It has taken me almost sixty-four years to admit and understand how much trauma I have had in life. In 2009, I saw a counselor for the first time. Over the next twelve years, he helped me understand my past (and present), peeling back the layers of my life one ply at a time. This process was excruciating and painful, but necessary. While we talked about the various traumas I have experienced in my life, no attempt was made to understand them collectively. Left unanswered was how these traumas affected and informed my present, how they affected me psychologically, and how they influenced my decision-making.
Late last year, I started seeing a new counselor. While I talk with her about many of the same things I talked about with my first counselor (both are psychologists), my last session with her showed me how deeply I have been affected by trauma. She recommended I read Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s seminal work, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, which I am currently doing.
As I painfully and honestly reflect on my life, I can now see and try to understand past traumas, especially those during a five-year period in my life: 1968-1972.
During this period of time:
I attend five different schools.
I lived in eight different houses.
My parents divorced and remarried (Mom married her first cousin, a recently paroled robber and drug addict, and Dad married a nineteen-year-old girl with a baby).
My mother, who had been repeatedly molested by her father and had battled mental illness most of her life, tried to kill herself numerous times. In one year, Mom overdosed on prescription medications, pulled her car in front of a truck, and slit her wrists. At the age of eleven, I came home from school and found Mom lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. (In 1991, Mom killed herself. She was fifty-four. Please see Barbara.)
Dad had an affair with an unknown woman.
Dad was investigated by the FBI for robbery and the ATF for illegal gun sales.
Dad embezzled $10,000 from Combined Insurance Company.
I contracted measles, mumps, and chicken pox in one year, missing thirty-nine days of school.
I was treated for muscle and joint problems (wrongly labeled “growing pains” at the time).
I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Trauma was not acknowledged or talked about. In fact, such discussions were frowned upon. I was taught that Jesus changes everything, that he was the answer to every question, the solution to every problem. Instead of dwelling on the past, I was told to move on, let go and let God. Pastor after pastor said that not having victory in my life was a “sin,” a lack of faith, trust, and dependence on God. Imagine being a traumatized child sitting in the pews hearing that your problems were insignificant in light of the suffering of Jesus on the cross; that all your “problems” will magically disappear if you get saved and follow Jesus. I would later learn that the very preachers preaching these things had their own traumas, their own secrets, their own “sins.” As an adult and a pastor myself, I learned that these preachers of holiness and godliness were just as fucked up as I was. In fact, I never met a preacher who didn’t have traumas and secrets, things they hid from congregants because church members expected them to be winners.
By not helping me embrace, understand, and deal with my trauma (and by not encouraging me to get professional help), my pastors, youth directors, and teachers unwittingly furthered the trauma in my life. Their words and behavior towards me left deep, lasting scars. How could it be otherwise? Trauma begets trauma. I entered college, marriage, and the ministry with deeply-seated, unresolved trauma. This, of course, caused all sorts of problems in my marriage, relationships with my children, and the churches I pastored. Is it any surprise that a young life of constant upheaval and moving fueled an adult life of upheaval and moving? That even now, I am restless, a wanderlust spirit?
It’s regrettable that I had to wait until I was almost sixty-five years old to fully understand how trauma has shaped and affected my life. Will I finally put these traumas to rest? Maybe. I now know there is a lot of work I must do, with the help of my counselor and family, to find peace and happiness in my life. Maybe it is too late for me. Maybe not. All I know to do is try . . .
My Evangelical critics will see this post as an admission that I was damaged goods, that I had no business being a pastor. Maybe. I am more inclined to think that my trauma helped me to be more kind, loving, and compassionate towards the people I pastored; people who had their own traumas. I don’t know one pastor who doesn’t have baggage. I spent thirty-five years, both as a teen preacher boy and a seasoned pastor, interacting with pastors, youth directors, evangelists, and missionaries. I know their secrets, their traumas, their sins. Trust me, things are not what they seem. I suspect that can be said for all of us.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Last Tuesday, I spoke at the monthly meeting of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. Polly recorded my talk on my iPhone 13 — her first attempt at recording a video. Who says you can’t teach old, old, old dogs new tricks? 🙂
Let me know what you think in the comment section. If you are so inclined, please LIKE the video on YouTube. Your subscriptions will be appreciated too. In the coming weeks, I plan to post more material to YouTube and Spreaker (podcast). Your support and helpful suggestions are appreciated.
This is my first in-person appearance since COVID-19. I’ve done a number of podcasts during the pandemic, but I really enjoyed speaking publicly. This Friday, I will be interviewed for two podcasts, Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie and Harmonic Atheist. I’ll post the interviews when they are posted on YouTube.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I always find it interesting when two people can have similar experiences yet come to wildly different conclusions about those experiences. Take me, Bruce Gerencser, and Mark Milioni, the president of Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. Both of us attended Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship. Trinity was pastored by Gene Milioni, Mark’s father. Ron Johnson was the church’s assistant pastor and Bruce Turner was the youth pastor. (Please see Dear Bruce Turner.)
I am five or six years older than Mark. He was a young boy when I was a teenager at Trinity. I attended Trinity from June of 1970 to May of 1974. Both Mark and I were exposed to the same preaching, the same theology, the same social practices. Yet, Mark’s view of his father’s church is very different from mine.
I came from a Baptist church [that was] conservative to the hilt, but it was not legalistic. It was not militaristic. There was not regular preaching on dress code and on worship or on a strong pastoral demanding, authoritative, dictatorship type of leadership.
As I read this, I thought, “did we attend the same church?” To suggest that Trinity and its pastors weren’t legalistic is ludicrous, as any person (except Mark) who grew up in the church will attest. While there wasn’t “regular” preaching on a dress code or church standards, there certainly were, at times, sermons on these subjects. Long hair on men, short skirts on women were frequently mentioned from the pulpit, in Sunday school, and in youth group meetings. Teens were expected to dress a certain way. “Biblical” morality was outwardly enforced, though, as I learned years later, most church teenagers, except me, were fornicating. There was the facade of Baptist morality, and then there was what really went on behind closed doors.
Granted Pastor Milioni wasn’t an authoritarian like Jack Hyles, but he had authoritarian tendencies — a common character trait for IFB preachers. I had several run-ins with Mark’s father. I can tell you from personal experience that Pastor Milioni could be authoritarian. The same could be said for the other pastors. One pastor had a violent temper. I saw him beat his son on two occasions with a belt for failing to have good grades. These authoritarian tendencies were also expressed by some of the deacons and Sunday school teachers.
