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Tag: Independent Fundamentalist Baptist

How “Independent” Are IFB Churches?

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments
ifb

What does the acronym “IFB” mean?

I stands for Independent

The local, visible church is an independent body of believers who are not associated or affiliated with any denomination. The pastor answers only to God, and to a lesser degree the church. The church answers to no one but God. Most IFB churches oppose any form of government involvement or intrusion into its affairs. While some IFB churches have deacon boards or elders, almost all of them have a congregational form of government.

F stands for Fundamentalist (or Fundamental)

The independent church is fundamentalist in its doctrine and practice. IFB churches are social and theological fundamentalists (see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?). Fundamentalists adhere to an external code of conduct. Often this code of conduct is called “church standards.” The Bible, or should I say the pastor’s interpretation of the Bible, is the rule by which church members are expected to live. IFB churches spend significant time preaching and teaching about how the pastor expects people to live.

IFB churches are also theological fundamentalists. They adhere to a certain and specific theological standard, a standard by which all other Christians and denominations are judged. Every IFB pastor and church believes things like:

  • The inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of the Bible
  • The sinfulness, depravity of man
  • The deity of Christ
  • The virgin birth of Christ
  • The substitutionary blood atonement of Christ for human sin
  • The resurrection of Christ from the dead
  • The second coming of Christ
  • Separation from the world
  • Salvation is through Christ alone, by grace, through faith
  • Personal responsibility to share the gospel with sinners
  • Heaven and Hell are literal places
  • Saved people go to Heaven, unsaved people go to Hell
  • Hierarchical authority (God, Jesus, church, pastor, husband, wife)
  • Autonomy and independence of the local church

I am sure other doctrines could be added to this list, but the list above is a concise statement of ALL things an IFB church and pastor must believe to be considered an IFB church.

B stands for Baptist

IFB churches are Baptist churches adhering to the ecclesiology and theology mentioned above. Some IFB churches are Landmark Baptists or Baptist Briders. They believe the Baptist church is the true church and all other churches are false churches. John the Baptist baptized Jesus, which made him a Baptist, and the first churches established by the Baptist apostles were Baptist churches. Churches like this go to great lengths to prove that their Baptist lineage dates all the way back to John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostles. (See The Trail of Blood by J.M. Carroll.)

Other IFB churches and pastors believe that Baptist ecclesiology and theology are what the Bible clearly teaches. They grudgingly admit that other denominations “might” be Christian too, but they are quick to say, why be a part of a bastardized form of Christianity when you can have the real deal.

Some Southern Baptist churches are IFB. They are Southern Baptist in name only. It is not uncommon for an IFB pastor to pastor a Southern Baptist church with the intent of pulling it out of the Southern Baptist Convention. Because of this, Southern Baptist churches frequently reject resumes from pastors with an IFB background. Area missionaries warn churches about pernicious IFB pastors who desire to take over churches and pull the churches out of the Convention.

Today, I want to focus on the “I” in IFB — Independent.

To properly understand the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, you must first understand the IFB concept of camps. In the IFB, a camp is the tribe to which you belong. It is a membership group that is defined by such things as what Bible version is considered the “true” Word of God, what college the pastor attended, approval or disapproval of Calvinism, open or closed communion, or ecclesiastical, personal, and secondary separation. Many IFB camps will have multiple “positions” that define their group, and admission to the group is dependent on fidelity to these positions. Many pastors and churches belong to more than one camp.

IFB churches, colleges, parachurch organizations, evangelists, missionaries, and pastors are quick to state that they are totally independent of any authority or control but God. Much like the Churches of Christ, the IFB church movement is anti-denomination and any suggestion that they are a denomination brings outrage and denunciation.

The IFB church movement found its footing as a reaction to the perceived liberalism in denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Convention. In the 1970s and early 1980s, I heard IFB luminaries such as Jack Hyles go on preaching tirades against the Southern Baptist Convention. Hyles would run down a list of the top 100 churches in America, attendance-wise, and proudly remind people that the list contained only a handful of Southern Baptist churches. Hyles made it clear that the attendance numbers were proof that God was blessing the IFB church movement. Hyles, along with other noted IFB preachers, encouraged young pastors to either infiltrate Southern Baptist churches and pull them out of the Convention or start new independent churches.

It should come as no surprise, then, that many local Southern Baptist churches, under the direction of their area missionaries, would not accept resumes from men trained in IFB colleges when there was a pulpit vacancy. They rightly feared that if they hired an IFB-trained man, he might try to pull their churches out of the Convention. This was not paranoid thinking. Almost every IFB pastor who came of age in the 1960s-1980s heard sermons or classes on how to infiltrate a denominational church and change it or take it over. Pastors were schooled in things such as diluting the power base. They were told that one of the first things they should do as a new pastor is determine who the power brokers were. Could they be brought over to the pastor’s way of thinking? If so, he should befriend them. If not, he should work to marginalize their power by adding pastor-friendly men to church boards and by flooding the church membership with new converts. The goal was to further cripple denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention and to establish IFB churches in every community in the United States.

For decades, this plan worked and countless churches abandoned their denominational affiliations and became IFB churches. Added to this number were thousands of new IFB churches that were planted all over the United States. The IFB church movement, as a collective whole, was a religious force to be reckoned with. Their rape-and-pillage policy left carnage and destruction in its wake, not unlike the Charismatic movement during the same time period.

Despite taking over countless churches, starting new churches, establishing colleges, and sending missionaries across the globe, the IFB church movement could not maintain its meteoric growth. Over time, internal squabbles, scandal, doctrinal extremism, worship of personalities, charges of cultism, and a changing culture eroded what had been built.

IFB pastors were quite proud of the fact that many of the largest churches in America were King James-loving, old-fashioned, fire-and-brimstone preaching IFB churches. Today, there is only one IFB church on the Top 100 list — First Baptist Church of Hammond.

Outside of Jerry Falwell’s church, Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia — now a Southern Baptist congregation — none of the IFB churches on the Top 100 list in 1972 have as many people attending their churches today as they did in 1972. Some, such as Emmanuel Baptist Church in Pontiac, Michigan — the church I attended while in college — and the Indianapolis Baptist Temple, have closed their doors. Others, such as the Canton Baptist Temple, Akron Baptist Temple, Landmark Baptist Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida are mere shadows of what they once were.

In 2008, only one IFB church was on the Top 100 Churches list:  First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. They were listed as the 19th largest church in the United States, with a weekly attendance of 13,678.  This attendance number is less than their average attendance number in 1976.  Outreach Magazine lists NO IFB churches on their 2017 Top 100 Churches list. This does not necessarily mean that there are no IFB churches that are large enough to make the list. I suspect many of the larger IFB churches have stopped bragging about their attendance numbers or they don’t want to be grouped together with churches they consider “liberal.” 

