A former parishioner asks:
I just don’t understand how you could just decide you don’t believe any longer. I as you know am a Christian and I could never or would never lose my faith in God, but if I did I would like to think that it would be some type of horrible thing that happened to me to cause me to lose my faith in God. I am not judging you I am just curious as to what happened to cause you to question and then lose your faith. You were such a good preacher, I learned so much from you I just don’t understand what happened. Please help me to understand.
I am quite sympathetic to those who once called me pastor/preacher. I know my deconversion causes them great pain as they attempt to reconcile the man of God they once knew with the atheist I am today. In some cases, the pain and cognitive dissonance are so great that they can’t bear to write or talk to me. One former pastor friend, the late Bill Beard, told me that I should keep my deconversion story to myself lest I cause others to lose their faith. (Please read Dear Friend.)
I try to put myself in the shoes of former parishioners. They listened to me preach, interacted with me on an intimate personal level, and considered me a godly man. Perhaps I won them to Christ, baptized them, or helped them through some crisis in their life. Maybe I performed their wedding or preached the funeral of their spouse, parent, or child. My life is intertwined with theirs, yet here I stand today, publicly renouncing all I once believed to be true; an atheist, an enemy of God. How is this possible, the former parishioner asks?
The email writer asks if some horrible thing happened to cause me to lose my faith. The short answer is no. Sixteen years removed from deconverting and nineteen years since I preached my last sermon, I can now see that there were many factors that led me to where I am today. As with all life-changing decisions, the reasons are many. I could point to my disenchantment over the deadness, shallowness, and emptiness of Evangelicalism; I could point to my loss of health and the poverty wages I earned pastoring churches. I could point to how fellow pastors and parishioners treated me when I left the ministry and later began to question my faith. (Please read Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners.) I could point to my knowledge of lying, cheating, adulterous pastors. I could point to my anger towards those who readily abandoned me when I had doubts about the veracity of Christianity. I could point to the 100+ churches we visited as we desperately tried to find a church that took seriously the teaching of Jesus. (Please read But Our Church is Different.) I could point to the viciousness of professing Christians, people like my grandparents, who put on a good front but were judgmental and hateful towards my family and me. (Please read Dear Ann and John.) I could point to my bitter, hostile experience with Pat Horner and Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas. (Please read I Am a Publican and a Heathen.) All of these things played a part in my deconversion, but the sum of them would not have been enough to cause me to walk away from Christianity.
Several years ago, I wrote a post titled Why I Stopped Believing. I think an excerpt from this post will prove helpful in answering the question of why I no longer believe:
Since I never made much money in the ministry, there was no economic reason for me to stay in the ministry. I always made more money working outside of the church, so when I decided to leave the ministry, which I did three years before I deconverted, I suffered no economic consequences. In fact, life has gotten much better economically post-Jesus.
I decided I would go back to the Bible, study it again, and determine what it was I REALLY believed. During this time, I began reading books by authors such as Robert Wright, Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman, These three authors, along with several others, attacked the foundation of my Evangelical beliefs: the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. Their assault on this foundation brought my Evangelical house tumbling down. I desperately tried to find some semblance of the Christianity I once believed, but I came to realize that my faith was gone.
I tried for a time to convince myself that I could find some sort of Christianity that would work for me. Polly and I visited numerous liberal or progressive Christian churches, but I found that these expressions of faith would not do for me. My faith was gone. Later, Polly would come to the same conclusion.
I read many authors and books besides the ones listed here. I say this to keep someone from saying, but you didn’t read so and so or you didn’t read _______. So, if I had to give one reason WHY I am no longer a Christian today it would be BOOKS. My thirst for knowledge — a thirst I still have today, even though it is greatly hindered by chronic illness and pain — is what drove me to reinvestigate the claims of Christianity and the teachings of the Bible. This investigation led me to conclude that the claims of Christianity and the teachings of the Bible could not rationally and intellectually be sustained. Try as I might to hang onto some sort of Christian faith, the slippery slope I found myself on would not let me stand still. Eventually, I found myself saying, I no longer believe in the Christian God. For a time, I was an agnostic, but I got tired of explaining myself, so I took on the atheist moniker, and now no one misunderstands what I believe.
