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Tag: Independent Fundamentalist Baptist

The Anatomy of the IFB Church Movement

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History of the IFB Church Movement

The roots of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) can be traced back to the internecine battles between American Fundamentalists and Modernists in the twentieth century. Denominations such as the American Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention had become theologically and socially liberal, leading churches and preachers to withdraw from their denominations, becoming independent congregations.

The IFB church movement saw rapid numeric growth in the 1960s-1980s. During this time, many of the largest churches in the United States were IFB congregations. The largest church in America, pastored by the Jack Hyles, a former American Baptist pastor, was First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. Today, the IFB church movement is a shell of what it once was. Few, if any, IFB congregations are on the 100 Largest Churches in America list today. Many of the ginormous IFB churches of yesteryear are now closed. While a student at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, I attended nearby Emmanuel Baptist Church. Pastored by IFB pulpiteer Tom Malone, Emmanuel was one the largest churches in the country. Today? It’s doors are shuttered.

The IFB church movement, despite its decline, still remains a force in our culture. Take, for example, the churches that refuse to close their doors during the present pandemic. Many of these rebellious congregations are IFB churches. This should come as no surprise to anyone who follows the IFB church movement. IFB churches tend to be to fiercely independent and exclusionary. IFB churches also typically tend to be anti-government.

What is an IFB Church?

What, exactly, is an IFB church? Attempting to answer this question will bring IFB zealots out of the woodwork, each saying that my description of IFB churches does NOT describe them. Regardless, I am confident that I can generally answer this question.

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 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 a significant amount of 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 such as:

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

I am sure there are other doctrines that 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 congregations 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 the church out of the Southern Baptist Convention.  Because of this, often Southern Baptist churches will reject résumés from pastors with an IFB background. Southern Baptist area missionaries warn churches about pernicious IFB pastors who desire to take over churches and pull the churches out of the convention.

The Societal Structure of IFB Churches

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. Like Churches of Christ, the IFB church movement is anti-denomination, and any suggestion that they are a denomination brings outrage and denunciation.

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

Some 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 coalesce around specific doctrinal beliefs such as 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. 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. However, many Reformed and Sovereign Grace Baptist pastors come from IFB backgrounds. 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 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.

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 who are in their respective camps.

In 1983, I started the Somerset Baptist Church in Somerset, Ohio. I contacted Gene Milioni, then 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 Gene no, and he told me that I could expect no support from Trinity unless I was willing to be a BBF pastor and church. 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 now-defunct 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 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 preacher 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 he supports. It won’t take you long to figure out what camp he is in, and once you figure out his camp, you will know what he believes and considers important. The old adage, birds of a feather flock together, is certainly true when it comes to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church movement.

Is There a Difference Between the IFB and New IFB?

Several years ago, Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, started group called the New IFB. (Please see Understanding Steven Anderson, Pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona and James Ach Says Steven Anderson Isn’t Really IFB.) Put off by perceived “liberalness” within the IFB church movement, Anderson started his own fellowship group of likeminded churches. While the NEW IFB has distinctives that differentiate it from run-of-the-mill IFB churches, the differences are inconsequential. Like it or not, Anderson is an IFB pastor.

In a post titled, Warning: Law of Liberty Baptist Church in Jacksonville, FL. Teaches False New IFB teaching, Joshua Lindsey, the son of an IFB pastor, attempted to delineate the differences between IFB and New IFB churches. As I read Lindsey’s post, I had to snicker. I thought, “what a selective explanation of the differences between the two groups.” Typical manipulation of facts to achieve the desired conclusion. Many within the IFB church movement hate Anderson. He is a nasty piece of work, so I understand why IFB preachers and churches want to distance themselves from Anderson. However, when the noise is stripped away, I see very little difference between the New IFB and the IFB. Sorry, IFB preachers, Anderson is your crazy uncle, and as anyone who follows the IFB church movement knows, there are plenty of crazy uncles to go around.

Conclusion

The IFB church movement will remain very much a part of the American religious landscape. Yes, IFB churches are, for the most part, dying, but the movement is a long way away from coding. These churches will remain anti-cultural institutions, attracting people looking for what they perceive is old-time or old-fashioned Christianity. (Please see What Independent Baptists Mean When They Use the Phrase “Old-Fashioned” and “Old-Fashioned” Preaching: Calling Sin Sin, Stepping on Toes, And Naming Names.) As the world continues its slide towards secularism, IFB churches will promote themselves as shelters for people seeking safety and protection from the “world.” Want the Christianity of the 1950s? Visit your local IFB church.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

IFB Missions: Winning the World for Jesus

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the missionary
Cartoon by Tjeerd Royaards

And he [Jesus] said unto them [his disciples], Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15

Visit an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church in your community and you will likely find a corkboard somewhere with pictures of and letters from the church’s missionaries. Some IFB churches support a handful of missionaries, other churches support hundreds.

Home and world missions are very much a part of IFB church life. Congregants are encouraged to read the letters from missionaries, pray for them, and support them financially on a weekly or monthly basis. Some IFB churches have annual Faith Promise Missions conferences. For several nights, missionaries on deputation — going from church to church hoping to raise support — or missionaries home on furlough are paraded before the church, often giving impassioned pleas for prayer and financial support. At the conclusion of the conference, church members will be asked to promise — by faith — to give X number of dollars to missions over the next year. Congregants will always be reminded that their faith promise offering is above and beyond their regular tithes and offerings. Can’t have people cutting their weekly offerings and giving the money to the missionaries. Nope, God wants X dollars above the tithe, building fund offering, revival love offering, pastor’s love offering, special offerings, and whatever other offering tickles the fancy of the church’s pastor. It is not uncommon to hear of church members giving twenty-percent or more of their GROSS income to the church. Their “sacrifice,” of course, makes up for the people who think churches don’t need money to operate.

I spent twenty-five years pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Every church I pastored regularly supported missionaries financially. Countless missionaries preached for me — called “presenting their ministry” — over the years. Let me share some of the highlights of my experiences with IFB missionaries.

One young man who quickly comes to memory was sponsored by a Landmark Baptist church in Kentucky. While his presentation was nondescript, what I most remember is his wife and young children. The wife seemed quite stressed out to me. A year later, I heard that they had raised their support, moved to the field, and the wife had a nervous breakdown. Unfortunately, I have heard numerous similar stories. A man believes God is calling him to be a missionary in some backwater in Africa or South America. He tells his dutiful IFB wife that God is calling him to be a missionary. Rarely is her opinion on the matter considered. Her missionary husband is the head of the home, and he alone makes all the decisions. So, off they go on the deputation trail, and once sufficient money is raised, on to the foreign mission field they go. Imagine the culture shock. While many women adapt (or endure), others do not. Not wanting to be viewed as failures by their supporters back home, these obedient wives and mothers slide into despondency. This, of course, leads to mental collapse. Home she comes with her husband and children, ever to be remembered as the woman who couldn’t cut it on the mission field; the woman who didn’t trust God enough to meet her every need.

I know of several instances where married couples went through the whole fundraising process — which often takes years — and once it was time to leave for their chosen field, the wife said, “nope, I’m not going!” Instead of realizing that his wife was not suited for mission work, the God-called missionary tried to force his wife to comply. She complied all right, all the way to divorce court. He went on to the field anyway — God comes first.

While I met a number of missionaries who were committed to reaching the lost Hottentots with the IFB gospel, I met more than a few missionaries who were, to put it bluntly, lazy bums. Of course, I could say the same thing about some of the preachers I have met over the years. The ministry, in general, is a great place to hide if you are looking to make money without doing much work. Men without a good work ethic find the ministry the best job possible for someone like them. So it is with some missionaries.

The church I pastored in southeast Ohio for eleven years had what is commonly called a prophet’s chamber. This was a furnished room in which traveling missionaries and evangelists could stay while at our church. They also had access to a shower in the men’s restroom and the church’s kitchen. Let a missionary (and his family) stay with you for a few days and you quickly learn a good bit about the man’s character and his relationship with his spouse. One man stayed with us for almost a week. Polly and I, along with our children, lived in a mobile home next door to the church. Polly provided at least two meals a day for this missionary and did his laundry. I thought, maybe, just maybe, this man would say, “Hey, is there anything I can do to help? Instead, he spent his time with us looking for used cars to buy. He was excited that nearby Zanesville had a plethora of used car lots. Winning the lost for Jesus? I saw zero interest. But, finding a classic muscle car? Now, that revved up this man’s heart. Needless to say, we did not financially support him.

One sad but true maxim about young men entering the ministry is this: those who can preach pastor or start American churches, those who can’t become missionaries. While I learned over the years that plenty of American IFB churches were pastored by men who couldn’t preach a lick, when it came to missionaries this maxim was generally true. I heard some awful, awful, awful sermons preached by missionaries. I remember hearing one pastor tell a group of preachers, “I don’t have missionaries preach for me. I tell them, want to raise money? Let me do the talking.” This sage advice was spot on. I sat through numerous atrocious sermons delivered by hopeful missionaries who didn’t have a clue about how to properly deliver a sermon. More than a few of these missionaries had no post-high school training. God was calling them, and in their minds, that’s all they needed. I wonder how many hopeful missionaries never made it to the field due to their inability to passionately convey their “need” to prospective supporting churches.