Most of the IFB colleges that saw meteoric growth during the 1960s-1980s, now face static or declining enrollment numbers. Some have even closed their doors. Publications such as the Sword of the Lord, the IFB newspaper started by John R Rice, have lost thousands of subscribers. Everywhere one looks, the signs of decay and death are readily evident. A movement that once proudly crowed of its numerical significance has, in three generations, become little more than an insignificant footnote in U.S. religious history. While millions of people still attend IFB or IFB-like churches, their numbers continue to decline and there is nothing that suggests this decline will stop.

Many current IFB leaders live in denial about the true state of the IFB church movement. They now convince themselves that the numeric decline is due to their unflinching, uncompromising beliefs and preaching. Upton Sinclair wrote:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

I think this aptly describes what is going on among the leaders of the IFB church movement. Their continued power, control, and economic gain depend on them maintaining the illusion that the IFB church movement is healthy and still blessed by God. However, the facts on the ground clearly show that the IFB church movement is on life support and there is little chance that it will survive. Those who survive will liberalize, change their name, and try to forget their IFB past.

Every IFB church, pastor, and college has what I call a camp identity. While they claim to be Big I Independent, their identity is closely connected to the people, groups, and institutions they associate with.

Some IFB churches and pastors group around colleges such as Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian College, Cedarville University, Baptist Bible College, The Crown College, Maranatha Baptist University, Texas Independent Baptist Seminary, West Coast Baptist College, Massillon Baptist College, or Hyles Anderson College. Others group around specific doctrinal beliefs, as do Sovereign Grace Baptists, Association of Reformed Baptist Churches in America, or the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelical Churches. Some, such as Missionary Baptists and Landmark Baptists group around certain ecclesiastical beliefs.  Still others group around missionary endeavors. There are also countless churches that are IFB churches — churches such as John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church — but refuse to claim the IFB moniker. The Bible church movement, IFB in every way but the name, has fellowship groups such as The Independent Fundamental Churches of America.

Some of these groups will likely object to being considered the same as other IFB groups. Reformed and Sovereign Grace Baptists will most certainly resent being talked about in the same discussion as the Sword of the Lord and Jack Hyles. But many Reformed and Sovereign Grace Baptist pastors come from an IFB church background. While certain aspects of their theology might have changed, much of the IFB methodology and thinking remains. Some of the most arrogant, mean-spirited pastors I ever met were Sovereign Grace or Reformed Baptist pastors. They may have been five-point Calvinists, but they were in every other way Independent Fundamentalist Baptists.

Most people don’t know that groups such as the Southern Baptist Convention and the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches are really fellowship groups of like-minded pastors and churches. While they have many of the hallmarks of a denomination, their churches and pastors remain, for the most part, independent, under no authority but the local church (and God).

IFB churches and pastors trumpet their independent nature and, as their history has clearly shown, this independence has resulted in horrible abuse and scandal. But, despite their claim of independence, IFB churches and pastors are quite denominational and territorial. They tend to group together in their various camps, only supporting churches, colleges, pastors, evangelists, and missionaries, that are in their respective camps.

In 1983, I started the Somerset Baptist Church in Mount Perry, Ohio. I contacted Gene Milioni, the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church — the church where I was saved and called to preach — and asked him about the church supporting us financially. Milioni asked me if I was going to become a part of the Ohio Baptist Bible Fellowship. He wanted to know if the church was going to be a BBF church. I told him no, and he told me that I could expect no support from Trinity unless I was willing to be a BBF pastor. I ran into similar problems with other pastors who demanded I be part of their camp in order to receive help.

Only one church financially supported me: First Baptist Church in Dresden, Ohio.  First Baptist, pastored by Midwestern Baptist College grad Mark Kruchkow, sent me $50 a month for a year or so. Every other dime of startup money came from my own pocket or the pockets of family members. I learned right away what it meant to be a true Independent Fundamentalist Baptist.

Over the years, I floated in and out of various IFB camps. I attended Ohio Baptist Bible Fellowship meetings, Midwestern Baptist College meetings, Massillon Baptist College meetings, Sword of the Lord conferences, Bill Rice Ranch rallies, and the Buckeye Independent Baptist Fellowship. For a few years, I attended a gathering of Calvinistic Baptist pastors called the Pastor’s Clinic in Mansfield Ohio. When I pastored in Texas, I fellowshipped with like-minded Sovereign Grace Baptist pastors.

Every group demanded something from me, be it money, commitment, or fidelity to certain beliefs. If I were to be part of the group, I was expected to support the colleges, churches, pastors, evangelists, and missionaries the group approved of. Stepping beyond these approved entities brought disapproval, distance, and censure.

The next time an IFB church member or pastor tries to tell you he is an INDEPENDENT Baptist, I hope you will remember this post. Take a look at the colleges, missionaries, churches, and pastors, the IFB church member or pastor supports. It won’t take you long to figure out what camp they are in, and once you figure out what camp they are in, you will know what they believe and what they consider important. The old adage, birds of a feather flock together, is certainly true when it comes to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church movement.

Parts of this post were previously published.

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.

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Short Stories: How a Dislocated Finger Almost Got Me Kicked Out of Bible College

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
midwestern baptist college freshman 1976
Midwestern Baptist College Freshman Class 1976. Polly Shope, first person on left, first row. Bruce Gerencser, eighth person from left, third row. Weren’t we cute?

In late August, 1976, I packed up my meager earthly goods, put them in my Plymouth Valiant, and trekked two-and-a-half hours north from Bryan, Ohio to Pontiac, Michigan so I could enroll for ministerial classes at Midwestern Baptist College. I parked my dilapidated car in front of the dorm (which housed two floors of men and one of women) and unloaded my clothing, books, food stuffs, and a few pictures. My first roommates were Toby Todd and an older man named Dale Wilson. Several months later I moved to another room. My roommates were the only Black man in the dormitory: Fred Gilyard, Jack Workman, and Wendell Uhl — who was a rambunctious, thrill-seeking man who would later be expelled from school for writing his unique initials in a school monument’s freshly poured cement.

I had three goals I hoped to achieve while attending Midwestern:

  • Prepare for the ministry
  • Date a lot of girls
  • Play sports

Now, when I say play sports, I am not talking about college sports as most readers think of when thinking about collegiate sports. The enrollment at Midwestern was around four hundred students. The college had an astronomical drop-out rate — over seventy percent. There was a constant stream of new talent for the college’s basketball program. I was one such player. I was six feet tall and weighed one hundred sixty pounds. I loved playing basketball, having played high school city league basketball three years for Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. The team was coached by the chairman of the drama department. He was fired during my sophomore year of college for having an affair with the wife of the dean of men.

