David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
Editor’s Note: Dr. David Tee is a fake name used by Derrick Thomas Thiessen, a Christian Missionary and Alliance preacher who fled the United States/Canada twenty years ago and now lives in the Philippines. Thiessen has spent the past two years ripping off my writing, hurling sermons at me, and attacking my character. He has written over one-hundred posts about me. And at times, I respond. (Search for Dr. David Tee and Derrick Thomas Thiessen.) This series will take a look at things Thiessen doesn’t want anyone to know about. Once this series is completed, Tee/Thiessen will no longer be mentioned by me in my writing. You have my word on this subject.
Guest Post by W.W. Jacobs
First, we cover what may be my single favorite exchange in the record we’ve been discussing:
“Do you vote, Mr. Thiessen?”
“No.”
“Did you ever apply for voter registration?”
“It’s illegal to do so.”
“Yes, it is. Have you ever done so?”
“Yes.”
[Ed.: let us pause here and reflect on Derrick’s recent blog post: “…this confession … destroys any credibility or authenticity (he) thought he had. Anything he has published, is publishing, or will publish is now non-credible because he willfully admits to breaking the law. Nothing he says can be taken even at face value because he thinks he is above the law.”]
“When did you do that?”
“Ten years ago, ten to fifteen years ago?”
“Where?”
“It was in (State 1).”
“What did you do?”
“Didn’t vote.”
“Did you apply for voter registration in the state of (State 1)?”
“Yeah, I applied, but didn’t vote, didn’t use it.”
“How did you apply?”
“Just filled out a card and sent it in.”
“What name did you use?”
“David Ford.”
“You knew you had to be a US citizen to vote?”
“Yeah. I didn’t vote.”
“Did you know it’s illegal to create an application to vote using a false name if you’re not a US citizen?”
“It didn’t say application for one was illegal. To have one or use, it’s illegal.”
“Did you get the voter registration card?”
“No.”
[omitting several comments that are summarized as “you can’t prove I ever had physical possession of the voter registration card, and besides, I never used it, so no harm, no foul”]
…
“Did you apply for voter registration anyplace else?”
“No.”
“Specifically, did you apply for one in (State 2)?”
“No.”
“Did you ever use the name Peter Sullivan?”
“No.”
“… Do you recognize this?”
“No.”
“This is a voter registration card for (State 2). What’s the name that’s at the top?”
“Sullivan, Peter.”
“What is the address listed for Peter Sullivan applying for this registration card?”
“(redacted)”
“That’s where you lived, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And what is the occupation listed?”
“Writer.”
“And you are a writer, correct?”
“I was.”
“And what is the date of birth listed on this registration card?”
“(redacted)”
“That’s your date of birth, is it not?”
“Yes.”
…
“… Can you tell me any reason – this thing has your address, your date of birth, your occupation. Just a coincidence?”
“No, because off and on I would help people out and have them stay with me. Some were not the most reputable people, but they needed help and this could be the way they paid me back.”
[Ed.: I don’t know about you, but whenever I’ve done someone a favor, they’ve repaid my kindness with, usually, a meal, or returning the car they borrowed with a full tank of gas, not by committing a felony on my behalf.]
“… This says, if I’m correct, ‘I’m a citizen of the United States.”
“Okay.”
“Is that what it says?”
“Yes.”
“And does it also say it’s a felony for someone to sign this and submit it if that information is not correct?”
“Okay. That’s what it says.”
“So your testimony is that you did something similar to this in (State 1), but you’re denying any responsibility for doing this in (State 2)?”
“Yes.”
Incidentally, you’ve received just a taste of the mental gymnastics he’s capable of. Maybe later we’ll get to the visitation rights he demanded for his child, which he then never availed himself of because “I believe it’s my right not to do so.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
Editor’s Note: Dr. David Tee is a fake name used by Derrick Thomas Thiessen, a Christian Missionary and Alliance preacher who fled the United States/Canada twenty years ago and now lives in the Philippines. Thiessen has spent the past two years ripping off my writing, hurling sermons at me, and attacking my character. He has written over one-hundred posts about me. And at times, I respond. (Search for Dr. David Tee and Derrick Thomas Thiessen.) This series will take a look at things Thiessen doesn’t want anyone to know about. Once this series is completed, Tee/Thiessen will no longer be mentioned by me in my writing. You have my word on this subject.
Guest Post by W.W. Jacobs
This will be my final installment in this series. Derrick himself would be wise not to breathe a sigh of relief; I have certainly not disclosed all the damning information I have on him, and I will not hesitate to reveal more if he decides to start rattling his saber of sanctimony again, either here or elsewhere.
However, the objective of the first post I made here last year is accomplished. Any ministry worth its salt should be Googling David Tee / David Thiessen / Derrick Theissen / David Ford / Peter Sullivan / whatever he decides to call himself.
And the first several results of the search will be this site, recording the story of the would-be missionary whose employment in a non-teaching job is only measured in months because he decides the accepted standards of conduct in the typical place of employment do not apply to him … who has credibly been accused of domestic violence by at least two women … who has no verifiable degree from an accredited institution beyond a bachelor’s degree conferred in 1980 … who not only abandoned his child but fled the country to avoid so much as paying a nominal amount of court-ordered child support … who spits in the face of those who extend benevolence and compassion to him … and who is an identity thief and a convicted felon.
The first Scripture for today, just for Derrick, is Luke 12:1-3: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.”
Also Luke 8:17: “For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”
For the overall theme of this remaining installment, the Scripture is Romans 13:1-2: “Every person is to be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”
For the sake of this discussion, we will assume that a Christian, such as Derrick, will recognize the 535 members of the U.S. Congress and the elected chief executive of the U.S. government – i.e. the President – as having authority that is ultimately been conferred upon them by God (Derrick’s presumed assessment of the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency notwithstanding). This would include their authority to write and enact U.S. immigration laws.
To keep this simple, when you come to the United States from another country, you are either coming as a visitor or coming to work for an American employer. If you’re coming as a visitor, you are not allowed to work while you’re here, and you have to leave after a certain period of time. If you’re coming to work (an H-1B visa) you have to be sponsored by a specific employer and you have to have a job already waiting for you.
