Our children and their girlfriends and spouses, along with our thirteen grandchildren, were over to celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday. We had a delightful time. On Monday we drove to Cincinnati to watch the Reds play the Colorado Rockies.
Bruce Gerencser at Great American Ballpark, June 19, 2023
Polly and Bruce Gerencser, Father’s Day 2023.
Polly and Bruce Gerencser, Great American Ballpark, June 19, 2023
Our children, ages thirty to forty-four, Father’s Day 2023
Our grandchildren, ages three to twenty-two, Father’s Day, 2023
Our grandchildren, ages three to twenty-two, Father’s Day, 2023
As you can see, the Gerencser family lives empty, purposeless lives. While some of us are religious, most of us are not. None of us are Evangelical, nor are we fans of much of what we see in organized religion. Thank God, the curse has been broken.
The next time an Evangelical tells me my life is worthless without Jesus, I will point them to these pictures and say, “Sure buddy, keep telling yourself that.” I live a happy, fulfilling life, one filled with love, all without Jesus and the church. Impossible, you say? The evidence is right in front of you, much like Jesus when he said “here are the nail prints in my hands. Will you not believe?” Or do you have an agenda; a strawman you must maintain at all costs?
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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Pat Robertson died last week, and this got me thinking about a couple of stories from when I used to watch. Back in the early 90s, we got cable television after a long wait living in the boonies. (I was a commuter college student living with my parents.) One source of amusement for me (and one of my brothers) was Pat and his 700 Club. In fact, I called Pat’s 700 Club the “other comedy channel.” Pat had some hilarious antics — “word of knowledge” where he’d “heal” someone in the audience. I always laughed when he’d squint his eyes down so hard when he’d pray that I’m certain he thought that was the key to its delivery to God. While most secular people I’ve seen were saying “Good Riddance” to Pat, I actually wish he had made it to his predicted Biblical 120. It seemed his antics got crazier the older he got, and they’d bring him in for occasional commentary (and jocularity).
The 700 Club had a great cast of characters. Pat of course, who looked like some sort of Tolkienesque gremlin, Scottish Sheila Walsh (Oh Pat, thar out thar on tha straits! They ‘haint got no food! We haf to teach ’em about Jaysus!”), Church lady Terry Meeuwsen and Ben Kinchlow “The Black Colonel Sanders.”
Story One
Pat (who always had his ear to the ground for crazy news) had heard an end-of-the-world prediction that the world would end on Thursday, June 9th, 1994. During an entire week that I was watching crazy Pat on the 700 Club he was talking about June 9th over and over again. We college kids liked to stay up late, and sometimes really late. In fact, it was so late it was early . . . I’m wide awake at 2:30 a.m. watching the 700 Club. Spontaneously, I start waving my arms and yelling out June 9th! June 9th! Then I see my dad lumbering down the basement stairs shirtless and in his sleeping shorts looking like death warmed over. (OH NO!) “What are you doing?!! You’re lucky, I thought someone was breaking in and I was going to get my gun!” I told him I was sorry and that was the end of it. Of course, the next day was June 9th . . . but the world didn’t end. Pat wasn’t ashamed. He pointed out that there had been several earthquakes! Of course, there are earthquakes pretty much every day somewhere in the world. I did find it interesting Pat died on June 8th, so maybe he was just a little bit off.
Second Story
Pat liked to give out little freebies, but you had to call in. This time my older brother was watching with me. Pat went on and on about Dungeons & Dragons. I was just curious what was Pat’s beef with D&D? Call now! Get a free pamphlet about Dungeons & Dragons! I wasn’t really comfortable calling the 700 Club to request it, so my brother volunteered to do so. There was a phone in the basement and he went to make the call. He comes back about 5 minutes later with a giant smile. “Troy, that guy was praying for your very soul! Pat might be a con artist, but his prayer line people are definitely sincere.” The 4-page pamphlet came a while later in the mail. I was very disappointed. It was really, really, really lame.
I suppose Pat and I parted ways after that. I’d just tune in for dribs and drabs. I did contact the 700 Club one final time though. I noticed that one of the old stand-by hosts Sheila Walsh was no longer on the show. It seemed like Pat would get very somber when he’d mention Sheila, as if she had betrayed him or died. I had no idea. So I sent the 700 Club an email and asked what happened to her. Nothing nefarious though, she just left to pursue her singing and other churchy stuff. It is possible Pat was upset about Sheila quitting the show, though the email didn’t get into it.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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When Mom and Dad got married in 1960, he left his childhood church at Central to attend Lockport with Mom. Her entire family attended there, except for her sister Mary Lou, who left Lockport to attend Central Church with her new husband, Vern “Levi” Beck. There was a lot of back and forth between Central, Lockport, and West Clinton. Central was the parent church to the other two, and it had only been a few years that they were functioning as three fully independent organizations. The rest of the Mennonite Churches in Northwest Ohio were started later than these three, and I always thought of these three as the foundation of everything.
It was confusing to me when Dad would refer to West Clinton as the East Church. East and West are usually pretty straightforward for me, but only when I’m outdoors. As soon as I’m in any building, I lose my sense of direction, something that happens to me still to this day. Mom loses sense of direction all the time. I remember lots of times when Dad would ask her which way north was, and she would think for a while before answering. Whenever I’m in a new building and someone leads me to the correct room, when it’s time to leave I ask which direction is the way out. My instinct is to turn in the opposite direction. Even when I try to go against my instinct, I’m still turning in the opposite direction from how I entered the room.
This habit, calling West Clinton the East Church, is because it’s east of Central, and Lockport is west of Central. For a long time, people called them the East Church and the West Church until they got their current names. I guess West Clinton is in the western part of Clinton Township, hence its name. Lockport is named after the historic village of Lockport, Ohio. It was a busy place for a while, because it was beside Bean Creek, and I think there was a grist mill and a saw mill there.
Then Stryker and West Unity grew larger, and Lockport ceased to exist as a village. The cemetery is still there and is still used. It’s next to the Lockport Church, and most people assume that it’s associated with the church. But the cemetery is a secular entity. I think it’s administrated at the township level. Most of my relatives on Mom’s side are buried there. Most of Dad’s side is buried in the Pettisville Cemetery near the Pettisville School.