The coach was a player-coach. Many of the players were older men, some in their thirties. Midwestern’s basketball team was very much a collection of misfits — at best an intramural team. Regardless of the quality of the team, I very much wanted to play basketball for Midwestern Baptist College. The college’s founder, Dr. Tom Malone, was an avid basketball player. He was in his 60s at the time. I played many a pick-up game with Dr. Malone. He was a hard-nosed player. He sent many a student packing over complaints about fouls. No blood, no foul, was Dr. Malone’s style of play; a style, by the way, that agreed with me. I loved playing rough, physical basketball.

Midwestern’s team was made up of all comers. I expressed my interest in playing and began attending practices. I thoroughly enjoyed playing with my fellow teammates, and I was looking forward to helping Midwestern vanquish other nearby Fundamentalist Baptist college basketball teams. Unfortunately, something happened that would permanently derail my college basketball career.

car I took to college
My 1970 (I think) Plymouth Valiant.

One early evening at practice, I jumped up to block the shot of a fellow teammate. As I forcefully slapped the ball, I dislocated the middle finger of my left hand, jamming the finger into my knuckle. I was taken to the emergency room where the doctor attempted to reset my finger. After several careful attempts to do so, the doctor said, well, this is going to hurt! He made sure the bed wheels were locked, put his foot on the bar along the bottom of the bed, and with my mangled finger in his hand, forcefully yanked my dislocated finger back into place. He was right about the pain. I screamed and said a few Christian swear words (See Christian Swear Words), but I was grateful my finger was back in place. I left the hospital with a splint on my hand. This injury put an end to my college basketball career.

Midwestern had a strict dress code. Male students were required to wear ties to classes. One early morning, I met Polly in the dorm common room and asked her to tie my tie for me. No big deal, right? One fellow Christian helping another one, I thought at the time. I found it impossible to tie my tie with one hand, and I didn’t think anyone would mind if my girlfriend helped me out. Boy, was I wrong. Sitting in the common room was a pharisaical couple who deemed our tie-tying endeavor a violation of the college’s six-inch rule — a decree that said unmarried male and female dorm students couldn’t have any physical contact. (See Thou Shalt Not Touch: The Six-Inch Rule)

Come the following Tuesday, Polly and I were called before the college’s disciplinary committee to answer for our “sin.” There were three men on the disciplinary committee, Gary Mayberry, the dean of men, Don Zahurance, and another man whose name I can’t remember. Polly and I were excoriated for breaking the six-inch rule. Zahurance, in particular, grilled us, asking if we “enjoyed” touching one another; if we got a “thrill” out of physical contact. Today, I would have said, YES, DUMB ASS, WE DID!  However, not wanting to be expelled, Polly and I endured their intrusive, offensive inquisition. We were given fifty demerits and told that if we had any physical contact again we would be expelled.

Their attempt to put the fear of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) God into us failed. We would spend the next eighteen months finding ways to engage in damnable sins such as holding hands, kissing, and hugging. On weekends, we would double-date with like-minded students. I won’t tell if you won’t, was the rule. We hugged and kissed our way to July 15, 1978, our wedding day. Finally, no more demerits for getting too close to the love of my life!

I know this story sounds almost unbelievable to some of you, but it did happen. Attending Midwestern Baptist College was like living in an alternate universe. Polly and I now laugh about our days as Midwestern students, but there was a time when we feared being exposed for behaving like normal, heterosexual humans. We feared being reported to the disciplinary committee for daring to touch one another. The cruelty of Midwestern’s disciplinary system was that it allowed anonymous students to report offenders. There was a box outside of the dean of men’s office for disciplinary slips. Only certain students were allowed to write someone up. Generally, freshmen were not permitted to write anyone up. Ironically the upperclassmen who reported us for breaking the six-inch rule? It was later rumored that they were going all-in on breaking the six-inch rule and having sex. Hypocrisy abounded at Midwestern. The couple who reported us is now faithfully pastoring an IFB church. I am sure they preach against teens and unmarried adults having physical contact with each other before marriage, conveniently burying their own sexual indiscretion in the dust of the past.

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.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Stop with the “Few Bad Apples” Rationalization When Excusing Clergy Misconduct

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments
a few bad apples

Six years ago, I posted the first story in the Black Collar Crime Series. Focused primarily on clergy sexual misconduct, the sheer level of reports puts to rest the notion that such crimes are committed by a “few bad apples.” Numerous times a day, I receive notices from Google Alerts, notifying me that a new report of alleged clergy crime has been posted to the Internet. I look at every notification, choosing to only publish the stories that are publicly reported by reputable news sites. I am often contacted by victims who are looking to expose their abusers. I do what I can to help them, but if there are no public news reports or other information that can corroborate their stories, I am unable to do anything for them. Believe me, I WANT to help them, but it would be legally reckless of me to post a story without sufficient evidence. I generally also only publish reports about clerics from the United States — mostly Protestant, Evangelical, Southern Baptist, and Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB). While I post stories featuring Catholic priests from time to time, I usually leave such reporting to others. The same could be said of widespread clergy sexual misconduct in Africa. The point I am trying to make here is this: the 1,000+ published reports in the Black Collar Crime Series are just the tip of the iceberg. As of today, I am also sitting on over 1,000 clergy sexual misconduct stories I have not published due to lack of sufficient evidence or a shortage of time to do so.

Not only are there more than just a “few bad apples” preying on church members, when you add to the total the number of pastors and other religious leaders who have consensual sexual relations with congregants, it is clear for all to see that so-called “men of God” are hardly the pillars of moral virtue they claim to be. In 2015, I wrote a post titled, Is Clergy Infidelity Rare? Here’s an excerpt from the post.

In October 2013, Doug Phillips, president of the now-defunct Vision Forum Ministries confessed to church leaders that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a woman who is not his wife. Defenders of Phillips took to their blogs, websites, Twitter, and Facebook to do damage control on the behalf of Phillips and the patriarchal movement. One such defender is Independent Baptist pastor Voddie Baucham, a man who is widely viewed as the African-American version of Doug Phillips.