Derrick came in on a visitor visa, which is why he needed to steal … err, “accept a gift of” … someone’s Social Security number in order to get a job, because possession of a Social Security number is a basic affirmation of your legal right to work in the United States. But we’ll get to that.
First, some background information. All quotes below were offered, under penalty of perjury, by Derrick.
“Mr. Thiessen, where were you born?”
“ British Columbia.”
“What is your date of birth?”
“(Redacted).”
“Do you have a Social Security number?”
“123-45-6789.” (Not the actual number he used.)
“And you’re a citizen of what country?”
“Canada.”
“Do you have any citizenship rights in the United States?”
“No.”
“What is your current immigration status?”
“Visitor.”
“Do you have a visa?”
“Canadians don’t need one.”
[Ed.: this is accurate – so long as they aren’t coming for work.]
“… we get automatic six months in America …”
[This is also accurate, with some caveats that are not germane to this discussion.]
“… we have to leave once in that six-month period, and we get an automatic six months again.”
[This is not accurate. Visitors must petition the U.S. government for an extension if they want to stay longer.]
“It’s your understanding that you can stay in the United States, Canadians can, indefinitely as long as you leave the country and come back in once every six months?”
“In consulting with an immigration attorney, yes, that’s what I can do.”
[Ed.: This is presumably the same immigration attorney who allegedly told him it would be fine to apply for entry to the U.S. under a false name.]
“Is that what you in fact have been doing?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do, go to [border town]?”
“Yes.”
“Cross the border?”
“Yes.”
“And then come right back?”
“Yes.”
“Is there paperwork you need to sign when you come back across?”
“No.”
[Ed.: His paper trail does include at least one Mexico-based cell phone number. My presumption is that he needed some way to validate having ‘left the U.S.’ and “here’s my Mexican phone number” was what he came up with.]
“Have you ever used a false Social Security number?”
“Yes.”
“Where was that?”
“(Redacted)”
“For what reason did you use a false Social Security number?”
“Just for identification. Someone gave it to me. I never applied for it, never bought it, someone just gave it to me out of the kindness of their heart.”
“Who did?”
“(Redacted name of a lady who is now of age to collect Social Security and, suffice to say, is having some issues doing so because of Derrick’s abuse of what he claims to be her kindness.)”
“What was that Social Security number that she gave you?”
“123-45- … I think it’s 6789.” (Again, not the actual number.)
“Did you ever use that Social Security number?”
“Not really.”
“What do you mean by not really?”
“I had it for identification. That’s it.”
“Did you ever write it down on a piece of paper verifying or saying that was your Social Security number?”
“Not that I can recall.”
…
“You were using a false name?”
“No, that [David Ford] is the name I was going by for ten years through that whole time.”
“Did David Ford have his own Social Security number different than your Social Security?”
“No, he never had one.”
“What Social Security number did you use during this … process?”
“Just the one that was given to me by that girl.”
“What number was that?”
“I don’t know … I haven’t thought about it for years.”
“So you used a false name and a false Social Security number, under oath … is that a fair statement?”
“No, I used the same name I was presenting myself by. I was not going to make matters any worse. I took that name, I stood by that name, I never committed any fraud by that name, because I was always going to stick by that name in all situations.”
[Ed.: this is emblematic of Derrick’s logic: “I never committed any fraud under the fraudulent name I was using.”]
“Did you use a false Social Security number?”
“I used that number that was given to me by the girl.”
“Was that your Social Security number?”
“It was hers, she lent it to me and she said, here, you can have your freedom, use my Social Security number.”
“Did you understand that to be legal?”
“At the time, no.”
“You understood it to be illegal, correct?”
“I … at the time, it took me about a year or two to find out all the legal ramifications.”
…
“This document … your Social Security number is stated there and it’s Social Security number 123-45-6789.”
“Okay.”
“Was that your Social Security number?”
“That’s the one that was given to me, yes.”
“Answer the question. Was that your Social Security number?”
“These were … can you clarify that?”
“Let’s do it this way. Was that Social Security number issued to you by the United States government?”
“No.”
“This as a false Social Security number given to you by some girl?”
“It was a Social Security number given to me by a friend.”
“You know you were not entitled to use it?”
“At the time, I knew that. At the time initially given, I didn’t know it.”
“You thought this might have been legal to use a false Social Security number?”
“I don’t have an opinion on that either way. At the time I wasn’t worried, didn’t think about it being illegal.”
“Did you have a card with that Social Security number on it in your wallet, on your person, or somewhere?”
“No.”
“[This voter registration record] … just right above the [stolen] Social Security number, it’s got your place of birth and it says California?”
“Yes.”
“Were you born in California, sir?”
“No.”
“So you lied on that question, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And do you think that was proper or legal to do?”
“No.”
This would be a good time to revisit Derrick’s recent comment: “…this confession … destroys any credibility or authenticity (he) thought he had. Anything he has published, is publishing, or will publish is now non-credible because he willfully admits to breaking the law. Nothing he says can be taken even at face value because he thinks he is above the law.”
This concludes my posting on the subject, unless Derrick and his lying, deserting, abusive ways escalate matters such that it becomes necessary to offer the rebuke of disclosing additional information.
I thank Bruce for allowing me this space and time.
To Derrick: I would presume that Bruce’s offer to provide the space for you to offer a substantive rebuttal remains in force. Just remember having held the monkey’s paw if you do.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
Recently, Matt Gaetz has said he wants a law to make prayer mandatory in schools. He’s just the latest in a long line of fundy lawmakers, pastors, and leaders to want the same, telling us it’s the only solution to every one of the USA’s problems.
I’m comparing that belief in school prayer as the antidote to all that is wrong with American society, to religion in UK schools.
Britain is now an almost secular society in spite of the fact that, since 1947, it’s been law here that there should be a daily act of Christian worship in schools and that religious education (RE) should be part of the core curriculum. The mandatory act of worship still stands, though the teaching of RE is subject to local education boards and faith schools can set their own curricula. I used to observe that the only parents who withdrew their children from Christian teaching were from ethnic minorities who practised another religion. I then saw white British-born parents beginning to exercise their right to withdraw their children because they just found the idea of religious indoctrination abhorrent or totally irrelevant to their lives.