I have lots of good and bad experiences I could share from my three-plus years at Trinity Baptist. I am sure Mark does too, having spent his formative years as the son of Trinity’s pastor. I don’t think Mark is lying. I am, however, perplexed about how it is we have wildly different experiences. I wonder if Mark is trying to be honest, yet protective, whereas I have no need to protect the testimonies of others. Granted, our family experiences were very different, he the son of the pastor, me the son of a divorced couple. I would love to sit down with Mark and share a meal or a beer (if he is one of those enlightened IFB preachers) and talk about our shared experiences. Maybe we could find some common ground.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
An immodestly dressed woman is like a cigarette at a gas pump. The cigarette does not explode; the explosion comes as a result of the inherent instability of the fuel. But whoever lit the thing is an absolute fool. I can hear the responses being typed furiously all the way from Iowa. “Well, he should control himself!” Amen, sister, amen. He should walk in the Spirit and thus not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. And you should not run around half-clothed.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
The path to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pulpit takes many roads. Some IFB preachers had a crisis in their adult lives, got saved, felt the call of God to the ministry, went to Bible college, and then started pastoring a church. Men with substance abuse problems or horn dog tendencies sometimes take this path. I met a number of preachers who were alcoholics or drug addicts before entering the ministry. Others were fornicators and adulterers who thought the ministry would cure them of their sexual urges. As you might imagine, some of these men found that Jesus was no match for their libido.
Other IFB preachers were “backslidden,” got right with God, felt the call of God to the ministry, went to Bible college, and then started pastoring a church. My father-in-law was one such man. At the age of thirty-five, Dad felt God telling him that he had one last chance to get right with God and enter the ministry. Dad heeded God’s call, quit his ten-year job on the railroad, and moved to Pontiac, Michigan to attend Midwestern Baptist College. Four years later, Dad graduated from Midwestern and spent the next few decades working in God’s vineyard as an evangelist, assistant pastor, pastor, and leading church services for nursing homes.
Some men follow either of these roads, except they skip the college part, entering the ministry without any formal training. The only theological training some IFB preachers have is that they can read the King James Bible. Some of the worst preaching I ever heard was by men who thought college and reading any other book but the KJV was unnecessary — a waste of time. These men believe all they need is the Holy Spirit. Years ago, I heard one such man at an IFB church in Lancaster, Ohio. This man thought preaching was reading the text, going verse by verse, and sharing his personal opinion.
Many IFB preachers were what I call seed-to-harvest preachers. These men were raised in IFB homes, attended IFB churches, were active in IFB youth groups, and were either homeschooled or attended IFB schools. After being saved, often as a child, getting baptized, rededicating their lives as teenagers, and acknowledging the call of God on their lives, these young men left home to study for the ministry at IFB or IFB friendly schools such as Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian College, Crown College of the Bible, Baptist Bible College, Midwestern Baptist College, Hyles-Anderson College, West Coast Baptist Bible College, Trinity Baptist College, Maranatha Baptist University, Heartland Baptist Bible College, Golden State Baptist Bible College, Faith Baptist Bible College, along with a plethora of church-based Bible institutes. All of these schools exist for the express purpose of preparing men to pastor IFB churches. They may offer other programs, but their focus is on training the next generation of “preacher boys” (and providing women for them to marry).
Seed-to-harvest preachers are typically born to devout IFB parents. Their lives are dominated by the church. I can’t emphasize this point enough. My parents were saved at an IFB church in San Diego, California when I was five. From that time forward, I was in church every time the doors were open: Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday evening, youth group, midweek service, revivals, conferences, special prayer meetings, visitation, bus visitation, youth rallies, special youth events, and vacation Bible school. I also played on the church’s softball and basketball teams. When “work days” at the church were announced, I was there. After my call to the ministry, I would skip school so I could attend the Ohio Baptist Bible Fellowship meetings that were held at the church I was attending at the time.
Socially, most of my friends belonged to the same church as I did. Playing sports did allow me the opportunity to have “worldly” friends, but all of my close friends were fellow church members. I only dated “likeminded” girls; girls who either attended the same church I did or attended other IFB churches. I never dated anyone outside of the church. (Such relationships were frowned upon. Be not unequally yoked with the world, the Bible says.)
While I attended a public school, many seed-to-harvest preachers are either homeschooled or attend a Christian school. It is in these settings that these preachers-to-be are deeply indoctrinated in the one true faith. My six children spent virtually every day of their lives in a world where everything revolved around God/Jesus/Bible/Church. The seed-to-harvest preacher spends most of his formative years immersed in the church and the Bible.
Seed-to-harvest preachers learned that being a preacher is best job in the world. They heard pastors tell them that was no greater job than preaching the gospel, saving souls, and building churches. I heard several preachers say that it would be a step down for them to become President.
Seed-to-harvest preachers quickly learned that being a preacher is a place of honor and prominence, a place of love and respect. They likely heard sermons imploring them to become pastors, missionaries, and evangelists. This thinking was reinforced by their youth pastors. Pastors often view “men called to the ministry” much as a gunslinger does after winning a gunfight. Every time a young man enters the ministry, pastors put another notch on their gospel gun. I’ve heard numerous preachers brag about how many men were called to preach under their ministry.
Now take a step back and look at what I have written. What do you see? Indoctrination. Conditioning. Manipulation. Young, impressionable men becoming a means to an end. My oldest son, Jason, was on the seed-to-harvest path. Everyone expected him to become an IFB preacher just like his father, grandfather, and great grandfather. In the spring of Jason’s senior year, he was accepted to study for the ministry at Pensacola Christian College. PCC offered free tuition for pastors’ children. Many IFB schools do the same, using the free tuition as a way to draw other students from the church to the college.
Jason began having doubts about his salvation. I found this strange because he was a rock-solid Christian, devoted to Jesus and the church. I remember sitting down with Jason and talking with him about his doubts. What I learned is that he felt pressured to join the family business; that he really didn’t want to be a preacher. As soon as I told him he didn’t have to be a preacher, his “doubts” disappeared. For years after, his IFB grandfather would publicly lament the fact that “Jake” didn’t become a preacher. While I was disappointed that he didn’t want to follow in my footsteps, I knew that the ministry wasn’t for everyone.