A Christian woman by the name of Julie Anne posted an article on the Spiritual Sounding Board blog about the Doug Phillips scandal. Her post mentioned the following quote by Voddie Baucham:

Dennis, You ask, “How many times do we see this in Christian leadership?” The answer may surprise you, but it is actually quite rare. There are hundreds of thousands of churches in America. We hear of these types of things on a national basis when they happen to high profile people. However, considering the number of people in Christian leadership, the numbers are quite small. As to your other point, most men who go through something like this never recover. Of course, there are exceptions. Moreover, there are some circles wherein things like this, and much worse, are merely swept under the rug. However, in circles where leadership is taken seriously, it is very difficult for a man to come back from things like this. People have long memories, and tend to be rather unforgiving. (emphasis mine)

Baucham repeats the oft-told lie that clergy sexual misconduct is quite rare. I have heard this line more times than I can count. It is an attempt to prop up the notion that clergy are more moral and ethical than most people; that they are pillars of virtue and morality.  Such claims are patently false.

In 2007, Dr. R.J. Krejcir of  the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute, wrote a post detailing his recent study of clergy infidelity. Krejcir stated:

  • Of the one thousand fifty (1,050 or 100%) pastors we surveyed, every one of them had a close associate or seminary buddy who had left the ministry because of burnout, conflict in their church, or from a moral failure.
  • Three hundred ninety-nine (399 or 38%) of pastors said they were divorced or currently in a divorce process.
  • Three hundred fifteen (315 or 30%) said they had either been in an ongoing affair or a one-time sexual encounter with a parishioner.

So much for clergy sexual infidelity being rare.

Numerous studies have been conducted concerning sexual infidelity among married people. The percentage varies widely, but it is safe to say that between ten and twenty percent of married people have been sexually unfaithful to their spouse. The percentage is higher for men than it is women.

We know that men of the cloth are not morally or ethically superior. In the United States and Canada, there are approximately 600,000 clergy. According to the Hartford Institute for Religion and Research, this total includes active clergy and “retired clergy, chaplains in hospitals, prisons and the military, denominational executives, and ordained faculty at divinity schools and seminaries.” This number does not include clergy who are affiliated with independent churches. If between ten and twenty percent of married people commit adultery, and clergy are no different morally from non-clergy, then this means that between 60,000 and 120,000 clergy have committed adultery.  Again, so much for clergy sexual infidelity being rare.

Keep in mind, this is only the number of CONSENSUAL sexual relationships.

Most people in the United States profess to be Christians. Taught to think that their churches are safe havens and their pastors have only their best interests at heart, many of them have a hard time believing and accepting that bad things happen, and far too often the perpetrators are pastors, deacons, elders, youth leaders, worship leaders, Sunday school teachers, church janitors, evangelists, missionaries, bus drivers, Christian school teachers, and principals. Wherever Christians have authority over others, you will find sexual misconduct — both legal and criminal.

What makes churches and clergy so dangerous is that congregants trust pastors. It’s the world they need to worry about, or so church leaders tell them anyway. Led to believe that Christians — thanks to salvation and the Holy Ghost — are above the fray and oh-so-humbly morally superior, church members naively trust those who have “God-given” authority over them. Even after their pastors and other church leaders have been exposed as sexual predators, many congregants refuse to believe that the men and women they looked up to abused others. You who read the Black Collar Crime Series regularly know that it is not uncommon to have congregants comment, defending their pastor or suggesting that the police or district attorney are out to get their preacher.

Sadly, it is not uncommon for church members to blame victims instead of putting the blame where it belongs: on their ministers, youth pastors, and other church leaders. Even after church leaders are found guilty in criminal court, congregants will often line up to testify at sentencing hearings; letting courts know that their pastors are good men who made a momentary mistake (never mind the fact that most pastors convicted of sex crimes are repeat or habitual offenders). Worse yet, on way too many occasions, once incarcerated clerics are released from prison, they find their way back to churches looking for pastors, or they start new churches — hiding from their new congregations their criminal past. One of the reasons I continue to publish Black Collar Crime stories is that this blog becomes a database of sorts for people doing their due diligence before accepting as fact the “testimony” of prospective pastors.

And to churches who hire registered sex offenders, knowing what they did at their previous churches? Don’t be surprised when your new God-fearing pastor treats your church as a hunting ground. Get your head out of your ass and protect the children, teens, and vulnerable adults in your churches. “But, Bruce, as Christians, we are supposed to forgive and forget. It’s forgetting I have a problem with. Forgetting what clergy have done in the past invites and encourages new abuse and harm. A few years ago, a family member who is an IFB pastor, mentioned in a positive light the “ministry” David Hyles has to “fallen” preachers. (Please see Disgraced IFB Preacher David Hyles Helping Fallen Pastors Get Back on Their Horses and Is All Forgiven for David Hyles? and David Hyles Says My Bad, Jesus, and UPDATED: Serial Adulterer David Hyles Has Been Restored.) I thought, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!  But, when you believe in 1 John 1:9 Christianity (If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness), it is easy to dismiss past bad behavior as being “under the blood” and “buried in the depths of the sea of God’s forgetfulness.” No matter what Christians do — including rape, murder, and fraud — wiping their slates clean is but a prayer away. (Note: I later talked to the family member. He genuinely didn’t know about David Hyles’ past. He was a child in the 1980s when the Biblical Evangelist published its expose on Jack and David Hyles. I guess I am officially an old man.)

Years ago, a former colleague of mine in the ministry, told me that at his church they believed in forgiveness, and that’s why they didn’t run criminal background checks on church workers. “Bruce,” this pastor said, “when a person gets saved, their past ‘sins’ are forgiven and remembered no more. If God doesn’t remember their sins, neither should we.” In his naive, Bible-sotted mind, once a person is really, really, really “saved,” there’s no reason to not “trust” them, even if, in the past, he or she was a murderer, rapist, serial adulterer, or child molester. “Either our sins are under the blood, or they are not, Brother,” this preacher told me. Many years ago, I warned him that one of his daughters was in a sexual relationship with a teen boy in my church. He told me, “Oh, they would never do that!” Right, two horny kids, all alone on a back-country road? What were they doing, studying the Bible and praying? A month or so later, he came home early from his church’s midweek prayer meeting, only to find his daughter and her boyfriend naked and having sex on the living room floor. Sadly, in far too many churches, trusted church leaders are assaulting and abusing congregants, and everyone around them is saying, “oh, they would never do that.” As the Black Collar Crime series makes clear, such thinking is not only naive, it’s dangerous. Throw in pastors who psychologically manipulate congregants and use those who trust them as a means to an end, and I can safely say that churches are some of the most dangerous places in the United States; that parents who “trust” church leaders with their children and teenagers risk their charges being misused, abused, and assaulted.

No, I am not saying all church leaders are bad people, but I am saying a large enough percentage of them are — more than a few bad apples, to be sure — that wisdom and prudence demand keeping children right by your side when attending houses of worship. Better safe than sorry, I say. (Dear Evangelical Church Leaders: It’s Time to Get Rid of Your Youth Pastors and Youth Departments) Suppose you went to the local grocery with your children to buy some groceries. Suppose there were 200 shoppers in the store, and ten of them were child molesters or registered sex offenders. Knowing this, would you let your children wander through the store unattended? Of course not. Why, then, should churches and preachers be treated any differently?