I was told that becoming a teacher was God’s plan for me, and that it would be a great career for sharing my faith. Newly married, hubby and I did just that. We were huge fans of Larry Norman back in the early 1970s. We played his albums repeatedly. I remember that a chill went through us as we heard his line in a song, ‘It’s against the law to pray in schools.’ And we worried slightly, because here in the UK, hubby and I, as teachers, could unashamedly promote our evangelical faith. Perhaps Norman was being prophetic, we would soon be persecuted and have to go into hiding.
In one place I lived, Christian mums held a monthly prayer meeting for Christian teachers in the local schools. In another, our church put out a summer prayer list, where students could fill in the dates of each of their end-of-year exams so we could pray for them on those days. Maybe our church students would be ‘A Good Witness,’ by getting better grades than heathen students and be able to attribute it to the power of prayer for them in school.
For decades I had free range. I told bible stories to 5-7-year-olds, quietly ignoring genocidal bits of the OT. I took assemblies – many schools didn’t have a practising Christian on the staff so were relieved when one offered to do that. Then schools were told they should be part of ‘the wider community,’ and invite local clergy in for morning worship. We rubbed our hands with glee and contacted evangelical speakers, or evangelists visiting the area and got them in so they could promote our brand of Christianity. I took courses that led to me training schools on how to utilize the newest, trendy way to teach RE in their schools. A fundy organisation had managed to draw up an RE curriculum that was very Bible-based, yet acceptable to secular authorities, but it required training, so I did that gleefully too. Being sneaky-for-Jesus was just fine if it got our flavour of faith into schools.
So, I’m wondering how prayer in USA schools would affect society – because it certainly hasn’t in the UK.
Back to those praying mums who told me I was ‘sowing seeds’ with every story. Maybe not now, but even many years on, it might get my hearers to think about their eternal destiny. . . I seriously can’t think of having met anyone who got saved as an adult by recalling what they had to pray for in school or because of what they were taught in mandatory RE classes. I suggest that if you ask many Brits how they’d describe school assemblies, they’d say ‘boring.’ No one’s ever told me they got saved by recalling that teacher many years later, who’d pranced about on stage with sets of two toy fluffy animals boarding the Ark and explained God’s omnibenevolent character to them through his genocide. No one’s ever told me they found The True Meaning Of Christmas when they took part in those many Nativity plays I produced, much as those pretty little (blonde) girls loved those sparkly angel dresses, tinsel, and glitter.
Am I completely off track here, Am I completely misunderstanding USA Christian culture?
I’m just recalling my wasted decades of praying and evangelising openly in UK schools, and, like other evangelistic projects I took part in, they recorded a score of zero converts.
What effect do you think compulsory prayer will have on America’s children? Will it re-Christianise the country as God sends wondrous, miraculous answers to school prayers?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
Editor’s Note: Dr. David Tee is a fake name used by Derrick Thomas Thiessen, a Christian Missionary and Alliance preacher who fled the United States/Canada twenty years ago and now lives in the Philippines. Thiessen has spent the past two years ripping off my writing, hurling sermons at me, and attacking my character. He has written over one-hundred posts about me. And at times, I respond. (Search for Dr. David Tee and Derrick Thomas Thiessen.) This series will take a look at things Thiessen doesn’t want anyone to know about. Once this series is completed, Tee/Thiessen will no longer be mentioned by me in my writing. You have my word on this subject.
Guest Post by W.W. Jacobs
I want to open with this thought from Derrick’s recent blog post:
“You cannot be Christian and a Democrat.”
Not even the fact of him being Canadian would lend any credence to a claim of unfamiliarity with a Democrat named Jimmy Carter. He is far from the only example, but he is certainly the most prominent one.
On to today’s post. In reviewing some of the recent comments, I get the impression that there’s significant interest in his history of interpersonal relationships.
Today I open with 1 Timothy 5:8: “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
“To whom have you been married?”
“Her name was [redacted].”
“For what period of time were you married to (her)?”
“From 1988 to 1989.”
…
“Have you had any contact with (redacted) since 1989?”
“No.”
“Did you get divorced in (state)?”
“Yes.”
“What name were you using at the time of this divorce?”
“David Ford.”
…
“Was there ever filed in court any paperwork regarding any domestic violence whatsoever between you and (redacted)?”
“No.”
“At any time?”
“No.”
“Was there any domestic violence between you and (redacted) at any time?”
“Not in my opinion.”
“Tell me about what someone else might think.”
“Well, we fought like normal. That’s all.”
“Did you ever strike her at all?”
“She probably says I did.”
“Did you?”
“Not that I recall.”
[During a discussion about his employment history.]
“Canadian dollars are 50% of American dollars, and I’m going to have to be paying child support, it’s a 50% hit that I can’t afford, it’s better that I find work here that I can fully fund the child support.”
[Ed.: I am not sure if this is a genuine misunderstanding or deliberate obfuscation – I suspect the latter – but for most of the time period at issue, the exchange rate was around 1.50 USD to CAD. In other words, it would cost him $15.00 American to get $10.00 Canadian. However, in reverse, $10.00 Canadian could be exchanged for $15.00 US, meaning that in Canadian dollars, his monthly child-support obligation would be roughly the same as a monthly utility bill.]
“Have you made any child –“
“There’s no money to pay the child support.”
“So the answer is no?”
…
“It wouldn’t be effective to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, 50 percent, that would be almost impossible for me to pay child support.”
“Why?”
“The Canadian expenses are very outrageous. Not only is there a 52 percent income tax, but if you live in the wrong area where the jobs are, expenses are astronomical.”
“So I’ll ask you again. Your reason for not going back to Canada and getting a job is because of the exchange rate and expenses in Canada would not make it worth your while financially?”
“They would not benefit anyone financially.”
Derrick hails from Alberta originally. Above, I referenced information about what presumably would be one of his monthly bills. The site where I found this information has this to say about the cost of living in Alberta:
With Alberta having no provincial sales tax and relatively higher incomes than the rest of Canada, the province can be attractive to move to. Along with a fairly modest cost of living that is anchored by low rents province-wide, and cheap gas prices, Alberta can be a place to comfortably raise a family.
I will let the reader draw their own conclusions about the validity of his statement that he could not afford to return to his home province of Alberta, get a job, and fulfill his court-ordered obligations.