I was in Mary Lou’s wedding, as a flower girl. The ring bearer was Levi’s nephew, Arlen “Dean” Beck, who was also in my Sunday school class. That Beck family liked their nicknames. My best friend a few years later was Linda “Pin” Beck, who also was in my Sunday school class, and who also was a nephew of Levi. And a cousin of Dean. I was sort of embarrassed to be in a wedding with Dean as my partner walking down the aisle. I was only about four years old, but somehow I knew it was a romantic thing, and I wasn’t sure about being paired up like that. Mom tells me that I behaved well as a flower girl, doing all the things that were expected of me.
Church was my entire social life, outside of relatives, for my first seven years. I only attended a few months of kindergarten, as it only occurred in the spring for kindergarteners in that school system. So I was two months short of seven years old when I finally went to school every day for an entire school year. For all of my childhood, church was superior to school. It was better morally, as we were following God. It was situated in a better place because it was closer to my house. It was better for my family because every time we went to church it was like a family reunion on Mom’s side of the family. School was an afterthought for me, even in high school. My first real boyfriend was in my youth group. I married my second real boyfriend. My best friend was in my youth group. My other best friends were also in my youth group, except for one or two. So my whole life was basically at church. School was like a job someone takes to get a paycheck. Church was the reason to live.
And church was better socially, as it was consistent throughout all my years. Kids would come and go from school, and I would have to change to a different building some years. But my Sunday school class had the same kids from preschool through my senior year, with very few exceptions. The girls were Linda, Pam, Lisa, and me, and the boys were Jeff B., Jeff W., Dean, and Todd. All of them were related to me in some way, other than perhaps Jeff B. They were some combination of second, third, and fourth cousins. Lisa’s dad was my dad’s first cousin. Todd’s mom was my mom’s first cousin.
Sometime in the middle school years, Gene joined our class. He lived in Michigan, and his parents drove about an hour to Lockport for church for many years. They became central figures in many things there, teaching marriage classes, and being fully involved. They were more involved than a lot of the people who lived nearby and were related to everyone. But because they didn’t live in the local community, their family always seemed outside the circle in my young mind.
Jeff W. was always a lot taller than the rest of us. He also shared my exact birthday. His mom and my mom were in the hospital together when we were born. I was born to a 21-year-old mother, and his mother already had several children and was probably nearly 40 years old. We had our first birthday party together, and we gave each other teddy bears. Jeff ended up living with his wife and children on the same farm where he was raised, in the same house. Years later, my brother Rick worked for Jeff when he needed help with his sandblasting business.
It’s funny how I categorized things in my little mind. My dad had a friend in Kidron, Ohio, from their time serving together in PAX in Germany in the late 1950s. They chose to build houses for war refugees, rather than enlist in the military. We made lots of trips back and forth to spend time with Ernie and Jeannie Geiser and their kids. I loved their house because it had an elegant stairway to the upstairs of the house. Instead of a straight passageway, the bottom several steps extended out into a half-circle shape, leading into the living room. So you could sit on the half-circle steps, and visit with people in the living room. This was the height of wonder to me.
On one of our trips back from visiting them, it was dark and we kids were sleeping in the back seat of the car. No seatbelts in those days. Dad built a wooden insert for the backseat of the car to cover where you put your feet, so the seat was twice as wide. It was like a bed, and we could all lie down and sleep on long trips. So I was in a sleepy state, but listening to my parents talk. Dad made a comment about Jeannie being a really wonderful wife, even if she wasn’t a Mennonite. My mind equated Mennonite with Christian, and while I knew there were other denominations, I also knew that only Mennonites go to heaven. I spent a long time thinking about how sad it is that Jeannie can’t go to heaven.
On a later trip, we went to church with them, and in fact, they attended a large Mennonite Church in their area. It made Lockport look like a village chapel. I think I stopped worrying about Jeannie after that.
My great uncle Walter Stuckey was the pastor of my church throughout my childhood. He was my mom’s dad’s brother. Every year I received a birthday card from him with a stick of gum and a note about how I’m making my parents proud. I later realized that he sent these to every child in Lockport.
I always liked how Walter would raise his hands over the congregation at the end of each service, and say, “Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, May he make his face shine upon you, and give you peace.” That’s how I remember it, although the verse he quoted may have been longer. It was always the same, and it was solemn and happy at the same time. I think this was the most religious ritual I ever had as a kid, and I loved it. I probably would have been very happy as a Catholic child.
When I was about 13, Walter was ready to retire. It was a long and mysterious process, but we finally found a new pastor. I think there were a few fill-in or short-term pastors, but eventually, Keith Leinbach became my pastor for the rest of my childhood. He talked a lot more about personal salvation. He told a lot more personal stories. He was fun to listen to. He was very different from Walter. In retrospect as an adult, I see this as a huge time of change for Lockport. I’m sure there were adults that didn’t like it and others who thought it wasn’t enough change and wasn’t fast enough.
I attended baptismal preparation classes when I was 12 or 13. Walter was involved in teaching them, as he hadn’t totally retired. We were the first group to be water baptized where the girls were given a choice of whether to wear the head covering. In the 1800s, all the Mennonite women covered their heads all the time, like the Amish still do. In the early 1900s, all the Mennonite women covered their heads when praying. My Grandma Wyse kept a head covering in her kitchen drawer, and put it on quickly before Grandpa prayed before a meal. She took it off right after the prayer and put it back in the drawer. By the 1970s, Mennonite women only wore the head covering to church services, and there were discussions about whether it was required.
So our little group in 1974 was given a choice. I chose to wear it. My dad talked with me about this decision, as he thought that if I started to wear it, then it would be harder to stop later when I no longer wanted to. He thought it would be better to never start. But all the women I admired wore one! So I did too. And then within a few years I stopped, as my dad predicted. By the 1980s, only the older Mennonite women were wearing one.
Mom couldn’t wear a veil at her wedding in 1960. She wore a head covering, with her fancy normal-looking wedding dress. She was fashionable and had short hair, but the veil was too much. The next wedding after that, the veil was allowed. Mom and Dad also couldn’t have wedding rings in their ceremony. They put them on each other privately between the ceremony and the reception. The next wedding ceremony after theirs had rings. Change was happening so fast in the 1960s.