Let me leave you with one poignant thought: countless Christians have prayed for God to deliver them from the hands of their abusers, and without exception, God ignored their prayers. If left up to “God,” predator church leaders will, with impunity, cause untold harm. It is up to us to put a stop to clergy sexual misconduct. All I can do is write about the subject. But if you are a church-going Christian, you have the responsibility and duty to make sure children, teens, and vulnerable adults are safe when attending church, school, or church events. Doing nothing is no longer an option.

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.

Connect with me on social media:

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Spend Time With Those You Love While You Can

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
barbara gerencser 1978
Mom and Bruce, Rochester, Indiana, 1978

The redheaded preacher stood before his church, preparing to preach as he had done countless times before. This Sunday was just like every other Sunday — until it wasn’t. His expositional sermon was well-received by the fifty or so people in attendance. Most of them would return a few hours later for Sunday evening service; another opportunity to hear from God and fellowship with God’s people.

The preacher, along with his wife and five children, lived in a 12’x60′ mobile home that sat on the southern edge of the church parking lot. His wife had already walked from the church to their home so she could prepare dinner, wondering, “Will he invite someone to dinner?” She never knew who would be eating dinner with them. Her preacher husband loved to fellowship with church members. She just wished he would plan in advance.

On this particular Sunday, there were no extras for dinner. As the preacher’s wife set the table, the phone rang. It was the preacher’s aunt. “Just a minute, I’ll get him.” By then, the preacher was almost to their home. “Your aunt is on the phone.”

“Hmm,” the preacher wondered, “why is she calling me?”

“Hello.”

“Butch.” (a family nickname given at birth).

“Your mom killed herself.”

The preacher’s mom lived in Quincy, Michigan — five or so hours away. His mom has taken a Ruger .357 revolver, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger — shooting herself in her heart. She quickly slumped to the bathroom floor, and in a few moments, she was dead.

The preacher’s mom’s lifelong battle with mental illness came to an end. Numerous suicide attempts had come before this one: prescription drug overdoses, slit wrists, and driving a car into the path of a truck. (Please see Barbara.) Her prior attempts failed, but not the last one. Why she chose to kill herself on this fateful day remains unknown. Decades of physical and psychological pain certainly played a big part, but the preacher wondered if there was more to her sudden suicide. He would never know, of course, because the woman who taught him to read, instilled in him a passion for truth, and modeled to him standing up for yourself, was dead. The moment she pulled the trigger everything changed.

The preacher planned his mom’s funeral. No viewing, no dealing with countless well-wishers and glad-handers. His siblings viewed their mom’s corpse, but the preacher chose not to. He wanted to remember her as she was — a beautiful, passionate, complicated, contradictory woman.

On the appointed day, the family gathered at Fountain Grove Cemetery for the graveside service. The preacher’s mom had written in her Bible that she wanted her preacher son — whom she had never heard preach — to take care of her funeral. She also wanted her grandchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star Spangled Banner. These requests were ignored.

Family and a few friends gathered at the graveside, right next to Grandma and Grandpa Rausch’s graves. There was not enough room to bury the preacher’s mom, so his grandmother was disinterred so the vault could be dug deep enough to accommodate two coffins, one on top of the other.

“Why did Mom want me to do her funeral?” the preacher wondered. The preacher delivered a brief sermon, complete with Bible readings and prayer — weeping the entire time. A moment after the benediction, there was one more indignity to be had. The preacher’s Fundamentalist Baptist grandfather (John) and his wife (Ann) were in attendance, and John wanted to have the last word. (Please see Life with My Fundamentalist Baptist Grandparents, John and Ann Tieken.) As everyone stood there with broken hearts, John decided to give a sermon of his own. Of course, he did. Whatever his grandson did was never good enough. A few years prior, John and Ann had driven to southeast Ohio to visit their oldest grandson and his family. These visits were never welcome, and a few years later, the preacher ended his relationship with John and Ann. On this particular day, the preacher delivered a sermon to 150 or so people in attendance. At the conclusion of the service, the preacher’s grandfather stood up and told the entire congregation what was wrong with his grandson’s sermon. The preacher wanted to die; that is, right after he murdered his grandfather.

As the preacher’s grandfather deconstructed his daughter’s life at the graveside, homicidal thoughts briefly returned to the preacher’s mind. He wanted to tell everyone who would listen that John had repeatedly raped his daughter as a child; that he physically abused his sons (and spouses); that he was an angry, abusive man — even after Jesus allegedly “saved” him. John and Ann may have loved Jesus, but they most certainly didn’t love their daughter. “Maybe they were broken too,” the preacher wonders. Regardless, these sums-a-bitches are responsible for their behavior, as are all of us.

Death irreversibly ends relationships. All we have left are memories — good, bad, and indifferent. The preacher deeply loved his mom, but rarely took time to express that to her. On the day of her suicide, it had been months since to talked to her and saw her face to face. There were plans in the works for the preacher to take his children to Michigan to spend a week with their grandmother. Alas, a bullet put an end to that idea.

The preacher was a busy man. He had a church to pastor and a school to operate. Yet, none of that mattered as he pondered the life of his mom and their relationship with each other. He wished he had been a better son. He wished he had visited his mom more often. He wished he had called her every week to see how she was doing. But, he didn’t, and now she was dead.

The preacher is now sixty-six years old. In failing health, he knows his days are numbered. His children and grandchildren live near him. Rarely does a week or two go by that he doesn’t see most of them. Yet, there are those nights when he sits alone, wishing one of his children would stop by for a visit. The preacher can no longer drive, so he must rely on people coming to him or taking him to school events. He hates depending on others.

He knows his children and their significant others and his grandchildren have their own lives to live too. Everyone is busy these days, yet he can’t help but think about that moment over thirty years ago when the phone rang and the voice on the line said “Butch, your mom killed herself.” He knows there is coming a day when the phone will ring at his children’s homes, and the voice on the line will say, “Your dad (grandfather) is dead.” He knows what hearing those words can to do you, the regrets that flood your mind.

When the end comes, the preacher knows that his family will be there for him — not for money (there is none); not for material goods (most everything has already been given to them); but for love. In the present, all he wants (and needs) is as much time from them as they can possibly give. Not selfishly, of course, but he knows there is coming a day when the relationship the preacher has with his family will come to an end; that all that will be left are memories. The preacher wants to leave behind as many good memories as he possibly can.

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.