One young missionary asked me how long he had to speak. I gave him my standard answer, “just say whatever the Lord lays upon your heart.” Ninety plus minutes later, the full-of-the-Holy-Ghost missionary concluded his rambling monotone sermon. I learned right then and there to NEVER tell a missionary speaker, “just say whatever the Lord lays upon your heart.” After this debacle, I set a thirty-minute time limit for missionaries. I went through similar experiences with several evangelists. I never found a way to politely tell them to cut the length of their sermons. Instead, I just never had them speak for our church again. I can count on one hand the preachers I have heard over the years who could keep a congregation’s attention for longer than forty-five minutes. Missions 101 should teach young missionaries to keep their presentations short and sweet; that is if they want to raise enough funds to make it to the field.

Readers raised in IFB churches likely remember watching slide presentations given by missionaries. The purpose of these slideshows was twofold: to show in the best light possible the work the missionary was doing on the field or hoped to do once they arrived there, and to make church members feel guilty over the eternal state of Hottentots. The end game was to get congregants to cough up money in support of the missionary — either for the love offering that night or ongoing monthly support.

Driving the missionary enterprise is the belief that the overwhelming majority of people on planet earth are lost/unsaved and need to hear the IFB gospel. From an eschatological perspective, IFB churches generally believe that the gospel must be preached to the whole world before Jesus can return to earth to rapture them away. Matthew 24:13-14 says:

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

Once soul number 666,666,666 is won to Jesus, then, and only then, will Gabriel blow his trumpet, signaling the second coming of Jesus. This thinking drives much of the evangelistic zeal found among IFB churches and preachers. The sooner the last appointed soul is saved, the sooner True Christians® will be swept away and given their eternal reward in Heaven.

One issue that troubled me back in my IFB days was the fact that most missionary endeavors focused on countries that spoke English and were predominantly white. Certainly, some missionaries went to countries dominated by people of color, but the majority of missionaries I came in contact with went to countries that looked very much like them and spoke their native tongue. Thus, it was not uncommon to meet missionaries that were headed to “non-Christian” nations such as Canada, Australia, and Britain. Spanish speaking countries were also favorite targets. Why? Spanish is a relatively easy language to learn.

Bruce, “missionaries to CANADA?” Yep, and countries such as Mexico, France, Ireland, and other countries with predominately Christian populations. You need to understand that IFB churches don’t believe that Catholics, mainline Protestant Christians, Charismatics, Pentecostals, and a host of other sects are True Christians®. That’s why I could go to rural communities with numerous Christian churches already and start new IFB/Sovereign Grace churches. You see, only the church I was starting was a Bible-preaching Christian church. All others were either cults or heterodox. So it is with IFB missionaries. Thanks to their exclusivist beliefs, they can look at white first-world Christian nations and conclude that these people need to hear the “true” gospel.

Do you have a missionary story to share? Please share it in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

IFB Preacher Gene Gouge Says He is in a War Against All Things Social

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Gene Gouge is the pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Hickory, North Carolina. Liberty Baptist is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation. Gouge has been its pastor for over thirty years.

Recently Gouge made news headlines by saying the COVID-19 virus is much to do about nothing; little more than evil, communist propaganda.

WSOC-9 reports:

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Pastor Gene Gouge at Liberty Baptist in Hickory has been broadcasting his message of concern across the foothills — and he isn’t mincing his words.

“The news media is pure evil, communist propaganda,” Gouge said.

Not only has he attacked coverage of the pandemic but also whether or not the virus is truly a threat to the country.

“95% of everything that has gone on about the last month or two months is a mirage. It is an illusion, a delusion. It ain’t real,” he said.

Gouge believes the response to the pandemic is violating his congregation’s civil rights, so he put a sign outside his church asking the governor to stop the persecution of churches and Christians and to open the churches.

He believes people should be allowed to gather at places of worship.

“We believe this virus has been weaponized and has been used to hurt our country and hurt our constitution,” he said.

When Channel 9 asked him about the more than 50,000 deaths nationwide so far, the pastor responded, “You’re not going to develop an immune system by staying in the house and by wearing gloves and wearing a mask. People who are susceptible, cancer patients, elderly people no doubt should be extra precautions.”

After the above news story was published, Gouge took to the pulpit to “educate” congregants about the “war” he was fighting.

Here’s a partial transcript of what he had to say:

We are in a war. We are in a battle. I’ve said it from day one, we’ve been lied to, we’ve been manipulated, this virus has been weaponized to destroy this country, our nation, and the economy. And our states. We are at war. We are literally now being attacked.

….

We are at war. We are at war . . . The word social. I don’t know if you realize it or not, the word social is not even found in the Bible. The word social is a word of the world, it’s not a word that’s in the Bible. Any time that word social comes up it ought to throw up immediately a red flag of warning. I mean to us who are saved by the grace of God. Socialism. Socially. What’s a socialist? It’s one step from a communist. Amen. And then you got social reform. You know what social reform is? It’s the new coming, new world order. Then you got social medicine. That’s what we’ve heard about now ever since Obamacare. Social security. Don’t get mad at me. Social security is using the money, our money, to take care of us. that’s a scary thought, ain’t it? Social justice. I’ve been to Cuba. You see the billboard. Viva La Revolucion. Social Justice. And then social distancing. Oughta throw up a red flag just like that when it was used. You know what that is? Dividing the people. Dividing the people. You know what that basically is? It’s nothing more than communism. Communism is atheism. Atheism leads to Satanism. And I’m telling you this world is headed to a one-world religion of Satanism — the worshiping of Satan. You can read that in the book of the Revelation.

We’re at war. We’re at war.

Got all that? Gouge believes the word “social” is evil because the word is not found in the King James Bible. I wonder if Gouge thinks ice cream or potlucks are evil too since neither word is found in the Bible?

I wonder if Gouge owns a dictionary? Had he bothered to look up the word social, he would have found this:

social definition

Social sure sounds like church to me.

Gouge’s “social” rant is little more than a Trump campaign speech. Lies, half-truths, distortions, all meant to drive Gouge’s fake war agenda. I love his “atheism leads to Satanism” line. As any atheist would tell Gouge, atheism doesn’t lead to Satanism. Atheists believe Satan is a myth, and the only thing atheism has led them to is freedom from hearing nonsensical sermons such as this one.

Gouge believes that government-mandated social distancing is the persecution of Christians and churches. Here’s the message he put on the sign in front of his church:

Freedom Baptist Church Hickory North Carolina

Pastor Gouge says he is fighting a war. Based on my investigation, the only war Gouge is fighting is against science, reason, common sense, and loving your neighbor as yourself. If Gouge were alone in a cabin somewhere, his words could be easily dismissed as the rant of a deluded hillbilly. Unfortunately, Gouge has a following, people who hang on his every word. And this makes Gouge dangerous — a promoter of ignorance that can and does psychologically and physically harm others.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Book Review: The Preacher: The Life and Times of Donald A. Hardman

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the preacher the life and times of don hardman

Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected.

Laura Hardman, wife of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Evangelist Don Hardman, has written a biography about her husband titled. The Preacher: The Life and Times of Donald A. Hardman. This self-published book is 201 pages long. In 2010, Laura published an autobiography titled Laura’s Light.  You can read my review of the book here.

Like Laura’s Light, The Preacher reads quite a bit like the Bible. Don Hardman’s story is one of bondage to sin and deliverance from that sin through the blood of Jesus Christ. Also, like the Bible, it is littered with fictions and omissions. I will illustrate some of these fictions and omissions later.

While the book is meant to be a biography of Don Hardman’s life, it is sparse on details, except for those that paint Don in a favorable light. In the preface, Laura states:

I will endeavor to write about a man whom I watched God transform into literally another person over the last thirty-seven years. It is my desire not to glorify or make much of what he did when he was lost, but make much of his new life in Christ.

In other words, the past is the past, it is under the blood, praise Jesus! Time to move on. The greater objective, according to Laura, is for some “sinner or saint” to “read this biography and realize there is hope for a victorious life, not only when we get to heaven, but also here as we walk in this world.” Laura wants readers to know that they too can be just like Don and Laura Hardman and achieve the victorious Christian life.

The book has eight chapters:

  1. A Struggle Through Childhood
  2. No Purpose for Life
  3. Time for Change
  4. The Call of God
  5. Just a Servant of the Lord
  6. A Street Preacher
  7. The Chance of a Lifetime
  8. The Life of Evangelism

These eight chapters take up 142 pages. The other 70 pages are what Laura calls a “Summary and Sketches of What the Preacher Said.” While Laura had uncounted recordings of Don’s sermons that she could have transcribed, she instead decided to summarize thirty of his sermons. While Laura says the reason for doing this is because “the Lord laid on my heart that giving a short essay and sharing how the people reacted might be more edifying,” I suspect the real reason for not transcribing Don’s sermons is because he often preached for sixty to ninety minutes. Over the years, Don lost meetings because he refused to shorten the length of his sermons.

