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Tag: Evangelicalism

How Will People Know Our Home is a ‘Godly’ Home?

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spider-man

Snark ahead. If you are an easily offended Evangelical, please leave now before you feel a wedgie coming on.

Fundamentalist Nancy Campbell, blogger extraordinaire for the Above Rubies website, asks the question What Goes on in Your Home? Campbell wants to know if people “feel” the presence of God when they come into a Christian’s home:

Do the people who come into your home feel the presence of God? Are your neighbors and those around you aware that your home belongs to God?…

…How will folks know your home is truly God’s home? It will be a house of prayer. Jesus said, “My house will be called a house of prayer.” Sadly, not much prayer happens in Christian homes today, but if our home is called by God’s name it will be filled with prayer. It will be filled with confessing the name of the Lord throughout the day. It will be filled with the riches of His Word. It will be filled with joy, singing, and God-inspired music. It will be filled with the inspiration of a mother who delights to be in her home, nurturing, feeding, and training her children to be God-seekers and God-lovers.

How are people on the earth going to know the name of the Lord? When they see our homes called by the name of the Lord. When they see that He lives in our homes. Everything comes back to the family and the home. We can get involved in all kinds of ministry, but if God doesn’t fill our homes, we miss the boat. It grieves my heart to see many people serving the Lord in different organizations and yet their families are in disarray…

Campbell thinks that a Christian’s home can give off some sort of God vibe, a feeling that resonates with the person entering the home. Evangelicals are taught that they have some sort spidey sense that allows them to discern whether a person is a Christian. While their interpretation is out of context and does violence to the text, many Evangelicals think Romans 8:16 is a proof text for their Christian spidey-sense:

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God

According to Evangelicals such as Campbell, a Christian should be able to walk into a home and “sense” that they are in home owned by bought by the blood, filled with the Holy Ghost, followers of J-E-S-U-S (please emphasize the word Jesus like Oral Roberts or Robert Tilton or Benny Hinn would). Here’s the problem with this kind of thinking; if the standard for a Christian home is that it exudes love, joy, peace, and kindness, well . . . I know of many homes that are like this and none of them is remotely Christian. I also know of scores of Christian homes where the pretend Christian game is on full display when other Christians are around, but as soon as their fellow believers walk out the door the home reverts to some sort of Simpsons/Girls Gone Wild/Animal House/One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest home.  Anyone can fake it. I guarantee you that Polly and I could, come Sunday, put on our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, dust off our KJV Bibles, and visit a nearby Evangelical church and everyone would think we are a wonderful Christian family; especially if we have Bethany the love magnet with us. Everyone would “sense” that we are super-duper Christians on fire for Jesus, especially once they hear Polly and I lustily sing harmonies on whatever song the band is playing. And their sense would be dead wrong.

The infallible marks of whether one is part of the Evangelical club are not some sort of seventh sense, can’t say sixth sense since six is the first number in the mark of Obama, 666. Evangelicals recognize one another by the clothes they wear, what bumper stickers are on the back of their cars, what euphemisms/cliches people use in their speech, and how much Jesus Junk® is on display in their cars, homes, and places of employment.  Ask any former Evangelical, they can spot fellow believers or homeschooling families from a mile away.  Polly and I can be shopping at Meijer and we will see a family in the distance and both of us will say, homeschoolers. We will then laugh, remembering that we were, for many years, THAT family.

How do you know which cars in the parking lot belong to Evangelicals? It’s the cars with a faded Ronald Reagan bumper sticker, Obama is the Anti-Christ sticker, a partially removed George W Bush bumper sticker, a Trump 2020 sticker, an Abortion Stops a Beating Heart sticker, and/or a bumper sticker that advertises what church they attend. If you look closely, you will likely see a Bible in the back window, right where it landed when it was chucked there after church last Sunday. If you don’t see it in the back window, move closer to the car, acting like you are trying to steal it, and look down at the floor. You might see a Bible stuffed under the front seat, partially covered by a McDonald’s Big Mac wrapper.

Drive by their houses and what will you see? Wind chimes with a small Christian cross as the chime ringer, a brightly colored gnome holding a sign that says Welcome! This is a Christian Home; a Jesus is Lord doormat, and out by the front of the house a sign that says Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, A Christian Lives Here, or Protect Religious Freedom, or some other sign recently purchased from one of the fear-mongering Evangelical parachurch groups.

Once inside their homes, what will you see? Everywhere you look you’ll see Jesus kitsch, likely made by child labor in China or some third-world country. From Bible verse signs and paintings by Christian alcoholic, the late Thomas Kincade to clock chimes that play Sweet Hour of Prayer, and potholders with Christian slogans, Jesus will be on display everywhere you look. In their bookcases, you will notice deep intellectual books by Tim LaHaye, Kay Arthur, Joyce Meyer, and Beth Moore, and dusty, well-worn copies of The Prayer of Jabez and The Purpose Driven Life. (What!! Harry Potter? Starting to wonder what kind of Christian home this is.) Even in the bathroom there will be no escaping Jesus. Try as you might to defecate in peace, Jesus and the trappings of 21st-century Christianity will be staring you in the face. J-E-S-U-S is everywhere (please say Jesus in the voice mentioned above).

team jesus

Visit them at their offices, what will you see? You will likely see a picture of their family sitting on the desk, but the picture will be housed in a frame that says. As For Me and My House, We Will Serve the Lord. The calendar on the wall will bear the name of the church they attend or an Evangelical parachurch group they support. Perhaps there will be a Bible or the latest Christian get-rich-quick book sitting next to the family portrait.  The screen saver on their computer will have a picture of Jesus or a Bible verse. Everywhere you look you will see visible proof that the person who works in this cubicle is on Team Jesus®.

And here’s the thing, all the things I’ve mentioned in this post that are meant to say to other Evangelicals, Hey, we are on the same team, mean nothing. I suspect the home Josh Duggar grew up in had plenty of Jesus Junk®. I suspect the homes of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, Eddie Long, Jack Hyles, Jack Schaap, David Hyles, Paula White, David Loveless, and Tullian Tchividjian, to name of few of the Evangelical pastors who have run into sexual “sin”, gave the appearance that they were devoted, spirit-filled followers of Jesus. Yet, in real life, they were fornicators, adulterers, abusers, and child molesters.