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Letter to the Editor: Christian Nationalism

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
letter to the editor

Letter submitted to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News.

Dear Editor,

Christian nationalism is the result of an unholy union between Evangelicalism and Republican politics. I pastored my first Evangelical church in the late 1970s. I didn’t know of one preacher who publicly supported Christian nationalism. Preachers taught congregants that there was a strict separation of church and state. As a Baptist pastor, I believed that church and state were two separate God-ordained spheres; and that neither should encroach upon the other.

By the early 1980s, thanks to Jerry Falwell and Paul Wyrich of Moral Majority fame, I began hearing talk of “taking America back for God.” Not any God, of course, but the Evangelical God of the Bible. What was birthed four decades ago has now turned into a full-grown predator, out to capture America for Jesus. There’s no king but Jesus, Evangelicals are fond of saying. What was uttered in an eschatological context is now expected — dare I say demanded — in the present.

Freedom of religion has now come to mean freedom for conservative Christians and submission to their interpretation of the Bible by all others. Never mind the fact that the United States is a secular state. Never mind the fact that the U.S. Constitution does not mention God, and the Declaration of Independence refers to, at best, a generic, deistic God. Christian nationalists want and demand that Americans prostrate themselves before their deity and submit to the teachings of the Bible. Well, the teachings that fit their peculiar theological and political narrative, anyway.

Christian nationalists demand preferential treatment for their religion. Christian nationalists demand teacher-led prayer and Bible reading in public schools, the posting of the Ten Commandments on classroom walls, and the banishment of library books for the positive portrayal of same-sex couples or daring to mention the existence of LGBTQ people. Showing that the word “White” should modify the term Christian nationalists, these soldiers for Jesus demand the removal from history books of any negative portrayal of Whites. In their minds, slavery was just a jobs training program.

Through the front doors of schools have come Evangelical groups such as Lifewise Academy. Their goal is to indoctrinate and evangelize school children. It is clear that Christian dominion is the goal. And if that fails? Civil war, of which the January 6 insurrection was a precursor of things to come if Christian nationalists don’t get their way.

Bruce Gerencser
Ney, Ohio

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.

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How to Have a Successful Marriage

Bruce Gerencser 14 Comments
cindy and jack schaap 30 years of marriage

It is common for Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers and their wives to reach certain milestones in their lives such as longevity of marriage or ministry and then feel “led” by God to write a book about why they were successful.

Jack Schaap took over the helm of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana after the death of IFB luminary Jack Hyles. Schaap’s wife Cindy — the author of the above book — is Hyles’ daughter. In this book, Cindy reveals how and why the Schaaps had a successful marriage. Three years after the book’s publication, Jack Schaap was arrested for taking a minor across state lines to have sex with her. Schaap pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twelve years in federal prison. He was released in May 2022. Cindy divorced Jack, wrote a book titled My Journey to Grace: What I Learned about Jesus in the Dark, and based on available public information is still an Evangelical Christian today. Jack Schaap also wrote a book about marriage titled Marriage: The Divine Intimacy.

Biographical or autobiographical books written by IFB preachers and their wives are almost always an admixture of “ain’t Jesus wonderful?” and fiction. The goal is to give God all the glory and present sanitized, PG-rated tellings of their lives in general, and their marriages in particular. Reality is often far different from what is portrayed in their books.

One Sunday evening in the late 1970s, Polly and I visited Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio — an IFB church I attended for forty months as a teenager. After church, the pastor and his wife invited us to their home for refreshments. I had always thought that the pastor and his wife were wonderful people. They had always presented themselves in public as devoted followers of Jesus; a happily married couple. I learned that this was a facade, that things were not as they seemed. Over the next twenty-five years, I would interact with scores of preachers and their wives, learning that there was a big difference between perception and reality; that preachers were not as put-together as they seemed; that their marriages were every bit as challenging, and troubled, as those of the people who looked up to them and called them “pastor.” In other words, they were normal, everyday people, prone to the same frailties as the unwashed masses. The difference, of course, is that these preachers and their wives hid their frailties behind put-together public personas. Spend enough time in the ministry and you learn to play the game.

Polly and I were experts at playing the game. We knew congregants expected us to be winners — victory in Jesus! Church members expected us to have a perfect marriage and well-behaved children. And we gave them exactly what they wanted (needed). However, once in the privacy of our home or automobile, the “real” Bruce and Polly Gerencser came out. There are no deep, dark secrets to be revealed, but both Polly and I were certainly “human.” We had a lot of rough times, especially early in our marriage. After the birth of our second child, Polly gave all of her attention to our two children. In response, I started working sixty-plus hours a week as a general manager for Arthur Treacher’s. Three years into our marriage, we had become busily distant. For a time, both of us wondered if our marriage would survive.

It took us almost thirty years to recognize that we had our priorities wrong; and that putting God/Jesus/Bible/Ministry/Church first was a bad idea. We reprioritized our lives, putting our family and our marriage first. Unfortunately, by the time we were enlightened, our three oldest sons were already adults. While both Polly and I will testify that our marriage is 98.9 percent awesome today, we recognize that there were points in life where we could have destroyed our marriage. Fortunately, we survived and are confident that we will embrace and survive (unless it kills us) what comes our way.

Polly and I have known each other for forty-seven years. Polly was seventeen and I was nineteen when we first met at Midwestern Baptist College. Two years later, we married. By all accounts, we have a “successful” marriage — whatever the hell “successful” means. Over the years, I have had readers ask me to share with them the keys to a successful marriage. Surely, Bruce and Polly Gerencser know what it takes to have a successful marriage, right?

Here’s the truth of the matter: We are lucky that our marriage has lasted forty-five years. Yes, we are committed to one another. Yes, we deeply love one another. Yes, we have built a wonderful life together. Yet, I know couples who had all of these things, but ended up separated or divorced. Married life is a crap shoot. So many variables, so many unknowns. Have you ever played the woulda, coulda, shoulda game? What if I (we) did B instead of A? Would our lives have been different? Maybe, but not necessarily better. I can’t know for sure, so all I know to do is live in the moment, making the best decisions possible on any given day.

Let me conclude this post by giving several pieces of advice; things helped Polly and I as a married couple.

First, don’t let the sun go down on your wrath. Polly and I have fought a time or two over the years. We have had some doozies, often over nothing. Sometimes, we would go to our separate corners for part of a day, but we never sent the other to the couch for the night. We determined to seek forgiveness and make things right between us, never forsaking our shared bed because we were mad.

Second, not only love your spouse but “like” them. Our love was never in question, but it took us years to “like” one another. Now we are best friends. We genuinely enjoy one another’s company.