Chapter one details Don’s birth in Canton, Ohio in 1950, his battle with polio, and a bit about his parents, brother, and grandparents. The chapter ends with Don graduating from high school — a rebellious young man who frequently skipped school, hung out at pool halls, smoked, drank beer, and rarely thought about God.  According to Laura, Don graduated in May of 1968 “with a diploma in hand and no purpose in life.”

What’s interesting is that Laura makes no mention of the fact that Don married a thirteen-year-old girl by the name of Cheryl, one month before he graduated from high school. At the time of their marriage, Cheryl was four months pregnant and both Don and she were wards of the court. While I can certainly understand why Laura might not want to mention this, wouldn’t this juicy tidbit enhance Don’s sinner-to-saint story?

In chapter two, Laura skips Don’s marriage to Cheryl, the birth of their two children, Joe and Tangi, and their foster daughter Shelly. Again, if what I am being told is correct, there are plenty of stories that Laura could have shared from this period that would have enhanced Don’s sinner creds. Outside of mentioning Don’s drinking habit, nothing more is said about Don’s life until May of 1977. During this nine-year period, Don was married to Cheryl. An uninformed reader would assume that Laura is Don’s first wife, and that Joe and Tangi are her biological children. In my review of Laura’s first book, I wrote:

Two children were born of Don’s first marriage. Laura claims the children as her own, a claim I suspect the biological mother finds quite offensive (a woman I have corresponded with over the years). While Hardman does say Don had two children, she never calls herself their step-mother. In her mind, when Jesus came into their life EVERYTHING became brand-new and that included the children having a new mother.

In May of 1977, Don, Laura, and their two children moved to Findlay, Ohio so Don could begin working for Ashland Oil. According to Laura:

In June of 1977, things seemed to be going great for us as a family. We moved into a government house on 1143 Concord Court, Findlay, Ohio. Our neighborhood was made up drunks, unmarried couples living together, and a slew of hoodlum kids. Needless to say, we added to their list of hoodlums. Little did we know that this wicked little neighborhood would become a mission field in the months to come.

Laura may have forgotten that I lived in Findlay in the 1970s — grades eight through eleven. I am quite familiar with the neighborhood the Hardmans lived in. The house in question is a single-family dwelling. At the time the Hardmans moved into the house it was around twenty years old. I seriously doubt that the home was government housing. It is possible that it was Section 8 housing, but this would mean that the Hardmans were either on welfare or quite poor. Having already stated that Don had a job at Ashland Oil — which was a well-paying job in the 1970s — it is unlikely that the Hardmans were poor or on welfare.  (Put 1143 Concord Court into Google Earth or Google Map and take a street view look of the house and neighborhood.)

As far as the Concord Court neighborhood is concerned, I seriously doubt the neighborhood was as Laura describes it. While my memory is certainly not what it once was, I do remember that the Concord Court area was a working-class neighborhood of moderately priced, small homes — not unlike the neighborhood on National Court that my parents, siblings, and I lived in the 1970s.

If my memory is correct, what are we to make of Laura’s description of the neighborhood? The easy answer would be that she is lying and that certainly might be the case. However, I am more inclined to believe that this story, like much of The Preacher’s Life, is like a testimony given during Sunday night church. Over the years, I heard hundreds of testimonies, often from people who told the same story over and over. I found that, over time, the stories become more exciting. A story that started out with a person being a drug user years later became the story of a person selling heroin for the mob. As we age, we tend to change, reformulate, correct, and expand the narratives of our lives. The challenge for any reader is to be able to pick the facts out of the bullshit.

Chapter three details Don’s and Laura’s salvation experience. On June 20, 1977, Paul Reimer, pastor of First Baptist Church and church deacon Mike Roberts visited the Hardman home and shared the gospel with Don and Laura. After Reimer had shared the good news with them and Roberts gave a personal testimony of what Jesus had done for him:

Don was the first to take a step forward, and prayed to God for forgiveness. Because we did not know how to pray, they led us in a prayer. Our hearts had been smitten and conviction brought tears to our eyes. We understood for the first time in our lives what Jesus had suffered for us on the cross that we might have life. Our lives were heavily burdened down with guilt and shame, and the chains of sin kept us shackled to the old life. Now we are given the choice of Freedom in Christ or Bondage withe the devil.  It’s doesn’t seem like much of a choice even though many  choose bondage with the devil.

Shortly after Don cried out to God, I also gave my life to God. We literally gave our lives to Christ!

The next Sunday, the Hardmans walked the aisle at First Baptist Church and made their profession of faith public. Several weeks later, they were baptized, and not long afterward they stopped smoking and drinking beer.

Laura writes:

It took about four months of battling our flesh, but God did give us the victory. At the beginning, we only went to church on Sundays, but realized how important that midweek service was in our growth. Not only did I watch a thrice-Holy God changing my life, but also transforming my husband into another man, from a man whose mouth had a cuss word coming out every other word, to one thanking and praising God.

These excerpts are typical of testimonies of those saved in IFB churches. Years ago, an Amish-Mennonite neighbor confided in me that he was troubled because he didn’t have a sin to salvation story like Baptists have. Raised in the church — a devout Amish-Mennonite — he grew into salvation. He wanted to know if his salvation was defective because he didn’t have any bad sinner stories to tell. His question illustrated the fact that IFB congregants and preachers play up the bad sinner part of their testimonies. Everyone wants to be viewed as the baddest sinner in town, a sinner whom God miraculously delivered. As I mentioned previously, most of these testimonies are a mixture of lie, half-truth, fabrication, and fact.

The Hardmans were saved in an era when the IFB churches made much of bad sinner testimonies. While these testimonies were meant to give God all the glory, what they really did was make much of the sinners and their debauched lives before Jesus. Who wants to hear the testimony of the aforementioned Amish-Mennonite man when they can hear the testimony of Mike Warnke, Chuck Colson, Pat Boone, Joanna Michaelsen, and Eldridge Cleaver?

Nine months or so later, in the spring of 1978, “God spoke to his (Don’s) heart about full-time service.” According to Laura, a short time later, God gave Don his life verse, 2 Timothy 4:5:

But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

Laura writes, “of course, he never understood what that meant until later on.” Don later told their church family that God had called him to preach. Pastor Fred Crown, also a pastor at First Baptist Church, came and talked to Don about his call to preach. Laura writes:

Pastor Crown looked him dead in the eyes  and said “So you feel God has called you to preach” and Don said, “Yes Sir.” He (Crown) said, “Then you need to consider not stealing from Him.” Of course, he was dealing with tithes and offerings. Don told him we could not see how we could pay our bills and tithe our income. The wisdom from this preacher never ceases to amaze me. He told us to try tithing for a month, and he would take care of every unpaid bill himself. Needless to say, we never had an unpaid bill and never again robbed from God.

While Don and Laura may never have robbed from God again, they did rob the U.S. Treasury. Some of the churches Don preached at over the years, including the churches I pastored, paid Don in cash. Don did not claim some or all of this cash income on his tax return. This proved to be quite a financial boon to the Hardmans.

Chapters four through six detail Don’s life as a pastor and evangelist. In 1980, Don graduated with a one-year certificate from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist correspondence school. By this time, Don was on disability and he and his family moved back to eastern Ohio to be near family. While in eastern Ohio, the Hardmans helped Victory Baptist Church in Kensington, Ohio, and the Lisbon Baptist Temple in Lisbon, Ohio.

Jim Midcap was their pastor while they attended the Lisbon Baptist Temple. I preached for Jim in the late 1980s when he was pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Negley, Ohio. Jim returned the favor and preached for me while I was pastor of churches in Mt. Perry and West Unity, Ohio. For several years, Jim operated a clothing and food ministry that provided the Hardmans with food and clothing to distribute to the poor and homeless in New Orleans. I had the privilege of taking a trip with Jim and a few other men from Ohio to Louisiana to deliver and distribute food and clothing. I had a great time, and my eyes were opened to the plight of the poor in cities like The Big Easy.

In November of 1980, the Hardmans moved to Pennsboro, West Virginia to begin pastoring Pennsboro Baptist Church.  According to Laura:

…We used all of our money to transport our mobile home and did not have enough money to have our gas turned on…Here we were far hence unto the Gentiles and not a penny to our name until the disability check came in. Still, this Preacher had not come here to become a Pastor, but to be a Servant of the Lord in whatever capacity he was needed.

Don began filling the pulpit at the Pennsboro Baptist Church every Sunday. Some liked him, and some did not like his free spirit in decision, but the congregation asked him to candidate as Pastor anyways. He was voted in as Pastor in December of 1980.

I am sure readers will ask, as I did, why move to Pennsboro unless you planned on pastoring the church? Why move without having the funds necessary to turn on the gas? What happened in Kensington and Lisbon, Ohio that resulted in the Hardmans quickly moving to West Virginia? The book answers none of these questions.