All that the Jesus Junk® tells you is that the family has enough disposable income to invest in the cheap trappings of Evangelicalism. The clothing and the outward appearance of a person tells you nothing about what kind of person they really are. Anyone can play the Evangelical game. Give me a few days and I can take a Muslim couple and turn them into Bob and Marsha Evangelical. The Evangelical shtick is easy to reproduce, so much so that anyone can do it. I correspond with closeted atheists who attend Evangelical churches every Sunday with their believing spouses. Everyone thinks the atheist is a Jesus-loving, praise-and-worship-singing Baptist.  I also correspond with several closeted atheist pastors. Everything about their lives, including their demeanor, says to others, I am a follower of Jesus, Yet, if an Evangelical knew they were an atheist they would say the person is a follower of Satan.

Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t know what a person is made of.  While we can never know all there is to know about a person, we can, over time, observe their life, and come to a conclusion about the kind of person they are. Here’s what Evangelicals need to understand. Non-Christians are not interested in or wowed by the consumer culture on display in your home, car, or workplace. They aren’t interested in what takes place on Sunday Morning at the church you call home. They are not interested in your Ken and Barbie pastor. What does interest them is the words you speak and your behavior, not only in public, but also when no one is looking. How do you treat your spouse, children, and grandchildren? How do you act towards minorities, the weak, the defenseless, and the marginalized? How do you treat those who are not your flavor of Christianity or vote differently than you do? How do you respond to those who have no interest in your God and have told you please don’t? What do your non-Christian coworkers say about you?

These days, when I see an Evangelical whose life is a walking billboard for the Christian Ghetto®, I immediately doubt they are what they say they are. They are trying too hard to be viewed as a Christian. They are like the car dealer who tells you he is the most honest dealer in town or the husband who tells everyone around him how faithful he is to his wife. I don’t trust those who have to publicize their virtuous character. Just live it and everyone will notice.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: L.A. Marzulli Says the Nephilim Are Flying the UFOs People Report Seeing

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tinfoil hat

The exploration of the Nephilim and their connection to UFOs has long been a subject of fascination and speculation. From ancient biblical texts to modern-day sightings and revelations, this enigmatic topic has captivated the attention of many.

It is often dismissed or overlooked due to a lack of understanding or a secular worldview. Although award-winning author, filmmaker, and internationally recognized specialist on the Nephilim L.A. Marzulli says to the logical Christian, it all may sound outlandish, it is indeed very real.

….

At the core of Marzulli’s and his team’s exploration is Genesis 6, where the union of the “sons of God” and the “daughters of man” gave birth to the Nephilim. While this passage is often dismissed as a fantastical tale, a closer examination reveals a deeper spiritual reality.

The term ‘sons of God’ consistently refers to angelic beings throughout the Bible, linking the UFO phenomenon to the ancient Nephilim. But it’s Genesis 3:15, the ancient and one of the most well-known stories of the Bible, that Marzulli says is “the nexus,” or basis, of the entire discussion about the Nephilim.

Understanding Genesis 3:15 is crucial in comprehending the ongoing cosmic battle between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the dragon. This battle culminates in the person of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The pre-incarnate Christ’s presence in the garden and His declaration to the serpent foreshadowed His redemptive mission on Earth. The war between good and evil, initiated by the Nephilim incursion, sets the stage for the entire biblical narrative.

Researchers, including anthropologist Rick Woodward, argue that these anomalies point to genetic manipulation by the Nephilim. Genetic analyses of the Paracas skulls have revealed Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and Baltic Sea haplogroups, challenging established historical narratives.

While the charismatic Christian perspective on the Nephilim and UFOs may differ from secular interpretations, it offers a unique and spiritually grounded understanding of these phenomena. By recognizing the biblical foundation and the ongoing spiritual warfare, we gain insights into the mysteries that have captivated humanity for centuries.

Video Link

— Shawn Akers, Charisma News, Are the Nephilim the Key to the UFO Mystery?, July 6, 2023

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

I ‘Heart’ You, Says God

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i heart you god

As Polly and I were traveling to Lake Erie and the Marblehead Lighthouse, we came upon the billboard pictured above. For Christians, the message is perfectly clear: Jesus or the Christian God loves them. However, for the unbeliever or the skeptic, the message is not so clear.

First, which God? Christians presuppose that their God is the one, true, and living God. All other gods are false deities. Since I don’t start my rational inquiry with the notion that the Christian God left this message for me or anyone else traveling by, I ask again, which God? This is the same argument I use when Christians try to argue that the wonders of the natural world testify to the existence of God. Fine, I say, so WHICH God? It is not evident from creation that the Christian God or any other God created everything. To come to the conclusion that the Christian God created everything as we now see it requires accepting as true what is written in Genesis 1-3, a belief that runs contrary to everything science tells us about the universe.

Second, the I ‘HEART” U message is not at all clear. Most people assume that the message means I love you. However, according to the Urban Dictionary, this phrase has several different meanings:

  • Words uttered by a person not ready to say I love you
  • Words not as serious as I love you
  • I have feelings for you
  • I love you

This undefined God, does he really love me, or does he just have feelings for me? Perhaps he is not ready to make a commitment to me. There is nothing in the message that would lead me to conclude that this God loves or has feelings for me. This is how I view the Bible, just ink on paper. There is nothing in the Bible that would lead me to conclude that the Christian God loves me.

You see, love is not measured by words on a printed billboard or page. Just because an undefined God’s name is attached to a nonspecific phrase like I ‘HEART’ U doesn’t mean that any specific God loves me. Polly and I will celebrate forty-five years of marriage next week. We’ve written a lot of letters to each other over the years, yet both of us would agree that love is shown, not in what a person says or writes on paper, but by what he or she does. In other words, when it comes it love, don’t tell me, show me.

We have an ancient book, the Bible, that tells us the Jewish/Christian God at one time, in the person of Jesus, walked among us, yet no one has drawn a picture or snapped a photograph of this God. All we have to go on are ancient writings by unknown authors. If knowing this I ‘HEART’ U God is so important, don’t you think he would make an appearance now and then and let us know that he is alive and kicking? Jesus could settle things right now for everyone by coming back to earth and working a few miracles. Allow the press to report the miracles, allow photographers to shoot the Son of Man doing his miracle show, and perhaps let National Geographic do a feature spread on the mighty works of the Lord. Better yet, Jesus could make an appearance on America’s Got Talent and give a miraculous performance — say raising someone from the dead or regrowing an amputated leg. Billions would fall on their knees and worship Jesus if this happened.