Also, simply because I don’t want the headache of transcribing it, here’s a basic outline of some of the other testimony about this child:
He was granted visitation and never availed himself of it
When asked why, he said, “it’s my right not to.”
Regarding additional questions about the child, he said “I don’t believe it’s mine.”
He claims that a few different women have tried to pin him as the father of their children “but when push came to shove, no child came forth.” Does anyone want to take bets that he skipped town before a paternity test could be done?
“I had a childhood disease, and I have been sterile for years.” He had never had a medical determination of this because “I never felt the need to.”
Several pages of this deposition are all about how he doesn’t feel it’s his child. I wonder if that’s how he convinced himself that he’s not violating 1 Timothy 5:8 all these years – if it’s not his child, he’s under no obligation to provide, right? Yet in my e-mail correspondence with him, from the jump, he kept referring to “my boy.” Dude, make up your mind.
From here there was some discussion about Derrick’s family history, which I am skipping, notwithstanding an amusing exchange in which he couldn’t remember if his brother’s name is “Tom” or “Jerry” (not real names, although the real ones are equally dissimilar). To limit the scope of this post to his personal relationships, we now turn to a discussion of Derrick pleading guilty to a very minor – Class C – felony and put on probation.
“Did you, in fact, violate your probation?”
“Yes.”
“Did the probation officer file a petition to have your probation revoked?”
“I don’t know. That I don’t know.”
“Specifically were there allegations of new criminal activity?”
“No, not that I’m aware of.”
“Specifically allegation of assault by you on [former girlfriend]?”
“Okay. They reported that. I got sent back.”
“Tell me about that.”
“About what?”
“What was the assault on [former girlfriend]?”
“We just had a disagreement.”
“You assaulted her, is that correct?”
“Not really.”
“What do you mean by not really?”
“She’d call it assault. I wouldn’t.”
“But she did call it assault, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“She called the police, did she not?”
“Yes.”
“She got an injunction against you for domestic violence?”
“As far as I know she did.”
…
“Any domestic violence of any kind between you and [ex-wife]?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“Were there any arguments?”
“We fought like normal people.”
“Did you ever break anything?”
“I threw a phone away from her, not at her.”
“Phone break?”
“Yes.”
“You threw that in anger?”
“Yes.”
“Anger at [ex-wife]?”
“Anger at the situation.”
“What situation?”
“Just whatever was going on at the time.”
“What was going on at the time?”
“Just an unreasonable amount of dialogue that pertained to her wanting to leave.”
“She wanted to leave you?” “Yeah.”
“You didn’t want her to leave you?”
“Didn’t want her to, but I didn’t stop her.”
“Threw a portable phone across the room and smashed the phone, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have certain problems with people closing doors in your presence?”
“At the time when that happened it felt like she was cutting me off.”
“What, at the time what happened?”
“I just told her she did it she could open it.”
“The door?”
“Yeah.”
“When did this happen?”
“I never kicked it open.”
“When did this happen?”
“About the same time frame as when the phone was thrown.”
…
“So you agreed telling [ex-wife] not to close any doors behind her, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“You told her that on more than one occasion?”
“I could have.”
“And you told her that if she ever closed any doors on you, you would kick them down?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you tell her that?”
“Because I thought she was cutting me off, and I couldn’t handle that.”
“Why couldn’t you handle that?”
“She was my wife.”
“So your wife is not entitled to any privacy?”
“She got privacy.”
“How did she get privacy if she can’t close the door?”
“I never kicked one down either.”
“But you threatened to?”
“Yes.”
“On more than one occasion?”
“Could have been more than one.”
“Was it more than one?”
“I remember once.”
…
“[Ex-wife] got a protective order against you, did she not?”
“Yes.”
…
“And were the allegations made in that document accurate?”
“Yes.”
…
“You consider that domestic violence?”
“No.”
“Do you consider not allowing your wife to go into her room and close the door, threatening to kick the door down if she does, do you consider that domestic violence?”
“That’s not a question that would pertain … that would get the full truth out of that.” “I’m sorry?”
“That’s a question I couldn’t answer with the full truth. That would be stipulating that I set the limit that she couldn’t close any doors. That’s not true.”
“Do you consider threatening to kick a door down if your wife closes it to be domestic violence?”
“No.”
“What do you consider domestic violence?”
“Basically if I physically did something to her.”
“So threatening her doesn’t –“
“I didn’t threaten her. I threatened the door.”
“This isn’t the first time a protective order has been issued against you, is it?”
“I don’t know.”
[Ed. Spoiler alert: it’s not the first time.]
One of the reasons this is all being done in multiple parts is simply that I get a headache trying to follow along with his semantics.
For a different angle regarding his interpersonal relationships, we all know how Derrick feels about gay people.
I have been in contact with a man named Max, who was rather astounded to read some of Derrick’s blog posts on the subject. He and his late (male) partner gave Derrick food, clothing, shelter, and even money – more than once – during a period when Derrick was homeless and broke.
Max would like Derrick to know that if Derrick feels the humanity they showed him – to include their compassion and generosity toward him – is somehow tainted by their sexual orientation, he is willing to negotiate a repayment plan so Derrick need no longer be indebted to a homosexual.
Incidentally, I shared this with Derrick, and Max’s unhappiness about being labeled a reprobate. His response was “I never called Max a reprobate!” No, Derrick, you just said gay people are depraved and beyond all hope of salvation so long as they continue in “their lifestyle.” That’s <check notes> the dictionary definition of “reprobate” and you certainly never noted any exceptions, least of all your long-ago benefactor, to that statement. So … yeah, you did.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
David Tee/Derrick Thomas Thiessen is the tall man in the back
Editor’s Note: Dr. David Tee is a fake name used by Derrick Thomas Thiessen, a Christian Missionary and Alliance preacher who fled the United States/Canada twenty years ago and now lives in the Philippines. Thiessen has spent the past two years ripping off my writing, hurling sermons at me, and attacking my character. He has written over one-hundred posts about me. And at times, I respond. (Search for Dr. David Tee and Derrick Thomas Thiessen.) This series will take a look at things Thiessen doesn’t want anyone to know about. Once this series is completed, Tee/Thiessen will no longer be mentioned by me in my writing. You have my word on this subject.
