He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown and among their own kin and in their own house.”And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. (Mark 6:1-6 NRSV)
He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor except in their own hometown and in their own house.” And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:54-58 NRSV)
In the passages quoted above, we find Jesus and his disciples traveling to his hometown to preach at the local synagogue. Jesus wasn’t well received. Jesus declares, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown and among their own kin and in their own house.” Jesus’ mother, his three brothers, and his sisters likely attended his sermon.
In Mark 3, we find:
Then he went home, and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.
Many in the crowd believed Jesus was crazy, and when his family heard of this, they tried to restrain him.
….
Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him.A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers [and sisters in some manuscripts] are outside asking for you.”And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
What do we learn from these passages of Scripture?
First, we learn that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Second, Jesus’ family doubted who he was. Third, Jesus calls himself a prophet. Fourth, Jesus could not do mighty works in their midst because of their unbelief.
Isn’t Jesus God? Isn’t God all-powerful? How could mere humans stop Jesus from doing supernatural works?
Conclusion: Jesus is not all-powerful. Humans can thwart the will of God.
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 Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Roy Andrews, a former youth pastor at Iglesia La Fuente in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was recently sentenced to 4-12 months in prison for sexually molesting a child.
A judge sentenced Roy Andrews, 77, to four months to a year in prison for touching a 9-year-old girl’s genitals in April 2024 while they sat in a McDonalds in Upper Allen Township.
Andrews also touched himself and had the girl touch him for more than a minute, according to police.
Andrews helped found a Hispanic church in Harrisburg called “Iglesia La Fuente” where he was a youth group leader from 2014 to 2022. After the church closed, Andrews began transporting Harrisburg children to a church in Mechanicsburg.
On the day he was seen molesting the girl in the restaurant, Andrews said he took the children to church, got them food and took them shopping, then back to his house where they “just kind of hung out” and “played,” according to police. He denied inappropriately touching the girl.
Two weeks later, when police showed up to arrest him, Andrews tried to run away into his home but police tackled him in his kitchen, they wrote in court documents. Police later found a suicide note and a gun near where Andrews had tried to run.
Surveillance footage of the interaction inside the McDonald’s showed Andrews letting the girl’s brothers run around the parking lot while he sat in a booth in the corner of the restaurant, holding the girl on his lap.
Police originally charged Andrews with several counts related to indecent assault of a child, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children and resisting arrest.
Andrews pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors: resisting arrest and indecent assault of a child. After his jail time, he will spend a year on probation and have to register as a sex offender and accept treatment.
Seibert allowed Andrews to report to Cumberland County Prison Thursday instead of being arrested during his sentencing hearing to allow him to get his affairs in order.
Corey Fahnestock, Andrews’ attorney, said the incident was “out of character” for Andrews, and Andrews told Seibert he was remorseful.
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.
Every day, millions of Christians pray to the God of the Bible, believing that he hears and answers their prayers. Today, I heard an Evangelical man say that he KNOWS God answers his prayers. How does he know this? Well, his story went something like this. He was having a lot of trouble in his life. Feeling helpless and hopeless, the man cried out to God. You know what happened next? Various people came to him offering their help. See! God answered his prayer! Really? Are there any other explanations for his alleged deliverance? How could he possibly know God answered his prayers? Did God send him a return receipt, “proving” that God heard his prayer? The man never says. In his mind, good things happening to him are evidence for the existence of God, even though the “good” done to and for him were solely performed by mere mortals.
This bad thinking is common among Evangelical Christians. Instead of seeing the hands of their fellow humans, they see the hand of God. They “see” God because they “see” God everywhere. God is the sum of all our experiences, according to Evangelicals. We MUST pray to God because he controls our lives. He has in his hands the keys of life and death. Or so it goes, anyway.
Christians have far more misses — unanswered prayers — than they do hits — answered prayers. However, they don’t pay attention to the misses. They might pray one hundred prayers that go unanswered, but let them pray a prayer that God allegedly answered, and there ya have it — God is real!! Never mind the fact that this God ignores them ninety-nine percent of the time. In any other setting but Christianity, a person would be fired if they only correctly performed their work one percent of the time.