At the age of five, I told my mom that I wanted to be a preacher. I would gather the neighborhood kids together in the backyard and preach to them. At the age of fifteen, I was saved, baptized, and called to preach. Several weeks later, under the tutelage of Bruce Turner (please see Dear Bruce Turner), I preached my first sermon at the Sunday night youth group meeting. I would preach my last sermon thirty-three years later. All told, I preached over 4,000 sermons.
As I look at my life, I can see how my parents, pastors, and other Christians led me down the path that led to the pulpit. Everything in my life led to the ministry. While I worked numerous “secular” jobs over the years, I saw them as a means to an end, a way for me to make money so I could keep pastoring churches.
Could I have chosen another path? I doubt it. The indoctrination, conditioning, and control was such that I never even entertained a different path. After I married Polly, who was also raised in an IFB home, the die was set. It wasn’t until my late forties that I saw a different path for me. I left the ministry in 2005, and three years later, I left Christianity altogether. I have spent the past fourteen years charting a new path for my life, one where I am the captain, one where my choices are endless (within the constraints of my failing health and limited resources).
Were you a seed-to-harvest preacher? Does what I write in this post ring true to you? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
What follows is an excerpt from an 11,000-word sermon preached in 1971 at First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, by its pastor Jack Hyles. Titled Satan’s Bid for Your Child, Hyles makes it clear that the public schools are out to destroy America’s children. Sadly, forty years later, many Evangelicals still believe as Hyles did: that public schools are used by Satan to destroy the minds of our children. Hyles’ solution, of course, was for parents to pull their children out of public schools, and enroll them in Christian schools.
Enjoy!
I would not preach like I am going to preach tonight if I did not love you. I know a lot of folks tonight will not agree with me, but you never heard a more honest sermon. Now I know our church has dozens of public school teachers. If we asked for a show of hands tonight, I am sure that we would have 35 to 40 people in this room tonight who teach in the public school. I would not hurt you purposely for the world, but tonight I am going to do one thing–I am going to tear what is going on in our schools apart, let me forewarn you. I am going to try to help you save your kids.
The truth is, parents do not know what is going on. I am going to be very frank tonight. No punches barred tonight. If I have superintendents of schools and principals and teachers calling me by the thousands tomorrow, it does not matter. I am going to try to save your kids if it makes the whole town mad. Tonight I am going to spend myself to save your kids. I am going to risk your devotion, your love, your fellowship, maybe your friendship, but I am going to do it because, with all my heart I want to save your kids.
A lady said to me yesterday, “I went over here to a middle school to work in the lunchroom at the lunch hour. Pastor, it never dawned on me the condition of that place. I never realized before what is happening in our schools.”
Parents, you really do not know what is going on. No, you do not. I have in my hand a teenage questionnaire. By the say, one of the reasons I am starting off slow tonight, I do not know what time it is and could not care less. You just forget your clock and your hopes of getting to bed at all tonight, because this is one night when I am going to stand before you and plead for your children.
There are people in this room tonight who care more about your dog than you do your kids. You care more about driving a Cadillac car, or new car. A lot of you ought to sell your car and ride a bicycle if you have to, to get your kids in a decent school. I plead with you tonight for your kids. I hold before me a copy of a survey that our high school students took this morning. Two hundred thirty of our students took this survey, and here are the questions:
1. Have you ever heard one of your school teachers use vulgar language in class?
2. Have you ever heard a school teacher take the name of the Lord in vain in class?
3. Do you ever hear students cursing aloud in class?
4. Have you ever been approached by someone who wanted to sell or give you marijuana or any other narcotic?
5. Have any of your school friends used narcotics?
6. Have you ever used drugs?
7. Have you ever given away or sold drugs yourself?
8. Do you know of any teacher who uses drugs?
9. Have you ever been taught evolution?
10. Do any of your teachers wear mini-skirts?
11. Do any of your teachers wear pant dresses?
12. Do any of your school friends drink?
13. Have you ever taken a drink or any alcoholic beverage, such as beer, wine, etc.?
14. Has there ever been in your school any disturbances, such as revolts, riots, student disorders, boycotts, etc.?
15. Have you ever heard the American way of life, the establishment, and capitalism criticized by a teacher?
16. Have you ever worn slacks to school?
17. Have you ever worn shorts to school?
18. Have you ever been taught that premarital sex is all right?
19. Have you been asked to read such books as, Of Mice and Men, Soul On Ice, The Grapes of Wrath, Catcher in the Rye, or any other book that includes cursing?
20. Have you read any of these books?
Now this questionnaire was handed to each of our high school students this morning. Before you leave tonight, I am going to give you what your kids said this morning, plus a lot of other things along with it. I will give you through the message tonight, the result of this survey.
The average parent in this room does not have any idea what is going on when your child goes to school. How many of you, if you saw your child’s teacher walking down the street, would recognize him or her? Raise your hand, please. You see, you are living under the illusion that it is like us when you were a kid. Brother, it is not near like it was when you were a kid. Not near like it was. Now, you do not care enough to even know. How many of you have ever read at least one book that was required reading for your child at school? Would you lift your hand, please? You just do not much care, do you?
You see, you do not know what is going on, and like the ostrich, you do not want to know what is going on because you do not want to get in a fight, or spend some of your money to save your child. You want to keep on riding high, living it up, enjoying life without facing the fact that we have got a battle on our hands, and that battle is not just to save the country, it is to save your children.
If we so not rise up and do something, everything decent that we know about our way of life is about to crumble. I am sick and tired of a bunch of sex, demonized, demented people standing behind the school, behind the cloak of scholarship, and destroying those whom we call our own children. I am tired of it! I have ceased, a long time ago, to keep my mouth shut about it. Not only that, but since you will not check yourself on what is going on tonight, I am going to open the door to the public schools for you and invite you in.
I challenge anybody to disprove what I say tonight. There is not one way any person can disprove what I am going to give you in this sermon tonight. You say, “Preacher, you are a rabble-rouser.” You better know I am, but I am not near as big a rabble-rouser as these people trying to destroy the minds of our children, destroy the patriotism, decency, honor, character and chastity of our boys and girls. I am going to do some rabble-rousing, but that is not all I am going to do. I am going to do some school-building, too, and I am going to give our kids a choice in so doing.
Satan is after your child like he has never been after anybody’s child in the history of this world. Satan has pointed every gun in his arsenal at the soul and body and life of your child, and he is doing it, basically, through the schoolroom.