So by the time I was in high school, I no longer wanted to be like all the other Mennonites. I was questioning everything. I was wearing dress pants to church for Sunday night services. That was living on the edge. I wanted to wear jeans but never pushed that hard against the unwritten rules. I also didn’t wear dress pants on Sunday mornings. I had friends who were conservative and only wore dresses to church. They were offended that I wore dress pants at all. I argued about it with the best of them. “God doesn’t care what I wear! I could wear jeans to church and he wouldn’t mind!” But then they argued back that we shouldn’t be a stumbling block to others, so I kept it to dress pants, not jeans.
This is so weird to write this out. People wear shorts to that church now. They’ve had female pastors. They have female elders. Divorce and remarriage are allowed. I didn’t know a divorced person until I was in high school. They discuss whether LGBTQ people can have leadership positions, although that one remains a little verboten to this day.
I know our society has changed since the 1960s throughout our country, but I think the rate and amount of change in the Mennonite church is far greater as compared with the change in our society.
So when I was born, there was a picture of a lamb that was placed on a bulletin board near the preschool Sunday school classrooms. It had my name on it. All the new babies had a similar lamb. When we were old enough to go to preschool, the lamb was removed and given to our parents. Mine is in my baby book. Imagine having such a consistent attendance at a church, that you could do that. The baby was still there several years later, and the group of children going to the preschool Sunday school class was essentially the same kids that graduated from high school together over a decade later.
For a child, this is reassuring and safe. For a church leader, this is a disaster. The only way to grow a church in this situation is for the families to have lots of kids. (Unless the church has lots of community outreach, but the Mennonites were pretty distinctive. Others were always welcome, but it wasn’t easy to join up with Mennonites before 1975 or so.)
The church growth era hit in the 1970s and 1980s, at the same time that family size was shrinking. There were lots of expectations that a church would continue to grow, or at least not shrink, My great grandma Roth was one of 15 children. She then had 7 children. Her daughter, who was my grandma, also had 7 children. My mom had 4 kids, and I had 3. Two of my adult children don’t have kids, and my son, Jesse, has two. Extrapolate that out for a century, and you can see that the church will no longer be growing.
In fact, Lockport is dealing with this reality as we speak. We often had 300-400 in attendance when I was a child. I think it’s less than half of that now. You’ll always have some kids grow up and move away, and some marry into other religious systems, or decide that being Mennonite is not for them.
I’m not lamenting that people are having fewer children, or that churches are shrinking, or that people move away. I’m just thinking about the impacts on our small communities when these social changes occur. The changes are neutral to me, but the social impacts are where my interest lies. Mennonites are not alone in this change. In the Western world, most religious institutions, and many community organizations like The Elks and The Masonic Lodge, have a similar process unfolding.
Every summer we had two weeks of Bible School. Some years it was in the morning, and some years in the evening, but it was always 4 hours of extreme fun! I think Bible school was my favorite thing in all of my childhood. We had snacks! We had crafts! We had recess! We had lots of extra kids there from the community! There were no grades or tests! There was the burdensome and strongly-worded suggestion that we memorize a few Bible verses each night in preparation to recite them to our teacher the next day. For which we would get a prize. Which I always did because I wanted the prize! But oh the burden of remembering that verse until I could unload it verbally and get my prize. Then I was free again! Hurrah!
As an adult college student in nursing school, I loaded up my brain with all the facts for each exam, and the first thing I did upon leaving the exam room was buy a candy bar. It was awesome. And just now I’m realizing that it’s a holdover from Bible School.
We played lots of organized games at recess, rather than being free to run and roam as we were in regular school. I loved this! One of my favorite games was Red Rover. The kids split into two groups, and stand in lines opposite each other, holding hands. Then one group shouts (after conferring together to make a group decision, which the teachers did not dictate to us!), “Red Rover, Red Rover, let Tammy come over!” Yes! They called my name! So I would go running toward the other group and try to break through their hands. I had to run really fast because so many of them were bigger than me.
One time I didn’t break through their hands. Instead, I flipped backward and fell onto my head on the sidewalk. I don’t remember this but I was told about it. My first memory of the event is lying on my grandma’s couch. I’m told that I hit my head hard enough that they thought I should rest instead of finishing Bible School that day. Grandma only lived a few miles away so someone took me there to rest. I have no memory of the time between running and lying on my grandma’s couch. I’m pretty sure it was a head injury that induced my memory loss. I was about six or seven years old, I think, based on which classroom and play area I remember from playing that game.
Youth group was awesome. We called it MYF, for Mennonite Youth Fellowship. It was as awesome as Bible School, but on Wednesdays all year long, and we were too cool to be THAT excited about it. There were Bible studies and praying and singing, but mostly it was hanging out with other high school kids and going away for weekends. Lots of campouts and bike trips and cookouts and games.
MYF sponsors were married couples who committed to a few years of guiding us through all of this activity. It was the most involved volunteer position in the church. The MYF would vote on who they wanted to be their sponsors, then the current sponsors would go ask them. We knew it was risky. Lots of people declined to do it because of the time commitment. But those who said yes were our heroes. My Aunt Donna and her husband Art said yes, and they were my favorite people for a long time. Also Richard and Teresa Stebbins. Yes, they are just enough older than me to have done that. They were probably only in their early 20s.
Pinegrove was a little church that Lockport had started in the 1950s or so, in the Stryker area. They were pretty small, so they teamed up with us for MYF. It was awesome to have new people with us, at a time when we were realizing how interrelated we all were as we saw each other at family reunions. My first real boyfriend went to Pinegrove and I met him through MYF. It turns out that he is my third cousin. No one seemed to mind. It didn’t even matter to me when I realized it. My own parents are third cousins to one another, I reasoned, and everything turned out fine. I had an awesome biology teacher in tenth grade, Mr. Dilbone. He focused a lot on genetics, as it was the hot new science of that era. I knew that beyond first cousins, it was ok to procreate. Maybe even first cousins were not a problem …
Now this all seems so funny to me. My daughter Lydia realized early on how many relatives she had in Northwest Ohio, and one time she said she wanted to marry a person of another race because they would be the least likely to be her relative.