Matthew 7:7-11 (NSRV), Jesus said:
Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone? Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake?If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
According to Jesus:
Ask (pray) and it will be given to you
Search and you will find
Knock and the door will be opened for you
Everyone who asks receives
Everyone who searches finds
Everyone who knocks will find doors opened to him
God will give good things to everyone who asks (prays) him
Dear Christian, I ask you, is this how your prayer life works? I suspect not. Most Christians futilely spend their lives praying unanswered prayers, searching and not finding, and knocking on doors that never open.
In Luke 17:5 (NRSV), Jesus said:
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
In Matthew 17:19-20 (NRSV), we have the disciples asking Jesus why they couldn’t cast a demon out of a person:
Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.
Jesus told his disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed that they could say to a mountain, “move from here to there,” and it would happen. According to Jesus, nothing is impossible for his followers. Such a minute faith, yet mighty works are done! Or so the thinking goes, anyway. I’ve yet to see a Christian move a mountain. How about you? It seems, at least to me, that God doesn’t do what he promises. Most Christian prayers are attributable to human intervention, and not God. The few that are not or are unexplainable aren’t enough to justify the existence of a prayer-answering deity.
Yesterday, floods ravaged Texas, leading to scores of injuries and deaths. Numerous children at a Christian youth camp were killed. Where was God? Surely Christians prayed for the safety and deliverance of these children, yet God ignored them. What does this tell us about prayer and God?
Dear Christian, I ask you, when was the last time you prayed for a tree to be uprooted and cast into the sea, and it happened? When was the last time God supernaturally answered your prayer? Not the superficial minutia of life. I’m talking about petitions that require a supernatural explanation
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.
Atheists choose to limit themselves to only one cosmological option. They hitch their wagon to the wild fantasy that everything came from nothing. This foolish belief creates an irrational worldview. But unlike Christianity, which is an evidence-base faith, atheism has a religious-like devotion to the absurd belief that nothing created something.
Let me rewrite this paragraph for readers:
Christians choose to limit themselves to only one cosmological option. They hitch their wagon to the wild fantasy that everything came from a mythical deity. This foolish belief creates an irrational worldview. But unlike atheism/humanism, which is an evidence-base faith, Christianity has a religious-like devotion to the absurd belief that a mythical triune deity created everything.
Delzell went on to say:
Atheists should actually be afraid of ‘nothing.’ That is to say, atheists should fear the faulty assumption that nothing produced space, time, matter and energy at the beginning. This blind faith is rooted in a preposterous make-believe theory, without a shred of scientific evidence to support its impossible conclusion.
….
Lee Strobel posted in 2017: “To continue in atheism, I would need to believe that nothing produces everything, non-life produces life, randomness produces fine-tuning, chaos produces information, unconsciousness produces consciousness, and non-reason produces reason. I simply didn’t have that much faith.”
If an atheist follows the evidence, he or she can meet “the only true God” (John 17:3). But when atheists dig in their heels and continue trusting in their illogical ideology, they remain spiritually blind. Sadly, man with his free will can choose to close his mind to the truth he was created to understand and accept.
When an atheist faces a family crisis, he has nothing to rely upon for spiritual comfort. When atheists become disillusioned with life, there is nothing substantive to pull them out of the pit of discouragement. And when atheists stand before Jesus Christ on Judgment Day, they will have nothing good to say about why they rejected God.
A callous heart prevents a person from experiencing the appropriate fear of paying the penalty for his sins in Hell. Many atheists laugh off the notion of an actual place called “Hell,” but their laughing is tragically misguided and uniformed.
I wrote, “The man who refuses to trust God is a man who assumes he can trust his own opinions. And so he looks for ways to shore up his weak position, and to convince himself that his perceptions are in perfect alignment with the visible and invisible realities of the universe.”
If you are staking your soul on the idea that everything came from nothing, you need to wake up and snap out of your spiritual stupor. God created you with a body, soul and spirit. (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23) And it is impossible to extinguish your immortal soul.
Therefore, you would be wise to get on board with the Creator’s design for your life. If you place your faith in Jesus, God will wash away your sins. But if you refuse to adopt the fear of the Lord, you will remain on a path that leads away from God throughout eternity.
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.