Instead, Jesus spends all his time building rooms in the heavenly Trump Hotel for his chosen ones. According to the Bible, when Jesus ascended back to Heaven, he left a spirit form of himself behind, the Holy Spirit/Ghost. Supposedly, this Spirit/Ghost lives inside every Christian, teaching them everything that pertains to life and godliness. Of course, there is no evidence given for this claim other than what is printed on the pages of the Bible.

If I believe what is written in the Bible about the nature and good works of the followers of Jesus, I can safely conclude that no one is a Christian. If the new life of the born-again Christian is supposed to be radically different from the life of the non-Christian, where can I find these radically different Christians? If the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, where are the Christians who evidence such fruit?

The proof of any religion is the product it produces. An apple tree might look nice with all its green foliage, but unless it blossoms and produces fruit it has no value. So it is with Christianity, especially here in the United States. It looks nice with all its ornate, expensive buildings and well-dressed clergy, but a Christianity that takes seriously the teachings of Jesus is nowhere to be found. Why is this? 2,000 years removed from Jesus, Christianity has been reduced to a generic, nondescript, cheesy slogan on a billboard. Is this all Christianity has to offer the world after twenty-one centuries?

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Should Atheists Disabuse Christians of Their Beliefs?

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good news

Everywhere one looks, Christians can be found. All sorts of Christians — Fundamentalist, Evangelical, Progressive, Liberal — with countless shades and nuances. The majority of Americans profess to believe in the Christian God. Most Americans believe that the Bible is in one way or another the word of God. Most Americans believe that Jesus is the son of God and that he died on the cross for human sin and resurrected from the dead three days later. Most Americans believe that the Christian God created the universe. It is safe to say that the United States is a Christian nation; not in the sense that people such as David Barton use the phrase “Christian nation,” but in the sense that Christianity permeates every aspect of American life. That some Christians are now saying that they are “persecuted” is laughable.

Expressions of Christianity can be found everywhere one looks. Christian churches are found in every American community. Christian congregations and pastors are subsidized by taxpayer money. Churches are exempt from paying real estate and sales tax, and their ministers’ housing is tax-exempt. Ministers are even permitted to opt out of paying Social Security tax. Donations to churches are tax exempt. No matter how opulent church facilities might be or how rich ministers might become, every dollar of church income is tax-exempt. Not only are financial and in-kind gifts tax-exempt, but donors receive tax deductions for their donations. Government agencies steer a wide berth around religion, rarely sticking their nose in its business. The Internal Revenue Service is so scared of intruding upon churches that it goes out of its way to NOT investigate clear and egregious violations of the separation of church and state.

In recent years, atheism, agnosticism, secularism, and religious indifference have numerically increased as young Americans in particular look at the religious scene and say no thanks. Christian sects are hemorrhaging members, as church leaders scramble to plug the increasingly expansive hole in the membership dike. They rightly understand that if they are unable to keep young adults in the church, they are but a generation or two away from extinction. This is particularly true for smaller churches that have lost scores of members to megachurches and larger churches. Unable to compete, smaller churches are slowly dying, the result of the corporate, entertainment mindset that now dominates the Christian landscape. That and an unwillingness on the part of churches to adapt to cultural change.  Those of us who are not Christians observe this decline from the outside, cheering on those who cannibalize their own. Surely we would all be better off without Christianity, atheists say. While it can certainly be debated whether we would actually be better off without Christianity, it is certainly clear that religious belief has caused untold damage.

I spent fifty years of my life in the Evangelical church. Twenty-five of those years were devoted to pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Michigan, and Texas. I have come in contact with thousands of people who self-identified as Christians. I have intimately known countless people who believe the Bible is the word of God, and that it is a guidebook for living life. These Christians believe that the Bible tells us all we need to know about life — both now and after death. How should atheists respond to Christians who believe their particular flavor of Christianity is “truth?” How should atheists respond to those who believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God? What is our duty — if any — to those who are committed followers of Jesus? Should atheists, when presented with an opportunity to do so, disabuse Christians of their beliefs? Does it really matter what people believe?

The atheist community is certainly not of one mind on these issues. Some atheists think that religious belief should be challenged at every opportunity. Some atheists think that religious belief deserves mockery and ridicule.  Other atheists take a live-and-let-live attitude. Don’t bother me and I won’t bother you, these atheists say.

The question raised in this post — should atheists disabuse Christians of their beliefs? — comes from an atheist who recently engaged in a discussion with a Christian minister about religious faith and atheism. She wondered if atheists should bother trying to engage people who are resolutely committed to Christianity, its God, and its religious text – the Bible. What follows is my answer.

I tend to take an incremental approach to engaging people of faith. This has led some atheists to label me as an accommodationist. I have often been accused of being too soft or nice to Christians, which is ironic because many Christians think I am hostile toward Christianity. I suppose that atheists and Christians alike are right. I can be hostile toward any form of Christianity that psychologically and physically harms people. I am certainly hostile toward any religious system that impedes progress and the betterment of the human race. That said, when dealing with people I think have doubts and questions about Christianity, I tend to be patient and long-suffering, hoping that I can, through reason and kindness, help them move away from the suffocating constraints of Christianity — particularly Evangelicalism. I play the game, realizing — as it did for me — that it might take years for someone to come to the conclusion that what they have believed for years is a lie. Assaulting such people with every possible atheistic weapon rarely results in deconversion. Unlike Evangelicals with their born-again experiences, the path to atheism is often a long and winding road, with many starts and stops along the way.

