I’d like to now turn our attention to a matter of great importance. As you know, the Declaration of Independence was formally adopted on July 4th, 1776, now 247 years ago. Our sweet land of liberty has remained a beacon of light in a dark world. Yet, when I survey the moral landscape across our country, I have grown increasingly concerned that the great light is waning.
Let’s consider the lay of the land. Many states are passing the most liberal abortion laws ever. Alarming numbers of our public schools and cultural institutions are hostile toward Christianity. Political leaders are tearing down statues that venerate our founding fathers. President Joe Biden and his administration are promoting drag queens and transgenders at White House events. Our government has weaponized its intelligence agencies against political opponents, pro-life advocates, and parents who stand up to protect their children against the radicalized LGBTQ agenda. Our borders have become open doors for illegal immigrants, while drugs and human trafficking are running rampant. The leaders of this administration and our armed forces are placing woke ideologies as a priority above preparing warriors for battle.
Our great nation is being distorted by the radical Left into a morally broken land of division and despair. The end game could be the destruction of all that is good and noble. We, as Christians, are the greatest force standing between those who hate America and those who love it.
As I see it, we can be the generation that preserves the light of liberty, but if we fail in this critical assignment, this light could be extinguished. Shirley and I are fervently praying that God’s people will use their influence for the betterment of our culture.
….
We are witnessing an unprecedented campaign to secularize our society and demoralize our institutions in every sector. The effort has been enormously successful. Most forms of prayer have been declared unconstitutional in our nation’s schools, even those prayers which are student-initiated. The Ten Commandments have been prohibited on school bulletin boards. Secular universities are blatantly hostile to faith-based precepts, and the media screams “Foul!” whenever someone speaks openly of his or her Christian beliefs.
This is supposed to be the wonderful land of the free, yet we have gagged and bound many of our public officials, teachers, elected representatives, and judges. Since we have effectively censored these leaders and their expressions of faith in public life, the predictable is happening: a generation of young people is growing up with very little understanding of the spiritual principles on which our country was founded. And we wonder why so many of them can kill, steal, take drugs, and engage in promiscuous sex with no pangs of conscience. We have taught them that right and wrong are arbitrary—subjective—changing. They’ve learned their lessons well.
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.
Biblical Marriage, God’s Unchanging Moral Standard
According to Jessilyn Justice, a writer for Charisma News, the United States is facing a perversion tsunami. Several years ago, the Daily Mail reported that a man who was given up for adoption now wants to have a sexual relationship with his birth mother. Monica Mares, 36, gave Caleb Peterson, 19, up for adoption at birth. She was sixteen at the time. Nineteen years later, mother and son reconnected, fell in love, and are now facing criminal charges due to their incestuous relationship. Here’s what the Daily Mail had to say about their relationship:
GSA [genetic sexual attraction] is defined as sexual attraction between close relatives, such as siblings or half-siblings, a parent and offspring, or first and second cousins, who first meet as adults. Mares said: ‘He is the love of my life and I don’t want to lose him.My kids love him, my whole family does. Nothing can come between us not courts, or jail, nothing. ‘I have to be with him. When I get out of prison I will move out of Clovis to a state that allows us to be together.’
Incest is a crime in all 50 states, but the specifics of the laws and punishment vary greatly from state to state. Mother-of-nine Mares said she would even give up the right to see her other children if she was asked to choose between them and her lover. The couple who currently live separately in Clovis, New Mexico – and are banned from having any contact with each other by the courts – first embarked on their love affair towards the end of last year. …. The couple was charged with incest – a fourth-degree felony in New Mexico – following the February 25th incident. They were arraigned and appeared jointly in court in April – but were held in custody for breaching their no-contact order. They were released on $5,000 bond and now face a trial by jury in September.
Currently Mares is not allowed to see any of her children or have any contact at all with Peterson.Yet she maintains that is has all been worth it. ‘It is every bit worth it,’ she said. ‘If they lock me up for love then they lock me up. There is no way anybody could pull us apart, and I really do love him. ‘It hurts he is far away. It hurts really bad. I wish I could see him, talk to him, but I can’t risk it.’
Peterson said he started falling love with his mom about a week after meeting her – but claims as he grew up with an adopted parents he never really saw Mares as his mother. ‘I never had anyone cook me meals or give me anything,’ he said. ‘I never got anything my entire life and she went out of her way to make me happy and after about a week or so I started having feelings for her and I guess I fell in love. ‘It went beyond a mother-son relationship I never really viewed her as my mom. In certain aspects I do but mostly I don’t. ‘I never thought I was crazy for having these feelings because I didn’t see her as my mom, it was more like going to a club and meeting a random person. It didn’t feel wrong, it felt normal.’