You see, people do not like to hear what I am going to say tonight, because we have some things that we have deified. We have some institutions that we do not like to see anybody attack. We have deified the schoolroom and the public school until we think they can say no evil, speak no evil, and while we have built a canopy of protection over them they are destroying and stealing our boys and girls. Now the truth is, ant this is the sad thing, you ought to be pleading with me for your children instead of me pleading with you. Isn’t that something? I stand up here and take a chance on making you mad, pleading with you to save your child. The truth is, you ought to be on your knees, saying, “Brother Hyles, please do something for us so we can save our children.”
I could have parents stand up all over this house tonight as living testimony to what I am going to say. I could have parents parade across this platform by the dozens, they are here now, to stand up here in bodies and lives and dreams that are broken and say, “My boy or my girl was ruined by a university or a high school or a teacher.”
Your kids may go to the Devil and your kids may not go to a Christian school and they may not turn out right, but I will tell you one thing, it is not going to be because Brother Hyles did not warn you and do the best he could to help you. If anybody gets mad at me tonight, it is because you just do not understand. I love you and I love your children, and I love you so much I am going to do my best to beat some sense in your head.
I am weary of this kind of talk, “Well, everything will be out in the world when they get older. Why shelter and protect them now?” If that is the case, when your kid is born, why don’t you kick him out in the street and say, “Ride a bicycle.”
I am going to give you tonight several things the Devil is doing to attack your child:
1. Revolution. The first part of the hippie program is to kill your parents. I mean that quite seriously, because until you are prepared to kill your parents, you are not really prepared to change the country. “Our parents are our first oppressors.” Who said that? Jerry Rubin, one of the notorious Chicago Seven. Where did he say it? On the campus of Kent State University. It was said on the Kent State University campus, “You must be prepared to kill your parents because they are your first oppressors.” This was said only one week before the rioting which resulted in the deaths of four students.
Our socialist-minded professors and teachers, with their leftist-slanted textbooks, have dedicated themselves to changing the American way of life through the indoctrinating of the minds of students.
….
What else is being launched at your child?
2. Books. Here are some samples of profanity. Now I am sorry, I am not going to use these words, but I am going to spell some bad words. I may as well just come out and tell you what your kids are reading. You have not checked on it, you have no idea, so I am going to have to tell you. I have got to invite you. I am going to open a few of the books. New Worlds Ahead is used for the seventh grade. The seventh grade uses this: “The Stray Kitten”, by Richard Wright, Page 54. “Kill that d-a-m-n thing.” That is seventh grade. Page 55: “I had my first triumph over my father. I had made him believe that I had taken his words literally; he could not punish me without risking his authority. I was happy because I had at last found a way to throw my criticism of him into his face.” That is a quote from a seventh-grade book.
Another story in the book called “The Blue Serge Suit”, Page 414, says, “D-a-m-n asthma.” Page 416, “That d-a-m-n asthma is getting worse.” “I’ll be d-a-m-n-e-d if I see what you are getting at.” That is seventh grade reading!
A ninth grade book, Voices in Literature (1). “Shoe Shine”, by Jerome Weidman, Page 21: “My God!” Page 23:”D-A-M-N it.” Page 23 again: “D-a-m-n it! My God!” The Long Night”, by Lowell Blanton, Page 84: “Well, d-a-m-n it, man.” Page 209: “D-a-m-n-e-d-e-s-t thing.” Page 235 questions parental authority. “The Sissy from Anaconda”, Page 352: The d-a-m-n-e-d-e-s-t rattle snake.” “Hell.” That is ninth-grade reading. Not only is that not good English, that is not even cultural. That is not even refined. That is not even scholarly–that is heathen-like.
You parents who won’t send your sons and daughters to our school, you say “I am afraid that the Hammond Baptist High School will not be properly accredited.” We are a little above this kind of accreditation. We are too scholarly for this kind of garbage. We are too cultural for this kind of talk. Not only has it pricked our religious and spiritual convictions, it pricks our cultures.
We are just getting started. Say you will not read this. I have got to read it to you and for you. It is called Themes in Literature, the tenth grade. “The Colt” by Willis Stegner, Page 127: “G-o-d-d-a-m-n you. G-o-d-d-a-m-n your wild hearts.”
….
Tenth grade: In “The Mateo Falcon”, by Merimee, the father kills his own son. In Western Literature: Themes and writers, “The Out Station”, by W. Somerset Maugham, page 83: “Go to Hell, you d-a-m-n fool. You D-a-m-n-e-d snob, by God.” And 15 counts of profanity in this one story on Page 83, and also a murder.
Voices in literature III, an article “On the Sidewalk Bleeding”, by Evan Hunter, page 105-111, a gang member is stabbed. The whole story tells how he lays on the sidewalk and bleeds to death.
In the book Of Mice and Men, that has been required reading in numbers of schools in this area, by John Steinbeck, page 24: “He is sure a Hell of a good worker. He is a G-o-d-d-a-m-n good worker.” My Bible says you are not to take the name of our Lord God in vain. And I will tell you another thing, too. I got fed up with my boy and girl having to sit in a classroom and listen to a bunch of dirty-minded people stand up and use God’s name in vain. Not one time in the life of my children anymore are they going to sit and hear anybody curse my God! You do not have to let your children do that either. Of Mice and Men, by the way, Steinbeck is a Nobel Prize winner. The Devil is proud of him. Page 48, “Them G-o-d-d-a-m-n turnips, give it to me.” Page 56, If that crazy b-a-s-t-a-r-d is foolin’ around too much, just kick him out, Slim.” Page 83: “In many times.” Page 94: “This here G-o-d-d-a-m-n son of a ______(female dog) wasn’t nothin’ to George.”
Soul On Ice, By Elridge Cleaver, here is another book that is suggested reading, page 159: “I’d jump over ten nigger________(female dogs) just to get one white woman.”
Now you just sit there and swell up like a toadstool, but brother, I am trying to help your kids, and I am doing it at the risk of a lot of folks getting mad. Listen, if I lose half the deacon board and two-thirds of the members, there is one thing I am going to do: Try to save your kids for Jesus’s sake before I have to take off. I am not mad at anybody, but the Devil, and I am weary of this crowd of left-wingers that are taking over our schools and ruining our kids. I am weary of these sex perverts, these people of loose morals, these Sweden-oriented teachers, and if you are not one of those, I am not talking about you, but there are thousands of them, and it is getting worse and worse all the time. This kind of garbage is what they are requiring and asking our kids to read. Now I have not even started yet, really. I wish I had time to do the whole thing. Let us go further.