One MYF game we played was Walk A Mile. It’s an excuse to hold hands with the opposite gender. Nobody thought about how LGBTQ people felt about that idea. Boys and girls paired off holding hands, stood in a long line, and extra people left over were the runners. We started walking down the country roads after dark. The runners would go to a person and say something like, “5 back”, and then they got to hold the girl’s hand and the other guy had to go back 5 couples and do the same. Or the girls were runners – depending upon which gender had more people. It was fun making up the instructions for the handoff. I didn’t realize until talking about this as an adult with my husband, that people cheated! Never entered my mind. They of course chose their partner based on their preferences. I was so honest that it was literally unthinkable.
Speaking of LGBTQ and Mennonites, Pam, from my Sunday school class, and I had quite an adventure. We were about 17 when we went to a Mennonite conference near Kitchener, Ontario. It was for both adults and youth, and we were part of a huge youth choir. We went to all sorts of meetings and workshops, and there was so much to do and see. Pam and I were interested in a workshop on sexuality. We were almost late, and got seats in the front row. As it started we realized that this was meant for the adults, not the youth, but we stayed anyway. Then we started to realize that the topic was not sexuality in general, but it was all about the homosexual question in the Mennonite Church. Then during the question-and-answer time, the man sitting beside Pam asked a question, the content of which made it clear that he was gay. This was the first gay person we had ever known! Afterward, we were so startled and excited and stunned and didn’t know how to feel about this! Pam whispered to me, “I was sitting by a gay man!”
The Mennonite Church continues to talk about this topic to this day. I think they decided that each church can decide for itself, but it has contributed to a lot of debate and a few church and conference splits over the years.
So on one MYF campout, Pin and I were sitting around a campfire with some boys a few years older than we were. One was her cousin, Lynn, and one was my boyfriend, Mark, and there were a few more. Mennonite boys were known for their pranks. But Pin and I were naively innocent. The guys started telling us which weeds and grass were edible. They were picking different ones and naming them. This went on for quite some time. Then one of them said you better roast it first to be sure it’s safe, and they held it over the fire like a marshmallow. Then they ate it. And we believed them the entire time.
On another MYF trip we were staying for a weekend at Brunk’s Cabin in Indiana. There was a lot of ice skating and sledding. On one trip down the hill, my sled spun out of control and I ended up hitting a big tree with the middle of my back. I laid there looking at the sky for a bit, as I couldn’t breathe. Pin’s cousin, Lynn, came to check on me and said, “Are you ok!?!?!” He looked really scared. By then I could breathe, and I simply said, “Yes”, and got up. I never let on how scary that was. Years later, my chiropractor saw scar tissue and a bone spur on that area of my back when he did x-rays. I think it was from that sledding accident.
I loved our annual MYF manhunts. I think it might be my favorite thing of all about MYF. We would choose a farm of about 80 acres, and trade years between which gender did the hiding. The others had a few hours to find them. The losers had to put on a banquet for the winners.
We also divided this activity by gender. I’m starting to think the whole purpose of MYF is to get the kids to marry someone, the opposite gender of course, within the church. And do it young so you have lots of kids.
Anyway, one year the girls hid in a cornfield on my great grandma Roth’s farm, which was by then being farmed by one of her kids. It was only a few miles east of where I lived. It was in October but the corn wasn’t harvested yet. So we just laid down between the corn rows, all in one long row. We thought that even if the guys walked through the cornfield, it would be difficult to cover every row. And yes, they walked through the cornfield and were only a few rows over from us. We could see them. But they never found us, so they had to arrange and serve the food at our banquet in November.
Another year, we hid on the top of Pam’s dad’s barn. He had a double roof on it, where there was an area where both roofs sloped downward toward each other, and if you went to the bottom of that roof area all you could see was the roof around you and the night sky. So we all laid on the roof, cozy and clean in sleeping bags, while the boys searched the whole farm. We won again.
I think we found the boys both years that I searched for them, but I don’t remember the details. Hiding was so much more fun.
It was traditional to welcome the freshman class to MYF in September of each year. For a few weeks, we would do everything as scheduled, but then we would have an MYF initiation night. Some classes were worse than others, and the one older than us was pretty bad. I ate dog food covered in chocolate, had raw eggs poured over my hair, crawled through straw, and more. It took me forever to get all that out of my hair that night. This was the one thing I hated about MYF. It just seemed mean.
The next year we were supposed to plan the initiation for the kids one year younger than us. I remember the meeting with the kids my age and the sponsors. We talked about how we didn’t want to do it. In the end, we had a harvest party in the abandoned house on my dad’s farm, and we didn’t do anything mean. Everyone else was surprised, and nobody did that sort of initiation for the rest of the time I was in MYF. My class stopped the hazing.
Bible quiz was another option for us. I was in it for three years, but not for my senior year. In my junior year, I had joined a lot of extra activities and ended up with a case of shingles on my forehead and in my hair. The doctor had talked with me about how it can be related to stress, when the chickenpox virus is activated into shingles. I decided to cut back and Bible quiz was one thing I let go of.
Quiz was a lot of memorizing. It made Bible school look like nothing. Over the three years I was in it, we studied the books of John, Amos, Mark, and James. We had it practically memorized. Once a month throughout the school year we would go to West Clinton’s sanctuary and be quizzed on our knowledge. I was pretty good at it. But I really liked the lack of pressure during my senior year.
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.
Dr. David Tee, whose real name in Derrick Thomas Thiessen, is a Christian Missionary & Alliance preacher without a church to pastor; a man who abandoned a child years ago and fled to the Philippines to avoid legal accountability; a thief who regularly uses content from this site without giving proper attribution; an obsessive-compulsive man when to comes to my writing and that of my British friend Ben Berwick. He cannot and will not stop molesting us.
Tee has written more than one hundred posts about me, and a substantial number of articles about Ben. Over the past six weeks, Tee has written a post that mentions me every few days. Ben has figured out how to completely block him from accessing his site, but I’ve been unable to do so. There was a time when I would respond to his attacks, lies, and mischaracterizations, but I no longer do so. I only respond now when he says something so egregious that I feel compelled to reply.