Peterson claims it was him who made the first move not his mom. He recalls: ‘We were hanging out just talking and I looked at her and she looked at me and I kissed her. ‘It was a real kiss it had feelings behind it, there was a spark that ever since then it just stayed. ‘Honestly I never thought we would get into trouble for our relationship. We were both consenting adults – when it comes down to it.
‘She’s adult I’m adult I can make my own decisions. I never thought it would blow up into something like this.’ …. Despite the immense opposition to the couple’s relationship, Mares and Peterson do have supporters in the community – including Dayton Chavez, Mares’ ex and father to two of her sons Moses, nine, and Joseph, 12.
He said: ‘I’ve told them I still love you guys either way. I support them. ‘I would like to see the government get out of their business and let them live a normal life – let them live how they want to live. ‘It would be different if it was a domestic violence situation but it’s not. ‘My point of view is they need to be allowed to live just how they are that’s what America is built on.’ …. The couple – who both have roots with Native American Apache tribes – is also being supported by Cristina Shy who runs www.lilysgardener.com, a support and advocacy website for related couples, also known as consanguinamorous people.
Cristina, who is involved in an illegal relationship with her half brother in Minnesota, said: ‘Our whole community is watching this case and looking for updates. ‘It needs to be brought to the attention of everybody in the country and people need to start thinking differently. ‘It was the same with gay people just a few years ago and now they can get married they are accepted. ‘Well why not consanguinamorous people like us? We are all adults. We are not pedophiles, there’s no domestic issue we are in love, we want to be together but we are related. That shouldn’t be a deciding factor.’
Most readers of this blog likely think — at the very least — that this is a bizarre story. I have mixed feelings about the mother/son sexual relationship, but I suspect my discomfort is the result of my Fundamentalist Baptist upbringing. If I believe that consenting adults should be free to have sex with whomever, wherever, and however, then, despite my conflicted feelings, I really should have no legitimate objection to Mares’ and Peterson’s relationship.
As soon as this story hit the news wire, Christians such as Jessilyn Justice were screaming, SEE! This is what happens when we let same-sex couples marry, legitimize homosexuality, and allow Transgenders to use the bathroom of their choice! Unable to comprehend any other sexual relationships besides what they “think” is decreed in a bronze age religious text — the Protestant Bible — people such as Justice warn others about the dangers of the slippery slope that ultimately leads to every sexual perversion imaginable. Why, what’s to stop people from marrying their dogs, right?
Paul specifically warned about the evils of sexual immorality throughout his letters to the Corinthians and Romans.
Now, perversion rises as a mother wants an incestuous relationship with the son she gave up for adoption, according to The Daily Mail.
“If they lock me up for love then they lock me up. There is no way anybody could pull us apart, and I really do love him,” 36-year-old Monica Mares tells the online paper of her son, Caleb Peterson.
The couple faces a charge of incest, according to the Clovis News Journal. If convicted, they face hefty fines and years behind bars.
“I never had anyone cook me meals or give me anything,” Peterson tells the Daily Mail.
He continued: “I never got anything my entire life and she went out of her way to make me happy and after about a week or so I started having feelings for her and I guess I fell in love. It went beyond a mother-son relationship. I never really viewed her as my mom. In certain aspects I do but mostly I don’t. I never thought I was crazy for having these feelings because I didn’t see her as my mom, it was more like going to a club and meeting a random person. It didn’t feel wrong, it felt normal.”
Perhaps the book of Romans is at play here, as Paul warned in chapter 1 that God would give people over to the lust of their hearts.
I find it laughable and quite entertaining that Justice opposes incest, yet she worships a God that used incest to advance his divine agenda on earth.
The Bible — the original Kinsey Report — certainly condemns incest. God, the arbiter of all things sexual, had this to say in his inspired, inerrant, infallible word:
None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the Lord.The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover.The nakedness of thy son’s daughter, or of thy daughter’s daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness. The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s sister: she is thy father’s near kinswoman.Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister: for she is thy mother’s near kinswoman.Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt.Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness.Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness.Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time. Leviticus 18:6-18
See! God says incest is a sin! Right there in the B-i-b-l-e. End of story. Later in Leviticus 18, God also condemns homosexuality, bestiality, adultery, and having sex with a woman when she is menstruating. In Leviticus 20, God says certain incestuous relationships — along with adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality — are capital crimes punishable by death. Strangely, if a man has sex with his uncle’s wife or has sex with his brother’s wife, their immorality is not punishable by death. (See Wikipedia article on Incest in the Bible.)