Third, have your own space; one that is yours alone. Polly and I spend a lot of time together, yet we also have carved out time and space for ourselves, to do the things we want and like to do. Polly and I have completely different reading habits. I read non-fiction, and Polly reads fiction. I used to give Polly a hard time over her book choices, but then I realized she has a right to read whatever she wants. While I may still make a snarky comment now and again over this or that novel Polly is reading, she doesn’t need my approval. And that goes for everything, by the way. As Fundamentalist Christians, we had a patriarchal marriage. I was the final answer to every question — as God ordained. Deconverting forced us to rethink how we wanted our marriage to work. While patriarchal thinking still lurks in the shadows — old habits die hard — we have chosen an egalitarian path; a relationship where each of us has our own space.

Finally, don’t be afraid to turn a critical eye towards your marriage. While most people marry with the intention that their marriages will last “until death do us part,” many marriages fail. Does this mean that these couples were failures? Of course not. Polly and I were naive Independent Baptists with no real-world experience when we married. We had no idea what a “good” marriage looked like. Neither of us would say that what our parents modeled to us was a “good” marriage, especially in my case. My parents divorced when I was fourteen, and remarried several months later. Mom married her first cousin, a recent Texas prison parolee. Dad married a nineteen-year-old girl with a baby; the trophy presenter at the local dirt track. Mom would go on to marry two more times. All I knew was trauma and dysfunction. All Polly knew was emotional distance and secrets. Her parents never argued in public; and never modeled to her how to have a good and happy marriage. We came into marriage ignorant about everything from sex to money. We truly made it up as we went. Fortunately, we kinda, maybe, possibly — hell if I know! — figured it out. Coming to this place required an honest accounting by both of us of not only our personal lives but also of our marital relationship.

Polly and I were lucky that our marriage survived. Many people realize that they married the wrong person or that they are not well-suited. Life is too short to spend it married to the wrong person. Better to get out of the marriage sooner than spending decades persevering, hoping things will change. Sometimes, readers in problem marriages tell me that they wish they had a “successful” marriage like Polly and me. I am quick to deflect, knowing that our success isn’t formulaic; that luck and circumstance had (have) a lot more to do with our success than following certain rules or principles.

For you who have been married for a long time, do you think you have a “successful” marriage? How do you define “success?” What advice would give to a young couple considering marriage? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

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.

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Short Stories: Charlotte and Bruce, a Summer Romance

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments
carl and pat brandenburg

In the fall of 1970, Dad moved us from Deshler, Ohio — a small rural community in northwest Ohio — to a moderate-sized city of 35,000 residents called Findlay. Findlay is home to Marathon Oil and a large Whirlpool plant. I lived in Findlay in eighth grade, ninth grade, and half of the tenth grade (moved to Arizona), and then returned for my eleventh-grade year. All told, I lived in Findlay forty months.

As good Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB), Dad and Mom looked for a church to attend. Our first stop was Calvary Baptist Church. We didn’t stay long. My parents thought Calvary was too uptown; too upper class, for their liking. Our next stop was Trinity Baptist Church, a fast-growing congregation affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship in Springfield, Illinois.

Trinity was definitely our kind of people — poor, working class, with a few rich folks sprinkled in. Wall-to-wall Sunday attendances were common. Trinity had a large bus ministry that brought hundreds of riders to church every week, as well as a large youth group — one hundred or so students from seventh to twelfth grade.

The summer of 1971 brought Uncle Carl and Aunt Pat Brandenburg to Trinity to hold a five-day Super Summer Bible Rally (SSBR). Hailing out of the Troy Baptist Temple, the Brandenburgs held youth-oriented events for IFB churches. The SSBR held at Trinity gathered all the children into the auditorium (500 kids one night) for ninety minutes of entertainment with a Jesus flavor, and a call to salvation at the end of the night.

While I don’t remember much about the program, I do remember Carl and Pat’s daughter, Charlotte. Both of us were fifteen. While I had been interested in girls for a while, I had never had a serious girlfriend. I hung out with my girl friends, but they were not my girlfriends. Charlotte would soon change that for me.

After the first night of the SSBR, Charlotte and I struck up a conversation, and it was not long before our conversation moved from “acquaintance” to “I like you” to by the end of the week good old-fashioned IFB “puppy love.” For the following four days, I would walk a few blocks to the motel where the Brandenburgs were staying, pick up Charlotte, and we would walk to Riverside Park. There we would walk along the river and sit on the banks of the Blanchard River. Mutual infatuation to be sure, but it seemed “real” to both of us.

charlotte brandenburg

Alas, Friday night came and went, and then it was time for Charlotte to return to Troy. We vowed to keep in touch with one another, and so we did with letters and phone calls. While Charlotte and I held hands and put our arms around each other, we didn’t kiss. Doing so was a crime in IFB circles. Kissing leads to premarital sex . . . need I say more?

In September, I talked my youth director into taking a busload of teens to Troy Baptist Temple to view the movie, A Thief in the Night. Of course, Charlotte would be in attendance too. We sat together, holding hands the whole time. “Was this the making of something special?” I wondered at the time.

After the movie, Charlotte and I were lingering near the church bus, lamenting my soon departure. I really, really, really wanted to kiss her. My youth director, Bruce Turner, told me it was time to get on the bus, and then he looked at the both of us as he turned away and said, “get it over with.” And so we did. A quick kiss and a promise to keep the flame burning.

Alas, absence does not make the heart grow founder, proximity does. By Christmas, both of us had moved on to other people.

I would remain a casual dater until I had my first real adult romance at age eighteen with a woman named Anita. (Please see 1975: Anita, My First Love.) We talked marriage, but our relationship did not last. After Anita, I swore off dating for a while, focusing instead on work, friends, and my 1970 Nova SS. It would not be until the fall of 1976 that I was ready to play the field again. Little did I know the field only had one woman, a beautiful, dark-haired girl named Polly. Two years later we married.

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.

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Short Stories: Go Get in the Car, I’ll be Right Out

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments
beater station wagon
$200 beater. Polly HATED this car.

My wife, Polly, and I are the parents of six children — four boys and two girls. We have two distinct families: our three oldest sons, then our two daughters and youngest son. There are almost nine years between these “families” of ours. Their experiences as the children of Bruce and Polly Gerencser, an ordained Baptist pastor and his wife, vary greatly.

Polly and our oldest three sons often went with me when I visited church families. I visited every family in the church at least once a year. I wanted them to get to know me personally, away from the church and pulpit.

I love to talk. I used to apologize for this trait, but I no longer do so. Being talkative is who I am. I am not boorish, only talking about myself. When visiting with congregants, I was interested in hearing about their families, their needs, and their spiritual struggles. Sometimes, I would spend an hour or two with church members, depending on what they want to talk about.