According to Laura, while at Pennboro Baptist, Don became “a friend to the friendless, a father to the fatherless and a teacher to the unlearned.”  All Don wanted to do was “try to make a difference in people’s lives and get them to the God who changed his life.” Don spent two years trying to change the church, but, according to Laura, Don “could not seem to override the traditions of the church.” In the fall of 1982, Don resigned from the church and moved down the road to start Freedom Baptist Church. Five years later, Don left Freedom Baptist and began working full-time on what he called the Streets of America. From this time, until today, Don’s ministry is operated from a base in New Orleans and Midway Bible Baptist Church in Fishersville, Virginia.

I looked in vain for any mention in the book of myself and Somerset Baptist Church, Mt. Perry, Ohio. While Laura mentions numerous churches and preachers who gave Don his start, she makes no mention of me or Somerset Baptist. Laura seems to have forgotten that I was one of the first pastors to have Don hold a meeting for them. She seems to have forgotten than Don held at least five meetings for me — most of them two weeks long — at Somerset Baptist Church and Grace Baptist Church (later Our Father’s House) in West Unity, Ohio. She also fails to mention that we spent time with them at their parents’ home, named our youngest daughter after her, and brought a group from our church to their church’s Bible conference in Virginia. Again, an uninformed reader would never learn that Bruce and Polly Gerencser, Somerset Baptist, and Grace Baptist, played an instrumental part in Don getting started in evangelism.

Of course, I understand why Laura might want to edit me and the churches I pastored out of Don’s life story. Nothing like having a preacher-friend-turned-atheist muck up Don’s story of spiritual ascendency from drunk to Holy Spirit-filled man of God.

As I mentioned in my review of Laura’s first book:

Hardman portrays life in the ministry as one of standing for the truth at all costs. She details loss of friends and loss of meetings because of their stand for the blessed truths of the King James Bible. Not one time does Hardman ever speak of a problem being their fault. It’s always the liberals’ fault. There is always an enemy, imaginary or real, they are fighting. This is the kind of life narrow Baptist Fundamentalism brings.

This thinking is on prominent display in The Preacher. Not one time does the book implicate Don or Laura. It’s always family, a church, or a pastor, who is to blame for broken fellowship or lost relationships. In Laura’s mind, her husband is a God-called man who is tight with the Almighty. Those who take issue with Don’s preaching are liberals or carnal. Over the years, I saw Don repeatedly browbeat church members with the Bible, calling out their sins. One time, he went from teenager to teenager pointing his finger at them, exposing their secret sins. These tactics worked, with church members, visitors, and teenagers alike getting saved or repenting of secret sin. Was this God? Of course not. Like most skilled Baptist preachers, myself included, Don was an expert manipulator of emotions. He knew how to set the hook and reel the fish in.

And here’s thing, I know a lot of things that I cannot share in this review. Since I have no way of verifying what I know, I can’t share it. I mentioned Don impregnating a thirteen-year-old girl and marrying her because I have a copy of the marriage application. Other things that I think are likely true lack evidence. I can say this: there are those who think Don Hardman is an Elmer Gantry-like grifter; that he and Laura have spent four decades making an easy living off their marks. For readers not familiar with the term grifter, a grifter is someone who swindles you through deception or fraud.

Is it possible that Don and Laura Hardman are frauds? Sure. I have no way of knowing or proving this, but I do know that the IFB church has turned out a number of con artists, some of whom have gone on to pastor large churches. Bob Gray pastored Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida for decades. He was finally exposed as an adulterer and child molester, a life of perversion that began when he entered the ministry in 1949. I heard Bob Gray and Don preach at the same preacher’s meeting in Cambridge, Ohio in the 1980s. The Hardmans are or were close friends with a number of the men who operated IFB teen group homes. Many of these men have been accused of child abuse, sexual assault, and rape.

Supposedly, a few years back, I can’t remember the exact date, Don had cancer. This cancer was killing Don and modern western medicine couldn’t cure him. The Hardmans raised a significant amount of money so Don could get alternative cancer treatment in Mexico. Yet, Don’s cancer story is not mentioned in the book. Wouldn’t a miraculous healing from deadly cancer be an important story to share? While this story isn’t shared, Laura spends thirty-two pages — almost twenty-five percent of the biography part of the book — detailing the lightning story.

Based on the amount of space given to this story, it’s safe to say that the Hardmans consider this the highlight of their time in the ministry.

July 1, 2003, finds Don and Laura holding a meeting at First Baptist Church in Forest, Ohio. Don’s sermon text for the night is I Kings 8. Laura writes:

About halfway into the message, we could hear the thunder and see the lightning through the stained glass windows, During his preaching, when a loud crack of thunder rang out, Don would say, “Yes, Lord, we are listening.” He made reference to the verse God’s voice was like thunder. (Psalms 77:18)

All of a sudden, a lightning bolt hit the church and burnt out the sound system, blowing the light bulbs out of their sockets behind the pulpit. We could smell the burning wires but still did not know we had taken a direct hit. Not once did we lose our electricity, so Don kept preaching on Solomon’s prayer of repentance. About 20 minutes later, a women came running into the church and said, “the church is on fire.”

This event made the news, from the Findlay Republican Courier to the Toledo Blade. It was mentioned on CNN, and Don had interviews with the BBC, the NBC Today Show, and Paul Harvey. The book has several of the news stories along with a transcript of Don’s interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show.

Again, what I find interesting is what is missing from this chapter. Laura makes no mention of the name of the pastor of First Baptist Church in Forest. Why is this? Perhaps it is because not too long after God’s lightning bolt sign from above, the pastor of the church was removed for sexual misconduct. The image of Evangelist Hardman must not be tainted by any connection with an atheist, adulterers, child abusers, or rapists. Like the precious blood of Jesus that wipes away all recollection of sin before salvation, Laura conveniently writes out of the book anyone who doesn’t affirm, strengthen, or reinforce Don’s drunk to Holy Spirit-filled traveling evangelist testimony.

Over the years, Don has lost meetings at a number of the churches he once preached for. Whether this was due to his refusal to answer questions about his past or the length and content of his sermons, Don now has just a handful of churches he regularly holds meetings for; churches such as Old Time Baptist Church, (Pastor Lou Guadagno) Buffalo, New York and Lighthouse Baptist Church, (Pastor David Constantino) North Tonawanda, New York. As Laura admits in the book, most of the churches that once had Don preach for them no longer do so.

For the churches and pastors Don still preaches for, Don is a God-called evangelist mightily used by Jesus to win souls and call backslidden church members to repentance. For others, Don is a long-winded, legalistic preacher. And for a few others — perhaps those who know Don and Laura Hardman best — the Hardmans are grifters who have found an easy way to make a buck. For me personally, there are things I have been told that deeply trouble me. While there is no hard evidence for these things, especially since many of these events happened decades ago, there’s enough smoke to make wonder if there is a fire. If I had known these things when Don first preached for me in 1987, I doubt that I would have had him do so. If I was still a Christian, I could play the pious preacher and say that God will make all things known on judgment day. As an atheist, all I can do is review Laura Hardman’s books and make my observations known. It is up to you, the reader, to determine whether what I write is true.

Note: I do not know of any place this book can be purchased. Someone connected to the Hardman family sent me a copy of the book. Laura Hardman’s first book was published by Victory Baptist Press, but I did not find The Preacher in their online catalog.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

So Glad for a Place Called Hell, A Jack Hyles-Loving Christian Says

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jack hyles 1973
Jack Hyles, 1973

Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected. 

My posts on Jack Hyles, David Hyles, Jack Schaap, and the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement and its bombastic luminaries have wide circulation on the internet. With wide circulation comes an increase in comments from Baptist Fundamentalists who feel it is their duty to expose their ignorance for all to see. While they THINK they are putting the preacher-turned-atheist in his place, what they are really doing is illustrating the bankruptcy of the IFB church movement. Their emails, comments, blog posts, forum comments, and sermons are reminders that IFB preachers and church members are unable to embrace or accept any form of criticism. When you are certain you are right, it is hard to accept anything/anyone that says you are not right or that your thinking is flawed.

Several years ago, I received an email from a Jack Hyles-loving older woman in Florida. I assume she is older because she references a picture in the post from the early 1970s. Without further adieu, I present to you yet another reason why I am glad not to be a Christian:

Hi, I want to thank you for the picture of Dr. Hyles on your article. I am going to copy and print it for my husband who was in Hammond at the time of this photo. He dearly missed by us and we both think he was honor to be in his ministry for seven years. By the way, I am glad that you are an atheist and out of all church. Maybe you can join Madame Murray O Haire in Hell one day and you both can have a heyday criticizing each other. Good luck with the hereafter, there is one but you are going to in the dark place where no one can see your ugly face again. So glad for that place called HELL.

(All spelling and grammar errors in the original.)