The hardest decision I ever made in my life was that day in late November of 2008, when I finally admitted to myself, I am no longer a Christian, I no longer believe in the Christian God, I no longer believe the Bible is the Word of God. At that moment, everything I had spent my life believing and doing was gone. In a sense, I had an atheist version of a born-again experience. For the past eleven years, I have continued to read, study, and write. I am still very much a work in progress. My understanding of religion and its cultural and sociological implications continues to grow. Now that I am unshackled from the constraints of religion, I am free to wander the path of life wherever it may lead. Now that I am free to read what I want, I have focused my attention on history and science. While I continue to read books that are of a religious or atheist nature, I spend less and less time reading these. I still read every new book Bart Ehrman publishes, along with various Christian/atheist/humanist blogs and publications, and this is enough to keep me up to date with American Christianity and American atheism/humanism.
For a longer treatment of my path from Evangelicalism to atheism, please read the series From Evangelicalism to Atheism.
If I had to sum up in two sentences why I no longer believe I would say this:
I no longer believe the Bible is an inspired, infallible, inerrant, God-given text. I no longer believe as true the central claims of Christianity: that Jesus is the virgin-born, miracle-working son of God, who came to earth to die for our sins, resurrected from the dead three days later, and will someday return to earth to judge the living and the dead.
The email writer comes from an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) background. A conundrum for her is to theologically square my past with the present. There is no doubt that I was a Christian for fifty years. I was a devoted, sincere, committed follower of Jesus. I preached to thousands of people during the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry. Not one parishioner or colleague in the ministry ever doubted that I was a Christian. I was far from perfect, but I was, in every way, a believer.
Those who say I never was a Christian make a judgment based on their theology and not on how I lived my life for fifty years. Baptists must do this because they believe that a person, once saved, cannot fall from grace. The doctrine of eternal security/once-saved-always-saved/perseverance (preservation) of the saints requires them to conclude I am still a Christian or I never was. The few former parishioners and colleagues in the ministry who are Arminians have no problem explaining my trajectory from Evangelicalism to atheism. I once was saved and I fell from grace.
Here’s what I know: I once was a Christian and now I am not. For those who once called me pastor/preacher, they should know that when I was their shepherd, I was a Christian. What good I did and what benefits my ministry brought them came from the heart of a man who was a devoted follower of Jesus, a man who loved them and wanted what was best for them. Those experiences, at the time, were real. While I have written extensively on how I explain my past and the experiences I had, former parishioners should content themselves with knowing that I loved and cared for them. While I had many shortcomings, my desire was always to help others. This desire still motivates me to this day.
Much like the Israelites leaving Egypt and heading for the Promised Land, so it is for me. My Promised Land is atheism, agnosticism, and humanism. While I will always have a great fondness for many of the people I once pastored, I will never return to Egypt, the house of bondage. Christianity and the ministry are distant sights in my rearview mirror. While I will always appreciate the love and approbation of the people I once pastored, I am not willing to “repent” of my atheistic beliefs. My mind is settled on the nature of the Bible and the claims of Christianity. I fully recognize that billions of people find value, meaning, and purpose in religion, but I do not.
I have no desire to cause believers to lose their faith. I am just one man with a story to tell. Over the past sixteen years, I have not even once tried to “evangelize” believers in the hope that they will lose their faith and embrace atheism. Yes, I do write about Evangelicalism and atheism, but people are free to read or not read what I write. If they have doubts about Christianity or have recently left Christianity, then my writing is likely to be of some help to them. If they write me asking questions or asking for help, I do my best to answer their questions and help them in any way I can. Over the years, hundreds of such people have written to me. Have some of them deconverted? Yes, including pastors, missionaries, and evangelists. But, deconversion has never been my goal. Instead, I view myself as a facilitator, one who helps people on their journey. It’s their life, their journey, and I am just a signpost along the crooked road of life.
Former parishioners need to understand that Bruce and Polly Gerencser are the same people they have always been, except for the Christian part. We are kind, decent, loving people. We love our children and our grandchildren. We strive to get along with our neighbors and be a good influence in the community. We are now what we were then: good people.
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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