As you know, I’ve taken a break from writing. (We are going to a baseball game in Cincinnati on Monday.) I’ve been trying to catch up on a few things, especially emails and the Black Collar Crime Series. My goal this coming week is to get my podcast up and running. Imagine my surprise, then, to read this from Tee:
They [Ben Berwick and Bruce Gerencser]are never honest. The owner of the BG website [The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser] said he was taking a break from writing, yet aside from 3 guest posts, he has published more articles since that notice went [where?] than any other given week he was writing.
Honesty and integrity are two things we do not expect from unbelievers. But we can call them cowards as their actions are just that, cowardly. The MM [Meerkat Musings] website owner [Ben Berwick] is exactly like the little boy who didn’t get his way and takes his ball and goes home.
He wants to call the shots even though he has no credibility, or legitimacy to call the shots. We laugh at him and his actions because he has not grown up but likes to bully those who are different from himself.
He is supposed to be an adult yet acts in the most childish manner. he should change the name of the website to chicken little. If we are being harsh it is because his actions exemplify everything we have just written.
We are getting more of a laugh than anything else and write this in a lighthearted manner even though he will make false accusations about us. He always does.
What a prick. Tee says he is a follower of Jesus, but his behavior says that he is anything but.
Most of the readers of this blog understand that I took a break from writing. The posts that have been published recently, don’t fall into that category. Sounds of Sacrilege, Sounds of Fundamentalism, and the Black Collar Crime Series? These series’ require very little work on my part. I use templates that allow me to push out content quickly. I have a big backlog of potential posts for these series. So, during my time away from writing, I’m trying to clear this backlog.
Of course, all Tee cares about is calling me a liar.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I was thinking about this recently and wondered, when I was a Christian, did I really love God? At the time, I believed that I did. But on this side of things, I realize it was a pretty weird and one-sided relationship. It certainly didn’t start out with me loving God. I was a 12-year-old at a YMCA summer camp in 1980. Most of the camp counselors were either Bible school students or just really devout Christians. One night towards the end of the session, all the campers assembled around a huge fire. It was during this time that the gospel was preached to us; a gospel that basically said because of Adam and Eve, we are all sinners; Jesus came and died and was resurrected to pay for our sins; if we believe this and confess him as Lord, we get to go to heaven instead of hell. Hell was described in Evangelical language: eternal burning in torment kind of thing. Well, shit! When they asked if we wanted to pray the prayer of salvation so we would go to heaven, of course, I prayed the prayer! I entered into this relationship with God not out of love, but out of fear. I can’t say that I ever thought about loving God until after college when I started hanging out with some Bible school students that I worked with.
And then there is the whole thing about being commanded to love God. In Mark 12, people are told to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” What does that mean, exactly? I’m not sure that I love anyone to that extent. What is the difference between heart and soul? And how do I love with all my mind and strength? What kind of strength are we talking about? And, can you love someone just because you are told to? I don’t think you can. Can you love someone that you’ve never seen or heard from? Mmmm . . . again, I don’t think so. I thought many times in my Christian days that God had communicated with me about something. But now, I realize it was just me talking to myself, or it was just my natural human intuition. It was all a one-sided relationship. I do remember being thankful, and thinking I loved God because he saved me from hell. But he saved me from the hell that he created. That sounds suspicious! I don’t believe in hell anymore, but you know what I mean.
I try not to think of all the money and volunteer time I gave to the church. Of course, the main reason I was told that this is what I was supposed to do is because I loved God. And, God loved me so much that he would reward me in this life and the one to come because of my love and dedication to him in the present. Yeah, still waiting for some of that. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed most of my time as a Christian in the churches I attended and my days in ministry. But looking back, there was a lot of manipulation and brainwashing going on. Think about the worship songs we used to sing. How many songs did we sing about how much we love God/Jesus/Holy Spirit?
I love you Lord And I lift my voice To worship you, Oh my soul rejoice. Take joy my king In what you hear, Let it be a sweet, Sweet sound in your ear.
And there is no shortage of songs just like this one. And don’t forget all the songs about how much God loves us. It’s like we had to keep this in front of us all the time so we wouldn’t start questioning God’s love or if we really loved him. Or was I really just trying to avoid hell and some kind of punishment while I’m on this earth? Again, at that time, I would have told you that I loved God and was doing my best to love him more all the time. But when I really re-visit the things I did and believed, there were selfish reasons for doing so. Number one, I didn’t want to go to hell — thus my initial salvation and many rededications through my teen years. I tithed and gave because I loved God and my church, but I also was taught, and preached, the prosperity gospel. You reap what you sow, right? So if I sow money, I’ll reap money. It might be raises at work, or a better job, or my car wouldn’t break down, or something like that. But I can’t honestly say there was no thought of that in my giving. I wanted to know and live God’s plan for my life. Yes, because I loved him and wanted to do what he created me to do. But part of that was I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I figured if God really had a plan, surely I would enjoy it more than how my life was at the time.
Interestingly enough about that last part — God’s plan for my life — I’ve found life much more fulfilling now that I’ve left the faith. When I was a believer, I was always waiting for some kind of divine guidance to get me from where I was to where I thought I’d be happier. So I was never really present in the life I was living day to day. And the fact that I couldn’t seem to figure out God’s plan for my life only made it worse. Now, I’m present in my daily life, doing what’s in front of me to do. I’ve benefited greatly from secular Buddhist and Taoist philosophies regarding mindfulness and all that goes along with that. Is life perfect? Of course not! I work a pretty stressful job, I’m dealing with stress at home, I have some health issues I’m working through, etc. But I have tools to help deal with life that I never had as a Christian. And they are much more effective than prayer ever was! And I can say that I’m much healthier mentally and emotionally than I ever was chasing after God and his plan and working on loving him more. So to answer my initial question, do believers really love God, especially the way the Bible says we should? I’d love to hear your thoughts and about your experiences with this.
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.
Jose Lopez, former volunteer at Pacific Hills Calvary Chapel and Compass Bible Church, both in Aliso Viejo, California, was sentenced to 186 years in prison for sexually abusing two young girls to whom he was related.
A retired Orange County pastor was sentenced Friday to 186 years to life in prison for sexually abusing two young girls with whom he is related.