A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush.The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:10-14 NRSV)
What do we know about the Garden of Eden — a garden created by God, originally inhabited by Adam and Eve? Not much. According to Genesis 2:10-14, a river flowed out of Eden and divided into four tributaries: the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates. The latter two are well known today, the Pishon and Gihon, however, no longer exist, or never did exist. Travel the lengths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and one thing is certain: you will not find the Garden of Eden. Whether it existed in the past is unknown, but today the Garden of Eden is no longer found, no matter where you go. The only evidence for the existence of the Garden of Eden is what is recorded in the Bible. That’s it. You would think if God wanted to make himself known to humans, he would have turned the Garden into a theme park, charging people admission to see the angel with a flaming sword at the entrnce of the Garden, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the waterways in and around Eden. Imagine paddling a canoe down the river that runs through Eden. Cool, right? All one would have to do to find the Garden of Eden is to traverse the length of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Since these rivers flow out of Eden, it stands to reason we would find the Garden if we looked. Yet, humans did look, and no Garden was found.
Ask Evangelicals where you can find the Garden of Eden, and you will get a lot of explanations, none of which are satisfactory. It seems to me that the story about the Garden of Eden is just that — a story. We can search every inch of the area where the Garden of Eden supposedly lies and not find one shred of evidence for its existence. Just because a book tells us about the existence of the Garden of Eden does not mean it really exists. The Harry Potter books say Hogwarts is a real place, yet we know it is a myth. How is the Garden of Eden any different?
I heard one Christian “prove” the existence of Eden by saying that only Christians can “see” the Garden of Eden; that the Garden is invisible to unbelievers. His evidence for this claim? Nothing other than personal opinion.
Do you have evidence for the existence of Eden apart from Bible prooftexts? Please share it in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them. (Romans 2:15 NRSV)
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds. (Hebrews 10:16 NRSV)
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
Evangelicals will tell you that God has written his law on the heart of every person. This means we all know what the law of God says. However, based on the verses above, it is questionable whether God has written his law on the heart of every person — past, present, and future. Did Adam and Eve have the law of God written on their hearts? Or do these verses only apply to New Testament or New Covenant Christians? This is problematic because Jeremiah 31:31-34 says that ALL of us are God’s children. If he is our God and we are his people by default, there’s no need for us to be saved.
How is the term “law of God” defined? Ask a hundred Christians to define “law of God” and you will get a plethora of answers, many of which contradict the others. The Bible says God has written his law on our hearts. Which law? All 613 laws? Just the Ten Commandments? Just the Nine Commandments? Just the commandments of Paul? Just the commandments of Jesus in the gospels? How can we possibly know what, if anything, is written on our hearts? That is, after we figure out exactly what the heart is and where it is located. Personally, I think that heart and mind are synonymous. I readily admit that there’s a debate to be had on this issue, especially when you throw conscience into the discussion.
For Christians who say it is the Ten Commandments that are written on our hearts, I ask, which version of the Ten Commandments? Is the command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy written on our hearts? If yes, why is it that MOST Christians do not keep the Sabbath?
I could go on and on with questions about the claim that the law of God is written on our hearts. The next time an Evangelical apologist tells you that the law of God is written on your heart, ask some of the questions I asked above. I suspect that most Evangelicals who make this claim haven’t thought about it. They regurgitate what they heard from church pulpits or read in apologetics books.
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.
Recently, a woman who previously was proud to call me her pastor before she learned I was an atheist, posted the following on Facebook:
Coming soon!! You guys watching Israel? The Bible says the first time God destroyed the earth by water and he promised to never do that again. (The real meaning of the Rainbow) he went on to say I will destroy it by fire the second time. I won’t even pretend I understand all of the book of Revelation, but I do understand quite plainly that I do wish to spend eternity in Heaven. I have been hearing about the second coming of Christ and the events unfolding since I was a child. The “Mark of the Beast” Artificial Intelligence, microchips, no cash/digital currency, total government dependency/control. When we are raising a family, working long hours, some two jobs, lots of things go unnoticed or just get ignored. No one can comprehend how bad it will be, but we see it happening, bit by bit, on the news everyday. While the devil is preparing people for the Anti Christ, God is preparing people for the Rapture. I don’t know when the rapture will take place but I know that I’m not planning to be left behind when that trumpet sounds! I also believe right now that God is giving us a chance to turn our lives around and live according to His will. We need to get the Gospel message out! Until the good Lord calls me away from this world to go home, I want to make it clear that I believe in Jesus Christ as the one and only true Lord and Savior. Despite the fact that I am human, and I fail a lot, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
So if the Holy Spirit moves you and you’re not ashamed, just COPY and PASTE.