If there was, in fact, a Hell, and there’s not, I too would be glad for its existence. Why would I want to spend eternity in Heaven with the likes of this woman? Long-time readers of this blog have read scores of comments and posted emails I have received from Evangelical and IFB critics. If these Christians are representative of the fine, upstanding folks found in Evangelical churches, why would any of us want to spend one moment in this life with them, let alone eternity? No thanks. Give me Hell. At least there I will have friends, people who loved and accepted me as I am. I hear the weather in Hell is awesome, and the parties are out of this world. Hmm . . . partying on a beach with friends or spending every hour of every day worshiping a narcissistic deity with people who spent their lives on earth attacking and judging anyone and everyone who didn’t worship their God. Which should I choose?

I have been blogging since 2007. I was a Christian when I first started blogging, deconverted in 2008, and have been drawing the ire of Evangelical Christians ever since. Thousands and thousands and thousands of Christians have visited this site. Some of them, particularly Fundamentalists, attempt to set me straight or to win me back to Jesus. When Evangelicals fail in their endeavors, it is not uncommon for them to turn on me, often acting in ways that are decidedly un-Christian. For the life of me, I don’t understand why some Evangelicals act this way. What do they hope to accomplish? Do they think that their atrocious behavior will make Christianity more appealing to me and the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines who read this blog? Or maybe they write us off, and in doing so show their true nature. All I know is this: Evangelicals who behave this way have done more than I ever could to advance the cause of atheism.

Keep preaching the “word” Evangelicals. We are hearing you loud and clear.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?

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whining evangelical

Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected. 

Many people think that Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism are two different species of conservative Christianity. However, I plan to show in this post that Evangelicals are inherently Fundamentalist, and that the only issue is to what degree they are Fundamentalist.

Some of the confusion comes from the fact that there are Evangelicals, such as the Independent Fundamentalist (IFB) church movement, who proudly wear the Fundamentalist label. Thus, an Evangelical — say, someone who is a pastor in the Evangelical Free Church of America – rightly says, I am NOT like those crazy Fundamentalist Baptists. They see the extremism of the IFB church movement, condemn it, and by doing so think that they are not Fundamentalist.

The word Fundamentalist was originally used to describe a group of sects, churches, and pastors who took a stand against perceived theological liberalism in the denominations of which they were a part. From 1910 to 1915, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (BIOLA), published 90 essays that were published in a 12-volume set of books titled, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. (You can see a complete listing of the essays on Wikipedia.) These essays provided the theological foundation for the modern Fundamentalist movement.

The words “fundamentalist” and “fundamentalism” can also be used in a generic sense. While almost always used when describing the beliefs of religious sects, fundamentalist beliefs can also be found in politics, science, economics, and even atheism. The focus of this post is Christian Fundamentalism, particularly Protestant Fundamentalism.

There are two components to the Fundamentalism found in Evangelicalism:

  • Theological Fundamentalism
  • Social Fundamentalism

Theological Fundamentalism

All Evangelicals are theological Fundamentalists. What do Evangelicals believe?

  • The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of the triune God.
  • Salvation is through the merit and work of Jesus Christ.
  • Jesus is the eternal, virgin-born, sinless, miracle-working Son of God who came to earth 2,000 years ago to die on the cross for the sins of humankind.
  • Jesus resurrected from the dead three days after being crucified. He later ascended back to Heaven and now sits at the right hand of God the Father.
  • Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and salvation is gained only by putting one’s faith in Jesus Christ.
  • All non-Christian religions are false and many Christian sects have heretical beliefs.
  • There is a literal Heaven, a Hell, and Devil.
  • Saved people go to Heaven when they die and non-saved people go to Hell when they die.
  • Someday, Jesus Christ will return to earth to judge the living and the dead. The heavens and earth will be destroyed and God will make a new heaven and a new earth.

Evangelicals may quibble with one another over the finer points of this or that doctrine, but EVERY Evangelical believes what I have listed above. And it is these beliefs that make them theological Fundamentalists.

While it is true that liberal and progressive theology are making inroads within Evangelicalism, this does not mean that Evangelicalism is becoming less Fundamentalist. Liberal/progressive Evangelicals are outliers, and, in time, due to the inflexibility of Evangelical theology, they will either leave Evangelicalism and join liberal/Progressive Christian sects or they will become a bastard child subset within Evangelicalism.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is an Evangelical denomination, and thanks to the resurgence of Calvinism and right-wing politics within the denomination, the SBC is becoming more and more Fundamentalist. While the SBC does have a liberal/progressive wing, the majority of Southern Baptist churches are Evangelical. Rarely do denominations become more conservative once they start down the path of liberalism, but the SBC, over the course of the last few decades, has reversed the liberal slide and is decidedly more conservative today than it was 20 years ago. Many of the founders of the IFB church movement were Southern Baptists who left the SBC in the 1950s-1970s. Little did they know that the SBC would one day return to its Evangelical roots.

Many people would argue that Al Mohler is very different from the late Fred Phelps, yet theologically they have much in common. And this is my point. At the heart of Evangelicalism is theological Fundamentalism. People wrongly assume that church A is different from church B because of differences between their soteriology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, preaching style, eschatology, music, etc. However, when we look closer, we find that both churches, for the most part, have the same doctrinal beliefs. This is why ALL Evangelicals are theological Fundamentalists.

Social Fundamentalism

Social Fundamentalism focuses on the conduct, lifestyle, and social engagement of the Christian. An Evangelical looks at the rules, standards, and negativity of an IFB church that proudly claims its Fundamentalist moniker and says, SEE I am NOT a Fundamentalist. I don’t believe in legalism. I believe in grace, and I leave it to God to change how a person lives.

This sounds good, doesn’t it? However, when you start to poke around a bit, you will find that almost every Evangelical is a social Fundamentalist — the only difference between Evangelicals being the degree of Fundamentalism. This can be quickly demonstrated by asking those who think they are non-Fundamentalist Evangelical a few questions. Questions like:

  • Can a practicing homosexual be a Christian?
  • Can a homosexual man be a deacon or pastor in your church?
  • Can a same-sex couple work in the nursery together?
  • Do think it is okay for unmarried heterosexuals to engage in sexual activity?
  • Can a cohabiting heterosexual couple be a member of your church?
  • Do you think it is morally right for a woman to wear a skimpy outfit to church?
  • Is it ever right to have an abortion?
  • Do you think smoking marijuana is okay?
  • Do you think it okay for your pastor to smoke cigars and drink alcohol at the local bar?
  • Is it okay for someone, in the privacy of their home, to become inebriated?

By asking these questions, and a number of similar ones, you will quickly discover that the non-Fundamentalist Evangelical is a social Fundamentalist after all. While these Evangelicals may jeer and laugh at the crazy, extreme rules and standards of the IFB church movement, they too have their own set of non-negotiable social standards. They, like their IFB brethren, are social Fundamentalists. (please see An Independent Baptist Hate List.)

I am sure some Evangelicals will argue that their social Fundamentalism, like their theological Fundamentalism, comes straight from the B-i-b-l-e. Of course they do. ALL Evangelicals think their beliefs come straight from the Bible. The IFB pastor has a proof-text for everything he preaches against, as does the I am NOT a Fundamentalist Evangelical pastor. Both believe the Bible is truth, an inspired, inerrant, supernatural text. The only difference between them is their interpretation of the Bible.

Here in the United States, we have the perfect Fundamentalist storm of religious Fundamentalism and political Fundamentalism. The US is rapidly becoming an embarrassment as Fundamentalists demand their brand of Christianity be given special treatment, creationism be taught in the public schools, the Federal government be harnessed for the good of Christianity, and their interpretation of the Bible enacted as law. These Evangelicals are not harmless, and if not challenged at every turn, they will become the Evangelical version of the Taliban. One need only watch what Evangelical Trump cabinet officials are doing to see that this is true. I recognize that some Evangelicals are against political and social activism, but they are few in number. History is clear: when any religious group gains the power of the state, freedoms are lost and people die.

While I can applaud any move leftward within Evangelicalism, the only sure way to end the destructive influence of Evangelical Christianity is to starve it politically, socially, and economically. I am not so naïve as to believe that Evangelicalism will ever go completely away, but it can be weakened to such a degree that it no longer has any influence.

There are many Evangelical church members who are kind, decent, loving people. Many of them are generational Evangelicals, attending the same church their parents and grandparents did. I hope, by publicizing the narrow, often hateful, theological and social pronouncements of Evangelical leaders, and the continued inability of these leaders to keep their flies zipped up and their hands off the money, that Evangelical congregants will get their noses out of the hymnbook, turn their eyes from the overhead, and pay attention to what is really going on within Evangelicalism. I hope they will stand up, exit stage right (or left), and take their checkbooks with them.  When this happens, we will begin to hear Evangelicalism struggling for breath as it lapses into cardiac arrest.

On a completely different front, liberal/ progressive Christian scholars, writers, and bloggers, along with former Evangelical Christians such as myself, need to step up their frontal assault on the misplaced authority Evangelicals give to the Bible. We need more writers like Dr. Bart Ehrman, people who are willing to write on a popular level about the errancy and fallibility of the Bible. I firmly think that when Evangelicals can be disabused of their literalism and belief that the Bible is an inerrant, infallible text, they will be more likely to realize that Evangelicalism is a house of cards.