How should atheists respond when Christian zealots make a deliberate attempt to evangelize them or deliver them from what Christians believe are satanic, immoral beliefs? How should atheists respond when Christians make a concerted effort to challenge their beliefs — or lack thereof? Social media is often a prime hunting ground for Christians looking to assert their beliefs and sense of rightness. I’m sure most atheists at one time or another have had to interact with preachy, evangelizing Christian friends and family members on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites. While most of my Facebook friends are atheists or non-Christians, I am friends with several Evangelicals. I post very little atheism-related material on my Facebook wall. I usually post these kind of things on my page. I tell my Facebook friends that if they want to read my writing about religion they should check out my page. On my personal Facebook account, I tend to post cat videos, cartoons, and things that reflect my liberal, socialistic political beliefs. The same cannot be said for my Christian Facebook friends. Virtually every day they post Christian-related stories and memes, and one friend — an out-of-work preacher — has taken to posting what I call paragraph sermons. These sermonettes are often directed towards those who are not Christian, which is strange because the overwhelming majority of his Facebook friends are Evangelical Christians. I think I can safely say that this man’s preaching is directed towards me and my family and other people he has deemed unsaved. This Baptist preacher’s wife tends to post similar material.

One day this preacher’s wife posted something that mentioned atheism. After reading it, I pondered whether I should bother to respond. I did, resulting in a family squabble of sorts. By the next day, her post was removed. I have no idea why. It certainly couldn’t have been due to anything I had written. I was polite, but forceful. This couple, while certainly Fundamentalist, likes to think that they are somehow “different” from hard-core Fundamentalists. I attempted to show that they weren’t, using a tactic I use whenever someone tries to paint themselves as a kinder, gentler, more accepting Christian. I asked if they believed non-Christians would go to Hell when they die. Their answer was an emphatic YES! I told them that the rest of their beliefs really didn’t matter. Anyone who believes that their God will not only fit unbelievers with a fireproof body but also torture them night and day for eternity is every bit as hateful and judgmental as the worst of Fundamentalists. These kind, nice, smiling Fundamentalists want to believe that they are different from their Fundamentalist forefathers, but their abhorrent belief in Hell and the eternal torture of unbelievers makes them every bit as bad.

Why did I bother to engage these Fundamentalists? Surely I knew that nothing would be gained by writing a dissenting comment on the wife’s post. The only reason I did so is because she directly mentioned atheism. I thought, this is my opportunity to put in a word for atheism. While I had hoped my comment might spark honest, thoughtful discussion about Christianity, atheism, and how the family, in general, has treated non-Christians, I also knew that it could turn out as it did. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

It is up to individual atheists to determine when and where they engage the beliefs of Christians. Sometimes, there is no value in attempting to challenge those whose heads are in a bucket of cement. They are deaf and blind, unable to see and hear any other belief but their own. When dealing with such people I take the advice of the Bible — don’t cast your pearls before swine. Atheists can waste tremendous amounts of time talking to people who really have no interest in what they have the say. When I first started blogging sixteen years ago I thought that if I just explained myself to people they would appreciate and understand where I was coming from. I know, quite naïve. A few years back, this issue came up in counseling. I told my counselor that it bothered me that many Christian critics have no interest in hearing my story or allowing me to explain myself. He chuckled and then told me, Bruce, you wrongly think these people give a shit about you. They don’t. And all these years later, I know my counselor is right. Most Christians who engage me are not interested in me as a person. Their goal is to put in a good word for Jesus or to bolster their apologetical skills. Perhaps, deep down they have doubts about their beliefs, and attacking an Evangelical-pastor-turned-atheist helps shout down their doubts and fears.

I think atheists should weigh carefully what might happen if they engage Christians in some sort of dialogue. Sometimes, such engagement can have catastrophic consequences. (Please See Count the Cost Before You Say I am an Atheist.) Atheism is still considered by many to be satanic and immoral. When someone declares their allegiance to atheism, this can and does cause conflict. I have corresponded with atheists who have lost jobs and their marriages over their atheistic beliefs. Try as atheists might to explain that atheism is not a belief system, Christians often already have their minds made up. No amount of discussion about humanism — the moral and ethical framework for most atheists — will suffice. For these Christians, atheists are bad people. I generally don’t bother with such people, again saving my pearls for those who can appreciate them.

The atheist woman who asked the question that has been the subject of this post had a lengthy email discussion with her former Evangelical pastor. This man of God found that she was quite willing and capable to defend atheism and her lack of belief in the Christian God. She told me in an email that she wondered if anyone had ever challenged this pastor concerning his beliefs. Likely not, since most pastors are insulated from any outside challenges to their beliefs. Safe within the confines of their church and study, pastors rarely have to defend what they believe. And when they do, they often turn to books that purport to answer EVERY question posed by unbelievers. As most atheists who have spent significant time engaging Christians know, these books are filled with worn-out clichés, shallow defenses of Christianity, and poor arguments against atheism, secularism, and humanism — arguments that are often easily defeated. When pushed into the corner, pastors will always hold on to three things: personal experience, faith, and the Bible. Of course, such metaphysical claims are beyond rational investigation. Once faith is invoked, discussion ceases.

Over the past sixteen years, I have corresponded with countless pastors. I do my best to thoughtfully and honestly engage them. If they sincerely want my help or just want somebody to talk to, I am more than happy to oblige. When I began walking down the path of unbelief, I was glad I had someone to talk to, someone who was willing to patiently listen and gently challenge my beliefs. The goal in such discussions is not conversion as much as it is to help people move beyond where they are. All atheists agree that religious Fundamentalism is harmful and that helping people see this is vitally important. While it’s great if people embrace unbelief, many won’t. Many times, all atheists can do is become facilitators of sorts, helping people see that there are better ways to live their lives (even if that means they hang on to some sort of religious belief). I am content to leave discussions unfinished, knowing that some people will return a few years later, now ready to finish the discussions begun years before.

In some instances, there is no value in challenging religious beliefs. My wife’s parents were in their 80s when they died. They had been fundamentalist Christians their entire lives. They attended a hard-core Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church for over forty years. My wife’s father was a retired Baptist preacher. While it would have been easy for me to challenge their beliefs, I refrained from doing so. What would I have gained from challenging their lifelong beliefs about God, Jesus, sin, salvation, and life after death? There’s nothing I could have said that would ever have caused them to not believe. Eighteen years ago, their youngest daughter was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident. If anything could have challenged their faith it would have been this. Alas, they remained devoted followers of Jesus to the end.