Much like an airplane circling an airport, getting ready to land, I would eventually know it was time to leave. Polly and the boys said to themselves countless times, “Finally. We can go home.” Several minutes later, I uttered the words my dear children hated hearing from me: “Go get in the car, and I will be right out!” Inwardly they groaned, knowing that the airplane wasn’t ready to land; that Dad wouldn’t make it to the car for another fifteen minutes.

You see, I like to talk. I genuinely enjoy conversing with people. As I would get up to leave, all of a sudden a question or comment would stop me in my tracks, and a “forever” (according to the way my children kept time) later I was still talking.

Being a part of a strict patriarchal family, neither Polly nor our sons objected to being left in the car. Today, I suspect my sons would say “I ain’t going anywhere until you get in the car,” and Polly would likely say, “Hey, Bud, I’m not getting in the car until you do.” Such protestations would have been impossible when we had a “Biblical” family, but today I hope they would demand I respect their time.

While Polly and I, along with our oldest sons, reminiscence about the good old days when I said ” Go get in the car, and I will be right out” we all laugh, but I can’t help but think in my heart that I wish I had never walked out of countless doors without Polly and our boys in hand.  I wish I had shown them more respect and less authority.

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.

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How Evangelical Theology Terrorizes Children

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments
watching porn is a sin

Evangelical parents are repeatedly told by their pastors that God commands them to “train up a child in the way he should go.” Why? Because if they do so, “when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Religious indoctrination and conditioning are essential tools in ensuring the salvation of children. “Get them when they are young,” the thinking goes, “and you will have them for life.” Evangelical pastors and parachurch leaders know this, so they invest significant time and money in indoctrinating children in the “faith once delivered to the saints.” By the time an Evangelical child graduates from high school, he will have likely heard 2,000 or so sermons/lessons.

Evangelical children learn at an early age that the “church” is their family. Their lives are dominated by God/Jesus/Bible/Church. The goal, of course, is to stop young adults from leaving the church. Church leaders know that young adults are the future. If they leave, Evangelicalism dies.

Children, of course, love to explore, challenge, and test boundaries — especially teenagers. Pastors fear that if teens and young adults test boundaries and wander outside the Evangelical box, they could leave the church, never to return. Instead of engagement, preachers often use threats. (Please see The Danger of Being in a Box and Why it Makes Sense When You Are In It and What I Found When I Left the Box.)

Before children ever reach first grade, they have been repeatedly terrorized with threats of God’s judgment and Hell. They have been told that they are broken, the enemies of God, and in need of salvation. Children are told that if they disobey Mom or Dad, they are sinning against God; and that not doing their chores could land them in Hell. Is it any wonder that most Evangelical children get saved when they are young? Who wants to go to Hell, right?

The threats continue in their teen years. Sexually aware teens are threatened with God’s judgment if they engage in premarital sex, masturbation, or even think about sex. “Sex is reserved for married heterosexual couples” they are told, even though most of the people doing the “telling” engaged in premarital sex themselves. Further, if and when teens start thinking about getting married, they are told that they can only marry Christians; and not just any Christian, but one that is in agreement with their church’s/pastor’s beliefs. “Mixed” marriages are verboten, and sometimes the word “mixed” takes on racial connotations.

Pastors routinely lie to teens not only about sex, but also about alcohol use, drug use, and listening to secular music — to name a few. When I was an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) teen in the early 1970s, my pastors warned me about all sorts of sinful behavior, often invoking the slippery slope argument. “No girl ever gets pregnant without holding the hand of a boy first.” “Pot is a gateway drug that leads to hard drug use.” “Masturbation leads to blindness.” “Listening to rock music will open you up to Satan’s influence and control.” The list of dangers and threats seemed endless to a full-of-life, rambunctious teen boy. Yet, I obeyed. Why? Because of the threats of judgment and Hell.

Evangelical pastors remind teens and young adults that they should respect and obey those God has called to rule over them. Going against God’s ordained authority structure brings chastisement, judgment, and, possibly, death. Pastors love to trot out the Bible story about a group of boys who mocked Elisha. Two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two boys. Lesson? Mock the man of God, question his authority, or do anything contrary to the teachings of the Bible, God could send a “bear” to kill you.

Is it any wonder that, by the time children reach the age of eighteen they flinch every time they come to church, fearing that God is going to judge them for this or that “sinful” behavior — behaviors that are often normal and healthy?

Counseling waiting rooms are filled with Evangelical adults who were terrorized by their parents, pastors, and other authority figures. Is it any wonder that many of these wounded souls leave Christianity, never to return?

When you are in the Evangelical bubble, this kind of behavior seems “normal.” Victims of long-term abuse often think that being abused was just a part of every day life; that they deserved to be threatened with judgment and Hell. However, once they exit the bubble, they quickly learn that there was nothing “normal” about their childhood; that God and the Bible were used as tools of ritualized abuse.

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.

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Fifty Years Ago, I Preached My First Sermon

Bruce Gerencser 9 Comments
emmanuel baptist church 1983
Emmanuel Baptist Church, Buckeye Lake, Ohio, Bruce Gerencser’s ordination April 1983

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

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

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

The next Sunday, I was baptized, and several weeks later I stood before the church and declared that I believed God was calling me to preach. For the next thirty-five years, I lived a life committed to following Jesus and the teachings of the Bible.

After confessing to the church that God was calling me to preach, my youth director, Bruce Turner, took me aside and told me it was time for me to get busy preaching the Bible. Bruce took me under his wing and helped me craft my first sermon; one that I would deliver to the junior high youth department. My chosen text was 2 Corinthians 5:19-20:

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

My sermon was short, sweet, and to the point:

  1. We are Christ’s ambassadors
  2. He has committed unto us the word of reconciliation
  3. We are to implore people to be reconciled to God

Over the next four years, I would preach occasionally at youth events and Word of Life preaching contests. I didn’t begin preaching in earnest until I left to train for the ministry at age nineteen at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. My father-in-law, a Midwestern grad, had been holding Sunday afternoon services at the SHAR (Self Help and Rehabilitation) House in Detroit. After his graduation, Dad asked if I would be interested in taking over his ministry at the drug rehab facility. I told him sure, so for the next two school years, I regularly preached at SHAR House. This gave me a lot of preaching experience by the time I left Midwestern in 1979.

I preached my last sermon in April 2005 at Hedgesville Baptist Church — a Southern Baptist congregation — in Hedgesville, West Virginia. All told, I preached 4,000 sermons — preaching three to six sermons a week, plus revivals, special meetings, Bible conferences, youth rallies, and nursing homes.

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.

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