Guest Post by W.W. Jacobs
“Your irrational ‘response’ has no evidence backing it up.” — Derrick Thiessen, 27 July 2022
This exchange eventually escalated to Derrick threatening suits over libel and slander. Problem: accusing someone of libel and slander involves documenting that they knowingly and maliciously disseminated false information.
The information disseminated to date isn’t even false, let alone maliciously disseminated. And what is contained herein is just a portion of the information available to me.
I haven’t decided how far I’m going to dive into this – that will largely depend on my interest and the level of benevolence Bruce is willing to extend – but since the single biggest pet peeve Derrick seems to have is being addressed as “Derrick” and not “David” (which he has the audacity to compare to Saul being renamed Paul) I’ll start there.
The following is excerpted from a sworn deposition that Derrick sat for a number of years ago:
“(The deponent), having affirmed to state the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, testified as follows:
“Would you state your full, legal name please?”
“Derrick Thomas Thiessen.”
“And Derrick is spelled how?”
“D-E-R-R-I-C-K.”
“Your middle name is Thomas, T-H-O-M-A-S?”
“Yes.”
…
“Mr. Thiessen, do you have any other form of ID in any other name, or is Derrick, or David, the name?”
“No. Surname is David, I go by David. My immigration lawyer who filed the paperwork put David Thiessen down as the primary name, so I’ve gone by that instead of Derrick, so all my American ID is in David.”
(Incidentally, Derrick, the next time you’re hard up for money, you may well have a solid malpractice case against the attorney who advocated filling out paperwork listing a name other than the one on the identification issued to you by the Canadian government when you sought to enter the U.S., considering how far your detrimental reliance on that information has spun out of control.)
…
“Mr. Thiessen, have you ever used any other name other than Derrick Thiessen?”
“What?”
(His attorney) “We did discuss his name David Ford, I believe.”
[Ed.: he published a tract or pamphlet entitled “Abortion: Where Can We Turn?” under the pseudonym “John Ford” – not “David Ford” – in the mid-1980s, and testified to same in this deposition.]
“Fine. Did you have any other names, other than David Thiessen?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“What other name did you use?”
“David Ford.”
“Did you use any other names at all?”
(His attorney) “I’m sorry, are we remembering the fact that he also said that Derrick and David is, used those names recently? I just want to make it clear he doesn’t forget we’ve already discussed that.”
“We did discuss his name David Ford, I believe.”
“You testified that you used the name David Ford?”
“Yes.”
“You also testified you used the name David Thiessen?”
“It’s synonymous. I don’t differentiate between the two.”
“Your synonymous names are Derrick Thiessen and David?”
“I use D. David Thiessen, it’s on my American ID.”
“What about the name David Ford?”
“I haven’t used that in years.”
“Why did you use it?”
“I didn’t want my family to find me.”
“Who specifically in your family didn’t you want to find you?”
“My immediate family.”
“Why didn’t you want them to find you?”
“Personal reasons at the time.”
“What were the personal reasons at the time?”
“Just disagreements between the family and me.”
“What type of disagreements?”
“I just said I wasn’t coming back.
“Why did you want them not to find you?”
“Didn’t want anything to do with them.”
…
“So you used the name David Ford?”
“Yes.”
“It’s your testimony that you didn’t use any other false names?”
“Yes.”
“This was a false name, correct?”
“It wasn’t changed legally, but it –“
“That was not your name, correct?”
“For ten years it was, yes.”
“But not your legal name, correct?”
“Not my legal name.”
“Where did you come up with Ford?”
“Came to me. I just picked a name out of the hat.”
(There are other names he acknowledged previously using, including Peter, elsewhere in this deposition.)
So, let’s recap:
Neither “David” nor “Tee” are part of his legal name.
“Derrick Thomas Thiessen” is his legal name.
His legal name has apparently never been changed – through deed poll, civil action, or similar – from “Derrick Thomas Thiessen.”
He did not start calling himself “David” to commemorate some “road to Damascus” moment, but because he wanted to go “no contact” with his family.
In this same deposition, he identifies his parents as “Frank” and “Eleanor.” The cemetery where they are buried records their names as “Franz” and “Elnora.”
As best I’ve been able to determine, they were either first- or second-generation Canadians of German descent. It is certainly understandable why people living in North America in the 1940s might want to downplay their German heritage, thus understandable why they started calling themselves Frank and Eleanor, just as Derrick’s uncle Heinrich started going by Henry. But none of them ever legally changed their names. They also never disclaimed Franz / Heinrich / Elnora as their legal names, they simply started identifying themselves by Anglicized versions of those names.
Derrick is definitively a name of Germanic origin. I gave Derrick the benefit of the doubt and looked into whether “David” (or even “Thomas”) might be an Anglicization of “Derrick.” It is not.
However, “David” is the name he reverted to once he left the company of anyone who was aware of his second marriage. (Yes, his current marriage is at least #3 … what is it Paul instructed Timothy about church leaders being “the husband of one wife”?) He also left the purview of people aware of the child his second marriage produced – including child-support enforcement authorities, who had the name “Derrick Thiessen” flagged for wage garnishment if the name was ever listed on an I-9 form.
But I’m sure Derrick will be happy to explain that it is a complete coincidence that the beginning of his child-support obligations approximately coincide with when he started abbreviating his last name to his college nickname. Just as I’m sure the increased scrutiny of identification and immigration records after 9/11 merely happened to coincide with his “call” to Korea.
One other issue needs to be pointed out. To reiterate, this is Derrick’s sworn testimony under oath. This leaves only a couple of possibilities:
He told the truth in this deposition and has been misrepresenting the truth since then, such as when repeatedly denouncing Bruce’s use of a “wrong name” to identify him. (Even the one admission he made in his own blog implied that he had legally changed his last name, and still paired it with the first name “David.”)
He lied in this deposition, in which case he committed perjury.
Just kidding. There is no third possibility.
Neither lying under oath nor lying in the years since is a good look for a man who claims to lead a broad and far-reaching ministry.