How do you interact with Christians? Do you aggressively challenge Christian beliefs on social media or at family gatherings? Are you an evangelist of sorts for atheism? Or do you take the live-and-let-live approach, ignoring the religious beliefs of others? Please share your thoughts in the comment section. I am sure there are many and varied ways that atheists interact with Christians, so I hope you will share your approach in the comments. As I have made clear in the past, I don’t want anyone to follow after me. Each of us must chart his or her own course. As unbelievers, we must determine how best to engage a culture that is overwhelmingly controlled and dominated by 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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Did I Really Have a Choice to Become Anything Other Than What I Became?

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indoctrination

Recently, my friend and longtime reader ObstacleChick (OC) left the following comment:

I was one of those “saved” kids who had to bite the bullet and give in to being saved. How could I have chosen otherwise?

There I was, 12 years old, in a home where my grandpa was chairman of deacons at a Southern Baptist church, grandma was Sunday school and women’s missionary union teacher as well as in the choir, my stepdad had recently been baptized as an adult to make my mom happy and because his infant baptism in Lutheran church didn’t count, and within the past year I had been sent to a fundamentalist Christian school where we were daily indoctrinated.

Oh, I had tons of questions and doubts, and there was a lot about salvation and hell that seemed unfair to me. But I felt I had no choice but to do it – go down front and get baptized. My family kept bugging me that I needed to “make a profession of faith”. Most of the other 12-year-olds had been or were scheduled to be baptized. Every church service and every chapel service at school ended in an altar call.

Literally, what choice did 12-year-old ObstacleChick have? I had already been shut down at church for asking hard questions. At school, my grades were tied to giving the correct answers, so there was no room for questions. My entire family accepted that This Was The Way – The Only Way. The only other way was ostracized, punishment, eternal hell.

I regret that I was brought up this way. I suffered from this religion. I am so glad I was able to come out of it before subjecting my children to it. As young adults, they can make their own choices, as they should.

Speaking of her childhood indoctrination and conditioning in a Southern Baptist congregation and devoutly Christian family, OC asks, “What choice did 12-year-old ObstacleChick have?” This, of course, is a rhetorical question. OC didn’t have a choice. Everything in her life was focused on OC making THE decision. People not raised in Southern Baptist and Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregations don’t understand the pressure children and teens face to convert. Virtually every day, young OC was reminded that she wasn’t saved, that she was headed for Hell unless she repented and asked Jesus to save her. Is it a shocker that she finally got saved?

And after she finally sealed the deal with Jesus? More pressure. More pressure to read the Bible, pray, attend church every time the doors were open, and keep all the rules, regulations, and edicts to the letter. And if she didn’t? God’s (and the church’s and her family’s) judgment and chastisement awaited her. Is it any surprise that OC is an unbeliever today?

My life took a similar track as OC’s — with a few differences. Unlike OC, I didn’t have any questions or doubts. I was all in. Whatever my pastor, youth pastor, Sunday school teacher, and visiting preachers said, I believed. I was a perfect target for “God” calling me into the ministry. I was saved at the age of fifteen, and for the next thirty years or so, I was a true-blue believer; God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me. My life was set in motion the day my far-right parents walked into Scott Memorial Baptist Church in San Diego in the early 60s and got saved. My path was steady and sure until decades later I pondered THE question: what if I am wrong?

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

My Baptist Salvation Testimony

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bruce gerencser 1971
Bruce Gerencser, Ninth Grade, 1971-72

Over the past fifteen years, I have received countless emails from Evangelicals wanting me to share with them my salvation testimony. Some of these interlocutors sincerely want to understand my past and how it is I became an atheist. Others are looking for discrepancies or errors — from their theological perspective, anyway — in my testimony. Finding these glosses allows them to dismiss my story out of hand, saying, Bruce, you never were a Christian. I used to take great offense when Evangelical zealots dismissed my past life of love, faith, and devotion to Jesus, but I no longer do so. I now realize that many Evangelicals must neuter my story lest it force them to consider and answer uncomfortable questions about their own lives and theology. It’s far easier to just dismiss me out of hand, saying that I never was a Christian; that I was deceived, a false prophet, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or any of the other epithets Evangelicals throw my way. I have never said to a Christian, I don’t believe your testimony of saving faith. I accept what they tell me at face value. You say you are a Christian; that Jesus is your Lord and Savior? Who am I to doubt your story? Unfortunately, many Evangelicals don’t seem similarly inclined when it comes to my story or those of other Evangelicals-turned-atheists.

What follows my is Baptist salvation testimony. Instead of writing out my testimony every time someone asks me for it, I will now send them to this post.

I was raised in the Evangelical church. My parents were saved in the early 1960s at Scott Memorial Baptist Church (now Shadow Mountain Community Church) in El Cajon, California, pastored at the time by Tim LaHaye. From that time forward, the Gerencser family attended Evangelical churches — mostly Bible, Southern Baptist,  or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregations.

evangelist al lacy
Evangelist Al Lacy

In the spring of 1972, my parents divorced after 15 years of marriage. Both of my parents remarried several months later. While my parents and their new spouses, along with my brother and sister, immediately stopped attending church, I continued to attend Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. In the fall of 1972, a high-powered IFB evangelist named Al Lacy came to Trinity to hold a week-long revival meeting. One night, as I sat in the meeting with my friends, I felt deep conviction over my sins while the evangelist preached. I tried to push aside the Holy Spirit’s work in my heart, but when the evangelist gave the invitation, I knew that I needed to go forward. I knew that I was a wretched sinner in need of salvation. (Romans 3) I knew that I was headed for Hell and that Jesus, the resurrected son of God, was the only person who could save me from my sin. I knelt at the altar and asked Jesus to forgive me of my sin and save me. I put my faith and trust in Jesus; that he alone was my Lord and Savior. (That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Romans 10:9-11)