Soul On Ice, Page 160: “I will not be free until the day I can have a white woman in my bed, and a white man minds his own business.” Page 170, I cannot even read this, “During _______, and at the moment of her_______, the black woman in the first throes of her_________.” I cannot even read it! It tells about a black woman and a white man, the entire story.
Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, published by Viking Press, Page 27, and this book is considered suggested reading. Page 27: “You ain’t too d-a-m-n holy to take a drink, are you?” “And I hear she’s a s-o-n of a ______(female dog).” That is the Grapes of Wrath. You thought that was a good book, didn’t you? You are not checking, are you? Well now you know. You ought to say, “My child is not going to be subjected to stuff like this anymore.”
….
4. Sex. Coming into our schools are books, slides and filmstrips are not how babies are made. Now this is for our little children, little children in school. “How Babies Are Made” shows chickens and dogs in the act. It shows Mom and Dad in bed. It is climaxed with a few pictures of a nude mother giving birth to a baby who was conceived several pages earlier. That is being taught in our schools to little children. A coloring book of animals “in the act” is also available for the kiddies, as is a teacher’s guide which explains how babies are made. It “hopes to create an atmosphere of honesty and freedom of discussion concerning matters of reproduction, and to promote understanding and correct usage of the names of body parts.” This is for little children.
The teacher’s guide lists the following questions which are typical of those asked during a presentation of the story, “How Babies Are Made.” “When people lie down and face each other, does the woman become pregnant?” I cannot even read the rest of it, and I can’t believe they print this for little children.
….
LISTEN TO ME! If every deacon in this church walks out on me, and if every member of this church gets mad and quits, or this church rises up tonight and says “Don’t you preach what you are preaching or we will fire you,” you can have your church and I will be on my way. I am going to fight this dastardly attempt by the Devil and his crowd to wreck our children and destroy our boys and girls. Brother, don’t you think this is a one-time-only sermon; you will be getting it right along.
Now what can you do?
1. Get in a good church. You say, “I will pray about it.” You do not have to pray about that; just get in a good church. You say, “I will do what the Lord leads.” He is leading you out of that liberal church now. Get in a good church. You say, “Where is a good one?” Well, see me after the service and I will recommend one to you.
….
2. Get your child in all the activities of the church. All of them! When the doors open, get him here. Get Junior in the choir. “But he is thirteen; his voice is changing.” Okay, let him get up and sing sourly. That is how I sing all the time. Get him in the choir. You say, “He cannot sing.” Then let him hum. If he cannot hum, just let him move his mouth and pray nothing will come out. But you say, “Brother Hyles, Junior will not go.” Oh, brother. What in the world kind of parent are you? I dare my boy not to go when I say go. He is seventeen years old now and thinks he might be able to whip his dad, but I have some holds he does not know about. I will wring his neck if he does not obey me.
….
3. Get your child in the Christian school. I mean it folks. Do I have to get on my knees and talk to you? Do I have to beg you? I know, I sit in my office. I know what happens.
I am going to say this if it harelips every dog in this county. I am going to make somebody mad, but I am going to say it. I am going to take a chance on making all of you mad tonight to save your kids. When our kids come home from college, they do not have to tell me which ones are coming home from state universities. I can spot them. Now if that be treason, make the most of it. I am trying to help you. I have tried the best I could to keep your kids from going to those state colleges. I have preached and preached and screamed and pleaded and begged and hollered and cried and made folks mad and chased folks off, trying to keep your kids from going there. I am doing it again tonight.
Get your kids in the Christian school. We have here, on this platform, a man who has to take second place to no principal when it comes to scholarship and education. None at all. We have a faculty at our school that does not have to bow to anybody’s faculty.
Ladies and gentlemen, your children do not have to go to the Devil anymore. Furthermore, we are opening a college in September of 1972. That means not that a child can start at our schools when he is four years of age and stay there for 16 years. They do not have to go to the Devil.
….
4. Give. It is going to take a lot of money for us to do what we are going to do. I mean some of you ought to give some property. You say, “Brother Hyles, what would you do with it?” We may start a school on it. Or we may trade it for some property where we can start a school. Somebody who owns fifty acres ought to just give ten acres to the church, just give it. You say, “Brother Hyles, it is a long way off.” You ought to just give it anyway. Give it to the church. How we will use it, I do not know, but we will use it. Just give it to the church. Somebody ought to give enough land for a school in some neighborhood, and when the time comes, we will develop it and have a school there. Give.
Somebody ought to give a thousand or ten thousand dollars. Listen, it is the best money you have ever spent, investing in this kind of money for our children. Also, you ought to put First Baptist Church in your Will. I do not mean nest month, I mean this week. I mean now. Go down to your lawyer and say, “Put First Baptist Church in my Will so when I die, I will still be helping to carry on the program of First Baptist Church and what it is trying to do.
The thing that every person ought to do is tithe. I am calling on every member of this church to give ten percent of his income from now on. Everyone–every child, every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, every couple–everybody! We cannot rise up and build and do what God wants us to do, unless we give. We have to do it! It is time we called a national emergency on the Devil. Let us save our children.
Of course, many of you have closed minds. You do not want to be confused with the facts; your mind is made up. You are too scholarly. Your mind is closed. If you could have interviewed the kids in our school before they went to school here, and if you knew them now, you would be a believer.
….
They are your kids! I have tried for years, and I’ll keep on trying to help them. I am not against anything or anyone except wrong, but I am against wrong wherever it is! I know what I’m called. I hear what gangs of boys say when they drive by the church and see me getting into my car. I know what is said on the radio, the newscasts, and the call-in programs. I am a fanatic. They said that I am a bigot (Do you know what the word “bigot” is? Bigot is a word used by bigots to describe decent people.) Yes, I know! I was walking in a shopping center the other day, and three boys spit at me. I get the phone calls. I get the letters. I’m a fool, but I’m glad to be one if I can help save your kids! We have dedicated ourselves to try to do it! Won’t you let us?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Seventeen years have passed since I preached my last sermon and Polly was called the “pastor’s wife.” Almost fourteen years have passed since we determined to stop attending church. Now we are “unchurched”, casualties of a lifetime spent in Evangelical Christianity. Worse yet, at least according to our critics, we are now, as atheists, enemies of Christ and his church.