It has been almost 2,000 years since Jesus died and allegedly resurrected from the dead before later ascending to Heaven, never to be seen again. 2,000 years have gone by, and not one person has physically seen Jesus alive. How could they, right? Jesus is dead.
Despite evidence that suggests that Jesus is d-e-a-d, countless Christians over the past twenty-one centuries have claimed that Jesus will one day return to earth, perhaps today. Evangelicals, in particular, think the return of Jesus is imminent; that Jesus will return very soon. In the late 1970s. Andre Crouch wrote a song titled, Soon and Very Soon:
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King, Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King, Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!
No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King, No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King, No more cryin’ there we are goin’ to see the King, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!
No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King, No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King, No more dyin’ there we are goin’ to see the King, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!
Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King, Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King, Soon and very soon we are goin’ to see the King, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are goin’ to see the King!
Also in the 70s, Bill and Gloria Gaither wrote a song titled, The King Is Coming:
The marketplace is empty No more traffic in the streets All the builders’ tools are silent No more time to harvest wheat Busy housewives cease their labors In the courtroom no debate Work on earth is all suspended As the King comes thro’ the gate
O the King is coming The King is coming I just heard the trumpets sounding And now His face I see O the King is coming The King is coming Praise God, He’s coming for me
Happy faces line the hallways Those whose lives have been redeemed Broken homes that He has mended Those from prison He has freed Little children and the aged Hand in hand stand all aglow Who were crippled, broken, ruined Clad in garments white as snow
O the King is coming The King is coming I just heard the trumpets sounding And now His face I see O the King is coming The King is coming Praise God, He’s coming for me
I can hear the chariots rumble I can see the marching throng The flurry of God’s trumpets Spells the end of sin and wrong Regal robes are now unfolding Heaven’s grandstand’s all in place Heaven’s choir now assembled Start to sing “Amazing Grace”
O the King is coming The King is coming I just heard the trumpets sounding And now His face I see O the King is coming The King is coming Praise God, He’s coming for me
Back in our duet days, Polly and I would lustily sing the song, Jesus is Coming Soon:
Troublesome times are here, filling men’s hearts with fear Freedom we all hold dear, now is at stake Humbling your heart to God saves from the chastening rod Seek the way pilgrims trod, Christians awake!
Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!
Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forever more When we meet on that shore, free from all care Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye Homeward we then will fly, glory to share
Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!
Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forever more When we meet on that shore, free from all care Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye Homeward we then will fly, glory to share
For 2,000 years, Christians have been singing songs and making prophetic announcements about the soon return of Jesus. Countless prophecy sermons have been preached and books written, yet Jesus remains AWOL. Evangelicals post memes and messages to social media, assuring their friends that, to quote a gospel song, their Redemption Draweth Nigh:
Years of time have come and gone Since I first heard it told Of how Jesus would come again someday If back then it seems so real Then I just can’t help but feel How much closer His returning is today
Signs of the times are everywhere There’s a brand new excitement in the air Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh
Wars and strife on every hand Violence fills all the land Still some people doubt He’ll ever come again But the Word of God is true He’ll redeem His chosen few Don’t lose hope soon Christ Jesus will descend
Signs of the times are everywhere There’s a brand new excitement in the air Keep your eyes upon the eastern sky Lift up your head, lift up your head Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh!
This is another one of the songs Polly and I loved to sing for the church. If you are familiar with this song, you know that at the end of the song, the lyrics “Lift up your head, lift up your head, Lift up your head, your redemption draweth nigh,” is sung at a higher key. I am pleased to say that I could hit every one of those notes fifty years ago (I have a tenor voice). I just tried to sing the song today, and I can report that I can no longer hit those high notes. Those days are gone, but damn if I don’t still try to sing them anyway — alone or in the car. Once in a blue moon, I can talk Polly into reprising a song with me. Polly plays the piano, but since we no longer own a piano, Polly has stopped playing. Her interest in playing disappeared about the same time God did. I always appreciated her playing more than she did. One church I pastored offered me two choices for a piano player: Polly, and a teen girl who played EVERYTHING in the key of C. As a pastor, I often HAD to choose the teenager, but I preferred Polly’s plunkety-plunk chording to her too-high or too-low playing.