I got up from the altar a changed person. I had no doubt that I was a new creation, old things had passed away, and all things had become new.  (Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The next Sunday, I was baptized, and several weeks later I stood before the church and declared that I believed God was calling me to preach. For the next thirty-five years, I lived a life committed to following after Jesus and the teachings of the Bible. While I failed many times as a Christian, there was never a time when I doubted that Jesus was my Lord and Savior. I loved him with all my heart, soul, and mind, and my heart burned with the desire to preach and teach the Word of God, evangelize the lost, and help Christians mature in their faith. No one doubted that I was a Christian. Not my Christian family; not my Christian friends; not my colleagues in the ministry; not the people who lovingly called me preacher. I was, in every way, a devoted Christian husband, father, and pastor. As all Christians do, I sinned in thought, word, and deed, but when I did, I confessed my sin to the Lord and asked for his forgiveness. (If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)  And then I got up from my knees and strived to make my calling and election sure. (Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall. (2 Peter 1:10)

This is my testimony.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

About Bruce Gerencser

Most Evangelicals Didn’t Choose to Become Christians

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indoctrinating children

Here’s one of the dirty little secrets rarely spoken of by Evangelical pastors and leaders: most Evangelicals don’t choose to become Christians. Now, I’m not talking about the internecine war between Calvinists and Arminians over free-will. What I am talking about today is how people become members of Evangelical churches. Being a Christian, of course, is a requirement for membership, but most church members did not choose to become Christians — even if they think they did. Let me explain.

People come into the Evangelical church in one of three ways:

  • They are born into and grow up in the church. They are what are called cradle Evangelicals.
  • They have a crisis conversion — a born-again experience — and, after baptism, are admitted into membership.
  • They are already Christians and are members of other churches. They leave these churches and join Evangelical congregations. This is commonly called transfer growth.

Let me deal with these in reverse order.

Transfer Growth 

Despite all their talk about evangelizing the lost and reaching the world with the gospel, most Evangelical churches — particularly megachurches — “grow” through transfer growth — Methodists becoming Baptists, Baptists becoming Charismatics, Nazarene congregants becoming Reformed Baptists, etc. Far too many Evangelicals want to be entertained and “fed,” so they seek out churches that can meet their “felt needs.” Thinking that their present churches are “dead” or lacking in some way, disgruntled believers visit other churches, hoping to find one that clicks with them; one that offers the preaching, programs, music, and handsome preacher they are looking for.

The past forty years have been hard on small, often rural, churches. As megachurches pop up everywhere, they steal or entice away disaffected congregants from smaller churches. This is how a new church plant can skyrocket from a dozen people to hundreds in a matter of weeks or months. Megachurches — or mega-size aspiring church planters — deliberately target people who are looking for a church that is “relevant” or has the best damn band in the land. Music, in particular, has become a primary reason people leave their churches and join up with new churches. Oh, Evangelicals won’t say this out loud, choosing instead to give all sorts of “spiritual” reasons for desertion, but when pressed, they will admit that they sure do love the music at their new church. Like it or not, the quality of a church’s band is often the biggest factor in whether prospective members will join the club. Small churches, of course, can’t compete with congregations that have large budgets, paid music staff, and worship leaders who look like Ken or Barbie. Brother Bill leading congregants in the hymns of the faith can’t compete with coiffed worship bands who play and sing the latest praise and worship music with professionalism and skill.

Crisis Conversion

Regardless of the fact that most Evangelical church growth comes from transfers from other congregations, membership via crisis conversion is a fairly frequent occurrence. Evangelizers seek out people who are having troubles in their lives: marital problems, family issues, substance abuse, incarceration, criminal behavior, sexual perversion, to name a few, and share with them that the solution to their problems is Jesus Christ. How aggressive churches are in this regard varies from church to church. In the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church (IFB) movement, churches tend to emphasize evangelization. I heard countless evangelists say that churches should find the biggest, baddest, meanest man in town and win him to Jesus. Seeking out the dregs of society was common, as was targeting the poor and disadvantaged. Lured by promises that Jesus was the cure for what ailed them and the church was the family they never had, countless people accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, were baptized, and became members of Bible-believing churches.

As a youth growing up in the IFB church movement, I heard countless testimonies from people who were really bad people before Jesus saved them. I heard stories of changed lives from people who said they were a mob hit-man, Satanist, occultist, drug trafficker, prostitute, drug addict, alcoholic, porn star, bank robber, Black Panther, to name a few. The badder the person, the greater the conversion, or so the stories went, anyway. Many of these stories were later discredited or proved to be lies, but they sure made a mark on me. “Wow! Look at what Jesus did for these people! If Jesus can save them, he can save anyone!”

Cradle Evangelicals

Most Evangelical church members are born into and grow up in the church. As is common among all religions, their parents chose for them what their religion would be. My parents were saved, baptized, and became members of an IFB megachurch in the early 1960s. While I was baptized as an infant in the Episcopalian church, the church of my youth all the way up to age fifty was Evangelical Christianity. There was never a time I chose to be an Evangelical. My parents believed right-wing, racist, Fundamentalist Christianity was the one true faith, and following the words of the prophet Jeremiah, they determined “but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) I suspect most of the ex-Evangelicals who read this blog can say the same; that their religion was chosen for them. Yes, I made a profession of faith as a young child and again as a fifteen-year-old teen, (Please see My Baptist Salvation Experience) but these “choices” were really expected rituals that all church children went through; little more than confirmation in Roman Catholicism or mainline churches.

Almost twenty years ago, a Barna Research study revealed (article no longer available):

For years, church leaders have heard the claim that nearly nine out of ten Christians accept Jesus as their savior before the age of 18. If that statistic was accurate in the past, it no longer depicts U.S. society. The current Barna study indicates that nearly half of all Americans who accept Jesus Christ as their savior do so before reaching the age of 13 (43%), and that two out of three born-again Christians (64%) made that commitment to Christ before their 18th birthday. One out of eight born-again people (13%) made their profession of faith while 18 to 21 years old. Less than one out of every four born-again Christians (23%) embraced Christ after their twenty-first birthday. Barna noted that these figures are consistent with similar studies it has conducted during the past twenty years.

The survey data show that Catholics who become born again are even more likely than Protestants to do so before reaching high school. Among those currently associated with a Catholic church and who are born again, two out of three (66%) accepted Christ before age 13; one-fifth (21%) did so from 13 to 21; and the remaining 13% made that decision as an adult. In contrast, born-again people aligned with a Protestant church make that choice at an older age: 40% did so as children, 35% during the 13-to-21-age span, and one-quarter (25%) as adults.

The precipitating event for someone to accept Christ as his or her savior varied by the age of the individual making that spiritual commitment.