You see, we not only left the Church, we left Jesus. Regardless of how some Christians try to parse our lives through their peculiar theological system, we are two people who once were devoted, committed followers of Jesus. We were saved and now we are lost.
Some people leave Evangelicalism, with its attendant Fundamentalist beliefs and code of living, and try to remake their lives according to a kinder, gentler view of God, the Bible, and their fellow humans. I view this as remodeling a house where the foundation and the basic framework remain the same. What’s changed is the siding and the paint on the interior walls, but everything else is still the same.
Many people leave Evangelicalism and join progressive or liberal Christian churches. They gain new labels for themselves, but, again, the foundation of their faith remains the same. Polly and I decided that we were not willing to slap some new siding on the house and remodel the interior. Instead, we burnt the house to the ground, hauled the debris away, and started over.
Now I say we started over, but I recognize that since we think and remember, there really is no such thing as starting over with a blank slate. Deep in our minds are memories from fifty years spent in the Christian church and twenty-five years spent in the pastorate. These things will forever be with us. The good, bad, and indifferent; the wonderful experiences, and the painful, hurtful experiences too. We are the sum of what we have learned and experienced in the past. While we like to think we KNOW where we will be months or years from now, the truth is we really don’t know what the future may bring or how our lives will be.
If someone told me fifteen years ago that Polly and I would be godless heathens, I would have suggested they seek immediate psychiatric help. As far as Christians go, and as far as Christian pastors and their wives go, Bruce and Polly Gerencser were as devoted and committed as any Christian or ministry couple. Yet, here we are, numbered among the godless, the most despised people in America.
When we decided to start over, we knew that we were going to have to confront many personal and marital issues. Wiping the slate clean forced us to look at what we really believed about most everything. At times, the process made us fearful. What if we decided that we didn’t want to married to each other? Free to think and reason and to decide for ourselves what our moral and ethical foundation was, there was a real danger that this process could lead us apart.
Of great concern was how our children would view the new, and hopefully improved, Mom and Dad. They only knew us as parents who were 100% committed to Jesus and the church. They only knew us as strict, not sparing the rod, homeschooling parents. I can only imagine how great a struggle it was for them as they watched their parents not only leave all they ever knew, but repudiate it and embrace a godless worldview.
Former friends, parishioners, and fellow pastors reacted with horror and anger over our leaving the Christian faith. We have been accused of all sorts of things as our Evangelical past has been dissected, discredited, and discarded. We spent a lifetime building relationships with people, and it only took saying, I don’t believe, or I am an atheist, for all of those relationships to go up in smoke. We paid a huge price for being honest and open about the journey we are on.
Over the past fourteen years, we have slowly built our new home. Our marriage not only survived, but it has thrived. Nirvana, it is not. We still fuss and fight. We still have personality quirks that drive each other crazy. But, at the same time, we are far more accepting and loving, not only towards each other, but towards humans in general.
Our lives are very different these days. My continued physical debility has radically changed how we live, how we earn a living, and what we can and can’t do. Since our “sin” list now fits on a 3×5 card, we are free to do many things and go many places that were verboten in our previous life. We are free to dance, drink, and party, even though we very rarely do so. It is liberating to enjoy life without having to wonder what God, the church, or our Christian friends think. We’ve met new friends, mostly through this blog and social media, who allow us the space and freedom to be who and what we really are.
Some Christians are likely to suggest that we left Christianity because we wanted the freedom to live however we wanted. Some might even suggest that we had a secret desire to sin, to live immorally and that’s the REAL reason we left Christianity. To some degree, they are correct. We now love “sinning.” 🙂 However, we ultimately left Christianity for intellectual reasons. We came to the conclusion that the claims of Christianity were not true and the Bible was not in any way a divine, God-inspired book. We came to see that our lives had been built upon a foundation that was not true. Once the Bible was removed from the discussion, we were free to chart our own course; free to determine for ourselves what is moral and ethical; free to experience things and go places that were considered sinful for most of our lives.
Some readers, thinking we threw the baby out with the bathwater, will say, But Bruce, you were a Fundamentalist Baptist. Everyone knows how legalistic, how narrow-minded Fundamentalist Baptists are. This claim might have some merit IF we had remained Fundamentalist Baptists over the course of twenty-five years in the ministry. But, we didn’t. By the time I pastored my last church in 2003, I was a social-gospel-progressive-Sojourner-loving-emergent-church-friendly-Democratic-pastor. Many of my pastor friends labeled me a l-i-b-e-r-a-l.
The process that led us to where we are today began in the 1990s. Fundamentalists tend to view things in a black and white manner. Saved/Lost. In/Out. Heaven/Hell. God/Satan. They remember the date/time/place God saved them, and when people who think like this read that we are now atheists, they, judging us through their own experiences, think we had some instantaneous experience where we went from saved back to lost.
That’s not how it worked for us. It was, and remains, a process. We fully expect that the process will continue until we die. We expect our journey will have many bumps, crooks, turns, and reversals. We have no doubt there will be times when we part ways and walk different paths from each other. That’s okay. We are free to be who we want to be. We are free to follow the path wherever it leads. No more thundering sermons telling us NO. No more living a life where the Bible is the compass and guide.
This does not mean that life is now easier for us. If anything, it is harder. When the Bible was the standard by which all things were judged, we didn’t have to think as much. Just Obey. As the old song goes, Trust and Obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to Trust and Obey. Now we are forced to recognize that life is filled with gray and ambiguity and that sometimes there is no right or wrong answer. We have learned to be indifferent towards many things.
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, 2013
This is how we have chosen to live our lives. We are happy and our love for one another endures. Our children have embraced the new Mom and Dad, even though some of them might question the path we are on. Each of our six children has charted their own course through life. None of them is Evangelical. To many people, our children are a huge disappointment, and Polly and I will answer to God for what we have done to our family. We, however, are proud of our children, proud of the lives they have chosen for themselves.
Polly and I are grateful that we have been given the opportunity to start again. We are cognizant of the fact that our story could have had a bad ending. But, it didn’t and we hope this new lease on life will be one we do not squander. We hope that our best days lie ahead.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
As an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor, I taught parishioners that the Bible clearly defined the roles (a hierarchy) of men (husbands), women (wives), and children. The Bible, from an IFB perspective, is clear: the husband is the head of the home and the wife is commanded to submit to his authority and rule. Much like the pastor in the church, the husband is the final authority in the home. It matters not if he is worthy of such responsibility. A husband is disobedient to God if he refuses to be the head of the home. The wife, if she refuses to submit to her husband’s authority, is a Jezebel and risks the judgment of God.