Next time if Bruce’s magnanimity and my schedule permit: why the curriculum at Canadian Bible College [now called Canadian Theological Seminary] apparently does not involve studying Romans 13 or any portion of 1 Timothy. We’ll also discuss the odds of a man with Derrick’s level of arrogance opting not to acknowledge holding a degree more advanced than a bachelor’s in theology when under oath.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:13 (KJV)
Many who spent a significant amount of time in evangelicalism will be familiar with this verse. Personally, I questioned the wording, thinking that it should be “I can do all things through Christ WHO strengtheneth me” but that was not how the wording appeared in KJV. As someone whose brain can overanalyze anything, I wondered whether it was Christ who strengthens me or the IDEA that I can do all things through Christ that is supposed to strengthen me. That is, does Christ himself strengthen me, or does the knowledge that if I work with and believe in Christ I can do all things? These are different concepts, and I heard different interpretations.
Regardless, in the athletic world, I see this verse quite frequently printed on race shirts, tattooed, or written in ink on the bodies of athletes. I wonder how these folks interpret this verse. However they interpret it, obviously these athletes view the verse as a mantra to keep their mental game strong.
Mental toughness is the ability to handle pressure, adversity, and stress by overcoming failures. It is also the state of persisting without refusing to quit, with the possession of superiority in mental skills. This review aimed to describe the effect of mental toughness on the performance of athletes and also to have an insight into the various interventions to improve mental toughness. For this, PubMed was searched using the appropriate keywords till December 2021 and a narrative synthesis was performed. Mental tightness was evident to be correlated with many important aspects such as better performance, goal progress, withholding stress, coping, optimism, and self-reflection. It also helps in a better level of confidence, constancy, control, positive cognition, visualization, and challenges than the opponent team. Many interventional strategies have been adopted in previous years which mainly focused on personalized programs including psychological skills training, coping and optimism training, mindfulness, yoga, general relaxation, imagery, and a combination of both, and many more other aspects were observed to be effective in improving mental toughness. However, physical training alone did not observe to be beneficial. The current evidence indicates the important role of mental toughness on the sports performance of athletics and the role of various interventional strategies focusing on mindfulness and psychological interventions in improving mental toughness. All these interventional strategies need to be implemented in the actual practice.
When I was in college, I learned that a regular and consistent exercise regimen could be beneficial to my health. There were few people in my family who were active; instead, I had many relatives who suffered from a variety of illnesses, and the messaging I received from my relatives was this: “you’re female, and in our family, your destiny is to get fat — but don’t let yourself get fat.” There was no messaging on how I was supposed to handle this issue, so I started paying attention to fitness and nutritional advice. In my early 20s, I started exercising, and I continued to do so through 2 pregnancies, my 30s, my 40s, and now into my 50s. Along the way, I picked up road running 5Ks through marathon distance, and a coworker introduced me to the sport in which I currently specialize, obstacle course racing (OCR). OCR is basically running distances from 100 m to 24-hour events with a variety of obstacles that demand that one goes over, under, through, or carry heavy objects. OCR requires full body strength, skill, and running ability. Participants run the gamut of first-timers looking to challenge themselves to professional athletes. When I completed my first race in 2012, I was a fit first-timer who became hooked on the sport to become a fairly proficient age group competitor.
In 2019, I started to exhibit some success in my age group, sometimes snagging a top-3 finish. Focused training has helped with my skills, and I have improved in races. However, there are instances during races I suffer from imposter syndrome, and sometimes my focus and mental game slip during the course of the race, especially if I am struggling with an obstacle. Sometimes, I’ll give up and stop pushing hard, only to beat myself up during the car drive home. I regret the number of times I watched a 3rd place finish slip through my fingers because I neglected my mental game. When I retain my focus, refuse to give in to negative thoughts, and determine to persevere, I can do quite well.
The Spartan obstacle in this photo is called Bender. It’s a ladder that starts about 6 feet off the ground and leans toward you as you approach it. Racers need to climb over the top of it. It requires some upper body strength, some skill, confidence, and overcoming fear of heights for those of us who fear heights. It’s an obstacle I have struggled with, not for lack of strength but for lack of trust in my own strength. My body is capable, but sometimes my mind goes in a negative direction. There are times that I have succumbed to negative thoughts and given up.
For the past few months I have been struggling with the normal perimenopause changes my body is going through. There are days when I feel like I am living in someone else’s body. Hot flashes, sleep disruption, body composition changes, slower recovery, and where is my motivation? But I will not give up. A 20-minute workout is better than none. One round of exercises is better than none. And usually, once I get started, even if I feel like I am sluggish or weak, I will feel better after 10-15 minutes.
This weekend I went for my weekly long run and did not feel motivated or enthusiastic. I felt slow and sluggish, but after about 30 minutes, I felt good. After 60 minutes, still good; 90 minutes, good; 120 minutes, good. A woman ran up beside me and commented that I was running at a good pace and asked how many miles I had done. She was surprised that I had run 12 miles and had a couple more miles to go. She asked questions about my training, saying she was 42 and wants to run a marathon in 2024. I encouraged her to keep training and let her know that I am 53 and just completed a 50k a few weeks ago. She thanked me and told me that I was inspiring.
Sometimes we inspire people when we are doubting ourselves. We need to just keep doing what we’re doing and stop critiquing ourselves so much. For some people, a mantra like Philippians 4:13 can help them with their mental toughness. Granted, it’s an appeal to an outside force rather than focusing on one’s own strength. Those of us who are atheists know that no amount of prayer will make up for the lack of proper training. As former evangelicals, we were taught that we should NOT rely on ourselves but should rely on God/Jesus/Holy Spirit. As an atheist, I can ONLY rely on myself – my training, my mental fortitude, my preparation. Honestly, it is a privilege to be able to complete the training and races, and I am thankful that this body allows me to do so. I do not take that for granted.
Have you found yourself in a position where you have needed to shift your mindset from trusting in an outside source (a deity) to trusting yourself? What were some challenges you have faced to make that happen?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
When I was verging on thirteen, my family moved from Brooklyn, New York to a small New Jersey town that was turning into a bedroom community for New York commuters.
I forgave my parents for that move when I turned 40.
Seriously, any sort of disruption is difficult for someone entering puberty. In previous posts, I discussed how conservative my old neighborhood—blue-collar, white, and Roman Catholic—was. While our new community was more middle-class and not as Catholic, it was, in some ways even more conservative—and religious. Or, at least, the prevailing attitude is perhaps more influenced by religion.