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul rebukes the Church at Corinth for having in its membership a man who was having sex with his mother. 1 Corinthians 5:1 states:
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
Paul commanded the church to excommunicate the man, delivering him to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. Surprisingly, Paul considered the incestuous man to still be a Christian (to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus).
The Apostle Paul, along with Jessilyn Justice and others like her, seems to be ignorant of the fact that the Big Man Upstairs approves of incest — at least in certain circumstances. Here are six of the numerous incestuous stories recorded in God’s perfect Word:
Genesis 4 — Where did Cain’s wife come from? Either Cain had sex with an unnamed sister or he had sex with his mother Eve.
Genesis 9 — Ham has sex with his father, Noah.
Genesis 19 — Two daughters have sex with their father, Lot, a man the Bible says was a righteous man.
Genesis 20 — Abraham has sex with his half-sister Sara.
Genesis 38 — Judah has sex with his daughter-in-law Tamar (the daughter of adulterous, murderous David, a man after God’s own heart).
Exodus 6 — Amram has sex with his father’s sister Jochebed. She bore him two very famous sons, Aaron and Moses.
How Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis “Answer” the Incest Question. Incest was okay until it wasn’t.
Christians are certainly free to object to incestuous relationships such as the one mentioned in this post. However, they don’t get to claim the high moral ground, saying that God says incest is a sin punishable by death. As I have clearly shown, God, at certain times and in certain circumstances, approves of or ignores incest. So much for God’s law being the perfect moral standard for all peoples, at all times. Evangelicals box themselves in when they demand that the Bible be recognized as the sole arbiter of morality. They are forced to come up with all sorts of creative ways to “explain” away the contradictions and absurdities found in the Bible. Christianity would be better served if Christians just admitted that there is some crazy shit in the Bible — especially in the Old Testament; and that the morality code of ancient sheepherders and fishermen has little relevance today.
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.
Several years ago, I caught up on back episodes of the TV show Tyrant. One episode featured a Muslim cleric telling a group of schoolchildren that they were soldiers in “God’s Army.” These children were later killed in a government attack on a terrorist training camp. This same cleric forgot to tell these children that they would be used as pawns in the war against America and the government of the fictional country, Abuddin. Killed in an attack on the terrorist camp, the dead bodies of these children were filmed so they could be used in anti-government propaganda videos. A horrific scene to be sure, one that is played out time and again in the Middle East.
As I listened to the Muslim cleric tell the children that they were soldiers in God’s Army, my thought turned to the Evangelical junior church staple song, I’m in the Lord’s Army. Everyone now:
Harmless kid’s song? Sure, but consider for a moment how much time and money Evangelicals spend indoctrinating their children. (Please see Do Fundamentalist Christians Indoctrinate Their Children?) Throw in Christian nationalism, American exceptionalism, Bible literalism, and “Second Amendment remedies” — why, it is easy to see that, in the future, some Evangelical churches will become training camps for youthful recruits for The Lord’s Army. Preposterous? Perhaps, but consider how easily fascist Donald Trump (and Ron DeSantis) turned countless Evangelicals into supporters of policies that could plunge the United States into civil war.
In 2016, armed Christians took over a government building, believing that God wanted them to take a stand against tyranny and attacks on personal and religious freedom. In 2021, armed, militarized Christians took over the Capitol and tried to overthrow the government. So-called Patriot Pastors are now defiantly breaking federal and state laws, believing that freedom of religion is under attack by liberals, secularists, humanists, and atheists. Calling for more “Christian” laws, scores of Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons now believe that the Separation of Church and State is a myth. Many of the domestic terrorist attacks over the past thirty-five years have been committed by Christians who have turned to violence to right perceived wrongs. White power groups such as the KKK — once thought to be buried beneath the rubble of the race riots of the 1960s — are drawing new soldiers to their war against multiculturalism and non-whites. These groups are almost always Christian.
Given the right circumstances and motivations, I can envision Evangelical churches, pastors, and parents encouraging children to be soldiers in the Christian God’s Army. One need only watch how Westboro Baptist Church uses children to promote bigotry and hatred. Is it really a stretch to think that rabid Christians could turn to violence to advance their agendas? And even if you think I am out of my mind to believe that such things are possible, consider the fact that millions of American children are taught that there is no greater privilege than to give one’s life for Jesus. Be it in a life devoted to servitude or being martyred, these children are taught, “only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last” – Only One Life by C.T. Studd. (Please see The Myth of Persecution by Candida Moss, A Book Review) Martyrdom is very much a part of the many Christian sects. What better way to prove one’s faith than to die for it?
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.