For instance, among Christians who embraced Christ before their teen years, half were led to Christ by their parents, with another one in five led by some other friend or relative. Comparatively few accepted Jesus in response to a minister’s personal prompting (7%) and only one out of eight cited a special event as the turning point in their journey. Among those who mentioned events, about half identified a church service. Just 1% mentioned media evangelism or other special situations as being responsible for their conversion.

Among people who accepted Christ when they were age 13 through 21, the process was much more diverse. One out of five credited a friend with bringing them to Christ, and a similar proportion said their parents were responsible for their decision. One-fifth also recalled an event as the trigger for their commitment. One-sixth of the people saved as teens (16%) listed a relative other than their parent as the primary influencer. Ministers were cited by one out of every ten Christians who accepted Christ during the 13-to-21-age bracket, while media and special personal situations were listed by only 1%.

Dave Shibley, a writer for Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), states:

I believe in the validity of child evangelism.

For one thing, statistics are on its side. 19 out of 20 Christians receive Christ before the age of 25. After that, the odds against conversion become astronomical.

Early conversion saves not only a soul, but potentially points an entire life toward service to God and man. In 15 years of ministry I’ve met no one who is sorry he came to Christ early in life. I’ve encountered many who are sorry they didn’t.

….

Children are reached more easily than adults. Jay Kesler, president of Youth for Christ International, has well said, “Any evangelism after high school isn’t evangelism. It’s really salvage.”

Young children are notably tender. Their sincerity is never in doubt. Their heart attitudes contribute to genuine conversion. And Jesus told adults that they must become as children to experience the new birth (Matt. 18:3).

True, children who make an early profession of faith sometimes struggle with assurance and make a second public commitment later. They often say, “I didn’t know what I was doing the first time.” More likely, however, the personal worker attending the child didn’t know what he was doing.

We need not fully understand the Gospel to be saved; we need only believe and receive it. What adult fully comprehends the rationale or the magnitude of redemption?

Some argue that children are unable to stay true to their commitment. Yet the late English preacher Charles Spurgeon noted, “Out of a church of 2,700 members, I have never had to exclude a single one who was received while yet a child. Teachers and superintendents should not merely believe in the possibility of early conversion, but in the ferquency [sic] of it.”

Child evangelism assists in the formation of character. The Bible clearly teaches that man’s only capability for good lies in the imputed righteousness of Christ. We do not expect unconverted adults to act like Christians. The same should be true for children.

Christians seem to be the only ones who believe they should wait to influence children’s minds. Advertisers don’t wait. Child abusers don’t wait. Neither do humanist educators, false religions and cults, or Satan.

The church that reaches its children has a better chance of reaching its adults. Often newly-converted children win their parents and grandparents to the Lord. Those children grow up to be adults who can nurture their own families to faith in Jesus Christ.

Lest we forget, Christianity is always just one generation from extinction. We must reach the coming generation with the Gospel.

As you can see, Evangelical churches and parachurch groups know how important it is to evangelize children. That’s why they have junior church programs, youth programs, vacation Bible school (VBS), and countless other ministries/programs. These programs are used to indoctrinate and condition children before they can make rational, informed decisions about religion, God, and the Bible — sucking youngsters into the Evangelical ghetto before they have a chance to “think.”  Evangelizers don’t want children and teenagers to use critical thinking skills to ponder whether the claims of Christianity are true. Instead, they are expected to believe and obey. Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and their church knows what’s best for them, children are told, so there is no need to “think” about these things. Just follow the prescribed salvation rituals and all will be well. And for most of the people sitting in Evangelical churches, this is exactly how they became members in good standing.

Many former Evangelicals will tell you that studying the Bible and the claims of Christianity as teens or adults are what eventually led to their loss of faith. Their stories show that Evangelical indoctrination of children is no longer as effective as it was a generation ago. Thanks to the Internet, younger Evangelicals now have access to information about Christianity and the Bible that they have never heard from their parents, pastors, and Christian school teachers. Facts and evidence, along with skeptical, rational thinking are the best cure for those infected with Fundamentalist thinking as youths.

Churches can no longer rely on cradle Evangelicals to prop up ministries for another generation. Too many young congregants are exiting stage left, never to be seen again, save at weddings and funerals. So, Evangelical churches will focus on pilfering people from “dead” or “liberal” congregations or double-down on evangelizing the meanest, baddest people in town. Whether these approaches will pump enough new blood into the Evangelical churches remains to be seen.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

True Christians

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one true religion

Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, is a Christian Missionary & Alliance trained preacher. As Evangelical preachers are wont to do, Tee has cobbled together his own peculiar version of Christianity and what it means to be a True Christian®. I have read enough of Tee’s posts to know that he can, at times, promote heretical beliefs — heretical when measured by core Evangelical beliefs about salvation by grace. There are times when it seems he is preaching salvation by works — a soteriology that can certainly be justified with the Bible (as all soteriologies can).

In a post titled Can Christianity Help With Politics? Tee posits that “There are many benefits to having true Christians run governments.” Tee goes on to give his definition of a True Christian®:

By true Christians, we mean those that correctly follow Christ.

According to Tee, a True Christian® is someone who “correctly” follows Christ. What does it mean to “correctly” follow Jesus? What does Tee mean when he uses the word “correctly?” I assume he thinks a person must believe and do certain things to be a True Christian. I know he believes transgender people can’t be True Christians®, but Evangelical preachers who rape and sexually molest children are just True Christians® who need to humbly say “my bad, Jesus.”

Tee has made it clear that he is absolutely certain he is right in doctrine and deed. No one can correct him, especially unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines such as Bruce Gerencser. The moment I deconverted, I magically lost everything I know about the Bible, theology, and Christianity. Evidently, Gawd gives a Men in Black mind wipe to Christians the moment they deconvert. Of course, this is absurd.

There’s no such thing as True Christianity®. According to Pew Research, there are about 2.4 billion Christians in the world; 279 million in the United States. I suspect these numbers are grossly inflated, but we can conclude from them there are a lot of Christians in the world and in the United States. I live in rural northwest Ohio — the land of God, Trump, and Guns. God said humans can’t hide from him. Even in the depths of Hell, he is there. I feel the same way about Christianity. While American Christianity is in decline, there are few places I can go to escape Jesus and his merry band of followers. They are like a rash you can’t get rid of. (I am primarily speaking of Evangelicals and conservative Catholics. When I go out to dinner with the pastor of the local United Church of Christ, my rash magically goes away.)