Remember, if it walks, acts, and talks like a Fundamentalist, it is a Fundamentalist. Evangelicals can protest all they want that I am unfairly tarring them with the Fundamentalist brush, but as I have shown in this post, their theological and social beliefs clearly show they are Fundamentalist. If they don’t like the label, I suggest they change their beliefs and distance themselves from Evangelicalism. They need not become atheists/agnostics if they leave Evangelicalism. Even though I was not able to do so, many former Evangelicals find great value and peace in liberal/progressive Christianity. Others find the same in non-Christian religions or universalism. If it is God you want, there are plenty of places to find him/her/it.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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.

The Midwestern Baptist College Handbook

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midwestern baptist college freshman 1976
1976 Midwestern Baptist College Freshman Class. Polly is the first person on the left in the first row. Bruce is in the third row, eighth person from the left.

Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected. 

What follows are some of the 2013-14 rules and regulations for students at  Midwestern Baptist College — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) institution. I attended Midwestern and met my wife-to-be there when the campus was located on Golf Drive in Pontiac, Michigan. The school moved several years ago to Shalom Baptist Church in Orion, Michigan. It is a withering ghost of what it was when Polly and I enrolled in 1976. I fully expect to hear of its demise one day. 

I give Midwestern credit for putting most of their rules and regulations out there for all to see. Many Fundamentalist colleges do not make their rules and regulations public. They don’t want to be misunderstood, they tell me. Either that or they know they will not have as many students if they let them know beforehand that they are going to a college that is like a prison. I suspect this is why Midwestern does not make their dating rules available before students arrives on campus. (See The Six Inch Rule.)

The handbook is more complex and lengthy than when Polly and I were students at Midwestern from 1976-1979. It is quite evident from the rules that Fundamentalist girls have really gotten worldly. There are SIX attire rules for men and FIFTEEN for women. Of course, the rules for women are so men won’t lust after them and be forced to masturbate in the dorm shower. Those future preacher-boys must be protected from their sexuality. How will they ever be able to someday preach the IFB moral and purity standard if they couldn’t keep it themselves while at Midwestern? (Oh, the stories I could tell!)

This is not the complete handbook. These are the parts I thought readers might find interesting. I have done some reformatting to make the text suited for the internet.

General Policies

Midwestern Baptist College, as a Christian institution, expects its students to live lives that are above reproach and to exemplify Christian usefulness and kindness in their dealings with their instructors and their fellow students. We believe that Christian young people should manifest loyalty to Jesus Christ by living consecrated Christian lives. Midwestern Baptist College does not permit dancing, the use of tobacco, alcoholic drinks, non prescribed drugs, gambling, obscenity, and other forms of worldly indulgence. Complaining, destructive criticism, and cynical attitudes are not allowed. The college expects the cooperation of all students in respect for and enforcement of the rules and regulations of the college.

Dress and Appearance

Dress standards at Midwestern are based upon the principles of modesty, self-respect, and concern for the reputation of the school. Some principles are spiritual; others are professional. As spiritual and professional leaders in the church, students are expected to set an example. In connection with the following rules and to help the student maintain a well-groomed appearance, all students will be expected to follow a healthy hygiene regimen daily. This includes showering, shaving, brushing teeth, and hair care. Furthermore, students are expected to have all of their clothing maintained in a neat, washed, and pressed condition.

Since fashion continually changes, the appropriateness of trends in both men’s and women’s clothing may be addressed, and the dress code amended during the school year as the need arises. Students are to abide by the dress code at all times, both on campus and in public.

Wearing inappropriate apparel is a demerit offense. Demerits will be assigned in proportion to the offense. Non-dormitory students are expected to follow the same guidelines as dormitory students.

POLICY FOR MEN

Hairstyle: 

Men are to be neat in appearance and dressed properly at all times. The hair is to be cut over the ears and tapered at the back above the collar. Sideburns are to be no lower than the middle of the ear. Hair must be no longer than the middle of the forehead in front. Men may not have facial hair unless approved by the Dean of Students. Such facial hair must be neatly groomed at all times. Faddish, worldly hairstyles will not be tolerated. The final decision as to the appropriateness of a hairstyle will rest with the Administration.

Attire:

  1. Dress pants may not have patch-pockets or topstitched side-seams. Fatigues, work jeans, sweatpants, and wind-pants are considered athletic and/or work apparel. They are not to be worn on campus other than in the dormitory, in the gym, or to work. Pants with frayed cuffs, tears, or holes are not to be worn.
  2. No recreational pull-overs or jackets are to be worn to church, chapel, library, or classes.
  3. Dress shirts may be long or short sleeved with a collar and must button down the front. The top button must be buttoned when wearing a tie. Shirt-tails are to be tucked in at all times. A tie and suit coat/jacket are required for classes, chapel, and church services. We ask that men wear their suit coat/ jackets until 1:00 PM.
  4. Men must wear a belt with their pants at all times.
  5. Necklaces and bracelets may not be worn by male students unless they are of a mandatory medical nature. Men are not permitted to obtain tattoos while enrolled as a student, or body piercings, or to wear earrings.
  6. No sweatshirt or tee-shirt with inappropriate writing may ever be worn. Sweatshirts may not be worn to classes or church services.

POLICY FOR WOMEN

Hairstyle: 

Hair must be neatly cut, groomed, cleaned, brushed, and styled in such a way that it does not resemble a man’s haircut. Hair should not naturally fall over the face. Unnatural colors are not to be used. Faddish, worldly hairstyles will not be tolerated. The final decision as to the appropriateness of a hairstyle will rest with the Administration.

Attire: 

  1. Modest apparel must be worn for all occasions.
  2. Dresses or skirts must come to the middle of the knee. When ladies are seated, the knees are to be covered. Dresses or skirts having slits must not be slit above the knee. Dresses worn for formal occasions (i.e. Banquets and concerts) must be approved by the Deans Office at least one week prior to the event. No tight skirts or dresses are permitted. NOTE: A skirt must fall freely from the hips when lifted or it will be considered too tight.
  3. Sleeveless dresses and blouses may not be worn unless a blouse or jacket is worn over them or a blouse under them. Spaghetti strap dresses may not be worn.
  4. Low necklines or backs are forbidden. Generally, necklines should be no lower than three fingers width below the hollow of the neck.
  5. Ladies are not required to wear hosiery and may wear socks. We ask ladies to wear a slip beneath their clothing except when in casual or recreational apparel.
  6. All tops must be long enough that the midriff is never exposed.
  7. All culottes of appropriate length must be approved by the Dean’s Office. These items may only be worn for approved recreational activities or work. NOTE: All items of this sort must come to the middle of the knee.
  8. Jeans, slacks, gauchos, spandex, sweatpants, and capri-pants are considered inappropriate apparel for campus wear.
  9. Undergarments may not be visible through the clothing.
  10. Shoes may not be masculine in appearance. Heels on dress shoes should not exceed 3 inches. No “flip-flops” are to be worn to classes, chapel, or church services.
  11. No recreational pull-overs, denim jackets, or fleeces are to be worn to church, chapel, or classes.
  12. Jewelry, make-up, and fingernails may not be gaudy, faddish, or unnatural in appearance. Earrings may be worn in the lobe of the ear (maximum of two sets). All other body piercing is prohibited. Ladies are not permitted to obtain tattoos.
  13. Garments having the appearance of lingerie may not be worn as outer wear.
  14. Sweatshirts may not be worn to classes or church services. Nice sweatshirts are considered casual wear and athletic sweatshirts are considered recreational dress.
  15. No sweatshirt or ladies tee-shirt with inappropriate writing may ever be worn.

RESTRICTIONS 

All students

  1. Students may not attend any church service other than Shalom Baptist Church without permission.
  2. Students must not patronize a bar, saloon or a place of ill repute.
  3. The College and church offices are not loitering places for students.
  4. The kitchen is not a gathering place for students. Students are not to eat in the kitchen.
  5. Students are not to be in the church auditorium except for services. Practice for special music is to be done in classrooms that have pianos, unless requested by the church staff.
  6. Off campus students must have permission from the Dean of Students to visit the dormitory.
  7. Men may not go to the Women’s quarters for any reason nor Women to the Men’s quarters.

Dormitory Students 

  1. Dormitory students are not allowed beyond an 8-mile radius (without permission).
  2. Dorm students may not visit homes of other students or church members without first an invitation and then permission.
  3. Men and women may not go shopping together unless as double dates.
  4. Any public performance (without permission) is prohibited.
  5. Movie theaters are off limits (no permission granted)
  6. Sports arenas (without permission) are prohibited.
  7. Dorm students may not accept invitations without permission.
  8. The guest rooms are always off limits except when students are cleaning them. Privacy for our guests must be maintained at all times. Ladies may not baby-sit in unsaved person’s homes or where tobacco and alcohol are used. Baby-sitting will be considered work and must be approved by the Dean Office.
  9. Ladies are not allowed to work in any situation where they are not treated with respect by the employer and other workers.

DATING POLICIES

Dating Regulations are available from the Dean of Students. Copies will be explained and distributed to the Dormitory Students during dormitory orientation.