Over the past week, Dr. David Tee, a Fundamentalist preacher whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, unleashed two vitriolic rants about transgender women on his blog. You can read his posts and my response here and here. Showing his inability to feel shame, Thiessen unleashed yet another post today about transgender women.
The Netherlands just happens to be the most recent country to say: The best-looking woman is…. a MAN.[Subjectively, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There is no objective standard for “best-looking woman (or man.) ]
If this problem was not so serious [It’s not, but Tee is convinced, despite evidence to the contrary, that transgender women (and LGBTQ people in general) are an existential threat to Western civilization Transgender demographics], we [I] would be laughing not only at this contestant but all those who support it. What partial;y [sic] bothers [how is someone partially bothered?] us [me] is that the real women [heterosexual] in this and other contests are not feeling insulted by this decision. [Maybe because they aren’t homophobic bigots as Tee is?] Nor are the rest of the women in the world.
This is a very serious insult [No, I suspect most women think being called a bitch or cunt to their face is a serious insult.] made against [heterosexual] women. To think that a man pretending to be a woman is declared the most beautiful [beauty is not the only criterion for winning a beauty contest.] in the Netherlands or other countries that allow fake [transgender] women to enter these contests.
We [I] saw the 1st runner-up and there is no way [again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder] that the ‘winner’ was more beautiful than her. [Why is Tee watching beauty pageants to start with? Personally, I am not a fan. Is not Tee lusting by looking at other women in this matter? Besides, I thought inner beauty is what Evangelicals valued most?] It is a travesty and a tragic turn of events to allow a pretender [transgender woman] to get the throne [crown]. However, we [I] cannot laugh because [I get a boner every time I watch a beauty pageant] this [transgender] person and many like him [her] as well as their [her] supporters are just thinking about evil and doing evil just like it was in the days of Noah. [Evidently, Tee is a mind reader. He is usurping God, is he not, when he says he knows what is in the hearts of transgender women and their supporters? Of course, there was no such thing as the “days of Noah.” Genesis is fiction, David. How many times do I need to tell you this?]
They [Transgender women] are also not getting the mental health therapy [because many of them don’t need it. And those who do have a hard time paying for it or finding a therapist trained in their specific needs.] Because the liberals, democrats, and others on the left champion the so-called [actual, constitutional] rights of these mentally ill [everyday, ordinary people], they are barred from receiving the proper help [Biblical counseling, reparative therapy, casting out of demons].
No [bigoted, homophobic] Christian should be happy with this situation as these contests insult your wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters. They also rob those and other women of opportunities and awards that are rightfully theirs. [What, to win a fucking crown or get their 15 minutes of fame? I have a wife, sister, daughters, and daughters-in-law. Not one of them thinks a beauty pageant-winning transgender woman has robbed them of anything. Tee is projecting his homophobic bigotry on heterosexual women.]
It is not Christian love, loving your neighbor, or loving others as Jesus loved [Jesus had absolutely nothing to say about LGBTQ people. Tee knows this, but he projects his homophobic bigotry on Jesus too.] when you support these mentally ill people [transgender women]. Then allow them to practice their delusions in public as well as include them in events they have no right entering.
Supporting these people is not making a healthy society but destroying it.
“They treat us as monsters.” They are monsters for only a monster would mutilate their bodies [gender reassignment surgery] and let their delusions rule their lives. [Many transgender people never have gender reassignment surgery.] Only monsters would ruin events for innocent real women and erase women from society. [OMG! Transgender women are “erasing” heterosexual women from society? Compare the number of transgender women in America — less than one percent — to the number of heterosexual, lesbian, and bisexual women. Why, this is akin to saying Mauritius is an existential threat to the United States.]
But as Christians, we are to treat them like we want to be treated thus these people need to be sent to therapy [forced reeducation camps], and barred [locked up in prison] from entering mainstream society until they are cured of their delusions. They are not to be supported in this manner but housed, fed, and treated like human beings who are sick and in need of a doctor.
At no time can we support their desires because those desires are sinful, wrong, and not biblical [The United States and Western society, for the most part, are secular. What the Bible says plays no part in law and governance.] They harm innocent women through their inclusion and demands to be included and seen as women [the record is skipping, David. Bump the record player]. There is nothing Christian in them that can be supported. [Of course, the same can be said about Tee; a man who abandoned his family; a man who fled the United States to avoid legal problems; a man who didn’t pay child support for his child; a man who routinely shows no evidence of the fruit of the Spirt and daily ignores and disobeys Jesus’ teachings on how to treat transgender women.]