Put one hundred Christians in a room and ask them to define core Christian beliefs and you will get a plethora of answers. You will find disagreement on salvation, sin, baptism, communion, creation, and other beliefs. Yet hardcore Fundamentalists such as Tee are certain that their beliefs and practices are straight from the mouth of God; that their interpretations of the Bible are absolutely right; that their beliefs are the standard by which all (alleged) Christians are measured.

These disagreements and internecine wars over what constitutes a True Christian® are a sure sign that Christianity is a human invention, or whatever Christianity might have been has been so obscured and adulterated by 2,000 years of organized Christianity that its essence has been lost.

Jesus told his followers that there were two great commandments: love God with all your heart, soul, and might, and love your neighbor as yourself. Pray tell, where can such a Christianity be found? Where can we find a preacher or church that takes seriously Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount or his words in Matthew 25? From 1995-2002, I pastored Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio. I remember telling the congregation that Christianity (and the world) would be better served if we focused our energy on living out the teachings of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount; that we had become distracted from the essence of faith.

As Evangelicals and conservative Catholics wage unholy war against anyone and everyone who is different from them, I wonder if they stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, in their attempt to “Christianize” the world they have lost all sense of what it means to truly be a follower of Jesus (or a decent human being)?

As I have said countless times in my writing, certainty breeds arrogance. When Evangelicals are certain that their versions of God and Jesus are the right ones, and their interpretations of the Bible are infallible, there’s no way to reach them. But, Bruce, you were a Fundamentalist, and now you are not! Certainly, that is true, but it wasn’t until I entertained the possibility that I could be wrong that my mind was open to the possibility of change. Until then, I was certain I was right. Change is hard, and unless we humble ourselves before our own ignorance, we will never know how much we don’t know.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Ohio Republicans Marginalize and Demonize Transgender People

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gay pride flag

By Marilou Johanek, Ohio Capital Journal, Used by Permission

The right to exist is being erased for transgender kids and adults. You know it. There is always another bill or law being passed in dozens of Republican-controlled state legislatures, including Ohio’s, targeting the transgender community. It’s a vulnerable community. No match for the aggressive national campaign launched against it by the GOP and an unholy army of fanatical Christian haters. 

Trans-Americans are being nullified as people ahead of 2024 to stick it to the “woke left” and ensure right-wing evangelicals vote Republican. A political wedge used to win elections by pulverizing a population of nonconformists into nothingness. Calculated cruelty to destroy lives for power.   

Transgender adolescents are most at-risk of being rubbed out by the unsparing hostility of anti-trans rhetoric and lawmaking. They’ve been made to feel like a freak show, aberrations to be pushed into the shadows, and potentially suicide just to score cheap political points. It is so wrong and so unchristian.

But the Republican abuse heaped on trans youth, already stigmatized and mistreated, is unrelenting. Right-wingers have unleashed a torrent of unjustified bills to purge the trans community from public life. It is hateful, hollow legislating to curb the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of LGBTQ+ people. 

When the messaging by high-profile Republicans day in and day out is that those people are ungodly deviants destroying all that’s right and wholesome, hate crimes follow. Violence answers the toxic attacks against a group portrayed as perverts. Their freedom to live the way they choose must be stopped.

Last week, Ohio House Republicans passed a slate of bans and restrictions on trans sports, medical care, and speech. The legislation doesn’t solve any pressing problem in Ohio or respond to any pressing constituent ultimatum for change. 

Mainstream Ohio is consumed with real problems like the economy, affordable housing, and day care, not with banning trans girls from female sports or blocking parents from providing medical care for their trans kid. There is no public outcry for pre-clearance of LGBTQ topics in school classrooms or for teachers to out their students. 

That’s mean and muzzling. Who would go out of their way to harm transgender youngsters who are just trying to survive? Not a majority of Americans. But a vocal minority of far-right politicians and religious zealots is on crusade to crush young lives without mercy.   

Theirs is a politically expedient partnership, deceptively cloaked in concern for children, girls sports, and parental rights. It is an ugly charade with real-life consequences. A record number of statehouse bills nationwide have been submitted this year (560 and counting).

They are uniformly steeped in misinformation and disinformation to scare people who don’t know any trans or queer people. It’s a coordinated enterprise to scapegoat a group of human beings into oblivion with a thousand legislative cuts.

The Christian right movement is on a heartless mission, aided and abetted by state and federal Republicans, to cancel trans people entirely: Laws must be enacted to erase the transgender footprint until it is gone. Ruthless edicts must purify a morally homogeneous culture of undesirables.

We are on a dark road. History has gone there before. In Nazi Germany groups of people deemed incompatible with regime purists disappeared. Isolated. Demonized. Gone. For the good of the master race. 

A speaker at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference told the crowd, “For the good of society…transgenderism must be eradicated.” An open call for the annihilation of human beings who happen to be trans. People applauded. It wasn’t them being torn down. 

That’s how it starts. The moral connectedness that holds humanity together breaks apart. Suddenly some people are not deserving of care and compassion. Like those instinctively disliked or dismissed as different. Anyone in another tribe. The marginalized. Not your concern.

They can be bludgeoned by unjust laws or dehumanizing oppression. Persecuted for existing. As a transgender child. As a Jew. “We preferred to keep silent,” wrote an anguished German pastor in 1946. “All of that was not our affair” — the persecutions of fellow Germans, the purges of neighbors and friends, the camps, the deaths. In his powerful postwar confession of unforgivable passivity and indifference, Martin Niemoller spoke for the ages.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I am not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

Then they came for trans youth. With Ohio House Bills 68 [introduced by infamous IFB pastor and transphobe Gary Click] and HB 8 [Gary Click is a cosponsor of this bill]. One bans trans athletes and trans medical care for minors. The other is a political dog whistle (modeled after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill) with vague curriculum censorship and mandates for outing students to their parents who question their gender identity. 

The anti-trans narrative is the Ohio Senate now. The cost of not speaking out is life itself. 

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.