Back to the return or second coming of Jesus. The God of the Universe promised his followers that he would come back during their lifetime. He didn’t, and they died hoping he would. Since then, preacher after preacher has said Jesus would soon return to earth — perhaps today! These false prophets cook up all sorts of explanations for Jesus NOT returning to earth, but one fact remains: Jesus is nowhere to be found. No one has seen him in 2,000 years, and I think it’s safe to assume that the dead Jew millions and millions of people worship ain’t coming back to life.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Most Evangelicals claim to be “people of the book.” The first church I worked for in the late 70s had an advertising sign located at a member’s home on Route 15 that said, “The Blood, the Book, and the Blessed Hope.” Park in front of a local Catholic church or a mainline congregation and observe how few members carry their Bibles to church. Do the same at a local Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) and you will see that MOST members, including children, bring their (KJV) Bibles to church. Granted, after church, many of those Bibles will be returned to the front dash, back window, or underneath the seats of their automobiles. Some members “store” their Bibles in their car trunks — safe and secure, ready for the next Sunday.
What most members DON’T do is regularly read/study the Bible. In fact, most Evangelicals haven’t read the Bible through once, yet they are “people of the Book?” Sure, buddy, sure. Imagine if I said I was a follower and worshipper of Harry Potter, the greatest wizard of all time, yet when asked if I had read all seven books in the Harry Potter series, I reply, “I only read book one and book four.” How could I be a follower and worshipper of Harry Potter and not read all seven books? Yet, hundreds of millions of people claim to be Christians without ever reading the Bible from cover to cover. If the Bible is THE book above all other books, and different from them in every possible way as the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God, why do most Christians rarely read the Bible, and fewer still read from table of contents through concordance? The Bible commands Christians to judge others by their fruit (good works). Based on countless surveys and studies, Evangelicals may claim to be “people of the Book, but they are largely ignorant of what it says. And that includes more than a few preachers who do little, if any, Bible reading/study outside of preparation for their sermons. Worse, some preachers don’t read or study the Bible for their sermons either. Instead, they buy books of sermons or rip off sermons preached by big-name preachers. There’s no time for the Word of God when you have golf matches to play, hunting trips to take, and conferences and meetings to attend.
As a former Evangelical preacher, I worked my ass off ministering to church members and community residents. But, I never sacrificed my reading and study of the Bible, typically spending twenty hours a week preparing my sermons and reading devotionally. I was always troubled by colleagues in the ministry who were lazy, indifferent to the needs of others, and spent more time on entertainment and “family time” than they did on the actual, God-ordained work of the ministry.
Here’s the most dangerous thing Evangelicals can do: READ THE BIBLE FROM COVER TO COVER. Take every book of the Bible as written. The Bible is not a univocal text. Careful readers of the Bible will quickly learn that it contradicts itself, justifies immoral behavior, and is littered with mistakes and errors. BY all means, consult interlinears, concordances, and other text tools, but avoid books written by Evangelical authors. Their goal is to indoctrinate and condition, rather than impart knowledge and understanding.
If Evangelicals truly become “people of the book,” it is likely they will stop being Evangelicals after reading and studying ALL OF THE BIBLE. Many of the Evangelicals-turned-atheists I know deconverted after reading the Bible. I encourage every Evangelical to read the Bible. Every book, every chapter, every verse, and every word. Don’t listen to your pastor. Remember, he has a job and salary to protect. Don’t rely on Evangelical apologists or devotional books. Use your mind, pondering what the text actually says. You will find that many Evangelical preachers play loose with the Biblical text, using it as proof for peculiar beliefs and dogmas. Have you ever heard your pastor claim that there are numerous prophecies about Jesus (the Messiah)? Most church members give a shout-out to Jesus without ever investigating whether their pastor’s claims are true. They aren’t.