They need proper spiritual help to overcome these fantasies. They also need to be banned from all things related to women. [Jesus, talk about being all Hitler-like about transgender women.] The reverse is true if there are women pretending to be men. [Tee wants all transgender people to be incarcerated until they are “cured.”]
While we [I] do not condone hate messages or threats [liar, liar, pants on fire], we [I] also do not like these people forcing their delusions on society. [Using Tee’s illogical logic, how are transgender women any different from Evangelicals who try to force their delusions on society? Should we have them arrested and incarcerated until they are cured of their delusions?] Or forcing society to accept their pretend identities are normal. They are not normal but deep cries for help.
Including them in these and other female events is NOT providing the help they need. We need to protect our women from this psychological invasion of those who cannot accept themselves for who they are and how God made them.
The LGBTQ preferences are sinful, not normal, not biblical and not to be supported or accepted. The only thing we can do with and for these people is to treat them as Jesus would and get them the correct help they need [and arrest and incarcerate them until they see the “light.”]
— end of quote —
Please share your thoughts in the comment section. This should be fun! 🙂
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.
In the post, Why I Hate Jesus, I wrote four sentences about abortion. Here’s what I said:
This Jesus, no matter the circumstance, demands that a woman carry her fetus to term. Child of a rapist, afflicted with a serious birth defect, the product of incest or a one night stand? It matters not. This Jesus is pro-life.
That’s it.
Yesterday, a man who I assume is an Evangelical Christian left the following comment (which he later deleted) about these four sentences:
I would argue with you on only one point. You say this “Jesus” is pro-life and demands that a child be carried to full-term, regardless of handicap or disability of the child. Another man argued for only perfect babies being born. His name was Adolf Hitler. If you weren’t a “perfect” child, you were put in a hospital by your very own parents, and “caring” doctors would look over you, until it was time for you to get clean. They brought you to a shower room where you undressed, were hurded [sic] into a room full of shower heads and…. given the Nazi history…. You know the rest. “Loving” parents? “Caring” doctors? Throw away babies that are “damaged” goods, and what? Throw away children who are? Throw away teens who are? Throw away adults who are? After all, it’s for the “greater good” of society.
I’m sorry, but as an autistic child whose mother was told, “put him in the loony bin”, I take offense at that. My mother refused, and she raised me, gave me the best care, put me in the best special ed program she could find. Today I am a college graduate with a computer science degree, a successful career, a wife and two children who are honor students. “Damaged” goods? Some people would challenge you on that.
If you can argue for abortion on the argument that the child is “defective”, then who is safe? Are you? Could you crash your car tomorrow, put your head through the windshield and be brain dead for the rest of your life? (a la Terri Scheivo [sic]?) Should they kill you then? What if you “recover” to the point where you have the mind of a 3rd grader, but still have all of your feelings, emotions, likes, tastes and hurts? Should they still kill you because you’re not “perfect”? Should they kill people over 70 because they’re not “productive” members of society anymore? Where does it end? How “perfect” does society have to be? Where does the quest for a perfect society’s interference with the individual right to life, liberty and persuit [sic] of happiness end?
You can like or hate Jesus given the hypocrisy of modern Christianity, which is a stench! But please dispense with your utopian, perfect society model of Karl Marx or Lenin or Hitler or whoever your favorite “wordly” philosopher is. While I may agree with you about the “modern” Jesus, I acknowledge that there is a Devil, and this philosophy comes straight from him out of the pits of Hell.
All I could do is sigh and shake my head.
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.
The day before our wedding on July 15, 1978, I picked up the baby-blue tuxedos at the wedding apparel shop, met my groomsmen, and we caravanned southeast from Pontiac, Michigan to Newark, Ohio. The trip should have taken about four hours, but I decided we would take the scenic route instead. This little detour added two hours to our trip. My groomsmen, soloist, and ushers were NOT happy with me. 🙂
Finally, we arrived in Newark. I had rented two rooms at a cheap motel, two blocks from Polly’s parent’s home. After settling in, I decided it would be a good idea to try on our tuxes — which should have been done while we were still in Pontiac. We quickly found out that one of my groomsmen’s pants was the wrong size. Panicked, we drove to Polly’s parent’s home, hoping Mom could let out the seat of the pants. She was able to do so, but the pants had a single stitch line holding them together — a precarious situation to say the least.
Polly and I got into some sort of argument while we were there. The subject has long since been forgotten, but the picture in my mind of Polly stomping up the stairs is not. Mom said Polly was quite stressed out and suggested we avoid each other until the rehearsal dinner. Good advice.