Jose Andres Lopez, 70, of Mission Viejo, was convicted March 22 of 18 felony sexual assault charges dating as far back as 1991 through 2020. Lopez is a retired Orange County pastor, but jurors did not hear that fact during the trial because it was not deemed relevant to the allegations.
Lopez told Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary Paer that he should get a new trial because the victims did not tell the truth about him.
“Everything that was said was all hearsay as God is my witness,” Lopez said.
Paer pointed out to Lopez that the victims were “thoroughly question by both sides” in the trial “and the jury believed them.”
The judge added that their testimony was not hearsay, but evidence.
“Just because she says something under oath doesn’t mean it’s the truth,” Lopez said.
“You’re entitled to that opinion,” Paer said. “You don’t have to agree with (the convictions) and I understand there will be an appeal on this case.”
Deputy District Attorney Tara Meath said, “There’s multiple layers of evidence in this case” beyond the testimony of the victims.
After being convicted of “years of sexual abuse,” it was “outrageous” for Lopez to make those arguments, Meath said.
Paer said Lopez “violated a huge position of trust” in the case. His attacks showed “planning and sophistication,” Paer said, pointing to the defendant locking the door when he would assault one of the girls.
“He was the wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Paer said, pointing to Lopez’s relationship with the victims and his position as a religious leader.
“He work the mask of a (relative), he wore the mask of a pastor,” Paer said. “But behind the mask he was someone very dangerous.”
Lopez “forfeited your freedom” with the attacks, Paer said.
The judge ordered Lopez to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
On Aug. 21, 2020, one of the victims was finishing up school work remotely during the coronavirus pandemic at the defendant’s home when he called her up to his room, she testified.
“I went upstairs and then he pulled down my shorts I was wearing that day,” she testified. “That’s when he started (sexually assaulting her).”
Lopez had lubricant and condoms next to his bed, she testified.
“He locked the door like he always would,” she testified. “He would usually put a towel under it, but I don’t think he did that day.”
The victim was 13 at the time, but the abuse started when she was 3, Meath said.
The victim’s brother, who is about a year younger, was also in the house and when he was finishing his remote classes, the teacher asked to speak to the defendant to let him know they had worked out some technical issues in connecting virtually, Meath said. The siblings would regularly stay overnights with Lopez on Fridays through Saturdays and major holidays, Meath said.
The brother “ran up the stairs, but the door was locked, so he knocked,” Meath said.
“My teacher wants to talk to you,” the boy said.
The defendant said, “Slide the phone under the door,” Meath said.
The boy said he heard his sister in the room say something to the effect, “Are you done? Is it in?” Meath said.
Then the boy heard “noise he describes as a rhythm that sounded like having sex,” Meath said. “He felt very uncomfortable.”
Later, the victim called her brother upstairs to her room and she was crying as she told him what was happening, Meath said. The next day, the brother told his mother and the tearful victim confirmed it, the prosecutor said.
When investigators spoke with the girl, she said, “He started touching me since I was 3 years old,” according to Meath.
The girl said the alleged abuse “progressed in stages,” Meath said.
“This basically took place every time he had an opportunity,” Meath said. “It occurred every Friday.”
When deputies began executing a search warrant, the victim told them where they could find a sex toy in his room and the color of the towel it was wrapped in, Meath said.
“It was exactly where she said it was,” Meath said.
During the investigation, deputies “stumbled on a police report” out of Massachusetts from a 12-year-old who said the defendant had molested her for years, Meath said.
Lopez is also related to that victim, who moved out of state with her mother when she was 7, Meath said. She would return to spend summers with Lopez for years, and she said the abuse began when she was 5, Meath said. The accuser is about 35 or 36 years old now, she said.
Lopez volunteered as a pastor at Pacific Hills Calvary Chapel in Aliso Viejo between 2003 and 2005, according to sheriff’s officials. He also volunteered at Compass Bible Church in Aliso Viejo between 2012 and 2019, according to sheriff’s officials.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has announced that a member of our church was arrested on suspicion of the abuse of a child who “was known” to him. The press release from the Sheriff’s Department states he has “volunteered at Compass Bible Church” for the past eight years, and later in the release it states he has had “continued access and contact with children.” It should be clarified that this man was not volunteering with kids in children’s ministries at our church, nor was he given access to or had any contact with the children in our kid’s ministry.
This man has never served as a pastor at our church nor has he been on our staff.He served as a volunteer on a team of men that kept order in the parking lot.Whatever “access and contact” the Sheriff’s Department had in view, it was not at our church.
Our senior pastor met with the pastors and our kid’s ministry leaders today to investigate and confirm that this person has had no contact or involvement with our children. We have also had no complaints and nothing has raised suspicion while he has been on our campus or involved with any of our congregants.
We hold the protection of our children in the highest regard. We work to professionally investigate the backgrounds of any who would volunteer to work with our children. And of course, we are ready and willing to fully cooperate with any investigation from our local authorities.
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.
Guest Post by Elise Glassman. Originally published in Aji Magazine Spring 2023.
Growing up in a preacher’s family means hosting a lot of other peoples’ graduations, weddings, and funerals. Each of us has a role to play at these major life events: Dad preaches, Mom runs the reception, and my sisters and I do everything else – we set up chairs and tables, babysit, hand out programs, serve coffee and punch, and clean up after everyone goes home.
Nan’s memorial in 1980 is our first family funeral and I have a new, unfamiliar role: mourner. I didn’t know my great-grandmother well, didn’t understand how tough she was, a single mother in the1920s who lived through the Dust Bowl and World War II and taught at a one-room schoolhouse in Kansas. She was a librarian, property owner, and amateur genealogist, but I only knew her as an elderly relative who sucked on butterscotch candies and occasionally bought us Dairy Queen.
At her wake I sit quietly in the small, hushed funeral home parlor, studying the shiny coffin. Nan’s sunken face is covered in translucent powder, her snowy hair freshly set, shoulders prim under a silken blouse. The room smells of lilacs and a deep earthiness. I look at her and wonder if she’s in Hell.