I recently came upon an old Midwestern Baptist College handbook for the 1977-78 school year (our sophomore year). I want to focus on two sections: Maintaining a Christian Testimony and Griping not Tolerated.

Maintaining a Christian Testimony

  1. Midwestern does not permit dancing, the use of tobacco, or alcoholic drinks, dope or harmful drugs, gambling, obscenity, and other such forms or worldly indulgence in which young people so often engage.
  2. It is the conviction of the institution that griping, destructive criticism, and cynical attitudes grieve the Holy Spirit and they are destructive to Christian growth and Christian development. Constructive criticisms which are made to the proper authority will always be appreciated, but griping will not be tolerated. Penalty: 50 demerits
  3. The school expects the cooperation of all students in the development of the respect for and the enforcement of the rules and regulations of the school.
  4. The cooperation of every student is expected in the development of goodwill of the institution throughout the community. Therefore, each student and his family must live above reproach at all times in maintaining the testimony of Christ.
  5. The discipline committee reserves the right to issue demerits for attitudes of disloyalty, destructive criticism, or griping. The committee wishes to work with the student in a fair, helpful manner. Faculty members desired to offer advice when needs and conferences may be requested.

Griping not Tolerated

  1. Any student showing any attitude of complaining about our policies at Midwestern will be dealt with by the administration
  2. Students complaining to faculty or staff about another member of the staff or faculty will be considered out-of-line and shall be dealt with severely.
  3. Students showing a mean, insubordinate attitude toward any faculty or staff member shall be reported to the discipline committee and dealt with severely.
  4. Griping not tolerated about the dress code and standards.
  5. Griping not tolerated about the food served.
  6. Griping not tolerated comparing our school unfavorably with another.

As you can see, Midwestern had a strict policy concerning what the school president Tom Malone and administrators called “griping.” The no-griping law can be summed up this way: shut up and do/believe what you are told. Classic IFB thinking, is it not? We have the right beliefs and practices, and you are expected to happily obey them without deviation or criticism. Don’t do what you are told? You will be dealt with severely. Every year, students were expelled over griping; for daring to have an opinion of their own; for daring to challenge the school’s beliefs and practices. 

Male students who made it to graduation were ordained at nearby Emmanuel Baptist Church — the official Midwestern megachurch, pastored by Tom Malone. Ordination required students swearing before God that they believed and practiced the doctrines and tenets of the IFB faith. Students holding different beliefs would not be ordained. 

Graduates scatted across the United States to start new churches or pastor established congregations, taking four years of indoctrination with them. Is it any surprise, then, that many Midwestern graduates take a “shut up and do/believe what you are told” approach to the ministry? Midwestern was not special in this regard. All of us tend to practice and follow that which we were taught. For Midwestern students, growing up in IFB churches and four years of “shut up and do/believe what you are told ” turned them into psychologically damaged goods; who then, following in the footsteps of their pastors, Tom Malone, and college professors, inflicted psychological damage on their congregations.

This cycle of harm continues unabated unless those involved one day see the error of their ways and consider that there just might be a better way to treat people. Sadly, more than a few of the men I knew when we were students at Midwestern — over forty years ago now — are still faithfully preaching the gospel of “shut up and do/believe what you are told.” Their churches are ruled with rods of iron, with absolutely no griping allowed. Such churches are in decline, but the harm they cause is great, and often multi-generational in scope. One of the reasons for the existence of this site is to help people escape the pernicious hold IFB churches and pastors have on their lives.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

IFB Pastor Jack Roberts Refuses to Close the Doors of his Church

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pastor jack roberts

A small number of Evangelical pastors, showing no regard for the health and safety of their congregants and communities, refuse to cancel their services. One such man is Jack Roberts, pastor of Maryville Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. Roberts, in his 70s, started Maryville Baptist in 1968. In 1980 he started Maryville Independent Christian Academy of Hope (M.I.C.A.H.). Roberts is a self-described Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher. His church bio page states:

Dr. Jack Roberts was saved at Oak Grove Baptist Church in Fairdale, KY. He was licensed to preach by Oak Grove Baptist Church. In April 1966 he was ordained and accepted the pastorate position at Immanuel Baptist Church in Shepherdsville KY.

He has a B.A. and M.A. from Heritage University and a Doctor of Divinity from Victory Baptist Institute. In 1981 he received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity from Sacramento Bible College.

In June 1968 after conducting an evangelistic crusade at Overdale School in Hillview, KY, he agreed to help start a local church in the Community. With the help of several preacher friends, the church was organized and he accepted the responsibility to serve as pastor of Maryville Baptist Church. In 1980 he led the congregation to begin a Christian school that is named Maryville Independent Christian Academy of Hope (M.I.C.A.H.). This became a vital part of Maryville Baptist Church since that time.

Dr. Roberts was a vital part of the Ten Commandments issue in Classrooms in Bullitt County School System. After Mr. Hatfield, superintendent of Bullitt County schools at that time, agreed to have them taken down due to pressure from the A.C.L.U.; Dr. Roberts led a three day prayer vigil. Several hundred students stayed out of school and attended one of the three sites around the County where the prayer meetings were held. Dr. Jack Roberts was also involved with the fight for church related Christian School movement in the early 1980’s. That Eventually led to change of legislation law. This led to the end of the Board of Education taking individual schools to court to try and close them.

Dr. Roberts and his wife Tootsie have five children, many grandchildren and a few great-grandchildren. His eldest son Denver, is an ordained pastor at Star Baptist Church in Williamsburg KY.

“Dr.” Roberts doesn’t have an earned doctorate from an accredited institution. Like many IFB preachers, his doctorate is an honorary degree. (Please see IFB Doctorates: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor.) Such degrees are little more than statements of dick size among IFB preachers.

Marysville Baptist’s website describes the church this way:

Maryville Baptist Church is dedicated to bringing the Gospel of Christ to our community and the world.  We are an Independent, Fundamental Baptist Church using the authorized King James Bible as our final authority. Take a look around and see the work God is doing at M.B.C. We have been blessed to be a part of the Lord’s work and wish to share with you some of the exciting things here. We ask that you please keep us in your prayers, that God will use this site to bring more people to the Christ!

Maryville Independent Christian Academy of Hope, the brainchild of Roberts, uses Abeka curriculum — a ministry of Pensacola Christian College. The Academy’s general information page states:

The school day begins at 8:30 a.m. and dismisses at 3:00 p.m.  Students must wear the appropriate uniforms listed in our Student Handbook. MICAH stands firm on orderly behavior in the classroom, modesty in attire and in conduct.  All of MICAH’s rules and guidelines are taken from the King James Holy Bible.  Our standards are not from man but from God.

Got all that? Their rules and guidelines are straight from God and the one, true Bible, the KJV. Based on Internet reviews, I learned that teachers are not required to have degrees. No surprise, I suppose, when you have the KJV Bible. Written in 1611 and revised in 1769, the KJV Bible is all twenty-first-century Christian children need. Or so Pastor Roberts and his church think, anyway.

Roberts is a typical IFB preacher — arrogant, hardheaded, with little regard for anything or anyone but his infallible beliefs. As virtually every church around him wisely closed their doors to protect their congregants and larger communities from COVID-19 exposure, Roberts dug his heels in and said intends to keep holding services, even if state officials arrest him. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Roberts views himself as a fighter, a defender of the true faith, a warrior waging war against secular government authority. Roberts has spent most of his life fighting the government, so it should come as no surprise that he continues to do so now.

When asked about his refusal to stop holding services, Roberts stated, “It’s my life, and I feel like the Gospel is more important than anything else.” “It’s my life,” this troglodyte says. What a narcissist. It’s all about him, and not the lives of his congregants and neighbors. Roberts stubbornly refuses to understand that what he does personally can and will affect others. In fact, his careless actions could kill people.

Kentucky governor Andy Beshear has publicly chastised Roberts for his illegal behavior. Roberts replied:

I might not ought to say it this way — whatever you put on the air is what I’m saying, all right — but our stupid governor says you can’t get together with your family for Easter. What are they going to do stand at my front door and see how many people goes in?

Roberts also said, and I quote, “I know everybody thinks I’m crazy. Maybe I am.” I will leave it medical professionals to ascertain whether Roberts is “crazy.” I am more inclined to believe that Roberts is just a garden variety IFB preacher; a man so immersed in his own personal narrative that he is indifferent towards everyone but himself. He is an IFB example of Donald Trump. If Roberts truly cared about his congregation, school children, and the people of Bullet County, he would immediately stop holding in-person services at Maryville Baptist Church. Of course, he will never do this. He has too much invested in his stand against the government and its Satanic emissaries. To do the right thing requires Roberts to admit that he is wrong. And that ain’t gonna happen, even if his self-righteous arrogance kills people. Fortunately, many of Roberts’ congregants have wised up to their pastor’s behavior. Last Sunday’s service according to the Courier-Journal, attracted a whopping fifty people. Wednesday’s service drew 40 people.