We had an expensive catered rehearsal dinner, KFC, at Moundbuilder’s Park — a Native American burial ground (Newark Earthworks). The highlight of the dinner was one of my groomsmen, Mike, singing the first two stanzas of the Battle of New Orleans, complete with physical animation:
In 1814 we took a little trip Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississipp’ We took a little bacon and we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a coming There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago We fired once more and they began to running Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Mike also sang a song about Daniel Boone, you know the song that says “Daniel Boone was a man, was a big man, But the bear was bigger so he ran like a nigger up a tree.” It was the 70s. I doubt many in our party would have been okay with this song today.
Afterward, we drove to the Newark Baptist Temple for our wedding rehearsal. No memory of significance comes to mind about the rehearsal. Polly and I said good night to one another, anticipating with joy and excitement our big day.
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.
In late August 1976, Polly Shope and Bruce Gerencser moved into the Midwestern Baptist College dormitory. Polly planned to catch her a preacher boy and I planned to prepare for the ministry. Polly hailed from Bay City, Michigan, but had spent the previous four years in Pontiac while her father completed his education. After graduation, Polly’s father moved his family to Newark, Ohio so he could begin a new job as the assistant pastor of the Newark Baptist Temple. The Baptist Temple was pastored by Polly’s uncle James “Jim” Dennis, a 1960s graduate of Midwestern. Polly’s parents moved into an apartment after moving to Newark, and it was from here that Polly packed up her meager belongings in a 1972 AMC Hornet and drove four and a half hours north to Midwestern’s dormitory.
I was living at the time with my mother and her drunkard husband near Edgerton, Ohio. The previous year, after a tumultuous break-up with my girlfriend, I moved from Sierra Vista, Arizona to Bryan, Ohio. I spent the next year working as the dairy manager for Foodland, with the intent of going off to college in August 1976.
On the appointed day, I packed my belongings into a late-1960s Plymouth and drove two hours and thirty minutes northeast to Pontiac. I had two goals: study for the ministry and date lots of girls. As this story unfolds, you shall see that the latter goal never came to fruition.
The flirting between Polly and I began almost immediately. I was nineteen, and she was seventeen. While I had dated a lot before college, Polly had no dating experience. Both of us dated someone else for a week or two before our flirtations turned into me asking her out on a date.
Midwestern had strict rules about dating and physical contact between couples. (Please see Thou Shalt Not Touch: The Six-Inch Rule.) We had been dating for almost four months before we kissed for the first time.
It was not long before our relationship took a serious turn. “I love you” first came from my lips, but Polly quickly reciprocated. I had no doubt that Polly was the one for me, and Polly believed the same about that fiery redheaded country boy from Ohio. We spent as much time as we could with each other. Polly learned I loved to talk, and I discovered that she was quiet, shy, and reserved — traits both of us have to this day.
Six months in, we talked about getting married, knowing we would have to wait until the summer of 1978 to tie the knot. (Midwestern forbade freshmen from marrying.) I bought Polly a 1/4-carat diamond engagement ring at Sears and Roebuck for $225. I decided I would ask Polly to marry me on Valentine’s Day. Dating students were required to double date, so I asked fellow rule breakers John and Sandy to go out on a date with us. We planned to seal our engagement with a kiss, so we didn’t want to choose the wrong dating partners lest we end up getting campused or expelled for breaking the six-inch rule.
On the second Saturday night in February, we ate at a now-forgotten restaurant and then drove to a multi-story parking garage in Birmingham — a place frequented by dorm couples due to its dim, secluded environment. We drove to the top of the garage, and it was there that I asked Polly to marry me. She said yes! and we embraced and kissed, sealing our commitment to one another.
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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Matt asked, In your IFB days did you ever encounter Peter Ruckman? If so what was/is your assessment of him?
For readers who are not familiar with Peter Ruckman, Wikipedia has this to say about him:
Peter Ruckman was an American Independent Baptist pastor and founder of Pensacola Bible Institute in Pensacola, Florida (not to be confused with Pensacola Christian College).
Ruckman was known for his position that the King James Version constituted “advanced revelation” and was the final, preserved word of God for English speakers.
Ruckman died in 2016 at the age of ninety-four. He was a graduate of Bob Jones University, and for many years the pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. Bible Baptist’s website describes Ruckman this way:
Dr. Peter S. Ruckman (November 19, 1921 – April 21, 2016) received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alabama and finished his formal education with six years of training at Bob Jones University (four full years and two accelerated summer sessions), completing requirements for the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degree.
Reading at a rate of seven hundred words per minute, Dr. Ruckman had managed to read about 6,500 books before receiving his doctorate at an average of a book each day.