To my Evangelical readers, I say, please read the Bible. All of it. I guarantee you that if you will do this, your life will dramatically change. Granted, you may become an agnostic or an atheist, but you will, at the very least, have truth on your side. You will no longer govern your lives based on what is uttered from the pulpit. You will no longer have a “borrowed” theology. Most preachers enter the ministry with a borrowed theology, and unless they do the necessary hard work in the study, they will never mature intellectually. And if they won’t do what’s necessary to be an educated man of God, their parishioners will remain stupid and ignorant too.
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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According to Evangelicals, the Bible is God’s supernatural Word. Written by men divinely inspired by God, the Bible is a perfect book, free of mistakes, errors, and contradictions. Of course, this is nonsense. A cursory reading of the Bible reveals all sorts of errors. Sure, Evangelicals cook up plenty of explanations for these errors, but some of their explanations leave a lot to be desired, bordering on farcical.
God could have imparted his Word to humankind by writing it himself. A perfect God would write a perfect book, yes? So why in the Hell did God choose to impart his Word in such a way that has resulted in thousands of years of argument, debate, and fighting? Why choose fallible, frail, contradictory men to write the Bible instead of doing it yourself? There are thousands of Christian sects, each believing that their interpretation of the Bible is true and all other interpretations are false.
Imagine how much better it would be if God wrote the Bible himself. Not that he inspired the writers, but that he wrote every word, including punctuation and versification. If God had done this, any misunderstanding would be ours. As things now stand, Christians can’t even agree on basic beliefs such as salvation, baptism, and communion. The Bible says, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism,” but history reveals many lords, many faiths, many baptisms.
God could publish an updated version of the Bible, one that does away with the passages that make him look bad. No incest, no genocide, no slavery, no rape. Rewrite the Bible, put it on Amazon, and sell millions of copies. This sure would clear up a lot of problems. Instead, we are left with an ancient religious text that has little relevance today.
Come on, God, get your act together. It’s time for you to update the greatest book never read.
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.
According to Evangelical dogma, all human beings — past, present, and future — are born sinners; we are dead in trespasses and sins; we are the enemies of God. Two thousand years ago, God took on human flesh and came to earth in the body of Jesus. He was what theologians call a God-man; fully God, fully man. The problem, of course, is that if Jesus was fully God, he couldn’t sin, and if he was fully man, he couldn’t not sin.
Philippians 2:5-8 says:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Hebrews 2:16-18 adds:
For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.
Did Jesus become exactly like human beings? Could Jesus be tempted to sin, as in physically, literally tempted to commit any of the human behaviors Christians label sin?
The answer is no. Can God sin? No. Can God be tempted to sin? No, sin requires having a sin nature — one passed down by the first Adam. Did Jesus have a sin nature? Of course not. Many Evangelicals believe that the human sin nature is passed on through the semen of the father. Since Jesus’ mother was impregnated by the Holy Ghost, Jesus did not have a sin nature. Thus, it was impossible for Jesus to sin. Please see The Impeccability of Christ.) Not one time was it ever possible that Jesus could sin. To sin required Jesus to set aside his divine nature, which he did not do — ever. There was never a nanosecond that Jesus was not God (according to Trinitarianism).
According to James 1:14: every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. A human being is tempted when drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Did Jesus ever see an attractive woman walking down the streets of Jerusalem, and say to Peter, “Damn, she has a nice ass!” Not if he was the sinless son of God. There was no possibility of temptation for Jesus. There was never a time when Jesus would have whistled at this woman and said, “Hey, babe.” Jesus, according to Evangelicals, was perfect in every way, so there was never a possibility that he would have lusted after this woman. James 1:13 makes this point clear: “God cannot be tempted with evil.” Was there ever a moment in time when Jesus (God) was tempted with evil? No, if you believe what the Bible says.
Thus, when we read stories such as Jesus’ forty-day temptation by Satan, what we are reading is a fictional story, one that could not have happened. Jesus was God, Satan was not. There wasn’t a temptation presented by Satan that Jesus could have fallen for. The only way that Jesus could have sinned is if he set his godhead aside and fully became man. This, of course, did not happen, so this means Jesus was not, one time, tempted to sin.
How did your pastors and teachers explain this conundrum to you? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