In the front row, Gram and Aunt Helen weep and dab their eyes with tissues. Only the heathen cry when someone dies, Dad says. Their sadness is proof the godless have no hope. They know they’ll never see their loved one again. For IFB believers like us, funerals are joyous occasions because we celebrate the loved one’s reunification with the Lord, their homecoming. It’s selfish to cry and be sad.
Even in death, we judge.
And, caught between these binary worldviews of utter hopelessness or the triumph of spirit over flesh, the three deaths that befall our family in late 1986 shake my beliefs, and make me question if what Dad preaches about God being in control is actually true.
In September, Gramp Welch has a heart attack and dies. Dad’s brother calls that night to tell us, and we immediately load up the van and begin the long drive to Kansas. Rose and I split the driving so our parents can rest. Dad weeps openly in the back. “I hope he did something about it,” he says, meaning, accepted the Lord.
After the funeral, we go with Gram to the Methodist church basement where women in perms and flowered aprons are setting out punch and casseroles. It’s strange for someone else to be doing the arranging and serving. “I miss Bill terribly but I know I’ll see him in Heaven,” Gram Welch says bravely, picking at her pasta salad. “He trusted in the Lord.”
From her wheelchair at the end of the table, Great-Grandma Staab says mournfully, “It should have been me.”
Later, back at Gram’s house, Dad and his siblings argue at dinner about whether the elderly woman who dozed off in the second row was Great Aunt Mamie or Mabel.
“Did anyone see if Uncle Lester made it?” my grandmother interjects, voice muted.
“What?” my aunt laughs. “Mom, we can’t hear you over that giant gob of mashed potatoes.”
“Who’s Uncle Festus?” Dad’s youngest brother asks. “I thought she said ‘Uncle Fungus,’” my other uncle says.
Dad raises an eyebrow and the siblings start riffing off each other.
“Uncle Fungus was among us.”
”A fungus among us!”
“You could say he’s a fun guy.”
“Are you shitake’ing me?” My aunt’s joke gets a stern look from her brothers.
“Oh, spare us,” Dad says, to groans.
His middle brother says, “there’s no room for ‘shroom jokes at this table.”
“We oyster talk about something else,” Dad adds.
The three give him blank looks.
“No?” His eyes take on a steely glint. It’s a look I know to fear.
“No, dummy, that doesn’t work. We’re riffing on mushrooms,” his sister says.
“Who’s the dummy?” Dad snaps. “I’m not the one living off Mom and scrounging for cigarette money.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” my aunt mutters, getting up. “I sure didn’t miss you and your smart mouth. How do you live with this asshole, Marian?”
Mom’s smile stays frozen on her face but she doesn’t reply. Later, the adults – minus my aunt, who stormed out – drink coffee in the living room and talk. I sit quietly in a dusty corner of the dining room, eavesdropping and looking at my grandfather’s rock collection. During his work as an oil‑field wildcatter, he retrieved interesting stones and fossils from deep in the Earth. Turning a shark tooth over in my fingers, I feel sad. I loved Gramp’s gruff laugh, his homemade peanut brittle, and the Christmas stockings he stuffed with fruit and small toys. We’re supposed to rejoice that he’s gone to Heaven but selfishly I wish he was still here.
On November 7, our head deacon Mr. Foster has a heart attack and dies. It’s his first day at an appliance repair job. He was fifty, which seems elderly, and I feel sorry for the Foster family but Dad says we should feel comforted, even happy, because he was saved and we’ll see him again in Heaven.
A day later, Aunt Helen calls, asking for Mom. “No! Not Pauly!” my mother screams into the phone. Uncle Pauly collapsed in bed, she says when she can finally speak. He’s dead. My parents sag against each other, weeping aloud.
“He was only thirty-six,” Dad adds. He himself turned thirty-nine just weeks ago. “I’ll never see my little brother again.” Tears gush from Mom’s eyes and flow down her face like an undammed river.
I lie awake that night, staring at the ceiling, listening as my sisters weep in their beds. I think about playing burn out with Uncle Pauly in the side yard last summer. My tall, tan, cheerful uncle, who took us to the city swimming pool and taught us to wrestle, is gone forever. It feels unbearable.
Two days later Mom and my sisters and I fly to Kansas City. Mom’s other brother, Uncle David, picks us up. As we walk through baggage claim, I remember waiting here for Gramp and Gram last May. I wish I could go back in time to when Uncle Pauly was alive.
The next few days pass with agonizing slowness. Each event is a fresh occasion for sadness: the memorial in Topeka, where Uncle Pauly and his family lived, the funeral home viewing in Yatesville, then a wake, two rosaries, and finally the funeral mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
During the service, there are readings and hymns, times to stand and times to kneel on little padded benches, and I don’t know when to do any of it. I don’t know how to greet the priest or if I’m to turn around and look at the soprano singing in the balcony behind us. Yatesville has always felt like home, but sitting in this pew in this ornate sanctuary, I feel like I don’t belong.
I reach over to Gramp and take his tanned, strong hand in mine. His fingers lie cool and lifeless in my palm. “Why wasn’t it me, Lis?” he says sadly, and I think I might break from crying.
Gram sits at the end of the pew, her head lowered, her fingers caressing her rosary beads. I’ve been so cruel to her this past year, so harsh in my judgments and opinions. I wish I could hug her, but her face is grim and shoulders hunched, her grief cloaking her like armor.
“Now we invite the family to bring up the gifts,” the priest says, and Aunt Helen and Uncle David stand up. I look at the program. Liturgy of the Eucharist. It’s the Lord’s Table.
I look down the pew at Mom but she shakes her head. As non-Catholics, we aren’t allowed to partake in this Communion. My grandparents walk slowly up the main aisle to the front of the church, accepting a wafer on their tongues and sipping from a golden goblet the priest holds.
IFB communion is closed too, I think, so Catholics wouldn’t be welcome. We’re united, Independent Baptists and Roman Catholics, in excluding the other.
When the day comes to fly home, Uncle David drives us back to Kansas City. We stop at a Wendy’s in Salina for lunch. “You can eat healthy here,” he says pointedly, heading for the salad bar.
Mom and my sisters study the burger menu but I trail my uncle, piling a plate with greens and vegetables and Italian dressing. I want to spend more time with Uncle David. He’s a writer and teaches English at a university in Florida. It seems like a wonderful, literary life.