Dr. Ruckman stood for the absolute authority of the Authorized Version and offered no apology to any recognized scholar anywhere for his stand. In addition to preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible, Dr. Ruckman produced a comprehensive collection of apologetic and polemic literature and resources supporting the authority of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures.
The thrice-married Ruckman was either loved or hated by IFB preachers. He was a man known to engender strife, believing that rightness of belief was all that mattered (except, evidently, what the Bible said about divorce). Much like their mentor, his followers are known for their arrogance, nastiness, and argumentative spirit.
I first met Peter Ruckman at Camp Chautauqua in Miamisburg, Ohio — an IFB youth camp owned and operated at the time by the Ohio Baptist Bible Fellowship. I attended Camp Chautauqua two summers in the early 1970s. Attending camp was one of the highlights of my teenage years. Lots of fun, lots of girls, and yes, lots of preaching. One year, Ruckman was the featured speaker. I don’t remember much about his sermons, but I vividly remember the chalk drawings he used to illustrate his sermons. Ruckman was a skillful, talented chalk artist, so he naturally used his art to “hook” people and reel them into his peculiar brand of IFB Christianity.
This would be the only time I heard Ruckman preach. I later would read some of his polemical books and commentaries and come into close contact with some of his followers. While I believed, at the time, as Ruckman did, that the King James Bible was the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God and the only Bible for English-speaking people, I found his personality and ministerial approach (and that of his devotees) to be so caustic and abrasive that I wanted nothing to do with him.
I would later learn that King James-Onlyism was not only irrational and anti-intellectual, but in its extreme forms, it was a cult. I know a few pastors who are still devoted followers of Ruckman’s teachings. They are, in every way, small men whose lives have been ruined by arrogance and certainty of belief. The only cure I know for this disease is books written by men such as Dr. Bart Ehrman. Until they can at least consider the possibility that they might be wrong, there is no hope for them.
In 2005, I candidated at a Southern Baptist church in Weston, West Virginia. The church was very interested in me becoming their next pastor. One problem — I had preached my trial sermons from the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible. One of the core families was a follower of Peter Ruckman. The pulpit committee asked if, out of deference to this family, I would only preach from the KJV. I told them that I couldn’t (and wouldn’t) make such a promise. The church decided I wasn’t the man for them. Such is the pernicious effect of Ruckmanism; causing controversy and division wherever it is found.
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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On August 8, 2023, Ohio voters will have the opportunity to vote no on Issue One; to turn back a Republican attempt to keep a simple majority of citizens from successfully exercising their right to overturn and invalidate egregious laws or amend the Ohio Constitution. We must not let this happen. That aside, we must not lose sight of why Republicans are so desperate to pass Issue One next month. One word: abortion.
In November, voters will have the opportunity to pass the Reproductive Rights Amendment. The passage of this amendment will legalize abortion in Ohio and put an end to Evangelical and conservative Catholic attempts to abolish and criminalize abortion. Left to their own devices, God’s Only Party will criminalize abortion, take away exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, and ban certain forms of birth control. In other words, Republicans want to force women to give birth regardless of their circumstances.
700,000 signatures were collected to put the Reproductive Rights Amendment on the November ballot. 700,000! Republicans know that this number alone is a sign that the amendment will pass. So, using Issue One, they want to change the percentage of votes for passage from fifty percent to sixty percent. This ten percent swing could be enough to defeat the Reproductive Rights Amendment.
Forced birthers are primarily motivated by their religious beliefs. Most of them vote Republican. All of us have a right to believe whatever we want about God and life. However, we don’t have the right to force our religious views on others. Whether to have an abortion is a personal decision. If conservative Christians don’t want to get an abortion, fine, they don’t have to get one. End of discussion. However, other women may believe differently. Should they not have the right to make medical decisions for themselves? Republicans have no business getting in between a pregnant woman and her doctor.
If Ohioans who support the reproductive rights of women and think majority rule is sacrosanct turn out and vote, we will turn back the latest attempt by Ohio Republicans to force their religious beliefs on all of us. We will let them know that we have no intention of giving up the power to turn back egregious laws passed by legislators who are out of touch with everyday Ohioans.
Bruce Gerencser Ney, Ohio
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.
Alan Schlemon is a Biola University-trained Evangelical apologist; a man who allegedly “train[s] Christians to persuasively, yet graciously share their convictions.”
Baskin-Robbins was my go-to place for ice cream when I was a kid. At the time, they boasted “31 flavors.” With that many options, I was sure to find one that would satisfy my craving.
Though it makes sense to choose your favorite flavor of ice cream, it seems strange to take this approach when figuring out whether you’re a man or a woman. Not long ago, that aspect of who you are wasn’t decided, but discovered. You were born either male or female and grew up to be either a man or a woman.