Some of that, I believe, had to do with the light and physical space. In Brooklyn, we lived in apartments until I was eight. Then my parents bought a row house, where we lived until we moved to New Jersey. That house, the apartment buildings, and most other structures in the neighborhood were constructed from bricks flaked and bubbled but somehow held together and insulated the people within them like the worn coats of old people. Those bricks, those houses, simmered softly in summer heat and glowed like embers at sunset, and echoed stories shared on stoops and over hearty meals.
There were no bricks on our block in New Jersey. In fact, there were few anywhere in the town, except in one of its older sections. Oh, and I was older than the house we moved into, or any of the others on our street. They were single-story or split-level, with no basements—or stoops. So neighbors couldn’t sit outside and chat unless one invited the other into their yard or house. The fronts of those houses were flat, painted in flat shades of white and beige.
Almost everybody I knew in my Brooklyn neighborhood attended the same church, in the middle of our neighborhood. Many of us also attended its Catholic school. Ironically, as much as we talked, and kids played with each other, we interacted very little, if at all, during Mass. If anything, the church served a purpose that, I would learn much later, Elizabeth I envisioned for the then-new Church of England: It wasn’t so much a unifying faith as much as a social glue. In other words, she cared more about attendance than belief. Likewise, we—even those of us who attended the church’s school– didn’t talk much, if at all, about our notions of the triune God but we all knew enough to attend or “assist” at mass on days of obligation.
The New Jersey town had a Roman Catholic parish, which I attended, as well as churches and chapels of the mainline Protestant denominations. If I recall correctly, there was also an Evangelical church, but I (and, I suspect, almost anybody who didn’t attend it) didn’t know what it was. On Sunday morning, the streets—quiet except when people were on their way to work or school—were all but deserted, as most people were in one of those churches. I don’t recall any open hostility or even debates between members of different churches, but there didn’t seem to be much communication between the leaders of those churches, or between members of churches about matters related to their institutions and faith.
As I described in an earlier post, my Catholic school in Brooklyn was, in essence, a Northern segregation academy. It opened around the time courts ordered the busing of Black and brown kids from other neighborhoods–”trouble,” as some called them—into public schools in white neighborhoods like ours. Our New Jersey enclave was “spared” such a fate because, well, there weren’t Black or Brown kids to bus to the school. I recall only one Black classmate: an extremely intelligent and talented girl whose family had a farm on the outskirts of town and, I would learn later, were descendants of a community of free Blacks and escaped slaves that once lived in the area. I would love to know how many times that girl and her family heard “we don’t mean you” from white people talking about the race “problem.”
I knew only one kid who attended the Catholic high school: an athlete whom the public high school (from which I graduated) barred from its football and track teams because of a medical condition. My guess is that other kids went to that school because their parents really wanted a Catholic education for their kids—or, perhaps, they wanted to protect their progeny from lowlifes like me!
So, that school didn’t have to be a segregation academy. But, in a sense, the town itself was one. I don’t know whether the local shade of skin has darkened any since I left, more than four decades ago, but it seems that some members of the local Board of Education are trying to “shield” kids from “unsavory” influences, just as they moved to the town to forget, and to keep their kids from knowing about, the darkness and rough edges in the bricks of the cities they left.
Lest you thought that only the likes of Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are trying to eradicate the existence of LGBTQ kids in the name of “parental rights,” consider this: the town I’m talking about—Middletown Township (ironically, the home of Governor Phil Murphy) has just mandated the “outing” of transgender and other gender-variant kids. Under the new policy, if, students ask to be called a different name or identified by a different gender from the one on their birth certificates, ask to use the bathroom, or participate on a sports team or other activity designated for the “opposite” gender, teachers must notify those kids’ parents.
(Three other New Jersey municipalities, including one that borders Middletown and another in the same county, have proposed policies with nearly identical language.)
Now, I understand parents wanting to know what their children are doing, in school or elsewhere. But I also know how vulnerable such kids are: After all, I was one, though I didn’t “come out” and begin my gender affirmation process until I was in my 40s. Moreover, from other experiences, I know of the perils some young people face. When I taught in a yeshiva, boys confided questions about their sexual orientation, or simply their wish to know what life was like outside the Orthodox bubble, to me. (One also talked about sexual abuse from a rabbi.) Later, as a college instructor—both before and after my gender affirmation—students came to me with questions and fears they couldn’t express to members of their families and communities. And, when I co-facilitated an LGBTQ youth group, I worked with 14 and 15-year-olds who were kicked out of their homes or bullied out of their schools when they “came out.”
Some of those parents who disowned their gay, trans, or genderqueer students, no doubt, thought they could “protect”–segregate– them from the “influences” of people like me. And, by getting rid of the “bad apple,” they can keep the rest from “spoiling.”
It’s hard for me not to think that the same kinds of people who supported Catholic Northern segregation academies like the one I attended in Brooklyn are also behind the proposals to out kids in the name of “parents’ rights”– in order to segregate other children from the ungodly influences of kids like the one I might’ve been had I the language or awareness to define myself, and those teachers and other adults who might’ve been my allies.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
As an ex-Christian and a person living with a mental illness, I have thought quite a bit these past few years about how religion and mental illness intersect, and the positive and negative effects their interaction can have on one’s well-being (especially the mental and emotional aspects). And my inspiration to write this came from a revealing question I asked myself.
What place would I never set foot in again?
I have been to some very remote, rural places where the soil seems to grow far-right extremists. Of course, I was drawn there not by the people, but for the natural beauty found in many such places. I have lived in Wyoming and worked in some of the reddest counties in Florida. And perhaps if I went back to such places, one of those areas would be the place I would never want to visit again, now that the political discourse has become even more toxic than it was in 2016.
But I went to this place in early 2015, just before (or shortly after) Trump announced his candidacy for President. There was no cult of Trump yet, and visible support for the man in this town was scant, if there was any at all.
But what I saw in Crescent City, Florida scared the shit out of me even more than Trump. What I saw there during my brief four-hour visit has existed in this country for decades longer than Trumpism. And it finds its most fertile soil in communities like these. What I saw there was an unadulterated display of Christian Nationalism that I have never seen the likes of since, even in the rural communities in which I have lived and worked.