I taught women that God’s highest calling for them was marriage, having children, and keeping the home. I discouraged women from going to college. After all, why waste money going to college if you are going to be busy having children and keeping the home.
I taught men that God’s highest calling is for them to be a leader. Men are called by God to lead the church, the home, and the government. The strength or weakness of any nation, culture, church, or home depends on whether men are fulfilling their divine calling to lead.
Children are at the bottom of this hierarchical system. They are under the authority of God, the Bible, the pastor, their father, and their mother. Children have one divine calling in life: obedience!
This kind of hierarchical family structure has been a part of American society since the day the Pilgrims stepped ashore on the eastern coast of America. Over time, due to social, political, and economic pressure, the hierarchical family structure has weakened. As women gained the right to vote, began working outside of the home, and began using birth control, they realized they could live without being under the control and authority of a man. Modern American women are free to pursue their own life path, free to live lives independent of men. When women marry, they are no longer considered the helpmeets of their husbands. They are equal partners in marriage. Their values, beliefs, and opinions matter.
However, in the IFB church movement, women still live in the eighteenth century. Bound by commands and teachings from an antiquated book — the Bible — they live lives strangely and sadly out of touch with the modern world. Every aspect of family life is controlled by what the Bible teaches. Better put, their lives are controlled by what authoritarian pastors and authoritarian husbands/fathers say the Bible teaches.
I have no objection to a woman willingly choosing to live and participate in a hierarchical family structure. If an Amish woman wants to live as the Amish do, then I have no reason or right to object. It is, however, difficult to determine if they willingly choose. Is it a free choice when there are no other options? So it is with women in the IFB church movement and other Fundamentalist sects.
For my family and me, moving away from a hierarchical family structure was and is difficult. We had to relearn what mattered in life. We had to examine sincerely held beliefs and determine if they still were applicable to the new way we wanted to live our lives. I realized that I had lorded over my family. I had dominated and controlled their lives, all in the name of Jesus. By doing so, I had robbed them of the ability to live their lives independent of my control. Every decision had to have my stamp of approval. Nothing escaped my purview. After all, God had commanded me to be the head of the home. Someday, I would give an account to God for how I managed the affairs of my family. I took the threat of judgment seriously. This motivated me to be a “Biblical” husband, father, and pastor.
The biggest problem we faced was that since I was the one who always made the final decision, my children and wife lacked the skills necessary to make good decisions. My children quickly adapted to their newfound freedom, shouting a Martin Luther King Jr-like FREE, FREE AT LAST. However, my wife, Polly, did not fare so well.
Raised in a Fundamentalist home, her father an IFB pastor, Polly had spent her entire life under the thumb of someone else. She rarely had to make a decision because there was always someone else making decisions for her. To say our newfound freedom was difficult for Polly would be a gross underestimation. Suddenly, she was forced to make decisions on her own. For a time, she panicked when faced with making a decision on her own. Simple decisions, like what to order at the fast-food drive-thru or whether or not to put gas in the car, were monumental decisions for her.
Over time, Polly’s decision-making skills improved. Years ago, she was promoted to a management position at a local manufacturing concern, Sauder Woodworking. One night, she came home from work all upset. She told me that she had made a decision about something and several people were now upset with her. I laughed and told her, rule number one about making decisions: you will likely piss someone off.
Polly Gerencser, Graduating from Northwest State Community College, Archbold, Ohio
In 2010, Polly returned to college. She struggled at first, and it took quite a bit of willpower for me not to bail her out. Over time, she adapted to using the computer (she was computer illiterate) and doing the various things necessary to be a good college student. In 2012, Polly graduated with an Associate of Arts degree from Northwest State Community College. I wept as I saw her walk down the aisle on graduation day. Her graduation was a reminder of how far both of us have come (Polly actually has five years of college credit. Unfortunately, three of those years were spent at an unaccredited Bible college).
Polly was forty-six years old before she wore her first pair of pants. Same goes for going to the movie theater, drinking alcohol, cutting her hair short, reading a non-Christian romance novel, etc., etc., etc. As many people know, the IFB movement is all about what a Christian CAN’T do. Some of these choices were fearful choices, God lurking in the shadows of the mind, ready to punish her for making“sinful” choices.”
With change comes new life. In many ways, we have been “born again.” In 2005, I left the pastorate and we began a slow, painful process of reexamining our Christian beliefs. For many years, my family believed what I believed, went to church when I went to church, and obeyed any and every command I gave, complete with proof texts from the Bible. Now it is different.
We left Christianity in 2008. I told Polly and our six children that I was setting them free. I am no longer the spiritual head of the home or the patriarch of the family. They are free to be whatever they want to be. I sincerely mean this. If they want to be Wiccan, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan, or atheist, I am fine with it. The bottom line is this: I want them to be happy. If they are happy, I am happy.
This last decision has caused quite a bit of controversy and conflict. Freed from my control, my entire family quickly abandoned the Evangelical church. I am now an atheist, Polly is an agnostic, and our children, for the most part, do not attend church. Religion is still a big topic of discussion in our family and I still like a rousing debate or discussion about religion, politics, or sports. The difference now is that there is no test of fidelity. No, “did you guys go to church today?” No, “what was the sermon about?”
Our family remains a work in progress. Polly continues to work on her decision-making skills, and I’m learning that the world doesn’t revolve around me. I am learning to shut up and allow my family to make decisions for themselves, even when I think their choices are ill-advised. I have a new rule I live by: if I think someone is making a bad decision on an important issue, I will voice my opinion, but that is the end of it. I stay out of my children’s business, even when they want me to meddle. They are responsible adults and I support whatever decisions they make, even if I disagree with them.
We are far from a finished product. Polly still freezes at the drive-thru and I still know what I want before we pull into the restaurant. We still have the same peculiar character traits we’ve always had. You know, those things that annoy and bug the hell out of each other. The difference now is that we have learned to embrace each other’s peculiarities, knowing that these are what make us unique individuals.