Not so today.
….
Although many factors probably play a role, the emergence of these “identities” is not surprising. Society has jettisoned belief in God. When you reject your Maker, you reject the one who establishes your identity. People, though, naturally want to belong. They crave to connect with a community of people who share their values and feelings. With the Maker gone, there’s an identity vacuum that begs for a new way to view oneself. It makes sense that the concept of gender identity was born. There’s a potentially endless offering of identities.
With no external Maker to tell them who they are, people look internally. Often, they tap into their inner thoughts and feelings in an attempt to create their own identity. They’re basing their identity on their internal experience, an approach that is fraught with problems.
First, it presumes your inner thoughts are a reliable source for determining your identity. Everyone knows that thoughts and feelings change. What you experience one day can differ tomorrow, next month, or next year. If you base your identity on your internal experience, your identity will change on a regular basis.
But why think your internal states determine your identity? Of all the aspects of a person, why ground identity in an abstract and ever-changing component? That’s why the body is meant to signal one’s identity. After all, if you ground identity in your body, then it’s hard to mistake what sex you are and impossible for it to change over time. This allows your identity to endure. You remain the same no matter how you feel or how you express yourself.
Second, it presumes your identity is a matter of choice, not an objective reality. Choosing an ice cream flavor is a matter of preference—just pick what you like. Today you might want Oreo cookie ice cream, but next month it might be mint chocolate chip. There’s no problem with changing your favorite flavor because it is your prerogative to choose what ice cream you eat.
….
If identity is an enduring part of who you are, then leaving it up to a personal decision is problematic. People end up identifying as one or more of dozens of possible identities based on how they feel inside. It becomes a subjective exercise. We allow children to do that when they role-play. They might pretend to be a pirate, prince, or princess. We recognize they might feel the internal bravery of a prince, but everyone knows they are not objectively a prince.
Third, it presumes you are like God. You’re not the Creator, though. You didn’t make you. Determining who you are is, frankly, above your pay grade. If you create something yourself, you have full knowledge of the process, the materials, and the purpose of what you made. That’s when you can decide its identity.
….
Mere mortals shouldn’t take the role of the divine. Since the Creator creates the creature, it’s his prerogative to decide his creation’s identity. Transgender ideology subverts the role of the Maker by allowing the creature to determine its identity.
….
Our Maker, though, knows best. He not only made us; he loves us. That’s why we can trust him and ground our identity in him.
There are eight billion people in the world, yet Schlemon believes most of them are living in denial of or are rejecting their “true identity.” Schlemon, a presuppositionalist, lives in a black-and-white world. People are saved or lost; in or out; headed for Heaven or Hell. Either we accept our true identity or we live in denial of our identity. Of course, the world is far messier than Schlemon would like it to be. It seems the Christian God lacks competence when creating human beings and the world they live in.
There’s much I could say about Schlemon’s post, but I want to focus on a fatal flaw in his thinking. Schelmon says our true identity comes from God. Fine, when we are born, what is our true identity? Evangelicals believe that all humans at birth are sinners; enemies of God. We don’t become sinners, we are sinners. That’s our identity. Yet, if people want their sins forgiven and want to go to Heaven after they die, they must change their original identity (whether by regeneration, an act of volition, or both). So, people can and do change their identities. In fact, the Bible says newly saved sinners become new creations in Christ, old things pass away, and all things become new.
Further, Evangelical Christians identify with a plethora of sects, beliefs, and identities. They have peculiar traits by which we can identify them as Baptists, Charismatics, Pentecostals, Calvinists, Arminians, Independent Fundamentalist Baptists, etc. These religious traits are very much a part of their identity, are they not? And don’t Evangelicals change identities? I know I did.
People personally choose whether to believe (or not) and, after believing, they choose which sect they want to identify with. Surely, Schlemon would agree that these are individual and personal decisions. How are these decisions any different from people choosing their gender? Of course, Schlemon, much like the homophobe Dr. David Tee, denies that there are multiple genders; that there are more than two sexes. He can deny these scientific facts all he wants, but the fact remains that there are more than two sexes and there are more than two genders. Certainly, we need to discuss how gender is chosen and how people identify with a particular gender. But, people change their minds, Schlemon says. Yep, what is his point? I am sixty-six years old. My life has been one of frequent movement and change. My identity has changed dramatically over the years. Why this is so can be explained from a sociological perspective — no deity needed (though certainly the fifty years I spent in the Evangelical church influenced and affected my identity).
I will leave it to you, the reader, to further challenge Schlemon’s assertions. Enjoy!
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.