I did not technically choose to be in Crescent City that night. I was only there because I was a volunteer for a community organization that served the area and my partner and I were tasked with setting up a booth there to promote it. We were working a community event taking place in the heart of their “downtown.”
The Crescent City Catfish Festival opened with a prayer (of the Evangelical variety), and the musical entertainment for the evening consisted entirely of worship music. Perhaps I am too much of a sheltered suburbanite, but such an overt display of religiosity at a nominally secular public event was not something I ever expected to see. But that is not the main reason I wouldn’t return there.
I can’t recall what the booth next to ours was sponsoring or selling, but the old man there gave me the creeps. I was already struggling with a depression that would eventually lead to my first suicide attempt and involuntary hospitalization, and I think my low mood must have been palpable, or perhaps the old man’s church taught him to spot the signs that a person might be open to a “word from the Lord.” Either way, what happened next was shocking, disgusting, and uncalled for.
Roughly two hours in, the old man walked up to me and looked at me. What came out of his mouth were not words of the good news of salvation through Jesus, but the exhortation to get right with God before we died and went to Hell, if we didn’t believe already. What made things even worse was the tone of the man, which I have since heard echoed in right-wing street protests by youth one-third his age. It was the tone of smug self-righteousness, mingled with sadistic glee, mixed with the emphasis on hellfire.
Vulnerable as I was, this only made me more anxious and eager to leave. When I told my colleague I was disturbed by what this man had done, he brushed it aside, leaving me to grapple with my anxieties and fears alone. Not knowing anything at all about my mental illness at the time, I began to think the old man was right. Maybe I needed to get right with a God I no longer believed in. Maybe God was punishing me for smoking weed, slacking off on my schoolwork and internship, et cetera. Maybe I had strayed off the path and needed chastisement to bring me back into the fold.
And while these doubts and worries did not end up bringing me back to the faith (nor have they in the times I’ve experienced them after that), they worsened my depression and my self-confidence greatly. Looking back, I now know what was happening. I was so overwhelmed I shut down completely. My internship and my classes, my roommates’ hostility towards me, my cluelessness as to what I would do after graduating college, and the feeling of alienation from my friends and family — they all weighed on me.
And so too, did the “get right or fry” message from this old man. Instead of the supposed love and grace of Christ, all I can think about is the pain and punishment of Hell conveyed through the words of a mean and intrusive old man. I already hated myself so much at the time that this was just gasoline on an already growing fire.
Seven years later, the public displays of religiosity in Crescent City are ever-present now at right-wing rallies, in the halls of government, and in the classrooms of children. And in most cases, the people most apt to publicly display their religion like this are the types who will go on to mentally scar others through interactions like the one I had with this old man.
There is no love in the Christianity these people proclaim, only destruction and dominion. The sooner people realize this and realize that Crescent City and places like it are the communities these Christian zealots idealize, maybe we can beat back the rising tide of Christian Nationalism before we are all swept up in its clutches.
I will never go back to Crescent City, but unless we do something about it, we may all be living in Crescent City sooner than we realize.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
I was a teacher, a new term started and I soon worked out that one of my class of six-year-olds, Ben, was from a Christian family. He was a chatty child and told me of church picnics and events, of the preacher he liked because he always brought a ventriloquist’s puppet teddy for children’s talks. (Cringe, cringe from me – it was called Brother Ted.) Ben said the name of his church. Google told me it was a Brethren Assembly, KJV-only church, and in pictures of the congregation, l saw that some of the older women wore hats that looked like ones my old grandma wore in the 1940s and 1950s. No one was smiling.
I was fundamentalist, mainstream Baptist, so not as dyed-in-the-wool fundy as Ben’s church obviously was. Looking back, my dissonances had begun partly through knowing young Ben, but it was years before I faced them, until finally, they got to be too many and too compelling for me to disregard any longer.
Over the coming months, having Ben in my class certainly brought some of them to the fore. The children were allowed to bring a new toy they’d had for their birthday. Ben brought a spaceship and explained it to me. He detached the capsule and said two astronauts were bringing a dead astronaut back to earth in it. When they got here, they’d bury the deceased spaceman in the ground and include a shovel. Naturally, I asked, ‘Why a shovel?’ and he said it was so that the man could dig himself out of his grave when Jesus came back and go to Heaven with him. (I still can’t pass a cemetery without smiling at the thought of all those graves with shovels in them, laid across deceased Christians’ chests. Maybe it’s true, God helps those who help themselves.)
One day he told me he’d learned the memory verse for Sunday School. From the Google pictures I’d seen, the Sunday School children all appeared to be under ten years old. Ben said they were going to stand out front next Sunday and say it to the adults with actions. Then they’d repeat it ten times so the adults learned it too. It was Romans 6:23, ‘The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.’ (I daren’t ask what the actions to Romans 6:23 were.) What a verse to be indoctrinating small children with.
One morning, Ben’s mother asked to speak to me to tell me Ben might be upset that week, his grandad had just died, and Ben had also seen a funeral group leaving a house in their street and asked about death. As I expected, Ben wanted to tell me about this. He said neither grandad, nor the deceased man in his street, went to church. He paused and then added, ‘But they were both kind, good people, so I think they’re in Heaven now.’
What a mash-up that poor child was being indoctrinated with. They were told every week that they must accept Jesus as their Saviour or they wouldn’t go to Heaven when they died. Or when you die, do you stay dead in the cemetery with your shovel till Jesus returns? Or does God let good people into Heaven the minute they pop their clogs, even if they didn’t go to church? Which is it?
I wonder what happened to Ben. I do hope his keen mind enabled him to figure it all out and escape that rigid Brethren upbringing. He’s not the only one, of course, confused by the dissonances, contradictions, and clear-as-mud commands of the Bible — lots of us were — until we finally made our escape. I hope so very much that Ben did too.
(He also told me one day of a disappointment. He’d been assigned the part of Jesus in a church drama about the call of Matthew. I said that was a very important part. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I wanted to be Matthew, the Snack Collector.’ I guess in that role, he hoped he’d be able to legitimately extort chocolate bars or Pringles from the others in the play!)
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen 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.