When we get back to his rental car, there’s a slip of paper stuck in the door. My uncle unfolds it. “‘Next time, Baldy, keep your nasty fingers out of the bread stix,’” he reads. “Hands carry germs!’”
“That’s not very nice,” Mom says, but she’s smirking.
“I’m not even that bald,” he protests, wadding up the paper and tossing it in the back seat. He and Mom burst out laughing, and keep laughing until tears stream from their eyes.
These sudden deaths bother me. One minute Mr. Foster was moving a refrigerator, the next he was gone. Gramp Welch was reading in his chair and suddenly slumped over unconscious. Uncle Pauly had had the flu. The day he died, Aunt Terry said he’d mowed the lawn and taken his daughters for a walk. He felt tired after supper and collapsed while reading the newspaper.
These abrupt departures remind me of the way the Bible describes the Rapture. Jesus will return like a thief in the night, Dad preaches from First Thessalonians. Suddenly. Without warning. These deaths are the Raptures of 1986. They represent what I fear most: goodbyes, and disappearances.
Dad schedules Mr. Foster’s memorial service two days after Mom and Rose and Paige and I return from Kansas. He’s expecting a big turnout: Mr. Foster was a retired pastor and filled the pulpit at churches all over the Northwest. “Can you girls keep the nursery?” he asks Rose and me, as he props up a large photo of Mr. Foster at the front of the Basel Building sanctuary.
The rest of us are folding programs. “I thought the ladies from Grace Baptist were,” Rose says.
“Isn’t Rose playing piano?” Mom says.
We all look at Dad. Of course, we expect to have a role to play, but this memorial feels personal. Mr. Foster was a deacon and my boss at the Mission, and Paige is best friends with Kelly Foster.
A dark look crosses Dad’s face. “I asked Morgana Mitchell to play piano, so Rose is freed up for nursery duty. Is that okay with everyone?”
Mom says, “Yes, Marty. We just didn’t know.”
He snaps, “I didn’t realize I had to check in with all you nags before I made a decision.”
Rose and I head to the nursery to get ready. It won’t do us any good to protest. I didn’t feel like I belonged at Pauly’s funeral and I don’t feel like I belong here. “You girls,” ”I echo angrily. “He treats us like little kids.”
“We’ll get through it,” Rose says. “They can’t control us forever.”
The trio of deaths spurs me on with soulwinning. We can’t miss any opportunity to tell Gram and Gramp Hoffman about the Lord, even if they don’t want to hear it. My grandmother, overwhelmed by anxiety and the loss of her beloved son, needs compassion and understanding, but what she’ll get from me is a hard line: be saved, or perish.
“Now we know why you’re not at Bible college this fall,” Mom comments to me.
So people could die? I think. Am I really such an integral part of God’s plan? Dad preaches that being in the center of God’s will brings peace and contentment. But I just feel sad.
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 Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of IFB pastor Bob Gray, Sr. saying that interracial marriage is 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.
The Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of IFB pastor Jack Hyles saying that if women dress immodestly and get raped that they are asking for it. The story told by Hyles is likely a bald-faced lie.
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.
Nancy was widowed recently. She was 92 years old and her husband, Eddie was 96. In 2022, they’d celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary and, like all Brits on that occasion, had received a congratulatory Platinum Wedding Anniversary card from Queen Elizabeth, just a week before she herself died. Eddie’s mental and physical health was deteriorating, he’d had several minor accidents on the large grounds of the lovely English country mansion that had been their home for decades. He’d narrowly escaped death when he’d decided to dredge the lake he’d dug many years previously and whilst driving the digger, it had slid into the water, toppled over and he’d had to cling onto it till help came. He was snappy and irritable with Nancy in ways that were new to her.
The couple had a large extended family whom they loved to entertain — the east wing alone had 6 guest bedrooms. So this family was worried because just two weeks after Eddie’s death, Nancy packed her bags, dragged them downstairs, and told them she was taking a taxi to a nearby Care Home, one she’d had her eye on for a while, and it had a vacancy. The family thought she’d made a very wrong and hasty decision, one she’d later regret as she also said she planned to sell her beloved mansion home.
I saw it differently. I’d just learned the word ‘situationship’ and felt that was Nancy’s position. She’d loved Eddie, but watching him deteriorate, she dreaded every time he went into the gardens or his workshop, fearing yet another accident or that he’d collapse out there and not be found for several hours. I think her relationship had become a situationship, one that would never improve, it was all downhill for the foreseeable future.
She grieved for Eddie, but I think she had a sense of release, of relief that he’d died peacefully in his sleep and not after some collapse or accident, some long and painful stay in hospital leaving him even more incapacitated. She knew he’d be angry and frustrated if that happened, he’d take it out on her as she tried to care for him, and any caregivers they employed, would soon leave because of his bad behaviour with them.
I relate this to my deconversion, and learning this word ‘situationship’ made me realise that I’d believed I was in a wonderful and loving relationship with Jesus and my Father God who had his loving arms around me every moment. But gradually I became uneasy. I was Jesus-ing my socks off 24/7 and there was not even a glimpse of the great harvest of souls I thought my God promised his faithful ones. Our relationship was going downhill, however much I prayed for him to show me where I and my church were going wrong as we tried to ‘seek and save the lost.’ I could no longer put any trust in a belief that was often expressed by my fellow X-tians: that this reward for our efforts was just around the corner, we just had to perform one more evangelistic activity and the miracle would happen. I wasn’t in an awesome, loving relationship, I was stuck in a situationship, beginning to dread the future which was going to be one of sliding further and further downhill with more and more failed attempts at evangelism and at keeping our church active and relevant in our village.
I’m different from Nancy in that she was in a real relationship with her husband for over five decades until his health problems changed everything. I was in a fantasy one for the same length of time with a fictional God and Jesus. But I suggest that both of us celebrate our freedom now from many worries and inconsistencies. Our sense of relief is palpable. She’s happy in her one room in her Care Home — though her family is still sure she’s faking it, she must hate its small size after her mansion — and I’m happy and free too, differently of course, to do whatever I want with my life just as she’s done. I think both of us feel a sense of peace we wouldn’t have thought possible had we not been able to give it a try.
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.