I have Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) and Polly is happy with clutter. Ours is a match made in hell. For many years, my OCPD dominated everything. I have had to learn that while I have every right to want things perfectly ordered, everything in its place, Polly also has the right not to want things perfectly ordered, everything in its place. We each have personal spaces where we are free to practice our peculiar habits and traits. We know to stay out of each other’s “stuff”. In the common spaces, we try to find a happy medium, though I must admit I have a hard time doing this. MY declining health has helped me with my obsession with order. I simply can no longer keep everything perfectly ordered. At times, this frustrates me, but I am learning to embrace my new reality.
It is good to be free.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
“Dear Dr. Hyles. I am 24 years of age. I am a preacher boy whom God called to preach six months after I got saved three years ago. I felt led to go to a certain Bible college in a certain state. I attended there until God called me to pastor a small church. I was ordained. From there, God led me back to a certain city in a certain state where I got saved under Dr. Joe Doe. (I’m using ficticious names.) I worked on the staff of Dr. Doe for that summer and started to go to the Letot Bible Institute that fall.
As I started to go to school that fall, I got a full-time position in a church as assistant pastor and youth director. While I was in a certain state, I met and married a wonderful girl, a spiritual girl, a girl that loved Jesus Christ. As we lived in Letot, I was working for a church in a certain place. I seemed to be getting away from soul winning and getting deeper into the books. After awhile I was not doing what God wanted me to do and what God made me to do. I was not knocking on doors and winning people to Jesus Christ. My not being the man of God I ought to be affected my marriage. It affected my marriage to the extent that my wife told me at one time that if I didn’t become the soul winner that God wants me to be, she couldn’t respect me as a man of God, and she thinks. . . .”
“One afternoon as I was leaving from school, my wife and I seemed to be in the flesh. We didn’t have devotions that day and pray as we usually do. I walked out of the house without telling her I loved her and without telling her good-bye. As I got to school, I felt bad, so I called on the phone, and there was no answer. I knew something was wrong. I drove home immediately and found my wife had committed suicide.”
“As we had her funeral in her hometown up North, I went a half hour early before her relatives and friends viewed the body. I walked in and put my head on my wife’s chest in the casket and was hoping that she would lean up and hold me, kiss me, cuddle me, baby me and tell me that she loved me, but she wasn’t there–she was with the Lord. I then fell on my face before the casket and talked with God. Something happened to me there that I can’t explain, but for once in my life I had the full power of God, but what a price to have to pay! As her friends and relatives came by the casket, I stood there like a soldier witnessing and telling them about Jesus Christ. I feel, Dr. Hyles, that God is leading me to Hyles-Anderson College to learn more about Him and learn more about character and discipline and be the man that God wants me to be.”
Does anyone really believe this story is true? I know I don’t. Jack Hyles was a pathological liar, often spinning yarns, half-truths, and exaggerations in his sermons. Such behavior is not uncommon in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist circles.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, a reader sent me the following question:
Hello Bruce. Who do you think wrote the red-letter words allegedly spoken by Jesus in the bible and do you think he actually existed at all?
Thanks
I was in the Christian church for fifty years. I was a college-trained Evangelical pastor for twenty-five of those years. Saved at the age of fifteen and called to preach two weeks later, I believed the Protestant Christian Bible was the inspired (God-breathed), inerrant (without error), infallible (authoritative) Word of God. I believed every word from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 was the very words of God (through the instrumentation of men).
I entered the ministry in the 1970s believing in the preservation of the Bible. God, throughout history, preserved his Word, making sure that humans always had the very words of God. For English-speaking people, the preserved Word of God was the King James Bible — 1769 revision. All translations contained the Word of God, but the KJV was the pure words of God.
In the late 1990s, I started preaching from the English Standard Version (ESV), believing it was a faithful translation of the extant Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts. I used other translations in my studies. I also read The Message devotionally. According to my Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) colleagues, I had become a stinking, filthy liberal, when, in fact, I had simply adopted twentieth-century scholarship regarding the Bible. Instead of seeing one particular translation as THE Word of God, I came to see that ALL translations were the Word of God, faithful reflections of the truth God wanted to convey. In my mind, the most important thing was for people to actually READ the Bible, regardless of the translation. Sadly, most practicing Christians rarely, if ever, read the Bible. And those who actually study the Bible? A small percentage of church-going followers of Jesus ever carefully and thoroughly study the Biblical text. Most Christians get their fill of the Good Book on Sundays, toss their Bibles in the back windows of their cars, in their trunks, or stuff them under their seats until the next Lord’s Day.
Many Bible translations print in red the words attributed to Jesus found in the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). I believed for the first fifty years of my life, that the words printed in red were actually spoken by Jesus Christ himself. That said, as a pastor, I never elevated the red words to a higher, more important status than the black words. Why? Jesus, as the second part of the Trinity, was God, the author of the Bible. Jesus “spoke” all of the words found in the Bible, not just the red words.
My beliefs about the Bible, of course, were shaped by my IFB and Evangelical upbringing and training. Unfortunately, I was not told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the nature and history of the Biblical text. It was only after I left the ministry in 2005 that I began to carefully reexamine my beliefs about the Bible. I found books written by Dr. Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina, to be extremely enlightening and helpful (and no, Ehrman was not the only author I read). By 2008, I had concluded that the Bible was not inerrant or infallible. Thus began the collapse of my faith. I continued to reexamine the central claims of Christianity, concluding that they could not be rationally sustained. In November 2008, I walked out of the door of the Ney United Methodist Church, declaring that I was no longer a Christian. In early 2009, I embraced the agnostic atheist moniker.
I learned that the gospels were written by unknown authors decades after the death of Jesus. I learned that the authors of Matthew and Luke likely used Mark as the basis for their books. I concluded that it was impossible to believe that the words in red were actually spoken by Jesus himself. All we have are unknown authors saying Jesus said this or that. We have no written texts by Jesus himself. Any beliefs to the contrary are assertions, not facts. Is it possible that Jesus spoke the words in red? Sure. But it is also possible that the authors of the gospels were just writing down decades-old oral stories or writing out-and-out fiction. It’s impossible for us to know if Jesus did or didn’t say the red words.
The emailer asks if I believe Jesus existed. If the question is whether I believe the miracle-working, divine Jesus of the gospels is real, the answer is no. I do, however, think a man named Jesus lived and died in first-century Palestine; that he was likely a rabbi or apocalyptic preacher. I am not, in any way, a mythicist. I see in the gospels a historical figure lurking in the shadows of a work of fiction. Simply put, Jesus existed, but the miracles and supernatural events attributed to him are fiction.
Thanks for the questions!
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