Here’s hoping come Easter Sunday, the people in the above video realize that their risen Savior commanded them to “love their neighbors,” and the best way to show that love is to stay home.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

How Do You Get From Here to the Rest of the World?

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jesus trapped
Cartoon by David Hayward

Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected. 

How do you get from here to the rest of the world?

This is a quote from the HBO series The Wire.  Dukie, a teenager raised in abject poverty on the streets of Baltimore, is having a discussion with Cutty, a former drug dealer/gang soldier, about life beyond the drug infested, crime riddled streets of Baltimore. The teen asks, How do you get from here to the rest of the world? Cutty replied, I wish I knew.

This question got me thinking about the people who are in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. The only world they know is the IFB church. Everything in their lives revolves around the churches of which they are members. Their ethics, morality, worldview, sense of meaning and purpose, and their identity is derived from their churches and pastors.

It is a self-contained world where the external “world” is banished and considered evil. IFB congregants are frequently reminded that their church, pastor, beliefs, and practices are the only correct ones. Other religions and churches are denigrated and exposed as heretical or worldly. Atheists, agnostics, humanists, and secularists are considered tools of Satan. Fidelity of belief and purity of life is demanded, and failing to meet this standard brings the wrath of God, and worse yet, the wrath of the pastor. (A person who spends twenty-five years in an IFB church will likely hear more than 4,000 sermons. Ponder the sheer level of indoctrination that happens in such a captive environment.)

Prior to the internet, a person could be raised in this environment and never know that there is a wild, woolly world outside of the IFB church. Church members are discouraged from having contact with the “world,” with an exception being made for evangelizing the world — the lost, non-IFB Christians who need saving. From the earliest age, IFB children are schooled in IFB thought and lifestyle. They are often homeschooled or sent to private IFB schools. If they have thoughts about going to college, they are told they should only go to IFB colleges. From the cradle to the grave, the IFB church and their pastor are the King and Lord over their lives. They will be told that Jesus and the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God are King and Lord, but the real power rests with the pastor and people who control the church. (And every congregation has a power center, a group that dominates and controls the church.)

IFB church members are told what books to read, what music to listen to, what movies, if any, to see, how to dress, how to raise their children, and how to vote. All of this telling is couched in religious verbiage, complete with Bible proof texts, but ultimately, it is their pastor’s interpretation of the Bible that determines what is to be believed and not believed. He alone determines by what standard church members will be expected to live.

The pastor is considered the man of God. Like Moses in the Old Testament, he stands between the church and God. He is God’s mouthpiece, and Sunday after Sunday and Wednesday after Wednesday he stands before the church and says, The Bible says or God says. He is in every way an oracle who has an intimate connection with God that allows him to expertly, correctly, and infallibly tell the church what it is God wants them to know. If you doubt my use of the word infallibly, ask an IFB church member about the last time their pastor said he was wrong about a belief, or anything for that matter.

With the advent of the internet, the secrets of the IFB church movement are now exposed to the light of day. We now know they have their own problem with sexual predators and are no different from the Catholic church in that regard. We know about the abuse, affairs, thefts, and cover-ups. A curious or troubled IFB church member can now “get from here to the rest of the world.”

This is why I work hard at making sure this website ranks high on Google. It is important that IFB church members who are looking for a way out of the bondage and control of the IFB church movement find people who are willing to help them. The goal is to help people see that there is a way out, that there is a wild, woolly, scary world beyond the IFB church of which they can be a part.

Those of us who have left the IFB church and dare speak about its pernicious teachings and secrets are often attacked, and concerted efforts are made to smear and discredit us. The hateful emails flood our inbox and we read the disparaging comments on forums and blogs, all of which are an attempt to marginalize us and silence our voice. They tell anyone who will listen that we never were Christians or that we are bitter and angry. They warn that anyone who heeds our voice will find themselves under the judgment of God, or worse yet, the judgment of their pastor and church leaders. The threat of being cut off from all they know often causes curious, questioning IFB church members to fearfully tremble, and sometimes this is enough to end their exploration of the world beyond the IFB church. All I know to do is keep the light on, hoping that they will, in time, wander out again seeking answers.

But for many others, they are able to push beyond their fears, and they find out that there is a way to “get from here to the rest of the world.” What they find is people who have been where they are, people who understand their fears and doubts. They are often shocked to find that there is an IFB pastor-turned-atheist who is willing to help them, even if they still want to believe in God. They quickly learn that the most important thing is breaking free from the IFB church. From there, the path they take is up to them.

This is one of the reasons I write. These people matter. Many of them are women who have had their entire lives dominated and controlled by men. They are, in many ways, not much different from women in Muslim countries. It should not surprise us, then, when these women finally break free, they also break free from the men who dominated and controlled them.

Several years ago, a man I am in contact with wrote:

Bruce, you are VERY popular among IFB circles. I knew about you before I started emailing you. I think every prominent preacher has made reference to you in some way or another. My the hate they have for you.

I consider this to be a badge of honor. I want IFB pastors and church leaders to know who I am and that I am not going away. Until God answers their prayers and kills me or the physical problems I have lead to my demise, I plan on being a pain in the ass and every other part of the IFB body. The IFB church movement is dying, and I want to be around when we finally put a pillow over its face and end its miserable life.

I want to be a voice that says “you can get from here to the rest of the world.” To you who regularly read this blog, I want to thank you for continuing to encourage and support me.  When I get hateful emails and comments, and I read blogs and forum posts that deconstruct and trash my life, it is your love, friendship, and support that give me the strength to ignore their attacks.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Another Day, Another IFB Tract That Uses Fear of COVID-19 to Evangelize People

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seeking a cure

Last week, I wrote about a tract published by North Platte Baptist Church and its pastor William Reeves that used fear to evangelize people. (Please see North Platte Baptist Church Uses the Coronavirus Pandemic to Evangelize People and Dear Pastor Reeves, Let Me Explain to You Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself.) Today, a reader shared with me a new COVID-19 tract written by Paul Chappell, pastor of Lancaster Baptist Church in Lancaster, California. Chappell is a well-known IFB pastor. He is also the president of West Coast Baptist College.

Titled Seeking a Cure, the tract states:

Hours before the world rolled into the new decade of 2020, a group of Chinese doctors worked tirelessly to understand the sickness they now found themselves treating. 

Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, noticed seven cases of an unusual virus, which he thought looked similar to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which had led to a worldwide epidemic in 2003. He was correct. What he did not know, however, was that this virus he had seen, while related to SARS (both are a coronavirus), was an entirely new virus, which would eventually be named COVID-19.

….

Meanwhile, the virus began to spread. On January 13, a case was reported in Thailand. On January 20, it showed up in South Korea. On January 21, it was discovered in the United States. By March 11, the World Health Organization officially declared it a pandemic. Now, the virus has infected every continent on the globe, except Antarctica. 

….

This, of course, is not the first pandemic that has swept our world. In fact, as our society searches for a cure for Covid-19, many have looked back to previous epidemics, such as the flu of 1918, to learn how practices such as social distancing can slow the virus’ spread. 

But even before 1918, or any of the other world-altering epidemics of the previous centuries, our entire world has been infected with a different kind of virus. This virus cannot be stopped by social distancing, for it is a spiritual disease — passed down to us from our planet’s first parents, Adam and Eve.

The Bible tells us . . . blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada

I recently read an article about a woman who lived to the age of 102, but had experienced what came to be known as the Spanish Influenza in 1918 at the age of 3. What saved her life—and undoubtedly the lives of others—was the white scarf tied to the family’s outside doorknob, alerting others that there was a quarantined patient inside. 

Even as a virus patient will only receive treatment if they acknowledge their condition, so we must acknowledge our need for Christ.  

Will you turn to Christ alone? Although Jesus already paid for our sin and offers us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life in Heaven, we must choose to receive his gift. We must stop trusting ourselves, our works, and our religions, and turn our full trust to Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of our sin. Health viruses will come and go, but in Christ you can have forgiveness and a home in Heaven that can never be taken away.

You can read the entire tract here.

It should not surprise me that preachers such as Chappell look for opportunities such as the Coronavirus Pandemic to preach their truncated fear-based gospel. I preached a similar gospel for many years. Put the fear of God, judgment, and Hell into people, and they will come running to Jesus. Or so the thinking goes, anyway. What I find shameful is how Chappell and others like him use a worldwide viral epidemic to promote their religion; that instead of focusing on helping people, they focus on saving them. That way, if people get infected with the COVID-19 virus and die, at least they were told the TRUTH before they died, right? Profiting from the fears of people is the worst of human behaviors. And believe me, Chappell wants to profit from the virus. Souls saved=new church members=increased offerings. Ding! Ding! Ding! Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

This kind of behavior by IFB preachers and their churches will never change. It’s part of their DNA. Without fear, IFB churches would empty out overnight. Without fear, Chappell’s congregants just might get snockered on Saturday nights, sleep in on Sundays, and, Loki forbid, church women might wear pants. Or better yet, they might seek out kinder, gentler expressions of Christianity; churches where love and kindness, not fear and judgment, permeate the air.

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.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.